Where to begin....(or rather begin again)

I can't say that I have ever been great at keeping things up. No matter what it is I seem to lack in the area of "keeping the ball moving". As you've probably noticed I have been on hiatus from the blogging world since October.  We have a lot of catching up to do my friends.

Let's see...where did we leave off....?
Oh yes!

Pregnant and moving!

Well, we moved into our new home on December 18th!! We had wonderful help from our friends and family. I will say that it was not easy to move into a new home being 9 months pregnant and a bit of a control freak, but again, I have many lessons to learn. This lesson was to learn to let go. So, I attempted to let things roll and do what I could. We were able to get the nursery painted as well as our bedroom and bathroom.

The house is so wonderful. I can't believe it's ours!! I am thankful everyday that we had the opportunity when we did. We can't believe all of the wildlife in our backyard!! Deer, raccoon, bald eagles, fox! The last few months I've been attempting to decorate...or rather think about decorating, but alas...well, there are reasons why these things haven't exactly happened yet. The story continues.




We had ten days to get things situated in the new home.

On December 26th the contractions started. I will spare you all of the details and jump right to the climax of the story....:)

On December 28th at 4:51am we welcomed Holden Rae into the world.
Eighteen inches long.
Weighing six pounds.
Perfection.

Our lives were forever changed.









I had a very difficult time imagining my life with a baby. Today, I can't imagine my world without him. He's only five months old and it's hard to remember what life was like without him.

Since December 28th, Noah and I have been getting to know our little Holden. Some days have been really rough. Holden is not afraid to tell you when he's unhappy. For the first month or so I wondered if I was going to make it through this parenting thing alive...okay, maybe that is exaggerating a bit, but it was really tough and I really started to wonder if I had what it takes. I doubted myself a lot.

The lack of sleep, anxiety, and busy schedule of feeding, burping, changing, feeding, cleaning up baby puke, changing, and feeding again took a toll on us. They were right, babies can challenge your marriage. All of a sudden, the time that you spent focusing solely on your spouse has now turned to this new "stranger" that you love dearly. It takes a lot of communication and being intentional. We are making it though. I grow to love Noah more and more each day. He is such an amazing dad!

As time moved on Holden and I started to learn the "ropes" and what makes each other tick. He learned that there is this perfect place to nestle between the crook of my arm and chest. I learned that when he's tired the best thing to do is to send him to that "perfect place" with a nuk and a light tap on the bottom. He learned "the look" that makes my heart melt (he's going to be a charmer) and I learned that he has great taste in music (he loves cooing to The Lumineers). Now at five months we are getting the routine down and things seem to be "settling down". I'm in awe of how each day brings new surprises and learning experiences for him. Who would have thought that watching our little one roll over for the first time would bring so much excitement to our lives. Ha! You should have heard me...I think I cheered louder for Holden in those minutes than I ever have for the Vikings (anyone that has watched a Vikings game with me will understand what I'm talking about). The smallest accomplishments are so much fun to watch. I am definitely Holden's number one fan.

There are those moments, however, when I of course worry about what others are thinking of Holden or myself as a mother for that matter. Any of you that have held Holden for longer than a few minutes know full well the danger that you put yourself in. Yes, my son is a "happy spitter-upper". He's a puker! He has ruined many outfits that have been sent straight to the wash. There have been times where he's puked all over some one's new shirt and looked up with them with those beautiful blue eyes and the largest of toothless smiles. Imagine my horror when my son has just ruined some one's most prized outfit? I think to myself, "Oh no! They are going to be so utterly disgusted by Holden.They will never want to be near him again." To my surprise, I hear words of grace. "Erin, stop worrying about my shirt. He's a baby. He's supposed to puke all over." They return a beautiful smile to Holden and I learn once again, that I can't, nor can my son, be perfect. We need to let go and understand that puke happens.

It was a little over a year ago when I found out that my life would be turned upside down. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the joy that comes with this challenging adventure. There have been so many great lessons learned and I have many fun stories to share, but Holden is beginning to wake up and he's letting me know that it's time to eat. Those stories will have to wait until another time.

Don't give up on me though. I enjoy the story sharing and conversations that we've had here.

Until next time!!

Pumpkin Bread

I had to share this recipe with you today- it was so very tasty! Also, with fall before us, it proved to be the perfect fit on a chilly morning. I took a look at a few different recipes and made a few tweaks. I hope you enjoy!! The following recipe will make two loaves.

