How much is too much?

A couple times a day, Zander comes to me and tells me "mom, after I am done, you will wipe okay." So I wait, listen for the call to action and then I march myself into the bathroom and help my son wipe. At first I didn't mind this responsibility, it kind of just came with the territory, but a year later and he is still asking me to wipe.

So the other day, I encouraged him to try to wipe all by himself...Well as you can see, he did. He kept wiping and wiping until "mom, the toilet won't flush." I guess that's what you get for encouraging independence. Now I think I will educate him on how much is enough. This must be a universal problem with preschoolers, because someone out there came up with the brilliant, idea for this toilet paper. Before this incident, I thought it was completely frivolous, but now I think I am seeing the light.
And yes, that is a PINK toilet! I love, love, love pink, but not a big fan of the pink commode.

Picture of the Day 11-12

Last night, Dan and I went on a date to the Edgefield Power Station for dinner and a movie. I love that you can eat your dinner while watching the show. Anyway, we watched Talladega Nights with Will Ferrell. We thought is was really funny...if you like ridiculous, larger than life movies that poke fun of NASCAR you will like it too!

Here we go again...

For the past oh, 3-4 months I have had this nagging ache in the lower right area of my back. This "flank pain" as the doctors call it, is a familiar sensation to me. You see, I have had kidney stones at least 3 times now. So when I first felt it I just drank lots of water and hoped it would go away on it's own. For the most part, I only notice the ache when my body needs to be hydrated more or when I have too much water and need to use the bathroom. These are easy to remedy...either drink water or go to the bathroom. Well as of yesterday, the ache that easily went away with water is sticking around and is more noticeable through out the day. It's not so bad that I am rushing out to the ER or anything, however I think I will get an x-ray next week to confirm my suspicions. In the mean time I am taking my little friends Percocet with me everywhere I go, just in case. Kidney stones have not been good to me, so I am not taking any chances.

Well, my parents are here and so I guess that means that Dan and I get to go out on a date!
I'll keep you posted about my kidneys. Please keep me in your prayers...the last thing I need/want right now is another surgery!

Fabulous Food Friday

Here's my recipe for carmeled apples:

Take these:

Wrap them around these:
Insert these:


Bake in one of these:


and you get these:

Carmeled Apples, YUMMY!!!

Picture of the Day 11-10

Birdfeeders

I was excited to see the pinecone birdfeeders the kids made last month are being enjoyed by some birds. (see bird on far right of photo) Yesterday they were coming by in bunches to eat from the feeders we put out.

It's that time of year...

...when I start to feel really anxious about the upcoming holidays. I am already starting to feel the pressure now that Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. How are we going to fit it all in? How can we manage to visit with everyone without someone feeling left out...and without feeling burnt out from trying to do it all. Instead of being something I look forward to, it seems that Thanksgiving, Christmas and the plethora of birthdays that come from November to Christmas are just something I dread. I don't like feeling like things are so out of my control, but this time of year, they really are.

Before Dan and I first got married I was used to celebrating Christmas with my family at my parent's house on Christmas eve and then just hanging out in my pj's all day on Christmas. It was layed back...we rarely went anywhere. Now that we are married the holiday get-togethers have multiplied. So now, in addition to my family of origin, we also have separate celebrations with Dan's paternal grandparents, his immediate family (since the divorce this means 2 get-togethers instead of 1) then we also have Dan's maternal extended family to spend time with, which sometimes means a trip out of town. If you are keeping track, that is 5, count them FIVE Christmas "parties" (only one of which is with my family of origin and that one has to be shared on the same night as his grandparent's get-together). Oh yea, then I guess we get Christmas morning to ourselves with the kids before we have to get up and go somewhere to "enjoy" spending the holidays with family.

