The OC Mama

A day at the beach...

2012-02-07T13:11:00.001-08:00

Last weekend we went to HB to watch a play my friend's daughter was in. She was great. We weren't allowed to have camera's in the show though so I have no photos. It was so nice to see everyone though. I miss my friends over that way. Our kids have all gotten older and we just don't see them that often anymore. So after the show we had a late lunch at Jeff's favorite restaurant at the beach. We love Woody's. Although it's gotten a lot harder for me to eat there. When I was pregnant with Amelia I would eat chili fries and a chocolate shake for lunch. Gee I wonder why I gained so much weight? lol. It's always fun to take cell phone pictures in the booths...

After lunch at Woody's we headed to the real beach. I love the pier in HB. It was nice and cool out. Not a ton of people on the beach (the pier and downtown HB were packed though) I didn't get a lot of great pictures because it was sunset so the light was weird. And J was obsessed with getting a picture of the kids and I in front of the curfew sign. I think he took seven of them.

It was such a nice day. I love the beach. And I love it even more when it's peaceful. We looked for shells, wandered around, got sand all over and just had a nice time as a family. I need to remember to spend more time at the beach in the winter.

Menu Plan Monday

2012-02-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Here's what we're eating this week, what are you having? Some of the recipes can be found below.

Monday: BBQ chicken sandwiches, on wheat sandwich thins, with sweet potato fries, cucumbers
Tuesday: Salmon, brown rice, broccoli,
Wednesday: Cowboy Stew (new recipe, we'll see how it goes) Salad
Thursday: Creamy Red Potatoes and Chicken (another new recipe,)
Friday: Leftovers/Eat out
Saturday: Broccoli chicken casserole
Sunday: Enchiladas

I have this huge list of slow cooker recipes that a friend sent me years ago, it's got hundreds of recipes. However, there's no mention of where they came from originally. Both of these recipes come from this list. If you know where it came from or if this is your recipe, tell me and I'll give credit. :-)

Creamy Red Potatoes and Chicken
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 8 hrs
Ingredients
1 1/2 Pounds Red Potatoes -- chunked
8 Ounces low fat cream Cheese
10 3/4 Ounces can Cream of Potato Soup
1 Envelope Ranch-style Dressing Mix
12 Ounces Chicken Breast Without Skin -- cut into strips
Notes / Directions
Place potatoes in slow cooker. Beat together the cream cheese, soup and salad dressing mix.
Stir in chicken strips and spread over potatoes (or just stir all together). Cover and cook on Low 8
hours, or until potatoes are tender. Stir once after 5-6 hours. Stir before serving.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 381 Calories; 15g Fat (35.5% calories from fat); 25g
Protein; 36g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 84mg Cholesterol; 626mg Sodium.

Makes: 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 8 hrs
Ingredients
1 1/4 lbs beef stew meat
4 potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 4" pcs.
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 (28 oz.) can Baked beans in BBQ Sauce
Notes / Directions
Mix beef, potatoes, onion, salt and pepper in 3 1/2 qt. to 4 qt. slow cooker. Spread beans over beef
mixture. Cover and cook on LOW 8-10 hrs. or until beef is tender.

Per serving: cal 370, fat 12g, sat fat 5g, chol 65mg, sod 1030mg, carb 46g, fiber 8g, prot 28g
Points: 7

Did you post your menus this week? Need more menu inspiration? Go visit Laura at orgjunkie.com for more great menu plans. And leave me a comment if you planned your menu this week and I'll stop by and visit you too.

The ice cream cone cupcakes

2012-02-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

Amelia wanted ice cream one cupcakes for her birthday. I remember having them one year when I was a kid, so I went on a mission to find a recipe. Here's what I ended up with.

I made two batches way ahead of time because I wanted to make sure it was going to work how I wanted it to. Make up a batch of cake batter, just like you would for cupcakes. I used boxed cake mixes. I tend to splurge on the icing, not the cake for my kid's parties. For the party I made two dozen chocolate and two dozen white with sprinkles.

Use a cupcake pan and put the ice cream cones in the pan. Fill 2/3 or so full with batter. It's okay if you have batter left over, you don't want to fill them too full. if they get overfilled, the cupcake will cook over the top and make the cone all icky.

Bake them according to your cake recipe directions for cupcakes. I cooked 24 at a time, with the cones in two pans on one rack in the oven. Because they're taller than cupcakes, that seemed to be the best way.

After they cool they just need to be frosted and decorated. I used the same buttercream recipe I always use for my kids cake. Half got dyed pink and half I left white. I had a hard time storing the finished ice cream cone cupcakes. My cupcake holders weren't tall enough. So I had 2 dozen in a cupcake holder with foil over the top, and toothpicks holding the foil off the icing. The other batch ended up in a big cake holder, and they kept falling over. I'll have to figure out a better way to store them next time.

Happy 7th birthday Mia!

2012-02-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

Where'd the time go? How on earth did I become the mother of a seven year old? I swear I just had her. I went back and found some old pictures from my blog from the first few years. I forget how grown up she is, until I see her as a baby.

Her party turned out great. I was a little sad that she had an opinion on who came this year, we invited mostly friends from school instead of my friends and their kids. We also had Jeff's mom and my Grandpa here. It was nice.

She's making me crazy..

2012-01-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Amelia has really gotten into the party planning for her birthday this year. The only problem is all the stuff she's planning doesn't really go together. She wants a PJ party during the day, but she wants a bouncer too. I'm not sure if parent's want their kids out playing in my yard in their PJ's. She wants to do girly stuff like makeup, and painted nails, but now she's got 2 boys she wants to invite. I'm tempted to tell her to just pick one kid and I'll take them both to Disneyland for the day and just be done with it. Or I could just do what we normally do for parties, have a bouncer and pinata, lots of food, lots of our friends and leave it at that. Maybe we'll save the sleepover style party for next year. What do your kids do for birthday parties? Are they big and crazy parties? Small family only gatherings? Tell me all about it. :-)

What I ate Wednesday #4

2012-01-10T22:13:00.001-08:00

It's Wednesday! Time for what I ate. And since I'm getting new visitors around here, I thought I'd share a little disclaimer. I had stomach surgery in August. I'm still on a pretty limited and small portioned diet. I'm eating super small quantities but I'm under a doctor's care. Don't send me emails that you're going to eat like I eat so you can lose weight okay? lol.

I didn't really have breakfast, it was more of a brunch. It was blackberries and Chobani Greek yogurt. This was my first time trying the Chobani yogurt. It's good because it has a lot of protein, but it's also got a lot of sugar. I ate half the container and was okay, I think if I ate a whole container it might make me sick.

Dinner was a small baked pork chop and some veggies. It was yummy. I was just released by my surgeon to have pork, after not being allowed any for like five months, so pork chops are pretty exciting. lol.

Blackberries are one of my favorite foods from my childhood. They grew wild all over the place where I grew up, but that's not the case where I live now so they're a rare treat. So of course I had to have them twice in one day. My snack was blackberries and cottage cheese. Nom. Nom. Nom.

What WIAW isn't about

Comparison - Judgement - Restriction - Guilt

What WIAW is about

Celebrating one of the glorious things we all have in common: We all eat!

WIAW is about food and fun! It's about making new friends, breaking out of a food rut, inspiring yourself & others, embracing fruit & vegetables, finding new ways to eat your favorite foods, and so much more <3

Celebrate blogging. Celebrate Food. Celebrate Individuality.
[Cause over here, we like to party!]

Menu Plan Monday

2012-01-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

It's been ages since I played. I plan my menus every week but I've been too lazy to post them. Well here's this weeks plan. Jeff is not going to be home for dinner this week so it's pretty simple stuff, silly to make big meals for my small appetite and the kids don't eat a ton anyway.

Monday Meatball and Vegetable Kabobs
Tuesday Baked Pesto Chicken, Broccoli, salad
Wednesday Simple Turkey Chili, corn bread
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Shrimp and White Bean Salad
Saturday: BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, baked sweet potatoes, Sliced cucumbers and Carrots
Sunday: Out

Meatball and Vegetable Kabobs
Makes: 4 servings
Time: 20 mins

Ingredients
1/2 6-oz. can tomato paste with Italian seasonings (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, crushed
16 1-inch refrigerated or frozen Italian-style meatballs, thawed (I buy the turkey meatballs from Trader Joes in the Frozen section.)
2 small zucchini
8 large cherry tomatoes
Nonstick cooking spray
8 metal or bamboo skewers

Notes / Directions
directions

1. Preheat indoor electric grill or broiler. In a medium bowl combine tomato paste, water, and Italian seasoning to make a thick sauce. Add meatballs to sauce, stir to coat; set aside.

2. Using a vegetable peeler, cut 4 evenly spaced strips from zucchini. Cut zucchini in 1-inch cubes.

3. On skewers, alternately thread meatballs and zucchini; thread a tomato on each end. Lightly coat kabobs with nonstick cooking spray. Grill or broil (3 to 4 inches from heat,), for 4 to 5 minutes each side or until meatballs are heated through and vegetables are crisp-tender. Brush remaining sauce on kabobs during last 2 minutes of cooking.
nutrition facts

Baked Pesto Chicken
Makes: 4 servings
Time: 25 mins

Ingredients
4 chicken breast halves (about 5 oz. each), skinless
1/2 cup BUITONI® Refrigerated Pesto with Basil
2 plum tomatoes, sliced (optional)
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Notes / Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line baking sheet with heavy-duty foil.

2. Place chicken and pesto in medium bowl; toss to coat. Place chicken on prepared baking sheet.

3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center. Remove from oven; top with tomatoes and cheese. Bake for an additional 3 to 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Simple Turkey Chili
Makes: 8 servings
Time: 1 hr

Ingredients
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
2 cups water
1 (28 ounce) can canned crushed tomatoes
1(16 ounce) can canned kidney beans - drained, rinsed, and mashed
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Notes / Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Place turkey in the pot, and cook until evenly brown. Stir in onion, and cook until tender.
2. Pour water into the pot. Mix in tomatoes, kidney beans, and garlic. Season chili powder, paprika, oregano, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes.

Shrimp and White Bean Salad
Makes: 6 servings

Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package frozen cooked shrimp, thawed and tails removed
1 (14 ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup cherry tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup red onion, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic salt
6 cups salad greens

Notes / Directions
1. Toss the shrimp, cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes, and diced red onion together in a bowl.

