Uugh!

I was hoping to do a fabulously upbeat post about my very fun 26th birthday and it's accompanying events and gifts...I still hope to get to that soon, by the way, but currently I have something else weighing on my mind.

I think my little one has some pretty serious food allergies. :( I have watched as some of my close family members have been in this situation--thank goodness, or I wouldn't have any idea what I may be getting into, but I know it will be tough if that is what is going on.

We've been a bit concerned about that possibility ever since we introduced Nehemiah to some finger food baby cereals with wheat and or corn in them. Please don't tell me we have a gluten allergy?!! Though Ben has a cousin with one, so there is some history there.

Anyway, today I was making peanut butter sandwiches on wheat bread for some friends' boys for lunch, and I opened up Nehemiah's rice rusks to start him on before I got a chance to wash my hands. Not too much later he looked as if he'd eaten a cherry Popsicle! He had this lovely red hue to most of his face around his lips, and then white bumps that looked like mosquito bites began to appear, and his nose got runny. It all passed within 15 or 20 minutes, but it definitely means a trip to the allergist and SOON!

Whether it is wheat or peanuts (that's the kicker on our side of the family), I am going to need to know. I could continue playing the avoidance game, but we live nearly an hour from the nearest emergency room, and there are no doctors or Emergicare type places on weekends here. So playing the avoidance game not quite good enough might mean playing with Nehemiah's life if he starts an anaphylactic reaction. I don't mean to be alarmist; I think the chances of that just yet are slim (though reactions get progressively more serious each time an allergen is encountered), but it would be tragic not to take these signs serious enough, and be proven too cavalier.

All in all, it's a great big, GIANT, Uuugh! Moment. :(

Say a prayer for Ben and I that we will have wisdom, and for Nehemiah that he will stay safe!

It's my birthday!

I LOVE birthdays! And this has been particularly delightful thus far. It started on Tuesday and is still continuing. I'll fill everyone in the details when I come up for air!

In the meantime, my friend Susan started a blog; check it out if you like.

26 and still ticking!

In His Wisdom

The Lord chose not to make the human's gestational time any shorter! Today I babysat for one of our good friend's little one's (since daycare wasn't open on Memorial Day, but Subway still was) who is about 4 months.

Adelaide has the sweetest demeanor, but today, she was teething. And, so was Nehemiah! It was hands-on baby care all day; we did sneak in Memorial Day festivities (a service at the local auditorium, cemetery, and lake) where Ben was a part of the color guard. And bonus (!), he got to do two 21-gun salutes! And we had a short Mario Kart break as well. At the ceremony, my mother-in-law helped out, so that was great, and Ben was also off of work today--yay!

Susan came over to pick up Adelaide and stayed for a yummy dinner (thanks Ben!) and a little Mario Kart also.

All in all a pretty good day, and a peek into God's infinite wisdom. :)

Last weekend we had a graduation, baptism, and wedding reception--party hardy! Also why the blog has been a bit sparse as of late.

Boys will be boys

And hooray for that...I'd have it no other way (even if I cringe sometimes in my girlishness)!

Today we got a fun new water and sand table at a garage sale and an exersaucer for the nursery on Friday nights.



We had fun with the table, and, as you can see, eating grass!

I'm famous!!! Well, sorta'

I just found out that my diaper cake tutorial was featured over at the Tip Junkie on their Teach Me Thursday post. And I didn't even ask! How exciting!

I'd been over there to register for a contest earlier in the week, and I have to tell you, it is one fun blog. Quite the resource, and I am proud that I was added to the list of resources she references!

If you try the cake and have a tough time, let me know. I'd be more than happy to answer questions if I can. :)

*Beaming proudly*

Woo! I'm flying really high in the air and there are special prizes!!!

Yes, that is a direct quote from me earlier in the day.

Hmm...it can only mean one thing. Well actually, it could mean many things, but it only means one--we got Mario Kart for our Wii! I gave in, and I am glad that I did.

I am so competitive that I was sure I would hate it because Ben would whoop my toosh. But oddly enough I am able to keep pretty close most of the time and win every now and then, so my hopes are not completely dashed.

We played online with Ben's brother and sister-in-law tonight, which was cool, since they live all the way in Pennsylvania.

And in other special prizes news, I won another contest! I won from the blog Seven Dogs and A Baby, which by the way is a great blog for giveaways. And they gave me a cool t-shirt from the SpeckledSunshine Etsy store! I have asked for a custom one (for the 4th of July birthday guy), but if that isn't possible, then we love the "I Eat Sand" shirt! I am sure I'll have pictures to post when it comes--yay!

Keepin' it Rural!

Today we said goodbye to one of Ben's coworkers at camp. He is affectionately known as Ole. He's headed to Hawaii for about a month for a cushy house sitting job--must be nice!

