Twelve Months

I'm late as usual with my monthly posts. But as the onesie stickers have run out, this should be our last "official" monthly update.

As of 12 months (and 13 months) Lily is still not walking. Nor is she showing any interest of walking. She is just now starting to stand on her own without hold on to anything for balance. In her defense, she has tiny little barely size two feet. We aren't in any hurry. She is quite mobile and is filthy by the end of the day.

She is becoming less and less picky at meal time eating lots more; both in variety and quantity. Unfortunately, I think we might be regressing with our milk intake. But today alone she had cereal, applesauce, acorn squash, peas, cheese, green beans, grapes, zucchini casserole, and of course, gold fish crackers. She is doing really well with her signing; more, please, all done, eat. It really is adorable. I think Daddy would give her just about anything if she signed "please" after asking.

And I know she understands me and my tone of voice. She obeys (sometimes) when I ask/tell her to do something. She jumps when I catch her doing something wrong. She has already begun the defiance of watching me while she is doing something wrong to see how I will react. This is most commonly seen in the Battle of the Hair Bow. I put the clip in, she puts her hand up just hoovering over the bow, not actually touching it, and watching me, waiting for me to say no or flick her hand. Sigh. This is the main reason we have started the pig tails; well, that and they are just too cute.

Her vocabulary is growing, too. Besides hot dog and all done, she says Bye, Meow, Bubba, Mama, Dad, and Bebe (her name for GlowWorm, not ours.) In fact when she is ready for bed or a nap, she starts asking for Bebe. She is getting closer to saying Charlie, but Bubba is so much easier. In fact, all dogs are called Bubba.

After two viruses exactly 4 weeks apart we seem to be healthy again. She has had a rough first year. Here is to hoping year two is healthier than the first.

She is hysterical and completely nuts. We love it!

We Be Jammin' - Part One

I planted my first garden this year. Some of it didn't work out too well; the squash and I weren't friends. But peppers, tomatoes and I have been pals since May. I'm not sure why, but I had great success with thw tomatoes and peppers; good soil, good light, super easy plant, not totally sure. But I've had a blast this summer and the plants are still going strong. Except for the cherry tomato plant that was trampled by 5 different dogs this past week. But until recently, I've had tons of cherry tomatoes.

I've had a blast cooking with everything. We done a couple pasta salads with the cherry tomatoes but our favorite has been the roasted garlic and tomatoes on flat bread (or ultimately, thin pizza dough.) We've done fajitas with the garden peppers., both tomato and watermelon salsa with the jalapenos, tomato pie, jalapeno-cheese bread, BLT's, and lots of garden salads. But I still had a lot of peppers and tomatoes left.

When my mom came down for a week after Lily's birthday, I told her I wanted to make jalapeno jelly. I said jelly, but what I really wanted was Harry and David's Pepper and Onion Relish. But we (and by we, I mean my mom) found a recipe for Sure Jell Hot Pepper Relish. It may not be Harry and David, or $6.95 a jar, but I think it is wonderful! I took my first jar to a party last night, spread that bad boy over some low-fat cream cheese and served with wheat crackers. Today I ate the leftovers for lunch. It was so good! I really was surprised at how flavorful it was.

It's not as spicy as I would have liked it so I am excited to try a new batch. I am also nervous to do the jam alone. Having mom here with me, and two in the kitchen allowed for us to get the batch done during second nap!

I was also trying to come up with ways to use up all the tomatoes I had. I already had a bunch of spaghetti sauce in the freezer so we ended up simply canning crushed tomatoes.

It really wasn't hard, but is a little time consuming as the tomatoes needed a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. However, the jars of crushed tomatoes will be perfect this winter with my favorite crock pot recipes!

A Slice of Fun

Lily turned a year on August 25th! My how fast that went!! During Labor Day weekend all of our family came out to celebrate Lily's big day with our watermelon themed party. We had watermelon slices, watermelon salsa, watermelon cupcakes, and watermelon pops! Such a fun time!

