Instead of just dropping Noah off as usual today, I parked the car and got out with both kids. Abby and I sat on a bench outside with all of the other parents, while Noah went into his classroom with his friends. Twenty minutes later, all of the siblings and parents lined up outside of the playground as a group of 3-5 year olds marched in a circle, while proudly carrying banners and waving to their families… it was Olympics day at preschool.

Soon after taking this photo, the preschoolers all sat down and got ready to take part in the Olympic activities… field day was always one of my favorite days of the year, and judging by the smile on his face when I came back to pick him up two hours later, I’d say Noah liked it too. He’s off in dreamland now while his sister is coloring next to me singing a hearts song she just made up… the little stinker took a power nap on our way to pick up her brother and now refuses to nap… such is life. ;)

Summer has officially begun here  at our house and while I don’t have too much planned yet, I know that there will be many sun filled days spent playing outside with my two rug rats… and though they occasionally work my nerves raw… I will enjoy every minute spent with them!

What are your plans this summer?

Two weeks ago something happened… Noah was dry for a night… then two… then three… then four. Whenever he woke up dry, Ray and I would make a big deal out of it… and Noah would beam from ear to ear. As the number of dry nights increased, so did our enthusiasm. Finally by the fourth morning, I was pretty sure we were on to something and told Noah that if he could stay dry for 3 more nights, he could start sleeping in his underwear. That sealed the deal!!

Last Thursday was the last night that Noah went to bed with a pull-up on. He’s been sleeping in his undies since Friday night and it has been going great! I’m sure that typing this will jinx it, but I haven’t had to change the sheets due to an accident in over  two weeks… and it is sooooo nice!!!

We’re not completely done with diapers, well… pull-ups. Abby is off and on as far as potty training goes and some days are much better than others. We’re getting there though and I hope to be able to do some hard-core potty training once Noah’s done with preschool. I can’t believe that we will soon be done with diapers… the thought of that makes me both a little excited and sad at the same time… that day isn’t here yet though… we’ll see how long it takes Abby to be dry through the night… I’ll let you know when it happens! =)

Today is the first installment of Flashback Friday in which I feature a post that was written over two years ago for OurMommyhood.com. I wrote this in February 2010, while I was still pregnant with Abby… little did I know that she would be making her grand entrance less than two weeks later!!!

How Do You Describe a Miracle?

As we were laying in bed getting ready to fall asleep, my husband asked me a question that many pregnant women are asked… but usually earlier in the pregnancy.

“What does it feel like when she moves?”

Here I was 33 weeks pregnant and I had been feeling our little girl move for nearly 5 months already. At first the movements just felt like little air bubbles or gas pockets in the lower abdomen… but everyone tells you that. Those first movements are great and you look forward to feeling them, because they are the sporadic reminders that… yes there is a little person growing and living in there.

As the pregnancy progresses the movements become not only more regular, but also get more of a force behind them. Before long you can actually see the movement from the outside too… another reminder for you and others that something is growing inside of you. Then sometime a few weeks later, things start to get cramped for the baby and now you’re not just getting kicked and prodded in the stomach… no, now there are feet and arms stretching up into your ribs and a little head and butt that likes to use your bladder as a trampoline.

I had been feeling all of these things for weeks… months… and yet how do you describe what it feels like to someone who will never get to experience it for himself? If you’re a mom, how would or did you describe the feel of the movements to others?

To me, feeling her move at 33 weeks is a mix between many things. There are still times, like when she may just move a hand or a leg, where it feels like gas bubbles… larger than the ones felt early on… but gas bubbles nonetheless. There are the times where she’s just rolling and moving and it’s like waves rolling through your stomach… it doesn’t hurt… it just feels and looks a little alien. Then there are the stretchers… these seem to happen more when I’m sitting than at any other time. The stretchers hurt… she gets up under my ribs and pushes up and out. Fun times!!

So that is how I explained it to him. It’s odd, because you can’t control it… you can’t say “Okay little person, now I want you to move like this.” She already does what she wants to and in doing so lets me know that she’s real… no matter how alien and foreign it may feel, she’s really real and not just some image on a screen. I love feeling her move. I love feeling when she gets the hiccups. She gets them often… even more often than my son did. Just like with Noah, I know that I will miss this once she’s born. I will miss the hiccups, the gas bubbles, the alien rolls and yes… I may even miss the stretchers, not just the ones that go under the ribs, but the other ones too… the ones that distort your stomach and change it’s shape from the nice, round bump it usually is.

For now though, I’ll try not to think about all of that. Instead I think I will enjoy it all for the few weeks that I have left… and try not to complain too much when it feels like she’s trying to break my ribs!

I’ve been taking part in the SITS Spring Fling these past few days, in an effort to get myself back into the writing and social media groove. While I have accounts with most major social media outlets, I have to admit that I’m not always very active on all (or any of them). I’ve drastically cut back on my time spent on the laptop during nap time, in an effort to focus more on Noby Designs, but the past week or so has been spent getting all things blog related updated.

