Easter Sunday

I love Easter Sunday. This is the only time all the children get new clothes. And never before have I bought the boys new clothes. But thanks to Costco, they got these new fancy Sunday outfits. I was planning on getting Spencer a tie, but Taneal was with me when I saw these church outfits. I think she kneeled on the floorright there in the store and seriously begged me to get them. They were something like $12 per outfit and I gave in. And they all looked so dang cute!

Taneal and Camie's dresses were a different story. They don't sell big girl sizes at Costco. I got on the internet and looked to see what Kohls and Target had and I was quite disappointed. They were either sleeveless, too short, or WAY out of my budget. I could have gone out shopping all over creation in hopes of finding something, but I didn't have the courage to manhandle 3 little boys to find an acceptable dress. And then when I found the dress, chances were that I would pay too much and then it wouldn't fit or Taneal wouldn't like it. So I figured it would save time to make the dress. Besides cut-out time, it took about 2 hours. It went really fast and I really liked how they turned out. Plus, I had extra fabric to make them a purse to match. Danielle was so bummed that I got her a Costco dress because it didn't have a purse to match. And I also made the mistake of not getting head to toe pictures of my girls all decked out in their dresses that I hand sewed! What was I thinking? Okay, maybe I was thinking that one of you readers out there would be a serious seamstress and zoom in on the picture and see all the flaws. Because there are quite a few mistakes. I never claimed to be good at sewing, I just know how. I took a class. I still need experience. But Taneal and Camie were thrilled, I didn't have to leave the comforts of my home because I used fabric I bought years ago with good intentions of sewing some beautiful dresses, and I didn't get frazzled by hauling three small boys shopping. How was that for a major run-on sentence? And, the dresses were modest. Whew.

Can't say what will happen next year. If I can find modest, reasonably priced dresses without a major hunt, I will opt for that. The boys will probably just get a new tie. Maybe I will make those. Or not. But it is fun to dress my kiddos up, snap a few pictures, and have them look pretty for a few minutes.

Gas Prices

I just filled up my car and had to get a picture. I would drive a smaller car if I could, but I have six children. And, I got $0.20 off per gallon because I used my Kroger card.  Wow! I think I am staying home.

Cooking

I have been having fun lately. I found this new blog (the link to it is on the right side of my blog) and I am having so much fun trying new recipes. They recently published a cookbook and of course I bought it. It seems that everything I make from their recipes actually turn out. I have been experimenting over the last month and here are some of the pictures.

I don't usually take pictures of the food I make, but I have this little running joke with my sister. It began by her trying to make bread. For some reason it wasnt working and so I sorta did a tutorial over my phone thorugh text messages and pictures. I was having fun and she probably thought I was so lame. But it kind of became a joke between us. Every time I baked something that looked pretty, I started sending her a picture of it for her to drool over. She was welcome to come over anytime to eat with us, but for some reason she didn't want to drive 45 minutes to eat what I was making.

 That is why I have these pictures. I have never been a really good cook.I remember the first time I cooked a chicken breast for Evan right after we got married, I served it up to him on a beautiful plate. He looked at it and said something to the effect of, "that's it?" I didn't realized I was supposed to serve up other things with the chicken, I was just happy I had actually cooked a chicken breast.  I have tried over the years. And I am much improved. I actually enjoy baking and cooking (unless my children complain about the particular dish and wont eat it without consequences). It is a lot of work, but most of the things I make actually turn out. It has taken almost two decades of practice to be able to make that claim.

Spelling Homework Tells All

This is Danielle's spelling homework. She circled the spelling words. The assignment was to use her spelling words in a sentence. My favorite is the first one, "I can't watch TV." The TV has been off limits to her the past two weeks and she just earned her privileges back Monday.

My next favorite is: "I do not know how to do my jobs." She always says that to me. She complains and complains about how she doesn't know how to do her jobs and I tell her she can figure it out or she can get a lot of practice, and then she does a wonderful job, sometimes even better than what her two older sisters do. Danielle is GREAT at doing the dishes. Yet she still complains that she doesn't know how.