2. Whisk the olive oil, red wine vinegar, Italian seasoning, and garlic salt together in a small bowl until well blended; drizzle over the shrimp mixture and toss to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator 4 hours to overnight.

3. Put the salad greens in a salad bowl, and top with the chilled shrimp mixture to serve.

BBQ Chicken
Makes: 4 servings
Time: 8 hrs

Ingredients
Onion, chopped
2-4 Chicken breast, boneless skinless
1 bottle Barbecue sauce, kc masterpiece
1 cup Chicken stock
4-8 Onion rolls, toasted

Notes / Directions
Put chicken stock in crockpot with chicken and onion diced. Cook on low 6 hours. Shred chicken. Add BBQ sauce. Cook1-2 more hours on low. Serve on toasted rolls with sharp cheddar.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun on New Year's eve. Good friends, good food, and sore bodies from too much Just Dance on the Wii.

The kids actually managed to stay up until 12. Well 1:30 for Anthony. Crazy boy. He was just so excited. This is us at midnight with our apple cider.... I was so tired. I look intoxicated but I actually wasn't. lol

Anthony had issues with the dog gate. He refused to open and close it, instead he'd sit behind the gate and make sad faces and tell us he was trapped.

The poor dogs needed a nap too. Or they were just sick of the karaoke...

I took a bunch more pictures, but well, a lot of them are kinda goofy. Not sure I'd want pictures like that of me posted online, so I'll do the same for my friends. lol

Hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year's!

What I ate Wednesday #3

2012-01-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

Week three! My food was not great the day I took pictures. I thought about waiting a day and doing it on Tuesday, but I like the idea of posting my food from a set day every week, whether I meet my nutritional goals or not.
I didn't actually eat these cream puffs, I just made them for New Year's. I had to post a pic though, don't they look yummy?

Half the food I ate this day was leftovers from New Years. This is a frittata with peppers and beans and all sorts of yummy stuff. Oh and cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

More leftovers. Shredded beef with barbecue sauce and some provolone cheese.

Dinner was a little spinach with a hard boiled egg, some diced chicken breast and tablespoon of raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

I did have a couple cups of tea on this day, that's good since I didn't drink any water, and I only got in one serving of my vitamins. I'm supposed to take them 5 times a day. Eep. The next day was better though with water and vitamins, although they're still something I struggle to get enough of each day. It's a challenge when all I can do is sip water, I can't chug it the way I'm used to.

What WIAW isn't about

Comparison - Judgement - Restriction - Guilt

What WIAW is about

Celebrating one of the glorious things we all have in common: We all eat!

Celebrate blogging. Celebrate Food. Celebrate Individuality.
[Cause over here, we like to party!]

What I ate Wednesday (#2)

2011-12-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm actually doing this two weeks in a row. Yay me. My food this week isn't very exciting. I've got a cold and can't really taste anything. And I have a fridge full of leftovers, so that's what I'm eating.

As is still typical for me, my eyes were bigger than my tummy. I ate the cranberry sauce and turkey and the deviled egg, and only had room for one bite of stuffing. It was a good bite though! :-)

More turkey. I told ya it was an exciting day didn't I? So turkey, green beans, and a bite or two of potatoes.

Dinner was two little Babybel cheeses and a cup of tea 30 minutes later. (I can't eat and drink at the same time because of the surgery. Fun huh?)

So, did you play What I ate Wednesday this week? Leave me a comment if you did, I'd love to come visit your blog. :-)

What WIAW isn't about

Comparison - Judgement - Restriction - Guilt

What WIAW is about

Celebrating one of the glorious things we all have in common: We all eat!

Celebrate blogging. Celebrate Food. Celebrate Individuality.
[Cause over here, we like to party!]

Merry Christmas! In pictures...

2011-12-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

Amelia and I are ready to go to a Christmas party.

School Christmas party. They had a pajama day, and a day long party. They work so hard all school year, it was nice to see them have a fun day. And I love that I got to be there for the party, yay for being a stay at home mom. I got to spend 6 hours in my kids classroom that day.

Christmas Eve was a big surprise for Amelia and Anthony. We got tickets to see Disney on Ice. (Thank you person at Jeff's work who gave us the company tickets and parking pass. You are awesome.)

It was Toy Story 3 on ice, those are the army guys being dropped down from the ceiling. It was pretty well done. I was pleasantly surprised.

The show finished up way past dinner time, so we decided to find somewhere to eat near the arena. Jeff spotted this nice seafood restaurant and of course I said yes!
This item on the menu grabbed my attention. See those Willapa Bay Oysters? I grew up on Willapa Bay, and in fact my mom worked in an oyster cannery there for years.

I had an amazing meal. Well actually this much foods equals about three meals for me, it was also my Christmas morning breakfast. Jeff had a slight problem with his food, involving a big rock that looked like a clam, but hey, they comped us his dinner for it. lmao.

The Christmas tree, loaded down with presents. We did a pretty low key Christmas this year. The big presents were from Santa, and were little two wheel scooters. The kids got a few toys each, a video game or two and some clothes. And of course a whole bunch of junk in their stockings.

This is me thinking, "Why the hell am I letting you take pictures of me in my pajamas before I've had caffeine or a shower? Cause this picture might actually turn out cute and then I'll have to put it on my blog or facebook." At least the kids are cute... lol

This picture cracks me up. She's wearing a hat she got from Santa, but it's on backwards, with her Christmas dress, and her new boots, that she says are "Cowgirl boots? ya know? like they wear in Old Texas?" I love that kid but she's a goofball sometimes.
My Grandfather happens to live about 30 minutes from our house, so Jeff picked him up for the day too. The kids love seeing him since we don't have much family around.

This kitchen was clean when I started cooking this morning. Then I made a turkey, and homemade Italian sausage stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and candied yams, and a pumpkin pie, with fresh whipped cream, deviled eggs, and some rolls (those did come out of a bag, I can't make everything!) and a green bean casserole thing, and I don't even remember what else, and by the time I was done, my kitchen was a wreck. But the few bites I had of turkey and orange cranberry sauce were awesome.

And this goofy little pig, was the favorite toy of the day. My friend Buffi bought it for Anthony and he got us to all play it with him about 87 times. It was a good day.

What I Ate Wednesday

2011-12-21T04:50:00.000-08:00

I found a fun linkup on Jen's blog, that I thought I'd try out this week. A few people have asked me lately what exactly I can eat. Here's a day of food for me, in pictures.

Gotta start the day with a cup of Good Earth Chai tea.

.
Laughing cow light cheese gets spread on the peeled cucumbers. Then the turkey and cheese gets rolled up.

Can you tell how itty bitty my plates are? They're the size of a saucer for a tea cup. This is salsa chicken with black beans and a little reduced fat cheese on top.

Teriyaki chicken with stir-fry veggies.

Snack is three mozzarella balls from Trader Joe's. One of my favorite snacks.

What WIAW isn't about

Comparison - Judgement - Restriction - Guilt

What WIAW is about

Celebrating one of the glorious things we all have in common: We all eat!

Celebrate blogging. Celebrate Food. Celebrate Individuality.
[Cause over here, we like to party!]

We're off to a rough start...

2011-12-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

Three weeks. That's how long Amelia has off of school for Christmas vacation. I had all these plans of activities and little things to go during the day. Then, Monday morning, Anthony came to my room about 2 AM. He climbed in bed, snuggled in, and promptly starting throwing up. All my plans for the day went out the window. Even with the illness we ended up having a pretty good day.

I've picked up some new playdough toys while Christmas shopping and had them put away for a rainy (or sick!) day. A few new shapes and cutters can make them so excited about playing with something simple like playdough. The playdough kept them entertained for an hour or more, while I got all the laundry sorted and going. Sick kiddo means lots of extra washing.

Amelia put on shows with her Zoobles. Of course, I was the audience. These are her new favorite toys. She got them at a Christmas party over the weekend, and I don't think she's been more than a few feet away from them since. They even went to The Nutcracker with us.

We had lots of snuggle time with the sickie boy and the blankie he likes to ~~steal~~ borrow from the couch. (Since he "lost" his blankie, he just finds other things to snuggle, pretty much anything knitted will work. I keep finding his scarf in his bed.)

And of course, if I have snuggle pictures with one kid, I have to take one with the other kid too. Poor Amelia wanted to go and do and we just couldn't. Anthony stopped getting sick by mid day, but I just didn't want to take him to the park or the dog park in case the pukies weren't really gone.

I love this little cook book. My mom or my sister found it at a yard sale years ago, and somehow it got passed on to me. So Amelia and I made some Strawberry Smashup Muffins. I can't eat them, but the kids loved them.

The kids thought this part of the day was pretty exciting. Anthony has an old TV in his room that sits under his bed. It doesn't have cable and most of the time it doesn't have a DVD player either, so he doesn't get to watch it much. But once in a while they get to take the DVD player in there and watch a show. Usually when I just don't want to see Dora on the 50" screen in the living room.

I made biscuits, with cutters picked by the kids of course, and chicken noodle soup for dinner. While I was finishing up the soup, this is what the kids were doing.

Amelia said she had to stand on the very top of the slide to see the beautiful sunset.

Even days that start off a little rough and involve sickies, a lot of bleach and extra laundry for me, can be good days. I just have to remember that.

What are you all doing for your Christmas vacations? We've got some more fun stuff planned, Disney on ice, a trip to the beach, a visit to Disneyland, I'll post more later on hopefully.

It's that time of year..

2011-12-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

I really miss people. My uncle and my grandma both passed away last year right before Christmas. My dads been gone for almost 6 years. Gosh that breaks my heart. My dad was one of 6 kids, and only two are still alive. My mom has lost both of her sisters. And ya know what my mom is doing for Christmas? She's going to the women's prison to visit my sister. Ugh. It's just sad. And depressing. I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. It happens now and then that I just really miss him. He was a good guy. He never quite mastered staying clean and sober but he was a good person. Okay this is just going to turn into a sad ramble so I better stop writing now.

Three months later...