So I have 5 family Christmas obligations plus our own family time for a total of 6 Christmases, 7 family birthdays (Becca, Dad, Natalie, Andrea, Zander, Aaron and John), 2 kids Christmas/holiday school programs, 2 school Christmas/holiday parties, 2 school birthday celebrations...and a pooped Alyssa by the end of the month. Not to mention that the kids are literally OVERWHELMED by gifts. They actually get tired of opening presents...can you imagine how many toys we have...it is unreal. I am not trying to sound ungrateful but it is really bordering on ridiculous. I wish I could come up with a brilliant solution that could make everyone happy, but at this point everyone, including me, has their own idea of what Christmas means to them and who am I to say that they have to change their idea because it is troublesome to me? I am a "people pleaser" and have a hard time saying no for fear of disappointing people.

As it turns out, I guess I'm the one who really feels disappointed because we can't effectively establish our own traditions when we seem to feel obligated to live out everyone else's traditions. My friends used to tell me it would get better once we had kids...that we could set up our own family traditions at home and family would understand...so I had hope, but it has actually gotten worse. Now everyone wants to make sure they see the kids for Christmas. I will admit that I do enjoy myself and the family we are with, once we are there, but bottom line...it's too much "fun" for one month.

I guess if I was used to all this busyness I might enjoy it more, but in the 11 years of marriage, I still find myself hating it. I feel I can never fully relax and enjoy where I am because there is always something else to get ready for. I know I sound like I am whining...and well, I am. Sometimes I need to whine a little before I take a deep breath and jump right in. How else could I get through the holidays with my perm-a-smile and my "I'm doing fine" greeting?

Earlier this week I ordered all the party goodies for Natalie and Zander's upcoming birthdays. I plan for their birthdays well in advance. I have to because they compete with Christmas. When Natalie was a baby, I decided I would do everything in my power to make her birthday stand out from all the festivities of Christmas. Having a dad, a brother and a sister all with December birthdays, I saw how often they got presents wrapped in Christmas wrap, teddy bears with Santa hats for gifts and birthday parties cancelled due to weather or sickness. It is a total bummer, so I wanted to make sure that my kids didn't get over looked. Then when Zander came along 2 years and 2 weeks later I knew that December was going to be tough.

I kind of overcompensate by throwing big birthday parties, but it's fun for me to plan everything, so I don't mind one bit. The kids love it and that's what matters most to me...their happiness.

So, now that I have shared my tales of woe, I am ready to deck the halls, play the Christmas music, fill the stocking and put on my happy face. I promise not to turn into the Grinch...just as long as I can have a nice BIG glass of wine (whine) as needed!

Picture of the Day 11-09

Meet Bob and Larry This summer Zander named these trees Bob (the tomato) and Larry (the cuccumber) and for those of you who's kids watch the veggie tales, you can see why.

Picture of the Day 10-06

Parkrose People...Go Broncos!There were a bunch of older grads and faculty at the wedding on Sunday that I don't even recognize, but I did recognize some: Bekki Blumberg (Noel), the bride and her sister Rachel. Of course Bernie Blumberg (band teacher), Mr. King, Carrie Day and her brother Bill, Wes Wilson , the groom and his siter ???, Tracie Simpson and Scot Somerset.
Oh yea, and me!

Weekend Recap

Thanks to everyone who made it to our open house. For those of you who couldn't make it, you really missed out...I don't know if the whole entire house will ever be that clean again...sorry you missed it! Boy, that was a lot of work getting this place to look like we don't really have three small children living here. Of course I did the usual, "quick, hide stuff in the closet," so now I have to go back and try to find where all our "stuff" went.

The kids were happy when they finally got to have some goodies from the chocolate fondue fountain. They had been eyeing it and kept asking me, "when can we see the chocolate fountain?" It was a hit, but then I don't think you can go wrong with marshmallows, bananas and cookies dipped in chocolate, then rolled in peanuts. The cheese fondue was also great, I would expect nothing less from the Rheinlander. Dan went all the way to Vancouver (aka Vantucky) where we pre-ordered some sandwiches, brats, kraut and German potato salad from a German Deli called the Doner Haus. As you can see in the photo, the chocolate fountain doesn't even have to be on to be a kid magnet!

