Missed it

I was reading in Luke today, when Jesus is praying in the garden before he is arrested. My commentary pointed out something I never realized- when Jesus left the disciples to pray, he was still close enough that they could hear his prayer. And yet they disobeyed and fell asleep instead of praying themselves. It made me think, how cool would it have been to hear one of the most important conversations with God in the history of humanity?! I know Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray, but I feel like even if they had obeyed, they could have overheard some pretty important stuff! So what am I missing from God when I disobey?

dessert

i tried out two new dessert recipes (and one entree, too) this weekend that were mostly successes:
-key lime fudge: tasty and a fun twist, but VERY sweet. i doubled the amount of key lime juice, left out the zest, and sprinkled graham cracker crumbs on top. i'd like to try cutting back on the sugar, but i don't know how it would affect the texture and fudge-iness.
-peanut butter cookie dough brownies: i know. they are as ridiculously rich & decadent as they sound. i used a little extra peanut butter. i also used regular m&ms. my main complaint is there's a flour-y aftertaste, not sure how to get rid of it in a raw dough. also note that these are actually best cold.
-pecan chicken: a hit with all the potluck guests. i also marinated the chicken in buttermilk beforehand. i ran out of breading towards the end, and it got pretty goopy midway through the breading process, but those things are probably due to my lack of breading skill. i expected a crispy, fried chicken-y texture and didn't get it, maybe my expectations were just off. i also made a honey mustard dipping sauce (started with equal parts honey & dijon mustard, added a pinch of salt, and then adjusted the ratio until i was happy with it. i think i mostly just added honey). but i will say that the chicken itself was super moist, and the pecan flavor was really delicious. i'm annoyed that i bought a bag of pecans even though they weren't on sale because i needed them for the dish, but two days later discovered a sam's club-sized bag in my freezer that i missed when i checked. oh well.
emerson's been a pretty good eater lately, as long as she's allowed to roam free while she eats. hope she outgrows this phase soon, because i'm getting tired of finding mashed banana on my coffee table and graham cracker pieces on the dining room chairs!

a mess of a morning!

we had quite the morning this morning! emmy was up at 6:30 instead of her usual 8am, although she may have slept a little off and on between then because i nursed her a bit and then put her back in the crib. then at 10 we met up with some of our friends at great lakes crossing, a local outlet mall. we started in the play area, but emmy's been so shy lately that she didn't want to play, just cling to mommy. after about 30 minutes, the moms split up to walk around the mall and shop a bit. of course, most of us have toddlers who are in the stage where they hate being strapped in for any length of time, so shopping didn't last long. we went back to play some more until we were supposed to regroup for lunch at rainforest cafe at 11:30. i had originally thought i wouldn't do lunch there, because i thought they'd eat around noon and it's a 30 minute drive home and i didn't want to risk emmy falling asleep in the car on the way home, but since they were eating on the early side, i thought it would probably be ok. as i strapped emmy back into her stroller to walk to the restaurant, she started signing "milk." i had brought a cup for her, but it was really supposed to be for the drive home, to help her stay awake, so i tried in the meantime to ply her with cheerios. meltdown. so i got the milk out, and as i did, i noticed the little cup-sized cooler i keep it in was dripping a little. lately i've been having trouble with sippy cup lids not going on right and leaking a little, but this time it was EVERYWHERE, all over the basket of my stroller where i had stored it, and some on the bags i had in there too. out of about 6 oz, only 1 or so was left, but thankfully what was there was enough to satisfy em for the time being.
so half of our group gets to rainforest cafe, and there's no sign of everyone else, so we decide because of the cranky, impatient toddlers (who turn their mommies into cranky, impatient mommies) that we'll get a table together but just go ahead and order and get started without them. i tell the waitress this so she knows not to wait for them. she comes shortly after we get settled, and no one's ready to order, so she says she'll come back in a minute. "a minute" becomes several, and at some point the rest of the moms show up, so when she does come back, she prioritizes taking their drink orders, and bringing all their drinks, and then FINALLY comes to take everyone's orders, not just those of us who were there first. so then apparently there's the restaurant mentality of making sure everyone's food comes out at the same time, and what ends up happening is those of us who got there first wait OVER AN HOUR before food is even served. in my opinion, that's a long wait at an almost empty restaurant even for just an adult, but when you factor in 7 toddlers who hate to sit still and who are dangerously close to naptime, every minute counts! we all literally had to ask for our checks as soon as the food came because of the kids' moods! and by the time we did get our food, mine was even cold. rainforest cafe is grossly overpriced anyway, but between the nasty food and the poor service, it hurt a lot to hand over my credit card. i should have spoken to a manager while i was there, but i just needed to get emmy home at that point. thankfully she didn't fall asleep on the way home and is currently napping peacefully in her crib, so at least today isn't a total waste...but next time i will go with my gut when deciding if i should do something like lunch with the ladies!!