2011-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Time has flown since my surgery. I'm officially three months post op and I can stop going to the doctor's quite so often, I don't have to go back for three months now. I still have a huge list of forbidden foods. Still can't have pasta, rice, bread, pork, beef, sweets, fats, soda, and pretty much anything that tastes yummy. :-) I didn't expect how much my tastes would change. I don't really miss most of the foods. I would kill for a diet coke though. I tried a sip of of diet soda a couple weeks ago, (I know, I know, I should KNOW better) and it wasn't pleasant. It hurt. A lot. Don't think I'll try it any time soon, even if I still crave it. I eat 1/4 cup of food 4-5 times a day. Ninety percent of what I eat is still lean protein with some sauces (keeps food from getting stuck,) and some carbs in the form of cooked veggies and a bit of fruit. Most fruit is too sweet and makes me sick, but I seem to get along with strawberries and pears.

I've had a few instances of what's probably low blood sugar. That's a bit scary. I can't just eat whatever's around or it will make me sick, so I'm having to plan ahead much more, and keep snacks and protein drinks in my car or my purse. On the plus side, I've lost 65 pounds in the last three months. That's pretty exciting.

I have no regrets about the surgery. I'm so glad I did it. However, no matter how prepared I thought I was, there are so many things that pop up that I just didn't realize or think enough about. It's all worth it though.

Not sure who won this battle...

2011-11-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

but, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me. Anthony has a love hate relationship with preschool. Every morning he fights me about going. He whines, he cries, he refuses to get dressed or take his backpack to the car. Once we're there he loves it. He warms up quickly, doesn't cry when I leave and doesn't have any major complaints about his day. He'd just rather stay at home with me, in his pajamas, watching cartoons. Ha. So his preschool is set up and paid for through the city we live in. The first few months they let 30 kids in, which was way more than they were set up to handle. After a few months the realized there was a limit of 20 for a reason, and dropped it down to 25. So each month there are 30 kids from the previous months, plus whoever finds out about the classes all trying to register for 25 spots. Kids already in the class don't get priority. You can tell where this is going can't you? I forgot to register Anthony for next month, and the class is full. His teacher apologized repeatedly, she's asked them over and over to stop opening the class up to online registrations but they do it anyway. So I guess he wins and he gets to stay home with me. You can bet I'm going to be one of the first parents registering for January though. It might be time to go back to playgroup for the next month, if we just stay home every day I'll go batty. And so will Anthony I think. He likes constant interaction, and that's hard for me. I've really gotten used to my 2.5 hours a morning of quiet time to clean or whatever.

He's four!

2011-11-04T21:58:00.000-07:00

He wanted a Halloween Birthday Party.

He dressed up as a nocturnal firefighter and Grandma Toni came to visit.

Anthony got a ton of presents, a lot of cash, some gift cards and even some clothes.

We had a pinata in the park, crazy halloween cupcakes, and the kids dressed up (for a while, it got too hot for costumes.)

Lots of friends and half the kids in the neighborhood showed up. We do big birthday parties around here. People hang out all day. I think one friend was here for about 8 hours.

It was about 90 degrees that day, but it didn't stop anyone from having fun. The kids just drank extra Capri Suns and Green Slime Punch when they took breaks from the bouncer.

Jeff obviously had too much sugar.

Anthony thought it would be a good idea to show me his toes while I took a picture of him with the cupcakes. I swear there were no toes in the cupcakes!

In all it was a great day! Even though it's a lot of work, and I always spend too much money, I'm glad we do big parties for the kids.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

The kids really got into Halloween this year. Anthony requested a Halloween birthday party ( I'll post those pics in a bit). Between parties at school, birthday parties, and the actual holiday it feels like we were celebrating Halloween for weeks. Amelia dressed up as Snow White and Anthony was a nocturnal firefighter, which happens to be what he wants to be when he grows up too. We went trick or treating for about half an hour; the neighbor child went with us. Then we hung out in the driveway and handed out candy. I think the kids had more fun handing out candy than they did trick or treating.

After handing out candy for a while, the neighbor child and Amelia went out trick or treating again with neighbor child's family. I've been working in Amelia's class for a while now, and it was funny to come across kids trick or treating who recognized me from the school. "Hey you're Amelia's mom! Where's Amelia?"

Because the girls were gone for another hour and a half or so, Anthony did the majority of the handing out of candy. I'd guess we probably had 150 kids. Lots of big groups, lots of tiny adorable kids, and a fair amount of high school kids. But the older kids were mostly all in costume and they were all polite, so I didn't have a problem with that. All in all it was a good night and I think we all had a good time. I love our neighborhood.

Another thing

2011-09-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

One more thing I didn't realize about this surgery, is how much time I would spend focused on food even though I can't eat. I spend all day thinking about food and eating and drinking. Is it time to eat yet? How many minutes is it until I can drink again? (Food and drinks cannot be taken in at the same time.) Which medicine or vitamin should I be taking at this time of day? Did I measure my "meal" properly (I have 1/4 of a cup of soft foods up to 4 times a day)? How many more ounces of protein shake do I need to choke down? How many weeks is it until I can add in some fruit or veggies? Am I getting enough protein in today? Am I going to vomit? Will this stuffed feeling ever go away? I start out at a meal feeling full and before I eat 1/4 cup of food, I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be sick.

What's for lunch Wednesday

2011-09-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'm new to posting lunches and doing bento style lunches, so just bear with me as I figure this out.

Here's a quick pic of Amelia's lunch today.

Peanut Butter and Jelly on whole wheat, with moon and stars cut out of cheese. I wasn't trying to make a face, it just turned out that way. In the same section are gold fish and grapes. The bottom right is plain yogurt with frozen* strawberries and strawberry stars on top. She also has a sliced up plum, and out of the picture is a container of baby carrots and milk in her thermos.

What are your kids having for lunch this week?

*She says the frozen strawberries taste better in her yogurt because they're all mushy by lunchtime. :-)

Oh, and check back later this week, I have a scrapbook giveaway to post. Should be up by Friday. I'm really excited to share it with you guys.

It's 1 AM

2011-09-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

and I can't sleep. I went out this morning to home depot and sears. I then came home and took a 4 hour nap. Now of course I can't sleep. I'm apologizing now for the odd random blog posts, or absences, that will probably be around for a while.

I have a bunch of blog post ideas in my head, school lunch ideas, how to deal with an 80lb dog when you can't lift more than 10lbs, how to get the house nice and clean for company a week after major surgery etc etc. I'm also on pain meds right now, which should make my blog posts either crazy or more interesting. We'll see. lol.

One thing I didn't realize

2011-09-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

One thing I didn't realize about this surgery was how tired I would be. Not from the surgery itself really, but from the small amounts of food I'm taking in. I think I told you all that one of the things being done was removing my gallbladder. The other involved operating on my stomach. So, I have an incision in my stomach. I can't have solid food yet, and there are quite a few things that I can't have because they'd irritate. For now I can have sips of water and protein shakes. Yesteday I got about 400 calories total for the day. That's normal. I'm under a surgeons supervision have had numerous tests and will have frequents tests of vitamin levels and other things to make sure I'm ok. (in other words, please don't try to live on 400 calories a day cause it sounds fun ok?)

So the point of this post is to say I'm tired. So very tired.

For later...

2011-09-01T17:11:00.001-07:00

Saving these links for later, blogs I want to check out...

How to be a stylish mom. *Snort* I know I know. If you know me, this is kind of funny. I'm the mom in yoga pants and a tshirt, or flipflops jeans and a hoodie. But since I started losing weight (almost 40 lbs gone yay me.) I'm going to have to do more shopping. And there will be no more babies, and there better be no more weight gain, and there's no more nursing, no more infants spitting up, no more, well you get the idea, so I thought I'd try and step outside my usual momwear and get some cute clothes. And honestly, I need all the help I can get. lmao.

Bibliomomia. Haven't read it yet, but it looks cute.

A mom style blog. I'm enjoying her entertaining posts about covering the afterbaby pooch and finding clothes that are cute and suitable for chasing toddlers in.

One week to go

2011-08-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm having surgery in one week. It's amazing to me how quickly time is going all of the sudden. At first it seemed like the longest process ever. I got the referral from my doctor back in November of 2010. And here it is, more than nine months later. But time is going quickly now. I'm on a mostly liquid diet. It sucks. I don't like it. But, I'll be on a liquid diet and then a pureed diet for a month after surgery so I guess it's time to suck it up and get used to it huh?

Besides trying to get everything in the house ready, (dinner plans for Jeff and easy stuff in the freezer, daycare arranged for the day of surgery so Jeff can go with me, day care for Amelia after school, ) and on top of it we'll have family staying with us a week after my surgery. I'm just nervous about all of it, and I'd like to just curl up in a ball somewhere with a book or something and forget about all of this. But, I can't. So I'll just vent here, and carry on. My goal for today is to get the dining room floor scrubbed. Because of course, I can't have dirty grout when I go to the hospital right? lmao. Okay, back to my neurotic cleaning now. :-D

Random Ramblings.. (ie brain dump w/random pictures)

2011-08-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

School has begun. And if I thought our summer was busy, wow. Amelia started school last week. So every morning we all get up, get dressed, make lunches and drop Mia off at school. The other local school district is still on summer vacation, so Anthony and I still go to the park every day for lunch. (Gotta love free lunch in the park. Not because it's free, but because I don't have to make the boy lunch! lol) So we play for an hour or so, then come back home. We usually have an hour and a half till it's time to pick Amelia up. Being in first grade means she gets picked up with the rest of the school, not at noon with just the kindergarten. This means, we have to get there 20 minutes early if I want to park closer to the school than just being at our house would be. If there weren't so many free roaming dogs in that neighborhood I'd just walk to the school every day. Id rather avoid the packs of wild chihuahuas though so we drive the mile and a half most of the time. So after we pick Amelia up we come home, and she whines and cries the whole way that she's hungry and she's tired. Then somewhere between school and our garage, it's revealed that lunch was just too short and all she ate was a carrot, or some cherries, or one day she managed to eat her Trader joe's gogurt. So we get in the house, and she eats her whole lunch. At 3:30.

Anthony is usually wound up by now too. So two days a week we get everyone changed and head out to drop Amelia off at one of her after school activities. It's an hour long. Of course they changed her other class time and day so it now follows the first class. If it's not a karate/cheerleading night then we come and do homework. Then it's dinner time, clean up from dinner, walk the dog, take care of the yard, bathe the kids, get them in bed, fold a load of laundry and I fall into bed somewhere in there too. I thought when Amelia started school, things would be less hectic with her at school 6.5 hours a day. I think I was wrong! lol. And it will only get more hectic when Anthony starts preschool in September. I'll drop one kid off, run across town to drop the other off, have two hours of free time to frantically clean my house, then go pick one kid up, have a few more hours, and pick up the other one. I'm thinking things will calm down in a few years when Anthony is in first grade. lol. Have you all noticed that I keep saying things will calm down when... I don't think we're ever going to get there. Of course J can't wait for me to go back to work, or at least that's how it seems. So the plan is once Anthony is in school I'll go back to school. Then things will be really hectic! lol. I think I'm going to have to get the kids and hubby trained to do chores before I do school for me though. I can't see them all coming home each night making a healthy dinner, doing homework, cleaning up and doing the night time routine, while I'm at class. I can't even get any of them to put their dishes in the dishwasher or their laundry in the hamper. lol.

