Anyone goin'?

It's hard to believe that next weekend is the truewoman08 conference already!

The truewoman08 conference is a Bible-based conference being held in the Chicago area next weekend with speakers such as Nancy Leigh DeMoss and John Piper. John Piper is my all time favorite Christian speaker so I'm pumped! Nevermind the fact that I'll be escaping the demands of caring for two children for 3 entire days. I can not even comprehend the enormity of that fact right now but I am eager to sleep late and use the bathroom by alone. :)

I'm going with some gals from my church. Anyone else attending? According to the website, 6,000 women have registered and are attending. Let me know in the comment area and hopefully we can meet up and have a bloggy good time!

Some new photos

How do I have a 9 month old baby already?!? Time is flying and Clive is growing. And he's causing trouble.

Why didn't any of you warn me about the activity level of boys? :)

And no one informed me of how completely a baby boy can steal his mama's heart either.

Enjoy these new kiddie photos and a happy Friday to you all!

Happy 34th Birthday, Matt!

Today we celebrate 34 years of life for my dear husband, Matthew Clive Horn.

Thankfully, Matt is home on Tuesdays and Thursdays due to his teaching schedule so we can spend the entire day together! Yay!

We'll start out the day with Matt's favorite breakfast - a stale apple fritter donut. Then we'll go for a hike later this morning since the weather is supposed to be glorious. And for supper I splurged and bought a t-bone steak. We'll dine on that plus sweet potato fries, pan fried spinach (another of Matt's faves), and homemade bread.

Matt is the most committed loving guy ever. I'm inexpressibly thankful to be married to such a gem. He's a dedicated daddy too and it's been so sweet to see his relationship with Chloe and Clive grow.

Happy birthday, dear Matt!

Bathtub baptism

Chloe has a definite silly streak in her. She cracks up at knock-knock jokes (even if she doesn't get them) and whenever we laugh at something she says or does she proceeds to do it over and over and OVER again.

A few nights ago I was giving her a bath and feeding Clive simultaneously. She's old enough to safely sit and play in the bath for awhile so I try to get other things done while she's soaking. Because my hands were tied up feeding Clive I tried to get Chloe to wet her hair to save me a step in the bathing process. I cajoled her saying, "Can you wear the washcloth as a hat?" and "Do you know how to dump water on your head?". It worked and to my surprise (she's usually pretty wimpy about water on her head) instead of using her cups to dump the water she filled up her bath bucket and doused herself!

Here's the funny part, she looks up at me all wet and dripping and says, "Look mommy, I got baptized!"

What a nut! I have a feeling the three's will be full of funny moments such as these!

My new favorite freebie

In the past year I've become a freebie junkie. I L-O-V-E getting free stuff in the mail! Free samples, magazine subscriptions, coupons, rebates. I've never tried so many different kinds of shampoo (what's with those horribly slippery sample shampoo packets?!? Don't the shampoo companies know I don't keep a scissors in my shower? ). It gives me such a thrill to know I'm saving a few cents by using something free.

My newest freebie discovery is regarding music. We rarely buy new cds because they're so stinking expensive. And it's difficult to choose a cd that we absolutely love enough to shell out the money for.

Enter Sovereign Grace Music. I just discovered that Sovereign Grace offers free downloads of their songs; usually one per album. Woo-hoo! This particular free-to-download song has been a huge encouragement to me: All I really need is Your grace. To find the free songs, click on each album cover listed here and then click the download link below the music player.

I found another free music player on the Sovereign Grace Ministries homepage. Sovereign Grace radio! Just click the link and a new window opens up and plays through a playlist of various Sovereign Grace music.

I am on the computer A LOT so having some good music to play in the background is essential for my sanity. :) Sadly all our cd players are cheapies so the computer is the best music player in the house!

Do you listen to music on your computer? What internet radio do you use?

Blogging slump

In a desperate attempt to get some online work done I plopped my very mobile Clive into his walker and focused on my computer tasks. And this picture shows you my view of the persistent tugging that ensued on my work binder. Hmmm.

I'm learning that naps do not magically align between my two munchkins. Sometimes the naps are perfectly timed and I'm able to get a good few hours of work in. And during those days I often crash for a quick catnap too. Other days Chloe and Clive tag team their naps so I get no break. And it's tough to get much done with a crawling-trying-to-walk 9 month old at my heels.

Consequently, my blog has suffered. When I do get quiet time I'm racing around putting laundry away, unloading the dishwasher, or doing my online job (of which my workload has significantly increased recently).

I apologize for my recent blogging dearth. How in the world do you moms of more-than-one find time to blog and keep up on your blog-reading?!? Do you have a set time that you put in daily?

Hello, Dad. Goodbye, Daddy.

