A few of my favorite things...

In no particular order...

1. The weather today! My house smells like spring! I love the smell of spring and am choosing to ignore the fact that it's not spring.

2. Tassimo... it's get's me through the morning. And the afternoon if I make it again. Otherwise I can't make it through the afternoon with my eyes open.

3. This makes #2 taste so much better. I'll admit, I'm a little addicted to trying all the different flavors. Unfortunately I've found a few that I find to be gross.

4. BSF, so good for me and necessary for me.

5. My camera. I would really love this one insead, but can hardly justify a new camera already! There are some new lenses that I would LOVE too, in time!

6. Here and here. Did I mention I got a part time job, working just one to two nights per week. I like it!

H1N1

I'll admit, I let all the hype scare me. Petrify me actually. But now that it's here I'm not as scared anymore. I don't know if it's because I'm trusting God to contain it and care for her or if it's because it really just doesn't seem to be that bad. Sure, she's miserable, and hot, and crabby, and tired, and doesn't like to eat, but it doesn't seem any worse than any typical illness.

On top of this, she also seems to have an eye infection, which seems to be related to her tear duct being clogged still (since birth). We've started her on an eye drop 4 times per day and Tamiflu 2 times per day. Heres to praying that it ends quickly and we can all stay healthy...

She was able to get her H1N1 vaccine today and her seasonal flu shot today also, they wouldn't/couldn't give it to Elliot, which I was torn on, I almost wish he could have had the H1N1 instead of Lila, she already has it, doesn't that make her immune now?

What we've been up to...

Yesterday a few of us were under the weather a bit, so unfortunately our pumpkin carving plans had to be changed, normally our friend Kate would come help us carve pumpkins and eat dinner with us, but in the interest of not getting anyone else sick we carved by ourselves. We missed you Kate. The pumpkins weren't nearly as good without you.
Miss Lila got her own pumpkin... (Seriously, look at those eyes. I sometimes question whether they are turning darker/brown, but then I see something like this and I'm reassured that I just may have a blue eyed baby)


Elliot chose Donald Duck for his pumpkin, Landon & Bailey drew thier own faces and Miss Lila, well she wnated it to be all about her as usual!

Today was a beautiful fall day. I went out to rake some leaves with the help of the kids and neighbor (and his lawnmower). My hands are still hurting! Elliot found some worms that he was excited about showing off, unfortunately you can't see the worms in this picture, but look at those eyes!


Tomorow is supposed to be just as gorgeous, if not more so, than today, can't wait to get out and enjoy the beautiful colors!

Cranes

We made one last trip to Cranes for the season yesterday. We didn't get there until about 5:00 (they close at 6:00) so we didn't have a ton of time, but the good news was that it was not busy (probably b/c it was so darn cold).

We went with the intention of picking some mustu apples, a favorite of our, but one we seem to miss almost every year. They told us where the trees were and we headed out to the far parts of the orchard, down a very big hill... we walked through the whole section and found 3 apples. 3. So back up the hill we went to find something else to pick. We ended up picking some Jonnagolds which were plentiful on the trees!


Lila LOVES her apples! LOVES to suck the juice out of them. Matt made the mistake of letting her lick one once adn she got ANGRY when he tried to take it to take another bite. She also had a very dirty diaper after that. She is just getting so very very big!

Pictures & Upadates

I just shared them on facebook too, so not sure how interesting this will be...

Landon has been doing great in school, in fact I just checked the portion of his report card that is complete and he has all A's and A-'s so far (just waiting for social studies), not bad at all! (I was expecting much worse to be quite honest). He has had a lot of homework though, and between that and football we had to put an end to him going to the bridge after school, just til football is done, it was just to much for him, I don't think he knows what it means to be stressed out, but I think I could see that he was.


Lila has been doing great eating cereal and various baby foods, she loves it, athough it is causing her some problems with going to the bathroom, were working on that. She is eating twice a day typically, although some days we just skip it. We also recently started to give her the puffs, but she isn't quite thinking she's ready to pick those up by herself yet, so I have to put them in her mouth. She does like them though!
Lila had a fever yesterday and didn't sleep well the night before so I took her into the doctor, anticipating (hoping for) an ear infection. If it had been an ear infection we could have done antibiotics and been good, but nope, nothing seemed to be wrong except for the fever (and her not wanting to be put down, and the random bursts of screaming). She slept in bed with me last night while Matt slept on the couch, it was so nice to sleep with her again. I wouldn't want to do it every night, but it was sweet! She's sweet! At her doctor appt she was 21 pounds 12 ounces... 4 more ounces until new carseat, not quite ready for that yet.

It's been so long.

I don't think I've ever gone this long without posting. but there just isn't much to post about. Each day and week seems to be exactly the same. Monday - BSF and Football practice, Tuesday - Football, Wednesday - Church, Thursday - Football, Friday - WEEKEND, Saturday - Football, Sundah - Church. Notice a trend? Only two more weeks of football practice though, adn then life just might slow down! The kids and I have been finding ways to pass time though, otherwise those nights seem to get awfully long when Matt and Landon are gone.

