Getting older!

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

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

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)

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.

Christmas and home improvement adventures

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

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

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. :)