Birthday!

Tim took the day off yesterday to try to get rid of extra vacation days before the end of the year (I'm super jealous). Josh came over, and together they put the rest of the insulation in the barn ceiling. Tim also decided to give me my present--well, hang up my present actually. We found this beautiful thing in a small family-owned kithcen and bathroom store in Marshalltown, and I immediately fell in love with it! Tim sectretly went back and bought it for me. What a wonderful surprise to come home from work to! My dining room looks completely different, in a VERY good way! :) You can't see all the detail in the pictures because of the lighting, but you can get the idea.





And as an extra birthday treat, I got a birthday postcard in the mail from Iowa Senator Steve Sodders. Just what I wanted!! How did they know? Seriously. This may make me a bad citizen, but I had no idea who this guy was before yesterday, yet somehow he knows my birthday? Weird.

Oh Christmas Tree

We cut down our tree yesterday and decorated the house! First Kendall and I made a fire...


Then we put on the lights, and again Kendall helped. :-)

Eating Oreos

Tim decided it was time to teach Kendall how to eat oreos. 

First attempt: taking bites

Second attempt: learning to dunk



Third attempt: trying to put the two together = FAIL

A few things

Here is a very quick summation of my life lately...

1. I have a pretty major weakness for Rolos. What could be better than chocolate and caramel?

2. My daughter is almost 14 months old now and is learning so much every day! She brings home pictures she colored at daycare daily and her new favorite phrase is “what is that?” Sleeping is still an issue, but I’ve resigned myself to accepting that it always will be that way.

3. I can’t wait for Thanksgiving break! I love holidays and spending time with family! This is my favorite time of year.

4. I’m going to be 30 in 20 days. That number really bothers me.

5. I wish my nails would grow and could look pretty. I have very weak nails that crack and break all the time. And I don’t want to spend the extra money it would take to try to make them nicer.

6. I like my husband a lot. And if I had the chance, I would marry him all over again… right honey? :)

Fun at the Cutlers

This last weekend we made a trip to Pella to visit Grandma Evenhouse, and then stayed to hang out with Dad and Jim. While the boys worked on moving the dirt pile from the front of the house to the side, Kendall and I went over to the Cutler house to play on their playground (even though no one was home there).



Kendall had a blast! She is moving around so well now, it's incredible. Last Wednesday she decided she was going to walk from now on, and she hasn't stopped!

At the SyWassinks

Kendall loves babies! Especially her little cousins Paisley and Adelyn! She’s not very good at being gentle yet though. She starts out patting gently, but then gets excited and starts whacking a little too hard. But I love to see her give her cousins hugs. How sweet! Here’s a video of her talking to Adelyn. Just wait until the other 2 girls start talking! It’ll be a mad house when we all get together!



Kendall also loves the zebra toy the SyWassinks have at their house. She has learned how to get on and off by herself and how to spin the toy to make the music start. Then it’s time to dance and bounce! I still can’t fathom how a person can love something so small so much, but I do! There’s nothing like the love parents have for their children!

Sorry!

I was reminded today by my sisters Laura and Bethany about how incredibly long its been since I've blogged! Way, way too long. So I'll give you a quick rundown of what's been going on in the life of the Gladbrook Klinges.

1. I found out that I have hypothyroidism. I've been taking pills for a little over a week now, and I am definitely seeing a difference. I have more energy, my mind doesn't get fuzzy at certain times in the day, and I've lost 3 pounds without even trying! As much as I hate having yet ANOTHER thing wrong with me, at least there is a fix.

2. I've sold 5 hats in the last 3 weeks! AH! I'm so excited about that, but have so little time to knit, it's also almost been a little stressful. I still have one more to complete. It's been so fun! I love making things that people like and appreciate and can even make us some extra money. :)

3. Tim (with the help of Josh) has been working a lot more in the barn again. They have all the wiring run and he has most of the outlets done. It's looking great!