Anyway, his absolute favorite dessert is Fruit of the Forest pie, by Chef Pierre. And I must admit, it is dang good. We had that after lunch out at camp, and then Ben and I had to run to the city for camp and pick some things up. We were already planning to go for ourselves, but in the end camp paid for gas and dinner, so it was worth the extra stops.

We were in the mall for a few minutes, and I stopped in JoAnn's Fabrics quickly. In their display was an adorable tin bird house with a little sign on it that said, Keepin' it Rural; I about died laughing! It was pretty pricey, or there would be a picture of it, because I would be the proud owner. ;)

Nehemiah was toast by the end, but it was a great afternoon, and Ben has tomorrow off too-hurrah!

Windy Days

Turns out not only is the dog super freaked out by the wind, but it has the power to wake Nehemiah from his naps also.

It ended well though. I went in to his room and picked him up and took him over to the glider to snuggle. We sat there for several minutes, he calming down, and me soaking in the moment.

I had his little head just beneath my chin and I could smell wonderful things:
Soothing Milk Bath, baby lotion, a hint of sunscreen, and a waft of overripe banana (which was smeared somewhere just below his ear).

I wiped his tears and we looked at each other in the stillness of a cuddle.

Bliss.

ERrrr...

We took our first trip to the ER with Nehemiah last night. It was bizarre--the last time I was there was when I checked in to go up to the birthing center.

Before you get too worried, all is well.

He fell from standing earlier in the day and whacked the back of his head pretty hard. We weren't too concerned until later that evening when we were out with a group of friends for pizza. We were just about to order, and Nehemiah started throwing up. Then we remembered the head shot.

We called our insurance's ask a nurse line, and they suggested we take him in--just to rule anything major out, because it is difficult to tell sometimes with a pre-walker/talker. :) So we went.

Diagnosis: head injury (concussion was mentioned by a nurse). Prognosis: watch him over the next few days, but he looks really good, so most likely everything is fine. They didn't want to give him a CT-Scan unless they had doubts, because pumping radiation into developing brains is not a fabulous idea when it isn't necessary.

Fine by me.

We were asked a few questions by the doctor about Nehemiah's vaccination history. More accurately, the lack thereof. The doctor was curious, he said. Curious, but not pushy, which I appreciated.

We ran to Walmart since we were in the city anyway. That way we could avoid the planned trip for today, in case Nehemiah was still feeling rotten. All of this resulted in a bunch of driving in the late afternoon and evening hours. I'm not sure if that is what did it, or if it was the feeling yucky, but he was up alot last night. I was up with him at 12, 2, (maybe 3--I'm a little hazy this morning), 4, and 6, and Ben got him up at 7:30 this morning. Whew! Ben let me sleep until 9 or so and did the morning routine, which I was grateful for, and now Nehemiah is down for his morning nap. Hooray!

Comfort

I think this picture epitomizes it. :) I do love my guys!

Skunked

We were coming home from a lovely Mother's Day dinner and dessert in a whole string of traffic when we took out a skunk!

Yeah--that was a first. It was alive. I believe I saw it lift it's tail as we bared down on it. I'm not quite sure how the cars ahead of us missed it-- except for the fact that my car is such a low rider!

The worst part? We still had 30 more minutes to drive before we arrived home, and the car wash was closed!

I went out this morning to grab my cell phone, and the interior of my car still reeks.

I have to take Nehemiah to swimming lessons in that thing!

Suggestions are welcome...I need help! ASAP!

Baby Shower fun and a Diaper Cake Tutorial

One of the things I recently promised to blog about was what we made for my sister-in-law's shower (after it happened). Well, the shower was yesterday, so I can safely show you what we did! :)

My mom and I had so much fun putting together this diaper cake. I had seen cute ones at homemade by jill and alpha+mom. I liked some aspects of both, but we were also limited in our supply shopping by living rurally. You'll be happy to know that you can make our diaper cake with supplies you find at Target, WalMart, and the local grocery store.

My mom really liked it when the diapers showed so that you could tell what the cake was made of, and I liked the bottle of champagne (though we used sparkling ligonberry-apple cider) as the center piece. With those thoughts in mind, we went on our hunt for supplies.

