Hahahaha! I just read my little sister's blog and she was talking about the agony that descends upon every woman (or maybe just me and my sisters) around 4 o'clock eveyday ... what's for dinner?

I tried to do as Mina did and plan ahead. I sat down one terrible morning last month and planned every dinner for the entire month. It was like pulling my teeth out slowly without drugs. Noah was buzzing about me incessantly talking and asking "why?" while I tried to clear my mind and focus on 30 dinners!!! It was terrible, but in the process, I found a few new favorite dishes and one favorite new food site: www.ourbestbites.com .... amazing.

Here are my favorite dinners that truned out spectacular, try 'em out for yourself!

Southwest Burgers - go waaaaaay easy on the chipotle peppers and these are fantastic!

Pasta Salad - I did fresh veggies and the homemade Italian dressing ... so yum.

Asian Wonton Salad - I found the wonton wrappers in the healthfood fridge section of my grocery store.

Spicy Honey Chicken - I used chicken tenderloins and breats, not thighs.

Cashew Sweet and Sour Pork - I didn't have cashews ... wish I had.

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade - hands down, the best. lemonade. ever.

Sunrise Punch - I tried to make this healthier by using sparkling water instead of ginger ale ... I think I'd go all out and do the ginger ale next time :)

Love you Mina.

I borrowed my mom's patterns to make a blessing gown for Christina's little boy, Zac, a few months ago and I completely forgot to return the patterns. So when my mom went to make a blessing dress for Mina's little girl, Devyn, they were at my house. I felt terrible! So, I offered, sheepishly, to make the dress. I talked to Mina on Friday, she sent me ribbon to match the shoes on Saturday, I got the ribbon Monday and the dress was done Tuesday night - phew! I sent it off to her this morning. Here's the dress:









Yeah for Devyn Ray Donner!! I wish I could be there at the blessing! Lots of love and kisses!

Liam is asleep but should wake up anytime now. It's 2:45 in the afternoon. Noah is dead silent downstairs playing with his cars. I am reading blogs.

I spent the morning sending off a blessing dress to Mina that I made for Devyn Ray's blessing this Sunday and then I came home and made lunch for everyone, put Liam down for a nap and cleaned the basement. I hurt my lower back cleaning it all up and it took me about an hour and a half. But it looks good. It was getting kind of crazy down there. I would like to pretend like I don't care about what the basement looks like, but I do. I walk down there everyday to do laundry or a sewing project and the boys just thrash it. I like that I have an area for them to thrash and it's relatively out of sight, but definately not out of mind. I try and let it go for as long as I can put it off, then I get all geared up and put away train sets, pick up every tiny lego that I keep stepping on, organize Noah's "art table" and vacuum all the spiders - my least favorite part. I always sweat and talk to myself like a crazy person as I do that last part. I think I definately have a phobia.

I've got so much more to do. My bedroom is a wreck with luggage I never put away from our weekend trip to Frankenmuth and the house needs to be vacuumed. I need to blog the Frankenmuth trip, the blessing dress, and my trip with the boys to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I need to clean the kitchen. I need to think baout what I'm going to come up with for dinner and it just started storming outside and of course the backyard is strewn with toys and bikes that are about to be soaked. I really should get up and get started, but I wanted to sit back for a brief moment and just think and rest.

I wonder if other people need that too. I do. I need to sit and think and rest my body. I make so many quick decisions as a mommy that my brain gets tired of moving at that pace. Here's a sample of that pace:

Do I put Liam down now, or try and force him to eat? Will he sleep longer/better if he eats first? Is he too tired to eat? Why is it quiet? What is Noah doing? Maybe I need to eat first, I feel angry and cranky. Should I eat? I need to put Liam down, but where's his blanket? Is his diaper soaked or could it last through his nap? I thought I just changed him ... Where's Noah? OK, Liam is down, what happened to the front room floor? I don't have time for that now, I need to eat - do we have any bread? I have to go to the store and get bread ... and milk and cereal, when do we get paid again? I have to make some bread from scratch, we don't get paid until next week. Wait, I definately need to eat! What's Noah doing?

While all of that is happening I am also walking through the house picking up random things and putting them away.

It's good to sit and write and think and rest. Times up though, it's time to get going ...

OK, so a few weeks back we decided on a whim to go camping. We left Friday afternoon (Daniel got off work a little early) and we drove about an hour away and went camping at this place near a lake. The boys L-O-V-E-D it. Every moment of it. It was a lot of work for me and Daniel, but so worth it to see the boys revel in it all.

We roasted hot dogs, ate licorice (I don't know why, but my family always brought red vines to eat around the campfire), went swimming at the beach, took a nature hike (it was 1/8 of a mile long ... I think that's more of a "jaunt") and just basically had a good time.

