Lack of Posts

So we are getting our belongings delivered on Saturday instead of Monday. This means that we are leaving this house sooner than planned and will not likely have internet connection until the end of July... BOO... Meaning, I won't be posting until that time unless I find a WIFI spot close to the house.

I will leave you with this:

MOVING DAY!!!

It is moving day around these parts... The laundry is done, the carpets clean, the dishes are ready for their paper wrapping and the furniture is eagerly awaiting cardboard and packing tape. I imagine what the items in our house would be like if they were off of "Beauty and The Beast" you know, french maid dusters and talking candlesticks... My dishes would not be British though, they would have a Polish accent, my furniture would all be Spanish, the bed linens would be Egyptian, the baby's furniture would be Scandinavian (thanks IKEA), there would definitely be some Chinese accents flying around because we all know half of our stuff comes from China. That's right, bought in Amsterdam, made in China... I wonder if my dining table would make me swoon with his accent the way Antonio Banderas does... hmmm.

Anyway, that is my little tangent for the day. I hope things go smoothly. I'll write later.

Enjoy your day!

Two days left...

We go were the Army takes us...

The movers will be here on Monday! I cannot believe that the time has flown by so fast, it seems like we just got into this house. We went to our new town the other day because Travis had to do some work up there and I wanted him to drive me past our new house, because I didn't remember what it looked like anymore, and lucky for us the landlord was there painting so we got to go inside too. It was a bit smaller than I remember in some aspects but some of the rooms were larger than I remember. Totally going to have to do some furniture rearranging in my head.

So with the move coming, this past week has been all about "deep cleaning." I'm telling you if it is made out of fabric and not sewn down to something then it went in the laundry. I have washed over 18 panels of curtains, all of the couch cushions, the duvet covers (to include the ones that we only use in the winter), the mattress covers, the decorative towels, the cleaning rags, etc. We cleaned the rugs, we made a table for the kitchen, we made garment hangers for the new "closet" (Germans don't have closets in their homes, they use shrunks and armoires), we've thrown out things that we no longer use, and with all of that being done I still don't feel like we are ready.

I have to admit, I have not been looking forward to this move. I have been a bit of a "Negative Nancy" about it but seeing the house again and cleaning this house has started to make me feel a bit better about the whole thing. I also came across some literature about the new city and even though I haven't had time to read it, just knowing that there is so much to do there is starting to make me excited. I'm a little sad that we are leaving the place that we made Clark and the home that we brought him home to, but in reality home is where my husband and my son are and that is all that matters.

I also happened to meet a lady on post that has a son that is two months older than Clark, our husbands actually flew together down range a few years back and so they know each other too. Hopefully we can hang out with them, because we don't know too many people with children Clarks age.

Anyway, I'm off to wash something...

Do you have any suggestions for making a move easier?

Granola Bars

So with the upcoming move we have decided that we need to get rid of some of the excess food that we have in the house. This means finding something to do with all of the junk that we have acquired over the past two years. In my venture to do so I have made "pudding pops" out of milk and Nutella (at 138 calories per popsicle, they aren't bad), fudge (it was a crumbly mess and I will not post about it...), oatmeal/raisin cookies, and now I am working on Granola bars.

I have done some researching on the internet, commonly referred to as my brain (running joke with one of my girlfriends), and I have come up with a recipe similar to that of the one on the King Arthur Flour website. It goes as follows:

1 1/2 C oats
1/3 C oat flour (I just blended my oats in my handy dandy Vitamix)
1/4 t. ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg (I add this to just about any recipe that calls for cinnamon, I think that it complements the flavor, I LOVE IT)
3 C of fruit/nut mix (with this batch I used: raisins, dates, figs, and almonds)
6 T. butter
1/3 C peanut butter, or any nut butter
1/3 C honey, or maple syrup
1 T vanilla extract
1 T water

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and cover a 9x9 or 8x8 pan with wax paper or parchment paper.

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

In a small saucepan, melt butter and add the rest of the "wet" ingredients. Once heated through and melted together pour over the dry ingredients and mix well.

