Bekah is hilarious

I have to write this before I forget... again. This probably happened 4 or so months ago, and I was reminded of it tonight. I'm trying to remember exactly how it went, because it was so funny. Leah, Bekah and I were playing Yahtzee one day. Bekah was on some crazy lucky streak. She kept rolling large straights. I told her about my grandpa Madsen, and how he used to whisper to the dice to give him good luck (one of my favorite memories of him). And so she decided to follow suit. She grabbed the dice for her turn, brought them up to her mouth, and whispered, "Sometimes I don't like you." Ah, the inner workings of a 4-year-old's brain.

Our sweet Leah

Leah has a new hobby. The other day, I came down from quiet/nap/feeding Hannah time, and Leah surprised me by having made dinner. She was positively beaming as I came over to see what she had made. She called it pizza, and it was a tortilla with salsa, cheese and walnuts (since we didn't have any pepperoni). She also put out some pineapple and cherries in case we wanted to add that to the top. She made one for me, one for her and Bekah to share, and one for Frank - without the cheese. What a sweet surprise. We praised and adored her, and choked down the concoction, and she was thrilled. She said that she felt like she was serving me by making dinner, and it made her feel so good. How do you argue with that?

So the next day, she was beaming again when I came down at the same time. This time, there were tortillas, craisins, celery and cheese. Since Frank can't eat the cheese, he got cracker crumbs. I neglected to take a "before" picture, but here's the "after" of Frank's plate. That night there was a dessert of hoagie buns topped with cottage cheese and marshmallows (more craisins in the place of the cottage cheese for Frank).

The next day, after much praise and thanks and beaming again, she informed us that she'd be making dinner again that night. I suggested that she could help me, or that I would at least supervise, and she was not happy with those options. She loved the service aspect of the surprise. But I convinced her that she needed a little supervision this time, so she would wait till after I fed Hannah. Well, I came down to a surprise of a salad topped with LOTS of walnuts and craisins. She did allow Frank to barbeque some chicken as a "side" for her salad.

Two days later, here's the surprise I came down to:

Ingredients: tortilla (that package is almost gone...), crushed up Cheez-its, pieces of hoagie bun and chicken flavored TVP (textured vegetable protein - think Bac-O's. It's a food storage thing a friend of mine shared with me because I was interested in how it tasted.) It was for the family, but, as you see from the tag, "Not Dad" because of the cheese. Dad had a late meeting that night anyway, so she made him a hot dog when he got home. Not cooked...

Oh, and another salad. Quite good actually.

And yesterday, yet another surprise. We had painted some easter eggs on Monday, and I, trying to capitalize on the cooking fervor, taught the girls how to make egg salad sandwiches on Tuesday. We included some paprika. So, Leah felt a certain level of comfortability with spices, having thoroughly loved the egg salad we made together. Enter paprika and red pepper into our surprise last night...

Leah was NOT happy with this dinner. What? Spicy? Hmmm. Lesson learned. We put a positive spin on the whole thing by telling her that even Rachel Ray probably isn't happy with every recipe she tries to make up. She may let me supervise her from now on...

My kid is hilarious

So Rebekah wanted to wear a "ballerina outfit" today. She found a dance suit thing in Leah's drawer that she wanted to wear, and I told her it's now too small for Leah, so she could have it. I introduced her to the term "leotard". She got all upset and said, "But you said I could have it now. It's not a Leah-tard. It's a Bekah-tard." And then she got even more upset that Frank and I were laughing our heads off at her.

What's this? A post?

So, it's been a long time since my last lame post (which did get me a $10 gift card for food storage stuff, so not too shabby...), but I think I need to break off my internet silence, and actually write something. It's not like it's a hard thing to do, right? So why don't I just suck it up and do it more often?

Anyway, I had to write about Bekah's cuteness before I forgot. We were driving to the library story time last week, and she asked why I always got to drive, and she just have to sit in the back all the time. I explained to her that I am the only one of the two of us who KNOWS how to drive, so I think it just makes sense. That led her to say that when she's a teenager (a golden time that she looks forward to with MUCH anticipation), she'll be able to learn how to drive, and then she'll get to get her "Driving Slices." After a moment's thought, she said, "Mom, what IS a driving slices?" My kid is too cute for words!



In other news, I haven't had my baby yet, but I'm sure as heck ready. I really was shooting to have her yesterday, the 16th, which would have covered all the 6's in January (Leah's b-day is the 6th, and Bekah's is the 26th). You can see how cool that would've been. Too bad Hannah didn't agree. So after spending all day yesterday moping around, I've been trying to convince myself that it doesn't really matter what day she comes. That I've not actually missed my opportunity, and that she WILL come out of me at some point - and in the near future no less. And even IF she's born on a school day, we'll all survive (that's Leah's big anxiety right now - to the point of tears a couple of times - she is so worried about someone other than me of Frank picking her up from school... Oh, what to do about my sweet little Martha?).

