Fall Projects

This past month I've been collecting fun project ideas from a few different blogs, one is a friend from high school who has twins a few months older than Ellen. She has the cutest ideas for fun fall projects and I've shamelessly stolen most of them. :) Another fun blog called: Play at Home Mom also has a lot of great projecty ideas, though sometimes they are a little more complicated than I'm ready for.

Here are a few of the projects that we've done:

Fall Wreaths:
I took Ellen and Emma to the park one day while babysitting and gave them two big buckets to collect leaves. They were both really excited about it, and when we got to the park immediately sat down to put all of the leaves they could find in their buckets.



This enthusiasm didn't really last the entire time, but we did spend about 30 minutes collecting leaves and pine cones. Ellen kept sitting down and declaring that she needed to rest. Emma was much more cooperative but got quite upset when she got sap on her hands from the pine cones. We got lots of different colored leaves, and the girls had fun finding different colors and shapes.

Here they are with their completed buckets:




The next day Emma and her mom came over to make the wreaths, so this was a two day project! I got foam wreaths from Michael's, and we used a hot glue gun to put the leaves in place. Ellen and Emma put a few leaves on the wreaths, but then both decided to be done. I gave them both markers and this bought a little more time, they decorated the wreaths while Melissa and I glued on the leaves and pine cones. The only issue we had was when Ellen was helping me glue on a leaf and put her hand down on the hot glue right after I had just squeezed it out of the gun. She was very upset and cried for a while. Her hand just got a little bit burned, it turned a bit red but there was no blister. Next time I might try for a different type of glue, but I'm not sure that it would hold the leaves and pine cones in place. At least Ellen learned not to touch hot glue!

All in all it was a great project - 2 days worth of activities and both girls are very proud of their wreaths which are now hung on our front doors. I will definitely do this again next year!






Fall Trees
The next project Ellen and I did together was a fall trees art project. This one was a good one in that I was able to sit still for most of the project, which is getting more and more important the more tired I get!

First I took some construction paper and cut up "leaves" in different fall colors: yellow, red, orange and brown. We talked about what colors I was cutting up, and then I let Ellen pretend that they were leaves falling to the ground while saying "Wheee!" She loved this!
Next I took some clear contact paper folded it in half, and cut out the shape of a tree (just the top part). I then spread the contact paper out on the table and we picked up the leaves and sprinkled them on to the sticky contact paper, again saying "Wheee!" Ellen liked that they stuck to the paper. I took the other half of the contact paper without leaves and pressed it on top to make a tree! I then cut out a trunk of brown construction paper, and added it to the tree top, making a complete tree.

We made two of them and then I hung them in the windows. They are super pretty to look at, the fall colors look awesome against our actual fall colors outside!



Beans with Halloween objects / Letters
The latest project we did which wasn't really so much a project as it was a fun new toy for Ellen to explore was a beans sensory bin. I bought a bunch of the cheapest beans I could find at the grocery store, some erasers, foam letters, and Halloween monster finger puppets. I put them all in a big container, and gave Ellen some spoons and containers to play with. She LOVED these beans and immediately told me to "Go away Mommy" so she could play independently! I happily complied and made dinner. :)

I am slowly trying to introduce her to letters, so far she knows the upper case letter E. I added in a few foam Ms for Mommy and Ds for Daddy into her bin as well as a bunch of Es. We practiced identifying them a few times and she seemed to enjoy finding the different letters buried in the beans.

Her favorite objects in the beans by far were the Halloween monster finger puppets. She kept putting them on her fingers and running around the house yelling "ROAR!!" to scare the cat. It was hilarious.




Our next project will be magnets! I bought some magnet paper that you can print on, and I've been collecting various objects that I plan to glue magnets to so she can play with them on her easel that has a magnetic side. I'm hoping to include her in picking pictures with me on the computer, she's never used a computer before besides to bang on the keyboard... so we'll see how that goes!

