week of thanks fail + dinner this week

Okay so I totally FAILED at my week of thanks! last week was crazy w/ bubbie having strep throat and then thanksgiving and I just never got back on here, but at least super dad got props! LOL!

But now it's time to get back to buisness, So whatcha eatin' this week... I am halfway through with my grocery list and have our meal plan laid out for the week...

Sunday- Thanksgiving leftovers
Monday- Homemade mac and cheese w/ left over ham and salad (going to google and see if I can find a good crock pot recipe other wise I will use my ol' faithful).
Tuesday- Mini bbq meatloaves, greenbeans and mashed taters
Wednesday- Chicken Pot Pie
Thursday- spending the night out to see christmas lights
Friday- homemade pizza night (thanks to our friends the Shochs, going to steal their recipes!)

So what are you eatin' this week?

a week of thanks- day 1

In honor of Thanksgiving this week I am blogging A Week of Thanks. The Lord has blessed me in ways I could never imagine, so this week I want to make an extra effort to be thankful for these blessings. I would love if you would join me this week and share what you are thankful for too! So I can't think of a better place to start than with ..... dun da da dun..... SUPER DAD!



I wish I could take credit for giving Super Dad his name, but I can't. Actually a very close friend of mine started referring to him this way quite a while back and she is so right, super dad he is! I have never met a guy more involved and loving towards his children. He doesn't want to miss anything! He goes to gymnastic classes and class parties and plays, even if he one of the only dads there! He plays games with our kids and has the patience of Job (most of the time!). He is incredible because he does bath and bedtime pretty much every night. He sees that as his special time with them. He is an encourager. He is a great leader. He takes the time to teach them what's important. My kids have great Bible knowledge because their father takes the time to tell them stories every single night. No matter how tired he is and how ready he is to get bedtime over with, he never skips their Bible story. He really is super!



I am so thankful to have a husband who works hard all day and then picks up extra programming jobs at night so I can be home with our kids. He sacrifices so much for us and I don't know if he knows how much we appreciate him. He loves his family and puts us and our needs before everything else and for that I am thankful. I am thankful my sons have a great role model of what a man should be and my daughter a model of what a husband should look like. What a blessing!

So tonight not only do I say "thank you God for blessing us with this wonderful man", but I also say " thank you honey for all you do for us!".

I'm so "flippin' excited to try out flip!

I'm 11 weeks into cloth diapering a newbie. With Sass I didn't start until 4 months so I didn't know much about cloth diapering a teeny tiny. Well 11 weeks in and my all time favorite diapers are our bumgenius AIO's. They are super simple, super absorbant and we haven't had a single breastfed poop explosion in them. My second favorites would be my gdiapers. I love the fit of the gdiapers and the concept, but I don't love the cotton g pants. Well actually I do love them but I don't love that they feel damp after wearing them for a while and I don't love that I have to snap in those silly liners and change them out after pretty much every poopy diaper. But other than that I do love them and I have purchased 4 more covers in the next size along with a bunch of g cloth.

All that to say, I'm now super excited to try out the flip system. It may be the best of both worlds. It's similar to a g diaper system as you use the same cover multiple times and just lay an insert (either disposable, stay dry or organic) inside. But it's made like a bG! one size with snaps, so hopefully being made of PUL won't feel damp after a while. And it's a one size so more economical than purchases multiple sizes of what ever system you do like. I have heard too that my gcloth will work in the flip system which is good since I have a dozen or so of them!

So now that bubba bear is growing like a weed, I have sold off all our xsmall diapers and used that money to invest in a one day pack of flips, plus an extra single flip in ribbit green (my all time fave!). I also ordered a pack of the disposable inserts to try out and compare against the gdiaper inserts. I do like this option for when we are out and about all day long and I don't want to haul dirty diapers around!



This is the perfect time to try out the Flip system ( or any other Bumgenius diapers) too because bumgenius is allowing a rare sale. And if you purchase from Kelly's Closet today you can get free shipping too on orders over $50 using the code FORFUN.

Click here to visit Kelly's Closet

I'll be back to update once I get them in and do a full comparison between Flip and gdiapers.

mommy thinks i'm cool

yup. that pretty much sums it up.

wordless wednesday

Yes, I'm THAT mom. You know the one who thinks it's really cute for all her kids to match. Cheesey, yes. So stinkin' adorable, yup that too! And I will do it as long as I can get away with it!

dinner dilemmas

Is dinner a battle at your house? Are you stuck in a food rut with your kids? We are. I'm tired of cooking the same things. I am tired of cooking new things and only super dad and I eating them. I don't know where I went wrong.

