If You Give a Mom a Muffin

So blogging has not been a priority lately. I plan to get back in the groove soon! I have wAYYY too many pictures to share! A lot has happened in the last few months (Birthdays, etc). This pretty much says it all right now...
If You Give a Mom a Muffin
By Beth Brubaker adapted by Jessica R.
If you give a mom a muffin,
she'll want a cup of tea to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
Her three year-old will come and spill the tea.
Mom will wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry into the washer, she'll trip over shoes and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook.
 The cookbook is in the cupboard with all of the million unorganized recipes.
She will see unorganized recipes, which she feels need organized right away.
She will look for her pen to aid in the organizing.
The pen is in her purse, which is being dumped out by her one year-old.
Then she'll smell something funny.
She'll change the one year-old.
While she is changing the one year-old, the phone will ring.
Her three year-old will answer and hang up.
She'll remember she was supposed to phone a friend to come over for tea.
Thinking of tea will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some more.
And chances are, if she has a cup a tea,
her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

**SO, so true! We have been reading the popular "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, If you Give a Moose a Muffin, If you Give a Pig A Pancake, If you Take a Mouse to School lately and had to laugh when I saw what this mother had written! LOVE IT! Found this online and adapted it to fit my world! ;) Always multi tasking with my brain going a million miles a minute!

Happy 1st Birthday to our Mia Elizabeth Rose!! We did it! We made it through this first year! This was a challenging time for all of us as we transitioned from 1-2 kiddos but it's been wonderful too and we wouldn't trade it for anything! PaPa, GG and Grandpa Great came here for a couple of days! On her actual Birthday we did our tradition of daddy's homemade sphagetti (pasta noodles and sauce both homemade)! We had cake and ice cream! Mia didn't seem to enjoy the cake too much, although she had a belly full of sketti so she was probably VERY full! ;)

Birthday Party post to follow...

Hope

4 years ago this past week we miscarried our first pregnancy. My mother-in-law sent a beautiful azalea to us that we would plant to remember this moment in life that changed us for the better. When we moved from IL to OH our azalea bush stayed where we had planted it. While looking for a house to buy in OH we were blessed with 3 azalea bushes that were already planted in our front yard. Each year they blossom pretty much to the day we lost our little life growing in me.
This year we got a picture of Mia next to our beautiful bushes.

And 4 years later God has blessed us with two healthy beautiful girls!

11 months!

My heart is joyful! I can't believe I have two healthy daughters and the responsibility I've been given to be their Mama! I knew having two close together was going to be a challenge for me (and Chris) but the joy, oh the joy! There are so many days I just want to sit down and write out everything about mothering these 2 precious children but I just haven't made the time.
These 11 months, well, have had many ups and downs. I'm thankful for God's grace that sustains us. Without it I'm a mess!
Mia is:
-Walking along furniture
-Walking behind things while she pushes them
-Says "Hi" while waving
-When you ask her what a dog says or she sees a dog she says "woof, woof" ;)
-Tries to put legos together
-Associates where certain toys go and tries to put the ball in the popper, legos in the storage container, etc.
-Lays down when you ask her to.
-Still nursing 4x day
-Eating a lot more table food now (pretty much all done with purees)
-2 naps of 1.5-2 hrs each and STTN 11.5-12 hrs.
-Loves the outdoors, especially rides in the wagon.

Mia has always been the type of child to let you know what she wants. She's a tough one sometimes because she can be extremely stubborn. When she's doing something she knows she's not supposed to be doing and we tell her "that's a no" she will look at us and smile and sometimes proceed to do it anyway with the cutest smile. She is extremely cuddly, sweet and will go to almost anyone. She loves to be around people.
I'm enjoying watching the girls interact with each other. The other night they were chasing each other around the house by crawling (Mia's got this supercharged fast crawling thing going on) and they were laughing so hard! It's in these moments I pause and just listen to the gift of life God has blessed our family with.
So in these precious moments or the not so precious moments I hope I can remember the big picture-This Is Not Our Home but the responsibilities we have while we wait for our HOME are SO VERY IMPORTANT!!!
Mia Elizabeth Rose you are 11 months old! It's hard to believe in one month we will be celebrating your first Birthday!
Just before she turned 11 months at lunch after church with Chris's parents:


The girls looking out the window...

We tried our best to get the girls on camera as they were chasing each other and giggling...

New Milestones!

Our girls are growing up way too fast!! Some new milestones this week:
Nataleigh: FULLY potty trained-she had still been wearing a diaper to bed and as of this week no more diaper to bed! For about 2 months now she had been dry when she woke up and I was hopeful she was getting close! YAY!
Mia: When we tell her to lay down (For a diaper change, etc) she will lay down! It's so cute ;) She's also starting to walk around things and is pushing toys and the kitchen stool while she walks!
All this growing up makes mommy weepy but it's so much fun at the same time! ;)

Kiddies and Sickies!

It's not usual that our girlies are sick. With Nataleigh it has happened once or twice a year. Monday night Nat woke at 10pm which is not normal and she was burning up. Sure enough she had a fever-gave her Motrin and she slept all night and woke early and was burning up again. This time she said her throat hurt-yippie! Anyhow-we did not give her anything for pain and let her body run it's course. I was a little nervous because I didn't want her to be in pain but I knew this would be better for her in the long run. We are really trying to live by "You are what you eat" and tried our best to go by this. So how did we do it?
-Gave her one of our probiotics in her yogurt (2x)
-She ate eggs, drank our homemade carrot/apple juice, applesauce, a few bites of organic free-range chicken and sweet potatoes and a banana.
-Drank TONS of water.
-Let her rest and sleep all day
-Put a humidifier in her room
-Gave her some of my pumped breastmilk (so high in the antibodies she needs to fight whatever she has)

At dinner her fever had gone down 1 degree. When it was time for bed she barely had a fever. She slept all night and woke up this morning ready to go! Fever free and almost back to 100%! We did take it easy today and continue to feed her the same things.

Chris and I have done Jordan Rubin's Maker's Diet and try to follow it as much as possible (just too expensive right now for us). We were so thrilled to find out he wrote a children's book and we have been reading that! It's called Great Physician's RX for Children's Health.
We look forward to the day when we can 100% live by these principles. Until then we are doing the best we can and trying to honor God with our bodies.

Spring Is Here!

Yay for Spring!!! This weather has been AWESOME ever since we arrived back from our 9 day trip to Indiana to visit family! I'm really behind in my blogging due to being gone. The girls are getting so big I can't believe it!! ;)
Anyway, the title of this blog-Spring is HERE!!! We spent a lot of time outside last week and went to the park on our family day! This is the park that burned down last fall and was rebuilt! It's wonderful and Mia LOVED the swing for the first time!! Nataleigh HATED the swings! I love this park because the ground is a rubber material that Mia can freely crawl around and can't get too much in her mouth! ;) She puts everything in her mouth right now! I can't tell you how many bird feathers she probably swallowed at my parent's house from their pet bird, Promise! ;)
I will be blogging more now that we are settled back in!-And a blog post about our little family trip! ;)



This could almost have been submitted to Funniest Home Videos---watch closely at the end when Nataleigh runs into the swing and almost falls down...