a happy 4 yr old...

Happy Birthday dear W!  What a big boy you are!  We love you so much!  And it seems only fitting that you had a 4-part birthday this year for your 4th birthday!

W's birthday part 1 - Friday June 17

• Yeah, it is a little early, but we have a tradition of going out to Noodles for birthdays, and there was no time to fit that in on W's actual birthday!
• Plus after a whole week of VBS we all needed a break!
• Uncle J, Auntie C, K & G joined us which made for a fun supper out!

(sorry no pics of that!)

W's birthday part 2 - Sunday June 19

• Dadda was home all day Sunday (also Father's Day!) so we celebrated W's birthday a little early with him
• Also W's cousins/friends could come over that day
• W asked for blueberry cupcakes...I pulled out blueberry muffin mix and he said "THOSE aren't cupcakes, that's MUFFIN mix!"  When I told him I didn't know how to make blueberry cupcakes, he thought for a minute and then said "I know, momma!  We can use the muffin mix!"  Love this boy.  We did doctor them up a bit so they were great "cupcakes" 
• Received one of the best birthday presents from his aunt and uncle - a handmade TENT!   So neat and W has yet to let me take it down...=)

W's birthday part 3 - Monday June 20

• Actual birthday day!!!
• Opened gifts from us in his tent in the morning...just what this boy wanted too.  A Thomas the Train shirt, a James train, Cars cars, and a jungle animal Playmobil set
• Rest of the day was filled with a long day of work for Dadda and a lot of packing for Momma being that our vacation started the next day, but W was happy and content to play with all of his new toys!
• We did make a fun trip to the library, and had Mrs. L over for birthday cupcakes.
• Received very cool Cars sheets from Mrs. L!!!

W's birthday part 4:  Wednesday June 22

• W loved that we got to go to Boppa's farm and thought it was especially for his birthday!  Plus all his aunts and uncles and cousin E were there too!
• Had a bonfire for supper and ate in Boppa's shed - hot dogs, applesauce, biscuits and marshmallows!
• Opened gifts from Boppa and Aahma - his very own little John Deere tractor (1/64 model) like Boppa's, and 3 Elephant and Piggie book by his favorite author, Mo Willems.
• And Auntie J made W the most fabulous wonderful amazing super cool birthday cake - a blue dinosaur!!!!  (By the way, Auntie J loves to make cakes and is very talented - the body is all cake and the head and tail are made from rice crispie bars, and she also made her own fondant to cover the whole thing!  Seriously amazing!)  Thanks Auntie J for a very memorable cake that W is still talking about!

blessings...

*family photo courtesy of M & A

Oh so many things to tell you all about!  Time for all of them will come bit by bit here in this space.  The past few months have been busy and full of blessings, and the biggest one of them will be added to our family around November.  We are expecting and I am 20 weeks along.  All is going well with Baby B which has been such an answer to prayers.  With each good appointment and with each time we hear his or her heartbeat our fears are lessened a bit and more and more joy is allowed to come to the surface.  We are really excited about this little one, and there will be ultrasound pictures (no, we are not finding out whether it is a boy or girl!) and maybe even a belly shot or two to share with you in the next while.

shorter...

Remember these shaggy kids from the last post?

Well, since G is home from school now and our summer has officially started...

 ...it was time for summer haircuts!

(G got over 5 inches cut off of her hair - it is now the all same length as her grown out bangs.

It almost hurt to cut off W's curls but I couldn't deal with sweaty-head boy all summer.

And this was actually C's first haircut on the top of his head - I have buzzed the back a couple of times, but the top hadn't ever grown enough.)

a graduation...

To commemorate the end of the Kindergarten school year and all that each kindergartener accomplished, G's school held a small Kindergarten graduation ceremony.  Shhhh, don't tell, but I went in to it thinking that it was going to be way cheesy.  Instead it was a great recap of their year, a wonderful program of songs and memory verses, a slideshow and great message from Mrs. Bierma about things they did and learned in the classroom over the year, and yes, slightly cheesy diplomas handed out to big proud kindergarteners with giant grins on their faces.  This has been such a good year for G and our whole family.  We couldn't have asked for a better teacher for G in Mrs. B, and G honestly loved every day of school the whole year.  What a great way to get us used to the whole school thing - dropping off and picking up a happy happy kindergartener every day!

