Wordless Wednesday {At The Beach}

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

Things I love

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...

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

Summer time...

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!

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...

First day of school, Fall 2010


Last day of school, 10 months later...

What did you do today?

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

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.)

Homework time...

More Easter recipes...

Yummy carrot cake

Yummy spinach salad

Saving this

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

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!

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..

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...

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!

(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:

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...

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:

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...

Ribbons everywhere!

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

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

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!

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...

Merry Christmas

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

Oak Glen! Two months later...

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!

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

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!

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..

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!

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!

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!

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...

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

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...

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

Yay

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

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

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

So true...

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