Sharon & the flowers

Last weekend, Ammon decided that our front yard needed a little bit of color & curb appeal. So, he headed to Home Depot to get supplies to make a little flower bed. He then pulled up the liner, flattened out the area, placed the edge stones & made this cute little planter. He filled it with soil & then planted tulips, daisies, daffodils, & a few others that I can't remember the names of at this moment. Sharon thought it was amazing & wanted to dance in the center the whole time he was building it. Once it was done, she kept leaning over to smell the flowers, which sounded kind of funny because she had a bit of a stuffy nose. She kept pointing and saying, "Flowers." She likes to wander over to the flower bed to sniff the flowers whenever we come out to get in the car. I love how it turned out!

Sisters & a Hat

Sharon was having a blast playing with a wipe the other day. Somewhere along the line, she decided that it would make a fabulous hat for Savannah. She kept putting it on her head & laughing hysterically. Savannah really didn't seem to mind at all. I love these girls!

Smiley Girl

Here's a picture of Sharon with her million dollar smile! We were ready to go to play group & she was wearing some new leggings that I'd made that morning. That's also a dress I made for her out of one of my old sweaters. It's super comfy & I love that she can play in it & I don't care if it gets dirty or not. She's a pretty cute girl! Oh, she's also wearing a hair bow that I made recently, though you can't really see it well in the picture.

Getting Bigger

Savannah is really starting to enjoy tummy time. She is also getting pretty good at slowly squirming across the floor when she is on her back. She loves to just watch everything that's going on. She's such a happy girl! I've noticed that she tends to get a little grouchy at night when it's about bedtime & she just wants to be walked around & rocked to sleep. She is not content if I try to rock her while sitting on the couch.

A Miracle Worker of a Toilet Cleaner

{Alert: This post is a real life, nitty gritty, housecleaning unplugged post.}

We've lived in our house for almost 3 years now, & in all that time, I've never been able to get rid of the disgusting rings in the toilets. Here, take a peek at the kids' bathroom toilet to see what I mean. Gross, right? I'm pretty sure it's mainly due to hard water & the fact that this toilet doesn't get used all that often, but our master bath toilet looks similar.

I've tried various cleaning methods, including toilet bowl cleaners from a few different stores, soaking them with vinegar, cleaning with baking soda, etc, all to no effect. Not only does it look disgusting, it's a little embarrassing when guests use the bathrooms, & also, who knows what else is living in that disgusting build-up! Well, I recently read a blog post (I can't remember where) about an awesome way to get rid of those unsightly rings. She used a pumice stick & said that it worked miracles. So, I headed over to Amazon to see how much one would cost. There were a few different pumice sticks for sale, & I'm pretty sure the blogger that I read said she used this one with the handle. I settled on this one, mainly because it was 5 bucks cheaper than the one with the handle, & I'm pretty sure I can handle scrubbing without the handle, especially since I was planning on wearing gloves anyway.

Since I have free 2-day shipping at Amazon, it cost me less than $5 for this little experiment. I patiently waited out the weekend & was excited to check the mail today to see if it came (yeah, I've never been so excited about cleaning supplies. Feel free to call me a dork). I was excited to see the package in the mail box & dropped everything to test it out when I got back in the house. Are you ready to see my results? I decided to take before & after pictures just to prove my results. By the way, I am in no way receiving any compensation for this post, I simply love a product that works & is a good deal! So, here's the kids' bathroom before & after pictures. You can see on the left side of the bowl where I started to scrub a little bit, then stopped & decided to take pictures. It definitely took a little bit of elbow grease to get this clean, because it was kind of hard & crusted on there (don't even try to tell me your toilet has never been like this!). Doesn't it look amazing in the after picture, or as amazing as a toilet bowl can? And the final before & after is of our master bath toilet. The ring wasn't quite as bad, but it still looks so much better not to have that gross ring! I am so excited to finally have them gone! So, if your toilets suffer from this, try out the Pumie pumice stick & let me know what happens! I think I might have to order the 12 pack next time so I can have some on hand & save a few more bucks on each one!

