Always on my mind

Everything here at the Haines household is going well. Life continues to be extremely busy for Victory but he is good about taking breaks from grading to hold little girl, help out and spend a little time with me. (I just want to know who came up with the genious idea of retesting. Victory spends so much time grading retests its ridiculous! What happened to the pressure of a test and having to study for it? Now, they can just take a test and if they don't do well they can just take it again and again! And people are complaining that kids aren't ready for college? I wonder why!)

As for me, life is great!! I don't mind working and being mom. Honestly, It's probably easier than being a stay at home mom. I'm trying to find the right words to explain why its easier. Its less demanding. I still have all the housework to do but I don't have to constantly try to keep up with the little one AND try to do everything else. I do miss her though and get sadden with I think that others know her better than I do. I only get to spend four hours at most with her a day. We'll see what the future holds. (AND THANKS TO MY MOM AND BECKY FOR BEING AWESOME BABYSITTERS!!)

Anyway, now the reason that compelled me to write is because Friday night's meal is still on my mind. IT WAS AMAZING! (I know another food post...I guess I'm just hungry?)  I kept mentioning to Victory how wonderful it was long, long after it had been digested.  OLIVE GARDEN!! I think it just became my FAVORITE restaurant (sorry Lazlos). Ever since the Chicken Alfredo when I was three months pregnant, Olive Garden began to find favor with me. Then I fell in love with their salad. I could totally eat an ENTIRE bowl of salad there! It's addicting. My next favorite find...TUSCAN POTATOES...yum! (I stole them off of Victory's plate).  Then a Friday work lunch, GRILLED CHICKEN SPIEDINI served with Tuscan potatoes! And then Friday night's meal, the meal of all meals, FOUR CHEESE STUFFED PANSOTTI with CHICKEN!! SOOOOO GOOOD!!! LOVED IT! The chicken was fabulous! I don't even want to know the fat content!!

Have a great day!!

-your hungry friend

Making Mouths Happy

My sister has been posting about her daily loves. So I thought I share one of my loves:

Kraft Light Rasberry Vinigaret Dressing.....mmm yum! Everytime I eat it my mouth explodes with flavor. It's like a party in your mouth! It's soo exciting! The first part of my pregnancy I had a strong aversion to fruits and vegetables and I just barely started eating my strawberry salad with this dressing again. My mouth finally remembered what it had been missing out on.

I eat this dressing with a green leaf salad with strawberries, kiwi, and sunflower seeds (I think most recipes suggest walnuts).  My mom includes mandarin oranges but I do NOT love mandarin oranges. gross.

TRY IT! Your mouth will LOVE you!

Taxes Taxes Taxes!

I've been playing around with our taxes and trying to figure out the best way to file (jointly or seperately) to get the largest refund. I started off using the Free edition of TurboTax and it seemed like I was always getting different numbers. Then I tried H&R Block's free edition, it's a lot more simple and somehow calculated a larger refund than any of my several attempts I had with Turbo Tax. So for those who haven't done their taxes yet, I'd recommend H&R Block. However, they do charge $30 to file your State taxes.

Just Call Me Suzy Homemaker

Well, this post, my friends, is a post to boast.  I felt like I started off my maternity leave quite void of any crafty skills.  Partly because I really do lack them and partly because I had been so out of practice with my creative and fine motor skills. I felt like such an klutz around the ladies in my ward. Seriously, they were making hair bows for little girls and I completely struggled, I felt like a fumbling idiot. Well, I still can't make hair bows.  For whatever reason that seems to be beyond me. I'll just leave that craft to the ladies of my ward and my sister is who is a master of that skill (BTW, Stacey, I LOVE the bows you made me. I now realize that there is more to them that I originally thought.)

But I have a few things to show for my maternity leave and my developing creative and crafty side.

I have taken up making little girl bracelets. (I haven't ventured into the world of making grown-up jewelery. So far, it doesn't sound as fun but I don't know how many bracelets a little girl needs.)

I made myself a new scarf. It's been nice to have since it's been such a freezing winter.

This year our family exchanged Christmas ornaments for Christmas. So I made 12+ little snowman ornaments. (I have no idea what I was thinking. When shipping to twelve different people don't send glass balls. Next time, I'm totally doing something that will fit into an envelope.) :)

By the way, I LOVED exchanging ornaments. Now I have an ornament from each of my siblings that I can put on my tree every year and think of them.  I'm not sure if I should have a favorite but my favorite ornament, was the most unexpected, a handmade ornament by my brother Jimmy. It made my heart smile. :) (Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it on my husband's silly mac.)

The other night I was looking at my Christmas decorations and lamenting the fact that they must soon come down. I hate it when they come down. Everything looks so drab. I was looking at my "NOEL" blocks and realized that I could turn them around and decorate them for the next upcoming holiday and spell "LOVE". So today, I took a trip to Hobby Lobby and spent way too much buying way too many things but this is my end result:

I still have a few more projects that I want to accomplish before my maternity ends in only 14 days. :( We'll see what we can do.

WE MADE IT!!

I just wanted to say thank you to all the advice and comments that were made in regards to my traveling concerns. Rebekah did sooo good during the flight. She slept pretty much the whole time and didn't even cry. We did end up taking our car seat with us because logistically we couldn't make it work without. We checked at the gate. We did get a few scratches on it but it was still intact. I'm thinking maybe I'll bubble wrap it for the trip home. :)
We also had a wonderful friend who conveniently had the same flight as us and helped us carry our bags and little girl through the airport. It made it soooo much easier!! THANKS MARIA!!!

Now we only hope that things go as well when we go home!

If we don't get to blog again before Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! 

White Dresses

Sunday our little girl was blessed. I think I've always overlooked this ordinance but as I arrived at church and sat down I found myself emotional. It really was a special day to have her surrounded by family and friends and be given a name and a blessing. As I dressed her that morning in her white dress, I thought to myself, " I hope this is the first a few special white dresses she'll be wearing." This is just the beginning of her life and it was nice to have a blessing that was given to bless her as she embarks in this scary, exciting, and joy-filled journey known as life.

need your experience

Okay, on a completely unrelated note, we'll be traveling (flying) during Christmas break visiting family, do any of you seasoned parents have any advice, tips that you've learned from experience? Things to bring/not to bring, etc. I realize that people have learned a lot by experience and instead of me learning everything the hard way, I'm hoping to gain some wisdom from you.

We love you all!!

Hypothetical

Hello Friends!! I've got a question for you but first here's a quick update on life with a baby.

So we've made it almost two full weeks...at home!! YAY!! We are learning to get into the swing of things. Some days I'm a bit tired and frustrated because I can't get things that I want to get done done. But other than that not too bad. The diapers aren't as bad as I thought they would be. (For those of you who don't know, I don't do diapers. I used to pay my sister a dollar a diaper when she came with me to babysit my brother's kids. That's saying something when you only got paid $3.00 for the entire evening. cheep labor. )

Okay, so we've been getting our insurance explanation of benefits for our hospital bills...which first, I must say thank heavens for insurance, but I noticed that before insurance an epidural cost nearly a thousand dollars! I started wondering to myself, because I can be too practical sometimes, if I didn't have insurance would I pay $1,000 for an epidural. Then I started to be curious what others would do in this hypothetical situation, would you pay $1,000 for an epidural?

I think that I probably would. Even if I had convinced myself to try without, I would inevitably give in and get one...I'm afraid I can't tolerate pain.

Hope you are all doing well!!