So my surgery date got pushed back. It's now the week before Jeff's family comes for a visit. Eep. I'm nervous about how that's going to go over. I don't necessarily recover well, and I generally don't want people in my space when I'm sick. Hopefully it will all go well and J and the kids can keep them all entertained and I can hide in my room and be in pain alone. lol This surgery involved a lot of messing with digestion and stuff, so it's pretty common for a lot of vomiting. I'll also basically be on a baby food diet for a month or so after surgery. I'm not looking forward to trying out new foods and my bodies reaction to them all with company. Oh well, it will be nice to see everyone even if I can't participate in the trips to the beach and such.

We got Anthony a new bed. Not sure if I posted about that or not. It's a big tall loft bed and so far he's doing great with it. It gives him a ton more room in his bedroom so that's cool. And he's more cautious than Amelia, so i think I trust him more with a tall bed, even if he is way younger. I'm afraid I'd find Amelia jumping off the top if it was in her room.

Hmm what else has been going on. OH! Amelia and I visited my friend's church. It was lovely. It's this huge old church right in the middle of LA. Loved it. Totally random to look up in the middle of church and see someone that you've watched on TV the week before, but that's LA I guess. I really enjoyed the service. It's been a long time since I went to church and felt comfortable. I've never not believed in God, but I've had bad experiences with people being judgmental and hateful and using God as an excuse to be that way. I won't teach my kids that it's okay to hate. So anyway Amelia has been asking about God a lot, so I thought this would be good for her. She had fun and I did too. I think we'll definitely be back. I think it's a little far to go to have this church become our home church but it's nice to visit. And of course it was fun to hang out with my friend too.

So as part of my presurgery diet, I have had to cut most starch out of my diet. Um, it's not fun. Goodbye bread, chips, tortillas, pasta and rice. Its actually not as bad as I thought it would be, the hardest part is making stuff for the kids and smelling it and not being able to eat it. I made Anthony some whole wheat toast the other day and after I cooked it and buttered it, it smelled so yummy! Funny how that works. Other than that day though it's been okay. And my energy levels are much better too, less up and down.

Speaking of energy, I decided to paint our dining room table this weekend. So far it's going ok. Chairs are done minus the seat covers, and they look good. The table top not so much. It was not in good shape when I started and I just didn't sand it enough. I really need to buy a belt sander I think. But we always have a table cloth on the table anyway, so it will just get covered back up anyway. I'll post a picture when it's all done. After surgery, when I have more time, I'll get a belt sander, sand the heck out of it, then reprime and paint and just redo the table top.

Okay, I think I'm done rambling now. Brain dump over. :-) Happy Saturday everyone.

Where did the summer go?

2011-08-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

I found this poem online somewhere this morning and it totally sums up how I feel about the end of summer. My babies aren't really babies any more. With both kids home all summer, my house feels like it's in a constant state of messiness. I could have spent more time mopping and less time taking them to story times at the library. I could have spent more time knocking down cobwebs and less time taking them to the beach. I could have spent more time doing laundry and less time at the park. But, I didn't. And as summer vacation draws to a close, I'm okay with that.

Song For a Fith Child, by Ruth Hamilton. 1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Wordless Wednesday {At The Beach}

2011-07-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

The kids dug up this sign while building sandcastles. Hopefully it's old, and Huntington Harbor isn't totally dangerous...

Things I love

2011-07-22T11:20:00.001-07:00

I keep finding posts I like I share or remember for later. I love this post from La Dolce Vita about road trip activities! I always need stuff for the kids to do on the long car ride to Grandma's house in Oregon. We are also always in need of things for Anthony to do during Amelia's karate class, when it's 100+ it's too hot for this Mama on the playground. And it's not very realistic to expect him to sit quietly in the karate class for an hour. My favorite is this

"I Spy" bottles.
These are bottles filled with rice and
lots of fun animals and objects to find.
I used buttons that were on clearance at the craft store.
We just ask, "Can you find the turtle?"
Some people take a picture of all the objects
before putting them in and then tie the pic on with a string.

Although I'm not sure how she keeps the rice in the bottle, super glue the lid on maybe?

The magic jars over at Erica's Bloggity Blog.

This post from Spunky Junky might be my favorite ever. (And she's got a lot of great posts.) Mostly because Amelia was that super energetic toddler, and because those sorts of things happened to me all the time. And I love that's she's showing a real side of motherhood, that we often miss giving an accurate portrayal of. I think it helps to see someone else have a bad day. So thanks for sharing!

Saving this for later...

2011-07-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

When J is out of town, I'm going to repaint the dining room table. So, I'm saving this for later.

Summer time...

2011-07-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

Where did summer vacation go? Our school year is a little different than many others, the kids get out of school in May and go back at the beginning of August. We've got less than a month until school starts up again.The time has flown by. I haven't checked on this blog, or read any other blogs in weeks. We've been busy doing things like story time at the library, play dates at the park, bowling in OC with our friends, visiting water parks, doing art projects,and playing many many rounds of Duck Duck Bruce, Blokus 3D and The Ladybug game. We've gone on lots of walks with Dusty. We've visited half the parks in this city, and some in other cities. Amelia has started Karate. We've had barbecues, visited friends around LA and I've done a lot of spring cleaning. The kids rooms, toys and clothes have all been sorted, organized and purged. I'm working on my closet now. Next up is the kitchen. Jeff has been super busy at work, and has done some traveling, the next trip will be 8 days long. Eep.

We've also spent a lot of time at various doctor's offices. I'm having surgery in the next couple of months and I have had to do a ton of stuff to get through the approval and preop process. Physicals, labs, classes, support groups, ultrasounds, EKG's consultations, seminars, hospital visits etc. Thank goodness this isn't a time sensitive surgery, cause I'd have died by now. Seriously, I started the process last November. I've spent more time visiting doctors' offices in the last year, than I have in my whole life before. That includes when I was pregnant. On the plus side I'm mostly in good health. Cholesterol, BP, etc are all good. We did discover my gallbladder has to come out, but that can happen at the same time as the other procedure and shouldn't add much to the surgery or recovery times. I'm a little nervous as this procedure will require general anesthesia but I've heard and read nothing but good things about this surgeon and once it's all said and done, life will be better and that's what matters.

So I'm still around. I'm enjoying this summer with the kids. Next year, things will be so different. I think this surgery will have a huge positive impact on my life. Anthony will be in preschool five mornings a week. Amelia will go from half days of kindergarten to the full days of 1st grade. I'll have time alone on a regular basis for the first time in six years. Things are changing. And I think it's gonna all gonna turn out pretty well.

Crafts!

2011-06-18T14:33:00.001-07:00

Now that we're fully into summer vacation, I'm finding myself scrambling each day with art activities for the kids to do. They've been doing a lot of coloring and begging to get all their art supplies out. So I'm going to try planning activities out a week at a time. I'm not sure we'll do them all this week, but at least I'll know I have the supplies and a plan.

Bees

Fish Sun catcher

Octopus

School of Fish

Lady Bug

A lot can change in a year...

2011-06-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

First day of school, Fall 2010

Last day of school, 10 months later...

What did you do today?

2011-06-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 1:30 to let the dog out.

I got up at 5:30 when hubby was heading out the door.

I watched the news for 15 minutes before the littles started waking up.

I did some dishes, made some breakfast, fed the dog and started laundry.

I got the kids dressed, helped them with their morning stuff, and we took the dog for a walk.

I cleaned up the dog's business and tried to keep her from eating other animals' business. (Why don't people clean up their dog's messes? If I can carry around a bright yellow bag and clean up an 80lb lab's poo, why can't you clean up after your dog?)

I got home from the walk at 8 or so. I played games with Amelia, watered the back yard, and all the plants on the side of the house, and deadheaded some flowers.

I did some dishes, tidied up the living room, and swept the kitchen.

I read stories to Anthony, and helped both kids make a craft.

I made lunch for the kids, and had a late breakfast myself.

I refereed the almost food fight at the lunch table, and cleaned up from lunch.

I read my book for 10 minutes until...

I cleaned up poop, as Anthony pooped in his pants and had taken off his underwear the last time he went potty. Poop was everywhere.

I put the dog outside fast, she eats poop.

I gave the boy a bath, then scrubbed all the tile floor that had poop on it. Is bleach bad for travertine? Don't really care, I wasn't not using bleach. Just ignore the trail of bleached tile that runs towards the bathroom.

I did some more laundry.

I cleaned the cat box. (Is it just me or does my day involve a lot of poop?)

I took the kids out to the park to ride their bikes.

I ran to the library to return the book I gave up reading after the poop incident. I checked it out 4 weeks ago. If I haven't finished it yet, it's not going to happen.

I paid the fines for my book.

I came back home and folded some laundry.

I watered the flowers in front of the house.

I started cooking dinner.

I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. (How does one family use sooo many dishes. Maybe I should give up on being green and use paper plates.)

I yelled at my children to stop jumping off the loft bed. This was after I'd asked them 2 or 3 times to Please. Knock. It. Off.

I put one kid on my bed with PBS on and told the other she could play her DS in her room.

I managed to read some emails while dinner was cooking, and electronics were entertaining my children.

I checked on an entirely too quiet Anthony to find him asleep on my bed.

I finished dinner, we all ate, and I did the dishes while J entertained the kids.

We all took the dog for a walk. I made J clean up the poo. :-)

I got the kids in the bath tub at 730 or so.

I read stories, helped put jammies on, helped with tooth brushing and kissed my babies good night at 8:30.

I sat on my ass for an hour and watched dancing with the stars while I ate ice cream.

Anthony came out of his room at least 3 times and had to be put back to bed. Jeff hid in the bedroom reading, he can't be in the same room as dancing shows. :-)

I took the dog out one last time at 10:30. I filled her outside water and emptied her inside water. (We cut her off at bed time or she'll want to drink and then go out to pee and be let back in all night long.)

