Bargains, Sickness and Family

Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30am and joined my brother-in-law Mike at the anual VFW rummage sale. I found some great deals and it put me in such a good mood the rest of the day. Here's a summary of my haul:
- Working TI83 calculator (which I gave to Mike)
- 2 nice bedside tables
- Barely used humidifier
- New ceiling fan (for Ella's room)
- Hardshell Samsonite suitcase (for our trip to the Dominican Republic)

Total cost, $25
This led me to an epiphany, my hobby is saving money (I also like spending it, which is a little confusing). I never know what to say when people ask me what I like to do, but however lame it is, now I have an interst. I think I like it because I can run around all day and do math in my head calculating all my savings. In addition to the rummage sale I also have spent the weekend steaming and pureeing 200oz of yellow squash for Ella. I calculated that if I do it myself it costs $0.04/oz and it would cost $0.25/oz if I bought it. From now until she's 1 that should save about $200. Okay, so I'm not going to save the bank, but it's better than nothing and it's probably healthier. The only problem is, what if she doesn't like squash? Something tells me she'll learn to like it. Poor baby.

Over the past few weeks we've given Ella a little food here and there to start getting her used to the texture. She finds most of it discusting, but she's a good sport. Here she is eating avacado:


My brother Ethan came up to visit for a little over a week and he was a lot of fun to have around! He watched Ella and was a good sport doing mom things with me. We went to the top of Schweitzer mountain and hiked down:




My dad and brother, Caleb also spent a couple days here on their camping trip around the western U.S. It was hard to see them leave.


A couple weeks ago we went to the Sandpoint Fly-in and saw the new purple Kodiak:


Here's a random picture of Ella passed out in her swing


Poor Ella has been sick the past week. She was so stopped up she had to choose between eating and breathing. She also had a high fever which we took her to the Dr. for, but it was just a cold. She's feeling better now, but still has a runny nose.

Goofball

Ella's favorite toy over the last couple weeks has been a sealed plastic bag with a USB cord in it. She's been chewing on it every day ingesting all sorts of BPA. Yesterday, I noticed she got kind of quiet and when I looked down she had managed to chew/gum her way through the plastic and realized she then had two toys, the plastic and the USB cord!

(I eventually took the plastic bag away since it's probably a choking hazard now)

The other night she was quite the ham and entertained us by making goofy faces. She thought it was great when we'd laugh at her and would do it some more.


She's still working on crawling. Usually she just goes backwards away from what she's trying to grab which makes her really mad.

(sorry the videos are so long, I need to figure out some good editing software)

Independence Day

Thursday night we headed out with Hal (a friend from Brad's work) to see Glacier National Park in Montana. We arrived at our cabin around 11pm and had a good night's sleep before heading off to explore the park the next day. It was gorgeous. The lake was clear and bright blue and the mountains were so majestic. The place we were staying had a little fireworks display which didn't start until around 11:30 because it stays light so long there. We woke Ella up to see her first fireworks and she enjoyed them. Afterwards she was really hyper and wouldn't go back to sleep. We had her on the floor upstairs and when we went to check on her, she had moved forward about 3 feet so I guess that means she is secretly crawling. When we're watching she'll get up on all fours and rock back and forth and sometimes do a face plant to move forward but usually she just moves backwards which makes her really mad as she gets farther and farther from what she's trying to grab.

Here's some pictures of the trip (most of which were taken by Hal)







And my favorite picture


You can click on any of the pictures and it will take you to flickr where you can see all 100+ pictures.

Random Stuff

I've had a bunch on random thoughts lately that I thought I'd blog while I'm in the mood. First off is an update on the diaper-blowout situation. I didn't exactly conduct a scientific experiment to narrow down the issue (I was more interested in eliminating the situation), but what I did worked. I switched back to Pampers and moved up a size and she's only had two blowouts in the last 6 weeks or so. What I should have done was change one variable at a time so I could identify the culprit because now I'm stuck buying Pampers in a larger size.

My friend Sunny told me a trick that I've passed on to others and they always think it's so cool so I thought I'd post it here. Did you know that you can screw a canning jar onto a regular blender? You can also use old spaghetti sauce jars and other jars you usually just throw away. At this point in the explanation I usually get the same lost look I gave Sunny when she explained it to me so I thought I'd take some pictures to demonstrate.
Step 1

Step 2

Step 3


I do this all the time to make my morning smoothie. I think I'll also use it to make baby food and maybe a margarita or two?

A few years ago I found a recipe for energy bars that I really like. You can put just about anything in them, this is just a good starting point.

2 1/2 c. old fashioned organic quick oats
1/2 c.whole flax seed (I used ground flax meal)
1/4 c. organic dark cocoa powder ( this was hard to find..I used Hersheys dark cocoa)
1/2 c. natural peanut butter
1/2 c. honey
1/2 tsp. spirulina ( I ground up some tablets)
1/2 -1 c. hot water
Mix ingredients & form into patties.Wrap individually and freeze in ziplock bag.

I had an ahh hah moment the other day when I was going to feed Ella. I've been reading "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" and he talks a lot about how God knows all of our needs and will provide what is best for us even if it means removing something we are attached to. When I laid down to feed Ella she had her pacifier in her mouth and got all excited about eating. Well, she couldn't figure out that her pacifier had to come out in order to eat. She just kept sucking harder and faster. Not wanting to be too mean, I finally took it out of her mouth which made her kind of mad, but once she realized she could eat she was very thankful.

Finally, if you made it through all that, here's a picture from a day at the beach downtown last week. We met Debbie and Nicki and the kids for Debbie's birthday. Happy birthday Debbie!

Ella's first time in the sand!



Thanks Aunt Ann for the cute hat! She wears it all the time.

Summer Fun

Now that summer is here we feel like we live in paradise. Last week Ella and I met our friends Anne and Sunny for a nice walk by the lake in perfect weather.

(that's Sunny's son Samuel in the backpack)


A couple of weeks ago we bought an old boat and on Saturday we took it out on the lake to see if it would float. Our friends Hal and Rob came with us.

Her life jacket makes her look tiny