Blogs I Follow

I have a newer habit of following several blogs. Some are, of course, friends and family blogs, but most recently I have been turned on to blogs by other moms (I guess I would call them "for-profit blogs", although I don't know if there is any realy money being made by these ladies).
I have been following Money Saving Mom for a while now. Crystal (blogger) posts a lot of coupons and money-saving tips and tricks. Who doesn't like to save money? I do. A lot of what she posts doesn't necessarily apply to me or I am not in a place where I can devote much time to the planning and organizing of these money-saving ideas. I do find several good ideas and good links to coupons.
My sister-in-law recently turned me on to Pioneer Woman's blog. I got her cookbook as a Christmas gift and checked out her blog online soon afterward. A lot of her blog posts are recipes (very good recipes; I have tried several), home-shooling tips (doesn't apply), photography (beautiful pictures, but doesn't apply) and life on the ranch (again, doesn't apply). Ree (blogger) is so funny and entertaining that it is fun to read her posts, even if the content doesn't apply to my life much at all. She has recently published a novel about her adventure from high-society girl to rancher's wife. I am in the middle of reading her book and am thoroughly enjoying it.
Tonight I was introduced to a new bolg that is going to be part of my daily/weekly routine, I can teach my child! I found this site on Money Saving Mom (I think she was a guest blogger publishing a craft or something). Although I am NOT crafty and don't have a lot of teachable moments with my kids, I think this is a very cute blog for moms who want to use everyday objects and experiences to teach their preschoolers. Hopefully reading this blog will help me do more with my kids to make everyday experiences, teachable experiences.

It's been a while

Apparently our computer got several "nasty" viruses and stopped working a few weeks ago. I was very concerned about all of the pictures, files and music we had stored on our computer. We have an external hard drive, but are not very good about taking the time to back-up, so therefore we would have lost about a year's worth of information. Thankfully we have a good friend who knows a lot about computers and could retrieve our files.
All of that to say I have not had the opportunity to upload new pictures and write new blog posts in about a month. I am posting several posts all at once using mostly iPhone pictures.
Hopefully we will get things up and running in the next month with new computers and we can avoid this problem in the future. Technology is great...until it's not.

Medical Ememgencies

One morning, Norah woke up early with a slight croupy cough. She'd had a runny nose for several days (along with everyone else in the free world). I gave her a dose of steroids we keep on hand for Nathan's croup and made sure to turn on the cool mist humidifier in her room. The next night Jeff and I had a rare opportunity to watch a movie after putting the kids to bed. I came upstairs about 10:30 to hear Norah struggling to breathe with a terrible croupy cough. I quickly got her up and took her into the shower room for some hot steam treatment. I again gave her a dose of steroids. She did not seem to be getting any better after 20-30 minutes so we made the decision to take her into the hospital to be checked out. There is a new satellite children's hospital (Kosair) not far from our house. It is a beautiful facility and very geared toward children. They quickly assessed Norah and got her congestion resolved, X-rays taken and more steroids. The final diagnosis: croup, viral bronchiolitis and double ear infection.


While at the zoo (see previous post), Nathan tripped over his feet while running and took a nose-dive into the pavement. It didn't look like he hit his face too hard, but he must had hit and slid because his face too quite a beating. Poor baby scraped his nose, under his nose, under his chin and busted his lip significantly. Despite all the trauma, he did not want to leave the zoo. He wanted to see the rest of the animals.
Thankfully, even though his face looked horrible, the swelling finaly went down in 2 days and is healing very nicely.

A day at the Zoo

While continuing to enjoy the nice, Spring-like weather, we went to the zoo and enjoyed the day. There was almost no one there and it felt like we had the zoo all to ourselves. Despite a minor fall on the sidewalk, Nathan had a wonderful time looking at all the animals. Not to be out done by her big brother, Norah was not fit to be contained in the storller and was running through the zoo as if she knew what she was doing.
I love our zoo pass and plan on using it quite often throughout the year.

A day at the park

The weather finaly warmed up (significantly) and we were finally able to get out of the house and ejnoy some time outside without having to bundle up in layers of clothes, jackets, etc. On Sunay afternoon, we walked to the park nearby. The kids played on the playground and then flew a kite in the open field. I was a beautiful day to enjoy outside.

Valentine's

Nathan and Norah had to take Valentine's to school for the kiddos in their respective classes. Instead of purchasing pre-made Valentine's and just signing their names, I was a bit more creative. I saw a very cute idea online for making Valentine's cards and thought I could do it. I wasn't enough "on the ball" to order cards in advance, so instead I just printed pictures from my camera memory card and used a little construction paper to make some heart details. I think they turned out super sute and very unique.

Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday we hosted our church ABF class (like Sunday School) for a party. We have done this several years and love having people over for a party, even though neither of us actually watch football all that often.
One of the couples from our class is HUGH Green Bay Packers Fans. They were, of course, all decked out in the Pack-gear. Marshall brought a -shirt for Jeff to wear and a jersey for me. I put the jersey on Norah and she loved running around in it all evening. The shirt came down to her toes, but was very cute.

Snowflake Tortillas

I found a fun recipe online for making Snowflake Tortillas. Since we were hearing about all the snow that was falling around us, but not in Louisville, we decided to make some snow of our own. The kids thought is was so much fun pushing dining chairs up to the kitchen island and "helping" make these sweet treats.

Norah and Nathan enjoying their yummy creations

Winter Babies

We haven't had nearly the snow that was dumped North and East of here, but we have had a few snowfalls. We bundled the kids up and took a nice stroll in the newly-fallen snow (that is until it got too cold to keep going and we had to turn back)