Gardner Family

Wrapping up 2011

2012-01-16T05:33:00.005-06:00

Here is a photo montage of the last month or so:

Ruth at her first dance recital. She loves being on stage!

Eva decided to climb into one of the plastic toy storage containers and Ruth was kind enough to push her around.

Ruth and Jack making their graham cracker gingerbread houses. We miss hanging out with Jack!

Eva with her Grandpa Gardner. Grandma and Grandpa Gardner and Uncle Mike came out to visit for Christmas, and it was the best present ever! I wish I had taken more pictures!

Ruth on Christmas morning in her new bunny slippers and firefighter hat.

Ready for church on Christmas day. And yes, I do believe Eva is picking her nose.

Eva in her bunny slippers

Eva and Ruth enjoying our 65-degree January day. Eva had a cookie and Ruth dug in the dirt. It was beautiful outside.

Eva is also quite the chatterbox. She knows a handful of words in sign language and can say about 15 words:
Nuh-no
Cookie
Cheese
Uh-oh
Kitty
Mom
Dad
Eva
Book
Shoes
Bye-Bye
Cracker
Bath
Bite
Look!
Tree

Eva is cutting her last two baby teeth right now, and she's not too happy about it. She loves dancing, books and copying her sister. At 15 months, she is in the 85th percentile for height and in the 40th percentile for weight. Ruth started another semester of dance and preschool. She is into singing, painting and dress-up right now. She's also getting taller and outgrowing her shoes! Last week was a rough one for the girls, since both of them were sick with a bad cold. Hopefully this week we will be able to get out of the house a little more.

Happy new year!

Birthday and Halloween

2011-11-04T15:11:00.006-05:00

I'm taking a break today and writing a blog post. Life has been busy with work and other things. I am doing a lot of freelance work right now and we have some deadlines this week (one tomorrow, yet) and so it's been a bit stressful. But if I don't blog now, I'm afraid I will get too far behind.

Eva's birthday was earlier this month. I cried. I can't believe my baby grew up so fast. She is such a wonderful, sweet girl. And she really has a mind of her own. Here are some pictures:

Eva is not walking much yet, but she stands a lot and can take a few steps. I think crawling is still more convenient for her. She mostly just does the bear crawl. She is a big-time mooch and loves to beg for food. She is also learning some sign language, which is very helpful. Right now she knows "more," "milk" and "all done."

As for Halloween, I cannot believe how wound up Ruth was about the holiday this year. She was so excited about carving pumpkins the night before. Then, the day of Halloween, she went around the house practicing how she would ring door bells and say, "Trick or Treat! Thank you! Happy Halloween!" Even though Ruth talked about being a dragon for Halloween for over a month, she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to be a pumpkin.

Eva was a baby leopard. Her costume was Tony's when he was a baby.

We were so glad two of our nieces, Marcie and Leila, could join us for trick-or-treating. They were characters from the show "Monster High."

Here is Eva wearing one of their wigs:

We headed over to my parent's street a few blocks away, which is a prime spot for trick-or-treaters. My parents usually have well over 100 kids come to their door. Watching Ruth trick-or-treat was HILLARIOUS! She was over-the-top excited about it. We were cracking up watching her go from door to door.

"Let me push the doorbell!! Trick or treat! Thank you! Happy Halloween!" She pretty much yelled it all the whole time we were out. By the end she started to wind down a little, but not much. I caught her asking for more candy from people a couple of times, and we had to have a talk about taking what we are given and saying, "thank you." I think the vast majority of the people handing out candy got a chuckle out of Ruth's enthusiasm, though. :)

That's all for now! Hope your November has started well!

Life goes on

2011-10-03T20:31:00.005-05:00

So I realize that I have been M.I.A. for a while. Summer went by too quickly. I do love the fall, but not the idea of winter being on our doorstep. Here are the big things that happened:

1. We went on vacation to Minnesota. We tried a new spot this year, Vermillion Lake, and it was a bust. The fishing was terrible for everyone we talked to on the lake. But it was still fun to go and have a relaxing time on the boat. As my parents say, "a bad day fishing beats a good day at work."

2. Jack stopped coming over regularly. His mom had her baby, Molly, and decided to become a stay-at-home mom. The adjustment was hard on Ruth. But then...

3. Ruth started preschool! She and Jack go together two days a week, which I feel is just right. They attend A is for Art in the Benson Community Center, which has an emphasis on fine arts. They have 10 children in their class, and the teacher is excellent. Last week Ruth told me preschool is her favorite thing, so I think it's safe to say that she likes it.

4. Ruth also started a dance class. She is taking ballet at the Y on Friday evenings. She really enjoys her teacher and seems to be the class clown sometimes. :)

5. I ran a half-marathon! It was my second time running the half-marathon in Grand Island, and it went better than I expected. I finished in 2 hours. I am contemplating running a full marathon in April, but I don't know if I will take the plunge. We shall see.

6. I also took the GRE. I think I did pretty well, but the writing part was quite challenging. I receive my scores the first week in November. I don't know what I am going to do with the scores... as in I'm not sure when I will apply to grad school. I would like to start in the summer, but I'm not sure the timing would be the greatest because...

7. Tony has decided to apply for admission to an MBA program. His employer will pay for the degree, and he feels that getting an MBA will help him reach his long-term goals. He thinks we would be okay going to grad school at the same time, but I'm not fully convinced yet. Still some pondering to do on the matter.

8. We have been doing a lot of work on the outside of our house. Tony has done some tree-trimming, removed a lot of old bushes, and painted the porch. We have to do a few more things outside before winter comes, and then we will work on the dining room walls and the bathroom.

9. Eva will be 1 next week. My baby is not a baby anymore! She is very close to walking and is still such an easygoing kid. She and Ruth play together so well. They are best buds. Eva has to have a some tests done this week at Children's Hospital because she had a kidney infection in August. They need to make sure her "plumbing" is functioning properly. We are keeping our fingers crossed that they won't find any problems.

I would upload photos but my internet is being slow right now. So another day! Hope your week started well.

Getting older!

2011-06-11T15:34:00.009-05:00

Hello, hello. Eva is 8 months old today. Happy 8 months, Eva!

I <3 that baby. She is wonderful. She has been pulling herself up on things. It worries me that she will start walking early. She is very good at crawling, so our house is baby gate city. She really loves going after her sister's toys and books. Ruth is not so great about sharing, but at least she's getting a little more polite about it. Eva is also in the process of cutting three of her top teeth and it's making her fussy at bedtime. She already has one of her top teeth and two on the bottom. She is starting to prefer feeding herself. She likes bananas, ripe peaches, smashed blueberries, cheerios, baby puffs, etc. She also loves our cat.

She goes and tackles him, and he's a good sport about it. She comes out with fists full of cat hair, which is disgusting. I try to keep her away from him, but she can be sneaky.

Here's a peek at our garden:

It has grown quite a bit since I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. I will have to do a separate post on it sometime. This is just one of the raised beds - we have three. In this one is romaine lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, carrots, peas and green beans.

Here's a shot of Ruth with her best friend, Jack. We will really miss Jack when he stops coming over regularly in August.

I had a birthday.

Tony and Ruth got me my favorite kind of cake, Dairy Queen ice cream cake! Yummy! I'm now closer to 30 than ever... OOOOOLLLLD! (j/k) My parents got me tickets to Wicked, and Tony and I went last night for date night. Awesome show.

And my sister-in-law, Jenny, also had a birthday. Last weekend was her party, which had a "Minute to Win It" theme. It was a blast for both the kids and adults. I'd really recommend it if you're looking for a fun party theme.Jenny showing her mad skills catching 8 pencils.

Janalee about to kick butt at her challenge. She and her friend were "team John Deere."

Marcie and Leila enjoying their winnings, and sharing with Ruthie. Such nice girls. :)

Tony and Eva the Diva.
Marcie with pantyhose on her head. It was the "elephant game." This is blackmail material for when she gets older. :D

In other news...
-I got a little job working for a hyper-local news publication here in Omaha, the Metro Neighborhood News. It's been a little crazy getting started over the last few weeks, but I'm enjoying it. If you live in NW Omaha, look for my articles at the end of the month! The paper will come in your mailbox.
-I've lost 16 lbs on Weight Watchers! Woohoo! I originally lost 18 lbs, and I've fallen off the bandwagon during the last couple of weeks. My half-marathon training has fallen by the wayside as well. But I'm getting back into both this week. And I'd really recommend Weight Watchers. I've learned a lot from it.
-Ruth's birthday is coming fast!!!! She is getting so tall. And imaginative. And her hair is reeeeaaally long, but you can't tell because it's so curly. Right now we're working on the ever-important skills of putting her underwear around while still in the bathroom (instead of running around the house naked) and not whining. She has a chore chart on the fridge right now and is doing an awesome job with it. Yesterday she got enough "smiley faces" to earn a pack of Dora the Explorer stickers and a piggy bank (found it at the Dollar Tree for $1!). She loves getting change to put in her piggy bank.
-Also next week is girls camp, and I'm going to stay overnight one night. I've never, ever stayed overnight at girls camp, so wish me luck! If you have any tips, let me know. :D

Have a happy weekend!

Easter

2011-05-02T08:34:00.005-05:00

Easter weekend was lots of fun. I had been optimistic that it would be warm on Easter because it was at the end of April this year, but it was still pretty chilly. We went to an egg hunt at church on Saturday, which was cold but fun for Ruth. On Sunday, Ruth and Eva received their treat baskets, and we took pictures of the girls' new Easter dresses before we headed off to church.

After church, we headed straight to Grandma and Grandpa Christensen's farm for another Easter egg hunt and a prime rib dinner. Ruth loved playing with her cousins. We stayed the night in the little house Jenny (Tony's sister) and her girls just moved into. They have put so much work into that house, and it will be a wonderful space for her family.

Lesson learned during playtime: I guess Crayola makes colored bubbles now. DON'T buy them unless your kids are perfectly neat and clean and never splash bubbles on themselves or others. Seriously. While we were at Jenny's house, the girls opened their colored bubbles, and they made a HUGE mess. It didn't take them long to start flinging bubbles at each other. All of the girls had to take a shower when they came inside, and some of them still had colored streaks in their hair afterward.

This was only the beginning of the mess for Ruthie.

Chaos ensued.

Monday morning the girls didn't have school so Tony took them fishing at a little lake near Jenny's house. They caught six fish, and Ruth had a fun time throwing rocks in the lake.

Easter was a lot more fun this year since Ruth was old enough to appreciate all the celebration. We started our garden over the weekend (another blog post for maybe later this week), and Tony has this week off. Big repairs/updates to our house will be happening this week! I'm excited!

Spring has sprung

2011-04-22T11:14:00.003-05:00

I'm so happy that spring is here! We have had a busy couple of weeks, and things aren't looking like they will slow down anytime soon. Here is what's new at our house:

1. We are getting ready to plant our garden. Last year's gardening adventure was difficult, as our garden was easily overrun with weeds and difficult to maintain. This year, we are planting a square-foot garden using the method in this book:
Basically, you plant seeds in raised beds divided into square feet instead of rows. You also use "Mel's Mix," which creates the perfect, weed-free soil. I'll be sure to make some individual blog posts about our garden as we get it put together so you know how it goes.

2. We had a leaky dishwasher. It was leaking for who knows how long, and we discovered it earlier this week. We didn't know it right away because the leak was very slow, and the vinyl flooring in our kitchen doesn't go underneath the cabinets. The inside of our cabinets and part of our subfloor are water damaged. This has meant bleaching and fans in our kitchen. We called the insurance company, and I'm not quite sure if that was the right thing to do. But an adjuster came out and is supposed to let us know today if insurance will pay for any of the costs. (Hopefully they will not just drop us, which is my biggest fear.) No matter what, a new kitchen floor and cabinets will be in order in the coming months. We will keep you updated.

3. Our babies are cute as ever! Ruth is now aware that her birthday is coming, and she likes to talk about having balloon cupcakes with blue frosting (she came up with that). Eva is now more than 6 months old, and she is in the 90th percentile for her height and 80th for her weight. She is already outgrowing some of her 6-9 month clothes. Here are some pics:

(styling by Tony)

(Ruth with her baby doll, whom she has creatively named "Baby Eva.")

(Sweet sisters.)

Happy Easter weekend!

Update (finally)

2011-03-24T09:18:00.004-05:00

Hello, all. Here is a long overdue update:

1. Eva "Diva" (what I affectionately call her) is 5 months old! She is BIG! I think she is in the 80th percentile for her weight and 90th for her height. She has outgrown her 3-6 month clothes. She is my smiley, easygoing baby.
2. Ruth is registered for preschool in the fall. She will be attending A is for Art in Benson on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her friend Jack (the one I will be babysitting until August) will be attending with her. They are so excited to be going to school together. I cannot believe I have a child who is old enough to be in preschool. Where does the time go?
3. I am doing Weight Watchers online and have lost 4 lbs in the last week. Woot! Tony and I are also gearing up to train for the Bill Seymour Half Marathon (in Grand Island) in September.
4. Tony is almost done with is undergrad degree!!!!!!!!!! This is super exciting. He is halfway through his last full-time semester. He applied for graduation last week and should be completely finished by either August or December.
5. Eva has no more binkies. She is sleeping better than ever.
6. Home improvements are continuing. We took down the ugly wallpaper in the living room and have repaired the damaged walls. Next up is sanding, priming and painting.
7. Tax return money is coming! That means more home improvements: finishing the dining room, bathroom and some landscaping.
8. We got a new cat. His name is Zane. He likes to sleep on my dining room table and attack my feet at night. But he is a good cat and tolerates the toddlers very well.

And here are some happy pictures to send you on your way.

10 days of real food

2011-01-19T14:02:00.005-06:00

I am eating chocolate chips as I write this. The first chocolate chips I have had in more than 10 days. That's a big deal for me, considering I used to have chocolate chips as an everyday snack. (That's probably part of the reason why the pregnancy weight is coming off more slowly this time around... but that's another blog post for another day...)

This is a really long post, but I hope you find it valuable.

About a month ago, Tony and I decided we wanted to try the "10 Days of Real Food" challenge, as posted on the blog 100daysofrealfood.com. (One family did this diet for 100 days.) The rules are inspired by one of my favorite books, In Defense of Food, and are as such:
-No foods that contain sugar or artificial sweeteners, except for those naturally occurring in foods like fruit, honey and maple syrup. (Honey and maple syrup should be used sparingly, though.)
-No white flour or foods that contain white flour.
-Nothing out of a package, can or box that contains more than 5 ingredients.
-No fried or "fast" foods.
-Grain products must be 100 percent whole grain.
-Only meat that is locally produced. Fish and seafood (wild-caught is best) is also allowed but doesn't have to be local. (The best we could do was the meat from the meat counter at Whole Foods, which includes where the meat came from in its signage. All of our meat came from the midwest.)
-Fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds are free game. So are dairy products that contain 5 or fewer ingredients.
-Allowed beverages were milk, 100 percent fruit juice, water, tea and coffee.

We decided we would start after the new year and ended up taking the challenge from Jan. 9-18. I did a lot of research and planning ahead so I could be sure we would have plenty of "allowed" foods on hand. I planned a 7-day menu for the first week of the challenge, which was extremely helpful. What did we eat? Here is a general idea:

-Breakfast: Homemade granola, oatmeal, eggs, toast (from homemade bread or bread purchased from Great Harvest Bread Co., which makes some varieties with 5 ingredients or fewer and only honey as a sweetener), whole wheat banana pancakes, muffins (made with orange juice and honey)
-Lunch: PB&J; homemade mac and cheese; salads; wraps made with homemade, 100-percent whole wheat tortillas; leftovers from dinner
-Snacks: Unsweetened dried fruit, nuts, whole fruit and raw veggies, Triscuit crackers (only 3 ingredients and whole-grain!), cheese, Larabars that have 5 ingredients or less (my favorite flavors were lemon and cherry pie), smoothies
-Dinner: Soups, chicken fried rice, fajitas, roast chicken, etc.

The first day we started the challenge, I moved the "forbidden foods" to their own cupboard so they wouldn't be such a temptation. Tony and I were craving sugar like crazy during the first few days. It was then we realized we are sugar/white flour addicts. Also, we noticed our GI systems were taking a beating because of the dramatic increase in fiber in our diets (sorry if that's TMI - just keepin' it real!) After those first few days, though, we noticed we didn't feel as sluggish as we did before we started the challenge.

We had already agreed that we would just do our best if we had dinner at another person's house or if we went out to eat. But I had a big cheater moment on Saturday when I took my mom out for lunch and had a turkey melt (on white!) and french fries. Definitely didn't do my best, and I regret it.

All in all, it was a great experience. I even lost a few pounds! I would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about changing their diet to include more whole foods, less sugar and fewer highly-processed products. Here is what I learned:
-You have to read the ingredients on the foods you buy! Who knew that shredded cheese has more than 5 ingredients? Who knew that some pastas that say "whole grain" are not 100-percent whole grain? Why are there so many ingredients in store-bought bread and tortillas? And why does regular sour cream contain a whole boatload of ingredients, while organic sour cream contains only two or three?
-Keeping highly processed foods out of our regular diet takes a lot of work. This was a very cooking-intensive challenge. Convenience foods are usually very processed. Planning ahead made the challenge easier, but still, there was a lot of cooking involved. Some days it really wore me out. I can see that it would take a lot of work and dedication to make this diet work for a large family.
-We (Tony & I) don't typically drink enough water. And drinking water is important, because sometimes we think we are hungry when our body is really telling us we are thirsty. It's also important to drink lots of water when you are eating a diet very high in fiber. I learned this the hard way!
-We love baking our own bread and eating Great Harvest bread. It was worth the investment.
-Switching to 100-percent whole grain foods wasn't that bad. Macaroni and cheese made with whole-wheat flour and whole-wheat noodles is not the same as the blue box version, but its still very yummy.
-Toddlers (and other children, I'm sure) do have the capacity to follow this diet without too much trouble. I felt bad because Ruth's snack options were fairly limited, as she didn't like a lot of the choices. But she survived and enjoyed many of the things that we ate.
-There are lots of minimally processed, whole-food options. I found lots of great, healthy, new recipes and products. We really love the dried, unsweetened fruit you can find at Trader Joe's (mango and pineapple!), Larabars, homemade granola, and homemade tomato soup.
-Eating less processed food can be more expensive. But the idea is that if you eat well and spend more money on nutrient-dense food, you will spend less money on healthcare expenses in the future.