Our friends (and neighbors) Mrs. L and her daughter K came!  (A huge amount of thanks goes to Mrs. L, who watched the boys one Friday a month so I could be a room parent this year - it was fun for her and K to see where G went to school!)

walking in with friend E (G was most worried that she wasn't going to be there and she would have to walk in with an imaginary person!)

so. so. happy.

singing with her class     (I think this is the Grizzly Bear song...ask G to sing that for you sometime =)

getting her diploma from Mr. S, the principal

showing it off with her brothers

family picture

G with proud momma and dadda

G with her para, Mrs. Pf, and her teacher, Mrs. B

hottest in the nation...

So what do we do on a day like today when temps reach 103 degrees F, the hottest temp in the nation, the hottest temp here since since 1988, and the hottest June day since 1934?

First of all, we invite our cousins and puppy (who do not have central air) to come over.  And we stay inside all afternoon!

Then after supper, when the temps finally cool to 97 degrees F, we kick all the kids outside in their swimsuits to eat popsicles...

...and play (and drink big glasses of ice tea)...

...and play (and water crispy plants)...

 ...and play in the water!

(We certainly wouldn't serve chili for supper. :)

just outside our front door...

..."mama-bird" house finch built a nest above our outside light...high enough all views of what was inside came from blind-aiming the camera and shooting...all while "mama-bird" and "dada-bird" squawked and chirped at us from nearby tree...and this is what we saw in just over a week's time...

for our little one...

*** Disclaimer:  You don't have to read this post.  This will be long and will include a lot of personal reflection about the miscarriage that we had last December.  Today would have been our 4th child's due date, and we are sharing this because we want to remember him or her and the big impact that this had on our lives.  Also, one of the big purposes of this blog is to share about our children, and we want to include this little one as well.  (and just so you don't think anything is broke, you won't be able to comment on this post.  we don't mind talking about it, but not here - shoot us an email if you want to talk more about this) ***


To our little one, Love Momma and Dadda.

We were so excited when we found out that we were pregnant with you after taking a home test on September 20, 2010!  What joy at adding a new member to our family with your new little life!  That joy and excitement was a special secret between your dadda and I, and our midwife Kathrine as we called her right away to make a 10 week appointment. Kathrine is a special person to our family as she has cared for us and has helped deliver your other siblings!

I started feeling nauseous a week after we found out about you, and that feeling is always feels like a mixed blessing to me - it stinks feeling sick, but what a great reason to feel that awful.  I worked on making sure that I ate healthy, and anytime any plans and talk for future events came up with anyone, I was planning in my head how they would work with being either pregnant with you or you being a new little baby.  There was Uncle L and Auntie J's wedding in February...I was a bridesmaid and would be 6 months pregnant with you and would have to wear a maternity bridesmaid dress!  And then there was the K family reunion in June...you would be so tiny, would we even go?  Your dadda and I talked about how you would come at the end of G's school year and that he would have hopefully a month off like he did when C was born and how wonderful that would be to have that time all together as a family.

We visited your Aahma and Boppa Roskamp when I was about 8 weeks pregnant with you.  I was worried about feeling icky and having to hide that from everyone, but I stopped feeling nauseous around this time so was happy I didn't have to worry about that.  Your Uncle Marcus and Auntie Amy were also going to be there and Auntie Amy was 4 months pregnant with your cousin who would only be 3 months older than you.  I wanted to tell them about you so bad!  You dadda and I decided that if there was a good opportunity that we would tell them, but there really wasn't, so we just looked forward to sharing the news with them in a few weeks.