The only thing that was less than desireable was being right next to the bathrooms. It's good because you're right next to the bathrooms ... but it's bad because you're RIGHT next to the bathrooms ... catch my meaning? Anyway, it was kind of a crowded campground, but the boys didn't care. It was a little wussy "car" camping trip and it was perfect for the boys, so I'd say it was a success! Here are the pics:


Noah's face is awesome in this one.






Licorice around the campfire!


We were up and going around 6:30 am ... yeah.




Liam is not really a hardcore camper ... he took some time off "roughing it" to have some alone time in the car with his blanket ... can you spot the wild Liam in this picture??


There he is. He's a beaut!


Chillaxin'


ummm, are these the cutest men on earth or what? theya re my favorite people.


on the "jaunt"












Trying to catch some rays and get these white legs less white :)

The green chairs are from my patio set. Daniel bought a 6 chair, hexagon table and green umbrella matching patio set from craigslist for $80 last summer and I have LOVED it. The chairs are comfy and lightweight and I love the bright green color. Can you believe it? ... it's awesome that they just happened to match the baby shower colors perfectly, hahahaha!! "I love it when a plan comes together".

Today is a sick day. It started at 5 am when Noah burst into our room and blurted, "I keep throwing up!" he finished this statement with a demonstration and threw up all over our bedroom floor. Poor little Noah. Daniel's side of the bed was closest to Noah, so Daniel jumped up and took Noah into the bathroom while I leapt up and followed the trail of throw up across the hall and into his room - on the floor and all over his quilt.

We tag-teamed and got it all taken care of. At 5:45 am, it happened again. It was so sad because Noah had tried to get the throw up in the bowl next to his bed and as he was leaning over the bowl with Daniel by his side he was able to make out a few words in between heaves, "I got some ... on the floor Mommy ... over there". It was heartbreaking to hear him apologizing in between throwing up. We got it all taken care of and got back in bed.

Both Daniel and I were exhausted but so wide awake now that we had a hard time getting back to sleep. But finally, we started drifting off and right about 6:45 am ... more throw up, this time, in the bathroom.

This continued until about 10 am.

I pulled out the steam cleaner around 9 am and cleaned the carpets, ran 4 loads of clothes and as I was finishing up a pale faced and weary looking Noah came up to me and said, "Mommy, can you grow if you throw up?" I told him he would still grow. He said, "Can you measure me on my chart? I want to see if I am growing". So adorable that he was worried about his height on a morning like this. We measured him, and much to his dismay, he was the same height as he was in May, bummer.

He took a nap and daddy stayed home from work so I could go to an appointment I had made last week. I kept my appointment and came home with pedialyte and ginger ale. Then Daniel left for work and I blogged a little ... and that's when it hit me too.

I haven't thrown up since I was about 17. I never threw up when I was pregnant. For some reason, my adult body doesn't use the throw up method to rid my body of unwanted fluids ... it uses the "other method". And I am going to be disgustingly honest - you may want to turn away. I pooped my pants today. Yeah, that's the "other method". Needless to say, I have spent the better part of the afternoon either in my bed or in the bathroom. The only exceptions were when I was getting Noah into his bed, getting him Ibuprofen for his fever and when I had to feed Liam.

Liam is doing great. He has been running circles around Noah and me with a tiny, pink, plastic camera (I don't know how that came to be in our house) and keeps yelling, "cheeeeeeeeese!" and then he makes a clicking noise and laughs and runs to the other sick human in the room and does it again. His spirits have luckily been in tremendous strength throughout the day and currently, he is wearing a bike helmet and setting up train tracks in his room and knocking them over, with a baseball glove on one hand. I can't make stuff like that up, it is pure reality around here.

So, I deem this a sick day ... here's for a cleaned out and healthier body tomorrow.

I really can't help myself! When my friend, Senta, asked me to help out throwing a very small baby shower for Megan, I couldn't resist. I love doing this and because we only invited about 10 ladies and Senta and Tamara did all of the food and invitations, I was able to spend some serious time on the decorations and make the favors more intricate than just a cookie. So fun for me.

Megan is a self-proclaimed "non-girly-girl" and her nursery colors are yellow, green, white and a little bit of pink - so we went with those colors for the baby shower. I was inspired to do my party after looking at THIS baby shower on the hostess blog. But instead of doing pinwheels and pom poms, I did paper medallions and pom poms.

The party favors were little jars of sugar scrub and the food was lemon and lime inspired: lemon-limeade, lemon bars, lemon cupcakes, lemon musffins ... OK it was mostly lemon inspired :)

Thanks to those who came and helped out!








































Christine handmade these little hairclips - so cute!


Handmade blanket by Marcie ... amazing.


Handmade blanket by Debbie?? All these crafty ladies!