Top Blog Posts of 2012

After looking at my statistics for the past year, I want to declare 2012 "The Year of Sickness."  Some of my most popular posts were related to illnesses.  Let's hope for a better 2013!

If you're new to my blog or missed some posts, here are my top posts of the year:

Childhood Illnesses:

Our Experience with Hand, Foot, & Mouth Disease:  This was, by far, my most popular post of the year.

Mono in a Pre-Schooler:  Not that bad of an illness when you're 3!

What Moms Should Know About Febrile Seizures:  Harmless but terrifying for parents!  This event happened in 2011, but I wrote about it in 2012. 

Morning Sickness:

Many of you said you appreciated my honesty about how pregnancy works for me.  I deal with very extreme morning sickness, hyperemesis, which has gotten many headlines recently now that Princess Kate has hyperemesis.  I wrote several posts on morning sickness, and I'm sure that morning sickness kept me from writing more on my blog last year.

Morning Sickness and Me:  An honest look at what pregnancy looks like for me.  I decided that I was done pretending that everything was OK.  It wasn't OK, but we've learned that 9 months are very short, in the grand scheme of things, and my husband and I have learned to deal with it.

Coping with Morning Sickness: Beyond Saltines and Sprite, Part 1:  Tips and tricks for dealing with morning sickness.

Coping with Morning Sickness: Beyond Saltines and Sprite, Part 2

Natural Remedies:

Honey: The Natural Cough Syrup:  You might be surprised to hear that many pediatricians are recommending this instead of cough syrup.

A Natural Cure for Pregnancy Reflux:  An apple a day keeps the reflux away.

Various Posts, in order of popularity:

A Review of Two Hanging Diaper Pails

O Come, Let Us Adore Him: The Nativity

My Darling Children: That Gap Between Ideal and Real Life

The Sippy Cup and Milk Conundrum, or My Crazy Children

Mommy Fun: A Dr. Seuss Playdate and Mini Baby Shower

Missing Papa

I hope your 2012 was one full of growth as a mom and as a follower of Christ.  I'm looking forward to doing some neat things on my blog next year, so stay tuned!

O Come, Let Us Adore Him: Candlelight Service

Every Christmas Eve, my entire family goes to my parents' church for their annual Candlelight Service. It's a great chance to focus our hearts on Christ and afterwards, my mom loves to gather all of her kids and grandkids for a family picture.



The service is perfect. The pastor reads short passages of scripture about the birth of Christ and between each passage, we sing Christmas Carols. At the end, each person is holding a lit candle, since the Light of the World has been born. We also partake in Communion. The head of each family leads his wife and children in the Lord's Supper. It's a precious time of worship.

This year, our family is missing its earthly father. Our annual tradition will be bittersweet without my step-dad, who passed away in September. Keep our family and others who experienced loss this year in your prayers. Christmas has been a mixture of joy and sorrow this year. Pray that we focus heavenward and once again, we sing and pray "Come, thou long expected Jesus."

Papa and Izzy, when she was 1.

 

Happy 4th Birthday!

Hey Sunshine,

You're a big girl, or so you think, because you define being a big girl by pottying, wearing panties, and dressing yourself.

But you'll always be my baby girl.

You have such a sweet heart.  When we gave you a bike for your birthday, the first thing you asked was if your brother could have a present too.  We told you that it wasn't his birthday, but you really wanted him to have a gift, so we gave him a small early Christmas present.  You love him so much.  I love watching the two of you collapse into giggles at something silly.  I love your excitement over school and the way you always pull up a chair when you see me working in the kitchen.  You love being my little helper.

In the past year, you've grown up so much.  You've learned to read basic 3 letter words.  You've   learned the joy of being a big sister.  Again.  You get delighted at making your baby brother laugh and smile, and you've come to enjoy having a playmate in your little toddler brother.  You've realized that sadness is more than being disappointed at not getting a cookie.  You've experienced loss for the first time when your grandfather died 3 months ago.  And it's been tough, but you've heard all about heaven and know that Papa is there in glory. 

