We're Down With the Sickness

The past two days have been a nightmare in our house. It all started at 4:30am on Sunday morning when Gracie vomited in her sleep. She continued to vomit every 30-45 minutes for the first 12 hours and then every 1-2 hours for the next 12 hours. Luckily, it's been almost 12 hours now since we've had any episodes, so it looks like we're moving in the right direction.

Carter has had a cough for about a week, but no other symptoms. He went to daycare this morning, and I received a call at 9:30 that he was feverish, screaming, and tugging on his ear. I had Joe leave work and pick him up and take him to the doctor. Yup...the little guy's got a nasty ear infection on the left side.

Here's to hoping that everyone is healthy by the end of the week and that Gracie' stomach bug doesn't decide to spread to the rest of us...I've just about had it with the sickness this winter!

Flowing with Energy

I've been going to the gym now for about a month, but I haven't been much into any of the group fitness classes other than Body Pump (a group weight lifting class). Last night I decided to try out Body Flow, which is a combination of tai chi, yoga, and pilates. This class made me learn a few things:

1.  I have NO sense of balance
2.  I am NOT flexible
3.  I am OUT of shape

I honestly thought to myself that oh, this is going to be an hour of "easy" exercise. Some of it wasn't too bad, but the rest was pretty hard. I'm assuming that this is one of those things you have to keep doing to get better at it, so I shall try it again on Monday. I was completely embarrassed that there were people more than TWICE my age there that were doing WAY  better than me. I don't want to feel that way anymore, so I shall work at it bit by bit until I can do all the moves. On the bright side, my muscles are rebelling this morning, so at some point I did manage to get a decent workout.

Tonight I think I'll just stick to the treadmill and let my angry muscles calm down a bit. 

Up in Flames

The other night I realized it had been a while since we cleaned our oven. I decided after getting the table set that I'd start the self-clean mode while we sat down to eat dinner.

As we sat at the table discussing our day, I saw a bright flash out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked toward the stove but didn't see anything. A few seconds later, I saw it again. This time I turned to see that my oven was engulfed in flames. I moved the kids out of the kitchen and into the living room. Joe ran down to shut the breaker off, and when he came back up he grabbed the fire extinguisher. And then the problems started. Even though the oven was shut off, the oven had locked itself during self-clean mode and wouldn't allow us to open it.

Our only choice was to sit and watch as our oven continued to burn. After about 5-10 minutes, the fire finally died down and and finally it went completely out. We weren't able to open the door until almost an hour after the fire was out. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was thinking to myself "Oh my God, our house is going to burn down and there's nothing we can do about it because we can't get to the fire". Fortunately shutting off the electricity got the fire to go out. We were very lucky...our oven however...not so lucky.

When we could finally inspect the damage, it didn't look too bad from far away. However, when we got up close we saw that the enamel had actually bubbled up and started flaking off into the oven. It's looking like it's time for a new stove. Good thing it's tax return season!

Home Cookin' Healthified

For those of you who know me, you know that the week after Thanksgiving 2009 started a new adventure for me. I decided that it was time for not only myself to get healthy and start eating better, losing weight, and exercising, but it was also time for me to set an example for my family. It was time that we all made a change and ate healthier, and followed a healthier lifestyle in general.

First, I joined weight watchers. I learned about portion control, about making healthier choices, and the benefits of exercise. I loved the program, but I didn't love the cost, so I decided to break away and do things my own way. There was one thing that I didn't care for about weight watchers, and it was that a lot of the recipes I found used sugar substitutes. While sugar substitutes are a great way of cutting down calories, they cause me to have horrible migraine headaches. Because of this, I decided that rather than worry about cutting down calories, I was going to worry more about eating healthy, whole foods whenever possible.

This past week, a great friend of mine started her very own cooking blog. She shares recipes, healthy living tips, and more. She inspired me to start my very own healthy cooking blog, and I really hope that all of my readers will stop by and check it out. Stop by and check out Home Cookin' Healthified, you just may find something yummy to try in your own kitchen!

The Moisan Miracles March for Babies Fundraiser

As many of you know, my husband and I are the parents of two premature babies. Our daughter, Gracie, was born 9 weeks early weighing 3lbs 7oz and spent 26 days in the NICU. Our son, Carter, was born 5 weeks early weighing 5lbs 6oz and spent 16 days in the NICU. Our children received state of the art care because of research funded by the March of Dimes. Because of this, we are very dedicated to the March of Dimes and helping to raise funds to help prevent other families from going through all that we went through with our children.

This year, to help boost our fundraising efforts, we've decided to hold a benefit where we will have a Chinese auction, a few large auction items, some MOD merchandise for sale, and a 50/50 raffle. We will also have a DJ on duty for the knight and a cash bar will be available.

So far, we have the following items up for auction:

A set of 4 hand-painted wine glasses with two bottles of wine
A hand-made quilt
A free shampoo,cut,and style and a set of Joico hair products
A hand-made afghan
Several hand-knit items (baby sweater, hats, scarves)
Handmade children's clothing by Ladder Hill Design
A $25 Tastefully Simple Gift Certificate
Two Subway gift cards
$100 Babies 'R Us Gift Card
TGI Friday's Gift Card


Tickets for entry to our event are $5 each and can be purchased before the event or at the door. The event will take place on March 6th at the Knights of Columbus in Gardner, MA. All proceeds from this event will go directly to the March of Dimes.


For anyone interested in helping us in our journey to help save babies, I have a deal for you as well! For each $5 donated to my March for Babies page, I will enter you in a contest to win a hand-knit children's hat. Below are some pictures of my knitting work so that you know you are getting good quality stuff here! I will let you choose the colors of the hat. If you donate $20 or more, I will also enter you to win a hand-knit children's sweater up to size 24 months.