Some days it seems this girl of mine is growing up at lightning speed!

Tonight Chloee decided to call Matt dad instead of daddy. It felt so strange to hear her little voice tacking dad onto the end of her questions.

"Are you finished with your hot cocoa yet, dad?"

"What's this piece for, dad?"


In one small moment she transitioned from little girl to big girl. Sigh.

I remember clearly going through my own mother phase. And then when I first read the classic Little Women I called my mom, marmee. Marmee? C'mon! My mom sure is one patient lady.

When did you stop with the mommies and daddies and move on to more sophisticated parental name-calling?
(I must admit that I still call my dad daddy.)

A picture speaks a thousand words

This picture pretty accurately represents my kids' personalities. Seems like my two are opposite in almost every way!

I feel like a new mom most days because everything that worked easily with Chloe doesn't with Clive. Not sure how much of those differences are just normal between boy and girl babies. Clive certainly is more active, curious, and smiley than Chloe was at his age! I used to think moms were exaggerating when they said I was in for trouble with a boy. I thought to myself, "How different could they be?" Boy was I in for a surprise when Clive entered our family! Have you noticed the activity/energy level difference between boys and girls also?

How about your kids (or nieces/nephews)? Are they fairly similar or different in temperament?

It's not easy being gold

As a belated birthday gift, Matt bought Chloe her first goldfish. Her first four goldfish to be exact. They went to Wal-Mart to rescue said goldfish from the sad looking store aquariums (seriously, do they ever clean those tanks?!?). And Matt spent a whopping 28 cents on each new swimmy addition to our family. Could that be foreshadowing of things to come?

This fish thing is a daddy and Chloe project so daily they feed them and change the water. They also collected rocks for the bottom of our old-school-glass-fishbowl and spruced the fish's home with plastic seaweed.

The cutest thing was seeing Chloe watch her goldfish on their first day. She perched on the piano bench to watch them swim and soon I noticed her dipping her finger in the water. I quickly stopped her and asked what she was doing. Chloe's response? "I want to pet my fish, mommy!" Awwww.

I'm sure you all see where this is headed. Despite Matt and Chloe's efforts only one goldfish is still alive and swimming. The good thing is that Chloe doesn't seem too saddened by it. And at 28 cents a pop I think we can afford to get some new fishies.

I'm assuming this whole goldfish experience is a token one for young families. Have you ever gone through a goldfish phase?

Dinner and insanity

Last week was Matt's first week back to school. He's teaching 4 freshman writing classes. Yuck! Someday soon, when Matt completes his phd, he won't have to teach so many of the grunt-work classes.

And last week was my first full-time week of being a mommy of two. God and His marvelous grace got us through last week but I ended up exhausted! Caring for two small children has completely rocked my world.

We established a bit of a morning routine and then by mid-afternoon I was out of energy. Somehow naps aligned for a few of those days so I also caught some zzzz's.

By the time 4:30 p.m. rolled around I was in panic-dinner-preparation mode. The dinner hour has become insanity hour for our family. Everything seems to happen during that magic hour between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Clive gets fussy, mad and then very vocal if he doesn't get immediate attention. Cheerios only pacify him for a short time and then the gig is up. Chloe wakes from her nap, she's usually crabby and in need of a snack. Matt arrives home from school. And I'm rushing around like a rabid squirrel trying to remember what I'm cooking for supper. The ironic bit is that my dinners haven't even been turning out well. I made two dinners with some frozen whiting last week and one I couldn't stomach. Another night I fried some breaded tofu slices but forgot to season the breadcrumbs. And let me assure you, tofu needs seasonings.

After dinner I'm ready for bed. Too bad the kids don't go to bed at 6 o'clock. Maybe if I sneaked (yes, it is sneaked and not snuck) some benadryl into their meals they'd fall asleep earlier . . . .

The bonus in all of this mayhem is Matt. He's a super hands-on dad and he jumps right in as soon as he walks in the door. Another huge blessing about Matt is that he'll eat anything. He just douses an unsavory item with ketchup or hot sauce and then it's gone.

Anyone have any tips for making dinner a more pleasant, quick and efficient process?

Not ready for fall but ready for some football

I'm still in denial that summer is over! Trees here in Ohio are already beginning to change color. What?!? How can September be here in a few days?

Despite the fact that I'm not ready for fall I am DEFINITELY ready for football season to begin. This year we'll be closely watching two football teams. Our GB Packers and now also the NY Jets.

I have a feeling the Jets have a better chance of success this season. What team/s are you rooting for?

Always the last to leave

These ladies pictured here with me are my lunch bunch pals. During our church's Thursday morning Bible study we all stayed after and ate lunch together with our accompanying children (7 munchkins total). Hence our self-proclaimed moniker lunch bunch. Creative, I know.