I ended up having an appointment with Kathrine on October 27, 2010, when I was at 9 weeks rather than 10 weeks, as there was something going on with the midwives during that 10 week time...can't really remember what.  I was originally going to go by myself, but being that the appointment had to change, Dadda had to work so your brothers came along with me (you sister was at school).  They were pretty oblivious during the appointment so I didn't have to worry too much about them realizing what was going on.  We saw Ondrea, one of the other midwives, and had a normal and good first appointment - filling out the regular forms, talking about being pregnant, answering any questions, and then of course a physical exam and checking to see if we could hear your heartbeat.  Which we couldn't.  I didn't worry too much, though, and neither did Ondrea, as 9 weeks is pretty early to hear the heartbeat.  Kathrine came in to say hi at the end of the appointment, and the 3 of us talked about whether we needed an early ultrasound of you or not.  I had them with your brothers as we needed to get due dates correct in case they were born premature like your older sister was, but since they both went full term and I was definitely sure about the timing of your pregnancy, we decided not to have one.  And I was just fine with that since the ultrasound place is about 45 minutes away from our home and then we didn't have to worry about timing and figuring out how to do that.  So we made an appointment for November 18, 2010, when I would be 12 weeks pregnant.  I hugged Kathrine and Ondrea and thought happy thoughts about the care we would get from them during your pregnancy!

Now that we had a doctor's appointment, we could tell everyone about you, right?  Well, your dadda and I went back and forth on this.  We hadn't heard your heartbeat yet, so there was just a part of us that wanted to wait until we heard that sound before we told the world about you.  But on the other hand, everything had gone so well with your siblings' pregnancies that we were sure that yours would be the same so we could definitely tell everyone we were pregnant.  In the end, we decided to wait.  Our next appointment was only 3 weeks away so we could contain our happiness about you for a little bit longer.  Besides, that appointment was right before Thanksgiving, so we started planning on telling our families and friends on Thanksgiving about you by saying that we had an extra special reason to be thankful this year! 

It was getting harder for me to keep you a secret though, just because I was so excited!  But the fun thought of sharing about you at Thanksgiving got me though, as well as one other friend of mine finding out about you by accident.  We were at our friend Amy's house after school the day of your first appointment.  All the kids were off playing and Amy and I were chatting about various things.  Your older brother came to me crying about a bonk or something, and to distract him, Amy asked him what we had done that day.  He told her that we had gone to see Miss Kathrine and that momma had to get a poke.  Well Amy knows Kathrine as she is her midwife as well, and Amy is also a nurse so she put two and twenty together and after he ran off she asked if we were expecting - well YES!!!!  It was so nice to talk about you and Amy was so excited for us!  I told her to keep it under her hat though, as we hadn't heard your heartbeat yet and were going to wait until after our 12 week appointment to share the news about you.  She completely understood and started joking with me that I just needed to come and visit her at work next week and she could sneak the doptone away for a few minutes so that we could hear your heartbeat.  She even checked with her PA sister to see if she had a doptone at home!  I love your dadda, but it was sure fun to share about you with another mom.

The reality of being pregnant with you was really starting to hit your dadda and I and we would spend a lot of evenings talking about you and how life was going to change when you were born being that we would have 4 kids then!  And how blessed were!  And how scary that was too!  Where were you going to sleep?  How were we going to arrange things with your siblings and bedrooms if you were a girl?  And even more if you were a boy?  Was all our baby stuff still good and safe enough?  Would we have to buy anything more?  How were we going to travel places?  How would going to the grocery store work? How would we work things with a new baby?  Oh, and we soooo started looking at names!  That was the hardest decision for us for all of your siblings...we went to the hospital with all of them without a final name chosen.  Your dadda said that it was never to early to start, so we pulled out our book and pulled up a couple websites and started going through names.  Would you be a boy?  Would you be a girl?  These were such good talks and just made us feel more connected to you and excited to meet you and about your place in our family.  This time really was special to your dadda and I...sharing this happy secret of you.  But we were looking forward to Thanksgiving and telling everyone about you too. 

Although at times it seemed like it would never come, before we knew it, November 18 came and it was time for your appointment!  This was going to be super special because Dadda had the day off so he was going to come with as well as your sister and brothers.  We had originally decided to tell everyone at Thanksgiving, but the more we thought about it, it was going to be a busy holiday for everyone so we changed our minds and decided to tell your siblings on the way to the midwives' office and everyone else after your appointment.  I had lists all ready of who we were going to call and who we were going to email that night!  On the way to the appointment, we decided to see if your sister could guess our news about you.  We asked her where we were going..."Miss Kathrine's "...and what does Miss Kathrine do?..."take care of momma "...and what else does she do?..."catch babies "...so do you know why we are going to see her?..."ARE WE HAVING A BABY?!!!!! "  She was so excited to find out about you and so were your brothers!  Your smallest brother didn't really get it, but he had fun being excited with the other two.  