4. I've been getting more used to my job, and enjoying it more. It's not my dream job, but I also don't dread going to work everyday. I really enjoy the people I work with, so that makes things pretty good!

5. We are working on getting Kendall to sleep through the night. So far the score is Kendall: 4 Parents: 0 So not going as well as I was hoping, but I haven't lost all hope yet. I also haven't been very good at setting the routine as I was hoping, so really, its my fault.

6. Kendall is so close to walking! She can take 5 or 6 steps by herself now and is getting braver every day. Pretty soon she's just going to just take off and be walking/running everywhere. I love watching her grow and learn!

7. We just got our pictures taken for the church directory. It went ok. We got a couple pictures of Kendall kind of smiling, so that's better than what we expected. Here's her outfit:


And that's been life lately. Busy, busy, busy. Hopefully I'll find some more time to blog this month. Sorry to leave everyone hanging! :)

New dining room part 2

Back to the dining room!

I decided to tape before painting this time. I haven't taped off before painting in a long time and thought I'd try it again.



It took a long time and in the end, it wasn't really worth it. I even followed the instructions of the paint guy in Holmes on Homes on HGTV. He says to do the first coat around the tape really light so that it just sticks to the tape and forms a good barrier. The second coat then should be full coverage, and then you need to pull the tape off when the paint is still wet. My paint still bled through and the lines are not nice and crisp. Don't look too closely at my paint job when you come visit--it's definitely not perfect! :)

Another word of advice--don't use Glidden paint! It was horrible! The darker grey/black went on decently in 2 coats, but the light grey did not go well. It went on clumpy, runny, and with very splotchy coverage. It truly looked horrible. So for the second coat, we used Tim's Fisher discount and bought Diamond Vogel paint. They were able to match the color perfectly and it looks wonderful! I believe this will be our paint brand of choice from now on.

And here are a couple pictures of the almost finished dining room.





More to come again--hopefully soon :)

New dining room part 1

I finally got fed up with the less than beautiful (to put it nicely) wallpaper in our dining room a couple weeks ago. I vow to never put wallpaper up on any walls in my house ever! This wallpaper and backing came off very nicely compared to what I've been told, but it was still a unpleasant, long, tedious process. Never again if I can help it! :)


A little glimpse of the wallpaper. Not so bad once you get used to it, but definitely in need of a change!




Scraping the backing off... luckily it came off pretty well by just wetting it down with water. Still hated the whole process!


Finally, with a little help from Mom and Dad Klinge one day, the room was completely stripped of all wallpaper. You might not be able to see from the pictures, but the walls are in rough shape. Definitely not smooth! We are going to need to tear the walls down to put in insulation someday soon, so I decided not to worry about imperfections and just go with it!





My blank slate--and yes, it's a mess. Sorry about that!

More to come...

Reading

Kendall “reads” books all the time. Well, she mostly chews on them honestly, but she is also very good at flipping pages. This last weekend Tim read Kendall a couple of his favorite books from when he was growing up. Kendall didn’t have enough patience for the whole story, but she turned those pages! She loves her Daddy so much! It warms my heart to watch, and I can't help but smile (and sometimes get a little teary-eyed, I admit) :)

Satan's Lies

I have decided to pour out my heart this morning. That always brings such a feeling of relief and calm, doesn’t it? Anyway, about 3 or 4 weeks ago, I realized something that had been going on in me for a few weeks before that. I had been listening and believing lies that the devil had been putting in my mind and my heart. There was an increasingly loud voice in my mind that kept telling me things like, “you’re a terrible wife. If Tim isn’t completely happy and satisfied in all areas of your marriage, you are the only one to blame.” Or “you’re a horrible mother. Kendall can’t even crawl yet like all babies her age can. You must not know how to raise a child.” Or “you have no friends. No one wants to talk to you, invite you over, be with you at all. And no wonder—look at yourself.” Or “you are incredibly fat and ugly. You have become a complete and utter failure in life because of it too.”

