Rearranging

 I've known for quite a while that when it was time to move Anna out of the crib I wanted a trundle bed for the girls room. About a month ago I inquired about one on craigslist that my sister had shown me in December. It was still available so I got a great deal on the wicker day bed, the trundle bed and 2 mattresses. I wasn't especially looking for even a day bed and wicker isn't exactly my first choice, but the price was right so I just went with it.

Yesterday was the big day. I began prepping Aliza for the change from the moment we bought it. It was stored at my parents so when we picked it up we also dropped off the children for the afternoon. Aliza had planned to come home with us to "help" ,er, "supervise", but she decided to stay with Grandma and that made me practically giddy!

Jeremy and I worked very well together and the whole process of moving dressers and putting together beds went very smoothly. I even thought, "we will be just fine alone when our children grow up." 

Aliza sleeps on the trundle bed since Anna still takes an afternoon nap. But Anna tried out Aliza's bed. She looks awful little on such a big bed!

After we had everything arranged, Jeremy and I took a video to show Aliza. That was a brilliant idea. She watched the video over and over and was excited by the time we got home. There were no tears or drama.

The drama was at bedtime. Oh heavens! It was 10:45 until the girls fell asleep! I had a massive headache by that time. Anna slept late this morning (I woke her up at 9:00) and at nap time she was utterly exhausted. It took a couple re-directions, but she did get to sleep on her own. Now tonight...they are still awake, but it is a lot quieter. Jeremy has himself stationed in their room. Me? I'm hiding. I want no part in it tonight. My patience level is below zero!

Doughnuts and Hearts

 We sure had a fun-filled day of hearts and love and doughnuts. The morning started with a surprise in the mailboxes which they ate for breakfast, to my dismay. Then it was off to Bible study. There was a treat bag for each of the children which they promptly opened and devoured. I had the noble plan of packing sandwiches to eat on our way to my Mom's house, however we were out of bread so I bought McDonalds. I have no idea how we survived yesterday...our diets were terrible!!

The agenda at Mom's included making doughnuts. This was my Mom's first attempt at doughnut making. They turned out well and the children had fun glazing and sprinkling them!

Grandad made valentine hearts for the children. I thought it was cute that Ezra's heart was as big as he is, however Ezra was not the least bit interested in picture taking.

 Josiah approved.

 This was a fast and furious process!

 Josiah took it very seriously.

 Renee enjoyed playing IN the sprinkles. She also deliberately refused to smile.

 Then it was home for our traiditional heart supper. Josiah spent the meal putting his Lego car together.

Anna ate some and then was back to the candy! Tomorrow I'm hiding all the candy!

Pretty Near Perfect

 If only every day could be like yesterday. The sun was warm. The breeze was chilly, but there wasn't much breeze at all. Everyone was so excited to be outside and comfortable that we were outside almost all day. Today it was rainy and cold...

The morning started off with Janell and I swapping babysitting. She had a breakfast with her employees and I got a coffee break and a second to sit by Jeremy in Starbucks. (We said, Happy Valentines Day to us.)

 Aliza has a favorite Little Golden Books called Little Mommy. She uses it as a guide on how to care for her dolls and yesterday was a day that she wanted to complete the task on every page. While I was home she got to the washing clothes page and wanted a laundry line. I blew her off. Then it was Aunt Janell's turn for child care...

...and when I came home there was a laundry line on my front porch with dolls clothes hanging out to dry that Aliza had hand washed in a basin of water.

 A picnic lunch had also been set in motion. After lunch we took a walk. I had some caffeine in me and it was just lovely. I think I may need to include caffeine as a regular part of my diet.

 After quiet time my children headed back out. Now it was time for Aliza's "children" to have tea on the front porch. Josiah soon got in on the fun with mud pies for his trucks. I was quite thrilled to have them outside as I could move freely around the house picking up in relative peace and quiet. Granted, they came dashing in every few minutes wanting some other something for their tea parties.

 Josiah's plates kept blowing so he soon moved up on the porch. By this time they needed pink lemonade and Aliza joined Josiah's party. I must say he was an excellent host.

 Anna took care of her doll too. Aliza and Josiah were busy keeping Anna busy so that she didn't infringe on their play.

 Josiah's trucks got cold.

 By now, Aliza and Josiah were ready for raspberry sherbet and Anna got the mud pie. That kept her busy!

 Aliza's tea party was quite proper.

 Josiah and his guests rested.

Then they carried everything in and I washed all the blankets! Aliza had school in the evening and we called it a day.

An Attempt at Healthy

 Cooking is not a hobby of mine. Healthy cooking is less of a hobby of mine. I don't experiment. I follow a recipe exactly. I need a recipe. I have no inkling of desire to make up something on my own. I'm a decent cook because I can follow a recipe and I certainly know my way around the kitchen, but I don't feel that I'm an exceptional cook by any means. I know very little about seasonings and, as we learned last night, I have had some seasonings for a very long time that I've never used.

Several weeks, not quite a month, ago Jeremy decided that he was going to eat low carb and low sugar. He proved this to me by making eggs for himself in the morning and eating salads at lunch. I knew I was going to have to make some quick changes. Now, understand, that I am not interested in giving up carbs or sugar. I enjoy both and find them to be, at least mentally, a necessary part of my day to day existence.