I bet the school teachers know much more about our home life than we think.

Easter Cookies

I found this really cool recipe for amazing icing. The colors are vibrant, it is fun to work with, and the kids ooo and aahhhh about them. And did I mention they taste delicious?

Twice a year my church holds a world-wide conference. We are able to watch it over the Internet. Each time they have the conference, I look forward to it. I learn so much and it is so uplifting. The small problem is that my children tend to have a hard time sitting through conference and listening, let alone being quiet enough for me to listen.

This year I decided to try something new. I made sugar cookies during the first two-hour session on Saturday morning. In between the sessions, I put the base color of frosting on that needs to set for two hours. And then I prepared bags of icing for the children to decorate the cookies during the second two-hour session Saturday afternoon. I had a few sample pictures for them to get ideas. And you know what? It worked. The were so quiet as they decorated. I heard both sessions of conference on Saturday. They did a little talking, but I made so many cookies that they had plenty to decorate. And then they were stuffing their faces with the cookies once they were done decorating that it left nice, peaceful silence in my home while I listened. And the kids listened, too. They were able to tell me some of what they learned with conference. Of course my little boys couldn't tell me cause they probably didn't understand the speakers, but they were quiet. And it was a fun family bonding moment.

I think we may have to start this up as a new tradition.

Gavin is 6 months

My little guy is growing up so fast! I know every parent says that about their children, but I am serious! He is rolling all over the place. He can sit up by himself. I don't even have to put pillows around him. He is a whopping 19 pounds. I figured he would be bigger, but he is still big. My favorite thing about Gavin right now is how he holds onto me like a monkey. He can wrap those chubby legs and arms around me and it is like he is holding on for dear life. It is the cutest thing ever. He smiles so easily and has a wonderful laugh. He still spits up like crazy, and he even makes a grossed out face becuase he doesn't like to spit up any more than I don't like him spitting up. He can drink from a straw. And a cup. He doesn't really care for baby food but wants whatever we are eating, except he still doesnt know how to eat solids any bigger than about 1/2 the size of a pea.He can pick up very small things off the carpet and get them to his mouth. He has crawled once, but couldn't duplicate it. If you put him on the ground on his tummy, he gets up on his hands and toes with his bum high in the air. He is being like a normal baby, not like any of my children have ever been before. He rolls. My other children didn't roll until after they crawled. He is up on all fours at six months. My earliest to do that was 9 months. He is one of a kind and I am so in love.

Ouch!

Nathan is one of those little boys that wakes up each morning and runs to the backyard. He will do without breakfast just to be outside. Rain or shine, he's still out there. And even if he is only in a t-shirt and diaper and it is super cold, he would still rather be outside than taking the time to put a jacket and some pants on. He is so unlike me. I am amazed at how many hours this little two-year-old can spend in the backyard, one that is somewhat small in the middle of a neighborhood where the homes are almost literally stacked on top of each other. But outside stays that little man. He has adventures with mud and more mud, he loves digging in the dirt, and last week we even found a little snake. Sometimes there are lizards. Quite frequently lady bugs. And he loves to scream at the birds and try to chase them. Sometimes a neighbor's ball will end up in our yard and he loves to throw it over the fence of a different neighbor who is a single lady without children. And then when she discovers the ball in her backyard she throws it back over the fence to us. It makes Nathan so mad because it isn't our ball and why can't she just keep it in her yard? Once she was outside when he decided to throw the ball back to her yard where it didn't belong. So she threw it right back over. She is a very nice person, thankfully. And Nathan picked that ball right back up, screamed in frustration and threw it back over the fence. And she threw it right back. Nathan stormed in the house, mad as all get out, and complained that our neighbor needs to keep her ball in her own yard. I tried to explain that it wasn't her ball at all, but he told me it was hers and she needs to stop throwing it back over the fence. It just made me laugh.