From the get go, I pureed my kids food. I have offered them all kinds of table food from early on. I expose them to numerous things, yet they still only like "kid" food for the most part. It is so frustrating. With bubbie, it was very definite when he quit eating whatever was put in front of him. I remember being on bed rest with Sass and he was just over two. We put his plate in front of him and he politely handed it back to us and told us "no thank you"! This was a child who ate EVERYTHING! He would eat peas and carrots by the bowl full, couldn't devour a sweet potato fast enough, loved all fruits. Sass was always picky. The girl would never eat any meat besides chicken (and that is still debatable), but still she use to eat more than she does now and I think a lot of that is because she follows Bubbie's lead.

I'm not a short order cook though. Whatever I prepare for dinner is what they are served. I do always put some sort of fruit on their plate so at least if they don't eat their dinner they will get a serving of fruit and a glass of milk in their tummies.

Tonight I made chili and baked potatoes. I put butter and cheese on their potatoes. You would think I served them a plate full of bugs. Sass would have nothing to do with any of it. She ate her peaches and that was it. Bubbie did take a few bites, though amidst a flood of tears. Who knew a cheesy potato could make someone cry?!

What are you tricks? How do you get your kids to try new things and not fear new foods? (and just for the record, dips don't work with my kids. they don't even really care for ketchup! crazy!).

I would love your feed back, your tried and true tricks!

I will leave you with a list of food that they actually will eat.

string cheese
peanut butter and honey (s will eat jelly, b won't)
waffles
grilled cheese
black bean and cheese quesadillas
pumpkin pancakes
regular pancakes
muffins ( pumpkin and blueberry are faves)
cheeseburgers (b only)
turkey and cheese (b only)
hotdogs (b only)
chicken
ravioli (s only)
mac and cheese
mandarin oranges (s only)
bananas
grapes
apple slices
peaches
pears (s only)
spaghetti
chip and cheese dip
cereal w/ milk
cheese pizza
oatmeal (s only)
baked beans
sweet potato fries (baked)
meatballs (b only)

I try to make all these things as healthy as possible such as using whole grain breads and pastas. Looking at the list I guess they eat a little more than I thought but I would still like to get them to try more. I would love to get them to try soups, more pastas, obviously more vegetables (umm.. I mean any vegetables). Mostly, I want them to not fear trying new things. I don't care if they dislike things, I just want them to not have a fear of trying new foods. Give me your feedback!

supper planning sunday

Woo to the Hoo! I have not only meal planned for the week but already done my grocery shopping too. Way to start the week off right! Here's what we've got going on this week, share your menu with me in my comments if you please! I'm not actually cooking the first two nights ( I know, I know, don't laugh!), but I am the rest of the week! Also, I am going to start to try and cook at least one thing a week that I can halve and freeze so I can stock my freezer with some ready made meals.

Sunday- Marachi night at the La Pa ( our fave mexican joint!)
Monday- Dinner at my moms
Tuesday - chili (freeze half) and baked potatoes
Wednesday- fettucine w/ broccoli (no fettucine sauce, instead a little olive oil and parmesean cheese)
Thursday- orange chicken, brown rice, corn on the cob
Friday- Tacos

So what are you eating this week? Oh and let me know if you have any good freezable recipes!

a saturday afternoon hike

what a better way to spend a saturday then snugglin'

while hiking up a mountian

on a beautiful fall day

with you favorite friend

and some chocolate milk

discovering cool things

and climbing trees

with those you love the most!

