Salty Mommy

So I decided to just add a little more to each dinner I cooked this week and that would allow me to freeze the extra for a second meal next week or the next. So I made three meatloaves one night, three pounds of turkey meatballs another and I made chicken in the crockpot with italian dressing. The italian dressing chicken was delicious!! I made as many boneless skinless chicken breasts that I could fit in the crockpot. We ate it for dinner that night, then I cut it up and made chicken roll ups for lunch another day (chicken, avocado and cheese) and we still have some left. I am thinking about using it for chicken alfredo :) I guess the whole big plans to do a freezer cooking just isn't for me. I bought all of the ingredients to make mac n cheese and baked ziti but havent made them yet. Whatever night I decide to make them I will make 3 batches and freeze them for next time. I came in $40 under our weekly budget last week but I didnt have to get gas in my car...so to celebrate when ...

I have big plans for the weekend...to do a round of freezer cooking. I hope to make 3 meatloaf's (or is it meatloaves?), burrito meat filling (enough for 3 dinners), macaroni and cheese (3-5pans) and baked ziti (3pans). So before I can do all of this I need to buy some throw away pans and ziploc bags. I have been reading about freezer cooking and I dont have the space to do a major freezer cooking but I think this will be plenty. I might have to cut back and do just 2 pans of ziti and 2 pans of mac n cheese. I am going to do a test with the empty trays to make sure I can fit everything before I start cooking. The meatloaf will just be mixed up and frozen no need to cook because when I am ready to make it for dinner I can defrost the meatloaf and bak as usual. The burrito meat will have to be cooked and then frozen....then when we want to have burritos all I have to do is throw the frozen meat in the crock pot on low until dinner time. The ziti and macaroni will be all cooked and t...

I like to consider myself a stay at home mom, but the truth is I am a work at home mom. I have the joy of getting to be home with my little man but I schedule my work around his day. I work while he eats breakfast and I work for an hour while he plays. Then we run errands, clean or just play trains. Lunch time, a show and then NAP. I work while he naps then when he gets up I usually have to fit in 30 more minutes of working. So between 2 and 5 we usually spend a few hours playing in the afternoon. Yesterday I spent some time on nick jr and sprout online trying to find some fun activites for us to add to our fun afternoons. We printed the blues clues mix and match game. Little man loves to match up the shapes with the colors and he is even saying the colors and trying to say the shapes. It is really exciting to see him learn and to see the smile when he figures something out on his own. I am going to print out some other shapes and make a board to match up the shapes and colors. When ...

I read a few blogs about adoption that have really helped me. I stumbled on this open adoption forum tonight after reading write mind open heart and the questions and many of the answers got me to thinking about our adoption. I don't feel like I have the answers to these questions but in answering them it has helped me to understand our relationship with little man's birth mom a little better. 1. If open adoption is so great, why do so many people suck at it? By this I mean, not honouring commitments, closing the adoption, telling the other family they’re not “doing this thing” correctly or playing the “for the sake of the child” card? Every situation is different for us little mans birth mom "K" is in a place in her life where she is trying to see what she can get from us, rather then what part she can play in little man's life. I have realized that when we meet up I previously had expectations set for how I thought K should interact with little man. It has not...

Number 4 - Your toddler runs to you for comfort when he falls down or feels sad. Kids this age may not truly understand the meaning of "I love you," but their actions speak louder than words. I received this in an email from babycenter.com and it made me smile. I don't need a website to tell me the 7 signs my child loves me because I know he loves me but number 4 makes me smile. It happens all day long even when I am the cause of his sadness. I tell him he is not allowed to go in the fridge by himself and he is so sad he turns to me and cries on my shoulder. He drops a train on his own foot as he is playing he runs to me and says "up mommy". I can not count the number of times in a day I have the joy of getting to comfort my son. I love him so much and I know he loves me too.

I like to think that I am good at organizing but I can not get a handle on our bedroom. I get it all clean and organized and then boom its like a bomb went off. David said this morning "our room has hit a breaking point" I havent left it purposely but maybe if he helps me we can get rid of some stuff and he can organize his stuff? I think that is wishful thinking. We need some tools to organize and help us stay organized. I think today I am going to go to walmart and see if they have anything that might help us. My ideas so far are a shoe organizer on the back of the door to hold my winter scarves and hats and gloves. A shoe organizer that we dont have to see the shoes because they seem to take over our room and a file cabinet for all of david's work stuff. I might check craigs list for the file cabinet or the thrift store. I am also thinking about another dresser even though we dont have a ton of room if we get another dresser we can spread our clothes out and maybe we c...