These projects have been a lot of fun to do over the past month. I'm hoping to have a couple set aside ready to go so people who are coming to help us with the twins can do a fun project with Ellen so she doesn't feel left out!

The twins should be here in a few weeks! I'm 34 weeks this week, need to make it to 36 to be considered "term" and to be able to deliver in the local hospital. This is my first goal! Once I hit 36 weeks assuming all is going well I'd like to make it to 38 weeks if possible. The babies aren't very big yet (only ~4lbs) so I'd like to give them as much time as possible to grow!

Here's me at 34 weeks: (sorry its kind of grainy, Matt just took this tonight and the lighting wasn't great)


p.s. check out the upside down Elmo balloon in the background - that balloon is from Ellen's Elmo party on October 6th... over 3 weeks ago and that balloon is still going STRONG! :)

2nd Birthday Party with Elmo

Ellen is 2!! I can't quite believe I have a 2 year old! I feel like this past year has just flown by and she's grown into such a sweet little girl. We celebrated her birthday with an Elmo themed birthday party with her friend Emma who has a birthday 6 days after hers. We had lots of friends and family here to celebrate with us and it was a great party!

The girls had matching Elmo outfits, but had to wear jackets most of the time because the weather was a bit chilly, but thankfully not raining!!

Here are a few pictures of the big day:

The birthday girls:


The toddlers: Emma, Ellen, Emmalia and Marshall (plus Mommy Kristen) in the background


Ellen and her Aunt Sara and Aunt Lindsay:


We played an awesome party game: Pin the Nose on the Elmo!
Here is Ellen getting spun around by Uncle Chris (Emma's Daddy)


And she goes for the win:


Actually all of the kids did really well and were remarkably accurate with nose placement. I think Emma ended up being the closest. :)

We had chocolate cupcakes because Ellen LOVES chocolate. She ate her first one in about 1 minute by shoving it in her face. She then had a 2nd one. She was definitely not hungry for any dinner that night!


Party Table: There were a lot of awesome gifts!!


Girls playing in the sandbox at the park where the party was held:



In other news...we have our dog back. The guy who adopted her was a bit too naive and didn't really listen to me when I told him that she doesn't get along with other dogs inside. (I must have told him 100 times) So he stupidly had her stay with his friends dog the FIRST WEEKEND he had her, and of course they got in a big fight, with Amara as the attacker. So she was returned to the shelter 2 days after the "adoption" and is now back with us. We continue to take her to their adoption events, and people love her, but seem to have an issue with one of her two problems: Either they have other dogs, so that won't work, or they have young children, and I just don't trust her around young children. So... we will continue to foster her and hopefully over the next month we will find a good home for her with someone who is not a moron.

Lastly, here are Ellen and Emma on a walk in their new birthday present rain boots. (it was NOT raining, but Ellen loves wearing her boots so she wears them every day) Emma also wanted to wear hers once Ellen came over with them on. :)


And here is a picture of me at 31 weeks!! We are getting closer!


Oh and PS. we are *maybe* starting potty training!?! Ellen peed on the potty ~5 times today! She did have one accident while she was wearing her big girl underwear which we are letting her wear to add to the excitement of it, but its a start! I'm still a little concerned she's not ready, but I'm also so ready to have her out of diapers. I don't think she knows when she needs to go, but she's good at going once she's on the potty. Parents who have done this before... any advice? Our toddler 411 book says that if you are putting your child on the toilet every 2 hours then you have succeeded in potty training yourself and your child is not ready. Agree / disagree?

A Weekend of Cooking

I'm a little behind in my posts, I seem to be getting more and more tired lately for some reason! :)

Two weekends ago my friend from college Angela came to visit and cook with me for the weekend! Our goal was to make lots of yummy food to put in my deep freezer so that when the twins come (or before if I'm too tired to cook!) we will have delicious nutritious meals that are ready to go.



We ended up making 8 different main course recipes serving 4 people, and then we doubled all of them, making a total of 16 meals serving 4 people.