Yesterday, Dan and I spent the day at our friend Bekki's wedding. She asked me to take the pictures, so rather than bring the kids along, we dropped them off for a day with Grandma "Flutter." It was just like a date of sorts. We got there early and helped set up. It was fun taking wedding photos again. It has been almost 12 years since I have done it. The wedding was so layed back that I wasn't too worried about it. It was a Hawaiian theme and I was privileged to be given a fresh lei made of beautiful orchids to wear. After the wedding I downloaded all the pictures and created a slideshow of the top 100-ish photos. Bekki and Wes will come on Wednesday to view them and I can't wait to show them.

Well, that was my weekend in a nutshell. Thanks for stopping by.

Fabulous Food Friday: a day late

I love the Olive Garden...I especially love the decor. So much that I painted my family room to resemble the Venetian plaster they have on their walls.

As much as I love their food, I don't usually order the pasta. It always amazes me that I can buy a whole package of pasta for under $3 at the grocery store, but when it is prepared at a restaurant it can cost upwards of $10+ for one serving. Not to mention they give you so much and I am really trying to limit my carb intake (especially processed white flour carbs). So, last time I went to the Olive Garden I ordered Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo , hold the pasta and replaced it with steamed broccoli. Now before you think I am totally nuts-O, you should try it, cause it is really tasty. Who doesn't like cheese smothered on just about anything...I loved it!

Another thing I love to get is all you can eat soup, salad and bread sticks...(with a side of alfredo) Okay, this is what I would get if I wasn't trying to lose weight. Now I think I would forgo the bread sticks and alfredo. Mmmm!

Here is the recipe for their Zuppa Toscana. In place of potatoes, I use turnips as they are much lower on the glycemic index. (starch into sugar into fat)

Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana
3/4 cup onions, diced
2 slices of bacon, cooked and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 quart water, bullion cube optional
2 medium potatoes (or turnips), cubed
2 cups kale, cut into thin strips
1 1/2 cup spicy Italian sausage link (not ground sausage) skin removed and cooked
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Cook sausage and bacon (separately). Cook onions over medium until onions are clear. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add water and bullion and potatoes (or turnips). Simmer for 15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, simmer for 15 minutes more and serve.

Picture of the Day 11-02

I took this photo the other day on my way home from picking up Natalie from school. Hey look, blue sky...remember that stuff?

Confession Time

Okay, I have a confession to make...I have blown my diet every day this week. All it took was one Nilla Wafer and then another and...well you can guess the rest. I am usually pretty good until lunch time and then I just give in. It doesn't help that there is not much food in the house and I have to improvise a lot...then to make matters worse there is all this Halloween stuff. I'm not even tempted by the candy. I took one look at the trick or treat bags and nothing sounded good. However, the sugar cookies that were left over from Zander's school party, which normally wouldn't tempt me at all, have found their way into my mouth at least twice. I should have never had that Nilla Wafer. I bought them for the open house that was cancelled last weekend and they have been sitting there looking so good. I better get to the grocery store today and fill up on the good stuff. Yesterday I was at the 18 lb mark, but now I am up 2 more. I know I will get back on track once I have good food to eat...and once I get past the anxiety of cleaning my house for this weekend's open house.

Trick or Treat

We finally got over our sickness, just in time for Halloween fun! Zander had a Harvest party at his preschool and he got to wear his costume all day! I helped out with snacks at the party and it was so much fun. I love his school. It reminds me a lot of my preschool.

In the afternoon, around 4 pm we left to take the kids to the movies. We went to see Ice Age 2. Natalie and Zander laughed a lot, so that is always a good sign. After the movie, it was time for trick or treating! It was pretty cold and windy, so we decided to take the kids to the Troutdale outlet mall, where the walking is mainly under cover. The kids got lots of treats, but before heading home we stopped by our old neighborhood and went trick or treating some more. It was good for the kids to see the house again and to realize that someone else did in fact live there now. It was also good to see a few of our neighboors again. We stopped off to visit Dan's mom and then took the kids home to bed. They were tuckered out and fell asleep right away.
Wow, Woody (Zander) was so glad his pal Buz Lightyear came too!