After the study ended we continued getting together for bi-monthly summer playdates and monthly girls' nights out (affectionately abbreviated GNOs).

It has been SO refreshing and encouraging to chill with these fellow moms in the trenches! We are like giddy highschoolers during our GNO's and as this post's title implies we enjoy our time out so much we always linger until closing time.

Thus far we've had three GNO's. The first was rather conventional; we met at Panera, ate dinner, drank bottomless-mug-coffee and chatted it up. The second GNO we met for fondue dipping fun at The Melting Pot. To make a fondue night reasonably priced we only did the chocolatey dessert part. Y-U-M. For our third and most recent GNO the ladies came to my town and I showed them my favorite sights. Produce shopping at our local health market, bacon cheeseburgers as my fave mom-and-pop restaurant, and then coffee at the eclectic and artsy Jimmy's cafe (pictured above).

Do you have a gaggle of gals you hang with? If so, what fun activities have you done together?

Blogging Catch-22

We have had an incredibly busy week. I've had LOADS to blog about but absolutely no time! I can't count how many times I've begun a post and been called away only to leave my post unfinished and unposted.

I call it the blogging catch-22. Too much to blog about and too little time.

I am very much looking forward to a less-busy fall routine! This fall we'll have Bible study and library story-time weekly and a preschool co-op every other week. In between those commitments I plan on doing "Mommy school" with Chloe to teach her phonics. (I've finally decided on a curriculum: Phonics Pathways which I've checked out from the library. And I hope to continually renew it. I will be the bane of the Hudson library.)

What does your fall schedule look like? Can you believe it's fall already?!?

The big bash

Chloe's big ole buggy birthday bash went super well on Saturday! This party was by far the biggest I've ever thrown and I was more than a little nervous I'd forget something. We had plenty of food and it seemed like everyone had a fun time.

Thankfully my mom and grandma were here to help. I put them to work watching kids, cutting fruit, or making bug-shaped pbjs. And Clive was a doll during the whole thing. In fact he slept through most of the party! Poor guy didn't even get to swing at the piñata. Next year, buddy!

As the pint-sized guests arrived we directed them to play some pre-set games. Since the theme was insects we arranged three buggy games that the kids could play whenever there was down time. Kids could pin the head on the caterpillar (double-sided tape actually), fish for magnetic ladybugs, or hunt for plastic bugs. When asked later what Chloe liked the best about her party she quickly replied, "I liked hunting for bugs!"

Once the guests had all arrived and mingled for a bit we brought out the food followed by a winding caterpillar birthday cake made of cupcakes. Talk about easy peasy! And it looked so cute and was wonderfully simple to serve and clean up. Maybe next year we'll do a cupcake snake. :)

Next was piñata time! Matt gets total credit for the piñatas this year. He crafted them all from start to finish and rigged up the ropes. He even nestled them into the tree looking down at the kids. Matt made 3 piñatas for the party since there were so many kids. He wanted to make sure every kid got a chance to whack at a bee.

We hustled everyone into gift opening and then the shindig was over. A few guests lingered afterwards and the adults chatted over coffee while the little ones played with Chloe's very popular newly-given princess tea set.

WHEW! Many thanks to Matt, my mom, and my grandma for helping pull off a truly bug-tacular birthday party.

Happy third birthday, my sweet Chloe-bug!

Free membership in Freepeats this week only!

Be sure to take advantage of FREE lifetime membership this week only at freepeats.org. Freepeats is an organization started by the author of the amazingly helpful babycheapskate blog. Freepeats is similar to freecycle; members swap kid, baby, and maternity items by posting via a local forum. So far freepeats is available in 25 major cities. Check here to see if there's a freepeats near you. And read all about the free membership details here.

Hurry and take advantage of this free membership by Wednesday, August 20.

I'm curious to know how many of you are involved in freepeats. I've been e-watching it for awhile now but never could break down to pay the membership fee. I'm rejoicing (loudly) that I can join free. As Wayne and Garth would say, "Score!" Let me know what great items you receive through this wonderful organization!

Happy three year old birthday, Chloe-pie!

Today my baby girl is THREE YEARS OLD!!!!!

It's astounding. I'm more than slightly nostalgic and sad that my baby has so quickly become a little girl. At least she still has her chubby baby cheeks.

Last night I told her again the story of the day (early morning actually) that God brought her into this world. I admit that my eyes welled a bit when I closed her bedroom door and said, "Goodnight my two-year old."

My mom and grandma are flying in tomorrow and the big birthday bash happens on Saturday so I apologize ahead of time for my upcoming lack of blogging.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my baby as she's grown over these three years.