We also made three recipes of quick breads: banana, pumpkin, and zucchini for breakfasts. (these are so good I have already been starting to eat these!!)

We had such a good time cooking together, it was such a nice way to spend a weekend, though next year hopefully we'll do it again with a few bottles of wine!

Here are the recipes that we made:

Main dishes:
Chicken & Broccoli Cheddar Casserole
Creamy Spinach Lasagna
Thai Coconut Curry
White Bean Tuscan Soup
Mexican Casserole
Sausage & Chicken Jambalaya
Amazing Meatballs
Curried Pumpkin Apple Soup


And here are some pictures of the food, I didn't take enough, sorry!

Thai Coconut Curry:


Amazing Meatballs:


And here is all of the food in our freezer!

29 weeks and OW!

Made it to 29 weeks! Hurrah! Now I have to make it another 7-8 weeks... I know I should be enjoying this pregnancy, it may be the last one I have... but I'm getting bigger and these babies are kicking harder! I am about ready to be done and have these babies already! When I was pregnant with Ellen I remember loving all of her kicks, they were so sweet and only slightly annoying at 2am. I don't know whether its because there are two of them, or because my stomach is more tender because its stretched a bit more, but OW do these babies kick hard! A lot of their kicks actually hurt and most of them just feel uncomfortable. And I have 8 more weeks of this! Oh boy.

Here is a pic of me looking pretty huge in a dress. I blame the dress:

(this is at 27 weeks btw... I've grown 2 weeks since then!)


Here is a picture of me and Ellen - I don't look as huge here!



And here is our happy family:



We had our 28 week appointment last week and everything went great - Anna (baby A, on the left side) is still head down, and weighs 2lbs 9oz. Lucy (baby B, on the right side) has flipped so she is now head up, and weighs 2lbs 8oz. They need to make it to 5-6lbs each, so they've still got a ways to go. We hope that we make it to 37-38 weeks! They will be Thanksgiving (or close) babies!

Here is Anna:

And here is Lucy!

One sad thing is going on in our lives this week, we have decided to give our dog up for adoption. We have had our dog Amara for about 3 1/2 years and she's been a wonderful dog. She has a few quirks, but we had learned to deal with them, until a few weeks ago when she started demonstrating aggressive / dominating behavior towards Ellen. She was wonderful with Ellen when she was a baby, but something about the transition to toddler changed everything. She didn't hurt Ellen, but she did scare her, and we a) don't want Ellen to get hurt if Amara ever tried to bite her and b) don't want Ellen growing up scared of a dog that is aggressive towards her.

So, two weeks ago we surrendered her to a local no-kill shelter but agreed to foster her until a home could be found. I wanted to use the shelter because they do weekly adoption events where people come to see dogs which is much more publicity than we could ever manage for Amara on craigslist or any classifieds. During Amara's first adoption event at the shelter two Sundays ago - someone decided they wanted to adopt her!! This past weekend he brought a friend's dog to see if they would get along outside, and Amara passed with flying colors, so she will be adopted this Saturday. We will really miss her, she has been a great dog and we love her dearly. Ellen is really going to miss her too - the other day she said to Matt: "I love Amara SO much!" :( It is the right thing to do for us and Amara. I think Amara will be happier in a home where she does not have to share attention with a toddler and two twins!! The guy who is going to adopt her is single, lives alone with no other pets, and wants a dog! He even lives kind of close to us so he will take her to the same park that we walk her in! Maybe we'll even run into them there, which might make me really sad, though it would be good to see her happy!

Here are a few pictures I took today. We will miss her.

