Recipes

We've put our toys into a rotation system and yesterday the kiddos wanted to get out the kitchen and play dishes.  So we put away a different set of toys and got them out.  As I sat folding laundry, "N" and   "A" started bringing me food from their restaurant.  Here are some of their recipes:

Shredded Milk - especially good for babies and toddlers - by "N"
1 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
1 oz blue chocolate
1 oz red milk
1/2 bag of peas, juiced (add the juice, not the peas)
purple milk

Stir well.  Serve to the child.

Chocolate Milk - by "A"
yellow chocolate
brown chocolate
white milk, just a little bit
lots of milk

Chocolate Pudding - by "N"
1 Tbls pink chocolate
1 Tbls purple chocolate
2 oz cheddar cheese
1 oz smoked bacon

2 Things...

First, I had a couple of errands to do at the mall, so I told the kiddos that if they were good, we'd play at the play area when we were done.  They did great, so we went.  I saw a little boy get his face pushed around by another little boy and he came crying, deservedly so, over to his mom (who happened to be sitting near me).  She calmed him down and then reminded him to play nicely, even if the other boys weren't.  About 5 minutes later, this same picked-on little boy, was pushing my son out of the tree house RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS MOM who was in a conversation with her friend and didn't notice a thing.  I called my son over, he waited a minute and the other boy got tired of sitting in the tree house alone and moved on.  My son went back to play.

My point is, that I completely support going to the play area (obviously, since we were there).  But it's not a place to go and then forget you have children, letting them run rampant until they need you!  Children do need to learn to interact and socialize, but it's a learning process and you, as the parent, need to be involved to help teach your children proper behavior, not just tell them something and then never help them learn how to behave, or even supervise their learning.  It was good that she told her son to be nice, but not good to not see him push my son out of the tree house, instead of teaching him that "being nice" is sharing the tree house.  I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, that she was watching one of her other children, but she wasn't!  She was deep in conversation with her friend (I know this since I was sitting right next to them).  My son wasn't hurt.  I bet he doesn't even remember  being pushed out of the tree house.  But it was a good reminder to me to part of my children's play, even on the sidelines.

And now I don't remember the second thing...

But these are our cute bunnies, Fluffy and Puffy! (since I needed a picture)

Yep.

This is for all mother's of newborns.  Especially those newborns who have their days and nights confused (I'm not going to name any names). Here's being incredibly excited for when he turns 6 weeks old, when all things start to normalize and routine-ize (according to "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth, who has yet to let us down on all things relating to children's sleep.)

(Thank you very much to my good friend from North Carolina who now resides in California for introducing us to this amazing book).

Pumpkin Patch

I love pumpkin patches!  I'm not sure why, since I didn't grow up around them.  In fact, my first trip to a pumpkin patch was when we were living in North Carolina, and N was 6 months old.  Now, however, they are a much looked forward to tradition in October.  Except last year, because we grew our own pumpkins.  Which was fun, except that we didn't get to visit a pumpkin patch, since we had plenty of pumpkins already.  This year we didn't plant pumpkins, since I didn't want to miss out on going to a patch.  We did, however, have one volunteer pumpkin plant, which produced one pumpkin. We decided that it would "S"'s pumpkin, since he didn't get one from our garden last year.

We found a good one this year!  It had a corn maze and tractors galore for the kiddos to climb on and "drive".  They had pumpkins of all colors, shapes and sizes.  They had mini-wheelbarrows, which is what my kiddos would say was the best part of the whole patch.

Confession:  That sentence above that reads "tractors galore for the kiddos to climb on and "drive"" originally read "tractors galore for the kiddos to explore", but then all I could think of was the scene in "Princess Bride" where the giant is rhyming and the really annoying guy says "No more rhyming and I mean it!" and the giant replies "Anybody want a peanut?".  So I had to change it.  (Maybe it's time to watch the movie again.  I can't remember the characters names!  Except for the sword fighter, and I have no idea how to spell his name!  Oh, and Buttercup and Wesley, of course.  I can remember those.)

He's Here!

Our "S" is here!  He was born on October 4th.  If you'd like to see his blog, comment or email me and I'll send you an invite.

Girls Camp Crafts and TMI

I've been meaning to post pictures of our girls camp crafts for awhile now (as in, since we got back in JUNE).  Better late than never, right?