Here is Zander waiting in line at his preschool harvest party to play pin the nose on the pumpkin. For the record, he got the nose straight on...off the record, he totally cheated by lifting the blindfold!!!













Thanks to Disney for our costume selection this year. Here are Woody, Tigger and Ariel.

My 100th Post

It didn't take me too long to get to 100 posts...I guess that means I must like to write. This has been good therapy for me and it is great to look back at all the pictures and memories over the past 3 months. I hope all of you who read my blog have enjoyed hearing about what the Ernst family is doing. I have really had fun sharing with you.

Out of all 100 posts so far, I think one of my favorites to write was way back at the begining called "Welcome to the Country." It was good for me to journal about all the changes that occured since the move to our new place. I've also enjoyed posting recipes every Friday. Have you guys tried any of them? What do you think? Let me know how they turned out for you.

On another note...doesn't that cupcake look yummy! So glad it is a virtual cupcake and I can just enjoy it without eating it!

Thanks for stopping by Ernstopia.

Picture of the Day 10-30

Yes, Deer!

This afternoon I looked out the window and saw a deer on our front lawn.

Fabulous Food Friday

Here are some ideas for Halloween Night:

Pumpkin Soup and Corn Bread
Saute 1/2 onion, finely chopped, until very soft
Add 15 oz pumpkin
2 teaspoons of curry powder
Stir and add 4 cups chicken broth
Heat and add 1/2 cup of cream. Serve with warm homemade corn bread.


Chicken Pot Pie
I make this with the leftover meat from roasting a chicken in the crockpot; something I just recently figured out how to do. Much to my surprise, it's really easy.

1/2 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 cups chicken broth
3/4 cups milk
3 cups cooked chicken
1 cup peas and carrots

Cook peas and carrots, set aside. Saute onions in butter until tender. Stir in flour and seasonings. Add broth and milk. Stir and cook until bubbly. Add peas, carrots and chicken.
Roll out pie crust and cut into large circles (I use an inverted bowl as a cookie cutter). Transfer pie crust circles onto a cookie sheet and pierce with fork. For Halloween it would be great to cut pumpkin faces out of the circles. Bake in a 450 degree oven until just lightly browned. Serve on top of chicken pot pie mixture in a soup bowl.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake
This time of year I love to make cinnamon bundt cakes using the recipe on the back of Hershey's cinnamon chips (like chocolate chips, only cinnamon.) To decorate, cover with orange frosting (I think this was cream cheese frosting) and pipe green stripes using a pastry bag (a zip lock bag with a corner cut out works in a pinch). The stem is an inverted ice cream cone.

I made this cake last year, so fortunately it is not sitting around tempting me to eat it!!!

Picture of the Day 10-27

Just thought I would show you what the vanity looks like now that it's all put together. I still have to figure out how to attach the mirror to the top of the vanity, but I think if nothing else I can screw it down somehow. Isn't it cute? I got it on clearance at Target last spring (back when money wasn't so tight.) I love that it looks like it came from Pottery Barn Kids, but I paid a small fraction of what PB prices are. Gotta love Target for that!

Oktoberfest is Cancelled!

But will be rescheduled very soon

Due to what seems to be the stomach bug from hell, I feel it is in all our best interests if we reschedule our Oktoberfest open house for another day.

Right after I last posted, I heard Hayden throw up in the other room. With Dan's help, I got him cleaned up, bedding changed, diaper changed and back to bed. As soon as I came back up stairs from throwing a load of laundry in, I heard Natalie in the bathroom. I got there just in time to hold her hair back for her while she was sick. Hayden has also had diarrhea which in turn is giving him horrible diaper rash. Needless to say all of our kids are sleeping on towels tonight.