We got to see Jessie today.  I did ask if Kathrine could stop in so that your dadda and the kids could say hi to her.  The appointment was going just fine with the normal talk and questions about how I was feeling and what was going on, which everything had been normal and I had been feeling great.  Kathrine came in then, and after talking with her a bit, it was time to get on the table for my physical exam and checking to see if we could hear your heartbeat.  The physical exam was fine, but Jessie couldn't find your heartbeat.  This made me a little nervous, but Kathrine assured us that it was still early.  But she got on the phone to make an ultrasound appointment for you anyway, just to check things out and make sure everything was ok.  The ultrasound office (in a separate building ~10 miles away) was able to get us in right away so we said our goodbyes, loaded everyone up, and headed over.


The ultrasound rooms are always pretty small, so rather than cramming all of us in there, your dadda waited in the waiting room with your sister and brothers, and was going to bring everyone in after they had all the official measuring and checking done so that everyone could see the ultrasound of you at the end.  I was still a little nervous, but was sure that once we got the ultrasound of you that everything was going to be fine.


It wasn't.


There was no heartbeat.


You were already gone.


This was such an incredible shock to me and I wept.  The tech still had to take all sorts of measurements and I kept waiting for her to say that she had made a mistake and all of a sudden find your heartbeat.  She was very nice, but didn't say too much other than she was going to call in the radiologist to go over everything.  I asked her to get your dadda too, I knew I couldn't handle hearing any more without him.  Dadda and your sister and brothers came in the room right away and your dadda could tell something was wrong right away when he looked at my face.  The tears were flowing and your sister could also tell something was wrong, but we had to wait to answer her questions as the radiologist came in then.


He was also very nice, but had awful news for us.  Something happened to you and you died right around 8 weeks gestation.  He assured us over and over that there was nothing that we did that caused this.  It didn't look like there was anything wrong with me, it just happens sometimes.  He asked if we had any more questions (which of course we couldn't think of at the time), and told us he would call Kathrine to get a hold of us as far as what would happen next, and that we could take as long as we needed in the room.  The technician gave us a few pictures of you that she printed out, and then they both left.  


Dadda explained to your sister and brothers what had happened and we all clung to each other and cried and cried.  Your sister was so so sad, we all were.  Your brothers were still pretty little and didn't really understand, but they cried with us.  We then prayed.  Even though we didn't understand why God let this happen, we knew that we had to go to Him, and that you were with Him in heaven already.

Kathrine called us back right away and was so sad too.  She had to tell us about what was going to physically happen next though.  I was going to miscarry.  We could choose to let my body do it naturally, which she said would take about a week or so, or we could choose to go into the hospital and have it done surgically, with a procedure called a D&C.  We decided to let my body do it naturally as we couldn't bear to think of having it done surgically.  Kathrine told us to keep her informed about how everything was going, and also about when the miscarriage happened.  Then there was nothing else to do but go home.  


Your sister and brothers had random questions for us now and then, but played really nicely the rest of the day and your dadda and I were able to hold each other and try to process what had happened.  It was so hard to imagine that you were really gone, because I didn't feel any different than I did when I woke up that morning and thought everything was fine with you.  Sometime that afternoon I ran across the list I made for who we were going to call and tell about us being pregnant with you.  I lost it.  How would we even begin to call everyone and tell them what had happened?  I didn't think I could handle it.  And your dadda said we didn't have to right then.  We could take our time.  The more we thought about it we didn't know how we were going to tell people that you had died, but that I hadn't had the miscarriage yet, so we would have to call again after the miscarriage happened?  If the miscarriage was supposed to happen within a week, we would wait until after that happened and then tell everyone.  But some of the truth was is that I didn't want to tell people either...it would hurt too much and make losing you more and more of a reality.


