January 18--Melty Cheese meets 2 Little Boys

Lots of food pictures lately.  I’m not sure way, other than I have been riding the bike a bit and it makes me hungry.  So today the kids got cheese toast for lunch after a morning of running errands out in the cold gloomy weather.  Even Wesley who has been on a diet of crackers and milk lately decided it was worth eating and nothing like melty cheese to make a body warm up.  Oh, and in case you don’t do this already a pizza cutter can cut more then pizza…pancakes, sandwiches, waffles, frittata and poultry shears are great for pasta, meat, and anything with chucks that are not bite size.  So cut and snip away to make your next meal Wessy friendly.

January 18—Two ways to get your daily dose of Popeye

I don’t know about you, but healthy eating for me comes in spurts.  I will be doing great and then a chocolate cake will suck me in or I’ll rid my house of all junk food only to have Dave show up at home with a pizza.  Well, lately we have been doing pretty good and our new favorite treat is called “the green monster.”  It is bright green, looks extremly strange, and makes you look like a green mistachioed monster.  Wes and Miles are fans…Ian’s still deciding if he wants to risk a taste.  So if you want to brave it pour a cup of milk into the blender, add a handful of spinach, a frozen banana cut into pieces and half an apple. Blend until smooth and then pulse in about 6 ice cubes for texture.  It will taste like banana I promise and you’ll get your daily does of Popeye’s muscle building medicine.

Spinach dish number two….Italian Sausage and Spinach soup.  The recipe can be found here and let me just say all of the soups on this site are incredible.  My kids gobble this one up and Ian has even named the writer of this blog “The Soup Lady.” 

January 11—My Kind of Bread

Made 8 mini loaves of gluten free pumpkin bread today.  My house smells good and my belly should be happy to have some bread around for the next few weeks.  Maybe next time I will throw in some chocolate chips or nuts.

January 10—A Little Boy, a Good Friend & his “Phant”

So Tuesday is piano day for one of our favorite students…Adelaide Mair.  She comes for her lesson and her mom wisks away the two older boys while I teach her her a few new songs.  After her lesson she sneaks into Wesley’s room and wakes him up from his nap.  He wakes up laughing and smiling and wanting nothing to to with me.  Addie lifts him out of his crib and off they go with “phant” to explore the house and play.  Addie has made up a few songs about Wessy and his “phant” and on this day Wes wanted to show both Addie and Phant the new snow outside.

Saturday, January 14—Rice or Cow…

When we moved into our house we didn’t know that a standard size refrigerator does not fit in the hole we have---it would stick out about 4-6 inches into the doorway entering the kitchen.  So, we have a smaller counter depth fridge that does not hold as much as a mom with three growing boys would like.  On a good day we can fit two gallons of milk in the fridge and by Saturday we are always running low due to Wesley’s ability to drink about 1/2 a gallon of milk every day.  On Saturday we ran out there was enough milk for cereal and that was it.  Wes kept asking for milk and whining until I finally pulled out my rice milk and filled up his sippy.  In the past he hasn’t noticed the difference but after one sip he was mad.  “No!  Milk.  I wa milk.”  Dave showed him the regular milk in his cereal bowl and he threw the sippy on the floor and picked up his cereal bowl and down the hatch the rest of the milk went.  At least I don’t have to share my milk…but a cow might still be a good investment.

Friday, January 13—A Night Out with a Little Gentleman

Ian has been off track since Christmas break and once again we all got sick while he was home.  Instead of spending the week crossing items off of our “off-track to do list”  we spent the week doing laundry, napping, watching TV, and cleaning the bathroom.  Last time he was off track we spent it at Instacare, Primary Children’s, and the doctor’s office.  So, I told him we would go on a date Friday night just the two of us.  His date night choices were mini-golfing, bowling, and a movie.  He chose the movie because “that way I can spend more time with you (he’s already a ladies man). 

We started the evening at Applebee’s armed with a gift card courtesy of the PTA.  We played games on my cell phone, watched the basketball game, and did all of the puzzles on the kids menu.  He discussed his Reflection winning photo with our waitress, commented on the basketball game loud enough for those around us to ask him questions about who he wanted to win, and laughed at the servers singing Happy Birthday.  After dinner we went to see “We Bought a Zoo” which was actually really good and we both liked it.  We decided our favorite character was the little girl and Ian’s favorite part was were they tell everyone there is no Easter Bunny (so be prepared parents).  Ian is still trying to figure it out, he keeps asking me every few days if there is an Easter Bunny. 

Miles is already planning his date night.  Bowling and McDonalds.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday, January 15

1. Stacked Up

Was taking our IKEA bowls out of the dishwasher and stacking them when I thought they might take a good photograph. We love these bowls and use them at almost every single meal…thank you IKEA.

2.  Hole

My MIL came to help out with the kids this week while I was down with the flu and this is my oldest with one of the many activities they did with Grandma.  They made snowflakes, played the ukulele, sang songs, played football outside, and made peanut butter and honey on toast. 

3.  Frozen

Thanks to the flu bug going around our house we ate a lot of these frozen treats this week.  I kept rearranging these in the freezer trying to get a good shot, but every time I would lean in for a close up shot my lens would fog up…thus the blurry bottom of the photo. 

4.  Winter Wonderland

Well, winter has not found us yet.  Instead we are in this cloudy, cold gray yuck hoping for some snow or some sun.  Here is the little bit of snow on my deck.  It is suppose to snow tonight so hopefully the storm will blow the gray away.

5.  Sweet

This little boy is pretty sweet and so is his sucker.

