If the site goes down for a day or two, don’t worry. We’re in the process of switching webhosts. That goes for email as well, but I’m hoping things won’t be down for too long.

Until then. . .

Last night we got to see the lunar eclipse. It was so amazing to watch. I thought it was really neat how the timing worked out – the eclipse was just beginning when we left to go home from church. We stopped at Stephen’s folks’ house on the way home, and by the time we got to our house, the eclipse was almost complete.

It just amazes me what an incredible God we have. Just watching things like the eclipse – seeing how powerful He is – knowing He created the sun, moon, and Earth that way – wow. What a powerful God!

(Picture from Science Centric. I tried to take pictures, but they didn’t turn out well)

I guess it’s official. C slept through the night last night. He ate at 11 last night, and then woke up wanting to eat at 5:45 this morning. He’s slept well some other nights too, but this is the first time I’d actually call it “sleeping through the night.” Either way – 5 hours of straight sleep (or more) – I’ll take it!

That would explain the somewhat presence of a brain I have this morning. LOL!

It was lovely. That time of day is so peaceful. All you hear is the chickens (well, once the neighbors have left for work, that is). Stephen brought me my Bible and a cup of coffee, so I was able to have my quiet time while I fed the baby. Mmmmm. What a great start to my day!

Hopefully I’ll be able to have more mornings like this – it was absolutely wonderful.

No-Crust Chocolate Cheesecake

3/8 cup semisweet chocolate chips — melted
8 ounces lowfat cream cheese — softened
1/4 cup Splenda granular (or 6 packets of Splenda)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Line a mini loaf pan with foil. If you have it, use non-stick foil. I didn’t, so I just greased the foil instead.

Mix together the cream cheese and the chocolate chips. Beat well. Add Splenda and vanilla. Add egg.

Pour batter into the loaf pan. Place the loaf pan in a larger pan (I used an 8×8 pan), and fill the larger pan with enough water to come halfway up the side of the mini pan.

Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Remove from water bath and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until cold – about three hours.

To serve, remove cheesecake from pan by lifting up the foil. Serves 4.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 226 Calories; 16g Fat (61.5% calories from fat); 8g Protein; 14g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 85mg Cholesterol; 414mg Sodium.

Exchanges: 1 Lean Meat; 2 1/2 Fat; 1 Other Carbohydrates.

This just amazes me. I’ve been awarded some blog awards!

Both Barbara of Count It All Joy and Susan of ByGrace gave me this award. I am so humbled that not just one, but two ladies thought to send it my way!

It comes with some rules:

By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, you have to award it to 10 more
people whose blogs you find Excellent Award worthy. You can give it to as
many people as you want but please award at least 10. Thank you out there
for having such great blogs and being such great friends! You deserve this!
Feel free to award people who have already been awarded.

This is the hard part for me. I read so many blogs, and so many of them are a blessing to me. The hard part is wanting to award it, but not wanting to leave anybody out. It seems like even in blog-land, things turn into a big popularity contest. So many people read the same blogs, and the same ladies get awards over and over again.

So here are the people I’d like to pass the award on to – listed as they come to mind:

1. Mrs. U at Making a House a Home. Her blogging about making her house a home is a real encouragement to me to be the best housewife I can be.

2. Tori at A Home Away From Home. A missionary wife to Croatia.

3. Amy at Blessed by Adoption and Birth. Another adoptive mama that also got to experience a miracle pregnancy

4. Michele at Stories of My Life. A candid look at moving out of the US and adjusting to life in Puerto Rico

5. Stephen at A Bubble Off Center. My beloved. Need I say more? He just started the blog and is trying to find time to post there – but of course I think it’s excellent.

6. Christina at HsKubes Haven for Home. She doesn’t accept awards (for some of the reasons I mentioned above, I believe), but she truly is an encouragement to me. A military homeschooling family – she is a tremendous encouragement to me as a younger mama.

7. Meredith at Like Merchant Ships. Her blog is so full of neat ideas

8. Tammy at Tammy’s Times. She makes some of the neatest projects and everything she makes is beautiful. I’d love to be able to knit socks as lovely as the ones she’s shared on her blog!