You've gotten frustrated with yourself for your own disobedience and realized that you need a savior.  So just ten days ago, you gave your precious little heart to Christ, trusting that His death on the cross covers your sins.  This, my girl, is what you were born for.  You were made for this.  You were made for Him.

I can't wait to see you grow in your walk with God over the years.  You are precious. 

Love,

Mommy

Isabelle Rose, getting her ears pierced for her birthday.

 

 

 

Riding the train at the mall for her birthday.

O Come, Let Us Adore Him: Jesse Tree Advent Devotions for Kids

 

 

What is a Jesse Tree?

A Jesse Tree is a great way to share the lineage of Christ with our children and I especially love the idea of bridging the Old Testament with the birth of Jesus and the New Testament.  Every day of Advent, you'll read scripture or a Bible story with your children and hang an ornament on the Jesse Tree. 

Ideally, you'll make these ornaments yourself using found objects or felt.  For us, this simply was not feasible this year, our first year of doing a Jesse Tree, so I decided to save myself some sanity and buy a kit.  I purchased this one on Etsy and all I had to do was put stickers on the wooden ornaments and tie a loop.  Piece of cake!  If you have older kids, they can do it for you.  The kit came with a devotional as well.

Our Jesse Tree

How Does it Work for Our Family?

My children are pretty young to handle the Jesse Tree.  The devotional that came with the kit is pretty brief and very much above their heads.  Fortunately, many of the stories are familiar to my almost 4 year old, so I have a few options for making it relatable: 

1. Find the story in one of our children's Bibles, like My Favorite Bible or The Jesus Storybook Bible.  Read the story and then connect it with Christ. 
2. Use a similar Jesse Tree devotional.  I really like this one from the Reformed Church in America's website. 
3. Wing it.  Tell the story myself, from memory, from scripture, or from any combination of the above sources. 

I always try to connect it to something my children already understand, so when we were talking about the creation ornament, we sang our Genesis 1:1 song (from Desiring God's children's scripture memory program).

It can be a challenge because while my children are familiar with Bible stories, they may not be familiar with the focus of the ornament.  For example, my daughter is very familiar with the story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho, and the corresponding ornament is a picture of a horn.  However, an important part of the focus of the devotional is Rahab, who is in Christ's lineage.  So for that ornament, we sang a Joshua song that she knows, read the story from The Jesus Storybook Bible, and then I added information about Rahab.  Then we hung the ornament on the tree. 

And have fun explaining Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.  It's a beautiful story of God's provision and Abraham's faithfulness, but a little hard to explain to a pre-schooler.  The story is told in The Jesus Storybook Bible, and even there, they tell the complete story, without pulling any punches.

But the bottom line is that this devotional is not something you can just sit down and do with your 4 year old without finding outside sources.  It will take some extra work, so it's not quite what I had in mind right now for this stage of life.  However, we are enjoying it, and my kids look forward to hanging up the ornaments every day.

Would I do it again?  I think so.  I really like the ornaments.  They're beautiful, especially for something as simple as vellum stickers on wood.  I also love the idea of tying together the Old and New Testaments.  But my kids are young:  4 months, 22 months, and 3-almost-4.  So with their ages, I do think that Truth in the Tinsel would've been a better option for an Advent devotional this year, but I hadn't heard about it when I purchased this kit.  The Jesse Tree will probably work better when my kids are just a couple years older.   

What Advent devotional are you doing with your children? How is it working out?
 

Tip for Working with Phyllo Dough

When I work with phyllo dough, I feel like I've missed my calling as a pastry chef.  The results are always a light and crispy perfection.  But then I remember that everything about phyllo dough is easy, so I better stick to my day job.

I use phyllo dough to make Baklava, one of my husband's favorite desserts.  The recipe I use is this one from Allrecipes.com (love that site!).  Pioneer Woman's recipe is basically the same, so that's how good it is!  I try to make Baklava every year for New Year's Eve and for my husband's birthday as well. 

Last week, I used phyllo dough to make hors d'oeuvres for a Christmas party.  I made crawfish etouffee to serve in phyllo dough cups.  They're super easy to make, if you know my mom's secret. 