I folded some towels, checked on the kids, made sure the doors and windows were all locked.

I looked at the 2 other baskets of clean unfolded laundry and decided they'd keep each other company until I got around to folding them. Or they'd make a nice place for the cat to sleep.

I let the dog back in at 11:15 and we (the dog and I) went to bed. J had already been there for an hour or more.

I laid in bed at 11: 30 thinking I was awfully tired, but I couldn't quite remember what I accomplished that day.

And last but not least...

I got up at 1:30 to let the dog out.

Our newest addition

2011-06-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not pregnant, and I didn't have a baby. (The baby factory is closed!!)

But, our family did grow a bit in the last few weeks. We got a dog. Her name is Dusty. She's an older lab, older than we were originally told in fact, but so far she's a great dog. She's well trained, great with the kids and she completely ignores other animals. She wasn't living in the best circumstances, the previous owners couldn't keep her anymore, and she was living in a back yard of an empty house. So, because I can't seem to let any critter or small child suffer, we talked to the owners, Jeff took a day off work and went and got her. (Did I mention she lived 500 miles away? Luckily the owners met Jeff halfway.)

2011-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

Homework time...

2011-04-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

More Easter recipes...

2011-04-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Yummy carrot cake

Yummy spinach salad

Saving this

2011-04-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

for later. I think I'm going to try making these rolls for Easter dinner...

2011-04-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Amelia had a cheer leading exhibition last weekend. At first she was really nervous when she saw how big the arena was. It was held at a local state college arena. She had fun though.

Tent Building!

2011-04-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

My kids love to build tents. It's something we do a lot in the summer when it's too hot to play outside. So for Spring Break, Amelia asked if they could make a tent and sleep in it. So, we did. Anthony only lasted a few hours before he came and got in bed with me, but they had fun anyway.

Our new toy..

2011-03-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

The new toy at my house is the Roomba. Now this is really a gadget for me, I can turn it on once a day and know that all the floors will get fairly clean. With kids and a cat and an older house, (with an old furnace/ac system) it seems like the floors are always dusty and have cat hair, and cheerios, and I hate sweeping and vacuuming every day. So anyway, I got a roomba and I love it. That wasn't the point of this post. The point is my kids also love the Roomba. They've named it. (Roomie the roomba of course!) Amelia thinks it's our new pet. I usually run it in the morning when she's at school so because she's home on spring break this week she's getting to see it work more. The kids have spent the last half an hour chasing it through the house. Now Amelia is singing songs about it. I love my kids. :-)

In hindsight it's probably a bad idea to argue with a CHP officer...

2011-03-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I'm driving home from Orange County. It's just me and the kids in the car. We're driving along and I notice a California Highway Patrol officer following me. So, I check that I'm driving the speed limit and I try not to drive like a crazy person because I'm always a little anxious when I'm being followed by a cop. So he pulls up along side me for a while, then gets behind me again, then his lights go on. He's been next to me or behind me for like ten minutes by now, so I'm not too surprised to get pulled over. I make my way to the side of the freeway. Of course as I'm pulling over he gets on his loud speaker and tells me to take the next exit. So I do. At this point, Amelia is in a full on hysterical panic. After she heard him on the loud speaker she kinda went a little nutso. I'm convinced the girls suffers from kindergarten anxiety already, and things that are big loud and scary kinda freak her out a bit. So I pull to a stop and roll down the window. (Okay really I pushed the button to get the window down, really who rolls down a window anymore?) Amelia is still panicking in the back seat and Anthony is just asking (over and over and over again) what's going on Mama? I'm trying not to panic cause I wasn't doing anything wrong, and so I'm a bit concerned about why I got pulled over.

So he walks up to the window and I tell him to please convince my kid that I'm not going to jail, which he sort of tries to do a half ass job of, but whatever. So then he proceeds to tell me that he pulled me over because I was on the phone. First, I look at him like he's stupid, then I tell him, "No. I wasn't." He says, "yes, you were." And we go back and forth for a few minutes. I'm completely flabbergasted, as I haven't been on the phone, talking or texting or even picked up my phone, since I left the party in OC. By this time he's asked for my ID, which is in the trunk, so we're standing behind the car, on the off ramp at Green River. The kids are in the car in full on meltdown mode. So after we argue for a few minutes, he asks if I have a phone with me. I say yes, and offer to show him my call log. Of course he checks it out and sure enough my last call was an hour previously. Somewhere in there he asks if I'm sure I wasn't on the phone back by some exit. I didn't even get on the freeway until after that on ramp. I think this is when he figures out he made a mistake. He gets a little embarrassed, and apologetic, and keeps saying, "I could of sworn that was you on the phone."

He then looks a little sheepish and tells me I have two choices for getting on the freeway. I can either drive a few miles out of the way and turn around, or if I think I can make it safely, I can just cut across three lanes of traffic right in front of where we're parked on the shoulder and onto the freeway. Of course I chose option 2. How often do you get permission from the highway patrol to drive like a crazy person?

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have argued with him. But it all made me wonder, how often does that stuff happen? I think there was probably another car similar to mine with a driver on the phone, the CHP was following, then I got on the freeway in between and he pulled me over instead? Who knows. I've always wondered how they keep track of which car is speeding, especially when they are pulling out from the side of the freeway. It's not like traffic is ever light on the 91... At least it was talking on the phone and I could prove it wasn't me. If it had been speeding or something I think I'd have been out of luck...

I love dirt!

2011-03-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

(Lets just ignore the ratty swing cushion in the background. Making a new cushion is one of my upcoming projects. I'll get to it. One of these days. Really I will.)

Menu Plan Monday:

2011-03-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

Monday: Breakfast for dinner
Tuesday: Wheat Pasta, red sauce, broccoli, salad
Wednesday: Pizza night or leftovers
Thursday: Lighten up Pan Fried Chicken corn on the cob, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, dip
Friday: Turkey Tacos
Saturday: Baked Cheddar chicken, brown rice,
Sunday: Pork Chops (from last week that we never got to)

Awards...

2011-03-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Last week Amelia's school had an awards ceremony for the second trimester. Apparently she has been busy at school and has reached all of her goals for the school year, so she got three awards. She was so very proud of herself.

Menu Plan Monday:

2011-03-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

Dinners this week are a bit of a hodge podge. I let the kids each pick a meal. I'm trying to clean out the freezer again and have a lot of random stuff in there (edemame and pork chops for example). I'm making less "yummy" stuff and more healthy stuff these days, so a lot of our favorites aren't making the cut. I'm trying to find a happy medium between the Amish breakfast casserole (a billion grams of fat I'm sure) and the chicken breast and brown rice type meals that aren't J's favorite. I've found some good stuff in cooking light magazine and on their website (everyone loved the Wasabi and Panko crusted Pork I made a few weeks ago.) I'm learning that it's mostly about moderation, and loading my plate with veggies anyway. That's a whole other post though. Here is our menu for the week.

Monday: grilled cheese (Amelia's request) broccoli, salad, tomato soup
Tuesday: Wasabi and Panko-Crusted Pork with gingered soy sauce, edemame, sweet potatoes, salad
Wednesday: pancakes (Anthony's request), scrambled eggs, fruit,
Thursday; turkey Meat loaf
Friday; chicken, brown rice, mix veggies.
Saturday out for dinner
Sunday amish breakfast casserole

Rainy days...

2011-03-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

Ribbons everywhere!

2011-02-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

You may remember that I used to make and sell bows. Mostly I made them for Amelia and my friends' kids. I don't sell them anymore, I mostly just make them for Amelia, but my ribbons are kind of a mess. I just found this great idea for ribbon storage though and I'm definitely stealing it for my ribbons. Just have to figure out how to make it on a bigger scale. Or maybe I can stack them somehow....

Menu Plan Monday

2011-02-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

Monday: Tacos
Tuesday: Pizza night
Wednesday: Chili Spiced Chicken Soup with Stoplight Peppers and Avocado Relish (Longest soup name ever!)
Thursday: Breakfast for dinner

Friday: Wasabi and Panko-Crusted Pork with gingered soy sauce
Saturday: Spinach Pasta Bake
Sunday: Leftovers

2011-02-14T20:37:00.001-08:00

So Amelia's latest activity is cheer-leading. I think this might actually be her "thing" as she gets to dance around, memorize stuff, yell and do cartwheels. So far we've tried ballet, she liked it for a while but got bored eventually; gymnastics, I don't think she was quite ready for that one, and then we moved; and soccer, she liked the idea of it, and the practices, but lost interest really quickly at the games. But now she's started cheer leading and so far she loves it. She was the only one in her class to go home last week and memorize their whole cheer, so she got to pick a prize from the goody box this week. This might be a sport where being the smallest kid might come in handy. We ordered uniforms tonight, and we had to get her the smallest size. They don't even make a practice uniform small enough for her, she was really sad about that. So yeah, that's what's new in Amelia's world.
(The face she is making in this picture totally cracks me up.)

Anthony is working on potty training. Okay really, I'm working on potty training. Anthony loves wearing underwear, can stay dry all night, and will stay dry most of the day. The problem is the boy will not go #2 in the toilet. It's been about a month of this battle and me cleaning poop out of clothes a few times a day. So I'm thinking I might give up. I'm just so sick of cleaning up poop. Any of you Mamas out there have any advice? He hides to go #2, he doesn't got at a consistent time each day and if I catch him going and move him to the bathroom, he'll stop going and wait an hour and go in his pants again. So frustrating. On the plus side his speech has improved drastically. There are still about 10 sounds that he doesn't say, but he's still come really far. I think he's old enough now that they'll consider speech therapy for him.

This picture is almost a year old, but I love it anyway...

52 weeks of organizing!

2011-01-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

I love this idea! Laura over at Orgjunkie.com is doing a challenge of 52 weeks of organizing. So I've decided I'm going to play along, as there is always something in my house needing to be organized. I've been doing a lot of decluttering lately (thank you flylady.net for the inspiration/motivation). I've thrown out so much junk, broken toys, stained up kids clothes and random broken things throughout our house. I've also taken a huge amount of stuff to be donated. In fact I have 3 garbage bags of toys and clothes in the back of my van right now that I'll go drop off once Amelia is delivered at school. Anyway, the point of this is I am going to join in the 52 weeks. Now I just to think of 52 projects. :-)

More holiday pics...

