Spring is coming!

This past month has been beautiful! Mid February ushered in temperatures in the 60s and 70s, so H1, H3, and I have been spending every possible free moment outside enjoying it! Other than late September, this is my favorite time in VA....it's not cold and rainy and not blazing hot either. Almost every morning H3 and I take a walk to the Post Office. Along the way, H3 has to investigate every rock, stick, leaf, and dandilion! Though the Post Office is less than 1/4 of a mile away, it typically takes us 20 minutes or so round trip with all of her detours! She's so cute though, and I just can't deny her the pleasure of investigating everything. She has such a curious mind--very detail oriented.

At the end of February I took a quick trip with her to Lynchburg to see some friends. Our first stop was the university I used to work at to see some of my former coworkers, most of whom I've kept in contact with. They usually ask me to stop in when I come to the area so they can say hello and see how much H3 has grown. She loves wandering around the office and saying "hi" to everyone. From there, we met my friend Cate for lunch. Cate is also a former coworker and dear friend. I was blessed to be in her wedding a few years ago. Then, we stopped by another friend's house to help her unpack. She and her husband had just moved in the weekend before and I figured she could probably use a little help getting organized. They have the sweetest little 2 month old (now 3 months, I guess) boy! After spending the night with another friend and letting H3 play with their 2 year old son, we met Cate again at 10 the next morning and I watched her 1 year old, Natalie, while she was in a meeting before we had lunch. H3 and Natalie got along so well! They were playing in an empty conference room and had the best time (see pic below of both girls).




As I mentioned, H3 and I have been spending a lot of time outside! She loves playing the backyard and seems to also enjoy running laps around our house! For the first time, I'm now wishing we had a fenced in backyard, since I'm running those laps with her. She'd pretty fast for having such short legs, or at least I think so.



Last Sunday, we joined another family after church for a picnic lunch in a local park. It's the same park where we had H3's birthday last year, and they have a huge wooden playground called Fort Fun. The other family, whose house we meet at for small group, has a 16 year old, a 5 year old, and twin two year olds, all boys, and little girl due in July. H3 loves playing with the three younger boys. They have as much energy as she does! By the end of the afternoon all the little ones were tuckered out. H3 fell asleep as soon as we got in the car and slept the whole way home, plus another couple hours at the house!

H3 sitting in H1's lap at the picnic table.


Slide!



This weekend has been a bit more mellow. It's a bit cooler (in the 50s) and I picked up a sinus infection or something this past Thursday. Since then, I've been pretty much exhausted and stuffy-nosed. H1 had to work on Saturday (a make-up day from the snow days earlier this year), and when he got home he went to work refinishing the last two dining room chairs. They now have the stain on them, and just a coat of poly-eurthane left before they will be done. That project has been going on in what will be H3's new room, so all of that has to get cleaned up before we start painting. I did purchase the paint on Saturday night, so it's ready to go as soon as those chairs are finished. Hurray!

~H2

Cookies!

I've been doing a little baking over the last couple days. Tuesday I made some fudge and mailed it to my parents and my father-in-law for Valentine's Day. It was the simplest recipe I had ever seen and I had to try it, seeing as there seemed to be a fudge recipe in existence that is "H2-proof". In the past, my attempts at fudge have come to ruin. The candy thermometer and I are at war and last year I finally declared "no more" and shoved the thing back into the gloom of my junk drawer. This new recipe I found requires no thermometer! You just need a can of sweetened condensed milk, 18oz semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla, and a dash of salt! After melting the chips in a saucepan with the condensed milk and salt, add the vanilla and spread into a wax paper lined 8x8 pan. Two hours later and presto! It's as good as any I've bought before, and H1 really liked it--he wants me to try it with peanut butter chips next! Even H3 joined in, complete with apron and my grandmother's purse that she's taken to carrying around lately.



Since November, H1, H3, and I have been attending a small group that meets in a nearby couple's home. We didn't know Kenny and Joanna before the group began, but have really been enjoying their friendship. At the moment, they have 4 children (all boys), but a fifth will be joining the family in July. I think we get to find out in March whether #5 is a boy or girl! The youngest children in the family are twin boys, and they are about 8 months older than H3. Since she sees them in the nursery at church too, Joanna and I had talked about having a playdate, but never really got that setup until this morning. I went over to their house around 10 and we baked sugar cookies. The twins and H3 ran around the house and played, and the 5 year old helped us roll and cut out the cookies. He's a sweetie too. I have him in my Sunday school class at church. Below is a sample of our efforts.




