Parenting

Almond Poppy seed Pancakes

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While were at Costco this weekend, Victoria wanted me to buy some poppy seed muffins. I had a great idea to find our own recipe and make them at home. I always prefer to make it myself (if it isn’t too many steps), plus it also allows me to know exactly what I am putting into my and my families bodies. So… being the smart person that I am, I found a recipe on Pinterest, then rather than making the pancakes from scratch, I started with a pancake mix I already had, then added the additional ingredients to it. But… I didn’t bother to read the recipe for the pancakes because I thought I had it memorized… however, I quickly found out that adding 2 cups of water to one cup of pancake mix didn’t make the right consistency… so I read the instructions at that point… they really called for 3/4 cup of water for 1 cup of pancake mix… so I had to add a lot more pancake mix…

 

So we had plenty of batter for our Air Fryer muffins… regular pancakes… and a poppy seed cake. Needless to say… I’ll be reading the instructions in the future. They were pretty good though. I love adding Almond Extract to recipes now when they call for Vanilla Extract because I found the BEST sugar cookie recipe and it has Almond Extract, I think that’s the ingredient that makes them taste amazing!

Backups…

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This is not how I planned to spend my Sunday… I have plenty to keep me busy, but this is what I am up to right now.

But… In the spirit of saving money and knowing that our Carbonite subscription would be coming up soon, and realizing that their prices have gone up, while their coverage has gone down, I decided to see what else might be out there.

When we originally purchased Carbonite as our “cloud” backup years ago, the price wasn’t too bad, and though you could only backup one computer at a time, you could backup your phone(s), and that’s super important to me since we are on the go so much, and if we happened to lose or break our phone, we have tons and tons of pictures and videos of the family that we wouldn’t want to lose.

So while searching online I found another website (Idrive Online), with a better price, especially with the huge discount they give you on your first year, but even their annual price is going to be less than Carbonite, AND the awesome thing is you can backup as many computers and phones as you want. You are paying for the amount of storage, not just for a single machine that might only have a little bit to backup. (We ended up cancelling our iDrive online subscription because we found a ton of negative reviews. I’m not really sure how it rated so high on a seemingly reliable website.)

So… I decided we should switch, and went through the process of downloading our data off of Carbonite, so we could easily save it to the new website. It took days…. I mean like 4 or 5 days to download all the data. And now that I think about it, that’s probably why we got a notice from Xfinity saying that we had used 90% of our data for the month. Who knew that we had a data limit on our home internet… certainly not us. I mean, we know that we have a limit on our cell phones because we hit that 90% almost every month. The current cycle we managed to hit 75% usage within the first week…. thanks to our children who like to look at pictures on our phones and somehow magically manage to turn off our WiFi, so while we went about life as normal, we had no idea we were using data (my hubby listens to news radio every morning while he gets ready for work… and now he was doing it using our cell phone data plan). We made it through the cycle, since we got the notice like a day before our month was over, now we are still trying to make it through the last week on our cell phone plan and not go over.

So I decided to move the data from Carbonite onto my new laptop since it was packaged all pretty for me, and attempt to try to organize it, but didn’t get too far into the organization when I realized folders were completely empty. Like the ones from our honeymoon… and some other big trips we took so… I’m not really sure what Carbonite was doing, but I’m hoping the actual files still exist on our old laptop so that we haven’t lost them completely. And there were no files from any of my old cell phones.

So once I got the data downloaded, I installed the Idrive Online app onto my phone to start backing up my phone since I now realized Carbonite didn’t have anything backed up from my phone. I still wanted to organize the data on my laptop and try to delete duplicates between both laptops so I didn’t go over my data limit on my new backup program, but… I don’t have time for that just yet, so first priority would be my phone.