Ingredients 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon of salt 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons baking soda 2 cups canned pumpkin 1 cup olive oil 4 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup water 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon allspice Topping Ingredients ¼ cups Butter, Softened ½ cups Brown Sugar ¼ cups Oatmeal ¼ cups All-purpose Flour 1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.  Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
2) Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients and mix.
3) In a separate bowl, mix together the topping ingredients. Mixture should be crumbly.
4) Pour bread batter evenly into two greased loaf pans. Cover each with half of the topping mix. Bake 50-60 minutes until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack.

Enjoy!!

Tomato Basil Soup

Okay, DO NOT miss out on this tomato basil soup!! It's a SOUPER easy recipe and I'm not kidding, it's delicious!! The recipe calls for canned tomatoes, but we used the fresh tomatoes from our garden- just "guesstimate" how many of your garden tomatoes fit into a 14oz. can.


Tomato Basil Soup
(from Jenny Steffens Hobick)

3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 - 14 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes
1 - 14 oz. can of whole tomatoes
2 cups of stock (chicken or vegetable)
1 tsp of sea salt
1 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup of heavy cream
3 tablespoons of fresh basil, julienned
parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, saute garlic in olive oil on medium heat for 1 minute - being careful not to burn the garlic.  Add the crushed tomatoes.  Add the whole tomatoes one at a time, squeezing them into the pan to break them up.  Add the juice from the whole tomatoes, as well.  Add chicken stock, salt, pepper and sugar.  Cook the soup on medium at a simmer for 10 minutes.

To finish, reduce the heat to low and stir in heavy cream and basil.  Serve topped with parmesan cheese

A Reason for Nine Months

Life has been filled with many adventures...both the seemingly small and significant. I have found that life has brought many "milestones" in this stage of life filled with lots of joy, fear of the unknown, laughter, tears, and excitement. It's a bit overwhelming at times, but then again, what adventure is not, right?

Our future home site!!

We will be closing on a new home in Cottage Grove in December (hopefully!!) and are looking forward to starting this next journey in a new place. I'm really hoping the home is finished before the baby comes (fingers are crossed). It's bittersweet for me. It will be hard to move out of the town home. It's really been my only other home besides the one that I grew up in. There have been so many wonderful memories here. However, I know that there will be many wonderful times in this new home and we look forward to having a bit more space to grow our family in and have all of you over for great food and conversation.

Noah and I are doing what we can to "prepare" for all that lies ahead, but it really makes me laugh out loud because...well, "preparing" seems like a bit of a joke. It's difficult to comprehend how much our lives are going to change when baby comes. I know it. I'm not naive. One can only "prepare" for the chaos that lies ahead and then once the chaos gets here, well, I have no clue what we'll do then.

A few weeks ago we found out that the baby coming in January will be a boy! To hear the words, "It's definitely a boy" was a little strange to me. A boy? Uff-da. I didn't grow up around boys. My cousin Chris was the only one of the male species that I had much interaction with as a kid (besides my dad of course). I loved playing with him, but he would do all the "icky" and "gross" things that I as a girl didn't do (at that time anyway). It's safe to say that since then I have learned how to bait my own hook, and I don't mind getting my hands dirty, but that took me a little while to learn and find the joy in that. LOL...I think God is playing a joke on me because I really don't know much about boys except for the fact that I married one. They have a tendency to be messy and they are really active. I hope that I can keep up with him.

We've also experienced baby's first kick and I have no doubt that this boy will be an great dancer (hopefully taking on more of his mother's sense of rhythm than his father's) and an awesome snowboarder!! :) I'm noticing that in the womb he's already very active. Ha! Oh dear.

As for the two of us? I'm continuing to learn what unconditional love looks like. I am humbled by the grace I receive from Noah each day. Pregnancy does not have it's most graceful moments and yet I'm seen in a light filled with love and grace. I've had to learn how to reciprocate this grace through Noah's example. Just as I am growing and learning how to adapt to this new life, I know that Noah has to also. It's not something that happens overnight, but he's trying and in those moments where I wish that he would just, "get it", I have had to learn to be understanding that there is a reason that we have 9 months of pregnancy before a baby arrives.

We now have 16 weeks left. Oh gosh!! Only 16 weeks! I feel like we have so much learning, growing, and preparing to do in those 4 months. Keep us in your prayers. Your love and support means so much to us.