We are on the hunt for a new vehicle. I didn't realize it would be so much work. I thought we would turn in our Jeep and lease a van and it would all be simple. Ha! Lease payment on a van are OUTRAGEOUS! So now we are on the lookout for a nice used vehicle. I say vehicle because we are still undecided on what. We need something reasonably priced (read: cheap), but reliable. Do those even go together? I would love to have an Oddysey or a Sienna, but they seem to be out of my price range. And I'm struggling to remind myself that the purpose of a vehicle is to get me and the kids from a to b, it doesn't have to be top of the line or extravagant, as long as it's safe and reliable. But I want something nice. But I shouldn't really care. The internal struggle within.

OK, I'm done blabbering, just wanted to check in. Lila is summoning me!

Lila's Lovin'

Seriously, the first four months with Lila were ROUGH. Really really rough. But it's all better now! Life is good. She is a very very happy baby. Just looking at her makes her smile soooo big! It's so wonderful! Everyone (including Lila) sleeps in thier own bed at night now, she takes approximately 3 naps per day (sometimes more), goes to bed around 9ish and sleeps until approximately 2am, then until about 6am, then again until about 8:30. It's not terrible!

So anyway, the lovin' part! She knows her bedroom. She knows that it means bed. Whenever we walk into her bedroom now, she looks up, looks around, looks at me (or matt) and then throws her head into our chest to cuddle. Like she's saying, "No, don't put me to bed, just let me cuddle with you". I just love it! Unfortunately the child that couldn't sleep without being held for the first 4 months of her life rarely ever falls asleep while being held now. Now she has to be swaddled really really tightly in order to sleep, with her blanket on the right side of her face and her sock monkey on the left side and her quilt covering her legs (b/c they don't swaddle all that well). She's particular, which can be a pain, but hey, just over a month ago I had to go to bed when she did. I'll take whatever at this point!

I'm losing it...

My memory is fading. I don't know whether to blame it on the arrival of baby #4 (resulting in not sleeping through an entire night in 9 months, including pregnancy) or the lack of ovaries. My long term memory is still great, but my short term memory is TERRIBLE. I've been embarrased by my lack of memory more than once. I feel as if I come across as incompetent or, quite frankly, stupid, because of it. I'm just hoping it doesn't get much worse! (But I don't forsee a full night of sleep anytime soon, and there isn't any estrogen returning either...)

That said, I know that I had a GREAT idea for a blog post earlier today, but opted to take a short nap instead of blog (at least my priorities are still in check), and so now the idea has blown away (it's been windy enough to blow my whole memory out the window and across the state... maybe that's what happened), more than likely to resurface around 4:00 in the morning when I'm laying in bed awake after feeding and tucking Lila back into bed. But you can guarantee I WILL NOT be getting out of bed to share whatever it is on this dear blog. So, it will be forgotten again. Oh well. At least I'm remembering to feed my kids (most days... I did forget to give Elliot breakfast last week one day) and shower. The important things.

Enough rambling...
I will show you a cute little headband that I'm in the process of purchasing for Miss Lila:

Its the owl. It's from "Pretty Little Things", find her on facebook and become a fan and check out the other things she's offering. Super cute stuff!

Cutest...

Are these not the CUTEST pants? Unfortunately that's a little steep for my wallet, but if somone who is a knitter wanted to make them for her (she's a big 6-12 or smaller just in case) I wouldn't turn them down... What makes them even cuter for Miss Lila is that she actually does sleep with a sock monkey right next to her face where she nuzzles into his face!

Because I don't want to forget...

Today is E's birthday! He is three!

For the past few weeks we've been asking him how old he is and he shows up 2 fingers. Then we say, "But how old will you be on your birthday?" And he shows us 3 fingers. So I thought he understood.

This morning I went to give him a big hug and kiss and sing happy birthday to him fresh out of bed! I asked him how old he was and he promply showed me 2 fingers. "No, I said, you are 3 now, today is your birthday!" His eyes got BIG and his smile got bigger. He said "You mean I'm this (showing me three fingers) many now?"

Yup buddy, you are that many now! And I can't believe it, nor do I like it. But I can't stop it. So we'll just not dwell on the fact that soon he will be 13.

Off to get a coffee and then a football game. Nothing says fall more than Pumpkin Spice and Rocket football! OK, maybe apple picking does, but were not doing that yet!

Girls & Boys

My girls
and my boys!
These make my heart happy! Seriously.

And, a recipe.

Last week one night we had nothing for dinner, so I made something up. And it was GOOD! and Easy!