9. Susan at ByGrace. A missionary’s wife in Canada – I love reading about their life in the ministry.

10. Frugal Hacks. It’s so full of frugal ideas and is often thought provoking for me as well, prompting me to think of frugality in ways I haven’t thought of before.

The other award is also from Susan. It’s the You Make Me Smile Award.

It was a real honor to receive this award, but I never mentioned it here when she gave it to me. I totally forgot. It wasn’t until another blogger mentioned that she too had forgotten to post about it on her blog that I realized I should give Susan a public thank you and an apology. I’m sorry for being so rude, Susan! And thanks again for the award!

Tonight we’re having a healthy special dinner. We’re having sirloin steak (which is marinading at the moment), mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, and chocolate cheesecake.

The cheesecake is my experiment. I found this recipe for Chocolate Cheesecake For Two this afternoon, and decided to adapt it just a little bit. Well, actually, I combined it with the Philly 3-step cheesecake recipe you can find at kraftfoods.com. If it turns out well (looks and smells good), I’ll post the recipe.

Actually, now that I think about it, I guess I used both recipes as a starting point and went from there – because I made quite a few changes. One of the big changes I made was making it with Splenda instead so that it can be no sugar added (since there’s sugar in the chocolate chips). The batter tasted pretty good, so I’m guessing that it’s a keeper. Hoping, anyway.

If it turns out well, I’ll post the recipe here. If not, well, it won’t be the first time that an experiment has had less than stellar results, lol!

Monday I learned a valuable lesson.

When your husband wakes up at 3am with an upset stomach, but decides to go to work anyway. . .
When your 3-year-old son decides to be more rambunctious than usual. . .
When your 2-week-old son decides to eat all day long. . .
When your husband calls to say he’s on his way home from work because the upset stomach is really a stomach virus. . .
When the 3-year-old decides not to take a nap. . .
When the baby wants to be held ALL day long. . .
When the husband sleeps all afternoon, and the 3-year-old doesn’t want to be quiet so Daddy can rest. . .
When the husband turns green just thinking about food. . .

That is NOT the day to forget to have a cup of coffee in the morning! I usually only drink one mug a day, but apparently I’m more dependent on the caffeine than I thought. Oh – and eating left over brownies for breakfast is not a good idea either. Yeah, let’s start the day with too much sugar, no caffeine, a sick husband, and a rowdy boy.

Adding a pounding tension headache to that mix does not make for a good day.

Next time I consider skipping the coffee so the smell doesn’t nauseate my husband – I’ll wait ’til he leaves for work, and then I’ll brew a pot of extra-strong coffee, just in case!

Boy, was I ever glad to go to bed THAT night!

Well, I started with cloth diapers today. I’m not convinced I like some of the ones that I made.

The first ones I made were from the newborn size Mama Bird pattern. I didn’t make very many since babies grow so fast. That was a good decision. The rest that I made are from the Rita’s Rump Pocket pattern. It was great to sew, but they’re considerably bigger and won’t fit C for a while, even folded down.

Leak-wise, the Mama Bird ones are fine. As big as they looked, the size is okay too. I was actually surprised to see that the tabs didn’t fit as far around C’s waist as I thought they would, but they still fit. Most of the ones I made I lengthened the tabs on, so that should be good once he grows more too.

The only complaint I have is they don’t fit my skinny baby all that well in the legs. Maybe I should have used shorter elastic in the legs so that they’d be tighter; I don’t know. So far he hasn’t had a massive poo blowout, so they haven’t leaked, but there’s enough space around his thighs that it looks like it could potentially be a problem. Unless he chunks out in the very near future. . .

The convenience of the all-in-one diapers is wonderful though. That much I’m 100% sold on – they’re SO much better than the prefold and plastic pants routine that we did with S. I didn’t mind it then, but this is a big improvement.

I thought about starting the cloth sooner, but figured I’d wait a little first. They were pretty big, and we had quite a few disposable diapers in the newborn size that needed to get used. Those things are so tiny! :O) We’re out of NB size now though, and the Size 1 that we do have are just too big for him yet. So I decided to start the cloth today. It feels good to toss a cloth diaper in the bucket instead of having all the paper ones that just get thrown in the trash.

So far, so good. . .