We believe moderation is okay in all foods. If we eat at someone's house, we aren't going to ask if their noodles are 100-percent whole wheat. When Valentine's Day comes around, we aren't going to ban candy from the house. (I actually have plans to make heart-shaped rice krispies treats.) However, after this experiment, we also hope to make some permanent changes in our family's diet:
-We want to keep our sugar consumption to a minimum. We aren't going to buy ice cream or sweetened cereals on a regular basis. We won't make cookies, brownies, etc., except for on special occasions. Whenever possible, we will bake items using natural sweeteners like juice, applesauce, honey and maple syrup. We also want to avoid pop and other sweetened beverages. This will be good for all of us, especially since diabetes runs in both of our families.
-Whenever possible, we want to make our grain products 100-percent whole grains. We are going to continue using Great Harvest Bread and homemade bread and stop buying bread from the store.
-We want to keep increasing our intake of veggies and fruits (but mostly veggies).
-We want more of our food to be locally-produced. We are seriously considering joining the Nebraska Food Cooperative, which allows members to purchase locally grown/raised produce, meat, poultry, eggs and a variety of other items. We also plan on shopping at the Omaha Farmer's Market when it starts again.
-We'll buy organic whenever we can afford it - especially organic dairy (the Hy-Vee brand organic milk is produced in Iowa, so it's local, too), meat and eggs.
-We don't want to buy packages foods with long lists of weird ingredients. I don't mind so much if it contains more than 5 ingredients, as long as it's not too many more than 5 and I can pronounce all of them.

If you want to try this diet or get more information, check out 100daysofrealfood.com. The site author provides lots of meal ideas, recipes and tips.

By the way, after the 10 days, the chocolate chips aren't even that great! I never thought I would be able to say that!

Christmas and home improvement adventures

2011-01-12T10:43:00.007-06:00

I know this post is very late. But better late than never!

We had a wonderful Christmas here. Opening Christmas presents became a week-long thing, though, with opening presents from grandparents on Sunday and Monday, presents from aunts and uncles on Friday and Santa's arrival on Saturday. We were blessed with some great gifts -- I got a stand mixer, some earrings and lots of other neat things. Santa brought Tony and I fly fishing poles and reels. Ruthie got some Lego blocks, a Princess kitchen, books, and lots of other toys and clothes. Eva got a tummy time mat, books and clothes.

Ruth and Jack also spent some time decorating graham cracker houses before Christmas. They did a great job.
And here is just a cute picture of them playing together. Jack is such a good sport. :)

Christmas is such a wonderful, magical time, especially for children, and now I can't wait for it to come around again this year!

And now for our home improvement adventures...
We decided to take down the wood paneling in the dining room. We did it on a whim one night as a "date" of sorts. It ended up being a fairly stressful date. Taking down the paneling was easy enough. It's repairing the walls underneath that will be stressful.

The previous owners did a really messy job when they cut the bar area into the kitchen. Since our walls are all lath and plaster, we will have to tear down and patch up what we can with drywall. But since there is probably lead paint in the walls of our 101-year-old house, we need to do it on a day when the girls and I can leave the house and Tony can spend the day doing demo, drywall, and cleanup work.

We also found another surprise under the paneling....

Mr. Moldy-mold made an appearance under the windowsill.
The mold was under the oldest window in our house (it is seriously extremely old and falling apart), so chances are good that it formed because the window is leaking. I cleaned up the mold with some household cleaners and we have plans to replace all three windows along the window seat. We are also planning on tearing out the window seat and completely replacing it along with the small section of wall that was moldy. There is no insulation under the window seat, and that area of the house is very drafty.

However, it's cold out, in case you haven't noticed. So the dining room project is on hold until it warms up a bit and we can get the windows replaced. *sigh* If you come over, please forgive my ugly dining room.

Here is a before:

And after:

We left the paneling up on the top part of the wall temporarily, because there are chunks of wall missing underneath up there, too. We will take the paneling down when Tony's ready to do the demolition and drywall.

In the meantime, we are going to tear down some wallpaper and paint the living room. Tony even went out and bought some paint and supplies. I'm incredibly indecisive about paint colors. It drives Tony a little nuts. I can't decide what color to paint the walls, and I also can't decide if I should leave the wood trim unpainted or paint it white. Right now I'm leaning toward painting the walls a basic taupe-brown color and painting the trim white. So if you have any feedback on what color you think I should paint my living room and whether or not I should paint the trim, let me know. :D If you want to see a pic of our living room for reference, click on this post.

Also, our little baby Eva is getting big! She is 3 months old now! My, how the time flies.

I think that's all for today. Tomorrow I'll post about our 10 days of real food challenge, which ends today!

This and that

2010-12-20T12:46:00.010-06:00

Wow, it has been too long since I last blogged.

Long story short, things are going well! We are all into a new routine now, and Ruth seems to be over "new baby syndrome" and enjoys being a big sister. Here are some things that have happened over the last couple of months:

-Our family joined us for Eva's blessing on Nov. 7. Thanks to everyone who was able to join us, and also thanks to those who could only join us in spirit! :)

-We got a piano! Thanks to the Zendejas family for gifting us their old upright. Ruth and her friend Jack enjoy playing on it, and Ruth is now an aspiring singer/songwriter because of it. She likes to play on the piano while flipping through the pages of the Children's Songbook and making up songs to go with the pictures. :)

-Ruth threw away her binkies. Yes, she literally walked to the trash can and threw them away. I suggested it, and she just did it. It was an unplanned thing, but she is doing really well, and I'm proud of her!

-Eva has changed from a newborn to a baby seemingly overnight! She is big - about 12 lbs already - and is wearing 3-6 month clothes. She is so smiley and chatty. Waking up to her smiling face every morning is a wonderful thing.

-On a somber note, Tony's Grandpa died. Tony traveled to Utah about a week and a half ago to attend the funeral. His Grandpa performed our sealing, and he was a wonderful man. He will be missed.

-Christmas! Wow, Christmas is so much more fun with kids who can appreciate it! Ruth loves looking at all the lights, learning about the nativity and Santa, and anticipating Christmas presents. I'm working hard to make it special for her. :)

Also, since Ruth has gotten so much better at talking during the last few months, here are some Ruth-isms:

-"I don't like it no more."
-"No! Nuffin!" (spoken when she doesn't want to do something)
-"I like it!"/"I want to!" (spoken excitedly whenever we mention something she likes to do)
-"Peeeeeeeease"
-"Perfect _______" (perfect pumpkin, perfect orange, perfect Christmas tree, etc. -- anything she sees that she likes)
-"I wub you!"

I will try to post more frequently!

Welcome, Baby Eva

2010-10-15T22:10:00.006-05:00

Tony and I are happy to announce that our lovely little Eva Faith made her appearance at 12:30 a.m. on Monday, October 11. She was just 31 minutes shy of being a 10-10-10 baby, but the hospital had 10 babies on 10-10-10, so we were fine with not messing up those numbers. :) While part of me wished she had come earlier in the week, I know she came just when I was ready.

With out getting into too many details that would be TMI, let's just say the labor was intense. I was actually having strong contractions all throughout last week. I went to the hospital thinking "this is it!" on Tuesday night (10/5) and had 10 hours of contractions, dilated to 4 cm, and then my labor stopped. By that point, I had only slept a few hours in 24 hours and I really didn't want to stick around the hospital to get induced. So we went home and I continued to have contractions on and off throughout the week. On the way home from church on Sunday, around 4:30, I started having very strong contractions that, once again, stopped at about 7:30. I decided to go get some rest since I had been up with contractions Saturday night. I woke up at 9:15 p.m., puttered around the house, and then the contractions came on really strong, but they weren't any closer together than about 6 minutes. Finally, when I could no longer walk or talk through them, we called the midwife and told her we thought it was time to go to the hospital. She agreed. The ride to the hospital was a little crazy, as the contractions started coming very close together. We arrived at the hospital at 11:30 and I was dilated to 6 cm. About 30 minutes later I had dilated to 9 cm. The midwife broke my water, and we had a baby 30 minutes later! It was intense, but I did it!

Eva is great. She looks so much like Ruth to me, but she has a darker complexion and hair. For comparison sake, the top photo is of Eva and the bottom is of Ruth:
She's eating well and starting to get into a better sleep schedule. After just a few days of her being home, I'm convinced that newborns are easier to care for than 2-year-olds. Ruth really enjoys having a new sister. She loves greeting her in the morning and tries to share her toys, snacks, books and whatnot with her. It's actually very sweet. But Ruth is having a difficult time sorting out her feelings and has been having an overabundance of temper tantrums. Obviously, she has been out of her routine for well over a week now, and I think she's just wishing life would start to feel normal again. Hopefully it will pass within the next couple of weeks. I'm sure it's hard to share your mom and dad when you've had them all to yourself for more than 2 years.

I've been doing well -- just trying to keep up on my sleep. I have been starting to feel a little stir crazy, but I know I need to take it easy. I feel really good all day and then start to feel blue in the evening after dinner. The feelings tend to fade after a couple of hours. I have to say, it's the worst part of having a baby for me. With Ruth, those feelings went away after a couple of weeks. Here's hoping the baby blues fade faster this time around.

I am so grateful to be a mom to such wonderful little girls! Tony and I are very blessed. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, kind acts, and well-wishes. :)

Happy fall!

2010-09-12T10:03:00.003-05:00

For me, Labor Day marks the crossover from summer to fall. At first I was sad about it, but now I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures and the smell of the fall leaves. I feel like there was a lot I wanted to get done this summer around the house and the yard, and much of it didn't get done. But that's okay -- the winter months are still good times to work on the inside, so hopefully we can get some more rooms painted and redone as the weather gets cooler.

I have been doing some serious nesting. The upstairs is pretty much all put together right now. The rooms are bigger than I anticipated and are looking a little sparse, but that's okay. I don't like having lots of stuff just to fill space. We peeled the wallpaper off in the dining room on a whim, and now the wallpaper-less walls are starting to bother me. I'd like to get the room painted, but we need to take down the wood paneling first, and that will probably be a bigger project than we anticipate. So for now, we just have an ugly dining room! It will get done eventually. I think the bathroom will end up being our next major project. Because it's our only bathroom, the remodel will have to be carefully coordinated. We've already gathered most of the supplies we need to redo the room -- flooring, faucet, new vanity, etc. We've picked out a new tub surround and paint. We just need to block out a weekend and get it done! I don't know if it will happen before the baby comes, and that's alright, too.

I'm now in my 36th week of pregnancy. It's a little crazy. Pregnancy definitely goes by faster when you already have one child and you have a lot going on. It's starting to sink in more and more that we will have another person in our family. We have a few different names in mind, and Tony and I are looking forward to seeing what she looks like and what kind of person she becomes. I'm hoping that Ruth will adjust to it well and that she and her younger sister will grow up to be good friends. Tony and I went on a tour of the new Methodist Women's Hospital a couple of weeks ago, and it will be a great place to have the baby. They have great big whirlpool tubs in the L&D rooms, and the postpartum rooms are like mini-hotel rooms. The details of actually having the baby may get complicated depending on when she decides to come because we will have to find someone who can watch Ruth at the last minute. I am going to line up a few different people who can watch Ruth and cross my fingers that one will be available when I need them. My hope is the baby will come around her due date or later because that's when my mom has taken some time off work. But it'll work out no matter what, I'm sure.

Tony's new job is going well and he is really enjoying the management side of the business. He's been doing a great job in his classes, too, and he and Ruth have been doing a lot of fishing together in his free time. Tony recently went out and bought her a little pink Barbie pole, and she can reel in the fish all by herself now. I love watching her as she discovers new things while fishing; she gets so enthusiastic about the frogs, worms, squirrels, water bugs, ducks -- little things I often take for granted.

I have some more organizing and cleaning to do over the next few weeks, and I know the time will fly by and we will be a family of four before we know it!

Happy fall! :)

More blogs to love

2010-08-17T09:27:00.005-05:00

Hi! I love blogs and since I have discovered some wonderful blog goodness over the last few months, I thought I'd share my favorites with you:

The Pioneer Woman
I just love this website. It's written by a woman named Ree who lives on a ranch in Oklahoma, and the site is filled with beautiful photography and delicious recipes. Ree hosts lots of great giveaways, although her readership is so huge that the chances of winning are pretty low. Today she is giving away a KitchenAid mixer. She also has her own cook book. Check it out!

Young House Love
This blog is written by a couple who are decorating their house. They share stories about their hunts to find the perfect items to make their house a home. They also give great DIY tips. I love their style.

Ucreate
This is a great blog that gathers craft projects from other blogs. They also have giveaways. Cute stuff here. Today, the site features a tutorial on how to make this lovely pillow.

Tip Junkie
I'm not sure if I've recommended Tip Junkie before, but I love this site. It's kind of like Ucreate in that it acts as a gatherer of wonderful craft, meal, activity ideas from other sites. They're basically a "tip clearinghouse" for moms. They also have great party ideas, tips on how to get organized, and lots of other stuff. The other day they had a how-to on flower oragami.

Of course, I don't get to actually do most of the things featured on these blogs, but I love to look! :)

If you have a favorite blog you think I should check out, let me know! I love blogs!

Family Reunion and Happy News

2010-08-15T10:48:00.006-05:00

We had a great time at the family reunion about 10 days ago! Ruth did such a great job riding in the car with only one or two accidents during the entire trip. We kept her in a pull-up for those long stretches of Wyoming road where there is no place to stop and go potty. The pull-up was pretty much always dry, though. She kept herself occupied and generally didn't complain during the car ride. We arrived in beautiful Beaver Mountain on Thursday evening.
I had forgotten how much I love that place. The air was so clean and crisp, and the mountains are gorgeous. I would love to live there again. Tony and I dreamed about retiring there someday and owning our own cabin near Bear Lake. We stayed in the ski lodge, and there was a total of about 100 family members there. It was great to meet Tony's cousins, aunts and uncles and see his brother, dad and Diane. Here is Tony and his dad in our family reunion shirts:
They assigned each sibling's family a color. Ours was turquoise. Here is Ruth sporting her turquoise:
Ruth also got to meet her Great Aunt Ruth:
Tony and his cousin, Brett:
And another cousin, Olivia:
Aunt Pam and Aunt Mary Beth:

Oh, brotherly love:
Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of our family all together on my camera. Ruth had fun running around with all the little kids, blowing bubbles, etc.
I enjoyed a break from the humidity! There was great food, a talent show, games, and all kinds of other fun stuff. Here is the Gardner family band, with Tony's dad at the drums:

Tony got to go fishing with his brother a few times, which he really enjoyed. We spent Saturday in Logan with Tony's dad, Diane and Mike, and got to enjoy some Jamba Juice, Gossner's cheese and shopping at Deseret Book. Then we had a super yummy dinner at Maddox and stopped in to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Wayman. On Sunday we drove 11 hours to North Platte and got to stay and play with our great friends, the Olbrichts. Monday we drove the last 5 hours to Omaha. I have to say, those hours seemed to be the longest of our trip. We were all completely exhausted and ready to be back home.
Don't ask me why she has a pillow on her head. Our cat, Justin, was very happy to see us after we had been gone for so long.

This week Tony and I completely finished painting the upstairs. Now I just need to sweep and mop up there, and then we can take up our furniture and get organized. This week I'm starting to watch Jack 4 days a week, which will be a big change but should be fun. Probably our most exciting announcement for this week is that TONY GOT PROMOTED!!! Woohoo!!! He has been wanting this for a long time and I am so glad it has finally happened. He is going to be the sales manager over two of the mall kiosks here. He gets a pay raise and every Sunday off as well as every other Saturday. He will also have to work longer hours during the week, but he is looking forward to the opportunity to be a leader. It'll be a new opportunity for him to stretch and grow and use his talents. His start date is Sept. 1. School also starts back up for him in a week and he's taking 13 credits, so we will have to see how all of that goes. He is so close to being done with school, we can almost taste it!

New baby comes in 7 weeks! Time is flying by! The pregnancy is going well aside from the fact that my blood pressure has been very low. I need to do better about keeping hydrated and that should correct the problem.
Here is a silly parting photo of Ruth pretending to be a ghost this morning:

And here is another cute one of Ruth hanging out with her dad:

Happy Sunday!

Upstairs painting

2010-08-01T08:54:00.006-05:00

I'm a little late in posting these, but after long last, here they are:
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

The lighting isn't the best, and obviously the rooms are still a mess, but you get the idea. I'll post more pictures when we get all moved up there. It looks so much better! The color is called "Nurture" by Behr. It's a blue-gray, and I think it looks really nice upstairs - not so gray that it's depressing. It was an impulse choice. I went to the paint store with the intention of getting something totally different, saw a sample of that color, and thought, "Hmm, that might look nice." Tony convinced me to just get it. I'm a little worried that I might think it's too gray in the future, but it looks much better than before and there are so many different options for coordinating with other colors. I'm excited to get it cleaned up and decorated!

In other news, we are going to the Gardner Family Reunion this week. It was another last-minute decision. The reunion is held every three years, and I've been wanting to go so I can meet the rest of Tony's family. (And Tony wants to go for obvious reasons.) It's going to be at Beaver Mountain this year, which is in the northernmost part of Utah. We had been going back and forth about whether or not we were going to attend, and in the end we decided not to go because we just couldn't come up with the money for it. But thanks to the generosity of Tony's Dad and Diane, we are going to make the trip after all. We will drive out Wednesday and Thursday, hang out Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and then head home Sunday and Monday. The car trip will be long, but it should be a lot of fun! I have to admit, though, I've been so distracted by painting for the last week that I haven't done much to get ready. It's going to be a busy few days around here!