I started the backup yesterday morning before we were getting ready to head out to my grandmother’s memorial service, and all was going well. Then I realized it was draining my battery and fast. It backed up my contacts, and was working on backing up the 18k pictures I had saved to my SD card. I love my SD card, or so I thought I did, and as often as I can remember, I try to move my pictures from my phone onto my SD card, and more often, I do it when my phone is low on storage and it won’t let me install a new app or update an existing one. So, it had gotten to about 8k of the pictures and I saw that my phone had less than 40% battery remaining and we had to leave to the memorial service, so I cancelled the backup and cancelled the video backup. I was going to wait until I was back home, plugged in, and hooked back up to WiFi before I let it continue. We jumped in the superhero mobile and headed out to the service. My hubby was asking for directions but my phone was being as slow as molasses and draining even further. I had brought the cord so I plugged it in and tried to pull up Google Maps to get directions but it was taking FOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEEEVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR to open, then when it finally did open, the keyboard wouldn’t open up. My hubby ended up using his phone to map it to the church, and before we got there I went to the handy section of my phone where I could change the performance and put it on the lowest performance. It actually worked too… the whole time we were at the service, I didn’t even pull my phone out of my purse, and hours later it had only used like 2% of the battery. I did get a text, and it wouldn’t let me response since I was on like major lockdown, but I was glad my phone was still alive. We came home, changed, then went back out again to have dinner with our family who had come to town for my grandma’s memorial service. Then we went to my parents house for the “after party” and my oldest daughter was taking pictures and videos, so I had no idea anything was wrong with my phone.

Until…

I decided to update her PurpleStride page to add a picture of her and my mother in love since we are planning to do the annual 5k we do in her honor to raise awareness and money for pancreatic cancer research. When I went to look for the Victoria folder in my gallery, it was nowhere to be found. So I opened the gallery directly instead of going from the website I was on, and sure enough, all my pictures and folders were gone. My heart dropped… I knew I had 18k pictures yesterday and today I had less than 100.

I tried going to the storage area of my phone and it said my SD card was corrupted. 🙁

I hooked my phone up to my computer because I read online that you may be able to save some of the data from your SD card if you hook it up to a computer, rather than just letting the phone format the card to start over. So before church I was able to move some of the folders, and after church I’ve sat here for hours moving more and more folders over. Thankfully, I still have a lot of my pictures. I don’t know what exactly I lost, but it seems like my video folders were completely empty (Snapchat, MSQRD) as well as a couple other folders I decided to move last since I knew they had a ton in them. I’m not sure if the things that are missing were actually already backed up to Idrive, but I did decide that if a picture was really important and special, I probably posted it to Facebook, so… there was comfort in knowing that much.

So, moral of the story. If you don’t backup your phone already, it’s probably a good idea to do so. And if you are going to do so… plan to do it when you have plenty of time to be home, maybe even overnight while you are sleeping so that you don’t run into the problem I did.

I’m still trying to organize the pictures on my computer before I even log into see what was already backed up. I feel like throwing everything into a single folder so I can see what is actually a duplicate so I don’t end up with the same picture multiple times, but… I haven’t actually decided how I’m going to tackle this. I may also be trying to minimalize in the process…. I had throwing things away, but if the picture is really just blurry, there is really just no point in keeping it, right?

I hope your Sunday is a lot more productive than mine.

One great thing about us forgetting our leftovers at my parent’s house last night was that we stopped by today after church to pick them up. And on the way, Victoria said she wanted spaghetti, and I had no meat thawed out, but I was going to have to figure something out. We got to my mom’s and she had leftover spaghetti from the other night when we didn’t make it over for dinner so…. Victoria got her spaghetti, I didn’t have to do any extra work, and it gave me more time to work on my phone.

Back to organizing now… wish me luck!

And as an update, since we used 50% of our Xfinity data for August as well, because it was backing up to Idrive before we figured out Idrive isn’t actually a good backup service (and probably why my phone lost my picture since their app crashed on my phone). So… I think we are going back our old faithful external storage, unless something amazing pops up for a decent price that actually works.

Saving money 💵

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We are all about saving money…

Especially when we can just do something simple like link up our credit cards, or take a picture of our receipt or just open an app to get to a website we were already planning to go to and we get money back by clicking the link through the app.

