Mmmm...baby food!!

I do not consider myself a holistic person (I don't do organic, I can't say that I am overly conscientious about the planet, I use plastic bags, I am not 'going green'). Nor am I an overly healthy eater (I consider dessert to be an appropriate meal). Typically I am willing to pay a premium for convenience (as long as the premium is minimal).

However, I have decided to MAKE Emrie's baby food. I will openly admit that I don't save a whole lot of money making her food as opposed to buying it, some of it is no healthier than jarred baby food since I used some canned veggies, and I only use re-usable jars because they are cute and fun.

So why choose to make her baby food you ask? Simply because making her baby food is probably the one thing I ENJOY doing in the kitchen!

I am able to make a mess, package it nicely, clean up quickly, and experience the joy of watching my daughter try new (typically gross) foods all in the matter of minutes. And the expressions she makes are priceless.

Here is a photo journey from beginning to end of the process:

Some of the veggies I was making today...we have already experienced carrots, peas, green beans, and avacado

Then you pour the chick peas in a food processor


Blended veggies ALWAYS smell gross...good thing Emrie doesn't know the difference


I like to color coordinate the lids with what is in the container...I'm a nerd


Finally, Emrie wearing, I mean enjoying the final product...apparently spinich is her thing (actually as you can tell by her rolls, all food is her thing:)

1 Year, 1 baby, 3 homes, many changes

It certainly has been a while since I posted anything, and you are about to find out why. This past year has been AMAZINGLY strange (well, not that strange considering our track record, but strange none the less). Last I wrote we had just moved back to Fort Wayne and I was pregnant. Here is the still long, but condensed version of what went on in our lives the past year.

July 15th, 2010: We moved into the St. Clairs Retreat home in Fort Wayne. It was beautiful and huge and I couldn't wait to get started decorating. Phil was working for Perry Corporation as a major accounts rep and I was starting work as the Title I coordinator at Imagine Schools on Broadway.

September 2010: Phil and I had been in Fort Wayne for a little over 2 months. I was due in 3 months and was frantically trying to get the house together (finishing the basement ourselves...bad idea). On September 11th (Phil's parents were visiting us for their anniversary), we receieved a 6 page handwritten letter in the mail from a family we did not know. They told us their story about walking through our house before we bought it and they were interested in buying it, but then their 20 year old son had a stroke leaving him partially paralized on one half of his body. He would have to live with them indefinately and because of the layout of our house (there was a staircase from the garage to the basement and a seprate wing of the house with a bedroom, bathroom and staircase to a bonus room above the garage) their son could live with them but still have privacy and freedom. This letter was their proposal to buy our house.

I, being 6 months pregnant and having JUST moved for the third time in 4 years imidiatly said NO!!! Phil, however, said, "honey, this is just a house to us, four walls and some furniture, we can make home anywhere, but this could really afford them something to make their quality of life better." We had also been reading through the book "The Hole in the Gospel" (I don't recommend reading it unless you are prepared to have your life changed). Phil was convicted to pray for God to challenge us and he felt this was our challenge. I was kind of mad at Phil for a little while that he would even consider giving up our house because I truly had pictured raising our kids in this house as teenagers. Long story short, I FINALLY realized he was right and just asked that they would let me have the baby and when my maternity leave was over we could discuss when we would move out and sell them the house.

December 21, 2010: We had our beautiful little girl named Emrie Delayne Van Gelder. Born at 9:53 pm, 8 pounds 6 ounces, 21 inches and lots of black hair.

January 2011: When Emrie was two weeks old we met with the family and talked about selling the house. We were looking to do it in a couple of months. Then when Emrie was three weeks old I began having the feelings of wanting to stay home, on her four week birthday, Phil came home for lunch and said he got a really weird phone call from a recruiter who wanted to interview him for a job as a Vice president of sales for Copy Co who sells Xerox.

The reason this was so significant is that Phil has ALWAYS wanted to be a V.P. or President of a company, this company was looking specifically for a late 20's man who had a little managerial experience which PHil had, and it happened to be in Indianapolis where we have always said we wanted to settle in for the long haul and Phil's parents moved to Indy just two years ago, so there is family close and his base salary would be what the two of us combined had been making!

Fast forward a few weeks. Phil went through a grouling interview process where he had to travel all over the country to do interviews and FINALLY they picked him for the job. The timing couldn't have been better. I was going to return from maternity leave at 10 weeks and they hired him when Emrie was 9 weeks old. So I told my principal and staff that I wouldn't be returning, packed our house up (no small task packing a 6,000 sq. ft. house with a newborn) and we moved that weekend.