First Day of Tiny Tots Preschool

Ellen had her first day of preschool last week, and I'm finally getting around to posting about it! We decided to start her in preschool a little earlier than usual (she is not quite 2 yrs) for a few reasons. One, our church offers an awesome not too expensive program that has a 1-2 yr old "Tiny Tots" room that is two mornings a week from 9-12. It was easy and familiar for us and for Ellen since her classroom is the same one as the church nursery that she's been going to for a while now. Two, Ellen is such a social little girl, and I thought that she'd do great and enjoy being in a social environment, especially once the twins come we will be home a lot more than we are now. I think she will appreciate getting out of the house for some major activities twice a week. And three - I get ~2 months of free time twice a week!!! This will all change once the twins arrive, but until then its been nice to have some time off! Today while Ellen was at school I met a friend for breakfast, went for a swim at the Y, and got my oil changed! It was a very productive morning! :)

Here are a few pictures of the first day:








All in all she did really well and has had minor separation issues. For anyone familiar with Ellen about a year ago... being separated from Mommy led to major screaming. I tried to leave her at the Y daycare for an hour last fall and she THREW UP on the daycare worker from screaming too hard. So yeah. Ellen had separation anxiety BAD. I'm happy to say that she seems to have gotten through the worst of it! She hasn't cried at all when I've left her at school, and today was day 3! Apparently she was a little fussier today and when I asked her why she had been crying, she said she was crying for Mommy... :( But I think actually her 2 yr old molars are coming in and they hurt.

They have a really structured routine in her classroom: They start off the morning with an art project, then they go play in the "big room" that has slides, balls, cars, etc. On Thursdays they go to music class instead of the big room. After the big room or music class, they come back to their room and have a snack, change diapers, and have some free-time play with the huge amount of toys that are in their room. And then its time to go home! So far Ellen has loved reading books and playing on the slide in the big room.

Her friends Emma and Jocelyn are also in the same class, which I think also helps with the separation! And picturing them doing activities together is just too cute. :)

Here is a picture of the three of them playing together on the first day. They were so excited to be there that no one would look at me to take a picture!

Duck, Duck, GOOSE!

Here is a cute video of Ellen and her friend Emma playing Duck Duck Goose at the park today. They don't quite have all of the rules of the game grasped, but really enjoy chasing each other!!


I babysit Emma while her mother Melissa works at Sylvan (same place I work!) and then when I work, Melissa watches Ellen. Its a great trade and neither of us has to pay for daycare. Not that we could afford daycare since Sylvan doesn't pay very well and we work there part-time! Sadly (?) this will all be coming to an end this fall as Melissa is having a baby in October, and then I'm having our twinies in November. There is no way that one adult could watch two toddlers and THREE newborns, so we will both probably stop working! In the spring I'd like to go back and work maybe one evening a week tutoring, and let Matt watch the girls.. but we'll see! Right now I'm so tired most of the time I'm just looking forward to being done with work. Not that having twins will make me any less tired, but at least I won't be pregnant tired anymore.

Today I actually got dinner completely ready during Ellen's nap before I went to babysit which was an accomplishment. I made a delicious chicken stir fry with rice and veggies. We are still getting our summer farmshare which has been awesome and very diverse this summer! We've gotten so many fruits and veggies; its made cooking easy! I added some yellow green beans (not sure what these actually were), a zucchini, and an orange bell pepper to the stir fry and it turned out great. Here is a picture of the final result:
(admittedly it doesn't look too appetizing because of the lighting and the white bowl... but it was amazing. Picture it drizzled with toasted cashews!!)


Actually now that I'm looking at it on my computer the picture looks kind of gross. Sorry. It was good, I promise. :)

I actually have a few cute photos of Ellen from the past week:

Today at the park climbing all over this concrete structure:


Cooking with Daddy in the kitchen while I slept! Matt made pancakes (yum!) and Ellen made a floury mess. Totally worth the extra ZZZs. ;)




