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

Pictures...

The bathrooms...

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?h

Happenings

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...

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...

Sunny

Temperature: 109°F Feels Like: 108°

Details: Dangerous heat index. Outdoor exposure should be limited.

Wednesday, what's for lunch?

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

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

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...

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

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.