I'll never say that to MY kids-- Happy Birthday Mom

Emma and Chloe with Nonna

What playing with Nonna does to you

My mother's birthday is Feb. 12th and as most of you know, we were able to spend my mom's birthday with her this year. We had a couple of detours. One of the girls was sick the whole time and my mom "sprang her ankle" playing with Emma. She still thinks she's a kid. She finally went to the dr. on Wed. and found out that the "sprang ankle" that she's been walking around and working on for two and a half weeks is actually a broken ankle. If we had any question about whether she's tough or not (which I didn't) we know now. But, despite our obstacles that we had to overcome, it turned out to be a good thing that my mom sat down a little more than normal. And I was glad to get the chance to pamper her a little. We had a wonderful time and as always, we got to the end of our visit and wondered where the time had gone.

So this is what I've been thinking.. About a month ago, I said something to Emma that made me realize that I have fully transitioned into my mother. I think it was probably something like, "Because I'm the mother and you're the child and I said so". I remember thinking when I was a teenager that I was never going to say this to MY child. Well, someone told me recently that preschoolers ask an average of 300 questions a day. Turns out that I had a kid that meets her quota by noon. So needless to say, this phrase has become a regular part of my vocabulary.

So in honor of my mom's birthday, here is a list of things that I will never say to MY kids.

-You're treading on thin ice young lady.

_ I don't care what (insert friends name here) mother does, do I look like (friends) mother.

- I'm going to give you something to cry about.

- I don't know who told you life was fair.

- I'm about to beat you into next week. (I must add here that she never actually did beat me into next week all though there are a couple of times that she should have)

- I wish I had a tape recorder. (She would have recorded me saying that I'll never say these things to my kids)

And, I'm sure that once my mom reads this, she will add a few more. I have to tell you that I'm quite okay with becoming my mother. If I am half the mom that she is, I'll feel that I've been successful!

A note to Emma and Chloe:
If you are reading this my dear child, there is a chance that you are 16 years old and you've just told me that you will never say that to YOUR child for the hundredth time. That in turn made me reflect on the time that I realized that my mother knew everything and I knew nothing. I'm sure you're probably rolling your eyes at me in true teenage fashion. Don't worry dear, you'll be reading it again in 14 more years and shaking your head in agreement. So for now, why are you reading this? BECAUSE I'M THE MOTHER AND YOU'RE THE CHILD AND I SAID SO !

Blessings,
Dana

We Made It

We're back in WV. We had an absolute wonderful trip. When we left this morning, there were flowers blooming and when we got close to Parkersburg, I could see snow. Weird that just a few hundred miles can make such a change. I will only have access to a computer in the evenings until my wonderful mother mails me the power cord to my computer. I knew I'd leave something behind. It's a blessing in disguise. It'll force me to catch up on the laundry instead of my blogging.

Blessings,
Dana

I'm Still Here

We've been lost in the world of prehistoric no internet days. Upon arriving at my mom's I called windstream to have her set up on DSL. Cable is still not available in their area. But, it took them over a week to get us set up. We're finally up and going and I've got tons of catching up to do but for now, we have totally destroyed mom's house and I'm going to try to get that back together. I'll make a post of our trip when we get back to WV. The above is a picture that I wanted to post for Adam on Valentines Day. Instead, I drove around with my laptop until I found a wireless connection and then raced against my dying battery and successfully e-mailed it to him. Adam, I love you, I missed having you with me on Valentine's Day but you're always close to my heart (I know, it's cheesy). I'm so glad that God made me your wife and the mother of your children!

I miss you all, Blessings!

What's Going On With the Ellis Family

This is the first of three new posts so make sure you scroll down.

I was talking to some moms of teenagers at the teen Superbowl party the other night and they got me paranoid by telling me about how much they had forgotten. Well, I write tons of things down in this blog but there still are so many things that I don't record. Anyway, here are a few more things that I don't want to miss..

And yet another funny from Emma...
I've been trying out the recipes that you guys so graciously shared. Last night, I was cooking the Chicken Pot Pie that Rachel sent me the recipe for. I will share that recipe later since she e-mailed it to me. Anyway, Emma comes in the kitchen and asks me what I'm cooking to which I reply, "Chicken Pot Pie". To which Emma replies, "oooh grose". Now I must tell you at this point that I don't allow "ooh grose, yuck" or anything of the like comments about dinner until she has tried it. So I say, "Emma you haven't even tried it, you're going to try it and then you can decide whether you like it or not". To which Emma says, "Are you trying to scare me? Are you really making Chicken Pox Pie". I thought Adam and I were going to fall out in the floor.