Last thing - looking at these pictures of her in her pigtails is reminding me of something that happened at 6am on Sunday morning.... admittedly it was not as hilarious then, but looking back at it now its quite funny. So at 6am Sunday morning we are awoken by screams of panic from Ellen's room. Matt goes in to get her and calm her down, but he can't get her to stop crying... she doesn't want him, she doesn't want milk... she just keeps saying something over and over that he can't understand. I finally get up to see what's wrong, and when I walk in the room she's sobbing "Ponies, Ellen wants Ponies." By "Ponies" what she means is that she wants her hair to be put in pony tails. At 6am. SO...I put her hair in pony tails, and then I went back to bed. Unfortunately for Matt she did not so he had to get up with her. This is when they made the pancakes! :):)

** A side story to the pony tails is that on Sunday we went to a women's soccer game with my college friend Erin and her boyfriend Justin. Justin's sister plays for West Virginia and they came to town to see us and watch his sister play soccer! The game we went to on Sunday was West Virginia vs. the #1 team in the nation: Stanford. WV was expected to lose, especially since they had lost their Friday night game. It just so happens that Sunday morning at 6am the pony tail holder colors that Matt picked out were blue and yellow - West Virginia's colors, which she wore to the game! And amazingly West Virginia (and Justin's sister) played an awesome game and actually BEAT Stanford 1-0!! It was a super exciting game and Ellen loved it. Maybe we can take a little credit for her blue and yellow ponies?!?!? :):) At least she was a good luck charm. And apparently now we are West Virginia fans! Go Mountaineers!

Three Awesome Gluten Free Recipes

I realize that I'm going to have to change my blog name since it is clearly no longer a food blog and has morphed almost completely into a baby and pregnancy blog!!

However, we are still doing the fresh 20 (about every other week) and so I have a few awesome recipes from last week to share.

The first is one that I repeated and made again this week because it was so good:

Tomato and Spinach Rice Pitas
**I have changed this recipe based on what I put in it, so its not identical to the fresh 20's recipe**

1 cup rice
2 cups water

2-3 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into small pieces
1 tomato, diced
2 cups of fresh baby spinach, chopped
1 medium cucumber (or zucchini), chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/2 lemon juiced to make 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

gluten free pitas (or regular pitas if you are not GF)


1. Cook the rice according to package directions
2. Cook the chicken, add to rice
3. Add tomato, spinach, cucumber, avocado, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper to rice mixture, stir to combine.
4. Toast pitas, cut in half and fill with spinach/rice mixture, and enjoy!!

Even Ellen LOVED these pitas! She ate almost 3/4 of an entire pita with filling. I was pleasantly surprised, especially since she almost never eats rice or spinach!


The second one is actually two recipes in one:
BBQ Chicken, and BBQ Chicken Pizza
This is probably the best BBQ sauce I've ever had... it was ahmazing.


BBQ Sauce: (for both meals)
1 6oz can of tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
1/4 cup water

1. In a small bowl whisk to combine all ingredients. Add water if too thick, but not too much, the sauce should stay pretty thick. Divide in half, half for BBQ chicken and half for BBQ chicken pizza.


BBQ Chicken:
(Buy enough chicken for both BBQ chicken dinner and BBQ chicken pizza, I used about 2 lbs which I think was enough for both of us plus leftovers.)

Season all of the chicken with a mixture of:

1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder

Line a baking sheet and cook chicken for ~25 minutes or until done. In the last ~5 minutes or so, brush on the BBQ sauce. Be careful the sauce will burn quickly so don't leave it in for too long!

***Save 1/2 of your chicken for the BBQ chicken pizza, you will need 2 cups***


BBQ Chicken Pizza:

4 gluten free pitas or flatbread
BBQ Sauce
1/4 medium red onion
2 cups baby spinach, chopped
2 cups BBQ chicken, shredded
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

1. preheat oven to 425
2. Line a baking sheet and lay out pitas, spread about 1-2 tbsp of BBQ sauce on each pita. Add onions, then spinach, then chicken, and finish with 1/2 of cheese on top of each.
3. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.



And that's it! Three great GF recipes!
Sorry I forgot to take pictures, but they are worth making - easy and delicious!!