2010-12-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

2010-12-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

Awww aren't they cute? Amelia is in love with her baby cousin Cash.

Oak Glen! Two months later...

2010-12-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

I finally bought a new camera cord a couple weeks ago, so I'm working on getting months of pictures off the camera. I love going back and looking at pictures from adventures we've had as a family. This is from our trip to Oak Glen for apple picking. It was about 10,000 degrees that weekend, but we had fun anyway.

Three days till Christmas!

2010-12-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's one of those days today. It seems like everything that can go wrong, has. And I'm kind of overwhelmed. Just need to remember I can only do what I can do. I can't make the kids get well, (I was wrong before, I only thought the tummy bug had left our house) or the rain stop or time stop so I can get thirty 11 things done before Christmas. So I'm going to remember today that I'm thankful for my family, I'm happy we get to spend time with Jeff's family at Christmas, I'm glad that we have presents under the tree and nice warm dry beds to sleep in and I'm grateful that Jeff is taking a few days off soon to spend with us. Mostly I'm thankful that there is only a week and a half left of Christmas break. :-D

2010-12-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. The presents are wrapped, no baking done thanks the tummy bug that just finally left our house, but that will get done in a day or two. I have to get the house back in order first. I am amazed at how quickly my house turns into a disaster area. Thursday morning I got a call to pick Amelia up from school because she was throwing up. So we've spent the the last five days in various stages of illness. And the house is a wreck. Seriously. I've washed sheets, bathed vomit covered kids and one night I'm pretty sure I actually contemplated sleeping on the bathroom floor. But today is better. The kids are making Christmas presents for people, and begging to go out and stomp in mud puddles. I'm getting packages in the mail and lots of Christmas cards, and it's finally starting to feel like Christmas. Yay.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

I was gone all day. We had a great holiday with some awesome friends. :-) I'm home now, and I'm full and I'm ready to go chill on the couch and watch Pumpkin Chunkin. See ya tomorrow! :-)

I'm here..

2010-11-24T20:25:00.001-08:00

and I'm posting. But I'm tired. Got up at 430 this morning and haven't sat still much since. The kids were up at 5, and never did give in to nap or quiet time. Between the kids being home all day, the neighbor child coming over to play (which makes three kids and then they all fight) and me trying to get stuff done, I never got around to blogging. Or sitting still for more than about 10 minutes. I turned on Monday's episode of House about four times before I gave up trying to watch it. On the plus side I did 30 bajillion loads of laundry (and put them away!) did some baking, made a yummy dinner (meat loaf, rolls, mashed potatoes and veggies) and did a whole bunch of cleaning and decluttering. Bathrooms, living room, my room and the kitchen are all clean. Friday I'll tackle the kids rooms (again)and the office. Isn't this an exciting post?

See this is why I stopped blogging. Most of the time, my posts would sound just like this one. LOL

Tuesday!

2010-11-23T09:20:00.001-08:00

It's Tuesday, and the kids and I have a couple errands to run later, but other than that, I think we're staying home today. So, we're cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. (It's never ending when the kids are home all day. As far as cleaning goes, I can't wait for the days when they're both in school each day. LOL ) We're playing Bingo on the Flylady's Facebook page. It sounds silly, but basically you write down 6 things that need to be done, then someone rolls a dice and you go do that task. The kids are having fun with it, so that's what matters. They get a sticker for each thing they complete. So far we've done laundry, washed some windows, picked up the living room toys and fixed one of Amelia's books. Gotta go do the next task! :-)

Oops!

2010-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post yesterday! I wasn't feeling good and never even got on the computer. I had a checkup with my doctor today, and had to bring both kids. We were there for 3 hours! At least the kids were pretty well behaved, I was really proud of them. :-) We're on Thanksgiving break, so I doubt I'll be on the computer much, but I'll try and post each day for the rest of the month...

I'll miss you!

2010-11-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

The last week has been a challenging one for me. On Monday I found out that my Grandma Ruby had passed away. She was sick, so it wasn't a total surprise, but it's still hard. It stirs up a lot of stuff for me as she was my Dad's mom. I swear sometimes that I miss my dad more, not less, as time goes on. I can't believe it's been almost 5 years that he's been gone. Anyway, I wanted to talk about Grandma Ruby. She was such a strong person. She had 6 kids in 7 years. She took care of everyone. When I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, Grandpa built them a house out in Surfside to retire in. It was at the end of a long dirt road. They'd lived there in a trailer first, an airstream. I remember stories of Grandma cooking in the trailer with the door hanging open. She came out of the back of the trailer to find a bear checking out her food. I guess she startled him though and he took off. The summer that Grandpa built their house, I remember when there was only a foundation there, and I got to go roller skate on the foundation. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I remember going out in the woods behind their house and finding an old rusty coffee can full of army men. I thought I'd found a treasure, but really my older cousins had left it out there years before. Grandma didn't tell me that though, she just went along with letting me think I'd found some great treasure. :-) I could write all day, but I'm going to stop before I get myself all sad again. I know Grandma is in a better place now. And, she's got my dad, and Aunt Cathy, and Uncle Bill and Grandpa to keep her company...

I borrowed the picture from Grandma's facebook page... lol

Sick day...

2010-11-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

We're on day two of Amelia being home sick from school. She's better today, but she's still sick enough that I let her stay home. I've definitely gotten used to having only one kid home in the mornings and no fighting! I was trying to come up with some things for them to do, I can't really take Ant to the park when Amelia's home sick, so we've been doing some crafty stuff. Today they are both practicing their cutting. I gave them a whole stack of ads from the Sunday papers, and they've each got a pair of scissors. Anthony is working on just holding the scissors properly, and Amelia is actually cutting out pictures of things she likes, I think she's making a list of things she wants for Christmas as well as things she thinks she should get the rest of us for Christmas. It's good for their fine motor skills, and it's keeping them from fighting.

I see a lot of cutting and gluing in our future because Amelia has a whole week off of school for thanksgiving.

What kind of stuff do you do with your kids on no school days?

School Stuff

2010-11-18T01:04:00.000-08:00

Amelia is happily (most of the time anyway) enrolled in kindergarten. Monday they did awards for the first trimester. Amelia got one because she knows all of the letters and the sounds they make, and can identify them quickly. She was so proud of the medal she got. I love seeing her excited about school. Hopefully that lasts! I only had my cell phone with me at the assembly, so I didn't get any good pics of her getting her award, but she recreated it for me at home.

I'll call you...

2010-11-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have the silliest kids ever. This is Anthony calling Grandma on his banana phone. Silly boy. :-)

Yay

2010-11-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

I can post again! So much for NaBloPoMo.... Blogger and I have been fighting lately. For a while I could only post by typing something on the computer, saving it, and then going on my phone to post. Well that didn't happen! I think I've finally got it fixed again. Yay!

National Bog Post Month, Take 3

2010-11-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again! This will be my third attempt at posting every day for a month, I don't think I've successfully made it through the month yet. Some days my post might be long, others might only hold a photo. We'll see what happens. :-)

testing again

2010-10-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

Posting has been a major fail lately, just trying again....

So true...

2010-10-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

I got this in an email earlier today. The author has obviously been hanging around at my house... It even has the correct ages for the kids. :-)

You Give a Mom a Muffin
If you give a mom a muffin,
She’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she’ll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her five year old.
She’ll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She’ll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She’ll trip over some boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She’ll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of
Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She’ll smell something funny.
She’ll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.
She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on
Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

Written by Kathy Fictorie

Pictures...

2010-09-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

The bathrooms...

2010-09-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Last year, we remodeled the kitchen. It was not a small job, the room was gutted, and we had no kitchen for around six weeks, (I've tried to forget and so I'm not completely sure on the amount of time we went without a kitchen.) After that fiasco, I have sworn we will never remodel again. However, it's looking like the kids bathroom might need a minor overhaul sooner, rather than later. They don't need a huge new bathroom suite or anything, just a new cabinet and counters, and some towel racks would be nice too. We've already redone the floor in there and the tub/shower is pretty new as well.

If I had unlimited time, space and budget, I'd probably enjoy the remodeling process more. I'd love to have a kid's bathroom with big clawfoot tub, a seperate shower, a linen closet and double sinks. Realistically though, that's probably not going to happen in this house. I think there's room in there for double sinks, but that's about it.

If you could have your dream bathroom, what would it have?

Happenings

2010-09-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

Lots of things have been happening around here lately. Amelia is officially a kindergartener. She was hesitant at first, and there were some tears the first week, but eventually she calmed down and now she loves going to school. We had a little hiccup when they moved her to a new class two weeks in, but she seems to be doing well. She was upset at first as she doesn't have her lunch and recess with the other kindergarteners anymore, they are out with the first and second graders. This class is supposed to be a bit more advanced, it's a K/1 blend and they are moving a bit faster than the other kindergarten classes. So far, she loves it, and I'm really happy with her teacher.

While Amelia is in school, Anthony and I are trying to do more activities so he gets some one on one time too. The picture above is Ant making an apple wreathe. We never got around to making the wreath part, he had too much fun making a mess painting with the apple pieces. He had a great time though! I'm trying to do at least two crafts a week with him, right now just working on having fun with the activites, although I want to start focusing more on things like shapes and colors (he knows most of them pretty well) and then move on to letter stuff.

Amelia has started soccer. She had her first game yesterday and for the most part she loved it. She was a little whiney by the end, but that's what happens when it's 90 degrees out, the girl gets hot and she complains. lol. She kept asking if we could take a break and get ice cream. :-)

Saving this for later...

2010-08-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

I was going to try making this recipe tonight, following the directions I found here so I could bake them in the morning before school and work, but I just discovered my kitchen thermometer isn't working any more. So, I'm saving it for later.

It's hot...

2010-08-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Sunny

Temperature: 109°F Feels Like: 108°
Details: Dangerous heat index. Outdoor exposure should be limited.

Wednesday, what's for lunch?

2010-08-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

It's still the beginning of the school year, and I'm already bored with packing school lunches. My kid can be kind of a picky eater, and I also try to send more home made type stuff and less of the prepackaged stuff. Here's a typical lunch for Amelia.

