barefoot

back to work

last night was my 3rd shift back to work since having eli. it's been going ok. it was very hard to leave the first night, but it's getting better. i know the kids are in good hands with mike.

it's interesting, though. mike parents and maintains the house waaaaay differently than i do.

right now, for instance, sariah's pant are on backwards. calah is wearing a shirt that is about 5 sizes too big, a skirt that is bordering on too small, and toe socks with flip flops.

we missed dance class on thursday because we were both too tired to cook, and dinner out took too long. (that was a whole other disaster). today, piano lessons got completely forgotten, until 50 minutes after we were supposed to be there.

the girls have been watching a little more t.v. than i would normally let them, and eating goodness-knows-what.

the house is also...less clean. i made a list of everything that needs to be done every day, but mike has less success multi-tasking than i usually do. the carpet did get vacuumed, though, and that is good for my mental health. (we have dark carpets, so EVERYTHING shows up, and that makes me somewhat nutty). 

all in all, it's going well. i'm tired. a little more crabby. my filter doesn't work as well as it should (the filter that keeps words in my brain that shouldn't come out). no one has died or gotten killed. everyone is wearing clothes. and mostly, the kids are enjoying spending alot of time with their daddy.  he's a pretty awesome daddy.

sorry, that snapfish thing is kinda lame. i just wanted to try it out.

trees, by juli kozak

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

non-dairy potato soup

Today for dinner I made non-dairy potato soup.

The potato soup Iusually make has a delicious mix of cheese & milk, with a few potatoes thrown in. Uunfortunately for me, the boy likes to puke up any and all kinds of dairy that I eat.

 
He's lucky he's so cute.

So, I went searching the internet for non-dairy recipes. this one is from about.com, and it's called "kid's favorite potato soup". The original recipe is kosher, but since I can't follow a recipe, I modified it.

So here is the original recipe: 8 large potatos, 4 carrots, 3 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp all purpose flour, 1 tsp salt, 1tsp paprika, 1 cup soy milk, 8 cups water, 2 small onions, 2 celery stalks

Peel and cube potatoes, peel and thinly slice carrots. peel onions. wash celery. Heat oil in soup pot. Saute potatoes in oil for 5 minutes. Stir in carrots. Stir in flour, salt and paprika. Add soy, water, onion and celery. Bring to a boil. Lower temperature. Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours. Stir occasionally. Remove onion and celery. Serve warm.

Please feel free to follow the directions as stated. I did not.

Here's what I did: Cut up a bag of red potatoes (it's what i had). I did not peel them, because I do not peel potatoes. It is a life rule that i established about 20 years ago, after being scarred as a child. I was required to peel pounds and pounds of potatoes to help make dinner for my family, day after day (uphill, barefoot in the snow!) So, I don't do it. Period. If you eat potatoes at my house, they have the skin on them. So there.

Then, i boiled the potatoes. Meanwhile, I cut up one leek, 2 carrots (I did peel those), 2 stalks of celery, and some white onion. These were sauteed in a little olive oil with salt and pepper. When the potatoes were done, I strained them, keeping most of the liquid. Then I put the sauteed veggies in the soup pot, tossed a little flour over them (enough to lightly coat them).

I added some plain soy milk, some left over veggie stock i had in the fridge, some chicken stock I had in the pantry, and some of the potato water, until i had what seemed like enough.  I put the potatoes back into the mixture and brought it to a simmer.  When everything was soft-ish I used my potato masher to mash up some of the potatoes and bigger chunks of carrot. (If i had an immersion blender, or a food processor, i could have made the whole thing more smooth. But i don't.)

Then, after about 1/2 and hour, I added some ham chunks. (Clearly, non-kosher). Served warm (just like the recipe said!) with some whole grain rolls.

I added red pepper to mine, at the table. I didn't put it in the whole pot, because of the girls.

Here is the finished product. It was husband, kid and teenager approved.

 

birdfeeders

Today the kids and i went for a walk around the neighborhood. The weather was so gorgeous, and the girls wanted to collect "pretty leaves".

We also collected some pinecones to make bird feeders.  After lunch, the girls went outside and we got to work making our pinecone  bird feeders.

First, i tied ribbon (that would be left-over christmas ribbon) to each pinecone. Then the girls smeared each pinecone with peanut butter. Yum.

 

 

Then, the pinecone got rolled in birdseed.

 

this is what we ended up with:

 

Then, i hung them in a tree in the backyard.

 

an aside: you will want to scoop the peanut butter into a bowl before doing this fun little craft, unless you like to eat peanut butter and jelly and birdseed and pinecone sandwiches.