Sleepless Nights - Part Two

Remember how I posted about the crazy high fever and how Lily ended up sleeping with us for a few nights? After 7 days of the fever, I took her in to see the doctor that Thursday the 18th. Virus. Go home and if she gets worse or the fever lasts two more days come back.

On Saturday afternoon, she woke up from her nap with a 103.9 fever. I called the nurse and she said to go in. What a night! Because she had no other symptoms other than the fever, they were pretty baffled. So we did a urine test; not fun for someone who doesn't actually control their bladder yet. Then we did a blood test; lots of tears. Finally, we did chest x-rays; LOTS of screaming. Oh, my poor baby. And it was bed time. And she was miserable. As a precaution, they gave her a shot of antibiotic. More tears. The funny thing is that after each traumatic encounter, she would babble away as if to tell us about all the horrible things they had done to her.

That night was the first relief we had all week. She slept a lot better. I gave her some more Tylenol around 3 that night, and pulled her into bed for the last time. We finally got some sleep and we all slept until almost 9 that morning. Crazy! Her fever had broke and we were Tylenol free.

We went back to the doctor on Sunday afternoon for a review of the tests and her second dose of antibiotic. Her temperature had gone back up to 101, but she was no longer acting crazy. This doc was not my favorite. After explaining to the nurse why we were there (and everything was in our electronic chart, Doc comes in and asks "What can I help you with today?" I know that it's the weekend and no one is seeing regular patients, but I saw the nurse write F/U on the check-in paper (for follow-up, people, get your mind out of the gutter.) After explaining once more, the nurse went to get the antibiotic and came back with two syringes. What!?!? Two?!? She didn't want to do two because Lily was so young. I made her look at the chart from the day before to prove we did only one shot and were anticipating only one more in the other leg. After she got her second shot we were on our way home.

From Sunday night on, everything was peachy. She was eating well and acting her normal crazy self. However, she had gotten used to waking up in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with us. I had to nip that in the bud. So when she woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, I made her cry it out. I know, mean 'ol Mom. I turned off the baby monitor and went back to sleep. Soon enough, she tired out and fell asleep. The next morning I found she had poop in the middle of the night. Great, now I have guilt. I felt terrible. Luckily, the rest of the week went smoothly, and she hasn't really woken up since.

Except . . . last night . . . she had a bad dream. We rocked and she went back down without too much of a fit. Nothing ever came from all our testing. It was concluded that she had a virus and the fever broke over the weekend at the same time we received the antibiotic. We did find out from the new blood test that Lily's iron has dropped even more. Because she was sick, and a little picky in her eating, our regular doctor has given us two weeks to get her iron up; Doc ordered red meat. So Lily is on a high iron diet; baby oatmeal, french toast, beans, peas, roast beef, and an egg salad sort of concoction with yogurt (sounds gross but she loves it.) And that was just today's menu! Since she has been feeling better she is eating like crazy. And since she is so skinny, after she wolfs down all her meal, I continue to let her graze the rest of the day. Pray for Bug. Doc warned us that the once month iron dosage they would have to put her on is not pretty. We go back sometime after the 12th.

But for the most part she is healthy and doing great. It was wonderful to go back to church on Sunday after missing 2 weeks, even if she did get her hand slammed in the cupboard. (Just teasing! She's fine.)

How I Reduced My Energy Bill

I know this post is probably not interesting to most (if any,) but in my effort to cut our bills, I am having a blast trying to cut our energy usage while remaining comfortable. Not everyone can "do" all of these things due to time and availability. But you pay for convenience and the same holds true with the energy bill. I like to think I am going green, saving energy and being earth friendly, and while it is a nice benefit, really, I'm just looking to save some cash.

1. We got rid of the second refrigerator.
We, like many of you, had that old(er) refrigerator in the garage. It held mostly beverages in the refrigerator and the freezer section was jam packed. It was convenient, but not necessary.

