When you have Hamberger's you make Happy Meals!

Alex has started to occasionally pick things out he wants to wear. It is usually always picture worthy!

For instance the other day he saw his shoes laying on the floor, he picked them up took them to daddy and waited patiently (this doesn’t usually happen) for them both to be put on him. He walked around the house saying “bye bye” for the Longest time.

Why is this so interesting you ask? He was only wearing his diaper…

He also picked out a shirt the other day.

Did I mention it was his daddy’s shirt?

Crazy kid, I think he gets it from Jason 😉

One thing is certain though:

This little girl always looks good! =)

We are!

Where are our special teams?

Go BUCKS!

Alex is talking!!! We went on vacation last week and he changed so much in that time… The biggest is of course he says thing other than “uh uh uh uuuuuuuh” 🙂

He says Hello (Hehwoah?) and usually with his hand, remote, rice cake, Grilled cheese sandwich or what ever is handy up to his ear like a phone.

Bye-bye – with arm motions 😛

Uppa (Up) he also has a variation of this that either means “open” (oppa) or “help” (elppa)

More (he sounds like a seagull) ” More, more, more”

No more – the other day he saw Gramp’s plate was empty so he picked it up and said “no mo” then took it to the kitchen and said “mo mo mo” :-p

He also says Kalea… or rather “Eyea”

He will point to your eyes  and say Eye.

Lately he has also been saying  “Oh boy!” when you mention something about him getting food or going bye bye to grammies/grandma’s

And of course dadda and mumum.

And he as also said (though only once) “I Duv you!”. Totally made my heart melt!

He is a bundle of energy! Never stops moving, ever. Unless he is confined in his high chair and eating, or sleeping. And the child is like a bottomless pit! I think he would eat as much as we do if I would let him!

He loves to “drive” he will take the keys from your hand and put them right at the ignition. When I put them in the car I tell him to go climb into his seat while I put Kalea in. Sometimes he does, but usually he crawls into the front and starts turning all the dials, holding on the the wheel and going vrrrroooom vrrroooom till I get around to the other side!

He gives hugs and kisses, and holds hands with Kalea. (ADORABLE btw)

He loves to play and wrestle with Jasper, and Jasper is great about letting him do what he wants!

He is learning where his and our eyes, ears, and nose are. He is also very proud of his belly button, and would like to find yours if you let him 🙂

We love watching him grasp new concepts. (like putting No and More together in a way that makes sense)

He likes to make things like blenders, trucks, sweepers, blow-dryers make the “vroooom” noise.

And he likes to sing. It is the sweetest sound in the world. Usually when he is getting sleepy or mellowed out you can hear him singing from where ever he is.

He is also really understanding what we say. If you tell him we are going to see Grandma or Grammie, he immediately will perk up and get a huge grin on his face!

We love this little dude!

Trying some new chicken recipes for our healthier eating challenge.  Now granted, I haven’t actually had the meals yet (though I tasted the sauces) I just prepared them. But wanted to tell you about it before I forgot.

Cheap Part: I got bone in/skin on Chicken Breast. On sale total spent was $7.50. After I de-skinned and de-boned the chicken (taking off extra fat where I could) I got enough for 5-6 servings of Chicken breast.  (Not bad) Plus I saved and tossed in the freezer all of the bones and the meat that was left on them. This will get used in the coming months for chicken broth for a chicken soup. Mmmmmm.

Fast part: It took an hour to prep the chicken and dividing it into the serving sizes I wanted and mix together the marinades. I put each chicken breast in a ziploc sandwich baggie.  Each will have their own marinade. It was an hour of my life now after the kids went to bed, and will make suppers in the future, super fast. (Grab a baggie, thaw, grill – serve!) Like no thought whatsoever!

Good part: Here are the recipe’s I used.

Mustard lemon Chicken (Enough for 2 chicken breasts)

1 Tbsp. prepared mustard

1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. paprika

Chicken Teryaki (We love this, I amended my favorite recipe for this to make it a bit healthier. It is slightly zippier, but still pretty good!)

2 TBS  Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

1 Packet of Truvia (Stevia natural no calorie sweetener)

1/2 TBS Red Wine Vinegar

Small scoop of minced Garlic

Ginger to taste.

Again does enough for 2 Chicken Breasts.

I have to say I am pretty impressed with my husband, he has been doing great at our new eating habits, and quite frankly I have been having a lot of fun being creative!

Allow me to post a bit about my adorable little sweet cheeks.

Loving those dimples!!!

She is now 3 months old already and I call her my little Angel baby. She is soooo good.