 

 

for my dad

today i am going to tell you what i made for dinner. you probably don't care, but i'm going to tell you anyway. it's to help out my dad, who is recently retired and has therefore been assigned the task of cooking dinner (since my mom still works).

he needs ideas of what to make for dinner, and how to make it. so i will share with you what we ate tonight.

it's called "whatever we had in the fridge spaghetti sauce"

i had 1/2 an onion, 1/2 a green pepper, some cherry tomatos and 4 mushrooms left over from making pizza over the weekend. i chopped them up and sauteed them, browned some italian sausage we had in the freezer and put it all in a pot with 2 jars of store brand spaghetti sauce.

i cooked a box of spaghetti that i also had in the cabinet.

we had a some garlic bread in the freezer, so i cooked that up too.

we didn't eat all the green salad that i bought yesterday to bring over to my mom's for lunch, so we had that, with cucumber that someone gave us from their garden.

viola! dinner from stuff i had in the cabinet. yay, me! i took a picture of the sauce, for your viewing pleasure.

 

 
i will also  share with you the soup that i made yesterday. it was supposed to be for lunch, but it wasn't done soon enough (thats why i had to buy salad). the recipe is from the fix it and forget it cookbook, which is my all-time favorite crock pot cookbook. (except i am physically incapable of following a recipe, so it is modified)

hamburger-veggie soup:

1 lb ground beef, browned

carrots (i used all the ones left in the fridge), cut into chunks

1/2 of a really big onion, chopped

1 can of diced tomatos

1 container of beef stock, and part of a container of veggie stock, and some water

a spoonful of chopped garlic (i buy those jars of it already chopped)

salt and pepper

there's supposed to be celery, but i didn't have any, so i didn't add it

and there's supposed to be parsely, but even though i had some, i didn't put it in

also, part of a bag of frozen peas, and a smaller bag of frozen cut green beans.

dump everything except the peas and green beans into the crock pot, and cook on high for about 3-4 hours. with about 1 hour left, dump in the peas and green beans, and check the seasoning.

when it was all said and done, i had added too much broth, so i sprinkled in what was left of a box of fake potato flakes to thicken it up a little.

dad, you can also cook it on low for about double the time, depending on when you start dinner (say, right after breakfast)

we ate the soup with biscuits that were in the freezer.

bon-appetit!

just for you, mrs. s!

here are some pictures of my house, just for my friend mrs. sincell!!

here's the house before it got painted:

here is the after:

 

 

overwhelmed

i'm feeling very overwhelmed today.

today did not go as planned. (nothing new, i guess, but today was hard for some reason)

i got up, did some school with calah (we are doing school thru the summer and taking a break when the baby comes), took a shower and then went to my dr's appointment. 

at my appointment, the doctor checked me. no change, can't even feel the presenting part. (i'm 37 weeks, for crying out loud. it's my 3rd baby. it should be falling out by now. my body hates me). 

so, doctor sent me for an ultrasound to find out if the baby is head down (like he should be) or butt down. and we chatted about the options if baby is not head down.

so, i was kind of freaking out a little thinking about all the things that could go wrong with each option (because that's what i do). i drove home, picked up mike and the girls, and we had about an hour to kill before the ultrasound.

we went to kohls, because i promised calah she could spend the $10 gift card she had. we got lunch (where of course, calah had to go spend quality time in the bathroom. what is it with that? every where we go, she has to go potty), then headed to the hospital, where we waited for about half an hour after my appointment time (which isn't bad, except for the two hyper kids, one with a stinky diaper who needs a nap mixed with a waiting room full of old people that i'm trying not to disturb).

so, then we all went into the ultrasound room (yes, i'm one of those, the one who brings her whole entourage with her everywhere). then we had to wait for the order to be faxed from the office because the one i brought wasn't good enough. then the one they faxed was wrong, so we had to wait for a new fax.

finally, she did my scan, and the baby is head down after all!

what a stinker. i guess that's what i get for worrying prematurely (but like i said, that's what i do).

after the ultrasound, we went to home depot to get closet organizer things so i can have a closet (i haven't had one since we moved in in MARCH(!) and all of our clothes are in the baby's crib, which won't work so good when the baby actually does come out)

then we came home, and i was so tired i coulda passed out. just as we were getting out of the car, some lady pulled into our driveway and asked if we were having a yard sale. no, ma'am, it's just the regular clutter of crap that is always in our front yard, thank you for noticing. so now i'm officially a hill-billy.

so i turned on the tv for the kids (i know, i'm also mom of the year), and laid down in front of the fan, where i promptly fell asleep.

