Thanksgiving 2012

What a wonderful thanksgiving! We shared the holiday with our friends, the risers. They have a sweet little girl about the same age as Addison! This was my first time to cook the thanksgiving meal; I always helped my mom a lot when she hosted but she was in Mississippi with the rest of my extended family. I was nervous but it all turned out great! We pulled out our china for the first time too, SO fun (when we lived in DC we didnt have room for it so its been in storage since we got married, until now!).

The Menu (everyone pitched in):
Appetizer-Cheese Twists

Main Course- Roasted Turkey, Whipped Root Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes, Green Bean Casserole, Dressing, Sweet Potatoes, Creamed Corn and Rolls

Dessert: Pumpkin Pie, Cookies and Spiced Cranberry-Apple Cider









The girls place setting :)



Three high chairs and four adults it was wonderful chaos!!!


The bird!



Attempting a family picture ha!





Our guests!


All the yum!



His first look at the goodness


The whipped root vegetables were his favorite!



Funny girl!



We were so surprised how much he loved it!



Her favorite part---the cider, she felt so grown up!



Big cup. Little girl.

It was perfect, I wouldn't change a thing. Although we did let Caleb have dairy so lets hope he handles it ok.

Special thanks to my mom for answering all my questions and for the recipes!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Confessions of a Stay at Home Mom: Parenting vs Friendship

Today I confess that being a parent vs a friend to your child is HARD; this is not an experience exclusive to a stay at home mommies.  I was never naive enough to think that parenting would be easy, but as we approach critical parenting opportunities with our toddler, I am realizing it is far more challenging than I thought.  I find myself thinking things like, "wouldn't it be easier to let them have their way", "follow through isn't important is it", "they wont remember me getting upset will they", "I just want to play with them and ignore all their sin nature", "forget teaching them all the important virtues, they will just figure it out right", etc.

It is far easier to allow my children to run our household, attend to their every whim (which as we all know changes every moment), cater to their every desire, bow to their every tantrum and ultimately allow them to be in charge.  The challenge lies in teaching our children the virtues and morals that God expects us to.  There is a delicate balance between teaching/discipline and loving/nurturing.  The two are not mutually exclusive, however I find loving/nurturing much easier than teaching/disciplining.  Discipline is not all hugs, giggles, harmony, flowers and hearts.  Discipline can hurt, sometimes the parent more than the child.  How much easier would it be for me to ignore Addison's indignant "NO" or knocking over her brother or simply running off when I call her or "so and so took my toy so I snatched it back"  Instead, we must teach her RESPECT ("you do not tell mommy no" followed by consequence), KINDNESS ("pushing people is unkind, Jesus teaches us to be kind to others" followed by consequence and apology), again RESPECT and finally LOVE ("we must love others even when they are not being loving towards us").  There are many other imperative virtues, but you get the point.  I would much rather just ignore everything and cross my fingers that we get lucky and they turn out fine.  OR even better---rely on someone else to teach/discipline them somewhere along the way!!!!

I hate, hate, hate disciplining my children.  I hate seeing the "hurt" (really I think its remorse) on their face.  I HATE seeing them unhappy.  I HATE it.  But I think I would hate myself more if I gave up and they didn't learn the virtues which are ultimately those of a Christ follower.  I would regret it.  And I would be failure.

Today I am worn out from being a parent.  Today was a day I wanted to give up.  I am not proud of how every tiny little discipline opportunity panned out, but I am not perfect.  The important thing is I DID NOT give up and WILL NOT give up even when a lot of the world around me tells me NOT to be a parent but rather a friend---to take the easy way out, the path of least resistance.

In the words of a friend's email to me tonight....tomorrow is a new day!

Caleb Asher Grant is "O-Fish-Ally" One

On Saturday, October 27 we celebrated Caleb's first birthday party with a few close friends.  It was a wonderful day and we are so thankful for everyone who attended in person and via FaceTime :)

A special thank you to my friend Kelley for capturing the special day on camera!!!  Below are a few of my favorite pictures and then a slide show of the day!

Invitation, via email

FOOD, FOOD, FOOD

I always use food to double as decor, hence the large amount.

Submarines: Sandwiches

Diced Red Fish: Salsa

Algae: Guacamole

Fish Flakes: Frosted Flake Crispy Treats

Ocean Water: Hawaiian Punch

School of Fish: Variety of Goldfish (cheddar, pretzel, graham, vanilla cupcake, etc)

The Tropics: Fruit

Catch of the Day: Jello Jigglers

Fish Bait: Party Favors (gummy worms, octobus light up yo-yo, sour octopus gummies and rubber duck)

Fish Gelatin Centerpiece 

Marshmallow Pops

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes (Dairy and Tree Nut Free)

Our little family of four

The youngest party guest, pretty lil Adabelle!

Blowing out his candles

The party guests enjoying cake!

 YUMMM!

Big sister loves cake NOW, she did not like it all that much at HER first birthday 1.5 years ago!

CAKE!

I love this picture, his big eyes looking at the BIG cupcake!

It was a GREAT day!

Slideshow:

I share this about the party, because this was a relatively inexpensive party; the prices are for what we used at the party because some foods I already had on hand.  We had lots of leftovers and many of the supplies will be used for other events.  The total was $102 bucks; not bad to feed 6 adults, 4 kids and send doggie bags home!

• ($20, homemade) Submarine Sandwiches 
• ($1, homemade) Diced Red Fish: Salsa
• ($2, homemade) Algae: Guacamole
• ($4, homemade) Fish Flakes: Frosted Flake Crispy Treats
• ($4, Walmart) Ocean Water: Hawaiian Punch
• ($12, Target) School of Fish: Variety of Goldfish (cheddar, pretzel, graham, vanilla cupcake, etc)
• ($6, Bakers)The Tropics: Fruit
• ($4, Walmart) Catch of the Day: Jello Jigglers
• ($9, Target) Fish Bait: Party Favors (gummy worms, octopus light up yo-yo, sour octopus gummies and rubber duck)
• ($3, various) Fish Gelatin Centerpiece 
• ($9, various)Marshmallow Pops
• (This is a total guess, maybe $15 but probably less) Snickerdoodle Cupcakes (Dairy and Tree Nut Free)
• ($13, Nobbies/Walmart) decor

One Year Stats

The official stats are in...

Weight:  25 lbs, 2 oz; 91%
Height:  31.5 inches; 94%
Head: 47 cm; 72%

Summary:  BIG OLE BOY, of course!  Matthew and I just don't know how to make small kids :)  His weight gain, believe or not, has significantly slowed down.  This is the same age it did with Addison too.  I imagine by 15 months he will drop in his weight percentile more and continue to become long and lean like Daddy and Big Sis.  You can already see his tummy slimming up!

Dairy:  We can SLOWLY add dairy back in his diet.  VERY slowly.  We will start with dairy in baked goods once a week and if there are no adverse reactions after several weeks we will try it several times within a week.  Then moving on to yogurt then low fat milk working our way up to whole milk using the same slow exposure   The doctor recommended we continue with low does Zantac until we are done testing dairy.  Maybe by the new year we can all eat whatever we want; I wish we would be to that point by Thanksgiving but oh well!!!

Shots:  Poor lil dude got four shots and a toe prick but he did AWESOME, I was so surprised!!  We opted to switch his chicken pox (traditionally given at 12 months) and pneumonia (traditionally given at 15 months) because Addison had a BAD chicken pox reaction.  We just were not ready for the reaction right now.

And now...a sneak peek of the birthday boy's party (official post coming this weekend I hope):