I still needed the extra freezer space and we were blessed by a 5 cubic feet freezer from my parents right before Lily was born. We went back and forth as to whether we should get a bigger one, but the one given has been the perfect size. I was able to store A LOT of breast milk (which was the point of the gift) as well as other prepared and frozen food. I freeze everything! Seriously. Pasta sauce, casseroles, tortillas, breast milk (cha-ching,) meat, corn off the cob, half loaves of homemade bread, cookie dough, fruit I bought on sale, hot dogs and buns, chicken broth, and anything else I can double up on when cooking. A chest freezer is not frost free because the air doesn't circulate temperatures to keep frost from building up. This means food gets and stays cooler and will store in your freezer longer than in the refrigerator freezer. Additionally, the small freezer uses half the energy annually than the refrigerator did (240 kWh versus 480 kWh.) Bargain! Also, many energy companies will offer you a rebate if you get rid of the second refrigerator. Definitely worth looking into.

2. I stopped using my dryer.
The cloth diaper covers I use can't go in the dryer so my dad installed a handy retractable clothes line in my back yard. And because I hate turning the dryer on for half a load, I hang both the covers and the inserts up to dry. When I found that drying clothes on the line was so easy, I stopped using the dryer for most of my loads. I still use the dryer for towels; they are just too stiff otherwise. Here is sunny Southern California, there are very few days when it isn't nice enough to dry the clothes outside. And when it's rainy, I bake instead of doing laundry.

3. We cut cable.
Yes, cutting cable is a different bill that we ultimately saved money on, but not having the televisions constantly on, or the cable box running and recording shows, it cut the energy bill. Additionally, we put our large television and the receiver on a power strip with an on/off switch. Because the receiver isn't recording anything, it doesn't have to be on all the time. We simply turn the power strip on if we want to watch a movie.

4. We unplugged everything.
Anything that isn't used most of the day has become unplugged. Anything that is left plugged in, even when not in use, sucks energy. This includes the fan, the coffee pot, the hair dryer, the baby monitor receiver, the laptop, the phone chargers, and the printer. These are are many of the items that we plug in to use, and unplug when finished. Yes, it means that I can't set the timer for my coffee to be ready when I come downstairs in the morning, but as I mentioned before, you pay for convenience. Things become a habit very easily, so we are now in the habit of unplugging things when we are finished. Don't worry, we leave the lamps and alarm clocks plugged in. (Although, I am contemplating changing to a battery operated alarm clock.)

5. We installed solar screens.
This is an investment that may take a years to reap the benefits (monetarily.) We, however, think they are totally worth the money. All Star Screens installed solar screens on our master bedroom windows two years ago. It doesn't block the sun, but helps shade some of the intensity. You see them often in restaurants when they roll down the solar shades to block the sun but you can still see out. (I noticed them in Starbucks on Sunday.) When summer hit Lily's room, the heat in the late afternoon made bedtimes at 7:30 almost unbearable; the solar screen help a lot.

6. We don't run the air.
That's not completely true. We don't run the air as often. Because I am at home, I am able to open all of the doors and windows early in the morning and allow the cool air to come in. Then as it begins to heat up outside, I shut everything up and trap the cool air in. The tile downstairs helps keep it cool. We use fans a lot. I know ceiling fans aren't always the most fashionable (I've seen a lot of DIY bloggers removing them,) but they sure are functional. We have one in each of the small bedrooms, one in the family room, and two in the master. On these HOT days we had this past week (an average of 107,) we had to run the air most of the day and into the night. But when the air outside drops below 78, we throw open the windows and often stick the box fan in to suck all the cool air in. Sometimes, this doesn't happen until midnight . . . but I am awake from the heat anyway.

And finally
7. Know how much energy you are actually using.
Southern California Edison has rolled out an updated web-site that I think is pretty cool. I can see exactly how much energy I used the day before, even breaking it out by the hour. It projects my bill based upon my average daily usage, and shows me the bills for the past two years for the same time frame. I think it is really snazzy. For the past three months, we have been able to cut our bill down by 30 to 50 percent! When I quit my job, I thought it meant we would mean using more electricity during the day but the opposite has proven true. Cheers to going green and saving green!