Weekend Wrap Up

The weekend didn't exactly go as planned but we still managed to get a couple things accomplished.  Christmas is almost officially down from the inside of the house.  Just a couple more little things to put away and then organizing it all back in storage - because you know it has to fit in a certain way to get it all to fit in one space.  Tonight the "activity scene" comes down, the kids wanted to leave it up since they actually listened at church on Sunday and heard about the 3 Kings.  So the Kings have been moved into the manger now for a couple of days.

We also had another item added to the list thanks to Dave Cowan - Abby had to make jerky since he made some at the lake over new years and all she could talk about was how she liked it so much.  Oddly enough we are actually out of deer burger since Tim hasn't shot a deer this year (however he did shoot a rabbit on Saturday, first kill on the farm) so we had to buy some beef which is not usually what we make jerky with.  It was a lot fattier and I'm not sure I like the taste all that much, to used to the leaner meat I guess.

So we made Abby help since it was her project.  End results:
Tim:  Look at all that grease (from the dehydrator)
Ann:  It's okay, a little chewy
Abby:  It's not spicy like Dave's
Megan:  Ummmm, no thank you

The other project we did was to start, or make an attempt I guess at our 26 Acts of Kindness.  Something Ann Curry started after the Newtown shooting.  It's a big twitter thing, which twitter is something I choose to not even try to understand until I win the Powerball and have cool things to "tweet", or my girlfriends decide to all get on and we can tweet together and be cool with our 5 followers.
So - our first act of kindness was to donate our litter boxes, 1 pet taxi, litter scooper, bowls, and food mats to our local humane society to help with someone who was going to adopt a cat/kitten.

I'm not sure why Megan does not look all that happy.  We did browse the rabbits, cats, and dogs and discussed several times why we will not have a chihuahua as a dog.  There was a cute black lab that was already adopted, and a yellow one that can't be adopted until the 9th - but he'll go quickly.  There was a coonhound that I wanted to take home immediately.  Although he looked nothing like our Buddy, he reminded me of him.  The girls wanted to know why there were no fish to adopt......

Emma also had a couple new things, the first being the introduction of the sippy cup...

Not only did she grab it like a champ, she started sucking the water out of it immediately.  She could be the smartest baby we know.  She has also learned to drop it on the floor and laughs when we have to pick it up.  Tilting it up will be another story though, we have to keep it pretty full so she doesn't suck air.  She gets this at lunch and dinner feedings while she's at the table with us.

Emma's other food intro this weekend was carrots.

Getting the first taste Friday night, didn't even spit them out.

My first batch to freeze.  One bag = 15 cubes =  $.92 = AWESOME! 

Survey says:  All gone!

So I will admit I am enjoying the whole baby food making way too much.  The orange cubes are even cuter than the green cubes.  The cook book said to add some non-salted butter to help with the beta keratin and add some fat.  I think it kept them a little sweeter.  However there was a learning curve again.....carrots absorb water when steamed very fast!  Then the butter just burns in the bottom of the pan and carmelizes.  Good smell, messy clean up.  Added more water for the second batch.  Emma had plain carrots, carrots and green beans mixed to together, and carrots with cereal.  And the survey says:
Tim:  These are really good, I'm impressed
Abby:  I'll try them next time
Megan:  Ummmmmm, no thank you
Ann:  Not too shabby
Emma:  Grrrrrrr (she growls a lot, new favorite noise)


Next on the list is peas, have to use a food mill for this one, going to take an attempt at it tonight.  Abby and Megan are up for it and Abby actually wants some peas - as long as they stay in circles.

Currently...

This is for you Jenn (remind me to do it in February)!
Currently January:
Watching: Guys with Kids

Reading:  Top 100 Baby Purees:  100 Quick and Easy Meals for a Healthy and Happy Baby
 by Annabel Karmel  (I know I am exciting!)

Listening:  101.5 KPLA - missing Christmas music a little bit.

Making:  Baby food!

Feeling:  Exhausted (12 "stay at home days" in a row and only 3 were actually spent at our house)

Planing:  Something to do during the kid's spring break and how/what to do to de-clutter the house.  Goodwill will be getting a donation!

Loving:  Every day I can get with my family, they are growing up too quickly!

Baby Food!!

So with baby #3 I am making the effort to save a little money and make my own baby food.  Why I didn't do this for the first 2 is beyond me because it is so easy and saves a ton of money with minimal investment.  So I put on my Christmas list a couple baby food making essentials, browsed the web on how to make things, borrowed a cookbook and BAM - baby food!