This week we found this new website where we can get money for saving energy!

Tonight is our first time “powering down” for an hour, and since it’s pretty warm inside without any electricity, we came outside to play.

I think this is going to be fun!
https://ohm.co/ryanedwardjennings

We played Red Light, Green Light in the trampoline, it was a short game…

Then we played Simon Says. Victoria was pretty good and only did a couple if the things I said without saying Simon Says, but poor Bobby… he did every thing I said… even when I didn’t say Simon Says… Oops! He just learned the game today, so I’m sure he’ll catch on soon.

Alexandria had fun unloading dirt from the sand bucket and getting nice and dirty… especially since today was bath day.

I accidentally turned on the light when I went to the restroom (we don’t have windows in the bathroom downstairs) and Victoria did the same a few minutes later, until I came in and turned on the flashlight on my phone so she could still see. She questioned why it was ok for me to use my phone when we were trying to save power, so I shared that my phone was powered by a battery.

Now that we can use power again, we are enjoying some Sophia the First with the lights turned off… let’s see if we can get our power bill back down. It went up pretty steeply between our last two bills.

Also, I don’t even know if we’ll get paid for tonight, but it was good exercise anyway. I think we have to wait for our power bill to approve our submission, but we got our Nest Thermostats connected and I think we have some points or tokens in our account. If you don’t have Nest… I highly recommend both their thermostats as well as their cameras! Our home isn’t completely “smart” but it’s partially smart. 🙂

The big move…

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It all began on our way home from Thanksgiving. We were almost to our house in Camarillo when Victoria was asking why grandma and papa lived so far away. I told her it wasn’t them that lived far away, it was us that lived far away from the rest of the family. Ryan was trying to explain that we “can’t afford” to move from Camarillo, as in, that’s where his job had been established and where we had our house and our condo. But, we had no family in the area and being a math minded person I heard “can’t afford” as we literally can’t afford to live anywhere else. And in my mind, the cost is living in Camarillo is almost twice as much as living where my family all lived. So… It was an emotional night when we got home.

But, Ryan was finally at least somewhat open to the idea of moving closer to my family, because he knew how important family was to me, and saw me go through three pregnancies with family being hours away, and mom having to drive three hours for each unexpected early deliver. So… I started looking at real estate closer to Visalia, but not necessarily in town, until we finally decided we would just move into town with everyone else. He was thinking we would move before the school year started, and I was just excited that we may get to be closer to family, even if it was 6 or more months out.

Well, God had different plans. Ryan happened to start looking online for jobs in Visalia and found two that were the same position he had in Camarillo. He reached out to a friend that was working at the local branch of one the banks, and he got him in touch with the Visalia branch. It all happened so quickly from them seeing his resume, to a phone interview, to another phone interview, to an in person interview, to a job offer.

And also in that same amount of time, we decided to list our house, so we were packing like mad people to get it show ready, having open houses left and right, and looking at houses online in Visalia. We came out one weekend to look at several houses in person. The night we were driving here, God answered a prayer I had prayed earlier in the week. I had asked Him to please send us our house on Friday, and Friday evening a new listing came up! My awesome friend, who is also our real estate agent, got us a showing the next day and we saw the house that would become our home. It was the last house of the day, and it was two story, and we really wanted a single story, but when I saw the back yard, I was sold. Then I saw the loft upstairs and knew it would be a perfect playroom. So, we put it an offer, and were praying that our buyers would accept our counter offer to their counter offer. They did. It was definitely an adventure getting our house closed there and here simultaneously, but thanks to both of our amazing agents (and friends), and the big man upstairs, it all happened in the right amount of time. We literally got the keys on Friday and Ryan started his job on Monday… after 3 trips in a 26 foot Uhaul truck (plus a blown tire, a broken engine, and 2 vomits ? all in the same day but across 3 vehicles).

So we are here in our new home, Ryan is enjoying his new job, I’m still working for the same company that originally was the reason I moved down south for, and the kids are loving having a playground of their own.

