Breakfast time for baby

I have made you a delicious breakfast, Baby.

Yum, let's see what is in the pot.

Oh, it' a little hot. Let me blow on it to cool it down.

Here you go. Make sure you eat up.

New nephew

My new nephew was born Thursday. His name is Dylan. My brother and sister-in-law didn't quite make it to the hospital. He was born as they were pulling off of the freeway. My sister-in-law delivered her own baby and my brother had to use his shoelace to tie off the umbilical cord. What a crazy story. Thankfully everyone is healthy. I just wish we lived closer, so I could go see them.

Turtles

This week is T week at Lovey's school. Yesterday he told me he needed to bring a turtle to school on Wednesday. I didn't see anything about this on the note that comes home, but he was insistent. When I said that we didn't have a turtle, he said he wanted to make one. Using pipe cleaners and egg cartons, here is what he came up with.

Yippee!

My pipe cleaner flowers that I posted about on Friday will be on One Pretty Thing tomorrow for the Kid's Craft Roundup and then on an upcoming Mother's Day Roundup.

I am so excited! Whoo Hoo!

One Pretty Thing is compilation of great ideas from around the web. The best thing is she does the searching for you! Ideas from Martha Stewart, Apartment Therapy, and Blissfully Domestic are often listed. There are some great Easter projects listed today, that I will need to check out too. I especially like the plastic Easter egg wreath, because I have way too many of those.

Thank you for the sunshine!

Surprise! They called for rain and wind, but we had partly cloudy skies this weekend and only a little rain. We were able to plant some onion starts, some gladiolas, and dianthus, and sedum. The daffodils are getting ready to bloom too.

We finally hung up the curtains that I made for the office/craft room. I like them now that they are hung up, especially with the ribbon to tie them back. I also made some pillows for our bed. The bed was too bland with the cream and black and white, so I needed a little red to brighten up the room. They actually came out nicely. This is the front.

This is the back. This is the fabric from the bath mat in our bathroom.

Happy Spring!

It certainly doesn't feel like spring here. We would love to get outside and play and plant in the garden, but it has been rainy and there is a possibility of snow again this weekend. I had to resort to buying daffodils. I love the rain boot vase, very fitting.
I made these little pipe cleaner flowers for Lovey to take to his teachers. I think Lovey and I might make some more today, because they are very simple to make.

You need 2 red (or any color you choose) pipe cleaners and 1 green pipe cleaner. Make a small loop in one red pipe cleaner and twist.

Make two more loops, twisting after each one. This should leave a small tail.
Do the same with the second red pipe cleaner. Use the one of the tails to twist the two together. Use the second small tail to twist onto the green pipe cleaner. Make a loop in the middle of the green pipe cleaner for a leaf and you are finished. Make a whole bouquet and give it away for May Day!

Mispronunciation

After putting my new favorite peppermint lip gloss on her lips, Littlebit said, "A aysee Momma." I agree Littlebit, it is very tasty!

"Baa Baa Black Sheep have you any war?" Lovey just can't seem to say wool and I've never thought about asking a sheep if he as any war. Have you?

Littlebit points to her belly and says but. I think she is trying to say button, as in belly button.

Three Strikes

Having pictures and artwork framed is expensive; especially when they are large or odd sized pieces. Ten years ago on a trip to France, I bought some watercolor pictures in Avignon. It took me almost five years to frame them because of the expence. When I finally did I took them to JoAnn Fabrics with their 60% off coupon. They were friendly and helpful and I liked the way they looked when I picked them up. We didn't hang them for quite a few months and that was our fault. When we did go to hang them, I noticed that they had turned one frame and they didn't match up how I had wanted. We are talking less that an inch of difference, but it is noticeable when it is hanging if you don't get it just right (and we usually don't). I didn't take it back because so much time had past.


Going forward about five years, I needed to frame some pictures again. These were pictures of Littlebit that a friend had so generously taken. I had pictures of Lovey (that had been framed somewhere else), so I took his frames in to have them matched. They couldn't match the frame exactly so I picked one that was complimentary. I said I wanted the outside dimensions to be the same for ease of hanging. When I went to pick up the frames, I noticed that one of the frames was vertical and not horizontal like I had asked. I requested that it be fixed and took the larger frame home. It was not the same outside dimensions as Lovey's. Fine, they are different frames, so whatever. When I went back to pick up the other frame, it looked fine. The pictures were horizontal.


Now fast forward six months and we finally decide where the pictures are going up. We went to hang the one that I had fixed and they have the hanging wire upside down. Even though it had been six months, I took it back to have them fix it.


Now even though the coupon saved me $4oo, I'm not sure I would have them frame anything again, since they have made a mistake every time.

Comfort Food

Yesterday we woke up to snow. Today it was rainy and windy. While other parts of the country are getting ready for spring, only a few days away, I'm still fixing winter, warm-you-up, comfort food.


Tonight we had beef and vegetable soup with dumplings. Soup sounded so good on a rainy, windy day. The soup bones were not as meaty as ones we have had in the past, so this was very heavy on the vegetables and the dumplings. Cornbread muffins with honey rounded out the meal. Lovey devoured four muffins! He seriously inhaled them.