vacation!

after a 6 month ban on travel due to a toddler who refused to sleep while traveling (neither in the car nor once we arrived), we bit the bullet and tried again last weekend. thankfully, it was a success!
we went to chicago for a reception to celebrate our friend drew's recent nuptials. we planned everything out with some other friends, blair and melissa, so that we could get the most out of our travel. the four (well, 6 if you count the babies) of us stayed in a suites-style hotel in skokie, which is near our alma mater and lots of other activities we'd be interested in doing. we were gone 3 nights, and i found myself actually sad that the trip was ending rather than anxious to get home and back to normal! we borrowed an in-car dvd player for emmy for the drive, which was a HUGE help. of course, on a normal day i rarely even turn on tv for her, so to have it on for almost 6 hours killed a part of me, but as a parent i've learned sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes! miraculously, she also slept well in the hotel itself. i think it helped a ton for her to have her own room. she actually slept through the night all 3 nights, which she rarely even does at home! her naps were a little erratic because we were out doing stuff a lot of the time, and she got to bed a little late every night and was up early every morning, but even though she was tired, she didn't get too cranky either. we had a great time catching up with old friends, visiting campus and our old church (and getting to see our mentor couple for the first time in 5 years!), swimming in the hotel pool, and eating lots of yummy food! now, *hopefully,* our little anti-traveler has turned a corner and will be much better in the future!

weight check-in

i haven't posted one of these in a while, because i haven't had much to be proud of. for a while i kept getting really frustrated because i was doing what i thought was my best and still watching the scale go up a little or stay the same. then, after insight from a couple of wise women, my habits are starting to adjust a bit, and thankfully my last couple of weigh-ins have been better! i have lost 4 pounds in the last 2 weeks, and i don't remember where i was in the game when i last posted, but overall this puts me at 21 pounds above my ultimate, dream goal. but i'll get to that in a second.
what was the life-changing advice i was given? first of all, my beautiful sister lauren, whose discipline and determination i truly admire (and envy!) gave me a couple of exercise tips. instead of mostly using my elliptical, she recommended using that only for "recovery" days and instead focusing more on the routines available through the nike training club app. which stinks because those things kick my butt! definitely a harder workout than i'd been doing, but so worth the results! she also helped me see that there was indeed a fair amount that i was doing right in the exercise department, which means (ominous music here) i need to focus more on what i eat. my brain is still in pregnancy/nursing mode, where you're supposed to have a significantly higher amount of calories...which to my greedy tummy means "go wild!" but i really don't nurse emmy much anymore, so i probably don't need nearly as many calories as i'd been counting on. plus i'm a total sweets junkie and have gotten a little overindulgent there.
BUT, all that being said, the other wise advice i got was from my sweet best friend, michelle. we were talking about weight loss, and she said something to the effect of "yeah, i could lose another 10-15 pounds, but realistically i just don't have the time or energy to maintain that." that totally resonated with me- i would love to be able to work out 5-6 days a week, but realistically i have a toddler that still doesn't sleep through the night, and some mornings i just want to sleep any extra bit i can. i also used to do a 45-60 minute workout, but again, sleep has become a valuable asset, and i just can't afford to part with more than enough to get 30 minutes of exercise in. and as far as eating goes, yes, i need to be more careful about what i eat, but ultimately, i'd rather be a size or two bigger and still get to treat myself sometimes.
so my new goal, rather than a specific number on the scale (although, yes, that dream number would be nice to see) is finding a balance that allows me to enjoy my life, my food, and yes, my sleep, while also being healthy and in shape!