Chloe... I swear she was teasing me last night. It has become obvious that she knows her name. We think that she might even identify me as momma, Adam as daddy and Emma as sissy. So we like to play this little game with her where we will say, "Where's momma" and she'll look at me or even reach towards me, "where's daddy" and so forth. Well last night, I was holding her and asking her, "where's momma". Well, she was totally ignoring me. And so I got a little louder and said, "CHLOE" to which she grinned real big and buried her head in my shoulder. I don't know, she was looking pretty proud of herself.

Also, for the past two days, she has slept until 8:00 a.m. This morning she only made it until 6:00 a.m. which is why I'm writing this right now. But hey, not too bad.

Now a little something that is going on with me... I have started donating milk to the National Milk Bank. We pray all the time that God will bless us so that we could be a blessing to others. So this was my thinking, "Well, we had a rough year last year financially, so there must be something else God has blessed me with that I can bless someone else with. I don't have a lot of money but hey, I have lots of milk". I had said lots of times that I wish I had donated when I was nursing Emma. Well, I decided that I would stop talking about it and actually do it. First, I checked the local milk banks. The closest one to me was in Columbus which is a good two and a half hours away and they don't do shipments. Since this wasn't really feasible, I checked with the National Milk Bank. Now, the NMB is a for profit organization so first, I had to check this organization out. I guess I needed to feel sure that someone wasn't getting rich off of selling my milk. This is what I found: They are for profit because there are very strict guidelines for being non profit. One of the things that they do is provide a breast pump. Being for profit enables to them to do that as well as afford the supplies to have the milk shipped. Patients that receive the milk still have to have a prescription and it is covered by insurance. So, my milk will go to premature and sick babies and this company also sends four shipments a year to orphans in Africa. Also, the process that pasteurizes the milk is pretty expensive. They take the milk and separate the fat so that the babies are given just the right amount for their age, weight and so forth. Then three different persons milk is combined together so that the babies are able to get immunities from three different people with each bottle that they are fed. I had to take a blood test that tested me for all kinds of infectious diseases (I'm disease free which is nice to know). I had to do a DNA test so they can match the milk up with me when they receive and when I have 25 bags frozen, they will send me a cooler and I will package it up and send it on it's way. I'm excited. I guess it's a way to thank God for the health of my children. So if you are interested and have any questions that I haven't answered here, feel free to ask away.

The girls and I are leaving to go to Alabama on Saturday. We will fly down and be there about a week and a half and then Adam will come and stay a few days and bring us back. Winterfest (a youth rally that the teens go to) is in the middle of that. Normally, my parents come to Gatlinburg to keep Emma but with nursing Chloe, it would be very difficult to do this year. I missed Emma's first year too. So, we're going to go hang out with the family and Lynn is going to come up and stay a couple of days with us. I can't wait!! I will also be there for my mom's birthday which is super cool. But, this means that Adam will be alone for Valentine's Day. Thanks Adam for being so cool about that. Good news is, when you get to Alabama, we'll have a babysitter and we can go on a date :)! I don't think we've had one of those in like three years.

I have one more set of pictures to post but I'll try to get those up in the next couple of days.

Blessings,
Dana

Teddy Bear Clinic

A couple of weeks ago, Emma's class did the best field trip ever. They got to take a teddy bear or doll to the hospital and they had little stations set up where they got to doctor their dolls. If you know Emma, you know that this was a dream come true for her. She had a blast.

Tagged by Adam

I still have tons of pictures to post from Emmas school program and her field trip to the Teddy Bear clinic but, Adam has tagged me to a post. So, here it goes.

Ten Things I've Learned From Being a MOM

1. I can clean all day and the house be just as messy as when I started.

2. Therefore, I can skip a day to play and not be any worse off than the day before.

3. My mother knew way more than I thought she did.

4. I like my self more at the end of the days that I took the time to give her the princess hair do to go along with the costume.