And the sad thing is, I was believing all of these things unquestioningly. I have never hated myself so much or been so low. One night, as I was rocking Kendall to sleep, I heard another voice speak to me—well, shout at me really. It said, “Carrie, you’re believing lies. Satan has a strong hold in your life in this area right now. You are my child, I love you, and I made you exactly who you are, and my creation is GOOD.” I started to cry. After laying Kendall down, I confessed everything I had been feeling and hearing to Tim. And my life took a 180 starting that night. I started believing God’s truths. I admit, I still did and do find myself falling into thinking negatively about myself, but as soon as I catch myself, I pray. And God helps me to turn around again. I’m not perfect. I’m not a perfect mother, a perfect wife, or a perfect friend. I struggle with my weight and am not the most gorgeous girl around. But I’m God’s perfect creation. And through Him I can get closer to being perfect. No more lies.

Standing

Kendall has been getting so great at standing! She can pull her self up on almost anything and wants to be standing all day long. As I was folding laundry last night, she insisted on “helping.” She would stand up next to the laundry basket and pull out clothes one by one until she had a pile next to her. I would put the pile back in the laundry basket so I could fold it, and the game would start again. What a great helper… ;) Good thing she’s so cute!



Speaking of folding laundry, my week has seemed like it’s been nothing but cleaning up and trying to catch up, as most people are doing around here after the storm on Monday. Tim and I took the day off on Monday (since there was no electricity anyway) to clean up the yard and help some of those around us. I had a normal Tuesday, and then Wednesday hit me. I’m behind on so much at work and was running around like crazy trying to finish all my different projects and studies. At home there’s baking, cleaning, cooking, taking care of a baby, and practices to go to. Kendall has also decided to wake up 5 times a night this last week, and I do not handle severe lack of sleep well. All I want to do is hide under a desk, maybe cry a little bit, and come out when the week is done. Times like these make me DETEST my long drive to and from Ankeny every day. What a waste of precious time.

To ease our fears and frustrations, Tim and I made a schedule for the rest of the week. We have outlined certain things that need to get done every day after work, and when we are done with that night's list, we are allowed to sit and relax the rest of the night. Last night, we didn’t get to sit down until 8:30, which is almost bedtime, but we did get our whole list done. So I practice my deep breathing, check items off the list at work and at home as I get them done, and pray, pray, pray. I pray for sanity, for peace, for energy, and for the ability to stave off crabbiness. Hopefully next week will slow down… until Kendall starts walking by herself… :)

Etsy Shop

My mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and I opened an Etsy shop about a month ago. We've gotten some views, and Mom sold a little doll, but for the most part, our site has not seen much action. I'm rather disappointed about that--I was hoping that maybe I would be selling hats left and right so that I could make enough money to quit my job, stay home with Kendall, and knit all day. Sadly though, people look but don't buy. Sigh...

If you want to look also, here is the site.

For a quick preview, here are some of the pictures of Kendall modeling one of the hats I've made and a bow Beth made. What a lovely model! :)

Father's Day

For Father's Day, we decided to go camping! Since it was Kendall's first time and we didn't know what to expect and it was supposed to rain that night, we camped in our backyard. We set up the tent, made a fire, grilled hot dogs, and made smores. Kendall had a great night--only woke up once like normal. Makes me all the more excited to camp over the 4th of July! Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Setting up the tent

Kendall inspects the setup and approves!

Hanging out by the fire

Kendall tried so hard to stay awake--she hates to miss anything. But after so much excitement, she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Good night little lady! :) Watch the video here

first steps!

This week Kendall started taking her first steps! She's still pretty wobbly but so proud of herself! She will be running soon! :)

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Baseball game

Kendall went to her first baseball game a couple weekends ago. After a first inning of crabbiness, she ate and life was great again! And she discovered a new favorite game... take off Grandpa's hat over and over and over again! Thanks Dad for being such a good sport and playing along :) Oh, and the I Cubs won! Great night!