Check out all the other great entries…

January 9—Little Mr. Sunshine meets the Flu Bug

So, remember the happy little camper from a few posts ago?  I awoke to him crying this morning and I knew what it meant.  I grabbed the garbage can out of my room and ran just in time to make it for the first round.

Here he is after round 2 and a bath.  He would get sick and then run around like nothing happened and then it would hit him again.  This lasted for about 4 rounds…by round 6 he was pretty worn out and decided to snuggle with me in the rocking chair.  By round 7 he would just wander over to me and start to whimper and yell “no” I would grab the “puke bucket” as Miles calls it just in time.

Twenty four hours on the dot and he was feeling better, then it hit Miles.  I told Dave as I cleaned the bathroom for the 5th time that my turn around would probably be Thursday and I was right on the money…Thursday morning hit with a bang. We thought we were out of the woods until I heard Ian yelling from his room at 4:00 this morning and off I ran with the “puke bucket.”  Dave is the only one left untouched and I’m tempted to quarantine him somewhere.

I absolutely hate seeing my babies sick, but I have learned a bit from them or about them…Ian is stoic sick, doesn’t ask for much, just wants to get it over with and move on.  Miles is needy (in a very endearing kind of way) sick, I need Gatorade, make me a sick bed by the TV, more otter pops, rub my neck, read me a book (everything is followed by puppy dog eyes and a big please).  Wessy is mad sick, yelling “no, no” whenever I would produce the bucket and then ignores the fact that he feels like crap and runs around like a crazy kid.  Makes me love these little dudes even more and now that I have disinfected the whole house I’m going back to bed.

January 6—A Tent, a Camel & an Empty Ladder

Today was off track fort day at our house.  At least one day of Ian’s off track time is spent inside a fort built in the living room…that day was today.  We string sheets and blankets from the dining room table which we move into the living room and with the help of a few chairs and the piano bench we create quite the fortress.  The kids always haul up the children’s encyclopedias from the basement to hold down the sheets, but we never use them and then they pass the day perusing their favorite sections (of course this means gross bug pictures).  They ate lunch in the tent and then moved onto Chutes and Ladders.  After the game they ventured out of the tent, but left the game out.  When Wesley got up from his nap and saw the game board under the tent he knew he had hit the jackpot…no one ever lets him play (he hogs the spinner and steals everybody’s game piece).  He sat down and spun away, marched the little Chutes and Ladder guys, his toy elephant and his camel snack cracker all over the board!  Oh, to be two and have ownership over something…because in the eyes of a two year old isn’t everything “mine” anyway.

January 4—Little Mr. Sunshine

 

Every morning I wake up to this happy face….

he never wakes up crying or unhappy.  He is happy to see that sun every day and sits in his bed talking about elephants until I come and get him.  “Ephant where are you”  “Ephant I wuv you” “Ephant, geraff, wion”  Thanks little dude for making every morning so happy!

Sometime in December—The Many Faces of Miles

January 6—Diversity, Rain & Reflections

So, back in September we realized it was “Reflection” contest time again.  I was teaching the piano and entries were due in a few days.  I gave Ian the camera set it on auto and told him to take some photos.  It was raining that day and after piano we had a little camera lesson and practiced focusing the camera on the raindrops that had collected on the sliding glass door.  The photo below is the result and now Ian and his “Stormy Day” are moving onto region.  Way to go little Ansel Adams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 18—Happy, Happy Birthday Mr. Miles the Goofball

Yes, it has been awhile, but we must document the birthday that has been a year in late night planning…Miles turned 5.  And now that he is five he can put on his own shoes and jacket without help…which makes his mom very happy.  Every night when Miles goes to bed he asks me to stay and talk about his birthday party.  In the course of this past year we have planning a bowling party, a dinosaur theme party, a Cars party, a Transformer party, an Angry Bird party and most recently a monster truck party.  So monster truck it was.  We had a few friends over and they made towers to knock down with their monster trucks, pin the tire on the monster truck and color your own monster truck.  It was so much fun…and now we start planning for next year.

Dave found this tool belt for Miles and he immediately put the whole thing on..maybe next year we can have a construction theme party.

November ?—Look Who Saved the Day!

December 25—Stopping Santa, a Few Elephants & Take & Bake Pizza

We spent a fun, quiet, snowless Christmas at home this year.  On Christmas Eve we realized church was at 9 AM and not at 11 like we had thought so we quickly decided to open presents after church and hope the kids would sleep in a bit.  Miles went to bed nervous about the big man in the red suit coming into our house.  He likes Santa, but the thought of a strange man coming into the house while he is sleeping was a little scary. At least we didn’t let him watch the Grinch this year.  Last year he was worried the green monster would come and steal his presents after Santa came.  We (Miles & I) decided I would meet Santa outside and bring in the presents so he wouldn’t have to actually come in the house.  So after the kids were nestled all snug in their beds I stayed up and intercepted Santa at the door.

The kids did sleep in a bit and we were off to church bright and early.  It was actually a really nice way to start off Christmas.  The choir sang and there were some great speakers.  We got home and the kids tore into everything.  It took Wes about 2 seconds to figure out what was going on.  Wes scored on everything elephant, Miles was a fan of his watch from the $ store and Ian spent the day listening to tunes on his MP3 player.  My parents came bringing round two of the gifts and stayed for a late lunch of take and bake pizza (note to self this was the easiest and yummiest Christmas dinner ever).  We lounged around the table while the kids played with all their new toys and spread Legos all over the house.  Hope you all had a Merry One too.