Our Journey Through Parenthood: This & That and Everything In-Between

ANNALIESE

And I think we will start with Annaliese...my STAR!!!! Still sweet and adorable as ever. She had her 6 mo. check up early this week and is weighing in at 14.13 pounds and if I remember right 25 1/4 inches. Doc said based off of her milestones she is hitting that developmentally she is doing things at 8 months so she is 2 months ahead of schedule. Along those lines I guess I should tell you that she started army crawling this past weekend at just over 6 months old. CRAZINESS!!!! I think she just can't wait to keep up w/big brother and big sister. She is sleeping great, she has slept through the night a few nights in a row and is now only waking once sometime between 4-6 on nights that she does wake up and even then she eats for about 10 min and then goes right back to sleep. She wakes between 8:30-9:30 and is sleeping about 4-5 hours during the day. Sometimes she takes one super nap for 4 hours and then take one cat nap and other days she take 3 naps like she should be doing...but I let her do her thing instead of forcing a schedule on her. I would prefer her to be on a schedule but on days when she wants to take one long nap I feel like I should let her instead of waking her so we'll see if anything normalizes and I can put her on a schedule then :-)

MY TWINNIES

I love my 'double trouble' so much, sometimes when I look at Annliese and I try to remember the twins at that age it is hard to imagine they were that size once and only a shadow of who they are today. They have grown so much and continue to amaze me every step of the way. They are officially on Summer Break from school but I know they can't wait to start again in the fall. They will start the 3 y/o program right after Labor Day and will go 3 days a week from 0915-1215 (MWF). I had so much fun being able to participate w/them, as their school invited the parents to attend the Easter Egg Hunt, a Mother's Day Brunch, and end of school ceremonies. It was so sweet to see them be part of the program and how much they have learned and grown from their experiences even though it was just a short time. I had a very proud mommy moment picking the twins up from school right before Mother's Day. Their teacher took time to stop me and tell how wonderful the twins are and how much she LOVED them and thanked me for bringing them. She said Evan had captured her heart and that he was such a sweet and responsible kid and that he is going to be such a great big brother. She went on to say how sweet and affectionate Taryn is as well. I was so relieved to hear this because to be honest, I wasn't sure how they were doing and I feared they were adding chaos to her once cohesively run class as the twins started months after the others. I imagine their first week or so made her feel like it was the beginning of the school year all over again and I was just hoping she wasn't resenting us starting so late in the school year. So I guess it is safe to say that the twins are much better for their teachers and in school than they are at home...which is fine w/me, I am happy to know they save their good behavior for other people :-).

Other going-ons w/the twins include no more diapers/pull ups for Taryn...she is fully day and night trained now. We were just doing diapers/pull ups at night but I ran out and didn't buy more and she is doing great. We have, as of yesterday, given up the sippy cups and are now drinking from an open cup, yesterday they did better than today, but overall they are doing great they have no problem drinking from the open cup the problem comes w/them being a bit careless and knocking their cup over. We are also done w/the bed rails, so they are in full up twin beds now and yes, Evan fell out a couple of times but he is doing great and their beds are low to the ground so no injury risk :-). They are just growing up so fast and every time I turn around we seem to be in a new phase.

OUR FAMILY

Chad and I continue to work on the house and getting settled, in the midst of this transition, really since last Feb a lot of things have fallen to the wayside including healthy eating and meals. Sometimes we did OK and other times well I would be to embarrassed to share how uncharacteristically our eating habits got, we'll just leave it at lots and lots of take out. Now that things are at least starting to get settled for us I figured no time was better to get back on track. A few months ago I came across this blog http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/ and really its not far off from how we aspire to eat anyhow, maybe just takes it a step or two further. While I limited the amount of sugar/sweet I gave the kids I would use sugar sparingly in baked goods like muffins and breads, I also did store bought whole wheat breads and other foods that I felt were OK but now understand maybe are more processed than originally thought. What the information on the blog has challenged me to do is to use zero granulated/brown sugar and instead honey and 100% pure Maple Syrup in my baking and other items as well as buy nothing processed and make most of my own stuff including breads and pastas (not sure I am quite there yet). I have put some of these principles to the test w/some banana muffins earlier this week and they were great (no sugar just a tablespoon of honey added to the mix). To help us focus our meal plans w/clean eating I subscribed to www.emeals.com clean eating meal plan, so far so good. The first meal I made was Asparagus Lemon Soup (pictured below), Whole Wheat Biscuits, and Honey Glazed Apricots, it was actually very good and the kids liked it too. I was nervous to try the soup, I mean its pureed Asparagus but I will be making this again, it was YUMMY!!!

My Bowl of Soup

The Twins Plates (soup, apricot and heart shaped whole wheat biscuit)

While we are not foreign to this way of eating we do have some more changes to make to be 100% real food. I think for Chad and I the biggest change we have to make is no more Splenda or other sugar subs, we will be exploring other ways to sweeten our coffee, tea and I guess give up soda completely which probably is for the best. Diet Dr. Pepper has been my one vice that I have had no intention of ever giving up but its probably time and I really don't want the kids to have soda and I don't think it would be fair to keep it in the house and tell them it's only for Chad and I, right now they don't care but eventually it may become more of an issue.

Another challenge I have is to readjust the way I view food as I have bought the diet version of foods forever, almost everything in my shopping cart is reduced fat, low fat, no fat, sugar free so on and so forth...I'm a food marketers dream. I want the lowest overall calorie intake I can get but I am learning to adjust my train of thought and realize that real and natural even if higher in calorie is more important. Also how my body processes these calories and what I am putting into my body is probably more important then my over calorie intake for the day. So as we adjust the way we think and feel about food we will make these changes and see how it works out.

We don't view this as a diet as we are not 'on a diet' we have the intention for these to be life time changes for us and our family. On the other side of that I believe in living life and enjoying life too, so I am not going to make us prisoners of our own rules when we are out and about and want to enjoy a treat, I am all for that, I just think we need to make these changes for us, for this to be our daily normal. We will celebrate birthdays and holidays w/lot of sugary and fun treats, not like we need another reason to look forward to the Holidays but why not save if for then anyways :-).

Yesterday, I made the twins smoothies w/spinach in them for the first time and they didn't even blink. I had left over banana from breakfast and apricots from the night before so I threw it all into the blender w/plain greek yogurt, spinach, ice and a little maple syrup. I poured the left over into ice pop molds for frozen 'gogurt' pops.

There will definitely be some adjustment for the twins as well as they have gotten used to having Gold Fish Crackers, store bought cereal and granola bars and other processed treats that I don't plan on buying any more of, but they are doing fabulous so far as most of the foods I have given them are not foreign to them, they are used to lots of fresh fruit, veggies and yogurt/smoothies. Today for lunch we had whole wheat pittas bought from Trader Joes w/homemade refried beans, cheese and whole fat sour cream (can't remember the last time I bought that). Evan scarfed his down and then ate half of Taryn's. Taryn was all about the fresh berries that were on the side, she wasn't so crazy about her pita but she never has been my sandwich/bread girl so I think we will get there w/her. My intent was to leave her uneaten pita for her for later but then Evan went and grabbed it and started to eat it so I let him have it, I figured if he was hungry better he have it than battle Taryn :-)

We still have some things to learn and changes to make but we are taking our time and making necessary changes as we go.

THE HOUSE

Status : Work in Progress but getting there

Here are some photos from our latest projects which include wall paper in the master bedroom along w/crown molding and paneling in the foyer. We still don't have one room 100% done so it will be an exciting day when I can post photos of a completed room but until then these progress pictures are as good as it gets :-)