Phyllo dough is like paper, maybe even tissue paper, and all recipes tell you to butter each layer of dough.  As in scrape a knife with butter over each layer.  Envision yourself trying to butter a Kleenex and you can about imagine how difficult this would be.  Even using a pastry brush would be a bit of a mess and a challenge.

So spray it. 

That's right.  The secret is spray butter.  Lightly spray each layer with Parkay Spray Butter and you'll be home free.  It's a huge time saver and definitely a sanity saver.  You can dump out the fake stuff and melt your real butter for the bottle if you prefer.  Either way, you'll find it much easier to spray your phyllo dough than any other technique.

Now go make some Baklava! 

Hors D'oeuvres:  Phyllo dough cups in the silver bowl

with etouffee in my fondue pot in the back

 

 

If you want to make the phyllo dough cups, those are very simple.  You'll need to stack up a layer of 5-6 sheets of dough with butter between each sheet.  Using a pizza cutter, cut the stack into 12 squares.  Cram each square into a minimuffin tin.  Once you've filled up the tin, spray each one and bake for about 10 minutes on 350.  Easy peasy.  You can buy a box of 15-20 ready made cups for the same price that you could make 100+ yourself. 

What's cookin' at your house this week?

O Come, Let Us Adore Him: The Nativity

If we want a Christ-centered Christmas, we need the Nativity and the true Christmas story to be the center of our home. 

I have several Nativity scenes, including a couple from Honduras, Peru, and one that was a wedding gift from my great-aunt who painted, glazed, and fired it in the kiln herself.  That's it pictured below.

Just know that if you have the Nativity out, something like this is going to happen:

 

 

My husband noticed it one night at dinner.  He asked if I did it.  ????  Then we asked our 3 year old, Isabelle, what the banana was doing at the Nativity scene.  Her answer?  He needs to see Baby Jesus. 

 

Ah yes, it all makes perfect sense now.

Nativity Scenes for the Kids

I love the idea of collecting Nativity scenes to decorate our home, but I also feel that it's really important to have Nativity scenes that the kids can experience and play with, in the same way that my children have their own Bibles long before they can read.

Last year, I asked my sister to buy a Little People Nativity set for my daughter's birthday, which we celebrated in early December.  Isabelle loved it and both she and Andrew are still having a blast acting out the Christmas story with Little People.  Since it stays in the attic during the rest of the year, it feels like a new toy and retains some of its newness.

I've seen some pretty adorable pictures on Facebook of friends' children putting Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in some odd places, like riding on a train.  My daughter had everyone loaded up on a Little People Airplane recently!  She also likes to get all of her toys involved in adoring Baby Jesus, including Strawberry Shortcake and the gang.  Or a banana.

Be the Nativity

Last week, I made some costumes for the kids to actually be the characters in the Nativity.  I picked up some neutral colored fabric remnants from the scrap bin at Hobby Lobby, so I cut those to form headpieces.  I was looking for cording to act as belts, but ended up finding some neat multi-colored fat yarn in neutral colors to act as belts.  I also made "tunics" out of flannel fabric by simply cutting wide strips with a hole for their heads to go through--no sewing involved whatsoever.  All they need to do is put on a tunic, tie on a belt, and put fabric around their heads to be Mary, Joseph, or anyone else in the Bible.  Maybe next year we can add crowns or angel wings to our collection.

 We keep the costumes in a basket along with a baby doll for Baby Jesus.  Isabelle loved getting to dress up as Mary, though we had a little bit of drama when little brother didn't want to dress up as Joseph.  I played the game with her and let her knock on my bedroom door to ask for a place to stay, and I turned her away, telling her that there was no room at the inn.  We had fun playing together and will continue acting out the story over the Christmas season.

How do you keep the Nativity at the Center of your home during the Christmas season?  

Pinteresting Fridays: Christmas Cookie Cones

It's that time! Time to tell us about anything you've been cooking and crafting from Pinterest. If there's anything you've tried, we'd love to hear about it, even if it flopped.

We tried out this fun Christmas activity earlier this week where you decorate ice cream cones to look like Christmas trees.  My kids loved it, though in some ways, it didn't work out quite as I'd planned.

Isabelle decorating while wearing her Belle dress.