I had 6 chicken breast, pounded flat and thin
then I mixed up some cream cheese (8oz package) and some (no measurements) chives (although I will be trying this again with some dill, and I'm sure there are other things you could use, or use just the plain cream cheese)
Spread the cream cheese on one side of the chicken breast and then roll the breasts up securing with a toothpick. If your feeling adventurous you can wrap them with bacon (again securing with toothpick), but I didn't think it needed the bacon (imagine that, me turning down bacon). Pour a can of cream of chicken soup over the breasts in a baking dish and bake at 350(ish) for one hour(ish). Serve! Oh yeah, I sprinkled a few bread crumbs on top before baking, but it's probably not necessary!

YUM!

I have another recipe to share also, but that will come another day! It's a good one. Stay tuned.

That time of year...

Yup, it's THAT time of the year. Time for School Fundraisers! So, just in case you need a magazine, Landon is selling them. The prizes for selling are actually quite good (can you say CASH?), you can renew or purchase new. If interested please email me... lynettebell(at)chartermi(dot)net (replace "at" with @ and "dot" with .)

If you are looking for a little entertainment in your life, Bailey has just the thing for you. An "Entertainment 2010" book. Lot's of great coupons for lot's of different stuff. So, if this sounds like the thing for you, please contact me! (FYI, I'm a little uninformed and am currently unaware of the price of this book, it's either $20 or $25, either way a great deal for all the coupons in there, I'm hoping to find out details tomorow)!

Sorry for the commercial interupption, back to the regularly scheduled blog!

A good mom I'm not...

because if I was a good mom I would have updated this days ago, with pictures and stories from the first day of school. But the pictures are still on my camera, just waiting to be downloaded. I have a ton of other pictures that I have to get to first. I'm a little bit particular like that, I have to go in order, and in order to get to my own pictures I have to get through a bunch of fabulous clients pictures, which take longer than my own. So, it could be a while until you see those.

But, if your wondering, the first days went wonderfully. Landon was just a bit nervous the night before his first day but made it through without any real incident. He couldn't find his first class, and was just a bit late, but made it through the rest without a problem. He's sick of me asking questions about his classes and has had one homework assignment so far, aside from the reading.

Bailey is adjusting very well. She loves her class and is already talking about new friends, as well as old. I love to see this side of Bailey, b/c I remember all to well the Bailey that had to get on the bus to go to Kindergarten with tears in her eyes (as well as her mom's), in fact I think she was sobbing (I waited until I got home to sob), I vividly remember Matt putting her on the bus, because she wasn't going by herself (and quite honestly if he wasn't there I probably would have taken her home to cuddle with all day), good thing for husbands/dads! Anyway, third grade is going GREAT!

Elliot is bored. I think he's having issues with the kids being gone. He spends a lot of time mad at his brother. Yesterday he didn't want Landon to watch "Wubzy" (which is a whole different story) with him when he got home from school . Totally unlike Elliot. He loves his brother and loves to spend time with him. Hopefully we get past this soon.

I'm pretty sure I never posted this, but LILA IS SLEEPING IN HER OWN BED. Regularly. Days and nights. She has to be swaddled up really really tight, but I don't care about that, whatever it takes. She still wakes up twiceish at night. (I know that isn't a word, but it works for this). Sometimes it's once, but more often it's twice. I try to feed her around 9, typically 8:30 though. She goes to bed for the night then. Wakes up around 1:30 and then sometimes again at 3:30, sometimes not until 5:45 or 6. We don't start our day then we try to go back to sleep, while she doesn't have a problem with that, sometimes I do. This morning I did, which is why I'm now rambing on and on and on...

So, that's an update, without pictures. I would love to share a picture, but it wouldn'tbe of my family, so that's pointless on this family blog.

Whoa...

I just entered a comment to be entered to win a laptop over at Pioneer Womans Site. Always entering, never winning. But really with as many entries as she get's per contest I'm in good company. Anyway... just wanted to say that I was blown away to see that there were 33 other comments entered at the exact same MINUTE. Seriously. Maybe one laptop for 2000+ entries isn't enough. Go enter... see what your chances are!

9 hours after the post there are over 10,500 comments... and this thing goes through the weekend. Wonder if I'll win?

Bacon

Imagine my shear joy when I saw a show on the food network dedicated to my favorite food of late... BACON! (Yup, I'm yelling that one).

Seriously, I was in heaven.

OK, so it was staring a very cheesy Brian Boitano. But it's bacon. So that part didn't matter.

And, there were corn muffins. With bacon.
Sounds heavenly!

So, this evening I made them. I baked an entire pound of bacon for these muffins. OK, so it only called for 8 slices. I made 16. Don't judge.

In the end, I WASTED an entire (half) pound of bacon on these muffins. Ewwwwww. And now were out of bacon in the freezer. And I'm sure my husband will NOT be quick to restock. He can't stand that I LOVE bacon. Doesn't think it's good for us. What could be bad about bacon? Mmmmmmmmm!

Ready, set, EDIT SARAH!!!