Nablopomo Kick Off!!

It's November. And for some reason you're supposed to blog every day this month. I already missed yesterday... But who's to say I can't start late??

I just finished watching a documentary about vaccines. You can watch it free until the end of this week here. I've always had some reservations watching my teenies get a bazillion shots... But until William's birth, I hadn't done a lot of hard research on it. And even once I started researching, there was still way too much conflicting information out there for me to be confident in any decision.

This movie brought up another issue that I hadn't thought much about though.... I'm still no closer to feeling completely comfortable with vaccinating or not vaccinating. But at least I understand the bureaucracy behind it all a little better.

I highly recommend you set aside 1.5 hours in your week to watch this before you engage in any kind of silly argument in my comments section. At least give it a chance.

Also... I plan to have a future post this month called "Herd Immunity or Herd Mentality" so I'm sure you can save your arguments for that one.

Delectable Vegetarian Enchiladas

The 9th annual Great Country Getaway took place this past weekend, and it was a blast! But that is not what this post is about. This post is about how we returned home from folks' place with NOTHING in our kitchen (well besides a few staples.) And since I wasn't in the mood to go grocery shopping on Monday, I had to be creative for supper. And this is what I came up with:

Delectable Vegetarian Enciladas (DVE's for short)

Ingredients: (I didn't really measure so these are guesses)
1 small onion, diced
Tbsp olive oil
1 pkg frozen spinach
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
Some Cumin
Some Garlic Salt
Flour Tortillas
1-2 cans red enchilada sauce (but green would be tasty too)
Some shredded mexican style cheese

First thing I did was put the frozen block of spinach in a small amount of boiling water and stir it around until it was warmish. Then I put that in a colander in my sink to dry it out a bit. Next I put some olive oil in the same pan and sautéed the onions until just turning brown. I dumped the spinach back in, added the can of diced tomatoes and can of black beans... seasoned with cumin and garlic salt... and stirred it all around until warm.

Next I coated a 9x9 baking dish with non-stick spray. I placed one flour tortilla in, put some filling in it, put a tablespoon of enchilada sauce... and then rolled it and laid it seam side down against the edge of the dish. I continued doing this until the dish was full of enchiladas. (Note: I had quite a bit of filling leftover that I used for later in the week, but if you did this in a 9x12, you'd probably use the filling up just right) I then dumped the rest of the enchilada sauce on top of the enchiladas and spread it around. Sprinkled some cheese over the top and covered with foil.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15-20 minutes until bubbling and delicious-looking.

These things were unbelievalby tasty for a random invention recipe and I highly recommend them to you. In the words of my friend Lisa, "YUM-MO!!"

Ah... Music to my Ears

And these are the moments that make every crazy day seem like nothing at all.  Baby laughter cures all ails.

Kids, love and Halloween!

It's been 5 weeks since I posted on here.  5 weeks!  Unacceptable, I tell you!  So here are a few snippets of life in the past month:

A). I love being a mom.  There is nothing nothing NOTHING that compares to the way I feel about my kids.  I didn't want to be a mom.  I didn't think I'd be good at it at all.  And most kids (before my own) didn't even seem to like me that much.  But, thanks be to God, I chose to accept this beautiful gift of motherhood, because I just look at my three little beauties and go, "Wow... I see heaven in your eyes."

B).  Love is in the air lately.  Being around my friends the last couple of weeks has reminded me greatly of 2005 when I met Andrew.  There seems to be some vibe of relationshippiness floating around and it makes me kind of giddy.  I love living vicariously through my friends.

C).  I'm super duper pumped for Halloween.  I seem to forget, until October rolls around, just how much I love being crafty.  If I could come up with Halloween costume ideas and the cheapest way to make them all year, I would be a happy camper.  Well... At least if I got to make them after on came up with the idea.  Actually, it'd be even better if I wasn't on a budget... But I do like the challenge of doing things without much money.

Man, I hate posting blogs that I'm not happy about... But I also hate having a blog at hasn't been updated in 5 weeks... So here you are cyberworld, this is all I got for you right now.

Ten Things I'd Relive

Inspired by the trending hashtag on Twitter: #10thingsidrelive... I'm blogging.

1) May 6, 2006. - Our wedding day. Magical. Holy. Blessed. Dream-like. And SO STINKING FUN!

2) Senior Prom - I had the prettiest dress, a date that I was in love with, was the first couple to dance, and ended the night with a great breakfast with all of my high school friends. I remember sitting on the front porch with my mom the day after prom just crying and crying because I was so sad that High School was almost over.

3) William's Birthday - It's not everyday that you're granted a miracle. No placenta accreta! No hysterectomy! The chance to have more kids and a beautiful baby boy to boot!

4) February 28, 2005 - My first date wtih Andrew. The night that I knew for sure that I had met my husband.

5) 2nd Semester of Sophomore year at KU. Templin Hall shenanigans. First time rooming with Valerie. And silly (and exciting) little relationship with Mark. So ridiculously fun!

6) Thursday nights at Henry T's with all of my college besties.

7) Lake Geneva Honeymoon!

