December 19, 2013

Hey there!  That bittersweet feeling has set in for the end of the year.  The Today Show started doing their year end video montages this week and it is all I can do to watch them!  This morning’s was the Year In Review, which includes the ‘In Memoriam’ segment.  Ugh, bawled like a baby!  That gets me every year!  Do any of you get sappy about those things?  And it always shocks me how many major news stories we lived through in a year.

Dynamite’s been having fun around here the last 3 nights.  Reading his favorite book to some friends, playing ‘Sorry’ with his buddies the 3 Wise Men (was that too irreverent?? I was worried about that when I set it up but Andy told me I wouldn’t go to Hell, we’ll see), and he saw the boys getting their Christmas haircuts last night so thought he needed one too.

Our plan today is to finish up the teacher’s Christmas gifts for tomorrow’s big gift exchange at school, and still waiting on the washing machine repair guy – he had to cancel yesterday so is coming SOMETIME today.  No time range because they are squeezing us in today since they had to cancel yesterday.  So, will it be morning? Afternoon? Who knows! 

Only 3 days till Andy’s birthday (and my dear friend, Shelli’s!!!)!!! I can hardly wait!  And after that only 2 more days till Christmas Eve!  So exciting!

Have a great day!

Erin

My Favorite Christmas Traditions

Christmas is such a special time of year, there is so much family time!  I look forward to our special traditions every year, they make the season for me.  I wanted to share some of our traditions with you, just for the fun of it.

Christmas Baking:  Every year my sister, mom and I get together one Saturday after Thanksgiving to make a whole bunch of goodies to snack on for the season.  We meet around 9 a.m. and dig right in melting, stirring, mixing, dropping by spoonful and baking.  These last few years the kiddos have been involved and get to help prep (i.e. smash Oreos, pretzels, etc.) and decorate sugar cookies.  At the end of the day we divide all of the goodies up and take them home to devour.

Christmas Shopping:  The Saturday after Tgiving my mom, sister and I go shopping together.  We meet nice and early and head up to the big city.  Our first stop is always Target, and it’s always our longest stop.  We may or may not do a lot of goofing off.  We always go out for lunch and my mom always pays (but says it’s Dad who’s paying, cracks us up).  We shop till we drop and till our feet feel like they’re falling off.  It’s always a hoot of a day, lots of laughs and lots of money spent.  And it seems we always end up doing a little shopping for ourselves along the way.

Watching Christmas Movies: Andy and I started this before having the boys.  Every weekend leading up to Christmas (after Tgiving) we watch at least one movie.  Our “top of the list” movies are ‘White Christmas’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.  We also enjoy ‘Scrooged’, ‘A Christmas Carol’ (the Jim Carey animated version) and ‘Christmas Vacation’, to name a few.  Sprinkle in the cartoon shows – ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’, ‘Frosty the Snowman’, ‘Prep and Landing’, and my most favorite of all, ‘Garfield Christmas’. 

Wrapping Presents:  I (most years) love to wrap presents and make them look as pretty as possible.  And part of that tradition is handing them to the boys to put under the tree. They love helping with that.

Going to visit Santa:  Our Santa is so great, he always teases the boys! “What do you GIRLS want this year?”  They giggle every time! 

Tree Hopping:  My mom’s family’s annual tradition of going house to house seeing everyone’s trees and decorations and eating some good food.  It’s an awesome afternoon of just being together without presents.  Isn’t that what the holidays should be about?

Andy’s Gifts:  Every year – EVERY YEAR- I beg Andy to open just one of his presents.  I get so excited to give him his gifts that I can’t hardly stand the wait!!  And every year his will power wins out and he says no.  But we get a kick out of it anyway!

To and From:  Another tradition of Andy;s and mine is addressing each other’s gifts to names other than our own.  It all depends on what’s happened that year, who was famous, what TV shows we watched, what tickled our fancy.  It’s just as fun seeing how they are addressed as what is inside them.

