Category Archives: Life

Popsicles made less messy

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I had a brilliant moment a few days ago and I know I’m not inventing the wheel here, but I had to share.

Lil’s cousins Brock and Bryce were visiting and they had just got back from the park with my In-laws. The kids were hot and wanted a snack. I had made Lil some strawberry banana surprise Popsicles a few days before so I gave each of them one and we all went out to the backyard to keep the mess down.  Brock was sitting on a sheet with my Mother in Law when he started complaining that he didn’t like how the popsicle juice was getting on his arm. I had a flash of brilliance, I went inside and grabbed 3 small paper plates from the pantry and made a slit in the middle with a sharp paring knife. I went outside, asked Brock for his popsicle and popped it in the slit. He was thrilled. My Mother in Law was amazed and I was pretty darn happy since cleanup just got a lot easier. I put Lily and Bryce’s popsicles on a plate too and everyone was happy.

Eating popsicles

Brock and his Popsicle

 

Eating popsicles

Lil and her Popsicle

 

Eating popsicles

Lily and Bryce with their Popsicles

Like I said I didn’t invent this, I have seen people put candles through paper plates for vigils and I’ve seen ear candles the same way. I just haven’t seen popsicles like this before. With Summer and the hot weather coming up I thought some people might find this useful.

Oh and the Strawberry and banana surprise popsicles couldn’t be easier to make. I put a banana in my small food processor along with some sliced up strawberries. Once it was all chopped up I added some plain yogurt and a splash of orange juice. Pulsed it again to mix it together and spooned it into my new popsicle molds. I highly recommend the molds by the way, they are super sturdy and way cute.

Random Mobile Shots

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I haven’t done one of these posts in a long time. I miss them. Here are some random shots I took with my cell. These shots are just too cute/unique not to share, but don’t really deserve a whole post just about them.

My little belly dance princess

Lil decided to combine her belly dance outfit with her halloween tutu. I loved the look.

My little belly dance princess

Rocket ship pillows my Mother in Law made

My Mother-In-Law made these little rocket ship pillows for two of my nephews.

Roasted Bananas for muffins

Roasted banana for muffins.

Making banana bread muffins

Lily helped me make the roasted banana muffins.

Making banana bread muffins

Blowing a 'poofer'

Lily loves ‘poofers’. We spend most of our walks looking for them and then blowing them. I’m sure the neighbors don’t love that she does it, but I don’t care. It’s her thing.

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I’m joining Amy from A Good Life‘s phone picture link up.

I’m gardening!

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For years and years now I have wanted to grow some kind of garden in the summer. I wasn’t picky, a few pots on my porch would have made me happy, but I just never got around to it. Something would always come up, or so I would tell myself, but really I was scared. I was scared I would kill all of the little plants and waste all of that time and money. Scared I didn’t know what I was doing and would do something wrong. I don’t know, scared of letting myself fail. All of these have a ring of truth to them.

My very good friend Paula (whom I miss very much) put this garden into motion last fall. She sent me a bunch of garlic to plant. Apparently if you plant your garlic in the fall and let it over-winter it tastes much better. I know, I had no idea things like this happened. I very dutifully planted the garlic in pots and covered them with leaves to protect them from the frosts and freezes of winter. I pretty much ignored them after that until a few months ago when my Father In Law David came inside and mentioned that I had sprouts. Lily and I ran outside and low and behold there were beautiful green sprouts peaking above the leaves. These little spouts set my mind on a garden for sure.

Just like every year Waldo and I talked about putting in a garden and because of the garlic I started making a list of what I wanted to grow. David laid drip-lines in the garden area to make life easier; most of the garden will be automagically watered for me. One day while Waldo worked Lily and I went to the store and bought some little started plants. While we were at Home Depot Lily wanted to grow a little flower so I let her pick one and she was so proud of that little plant. After getting our lovely little plants we went home and went to work.

David helped me dig the holes (thankfully, I probably would have given up otherwise, the ground was much harder than I expected) and Lily and I planted all of our little plants. After they were planted we all stood back and admired our hard work. Just the act of planting the little food plants was very satisfying. I can’t wait to harvest and eat something I grew.