So once again we were keeping you a secret, only this time it was a so much worse.  It wasn't a happy secret.  You were gone.  How could you be gone?  How could this happen to us?  I have known many people that have had miscarriages, including a dear friend and many church friends too, and I have always felt so bad when I heard about their miscarriages, and thought I was being so empathetic, but I had no idea what they were going through.  No idea until now.  The pain of losing a child at any stage or age is so much worse than I could have ever imagined, and I was overwhelmed with it every day. 


You would think that we would have been mad at God.  You, this little child who we wanted so much, were gone.  How could God do this?  But our faith and trust in God was really the only thing that got us through.  It didn't help the hurt at all, but knowing that God is in control of everything and that this had to happen for a reason at least gave us some peace.  We know that our lives, no matter how long or short, have purpose.  God’s plan is way bigger than what we can comprehend.  So all we could do is trust and hope, and rest in His almighty hands.  Because goodness knows we couldn't handle going through this on our own.  


And God gave us the strength to make it through one step at a time.  It was not an easy process though.  The actual miscarriage wasn't fully complete for almost 2 months.  One friend told us that we love our kids so incredibly hard and that we just loved you too much to let you go right away.  Oh and we did love you so much!  My body didn't miscarry naturally like we hoped, so after almost 3 weeks we had to go in to the hospital for a D&C.  That process was awful too, not so much physically, but mentally.  But we thought at least there would be closure.  There were some complications afterwards, so it wasn't as quick as we were hoping. It was hard to have the ordeal be so drawn out, but we were able to process each part fully before having to deal with the next and I think that is the way God knew we could handle it.  

Kind of the same way we handled telling others about losing you.  We couldn't bear telling everyone right away so we only told your Uncle Jeff and Auntie Christy, as well as our friend Amy, because we didn't know if we would need help when I miscarried naturally.  Then we told your Uncle Marcus and Auntie Amy because they visited us for Thanksgiving the week after and we didn't know if it would happen while they were there.  Each time we told someone it hurt so incredibly much, but we know that each person that we told loved us and prayed for us which helped.  Then, when things weren't happening physically a week or so later, we told a few others at church.  I was having such a hard time emotionally, and your dadda is so wise.  He said I needed to talk to other ladies that had had miscarriages, so I turned to two church friends.  I have a very close friend, Melissa, that had recently gone through 2 miscarriages, but I couldn't bring myself to talk with her yet because it hurt too much.  Talking with others who have gone through this horrible ordeal was therapeutic, as well as my appointment with Kathrine to decide on getting a D&C.  Kathrine spent over an hour talking with me and I couldn't have felt more cared for after that appointment.  We told most everyone else in our extended family and church family when we scheduled the D&C.  It was so hard, but after we did, there was more peace and we could feel the prayers holding us up through everything.  And everyone was so sad to hear about losing you, especially your grandparents.  Pastor Sawtelle came to visit us after the D&C, and we had a good talk with him.  He listened to your dadda and I talk a lot, and he also shared Psalm 34 with us, a scripture message that really hit home for us about the Lord's care for all His children.  Cards, and hugs and meals and talks and help from all the people who love us, and love you, really helped us in the months following.  


Time heals, but it does not forget.  And it still hurts today, baby, so much.  So we wanted to share your story because we love you.  And your story is a part of our family's story, and also a part of His story.  We know you are in a better place, and we can't wait to meet you and hold you one day.  We still miss you, but we know God is holding you and us in His hands.