String cheese, nutrigrain bar, cucumbers, applesauce, a peach and some milk. Speaking of the milk, I found her drink bottles at some random place, RiteAid maybe, and I love them. They have a little frozen tube that goes in the bottle, so her drink stays cool even when it's 110 outside. Sometimes she has celery instead of cucumbers, and most of the time she has a PB&J on whole wheat. Although lately, we've been told no PB products, so now it's Sunbutter and Jelly. I think it's nasty, but she says it's good. Anyway, I'm running out of lunch ideas, what are your kids eating for lunch?

Oh and did I mention that when we pack Amelia's lunch each morning,we also have to pack one for Anthony? Even though it just goes in the fridge until lunch time. :-)

Menu Plan Monday: August 23rd

2010-08-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

Monday: Acapulco Chicken in whole wheat tortillas, brown rice, broccoli, Boston Cream Pie
Tuesday: Burrito Bowls, Corn Muffins,
Wednesday: Gingered Pork, Brown Rice, Salad
Thursday: Jack Fish, corn on the cob on the BBQ, Salad
Friday: Crock chicken with tomatoes and peppers
Saturday: Fajita Steak Kabobs
Sunday: Southwestern Cheese Steaks

We're celebrating Jeff's birthday tonight, so I'll be spending the morning baking a cake. The cream filling is already made, so now I just have to make the cake and the chocolate topping. I'm trying a new yellow cake recipe, we'll see how it turns out. I'll post the recipes next week if it all turns out. :-)

What's for dinner at your house? For more menu ideas, visit Laura over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

All of my menus this week are again from Savingdinner.com I actually did two weeks worth of menu's this week, and shopped for everything at once, we'll see how that works out.

Sad

2010-08-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

On Friday our new little kitty Murphy died. He was fine Friday morning. By mid afternoon he was not doing well, not eating, lethargic etc. I knew he wasn't doing well so I got Ant up from his nap, put the kids in the car, grabbed Murphy and headed to the vet. He was sitting with me in the waiting room when he died. Poor kitty. Of course I was crying, the kids wanted to know why he wasn't coming home with us. I'd tried to explain to Amelia when we got him that he was little, only 4 weeks old, and he should be with his mama still and he might not live. I reiterated that a few times for her on Friday when he started acting weird. I'm sad, because we did everything we could. I feel a bit silly because we had him less than a week. But he was my little buddy, spent a lot of his time in the house curled up snuggling my neck. He'd been to the vet a few days before and was fine then. So anyway, that's how our weekend started off. Amelia and Jeff both wanted to go Friday night and get a new kitty but I told them I wanted to wait a few weeks before I was ready for another kitten.

Our new addition...

2010-08-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

I can't find the camera cord, so I can't upload pictures. I have a bunch of posts written in my head but they all have pictures that go with them, but the pictures are stuck in my camera. So for now, here are a few phone shots of our newest family member.

Murphy, aka quarter pounder, is our sweet little four week old kitten. Ant and I found him in the middle of our street on a 100+ degree day so we brought him in and then Jeff took him to the vet. He had a nasty infection in his eye, but it's getting better. Jeff named him Murphy but I think quarter pounder is cute too, he only weighed 4 ounces when he went to the vet.

The bottle in his box is full of hot water, he seems to like having something warm to snuggle, and I worry he'll get cold with the AC running. I cover it with a blanket but he pulls the blanket off and then curls up on top of it.

Menu Plan Monday: August 2nd

2010-08-02T08:56:00.001-07:00

It's Monday again! Where did the weekend go? We got a lot done around here, Jeff did a ton of work in the yard. It looks pretty good out there. I figure we'll get all of the projects done around the house about the time we're ready to move on to a new house. ;-)

Okay on to the menus. Last weeks menus went pretty well. The ratatouille was really good. I wasn't crazy about the lemon chicken, like I thought I'd be. The chicken itself was really good and moist and not dried out. But the sauce at the end ruined it for me. Next time I think I'd just skip that part.

Again all my menus this week are from savingdinner.com

Monday:Peachy Keen Pork, steamed sweet potatoes, salad
Tuesday: Grilled Sesame Ginger Chicken, brown rice, salad
Wednesday: Smothered Flounder, steamed broccoli, salad
Thursday: Turkey Lettuce Pitas, sliced veggies
Friday: Pizza or Fend for yourself night
Saturday:Caramelized Pork Medallions, corn bread, veggies, salad
Sunday:Lemon-Thyme Sirloin Steak, garlic bread, broccoli and salad.

Go visit Laura for more menu planning, and leave me a comment if you posted menus this week, I'll stop by and say hello.

2010-07-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

I think today is the perfect day. The kids and I got the grocery shopping done first thing this morning while Jeff mowed the lawn. ( The grocery store is empty at 730AM on Saturday. Who knew?) The house is clean and the laundry is done. So the kids and I have spent most of the day so far at the park. It wasn't too hot, or too cold out. Ant spent at least an hour digging in the dirt and bringing me "presents", mostly leaves and such. Amelia has been practicing riding her bike without training wheels. She's not very good yet, but she is determined. She won't let me help her, she just sits on the seat and pushes with her feet working on balancing. Only a little over a week until school starts. I love the summer.

2010-07-30T08:21:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to post more often, but I'm realizing I stopped posting because I don't have much to say. Today is like most days here. It's sunny and warm. I know the weather lately has been awful at the beach, and they're probably not enjoying the clouds, but I'm loving that we're only in the 80's and low 90's instead of hitting 100 every day like last summer. The kids just had a shower (yes my two and five year old take showers now, Amelia decided she doesn't like baths anymore and Ant wants whatever Amelia wants) which means I got my second shower of the day because trying to wash them from outside the shower means I got soaked too, along with half the kids' bathroom. I wonder if that counts for cleaning the bathroom this week?

Now the kids are fighting over an empty jug of grape juice and eating frozen gogurts(much less messy that way), which means they will probably need another shower in the near future. I'm in the office ~~hiding from the children (I can still see them, I swear)~~ printing out menus and the grocery list for next week. The printer is taking forever, I think it hates me.

After I'm done in here, I have about 37 loads of laundry that need to be put away, but they can probably sit on the guest bed for one more day. And I really should go clean the master bathroom. Have I ever mentioned how much the term master bathroom cracks me up? I hear that and think of some grand bathroom. Um no. Our bathroom is a mix between a hodgepodge of newer pieces and the awesome 70's stuff that was put in when the house was built, gold flecked counters anyone? And it's tiny. The guest bathroom in the hallway by the other bedrooms is way bigger. But after the gut the kitchen fiasco, I've sworn to never remodel again, so I don't expect the master bathroom to get any better any time soon.

So, instead of putting the laundry away or cleaning the bathroom, we're going to go out for a walk/bike ride. Amelia rides her bike, I walk, and Ant goes back and forth between the stroller and walking. This will take at least an hour and a half because when you live next door to a park, you can't go out for a walk without stopping at the park before you come home, (or at least, that's what my children have convinced me of). We'll also have to go by the high school so my kids can say hello to the "stinky sheep", we can thank my husband for that lovely nickname for the sheep.

After our super exciting walk, we're going to get Amelia's hair cut. Yes, her hair got cut last weekend, but she decided to touch it up yesterday and took a huge hunk out of it. This is the 3rd or 4th time she's cut her hair, starting at around age 2. It's been a really long time since she did it though. I'm not sure how to proceed, the girl is starting kindergarten in a week, and has to use scissors. And it's not like she's using them unsupervised, I was only a few feet away when she cut her hair. She was cutting paper, then just reached up and went for her hair. Her explanation was she wanted to have curly hair when she got her hair cut and it's still not curly so she thought cutting it would make it curly.

The printer is finally done, so I guess this post is too. This may be the most boring blog post ever, but hey, no one can say I'm ignoring my blog.

I think I need a vacation.

That post where I ramble about pretty much nothing...

2010-07-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I saw a picture of S'mores cupcakes in a blog (it was Sarah's blog NaptimeMusings) and it had a link to the recipe. At some point I decided they looked yummy, and I made some myself. They turned out pretty good I thought, but Jeff doesn't remember eating them. Well the other day Jeff and I were watching some show on TV, yes it's a miracle we agreed on a show, and it showed some S'mores cupcakes, but no recipe. He mentioned that he'd like to try something like that, so I went on a hunt for the recipe. After going through pages and pages of the blog where I thought I'd seen it, I finally got smart and googled the name of the blog and what I wanted to find. It brought up the post immediately. I wish I'd thought to do that sooner, I'm always spending forever looking through blogs and pages for things I remember seeing but can't quite remember where or when it was. So the point of this whole long post is, I found it. And I want to save the link to the S'mores cupcakes. I was thinking I might make them for Jeff's birthday, but I think he really wants a chocolate cake with custard filling and white icing on top, which is what I usually make for him. Anyway.

Menu plan Monday: July 26th 2010

2010-07-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

It's Monday again, which means it's time for Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura over at orgjunkie.com. I think I mentioned before that my menus lately are from savingdinner.com. If you're familiar with The Flylady, then you've probably heard of Leeanne at Saving Dinner. Anyway it's really simple to use, I signed up for 3 months worth of menus. The way it works is once a week I get a link for the new menus. Then I just log in and pick out which menu I want (some of the menus available are regular , heart healthy, low carb, etc.) for the week. It's got a shopping list as well which is organized by section of the grocery store.

Monday: Crock Cooker Lemon Chicken, Salad, brown rice
Tuesday: Chicken Ratatouille Pasta, Salad
Wednesday: Leftovers/Fend for yourself night
Thursday: Turkey Broccoli Salad,
Friday: Tomato-Herb Scallops
Saturday: Turkey burgers
Sunday: Grilled Creole Pork Chops, sweet potatoes, salad

I wanted to share today's recipe with you, it's one we haven't tried before, we'll see how it turns out.

Crock Cooker Lemon Chicken

INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 (6-oz.) boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/2 cups low fat sour cream
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:
In a small bowl or cup, combine oregano, seasoned salt and black pepper; rub over chicken then place in a slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine chicken broth, lemon juice and garlic; pour over chicken. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from slow cooker and keep warm. Add a little of the cooking liquid to the sour cream, then add sour cream and parsley to slow cooker; cover and cook for 15 minutes or until heated through. Serve sauce with chicken.
NUTRITION per serving: 214 Calories; 3g Fat; 41g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 103mg Cholesterol; 261mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain (Starch); 5 1/2 Lean Meat. Points: 5
SERVING SUGGESTION: Steamed red skin potatoes and steamed green beans.

