Thanksgiving 2010

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home - just the four of us. That's nice sometimes...I still would prefer all the family around (more hands with the clean - up lol) but sometimes it is nice to be with just your family. It seems that even with the kids little our time with just the four of us is limited. I can't imagine how it is when they get older and get involved in all their activities! 

Bekah was a big help in the kitchen. She loves to help cook. She didn't eat anything she made - with the exception of the cranberries. Those are her "favorite", she says. Lizzie at it all - she will munch on just about anything -  if she's hungry. They both had no problem with the pie though.  :)  It was a hit with everyone!

We got to meet Buzz!

We got to meet Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story and we didn't even have to go to Disney World. He came and visited our local community center one Saturday morning. Bekah was pretty excited to see him but Lizzie wanted no part of him - at least at first. She did eventually wave from a distance but we never got her close enough for a picture. They had several crafts to do like creating an alien headband, making a Woody paper doll and putting Buzz into space - which involved a lot of glitter. (Thank goodness I didn't have to clean that up - 50+ toddlers and elementary students with many large canisters of glitter makes for a very sparkly floor!). They also served Toy Story crackers and lemonade which may have been the biggest hit of all! :) Both the girls love crafts so this was the perfect event for them. Thanks CCC!

Hmmmm Fresh Corn on the Cob

Yummmm Fresh corn on the cob - I think it was the best I ever had this year!  Enough said!

Mother's Day Gift

So...I know that Mother's day was a long time ago...but I'm trying to play catch-up here. :) We don't have a lot of storage in our kitchen which could be a source of frustration at times. So for mother's day Les and Bekah built some shelves to hold all those kitchen "extras" that are nice to have but don't use everyday. Our garage is in the back of the house so the door in the kitchen goes out into our garage. We have a landing to walk out onto and then stairs to the right that go down into the garage. On the left is a tall empty wall which Les (with the help of Bekah) put up several shelves to hold all these extras. It helped free up three cupboards in the kitchen/dining room. Yay! Someday I WILL be organized someday! :)

Chickens are our friends....right?

Not too far from our house is a nursery which hosts a farmer's market each week as well as has a small petting zoo and playground for the kids. We went out there one evening to explore and get some fresh produce. The girls had fun running around. Bekah wasn't sure about the petting zoo but Lizzie - our fearless child - seemed to bond with one of the chickens. I'm not so sure what kind it is but the chicken just hopped right out of the cage and followed Lizzie around - even to the play ground. Not sure if it was hoping for food or just has a fondness for little ones. :)  Lizzie thought it all quite amusing and danced around the chick.

While we were there I had taken some cash out of my purse and put it in my pocket so I could buy some yummies at the farmer's market. After walking around and deciding what we wanted I went to get the cash out it was gone!  I checked every pocket and retraced our steps multiple times looking for it. It was a windy day and other people around so I figured it had either blown into the waist-high weeds around the sides. I was bummed thinking I would have to go home empty-handed. We went and played in the playground and played with the chicken some more when I noticed something on the ground. It was three dollars folded up. It wasn't my money and there was no one else around so I was pretty excited that I would be able to get some fresh green peppers since ours were not yet ready in our garden. I went back out front and bought the peppers and a fresh lemon and headed back to the car. As I got in I looked into my purse and there was my money sitting right on top! Not sure how that happened but it was a great reminder that God provides!  PTL!

Neighborhood Fun

Remember summer? It was here not too long ago. It was a great summer! As the kids have gotten older it has become much easier to go places and do all sorts of things. We took many trips to area parks but we have a great neighborhood with many children so most of our days were just spent playing outside with them. Both of our neighbors each have two kids as well - all around the same age so it was fun to get to know the other moms and dads as well as let our kids get to know each other and play and explore.

We all had some type of water play toys so we took turns pulling them out and letting the other kids play. Even after dinner the toys would come out and one house and soon all the kids would be there. That was nice because then the dads had a chance to join in and play too. As mom we are fortunate because we all work part-time so get to spend most of our days home with the kiddos.

 

Garage Sale Treasure!

Who knew that $4 can buy a treasure? We pulled up to a garage sale and I saw this sitting on the side of the driveway. Bekah was all excited about the picnic table but I told her it probably wasn't for sale. We got up and looked at it and sure enough there was a price tag on it - $4.00. I was so surprised!  I asked the people..."Really?  $4.00?" It was!  Sold! We've had a few picnics since then with the neighbor kids and I am sure many more to come! 

Memorial Day

We didn't have any big plans for Memorial Day. So on Sunday night I called a friend and we decided to meet up at a local park/beach. We have some awesome parks and beaches around here filled with great playgrounds. We got there about 10 AM and it was surprisingly empty .We played for a while..slides, swings, tire swings, digging, zip lines, bouncing things and a lot of equipment to climb. After about an hour of that we were hungry so ate a picnic lunch and then headed to the beach.

Lizzie wasn't so sure about the lake. It was pretty cold still and filled with a lot of algae and the occasional fish - much different from her bath water! She was fine being out there as long as she was cuddled. The girl holding her in the picture is my God daughter - I have a picture of her about 10 years ago when she was about Lizzie's age at that same beach on Memorial Day! Man, has time flown!!!

Bekah wasn't too keen on the water much either. She went out with me once but was a little too cold for her liking. She did, however, have a blast playing in the sand with daddy and on her own. She also thoroughly enjoyed playing with the shower they have on the beach to wash off the sand - she just kept filling up her bucket and carrying it to water the sand.

Rain brings Rainbows!