All our love,
Momma and Dadda

roses your dadda bought you today...

a blessed April 2011...

family photo at Easter (please just look at the adorable kids...S & I are still half sick here)

April was a month of peace for me...at least as far as my attitude was concerned.  As far as happenings, it was far from peaceful!  Steve had a couple days of meetings in Chicago for work, we dog sat, and we started brainstorming and talking to contractors for a major remodel project that we plan on doing this summer.  And we also got hit with another horrible stomach/flu bug, as did many many people that we know here in the cities.  This was by far the worst one that we have had this season though, as it combined all the yuck of vomiting and diarrhea with the high fever and chills.  C got it first, then W got it 12 hours later.   W had it bad.  Bad enough he could not keep anything down and after 4 days of him being sick and not getting better we ended up having to take him in to urgent care which sent us right to Children's Hospital, where he was there for about 24 hours getting IV fluids.  The doctors there were great and explained the medical down-spiraling cycle that happens in small children with viruses like these, not making us feel like we did something wrong in taking care of him.  The stress of the hospital stay was enough to bring S's and my defenses down and then we both caught the bug.  This was right before Easter and my parents were planning on coming up for the Easter weekend.  I had planned great fun and good food...instead Mom and Dad stayed in a hotel, helped take care of the kids so S & I could be sick, helped clean and take a trip to the laundromat, and ordered (and paid for =) Easter pizza.  We were so very thankful for their help!

washing out the sick at the laundromat

As far as my attitude goes though, you would think that after my post about frustrations last month that this whole thing would take me over the edge.  But while S was in Chicago for meetings, God kind of kicked me in the butt as far as how I have been acting and feeling lately.  Which had been a lot of "WHY ME/US?! and WHY AGAIN?!"  While S was gone I was crabby about being alone and some other issues, and getting frustrated and was retreating to my ugly "WHY ME" mood.  I wasted quite a bit of time on the computer with blogs and random shopping, when I should have been paying more attention to the kids.  I came across a blog post with the title "called to the crazy," and while the post didn't really have anything to do with me or what I was feeling, the title struck me.  Our life is crazy, and will probably always be because we have kids and we live and breathe =).  I needed to stop having that WHY ME attitude and really think about how God is calling me to be a mom and how I can work for God's good in every situation, even our "crazy".  That combined with some thoughts and Bible passage that friends shared here, along with thinking about some great sermons from Rev Sawtelle about God being good, helped me come to a peace that I haven't had for a while.  God is good.  Always and forever.  And He works for the good of those who love him.  Although He works for HIS good.  And HIS good might not always amount to daisies and roses and chocolate sundaes in our lives.  We have to trust Him and have hope.  And remember how blessed we truly are...

being goofy in "new" shorts from Aahma B

G notes:

• Meal: macaroni & cheese, hot dogs, and peas
• Veggie: peas or green beans
• Fruit:  grapes or strawberries
• Snack:  crackers and peanut butter
• Treat:  chocolate chip cookies
• Doesn't like: raisins
• "Oh mom!  I feel like I could just cry forever!"  (wailing as I removed a splinter from her foot)
• "Eeny meeny miny mo.  Catch a tiger by the toe.  If he hollers 'no! no! no!'  Eeny meeny miny mo."

W notes:

• Meal: spaghetti (without meat)
• Veggie: corn or raw carrots
• Fruit: apples or grapes
• Snack:  fruit
• Treat: m&m's
• Doesn't like: potatoes, peas
• (sigh) "Momma, I can't wait until I am a adult and then I can drive a car."
• "Eeny meeny miny mo.  Catch a tiger by the toe.  If you don't let him go.  Eeny meeny miny mo."

C notes:

• Meal: macaroni & cheese
• Veggie: corn or peas
  
• Fruit: grapes or bananas
  
• Snack:  Trader Joe cereal bars (we call them "ba-bars" at our house)
• Treat:  yogurt raisins
• Doesn't like: a whole bunch of things!  very picky 2 yr old right now...
• momma: "what would you like for lunch?"  C: "hmmmmmm....ice cream!"
  
• "Eeny miny mo.  By the by the toe.  Let go.  Eeny miny mo."

a very happy G...

Our sweet daughter is extremely happy with 2 events of this week.  The first one is a big milestone for a 5-yr old...

...yep, G lost her first tooth!!!  (OK, well technically her second.  But the first one - top right middle - doesn't really count since the dentist had to pull that one due to it being abscessed.)  Her bottom right middle tooth has been wiggly for about a month, and really wiggly for the past week.  The catalyst for it coming out though?  Knocking herself in the face while trying to get a sticky lid off her hair-tie tin (is she her mother's daughter or what? =)  It was almost all the way out after that and she let momma pull it out the rest of the way with a soft cloth.  She cried for approximately 6.2 seconds and then tears turned into...