March 5, 2011: All of our stuff went in storage and we moved in with my in-laws! We were supposed to close on our house in Fort Wayne at the end of March, but there was a delay so that didn't happen until the middle of May.

May 2011: Phil and I found a house in Carmel Indiana that we love and is really close to the church we attend. We are super excited.

June 2011: The plan was that I would be a homemaker (I LOVE being a mommy and am looking forward to this new career). In the meantime, I recieved a call from my old boss who asked me to come help start the school year with one of the Imagine Schools in Indianapolis. I will be working periodically throughout the summer and for the full months of August and September as a consultant and extra set of hands and eyes for the school administration.

This pretty much brings us up to date. Going forward from here on out I will try to blog more often than just once a year:)

July is shaping up to be VERY busy...Emrie and I are going to California to visit my family, I work for a week, we move into the new house, I work for another week, then Phil and I go to Mexico (just the two of us...super excited) then work starts for two months for me.

Look for much shorter updates soon!!!

Oh How Time Flies!

It has been a little while since my last blog, but with good reason:

1. We moved from Toledo to Fort Wayne
2. I was living in an apartment while Phil was still in Toledo
3. My apartment had no internet
4. We were spending our free time looking for houses
5. We were spending our free time trying to adjust to new jobs
6. We were spending our free time moving all our belongings into storage
7. We went on vacation to see my family in California
8. We moved into a house in Fort Wayne
9. There were/are lots of projects to do on our new house
10. We still have no internet at our house (I'm at Starbucks)

It has been a busy summer to say the least, but they have all been good changes and I am very happy about the move and what God has in store for us in this new chapter.

It's Official

I never really believed in Love of First Sight...Until today! We went for our first ultrasound and saw our little peanut for the first time. WOW. AMAZING. What a huge miracle in such a tiny package. Not until I saw that little blurry black and white picture did it feel real that Phil and I are going to be parents. The very first thing we noticed and that the tech pointed out was the flickering white spot in peanut's chest...the heartbeat. The heartbeat was loud and strong, which made me feel much more at ease. Then she measured the baby. At this point the average baby is 2.5 cm long...Phil's kid is already 3 cm. Go figure. The coolest part was seeing how active peanut already is. The legs were kicking and arms were flying. It even turned from one side to the other while the technician was checking something else. My heart is so full of joy, I don't know how I will be patient for another 7 months before I can hold our little one in my arms. We are so blessed!!!

Breaking News

Just like every little girl who dreams about her wedding day, I have been dreaming about the day that we would get to share with our families that we are pregnant. I am pretty sentimental (Phil can attest to that) and I like to be original, and I DEFINITELY wanted to be way high on the surprise factor. Selfishly, I wanted to see the reaction of my family, but since they lived so far away that posed a bit of an issue. So instead we decided to tell each family member individually so we could re-live the moment several times. First I told my sister Torrie. She is really artistic and she knew that we are moving so I sent her a picture via e-mail of the baby bedding and said, "do you think you could make something to match this bedding for the new house?" She got it RIGHT away.

I needed her help and my baby sister, Mallory's help to tell my mom, so I had to tell Mal next. I sent Mallory this picture in a text and said, "Look at what Phil and I bought for your littlest fan." (She is going to Michigan in the fall to play field hockey).

Her response was a little slower, she actually said, "who is my littlest fan." My response was, "I hope you don't mind if Phil and I bring someone with us to your games next year" She responded with an inquisitive, "are you pregnant?".

My dad was the only family member that I was able to tell in person because he was visiting for my graduation. I have him a thank you gift for traveling all the way out to see me and for sharing in my special graduation weekend. The gift was a jar of memories with my dad. He thought it was sweet and we both got a little teary. Then I told him there was another one and handed it to him. He looked at it, but didn't read the tag. I prompted him to read the tag which said 'memories with grandpa' He looked at my stomach and asked if I was pregnant. We both started crying. It was pretty special.


Then came mom's turn. I had gotten my sisters to help me pull this one off. It was mother's day, so I had a great way of disguising the announcement as a mother's day gift. For my birthday my mom had sent me a gift card to Starbucks with a card that said, "I wish we could get together for a coffee date, but this will have to do." So I had my sisters buy a webcam and set it up. Then they gave her a Starbucks coffee and blueberry muffin and set her and I up to Skype. My mom and I were talking on Skype and I told her that the coffee date was her mother's day gift. She thought that was pretty cool until a few minutes later when I said, "well mom, from one mom to another, happy mother's day." I am so thankful that I got to see her reaction. She said, "what" then got really excited and said "what" about 3 more times. Then the tears started flowing. She was SO excited.

