Dog-Tested; Parent Approved

We're getting creative in trying out our latest and greatest baby products! Stuffed animals are good for cloth diapers, and Panchos are good for baby carriers! The rest of us had a belly-aching laugh session as we watched W be the first to demonstrate our new wrap. Shown here is the classic love my baby hold...Needless to say, we are both so stoked about wearing our little one as often as possible. After asking around (thanks, C!), we purchased a Sleepy Wrap & it arrived yesterday!! Many parents are aware of the great benefits to baby wearing & Sleepy Wrap has a "learn" section that provides actual research notations. I thought it was so cute that it came with a little pouch bag for storage in addition to a brief manual for 5 different holds with recommended age ranges! Oh, and the added bonus of the company being from Boulder, Colorado-- ahhh, of course, my granola loving nature sang at this! In just a few short months, I will hopefully post a revised photo with Baby S being carried instead. ;)

The Band Goes Marching

The last few years, W & I have headed downtown for the Farmer's Market only to be stuck in the middle of the Annual High School Band Parade/Competition. Being close, we tend to get awoken by the beats of the drums & tuning of instruments at Amador where they start...early in the weekend morning. This year we actually knew it was happening & accidently slept in for most of it. Ironic! We still managed to see some performances while heading down for our weekly fruit supply. We brought our German visitors & they were amazed. Apparently, they don't have things like this so they enjoyed watching the bands walk through Main St.

Side Commentary: Still funny to see high schoolers. Some look like 8 year olds while others look as old as me!! And many flag teams had males this year. I'd never seen that before! Times are sure a' changin'!

Favorite New Recipe

Well, the meal-planning & recipe adventure has been a success thus far. I found this new recipe in a wedding gifted French recipe book & we LOVED it! I served the tomatoes with some brown rice. And they make delish left-overs too!

Spinach-Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes (I added ground turkey since we're meat-lovers)

What You'll Need: (Serves 8)

8 big red tomatoes

Salt, for draining the tomatoes

3 T olive oil

1 C chopped yellow onions

Dry Spinach, about 4 C

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Grated nutmeg, to taste

1 C ricotta cheese

2 egg yolks

1/2 C toasted pine nuts

1/2 cup parsley

Shredded Italian Cheese, used as topping

What You Do:

1. Wash & dry tomatoes & cut off tops. With a teaspoon, scrape out all the inner parts while being careful not to pierce the sides. Salt the cavities and set them upside down on a paper towel to drain

2. Heat pan with olive oil over medium-low heat, add (turkey here) onions, & cook until tender (about 25 minutes)

3. Chop the spinach & add to pan. Then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Cover over low heat, and stir occasionally, for 10 minutes. Careful not to burn.

4. Preheat over to 350 F

5. Beat the ricotta and egg yolks together in mixing bowl. Add spinach mixture (with turkey if added), toasted pine nuts, parsley and season with salt & pepper.

6. Gently blot tomato cavities dry with paper towel & spoon an equal share of spinach mixture into each one. Top each tomato with a sprinkle of shredded Italian cheese.

7. Arrange the tomatoes in a shallow baking dish & set in oven. Bake until the tops are well browned and the filling is hot & bubbly, about 20-30 minutes.

Meet The Germans

So for the past week and a half we've had some awesome people staying with us. Meet Matthias & Anne Nitsch...(wearing American sunglasses we lent them)They are visiting from Heidelberg, Germany. Our high school ministry went to Heidelberg earlier this year, and some friends of ours met these two wonderful people. So when the Nitschs needed to come to an English speaking country for school & wanted to intern at a church, they came to our city. Our friends asked us if we could host them until the end of October & we jumped at the chance!! We love having our guest room occupied & knew we could fit in some guests before little Swenson arrived! Matthias & Anne will be here for 5 and 1/2 months so they'll get to meet our little one too!

It's been *such* a blessing having them! We've had some awesome late night conversations about life, Christ, history, marriage, cultures, etc-- you name it, we've covered it. And it's been fun to introduce each other to new things. I couldn't let them not experience this, this, this, and to make sure someone brought them here. And they are huge fans of this cereal. They, in turn, made sure we saw this--which is quite addictive and has reoccurring references in our talks.