Sharon's Birthday Page

Our 6th Anniversary

3 months old

Our sweet Savannah is three months old! She is getting close to 13 pounds (I weighed her using the Wii balance board). She loves to smile, has laughed a couple of times at her big sister & loves to sit up & watch everything that's going on. She's a little chunk & loves to eat! She still has a red mark on her right eyelid & it started peeling the other day. We still aren't sure if it's going to go away eventually. Everyone says she looks just like her Daddy, & while I agree, I can sometimes see a little of myself in her. We all love our Savannah!

Savannah at 2 1/2 months

Oh Savannah is getting so big! She sat in her Bumbo chair the other day while we were all out in the backyard enjoying some fabulous weather (in February). She loved being able to look all around & sit up. It was a bit windy out, and every time a big gust came she would suck in her breath & freak out a little bit. It was pretty funny! Savannah really likes to be held sitting up, rather than being cradled lately. She's been trying to figure out how to suck her thumb, but mostly ends up sucking on her fist. She's also started sleeping for 7 or 8 hours at night. {happy mommy}

Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas

My husband bought a package of multi-grain tortillas the other day, & while they were extremely tasty, they were also fairly expensive (as far as tortillas go). So, I told him I would try to find a recipe for whole wheat tortillas so we could make them ourselves. Today, I perused the internet for a recipe & found two that looked promising. When I looked at them a little more, it was pretty much the same recipe, but one made half the amount. I used the smaller one, mainly because the instructions included how to make the dough in the food processor. I used the recipe found here. I'll post the recipe, as well, so I can note what I did differently. When I gave Ammon a piece to try, he said, "Oh yeah, that's a keeper!" So, this recipe is definitely going in my book of family favorite recipes. We love homemade tortillas!

Whole Wheat Flour Tortilla Recipe

(makes 10 tortillas)

1/2 cup white bread flour or all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups boiling water

In a food processor pulse both flours and salt. Add shortening and pulse until blended (I ended up adding just a little more shortening to make it look a little more crumby). Slowly add boiling water though tube until a wet dough forms. The tortilla dough should be just a little bit sticky (I took the dough out of the processor & kneaded it by hand a few times to make it a little less sticky, & Sharon actually helped knead & form them into balls, though admittedly, her's were more like smashed balls). Form 10 balls of dough and rest on cookie sheet under slightly damp towel or plastic wrap for at least 1 hour or up to 8 hours.

To cook tortillas, heat large frying pan on high heat (I had to turn my stove down to medium because they started to burn on high heat). Roll out tortilla on floured surface until you reach your desired thickness. Place tortilla on griddle and cook until you see a bubble form. Flip tortilla and cook for about 30 seconds more. Roll out the next tortilla while the first one is cooking (I think it would be better to roll them all out & have them sandwiched between waxed paper, because it takes a little too long to roll one out while the other is cooking & I ended up burning a couple). Eat immediately (try not to eat them all immediately, they are that good!), refrigerate, or freeze your tortillas.

The girls

I had a grandparent request for some pictures. Here's one of Savannah smiling.

Sharon wanted her hair in curlers one Sunday morning because she saw me with curlers in my hair. Her hair turned out much cuter than mine.

Crashed

Today was Ammon's first day back at work after taking about a month off. He had a bunch of use or lose hours of vacation time, so he obviously decided to use it. It's been so nice to have him home to help me get used to having two munchkins instead of just one. I even ventured out to the grocery store by myself with both girls this morning. It went really well, too. I had Savannah in the sling & Sharon in the cart & had no problems. It wasn't until we got home that I realized just how close Savannah came to having a major blowout in her pants, but thankfully it all stayed in the diaper. Early this afternoon I had my 6 week post partum checkup, which went fine. I had a friend watch Sharon & took Savannah with me. Ammon was home when we got back, and Sharon was pretty grouchy. We let her watch some cartoons on the computer, but she was still just whining and crying about everything. I had noticed that she'd been a little warm earlier, & Ammon agreed that she felt kind of hot. We took her temperature, and sure enough, she has a fever. I gave her some tylenol, and she wanted to snuggle with Daddy. This is what happened soon after. So, I'm taking a break to blog & look at things on Pinterest, while trying to get Savannah to go to sleep as well. Here's to hoping Sharon's just getting some teeth and isn't actually sick!