8) AHS awards night 1999 - probably the most accomplished I've felt in my life (next to Vince's natural birth at least). I sang my first solo "Walking after Midnight" at the choir concert and killed it... Then I got a ton of awards at the awards night ceremony. One night that it felt really great to be one of the smart kids in school.

9) Great Country Getaways 2003, 2005 and 2006. 03 was the first and it was hilariously fun! 05 melded college and HS friends and everyone thought Andrew was going to propose. 06 was the first Fall GCG, and the weather was magnificent.

10) The first time I took Andrew home to meet my parents. It was the weekend that it became very real to me that, though we had only been dating a month or so, this man really would be my husband some day. One specific memory was when I showed him the humble country Church that I wanted to get married in... And then we sat in the grass of the big hill next to my parents house and he told me we would get married there.


Man... That was fun!! And I want to read yours, so if you have a blog... Write them!

Fly, fly, fly away...

The passage of time is wigging me out.

Pretty much I blinked, and this little girl...

Became THIS little girl...

Our little Mia-Bear started Pre-K today. And she was so excited. And I shed a few tears.

So to honor this very special day, which I've heard is the beginning of an even-faster-moving life... I'm going to write my 10 favorite things/memories about my baby girl.

1) Her birth: Meeting that little gift that had been wriggling in my tummy for 9 months was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Watching Andrew become the Daddy he was built to be... learning how to be a mom to this precious baby... and just getting to know this beautiful little Wedding Gift from God was astonishing. Her name "Amelia Grace"... or Mia Grace... means "my gift" for a reason.
2) She shocks me with her smarts almost every day. A few months ago she came up to me and said, "Mom, a paliotraechus is a prehistoric frog." What?! Okay, smarty pants.
3) The songs she makes up. Much like her momma, she frequently burst out in song. This bodes well for my long-time dream of life as a musical!!
4) How she says "Hi Jesus!" whenever we pass a Church.
5) The way she loves on her baby brothers (especially the one who doesn't steal her toys...ahem, VINCE).
6) How when Andrew is being Andrew, she just looks at him and says, "Oh Daddy!!"
7) The way she reacts when Andrew and I are getting snappy with each other. She picks out the parent that is being most snappy, and says "Mommy... just calm down."
8) How she cries every time she has to say goodbye to someone that is special to her.
9) Her imagination. Two hours ago she abracadabra'd me into Cinderella and now that Andrew is home, she's informed him that he is Prince Charming, and we will be dancing tonight.
10) Her beauty: I can't stop looking at her even still. Her big blue eyes sparkle with every notion she has. She's the most gorgeous being I've ever seen in my life and I'm pretty sure I will never get bored of looking at her.

So here's to you Princess Mia... on your very first day of school.  Mommy loves you more deeply than you'll ever comprehend (at least until you're a momma too).  I'm so proud of the little lady you are growing to be.

The decline of creativity

I read the beginning of an article the other day that said that social networking is causing a decline in creativity. It basically indicated that our brains NEED boredom and downtime in order to be creative. This makes lots of sense to me.

I had always sort of figured that my blogging days were over because I'm a mom and I don't have time. Or maybe because I'm a mom and I've nothing to write about. But it never occured to me that I stopped writing because my creativity had up and flown right out of my ears. And it has actually NOTHING to do with motherhood.... But everything to do with Facebook.

It's supremely easy for a girl like me (who finds everything about human interaction exceedingly fascinating) to get caught up in social networking. It's so thrilling to see the highs and lows of my friends and pseudo-friends as life comes at them each day. The joys of pregnancy or wedding announcements. The reactions to breakups and losses. The frequently coded statuses that always mean more than what they say, but that are too encrypted by the writer to be fully understood. These things are fun. They are fascinating. They are human.

And yet... They are zapping my Kristi-ness. My brother once told me that I was always filled with hair-brained ideas as a kid. Always wanting to redesign my room to look like a jungle. Or make a new dance routine for my amateur dance group. Or design a float to be in the town parade. Or orchestrate a garage haunted house for the younger trick or treaters. And that creativity spilled over into my blog as a young adult. But then it died a slow and painful death... Or at least suffered from a disease called Facebook.

The thing is... I cant really blame Facebook. I have to blame my excessive use of Facebook instead. Because the creativity that lays dormant does-every now and then-awake for a fun project. Lately it's been cooking. Right now in fact I'm attempting to make from roasted red pepper hummus from scratch. And last Halloween I loved every minute of brainstorming and creating Mia and Vince's cookie and milk costumes. And I miss creating things. I miss feeling that lightbulb ignite in my head and get me so excited that I've got to put it down on paper before I forget. Or the way a really good idea just eats away at me until I act on it.

So what I'm saying is this: Dear Facebook - You are fun. You keep me connected. And you keep me entertained. But you do NOT inspire me... And thus I need to take a small step away from our relationship. It's not you... It's me. Or it's actually the part of me that I've lost to you. I want me back. So over the next few months I plan to spend less time with you and more time with me. Even if that means unforesaking boredom. Because experiencing boredom means that creativity awaits. Huzzah! Take care, Kristi