All that being said, I have looked for recipes that are kid approved and Mom friendly and still are low carb. They don't exist. So. I make salads every night. I cook a meat, vegetable and side dish. The side dish is for me and the kids. Do you realize that is automatically 3 pots to wash...by hand in this house. Sometimes I just want to make spaghetti or lasagna or ziti or a casserole! At least tacos are a hit! That's becoming an almost weekly meal.

What I have not yet given up is homemade pizza night. One night that I can cook without planning. I had a couple recipes that I've wanted to try, but needed an extra push to make the effort. I invited Matt and Chrissy over for supper. Healthy cooking is second nature to Chrissy so this stuff was no problem for her!

First we made zucchini chips. Zucchini dipped in milk and coated with seasonings and breadcrumbs. They were quite good.

Then cauliflower pizza crust.

It tasted good! The seasonings were nice. The consistency was like quiche. But the prep work! Chop cauliflower head in the food processor. Then cook it for 8 minutes in the microwave. Mix it up with the seasonings. Bake the crust. Add the toppings. And then broil it to melt the cheese. Maybe in a few years I will laugh at myself for thinking this is overwhelming meal preparation, but for right now I can't quite imagine making this a weekly occurrence.

Like Chrissy told me--Healthy cooking is a learning process. And my response--I have a long way to go!

Fun Valentine Stuff

 I saw these mailboxes on Tonya's blog and I knew I had to get some. They are $1 a piece in the Dollar Spot at Target! Tonya's are fancy and mounted on wooden candlesticks. Maybe I'll get to that next year! For now mine are simple and on the mantle. This was a great $5 investment. My children love them--especially Josiah. Tonight he asked me if I would please give him mail for the morning.

When the flag is up, you have mail! So far it's been a note or a piece of candy. Simple and fun.

 Jeremy worked all day today and this evening so we made Valentines. Well, Aliza made Valentines and Josiah and Anna played with stickers. I got out paper, stickers, paper flowers and ribbon. Aliza asked me to cut out hearts for her, otherwise I stayed out of their design processes.

 Aliza had a LONG list of Valentines to make! Parents, siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were on her list! Writing out the whole name was just too much, so each valentine has a first initial or initials on it. =)

She proudly showed me every single heart she made (except the one for me) and I can tell you that there is a lot of love in every single one of those valentines!

It would be awful for me to give away her secrets, but one of those valentines even gives away who she intends to marry!!!

Potato "Brands"

 Aliza is in a phonics unit that is organized around the theme of "cowboys." She has learned all kinds of things about cowboys--what they do, how they dress, what gear they use, rodeo contests--to name a few. Yesterday they talked about branding cattle.

The composition assignment was to design a brand (they had a page of examples), carve it into a potato, ink the potato and "brand" your composition paper and write a description of the brand.

Of course Mommy was going to carve the potato. There was no question or debate about that. I immediately questioned my ability. Out loud. Aliza had full confidence in my ability to carve anything that she dreamed up. I said we had to stick to the examples. And then I took a deep breath, resisted the urge to start twitching and clean bathrooms, and did the best I could.

I will admit it was fun to have a change from our "normal" composition assignments. I'll also admit that by the time we got to the actual writing I didn't care if Aliza wrote a description. I was just happy for her to name and brand.

Oh! And one brand was not going to satisfy. Aliza insisted on 4 brands. One for Aliza, Josiah, Anna and Mommy. I didn't take a picture of the first one. It was Anna's. The shape was a bell and was named the Blue Bell. Anna stamped and then consumed portions of the potato. I did, in fact, warn her that it would not taste good!

Here they are:

For the next one, I was just happy I had something resembling a "B" and a "Q". There was no chance I was going to try to get the holes out of the middle! =)

 However on the Bar-B-Que I did remember to carve them backwards, I forgot on the one below...

Yes, that is Josiah's. J of Royalty.

I felt quite satisfied when I finished that project. My text to Jeremy was something to the effect of "Please nominate me for the mother of the day award. I just carved potatoes. Yay for the cowboy unit?!"

Superbowl Aftermath

 It was fun to have the home team playing in the Superbowl. I'm not sure when that has happened. My Dad is a Dolphins fan which means that all of us kids probably still are Dolphins fans. But it's been a long long time since we've cheered for a team in the playoffs, let alone the Superbowl. I've mentioned before that my family enjoyed watching the Ravens in the playoffs and it continued in the Superbowl. We had a good time at my parents. What a fun game to watch!

That being said, I was very happy that my children were mostly visiting their Great Grandparents next door or their Aunt Laura upstairs. Commercials couldn't be trusted to be appropriate and that half time show....!!?? If you are embarrassed to be sitting in the same room as your husband, brother-in-law and Dad and then cringe when your Grandfather walks in the room, it's not appropriate. That's putting it nicely. It was disgusting and raunchy. I'm so thankful that my impressionable children did not walk in on that. The channel was changed.

Thanks, in large part, to the light malfunction, we did not get home until 11:40 last night! We carried sleeping children straight to bed and they slept until 9:00 this morning, but they were still tired. It was a most trying day. It was like all of their ability to control themselves and make good choices left them. Josiah especially. He couldn't handle "no" to anything. He colored all over himself with marker, preferred to run around completely bare and plastered himself with band aids. Aliza wasn't a whole lot better. Her grand idea today was that it would be best if Mommy sold her. We would both be happier she concluded. I assured her that would definitely NOT be the case.

The moral of the story is that we were crazy parents and our children were tucked into bed early tonight.