January 2014: Snowshoeing...or something like that....

When you can't beat it...join it!! The weather, that is.

We are taking advantage of any remotely nice day (and by nice I mean anything that is above 0 degrees) and trying our best to get out of the house, even if only for just a little bit. Last weekend, our adventure was snowshoeing...

We headed to Crow Wing State Park in Brainerd, where Michael had done some research and found out that we could rent snowshoes. So after a good snowfall, we drove into the park and quickly realized we were the ONLY ones who had this great idea for the day (the road into the park hadn't been plowed yet, and we were the only tire tracks that seemed to be on the road). Somehow, we ran into a park ranger, who opened the office and got us some snowshoes, and we at first set out with the girls in the sled and Michael and I wearing our snowshoes...

But given that we seemed to be making the path (rather than there already being one), we quickly found out that the sled was not going to work trying to get through so much snow. So we headed back to the car and decided to give the good ol' backpack carrier and baby bjorn a try...

And after just a short jaunt with Adelyn whining in the backpack and Olivya getting cold in the bjorn from lack of circulation (she was all bundled up and squeezed into the Bjorn so I'm pretty sure there was no blood flowing through her), we ditched the carriers and decided to stay close to the car and just do a little bit of walking/hiking/playing in the snow...

Which was all fun and games, until it ended like this...

A little too much snow...a toddler who was still recovering from having influenza last week...and a little too much chill in the air...we decided to head back to the van, where we put down the back seats and all 4 of us squeezed into the back of the van where we cranked up the heat, and had a picnic lunch in the back of the van. 

Oh - and then we headed home where we spent the rest of the day in our "cozies" enjoying the [semi] warmth of our house and hanging out inside, sipping coffee and hot chocolate. 

At least we tried...

January 2013: This & That...

Here's a real-life, inside scoop of what our life is REALLY like!! I mean, sure...we try to make the best out of every situation and keep positive and have fun in life, but let's get real...sometimes life just takes over and we do everything in our might to just keep on swimming. So, without further delay, here's a glimpse of what January at the Carmack household was REALLY like...

First of all, Olivya didn't sleep for a month. That's 4 weeks people! Not a single night. Since the first week in December (we were in Texas when it started), Olivya has woken up every FREAKIN hour and cries until I pick her up, or give her a bottle, or give her a pacifier, or swaddle her in a blanket. But of course, I never knew which one she wanted, and she would never settle for the one she didn't want, so sometimes it took a half hour to get her back to sleep, only to be woken up an hour later again. It was a horrible 4 weeks and I have thanked God 10 times/day for the past 4 days because she has started sleeping through the night again!! Halleluijah!!

Did I mention it was awful? Like worse than when she was a newborn. She was a mess. I was a mess. (And of course Michael and Adelyn slept through it all except when I would get so fed up and kick Michael to get out of bed because I just couldn't bring myself to get up one more time. And he was more than willing to get up with her (don't get me wrong)...but he has the natural ability to sleep through her screaming, so I got the joy of waking up to it every time.

Not good people...not good. Yep, it sucked.

And not that I would have had the energy anyway, but it's been ungodly cold here for the past few weeks! Just make sure to read the "Feels like" temperature below the actual temperature. It's brutal, which (in my opinion) makes me twice as crabby at the world.

The only saving grace during our cold weeks was my cousin Sarah (well, technically my cousin's daughter...but we don't get technical in this family) came and spent an entire week with us and hung out and even watched the girls every day when Michael and I had to work. The girls LOVED having their cousin Sarah here!! We loved it too...we even got some good games of cards in after the girls went down at night...(Thanks Sarah for hanging out with us all week!)

But don't let that make you forget how cold it's been here...

We also experienced our first "winter" electric bill that included all of our electric heat to heat our house in this insanely cold weather. Let's just say, Michael and I both had a slight heart attack when we opened that bill. Almost immediately, Michael went around to all the thermostats that control our electric heat and turned them all down to 55. Yep, 55 degrees. (Since then I've convinced him to turn them up to 60 so that we at least don't see our breath in our house). So, to stay warm, we resorted to building forts and sitting in them all night. You think I'm kidding, but all 4 of us literally sat in this fort for a majority of the night for at least 4 days last week. It was that cold. 

Everyone always asks us how we are liking small town living, and the truth is that we really like it. We just wish that the small town could be closer to a bigger city (the twin cities would be ideal!), but I guess that would be counter productive. So we've decided to embrace it just the way it comes. And that includes looking forward to our weekly trip to Brainerd on Fridays (our day off) to run errands, go to Costco, and grocery shop (and get Caribou Coffee!! My favorite part!). I can't decide if it is sad or cute that Adelyn is so excited every time we pull into Costco and Target (She literally squeals with delight as she says the store's name over and over again). 

And of course, we make it back to the twin cities a fair amount too! Last weekend we headed back as I got to throw my friend Maggie a baby shower with my friend SueLynn and another friend of Maggie's. We chose the theme "You are my Sunshine", as we needed a gender neutral theme (they aren't finding out the sex of the baby) and so of course, we had to have all yellow food. It was a great day celebrating Maggie and Baby Waterman. I can't wait to meet this little one in just a few short weeks:) 

And so there you have it, oh faithful blog readers. There's some of the in's and out's...the joys and challenges...the crazies and normals...that we call our life. Oh - and we love it all....most of the time. 

September 2013: Making Spaghetti Sauce...

One of the great things of living in small town USA is that a LOT of people garden and share fresh vegetables and bring over jars of homemade applesauce and pickles just to say hello (yes, we have gotten all of these things!). Well, the other week, a lady from my church brought us a whole box of yellow tomatoes and a head of cabbage! We ended up tossing the cabbage because we couldn't eat it before it went bad, but I knew I had to do something with the tomatoes!! There's so many possibilities of things to make with fresh tomatoes.

So, I decided to jump right in to small town living (not sure what it has to do with actually living in a small town, but I just feel like it seems right that we make all our own food from fresh ingredients!) and I had my first attempt at making my very own spaghetti sauce!

My little helper helped me gather the tomatoes and wash all the dirt off of them..

And I cut them and started to cook them (mashing them as they cooked)...lookin' good!!

My little helper of course had to taste test every once in awhile...

And I was so excited that the spaghetti sauce tasted pretty good!!!! To thicken it up a bit, I decided to put a little bit of corn starch into the tomato mixture, and I admit, it got a little thick, but the taste was still good...

Here's the true test...

But what I didn't know about corn starch is that it just keeps getting thicker and thicker as it sits and simmers!! So by the time I got my spaghetti and was ready to eat it, the sauce was so thick and jelly-like that it was NASTY!!!! I definitely learned my lesson about corn starch (get rid of that stuff!) and I consider my first attempt at making homemade spaghetti sauce a big. fat. fail. It was so bad that I couldn't even finish my dinner, and after tossing it in the garbage, I ended up with a peanut butter sandwich instead.

Ugh. All that work for nothing:). Maybe it will take me a little bit longer than I had hoped to get this small town living thing down...