These are just a few of our many traditions.  All of our traditions are super special to me, I hope they’ll be special to the boys as they get older, too.

Merry Christmas!

Erin

I Want My Washer Back!

Hey there!  Sorry for being MIA yesterday.  Our washing machine decided to die on us this weekend so made a run to the Laundromat to wash a load of sheets and towels.  Do you know how dang expensive it is to wash a load in a super capacity in BFE Iowa??  $5!!!! And a regular size machine is $3.50!!!  How do people afford that?  I didn’t even look at the dryers to see how much those were, I just brought my wet laundry home and dried them here.  Can you believe I have to wait until Wednesday for the repair man? We called them Saturday as soon as this happened and they can’t get here until Wednesday.  Ugh!  We know it’s not the belt that just slipped, Handy Andy checked that. So it’s the motor.  We’ll either be replacing the motor, they will be fixing the motor or we’ll be buying a whole new machine.  Not what I wanted for Christmas. Luckily my gifts are already wrapped and under the tree so he can’t take them back!  Of course the machine died right in the middle of a load, with a drum full of water.  We had to first bail out the sopping wet clothes, then bail out the water because it wouldn’t even drain.  Then to town we went and I borrowed my MIL’s machine to re-wash that load and 2 more.  What a pain.  If the machine can’t be fixed Wednesday I’ll be doing all of my laundry at my mom’s house Thursday.  Again, what a pain!  But it could be worse, I could have to use that darn Laundromat every week!

In other news, we went to visit Santa Saturday afternoon.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have a great Santa here!  He had the boys cracking up.  I just wish he’d ask them if they wanted to sit on his lap for the whole thing.  Here are a few pics.

Dynamite has been making the rounds in the house.  But after a bunch of temper tantrums and crabbiness on Saturday I asked Dynamite to sit out in the living room Sunday to keep an eye on the boys.  They were aware of me telling him this, too.  And then Sunday night I went to bed and completely forgot about moving him! Whoops, parent fail!  Luckily Monday morning both boys came in to snuggle with me in bed and one of them said “I wonder where Dynamite is today.”  Shit!!  So I told them I had to go to the bathroom, to stay in bed and I’d be right back. So I just grabbed him and stuffed him somewhere else. Ha ha! Back to the calendar for the rest of the week! P.S.  The toilet being wrapped was a huge hit! The boys loved it!

Saturday, after visiting Santa, we took the boys to the free movie at the theater.  This weekend’s was Turbo.  Uh, not a fan.  What did you think of it?  I mean, it was fine but just didn’t impress me at all.  After we left Andy said to me “That is the first movie I’ve ever fallen asleep in.”  LOL, mine too!!  We both passed out about the same time!  I hope I wasn’t snoring (#pregnancyproblems)!!

I am officially 31 weeks 2 days along now!  I think instead of counting down weeks (9 to go) I’ll start counting down days (61 days to go!).  It sounds shorter to me that way.  It’s the little things.  My GD is going well, I think.  I’m finally getting over my pity party, am not craving my Mt Dew nearly as much and am doing great on my glucose levels except for my fasting level before breakfast.  For some reason I can’t break the under 95 thing!  I have a meeting with my dietician tomorrow, hopefully she can give me a few more tips on that.  Otherwise I think I have the hang of it. 

At my appointment last Monday my dr. gave me a scrip for Zantac for my heartburn.  I just realized Sunday that I didn’t have it anymore and how awesome it was!  What a relief.  This coming Monday is my ultrasound to see just how big Baby is.  I am so tempted to find out the gender! Think I’m nuts?  I won’t , especially since my rock is telling me absolutely not!  But I’m tempted.  The boys will be there with us, can’t wait for them to see the baby on the screen!  It’ll be a fun little Christmas present for us.

Celebrity Christmas Carol remakes, Chipmunk Carol remakes?

Neither.  Give me good old traditional versions of the classics.  That includes Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas”.  Ha ha!