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Mystery solved

I’m sure all of you, like Tim and me, have been dying to know what this post in our yard is all about. Boundary marker for our property? Old road marker for wagon transportation once upon a time? Coordinates for the imminent attack on our house? So many possibilities!!

After talking to our neighbors, we now know that it was the railroad marker for the tracks that used to go right past our house. It was a north/south track that went to Kansas City (which is about 295 miles from our house).



Not as exciting of an answer as I was hoping for, but still cool to have on our property. As you can see, Tim and Kendall are very relieved and happy to finally have the facts!

Capmgrounds!

Last weekend (I know—I’m behind in blogging), Tim and I checked out a couple of the campgrounds that are within 10 miles of our house! Both were very nice, and we can’t wait to camp in them one of these weekends. Union Grove State Park in particular caught our eye. The campground itself is closed right now—flooding possibly?—but the rest of the park is great! A whole little community lives around the lake in cute little houses and cottages. Reminds me of lakefront properties in Michigan. I would love to own one of those houses some day and have the lake right across the street!

Anyway, on our way out of the park, I spotted this waterfall and forced Tim to pull over so that we could take a picture.

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

Not that bad of a picture I guess, but you can't see the waterfall at all

Finally, I just gave up and took a picture of the waterfall...still blurry, but oh well. :)

Getting big!

My little baby is quickly turning into a kid! She has discovered the cupboards in the kitchen and wants to empty them, she wants to eat baby food instead of drinking a bottle most of the time, and wants to drink out of a cup and hold the spoon I'm using to feed her! Here's my big girl enjoying the swings :)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9pv_DP8h-8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Mother's Day!

This year was my first Mother’s Day with a child not in my belly, and it was a great one! Unbeknownst to me, Mother’s Day kind of started on Thursday for me. Tim and I were planning on going to Ames on Friday to watch Titus graduate, and I was trying to make plans on when we would be leaving, would I leave from Ankeny, etc. And Tim was refusing to make plans! He just kept saying, “let’s see how tomorrow goes and then we can decide.” Ah! I let it go and decided just to wait until tomorrow and try to get past my overwhelming need to plan ahead.

So Friday comes along and the morning begins as it normally does. Tim gets up, showers, puts on his Hawaiian shirt (after all, it’s Friday), and leaves with Kendall for work. I got a text from him later in the morning asking what time I was planning on going to work out over lunch. I gave him a detailed itinerary of my lunch plans including times and places (again, showing my need for organization and planning) and asked him why he was so interested. He said he just wanted to talk over lunch because he missed me—Aw! J

When it was almost time for lunch, he emailed me and said there was a present waiting for me at Greenburgs and I should leave slightly early to pick it up! What?!? I was too excited to wait another 10 minutes, so I left immediately for Greenburgs. When I got there, Tim and Kendall were there along with a potted plant that Kendall had drawn on, a balloon, and a beautiful necklace. They took me to Olive Garden for lunch, and I took the rest of the afternoon off. What a great family I have! Thanks for the wonderful surprise!!

I now know that Tim had planned this a while ago and even our daycare was in on it. They had bathed Kendall, fed her well, and put on a cute outfit to get her ready for the surprise. J Very memorable first Mother's day.

Bebo!

We went to a Bebo Norman concert on the 29th at our church in Marshalltown! It was great! The SyWassinks were kind enough to take care of our child for the evening and Tim and I had a date! Only our second one in 7 months... it was past due. We ate out for dinner, then enjoyed a wonderful concert. Bebo is one of my all time favorite artists. I could listen to him all day long! Another guy named Gabe tours with him also, and Gabe is amazing! He can play a million different instruments and sing backup. All in all, a wonderful evening. :)

Gabe playing the accordian

Gabe is playing the hammer dulcimer and Bebo on guitar and singing. Beautiful!