The rain is supposed to continue, so tomorrow is Lazy Lasagna. I'm not a huge lasagna fan and maybe that is because I really don't care for marinara sauce (although I do like mine). I like Lazy Lasagna though because it is easy and fast to put together, costs very little, and makes two. This way I get to put one in the freezer for later. I just buy a large tub of cottage cheese at Costco, mozzarella, no boil lasagna noodles, and two jars of sauce. Okay, I make my own sauce and store it in the freezer, but if you don't it is about two jars. Put a little sauce in the bottom of the pan, layer with noodles, cottage cheese, sauce, mozzarella and repeat. I usually do two or three layers. Then either bake covered with foil at 350 for 45 minutes and then 15 minutes with the foil off or freeze to enjoy later.

Wishing you a...

Happy Pi (3.14) Day!

The math teacher in me is celebrating and since my kids are too young to understand Pi, we are celebrating with pie. I made a rhubarb pie for us to enjoy today. I can't wait for after dinner because it smells yummy!

There was a House Resolution making March 14th National Pi Day! (Glad to know they are working on something important.)

Hope you have a wonderful Pi Day! Eat some pie, do some math, and celebrate pi.

How did you know his name?

This story happened last month, but I didn't write about it then. It still makes me laugh until tears stream down my face, so I thought I would write about it now.

We were in the Lowes parking lot and wanted to turn down a row to park. A truck was waiting to turn out of the row, so we stopped so they could go in front of us and we could go down the row. They were not paying attention, so we waited and then started to drive to the next row but then they started to pull out in front of us. Both vehicles stopped and the guy in the truck started gesturing and looked irritated. My dear husband, who was driving, says, "Pay attention, dumb a**!" and moves to the next row. The words have barely left his mouth when Lovey asks, "Daddy, how did you know his name?"

Naughty, naughty

After a weekend of sick kids, I wanted to get the bathrooms cleaned and I didn't get to it at nap time (partly because neither one took a nap). I tried to convince the kids to play tea party or restaurant while I cleaned, but they wanted to go downstairs and play in their new igloo tent.

Fine.

I cleaned the bathrooms quickly, but I couldn't help wondering what they were doing and I had visions of all things naughty going on downstairs. (Like painting the floor with syrup, but thankfully that is up high.) At one point, Lovey came upstairs and told me he felt sick. I told him to go lay down, but he went giggling downstairs. That should have been my first clue.

I quickly finished scrubbing the tub and went to the downstairs bathroom. I wanted to sneak down and see what the kids were up to, so I crept quietly down the stairs. I heard giggling and it was coming from the kitchen. My first thought was they were eating the cinnamon rolls we bought yesterday, but no, when I came around the corner I saw two little chocolate faces and this:

A hand print in the brownie layer of the chocolate mint bars I was making for dessert and for the husband to take to work. It has to be Lovey's hand reaching in, but being the nice brother he is, he shared with Littlebit because she was chocolaty too.

Lovey was sent to his room, Littlebit went to timeout. I ran upstairs to check on Lovey and grab my the rest of my cleaning supplies and when I came downstairs I saw Littlebit sitting on the old school desk and this: In case you can't see those green bean like things in the inkwell hole, here is a close up:

The green things in there are pieces from my aloe vera plant. Ripped off and shoved in the inkwell hole of an old school desk. And here is what my plant looks like now:
Now the sad part to this is not too long ago I found other pieces of my aloe vera plant in the desk and Lovey got in trouble for it. He said Littlebit did it, but he said it with a sly grin and I just couldn't believe that a two year old would shove them in the hole and not leave any pieces around, but now I know. So either he taught her that or he told the truth. Either way the plant has to be moved and they both were in trouble.

Littlebit went to her room, Lovey was still in his room, and I sat on the couch and ate half of a cinnamon roll.

What a weekend

What a wacky weekend! Our weather has been everything from sun, rain, hail, and snow. Yesterday it snowed and then in the evening the kids played outside in the sunshine. This morning we woke up to a blanket of snow and right now tiny flakes are falling. Yesterday the flakes were enormous.

Daylight savings time started this weekend and that usually throws are schedules off, but this transition was easy so far. I think that had something to do with the kids being sick and I mean sick.

Friday night Littlebit woke up around 11pm and one Lovey woke up at 2 and someone (mostly Littlebit) was sick every half hour until about 5 or 6 in the morning. I know I didn't go to sleep until 4am. We also did 6 loads of laundry in the middle of the night and I had to change my shirt 3 times.

We took it easy on Saturday and watched tv and movies all day. The kids went to bed at their normal time and woke up at their normal time Sunday (which because we didn't change the clocks ended up an hour late - so bonus for us.)

We were all a little stir crazy, so we went to Ikea. It started snowing on our way, but we decided to keep going. The kids walked the entire store! Littlebit was tired of walking towards the end and it was nap time. I didn't find what I was originally looking for, but did find a few things I wasn't looking for. (Of course.) All of that walking and lack of sleep the previous days, both kids were out at bedtime on Sunday night and even slept in this morning.