Birthdays and Batmobiles

Hey there! I haven't felt like blogging the past few weeks so I took a little break. Here's what been going on in my world.  Kara had her 1st birthday! To celebrate we had a couple small parties with both sets of grandparents. It's crazy to me that she is one already, but at the same time it's hard for me to imagine her not being with us! I love my little family!

Kara is such a fun baby, she loves being silly and chasing her sister around the house. She's not walking yet but can take several steps in a row when we practice with her. Any day now! Her favorite foods are yogurt, blueberries, and bananas. I think she could polish off a whole pint of blueberries on her own if I'd let her! She's learning to feed herself with a spoon and is finally starting to sleep though the night on a regular basis. I put her to bed around 8/8:30 and she's up around 7:30. She still takes 2 naps a day but they are getting shorter so we may be going down to one long nap soon.

She says several words now: banana, yogurt, bubus (for blueberries), mama, dada, dora, done, yaa (for yes), and some others.

   Jack's basketball season ended, his team lost in the regional championship game, but were the regular season champs! It's always alot of fun to watch his teams and cheer them on, but I'm happy to have him home more often now though!  He is gone alot of nights and weekends during basketball season and it can get pretty lonely.

   Kirsten went to a brithday party for a couple of her best friends! She was very excited! I took her shopping and let her pick them out some presents. Of course she also found several things that she wants for her birthday too! The party was at an inflatbles center, and Kirsten is terrified of those things :( She would not do anything. I tried and tried to get her to follow her friends into the different mazes and slides. She was just too scared! I got her to go down one slide with me, but when she went to try it by herself, she freaked out halfway up the ladder and I had to help her down! Despite all that, she still says she had fun!



Kirsten with the birthday girls!

   I got back into running again this week! I love running but it never fails, every November-February I hardly run at all. I blame it on the cold and the business of the holiday's and basketball season. But whatever the excuse I've been a slacker! The weather this week has been amazing and I got in five great runs in the last 7 days. I'm so out of shape right now that the 3.2 mile loop I usually do was pretty tough, but by today I was able to cut 2 minutes off my time from last sunday. My parents were here visiting this week, and so my Dad offered to run with me one of the days. He's been running on the treadmill at his house, but this was his first time running outside. I gave him a good workout :) Now I'm in the market for new running shoes, the pair I have are worn out!

Oh and while shopping at Walmart today I saw the Batmobile!!! For real!

Haha! With a handicap tag and all! And I think I spotted Batman inside on one of those motorized carts ; )

Make a silly face!

So it started off with me taking a picture with Kirsten.

She said, "I look silly! Let's make a silly face!"

Now let's do grumpy! Don't mess with us...we're hard core ;)

Happy again!

now we're sad  :(

Then we went to sleep.

just kidding!!!!

Say "CHEESE!"

Weaning Woes

I'm finally finished! Kara is completely done with nursing! I started trying to wean her around 9 months because of several reasons but she was not ready to give it up. So I took it slow, cutting back on the nighttime feedings first and then slowly elimintating a feeding at a time during the day. Because I stayed at home with her and didn't have to work during her first 6 months she never took a bottle (pumped milk or formula) so this made weaning very hard. I tried at first to get her to take formula from a bottle, but she was not having it at all! I never had much luck with pumping, I could spend 20 minutes pumping and only get a couple ounces. Plus my supply had really dropped off by 9 months, so I knew pumping wasn't an option.
Then I tried formula in a sippy, nope. Formula from a regular cup with a straw, nope. I tried flavoring it to make it taste better, no dice! So I continued to nurse, even though I knew she was not getting a whole lot, because I didn't want her to go without anything at all.
By 11 months I decided to just start trying whole milk (don't tell the AAP), my body wasn't producing hardly at all anymore, so it was either that or nothing because formula she refused to take formula, she just hated the taste of the stuff. I know all the Dr.'s say to wait till after 12 months, but I had been giving her milk products for a long time and she never had a reaction. Plus both mine and Jack's parents gave us milk (per the Dr.'s recommendations) well before age 1 and we're fine obviously :)
So now she drinks milk out of sippy. (I've been buying the organic stuff with DHA added) She still doesn't drink it super fast, or quite as much as I would like her to, but at least she'll drink it!
I'm super thankful that I was able to nurse both of the girls (Kirsten till 9 months/Kara till about 11 1/2 before she was completely done). It saved our family a ton of money, makes feeding time super easy once they get the hang of it, but man is weaning a completely breastfed baby hard work!

Getting clean!

So my husband and I have been trying for awhile now to be more aware of the types of food we eat. Since we moved to KY we had been eating out more and more bcause there are just so many more options here tempting us. And let's face it, it's fun to eat out! Well, we've realized enough is enough! While all that stuff may taste good, the vast majority of it is high calorie, fat laden, processed junk!
This past week we have really kicked our healthy eating into high gear. (Jack really intiated it and has been doing better than me!) We are avoiding all the fake stuff: enriched pasta,  breads, etc, anything with HFCS, really anything with alot of ingredients that we don't recognize, and loading up on the fruits, veggies, whole grains!
We've started buying our beef from a local farmer who produces grass fed/grass finished beef. It's only a couple bucks more per pound than the walmart stuff, and so much better for you (it tastes better too!) I'm still working on finding a local farmer to buy chicken from, but until then I've been buying the free range stuff from Kroger.

We're trying out a couple new things this week. Here's the plan.

Breakfasts:
WW toast with scrambled eggs
Oatmeal with berries
Greek yogurt

Granola bars

Lunches:

Tuna/ brocolli/ apples

Greek salad

PB and J/carrot sticks/ strawberries

Leftovers from dinners

mandarin chicken salad

Dinners:

Lentil soup

crock pot roast beef/mashed potatoes/ peas

chicken and veggies stirfry with brown rice

grilled salmon/ steamed green beans

quinoa bowls with beans/tomatoes/parm cheese

Hairbows

Guess what! I made my first hairbow for the girls! I just watched a couple videos on youtube and viola!

Done in less than 10 minutes, and super simple! I can't believe I have waited this long to try making them on my own. It's so much cheaper. I want to try making different kinds too, like layered bows and korkers. This may just become a new hobby :)

Yes, Kirsten is sticking out her tongue!

 And check out Kara in the background, digging through sissy's paints. That girl is always into something!



Speaking of bows...Kirsten loves to play "salon" and fix my hair. Here's how she styled my hair on saturday.

Cute, isn't it! I should wear it to work like this someday.