She goes to bed about 9-930 and wakes up at 630. Occasionally 430. (yes she does in fact sleep through the night!)

She takes 2-3 longer naps during the day and an occasional cat nap

She sits up Really well in her Bumbo seat and walker. She will sit in there for up to 20 minutes at a time. Just looking around smiling and messing with whatever little toy is within her reach.

She is quite the little lady, and HATES having a messy diaper. If she fusses you can usually guess she needs changed then she is her happy smiling self again.

She is peaceful and quite most of the time, and if you pay her any attention at all she will immediately reward you with the most beautiful  dimpled smile!

She has won the heart of her big brother too! Alex loves her dearly and every morning has to give her a “kiss” (laying his cheek on her). Last night she was fussing while I was changing her diaper, Alex looked at her then started to gently (really gently) rub her cheeks like he was wiping away tears. It melted my heart! He also likes to share his toys with her.

I have a feeling they are going to be best buds!

She will lay on the floor and play by herself. If she gets to tired she just falls asleep.

I can lay her down awake with her binky and her “puppy” and she will put herself to sleep.

Oh yes, and in case you were wondering from the first pic, her hair is in fact RED! I don’t know if it will stay, but it is a really pretty color. Her eyes were Navy at first but are turning darker and I think will be either dark brown like her daddy’s or hazel.

I am loving getting to know her sweet little personality a little more every day!

So you know when you just reach the breaking point. That point where you see numbers that you have never seen, and never wanted to see… Yeah, um… 3 (wonderful) years of marriage and 2 (amazing, wouldn’t trade them for all the lower numbers in the world) kids later, and we are there.  For the next 42 days I am trying to cook better. A LOT better. Jason is following a specific diet plan (blah blah blah, basically it is low fat meats and veggies). I am following it somewhat ish as well. But not totally since I am still nursing and shouldn’t really be going on a major diet till I am done 🙁 Since the types of food can be somewhat repetitive, I am attempting to get creative.  Here are some of the meals we have had so far. (I am going to try and post the yummiest recipes)

1. Shrimp and Spinach Salad

Boil :  water (amount will vary depending on how much shrimp you are using), 2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar, 3 shakes of Mrs Dash (original).

Once that has boiled dump in pre-cooked deveined shrimp.

Bring to a boil again.

Remove Shrimp and some of the broth and cool in refrigerator. When you are ready to eat toss the shrimp and the broth (which acts like dressing) over a spinach Salad.

2.  Chicken and Broccoli.

So nothing too fancy here, but J made it for a quick lunch. Grilled chicken (already cooked and in freezer for ease at time of eating) and a bunch of broccoli cut up. Put in a microwave safe bowl with a little bit of water in the bottom. Sprinkle McCormick’s “Soul Food” seasoning over all. Microwave till Broccoli is steamed and chicken is hot.

I like how a little steaming makes the broccoli a really yummy green!

3. Chicken/Tomatoes

Saute chicken in Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (it is like a healthy Soy Sauce) and a little water till cooked.

While chicken is cooking dice up a tomatoes (I used 2 large slicing tomatoes for the 3 of us) and marinate in:

1 tsp Minced Garlic

2-3 Tbls Balsamic Vinegar

2 Shakes Rosemary

2 Shakes Garlic/Pepper

Pinch of dried cilantro

Shake of Basil and Oregano

When Chicken is cooked dump in Tomato mixture and simmer till tomatoes are all hot.

Serve over Brown rice.

So sometimes I get in the mood to write. I say to myself “I should go blog” then I think, “that is silly I haven’t posted in months, I have to update people first” to which I reply “I keep people updated on Facebook“  “Then why should I blog people already know what is going on.” “Because facebook status’s are too short for your verbose tendencies”. “Good point self, I shall go blog”

And so this is a post that has very little in the way of updates, but just what is going on in my little pea brain right now.

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I am a procrastinator. I know you are shocked, given the status of the blog. I always have grand ideas when I go to bed. Tomorrow I shall blog, and sew, do fun educational things with Alex, and get that bathroom cleaned etc… And then Tomorrow comes and I just don’t do it.

Now you are a very kind soul to say that it is because I have 2 very little ones, and so I shouldn’t be hard on myself. If I manage a shower I should consider it a good day.  And I use that as an excuse for procrastination all the time. But the truth is. I would have the time to do all that stuff most days. Alex goes to bed at 8, Kalea usually by 9. Both nap during the day. It isn’t like I don’t have any down time.  My sweet baby girl even sleeps all night long! I am quite rested for a mom.