Hello, Hello

2010-07-18T13:05:00.003-05:00

Happy Sunday to all. Ruth and I are staying home today because we don't feel well... I'm feeling stuffed up and have a sore throat, and Ruth has a cough and a very runny nose. She's been playing just fine, but I think she has a bug that's being passed around some of the nursery kids at church and I'd rather we just kept our germs to ourselves today. It's a bummer because we had planned to go have dinner with some good friends tonight. We will have to invite them all over another time.

The Elders Quorum hosted a camping activity on Friday night at Memphis State Recreation Area, and we went with the intention of staying all night. We really enjoy camping as a family, although we haven't been in about a year. We took our little brother (through Big Brothers Big Sisters) because he had said he wanted to go camping with us, and since there would be fishing and lots of other kids there, we thought this would be a good opportunity. Unfortunately, we ended up breaking camp during the late evening. Our little brother wasn't having fun and had a disagreement with Tony about going on a walk around the lake (alone, in the dark). Ruth was still awake and playing in the tent at 11 p.m. It was way hotter and more humid than I expected. And we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes, even after reapplying bug spray every 15 minutes. So we headed home, took a shower and enjoyed the air conditioning. We had a lazy Saturday afternoon and then took Ruth to see Toy Story 3 at the movie theater. This was her second movie in a theater, but I doubt she remembers the first -- I think she was only 10 months old, and she didn't watch the whole thing. She really enjoyed the movie and didn't have any accidents while watching it, thankfully! I would recommend Toy Story 3, by the way. It's just as good as the first two.

Potty training is continuing to go well. We have been reminding Ruth to go to the potty throughout the day, and I was starting to get worried that maybe we started potty training her a little too soon because she wasn't going to the potty on her own. But this morning she announced "potty" and headed there herself, so I'm feeling better about things. :) She had a couple of accidents on Friday, but none Saturday or today so far. Accidents happen, as they say, but it's nice to see the progress she is making.

This morning I've been reading a book by Penny Simkin (a fairly well-known childbirth educator) called The Birth Partner. I read it before I had Ruth and then gave my copy to a friend, so I just bought another copy and was glad I did. I feel this birth experience creeping up on me and I have been feeling unprepared for it, and reading this book is making me feel better. It has lots of very specific descriptions of labor and delivery as well as coping methods. It's actually written for people who "coach" during labor and delivery, such as dads. Tony found the book very helpful last time around and is going to read it again within the next couple of weeks.

Here is a list of all the things I need to do before baby arrives in 9-11 weeks!
-Paint and move into upstairs bedroom
-Set up nursery
-Set up office
-Freeze some dinners
-Buy a couple packs of disposable diapers, nursing pads, milk storage bags, etc.
-Go through baby clothes
-Buy any necessary baby clothes (since Ruth was born in the summer, I think we might just need some pants)
-Find my breast pump and clean it out again
-Sew nursing cover, make sling wrap and sew swaddling blankets
-Clean out basement (hopefully)
-Start buying Christmas presents, or at least start generating ideas of what I want to buy/make. This might seem a little crazy, but I have a feeling I'm not going to want to do much Christmas shopping during the two months after I give birth.

Speaking of Christmas, one of my favorite blogs, TipJunkie, is hosting Christmas in July giveaways. You should check it out. The author will also be posting tons of gift ideas throughout the month -- nice for those are crafty [or aspire to be crafty -- like me :) ].

Happy Sunday!

Summer update #2

2010-07-15T14:34:00.005-05:00

I finally found the camera cord! Woohoo! So here is the summer update continued:

Shortly after the Pioneer Trek was Girls Camp. I went up for a day and got to watch the girls have a shaving cream fight, go down the slip-n-slide and race in their canoes. It was a ton of fun, and I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time at Girls Camp some summer in the future.
After Girls Camp was hanging out with our friends in North Platte, the Olbrichts. Tony and Josh had an "Iron Chef"-style cooking battle and a spending limit of $20 apiece.
Both dishes were good, but Josh's use of bacon pushed his food to the top. We're looking forward to having more "Iron Chef" battles in the future.

Then we came home and decided it was time to get Ruth in her big-girl bed, especially since she's outgrowing her Pack N Play (which would make it tough to travel). We got the bed all painted and set up, and it is lovely!
Tony did a great job building it, and it's so sturdy that it'll last forever. Ruth fell out of it a few times, so Tony had to make another side rail to keep her inside. I'm just using the fitted sheet and her baby quilt right now because that's what she's used to, but eventually she'll start using regular bedding. She loves her big-girl bed, although after a couple of weeks she still won't get out of it on her own. I don't know why, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

On July 2, we celebrated Tony's birthday! He's a whole quarter of a century old now! We went on a fun date in the evening to the Greek Islands, followed by the Shakespeare on the Green performance of Romeo and Juliet. The fireworks at Memorial Park were on the same night, so we got to view a great show while walking to our car. It was great fun!

On Independence Day, we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house and enjoyed a wonderful cookout and some fireworks. Tony's inner pyro definitely came out that night -- I think he had more fun with the fireworks than a lot of the kids did. :) I forgot my camera, so no pics!

This week we decided to start potty training Ruth.
I thought she might be ready because on Sunday morning she announced she had to go to the bathroom but wouldn't go in her potty chair. Of course, a couple of minutes after getting her diaper back on, she was stinky. So on Monday morning Ruth and I went to Target and I let her pick out some big-girl underpants. She chose ones with Minnie Mouse and the Princess on the Frog patterns, and when we got home she went on and on about how "cute" they were. She loves wearing them, although she doesn't get to wear them often yet because the only time she has accidents is while she's wearing them. I've been using the bare-butt method (meaning she runs around naked while at home), and she's learning to tell me when she has to go to the bathroom. She doesn't like wearing a diaper anymore, although I told her she has to wear one during nap and bedtime until she wakes up and the diaper is still dry. She had no accidents yesterday and even went to the bathroom for a friend who babysat her for a little while for me. She's had no accidents so far today. She also started going on the big toilet today using a potty seat. Yahooie!

As for baby Numero Dos, I'm starting on going to my doctor's appointments every 2 weeks now because I'm 28 weeks along. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going! I only have 2 1/2 months to get ready for this baby's arrival and I feel like I have a ton to do - painting, shopping, sewing, etc. I'm going to make a couple of big swaddling blankets, a nursing cover-up and a sling wrap. Tony and I are going to finish painting the upstairs during the next couple of weeks, and then I will feel better about our baby preparations.

We LOVE our cat! He is wonderful and perfect for our family! Ruth and her friend, Jack, thoroughly enjoy playing with him, and he endures their screams and prods very well. Here is Ruth being naughty and sitting on top of the cat condo:
Unfortunately, Justin got sick last week. He threw up at least once a day for about five days, and so we took him into the vet on Tuesday. Turns out he has a bowel obstruction, so he gets Metamucil mixed in with his food now and seems to be feeling much better.

Lastly, I'm a new Mary Kay consultant! It's great fun! Check out my website sometime, and let me know if you need anything! www.marykay.com/meredithgardner

I think I'm all caught up now! :) Here is a picture I just thought was funny. Ruth loves wearing gloves and other people's shoes!

Summer update #1

2010-07-11T17:07:00.004-05:00

It has been way too long since I last updated. I'm sorry! Things have been busy. This will be a quick recap of the major happenings of the last month. I can't post everything I want to right now because I'm not sure where the cord is for the digital camera, so I can't upload our most recent pics.

In early June, Tony and I were a "Ma and Pa" couple for the stake's Pioneer Trek Youth Conference. From what I understand, the stake sponsors a handcart trek about every 4 years. They divide the youth into "families" for the trek, headed by two adult leaders. Tony and I had a wonderful experience walking the 18 miles with our "children" and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Not long after, my little Ruthie turned 2! We had a fun little party in our back yard with some friends and family. Ruth got all sorts of fun things, including a very nice kids picnic table, a turtle sandbox, sandbox toys, Mrs. Potato Head, Buzz Lightyear action figure and I'm sure there's more than I'm forgetting. She loved her balloons and carried them around for two days after the party (until they mysteriously disappeared).

Ruthie has also been showing some interest in using the potty. The first time she went in the potty it was her idea, and I made a huge deal of what a great job she did. We are probably going to start seriously potty training her within the next week. This morning she announced she had to go poop and went and sat on the potty for a while but wouldn't go in the potty. Shortly after getting her diaper back on, she was stinky! I think she's ready.

Also, today Tony was sustained as the second counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency in our ward. He was previously the Sunday school teacher for one of the teenage classes. He's going to be a busy dude!

That's all for update #1! Update #2 is soon to follow! Promise. :)

Adventures with Justin

2010-05-30T20:40:00.003-05:00

Meet Justin, our first family pet!

Justin is an orange-and-white, shorthair cat. He's 10 years old, is already declawed, and has a stubby "bob" tail. We're not sure what happened to his tail, but it looks like it's been short for a while now. We got him at the Nebraska Humane Society, where someone left him in the night drop box. Whoever left him didn't include any information about him, so we're not sure what his real name is supposed to be. He lived at the Humane Society for about 6 weeks, and since they called him Justin for so long, we decided it would be easier to keep that name. They have hundreds of cats at the Humane Society right now, and Justin was the one who had been there the longest. After looking at all the cats, we picked three to meet personally. Justin was the one who did the best with Ruth. She squealed at him and it didn't bother him at all. We are very pleased with our pick. :)

Having Justin has been an adventure so far. I'd liken the process of getting a new pet to having a baby who has just become mobile. We thought we had our house "cat-proofed," but Justin found a hole in our basement that he used as a hiding place for the first couple of days he lived here. It's kind of difficult to describe, but in our basement we have these big walls called knee walls. They slope away from the foundation, leaving a narrow space between the top of the knee wall and the basement ceiling. We also have a kitchen addition with a sub-floor underneath that connects to the basement at the top of one of the knee walls. Well, Justin climbed up the knee wall and found a hole into the sub floor under the kitchen addition. Tony managed to coax him out of the hole the first time and covered it with cardboard. Of course, where there's a will, there's a way, and Justin managed to get around the cardboard and hide in the hole again later in the day. When Justin came out again to get some food, Tony wiggled his way up the knee walls, covered the hole with chicken wire, and thought all was well. Once again, Justin found a way around the chicken wire and into the hole, where he spent Saturday night. We didn't see him all day yesterday until we came home in the evening. We shut him upstairs and Tony went down, climbed up the knee walls, and managed to completely board up the hole into the sub floor.

It was a difficult undertaking because there isn't much space between the top of the knee wall and the basement ceiling, so Tony didn't have a lot of room to work. But we finally got it all covered up, and Justin is now safe!

Ruthie LOVES her new cat. She is so sweet with him, and he doesn't mind her prodding or run away from her. On Saturday Justin was getting ready to take a nap, so Ruth went into her room and got her favorite blankie and gave it to Justin. Then, yesterday, she tried to give Justin one of her binkies when he acted like he was going to sleep.

I have never owned a cat before, so I don't have a lot of room for comparison, but I think Justin is the best cat I've ever met. He is so calm and easygoing, and I think he will be perfect for our family. My only complaint so far is that he came into our room meowing very loudly at 6 a.m. today. He also likes to lay on our bed pillows, which I'm not a fan of.

We love our new cat! And if you're in Omaha and are thinking about getting a cat, you should go get one! The Humane Society has 300 cats and kittens right now. Cats 6 months and older are "pick your price" and kittens are two for the price of one. Go adopt a cat!

Diapering developments

2010-05-17T14:14:00.002-05:00

Tony and I have made the plunge into the world of cloth diapers. It was something I never thought I'd do, but so far it's going well.

I've thought about switching to cloth for quite a while but never did it because I thought it wouldn't be nearly as convenient or easy as disposables. I didn't think it would be worth my time. A couple of months ago, however, I was reading comments on an LDS message board about the pros and cons of cloth diapers, and after doing some more research I decided to pick a brand and order a bunch. Diapers are really different now than they were when my younger brother used them 20 years ago. They come in cute colors, nice fabrics and they have snaps and velcro. Of course, you can still go with the traditional kind.

I decided to go with pocket diapers, which are basically diapers that have a super absorbent washable insert you stick into a leak-proof cover. The cover isn't at all plastic-y - I actually really like the fabric on the brand we went with, BumGenius.

We also ordered ones that come in one size and can be used for newborns up to toddlers who weigh 30 lbs. They fit Ruth just fine and look like they will be small enough for baby number 2 when s/he comes around. I have to wash the diapers every 2-3 days, which has been the hardest part for me because in the past I haven't been the type to do laundry that frequently. I prefer to do all my laundry on one day. But this has been good for me. Tony put a clothesline in the basement for me so I (or he... he helps me with the laundry, too) can hang them up to dry. My only major complaint is that the cloth diapers aren't as trim as disposables, so they tend to look a little funny under some of her clothes. I still use disposables when she is being babysat and usually when we go out, but I may eventually use only cloth when I'm out running errands. You just stick dirty ones in a plastic bag until you get home. Obviously, for extended trips, I'd use disposables.

I think our investment in cloth diapers was about $300 for 18 diapers. We will probably buy a handful more before Numero Dos arrives to meet the potty demands of a newborn. We purchased a diaper sprayer that attaches to the pipe on our toilet, and that was about $40. It's good for runny poops. I've only had to use it once so far, but it was helpful in getting the diaper clean. I'm sure we will use it much more frequently with a newborn. I also bought two washable trash can liners for the diaper pail, and I think those were $10-$15 each but will last forever. I figured that the investment should pay for itself in about a year. I have only bought one pack of disposable diapers in the last 4 or 5 weeks!

Anyway, just wanted to share my cloth diapering adventures. We find out the gender of Numero Dos on Wednesday! Exciting!!!

Late-night blog

2010-05-08T00:56:00.003-05:00

It's almost 1 a.m., but I'm still unwinding from work, so I thought I'd post a quick blog with some family updates. I'm 18 weeks along now and have been able to feel the baby kicking for a couple of weeks. We will find out the gender of the baby on May 19th. I'm very excited. :)

Ruth has been really grouchy during the last few days. On Tuesday she came down with a fever. I think she just has a cold/allergies, but I'm really not sure. I think my work is taking its toll on her, and I feel bad about that. I very rarely get to put her to bed anymore, and I miss spending the evenings with her and Tony. I think the Census will probably have enough work for me to stay at this job until the end of June or well into July, but I might leave in the beginning of June. That will mark the end of the 4-6 weeks I originally committed to. It's nice to have some extra income coming in, and my job really hasn't been stressing me out as much as I thought it would, but I miss putting Ruth to bed, and I want to be able to spend summer evenings with her and Tony. Tony and I are going to be a "Ma and Pa" during the stake's youth conference pioneer trek this year, and that's the second weekend in June, so I think I might just be done working then. My parents have been very helpful with watching Ruth in the evenings until Tony gets off work, and I would just hate to ask them to keep doing that well into the summer.

Ruth has started swim lessons and she really enjoys them. She thinks it's funny when I blow bubbles, but she hasn't figured out how to do it herself just yet. Instead she just ends up drinking a bunch of pool water.

Also, Ruth's Grandma Christensen bought her a cute little playhouse for her birthday (June 20) and Ruth LOVES it. It was so cute to watch her and Jack play in the house together on Wednesday. My camera battery is still dead, but I will have to charge it so I can get some pictures. Ruth and Jack like to give each other kisses now when they say goodbye, by the way. It's SO cute! But Tony said, "Let's not start that yet!" when he saw them do it. Too cute. :)

Well, I should actually head to bed because we have swim lessons in the morning. I hope to post more soon!

Happy International Respect for Chickens Day

2010-05-04T13:22:00.003-05:00

I'm all about respecting chickens, but really, who comes up with these observances?

Anyway...

The excitement about our new car vanished quickly on Friday when Tony went outside to check the oil and found the car wouldn't start. We had it towed to a mechanic who later called and told me that the car's problems were the type that no mechanic liked to deal with (too complicated). However, he said he was hopeful he could get it in working order by mid-week. Well, thankfully, this mechanic is awesome and is getting our car in working order. It should be done today or tomorrow. For those of you living in the Omaha area, I HIGHLY recommend Excellence in Auto on 84th and Blondo. The owner, Tom, is a great guy and will do good work at a fair price. A good auto mechanic is hard to find.

Also, my job is going well. I work every evening but Sunday and Wednesday from 6 to midnight. I'm doing payroll and administrative stuff, and the people I work with at the Census Bureau are great. Sometimes it gets a little tiring, but I'm glad to have a job so we can pay for our car troubles! It's hard to find the motivation to be productive some days (like today... I had to work until 1 a.m. this morning and didn't get to bed until 2 a.m....), but overall things are going well with the job situation.

We have a busy week coming up with Mother's Day, our anniversary and my birthday. We also have a goal to plant our garden and work on our yard all day tomorrow, since both Tony and I have the day off. I'll try to remember to take some pictures!

Mourning the Melting Pot

2010-04-26T14:07:00.003-05:00

I know I must be a little out of the loop, but my favorite restaurant, The Melting Pot, has closed. :( I guess it's been closed for a couple of months now. Big bummer. BIG bummer. My parents took me there for my birthday one year, and then Tony and I have celebrated our past two anniversaries by eating there. The last time we went was especially nice -- we got a private booth/room and spent about 2 hours there enjoying the fondue goodness. Our anniversary is coming up again in a couple of weeks, so I was going online to check out The Melting Pot menu and the place is GONE!!!! Ugh. So now time to find a new nice restaurant to enjoy. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know. We aren't afraid to spend a bit of money -- it's our anniversary, after all.

Bye Melting Pot!!! I will miss you!!!

