Happy Birthday Daniel and Simon!!

Me and my big 2 year old!

Happy Birthday Simon (on May 2nd)!!  You are a bundle of energy and so full of life and happiness.  You make us laugh all day long and keep us on our toes.  You are the reason mommy is tired at night, but that is okay because you also are the reason I smile most of the day.  I hope you will escape the "terrible twos" but considering how many temper tantrums you already have each day I am not counting on it.  But I am so happy that you know want you like (which is mainly having fun!).   I love you very much and can't wait to see what this next year will bring!

Daniel and his deviled eggs (which he loved)!

Happy Birthday Daniel (on May 3rd)!!  4 years old already! Where does the time fly? You have grown so much this year and we are really starting to really get to know you.  You have started talking to us more and sharing your interests with us.  You are showing us that you can be responsible (like getting dressed all by yourself and having an almost perfect potty record)!  You love learning and going to school and you delight everyone around you.  You may still have your moments where you want to be alone, but I know the day will come soon where you will blossom and start making lots of friends! 
 You are such a joy and I love you very much.

"umm this present thing is taking way too long."

Helping mommy open gifts.

 The Party- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

 

I made "I Spy" bottles as favors with the alphabet and a few other treasures for the kids to find.

Simon and his cousin Jonah.  I thought they looked alike in this picture :)

The cake!  Don't know how to rotate it at this point but I was pretty proud of the skills i I learned in my cake decorating class.

All the kids made coconut trees out of graham crackers, apple slices, and gummy letters while Sam read the book.

Daniel got so tickled when we sang him "Happy Birthday"! 

I did most of the gift opening with a lot of help from the party guests.  My kids just aren't into opening gifts, but Simon sure was excited to see this one!  "Zoom Cars"!

Daniel found the set of 10 number candles that I bought for them.  He pretty much played with those numbers for the rest of the party.  Sigh. The boy loves his numbers :)

Week 4: Declutter your Pantry

This week's task is to declutter your pantry and food cabinets. Just like last week check expiration dates for things like spices, baking supplies, bottled sauces you may have lots of (like my husband who collects bbq sauces but doesn't usually use them). And just like last week, try to make your next week's menu using what is in your pantry. I used to challenge myself twice a year to make meals around what was in my pantry and freezer ONLY for two weeks worth of meals. It was hard but it helped me get rid of the stuff that you buy that you never use up. Also, while you are getting rid of the outdated,make a list of the stuff you need to stock up on for baking purposes or just to have a full pantry.

Last week, someone wanted to know how to organize a spice cabinet and a few suggestions were put out there. If you have a really organized pantry or spice cabinet take a picture of it and post it on the site to inspire the rest of us. I would also suggest that you make a list of what spices you do have so you can keep track better for recipes and grocery shopping. I have two of several spices that I don't use that often because I didn't remember I had it.

If you have extra time this week and haven't finished the previous tasks, then finish up. Or you can challenge yourself and plan your menu for the next month. There are a few ladies on here that do it and I am sure they can share some tips if some of you are interested. I will say, the few months I have done it during the last year, really helped me in my grocery shopping and planning.

One more week in the kitchen next week and then we are moving on!

Week 3: Declutter your Fridge

(sorry, i am a bit late on this one)

This week's challenge is to declutter your refridgerator. I know that cleaning out your fridge may be something many people do often, but do you declutter while you clean? This time when you clean out your fridge, look at expiration dates of items on the shelves. If you have a jar of pickles that is way in the back and has been there for some time, maybe you should decide if it needs to stay around longer. Start at the top and work your way down. Take out the shelves and wash them in the sink or outside with soap and water.

One challenge I have for you while you clean out your fridge and freezer is to make a menu using the items in there. Many times we buy things in bulk and then that extra package of pork chops stays in the freezer for a while. Or we use half a bottle of marinade and the other half just sits on the shelf in the fridge. So, this week as you clean, write down some of the items you hope to use up and use those items in next weeks menu. (we will be doing this next week as we tackle the pantry area too). So check expiration dates and use the "ingredient" search tab on allrecipes.com

For those of you super clean, organized people, take this opportunity to clean behind, on top of, and under your fridge. Clean out the bottom filter area (i think you just can vacuum it, but i am not sure. if you know, let me know). Clean the junk off the top of your fridge. You can even get rid of some of those ugly magnets that take up too much space.