(mostly) debt free!!

this week, the last bit of cody's student loans got paid off, leaving us (other than our mortgage) DEBT FREE!! woohoo! we're so thankful for God's provision in our lives, including his pointing us to our church's Financial Freedom class a year ago, which has helped us get things on track. now that that's done, we'd like to be able to snowball into our mortgage and make those numbers go down faster, but for now we need the funds to pay for cody's school again! the loans we just paid off were from his undergrad, and he has since gone back for his master's. we haven't had to take any more loans out for that, and luckily his company pays for about half, plus 2 of the 4 years he was given scholarship money, but now we still have quite a chunk to pay for. but once that's done, we'll continue to work toward not owing anything to anyone (except our lives to Christ, of course!)

answer your phone

PSA: if your wife has good reason to be worried about you, answer your cell phone!
tonight cody went to panera to work on a school project and ended up locking the keys in the company car (and discovering it after panera had already closed). he called to tell me, and then said the roadside assistance person texted him an eta of 10 minutes...and 50 minutes later, i still hadn't heard anything. granted, i'm a worrier by nature, but we live literally about 3 minutes from panera, so even if the guy was a little late and they had trouble opening the car, i should have heard SOMETHING. i called cody, voicemail answered. i texted him, no response. texted him to please respond because i was really starting to worry...still no response. so then i proceeded to call him over and over until he finally answered on the 4th or 5th try. he didn't want to answer because they guy was talking to him! i think a worried wife is a forgiveable reason to be rude & interrupt! i was literally minutes from calling the police, picturing him mugged or beaten or something!
now, to be fair, here's his side: apparently the eta text they sent actually said it would be 10-something pm, which was an hour from when he called, not 10 minutes. he just misspoke that part, so he didn't fully realize why i would be so worried. then, as the guy was arriving, cody got multiple calls from a random number that turned out to be the service letting him know help was arriving...so when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket from my calls & texts, he just assumed it was more from them.
the lesson here, folks, is to always at least look to see who's calling you!
(cody, i love you very much, and i can't imagine how awful it would be if something happened to you. that's why i'm giving you so much grief about the whole thing, not because i'm mean!)

big girl

cody has said a few times that he feels like in the week he was gone, emerson grew a month's worth. she's been having a bit of a language "growth spurt." here's some of what she's picked up lately:
-she will sign "O," say "Cheeo," and point up at the cabinet where we keep the Cheerios when she wants some
-she has started signing "eat," although it's not usually to say she wants to eat, just while she's already eating- not as helpful!
-for a long time, she's been waving bye-bye and saying something like ba, but now she's gotten really good at saying "bye"
-she will hold her hands up near her eyes, open them up and say "Peeboo"
-she says "baby," which was her first word, but now she actually says it right, and she signs it now too.
-she makes all kinds of animal noises, anytime she sees or hears the right animal: dog, tiger, owl, monkey, and most recently elephant.
-she says "oui oui" to talk about these little french books we have, versions of the little miss/mr. books. she also says "Ba Boo" for Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?, "Boo! Boo!" for "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," "High" for "Higher Higher."
-she says "uh oh" ALL the time, whenever something isn't quite right, whether she drops something unintentionally or on purpose, she is listening to music and a song ends, or sometimes just if she wants something.
-speaking of wanting something, she also taps her chest ALL the time, her version of signing "please." she also says "Day-koo" (thank you). what a sweet, polite little girl!
-BUT she also has figured out "NONONO" and shakes her head if she doesn't want to do something. also, if you ask her a question, whether or not she understands what you ask, she will shake her head yes or no.
-this week she also started trying to say "water" and "Rory"(our cat's name), but the way she says them is hard to decipher which is which. another tricky one is "Deeta," which is "Lights on."
ok, i'm sure i'm missing stuff, but i'm already going on and on bragging about my little communicator. she's just too darn cute!

survivor

well, i made it- cody was gone all last week, leaving me alone overnight with emerson for the first time since she was born, and we both survived! he went to dallas with his group from work to do some user testing, and he seems to have enjoyed the trip and the work. i was nervous about him being gone, because even before we had emerson, i did NOT do well when he traveled (i get scared and don't sleep well at night). i was especially nervous this time about what would happen if emerson had one or several bad nights of sleep. there have been many of those types of nights when the only saving grace has been to wake cody up and ask him to take a turn! but thankfully, both of us girls slept just fine with him gone. but i did realize that even though on a typical weeknight, cody only spends about an hour and a half with emmy, i myself need that time and greatly missed it last week! i love my little girl more than words can express, but mommy needs a break once in a while! so welcome home, cody!

Plagued

Man oh man, our house has been plagued lately! Emmy started with a little cold a couple of weeks ago. When she was just about healed, she took a turn for the worse and got a fever and a nasty cough. Later that night, I started feeling flu-like symptoms of aches, chills, and nausea. Emmy and I quickly recovered and felt much better, just as Cody's nose started getting stuffy. About a day and a half later, my throat started feeling sore, and for the past 3.5 days, I've been so stuffy and out of it. I love my baby girl, but I hate all the extra germs we deal with because of play dates and things!

