Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Grief

Grief.
I guess it's supposed to be a good thing but there are times when it flares up like a bad disease and makes life difficult.

Today is one of those days for me.

You see, when I was a little girl, my baby sister died of SIDS.
Most SIDS deaths occur between 2-4 months, but my sister was
6 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days.

The exact age Three is today.


I can't imagine what it would be like if this was all the time I ever got with Three. To never see him again? Did I love on him enough? Would I start to forget him?

It's a hard day.



So today I let everything else slide and I loved on my baby. I held him a little bit tighter, played a little bit longer, cried for my sister, and just willed the day to pass a little bit faster.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Room with a View


Three did not want to lay down in his bathtub anymore today.
I guess that means he's ready for the big tub...

However the big tub does not have nearly the view that the kitchen sink does! The kitchen was at least updated this decade. This century even.
Hopefully, when I look back at the kids' pictures of their first baths in the big tub,
I won't mind the 70's brownish greenish yellow. Yuck!

Anyone want to redo my tub in the next week?

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Fake Sunday



Ha ha! Not really fake, just more than just the kids. :o) Family pictures are so rare, I thought I'd post a family picture from Friday at the Tulip Festival.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

The avocado

If you want to make your own baby food,
this is the best book ever.

I started making baby food when One was a baby. Turns out he was allergic to some of the acid used as a preservative in the jarred baby food. It also meant he couldn't drink orange juice or eat other acidic things until after he was potty trained.

I know that's a weird leap, but trust me on that one, you don't want the details.

Making your baby food is so easy! And cheap! This book lays it out month by month, tells you how to cook everything, when it's in season, and how to know which ones are ripe.... It's a wonderful book and I even found my copy at a local used-book shop.

Now, everyone has a Martha story. And somehow, mine involves making baby food. Before I ever had children, I saw a show on making baby food. They were going over the basics, with one of the last steps being to strain the food to get out any and every lump. Martha joked that you could drop that step for your third child. For some reason I found that so funny at the time and it stuck with me but sure enough, when I started making food for Three, I thought about that show and went,

Oh, he's fine.

Tonight Three tried avocado for the first time. One and Two hated it when they were infants. I wasn't expecting much success but Three seemed to enjoy them. He is certainly his own little guy!

Avocado: B+


Friday, March 27, 2009

Little Hands

Little hands pick flowers with little stems.



Flowers that a mom has to be creative in keeping.

(can you find the stems in this jar?)

Creative in graciously thanking
while ensuring her entire garden
doesn't fall to this fate.

Imagine my horror when we get to the tulip farm today
and Two runs and picks the first flower she sees!
"Look, Mom!"

Thank goodness they had plywood flowers too!




And horse shoes:



And duck races:



And big wooden shoes:



And cow trains:


Which, as you might guess,
are all good ways to keep little hands busy!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

5 o'clock news

These are my news people.


April, over at JaneSays talked about her news people the other day and how much she missed them when she was out of town. It is so true. When we moved to the northwest, it turns out our old news guy had an identical twin brother that was the news guy in our new town! How fantastic was that?! And of course that was the station we ended up watching. And now I can tell you who's battled cancer (Helen), who's battling cancer (Shellie), who's a diabetic with a daughter the same age as mine (Rhonda), who's a ballroom dancer (Rod), who just had a baby (Laurel).... wow, you really get to know these guys over time!

Who do you get your news from?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

My hands are killing me.

Here's a math problem for you: If Two, Three, and myself all have pink eye, and we all get eye drops four times a day, and I'm washing my hands before and after administering them to each person every single time, how many times am I washing my hands?

Perhaps that is why my hands hurt.
When this is all over, I think I will soak them in some granny cream.
For a few days.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Muffin Tin Monday

Has it really been so long? I download the pics from the camera and find two Muffin Tin Mondays? Thankfully I am aware that my food is Not So Gourmet and will only post tonight's dinner.


(Clockwise from top left: pudding (dessert only, of course!), applesauce, celery, stuffing, peas, chicken)

Have I mentioned that my kids help make dinner every night? When it is their turn to cook, they also get to "pick" what we eat (from two of my choices) and they say the prayer when it's time to eat.

