The Mitchell Madness...or lack there of :)

Life As A Single Mom...

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Well, not exactly single, but it feels like it at times. I'm talking about Joe's new job. He's 1 of 2 service techs at his job and so he has LONG LONG hours and is on call for the whole month every other month. Of course the money is wonderful, but I miss him sometimes and wish he was home more often.

He has a hard time coming home to something new that Illyana has learned and has been doing all day, so when he sees it he calls me in to watch and sometimes I don't have the most surprised reaction (cause I've seen it all day) :)

I love him so much for all the hard work and long hours he puts in for us.

Halloween Fun!

Monday, November 01, 2010

First off, Happy Halloween to everyone!

This year was our first Halloween with a baby :) Illyana's first Halloween. Sadly, I did not dress up, and we didn't go door to door trick-or-treating, and didn't get any trick-or-treaters at our house! But we did go on the "Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin Patch train ride". Illyana's first halloween and first train ride!

So first things first I had to come up with a costume for her. Joe's grandma calls Illyana "sweet pea", so when he saw a little pea pod costume he said..that's it! Well the only problem was those costumes were made for up to 6 months old, which she wouldn't fit into, so I was on a mission to make her a sweet pea!

So I pretended to know what I was doing and came up with this little outfit with no pattern :) (yes..I'm kinda proud of myself for making a baby costume with no pattern)

And of couse I had to make a cute little trick or treating bag for her...

So...she was a sweet pea!

On the train ride there she had a little nap (the train had a wonderful rocking motion to it)

When we got there we had our picture taken with Snoopy and her cousin Maddy (who was a mime)

We got to go pick out a pumpkin...

and have a group picture taken with Snoopy, Lucy, and Charlie Brown and her aunt and uncle and cousins.

It was an exhausting but fun day!

Then we got to go to the church's halloween party!

We went fishing for duckies (she picked it out all by herself)...

got our face painted (at first she was not too thrilled about this process)...

but it turned out cute and there were no tears.

Then we went fishing with mom, she held on to the pole until the "fish" started tugging (pretty strongly, might I add), then it was all mom...

...and we got to scratch the painting of the pumpkin (she liked the texture I guess).

All in all we had a pretty fun filled Halloween! Hope you all did too!

Change: Sleep and Sanity

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

It's time for a few changes around here...

First, how do you like the background? :) Couldn't pass up the chance to do anything with Halloween (since it's my favorite holiday and all)!

Second..my little girl has been having a rough time sleeping at night so we're having an intervention. See I have sat down with her and explained to her about day time and night time and how night time is the time to sleep. Well..that didn't get us very far so...I begged for tips on how to "sleep train" our little one from a cousin of mine who recently did the same with her little boy. Well...first night (last night) was a success!!! Oh sleep is a wonderful thing! I know its only the first night and we may have some rough nights ahead of us, but all I can think of is the final outcome and all that wonderful sleep we will be getting! She did wake up at midnight (normal like clockwork for her) but I snuck in and turned on her mobile...she only fussed for about 8 minutes than slept until...get this...9:20 am!!! Wow! That was nice. So we will continue to follow this routine and hope for the best and I will be thanking my cousin for the tips :) Another part of this routine is no more naps in her swing! She would sleep 2 sometimes even 3 hours in her swing during the day. The swinging motion would keep her asleep and I'm sure that she is becoming dependant on the swinging motion for her to stay asleep. So now she take naps in her crib. I'm hoping it will help her get used to going to sleep in her bed :)

This morning I picked out a little outfit for her to wear, and it kinda makes me a little sad. She's wearing a shirt and jeans...no onesie :( She's getting so big, but she's doing a cute job of it!

Another thing that is changing is our fence. Sounds strange, huh? Well see I have these two huge animals we call dogs (some would argue small horse) that have gotten into the lovely habit of barking at EVERYTHING! People walk down the street or ride their bikes or walk their dogs, or drive by....get the point. Well these two lovely dogs of mine bark and bark and they are far from quiet dogs so I ordered privacy slats for our chainlink fence. They will be quite upset that they don't get to see every little thing that goes on outside of their yard, but I'm hoping that it will cut back on some of the barking. It will definitely be a pain to put up, so here's hoping its worth it! Yup..that roll is it..I get to cut each one out individually...

I think most of the things that are changing around here are to help me keep my sanity, that is if it's still salvageable :)

I'm sure I'll keep you updated on our changes!

New Adventures in My Kitchen

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Have you ever shelled (I guess thats the right word) cooked garbanzo beans? I hadn't until earlier today.

Since moving here I've been over to my sister in laws house quite often, and she is a fan of hummus. Well, I've not ever really been a fan of hummus, but she had a pine nut hummus that was so yummy! Well, of course that inspired me to make my own hummus :) See I have this problem...I just can't be happy and go out and buy things like hummus, I have to make it.

So I did some research and found a recipe that a lot of people had a lot of good things to say about. It was a basic base hummus recipe the said to use canned garbanzo beans and tahini. Well, I didn't have tahini, but I did have sesame seeds. And with the canned garbanzo beans, I read that if you take the shells/skins off of them it makes for a smoother hummus.

So began the process of my hummus.

First I roasted the sesame seeds and some garlic for later. Blended up the sesame seeds with oil to make tahini. Skinned/shelled the garbanzo beans then started adding all the ingredients into my food processor. And I think it turned out quite good actually :) My sister in law and a friend also tried it and said it was pretty good.

So...all in all..I had fun making it and it turned out pretty good!

It was a good day :)

Does She Crawl Yet?

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Nope! She just doesn't seem to want to! Am I ok with that? Yup! :) Do I think she'll walk here soon? Yes! Am I ok with that? I don't know... :/

"The beebs" is getting so big! She comes up with cute new little things all the time! Food is interesting :) So far we do NOT like peas, carrots, or avacados. We like apples, think sweet potatoes are pretty ok, and can tolerate squash. Our next adventure is green beans! Sleep is up and down..One night she sleeps all night long. The next? Up every 3 hours! But all is well, I get enough sleep :) 7 months in 2 days! Crazy fast life!

Life in Colorado is treating us well, and I'm loving the scenery and weather! Can't beat having a river off your back yard and gorgoeus trees surrounding your house. The hubby's job has turned out to be an overabundance of work :) which is a great change from no work. We miss him during the hours while he's at work but love the time even more with him when he gets home! Dogs are LOVING this weather :) And I should be starting the nursing program this spring! (As long as all my classes transfer over) Without a stupid college algebra class! HAHA...take that stupid math! :) (As you can gather I don't care much for math)

Well..I'm sure there is more, but I think I'm done writing now :) So here are some pics...

AGAIN???

Monday, September 13, 2010

This is a two part "AGAIN???" post..first, kinda crazy, second...well I'll get to that.

So I have not written in a while...some of you may not be surprised, but honestly I have a really good reason. So you know how we moved to Utah? Well guess what? That only lasted a little over a month and then we decided to do something completely insane. Can you guess? Yup! We moved AGAIN!!! After I had spent the time and effort unpacking a whole house, I had to pack it all back up again! We are now in Colorado, and it's beautiful here. I couldn't be happier with the move, but I really didn't want to pack and unpack a whole flippin house AGAIN. So now that we're here, I'm still not fully unpacked, but hey..that's ok. :)

The second part of this blog post is a frustrated "AGAIN???" What is with my flippin background disappearing everytime I flippin log in? Seriously? Is there not a cute background that will just stay?!?

Grrr...off to find ANOTHER background...