And here are some pictures of my past knitting works:

Is It Spring Yet?

My whole life, I've lived in New England. Every year is full of snow, sleet, ice, not to mention colds and the flu. This year, winter has been worse than usual. Though, nothing yet to beat the horrific ice storm of December 2008.

This year, the weather has been quite mild compared to what we're used to, but the illnesses have been quite abundant. Both Gracie and Carter have had numerous colds. Carter had the flu followed by a horrible allergic reaction to tamiflu that caused hives and breathing problems and required steroid treatment. Then Gracie had surgery followed by several weeks of recovery. I thought we were finally healthy again until I awoke to the sound of coughs and sneezes in the middle of the night last night. This morning, the kids woke with runny noses, coughs, and sneezing like crazy. However, nobody had fevers so Gracie headed to school, and Carter to daycare for the day.

Tonight they are getting progressively worse. It's looking like we may be skipping daycare tomorrow if they aren't feeling much better by morning. I've got the humidifiers running and getting read to tuck the kids in early in hopes that they can sleep off some of the yuckies. With that said...I think we've had enough of winter here, where are you Spring?

WW: Like Mother Like Daughter

Gracie's First Day of Preschool

It's official. The girl who was my tiny three pound baby in the NICU just yesterday started preschool today and grew up in a matter of seconds. I spent the past week preparing myself for the moment I dropped her off at school and yet I was still unprepared when we walked into the building.

Gracie was so excited this morning that she woke up at 6am to tell me that she was ready for school. We pulled up in front of the school and she was filled with joy and yelling "that's my schoooooooooooool" from the backseat. We got there early and the school wasn't open yet, so we had to wait a few minutes in the car. Finally we got out of the car and walked up the stairs and into the school.

As we walked down the hall, we saw that there was a blackboard on an easel outside the door that said "Welcome Gracie!" on it. We stepped into the classroom and back to the coatroom where Gracie found her coat hook complete with name tag. She hung up her coat and backpack and went right into the classroom. Immediately she was interacting with the other children and was totally oblivious to the fact that Joe and I were even there. We said goodbye and headed out of the school.

And as we walked down the stairs in the front of the school, my eyes welled up with tears. I then waited the entire 3.5 hours for the phone to ring, I thought that surely she would miss me and be too upset to stay at school...but I was wrong. No phone calls, and at 11:30 we came back to pick her up and she was thrilled to see us. She had a wonderful day and can't wait to go back on Thursday.

Menu Plan Monday: 2/8/2010

Meal planning has been going really well for us. Since starting to plan our meals three weeks ago, my husband and I have both lost weight, we're eating healthier, and we're no longer sitting around at 8pm saying "what do you want to eat tonight?" and then giving in to take-out.

I've decided that pre-cooking is what works best for us, but a few nights a week I'll be cooking dinner after work (on my off-days from the gym).

Breakfasts for the week include the following:
Low-Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread
Chocolate Chip Muffins (from betty crocker mix)
Low-Fat Cinnamon Rolls (from Hungry Girl 200 under 200)

Snacks:
Smores Snack Mix (from Hungry Girl 200 under 200)
Clementines

Dinners:
Sunday: Crock Pot Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots
Monday: Spaghetti and Meatball Stoup
Tuesday: Chili-Mac (will post recipe later), cornbread
Wednesday: Chicken & Dumplings
Thursday: Veggie & ground turkey  Lasagna (will post recipe later)
Friday: Mexican Meatloaf (will post recipe later)
Saturday: Crock-Pot Apple Pork Chops (will post recipe later)

For other wonderful menu plans and recipes, visit I'm an Organizing Junkie

Blog Makeover

My blog REALLY needed a facelift, so tonight I finally got down to business and did a complete and total makeover. What do you think?? Do you feel at home here?

I am loving the new setup, however I had an "epic-fail" moment and completely deleted my entire blog-roll by mistake and I'm working diligently to find all of my favorite bloggers and add them back to my blog roll. If you notice your link is missing from my blog roll, please let me know so I can add you back in!

Have a wonderful Sunday night everyone! My kids are in bed sound asleep and I think I'm going to head there shortly myself!

Also, a very big thank you to Lena for providing wonderful blog templates and giving me a chance to donate to "Premades for a Purpose" to help fund the adoption of a baby for her and her husband. If anybody else is looking for a wonderful cause to donate to and needs a blog update, I suggest you check her out!

It's a Mama Blog Hop...Join in!

I don't know about you, but I just love love LOVE to read new mom blogs, and what better way to do so than to join in on a blog hop? Check out the blog hop going on at My Life as MaMa. Spread the word!

If you'd like to join in and find some new readers, or find some new blogs to read, click the link below!

Brand New Belly Button

We had our followup appointment with Gracie surgeon this week and he has cleared her to go back to normal activity. She has very minimal scarring, and her belly looks great!

She still has a hard lump under the skin, but the doctor says that is normal. When Dr. D. came in, Gracie promptly gave him a high five, lifted her shirt and said "Dr. D. check out my BRAND NEW belly button!". He laughed and said "So, I did a good job then?" and she said "oh, yeah!". She also made it a point to tell him that she is going to be a doctor when she grows up and she's going to take care of little babies in the hospital. AND she has her very own doctor bag and tools. Dr. D. asked if she would come work with him someday when she is done with college and she accepted without even batting an eyelash.

It's so good to see her all back to normal with no golf-ball sized lump popping out from under her shirt. Her "new bellybutton" is her most prized possession these days and she loves to show people and tell them the story of how it got fixed.

In just two days we're off to tackle bigger things...our first day of preschool. When did my little girl start growing up???