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

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?

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}

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.