And, of course, we love love love seeing family all the time! ❤️

Alarm clocks, a cold, and a nursing child… 

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My alarm on my Fitbit is set for 7:30 am. Rare is the day that it actually wakes me up because I’m usually awake well before that.

Today, it did wake me up! I do have a cold after all, and my 11 month old, yes, she’s 11 months today, where has the time gone??? She’s been taking a few more steps the last couple days too! Back to my 11 month old… She’s still waking up to nurse two to three times a night. She refuses a pacifier if I try to give it to her, but will gladly take it from our nanny during nap times… ? I refuse to let my kids cry it out, that may be your thing and glad it worked for you, but this mama can’t/won’t it. Don’t get me wrong, we actually tried it for a couple days with Victoria, we were tired, really I was exhausted, Ryan just gets tired since he is the son of the energizer bunny (his mom) after all. But in the end I couldn’t let her cry at such a young age. She fake cries now to try to get her way, I tell her she can cry, she just has to go to her room to do it.

We still let our kids sleep in our bed if they want to. Ryan does transport them to their room after they fall asleep, but if they come back again, they usually just stay until morning. Another topic that many parents refuse to even consider, but it works for our family. We have super affectionate kids, and they probably won’t want mommy and daddy to walk them to class every day when they get older, but we’ll take what we can get as long as we can get it.

And yes, Bobby is almost 3 and still loves his pacifier. We let him sleep with it, but during the day we do make him put it away even though he isn’t happy about it. Victoria gave hers up at 2.5, and didn’t start speaking clearly until after that because she would try to talk with it in her mouth. Bobby is a little hard to understand with his pacifier in his mouth, but that little boy has been speaking in full clear sentences since he was 1.5. I’ll keep asking if he’s done with his pacifier and one day his answer will be yes and we’ll pack one away in his keepsake box like we did for Victoria.

Anyway, even with a cold, a nursing baby, and kids in my bed, I have such great sleep that when my alarm goes off before I’m awake, it’s easy to wake up, turn it off without snoozing and start my day feeling refreshed and ready to go!

Baby’s first accident with blood… 

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It happened with our oldest, Victoria. She was a few months old and had on a zip up sweatshirt and I was trying to get her undressed after we got home. The zipper was a little stuck. I don’t know if it was caught on a piece of her shirt underneath, but I finally got the zipper tugged down, but not without getting some skin when the zipper came down. She had a line of blood on her chest and she was bawling.

Then… I was bawling. Like most of the night too… I would wake up and cry some more. I felt like such a failure as a mom. I’m the one that carried this baby for 8 months (she was born 4 weeks premature due to HELLP Syndrome) and I was supposed to take care of her and make her feel better when she was sad. And instead, I made her cry… and bleed! It took my hubby reminding me every time he saw me crying that it was an accident, I didn’t do it on purpose and that I was still a good mommy. And he prayed for me… and I finally got over it.

Did I forget? No way! I think she had bled before from getting shots, getting a little more than just a nail clipped during finger nail clipping times (this is why I do not clip my kids’ nails… I get too nervous about those fast fingers), but it wasn’t on my watch.

Bobby came along and his first bloody incident was when he fell forward and hit his eyebrow on a wooden toy with rounded edges. He just happened to face plant into it just the right way to cause a split right above his eyebrow. Our nanny brought him to me and he had blood streaming down his face. Surprisingly I didn’t cry. I sprang into action. Patted his head with a wet washcloth. Saw the gap, took a picture. Called my hubby, called the doctor’s office, did a Facebook sale. We eventually we took him to the ER. He was fixed up by a plastic surgeon. I definitely stood back in the ER room. It was small, we had the double stroller, and I was trying to keep Victoria out of the way, so Ryan was next to him while he got medicated and stitched up. I felt really bad for my baby boy, but I don’t think I cried. Maybe I knew he was a tough boy and he could handle it. Not like the girls couldn’t, they are also very tough, it’s just that they are my baby girls and I, myself, am a sissy… literally. My nickname is Sisi.