Workin' woman

2010-04-25T14:57:00.003-05:00

In case you didn't know, a few weeks ago I got a part-time, temporary job with the Census Bureau. I was a QAC, or a worker at a questionnaire assistance center, and I basically got paid $10.50/hour to sit in community centers and libraries to answer people's questions about the Census. (Nobody came and asked me any questions, so I got paid to read the newspaper and my Harry Potter book.) It was a super easy job and only 10-13 hours/week for a couple of weeks. That job ended on April 19, and they offered me a different job doing data entry at their main office here. I'm going to be working four days per week, 6-8 hours/day. Most of my shifts will be 6-midnight, but I'll be working 3:30-midnight whenever I can (basically whenever we have someone to watch Ruth that long). The job will last 4-6 weeks, so generally speaking I'm not worried about being away from Ruth. What will be hard, I think, will be not seeing Tony as much and having less time to do stuff around the house and the yard. But it's only temporary, so I'm sure we will survive. I train on Tuesday and start on Thursday.

To make this whole job situation work, we went out and bought something we've been wanting for a very long time now: another car! We paid $1100 for a lovely Buick Regal. Tony sees it as a "project car" (it needs some minor fixes - for example, it's missing a radio) and is enjoying it so far. I like not having to coordinate picking Tony up from work and school with my appointments. So yay for owning another car!
Also, we had Stake Conference today. I enjoyed Stake Conference very much, but I will say it's a BIG challenge to attend with a grouchy toddler. We had to go find an empty room for a time-out at one point. She eventually got distracted by a sticker book I brought along. I figure it's important that we go, and as she gets older she will get used to being there.

Anyway, busy week ahead! I'll let you know how the job goes!

Snakes

2010-04-20T12:00:00.002-05:00

You know that show, Fear Factor, where they have people do really freaky, gross things for money? Well I've decided I would never survive on that show. The primary reason:

Snakes.

I hate snakes. I think I would faint if a snake slithered over my foot or something, let alone lots of snakes slithering over my face or whole body, like in this Fear Factor photo:

Unfortuntely, we have a ton of snakes in our yard. I grew up with snakes being an infrequent sight, and now I am seeing them on an almost daily basis. The problem: The dozens and dozens of old railroad ties we have in our yard. They're used for terracing and landscaping, and a lot of them are rotted out and need to be replaced. Snakes love them -- they're like snake magnets. *shudder* I've had nightmares about snakes since the weather warmed up. Not even kidding. Maybe I need to see a therapist or something.

The most disgusting sighting happened last week, when I saw a knot of snakes sunning on top of the chain-link fence in our back yard. They were all curled up together doing who knows what. At first I thought they might be dead, but as I moved closer I saw they were definitely alive. I later watched them slither down the fence and into the nearby rocks. *shudder again* Totally gross. I thought I got a picture on my phone, but it didn't save.

Unfortunately, replacing all the railroad ties with new lumber will be an expensive undertaking that we will probably have done by a professional landscaper. So I am resigned to deal with the snakes for at least a summer or two. I know, I know, garter snakes aren't harmful at all -- they're actually good for your lawn and garden and whatnot. I just hate them because they have a tendency to startle me, and, well, they just look gross. And since there are so many of them, I'm freaked out by the possibility of one finding its way into my basement. I proceed into my basement with caution now because I'm paranoid. I know, I need to get over it.

Pray for me! :P

Cute ideas for Ruth's room

2010-04-19T12:00:00.002-05:00

So I have been slowly gathering cute decorating ideas for Ruth's room, which is pretty far down the list when it comes to things we want to redo in our house. But I'm probably most excited to take care of her room because little girl rooms can be so cute! Right now we're still planning on painting it yellow. But who knows -- that may change between now and whenever we actually do it. Anyway, here are some things I want to put in her room:

1. Group of different sized photo frames with neat pictures/drawings/paper inside

From YoungHouseLove

These people used scrapbook paper and clippings out of magazines for some of their art. I think this grouping looks so fresh and cute.

2. Floating bookshelves, either made or purchased from someplace like Target (on sale this week for $5-$8 apiece). These could also go other places in the house.

From YoungHouseLove

3. Armoire, probably made by Tony. This plan is from one of my favorite blogs, KnockOffWood, which features plans for beautiful homemade furniture. Some pieces are knock-offs designed to look like furniture you would by at high-end stores, hence the blog name. :)

4. Cutest homemade kitchen play set, ever!

I saw this and immediately fell in love. It was featured on KnockOffWood, but the plans are by CraftingChicks. This would be more for a playroom than Ruth's room, since there probably wouldn't be enough space to fit it all in Ruth's room. But I love it!!! The person who made this spent $127 for everything, including fabric and accessories, but she made this out of high-quality wood. It will be a hand-me-down toy. Maybe a future Christmas or birthday gift?

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on future decorating ideas! Our goal right now is to get some landscaping and yard work done during the next month, and then hopefully we can start working on the inside of the house.

Disney World

2010-04-18T18:57:00.009-05:00

After a long hiatus, I am back to blogging! I thought I better start out with a quick overview of our trip to Disney World. We had a great time, and our week was jam-packed with fun stuff! Ruth did pretty well on the plane trip there, and then right after we arrived at our resort, we went to the Hoop-Di-Do Musical Review dinner show, which was lots of fun. Then we rested up for our first day out in the theme parks on Tuesday. We hit the Magic Kingdom first, starting with the princess breakfast in the Cinderella Castle. The breakfast was amazing, and the girls looked so cute in the princess dresses Grandma made for them. Here is Ruth with Princess Jasmine:
We enjoyed balloons, ice cream treats and fun rides on Magic Kingdom day. I think it was my favorite theme park.

Here is Tony trying to pull the sword out of the stone:
He was not successful.

On Wednesday, we went to Animal Kingdom with the kids, and then the adults went to Hollywood Studios in the evening. We watched the amazing Fantasmic show and rode on the Toy Story ride, which was lots of fun.

On Thursday, we went to Epcot, where we saw Nemo and lots of cool fish. We enjoyed many other rides there and had another "princess" meal, this time dinner. I love Epcot, where you can see the "world."

Then, Friday, it was time to head back home. Here are some pics of Tony with his siblings, and Grandma with her grandbabies.
It was so wonderful to see our family, and we can't wait to do something like this again in a few years! We love you and miss you, Jenny, Mike, Mike, Janalee, Marcie and Leila! And we are grateful to Tony's mom for providing us with such a fun, wonderful trip. Thank you!

Gardner Family: A new post about posting posts, but mostly about my wife.

2010-04-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

Gardner Family: A new post about posting posts, but mostly about my wife.

A new post about posting posts, but mostly about my wife.

2010-04-11T14:56:00.000-05:00

Greetings to all those faithful amrgardner.blogspot fans! (Namely my sister, Alissa/Victory, and a few others.)

As you may or may not have guessed, I do not normally do blog posts. My wonderful, beautiful wife Meredith is usually proactive about it. She'll take faithful pictures of my carpentry antics and post them while commenting lovingly on the craftsmanship of my hands, but I rarely have anything to say personally. I thought I'd take a stab at it.

I work for a fantastic wireless telephone company that employs other fantastic people. I have the pleasure of working with a team that is rich in background and character. Sometimes our discussions involve our client base, sometimes the company, and sometimes we talk about our personal lives and the different trials and tribulations we are faced with day to day. (Case in point, it taking me 6 hours to install a dishwasher. That's a funny story.)

As I sit back and listen to the stories that my workmates tell, I am struck with an amazing sense of gratitude for my sweet wife, Meredith. Really, every aspect of my life is made better by the fact that she chose to be sealed to me for time and also for all eternity. The things we go through as a couple here in the "time" part are fun, and frustrating, and heartwarming, and infuriating... all those emotions that come from constantly shifting perspectives, the constant moving of my eye from one goal to the next, then the next... but as I contemplate more and more the idea of keeping my eye single to the never-ending happiness and well-being of others, I realize that I wouldn't be able to achieve such results in their lives without first seeing to never-ending happiness and well-being of my beautiful wife. And oh, what a pleasure it is. I don't see why I don't try to do insanely cute things more often! I mean, I know that happiness and well-being is periodic now, but that isn't how it will always be.

One of the most stressful parts of adolescence were the relationships that existed with members of the opposite sex. As a young man (or woman, as I'm sure some of you can relate), there is a lot of drama! Who likes who, and who goes out with who, etc... it's just crazy! But now that I'm married, I don't have to worry about any of that. I have the immense joy and responsibility to treat my wife like a queen forever. In that movie Fireproof it talks about "getting your degree" in your spouse. I need to work on a few more credit hours of that this semester.

I should get back to work.

-Tony

A blog post about something

2010-03-28T17:13:00.004-05:00

M: Hello. Tony suggested we do a blog post and that we take turns writing every other paragraph. I'm not sure what this post is going to be about. We will just have to wait and see! Of course, the big thing on our minds is going to Walt Disney World tomorrow. We are stoked!

T: Yep, stoked. Like wild, blazing fires of Disney nostalgia, waiting for the wind of our jet engines to ignite the blaze of childhood in our hearts.

M: Right..... Anyway, I was super excited about going on all the rides until a few days ago, when I realized that pregnant women aren't supposed to go on a lot of the cool rides. I know, I'm only 12 weeks along, so at first I thought to myself, "I can get around this rule... I'm barely showing!" But I did some research and apparently thrill rides can cause placental abruption. We don't want that to happen. So I'll be restricted to the kiddie rides. Even though I love thrill rides. Oh well.

T: This really is an exciting trip, and it's starting to sink in. Walt Disney productions have always played an integral part in my own childhood. I mean, I remember my father, the man among men, taking me alone to see The Little Mermaid. After the movie, a woman came up and thanked us because, according to her, my hysterical laughter at the scene where Sebastian's jaw drops helped her enjoy the movie even more. I feel like I'm going, not only to enjoy myself, but to say "Thank you" for a childhood full of wonderful memories. Plus, I get to hang out with my dorkface brother and my non-dorkface sister.

M:We're staying at the Fort Wilderness Resort, which includes cabins, campgrounds, fishing, canoeing, horseback riding, tennis, etc. We're staying in cabins. Tony and his brother are planning on fishing during their free time. I'm so excited! We keep telling Ruth that she'll get to see Nemo, her favorite Disney character. Hopefully he shows up!

T:Really, Ruth is at the age where she will probably have a good time because of the visual and audio stimuli, but she can't really associate it much further than that. My sister's daughters, though, are older and will probably get a lot more out of the princess breakfasts, etc. I figure Walt Disney will be sticking around with us as a family for a long time, or for at least as long as Disney continues to put out quality productions. And yes, we plan on fishing. And I have to say I'm pretty excited.

M:We're also pretty excited about seeing our family, including our nieces, Tony's siblings, his mom and others. It will be even better to have this experience with all of them! Our general attitude at this point is that we want to just relax and go with the flow. There's no ride that we can't miss. What really matters is having fun and spending time with family.

T:Meredith just said it's time to wrap it up, so, I guess... *fold* *fold* *spin* *tape* *twist tie*

M:*Cough**dork**Cough* We will be back in about a week with lots of pictures and great stories! See you then!

Tony's projects

2010-03-14T17:17:00.003-05:00

Tony has been very handy around the house, and if it weren't for time and money constraints, I'm sure we'd have a lot more done at this point. However, Tony has finished three fairly major projects:
1. Replacing the shower head and faucet. Shortly after moving in, we found out that the faucet on our shower didn't properly switch the water over from the tub to the shower, meaning only a small trickle of water came out of the already broken shower head. We could only take baths for a few days. So Tony replaced that. And it works much, much better now.

2. Installing the dishwasher. The actual dishwasher installation wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The part that was hard was getting it properly mounted in the space we created. We had to take out some of the cabinets to put in the dishwasher, which wasn't a big deal because we have a lot of other kitchen cabinets. Tony did a great job on this project, and I LOVE having a dishwasher. It saves me so much time.

3. Building sawhorses. We have big, BIG plans to build new furniture (check out this blog, which has some awesome plans for all kinds of furniture: www.knockoffwood.blogspot.com), but first Tony needed sawhorses upon which to build the furniture. So he built sawhorses. He did a great job and was able to use some wood he took out of an old box spring we didn't need anymore. How resourceful! His first project will be building Ruth's big girl bed, which will look like this.

He has done lots of other small projects, but those are the major things. Next up on our list is steaming off the wallpaper in the living room, bedroom, bathroom and upstairs, and then we'll redo the bathroom. We are still debating about whether or not we will totally replace the tub, tub surround and floors. We went to Home Depot yesterday and saw some really nice stuff, so it's tempting.

I've purchased slipcovers for the couches in the living room and bought Ruth a new quilt for her big girl bed. I loved this quilt when I saw it, so instead of painting her room blue, we will paint it yellow to go with the quilt.

In about three weeks, when we get back from Walt Disney World, we may be getting a kitty! We took Ruth to the Humane Society yesterday to look at them, and she had a blast. We are also going to transition Ruth to her big girl bed in April (after the bed gets built). I'm hopeful the transition will go well. We have the mattress all made up for some company we're expecting tonight, and we've told Ruth it will be her new big girl bed. Whenever we go upstairs to the loft she likes to go and lay on it.

We are making progress, and it is great!

Oh, and two weeks until Walt Disney World!!!!

I {heart} Etsy.

2010-03-08T21:53:00.005-06:00

I made my first purchase on Etsy today. Look at my new wristlet by Buttercuppity, made with Amy Butler fabrics:I love Amy Butler Fabrics. Her website is so neat, and she offers FREE patterns for quilts, scarfs, and other projects. I printed some out tonight.

Buying this wristlet on Etsy was an interesting experience because I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I was actually looking for a wristlet wallet - basically a wallet (with a coin pouch, credit card slots, etc.) with a wristlet strap. I couldn't find one - at least not in pretty Amy Butler fabrics. It has made me feel a little motivated to open my own Etsy shop and sell the style of wristlets and wallets that I couldn't find. However, I think I would need to get a lot of practice making them before I would feel comfortable selling them. My lovely sister-in-law, Jenn, is also thinking of starting an Etsy shop and inspired me to shop on Etsy today.

I was looking around Etsy and found so many pretty, wonderful things that I would love to buy. I need to learn a craft really well and start my own business! Here are some cute things I love:
Crochet hat by LovelyKnits: $18.96

Fresh Poppies Coin Purse by Girl... by Aileen: $20 (This would match my bag!)

Wool Felt Finger Puppets by StayAwake: $6.50 each

The Gwenna A-Line Maternity Skirt by SeeMommySew: $45

I enjoy shopping from Etsy because I feel like I'm supporting fellow stay-at-home moms and entrepreneurs. And there's just some neat stuff on there. I found purses I LOVED, but they were listed at $60-$80, which of course isn't in my budget.

Oh, and if any of you are feeling generous enough to buy me one of those things, feel free!!! :)

What's new?

2010-03-07T19:33:00.004-06:00

Hello. It's Sunday and I thought I'd post a short update. I was going to post photos of Tony's projects he's completed around the house so far, but unfortunately our camera is dead. :-( It will have to wait for another day -- hopefully tomorrow if I remember to charge the battery.

The snow is finally melting, and our spirits are lifting! The temps have been in the 40s and 50s this week and should stay that way next week. We can see patches of our yard! Honestly, some spots don't look so good. They will probably have to be weeded really well and re-seeded. There's a lot of landscaping work to do. We live on a street that gets a lot of foot traffic, and there seems to be a lot of trash in our front yard near the sidewalk, so we will have to go out and pick that up this week.

We are making some progress on our decisions about how to decorate the house. We are going to take down the paneling in the dining room, although it probably won't happen for a while (probably this summer). We are also going to paint the living room a basic neutral taupe color and get some fun fabric for curtains and pillows. I think we'll paint the upstairs a nice cream color and possibly add an accent wall. That's about as far as we've gotten. :) We are also looking forward to a total redo of the bathroom. We were hoping to do it this month but probably won't get to it. Right now we're trying to decide whether or not to replace the tub, which is in okay shape but it's aluminum and pretty shallow. A new tub and liner will easily double the cost of our project, so we'll just have to wait and see how rich we are when we go to buy materials. :) The idea of a nice, deep soaker tub does sound good right about now, though...

We still have some unpacking to do. I need to get it done this week because we have company coming into town on Saturday. We are excited to show our house to some good friends!

Tony has one week to go until Spring Break. Boy, does he need a bit of a break. Poor guy works his bummy off. And then in three weeks we are going to Walt Disney World!!! We've been so busy with other stuff that it really hasn't sunk in yet. But we could really use a vacation, and we are SUPER EXCITED to see all of our family! I'm sure I'll blog more about it in coming weeks.

As for me, I've been pooped and not feeling great. I have to eat every couple of hours or I feel nauseated. I think I'm going to have to start working a nap into my afternoon routine because I'm exhausted by 8:30 or 9 p.m. every night. I've lost my workout routine since we moved, so I'm going to try to get back into that this week. However, I have started using this nifty page from SparkPeople called BabyFit.com to track my nutrition and set fitness goals. I've been doing well with my calories so far. I find that I actually have to make an effort to eat enough calories for the day. If only it were like that when I'm not pregnant!

More pictures and updates to come this week!

Numero Dos

2010-03-01T21:34:00.003-06:00

In case you haven't heard yet, I am pregnant with Gardner baby #2. We are affectionately calling him/her "Numero Dos" right now. Maybe we will just end up naming the baby Numero Dos Gardner. Just kidding.

I'm about 8-9 weeks pregnant, and I'm due October 8. The baby is about the size of a kidney bean right now.

(Image from Babycenter.com)

I had my first appointment with my midwife this morning and everything is going well. I am feeling very tired and sometimes nauseated. The midwife said (paraphrasing), "I'm glad you're feeling so bad. It means your pregnancy is going well." So yay for feeling bad and having a good pregnancy so far. :) We are excited. Ruth is going to be a wonderful big sister.

My big girl

2010-02-28T17:07:00.003-06:00

Ruth is becoming such a big girl and she has done some really cute stuff over the last few months, so I have a handful of photos I wanted to share.

First of all, she has really gotten into hats. She loves taking them off and putting them on all by herself. This is one of my new favorite photos of her:

Notice how this hat actually goes with her outfit. Luckily for Ruth, her love of hats is being encouraged by her Grandma Christensen, who bought her two new ones during their shopping trip to Target last weekend.