...sheer excitement!  =)  The super fun comes when she gets to tell her teacher and gets her picture on the tooth chart in the kindergarten room.  She was so worried that it wouldn't come out before school was over!  And it is kind of funny that the two teeth that she is missing line up...

...to give her a big ol' cutie-patootie gap in her smile.  G's reaction to this?  "It's so cool, dadda!  I won't have to open my mouth to suck out of my milk straw at school!"  Congratulations to our sweetie on this big milestone!  (PS. we don't really have a tooth fairy at our house, but she did get a little gift and two dollar coins in the tradition of my father.  I remember getting two dollars from my dad when my first tooth came out.  He told me that one was for me to celebrate, and the other I had to save in case the new tooth didn't come in - then I would have money to buy a new one.  G thought this was pretty funny.  =)

The other big event for G this week?  Getting mail!  And not just a letter, but a package from Nana!!!  And inside was what G declared the most beautifulest, specialest, prettiest...

...Nana-dress ever!  So a big thank-you to Nana/G-ma K!  The material with all the butterflies is perfect for G, and the dress fits her really well too!  And of course, it has what all good Nana-dresses have...

...great twirl factor.  There was someone who was not happy with this package though - little C.  He wanted to wear G's "Bu-fly" dress too, which of course was not going to be allowed by G.  G did smooth things over with him by doing one of her favorite activities though...

...dressing little C up in one of her princess dress-up dresses.  And C wanted his picture taken too just like his big sister.  He may not be happy with me in 10 years because of this picture, but he sure was happy afterwards this morning!

waffles...

I am a french toast kind of girl.

Pancakes are ok, at least you can make 4-6 at a time.  But waffles?  Only making one 5 inch waffle every 4 minutes to feed a hungry family of 5?  That was a once a year occurrence at our house for Waffle Fest (!!!) only.  They are definitely something I could take or leave.

Then a year or so ago, the kids and I stopped at my in-laws for lunch on the way home from the farm.  Aahma B had gotten a new waffle maker and made us waffles.  I got the kids' waffles ready first, then topped my own with strawberries (not a syrup girl either =) and prepared for a very ordinary bite.  And was pleasantly surprised - "what waffle recipe do you use?!!!"  I really liked the taste and the texture.  Turns out they were sourdough waffles!

We enjoyed Aahma's waffles quite a few times over visits, and last Christmas, my gift from the B side was a fancy new waffle maker and a sourdough starter so that we could enjoy these waffles at home.  I was leary of the starter at first (nightmares of Amish friendship bread starter flew through my head), but then I found out all that Mom B does is keep it in the fridge until she wants to use it.  Seriously, could I leave it for over a month?  Yep.  OK, I could handle that!

So now we get to enjoy yummy waffles made very quickly by our new twirly waffle maker and they show up much more frequently than just for Waffle Fest once a year.  In fact, my wonderful husband and kiddos just made them for me for Mother's Day lunch.  We love them enjoyed with strawberries on top, a couple slices of bacon (only way S tolerates breakfast for meals other than breakfast), and, if we are feeling fancy, a yogurt smoothie to go with! 

 

Sourdough Starter Instructions: (find instructions to make one here, otherwise ask friends!)

• at least 24 hours before needed, remove starter from fridge
• feed with 1 part milk, 1 part flour, 1/2 part sugar - you need enough starter for your recipe plus a cup of starter to save for next time in the fridge
• leave it at room temperature loosely covered (plastic wrap with a few holes punched in the top works well)
• stir before use - if it will be longer than 24 hours, stir once a day until you need it

Sourdough Waffles (this is a double batch and feeds our whole family nicely)

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• scant 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 cup milk (use a little more if starter is thick)

In a large bowl, stir together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.  In medium bowl, beat egg then stir in sourdough, oil and milk.  Stir liquids into dry ingredients until just moistened (batter will be a bit lumpy).  Pour 1/4 to 1/2 cup batter into heated waffle iron (follow manufacturers instructions).

PS.  I am excited to try this version too...will let you know how it turns out!