Garden

Strawberries, spinach, broccoli, red and green peppers.

Little Garden Helper

My little garden helper watering the new little plants.

Drip Line In The Garden

I have added some plants since this picture was taken. We also have some leeks, russet potatoes, white potatoes and tomatoes which were suppose to be peppers, but were mislabeled.

Lil's Flower

Lily’s little flower.

All weaned, nice and slowly

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On March 23 Lily feel asleep for her nap without nursing.  She didn’t ask for it and I didn’t offer.  That was the first time in 3 years, 3 months and a day that Lil hadn’t nursed to sleep, aside from the very occasional nap in the car

Most days nursing didn’t bother me, I didn’t think much about it. Lily’s nursing was a constant in our lives, it was a major help most of the time, but there were the occasional days when I wanted nothing more than to never let Lily anywhere near my chest quadrant. Those days were a rarity and that’s great because I was determined to let Lil self-wean at her pace, no matter how slow that was, to be reviewed again at a later date if necessary.  I did have a small hand in the day time and middle of the night time weanings, but only in the slightest ways.  With the daytime nursing, she was still nursing on demand (but almost excursively at home only for a long time now, but Lil’s choice) until she was about 2 1/2, then one day I started just not offering anymore and at first nothing changed and then slowly she started going longer and longer at a stretch.  And on the days when she was just nursing too much or too long, I’d put a timer on so she knew how long it could last.

With the middle of the night nursing I just one day decided I needed more sleep. I slept topless and when Lil woke up in the middle of the night and crawled into our bed she would just snuggle up to me and nurse back to sleep.  This arrangement worked most nights and was great because a lot of nights I slept right through it.  But she had always used me as a human pacifier and night time was the worst.  It got to the point where some nights she would just nurse for hours and I would doze, but not sleep really well.  I couldn’t break the suction without waking her a lot of the times. Just a reminder, Lil has never, ever, ever been a good sleeper.  Anyway, one day a couple of months ago I had just had enough and I needed more sleep so I put a shirt on.  When Lil crawled in to bed the first night, she tugged at my shirt and asked about it. I told her that I’d let her nurse for a few minutes and then she was going to let go and go to sleep. I did that twice. It worked. I was ecstatic. I let her nurse a couple of time in the middle of the night because of a bad dream or something, but that was very rare.

Since I hadn’t been doing anything to encourage or discourage Lil’s going to sleep nursing I was shocked when she just stopped one day. I know I’ve read that over and over again on blogs and in articles about extended breastfeeding “Timmy just stopped one day, like I always knew he would”, but I had started to doubt that would be me and Lil, I was convinced for a while that she was going to nurse forever.  When we lay down on her bed to go to sleep I’d kiss her goodnight and then she’d either ask to nurse or just start pulling up my shirt. I never told her no, but every once in a while I’d give her the ‘none of her cousins (her age and younger) still nurse, and it’s fine with me if she wanted to keep nursing, but I’d also be ok when she decided that she was done, after all, you’re getting so big’ speech. While she nursed I’d snuggle her and smell her hair and pat her back and read my book on my phone. It was relaxing for both of us, most of the time.  So color me shocked when we go by the routine on 3/22 and then on 3/23 she never brings it up. I probably held my breath the whole time it took her to fall asleep. (It usually takes Lily about 30 minutes to fall asleep, how that does compare with your kids?) I went into Waldo’s office and told him “you are never going believe this, She feel asleep without nursing.”  The same thing happened when we went to sleep that night.   The next day was my 36th birthday, I feel like this was a great birthday present.  She hasn’t even asked to nurse in the last month. Success.

And as every parent knows with every success comes some kind of new challenge.  In the month since she weaned she has also given up her nap (I’m totally bummed about this for the work week, but excited for the weekends, now we have more flexibility) and we have had to figure out how to help her to fall asleep without boobs.  The last has been the hardest, but honestly not a totally brutal as I was afraid it might be.  It is once again taking her about 30 minutes to fall asleep at night, I can live with that.

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