Dancing to Great DJ

Here's the cutest little video of Elisa.... This took place a few nights ago while we were getting her ready for bed. She loves the song that's playing in the background and we have had a few family dance parties to this little number. Elisa has some pretty good dance moves, as you can see. The video is made even funnier by the fact that all Elisa is wearing is her huge double night-time diaper with a wool cover over the top. Enjoy!

Creative people I know

So I have a lot of creative friends who make beautiful things... and I've been wanting to feature them in a post. Now with Etsy it's so easy to display and sell handmade things. I love browsing on Etsy and seeing what people are making. So here are a few of my friends' Etsy sites to check out:

My very talented sister-in-law is an expert knitter. She makes beautiful felted wool bags that get tons of compliments. She also knits hats, scarves etc. Check her out at knit on a bike.

I have two friends that make beautiful jewelry. My mom got me a pair of earrings from Jessica's shop for Christmas and I absolutely love them. Check her out at jlalalalala. Jeana's jewelry often has an organic feel - nature inspired designs. I love how delicate her designs look. Check out her site at ruby willow.

My friend Kristal makes really cool signs. She can even personalize one for you. Check them out at grateful tulip.

I know there are probably people I'm forgetting... so if you are a friend of mine who makes things to sell and you have a site I can refer people to, let me know and I'll add you in!

Thanks to a comment from Lori, here's another site to check out: Molly J Walter. She makes all sorts of things from "plarn" (plastic bags - reused as yarn). Really cool!

It'll cure what ales you...

A few years ago when I worked at Master's Touch Chiropractic one of my coworkers gave me this awesome home remedy. Of course nothing can really "cure" a virus, but this concoction works wonders to boost the immune system. I've made it numerous times since she told me about it. Now, it's probably not a smoothie you'll want to make and drink just on a regular basis... it doesn't taste bad (in fact I think it's pretty good)... but we don't make it primarily for the taste. It's all about the antioxidants and vitamin C. And it tastes a lot better than Emergen-C or Airborne.

So here's the recipe for Lecreta's Amazing Cure-All:

1 lemon

2 cups frozen blueberries

1 Tbsp. honey (opt.)

water

First, peel your lemon, leaving as much of the white pith on as possible. (I usually peel the lemon with a vegetable peeler - as this removes all the yellow, but leaves lots of the good white stuff). Then cut your lemon into quarters and remove the seeds. If you don't get all the seeds it's okay - they'll get ground up in the blender anyway. Put the lemon pieces and frozen blueberries into the blender. Mix the honey with about a 1/2 cup of warm water and dump this into the blender. Blend it up (blend really well - it takes a while to chop up all that lemon) and enjoy! You can add more water if you need to. In fact, you can add more or less of any ingredient depending on your taste.

I made this tonight and gave some to Elisa. She LOVED it! She sucked it all up through her straw and then when that didn't work any more, she dug in with her spoon to get the rest out. Then she dug in with her fingers and tipped the glass back to her mouth just to make sure she had gotten it all. Here's the aftermath:

Moms sometimes need sick days too!

Well, once again Greg is gone on a retreat... just one night. So Leesi and I are home alone. This time we're both sick - yech!

I didn't used to get sick very often. I guess it's just part of the joy that comes with parenting a toddler. Leesi seems to pick up everything and then she passes it on to me.

Last night I felt feverish and kept getting chills... I slept a fair amount yesterday afternoon and evening. But so far today I have felt a lot better. I am very thankful for that. I didn't know how I was going to manage a cranky Elisa by myself while sick. One of the symptoms of this particular virus seems to be mouth pain. My gums feel totally swollen and brushing my teeth causes a fair amount of pain.

Elisa has been sick for about a week now... though we didn't know what was wrong for most of that time, because she is also teething. Her gums seemed extra red lately and the drool spots on her sheets were tinged a faint pink... like she had been bleeding. I blamed this on the teething though. Then on Friday she received a knee to the teeth that has since resulted in repeat bleeding episodes. Now most mornings she wakes up with a few dark red spots on her sheets and jammies. I was pretty worried about this at first and thought that we might need to go to the dentist. But the bleeding episodes seem to be getting fewer and less severe, so I'm pretty sure that the teeth were just knocked loose a little and will tighten back up soon. Anyway, I feel so bad for Elisa - to have this sickness that causes mouth pain, on top of teething and a tooth injury seems terrible.

All in all I think we will somehow pull through! :-)

Thanks for listening to my complaints. Hopefully some new posts will bring happier and more interesting news soon!

Oh to be productive...

Greg was gone last night... He's still gone actually. He's on his Residence Life Retreat. He should get home sometime this evening. I had all kinds of big plans for all of the stuff I was going to get done while he was gone. But very little of my list has actually been accomplished. Instead I watched most of the last season of HGTV's Design Star on my computer. Ah, procrastination. I really wish I had more motivation. Well, maybe I need to get up off the couch and just start doing something instead of waiting for motivation. Here I go...