And, if you didn't finish your cabinets or drawers, finish this week. Cleaning out the fridge shouldn't take as long as the other tasks did!

Week 2: Declutter your Kitchen Cabinets

This week you are doing to declutter and reorganize your kitchen cabinets (non-food cabinets only this week). Analyze your space and how things are arranged in your kitchen. Maybe things need to be moved around to fit better. Maybe you got lots of new gadgets for Chrismas (like I did) and now have no where to put them. I am already starting to think abo...ut clearing out one cabinet I barely use and put those items in the garage until I actually need them that once or twice a year.

Wipe out the cabints (inside and out) and get rid of the things you don't use. I have a couple of really pretty mugs and plates that I love, but I never use them and they take up a whole shelf. I can't let myself get rid of them yet so I will find a box and pack them up for a while. Maybe once I realize I don't really need them I can bear to part with them. Go through your tupperware and make sure all the bottoms match the tops. If they are warped or gross, get rid of them. Go through all the plastic cups and kidsware and try to get down to a realistic amount. I probably have 20 cups for my kids but they really only need 3-4 each (since I actually wash my dishes every few days).

Really try to think about your space and try to make things less frustrating for yourself. I have two cabinets that drive me crazy. My pots and pans fall all over me and especially the lids, make it really hard for me to get things out. Two years ago, my sister helped me reorganize my kitchen and she got a sturdy shoebox and stood all the lids inside it. It worked great for a while until the box got crushed. Now it is time to find a new box and make my cabinet work again. The other cabinet that drives me crazy is one that goes deep under the counter. You can't reach anything in the back without taking everything else out. If you have a solution for this one, I would love to hear it.

If you have any tips or learn any tricks while reorganizing, feel free to share them with me! This week should take a bit more time than last week (I have at least twice the cabinets as drawers) so don't get behind!!

Declutter your home in 2012! (Week 1)

Inspired by another post on New Year's Resolutions, I have decided to post mine on my blog as well. This year I have decided that my house needs to be decluttered and reorganized. I got really nervous a few weeks ago when I was pregnant for that brief time. I looked around my house and wondered where this little one was going to fit. I resolved then that I was going to work very hard to get my house in order before I had to unpack the baby clothes, swings, bouncers, and cradles yet again.

I started a group on facebook so others can join in my decluttering! I didn't want to do this alone and i thought it would be way more fun if other people were cleaning with me. So far there are about 15 people who have joined my group and getting started. I will post my weekly decluttering task on this blog as well, so those of you who do not facebook often can join me if you dare.

So, are you up for the challenge?

WEEK 1: Declutter your drawers in your kitchen.
You can do one per day or all at once. Really clean them out though. Take everything out, make a throw away and a give away pile. Resolve to only put things back in that drawer if that is going to be its "home". Wipe down the inside and outside of the drawer. Now when you open your kitchen drawers you can breathe a sigh of relief as you see everything is in order!

A Sad Day

With this post comes some sad news for our family. I suffered another miscarriage a few days ago. The pregnancy was a complete surprise to us and after getting used to the idea of having another child, 5 days later we lost our little baby. It is amazing how quickly the idea of having another baby changes things. We went from surprised, to scared, to worried, to happy in just a few days.

Four years ago we lost another child. It was almost the same story: we only knew for 5 days and then it was over. Even though I am grieving the loss of this child, the loss 4 years ago felt much worse. Probably because I had no other children to distract me from my pain. Now, I get to space out my grieving instead of feeling it continuously for several days. One way we coped with our loss was to name our child and to place several items around our house to remember that special time we had with him. We named our first baby Michael Vincent. St. Vincent Ferrer was the patron saint of the day we found out the news. So we decided to do the same thing this time. We named our baby Maria Elizabeth. We found out we were pregnant on December 7 which celebrates St. Maria Giuseppe Rossello and we found out we lost our little baby on December 12 which celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. How neat was it that the name Mary surrounded our little baby's life! The picture above shows how I feel our baby is doing now: wrapped in the arms of our Mother Mary and completely taken care of by her and God.

Another thing we did to remember Michael Vincent was to hang a cross on the wall so we would have a visual image to remind us of him. I found a plaque at the Catholic book store with the above picture on it and the Hail Mary prayer engraved next to it. We will hang this by the cross so we will always remember our little angels in heaven.