Well, tonight was One's turn to choose and cook what we had for dinner. His choices were chicken and stuffing or tortellini. Why, oh why did he pick chicken and stuffing? He never likes it. He loves tortellini. But chicken and stuffing it was.

Things we had to endure before he finally got to open his pudding:

I'm allergic to stuffing.
My throat won't let me eat it.

Poor guy. Maybe next time he'll remember to pick the tortellini!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Sick Day

We have caught the crud that has been going around. Most of my days this past week have been spent snuggling a sick kid. I don't have any crafts to share so I thought I would at least drop in for a few fun stories:

Two has started having nightmares. I don't know if it's a developmental stage or if she's just not sleeping as well that's what's causing it, but when she's having a nightmare, she always calls out for DaddyMan. He gets the big sobs and story. One night, right after he came back to bed, she called for me! When I went in, I got the sweetest "I love you". Oh. Melt my heart. Throw in the fact that Two has been working on her LLLLL's in speech and she really really said "I love you" and not "I wuv you"..... wow. It was such a sweet sweet moment.

Three lifted his hands up to me today! I took a baby sign class with One and that teacher said you can tell when a baby is old enough to sign when they raise their arms up to you to be held. Now, I don't know if they have to do it without me reaching for them but today I went to pick up Three and for the first time he actually raised his arms up to me! Hurray! I'm such a huge fan of baby sign, I'm excited to get back into it again. So far we've been working on "diaper change" and "more".

Spring Break officially started for One today. When I went to pick him up, his teacher asked if I could stay after to look at some of his work! Oh no! Nothing good went through my head. Cheating? And we've all seen the email going around with the kid drawing of the mom working at the Home Depot but it really looks like a stripper pole? Yeah. Well, she ended up showing me a progression of his writing from the first of the year to today and it was incredible! He went from copying a short three word sentence to writing a detailed story with spaces in between all the words, capitals at the beginning of each sentence and periods at the end! All that is big time in the kindergarten crowd. Anyway, at this point he's actually "passed" kindergarten writing! Wahoo! Mrs P said this was what made teaching kindergarten so exciting! I'm so honored and proud. She's really a fantastic teacher and WAY TO GO ONE!!!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Sunday

I missed a family picture for today so here is Two snuggled up with Three, helping him play with a toy.


I love it.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Beach Day!

Well, with an enforced day of no school and a rare beautiful sunny day....we headed to the beach!

And another DaddyMan took this family picture for us! I don't even know when we last had one of those.

To get the full idea, you need to picture him yelling for his kids and dog to keep getting out of the way so they wouldn't be in our picture! It was hilarious! And we got a fabulous picture!



Here's Two building a sand castle:



Here's One taking a fast break from digging a hole/tunnel:



We went to the aquarium and fed the seals:



Just look at those yummy fish. As Two said, "this is so skusting..." :o)


And.... it was Three's first trip to the beach!


What a fun day!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Is it pink?

Oh my! DaddyMan took One to school today and they promptly called and asked us to bring him back home!

This made me rather upset. Granted, another kindergartener had pink eye last week and here's One coming to school with a puffy eye... Certainly a cause for a second look BUT.... on Monday (a mere three days ago), I had warned his teacher that this was One's allergy season and he got it bad. His eyes would get super puffy, it might even look like he had black eyes... It's really awful looking. Aside from some mega-allergy medicine and some drops to make his eyes more comfortable, we count the days until it passes.

Oh yeah, we're also supposed to keep him inside until after noon.
Mmm hmmm.
That's what the doctor said.
She obviously does not have a 5 year old boy.

Even when DaddyMan told the school about One's allergies, they still made him come home. They said he had pink eye.

Even though he had no crud.
Even though his eyes weren't scratchy.
Even though the white part was still white.
Even though bright light didn't bother him whatsoever.

Ugh. I was convinced it was still allergies but what to do? Finally, I realized that I should probably take him to the doctor anyway because I was for sure going to need a note to get him back into school.