Pour all of it into the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool on the counter for 20-30 minutes and then place in the refrigerator.

excuse the knife...

Cut into bars to serve. The granola bars can be kept for up to a week, but I doubt they will last that long.

Father's Day

I am really excited about Father's Day this year. It is the first Father's Day for Travis and Clark and I so I am working on some gifts for Daddy. Yesterday I purchased a bunch of Candy Bars to use on a poster to tell a story, totally got the idea from Pinterest (man do I waste some time on that website), and I made salt dough to make footprint imprints for Travis. I had extra dough left over so I invited the neighbor children to come over and make their father a gift too. Here is what we came up with:

I know it is difficult to read so here is what it says:

Dad, Mom and I were chatting and she says that you are a "Hubba Bubba" and that the three of us are the "3 Musketeers". That being said, we wanted to do something special for you for Father's Day. We were going to give you a "whoppers"ing 1000 bucks but the money slipped through our "butterfinger"s! We didn't have any "extra" stuff to sell and it wasn't "payday", we figured that two dogs were enough so we didn't buy you a "KitKat", there is no trip to New "York" or "Orbit"s around the "Milky Way", and Mom said no to the "Swedish Fish" hooker. We do want to wish you "mounds" of "Almond Joy". We hope this card made you "Laffy Taffy" a little. Love, your "nerds" "Clark" and Momma
 P.S. Mom says you might "Skor"

Cute, right? Travis liked it.

I hope that you all had a great Father's Day.

1/2 Year Birthday!

Okay so I am roughly a month late with this post...

Clark had his 1/2 year birthday last month and I made him one half of a cake:

Of course I only allowed him to have a very small taste of the icing and I don't think he liked it very much.

I cannot believe that my little boy is getting so old. The time has really flown by. I wish that I could slow it down some, I don't want to miss these times and I know that they will be over in the blink of an eye. Luckily we have the video camera and can relive them over again later (I'm thinking at his bachelor party...)

Forced Family time and Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

Our TV just took a dump... I cannot say that I am sad. I prefer to have some music playing in the background and a nice conversation going with my husband. Lucky for me he wants to see if he can fix it rather than purchase a new one. This means that it will be at least ten days before the BOOB TUBE is back up and running! I am excited to see what we can find to do to entertain ourselves, board games, conversation, make another baby?!?!?!

So while the handy hubs looks up the info he needs to fix the brain sucker I am on to making dinner.

We really need to work on portion control in this family...

Parmesan Crusted Tilapia:

4 fillets of Tilapia
1/4-1/2 C grated parmesan (we grate our own because I think the pre-grated stuff is GROSS)
1T italian seasoning
1T garlic salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a bowl with a diameter large enough to accommodate the tilapia on the bottom, grate your parmesan and mix with the garlic and italian seasoning.

Rinse your fish and pat dry. Drizzle olive oil on one side of the fish, place the oiled side down in your cheese mixture, oil the top side of the fish and flip in the cheese. Place on greased cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of your fish. Bake for 20 minutes or until fish is flaky.

Cakes

I totally forgot to post about the past two cakes that I made...

The first one was for a baby shower and the second for a birthday party.

The baby shower theme was mustaches so this is what I made:

The birthday party theme was Pokemon and they asked for a Pokemon Ball. I have to admit, I had to google that one. I had no idea what they were looking for. I also went slack ass on that cake. I didn't go all out like I usually do. I mean really, it was a last minute request for a 12 year olds birthday and I had ZERO desire to stress out about it. Seriously!!! I mean I put so little effort into this cake that I didn't even take a photo of the damn thing once I finished it. This photo came from the birthday boy's mom. HA! I will have to see if Travis still has the photo he took on his cell phone.

SLACKER

Clearly, not me... But there is some rain.

That would be me...

You see, I haven't run in over two weeks now and am going on two weeks of no yoga too. I have been idle for far too long. I'm not quite sure what has taken over me, I've lost my mojo.