Family Photo Shoot

Our 2011 Family Photo Shoot! It was 50 degrees outside, very windy, 2:00, Daniel had just gotten off of school and was tired and hungry, Simon was tired. So this is the best we could do on such a day. My wonderful friend, Abigail Carpenter, took our pictures again this year. She did a great job working with what she had!

Advent

We always try to make a holiday a bit more meaningful in our house by over-focusing on it. Daniel has a hard time grasping different holidays that happen only once so we have to talk about them a lot. Once he gets focused on the idea he is then ready to learn a bit more about it. Now that he is in school, I am pretty sure Santa will be covered. At least at Thanksgiving he really learned a lot about turkeys so I am sure they won't forget about Santa. So, of course, at home we will be focusing on the Nativity and Baby Jesus. Last year we started the tradition to read one religious children's book each week of advent. Daniel and Simon really like repetition so we read the same book for 7 days then add a book to the list and read both books for 7 more days etc. Daniel absolutely remembered the books from last year so he was very eager to start once we brought out the Advent wreath. We have been reading "Who is Coming to our House?". It is written from the perspective of the animals in the manger as they prepare for Mary and Joseph to arrive. Daniel absolutely adores it and Simon is really learning to like it too.

Another thing we are doing is an advent calender with activities and ideas of ways to focus on the true meaning of the holiday and prepare ourselves for Christmas. I could not really come up with something to do every single day and frankly, that is just too much pressure with young kids. Doing something once or twice a week in the evenings is enough for them. So I picked 3 topics and came up with 4 activities for each topic. So, 3 activities a week. Easy enough. Here are our topics and activities:

Giving: Buy a gift for an senior citizen (the Walmart in the area has ornaments on a tree in the front of the store with items a certain senior needs); Buy a gift for an Orphan (our church's youth group visits the same orphanage every year in Mexico and they bring them gifts right after Christmas); Buy a gift for our sponsored child (Kids Alive is the organization we sponsor though and they send a catalog every year of additional things you can buy for the kids); Make cookies and deliver to a lonely neighbor

Celebrating as a Family: Decorating the Christmas Tree; Making Christmas cookies together; Driving to see the lights in the different neighborhoods after church; Making gifts to give to family

Having Fun: I picked 4 different activities in New Orleans and we will try to do one per week (or one right after Christmas if needed)

One thing I have learned from last year is to try not pack too much into the kids schedules. I am all about family traditions, but when there is someone in the family who makes it a bit challenging you just have to do what they can handle. Daniel's attention span is about 2 minutes long for activities that do not involve animals or letters so I will probably give him 5 ornaments to hang and one cookie to decorate. Granted that is not what I had planned, but it is worth it to have an activity we are all enjoying instead of being forced to enjoy.

Oh, and one last thing to prepare us for Christmas. Daniel does not have much of an interest in opening gifts. This is not entirely bad unless you are the person giving him a gift and he just pushes it away. So a friend suggested that every day or two I wrap up a small gift with a piece of candy inside so he will learn that there are good things inside those bags and boxes. I tried this the first day with our new children's Nativity set I bought!
And as you can see from the picture he did enjoy opening it.


Although once we set it up the most important characters in the story were shortly missing from their display ; ) (He only plays with the animals and their "house")

6th Anniversary

This weekend Sam and I celebrated our 6th anniversary! We had a lovely day in Baton Rouge. I drove in the day before to visit some friends and Sam came that evening so we got to spend the night at my parents' house. Both of us got to sleep in while my mom watched the kids. When I woke up Sam had a surprise for me: a GF-CF cookie cake! It was a perfect breakfast. After we got the kids ready for the day and put Simon down for his morning nap we headed out for an early lunch.

Originally we were planning to go to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We had never been there before and Sam had a giftcard. But they were not open on a Saturday afternoon. Then we decided to go to Bonefish Grill, but they were not open on a Saturday afternoon either. So we finally decided on Albasha for some wonderful Lebanese food that we don't get much of in New Orleans and had a lovely meal. Then we realized we had an hour to kill before our movie started so we headed to Borders for their "going out of business" sale. We got a bunch of books for the kids, a board game for Christmas, and 4 new Autism books to keep my inquiring mind informed. And it only cost $90! Then we rushed over to Perkin's Rowe to catch Harry Potter. The movie was great! Sam and I have been to every Harry Potter movie together (except HP7 part 1). That was one of our "things" while we were dating so it was nice to finish out the series together.