It's really cool how Christ is a constant thread & how He binds people from all different walks of life. We're really looking forward to experiencing a German meal & W is excited about trying the German beer. And of course, continuing to share lots of laughs and good company!! :)

Cloth Diapering 101

One of the many awesome shower gifts we received a few weeks ago was a great starter kit for our chosen cloth diapering system (and there are many to chose from!). After doing my first load of baby laundry, I figured the next most logical thing was to learn how to use these things! So, here's what I learned from internet tutorials (what would we do without the internet, I mean, really?!)

Supplies Needed:

1. A Prefold (basically the cloth part of the system)

2. A Diaper Cover (we decided on Thirsties brand after much research)

3. A Snappi (this is the modern pin to keep the cloth on the baby's bum)

4. A victim (in this case, another fabulous shower gift...later, our little Swenson)

Step 1:

I found there are many ways to fold the prefold depending on what you like and what works for your baby's bum. I did the "angel wings" fold because it seemed like the easiest. First, fold the prefold into thirds length-wise, then open the back end as seen here...

Step 2:

Stick victim onto the prefold and fold the front part up (like a disposable). I folded it a bit under for an infant's cord.

Step 3:

Wrap the back wings around to the front & secure with a snappi.

Step 4:
Put diaper cover over cloth prefold. The cover acts just like a disposable with velcro closures & all. There's just the huge bonus of getting to use it over and over and over again! :)

And there you have it!! A very happy and dry victim to cuddle & love! :)

32

We were 32 weeks last week and I am posting now! :) Last week was a bit harder than normal, but I really think it came down to not napping as much. I'm noticing that "normal" activities are more taxing & I'm more fatigued. My body feels like it got a major work-out the day before and it's getting harder to wake up-- even if I have a good night's rest. But I'm only feeling these symptoms either early morning or right before bed. Overall, things are still fabulous.

At my doctor's appt, she pointed out that Baby is already up to my breast plate so I'm guessing it's only out from here. And I'm really wondering how much more out I'll get. Baby Swenson still moves around like crazy and we love watching all the rolls & pokes that push out my belly. This miracle, 32 weeks later, is still so amazing & something we can only partly fathom. I'm truly grateful for our health and the smoothness of this pregnancy! We're both getting really excited to meet our little one!!

Here Comes Baby!!

Not ours...yet!! We are so excited for the Moogs who just welcomed a baby girl into this world yesterday. I have been blessed by Nat's journey during her pregnancy & really enjoyed having another woman to confide in during the roller coaster parts. Baby Moog came a few weeks early so I think they are still deciding on a name (they didn't know the gender either!) and are still waiting on that carseat that's coming in the mail! If anyone can handle unforeseen situations, it's the Moogs! And even with all the abrupt earliness, I think she still went natural (although they had planned a home birth as well)!! Solid work, Nat!! It's been a great reminder for me that I need to hold all desires loosely before the Lord. Even our home birth is wholly dependent on His will. Flexibility is key!! Congratulations, Nat & J for your precious little girl. She is so blessed to have you both as parents! Here's a couple of pics from Nat's shower a few weeks ago.

Pumpkin Carving

So this was suppose to be a continuation after our pumpkin patch post, but life got hectic last week. After the patch, Linds & I set to doing some serious pumpkin carving. We printed templates, poked holes, hollowed out insides, and finally cut our little faces out. It was hard work! My feet swelled for the first time that night, that's how hard core we were! Martha Stewart would be proud-- they both turned out so well!! So professional! We love our little pumpkins.

Mine on the L, Linds's on the R

And just as a reminder as to why I'm so stoked on the templates...here's W & I's pumpkin from last year! :) We're definitely moving up in the pumpkin world!!

Keep Warm

With these! :) And when they are currently buy two, get one free...why not stock up?!

It's Pumpkin Time!!

Our fabulous friend, Lindsay, W & I headed over to Joan's Farm to go to the Pumpkin Patch this weekend!! And we had a blast! Last year W & I went to Moore's Pumpkins at Rowell Ranch Rodeo. We liked it fine, but it didn't have all the bells & whistles that Joan's does. We walked through a corn maze, petted goats, took advantage of their silly photo opps, people-watched, checked out the staged "Western Town" and finally, picked out our pumpkins!

This is definitely a great kid place, as made evident by all the families & little ones running around. I was surprised to still see so many of them an hour before closing time. The pumpkins were a great price and a fabulous time was had by all! A Swenson family tradition-- 2nd year in the making!!
W really enjoyed scaring the snot out of us in the corn maze! I caught him long enough to take a quick picture before he went off hiding again. ..

We both found the perfect pumpkin for just $4 each!!