Wondering Where I’ve Been??

I’m drowning in laundry, again. But that’s not all. I’ve had some fun stuff in the works too. Little Bear has a stomach bug so I can’t elaborate much now. I’ll give you some clues with my photos.

Using window as light box:

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The day before the feast

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all you traditionalists out there! Why you didn’t rearrange your lives to match my schedule-I just don’t know!

With today being the day before for us, I’ll be doing more cooking and cleaning today. I did manage to accomplish most of my goals yesterday. Here’s hoping I’m as productive today as yesterday.

Here are a few of the things I’m hoping to do today:

1. Bake apple pie

2. Make Belle a Pilgrim hat

3. Watch the Thanksgiving Parade with the kids

4. Chop vegetables for dressing

5. Fold and sort clothes

6. Vacuum and mop downstairs floors

7. Make sweet potato dish

8. Sort through piles of paper throughout kitchen, family room, and dining room

9. Throw together some semblance of a dinner for tonight

10. Fill many, many bowls full of dry cereal for my children

To Do Today

First, our Thanksgiving isn’t until Friday because J is on call tomorrow. Here is my plan of what I hope to accomplish today.

1. Clean up the incredibly messy kitchen. I was struck with a horrible case of heart burn all day yesterday thanks to a chili dinner on Monday night. (The wasn’t even that good, which made the pain that much worse.) I’m better this morning, but it was all I could do to empty the dishwasher yesterday. done!!, done!!, done!!

2. Make the pie crusts for the apple pie. done!!

3. Make corn bread for dressing. done!!

4. Go to store to get last few Thanksgiving necessities. done!!

5. Make cookies for munching today and tomorrow.done!!

6. Make chocolate sauce for Thanksgiving dessert (pate au choux/cream puffs). done!!

7. Wash clothes. Consider folding and sorting them. Laugh at putting them away. Pray that tomorrow it won’t be quite so laughable. done!! (read: I washed them, I considered folding them but chose to sleep instead, and I laughed at putting them away today.)

8. Continue to try to hide the side-effects of above mentioned indigestion. done!!

9. Insert links in this post and finish crafty linking post.

10. Curse wordpress for making me reset the spacing every time I edit this post. done!!

11. Laugh that wordpress doesn’t recognize wordpress as a word. done!!

Build them up

I believe in speaking positively to (and of) my children as much as possible. That’s not to say I don’t correct misbehavior or rant about some particularly annoying phase now and then. But I try to make sure they have many positive phrases that I say to them regularly with the idea that they will internalize these ideas and make them their own. I tell Little Bear that he is “my best boy”. [Yes, he’s my only boy…but he doesn’t get that yet.] I tell Belle that she’s “my best six year old girl”, Little Lamb is “my best one year old girl”. You get the idea.

That said, I was overjoyed when Little Bear said to me Wednesday, “Mommy, I cute boy ever!” Because I also tell him every day that he is the cutest boy ever. And he believes it!!

Recipe Roundup

When money gets extra tight, I tend to avoid the Food Network and other such cooking shows. However, after a while I start having withdrawal. That and I get really tired of thrown together meals with no inspiration. So, last week I indulged in a little TV watching. Here are some good recipes I found. I generally make substitutions for cheaper ingredients (like bacon instead of pancetta), but I’ll give you the original links so you can make your own decisions as far as ingredients.

First, an amazing homemade hot cocoa recipe. This is so delicious and avoids all those chemicals in store-bought stuff. It’s also great in coffee, esp for non-coffee drinkers like me. It does require more mix than you’d expect-about 1/4 c per 8 oz of hot water or coffee, but it’s well worth it.

Here’s a recipe for Chinese Lettuce Wraps. It’s easy to adapt to your own taste/preference for spiciness, etc. The kids love it, too! The first time I used all ground turkey, the second a mix of ground turkey and ground beef because that’s what I had on hand. And remember, “Just don’t pork it down!” Sorry, I’m still laughing about that one.

If you like light, fluffy biscuits, try this recipe. I think the addition of yeast makes them so light and gives an unexpected flavor. I do add more salt than she suggests, because I found them a little lacking the first time. I’m guessing it’s because they are made to be served with fried steak and gravy, which I have not done.

Now for a little Italian food. These stuffed shells were sooo good. I, of course, used bacon not pancetta. I also used half ricotta and half cottage cheese (that way I could get two meals from one container of each and save $). I used light cream and not quite so much cheese. I didn’t find the dish to be heavy at all. It’s a great way to sneak some spinach in the kids or yourself as the case may be.

I’ve got more sites I’d like to link-toys and fun craft stuff, not just food-but Little Lamb’s awake now. I’ll try to get back when I get a chance, but it may not be until tomorrow.

Look Mom! I’m on TV!! (Or cheap ways to entertain your kids)

Belle wanted to make up her own TV show the other day. She tried making a TV from a piece of paper, but wasn’t very successful. I gave her a hand with a paper sack and it provided loads of fun.

Sleep, glorious sleep!

It’s official, the males in this house can totally sleep anywhere! It simply isn’t fair. But, it does make for a fun blog post!

I walked into the living room the other day, and this is what I found:

There’s nothing like sitting down on the sofa and literally collapsing asleep.

Or getting so tired that you give up and lay down on the floor.

Silly boys.

Dinner fun

Tonight at dinner, Belle was trying to show Little Bear how to wrap up the lettuce with the meat inside (think asian lettuce wraps). He started eating the lettuce before putting the meat in and she said,

“Just don’t pork it down!”

If you haven’t yet seen Ratatouille, you won’t get it. Believe me when I say, you should definitely see the movie. It is FANTASTIC!!

Lies I tell my children

I work hard to be honest with my children. I give them solid answers to the endless “why?” questions. I explain the decisions I make that might not always be what they wanted. But sometimes, a little lie is necessary.

We have a Dora game for our Nintendo Game Cube. It’s a super easy game with no way to “die” and no time clock. Belle gets to play Dora because she knows what to do. What I mean is, she can navigate the game rather than just mash all the buttons like her brother. That being said, Little Bear whole heartedly believes that his controller moves Boots. It doesn’t do anything. But they don’t argue over who gets what, and that’s one lie I’m willing to tell.

Belle is big into sounding out words these days. She’s making excellent progress, but she obviously doesn’t always spell things correctly. I always say “That’s great sounding out!” when she’s put forth a great effort, but spelled things wrong. Tonight she pushed a little further.

She had written “Dorru and Dego” for Dora and Diego. I was satisfied with her attempt and gave her my usual answer. She wanted to know if it was right. I kept saying what a great job she had done, how all that matters is that she tries her best, blah, blah, blah. But she wanted to know if the names were real. And I said yes.

I’m not a fan of “creative spelling” once she understands the English language a little better, but I don’t want her getting caught up in having everything perfect. If she asks direct questions about spelling I am honest. She’s so enthusiastic about reading and writing right now, I don’t want to chance discouraging her.

What do you think?

Funnies

Belle and I read “Guess How Much I Love You” the other night before bed. Afterwards, she looked at me and said “I love you all the way to America! (pause) Is that far?”

Yesterday Belle and Little Bear were playing some kind of superhero game and Belle cried out “Stop in the name of the Lord!!”

Kids are so cute!