PRINCESS

I firmly believe that Jewel is a princess. A good one, not a spoiled brat one.

 She loves dressing in girly clothes and playing with her jewelry and make-up. And she loves playing Princess.

For her birthday this year Nana got her the perfect gift (no help from me). And Jewel LOVES it!

Now Jewel can not only feel like a princess, but she can wear her Cinderella Princess outfit (complete with light up high heels) while playing with her Cinderella barbie!

As Jewel would say, "Great job, Nana!"

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was Jewels birthday. It looked something like this...

A morning celebration at home.

Seeing Uncle Allen off at the airport. (So long to Gramps' plane until Uncle Allen comes back again in December)

A birthday dinner and cake at Gramps and GG's house. Minney Mouse was waiting on the steps when we got there... Jewel loved her. 

Happy 2 Years Jewel!

A Closer Up

Here is a closer up picture of the baby doll carrier.

Straps, and it velcros around the tummy.

And the seat. it velcros onto the shoulder straps and the tummy strap.


*I only wish i had made the matching part the outside of the seat, even with the weird seams*

DIY Baby Doll Bjorn

As it happens, I have more recently been carrying the babe around in the Baby Bjorn so that I can get things done around the house. Things like, cook, clean, clean again and follow Jewel around so we can play in rooms other than the living room. Tonight right before the hubs and Jewel went out to run some errands, she was trying desperately to get our Baby Bjorn on correctly. So, while they were gone, after Rose finished nursing, I whipped up a play baby doll Bjorn carrier for miss Jewel. Let me tell you, she LOVES it! And I am glad! Now she can carry her baby around while I have to carry Rose around.

Oh the fun we will have!

Becoming My Budget's Friend

I am really trying to be better about our food budget and how I use it. We are saving up for a house, and I can easily have food money left over at the end of the month to put towards the house if I just plan a little and spend some time cooking. I would say that I have normally been "money conscious" with my food budget. Much because it was SO easy considering all the really great, inexpensive options we had in our old town. But after moving out here to this one-horse-town.... I pretty much only have one option for grocery shopping. And it is Safeway. That, or sending the Hubs by Walmart,Target, or Costco on the way home from work. I am sure the are other options out there (we do have a Dollar General and a Discount Grocery Store), but I have yet to have time to explore them. All that to say--- Both of those reasons (saving for a house and Safeway, which I think is expensive) encourage and challenge me to get more creative, stretch our foods, and not waste. 

Today I made corn chowder for lunch, as opposed to yesterdays PBJ's. And surprise surprise, we will be having it for dinner, as well. 

I took this recipe from Near to Nothing's blog and revamped it using what we had and made it so that I could eat it. 

I used leftover ham rather than chicken, and 3c. almond milk/ 3c. water. It turned out very tasty, but really runny. So, I added probably 1/4c corn starch and let it simmer for a few more minutes. After it thickened, it was PERFECT!! 

And for dessert tonight, we had a bag of marshmallows that needed to be used up, so I stove-popped some popcorn and made a pan (rather than balls) of marshmallow popcorn. YUM! 

And the best part? I had all the ingredients to both= free meal. Well, kind of. If you ignore the fact that I bought them to begin with... but I was using leftovers completely to make the meal. So, again- Hurrah!

Fridge Busting Dinner

You know when you make a meal that you are just oh-so proud-of? Well, tonight was one of those nights. We didn't have anything extaordinary, just Taco Salad. But for some reason I was very proud of myself for concocting it. As I sat eating, I figured out why. I only bought 1 ingredient towards the salad from my last grocery shopping trip! The rest was from the fridge or pantry! Here is how our salad came together.

Lettuce- from two different types and heads of lettuce, on its last leg. If it wasn't used fast, it would be put in the trash.
Green onion- had some left over from a Chinese Cabbage Salad I had made.
Tomato- had one in the fridge from who knows what, but it probably also needed to be used.
Corn- had a can in the pantry, lovely!
Black beans- soaked and cooked from dry beans.
Taco seasoning- Mixed from scratch, with Jewel's help
Salsa- half a can in the fridge
Tortilla chips- left over from our Mexican take-out the other night... Don't throw those chips away!
AND THEN...
Ground turkey- my on grocery shopping item


Oh the bliss of using up food so that it doesn't go to waste! By budget thanks me.

Last Night: Triumphs and Fallbacks

Last night was quite interesting for us.

 First off--- the triumph--- Rose slept SIX hours!!!! SIIIIIX!!!!! It was amazing! That is the second time within this last week.

But we also had an interesting twist. Jewel woke up about 4 times! She was not cranky, just very VERY awake. The first time was around 1:30. She just started calling and calling for us. Again, not crying or very upset, just awake. So I decided that I was going to go in there and tell her that it wasn't morning time. She took it very well, layed back down and told me night night. So I left. About 5 minutes later she was calling specifically for daddy (he gets her up in the morning.... she no longer even calls my name in the morning). So he went in there, told her the same thing and she went back to sleep. She again called around 3:30 and 4:30. One of those times I went in because she was calling "Mommy! Awake! Jewel Awake! Mommy!!!!" (This is what I have taught her to do when she wakes up from a nap). She was FULLY awake and I had to convince her it was still night time by explaining that it was dark and dark means night night. So she caught on and told me "bye bye. night night. dark.". So I left. But again at 6:30 she started calling, so Robert went in. She was pretty fussy, so he told her that she needed more sleep. And he successfully got her to sleep with him in the rocking chair in her room for about an hour more.

What is causing Jewel's crazy waking up? WHO KNOWS!!! I think she may be teething, getting her 2 year old molars. She also is growing. So I figure either one of those could be the culprit. But- either way... kind of crazy during the night, but pretty funny to look back at later. She was pretty funny with all her callings.

I sure hope tonight is the same where Rose is concerned, but that Jewel actually sleeps through the night.... never really saw that one coming.