Gift cards, gift baskets?

I’ve never been given a gift basket before but if it had something in it other than fruit I’d probably love it.  And you can never go wrong with a GC!  Give me one and I’ll spend it!

Naughty or Nice?

I try to be nice but am known to be naughty at times (hello hormones and bad temper outbursts!).  Um, when I walked out of church the other night I might have said loudly “I’m tired of his Cyclone bullshit”.  And yes, that was directed at our priest.  Whoops! I was fired up that night for some reason, ha ha!  Luckily only Andy and my parent’s heard.

Getting everything on your wish list, Giving someone everything on their wish list?

Definitely GIVING!  How fun is that to see someone’s eyes light up over the excitement of opening, I mean, UNWRAPPING, all of their gifts from you?!?

Presents on Christmas Eve, Presents on Christmas morning?

We do both.  Christmas Eve is at my folk’s house, Christmas morning is at our house w/ the boys (then Christmas dinner at my in-laws and Christmas supper at my Gma’s).  We have it all crammed into those 24 hours.  If we didn’t go to my folk’s on Eve we might open gifts to each other then, that way we’d reserve morning for Santa gifts.  That’s what we did when I was growing up.

Another fun This or That!  Thanks, girls!

Stop back tomorrow to read about my favorite Christmas traditions!

Erin

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

I totally missed the big ‘Finish The Sentence’ Link up with Holly yesterday.  Ugh, pregnancy brain!  Here are the q’s and my a’s.

1. My favorite Christmas was.... the first Christmas Andy and I celebrated together after we were married.  It was fairly simple but it was all ours, which made it so special! 

2. The worst Christmas I had... is the year my sister talked me into snooping for our Christmas presents.  We found almost all of them and that year was horrible! 

3. That one gift that made me scratch my head and say, "Hmmmm" was... the calculator my in-laws gave me.  I wanted a 10-key desk calculator (you know, the kind w/ the tape that spits out the top) and they SWORE they didn’t make those anymore so bought me a giant calculator with large buttons for the elderly.  Umm, guess what, even the Amish country store sells the desk calculators, just saw them there this year!

4. One year I.... think it would be neat to take the boys to a tropical island for their gift.

5. I think the worst gift to give is.... one in a gift bag.  Kidding!!!  Just had to rib all of my friends who don’t wrap!

6. At Christmastime I typically.... feel holly, jolly and full of Christmas spirit. And I cry at every sad, sappy, moving story I hear, read or see.

7. Typically, family Christmas.... is loud, busy, full of laughter, lots of food and an all around great time.

8. If I could change one thing about the Holiday season.... it would be that some families can’t afford gifts and food to celebrate.  I wish everyone could have the kind of Christmas they dreamed of.

9. It is so hard to buy for.... my in-laws. 

10. My favorite Christmas tradition is... going to church an hour before mass starts to get a full pew for my family of four, my sister’s family of four and my parents to all sit in together to celebrate the real reason for Christmas, then sitting there for that hour singing Christmas songs with the rest of the congregation and watching all the people come in, those that I’ve gone to church with since I was born.  There’s always someone coming with a new boyfriend or spouse or a new baby.  It’s always the “Oh my gosh, they’ve grown up!”  or “Wow, when did So and So get old?”  Then the rush afterwards to get back to my parent’s house for our Christmas celebration.

11. Santa, baby, bring me a .... Kindle.  And a bunch of new Hawkeye gear, mine’s getting old and worn out!

Have a great weekend!!!

Erin

Carbs! Carbs! Everywhere Are Carbs!