As much as I hate the hassle of rescheduling the Oktoberfest, I would hate it even more if I passed this sickness on to any of my friends and family. While at the store today, I bought all the food, so I am thinking of re-scheduling soon, like Saturday, Nov 4. I have a friend getting married on the 5th and since I am taking her wedding pictures I need to find out first if there is anything else going on that weekend that I need to know about. So I am tentatively planning for next Saturday. That should give me time to clean up this place and sanitize everything. Do yourself a favor...get off the computer now and call your broker and tell him/her you want to buy lots of stock in Lysol, Clorox and Fabreeze cause I will be using a ton of it in the upcoming days.

Well, back to Parenting Purgatory...wish me well.

Oh and please, please, please let me know you got this message. This is not some crazy stunt to get more comments on my blog, I just need to know who got the message and who I still need to call. Thanks again for your understanding.

Picture of the Day 10-26

What a way to wake up

My day started with a splash of pink and ended with a pink splash! Read all about it in my post below.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I described my blog as My adventures in mothering...the good the bad and the ugly. This means you get to hear all the yucky stuff too. Today was one of those days. You know the kind where you think things just can't get worse, but somehow they just do?

It started off perfectly normal. Zander and Haden both woke up feeling fine. We all got ready and out the door for school on time and then I walked Natalie to her class. I looked around at all her classmates and realized I totally blew it. Today was pajama day and I did not dress Natalie in her pajamas. For some reason I had it in my head that pj day was Friday. I immediately felt just awful and then mommy guilt set in, but there was nothing I could do. I had to get Zander to school. So we left and I just hoped it wasn't a big deal.

I went home to work on a surprise for Natalie. I planned on assembling the vanity I got for her before we moved, but when I went to put it all together I realized the screws were all missing. So now I panic, search through all the places where she would have put them, but came up empty handed. Strike 2. Desperate to have something go right, I begin cleaning her room in hopes that the screws would show up. They didn't, so I put the vanity back in her closet and went down to get the stool out of the garage. Fortunately, they are put together the same way, so I grabbed the screws from that box so I could take them with me to Home Depot and get new ones. Ah, at last, progress.

By now, it was time to pick up Natalie from school. When I picked her up the first thing that came from her mouth was not the usual, 'mom, I'm so glad to see you,' rather it was "all the other kids got a red ribbon and I didn't." As it turns out those who wore their pj's to school were rewarded with ribbons. Trying my best to console her, I told her I would give her a nice ribbon when we got home, but she just went on about how neat the ones at school were. She also said a girl teased her about not having one. I felt really, really sad for her, but tried my best to turn it around. I told her I was so sorry, but I don't know if sorry is enough for this kind of thing.

After lunch we all got back in the car to go to Home Depot. She usually doesn't like going there "because it stinks," she says from all the paint. But I reminded her that she could buy something (she loves going to the hardware section and picking out washers and bolts); cheap thrills, right! Anyway, we got what we came for and now it's off the the grocery store.

As we arrive, she tells me her tummy hurts and needs water, so we hit the drinking fountain and then continue on with our shopping. I let the two older kids pick out a treat from the bulk foods. They both chose a strawberry sugar wafer. I continued to fill up my cart and check out of the store, now completely exhausted, I am just happy to be heading home. (As I was checking out I was totally thinking to myself, I should get a medal for taking my 3 small children grocery shopping with me...this is a lot of work!)

Once the kids are buckled in and the groceries in, we are homeward bound. Natalie begins to complain that her tummy hurts and I try to run her through triage while still keeping my eyes on the road ahead. I reassured her we would be home soon, and sure enough we turned onto Bartell Road. We were just seconds from being home where we could all relax...and then she threw up all over herself in the back seat. Oh, did I feel for her. Poor thing. Then I started to feel sorry for myself, because as soon as I got her in the bath I had to go back out and clean it up. Although, if you are going to have to clean up vomit...regurgitated pink strawberry sugar wafers is about the best you are going to get!

Now that she is sick, she will miss school tomorrow which means she will also miss the fall kindergarten program (and I will miss out too!)

I hope your day was better than this. My keen spidy sense tells me it probably was! Thanks for listening.