Since yesterday was Google+ day at SITS, I spent some time over there updating my Google+ profile, as well as polishing of my blogs page and starting a page for Noby Designs. As I was going through and editing my profile, I remembered that I used to be a contributing writer on another website! I haven’t written for OurMommyhood in over a year and I had completely forgotten about it! I blame the kids for my lapse in memory… there was so much going on at the time, Abby had just been born… I was still taking classes… Noah wasn’t even 2 yet!!!

I went over to OurMommyhood and did a quick search… and found all 16 of the post that I had written there… buy does that bring back memories now!!! I want to share those posts with you {my loyal longtime fans will get the chance to read them again}, and have decided that starting next week {and continuing on for 16 weeks}, I’ll feature one of those posts in a Flashback Friday post.

We’ll {okay, I’ll} get a little nostalgic as we go back 2 years to when the kids were younger… and less mouthy… but still just as cute!

PS… Warning… Shameless social media request coming…

Want to connect with me somewhere other than here in the comments? Then let’s get together on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or Google+.  I’d love for you  to like the Noby Designs fan page too… once we reach 250 likes, I’ll be giving away a surprise product!!! =)

So for almost two hours, Noah had me all to himself. We made crafts and ate snacks, and I met his friends and their mothers, and we got to watch as the class performed a little song for us. The time spent with him couldn’t have been more perfect… despites all thar perfectness though, I also realized today that, though Noah may know his daddies name, he didn’t know mine… and we fixed that too. =) {In his defense, my name isn’t the easiest to pronounce correctly and Ray and I don’t generally call each other by our first names at home.}

After coming home and being reunited with Abby, we ended the morning by playing in the sunshine and having a picnic outside on the deck. It truly was the perfect morning {even despite an Abby meltdown, which unfortunately occur too often}.

How was your day? Was it the perfect Spring day where you live too?

Jeep is her name… and there is no way that I can offer him the things that she does! ;)

We traded in the old Sonata for miss Jeep. The first car that both of our children ever rode in… the first car that Ray and I bought together, thinking that it would be our “family car”.  The Sonata was a good car to us… never gave us any problems and wasn’t at all finicky, but it wasn’t a fun car… and the Jeep is just that… it’s a car that, as a family, we can all have fun in. The kids are beyond excited about the new edition to the family. Abby loved it so much she wouldn’t stop saying “Jeep”… she was a little broken record and just kept saying it over and over and over again… gotta love it!!

We plan on having Jeep in our lives for a very, very long time… so she better be good!!

That said, I pinned a quinoa chili recipe the other day and was eager to actually make it. I still hadn’t figured out what I would be serving for dinner that night, but after realizing that I didn’t have all of the ingredients needed, the recipe ended up in the “to be made later” file. Fast forward two days {a long time, I know} and I had to go grocery shopping. I remembered the recipe {clever that I was, I had already printed it 2 days earlier} checked the cupboard one last time and my shopping list was finished.

The original Quinoa Chili recipe on the Savvyvegitarian.com looked great, but it included a few things that 1) I don’t care for and 2) just couldn’t find. So I tweaked the recipe and everything was in the crockpot and ready to cook shortly after getting home. It had to cook at least 5 hours, and with each passing hour the house started to smell better and better. By the time Ray got home from work, my stomach was yelling at me because everything smelled so tasty and I was ready to dig in… and boy did I ever!

Since everything turned out so well, I thought I would share my version of the recipe…

Crockpot Quinoa Chili

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
• 3 cups water
• 1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
• 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
• 1 can diced tomatoes with chili’s (Rotel)
• 1 cup unsalted tomato sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 Tbsp (2 – 3 cloves) minced garlic
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced

• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 2 tsp gr coriander
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp dried basil leaf
• 1/2 tsp dried ground thyme leaf
• 1/2 tsp dried ground marjoram leaf
• 1/8 – 1/4 tsp chili powder (add more to heat it up more)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tbsp molasses

• chopped cilantro
• sour cream
• cheddar cheese
• oyster crackers or saltines
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

• Using a 6 qt crockpot (slow cooker), combine all ingredients except for the molasses and garnish ingredients. Stir well for 2 minutes.
• Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours.
• Add molasses before serving.
• Garnish with desired toppings (in our house it was cheese and crackers)

The original recipe called for celery and green bell peppers to be added… both of which I’m not a big fan of {though I know that the celery would have gone unnoticed once everything was cooked up, I still decided to leave it out of my version}, so I  left those out. It also only called for tomato sauce {and 2 Tbs chopped jalapeno’s}, I decided that I wanted to have a little more tomato in it, so I added the can of diced tomatoes and chili’s {Rotel or something similar}.

I have to say that although Ray wrinkled his nose at the thought of having meatless chili, even he was smiling afterwards and said how good it tasted. I will be replacing my old veggie chili recipe for this one! It really was delicious, with just the right amount of beans and of “heat”. I ate it again for lunch the following day, and I think it was even better than the night before!! I had enough chili for about 5 plates filled the way that you see them shown… it’s a recipe that I would love to double, but can’t because we don’t have a large enough crockpot…. so yes, it’s that good!

