Fruit Leather Valentines

 

Last year's very last minute valentines were inspired by a Winnie the Pooh book called, "Friendship Day."  Thank you Eeyore, you grumpy old donkey you.  Considering it was the morning of and I had everything on hand, and they were HEALTHY...I was pretty proud of myself.  (I've gotten pretty good at tootin' my own horn these days...who else is going to?) Anyway, it's super simple.  Using Fruit Leathers and small polk-a-dot cup cake liners we made ribbons for our very worthy friends.  I cut out circles for the middle and chose to the phrase "Prize-Winning Valentine"(from the book), but I think #1 Friend/Valentine would be work too!  I think the larger liners would be cute -or  even layered with the small ones.  We just went with what was available, but there are so many ways to make these better. Anyway...Happy Valentine's Day to all the last minute moms like myself!

Confessions

My brain is full of weird interesting thoughts lately.  Pregnancy. *Sigh*

So here's my list of confessions that I've been thinking about...for some reason.

1.  After being on Instagram for quite sometime, I still had no idea what the hashtags were all about. And even though I sometimes use them now, I still don't really get it.  I tagged a picture of my cute boys with #macboys and ended up adding their innocent faces to a collage of drag queens wearing MAC makeup.

2. Some part of me wanted to get pregnant just so my boobs would come back to life.

3. I sleep on the couch A LOT.  It's nice, sometimes, to just...fall asleep.  Typically once I decide to go to bed it takes me at least 30 minutes before my head actually hits the pillow.  By the time I've turned off all the lights, locked the doors, taken my prenatal vitamin, checked on the boys, brushed my teeth, flossed, washed my face, moisturized,  picked at all the bumps on my face, and gone to the bathroom, I'm just not that tired anymore.  And chances are I'm hungry again and I CAN'T go to sleep hungry.  So, yeah. Sometimes it's nice to just fall asleep and not worry about all the other stuff.

4. I no longer fold blankets.  I just wad them up and throw them on a shelf in the linen closet.  There's a lot of fort making and pile making going on around here.  It's just not worth it anymore.

5.  I think I'm getting varicose veins on the back of my leg.  Just what my already less than attractive legs need.

6.  When I resolve to keep a cleaner and more orderly home, I don't mean vacuum lines in the carpet or organized toy bins.  Heck, I'm even ok with going to bed with a dirty kitchen sometimes and throwing a pile of clean clothes on the floor in order to get in bed.  All I mean is basic sanitation and not having shoes and jackets strewn about all over the entry.  That's all I'm striving for a this point.

A Bad Habit Justified

Apparently pregnancy and blogging go hand in hand for me.  So many weird thoughts running through my head, I have to get them out somehow.

So this is kind of an embarrassing bad habit.  Lately, I'm having a hard time staying on a good showering schedule.  In other words -I stink.  Actually that's the problem...I don't stink.  And my hair doesn't get greasy until like day 4.  Plus, I don't work out so I'm never sweaty.  See...justifications.  In fact, let me list them.

1. The above mentioned...I'm not super dirty or smelly and my hair hold up well. 

2. Our shower sucks! Terrible water pressure.  It takes a few chilly minutes to get completely soaked and warm.

3. My hair is too long.  So because of the terrible water pressure it takes 5 minutes just to get my hair wet enough to start shampooing. Long hair + low pressure = super long showers. 

4. Pregnancy makes me very tired at night. I typically shower at night but lately I just pass out on the couch and never even make it upstairs.

5. It's too cold for wet hair.  Since I'm not showering at night I have to shower in the morning (which is super hard to do with a 1 year old).  The problem is that means I have to blow dry my hair too because it's not really run errands with wet hair weather around here. 

6. Bathing is out of the question.  One time I let the boys fill the water up fairly high (I'm a minimalist when it comes to kid's bath water) in our big bath tub.  When the water started to cover the overflow "thingy" the most disgusting black stuff came out.  It's a rental house and I'm choosing just not to bathe rather than clean it out. 

Making this list actually helped.  First thing on the "To Do" list is get a hair cut!

8 Years

These are the flowers Jimmy got me for our anniversary on Monday.  Last year we celebrated by playing some golf, just as we had for the 6 anniversaries before, and spent the weekend at a fancy hotel in La Jolla.  This year we ate some breakfast together before Jimmy went to work.  Then Jimmy brought home some flowers and I served up some left overs.  After the kids went to bed we budgeted, argued a bit, and went to bed annoyed. Fortunately the days activities are in no way representative of these past 8 years with my best friend (we never eat breakfast together).

A Reason to Blog -Ewan Turns One!

It has been a while.  I feel like I'm in 7th grade again when I was so shy I wouldn't say anything all day unless I had to in class and then my words would get stuck in my throat and I wished I could just tell everyone I didn't really talk like that.  Thank goodness that's over.  I don't ever want to be reminded of 7th grade again.  (I take it back.  It wasn't all bad.)