Fanciness in the kitchen

Just wanted to brag about what we've had for dinner the last two nights:
Sunday- inside out bacon cheeseburgers with roasted purple (!) cauliflower and homemade sweet potato fries.
Tonight- filet mignon (!) with twice baked potatoes and roasted asparagus.
Lots of deliciousness:) We tried the purple cauliflower because it was on the reduced produce rack last week. It was really good, I just coated it in olive oil and Paula Deen's house seasoning and roasted it, then tossed it with Parmesan. Even Emmy couldn't get enough of it! Then tonight's filet was also due to a good sale price; we had already decided to order in tomorrow for valentines day, but I couldn't pass up the deal I got, so I just made us a fancy dinner a night early. Sadly, though, I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have because poor Emmy was sick and needed to be held while I was trying to eat. Hopefully she'll be better tomorrow, since we're supposed to host a big play date on Wednesday!

weigh-in

boo. apparently all that southern food has not been kind to me. since last week, i gained 1.1 pounds, meaning i still have 26 to lose. i've been snacking a lot too for some reason, and it's often mindless, eat because there's something in the cabinet to get rid of snacking, so i really need to cut that out. curses on cody for finding the huge jar of peanut butter filled pretzels we had left over from our Christmas party!

Southern yumminess

Apparently I've been missing home particularly much lately, because I've been cooking lots of southern dishes- the jambalaya last week and last night, Brunswick stew. With bacon cornbread. I realized today though that I was using a bizarre source. Instead of one of the 5 or 6 specifically southern cookbooks in my cabinet, both recipes came from rachael ray, a lifetime new yorker! But both were pretty good and pretty easy, which is my favorite things about her.but next time I will definitely try the "real thing."

gleanings project

for a long time, i've been contemplating the whole Biblical concept of gleanings. God's people were told not to harvest all the way to the corners and edges of their fields, but to allow the needy among them to come and take what they needed. a while back when our small group did the truth project, we encouraged each other to figure out our own gleanings based on our profession; for example, a doctor could offer free medical advice or an accountant could help others with their taxes. i never did make a plan and get to it at that time. but now our church just finished a short series on generosity, which has made me think more about it. and sunday, it came to me. i have decided that every time i go to the grocery store, i will buy one extra of something and donate it to a local food ministry. simple, easy, and cheap, and yet in this way i can hopefully provide for others for whom a can of beans or a box of pasta is a lot harder to afford. so i started today, and i can't wait to see what God can do through me!
cody and i also decided to take our church's 1% challenge, which is basically to give the church just 1% more than you did last year. it could be your first 1%, or maybe a step closer to tithing the full 10%, or maybe even above and beyond. one of the ways God has gifted me is with a giving heart, so tithing has never been a problem for me, but i was really excited when Cody was the one to suggest participating in this challenge and upping our giving to 11% (ladies, isn't it exciting when your husband fulfills his role as your family's spiritual leader, especially when it means he's doing something he's uncomfortable with?!)! the same day we committed to this, we finished figuring out our taxes, and we can already see God rewarding us- the refund we're set to receive is much more than we expected! so now it's up to you: are you willing to trust God and "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." (Malachi 3:10)?

Cross references:

1. Malachi 3:10 : [Prov. 3:9, 10]
2. Malachi 3:10 : See 2 Cor. 9:6-8
3. Malachi 3:10 : See Gen. 7:11

jambalaya

believe it or not, when i started this blog, i fully intended to write about more than just my child's sleeping habits. so here's a little something about what we had for dinner last night: jambalaya!
now, as you probably know, i did not grow up in louisiana. i have only even had authentic, new orleans jambalaya once. but i've tried making it a few times, and last night i finally found a recipe that i actually liked. find it here. i used smoked sausage instead of italian, and one red pepper and one yellow instead of 2 green, since they were on sale. plus, to be healthier, i used brown rice instead of white and upped the cooking time accordingly. i also added a generous sprinkling of cajun seasoning to the pot, since i had it on hand anyway.
i assumed that since it would be a teeny bit spicy, emerson wouldn't like it, so i had defrosted something else for her. but while we were eating, she whined a bit and reached for my bowl, so i scooped some onto her highchair tray, and she loved it! she ate several scoops in addition to the fish i had for her and the green beans she can't seem to get enough of lately. my good eater is definitely back, thankfully! we also had fun talking about the jambalaya- i told her what it was called, and she tried to say it back, and we repeated this several times. she was trying really hard to say it, but it's a pretty hard word for someone who mostly says "Ba!" and "Dadaaa," so it mostly came out as gibberish. still cute though. looks like we'll be having the leftovers tonight!