To do list

2010-07-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

I know it's probably silly, but for whatever reason posting my to do list really helps motivate me. So, here's today's list.

Clean Amelia's room. It's turned into a pit again. Is it bad that in some ways I can't wait for her to start school because it will be easier to get her to let go of some of her toys? Then I can sneak them out while she is out of the house. The girl holds onto every broken toy, each piece of paper and any random thing she can hide away in her room. And they are all treasures to her and it's like WWIII to get them away from her. However, if the stuff leaves while she isn't here, she almost never even notices.
Clean out the van
Vacuum and wash the van
Go to home depot and figure out which shelves I need to buy for the hall closet.
Get at least one flower bed weeded.
Take the kids for a walk/bike ride.
Put away the 37 loads of clean laundry that are currently covering the bed in the office.

What's on your to do list today?

Wordless Wednesday: Mt. St. Helens Edition

2010-07-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

Yummy basil..

2010-07-18T09:10:00.001-07:00

**Picture isn't working, I'll put one up later.**

I bought a sad little basil plant at the grocery store the other night. It's living on my window now. If I'm successful with this one, I might move on to a few other plants and have an indoor garden. For now, I'm just trying to keep the basil alive.

Saving this for later.

Tall boy, short girl

2010-07-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

I am amused every time I see this picture. Anthony is two and Dorothy is seven and there isn't that much of a height difference.

I think it's officially summer....

2010-07-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I took this photo last night when I ran to the store. It was around 9 PM or so, it was already most of the way dark out.

It's hot outside. Just a week or two ago, the temperatures were way below average, and it was really nice out. Overcast in the morning, the clouds would burn off in the afternoon and we'd hit a high of 75 degrees. Well that's all gone and now it's just flipping hot. I think we're supposed to hit 103 today. It's 10 AM and we've already been chased into the house. This is what we spent the morning doing.

In the kiddie pool, in the shade. Summer has officially arrived, and we'll be doing a lot of indoor activities or going to OC where it's cooler until school starts. And speaking of school, what were they thinking? Amelia starts school the first week of August when it's often over 100 every day. Poor kids, I hope they have AC in kindergarten.

Menu Plan Monday:

2010-07-12T07:36:00.000-07:00

The menus for this week are all from savingdinner.com I love that it includes a few different weekly menus, so I can pick and choose what we're going to eat. The menu also includes the shopping list organize by aisle. Love it. The recipes this week are mostly from the heart healthy menu. I'm excited to try Friday's dinner, it's got a bunch of stuff Jeff doesn't like, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc, so I'm making it on a night he won't be here. :-)

Monday: Veggie Stuffed Shells, add a big salad and some bread sticks
Tuesday: Turkey Paprikash, with steamed broccoli
Wednesday: Zesty Ginger Chicken, add a big spinach salad
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Angel Chicken, add steamed asparagus
Saturday: Garden Burgers, with steamed new potatoes and steamed green and yellow (wax) beans
Sunday: Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches, with a relish tray

I'll let you know next week how everything was. Go to orgjunkie.com for more menu ideas, and if you played this week leave me a comment!

Making the wine!

2010-07-11T15:40:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to my friend's house and we had a little party. Everyone in the group is a nanny, or was at one time, even though half of us are "retired" and home with our own children, or have moved on to other careers. Anyway, for the last year or so we've been making wine. We've done a lot of fruit wine which is really simple to make, and it's pretty cheap too, and well it's like drinking juice with a kick! ha. This time though we tried a wine kit, to make a red wine. Fourteen weeks ago, the first stage was completed and it was left to sit in my friend's pantry.

Last night we moved on phase two, which may have involved the consumption of a lot of wine and then having to follow the directions on the wine kit for the batch currently being made. Next time we should do the wine making first, then the drinking. Ha. (Not that I personally was in any way intoxicated at this point, but I can only speak for myself.)This was the first time I've really been involved in this stage of the process, so it was fun to see what all had to be done. Trying to siphon the wine from the bucket to the bottle for the next stage was pretty entertaining. Next time I'll take pictures.

So eventually we got the wine stirred and siphoned and some ingredients added and it should be ready around Christmastime. I'll let you all know how it turned out.

The only downside to the night was after we made the wine, we watched a movie (the Blindside, it was really good! I hadn't seen it before) and my foot fell asleep while sitting on the couch. So when I stood up, I managed to trip and hurt myself. I spent the rest of the night with my foot up and an ice pack. It's great to be in a room full of nannies when you hurt yourself. They took good care of me. :-) So I'm sore today, and my foot is swollen and a little bit purple. I should probably go to urgent care, but I really don't want to deal with the hospital and waiting forever today. I think I'm hoping it will just get better on it's own. Hopefully I didn't hurt it too badly, I'm supposed to do a 5k in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.

More Pictures

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One of the few nice days while Jeff was with us in Oregon was spent at Bonneville Dam and Fish hatchery. I love this place. The kids can run around, it's beautiful and it wasn't crowded.

Jeff and Christian with the kids (minus Dorothy and Chloe, they were at school that day.)

The kids are holding up one of the Turbines.

Vacation!

2010-07-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. You're all shocked that I'm posting again. Me too! :-)

We just got back from a visit to Portland to see my family. It was so nice to see everyone, but it was kinda sad that my sister wasn't around. It was weird to see my brother in law and the girls on their own, but it seems that they are mostly doing pretty well. I think in the long run they'll be so much better off. Sad. Okay the point of this was not to be sad. The point was to post some pics of the trip. Jeff went up with us for the first week. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great for the time he was there, so we didn't get to do a lot of outdoor stuff, but we still had fun! :-)

It's hard to get five kids to sit still and look at the camera simultaneously!

Having lunch at Grandma's office

The End.

2010-03-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

I know it looks like I've abandoned blogging except for my weekly menus, and honestly, I kind of have. Other than menus and pictures, I think I've had 2 posts this year. I am not even reading blogs much anymore, I do try and check in with people I know in real life now and then but even those are few and far between. I started blogging when I was pregnant with Amelia. At that point I was on bed rest, and scared and I felt awfully alone. I didn't really have any friends within about 500 miles. After I had Amelia, I used this as a place to post pictures and vent about being a new mother, in a pretty new marriage, and living in a new area.(If you really want to have an adventure you should get married, move away from everyone you know and then get pregnant right away. Things will not be dull! :-) ) Then as Amelia got older, I had Anthony and continued on blogging, here and there; again I was using it to have someone to talk to at 3 AM while I was up nursing a baby back to sleep. (Loved the boppy for being able to nurse and play on the computer at the same time. I never did figure out how to breastfeed while laying down. Anywho.)

I guess I'm just at a point in my life where I don't have the downtime to sit and blog anymore. I've got a super busy two year old and a spirited five year old and they take up most of my time. I keep up with people on facebook and twitter on my iPhone and really, I've lost interest. I don't even live in the OC anymore. I almost deleted it all this morning. I pay a fee each year to have the domain name (it's not much, but it does cost money) and I'm not sure I need it anymore. And my kids are getting older and at some point they probably won't want me babbling about them for the whole world to see.

So yeah. If you've been wondering where I am, I'm around and everything's good. (Maybe that's the problem, I don't need this blog anymore because I don't have anything to complain about. LOL.) Maybe someday I'll come back to it, I won't say never again, but I'm probably done. Who knows, maybe I'll start another blog somewhere else and not tell anyone about it. It was a little easier writing when no one who knew me read it.

The end.

Menu Plan Monday:

2010-02-28T07:13:00.000-08:00

Monday: Meatball sandwiches
Tuesday: Tacos
Wednesday Creamy Pasta Bake
Thursday: Crockpot Cowboy Stew
Friday: Fend for yourself night (leftovers)
Saturday: Baked Chicken
Sunday: Soup and sandwiches

Menu Plan Monday:

2010-02-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Monday: Chicken Parmigiana, broccoli, salad (From Fix Freeze Feast book)
Tuesday: Cheesy Turkey meatloaf (Jeff loved this when I made it last, it was a bit much cheese in a meatloaf for me but he and the kids liked it so we're making it again. )
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
Thursday: Fend for yourself night (leftovers)
Friday: Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Saturday: Turkey Burgers, sweet potatoes, salad
Sunday: Soup and sandwiches

Baking: Pumpkin Bread to mail to Mom

Wordless Wednesday: Snow in SoCal

2010-02-17T02:10:00.000-08:00

These pictures were taken down the road from my house. Who says it doesn't snow in SoCal?? That thing at the bottom is a power pole I think, didn't realize it was there till after I took the pictures.

Giveaways!

2010-02-16T13:25:00.001-08:00

I have a few giveaways coming up in the next couple of weeks, so make sure you check back for a chance to win some free stuff. The first one should be up Friday.

Menu Plan Monday:

2010-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Monday: BBQ Pork Chops
Tuesday: Home made Chicken noodle soup
Wednesday: Out
Thursday: Quick Lasagna
Friday:Light Chicken And Dumplings
Saturday:Leftovers
Sunday Soup and Sandwiches

Decisions decisions...

2010-02-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to have Amelia go to the next session of preschool or not. If not, she'll be done the end of March, which would give her 4 months until kindergarten. (It's so weird to me that kids start school the first week of August here. Growing up we always started the Wednesday after Labor day. ) If she does attend the next session of preschool, she'd finish out the year and have her PreK graduation the end of June. The problem is that only leaves us 4 weeks of summer! We're usually in Oregon for that long, and I think she's got a ballet recital the end of July so we couldn't be gone in July unless we miss her recital.

And I have to decide if Anthony is going to start preschool in the fall or not too. He'll be almost three, (his bday is in October) but he'll still have 3 years until he starts school, so that seems like a long time for preschool. But he's already asking to go to school, he wants to stay in Amelia's class every day, we have to pack his backpack every morning too.

I just called the school district to ask a couple of questions, and they were so rude. Don't get mad at me for taking two minutes of your time to ask a question about registering for kindergarten. It's not my fault that your website is awful and has info from 2008 instead of up to date info.

Wordless Wednesday: Visiting Great Grandpa

2010-02-10T02:05:00.000-08:00

Menu Plan Monday:

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Monday: Cheddar Ranch Turkey Burgers
Tuesday: Whole wheat pasta
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Pork chops brown rice
Thursday: Chicken Tacos
Friday: Incredibly Cheesy Turkey Meatloaf
Saturday:Leftovers
Sunday: Soup and sandwiches