Savannah's Blessing

While we were down in Glendale for Christmas, we decided to have Savannah's baby blessing. For more information on what a baby blessing is, feel free to visit this link to learn more. Usually, these blessings are given at church, but since we live away from our family, we decided it would be easier to do it at my brother-in-law's house while we were visiting so that we could have our family attend. Savannah wore the blessing gown that her great-great grandmother was christened in. This gown is over 100 years old. It's been worn by my mother & her siblings, me & my siblings, many of my cousins & by my other daughter for all of our blessings. Everyone who's been blessed in it has their name embroidered on the slip. It's a pretty neat tradition! I made the little headband that she wore. She screamed through the whole blessing, so it ended up being pretty short, but it was still beautiful. We are so happy to have this little beauty in our family, and especially happy that I was able to carry her full term & that she is healthy & growing. She had her 1-month check-up the other day & she weighed in at an amazing 10 pounds (in comparison, I'm pretty sure Sharon didn't hit 10 pounds until she was about 7 months old). It's definitely different having a normal sized baby! She's such a good baby. She nurses well & has been sleeping pretty well, too. She's already grown out of her newborn clothes & is starting to get some rolls on her legs. It was so nice to be able to celebrate our healthy girl with family & spend some time together! I hope your Christmas season was filled with love & laughter!

Merry Christmas

These went out in the mail this week! Merry Christmas everyone!

Our beautiful girl

I did this photo shoot of Savannah when she was about a week old. My mom acted as my assistant & we were able to get some pretty cute shots. It helps that she's such a beautiful baby!

Sharon's picture

Men's Hearts Shall Fail Them

Some friends recently posted this message to their Facebook pages, & I finally took the time to watch it. It is a beautiful message of hope during a time when men (and women) could so easily be living in fear. I just wanted to share a few thoughts that I had as I watched & afterward when I pondered the message. Here's the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EMwKxmTLaCs

I might have made it through this video without crying if they hadn't included the shot of the baby in the NICU. After seeing that precious baby in the isolette I, of course, started thinking of my own experience with my daughter & the feelings that my husband & I had throughout that journey. I can honestly say that it was a hard time & one that I wouldn't willingly undertake again. But, as Elder Nelson spoke about his feelings as that plane was falling toward the earth, how he felt at peace, while other passengers were experiencing completely opposite feelings, I related to his feelings of peace & acceptance. Not knowing whether my daughter was going to live was hard, but because I believe that my family has been sealed together for time & all eternity, I was blessed with a feeling of peace & hope that even if she didn't live here on earth, I would eventually get to be with her again & raise her as my own.

I know that there are so many things that we can be fearful about in these times. Many people are without jobs or a secure income, people are losing their homes, divorce is common, children & teens are facing awful challenges at school & from their peers, & the list goes on & on. These experiences are not easy. In fact, they can be down right terrible, but when we have the hope of Jesus Christ & the faith that this life is not the end, we can face these challenges with confidence & peace.

Sisters

Looking at this picture of Savannah, I can really see some similarities between her & Sharon. There may even be a teeny bit of me in there. Savannah had a quick check-up today. She lost 7 ounces, but she is doing well, and the doctor said she doesn't seem dehydrated. She's definitely enjoying eating now that my milk has come in. We'll put the weight back on soon enough.

Sharon is quickly becoming a fan of Savannah. She just doesn't quite understand the term "gentle" yet. She loves to hold her sister & is always aware of when Savannah is crying. She loves to help & is becoming a wonderful big sister. {can you tell that Daddy did her hair?}

Savannah Wilhelm

We are so excited to welcome Savannah into our family. She was born on Nov 22, 2011 at 5:57 pm, weighed 7 lbs 7 oz & was 19 inches long. She is such a sweet baby & oh so pretty! Here are a couple of pictures from the hospital. More will be coming soon!

Savannah & Daddy

Halloween Page