I see those wonderfully organized moms on TV, have amazing kids, clean houses and crafty things in the works with a gourmet meal on the table and get discouraged. I want to be them NOW. And trust me I fail miserably. Probably because I don’t have the same “writers” they do. I have come to realize that I just have to take it slow and step by step to get organized. I came across the verse Heb 12:11 today (thank you FaceBook news feed)

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

I am determined to take this to heart. Here are the disciplines I plan on working on.

• I want to have a tidy house (we will work on clean later, baby steps)
• I want to eat better. Exercise more and lose this blessed baby weight
• I want to blog consistently.

I love to pretend that I am that organized wonder mom who can be creative and efficient and that “worth far above rubies” Prov 31 woman. And I am convinced I will be… Tomorrow.  But until then I will be a  Heb 12:11 kind of gal.

Probably about a month ago (maybe more) when I cam home from work there was a 23″ long 1″x5″ piece of wood sitting right in the middle of our drive. Instead of picking it up and tossing it in the trash, I decided to turn it into a work of art.  There really was nothing special about the wood, it was just scrap, but I think it turned out kinda nice 🙂

My supplies

Step 1: Jason sanded the board to take the rough edges off

(Sorry no pics of this he awesomely did it while I was at work.)

Step 2: Paint the borders

You can see how insanely picky I was about this being perfect.

I used some of mom’s old craft paints. The sides and back are ivory, the “border” is a tanish color.

Step 3: While the paint was drying I designed on the computer what I wanted to be on the wall hanging. I used Open Office’s Draw program. After I printed it I just cut out the wording/background.

Step 4: I taped the sheets together on the back so the text would line up.

Step 5: Then I used the Mod Podge. Painted a coat on the board, laid the paper on top of the board and put another coat of ModPodge. (The Mod Podge acts as a glue/sealer)

You can apply as many coats as you want or feel comfortable with. Just allow it to dry in between. I will probably end up doing about 3 coats total.

Step 6: Attach a wall fastner to the back. (Sorry no pics of this either because we still haven’t done it 🙂

Step 7: Enjoy your handy work!

The wording is “Beloved” “My dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown, stand fast in the Lord” Phil 4:1

This was essentially a free piece of art. The only thing I had to spend money on was the Mod Podge (which will do many projects) and Brackets to hang it up (shouldn’t cost too much). Even the program I designed it in was free 🙂

~Hambergermama

I hate spending money…. no thats not true I enjoy spending money, I just don’t like to spend a lot of money all at once… unless I am getting a TON of awesome stuff 🙂

We never have lived a very extravagant lifestyle, but around December we decided to get REALLY serious about getting rid of some of our debt. We sold our house in Wisconsin (which is a whole post or 10 in and of itself) so we no longer had housing debt, but we did have a credit card and some student loans looming over our head.  The first priority was the credit card, we haven’t used it in I don’t know how long… but we were still paying for it. Highly annoying.  So we decided to do a major whack job on our budget and get rid of it.

Somehow we found enough stuff to cut (and God blessing us with a car accident that left a little money after we purchased a replacement vehicle) that we were able to knock out 2000.00 in debt in about 2 mos. Even with that debt gone, we continued to live on our tighter budget… and you know what? We are kinda enjoying it 🙂 So how did what does it look like?

Once our bills are paid (we use our checking account/debit card for all of that) We have a set amount that goes into cash envelopes (I will talk more about those later) and that is our “spending money” for the whole month. I will tell you that my total monthly spending is probably what an average family of our size would spend in one month on groceries alone. So here is how we did it (do it)

1st things first – cut out non essentials.

For us this meant one of the things that went was cable (and Sat) TV. Instead of spending a truly insane amount on a bunch of channels you barely watch we spend about 10$ a month on NetFlix.  Netflix isn’t just movies though, they also have great TV show seasons and you can stream online so you don’t even have to wait for the next disk to come in the mail. Additionally for those shows you believe you really can’t live without (LOST anyone?) most shows you can stream from the networks.