Green Beans were my vegetable of choice to start with for Ms. Emma.  So what you see is my pureed 1 oz servings all packaged up and ready to be frozen.  Out of a bag and a half of frozen green beans I got about 50 1 oz servings.  A 2-pack of Gerber baby 1st foods from Toys r us costs $1.29, I probably spent $5 on green beans so on average saved between $10-$15 depending on how much we feed Emma at a time.  I should have read if my silicone trays were 1 or 2 oz servings before I threw away the wrapper, but I think they are 1 oz.  So easy to pop out and we just bag them in freezer bags and pull out a cube or two to defrost for dinner the next day.  We'll be able to mix them up with other "flavors" later as well.  Carrots and peas are next with some sweet potatoes not far behind.

Survey says:

"Yummy!  I like to eat."

All gone!!

I'll have to admit, I did a little party dance when I popped them out of the trays because they look so cool.  Tim was even impressed.  Half a bag went to day care this morning for Emma to enjoy.  I'm excited for carrots tonight!!

Holiday Recap

The holidays are finally over and the words I can think to describe it was wonderful, happy, friend filled, stressful, and exhausting.  The Thank you cards have all been written and mailed and Christmas decorations will start coming down this weekend and we can officially put the 2012 holidays to bed, and maybe I'll get a nap in there too.  The girls were overly spoiled by their friends and relatives, we ate WAY too much, and slept very little it seemed.

Here are a couple of photos from our adventures:

Christmas Day at the Bovee house. 

Megan teaching Theo how to paint in her new book.  He had never painted before and Megan was a very good teacher.

Schmidt/Bovee Christmas Day - these two were the sorters, hard to tell where actual piles are.

Owen and the quilt I made him, finished in time for Christmas thankfully.

First Christmas for Emma and Owen, they look like they have matching outfits almost.  Emma is wearing Megan's and Owen might have Theo's on from the 2009 Christmas - so there is a chance they are matching.....

Christmas with our neighbor's the Roddy's.

Visiting Santa at Carrollton Christmas - and yes, Emma is crying.  The whole room cheered as they have missed a crying Schmidt Christmas photo.  Just wait until next year.....

The Schmidt great-grandchildren exchange before opening - Abby and Megan are in there somewhere.  There are 21 great grandchildren now and only 1 on the way that we know of for 2013.  Doris and Joe would be so proud.

Emma enjoying her first mechanical horse ride on New Year's Day.

We spent New Year's at the Lake with our usual crew minus the Resnik's who decided to have a baby on NYE.  I'm counting on Jenn to post pictures for that in her December Daily posts.

Finishing up the 12 Days

A goal of 2013 is to complete unfinished projects instead of starting new ones...so:
On the 12th day of Christmas my children left for me:

12 extra hangers

11 times slipping/falling on the ice

10 royal Little People (we have 2 princes as well)


9 candy balls on the kitchen floor
8 Christmas decorations
7 minute wait to see Santa
6 Hannah Montana songs
5 infected ears
4 brand new tires
3 new prescriptions
2 stinky pumpkins
and a toilet that runs by itself.

And that my friends is the end of that.

On the 9th Day of Christmas

On the 9th Day of Christmas my children left for me:

9 candy balls on the kitchen floor
8 Christmas decorations
7 minute wait to see Santa
6 Hannah Montana songs
5 infected ears
4 brand new tires
3 new prescriptions
2 stinky pumpkins
and a toilet that runs by itself.

**While decorating the gingerbread house apparently a few of these got away from the construction crew.  Hopefully found my last one this morning.

Happy 35th Birthday to my wonderful husband Tim.  Without his help this week getting everything ready for Christmas my sanity could have been in serious jeopardy.  And yes, that is a backwards 2 we used as a 5, I considered it recycling. 

On the 8th Day of Christmas

On the 8th Day of Christmas my children left for me:

8 ornaments on the floor
7 minute wait to see Santa
6 Hannah Montana songs
5 infected ears
4 brand new tires
3 new prescriptions
2 stinky pumpkins
and a toilet that runs by itself.....

**so there might be more than 8 ornaments but this is getting tricky!

Abby and Megan (plus Tim since he was elected to help since he knows how to build houses) decorated their yearly gingerbread house.  This one is Rudolph's (he's on the roof) and Santa and the Abominable Snowman are out front.  It's still standing today so all is well.

Also - Happy 35th Birthday to Tim.  In the middle of all the crazy that is going on for Christmas preparations we still try to let him have his day.  We'll see how that goes tonight.......I could really use an Elf right now to help get some things done.