I don't think I have ever had a new years resolution but I feel like this year there are going to be some exciting things that I want to accomplish or help someone else accomplish. The big one is potty training, our little man is going to be 2 next week and I have been researching potty training and talking to lots of moms. I thought 2 was young to be potty trained but it seems like a possibility so I am going to try to start this in the near future. Before we start potty training I think I have to move our little man to his toddler bed. I have lots of reasons that I don't want to move him yet all selfish reasons, it is going to be a lot harder to get him to stay in his bed for naps and bed time and parenting is going to get more difficult until he learns to stay in his bed. He is small and I don't want him to get hurt and I am sure he will be getting up earlier...I like to sleep! For me I can't wait until it gets a little nicer out so I can start getting into shape. I ...

This has been a very busy start to a new year. We received our court date for the finalization to our adoption right before Christmas then we headed to California to celebrate Christmas. After a great vacation we flew home to NJ and on Friday 1/7/11 our adoption was finalized. Today we had our little boy dedicated to the Lord in our church and celebrated with family and friends. It has been a whirlwind and I am sitting here trying to remember the moments we have experienced with adopting our little boy. The court proceedings were very sweet and the judge was in a great mood. The one thing that he stated at the very end is "it is the same as if you gave birth to him." How cool is that?!? We have been on a rollercoaster for the last 2 years and now we look forward to the rest of our little boys life and we are his parents! The other thing that stuck with me is our parents, they have been "grandparents" since the day our little boy was placed in our home. But there is ...

This is the snow from our front door when it was still coming down. I didnt get a great picture of the snow this time. I will make sure I get one next time! This is what I have been doing a lot of lately! I am a little cookie baker! I really have been enjoying making Christmas Cookies!

With the Christmas season here it makes me think about traditions. What traditions do I want to keep, add or change for my family as our little one grows up. In reading a fictional book about Christmas I learned about putting out reindeer food to show them where to land. By adding some glitter to oatmeal it sparkles and shows the reindeer your house. I thought this was super cute and would like to make it a tradition. Growing up both David's family and my family opened one present on Christmas Eve and it is jammies. I like this tradition and hope to continue this with my family. Our little one really loves trains and we have been to two homes this year that have a train around their tree. I think maybe next year we will get a train to go around our tree, I have been looking. The most important tradition I would like to have is reading the Christmas Story of Jesus Birth, our little one is still small but I want to read it every year and in my house as a child that is when Baby Jesus...

What does Santa say? Ho Ho Ho.... Do you want to go see Santa? NO is the answer I get everytime. Despite the NO and head shaking we decided to go and visit Santa. Turns out Santa is a jolly old man who likes to give out high 5's and thats cool. Santa still says Ho Ho Ho but he also understands that kids now a days need a different approach and a high 5 was the way he got my little one to smile. Last year Santa was a very scary man with a beard and this year he was a guy with a beard who gives out high 5's. Thanks Santa we have plans to put out some yummy cookies and milk for you and some snacks for your reindeer too! Merry Christmas!

Being thankful is something that most of America focuses on this week with thanksgiving on thursday. I have so much to be thankful for and for the last few two months every day David and I have thanked God for our miracle of getting to adopt our son. I love being a parent and every day I try to teach our little man to say thank you and to use his manners. This may seem silly to some but it is very important to me to teach thankfulness. We have been using sign language along with trying to teach words and the sign for thank you is one of the first signs we taught him. I am amazed at the rate his words are growing and so thankful for the opportunity to be home with him.

We woke up this morning just as Dada was getting back from working out with Pop we opened the door and waved to Pop and little man yelled DADA and then Pop beeped the horn. I am sure our neighbors were thrilled since it was 7:30am. Hahaha they should be up already, right? After Dada was ready little man and I were snuggling watching a show he says to me, "Hey did you know that he is our son?" I just smiled.

I was very happy on sunday when our pastor mentioned it was Orphan Sunday and spoke of the need for foster and adoptive homes in our county. Our journey has not been easy and I do not believe it is over. Right now we are focusing on our little man and we will see where we go in the future. I am bubbling over with love for our little man and just sit and watch him try new things and grow. I am not ready for him to be 2 and not be a baby. I realize he is already a big boy and not a baby. I am excited for our adoption day even though we dont have a date yet I know it is going to happen and I can't wait to adopt our sweet little man. I am so excited to see him grow up!