yea, me. i did not do dishes, i did not wash or fold laundry, i did not vacuum, i did not start on the new baby's book, i did not do grocery shopping--all the things that i really should have done today did not get done.

i am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things i have to do. i also need to make salsa out of the tomatoes and jalapenos in the garden before they all rot. and pick and dry peppermint leaves from the garden. the porch looks like a toystore threw up on it. oh, crap, and i forgot to take chicken out of the freezer to defrost for tomorrow's dinner.

i need another nap.

the trouble with awana

for the last two years, calah has been attending awana at my parent's church.  it's been really great, she's enjoyed it immensly.

however, due to a lack of volunteers, and a shift in focus that i'm not so sure i agree with (not that anyone asked me), they are cancelling the program this year.

so, i've been on an awana hunt.

there are two churches in the area that i know of who have awana programs.  one of them was where calah attended vbs (vacation bible school) this summer. so, since there's a tentative connection already, i decided to pursue that one.

however, no body updates their website. i kept checking back and checking back, with no new info or up dates. i even emailed the "contact person" for awanas. they did not contact me.  it's getting close to starting time (most programs run with the school year). so i checked out the other church.

BIG SURPRISE! they don't update their website, either. (this seems to be a big problem with churches, they don't take technology seriously--but that is a post for another day)

in my advanced pregnancy increasingly paranoid sleep deprived mental state, i was starting to feel like maybe i'd been black-balled by the whole church community.  maybe they had "heard of us" and didn't want my kids to come to their church.  maybe they thought we weren't churchy enough, or good enough. maybe everyone in the world just hates me. 

so, after being with kids all day, working all night, and then being up all day again, i fired off a not-so-friendly email to some poor, unsuspecting office person at the vbs church.

well, much to my embarassment, this lady did email me back, and was very nice despite my snippy email, and gave me the info i needed (plus told me that the website is on the fritz so they can't up date it).

so, now i'm waiting for the info that's (supposedly) coming snail mail to register my kid for awana.  it's supposed to start in 2 weeks.

maybe i'll sell them both to the next circus that comes into town, and then it will be a moot point.

curriculum review

today is a packing and cleaning day, since i am still expecting to buy a house despite what has happened with all the house hunting.

yesterday we say 10-12 houses, with some good prospects, so our realtor is going to make offers probably monday. i guess we'll see.

but part of packing is putting away all of calah's school stuff, because we have reached the end of our curriculum.  in august of 08 i bought the preschool age 4-5 curriculum with the kindergarten reading books from sonlight. (btw, i love sonlight!! highly reccomended) with a few additions, i have been using it until now, streching "kindergarten" over 18 months (ish).  i was kind of irritated with myself because when i packed it up, it didn't seem like alot.

i was thinking, man, i'm a slacker, i'm doing my kid a disservice, she's going to be behind, etc. then i decided to make a list of all the stuff we've accomplished to put in her portfolio (and to try to make myself feel better). 

here is the list of things we've read, workbooks we've completed and activities we've done in the name of kindergarten:

Read aloud books: "treasury of mother goose", "berenstain bears' big book of science", "family treasury of little golden books", "stories from Africa", "animals,animals", "lion story teller bedtime book", "Children's book of virtues", "people", "the complete adventures of peter rabbit", "things people do", "the year at maple hill farm", "new toes for tia", "right choices", "how do you lift a lion?", "my first picture dictionary", "what's under the sea?", "is a blue whale the biggest thing there is?", "what's smaller than a pygmy shrew?", "then and now", "why do tigers have stripes?", "how to dig a hole to the other side of the world?", "pippi longstocking", "family time bible", "devotions for preschoolers", "stories from around the world"

Books that she has learned to read: 26 "fun tales" books, "now i'm reading level 1"--about 10 books in that collection. we're still working our way through "step into reading, set 2"

math workbooks: Singapore math program's "earlybird kindergarten mathmatics" (still haven't finished the 2nd workbook all the way), spectrum "preschool beginning math", learn on the go "beginning math"

other workbooks: "my book about me" by dr. suess, "developing the early learner" 4 book series, kumon "easy telling time", kumon "amazing mazes", school zone "kindergarten basics", school zone "hidden pictures" (not all the way done with that one, either)

other activities: ballet lessons, piano lessons, observation journal, pattern blocks, 3-letter word cards, human body magnets, puzzles, "brain quest" questions-3 sets: ages 3-4, 4-5, working on ages 5-6 now, swedish lessons.

so, looking back at that list, i feel alot better about what my kid is learning, alot better about taking 18 months for kindergarten.

now, back to packing, cuz mike is throwing me dirty looks!