our life now

So much has happened lately!  I feel like I should write about 50 posts, but instead I will try to condense things a little and catch y'all up on our lives.

I no longer drink coffee.  It's something I never thought I'd say!  It's crazy.  I'd been having some heart palpitations for quite some time and they were getting worse.  I finally went to see the doctor just before Christmas and he suspected PVC's... so I cut out caffeine.  He also ran a bunch of tests to confirm his diagnosis, and something else showed up on my ECG.  Now more tests are being run, and I see a cardiologist in April to find out what's really going on.  (My doctor thinks that most likely it was an error in the ECG, but we're doing more tests to be sure.)  So either way, I'm still off caffeine and feeling better for the most part.

Early in January Stew took off to Brazil with a short-term team from our church, helping build a church on the Amazon River.  He had a great time with the guys there (including an alligator hunt), while the kids and I did our best to keep busy and not miss him too much!  My Mom and my cousin Sarah were a huge help while he was gone.

Micah at 8 months

I finally finished making Micah's baby photo book!  (Well, just waiting for someone to email me a couple photos... but my part is done for now.)  Now to get started on Halle's!  My goal is to make each child a keepsake photo book of their first year of life.  I'm a little late with Micah's, but my, were there a lot of photos!!

I've been doing a lot of reading about health and nutrition and am really working on implementing some changes in our diet.  For the most part, I no longer cook with sugar or white flour, among other things.  It's going well, and I feel healthier already.  Yay!

My cousin Sarah is moving in with us!  She's attending dance school about 15 minutes from our house, and so a couple months ago we invited her to move in with us, and she agreed.  Tomorrow is moving day.  We're really looking forward to getting to know her better and have her be a part of our family for this season of life.

Sarah snuggling tiny Halle in the summer

Since Sarah is moving in, we've been busy reorganizing our house!  We've emptied out the room that was storage/spare room/sewing room/office, as well as organized the bathroom to make some space, organized the pantry, our room, and the kids room.  I've been working on a regular meal plan to help us coordinate our meals.  This is our first full week using our meal plan, and I'm excited about it.  I'm not planning our actual meals very far in advance, but I've chosen themes for every day of the week.  Then I will try to choose meals about a week at a time so I can shop accordingly.  To make that even easier, I've made a list of all the meals I make, sorted by category.

Sunday - flex day
Monday - curry
Tuesday - meat and potatoes (or standard North American cuisine anyway)
Wednesday - soup
Thursday - pasta
Friday - international cuisine
Saturday - alternating weeks of Mexican and pizza

This week, our menu will be:

Sunday - supper at a friend's house
Monday - twelve boy curry
Tuesday - roast chicken dinner
Wednesday - chicken soup
Thursday - lasagna
Friday - butter chicken (going to try this recipe for the marinade, and this one for the sauce)
Saturday - pepperoni & veggie pizza, and one other kind (maybe prosciutto and caramelized onion)


Now with three adults in the house, I think we will be easily able to eat up any leftovers for our lunches.  It is a both a great way to use up leftovers, and means lunches are easy to make.


In other food-related news... we started Halle on solids last Tuesday, on her six-month birthday.  I gave her homemade organic applesauce on Tuesday and Wednesday, and decided not to continue with solids for the time being.  She spat much of it out, which I know is typical at first, but also was pretty fussy for a couple days after.  All in all, I'm in no rush for her to have solids, and she isn't either.  She still sleeps through the night most days, and is usually content to watch us eat.  (By 5.5 months Micah would get upset if we ate food in front of him!)  I think I'll wait and try again closer to seven months, or when she shows more signs of readiness.  I'm happy for her to keep growing on Momma's milk for now.

potty essentials: books, a stool or two, a measuring tape!?

And the most exciting news of all... Micah is potty-trained!!!!!  He's been wearing "unnerwear" for more than a week now.  The last few days he's had only one accident per day, and it's been pretty minor.  Most of the time he goes completely on his own, but I do occasionally remind him to go potty.  If I try to help him, he tells me "Momma, go away potty".  Having a potty-trained little boy is fabulous!  And now that I only have one child in diapers, Halle is getting good use out of our Motherease cloth diapers.  We've gone from buying diapers for two kids, to buying no diapers in one fell swoop.  It's wonderful.

So there you have it!  That brings you up to date on most of the note-worthy events happening around here.  Any news in your part of the world?