Ok seriously where did 2010 go? I can not believe it is November 1st. I dont know if it is since we have become parents that time seems to fly by but really our little one is going to be 21 months tomorrow. Which really means he will be 2 in 3 months...I think I just stopped breathing! As I am writing this I am just trying to remind myself that I need to remember all of the moments. We just celebrated our 2nd halloween and he was so cute and so much fun. I dont want to forget anything. I was looking at a picture from when he was a few days old and it doesnt feel like that long ago. I bought a book to write his story in and I haven't started writing...I need to get on the ball! Anyway I had a friend comment that she reads this and I just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement. I try to be disciplined about blogging but sometimes days just get away from me. I am so thankful for my friends! Now I am going to dowload all the halloween pictures to snapfish and order them for free wh...

We got to go to our zoo today for a little costume parade and fun. It was a big chaotic but still fun, seriously what did i expect a 1 year old and a 2 year old in a wagon for 2 hours....they were over the wagon before the parade even started. I think they both had fun and we had fun too. My mom is here and she really liked seeing all of the kids in their costumes. We have some big plans for while she is here including the pumpkin patch which has a hay ride, going to see the amish, swim school, trick or treating and i'm sure we will find more exciting stuff to do. I am sure little man is going to have a great time with Nana :) When he woke up today she was still in bed and he didn't know she was here. I asked him if he knew who came on an airplane and she said Boo I'm in here. He started giggling it was so cute. The fact that he sees my family mostly through skype it was super cute to see him so excited to see her!

So every once in awhile I have to mix up our furniture or pictures and art work in our house. I think it has something to do with the fact that I moved a lot as a child. So today I decided it was time to move the pictures and art. We got a new collage frame at target over the weekend so I had to fit it in and that meant I got to rearrange. I really love the new frame and I am most excited about the pictures of our little man that I put all on one wall. I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them.

***Please let me know if you have any ideas or experience that may help me.*** - - I am blessed to work from home and be able to stay home with my 20 month old son. I have a schedule that I am to work 4 hours between 8am and 5pm and then an additional 2 hours or more after 5pm. I am very thankful for my job and the flexibility. However I have started to feel guilty that although I am home with our son he does not always have my full attention. This is what our day looks like now. Wake up 7:30 snuggle and watch a few minutes of a show then change diaper and have breakfast. I try to work for 1 hour at this time in our day while interacting with him during breakfast and then he plays for the rest of the hour. This time consists of him bringing me toys to play with and he plays trucks on the floor near me or even types on his keyboard next to me. Then we go outside or have a play date or run errands. Lunch is between 11 and 11:30 then its nap time. He usually sleeps 2 hours and I work as m...

Our second foster placement was a sweet 3 year old girl, she did not have very many words the words she did use were gibberish. Every once in awhile she would include a real word. The second day she was with us we took her over to see Grandmom Betty to have lunch. When we got in the house there was a delicious chocolate cake on the counter. At this point we have heard her say NO and point her finger at whatever she does not want. As soon as she saw the cake she clearly said, “I WANT CAKE!” We tried to get her to eat a variety of other foods and explained that once she had 1 bite of another food she could have cake. She would not budge and trying to be consistent neither would we. It was a bit scary, if we gave in to her demands on day 2 what would be ahead of us. We really had no idea how to parent this lost little girl and the one thing that stuck with me is a child will eat when they are hungry. She did not want to eat anything except for that cake so she was not really hungry. She h...

We had a meeting last week with our adoption case worker and the subject of our other foster care placements came up. It brought back many memories and I have decided to share them here. In a summer that started out very sad we had a bright little boy who came to stay with us for 2 weeks while his foster family went on vacation. We accepted the foster care placement for Steven a sweet 8 year old boy, when the worker called to let us know he would be coming over she kept saying to make sure we had house rules in place. Seeing as this was our first ever foster care placement we started to get worried we were in over our heads. Steven arrived and we decided to make house rules together. We had a fun filled 2 weeks and learned a lot about being parents. (we felt like long term babysitters.) This little boy thrived in our home, he was very well behaved despite what we were told. He really bonded with Mr. Dave and enjoyed calling out, "Hey Mr Dave" when he wanted to make sure he ha...