And having a great day at church helped me adjust my attitude. I just love when that happens. Church is a great place to regain perspective and get over your bad self sometimes. I'm so thankful to have it in my life, and to be a member of the world's best ward.

Okay, I think I just heard the pitter-patter of little feet upstairs, and there was no flushing of little potties, so I think Bekah's not been staying in bed like a good girl - it's ten minutes to 11 here. Someone's getting a little talking to... (Well, maybe she'll sleep in tomorrow morning...)

Good night y'all.

In order to win a $10 gift card from Emergency Essentials, I'm reviewing their Food Storage Analyzer.

This is a tracking system like many out there, where it shows how much you have, and gives recommendations of what you have left to buy. The nice thing about this one, is that it includes nutritional values and links directly to where to buy the products you are missing. I would not recommend getting everything through Emergency Essentials - you can get many things lots cheaper through the LDS cannery or Walton Feed. However, for convenience, and smaller purchases, I've really liked Emergency Essentials. They have one of my two favorite powdered milks, the Provident Pantry Nonfat Instant dry milk. It tastes as close to the real thing as I've found.

I do recommend that you look at the church's web site for their recommendations on what to store, rather than rely solely on a store's recommendations. Of course, they're going to want to sell you as much as they can, as that's their business. So, always one for unbiased, I do suggest you stick with the church's guidelines, at least to get you started with the most important stuff.

All said and done, I think this is a good tool, and would recommend it to friends. (Now send me my $10 gift card so I can buy more milk...)

On my way to "Big as a HOUSE"

So here's the deal. I have a baby growing inside of me. I also have a fibroid tumor (NON-cancerous) growing inside of me, and it's currently taking up way more room than the baby. My doctor found it when I was pregnant with Bekah, and it didn't cause me any problems at all. We fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I start googling "I'm only 7 weeks along, and growing WAY too fast..." I just finally put it out of my mind with "It's my third child" and "I've always carried way big" and "I'm just that much more woman to love..." Well, fast forward again to my 12 week appointment, where my doctor goes to check the heartbeat for the first time. She feels around on my tummy to get the right position, and is SHOCKED that I'm as big as I am. Reading her response, I said, "Is it twins?" She said that I was measuring at a 16-week size, and that she'd like to do an ultrasound right away. Yikes. It's then that I remember and mention to her my fibroid. Well, it's probably just that. Can we just wait till the normal ultrasound (since I'm paying for it...)? No, I think we should have a look now. Besides, then we'll get a really great heartbeat, and you can call your husband and let him hear.

So they get me in right away. Lucky scheduling break for me. The sonographer takes a look, and finds that lovely fibroid, which a friend decided I should call "Bob", and says that it's the size of a large grapefruit. It's doubled since we last saw it (4 years ago). I go back to the doc, and, okay. We know that the baby's the right size. Has a strong 162 beats per minute heartbeat, and looks totally healthy (although too young to see any "parts"). Whew! And we are just going to "keep an eye" on Bob. It's at the top of my uterus, which we knew from Bekah's pregnancy, so it won't get in the way of delivery. Although, since it's so big, it has the possibility of tricking the uterus into thinking that the baby is big enough to deliver, so a possible pre-term issue. And though it's non-symptomatic now, it may one day start to cause issues/pain/etc. So we're keeping an eye on it.

And then stupid old google tells me that these things could possibly be cancerous, and this lady had to have a total hystectomy, and these ladies had miscarriages because of theirs, and BLAH BLAH BLAH. I've tried to be calm and just take my cues from the doctor, who's not overly worried. But you know how google can get to you sometimes...

So, I asked Frank for a blessing today. I've been generally calm and level-headed, and peaceful when I've prayed, but I just wanted an added boost of peace for anything that might come up. And boy, I don't know how people get by without being able to hear from their Heavenly Father through a righteous man. I was told that He is very aware of me, what's going on with my health and my body, and that this baby has been sent at this time to be a member of my family. I will be able to deliver without incident, and these things will not cause me problems. If any issues do arise, my doctors and my faith will enable me to overcome them. I was also blessed with the physical, emotional and spiritual strength to get me through bringing this child to Earth.

It was so wonderful. Just what I needed. Heavenly Father knows me. I KNOW that. I wasn't SO worried, but I don't know where things will progress, and how worried I may get. And He just went ahead and removed the worry from the whole process for me. I'm so very thankful.

And one other added bonus: when the stupid people ask if I'm giving birth to a horse, or if I'm SURE it's not twins, or if I'm going to go into labor TODAY, I can now say, "No, I just have one baby and a giant TUMOR!" and then they will feel really bad!!! Mwahahahahah!

Happy Summer

So we had a barbeque (which I think should be pronounced "barbek") the other night with some neighbors. I neglected to cover every inch of my children with bug spray, and this is my come uppance:

Sorry Bekah.

This is what she told me this morning, "I had a good night's sleep last night. But something happened to my eye."