If you made this, I’d love to hear from you and see what you thought of it… did you leave the recipe as is and if not, what changes did you make?

I haven’t been able to read as much since the kids were born and it takes me much, much longer to finish a book, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t try. Ray got me a Kindle for my birthday 2 years ago, and I love it! It’s not the same as actually having a book in your hands, but it makes reading and finishing a book {especially with young kids in the house} much easier. That doesn’t mean that I don’t read physical books any more though… it just means that when I do bring “new” books into the house, they’re not novels or “get-away” reads. This is the latest stack of books from the library…

{the kids had  their own stack that had almost as many books =)}

In addition to those, I also had a novel checked out that is currently on my nightstand and a knitting book checked out electronically on the Kindle. I’ve found that visually inspiring books are better as the real deal and not as an electronic book and a  few of the books shown above, may have found their way onto my Amazon wish list. ;)

So tell me… what are you currently reading?

I’ve been a roller coaster of emotions lately and it’s the little things that can move me in one direction or the other.

It’s the little things…

Seeing the kids sleeping next to each other right now while on the sofa… Noah’s hand protectively over Abby’s. Listening to them talk and giggle at night, as she crawls into his bed when she really should be in her own. Pretending that a giant is going to come get them if the colored noodles aren’t all off of the floor and in the “magic” bowl.

It’s the little things…

I’ve been thinking about a lot lately… my mind is constantly flip-flopping between thoughts… Am I a good parent, or am I too strict? Is this size big enough for this new product, or should it be larger? Is it bad that I’m not blogging more often? The house is a mess, but does it make sense to clean all of the floors if we’ll be doing more demo tonight? I should be sewing, I have so much that I want to make and I wish I could be sewing right now; why aren’t I sewing? I feel like I’ve been posting too much fluff lately; why can’t I just write what I want to write and is anyone still reading this anyway?

I know that I can’t do it all… I can’t take care of the kids, make sure that they are happy and the house is clean {or cleanish} and at the same time work full time on Noby Designs and this blog… well I guess that I could, if I sacrificed sleep and possibly my marriage by working my tail off after the  kids are in bed.  But the truth of the matter is that by the time the kids are in bed, I’m in need of some rest too. Still, there’s that little voice in the back of my head that keeps nagging me… you really shouldn’t be sitting here, you should be doing something productive.

It’s the little things…

I’ve always said that it’s the little things in life that make me happy. They really do… but it’s also the little things that get me worked up in the other way too… and lately that seems to be the case much to often. I finally decided today that I’m the only one who can change that… I can either let the small things eat away at me and tear me down bit by bit, or I can turn my back to them and grow stronger. I need to grow stronger, because I feel so weak and fragile right now.  I need see my children smiling, hear their laughter… I need to keep my hands busy, either by sewing, embroidering, knitting or crocheting, and I need to write. My soul needs me to write… and lately I feel that the posts on this blog have been a lot of “fluff”… more photos than words, because I could only think of one thing and I didn’t want to write about that any more. I wanted to try to keep this little space in the internet light and happy, thinking that if I did then maybe I would be too… and while there are many days where I am truly happy, that’s not always the case.

So… the children are starting to wake up and my time to “do something” is coming to an end. There will be changes coming to the blog… I plan on making a few visual changes and changing the content a little. I need to write… without hesitation and without feeling like I am censoring myself, because I have been. But right now, I’m going to go play with my kids and have some fun.

That is the view that Ray and I would get {of one or both children} whenever we were trying to do something in the bathroom…. followed by Abby running to the bathroom door asking, “Wah happn bafoom?!?” I swear, I think on one day I heard her ask that 1000 times!! Who’d have thought that she would bee so upset by the fact that the bathroom is all ripped up?

We {and by we I mean Ray} seem to do most of the work in the room on the weekends,  and though we are still in demo mode…

Ray was able to do a little building last weekend…

After lots of talking about what we were going to do with that corner, we decided to just enclose it completely. It has been a fairly useless corner since we moved in 6 1/2 years ago. No matter how nice I tried to make it look, it always ended up just being a catch all area for shampoo, body wash and cleaners. We had thought about putting some built in shelves on the one side of the wall {facing the bathtub}, partially for storage and partly for decorative items, but in the end decided against it. Enclosing the space will close off the room a little, but our bathroom is so large {especially for a townhouse}, that I’m really not all too concerned about it.

We still have quite a bit of demo left to do in the room… the mirror, sink and cabinets need to be taken out, the tile floor needs to be removed and the shower pan needs to be gotten rid of as well. We will also be taking the toilet out temporarily when we get to working on the floors, but it will not be replaced. That is actually the first thing that Ray replaced right after we moved into our home.

In the meantime, I will be busy trying to find a new shower, tile and a new vanity with a top that will actually fit into the space. That is proving to be harder that I thought it would be!!

Soooo, it’s getting late and my bed is calling my name. I have lots planned for tomorrow and I hope to be able to give you a sneak peek of another new product soon!!! I hope that you all are having a great week!