Secondly, as is evident from this photo (hair style by Tony), her hair is getting REALLY long.

She had a trim back in November, but I think I'm going to take her in for another one during the next couple of weeks. I'm trying to let her bangs grow out so we don't have to deal with cutting bangs all the time.

Thirdly, Ruth LOVES coloring. Her self-appointed job during our move was the "box decorator" :

The girl would spend hours coloring boxes. She came up with this idea herself, and she was actually very good about not coloring on walls. When she's really into her picture she gets this very focused look on her face, and she makes really little scribbles. I think she's actually starting to understand the concept of coloring within the lines, although she's not good at it yet.

Thirdly, the girl is a little ahead of herself with her interest in women's undergarments. She thinks her mommy's bras are quite peculiar, and whenever she can get her hands on one, she likes to see if she can try it on herself.

In this situation, she was "helping" me fold clothes and found one she wanted to try on herself.

I don't have a photo relating to this, but she has also taken a very sudden interest in butterflies. She loves going through books to see if they have pictures of butterflies and pointing out all the butterflies. I think I'm going to buy some vinyl butterfly wall stickers for her room.

Anyhow, that's what's up with Ruth! More updates tomorrow!

New House!

2010-02-28T11:05:00.005-06:00

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting! The last two weeks have been very busy and exhausting. But we moved and we love our new house! We are so glad to be done with renting (hopefully) forever. Our mortgage payment is slightly higher than our rent payment, so it's incredibly affordable for us. And this house has so much potential! I took some pictures of it before we moved in all of our stuff.

This is looking into the living room from the dining room. The front entryway is on the right side. There is a lot of old wallpaper in this room and the dining room that we will be taking down. We are going to put slipcovers on our furniture that will be a darker sage green. Not sure what color to paint the living room.

This is the dining room. There's a nice window seat (I will be making a big cushion or two), and it's a fairly big room. It also has a bar, so we're going to get some bar stools. I think we're going to take down the wood paneling because I generally don't like wood paneling, and I don't really want to paint over it. We'll see, though. What do you think about the paneling?

This is a corner of Ruth's room. Her wallpaper border has unicorns on it. She loves her room and has an awesome closet. We're going to paint this room a very light sky blue color.

This is the other bedroom on the main floor. Tony and I are currently using this as our bedroom, but it will eventually be a spare bedroom/office. It's got this really cool old, glass light fixture that I need to take a picture of. We're going to clean it up and keep it. The wall color in this room is currently a very light pink. Not sure what color we will paint this room.

This is our one and only bathroom. It is currently covered in some very old wallpaper. We will be painting this room a nice light sage/celery color. It's also going to be one of our first big projects. We're going to replace the molding and base boards, vanity, and possibly the medicine cabinets.

This is the entryway to go upstairs, and you may not be able to tell this, but the stairs are very narrow and steep.

The loft spans the entire length of the house is divided into two very good sized rooms.

We've decided not to put anything upstairs yet so we can make it the first area of the house we paint. I don't know what color we will paint it, though!

This is the master bedroom. This picture doesn't do justice to how large it is.

And finally, this is our kitchen, which is ENORMOUS compared to our old kitchen:

The walls were painted using some kind of faux finish that doesn't look so hot. It also has giant florescent lights in it. Ick! My dream is to paint the walls, sand and paint the cabinets, get new flooring, and replace the florescent lights with some cool track lighting. It will probably be the last thing we get to, though.

We also have a huge unfinished basement that will be Tony's mancave and a big backyard that will probably take a couple of hours to mow. We love it!

I've already picked out the colors I want to paint a few rooms, but I'm having a lot of trouble picking out paint colors for the main living spaces. Tony is leaning more towards greys and blues for the main living spaces, while I am trying to decide if I'm brave enough to paint the living room something bold like cranberry. I think if we did that, it would probably only be an accent wall. But I don't know that I'm actually brave enough this time around! I don't have a particular style yet, although I like things to feel warm and homey. This house turned 100 years old this year, and I really want to honor the old charm of the house with our decorating. If you have any color/decorating ideas, let me know!

I have a lot more to blog about, but I'm limited on time this morning. I have some fun pictures of Ruth I've taken recently that I want to post. I also want to take some pictures of the handyman projects Tony has already completed. He's such a good handyman! My house is a total mess right now as we try to unpack, but I'll take some pictures as we get everything picked up. I'll try to blog more later today or tomorrow! Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas!

Busy, busy

2010-02-04T14:01:00.003-06:00

Hello, hello. We've been busy the last couple of weeks. Tony's always working hard with full-time school and work, and during his days off we've been trying to have fun family time. Last week we went on a spontaneous trip to the zoo, which ended up being great because there was hardly anyone there. It was chilly out, but we just did the indoor exhibits, and Ruth had a fun time. She's become much more aware of the animals since last time we went to the zoo in the fall, and I think she's getting more out of it. Yesterday we went to the Nebraska Furniture Mart to look at furniture and appliances, and we have our new washer and dryer and dishwasher picked out.

Everything is still good for us to close on our house on Feb. 19th! So last Saturday I took the list of things that needed to get done before we could start packing and divided them up among all the days this week. (Cleaning out dressers, closets and under-the-bed boxes, etc.) And I haven't done ANY of them yet! I need to get on the ball! I don't feel too bad, though, because I've been much, much busier this week than I expected. I was able to do a little shopping for homeowner's insurance and then pick a provider and get all that squared away. That took more time than I thought it would. We also got our taxes filed, which, again, took longer than expected. I've worked out every day this week so far except for Sunday and I'm feeling good. But I'm getting stressed about all the de-cluttering that needs to get done, so I suppose I should quit blogging and get to it!

I'm leaving you with a video of Ruth. She's recently discovered Tony's book light and likes to wear it as a necklace. I was trying to get some video of her wearing her "necklace" and playing "basketball" (thanks for the suggestion, Jenn), but she stopped playing when I started shooting video. Listen for her new favorite word, "silly," at the end. :)

Baby rock!

2010-01-24T11:38:00.004-06:00

Ruth and Jack decided to start their own percussion band on Friday.

They got out a couple of big metal bowls and some cooking utensils and rocked out. You can't tell from the videos, but their banging is extremely loud! I love how every once in a while Ruth taps on Jack's "drum." And in the second video, Jack decides to lick the spoon. :-) They're so funny.

I am looking for more things for them to do, though. Ruth has been getting bored in the house, and Jack gets bored when he is here, too. We read books, play with blocks and color every day. Ruth also enjoys her little play tent. I'm trying to keep movie time to a minimum. I tried getting them to play with playdough, but they try to eat it. Any toddler activity ideas are welcome!

A mid-January Update

2010-01-17T19:22:00.005-06:00

Hola, mi amigos.

These past couple of week have been jammed with busy stuff, so I haven't posted in a while.

First of all, Tony's semester at UNO started last week. He is officially a junior, and he started out taking four classes: business management, business statistics, accounting II, and junior-level conversational Spanish. After attending his conversational Spanish class twice, Tony's teacher said she thought the class would be too easy for him and recommended he move up to the senior level class, so he was happy about that. It will save him time and money. However, because the senior-level class is at 1 p.m., Tony has to work a split shift at work on Mondays and Fridays, meaning he works in the morning, goes from work to class, and then goes right back to work and closes the store in the evening. It will only last for a few months, though, so we will survive.

With full-time school combined with full-time work, Tony isn't home as much. He has to work a lot of closing shifts to accommodate his class schedule, so he misses his usual duties of giving Ruthie a bath and reading her bedtime story. Ruth also had a difficult time adjusting to Tony's increased absence and threw a lot of tantrums early on this year. She's starting to get used to the difference now, though, and seems to be handling it much better.

Also, since Tony has to do so much running around with school and work, I've mostly just been at home while Tony has the car during the day. Ruth is getting to the age where she gets bored at home, and I get stir crazy, too, so we are thinking about buying another car within the next month or so. It won't be anything fancy, I'm sure, but it will be nice to have another set of wheels.

Speaking of wheels, we had a lot of car trouble about a week ago. The temperatures here dipped well below freezing and our starter on our car died. It was an expensive fix, but our car is working now, and hopefully we won't have any more car trouble for a while.

I got a membership to the YMCA this month (no joiner's fee in Omaha for the month of January!) so I have been going there a few times a week. I want to get healthier this year and dip below 150. Last week I weighed in at 155 and I weighed the same this week. Hopefully, after a couple more weeks and some improved eating habits, my weight will start to drop. They have drop-in childcare, and Ruth enjoys going there and playing with the other kids while I work out.

We are moving in a month!!! I can't believe it. So far, everything is going well with our loan. Our landlords are sorry to see us go and offered to pay us $100 if we could find anyone who would move in and take good care of their house. So if you know anybody who wants to move into a 2-bedroom house and won't trash it, let me know!!! We have lots to do to get ready for our move, and I'm determined to start packing early this time. I waited until the last minute to pack when we moved from Grand Island to Omaha, and it was a nightmare. I've already made a list of all the stuff that needs to get done, and if I can divvy it out and do a little every day, I'm confident it will all go smoothly.

In other news, Tony and I are taking turns planning date night now, and last night I surprised him and took him to a restaurant called Peru, Mucho Gusto. It's on 77th and L streets, and it's believed to be the only authentic Peruvian restaurant in Omaha. Tony loved being able to eat the same food he had on his mission. It was super delicious, and we will definitely be going back.

Also, I know this is a little random, but Ruth started feeding Jack some Cheerios last week and it was really cute. Here are some pictures:

And here is another pic, this one of Ruth wearing her daddy's boots:

Ruth's latest words/phrases/noises are "please," "sit," "here it is," "yeah," "quack, quack," and "hoot, hoot" (like an owl), and "oooh, oooh" (like a monkey). She also really likes to sing and do the actions to "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider." Her speech gets better every day.

Hope you all had a fun weekend! I'll try to update more frequently. :)

-Meredith

Resolutions

2010-01-03T17:56:00.005-06:00

Happy New Year!!!

I love using the new year as a fresh start on life. After reading a church talk about resolutions, I decided to group my New Year's resolutions into four categories of growth: wisdom/intelligence, social, physical, and spiritual. Here are some of my resolutions:

Wisdom/Intelligence:
1. Read 16 books this year.
2. Take a class at the community college or some other venue to develop an interest.

Social:
1. Make at least 1 new friend. (That might sound a little trite, but when you're a stay-at-home mom in a one-car family, making and keeping friends takes a little extra effort.)
2. Work on thinking the best of people instead of the worst.

Physical:
1. Start getting up earlier to get more accomplished in the morning.
2. Get my weight under 150.
3. Purchase a YMCA membership and work out regularly.

Spiritual:
1. Attend the temple at least monthly.
2. Complete the study materials before each Sunday school lesson.

I'm confident that these (and there are more, I just chose not to list all of them) are things I can actually do. I was reading through the list of resolutions I set for 2009 and I accomplished almost every single one of them. I'm a person who becomes highly motivated by goal-setting, so I'm ready to get to work!
What are your resolutions?

2009 in Review

2009-12-30T13:59:00.015-06:00

This year was a busy one for our family, and we saw a lot of changes. At the beginning of the year, we were living in our little yellow house in Grand Island. Ruthie was this big...
...and she still had red hair!

Early in the year Tony decided to change his major to Spanish and business, so at the end of February we ended up moving to Omaha, just a few blocks away from my parents. We spent the months of February and March packing, moving, unpacking and generally remembering how much we hate moving. I kept busy as a substitute teacher for the Sunbeam (3 year old) class in Primary, while Tony worked and started taking placement tests for school.

In April, Ruth and I drove out to Ohio to visit Tony's sister and her family. We stayed for more than a week and had so much fun spending time with Jenny, Mike, Marcie, Leila, Janalee, and their various friends and family.

After we got back from Ohio, Tony and I received callings in our ward. I was called to be the Young Women secretary, while Tony teaches the 14/15-year-old Sunday School class. At the end of April, Tony and I were matched with a little brother, Brandon, through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. We love hanging out with our little brother. Here he is working on a fort in our living room:

In May, Tony and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary, I turned 24, and we got to see my younger brother, Zach, graduate from high school. Tony started summer classes at UNO. We also had fun planting and tending to our first garden.

In June, Ruth celebrated her first birthday! We had a nice party at my parents' house, and it was lots of fun! Here is Ruth after her second cupcake:

At the end of the month, we went up to Minnesota for a fishing trip with my parents. It was extremely windy that week, but we had a good time anyway.

In July, Tony turned 24! We went out to Ogallala, Neb., to camp out at Lake McConaughy with our friends, the Olbrichts. In the two or three days we camped, I think we experienced something like five thunderstorms. It was insane. But the company was good, and so we had a lot of fun.

At the end of July, I started watching Jack on a regular basis, and we really enjoy seeing him every week.

In August, Tony bumped up to full-time school once again. We had a busy month celebrating family and friends' birthdays and going on various outings. Ruthie also started walking around this time.

In September, Tony and I ran the Grand Island Half Marathon. We finished in a little more than 2 hours, and, unfortunately, didn't get any pictures. Tony has already mentioned wanting to run it again this year, so we won't forget the camera next time. :) While we were out in Central/Western Nebraska, we also paid another visit to our friends, the Olbrichts.

In October, Tony and I went to a Nebraska football game. Tony also got the ball rolling on his new business, Gardner Translations. For Halloween, Tony and I were Kip and Deb, while Ruthie wore her daddy's old Halloween costume and made a very cute leopard.

November brought us the chance to visit Tony's dad, step-mom and brother in Utah. We flew out for a weekend, and we were so glad we did. Utah was beautiful, and we loved seeing our family.

In December, we bought our first house! We are planning to close in late Feb. 2010, assuming all goes well with our loan. Tony started working full-time at U.S. Cellular. Ruth turned 18 months old, making her old enough to go to the Nursery class at church (YAY!!!!!). However, she hasn't been to Nursery yet because of illness. We also had a couple of snow storms and a wonderful Christmas.

This year has brought a lot of surprises and blessings. I cannot believe how big my little girl has gotten! I took this picture of her the other day:

My little blondie has grown so much, it's amazing. Her hair color changed, she has teeth and she walks, talks and feeds herself. I can't wait to see what new things she learns and how she grows in 2010.

We are looking forward to the new year, which we will be ringing in the same way we did last year - in North Platte with some good food and exceptionally good friends. We hope you have a wonderful new year, as well. We'll post our resolutions in 2010!

Farewell, 2009!

A White Christmas

2009-12-27T10:30:00.010-06:00

Hello, everyone. Christmas has come and gone, and it was a year to remember. I don't think I can adequately explain on here how stressful this Christmas was for me, mostly because of our home buying process and issues related to that, as well as last minute Christmas shopping and a cold/flu bug that we just can't seem to get out of the house. However, I can say that we have seen so many miraculous things this Christmas, I am amazed. I just know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and gives us what we need.

With that said, we had a wonderful Christmas. It all began on Dec. 23, when Santa visited my parents' house. He brought Tony and I a 26" flat-screen LCD TV! We were speechless. Here it is all set up in our basement:

Tony also got a new power drill and some tools, while I got a sweater, necklace and a few other items. Ruth got a lot of clothes, a book, a teddy bear and this neat toy that's too hard to describe:

She loves that toy. Then, on Christmas Eve we went and visited my Dad's family out in West Omaha. In case you haven't heard, we had a big blizzard here, and it started Christmas Eve. There were some giant snow drifts around, but luckily my parents own two four-wheel drive vehicles and let us ride in one on our way out to visit family. Once again, Ruth got a ton of clothes and toys while we were out there.

Christmas morning came, and Santa had made a stop at our house.

Tony got some new ties, the new Spanish translation of the Bible, and a giant battery-powered Nerf tommy gun. Ruth got A TON of stuff from Santa and Grandma Christensen, including a Nintendo Wii, wood blocks, a Zhu Zhu Pet, books, a snow globe, Christmas ornaments, etc. I got a George Foreman Grill and Pampered Toes. Also, Grandma and Grandpa Gardner sent Ruth a beautiful quilt, dress and pillowcase and a wonderful movie compilation of photos from our trip to Utah.

That day we were supposed to go over to visit Tony's mom, but because of the blizzard that was still taking place, we weren't able to make it out there. It was disappointing. Since my parents live a couple of blocks away, we borrowed the Jeep overnight and had to snake our way through the neighborhood to find the best streets to get to my parents' house. We ended up spending the day with my Mom, Dad and younger brother and eating our way through part of a prime rib roast. Since my Mom's side of the family couldn't make it on Christmas, yesterday my parents had everyone over to enjoy more food and good company. Our Christmas ended up being four days long! Now, I feel like we need a bigger house just to hold all of our stuff! I think this week I will go through the toys and whatnot and get bags ready to take to the thrift store.

We are so very grateful for all that we received for Christmas, including the chance to see and talk to family and friends. And we are especially thankful for the opportunity to reflect on the Savior.

The snow was so bad that they canceled all church meetings today except for the 1 p.m. Sacrament meeting. It's pretty rare for them to cancel church! Since I'm not feeling well (I'm the last to be hit by the bug circulating through our house), we are just going to stay home and relax.
Here is the view outside our front door. In case you can't tell, we got well over a foot of snow (on top of the snow that fell a couple of weeks ago).

I hope you all had a wonderful, safe Christmas and are able to reflect on 2009 as you get ready for a fresh start in 2010! I'll post my year in review in a couple of days!

Toybox grade: "D" for quality, "B" for effort, "A+" for good intentions.

2009-12-12T14:09:00.000-06:00

The Anthony and Meredith Gardner family patriarch here, reporting on one of the most interesting, fun, disappointing and stretching activities of the last few months.

I decided a while ago that I wanted to build Ruth - and her future siblings, and no, we are not pregnant - a toy box. I was thinking Christmas, but Meredith was thinking "finished-soon-space-saver." Once decided, I went with my father-in-law to Menard's and bought what I thought was enough wood to make the box, based on square footage calculations.