(Sung to the tune for Signs)

I met with the Diabetic Dietician yesterday.  All in all it’s not a hard ‘diet’ to follow, you have to limit your carbs and sugar intake.  The hard part for me is that I eat a lot of carbs!  I didn’t realize how many carbs I actually eat.  My goal is to get 3 carb choices (1 carb choice equals 15 grams) at each meal, and 1 carb choice at each snack.  Breakfast is going to be my hardest meal to adjust because all I eat for breakfast is carbs and sugar – toast, oatmeal, chocolate milk, cereal.  Don’t get me wrong, I eat carbs at lunch and supper, too, but those I can adjust a lot easier.  Going out to eat is going to be a challenge because again, it’s usually mostly carbs. 

In addition to watching my carb and sugar intake I also have to test my blood sugar levels 4 times a day.  I do finger pokes before I eat first thing in the morning and one hour after each meal.  After the meals I want my levels to be under 140, and for my ‘fasting’ level it needs to be between 60 and 95.  I failed my fasting level this morning but not sure why.  But my ‘after meal’ levels have been good so far. 

The good things about finding out about this:

• it’ll help keep the baby a little smaller (probably still not having a 7 lb. baby but maybe not a 10 lb.er either!)
• the new ‘diet’ will help me see how terrible of an eater I am and will help me post-baby to lose the baby weight (I hope)

So, what did I have for breakfast today?  Scrambled eggs (no toast, boo) and a glass of chocolate milk.  Was chocolate milk the best choice?  No, but it was within my 3 carb choice limit so I went with it. Baby steps!  I have to try to reach that 3 cc, can’t give up carbs altogether, so was fine using them up that way today.  And my sugar level was 126 an hour after eating, so my body was happy with that, too.  Did you know that 1/2 c. of orange juice is 1 cc?  When I first wake up I am always SUPER thirsty, 1/2 c. is NOT going to take care of that wicked thirst!  At least 1 c. of milk is 1 cc, so that’s a little better for quenching the thirst.

One thing that’s hard to wrap my head around is how fruit can be ‘bad’ for you with diabetes.  All of that darn, delicious, natural sugar!  We’ve always told the boys that fruit and veggies are freebies, they can eat as many of those as they want.  So I will use my 1 carb choice at snacks for my fruit (one medium orange is 1 cc).  I can still have all the veggies I want (which tends to be none).

Thanks for all of the encouragement about this. I’m not at all upset about having GD (weird for me), I’m just worried about changing my diet, especially at this time of year when you have no control over what’s being served at parties and gatherings.  I’ll just try to make the best choices I can and hope for the best.

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I am so excited, my Christmas/Easter/Bloom-Whenever-You-Want Cactus is blooming for Christmas this year!!!  Last year I figured out that these plants like a lot of sun prior to blooming so I moved it to the SE window in my living room and it started blooming within a few weeks of moving it there. That was just before Easter.  So this year I stuck it right in that same window when I brought it in from outside in October and it’s starting to bloom!!!  Yay!  These pics show just the bloom, it’s not opened up quite yet. 

Dynamite has been having some fun this week.

Today is a great day for me, Andy comes home from his 3 day conference.  It’s been a really tough few days without him.  The poor guy has such a big burden on his shoulders of always trying to keep me calm, relaxed and happy.  You all know I’m a crier as a rule, but when I was pregnant with the boys I didn’t cry very much at all.  I kind of thought something was wrong with me because I’d heard that pregnancy makes women super emotional, and here Miss Emotional wasn’t crying!  Well all of that has changed with this baby.  I cry ALL THE TIME!!!  Happy tears, sad tears, worried tears, no reason tears.  So, you can imagine all the tears over learning this GD stuff.  Poor Andy got a sloppy, mush-mouthed, can hardly understand me message yesterday while at the conference.  Poor guy.  He was about to run out of there and come home to take care of me, he was so worried about my emotional state.  I finally convinced him to stay, let me take a nap and see if that helped some.  So today he will be here!  I can’t wait to see him!

Brennan and I are making sugar cookies this morning to take to school for his class to frost tomorrow for their Polar Express day.  He is so excited about this he can’t stop asking me when we are making them.  Soon! Better get done with this and go check to see if the butter is softened up enough.

Have a great Thursday!

Erin