5. All kids hate a spit shine as much as I did.

6. Single moms don't get the credit that they deserve.

7. Little girls need their daddy's maybe more than their moms and Adam does a great job of filling this role.

8. Waking up in the middle of the night to feed the baby is an honor, not a chore.

9. It seems as if a year passes about as quickly as a month.

10. Having a child is having your heart walk around on the outside of you.



Ok, now I tag, Julie,Susan,Becky,Hannah

Five Months

Every month when I make this post, I marvel at how fast time is flying. It's bitter sweet. I can't wait to see who she becomes but I'm sad that she's growing so quickly. Just in time for her five month mark, Chloe has began to roll over. She is also babbling what sometimes sounds like words. She has a smile that will steal your heart.

Kids Say the Darndest Things Update

I have lots of pictures to update but not lots of time. So, I'll get to those soon. But, it's been a while since I've done a post including some of the funny things that Emma has said and I've forgotten a couple of them so I wanted to get these down before I forget them too.

Emma loves getting mail. She anxiously waits to get the mail every day. The other day, we had received a bulletin from our old church. Emma asked if it was for her. I told her that it was kind of for the whole family and that she could open it if she liked. She opened it and looked at it and then said, "well, this doesn't interest me at all".

She also has a new favorite song. I'm assuming from the words that the title must be "When the Spanks Come Marching In" At first, I thought that maybe this song was a critique of my discipline. However, when I asked her what a spank was, she informed me that she wasn't sure because they were extinct.

Chloe News

Chloe was five months old yesterday. I will post a 5 month update complete with picture soon.

Blessings!

Recipes

Thank you all for the recipe contributions. I also had a couple e-mailed and even someone tell me at church that they had some good ones. I have my grocery list ready. I'm going to try some of these out and then I'll report back to you all in a week or so and let you know how they went. Also, let us know if you try any that you saw here. I also took a look at the websites that were mentioned. They are really good websites so I'll be trying some from there eventually. www.kraftfoods.com is a great one. They've got weekly menu's planned out where all the ingredients will fit in one grocery bag and you can even print a grocery list. Other websites that I've used for recipes are. www.recipegoldmine.com and www.campbellskitchen.com.

And here, are a couple of my faking baking recipes. I laugh every time someone asks me for one of these recipes because I know they are about to find out my secret.

This is Emma's favorite. Many people already know this one.

Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole (except I never use the poppy seed so maybe I should change the name)

Ingredients:
Four chicken breasts
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
8 oz container of sour cream
ritz crackers
tablespoon of butter

Boil chicken, drain and cool and cut or pull into small pieces. Cover the bottom of a casserole dish with the chicken. Mix soup and sour cream together. Cover with crumbled crackers. Melt the butter and pour over the crackers.

Bake at 350 degrees for around 20 minutes or until it bubbles just a little.


Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients:
Unbaked crescent rolls, Walmart brand is fine.
Sausage
1 dozen eggs
1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese

Brown sausage. Spray the bottom of a casserole dish with cooking spray. Cover bottom of dish with crescent rolls laid flat. Add sausage. Whip all 12 eggs together and spread over that. Bake at 350 until the egg is firm. Take out of oven and add shredded cheese. Cook for five more minutes to melt cheese.

Keep them coming guys. Thanks to everyone!

Blessings!

January 2008

Ok, so I'm in a rush to get some pictures posted because my mom's going to my Aunt Nancy's tonight so she can see all the pictures and videos that I've posted. They live so far out in Easta Boga that they only just recently made DSL available in their area. So, when I go visit, I'm going to get her set up. Can't wait till we see you mom. Enjoy the pictures! We love You!

The following are random pictures from January:



This day, she fell asleep in the jumparoo. I was sitting there watching her and she would wake up and jump a little and then drift off again. It was really funny



Sunday morning before church outfits by Aunt Denise. Unfortunately, Chloe's didn't make it to church due to an explosion.
Now if I can just train her to do the laundry
She knows she's living the easy life



Another Sunday morning before church outfits courtesy of the Aunts. Emma's- Aunt Denise, Chloe's -Aunt Jan.

We had a couple of unseasonably warm days and by warm I mean 60 degrees but hey, we'll take what we can get. We were starved for vitamin D so we spent lots of time out doors those two days. We even had our friends the Lombard's over to cook out. I'm ready for spring!!




Four month pictures



At this point when I was taking her pictures, she just looked up at the ceiling and started dying laughing. I don't know, I think she has an angel.