To tell Travis and his wife Danielle, we sent them an e-vite invitation. The invitation read, "We know it is a little early to start planning, but if you aren't doing anything on Christmas Day, 2010, we would love for you to join us in our Big birthday celebration. The event will be held at Dupont Hospital for a couple of days. Upon arrival, ask the nurse for directions to the right room and follow the sound of screaming." Danielle called right away and said she and Travis have just been waiting for us to announce that we were pregnant.

Kyle was hard for me to think of something creative, but his reaction was priceless. He works at In-N-Out so I called him up and said, "Kyle, when Phil and I come to visit in July, do you think you could bring me a double-double because I will be pretty hungry now that I am eating for two." He said, 'No' in disbelief, then he started shouting 'No, No Way, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be an uncle.' He sent me a text message after we got off the phone and said, at first I thought I should tell you that you should get your own burger because by the time I brought you one from work it would be cold, but I CAN'T BELIEVE I AM GOING TO BE AN UNCLE.

Next was Phil's family. Because they live close enough for us to tell them in person we needed to wait a little longer until we would see them again. Luckily, Uncle Bill and Aunt Gayle were in town so we had an excuse to come over to visit. We told Lindsey first. Phil, Lindsey and I (my feet) were in the hot tub. Phil told Linds that we had been out shopping and found something that was TOTALLY her and Pat. I handed her a picture frame that said, "I Love My Aunt" and inside it said "I am due to meet you Christmas Day 2010." At first she didn't totally get it because she thought I was giving her something to put Bo and Daisy (their dogs) in since I say I am their Aunt. Then she got it and was excited! Lindsey got to tell Pat since he was in California having the bike trip of his life!

Then it was time to spill the beans to Ray and Marcia. We thought we had this great idea that they would get right away, but their reactions proved even better than we could have imagined. I printed out pictures from my graduation since Ray hadn't been there to see it. Then we sat the two of them down and let them look through the pictures. At the end of the pictures I had printed two normal looking pictures that said, "Proud Grad" and "Excited Grad". Then Phil and I did a little 'photo shoot' and came up with these two which I had printed on them, "Expectant Grad" and "Class of 2028".


It was so funny because the first picture, Ray said, "that is weird, it looks like Phil is holding her stomach." And Marcia said, "Oh they are just playing around." Then they looked at the next one which Phil and I thought would be super obvious, and they still didn't seem to get it. Ray said, "huh, now he is kissing her stomach and it really looks like she is pregnant." Marcia still wasn't convinced and she said, "oh this is a joke right." When no one said anything she looked at Phil who gave her a shrug and she started crying and repeated, "this IS a joke right, right." Then she turned and looked at me and I was already crying and smiling and hugged her. They were SO surprised but excited to become Nana and Papa Ray!

Telling Uncle Tony was hard because we wanted to tell him in person but there wasn't a good time so we sent him a text message with the ultrasound and said, "you probably can't see the family resemblance yet but you will in about 7 months. Call my mom and dad for more details." He called and wad so excited but he was confused by who the mom and dad were. It was funny explaining that we were mom and dad.

Sharing the news with our family was almost more exciting than finding out for ourselves!

Graduation Day

I am FINALLY done. It took twice as long to get through my undergrad, but then all I did was play field hockey and go to class. Grade school was half as much time and yet it felt like it would NEVER end. I suppose working all day then going to class at night twice a week, doing homework all weekend and taking classes all summer will make it feel that way. BUT NOW IT IS OVER. I was so blessed to share my big weekend with my dad who flew in from San Diego and my mother-in-law who drove over from Indianapolis and of course my WONDERFUL proof reader, I mean husband, who equally deserved the diploma. I could not be more thankful to be done!!! Now, if only I could figure out a way to get out of paying for it...

Home Sweet Home

What makes a house become a home? Is it the paint on the walls or the curtains that match the pretty bedspread? Or is it the Pottery Barn pillows on the leather couch and the Kirkland's candle holders hanging in the kitchen? Those things look good in a magazine and make a house look slightly occupied, but that isn't what makes it a home.

A home is a place filled with memories. Wear tracks worn into the carpet from walking back and forth from the kitchen to the living room with popcorn for movie time together. The stain on the couch from a spilled drink during a Christmas party. The chip in the piano when the kids were playing field hockey in the house. The holes in the wall where favorite posters were hung with thumbtacks during the pre-teen years. The gouge in the dining room wall where someone fell back in their chair after being told for the 15th time not to rock back. The pine needles still stuck in the baseboard from last year's Christmas tree. The holes in the backyard where the old swingset used to be.

Sure you can patch holes and change carpet and paint, but underneath it all are the memories that can never be erased. Sometimes it might take a little digging, but you can always find the memories there, and that is what makes a house a home. The place you feel safe, accepted, comfortable and can make new memories to add to the old.