Here is what we bought:
-A 116 diaper package of Luvs (this ended up being a good size to go with, we didn't use all of them, but I'd say we only had about 25 left over. I tell you this, because no one else said how many diapers they used. Oh, and we used size 1 diapers, because some babies (like mine) are too big for newborns when they are born, and all babies will eventually use size 1.
-A bottle of something celebratory to toast with when the big day arrives
- As many elastics as diapers: we used small hair elastics (clear was preferred, but not necessary--since we couldn't find them anywhere)
-A bag of jumbo mailing rubber bands
-2.5" white satin ribbon--the cheap stuff is fine
-A roll of other decorative ribbon, and one more in a coordinating color if you like
-A few toys to decorate with (we used a pack of teethers and a stuffed horse)
-A package of straight pins
-A platter

1. We started out by rolling our package of diapers and rubber-banding them. Roll with the design at the top hidden inside the roll. Then secure with a small elastic. I'd roll at least 80 to start with.
2. Place the bottle of yumminess on the platter.
3. Start placing rolled diapers in concentric circles around the bottom of the bottle. Our first cake layer had 3 circles of diapers. Secure a large mailing rubber band around all of the diapers--this took 4 hands.
4. Then move up a layer, using 1 less row of diapers, and following the rest of the instructions in Step 3.
5. Same as before...this is probably your last layer, because it is about as tall as the bottle by now.
6. Using the wide white satin ribbon, wrap it around each layer to hide the big rubber band. Straight pin it to itself--we don't want holey diapers!
7. Next cover the satin ribbon with your pretty ribbon and pin in back. We used the teethers to decorate the ribbon. I secured them by threading the ribbon through them when the shape made it possible. When the shape was difficult, I got creative, and found a few toothpicks. I taped a toothpick to the back of the teether and threaded the ribbon through there--don't forget to wash the teethers before you use them Mel! ;)
   
8. Then I pinned the coordinating ribbon down in a cascade.
9. And, because I am no good at making pretty bows for the tops of things, we stuck the little horsey up there and pinned him to the ribbon.

My parents carted it 17 hours back to Colorado in a box, and my understanding is that it traveled really well.

These make cute centerpieces at a shower-I think ours went up on the gift table. Cute and fun to do!

We also made little hand-dipped truffles for the party favors. (I love the blogoshpere for ideas!) We got our super simple truffle recipe from Bakerella's blog. We topped them with Oreo crumbs and cute little blue flowers to commemorate my new nephew!

And, we made a Price-is-Right shower game, got things for the guests to make a scrapbook for the baby, and bought miniature baby bottles to freeze in ice-cubes. Each guest gets an ice cube, and the first one who's cube melts and the bottle floats free yells out, "My water broke!" When I first heard about this game I laughed so hard, that I had to convince my mom to do it. I laughed even harder at the thought of my beautiful 16 year old cousin yelling the phrase to win the prize yesterday--way to go Katelyn! Hee hee. Maybe it's just my quirky sense of humor.

So I was able to send my mom home with a planned party.

I had a blast, which I think will serve our business well if we ever get it going. ;)

Edited June 23, 2009: here is the link to my latest cake..a girly one! :)

Wishing Well

Hmm...I never noticed that those words together meant two different things before, until there was not a context for them to live within!

I guess I mean them both ways. If I had a wishing well, then I would wish to be spending this weekend in Colorado with my family. Yesterday my brother graduated with his History degree and High School Educator's endorsement, and my mom had her M.A. in Counseling conferred upon her (she received it in December, but it was given out at a ceremony yesterday). Today is my sister-in-law's baby shower. These are all things I would love to attend--I adore a good party! I am happy that I had a hand in planning the shower while my mom was out. That is a fun thing for me.

So I guess in the absence of my wishing well, I will wish my family well (from afar) with all of their celebrating.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mom's out there. May God Bless your day with love and remembrance!

'Ello Gov'na

Today was fishing opener's kick-off here. The Governor came to celebrate. Ben and I really like our governor, and it was exciting when Ben was asked to be part of the Color Guard and 21-gun salute that his VFW Post performed. It was a beautiful afternoon and a privilege to be a part of the festivities.

I have always been a patriotic old soul, but anything that has to do with Ben's military service about makes me bust my buttons in pride.

Family Photo-Op

Ben is the youngest guy up there, with the shiniest boots. ;) He's just to the right of the Veteran's flag.

After Ben finished today, we were blessed to get our picture taken with the governor. I wish we'd looked better as a family, but the governor is a busy guy, so you can't keep shooting to get the best possible shot for one's blog. ;)

We're back!

Wow! I sit here thinking of everything that we have done while I have been away from my blog, and it is no wonder I couldn't find the time to squeeze it in!

My parents came to visit, which was fabulous. We planned and shopped for everything my mom needed to throw a baby shower when she got home. It was fun, and after the shower, I'll post some pictures of our handiwork. We also went to swimming lessons twice, into the city twice, to the Great Lakes over night --where we went hiking, shopping, swimming, and eating. I caught a pretty wicked cold for a good part of their visit. And I got my brother's graduation gift altogether. Another thing I can write about once it is given.