Mistake #1: You cannot purchase lumber based solely on total square footage calculations if you are constructing a three dimensional object.

So, needless to say, I didn't buy enough and didn't find out until I was done cutting all of the wood to size... or at least, everything I could cut to size.

Menard's isn't exactly close by, but I went back. I purchased more than enough wood to finish the project, some gorilla glue for the bottom and other gluables, and just to be sure, I bought a large enough piece of glued pine to serve as the lid once cut to size. (It is actually the prettiest piece of wood on the box.)

Once everything was cut to size, I realized I would need fasteners.

Mistake #2: Wood doesn't just stick together. You need fasteners.

If it wasn't already more expensive than I had planned, 3/4" nails weren't going to be enough, so I went down to the ACE hardware nearby and purchased four 3" framing screws to take care of fastening the bottom to the box. Turns out you need to drill great big pilot holes if you want to do that, and I didn't have a drill to do so. So I went back to ACE again and bought 3/4" soft wood screws. They worked like a charm!

While starting to frame up the box, I noticed that my planks were mostly bowed.

Mistake #3: Planks that are not checked adequately for flatness tend to be bowed.

I had very few flat lengths. On the flat lengths, I fastened them with nails. The bowed, I used screws. Result: a menagerie of alternating nails and screws at the fasten points.

With plenty of nails and screws and glue, the box is finally framed up and assembled, except for the lid. Before adding the lid, I decide to sand and buff the wood in preparation for a staining. I got to involve our little brother Brandon (paired through the BBBS system), which was fun. We got most of the box stained, and upon first glance, everything seemed to be going well.

My wonderful wife inspected it, but it turned out a lot worse than I thought. She found tons of drippies, lots of sander chewspots (you know, those places where the 60 grit sanding wasn't quite erased by the 160 sanding), and plenty of gaps in the wood that were eyesores.

Mistake #4: Never assume that gaps are not eyesores, and that drippies aren't noticeable.

Result? Gaps stay, sanded staining, buffed it down lots better and stained again. There are still chew marks, but little to no drippies. I finished the lid, attached it, cracked it down a glue seam while attaching the friction hinge, and voila.

Now, some of you reading might say, "Wow, what a negative post!" Well... I admit, I view this project in a lot of negative light because I view a lot of myself in it. I really wanted to just make a box for Ruth and the kids with my own two hands, but was too prideful to stop and say, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to admit that I have no idea what I'm doing for the most part, and I'm not going to settle for less than near perfect."

This was a really good experience, and I know that Ruth and the other kids are going to like it. I can repair the lid since it only busted slightly down a glue seam, and the friction hinge can be replaced with a specific toy box lid support. I can put slats on the underneath of the lid after clamping to prevent further seam splitting and I can always sand it again and refinish it in the future.

This was a really good experience, and I'm glad to say I was able to embark on it. I believe the benefit outweighs the cost of production.

Changes

2009-12-11T16:24:00.003-06:00

'Tis the season of change, and winter is bringing many changes to our little household. The first major change of the month began on Monday, when Tony began working full-time at U.S. Cellular instead of part-time. Tony worked full-time for U.S. Cellular for much of the time we lived in Grand Island. But when we moved to Omaha, there were no full-time positions available. We thought it would be better for Tony to work part-time anyway, especially with his full-time school schedule. Part-time employees still get full benefits. However, when this full-time position became open, Tony decided to interview for it and take it if offered because we could really use the extra money. Well, Tony had a great interview, was offered the increase in hours, and took it. With both school and work, Tony has been gone a lot this week. It's especially tough on the days when he has school all morning and then goes to work from noon to 9 p.m. because he only gets to spend a few minutes with Ruth. I can tell it's wearing him out after the first week. (It doesn't help that he's trying to prepare for finals week.) Since Tony is spending more time away from home, I am trying to do my part to handle more things around the house. There are things I would normally ask him to do that I just try to do myself now. We are doing what we can to organize our time, synchronize our schedules and spend quality time together. As the weeks go by, I know we will all adjust, and the heavy work/school load won't last forever.

The second big change that has happened this month was the first major snowstorm of the season, which really threw a wrench in things. We had our week all planned out, complete with workouts and family time, but we've had to replace formal workouts with snow shoveling and some family time with extra drive time.

The third change, which is by far the most exciting, is that we are now under contract to buy a house! Here are a few pictures:

It's very cute, has a huge back yard, and is only a few blocks away from where we currently live. It needs a lot of updating (think really old wallpaper), but Tony and I are excited about putting some work into this place. Our lease on our current house isn't up until the end of February, so our closing date is about a week before our lease is up. Our mortgage payment will be within $10 of our current rent payment, but the money will go into our own investment instead of just vanishing into someone else's pocket. We are stoked about becoming homeowners and are crossing our fingers as we wait for our loan to go through!

I'm sure this month will bring many more changes, and we'll keep you guys updated!

Happy December

2009-12-05T14:29:00.004-06:00

Happy December! One part of me feels like this year just began, but then another realizes that A LOT has happened over the past 11 months. In a few weeks, I'll post a year in review, complete with pictures!

In other news, Ruth is teething. And I mean she is cutting A LOT of teeth. It's making her really grouchy, too. Over the past week or so she's started hitting and kicking pretty regularly. She doesn't hit hard, she mostly just swings her arms around when she gets frustrated and/or tired. It's like she just really wants to punch something. Sometimes Tony and I get in the way, and then its time-out time. We started time outs a few weeks ago when Ruth kept stealing her friend's sippy cup after I told her many, many times not to. We did very few at first (didn't need to do many), but now time outs occur on an almost daily basis. I try to use them for the more serious things - hitting and kicking - and shrug off or ignore the other stuff. She pretty much only kicks when I'm changing her diaper, and I've decided to just ignore it, so hopefully she'll quit once she sees she can't get a rise out of me for it. I think time outs are serving their purpose, though. I just hope all the teeth cut soon, and I want her to grow out of this hitting and kicking stuff!

I have a lot to do for the holidays! We haven't decorated yet, but we hope to do that tomorrow. I also need to finish Christmas shopping, but I'm mostly done with that. Yesterday I made a list of all the things I need to do to get ready for Christmas, and that has helped me feel less stressed.

We are also continuing our house hunt. We have decided we want to stay in our ward, and we put in an offer on a house this morning. We might not hear back for sure for a few days (I think the owner works for the railroad), but hopefully all goes well! Here is a link for those of you who want to take a look.

Happy weekend, and Go Big Red!!!

-Meredith

HG recipe review #3: Tasty Taquitos

2009-11-25T13:21:00.000-06:00

It's Hungry Girl recipe review time, and this month Jenn and I decided to make HG's Exploding Chicken Taquitos. The taquitos you can buy in the store or at a restaurant are a fast, tasty treat, but they're also typically fried and rather fattening. Hungry Girl's version called for canned 98% fat-free chicken, non-fat cheddar cheese, salsa, a little bit of taco seasoning, and yellow corn tortillas. It's a pretty easy recipe to follow: mix together the chicken, salsa, cheese and taco seasoning and let refrigerate for 15 minutes. If there's any liquid in the filling, you drain it out after refrigerating. You then roll the filling into the tortillas that have been sprayed with cooking spray, bake them up, and voila! You have your very own non-fried version of chicken taquitos.

They're called "Exploding Chicken Taquitos" because when you bake them, the filling might crack the tortilla and seep out a bit. That happened with one of our taquitos. Here is a picture of the finished product, which we ended up having with some rice and corn for dinner:

I had to make a variation on this recipe because the yellow corn tortillas were more expensive than the white corn ones, so I used white corn tortillas. Also, I couldn't find fat-free shredded cheese in the grocery store (the cheese aisle was especially busy that day because of a huge sale on shredded cheese), so I just used the 2% milk kind.

The result was great. Tony said this was the first Hungry Girl recipe I've made that was an acceptable substitute for the "real thing." We really enjoyed these and would recommend them to anyone. My own qualm is the ingredients for this can be kind of expensive. I think in the future I would use regular chicken that I have on hand and stick with whatever corn tortillas were the cheapest.

Overall rating: Four out of Five stars.

For next month, Jenn has chosen HG's Cheesy Butternut Bake, which features butternut squash, Laughing Cow cheese, onions, egg substitute and a variety of spices. I'm excited to give it a try!

Utah fun! (with photos galore!)

2009-11-25T12:48:00.015-06:00

Hey, everyone. We came back from Utah on Monday evening and since then I have been too busy to go through my photos and blog. Now that it's nap time, I have the chance! We had a really fun time visiting Tony's brother, grandparents, father and stepmother in Utah. Ruth was great on both plane trips and kept her cool for most of the trip. She had a great time visiting her family. Here are some pictures from each day:

Friday

We arrived on Friday morning and headed up to Perry with Tony's brother to visit Grandma and Grandpa Wayman. Ruth played with the toys there and then Grandpa Wayman let her ride on his scooter chair. It was super cute!

Grandma Wayman also made us lunch, and Ruth ran around and explored. She loved chasing their dog, Sweetie.

We were so glad we went to see them!

We then went down to Mt. Pleasant to check into our hotel room and visit Tony's parents.

They had a stuffed dog and a Disney princess chair waiting for Ruth, and she loved them both!

We went and got some pizza, and then headed back to our room for some R&R.

Saturday
On Saturday, we did some running around. We grabbed some breakfast and then went up to Provo to get some Jamba Juice!!! I LOVE Jamba Juice!! If only I had hundreds of thousands of dollars, I would totally open up a franchise here in Omaha. Ruth enjoyed sharing with her Grandpa.

I also got the chance to meet up with my old roommate, Suzy! I haven't seen her in a few years, and it was great to talk for a few minutes. Suzy and friends also bought Ruthie a hot-pink teddy bear, which she loves.

After making stops at the Deseret Book and the sporting goods store, we went back to Mt. Pleasant. Uncle Mike got Ruth a hat that says "Cute as a Button Buck." She actually wore it when we went out on an errand yesterday.

Ruth and I went back to the room for some quiet time, and the boys went shooting (and forgot to take photos of it). We then hung out and went to dinner, and then went back to our room for the night. Tony, Mike and I played a game of Settlers of Catan, and it was awesome.

Sunday
On Sunday morning we got dressed and headed over to Dad and Diane's, where Tony made everyone a delicious batch of Danish pancakes. We enjoyed time together before church. Ruth's Grandpa let her play on his drums, and she LOVED them.

Ruth and I missed sacrament meeting because she was napping, but we were able to have a snack and catch Dad's lesson on missionary work during second hour.

We then went back to Dad and Diane's to hang out and have dinner. Dad and Diane made some delicious bison, we played another round of Settlers of Catan, and Tony and Mike were able to express their brotherly love. :)

Monday
Our trip quickly came to a close, and on Monday morning we went out to breakfast before driving up to the airport. Here is Ruth saying her farewells to her Grandma and Grandpa Gardner:

We had a great trip, but it was exhausting! Ruth wouldn't sleep on the plane on Monday, so she crashed in the car on the way home from the airport at about 5:30 and didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning! We are still recovering.

I only wish we could have stayed longer! Thank you, Dad, Diane and Mike for the fun time! We love you and are grateful for you!

-Meredith

Off to Utah

2009-11-19T22:27:00.003-06:00

We're all packed up and getting ready to head to bed! We're catching a 6 a.m. flight to Utah tomorrow to visit Tony's parents, grandparents and brother, and it will be a true adventure.

It is amazing how much stuff you have to pack when you're traveling with a baby/toddler, and taking car seats and whatnot makes everything more complicated. We're only taking carry-on bags because the airline we are flying with (Delta) charges $20 per checked bag each way (LAME). I was amazed that Ruth's stuff almost filled up a whole carry-on bag. Diapers and wipes take up so much room! Even though she has a lot of stuff, I was able to cram everything we need for our four-day trip into two carry-on bags and a backpack. That's toys, snacks, shoes, clothes, hats, mittens, toiletries -- everything. We will also be lugging around winter coats and our car seat, which we hope to check at the gate. Our plan is to hook the car seat (we still have its original bag, luckily) on to one of the carry-on bags. Then, one of us will wear the backpack and carry Ruth, and the other will pull the two carry-on bags with the car seat attached. We'll see if it works!!!

Our game plan for the tomorrow is this:

-Arrive in Salt Lake at 7:45 a.m. and get picked up by Tony's brother, Mike
-Go grab some breakfast
-Go up to visit Tony's grandparents
-Drive down to Mt. Pleasant to have a fun weekend with Tony's parents

Tomorrow will be a long day with the flight and the driving. I got a children's book about traveling in airplanes from the library for Ruth, and we've been reading that over the last few days. I also talked to her before she went to bed about how we would be getting up early to go fly on an airplane. Hopefully she will be somewhat familiar with what's going on, but who knows how much has sunk in. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping there will be an open seat on the plane so we can bring on her car seat. I think she would definitely sleep through most of the flight if we're able to do that. I'm anxious to see how well she travels on a plane.

We're all geared up for a great trip, and we're looking forward to seeing friends and family! We'll be sure to take lots of pictures and let you all know how it went when we get back on Monday!

-Meredith

Family Photos

2009-11-17T09:15:00.005-06:00

Disclaimer: Due to copyright laws, this post will not include any actual family photos.

Tony, Ruth and I went to Portrait Innovations to get a family photo taken last night. We did the same thing about this time last year, only last year's photos were taken at Wal-Mart and cost about $100. Portrait Innovations was offering a portrait package deal for $10. Lots of studios are offering cheap package deals right now, but we picked this one upon the recommendation of a friend. We decided to wear white shirts and jeans this year; last year we wore red.

Ruth had a good time playing with their Lego table while we waited for our turn, but when picture time came she did not want to sit on my lap. The photographer got her distracted with a toy, and the portrait session seemed promising for a moment. But then the flash did Ruth in. It startled her so much that she had a complete melt-down and screamed anytime she saw the camera. I think the photographer only got to take six shots and only two of those were usable. She got one of Ruth smiling before she got startled by the flash. The only thing was, in that photo Tony wasn't looking at the camera. So, sorry to everyone who gets our family photo this year - Tony is looking down at Ruth. It still looks cute, but it's probably not one we'll hang on our wall. We are going to wait at least six months to try for a better family photo. By then hopefully Ruth won't get so startled! And maybe in the summer we'll hire someone who can take them outside, so flash won't be an issue at all.

And by the way, with the difference in lighting and setup, I actually think last year's Wal-Mart photos were much better quality than the ones taken at Portrait Innovations (although it might've been a different story if Ruth had been in the mood to cooperate). I also liked that I didn't have to wait at Wal-Mart as much as I did at Portrait Innovations, but at Portrait Innovations you do get your photos the same day, which is nice.

It was a disappointing session, but I'm glad we got our photos taken anyway. Hopefully you will enjoy Ruthie's sweet little smile. :)

-Meredith

The terrible...ones?

2009-11-15T13:32:00.000-06:00

About a year ago I had a friend who had very active and sometimes mischievous 1-year-old. Honestly, watching her 1-year-old made me worry so much about what Ruth would be like when she turned 1 that I didn't at all look forward to her toddlerhood. To me, it looked like the ones were just as terrible an age as the twos!

But since Ruth turned 1 almost 6 months ago, I must admit that having a 1-year-old generally hasn't been bad at all. I actually like the fact that she can walk -- it's much better than her crawling all over and eating stuff off the floor, and she can actually run around and have fun at places like the Children's Museum or the park. I also like how much fun she is to play with and how hard she works to communicate. Of course, there are days that my 1-year-old is more than a handful (especially now that she has figured out how to climb), but she was sometimes a handful when she was a baby, too. I have to say, though, that this weekend has been by far the most "terrible" yet, and it makes me a bit nervous about our plane trip on Friday.

Don't get me wrong - most of the "terrible" things Ruth does are funny (if not at first, they are looking back), and 90 percent of the time she is a very good girl. She got her first haircut (just a trim) yesterday and was a little squirmy at first, but eventually got distracted watching other people get their hair cut and sat nicely. Here is her first salon hairdo:

Later on in the day, however, she managed to dump almost a whole bag of brown sugar on the kitchen floor while I was doing the dishes. I turned around and saw the pile of brown sugar, which she had been eating for who knows how long. :) (When I put her in the dining room so I could clean up without her "help," she kept licking her fingers and saying "mmmm." :D ) At the time, I was a little more frustrated than amused, so I cleaned up the mess without getting a photo. After I cleaned all the sugar off the floor, I went into the living room to check on her and found her playing with a pair of scissors she found in the desk drawer. Needless to say, the scissors have found a new spot on top of the fridge and are no longer a threat. Of course, neither of those incidents would have occurred if I had been watching her more closely, so I am to blame for some of her "terrible" actions!

There are other "terrible" behaviors that I can't do much about. On Thursday, for example, we did a second walk-through of the house we wanted to buy. It ended up taking longer than planned because the real estate agent forgot to bring the key to the house, and by the time we were able to actually look inside, Ruth was ready for dinner and probably some quiet rest time. By the end of the walk-through, she was inconsolable and had her first official toddler melt-down. She just laid on the floor as flat as a board and cried.

Then there was Stake Conference this morning. Ruth woke up a little too early, so she wasn't in the best mood. (The girl needs her beauty sleep!) She was not at all interested in sitting nicely in the folding chairs and watching two hours of conference. She also fell over and hit her head on one of the chairs, resulting in a good amount of screaming and a nice little bump on her head. (Poor baby, I felt so bad!) When she didn't want to color or play at our seats, Tony and I took turns taking her out into the hall and holding her. I almost got her to fall asleep, but another little toddler came screaming down the hall and snapped her awake. Overall, conference was very uplifting and edifying -- especially with the visit from Elder Dallin H. Oaks from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles -- but it was much harder to concentrate with an uncooperative 1-year-old.