Added benefit- my schedule doesn’t get dictated by what is on TV. I can do things on a Tuesday night without having to make sure I am home.  Wed becomes LOST night, or if we are really busy that week, maybe Saturday morning is when we catch up on a favorite show. AND I don’t have to pay the extra for TiVo 🙂

But Stacy, surely there is something that you miss from TV… I have to admit, I do miss watching Fox News.  (Yes I am a nerd) But mainly during election season. So every 2 years. Worth it to cut it. We also cant’ watch sports live at home.  1. Basketball… we don’t really follow. 2. Baseball (my fave) Tom Hamilton calls a REALLY good baseball game. 3. Football. NFL one day a week and College one other day a week. If there is a game we feel we just can’t miss… well we may or may not choose to visit one of our parents during those times 😛

So long land-line… Ok probably most of you have already made this cut, but if not its something to think about. We never used it. We have wireless internet (so don’t need phone line for that) and why do you need a land line when you can have a cell phone 🙂

We cut some stuff out of our grocery budget as well.  So long Potato chips (I do get them if they are on MEGA sale… (I’m talking buy one get one) Say hello to air popped pop corn 🙂 you can get an air popper for under 20$ I think. (about 5-6 bags of chips) and 2lb of pop corn kernels at Wal-Mart for $1.50.That will make a lot of snacks 🙂

We also cut out (for the most part) pop. If at the end of the month I have money left over, we get the off brand cans from Wal-Mart. (Note: some off brands are really bad, so you might have to play around a bit. And while the cans per oz are more expensive than 2liters, they do help control the portions so it lasts longer)

I have to give Jason MAJOR kudos for both of these items, because he really does love both pop and potato chips. But he has been content with popcorn and the occasional carbonated drink. I really appreciate it!!!!

Added benefit – healthier 🙂

I also don’t buy many pre-packaged convenience foods. If we want Mac N Cheese. I make it … from scratch. Not much added time if any, and it tastes a million times better than even Kraft. If we want buns for sandwiches… I make those too. That does take a little extra work (night before I spend 5 min mixing up dough, then about a combined 10 min of prep the next day) But Jason will tell you, my homemade bread is really pretty good.

I bet if you looked really looked at what you are spending on different convenience things every month, you would see more than a few things you could do without. I dare you to try it for 1 month. I bet you probably survive.

We don’t eat out as much. This one admittedly has been tougher, since we enjoy eating out. But trust me we still survive, and I have learned (am learning) how to try and make some yummy meals at home. Including making my own egg rolls 🙂 something like under 15$ gives me 30 egg rolls. Which is a lot cheaper than buying them. And… Jason liked them better than restaurant egg rolls 🙂

There is probably other stuff we cut out, but I can’t remember what they are. Which just goes to show how much we really “needed” it anyway 😉

Steps 2 and 3 coming soon to a post near you…

So I was figuring out last night if it was really worth it for me to cloth diaper (If you know me, you know that I cloth diaper for my budget, not for the environment.) If you are concerned about the environment the benefit will be even greater =)

FYI… OS = One Size cloth diapers. They generally fit between 8-35lbs. They can range in price from $4 – $20+. Pockets, are diapers that you don’t need a separate cover for. Fitted’s are diapers that do need a separate cover but are shaped and attach around the baby like a disposable. And Prefolds are probably what you are thinking when you think about a cloth diaper. Flat that you have to kinda fold around the baby. You need to either use pins to attach, or something called a snappi and a cover.

I spent $210 on my initial stash, which included 4 OS diaper covers (from cheeky diapers) 20 med fitted diapers (used from a second hand kids sale) 12 OS pockets (from e-bay) 3 OS Fuzzibunz pockets (I actually didn’t spend any money on these, b/c I won them from a blog. Its worth it to enter those giveaways!) and 24 med (or large can’t remember) prefolds (these are the only ones I haven’t used yet since Alex isn’t quite ready for them size wise.)

When I use Sposies (for going away and to the sitters or church nursery) I get the walmart brand since those are the cheapest I have found. The price for size 2 is about $0.15 a diaper. SO with the amount I spent on my CD I could have purchased 1400 diapers. (Or since I get the jumbo packs of 92…) 15 packs.

Now Alex is a heavy wetter so I have to change him every two hours (except at night) whether cloth or sposie to prevent leaks. So that is about 7-8 diapers a day (now I can’t remember what it was like when he was a NB) Using this number I came out with 200 days of Sposies (and this number is low balled) which is about 6 mo worth of disposable diapers. But almost everything I have (and use) is OS. So that means that I can continue to diaper my child for that same price… and the next one. I will be getting some more OS pockets from e-bay which are 30 for $120. That will bring my total for both kiddos to….

$330.00 = 2,200 sposies = 275 days of sposies = 9 mos of sposies.

So… bottom line for the cost of disposable diapering one child for 9 mos I will be able to Cloth diaper at least 2 children up to 35lbs.

This of course doesn’t take into account the decrease in diaper rash cream that I need, or diaper pail liners, or wipes (since I just cut up an old towel and reuse that). Yes we do do laundry more, but I usually hang the diapers up to dry so there is little added cost for the dryer.