My mom and dad had to take off this afternoon, which was sad, but Ben made Amish White Bread and a really good Chicken and Wild Rice Salad for lunch before they left, and we finished the last of our pie from Betty's pies--which we got while we were up North. *licks lips*

Most of the pictures are on my mom's camera, so the details will follow after they get home and have some time to e-mail them back to me.

My schedule was totally thrown off, so it may take awhile to get back into the swing of things, but it is sunny and Springy now, with all of the ice off of the lakes, so it probably won't take too long!

New Every Morning

Yes it is nearly May and there is snow in my yard, but there are also sure signs of Spring. Check out what I captured from my side door this morning:

Confessions of an Over-eager Blogger...

Or, what I have learned (so far) about blog etiquette.

This week has been a bit of a learning experience. I have never had anything "published" before, and now I know why there are teams of editors for people who publish their writings for a living.

I have my own team of sorts, that I didn't know was there, and it is a good, albeit humbling thing.


Lesson #1: Know thy audience: Or rather, know that you may not know thy audience, and they may not know you. They don't all have assumptions about your writings or personality based on personal experiences that they share with you, because let's face it, they may have never met you! I was checking out some of the features on my site tracker the other day and was amazed to see that people from Belarus, Slovakia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, El Salvador, Brazil and Korea were checking in on my blog!

Lesson #2: Fact check: I posted something this week in a hurry, and I had a mantra running through my head that I recalled from somewhere back in US History. I used it as something I loved about this country, and then I was reminded that it was actually a segregationist mantra--yikes! *blushes* I really should have taken a minute to look it up and confirm what I was saying. Accuracy is important even in one's personal writings, when they are up for the world to see. Thanks for the save dear editors!

Lesson #3: Someone else's news isn't always yours to tell: So if you are one of my readers who knows me in real life, you know that I have a very enthusiastic, exuberant side of me that is extremely loyal to both my friends and family, and that when something great happens, I desire to shout it from the rooftops! Now, this can be a good thing, but sometimes your greatest strengths are also your greatest weaknesses. Sometimes someone else wants to do the shouting. This is something I will probably have to work on my whole life long. My last personality test compared me to Oprah. That is really great, but it also means that I require an audience of many people. Which makes blogging a super outlet. Unless you use it to steal thunder. Thank you again dear editors.

I don't do well with criticism. It cuts me to my core. BUT, it is necessary, and it will make me a better person and writer, so I cringe as I write this (because sometimes you get what you ask for), but in the interest of growth, bring it on!

Lots of livin' going on

My parents are going to arrive for a visit on Sunday, and there is so much to do before they get here! The weekend that they return home is a doosie for our fam! It is the weekend that my mom graduates with her Master's degree, my brother graduates with his teaching degree, it is Mother's Day weekend, and the weekend of my sister-in-law's baby shower! Whew! It's exhausting just thinking about it. Since I won't be physically present (boo hoo), I want to send gifts for the occasions, however, this is the time of year where Ben and I really have to tighten our belts, because he doesn't attend school during the busy summer camping season, which means no GI Bill money comes in. So we live on substantially less May through September.

All of that being said. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be blogging less frequently than normal. Probably taking a bit of a blogging break so that I can make a bunch of gifts to send back. Once the gifts are given, perhaps I will post pictures of whatever creativity I have mustered on my family's behalf! ;)

Fun and busy times ahead!

PS--I also ask for your prayers. It is supposed to snow yet again tomorrow. I'm not sure how much more winter my heart that is longing for Spring and life can take! I'm sure it will be fine, it has just been so long this year!

Fargo-ho!

We are off to the illustrious Fargodome today on a business and family trip! Hurrah!

When we were driving through North Dakota a few years ago (while I was still teaching my multigrain class--as I refer to my diverse group, you know, as opposed to whitebread?), we stopped for a meal at the Cracker Barrel and I was shocked to see a disclaimer that they welcome all races without discrimination at the door. I wasn't sure why they needed such a sign until we sat down to eat, and the place was filled to the brim with elderly white couples settling down for lunch. Then I got it...Oh! The Cracker--Barrel! It made me laugh--I hadn't seen such a homogeneous crew in a very long time. Now it has been awhile since I have seen much else!

That is one of the reasons I love our country. We are different, but all a part of one nation.

Spring Cleaning

Today I raked up a bunch of pine needles and leaves and picked up many small limbs from the recent wind storms. It was a lot of work, but my iPod came in handy, and Nehemiah took a really great afternoon nap to give me the time.

When Ben came home, he was happy, and we decided to have a good old-fashioned leaf burning. Ben made a fire pit in the middle of the driveway and went to town collecting my piles in the trailer on the lawn mower. It was really nice, and we even roasted hot dogs for dinner.

Here are some photos of the fun: