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.

Minnesota Weather Confusion

** Another post written a while back!

We live in MN - a land of 10,000 lakes and weather that changes every few minutes - or so it seems some days.  It's hard to be three in MN and after months and months of having to wear coats and boots and hats and mittens and scarves and layers upon layers to suddenly be free from all that. We finally had a nice warm day after a cold, cold winter. We loved playing outside but Bekah just was not sure about being out there without boots. It's hard to give up those habits. She wanted to wear her coat too but after figuring out it didn't fit over the wings she was content to go outside without it.

Grandma's Birthday

***Note: I wrote this post long ago. Then I got a few questions asking why I didn't blog anymore. Low and behold instead of posting my blogs I have just been saving them so I will get them out for my few dedicated readers.

My mom came to visit in late march - once again she was willing to spend her birthday with us. Rebekah is really into birthdays these days and is always asking when someones birthday is. I found a site online that has a gazillion (well, maybe hundreds) of birthday cake ideas - some with video. Bekah and I would sit and watch them make these fun cakes.

When I told her Grandma was going to be her for her birthday her response was ... "We have to make her a birthday cake!" I asked her "What kind of cake would you like to make her?"  "A purse cake," was her reply. So we went online and found a video that taught us how to do the "purse cake". Of course I didn't have the right pans for it but a friend was coming to visit that day and I called her quick and asked her if she had two 8 inch round cake pans --( I mean really, how does one NOT have round cake pans???)  She came through for me (thanks Julie- I promise I'll get them back to you...someday!)

Bekah and I made the cake. She is a great stirrer and loves to dump the ingredients in. She is finally getting the concept that you have to cook the food. (When we first started baking together as soon as the ingredients were mixed and in the pan she wanted to eat it - thinking it was done.)

We had to wait a day to decorate it until I got the rest of the ingredients and had time but I think it turned out pretty cute! :) Bekah was thrilled with it and still talks about it. It was pretty tasty too although I wasn't quite sure how to cut it. It's not the quality of Amanda's cake over at I Am Baker - no secret surprises inside and yes - it came out of a box but I'm still pretty happy with it. Plus Mom and Bekah liked it so that's all that matters...right?

Here's mom with her cake. In case you're wondering why it looks like we gave Grandma a memory game and snowman coloring book let me assure you - we didn't. We got her a strawberry pot (which Bekah gave the secret away) so hopefully she will have fresh strawberries this summer. My friend that was coming over brought some Christmas presents for the girls that they never received. We were to go to their house for Christmas Eve but we had a terrible snow storm so ended up staying home and this was the first chance we had to get together - only three months late!

Easter Sunday

"They" predicted rain for Easter Morning. As the week progressed "they" kept changing, and changing and changing...and sure enough we awoke on Easter AM to beautiful sunny blue skies and warm weather. I was so thrilled - a perfect day to celebrate the risen Christ!

Okay - I have to admit - I was also thrilled that my girls could wear their cute little Easter dresses and sandels without having to bundle them up. (It still is sometimes all about me! lol)

After a glorious Easter service where God was glorified again and again we traveled north to a friend's house for Easter dinner. Kathy is the mother of one of my dearest friends - Julie. For the past 20+ years I have been welcomed in their homes and lives for numerous holiday and personal celebrations. For many of those years I spent those celebrations chasing and playing with one or all of my four godchildren. That day there was a little bit of payback occuring as I got to sit and chat with the adults while my godchildren entertained my little ones!

My girls love to be outside. They kept the kids busy going in and out of the doors - Lizzie only tried to walk through the deck screen once. :) Quick learner.

  

They had an egg hunt for the kids. Bekah LOVED it. She has a good eye and found many more than she was supposed to so we snuck some into Lizzie's basket so it was fair. She didn't mind as long as she could keep looking.

"Grandma Kathy" bought them each Easter baskets. Bekah's was a brown puppy dog; Lizzie's was a hippo. What was so funny was that Bekah's "security" is a brown puppy she calls "Favorite Puppy" and Lizzie's nighttime friend is a Hippo - how's that for perfect!

Rebekah was a bit overwhelmed when we first got there because there were many face she didn't know - many of those people she was meeting for the first time. She spent the first half hour on Daddy's lap and then once she realized some of the other kids were watching Aladdin  she started poking her head out. Lizzie, on the other hand, is not shy at all. She just would walk around and around saying "hi" to all and sitting on any lap that would let her. Once Bekah warmed up though she was fine to be away from us for periods of time. Her favorite time - after the egg hunt, of course - was telling Carly what to draw in chalk. (In case you couldn't tell in the last pic that is our family! Bekah, of course, is covering up the pic of Lizzie!)

I hope you all had a fabulous Easter!

Palm Sunday

One of my favorite parts about Palm Sunday (besides the reason we celebrate) is seeing the children walk down the aisles at church waving their palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!" There is something so innocent and precious about it that I just am drawn in. I remember being pregnant with Rebekah and thinking someday my child will be doing that -- and this past Palm Sunday - she did! :) It was so great to walk with her up the aisle - both of us waving our palm branches and saying "Hosanna!" The children stayed up front as the choir sang - waving their branches.

She seemed to really enjoy it at first, however, as it went on I could see her start to "shut down". She starts to get overwhelmed after a while. I have talked to her food therapist about this who is also an Occupational Therapist. She believes that Rebekah's sensory processing abilities are more limited then an average child. I don't fully understand it myself but we are learning. From what I understand most of us have a certain level that we can get to without being annoyed. Then there is an area above that that allows us to tolerate above that for a certain amount of time. Rebekah's "time" is limited at that level. So one thing they work with her on is supposed to help her extend this time. We have seen some improvement over the time we have been working with her. 

As you can see by the second picture after a while she "shut down". She enjoys the noise and movements and people for a while and then it just gets to be a bit too much for her. She does well at taking a "time out" for herself. We have noticed that when she starts to get overwhelmed she will remove herself and go do a quiet activity by herself for a while. In this type of situation that really isn't a option so after sitting down for a while she got up and came and sat on my lap but did stay in the sanctuary and watch until the song was finished and then walked out with the other children. 

 It certainly has been a lesson in patience for Les and I. So thankful we have each other to depend on as well as friends, family and of course, the Lord. Some days are filled with prayers!!! :)

Hope you all are well!

Funny Girl!

Today Rebekah was crying and I asked her "Why are you crying?"

She was silent for a minute then looked up at me and said "I'm not crying...my eyes are watering."

Twice today I looked over and found Lizzie sitting in the middle of the dining room table. Yesterday she couldn't get up on the chair. Why are they growing so fast???

A Happier Post

My Mother told me that my last post was sad. I didn't mean for it to be sad. Yes, I must admit it was a bit whiney. Perhaps wanting some sympathy was an underlying reason for posting - sympathy and understanding. I am thankful that I am healthy though. There are others out there in blog land that are dealing with sick kids while being sick themselves. I have been quite fortunate to have stayed fairly healthy this winter despite all the germs around me. Perhaps it was all the colds I had when I was little - maybe now I am immune to many of them. I once heard that you can only get a cold once but since there are over 900 varieties of them you don't have much chance of ever getting to a point where you are immune to them all. (Not sure how accurate that is - just one of those trivial pieces I read/heard somewhere and it's stuck with me).

So let's talk about what has been happy these past weeks. One nice thing about being sick is you have the right to the big red chair. It's in the center of the room and from that chair you can see pretty much the whole first floor of the house. It's also super comfy and great for cuddling. I spent the first two weeks in that chair after giving birth to my girls day and night.

Another great thing about being sick is comfort food. I know some people don't eat when they are sick while others get comfort from food. Last night Lizzie got her first ice cream cone. (They are little kiddie cones). She had no problem figuring out what to do with it. She thoroughly enjoyed every bite! Funny how I didn't find any "leftovers" in her chair or on the floor like I normally do after she is done eating.
Bekah always enjoys spending time on the floor with daddy. Playing toys, rolling around, or having horsey rides. It always reminds me of doing that with my dad. He was great about that and I am so happy to see my daughters building the same memories with their father.

Bekah received some games from a friend from church. She loves doing the shape/color game and we have spent quite a bit of time making rainbows. She is learning a lot about shapes and colors and is very good at sorting them out.














Earlier this month we headed out to Underwater World. I went with a friend with her three kids and I had my two plus R. Yep, six kids total - 2 4-year olds, 1 3-year old, 2 one-year olds and a 3 week old. It was an adventure but all the kids did a great job. They were all so fascinated with all the fish. For part of it you walk through a huge tube that goes through the huge tanks so the fish are swimming over head. Bekah and R were not too sure about that at first but soon got pretty excited about it all.We learned about all different types of fish, turtles and sting rays. We saw "Dory" and "Nemo" - actually many of them. Bekahs favorite though was the "Pocpopus" (or octopus depending upon how you want to pronounce it).

Lizzie is learning the fine art of dressing up. She thinks she is pretty cute - we happen to agree!

Mommy has learned that her memory is not always accurate. These are the owies that Lizzie received as she fell down the stairs. I remember them much worse than that. Sadly, Lizzie has NOT learned to be safe on the stairs all  time. She does tend to be a bit of a daredevil. She loves to climb on EVERYTHING. She has even learned to move a small chair to where she wants to get to for step up. I'm not sure I want her learning that yet - if ever.

 

Mommy has been learning some new recipes. These are the chicken parmesan roll-ups I made a few weeks back. They do make a pretty dish.

Lizzie and Bekah are working hard on learning to share. So far they are doing a pretty good job! This was Rebekah sharing her ice cream with Lizzie. Now that's a good big sister to share even her Ice Cream!


They are becoming good buddies and it has been fun to seem them really start to interact. Here they are watching a movie together, "sharing" popcorn. (That worked by Bekah, every once in a while, popping a piece into Lizzie's mouth.)  Lizzie is also learning to love books. It started with one that she got for Christmas. At first that was the only book she would read. Needless to say DH and I got sick of it pretty quick. Thankfully she has reached out and embraced other books now and I am thrilled that she loves to read just as much as her big sister and mommy.

Hope this was a happier post for you mom! :)  (And everyone else. Don't mean to be a whiner!!!! :)

Hope you are all happy and healthy!

BTW - Girls are no better. Have a feeling we will be seeing our pediatrician tomorrow. God Bless!!!

PS. I don't know why some of my writings came out like links but I am too tired to try and fix it and Lizzie is demanding hugs and loves and that's WAY more important! :)