This is a magnet board.  Mine turned out a little strange, but the rest were super cute!  Take a cookie sheet (make sure it's magnetic!), spray paint it (either all of it, or tape around the edges.  Both ways look good), and then add stickers.  Drill holes in the top and add some matching ribbon.  Finish it off with cute magnets and start leaving notes!













These button flowers were by far my favorite craft.  Use floral wire and choose some cute buttons.  I have plans to turn mine into hair clips for my kiddos, but haven't done it yet.

We stamped our own necklaces!  Our ward's camp director found a set of metal stamps and we stamped.  The part to remember is to use a sharpie inside the stamped letters/numbers, then immediately rub it off with a paper towel.  It helps the numbers/letters "pop".

The last one (that I took a picture of) was this pop tab bracelet.  It's not something I'll wear everyday (I'm definitely the wrong generation for that), but very cool to learn.










Now for the TMI - The OB says I'm dilated to a 1+!  I've never dilated before, so this is big news.  I've even been having contractions - which is a new thing to me, even though we're on our fourth.  We took a trip to the hospital, but came home an hour or so later.  The contractions weren't strong enough even though they were close together.  Since I was borderline gestational diabetes, if he doesn't come before Wednesday (Oct 3) I'm going to be induced.  So we're definitely having a baby THIS WEEK!!!  WAHOO!!!

Hot Air Balloon Festival

I love me some hot air balloons!  We recently had a festival and woke the kiddos up early to go see them off!  We weren't there as early as last year (thank goodness!  Last year we made it before most of the balloons!) and actually made it just in time to see the first balloon taking off!  There seemed to be something off, because quite a few of the balloons had a hard time getting out of the park without hitting the trees (the middle is all open field, but it's surrounded by trees!)!  The kiddos all got a helium filled balloon, which they loved!  "J" didn't like the sound of the fire inside the balloons and "A" wasn't so sure he wanted to touch one, but all of the kiddos had fun in the end!  Even more fun, was that after it was all over and we'd come home, we were finishing up breakfast and heard a hot air balloon!  We opened our front door and saw one flying over our neighbors' house, then it went and landed at the school next door to us!  We cleaned up breakfast and headed over to see it again!  DH was able to help pack it away!

Catch Up

Last week I was at a wedding, with my camera (just for fun), and there was no photographer.  Turns out he'd gone to the wrong temple, about an hour away.  So I turned into a wedding photographer thirty minutes.  Not that I'm anywhere near professional or even want to be. Being a portrait photographer was a dream that I dismissed years ago.  But it would have been so sad to not have any pictures around the temple!

"S" is due in less than 10 weeks (9 to be specific).  That is just CRAZY!!!  I don't have a full menu done for the month, but I'm working on getting some meals into the freezer, so that when October comes, we'll be stocked and ready to go (or not go.  ANYWHERE.)

I thought "N" was an easy potty-trainer.  Then "A" was trained (trained here meaning that he tells us when he needs to go, no matter where we are) in 5 days with only 2 accidents (none of which were at night).  Now "J" thinks that she's ready to be trained and is training herself!  She tells us when she wants to go and we take her and 95% of the time, she really does something!  She's wearing pull-ups, though, because she doesn't always tell us.  And she hasn't woken up dry for quite some time.  "S" is going to have quite the challenge keeping up with his siblings!

DH changed jobs and is really enjoying the company.

Our A/C works.  Hallelujah!  (That week of 100 with minimal A/C was HOT!!!)

I'm working on making a plan for our first "official" year of homeschooling.  So far, the plan is to not have a plan, just do some basics and have fun.

July 2012 Menu

july 2012

This month I didn't go with a theme.  I went with my favorite summer meals.  Then added in suggestions from DH and other things that sounded yummy but not too difficult (or hot!).  I really, REALLY like doing my menu by the month.  I don't always follow it, but it's so nice to know that I have a plan (or at least had one at some point!).

Introducing...

Spot Nick.  He's our new Jersey Wooly/Mini-rex mixed rabbit.  The kiddos love him.  I love him.  DH loves him.  He's learning to love us.  We've had him for just over a week.  He loves to explore our backyard (with supervision.  I think he'd love to eat our garden and might be able to go through or under the fence.  He's small!)