Oh How He Loves Us

This has become one of my favorite songs lately. I love David Crowder*Band, and this song gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. The pictures it brings to my head are amazing, and when I close my eyes, I feel like I am singing directly to God. Sometimes I foget how amazing God's love for me really is. If I was treated the way I treat God at times (ignore Him for days at a time, directly go against His wishes and directions for me, repeatedly choose other things before Him, etc), I would have a hard time liking that person, much less loving him. And yet God's love for me remains perfect and undettered. How amazing! And so very underserving! Thank you God for your love...I cannot begin to fully comprehend it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCunuL58odQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Oh Happy Day...in most respects

Norah has now destroyed her second invisible dog fence collar (see picture below). We thought this one might be in good enough shape that Tim could solder it back together. Sadly, after our best efforts, it still does not work. So Norah has to always be chained up to the LP tank while the other three dogs can still roam the yard since she cannot control her desire to explore. She is quickly proving to be much more trouble than we had wanted… what to do next...

On a happier note, Tim and I have now been married two years! He said to me this morning, “weren’t these first two years supposed to be the hardest?” Well, if that is the case, these next years are going to be super amazing and a piece of cake!  God has blessed me with everything I have ever asked Him for in a husband when he gave me Tim. He’s a wonderful husband and a wonderful father, and I love him very much.

Birds!!

I've been so excited to experience Spring on a farm! I love watching all the plants come back to life, hearing the wonderful bird songs again, etc. However, this has been what we have been going through everyday outside our house instead.



Who knew that birds could be so loud and annoying!! Maybe the birds aren't one of my favorite things about Spring after all...

Never stops talking!

Kendall has starting talking (yelling really) non-stop. It's only quiet in our house when she's asleep--well, quieter...she still snores. :) But of course, I wouldn't want it any other way. I love my beautiful little girl! Look out Rhea, you have competition!

Trees!

We have been sprucing up our yard the last few weeks now that the weather has warmed up a bit. We burnt the ditches along the creek in our yard, put up the beautiful mailbox Nick and Beth gave us for Christmas, and planted some trees to start a wind block on the north side of our property. Dad and Mom Evenhouse drove up to join us on our trip to Clarence, IA to pick up our trees. We decided on willows for the outside row (the row that gets the wind first) because they grow 8 feet a year, so we should have a bit of a block by next winter already. The middle row is Norway spruce which grow pretty thick and do a great job of stopping wind. The closest row is Canaan Fir which are beautiful and also stop wind quite well! I can’t wait to watch these trees grow over the years and am excited to be warmer in the winter too!




Planting the trees! Thanks for helping Mom and Dad!


The willows just come in a bundle of cuttings. You have to put the sticks in water for 7 to 10 days to let them start to grow some roots and then we will plant them this weekend or next week.


Kendall and I help by straightening rows, cheering everyone along, and trying to stay warm :)

Fat and Ugly...

I would like to take a moment to vent if I can please…

For the last 7 weeks I have been eating well and exercising 30 minutes a day during my lunch break at work. These exercise classes are pretty hard core most days (kickboxing, step class, high impact aerobics) and I burn 350 to 550 calories in these classes every day. On weekends I try to take Kendall for a walk or at the very least, not be a bum and sit on my butt all day.

Not only that, but I have been tracking everything I eat on www.livestrong.com. This website is made by Lance Armstrong, and you can do a lot of things for free! I can put in my own recipes, and it will spit out the amount of calories in the meal. I can set up meals that I eat often so that I don’t have to put each part of the meal in individually and save myself a lot of time. You can type in what you ate and go to a list of all the options of that one particular food item, pick the brand you have, and it will give you those particular nutrition facts. They even have most restaurants’ menus on the website with each menu item’s nutrition facts! I set a goal of losing 2 pounds a week in the website, and for the average person my height and weight, I should be eating 1500 calories a day to reach that goal. I love this website… can you tell?!? So every day I keep track of every little thing I eat, the exercise I do, and I’ve been waiting to see the pounds drop off.