a new playgym for bubba bear

While visiting super dad's hometown a few weekends ago, some sweet friends of ours blessed us with a babies r us gift card for bubba bear. Being he is number three, we don't need much as far as baby gear goes so usually gift cards get used on essentials like pacis, wipes and baby wash. I decided to treat bubba bear though to a new activity gym. He deserves to have at least one thing that no one else has used and spit up on! Our old activity gym wasn't cute, the bar stunk at staying up and good gracious if I had to hear those tunes it played again I might have to have myself committed. So tonight I had to run to good ol' BRU for saline drops and menthol baby wash as croup and colds have hit our house and since I had no little bitties with me I took a few quiet moments to peruse the store and see what I could find for mr. bear to entertain himself with. I stumbled across this super cute playmat. You can't tell from this picture but the fabrics on it are very Amy Butler-ish and super cute! Besides chocolate brown, turquoise and orange are my favorite color combo right now and polka dots are always a hit with me!. I love that it also folds up easily so I can stash it out of the way quickly and pull it out when needed. Seriously if you are on the hunt for a play mat or a baby shower gift check this on out on amazon and zoom in on the cute prints! Things sure have come a long way since bubbie was born 5 years ago and everything was either pastels or primary colors! Oh and I will mention to that it's a good bit cheaper at BRU than online!

two months old

Each of my kids have a special friend that they sleep with. Bubbie has "monkey", Sass has "bunny" and now bubba bear has "mr. giraffe". Mr. Giraffe is going to help us see how Bubba bear grows each month! Look how he has changed already!

1 month old!

2 months old!

Bubba bear's 2 month appointment was last week. He was 11.6 lbs (70%ile) and 24 inches long (90%ile), a perfect string bean!He is super smiley now right after he eats. He is gotten into a good routine of eating, being up about an hour and then napping until his next meal which occurs every three hours right now. He takes his last feeding of the day around 9pm and then sleeps until 3ish and then hopefully until 7ish, although the second stretch of sleep is never as solid and peaceful as the first. We have just moved up to 3-6 month clothes, though some of our 3 months still fit, mr. long boy is too long for a lot of it now! We finally started his vaccines this visit too. We declined Hep B in the hospital so he hadn't had anything yet and we are doing a delayed schedule so this visit he got the first dose of rotateq and his DTAP. We will go back in a month or so for another vaccine.


For comparison to his siblings; Bubbie was a whopping 15lbs and 24 1/2 inches at 2 months and Sass was 11.9 lbs and 23 1/4 inches at 9 and 1/2 weeks. And before you are too impressed that I actually know this I will share my secret.... When I was pregnant with bubbie a friend gave me a great medical journal at one of my showers. I took it to each of his dr visits and recorded all the important info in it such as stats and vaccines received. I also would write my questions for the dr in it ahead of time so I didn't forget to ask him anything and I tried to record milestones in it. It's the closest thing to a baby book my kids have! I then googled it when pregnant with Sass and ordered her one. The one they have is no longer in print I discovered while pregnant this time around, but there is a new edition which I ordered for Bubba bear and his soon to arrive cousin. This is one of my favorite gifts to give now! I can only find them on amazon, so check it out if you are interested!

read bubbie read!!

I am so proud of our Bubbie! He has taken a huge interest in reading and is really soaring! This morning I remembered about starfall.com. If you have a preschooler or early elementary child in your home this is a great website to learn everything from letter recognition to word families. Bubbie thinks it's super fun and is learning a lot. It's so fun to see him become an emergent reader!

wordless wednesday- mr smiles

xsmall diapers for sale!

Our little bubba bear is getting big quick and these are some great diapers that have barely or not been used at all! Hopefully they can go to a good home! These all come from a pet free, smoke free home. All prices include shipping and paypal fees! If you are interested you can email me at greenkiddos (dot) com @ gmail (dot) com. I will sell the whole lot for $130 or prices are listed below!


xs thirsties fitteds 6 periwinkles, 1 white, 1 celery
EUC, most of these have just been washed, a few were used once or twice. Retail is $14.50 a piece. $12 ppd or $85 for all 8!

Covers
NWT white xs thirsties cover $11.50
baby blue and sage green thirsties covers xs EUC $9 ppd
Imse Vimse farm cover preemie GUC $6
white prowrap sm GUC $4- SOLD
lamb litewrap newborn $5
or
all covers minus prowrap $44

meal plan monday

I'm back and going to try and blog more regularly again! So here is my menu for the week! (which also means I'm back to cooking dinner... guess I should get on that now that we are 8 weeks in!)

I am trying to use up surplus food this week with out over shopping so here is what I've got!

Monday- chili stuffed baked potatoes using left over chili from halloween

Tuesday- hot dogs (also left over from halloween), baked sweet potato fries and baked beans

Wednesday- spaghetti w/ meat and vegi sauce (left over and in freezer), salad and bread sticks

Thursday- crockpot BBQ chicken sandwiches, onion potatoes and corn