 

You should know that I had five kids with me that day instead of my usual three.  I'd planned on doing this activity at some point, so I decided I may as well do it on the afternoon that I kept a friend's kids so that they could join in on the fun too.  Honestly, the mess was the same as it would've been with just my kids, though the chaos was certainly heightened.  And I know that not all moms want pictures of their little ones in public places, so I will only put pictures of my own children on my blog.  But trust me, her two kids are precious.

First, you bake cookie dough in the cones.  While this made them super yummy, what I discovered is that the kids had no interest at all in eating their Christmas trees once they'd been decorated.  Only my husband and I ate the cookie cones and they were delicious.  I don't know why, but none of the kids would eat the trees.  So if I did it again, I would skip this step and let the kids decorate the cones straight out of the package.   

Otherwise, all went just as I'd planned:  It made a huge mess and the toddlers wanted to eat the candy instead of decorate the trees.

  

Andrew, trying to cram as many sprinkles and Skittles down his throat as possible.

 

 

The two pre-school kids were very intent on decorating.

 

She's in the zone.

 

L, Izzy's little 4 year old buddy, was pretty meticulous in his decorating efforts.

 

 

 

 

All in all, the kids had a blast. 

 

I picked up this little folding table and dumped everying into the sink, spraying it down with the vegetable sprayer. 

 

And then I swept the kitchen floor. 

 

Twice.

 

Have you tried anything new from Pinterest?

Saying Yes to Our Kids: Fun in the Leaves

As moms, there are a lot of times when we have to say no to our children:  No, we don't eat crayons.  No, let's not put Legos on the baby's head, and no, we can't go swimming today because it's 50 degrees outside. 

But I also find myself saying no simply because it doesn't fit into my schedule or it'll delay something we've got planned.  Or just because!  But I want to say yes more often.  I think it'll make my "Nos" carry more weight if they have meaning, and if home is, in general, a fun place to be.  So I'm working at saying yes, even if it means a mess or a deviation from the plan:  Yes, I'll do a puzzle with you right now, even if it means we'll eat lunch and take naps 10 minutes later. 

On Saturday, my 3 year old had one request:  She wanted to make a big pile of leaves so that she could jump in them.  We didn't even think twice, and my husband and I made that a top priority for the day. 

Enjoy the unedited pictures.  My photo editing software doesn't want to work lately. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you find yourself saying NO a lot too?

 

O Come, Let Us Adore Him: Ornaments

Our extended family has a few traditions that make Christmas extra special for my children.  My mother-in-law, for example, loves to get a Christmas book for my children every year.  I love this tradition because I love to read, and any tradition that makes reading an even happier experience for them is a winner in my book.

When I was expecting my first child at Christmas, my mother-in-law said that she also wanted to start a tradition of buying my kids an ornament every year.  And my mom said the same thing! 

But this isn't a bad thing, to have two grandmothers with the same tradition.  It's great, and every year, Isabelle, my 3 year old, gets pretty excited about decorating our Christmas tree with her ornaments.  As a child, I also have fond memories of my parents handing me a shoe box with my own special ornaments in it, so I'm glad she has the same tradition.

My mom also picked out a special box for each of my kids to store their ornaments in, and Isabelle gets excited when we show her the box and tell her that it's full of her ornaments.  She helps decorate with other ornaments as well, but she especially enjoys putting her ornaments on the tree and hearing about where they came from.  She was a Christmas baby, so many people gave us ornaments when she was born, and I've kept them just for her. 

Andrew's ornament box

Each ornament has a story and Isabelle loves hearing them.  One year, we made a gingerbread house completely from scratch.  Don't hate me--I only had one kid and could do that!  So that year, my mom picked out a Hallmark ornament that was Noah's ark in the style of a gingerbread house to capture that memory.  This year, I do get sad when Isabelle points to her LSU ornament and asks "Did my Papa give me that?" but I'm glad she has both the ornament and memories of her dear Papa who died in September. 

Even with the hard memories, it's sweet to have ornaments to collect as visual reminders.  When my children grow up and leave our home, they'll each have a box or two full of ornaments to start their own Christmas trees. 

Have your children's grandparents started any special traditions for your children?