Well… last week, that’s when I started writing this post, it just takes a bit longer to complete things now that we have kids… and three of them… Alexandria had her first bloody accident. We now know that the hinge on the new refrigerator is only slightly higher than the freezer drawer and there is not nearly as much space as there appears to be (objects in mirror…). She is now standing everywhere and always wants to be where the action is. I was back in the bedroom and I heard her crying in the kitchen, not just mad crying because someone took her toy, but hurt crying. She managed to put her hand just in the right spot so when the refrigerator door closed it took a layer… Or two… Of skin with it. I cried all over again. Ryan had to comfort me again. I wasn’t even involved this time, but still, my baby girl was in pain. I thought it was super deep, but it wasn’t. I put her on the boob and she was done crying. I love how comforted she is by nursing. We cleaned her cut, put on a Band-Aid, and then a sock on top because she had it in her mouth the instant after we put the bandage on. The sock came off overnight. I couldn’t find the Band-aid, so I thought maybe she swallowed it, but she was still breathing, so I kept sleeping. I did wake up several times that night, but not to cry, just to keep feeding her when she would wake me up.

She’s healing up really quickly. I’m very impressed with how tough she is. She just keeps on going.

This is our last baby that I will carry in my body, unless the Lord has other plans, but it makes me appreciate all these baby moments. Even the ones that make me cry. I think it also strengthens me because I know what she’s already been through and how strong she really is.

Our NICU Baby

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If you have kids, and they’ve spent any time in the NICU you know that it is difficult to see your baby in there where you can’t help them, and have to trust that the hospital staff is taking the best care of them as they can.

Victoria went straight to the NICU after she was delivered at 36 weeks via emergency c-section due to HELLP Syndrome. After 12 hours, I was able to get into a wheelchair to be rolled down the hall to the NICU to meet my baby girl. I was in major pain just getting out of bed. They said I’d have to stand and wash my hands for 2 minutes before I could hold her, so I decided I’d be ok just looking at her because I wasn’t about to try to move any more than I had to. They rolled me in and I used sanitizer, even to be in there. They rolled me to her incubator and she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I just looked at her in awe of this little baby that was both me and my hubby rolled into one. She had the cutest little beanie on too! I started to get really warm… and I started gagging. The magensium sulfate is not a medication that makes you feel great, it actually makes you feel quite the opposite, but it’s goal is to help keep you alive. So gagging right after a c-section is the opposite of fun. I started panicking and did not want to throw up in the NICU so I had the nurse roll me out.

I went back to my room and waited until the next morning to go back to see her. I woke up bright and early and was ready to get up to wash my hands and hold my baby. We went as soon as they would let us in after the nurse shift change and I got to hold my baby girl for the first time. My hubby wouldn’t let anyone hold her except the nurses. He wanted to make sure that I was the first to hold our baby girl, and I am so thankful that he thought of that. I know other moms who didn’t get to be the first in their family to hold their babies and it is a big deal. We took pictures, I handed her off to Daddy and we took more pictures. I got to try to nurse her, which she didn’t really take to. I would pump in my room every 3 hours after I tried nursing, Ryan would take the milk down to the NICU, then come back and wash the flanges and bottles while I tried to nap and recover. He would feed her formula after I would nurse so that she would know that breast milk comes from mommy and formula comes from Daddy so as to not confuse her so early.

We did this schedule over the next 4 days. They released me on day 4, but weren’t going to release her until day 5. So… we did what any sensible first time parents would do and got a hotel room close by so we wouldn’t have to go home without our baby. We still got up every 3 hours and drove to the hospital to do our feeds. The next day we took a trip to Target to get everything we still needed, then went back to see if they were going to let her come home. They liked to wait until the babies were 5 pounds, but she had passed her car seat test and was doing great. So… we got to bring our 4 lb 11 oz baby girl home with us!

Daddy, who used to be a crazy driver, suddenly turned into a super cautious driver overnight. He had already started being a better driving with having a pregnant mama in the car, but now that he had this little baby girl to take care of, he was all about safety!