After the movie I needed to go to CVS to get a few things (yes, I had to run an errand on our anniversary). Once we got there though, they didn't have what I wanted so we just wandered around the store. We got to the baby section and they had CVS brand wipes on clearance for $.69 a box! Sam got really excited and we bought six of them! I wish I had a camera with me to show him proudly carrying those six boxes of wipes up to the checkout counter! Then we stopped by McDonalds for some sweet tea and french fries.

Our last activity of the day was to head to St. Aloysius for mass. We got married at St. Aloysius and we try to go back there every year on our anniversary. This is the 3rd year we have made it, so we aren't doing great, but we don't live in BR anymore so 50% is pretty good. I always miss my kids when I go to mass without them, but it was nice to sit close, hold hands, and hear the homily for a change.

We picked up the kids and got home around 7:30. My surprise for Sam was a beautifully cut lawn when we arrived. I had asked our neighbor (who cuts lawns) to cut ours as a surprise for Sam so he could have a relaxing day on Sunday. He was thrilled! Happy Anniversary my Love!!

Destin

Here are some highlights from our trip to Destin, Florida. We went with my parents and brother to my Uncle's condo. It was so nice to get away and "relax" a bit. Although, no trip is really relaxing when you are there with kids, especially the beach. But it was nice to be there. Simon's hospital stay kind of messed up our trip a bit, but at least we still had two days to enjoy the sun and sea!

Me and my hubby after our 3rd date since Simon was born! Can you tell we were happy!

Simon and his godfather, my brother, Alex.

Daniel with Mimi and Aunt Sarah. My aunt and her family joined us on our last day at the beach. We were staying in my Uncle's condo and he graciously shares a few weeks with the rest of us each year.

Simon playing with the hose by the pool. He liked this a whole lot better than actually being in the pool. Everytime we would put him in the pool he would reach for the side and then pull himself out and run away from us. At least the hose kept him close and out of trouble.

Daniel and Giddo, my dad, in the ocean. Daniel loved the ocean this year! Last year he was completely terrified so we were pleasantly surprised this year.

Waiting to go down to the beach.

Family Picture.

Snacking on the sand.

Beach Bum.

First time in the ocean.

Traditional beach pics.

Me and Simon right before his surgery.

Happy Birthday to me with my GF-CF cake!

Having Fun!

I have not posted on this blog in a while because I have been posted every day on my new blog. I am doing an experiement with a GF-CF diet for me and my son Daniel. Please check it out if you are interested in seeing how things are going with us!
http://www.gfcf30days.blogspot.com/

New Blog

I started a new, temporary blog. If you wish to follow our family's adventure on our new diet, check it out!

http://gfcf30days.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday Simon!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy, Simon Edward! You bring our family so much energy and laughter and I love the little personality that is starting to emerge. You know how to make everyone smile. You know how to make your brother scream. You know how to make your mommy laugh. And you know how to keep your parents on our toes. It is hard to believe that you only arrived one short year ago. I love you! Happy First Birthday!


So many accomplishments! So many talents!
-crawling fast
-climbing up slides
-drumming on everything (and with a perfect beat!)
-eating lots of different foods (a first for our family)
-flirting with older women
-getting into everything and testing all of mommy's babyproofing efforts

Lent

Getting the kids involved in Lent has been my goal for this month and I found something that they can do and still get a bit of understanding out of the season. Every night after dinner we light a candle and read a kids version of the Easter story. The candle helps them to focus (a visual cue so they know we are doing something special).
Simon really likes to watch the flame and Daniel is getting practice at blowing out candles for his birthday cake. We read the same book every night. The repitition is good and I am sure in a few weeks Daniel will know the story by heart. That last thing we do each evening is write down something we are grateful for.

We focus on gratitude because we are thankful that Jesus died on the cross for us. We always ask Daniel to answer. This higher level question is still tough for him, so if he says anything remotely related to something he could be grateful for, we write it down. Sometimes we feed him answers and sometimes we just put something. He gets really excited about this activity and likes to list all the previous things we have listed. We did something similar to this at Advent. So, give it a try with your kids and let me know what adaptations you make for different ages, etc.