weigh-in

i've lost another 2.9 pounds, which means 24.9 left to reach my goal and about 26 weeks. i haven't been great about exercising lately, between my parents being here (they sleep in the basement and i don't think they'd enjoy being awakened by the elliptical above them) and the bad nights we've been having (to work out, i have to get up before emmy, and i've been turning off my alarm clock quite a bit lately). but i've been better about what i eat, and the enormous pile of leftover Christmas cookies is now mostly down to things i don't like, so that'll make it even easier hopefully!
yesterday i saw seven jeans at sam's club (what?!) for a really good price. it reminded me that before i got married, i had decided that if i hit my goal weight, i'd reward myself with a really fancy pair of jeans (my current standard is gap outlet on sale; i don't usually spend more than $30 on a pair). looks like i'm reinstituting that! if only i knew what size i'd be at my goal weight, so i could go ahead and buy them and look at them while i work out:)

New game

Today was quite a bit better. Last night little bean was up for two 45-minute intervals, which wasn't terrible compared to what she's been doing. Then she took an almost 2 hour nap, which seemed to help even more. This afternoon I came up with a great new game for her- I call it Cheerio treasure hunt, and it keeps her occupied quite a while. Probably won't work as well when she's a really proficient walker, but oh well. Basically I threw a bunch of Cheerios on the floor, all spread out, and she went around picking them up and eating them. I had just cleaned the floor, so it was safe:P It was especially good for her because she's been having trouble bending down and then standing back up. She's going to have some rocking thighs now. Cody pointed out that it's a little like something you would do with a pet, but she had fun and she was just so darn cute!

Again?

Yep, we've had another couple of bad nights in a row, which as usual means emmy has also been cranky all day, which makes me cranky too. I got so mad today- I was really hoping she'd take a good nap and it got ruined. Someone from Santana energy or something like that called and woke her up. They called twice in the span of just over an hour, and the second time must have been at a vulnerable time in her sleep cycle. The second time I answered and asked them to take me off their list. The lady asked, "are you on the national do not call list?" YES. Which means you shouldn't be calling me and waking my cranky toddler, who continued to be cranky the rest of te day. Hopefully someday soon my sweet, happy, good sleeping baby will will return. On a happy note, she gobbled a TON of green beans at dinner tonight- all the ones I had made for her plus more than half of my own portion (I replaced them by eating he asparagus she was supposed to have and didn't.)

parent visit

my parents left today after being here a week. it was a pretty good visit, although i would have changed a couple of things about it. first of all, emmy had her 15 month dr visit with shots last tuesday, and she hasn't been herself since. i don't know if it was a reaction to the shots (although i doubt it because it lasted so long), a bug she picked up, or a tooth, or something else, but she's been cranky and not eating well, in addition to the episode i wrote about last time. then there was the fact that we were supposed to be celebrating Christmas with them while they were here, but for various reasons they still had most of their shopping to do, so every day they were out shopping for a couple of hours (they're BIG TIME comparison shoppers). it seemed like they couldn't quite time it right with naptime, so they missed out on a lot of emmy time. and when they were home, my dad spent a lot of his time in the basement trying to keep their dog quiet (they always bring her, but she's really aggressive with other animals, so we insist she stay in the basement, but she has severe separation anxiety and barks or whines a lot of the time). so while they were here for a week, i feel like we barely saw them, and especially that they didn't have any good time with emerson.
she seems to be feeling better today; she finally ate well and played normally rather than just having me hold her all the time. hopefully she sleeps well tonight, last night she had a 2.5-3 hour awake time again:(

Baby's first public puke

Yep, tonight we had a milestone for Emmy- we were at a Mexican restaurant with my parents, and everyone had just about finished eating when she started projectile vomiting. She hadn't eaten much all day or at dinner, but the dinner she did eat was a pouch of spinach/peas, so it was his nasty green color too. The poor little nugget had no idea what was going on and must have been so scared! The staff was all really nice and helpful, which we definitely appreciated. I'm not sure what could have caused it, because she hasn't seemed sick otherwise, unless it was just a delayed reaction to the shots she had Tuesday. What I do know is everything I've heard about mom adrenaline taking over when your kid is sick or hurt is true- she had puke all over her, but I didn't think twice about picking her up and holding her. The gross factor of the whole situation didn't sink in until the car ride home, when I started to smell it (thankfully we weren't far from home). The good thing at least is that after the incident she was super happy and pleasant, so she must have been feeling better!