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!

HG Review #2: Cheesy goodness? Not quite.

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!)

Disney Planning (Already)

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