Because I'm such a stellar mom, I didn't think of this until almost 4pm and ended up with one of the last appointments of their day.

The doctor said yes it was allergies but since allergies typically affect both eyes, "I'm gonna go ahead and write a prescription for the pinkeye eyedrops".

So does he have pink eye or not?!?
I still don't know!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Six Months?


Three is six months old today!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Balloon Fest!

Sorry for posting for the entire last week today! I've been keeping up in pictures and crafts but haven't been able to post due to a sick computer mouse. :o( I really love my blog reading and posting and have ended up watching a lot more tv in the last week instead! (WOW on The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars!)

One helped me blow up FIFTY balloons today! I didn't even know he could inflate a balloon but it was such a huge help! I offered to do the activity at tonight's Tuesday Treasures gathering. It's a fun, VBS-type thing for adults with developmental disabilities. We're going to be keeping balloons in the air with our hands and heads and elbows and also playing a Clean Your Room type of game. Should be fun! The kids especially love Tuesday Treasure nights. And it is the best incentive for them to have good behavior because they don't want to miss it!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Muffin Tin Frogs?

One had this week's Muffin Tin Monday. He picked ravioli.

(Clockwise from top left: ravioli, cran-cherries, squash and cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, applesauce, and another ravioli)

And Two did a craft at school today. Check out this cute frog!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Friday, March 6, 2009

Secret Family Recipe

I'm on the women's committee at church and we are putting together the menu for our annual tea. This year we decided to do a trio of salads and they asked for my tuna recipe. I've never met anyone who makes tuna the way I do ...... or many that want to try it when I tell them what goes in it ...... but once they (politely) try it, they start making it themselves too! It's yummy!

Now, there is no real recipe for this. I've made it my entire life and just know but that wouldn't cut it for the tea, where several people would be making batches of it so that we would have enough. So today I did my best to come up with an approximate recipe.


Here are the ingredients:

(mayo, apple, tuna, and garlic salt)

Drain the tuna, finely chop half of the apple, and mix together with 2 Tbs of mayo and 1/8 tsp of garlic salt. That's it! It's especially good if made the night before but it doesn't really matter! You can make a sandwich, serve on crackers....I like eating mine as dip with tortilla chips!

The finished product isn't especially beautiful, but it's delicious!


Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Yum-O

Well, I didn't even think to take pictures while I was doing this so you only get the final product. Here is the first food I made for Three....



bananas!

He doesn't like them.
I'm wondering if he's really mine.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Chicken Chow Mein


See that viewing window at the end of the room? That's so we can all watch our little dancers (attempt to) dance or give them The Mom Look to make them stop picking their nose and watch the teacher or to make them pull their hands out of their leotards even though they think it makes them look more like a real chicken than if they didn't (that's Two every week!).

Anyway, we, the moms, have all become friends over the last six months. We have also all listened to the same obnoxious song for the last six months. So today, when the lovely chicken chow mein song came on, we all agreed to do the movements with them!

It was H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!!

Imagine, all the moms lined up in our chairs on the other side of that window, looking high, looking low, and wondering exactly where is the chicken in the chicken chow mein?!? Oodles of noodles and plenty of rice aside, chicken, where can you be?

Oh my goodness! We were all about to pee our pants! The teacher was cracking up so hard, it was a little disruptive, but a fantastic time was had by all.

ps. You are welcome for only posting a picture of the cute dancers and not the moms!

Monday, March 2, 2009

Knitting for Two

I was knitting tonight and watching tv when DaddyMan came in and asked me what I was working on. I can't believe he couldn't tell what it was!



Isn't it obvious? No? Okay, it's my new project!

(picture and free project from lionbrand.com)

Isn't it cute?! I'm so excited! I'm not quite sure how a knitted sundress works (because I wouldn't wear a sweater in the summer)....but there were a ton of free patterns for sundresses online soooooo - my fingers are crossed! If anything else, I can see it being super cute with jeans and a turtleneck in the fall.


Here's the swatch I worked up.


I love color so I think it's going to look great and hopefully encompass any new favorite colors that pop up during it's lifetime! :o)

Sunday, March 1, 2009