Today I got up to go out and do some speed work but I stepped outside and it was raining. I'm not that hardcore yet. I used to be but lately not so much. So the plan has changed to running before yoga tonight. I was going to start a new 5 week program this week to get my 5K time under 30 minutes but since I've put off running for the past two days I am going to just run a few three milers this week and then start the training plan next week.

I'm not sure if the move has me in a funk or what...

Reqardless, I am posting about my plan so that I will feel obligated to go through with it.

Do you have any suggestions on how to get my mojo back?

Moving Sucks!!!

We are in the countdown to our move and I am cranky about it. The movers come in two weeks to pack our things up and move us to a new house that is about an hour from here. I am not excited... You see, we will be moving into this new house for just over 18 months and I just can't get excited about packing and unpacking for that short amount of time. I can't get excited about learning a new city, what stores to shop in, where the good restaurants are, or how to get to and from home during peak traffic hours. UGGGG...

I know that I should be excited about a new place, new faces, a "fresh start", exploring, etc. but instead I am dreading having packers come in and handle all of my belongings, my things getting broken, being without my bed for seven days, then having to unpack and organize all of my stuff all over again. It is exhausting. Pre baby it was not a problem for us to move, in fact, I loved it. But now, I've got an infant that just learned how to crawl, he wants to be into stuff, I have two dogs that are an annoyance to packers (one that is small and gets under foot and one that is huge and could easily eat them).

So in preperation of this move we are cleaning house. Throwing out things that we don't need or want any more, scrubbing baseboards, and cleaning out food cabinets. We have stopped purchasing anything from the grocery store except produce and dairy until our food stores are depleted. I am organizing the bedrooms as best as I can to ensure that our things get there in an orderly fashion but I know my efforts will be in vain...

Do you have any suggestions for making a move easier with a small child? Two dogs? Tons of crap?

Sleep Deprivation...

I've been absent. The thing is, we've been a little sleep deprived around these parts. Clark's schedule has been non existent for quite sometime over the past few months and this has led to sleep deprivation around here.

This weekend was finally enough to make me cancel all outside events for our house for the rest of the week. We are getting back onto a schedule if it is the last thing we do! Oh, and Clark has bought himself a one way ticket out of our bed too! The child would not sleep unless he was in my arms last night and that meant that I did not get any good sleep! THIS WILL NOT DO!

So as of yesterday I started the "Baby Wise" method of getting him on schedule. Unfortunately this means that if he needs to cry himself to sleep for his naps then that is what has to happen. I HATE IT! It truly breaks my heart to hear my boy cry. I just want to scoop him up and let him know that Mommy is there for him when he is in pain or sad, but I can't do it anymore, we have created a "monster" (no, I do not think that Clark is a monster, I think that he is just accustomed to falling asleep with me all of the time and that isn't condusive to having a secure, confident, self soothing baby).

So as I write this post, my sweet little boy is crying himself to sleep in his bed. My heart is breaking! I wouldn't do it if it hadn't worked for us before. So with fingers crossed, I will keep you updated on if Clark is back on a better sleep schedule soon.

Do you have any suggestions for getting him to sleep better? Does your baby sleep through the night?

a little late...

Is it Wednesday already?

I cannot believe that the past few days have flown by so quickly. Sunday we went to Kreuzberg Monastery with two of our friends. They are moving back to the states this coming Friday and it was our last hoorah with them. I'm so sad...

We drank more beer than was necessary, Travis was the DD, and then we went out to dinner. It was truly the first time in 18 months that I drank more than two beers. I am sure that another 18 months could pass before I feel like doing it again.

Monday we lazed around the house, mostly. We did manage to make a couple of trips to our friends house to pick up some furniture that they weren't taking with them back to the good ole US of A. Oh and we certainly did not forget to say a pray and show some gratitude for the lives that have been given in the name of our freedom.

Yesterday was back to work as usual for Travis, Clark and I helped our friends clean their home for inpection and then we went to an afternoon social with some lovely ladies and their kids.

Last night Travis and I got to witness what I swear is has been one of the best 'parenting' moments yet. Clark fell asleep while eating his dinner. It was awesome! I'll try to post video soon.

I hope that you all had a great weekend!