It's been a long week and I've had migraines since Monday evening, but there's also been so many fun moments that make me smile. I love to see my little girl smile and hear her laughter. H1 should be home from work soon, and it's supposed to start snowing again tonight. Hmmmm...maybe I should start a fire in the fireplace and break out the marshmallows!

~H2

Animal Cracker Recipe

Here is the recipe for the animal crackers that I posted about yesterday. Like I said, this recipe is from my college roommate's mom, who introduced me to all sorts of healthy eating ideas!

Animal Crackers

Grind 2 cups rolled oats in blender. (Sub: quick
oats)
Add:
1/4 cup honey
1 t. salt
1 t. soda
3 cups whole wheat flour
Cut in 1 cup butter.
Add 1 cup milk or buttermilk.
Roll to 1/4 inch and cut with cookie cutters.
Bake at 400 degrees 8-10 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet.
Serve with love.

Back in mid-January, H1, H3, and I went to SC to visit Grandpa. H3 and I had visited back in November, but H1 couldn't go due to his work schedule. Grandpa said we needed to come again, with my hubby, so we planned this trip! I'm so glad we went. It was really good to see him again. He had a defribulator put in just after Christmas, and looks like he's doing really well. He's getting around a lot better than when H3 and I were there last. I've always enjoyed going down there, and I'm glad my family does too. Grandpa is lots of fun to talk with and I enjoy watching his interaction with H3. He has commented these last two trips about how energetic she is. I have to agree. I'm starting to think she may be related to the Energizer Bunny!


H3 loves climbing up on the green rocker sofa and perching on the edge!


Grandpa


H1 and H3


Staring out Grandpa's front window


This last week, I made animal crackers. They're a recipe my college roommate's mom gave me. She used to send them to me and Bethany at least a few times per semester. I love them! They're not sweet, but you can eat them with yogurt or honey. H3 likes them with honey.


Last Monday and Tuesday, H1 was off of school because we had 8 inches of snow and this area doesn't have the equipment to deal with any snow at all, much less that amount and an inch of ice. Since he had the time, he decided to make cinnamon rolls from scratch! They were amazing and the house smelled fabulous...I have to say "were", since they are gone now!



H3 walking in the snow a couple days later, with our neighbor's house in the background.


Walking with Daddy


Baby footprints


Happy baby!


All the first snow melted, and then in snowed a bit again yesterday. Initially, there were a couple inches on the ground, but since it rained the day before, it melted quickly. The sun came out today and it's almost gone now.


H3 at the last game of the basketball season. She really enjoys watching basketball. I have to keep that harness on her though, since she also likes running after the basketball! It's the cutest little backpack harness, and she wears it most of the time when we go out for walks.




This last month or so has been busy as always, but a lot of fun too. The week we got back from Grandpa's, I was called in to substitute at the high school for a couple days. We got to go to Virginia Beach and have dinner with a friend whom we hadn't seen in a while, and I spent a night and part of a day at the rescue squad. My next overnight there isn't for a couple weeks. I've been doing lots of organizing and baking, and working with H3 on some new activities. She is able to put shapes correctly into the corresponding holes in her red bucket how, and has also started signing "book", and "eat", adding those to her other signs of "more" and "all done". I'm trying to teach her to put together a wooden puzzle and her alphabet, but those are going to be a while in coming, I think!

I'm hoping to invite our landlord over pretty soon to ask about doing a few renovations. We would like to paint one of the bedrooms (the one we're moving H3 into later this spring), and we would like to replace the linoleum in the kitchen--it's really gross and wasn't installed properly to begin with. We'll pay for the paint for the bedroom, but I was going to ask for a discount in rent for a couple months for us to install the flooring. That way, he won't be paying full price to put it in and neither will we. The stuff I found looks really nice and would brighten it up a lot. I hope he'll let us do both! We'll have lived here for one year on April 1st, and I know this place looks a lot better than before we moved in, so maybe he'll say yes.

It's Superbowl Sunday, and I'm making homemade pizza and nachos for dinner. We're also having hot wings, but I'm not making those. They came in a bag! I like them, but not enough to learn how to make them. H1 makes them sometimes, but wasn't in the mood today. I made some brownies too, regular fudge for half and mint for the other half. H1 loves watching football, and H3 seems to like it too. I watch a few games per year, but am not an avid fan unless Green Bay is playing. I think I'm watching this game tonight for the Focus on the Family commercial about Tim Tebow and his mom's decision to carry him through pregnancy, even though doctor's advised her it was dangerous. I'm amazed and excited that CBS is carrying this commercial and looking forward to seeing it.

Off to make pizza dough!