Oh, and If you have any insight on marriage after babies start entering the picture, we'd love to hear it.

An Attempt at Putting a Crazy Event Into Words

We've all had those moments I'm sure. Those moments that you will remember for a lifetime. Those moments when you realize life will never ever be what it has been. Those moments when you can't believe, understand, or even get a grip on what is happening. Moments when you cry tears for the loss of how your life has been with tears of joy for all that is to come.

Our lives forever changed on April 26th, 2012, when we unexpectedly found out that we were "expecting". SURPRISE!!!!!

Words could not explain what a surprise it was. When Noah and I together looked at that pregnancy test that exclaimed in giant letters "Pregnant" a flood of shock ran through our bodies. "WHAT? No way! This can not be?!?"

And then the flood of tears filled with fear, happiness, fear, joy, more fear, and every other emotion that one could feel, flowed for what seemed hours as I sat there on the tub and Noah stood near me with the "deer caught in the headlights" look.

We had been thinking that we may begin trying to get pregnant in August. Knowing us however, that would have been pushed to months later since that was exactly what we did when we originally said we'd start trying last February. God just must have known what we would do and thought, "Enough you two...it's time for you two to 'getter done' and have a baby already!"

Now, a few months later, we are coming to terms with the adventure that lies ahead of us. What an adventure it will be!

Today marks the beginning of week fourteen and the end of the first trimester! Whahooo! The nausea has passed and I'm looking forward to having some energy again here in a few weeks. We are really looking forward to week twenty when we will find out if it's a girl or boy. Whatever our lil' peanut is, we are excited to meet them and to invite them on this adventure that Noah and I have started.

There has been another blessing among all of this. We found out we were pregnant two days after my sister Emily found out her and Dustin are pregnant! Our due dates sit two days apart; her's December 30th and mine's January 1st! How cool is that! We are so excited to be able to do this together and it's comforting to have my sister pregnant with me. Oh what fun we will have!!!

So look forward to hearing all that Noah and I will be experiencing together in this thing called pregnancy. I have no doubt there will great stuff to write and read ahead!

A Bit of Creating Together

Noah and I have become gardeners!!!

Now if you know me at all you'd find that I'm not much of a gardener. I've tried...oh, have I tried, but it seems that every time I've tried I've only come up with a bunch of shriveled up plants. They're touchy things those plants and if you are not there to give them the right amount of sunlight, water, and fertilizer at the right time, you could be doomed.

I'm going to try again though. And who knows, maybe Noah will have the green thumb in the family. If nothing else, creating our garden and planting together was a blast.

LOL.... except for the part where we were trying to constantly tell each other what to do and how to do it, as if some how we were the "gardening expert" that the other needed to listen to. Man oh man, you would have thought both of us had grown up on a farm, planting and gardening every day. We both seemed to know a lot that day about growing the perfect tomato. It must be the Scandinavian in me and the German in him. Uff...we can butt heads sometimes. :)

There was of course a little bit of snubbing over who was right. It didn't take long for us to realize that neither one of us were experts, that we needed to put our pride aside, and just hope that we end up doing our best. Wow....gardening sounds a lot like raising kids. This may be a good test for us!


So stay tuned. This summer we hope a have a plethora of tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, watermelon, lettuce, cilantro, basil, dill...I think that's all. Uff-da. I hope we didn't over-do ourselves.

We hope to have enough to share with all of you!!!

It should be an eventful summer!

A Visit From Poison Ivy

The other night, Noah was itching a spot on his wrist like crazy.
"I think I got bit by a spider!"

As he continued to itch a second spot showed up about an hour later.
"Man, there's another bite!"

Soon there was a third red spot a little further up his arm.
"Noah, I'm not sure those are spider bites. It looks like it may be poison ivy."
"No, it couldn't be." he said.

The next morning, Noah dashes into the bathroom with his boxers in a bunch.
"Is this what I think it is?" he asked me in a very worried tone.
"Yes, Noah. That is poison ivy."

It had spread overnight to a much more "delicate" area.

I stood there not knowing what to say. I'm so glad that within a few seconds he was able to laugh about it because there was no way I was going to be able to hold it back for very long. It was pretty funny.

So this weekend, we've been nursing his sores. The poor guy.
These are the humble moments we get to experience together as husband and wife.
I'm loving every minute of it!!