On Friday, Ruth will embark on her first airplane trip to Utah to visit her Grandma and Grandpa Gardner, Uncle Mike, and Great-Grandma and Grandpa Wayman. Our plane leaves at 6 a.m., so we will have to be to the airport no later than 5 a.m. Hopefully, I will be able to get her to sleep on the plane. Otherwise, I'm afraid we might have another toddler meltdown at some point on Friday morning (hopefully not on the plane!!!)

I wouldn't trade my 1-year-old for anything, but I am noticing that as she gets older, it's harder and harder to get past that stubborn, mischievous, little mind she's developing. :) Maybe they should start warning parents that the "ornery ones" come before the "terrible twos." :D

Happy Sunday!

-Meredith

House hunting update

2009-11-13T15:55:00.001-06:00

Well, we found a house we really liked when we went house hunting earlier this week. It's a very cute old house located in the Florence area. It has some neat built-ins throughout, a good-sized kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a garage, a wonderful backyard with a secret garden, all of the appliances, new furnace & a/c, and a whole lot of potential. We went on a second walk-through on Wednesday night and then decided to meet with our real estate agent to put in an offer yesterday. We offered them almost full asking price (they had already reduced the price $9,000) and asked them to pay our closing costs, fix a few things on the outside, and provide a one-year home warranty. After talking to the selling agent, we thought there was a chance they would like our closing date (at the end of Feb. because of our lease and the fact that we want to use our tax return as our down payment). The woman who has owned the home (for the last 53 years) is now living in Texas, but all of her stuff is still in the house. However, they didn't accept any part of our offer. They said that if we wanted them to pay closing costs they would raise the price of the house by $3,500, and if we stuck to the closing date they would keep the house on the market. That means there would be no guarantee we would get it - they could accept another offer at any time. We decided to walk away. We hope the house will still be on the market at the end of December or beginning of January, when we might put in another offer. In the meantime, we'll keep looking to see what else is out there. We are kind of disappointed, but we are learning a lot from this home buying process. Things will work out as they should!

Tomorrow is Hungry Girl review day! I actually think I might make the taquitos tonight for dinner, but I'll hold off on posting the review until tomorrow.

Happy Weekend!

-Meredith

Halloween Madness!

2009-11-01T13:09:00.000-06:00

This weekend was filled with Halloween fun! Jack was over on Friday and Tony had the day off, so we made bat cookies using the new cookie cutters and rolling pin Tony's mom bought us:

We had the ward Trunk-or-Treat at church on Friday night, and our "little brother" came along. It was a dual-ward activity, so it was a little crazy, but we had fun! Ruth was a leopard and wore the same costume her daddy wore when he was a 1-year-old. She is her father's daughter:

The pic on the right is one of Tony in his costume. It's a picture of a picture, so it's not very good quality, but they look alike! :)

The "real" Halloween was last night. Ruth isn't really old enough to appreciate Halloween and eat lots of candy, so she just trick-or-treated at her grandma and grandpa's before we went to get Tony from work. She got to hang out with her cousins, Christopher and Kora, for a little while.

Christopher was a Power Ranger and Kora was Dora the Explorer. Kailyn, who was handing out candy and not in this photo, was Hannah Montana. Ruth actually kept her leopard ears on for a little while and let me draw whiskers on her face!

On an unrelated note, Ruth has discovered the joys of falling into a pile of blankets. Enjoy this video:

I'm so happy it's fall! Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

-Meredith

Mischief Managed

2009-10-30T10:19:00.000-05:00

I made beans and rice for dinner last night. This is Ruth's post-dinner shot. You can't see it from this photo, but she basically dumped her whole plate of beans and rice on the floor and managed to get some on the wall, too. She's shirtless because she was wearing a white shirt, and I took it off before dinner so she didn't stain it. She also decided to take out her ponytail during dinner, resulting in the mohawk/bed-head mess you see. She smiled for the photo, so you can see her two little teeth. :) Can you say blackmail material? :D Oh, how I love her!

In other news, we have found a cosigner for our house! It's very exciting. We are in no hurry to find a house because our lease isn't up until the end of February, but we will probably meet with a real estate agent next week. We're looking forward to taking advantage of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit, assuming they pass it. We hope we can find something worth buying in our price range. The amount we're looking at spending would make our total mortgage payment (including taxes, insurance, etc.) cheaper than our current rent payment. Here is a picture of one of the houses we are looking at:

The idea of buying a house and making it our own is very exciting! It makes me want to buy up a whole bunch of copies of Better Homes & Gardens and get decorating ideas. For those of you who have already bought a house, do you have any tips? Is there something you wish you had known when you went through the process, or is there something you wish you would've done differently?

Thanks for your help. And happy Halloween Eve! We're going to a Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween Party at church tonight, so I'll post photos of Ruth in her costume tomorrow.

-Meredith

Beautiful Fall

2009-10-27T08:43:00.001-05:00

Ruth and I went to Memorial Park yesterday to take advantage of the beautiful weather. They have a nice, fairly new playground there surrounded by sand. Here is a picture of Ruth throwing the sand:

She really loves the slides now, even more than the swings!

I love fall. Hopefully it stays nice for another couple of days!

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus

-Meredith

Fun times

2009-10-25T13:26:00.001-05:00

It has been too long since we have last posted on our family blog. We've been busy with lots of things. Last weekend, we had our good friends, the Olbrichts, in from North Platte. They and their five children camped out in our basement for a few days, and we were able to go to the temple, Omaha Children's Museum and the slides downtown. It was really good to have them here.

Then yesterday Tony and I went to the Huskers vs. Cyclones football game in Lincoln while my parents watched Ruth. It would have been more fun if we had been more prepared for the weather. It was much colder than we expected it to be. Also, the Huskers played terribly, which wasn't much fun to watch. However, Tony and I got the chance to talk and be together, so that was good.

We also went to a ward Halloween party last night. Tony was Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, and I was Deb. We had a good time, and then went to get Ruthie, who had a good day hanging out with her grandma and grandpa.

I'm also getting busy volunteering with the local neighborhood association. Me and another gal in the neighborhood are trying to put together a newsletter on a very short time frame. It's coming together very well, though.

In terms of my weight loss/fitness goals, I haven't done so hot during the past week or two. I have some good days, but other days I totally blow it and eat too many calories and/or too much fat. I will say that I am getting better about working out. I've found that variety is key for me. I think the food will fall into place as I get more diligent about it. Sometimes I just need a bowl of ice cream, though!

-Meredith

HG Review #2: Cheesy goodness? Not quite.

2009-10-10T20:47:00.000-05:00

This is the second month Jenn and I have done a Hungry Girl review. This month's recipe: HG's Fiber-rific Mozzarella Cheese Sticks. Who loves fried cheese? I do! I do! I was looking forward to giving HG's non-fried substitute a try. This simple recipe calls for FiberOne cereal crumbs, egg substitute, seasonings, and low-fat mozzarella cheese sticks.

I blended up the FiberOne cereal in the blender to make the "crumbs." It took a little bit of time, and in the end I still had some chunks in my crumbs, but that didn't end up being such a big deal.

I then double-breaded the cheese sticks (cut in half) with egg substitute and seasoned crumbs, placed them on a pan, and put them in the oven to bake for a little less than 10 minutes.

I didn't quite catch them just as they got done, so my finished product didn't look as good as it could have. Paired with some tomato sauce, Tony and I gave these a try:
The melted cheese part was good, as was the sauce. What wasn't good for me were the cereal crumbs. Good idea in theory, but bad in practice. The cheese sticks tasted distinctly of cardboard-flavored cereal. Tony said for him the breading brought the cheese sticks down to the level of an unacceptable substitute. He wouldn't eat this recipe again. I think I would make this recipe again but use Italian-seasoned bread crumbs instead of seasoned FiberOne crumbs. I can't imagine that using real bread crumbs would increase the fat and calorie content by that much. What really makes this recipe healthy is the fact that these are baked and not fried. Overall rating: Three out of five stars.

Next month we will make HG's Exploding Chicken Taquitos. Yummy! (I hope!)

I am an official taste tester

2009-10-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

My friends get me into some great stuff. First, the Jenks family got me into Freecycle. Now, my friend Becky has gotten me into a program called Innovation Research, which is a taste-testing facility. I went into my first taste test yesterday, and it was a cinch. I spent 30 minutes there taste testing four samples of an unknown kind of bread, gave my feedback, and that was it! Best of all, they pay $25 cash per visit!!!! Woot. They also do some take-home tests, which pay more. Anyhow, if you live in the Omaha area you should sign up for it. My friend Becky, who has been involved with it for a while, says she maybe does one taste test per month. That's not a lot, but it's easy money!!! An automated phone line calls you when a test is open, and you answer some questions to see if you qualify. Easy peasy. :)

In other news, I got a boatload of children's books and some coupons from Freecycle. I love it! I also started a SparkPeople page to keep track of my weight loss and fitness goals (as recommended by Jenn). Feel free to check it out.

-Meredith

Freecycle!!!

2009-10-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

I picked up my first Freecycle item today! Behold, the free tea kettle:

It's not the prettiest kettle at the ball, but it was free, and we've never had one before, so we are grateful. :)

If you haven't heard of Freecycle, you should check it out. It's a feature on Yahoo groups, and there are geographic sub-groups under Freecycle. For example, there is an Omaha/Council Bluffs Freecycle program. It's basically an online message board where people give away things they don't want anymore. I've seen really big items offered, such as free pianos, treadmills, televisions, couch sets, etc., and I've also seen smaller items, like coupons, cardboard boxes, clothing, toys, etc. People can also put "wanted" posts on Freecycle, but those aren't strongly recommended. You can either sign up for e-mail alerts or just frequently check the message board. I have Freecycle e-mail alerts delivered to a separate folder in my inbox. You have to respond fast to get a Freecycle item, because there are many people signed up for it. The general rule is the first person to respond is the person who gets the item.

Anyway, check it out. I'm looking forward to getting many more Freecycle items in the future and putting some of my own stuff on Freecycle. I love it!

-Meredith

Disney Planning (Already)

2009-09-30T22:17:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: This blog post was primarily written for my sister-in-law, Jenn, but anyone else is welcome to read on anyway!

In case you haven't heard, we (me, Tony and Ruth) are going to Disney World (!!!) at the end of March 2010 for a family reunion, courtesy of my mother-in-law. We will be joined by Tony's mother, brother, sister and family, and step-grandmother. We are super pumped about this, and as soon as I found out we were going I started doing research about the trip, as did my sister-in-law.

So my sister-in-law went to the library earlier this month and found some books about Disney vacation planning. Inspired by her library research, I went to the library tonight and found this great book: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2010.

This book is HUGE, and the reason it's called the "unofficial" guide is because none of the contributors works for Disney. This gives it a more unbiased approach. It has opened my eyes to many unknown aspects of our impending Disney World vacation, and I want to buy a copy. If not, I will be making photocopies of many parts of this book for safe keeping! Here are the things I've learned so far:

To get the most out of Disney World, you have to get to the parks early in the morning, about 30 minutes before they open. This can be very early, but it will mean much, much less waiting in line.
We should plan to walk 5-12 miles per day. (I'm going to have to make sure I'm in shape for that!)
Because of the large walking distances and the (hopefully) early-morning arrival at the park, families should plan to return to their room in the afternoon for a nap/break. They can then return to the park in the late afternoon/evening.
"Extra Magic Hours" are available to resort guests, but this book recommends avoiding them. Here is how they work: each day, one park (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, etc.) will be open an hour early or remain open an hour late just for resort guests. While this may seem like a good deal in theory, the park will be extra crowded on this day, making for longer lines. Also, not all of the rides are open during these extra hours, meaning there are a lot of people trying to cram on a few rides. It's better to forego the extra hours completely and visit a different park, which is very likely to be much less busy.
This particular guidebook offers "touring plans" for each of the parks, designed for different groups (just adults, adults with children, mature adults, etc.). These guides often mean a lot of walking and bouncing around the park, but they have been proven to cut ride wait times by 4 hours per day. This allows WDW visitors to visit more rides and spend much, much less time in line (usually only 15-20 minutes per ride). They also eliminate the time wasted by standing around and looking at a map/arguing over what to see next. Jenn, depending on our attitude toward the trip (if we just want it to be leisurely or if we want to get our money's worth [even though we aren't the ones spending the money]), we may seriously consider using these touring plans. The overwhelming response online and in feedback printed in the book is that they really work.
From our resort (Fort Wilderness Cabins) we should expect it to take an average of 45 minutes to get to every theme park via the Disney Transportation System. This does not include the Magic Kingdom, which we can reach in an average of 15 minutes through the water ferry.
Meal plans have received mixed reviews, especially children's meal plans, which have very limited menus (think mostly mac-n-cheese and chicken strips). Even though we have a meal plan, I think it will save us a lot of time, money and hassle if we plan on bringing some food with us. We can then eat some breakfasts/lunches in the park. My family did this when we went to Disney World about 12 years ago, and it really worked out for us.
Our resort has some really awesome amenities, including a lot of outdoor recreation options!!!
FASTPASSES will be very helpful in eliminating time spent standing in line.
In reality, we only have three full days at Disney World. (Do you know our departure and arrival times, by chance, Jenn?) Considering that you need two days to see everything at the Magic Kingdom and another two days to see everything at Epcot, we will have to be aware that we absolutely won't be able to see or do everything. This has the potential to be a stressful, exhausting vacation. However, if we plan it well while remaining flexible, we will have an awesome time.
If the trip does happen to be exhausting/stressful, we just have to remember: We are in Disney World!!!

Let me know what you think, Jenn. If anyone else has read to the end of this post and has any Disney World tips, let me know!

-Meredith

Food, fun and frolicking

2009-09-27T14:35:00.000-05:00

I have a whole week's worth of stuff to talk about, so I'll start backwards.

Yesterday, I went to the Farmer's Market in downtown Omaha to buy most of our produce for the week. (It's one of the recommendations in In Defense of Food.) I love it down there, and Ruthie was very good for me in her backpack carrier. I went with $12, and we ended up buying a red pepper, a couple of zucchini, green onions, cilantro, some tomatoes, an eggplant, a few white peaches and some free-range eggs for $10.50. I can't wait to go again this Saturday. Here's a sampling:Ruth and I then walked over to the other side of downtown to meet my mom and nieces for the River City Roundup Parade. Ruthie kept trying to run out into the street, but she enjoyed watching the drill teams, marching bands and horses. Yesterday evening I went to our ward's Relief Society retreat for dinner before the General Relief Society Broadcast. They gave me a little kit to hand-make a few cards, and since I've been wanting to take up card making as a hobby, it was very exciting! I just finished them a little while ago:

On Friday evening, my friends Cindy and Roberto got married and baptized.It was very exciting to see them reach their goal, and I wish them the best. During the big event, Ruth had a fun time playing with her friend Clark, who is a month older than Ruth. They tried to wander around the church building alone and had fun hiding under the coffee tables in the foyer. I didn't get pictures of them, but I will next time!

On Thursday, we had a playgroup at the Playdaze, which had a "Mommy and Me Play for Free" promotion. Ruth had a great time on the quarter rides, and I got some more video of her walking:

She also had her first driving experience:

Then, earlier this week, my niece Kora came over for a short visit. She and Ruth had fun playing together, too:

The week was a busy one! Hope yours was good, too. :)

-Meredith

Book Review: In Defense of Food

2009-09-21T12:17:00.001-05:00

I finished reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan a couple of days ago, and it was a really great, quick read. If you are reading this book *cough*Jenn*cough*, consider this your spoiler alert.

As I've posted before, Pollan's motto with In Defense of Food is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The book itself contains a brief history of the "Western diet" (i.e. what Americans eat); commentary on how the American diet has been influenced by politics; summaries of studies related to nutrition, diet, health and farming; and recommendations on how to "eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

What I found fascinating about this book is how politics have played a role in the American diet. Many food producers have lobbyists, so if studies come out that show that Americans should cut back on their intake of red meat and dairy to reduce heart disease, the government can't change its dietary recommendations without getting flack from the beef and dairy producers. Therefore, the government has fueled the growth of "nutritionism," an idea that a food is as good as the sum of its nutrient parts. The government can say "cut back on saturated fat" without offending an industry group (even though it really should be saying "cut back on meat and dairy").

However, as Pollan goes to show in his book, nutritionists haven't been able to fully understand foods by breaking them down into their nutrient parts. Therefore, it's not enough to tell people to "cut back on saturated fat," or "increase your intake of fiber," as has been proven by our country's increasing problem with heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. There is a synergy that exists in whole foods, so it's better to eat foods for their overall nutritional value rather than one nutritious part. For example (this is a very simplified example), scientists think carrots are good for us because they contain fiber and beta carotene. However, if you give a person fiber and beta carotene supplements, they will not receive as many health benefits as they would have if they had just eaten the carrot. (Actually, studies have shown beta carotene supplements can have harmful effects.) Therefore, it's better for nutritionists to say "eat more carrots," or "eat more leafy greens," than it is to say "eat more beta carotene," or "get more antioxidants."

Pollan also writes about studies that have shown the importance of eating whole, unprocessed foods. In places where the "Western diet" exists, a whole number of diseases have followed, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Where cultures eat whole foods (i.e. many of the French, Japanese, Greeks, etc.), such diseases are much more rare.

At the end of the book, Pollan gives recommendations on what to eat and how to eat it. Here are a few:
-Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number, or that include high-fructose corn syrup.
-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
-Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
-Do all your eating at a table.
-Pay more. Eat less.

I found it interesting how closely Pollan's findings follow the Word of Wisdom, which isn't just a list of prohibited substances for Latter-day Saints. The Word of Wisdom also includes a list of do's: eat grains, plants and a very small amount of meat; get plenty of rest. Unfortunately, many of us forget that the list of things we should do to be healthy are just as important as the things we shouldn't put into our bodies.

I enjoyed this book very much, and it has encouraged me to take better care of my body. I want to be healthy, and I want to teach my little girl how to take care of her body, too. If you're prepared to look at food differently, I highly recommend this book.

Food on the mind

2009-09-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered what exactly is in that can of pop or box of cereal? I mean, what exactly is the sodium alginate and carrageenan they put in my Nutrigrain bars? I never really stopped to think about it until recently. And now that I have thought about it, Tony and I have decided to change our diet.