~H2

Traveling and other items of the week

This has been a fun and packed week! H1 has had 2 basketball games, as usual, and of course practice at night to go along with them. Tonight's game is about an hour away. Ugh! I love living in the middle of nowhere, but the downside is all the traveling.

Last night I had a meeting up at the Rescue Squad. We're supposed to be going to a paperless system within the next month so there's going to be training for that. The new laptops look pretty cool, but from what I understand are a bit of a hassle to get installed. Initially, they're expecting it to take us about twice as long to write our reports after each incident. Most of that will be from trying to learn the new programs and hopefully over time it will make things faster. There are a lot of other benefits for patient care and getting information in order, but it's still going to take a while to get used to. I'll be going for training in a couple weeks.


H3 and I went over to our church today and helped sort clothes for the "Need Stuff" ministry (it offers clothes and food to people in the community). Rather, I sorted and H3 unfolded everything and ran around the room. She loves "helping" with laundry, but isn't the best at keeping everything in order!

Tomorrow morning the three of us plus Peanut are heading down to my grandfather's house in SC. H3 and I went to visit back in November, but H1 couldn't come. Since he has a 3 day weekend though, we decided to take a road trip! I used to get down there 3-4 times a year or more, but since H3's arrival I've only made it down 1-2 times each year. Hopefully that will change as she gets older and can handle more time in the car. I'll post pics and blog about our trip when we get back--should be Monday evening.

~H2

Confession time

They say confession is good for the soul, right? Well, here's mine. I hate filing paperwork. When bills arrive, I open them, write a check for what I need to, then shove the rest back in the envelope and stick it on top of the filing cabinet. Old pay stubs, letters from the insurance company, and receipts from online bills find their way to the pile too. Pretty sad, isn't it? 2-3 times a year, I finally get sick of the huge pile of envelopes staring at me and I go through everything and file them, as is the case today. Today though, I decided to burn all the envelopes and other trash afterwards, which is the picture below. The fire was a lot bigger than that to begin with! H1 finds it amusing that I can be so obsessive about vaccuuming (which I do 1-2 times a day) and can't stand a single dog hair on the floor, but yet I'll let that stack pile up for months at a time. Oh well. At least I know that if I'm looking for something, it's gotta be in that pile somewhere. Maybe one year I will make a resolution to keep that pile at bay and file everything when it comes, but I don't think that will be this year!




~H2

Christmas, New Years, and everything else.

Two Saturdays before Christmas, we drove to the Roanoke area to visit our friends, Cate and Shawn. They were having a Christmas party/Open House night to welcome everyone to their new house and to find out together if the new baby, due in April, is expected to be a boy or girl. We all found out when they cut into the cake and there was a ribbon inside--pink!



On December 22nd, we drove to Cleveland, OH, to visit my folks. We stayed until January 1st, which is why there have been no posts until now! We opened Christmas presents in the morning on Christmas day, and H3 spent the rest of the day with a bow on her head!



H3 watches Grandpa remove Christmas lights through the living room window.



Showing Grandma a new toy.










Snow throne!



H1's birthday cake. Yes, it's a little childish, but I had fun! It was a strawberry cake with buttercream frosting. The theme is ducky, yes, but each ducky set also has something to do with an activity H1 enjoys. He used to be a golf coach and loves to play. He's currently a basketball coach. The swimming set is for the camp that we spend each summer at. He has been a waterfront director there for 6 or 7 years now. Not this year though! More to come on that....



Me and H1 at Rocky's, a pizza restaurant my parents took us to for his birthday. H3 made such a mess that we ended up finding a broom and cleaned up before our waitress could. She was so sweet and patient with us, and my parents have seen her there for the past 4 years that they've lived in Cleveland. I was just too embarrassed by the mess of crushed Cheerios and pizza chunks that there was no way I could leave without cleaning up some!




We arrive home at 4:15 Saturday morning. H1 and I took turns driving, so we weren't completely dead when we arrived, but pretty close! Since then, we've pretty much been unpacking and trying to get the house back in order. Sunday morning H1 was playing on the worship team and I was teaching Sunday school for 4-7 year olds. I don't have a lot of experience with that age, so it was a bit of a challenge. That, and the fact that it was the first time the class has ever met! There are 4 teachers and we will be on a monthly rotation. My Sunday is the first of each month. It was fun, but I'll be glad when we get more supplies!

H1 started back to school today. I haven't talked to him yet to see how it was. He's at basketball practice now, trying to get the kids ready for the game tomorrow night. There will be a game each Tuesday and Thursday night this month, and then for the first week in February and the season may end there, depending on whether we go to play-offs, which could extend it a couple more weeks.

It's time to wake up Shannan from her nap and get ready to make tacos for dinner tonight!

~H2