Here is a typical day in the life of Carrie:

At work I drink at least 64 oz of water—more on most days

Breakfast: cereal and coffee for the long ride to work

Morning snack: banana

Exercise

Lunch:
1 cup lowfat vanilla yogurt
¼ cup frozen mixed berries (in the yogurt)
1 pear
10 pretzels (and yes, I count them out)

Supper:
4 oz of plain chicken breast (or less)
¼ cup frozen mixed vegetables with No-salt Italian seasoning on them
½ cup brown rice(also plain)

Some days I have a bowl of ice cream or a piece of cake after supper

Needless to say, that’s not a whole lot of food. I have only gone over my 1500 calories 3 days in 7 weeks. The first 2 weeks I lost 7 pounds. The last 5 weeks, I have lost 0 pounds. That’s right. ZERO. Nothing in over a month. And if I were the average person, I should have lost 10 more pounds by now. But no, my scale has not moved at all.

I’m at a loss of what to do about it. I don’t have time to work out more than I do now. Already I have a hard enough time working full time, driving 2.5 hours to and from work a day, working out over my lunch break so that I have to eat lunch while trying to work, and trying to take care of a 6 month old, a husband, four dogs, and a house without being completely exhausted. So maybe I’ll have to go down to 1000 calories a day, though I don’t know where those extra calories are going to come out of. I don’t feel deprived of food right now, but I know that by cutting back more, I will feel deprived and like I’m on a crappy diet. Sigh…

I started doing this so that I wouldn’t feel so fat and ugly. Now, even with my best efforts, I’m still fat and ugly. What is wrong with my metabolism? Why can’t my body for once just act like the average person? I’m feeling pretty discouraged and have thought about quitting since it makes no difference anyway. But I’ll keep trying for now—maybe someday something will change. At least I’m not gaining weight… trying to look on the bright side here people… :)

Kendall's first food!

Kendall is going to be 6 months on Wednesday and so I decided this weekend would be a great time to start her on some real food! Somehow I don't have any plastic spoons (they have been ordered on Amazon now), so I just used my finger to feed her. I also didn't have rice cereal yet either, but thought I'd try some sweet potatoes instead. And she loved it!

She made a little bit of a mess, but she ate 2 tsp of sweet potatoes and even sucked off her bib at the end! I'm sure she would have eaten more, but we didn't want to overdue it the first day. We want no stinky explosions tomorrow please!! My little baby girl is growing up!

New Dogs

The first dog I can remember while growing up is Caramel. Though she was pretty ugly, we all liked her a lot until she ran away on Halloween. Sparky came next and she was sweet, cute, and loveable. We then got Brady when I was in high school, and he was MY dog. He slept with me, cuddled with me, and though he was very dumb, he was a wonderful dog. After such wonderful dog experiences, I decided that when I grew up and had a house of my own, I was going to have a ton of dogs (well, 3 or 4 dogs at least). Since Gus died, the dog situation at the Klinge household has seemed a little lacking. We miss him so much and though I love Maggie and Jack very much, I still wanted more furry friends! So I found two dogs on the Marshalltown ARL website that seemed perfect for us and our dogs!

We got a brother and sister pair last Saturday (February 26). They are 4 year old Rottweiler/lab mixes and are very loveable doggies. We quickly decided on the girl’s name—Norah—but had much more difficulty with the boy’s name. After hours of discussion, we decided on Charles, Chuck for short. It was only then that we realized what we had done. Chuck and Norah… sounds familiar… But it was too late to change it, and besides, what dog wouldn’t want to be named after Chuck Norris?!? J

Norah!

Chuck!

The four dogs get along wonderfully! Chuck and Norah don’t like to stay in the yard as well as we would like them too, but soon enough we will have their shock collars also and the whole crew can be left outside to roam freely. What a great crew!