I've been reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. I have to say this book falls into my "life-changing" category. I highly recommend it. The motto of the book is this: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan discusses the "Western diet" (lots of carbs, sugars, meats, dairy and processed foods), the growth of "nutritionism" (focusing on nutrients, like saturated fat, instead of actual food) and how we Americans can get healthier by eating what our grandparents ate: whole foods. What I've read so far boils down to this: The Western Diet has caused us Americans to shift from whole foods to processed foods, and we need to shift back to get healthy as a population.

And that leads me to my recent trips to the grocery store. On Monday, I was pretty much finished shopping when I began looking at the label on a container of sour cream. I noticed there were some additives on the label I didn't really recognize (according to Pollan, a sign of a processed food), and so I decided to take the short walk over to the organic foods section of the store and do some comparing. The organic sour cream had three simple ingredients, all of which I recognized and could pronounce. The only problem was the organic sour cream was $3, compared to the $.60 (with coupon) I would pay for the non-organic sour cream with additives. I decided to tour the rest of the small organic section, picking up food items and reading the ingredient labels to find that most of the organic foods contained a limited number of ingredients and very few processed additives. The frustrating thing is that organic foods can be so much more expensive!

Since we are serious about cutting processed foods from our diet and wanted to get a good idea of how much going totally organic would cost, Tony and I decided to go to our local Whole Foods store today and price out our grocery list. I bought groceries on Monday and spent $60. The same groceries (only in non- or less-processed organic form) at Whole Foods added up to $101. Unfortunately, that steep of a jump in our grocery budget isn't a possibility, so we will be making more gradual changes. We are going to try to replace processed items with home cookin'. This means I will attempt to make home-made Nutrigrain bars (I found a very promising recipe!), side dishes, etc., but our goal is to introduce one new food a week. We are also working to add more veggies to our diet and are using smaller plates to encourage portion control.

Now, please don't think that we will never again eat processed food because of this. We especially don't want people to think they have to cater to our eating habits. We are just using this blog post to share good information. These changes certainly don't mean we will never eat Doritos, cookies, canned soup or delicious Dr. Pepper again. It just means we want to eat much less of it.

I highly recommend reading "In Defense of Food" if you can get your hands on it. Be prepared to change the way you think about food, for the better. I'll post a more lengthy review after I finish the book!

My baby has turned into a toddler

2009-09-12T17:26:00.000-05:00

Ruth has been developing a lot over the last few weeks. She has two little teeth in the middle of her lower gums (and is in the process of cutting some upper ones). She is becoming much more talkative and is now able to imitate a number of animal sounds (cow, dog, cat, lion, bear) as well as say a few words (read, mom, "dadad," shoes, hi). She is growing out of her 12-month clothes, including this super cute outfit her Grandma Diane and Grandpa Gardner bought her for her birthday:

She loves to dance to music that has a good beat. Here is a video Tony took of Ruth dancing a little to Weird Al's "White & Nerdy":

Her hair is getting really long and is starting to fall into her eyes a lot, so we've begun putting little ponytails into her hair. Tony gave his first shot at giving Ruth a ponytail this morning, and I think he did a good job:Last, but certainly not least, Ruth is walking. Today, she was walking around a TON (albeit very slowly), and I was able to take a video.

I have realized that Ruth's babyhood is slipping through my fingers. I was too nervous and uptight to enjoy her first year as much as I should have. However, I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of person she becomes!

Hungry Girl Recipe Review: Old Time Rocky Road Fudge

2009-09-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

So my wonderful sister-in-law, Jenn, and I have decided we are going to review a recipe from Hungry-Girl.com every month on our blogs. This month we decided to make Old Time Rocky Road Fudge, a recipe that uses only a handful of ingredients: brownie mix, canned pumpkin, light chocolate syrup, marshmallows and slivered almonds. You can find the full recipe here.

I have to say, I was very excited about making this. I am a real chocolate lover, and I was having such a strong craving for chocolate that I decided to make these a day early. (Sorry, I cheated, Jenn!) So I gathered up the ingredients, along with my helpful husband and assistant:
We started by mixing up the batter. We used regular chocolate syrup instead of light chocolate syrup simply because that's what we had in our fridge (and I didn't feel like buying the light kind just for this recipe). This is what we got:

Tony was the first to taste the batter, which was very smooth and quite thick. He said it tasted like "poo." I tried it, and I didn't think it was great, but not terrible either. I started to worry that I had wasted a perfectly good brownie mix. But we went ahead and baked up the batter, as directed. We then removed it from the oven, put the marshmallows and nuts on top, and baked it a while longer.

I was so excited to try this, but after reading the directions I realized the fudge had to chill for "several hours"!!!! I was craving chocolate right then, and so was Tony (to a lesser degree) so we settled for other snacks until our fudge was chilled. I had a make-shift "banana boat" (which turned out to be entirely too sweet (bad idea, me)) and Tony had hot chocolate.

After several hours had passed and the fudge was thoroughly chilled, I tried a piece:

To my surprise, my attempts to satisfy my chocolate craving were thwarted, once again! My expectations for this recipe were very high, and so I was very disappointed. While the texture of this was fudgy (but a little soft... more like pumpkin pie) the pumpkin flavor totally overwhelmed the chocolate. Actually, to me, it doesn't taste like chocolate at all. I had another couple of pieces today before blogging and decided that this recipe doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste like chocolate fudge. Tony had another piece today, too, and agreed that the pumpkin overpowered the recipe. I would much rather eat a small amount of real chocolate fudge and deal with all those calories and fat than eat this substitute. And so, for me, this gets a thumbs down. Out of 5 stars, I would give this 1 1/2 or 2.

I like what Hungry Girl is trying to do with her recipes, so I'm looking forward to next month's review!

Two good ideas and a bad one, not in that order.

2009-09-10T23:12:00.000-05:00

What a wonderful Labor Day weekend we had!

Good idea #1:

As many probably know, Meredith and I trained for the Bill Seymour half-marathon that was held on Friday, September 5th in Grand Island. We stayed the previous night with a good friend of our's, Jeanne Williams, and got out and ran our little hearts out!

Delayed by a potty break, a burnout-catch-up run and pained knees, I came in at a whopping 2:12 with Meredith finishing at 2:07. But hey, we finished it! I've never finished a Powerade so quickly. We had been sweating so much that the salt was dried and flaky on our faces.

After lunch at La Mexicana, we headed out to North Platte to enjoy a few days with our good friends the Olbrichts. We love them! Calvin, Alyssa and I acted out 1 Nephi 3 for everyone in a hut we made out of blankets, clothespins, with ties as headbands. We all played some serious Worms Armageddon on Saturday and Monday as well.

Bad idea:

Towards the end of our foray with the Olbrichts, Josh had a great idea to have a competition between the two of us: eat two enormous jalapeño peppers whole. It consisted of the following rules:

Facial expressions must be emotionless for five minutes from time of first bite.
Automatic disqualification for drinking anything or eating anything else before five minutes had passed.

Well... I won. But it was a bad idea.

Good idea #2:

The past couple of weeks had been a serious time of reflection for me about my talents and abilities and how I was using them to the benefit of my family, the Kingdom and others. This led me to the amazing realization (sarcasm) that I had a knack for professionalism, Spanish and creative writing. Creative writing aside, I realized I had a very marketable skill that had been right in front of me all along: my abilities with the Spanish language.

With the love and support of my dear wife and friends, I launched my first official business website for my business, Gardner Translations. It's a great feeling.

So there you have it in a nutshell! We were happy to travel and we're happy to be home.

Happy September!

2009-09-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

It's September, and I think it's going to be a good one this year. I love it when the weather starts cooling off and the leaves start changing. However, Tony and I have a lot to do before it gets too cold. Here is a short list:

1. Find some cheap lawn tools (a rake or two, some pruning clippers). I'm hoping to have some luck at an estate sale or a garage sale.

2. Go through boxes and tidy up basement storage room.

3. Sweep out and tidy up garage.

4. Wash and vacuum out car. (This might seem like a small task, but we don't do it very often.)

5. Clean living room carpet. (It gets a lot of traffic, and I'd like to get it nice and clean before the winter months.)

That's about one task a week. Now I need to get to it!!! :)

(Thanks, Jenn, for the idea.)

-Meredith

First day of school and other adventures...

2009-08-30T14:04:00.001-05:00

Tony went back to school full-time on Monday. He is taking 12 credit hours this semester, but his schedule worked out so that he only has a night class Wednesday night and then he's in class all morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Right now he's in the dual degree program for Spanish and business, so when he's all done he'll have two bachelor's degrees! Here's his first day of school pic:
Notice the lovely new bike that gets him to and from campus with much ease (unless it's raining... then I drive him).

Tony being in school full-time again takes some getting used to for all parties involved. There will be some days when he won't see Ruth for more than a few minutes, and I know that will be difficult. But in the end, the diplomas will be well worth all the sacrifices.

In other news, I am watching a little boy named Jack one or two days per week for a good friend of mine who works nights and needs sleep during the day. Jack is 18 months old. He and Ruthie like to watch a short video together in the morning.
He's a good little boy, and Ruthie gets along with him very well.

Ruthie is so close to walking it's not even funny. She can stand up now without holding on to anything, and every once in a while she takes a few steps without support as she cruises from one piece of furniture to another. It seems like all the other kids we know who are her age are already walking. I have a feeling that when she starts running around the house, I will be glad it took her a while to figure it out!

She's also starting to like putting on grown-up shoes, hats and other objects. Yesterday, she discovered she could crawl around while wearing an oven mitt:

It was super cute. Her hair is getting really long, too. Not quite long enough for a pony tail, but almost too long for just a barrette (not that they do any good, she just takes them out of her hair).

Tony and I are running in the Bill Seymour half-marathon in Grand Island on Saturday. We will try to remember to take pictures. Wish us luck!

-Meredith

Psst... the seeds don't make the pepper hot!

2009-08-18T15:23:00.000-05:00

That's right! It's not the seeds that will make a pepper hot!

Inspired with some kind of sick desire for things spicy, I planted two habanero plants in our backyard garden. Coming in at a beautiful golden yellow-orange, the lantern shaped habaneros are almost good enough looking to suffice as eye candy. But, ranking in at a wopping 300,000 on the Scoville rating system (compared to 3-8,000 jalapeños or 10-20,000 serranos), why just look at them?

The chemical that causes the burning reaction in all hot peppers is called capsaicin (cap-sigh-ih-sin). This chemical is concentrated in the internal "ribs" of the pepper. The seeds don't contribute to the heat, they just seem to because they are located on the ribs.

So don't just pick out the seeds of a hot pepper. Core the darn thing. Unless of course you're me. Then you need to mix a whole habanero, chopped, three banana peppers, chopped, 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1 cup of water, 1 tbsp. cumin and 1 tsp. salt and boil it until the stench curls the carpet and knocks your wife into a disgruntled, nostril-pained frenzy. Then blend, and voila!

Sure makes good hotsauce!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin)

Sincerely,

Anthony

My favorite websites

2009-08-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time on the internet during the day. Honestly, I probably spend too much time on the internet. However, all this web surfing has helped me gather a number of sites that are useful to me and probably would be to you, too. Here's a short list:

1. Hungr y Girl (ww w.hungry-girl.com) This website was created by a girl after my own heart: one who loves food but still wants to be healthy. The Hungry Girl offers tons of recipes and tips for anyone who wants to watch his/her figure without feeling cheated. She offers reviews of snacks, dining out tips and healthy remakes of comfort food recipes and restaurant fare. A few days ago we tried the Hungry Girl's recipe remake of blue box macaroni and cheese. It was a good base recipe. (We added a cup of regular cheddar cheese... not the healthiest, but still healthier than the blue box!)

2. Hey, it's free! (www.heyitsfree.net) I became intrigued with the idea of getting free goodies online a few months ago. I found this website, and it is by far the best (and the only one I use at this point). They post freebies daily, as well as news about coupons and in-store deals. My favorite freebies so far: free subscriptions to Oprah and Popular Science magazines, a full-sized roll of toilet paper, and coupons for free chocolate.

3. Mint (www.mint.com) We don't use this site as often as we used to, but I still like it. Mint.com is free financial tracking software. It allows you to get a simple look at your income and categorize your expenses. I recommend trying it. It's not perfect, but it's helpful in many ways. (And it's free!)

4. Hul u (www.hulu.com) If you do not yet know the joys of watching free television (and some movies) via the internet, you should check out Hulu. It is a completely site that compiles full episodes and clips of television shows and makes them available for your viewing pleasure. I love it because we don't have cable, nor do we have a converter box. I love watching Intervention and my guilty pleasure, America's Got Talent.

While I am a Facebook junkie of sorts, I am trying to get more use out of Twitter. I know a lot of people (my husband included) say they just "don't get" Twitter. Twitter is like a very simplified version of Facebook and seems to be more useful when it comes to integrating a cell phone with social networking. I just don't have many friends who post on there very frequently, so it's difficult for me to justify the use.

I'm also currently experimenting with Google Reader. It's a tool in Google that compiles the updates from all the websites you like to visit frequently into one site. I like it so far, but I'm not convinced that it is of more use to me than simply visiting each site individually.

Anyhow, let me know if you have any favorite sites, or what you think of these.

-Meredith

Keepin' up with the times

2009-08-04T20:19:00.000-05:00

Apparently I'm not very good at blogging! Sorry it's taken so long for me to update. I actually forgot I had a blog. :P

Anyway, lots of things have transpired over the past few months.

1. Ruth's first birthday:

We had a fun first birthday party at my parents' house. It will probably be the only time we have a party like it. Lots of relatives came and there was tons of food. Unfortunately, it was one of the few days she decided to be in a bad mood. Cake and a bath made everything better, though. :)

2. Vacation in Minnesota:

My grandparents once owned a fishing resort in Minnesota, so it's a family tradition to go up to northern Minnesota every few years for vacation. This year, we stayed at a place called Moore's Lodge on Leech Lake. It was probably the nicest resort we've ever visited, and we had a great time. Tony, Ruth and I went with my parents, my little brother and my nephew. (We all had a bad hair day in this photo. :-) )

3. Camping in Ogallala:

We went camping with some good family friends at Lake McConaughy in Ogallala, Neb., which is about 4 hours west of Omaha. We camped on the beach (I am still cleaning up after it, too!), spent hours digging out a van that got stuck in the sand, and endured five thunderstorms, all in about 36 hours. However, we did catch a large catfish, ate some delicious campfire cooking and had a great time swimming. The company definitely made it all worthwhile.

4. Saying goodbye to car #2:

We needed a more reliable car, so before we went on vacation in June, we sold my 2001 Ford ZX2 to purchase a 2003 Ford Taurus. After returning from vacation, we seriously contemplated selling our 1996 Dodge Intrepid (shown above). We bought the Intrepid 2 years ago, and it has been a true workhorse for us. We loved it more than we expected we would. With 170,000 miles on it, however, it had a whole host of mechanical problems we couldn't afford to fix. So we decided to sell it, and, as of Friday, we are a one-car family. We think with good communication and planning, we can make this work until we save up enough money for a new car. We bought Tony a new bike over the weekend so he can continue biking to school (about a 10-minute ride). Tony will take the bus to work on days I need the car.

Well, that's my summer update. Who can tell me where exactly summer went, by the way?

I'll try to update this more regularly!

-Meredith

It's about time

2009-04-29T15:20:00.000-05:00

Hey, thought it was about time to update! We have moved to Omaha, as most of you know, and are enjoying it. Tony is working at U.S. Cellular's bilingual store on 24th and L streets, and I am enjoying being a mom. :) During the last two weeks, everyone in our house has been sick with the flu! I also had a sinus infection, and Ruth had an ear infection. Tony's not been feeling well the last few days. Let's just hope and pray we all get well soon!

Cheers!

He just couldn't resist...

2009-01-16T09:00:00.000-06:00

Every time I see the movie Christmas Story, I wonder how someone could actually do what this little boy did. I guess the temptation was just too great for a 6-year-old!!!
(Photo from Omaha.com/Alyssa Schukar)

Published Friday January 16, 2009
It wasn't the best day to stick your tongue on a pole
BY ELIZABETH AHLIN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

The tall metal light pole was irresistible in the early morning subzero temperatures.

Mason Mulick had walked past it countless times before; he'd considered it; he'd been counseled against it.

But Thursday, on Omaha's coldest day this winter, the 6-year-old gave in.

He opened his mouth, leaned into the pole and unwittingly recreated a modern Christmas classic in an Omaha neighborhood near 164th and Pacific Streets. When Mason's little tongue touched metal, it stuck.

Arms flailed, Mason screamed, and the neighborhood kids waiting for the car pool crowded around, yelling: "His tongue's stuck on the light pole! His tongue's stuck on the light pole!"

His panicked mother, Laci Mulick, looked outside and saw Mason's predicament. In seconds, she was out there too — in her pajamas with two glasses of water.

A neighbor poured the first glass of water.

With Mason and his twin sister, Darby, wailing, his mom poured two more glasses, freeing Mason but leaving behind traces of Mason's tongue.

Then the bleeding started.

"It was scary," Mason said.

With a raw, swollen tongue and a slight fever, Mason spent several hours recovering from the pain of learning a life lesson the hard way.

Mason had seen the movie "A Christmas Story," but he wasn't sure why he did it.

Nobody triple-dog dared him, like the character Schwartz did to young Flick in the 1983 film.

Mason had thought about doing it before, and his parents had told him there would be consequences. But for some reason, he said, that light pole stuck in his mind as he walked across his lawn Thursday morning.

He didn't think anything bad would happen.

"I thought it wasn't sticky enough," said Mason.

But now Mason knows two things — frozen metal poles and tender little tongues are not a good combination; and he will never, ever do it again.

"No way."

Welcome

2009-01-16T08:53:00.001-06:00

Hello and welcome to our blog. We hope to use this to help keep in touch with our friends and family, who are scattered far and wide. Hope you enjoy it. :)