When I realized Ewan turned one and I had no record of it, I finally felt motivated to get back to the blog.  If nothing else, this blog at least helps me feel a little less guilty about having given up journaling when I got married.  (Was I really only writing about boys?)

So onto my Big Bubba! He's not quite so huge now.  He hasn't really gained any weight since his 9 month check up but has gotten taller.  Now that he's closer to standard size, I  realize that I may have taken a bit of pride in my fat baby fed solely from one boob.  Whenever someone here (Colorado) says something about his size I find myself saying, "This is nothing.  You should have seen him a few months ago.  He doubled his birth weight in 8 weeks!!" It turns out you have to have known him to have any of that matter to you.  Now, he's just a solid 85th percentiler.  Nothing to gawk at but still plenty to love.  

Ewan, or as the nurse at the Doctor's office likes to call him, E-Wan, started walking just before his 1st birthday.  He stays busy trying to keep up with his big brothers and going places a one year should not go.  I would have to say he's my most willful child.  My kids are not stubborn.  They're easily distracted and quick to fall for all the usual tricks.  Ewan, on the other hand, is relentless.  He would love to be left alone to play in the trash, unroll all the toilet paper, climb on the table, pull everything within arms reach down, and climb inside every major appliance.  We are all busy.  

You know it's your third kid when you haven't given much thought to your kid's speech until they ask you about it at the 1 year check up.  When I took a minute to think about it, I realized he says, Mamma, Dadda, Ball, Book, More, Night Night, No No, and Banana (so those last 3 all sound almost the same but said in different contexts).  He loves to climb onto the little side table and look and me and say, "No No!" Pretty adorable.  He also makes really cute animal sounds for Dog, Kitty, Lamb and Fox (A fox pants like a dog...in case you were wondering). 

He's got 10 teeth already with which he likes to eat any fruit, cheese, and his vegetable of choice, broccoli.  He's not into milk yet. Ughh...he's going to be a hard one to ween. He's quick to smile and will go to anyone.  To sum up, Ewan is a busy boy who chooses playing and exploring over cuddling with Mom, every times.   He loves his Daddy, brothers and blankie.  We are so lucky to have him.

                

Unemployed

A while back I posted this picture to Instagram and Facebook with the following caption.

"If I could get fired from my job I probably would.  It's 1am, I'm going to bed and my kitchen looks like this.  Seriously, I can hear The Donald's 'You're fired!' ringing in my ear."

Today, while feeling overwhelmed by the amount of mess that has accumulated in my kitchen and front room since we arose this morning, it occurred to me that you couldn't pay someone to do what I do.  No one would ever dream of hiring ONE person to take care of their children, clean their house and provide all their meals. There are labor laws against that kind of stuff.  So, I guess I can't really expect to be the best caretaker, housekeeper and cook all the time because expecting that from anyone else would be completely unreasonable.  After this realization, I feel a bit less overwhelmed.  In fact, I think I'll leave the mess for a bit and play with the kids because if I can't do it ALL, I might as well do what's most important.

Evidence That I'm Raising A Grown Up In A 5 Year Old's Body

Duncan The Environmentalist

The other day we were debating about whether or not we should drive or walk to the park. Duncan reminded us that if we walked we would make less pollution.

Lately in his prayers he has been very mindful of the environment. He blessed the animals that they would be safe and able to adapt. Then the other night he blessed the earth that it would have a reason to be good.

Duncan The Communicator

After being kicked off the computer, he had the self awareness to warn me of his impending break down with, "Mom, I'm going to FREAK OUT!"

In the car the other day, Duncan asked if he could play on the ipad when we got home. I said that he couldn't because he had already had enough time on electronics for the day. We argued for a while until a frustrated Dunks explained that he would prefer a schedule so he knew when he could play and for how long everyday. My poor routine loving 5 year old. This won't be the last time he finds himself trying to communicate his frustration with his consistently, inconsistent mom.

He frequently speaks in acronyms. Today he came up to me and said, "MMIPMK?" I looked at him blankly and told him I had no freakin' idea what he wanted (minus the "freakin"). In case you're as lost as I was here's the translation: Mom, may I play Mario Kart? I should have known. He asks for "MK" all day. That and "CM", or "AJ", or my favorite -just "S".

Duncan The Biologist

Wrapped up in his doggy towel, he told me he wasn't able to help clean up because puppies don't have opposable thumbs.

Finlay, the little brother trying to keep up with all this animal stuff, asked me if clouded leopards lived in the forest. I said that they did to which Duncan added, "Yes, in the rain forests of Indonesia." He then went on to list animals and what parts of the world they lived in. He was in the back of the van, so I couldn't hear very well but at one point he referred to Bengal Tigers and Bangladesh. The best though was when I heard him talking about an animal that is found in North and South America and corrected himself by saying, "Or I should say, 'The Americas'."

That kid...or whatever he is.