What does one do when you have many small children and it's rainy and windy and cold outside?  You make your own rainbows of course. My good friend Amanda is quite famous for her rainbow pancakes. We have done pink flower pancakes at our house before but never the full rainbow. So when we had a rainy, gray day I thought what a perfect day to make our own rainbows. The kids got to help a little but still too small to work on the electric griddle. (If you want to see really, glorious vivid rainbow pancakes {or even a rainbow cake} you need to check out Amanda's blog. She rocks at not only photographing food and her super cute children but also is a semi-pro baker so uses top of the line food coloring to get super vivid colors.

All the kids super enjoyed the pancakes. It was a fun treat but not one we will do often - besides the amount of dishes it created and the time it took to make a gazillion small pancakes the diapers the next day were not so friendly! :)

Note: I'm so proud - see my girls - they are eating their fruit first and then their pancakes!!!  Such healthy eaters! :) lol

  

Sunday School Picnic

We recently attended our church's Sunday School picnic. We held it at a local park. It was an afternoon of good old-fashioned fun!

Rebekah and Les participated in the three-legged race. They did pretty well together despite the height difference. I think they may have come in last but that's okay - as the youngest (and maybe the oldest) participants out there the fact that they didn't fall was pretty good! :) lol

After the three legged race was the race in the burlap sacks. (I'm sure there is a name for it but it is escaping me right now!) Rebekah tried hard but she and the other 3/4 year olds had the same problem where they would jump but not move their sack so eventually they would just about jump right out of their sack. I do have some fun video of it but at this time I can't figure out how to put it up here. (I used to have a nifty little button that said "Add video" that I would hit but it has gone and I dont' know how to do it anymore. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear from you!)

 

After that we played tug-a-war. I took pictures, Les anchored one end with Rebekah's help...

...and Lizzie coached everyone along making sure everyone did their share! lol

After games and eating our fill the big excitement was watching the fish. The fish are very used to being fed at this dock so if they see anyone up on the dock they will come right up - literally hundreds of them. Which is great for them if they are just being fed...not so great if it's a fisherman!

It's been so wonderful to be outside - I'm trying to enjoy each day but as I keep adding items to my calendar it just reminds how quickly these summer days go and before you know it winter will be here!!!

Hope you are all able to get out and enjoy the sun - soak up that Vitamin D! :) lol

Menu Plan Monday

I know it's been a while since I have posted my menus. I have been doing them...most weeks. It really does help to save money and make shopping easier if I know what I am going to have. I try to sit down with my coupons and ads to see what is on sale and make my menu off of that. It does help save a lot of money!

Check out I'm An Organizing Junkie to get more menu ideas!

Monday:  Picnic Lunch at the Beach
                Dinner: Turkey Salad w/ Cherries and Walnuts

Tuesday: Firecracker Chicken

Wednesday: Crock Pot roast w/ veggies

Thursday: Chicken Sandwiches, herb-roasted oven fries

Friday: Taco Salad

Saturday: Lunch: Pancakes and sausage
               Dinner: Buffalo Sliders, chips, veggies

Sunday: Unknown for lunch but we always have Pizza for dinner so that's nice! :)

More Cake! :)

Rebekah was recently invited to some friends' birthday party. Robby and Will are twins who turned five. Sadly our whole family was hit with a super nasty stomach bug and was not able to make it. She was pretty disappointed as she is still really "into" birthdays - I mean really, what 3 year old isn't? Cake, presents, balloons, games? Life doesn't get any better. 

So I made her a promise that once we were all better we would have them over and have a party for them at our house.  "With a cake?" of course.

Bekah wanted another purse cake but I told her that five year old boys were probably not real excited about a purse cake so we headed to the computer and looked through many, many cakes where she decided on a car one. Thank goodness I still had my friend's round cake pans since I hadn't bought any for myself yet (Thanks Julie!) So we made them this race track. We got the cars but I wasn't thinking clearly and chose brown and green cars to put on a brown and green cake. Should have gone with red and yellow to show up a bit more - but the kids didn't care so I'm not going to stress about it. :)

Will and Robby - big smiles before cutting the cake!

Robby and Bekah enjoying every bite (and the green tongues it gave them)

Lizzie enjoyed the cake too...she mixed it right in with her pizza...mmm yum!

What is that? Or things we do for our kids!

Can you guess what this is - Yes, it's food - it's edible...

Does this picture help?

Yes - it's black spaghetti. Pasta continues to be one of the most negative foods for Rebekah so we are working with her on making it a little more "fun" for her. I recently took Rebekah to the pasta aisle at Super Target and told her she could choose any type of pasta to try. I thought for sure she would go for the Mickey shaped pasta, or the daisies, or the letters - or maybe even the little O's but nope - not my daughter - she marched right over and picked the black spaghetti. She declared it "my favorite" (I'm not sure she quite has the understanding of that yet).

So I thought - what the heck...I'll try it. I didn't bother looking at any recipes. I just cooked it like spaghetti as per the instructions on the back and while it didn't look too appetizing to us it did taste just like regular spaghetti. Once you covered it with the red sauce it wasn't so bad.

Of course - she didn't eat any. She did touch it though and tried slurping it which is a huge step. If you remember when we started this at one point when pasta would touch her lips she would vomit almost instantly. She still hasn't eaten any pasta but is much more tolerant of it.

I found out later it's colored with either squid ink or cuttlefish ink. I think I'm glad I didn't know that before hand. I recently looked online to see what others were saying about it and found an Italian recipe blog that made it look a little more appetizing...but it still doesn't look like something I would make on a regular basis.  Feel free to check it out at lucullian delights.