With all the adventure out back, there is bound to be an injury. One of the slats to the fence came loose, probably because Nathan was peeking into the other neighbor's yard who does have a child. Nathan pulled that slat completely off the fence and in the process managed to get a whole plethora of splinters. (I had to use a big word there because I actually thought of one. go me!)I tried to pull the splinters out, but Nathan wouldn't have anything to do with that. I kissed it better and he still cried and finally gave up and went back outside. He was so proud of those splinters when his hero (his dad) came home that evening. Check out the splinters under his nail! He had two more under there that he did let me pull out. OUCH!

It has been two weeks since he got those splinters. I took another child to the doctor and while I was there asked her if she thought I should make an appointment to get them out. They hadn't become infected and worked themselves out. She said I needed to get them out. And then this last week passed and quite frankly I forgot about them. I checked out his cute little pudgy fingers this morning and the splinters are gone. He still has the ones under his nail, but as his nail has grown, the splinter are coming out too.

Bad Guy Hat

Nathan informed me this was his "bad guy" hat. He wears hats all the time. His favorite is his cowboy hat. I had no idea he called this his bad guy hat. Don't even know where he got the idea. The things two-year-olds come up with!

Brownies

My sister-in-law once put a post about the coolest brownie baking dish ever. And I thought she was crazy. Still do. Who in the world would want to eat the crust of the brownie? It is crunchy. It is hard. It makes your jaw tired just thinking about having to chew on it. If you are going to waste calories on eating a brownie, it might as well be enjoyable. Right?

 This is where I like to do my first cut of the brownie. I trained my children wrong. That is where they go, too.

Straight for the middle.

I should have trained them to eat the edges so I could have all the middles.

Thank goodness for Evan. He is like my sister-in-law and prefers the edge peices.

April Fool's Day Happiness

April Fool's Day has always been one of those days that I wake up and hope NOBODY remembers what today is because I do not want any jokes played on me. I'm one of those girls that can dish it out but can't take it. And since I can't take it, I don't dish it out.

I have a new favorite blog that I read. And on that blog were some of the coolest ideas of things to do with food on April Fool's Day. I thought, yah, I could take that if somebody did that to me. And if I could handle it that means I could do it to someone. My children! They would love it.

And so I did a little research, read a few blogs, and came up with some fabulous ideas. It all started with packing school lunches. I told the kids I was thinking about making them grilled cheese sandwiches. So I took angel food cake, sliced it to look like bread, spread yellowish orange frosting on them and grilled them on the griddle. The results were that they looked remarkably close to grilled cheese sandwiches. And then I did a little switcheroo.  I bought individual packaged oreo packs and carefully opened them. I dumped out the oreos and refilled them with gold fish crackers. I used my scrapbook adhesive to reseal the bags. I packed all the rest of their lunch normal. I did include a note saying happy April Fool's Day just in case they didn't even realize what today way.

You should have seen the kiddos faces as they got off the bus. They were beaming! Their smiles spread across their entire face as they told me how well I had tricked them. They thought it was so cool and told me how their friends thought it was so cool and how lucky they were to have such a cool mom. My head was growing at that point.

Lunch was fun. Supper was even better. I made meatloaf in a cake pan. And then I frosted it with blue-colored mashed potatoes. I decorated it a little with katsup. You couldn't tell it was mashed potatoes! The kids really thought I had baked them a cake! And that I was serving it up for dinner. I took green runts and orange cut-up starburst and made it look like mixed vegetables. I took cup cakes and decorated them like spaghetti and meat balls. And I made the drink jello. I was so excited to see them sip their drink and not have anything come out. I was more excited than the kids.

It was a super big hit. Spencer had a hard time eating the meat loaf cake. Once I fed him he really liked it, just couldn't get over the fact that it was meat loaf but looked like a cake. The jello was the biggest hit. It was so cool to have a 16oz cup full of jello all to themselves. Nathan kept trying to sip and saying, "It's not working!" And then to have the spaghetti cupcakes. All through supper my kids kept telling me how cool this day had been.

It was a lot of fun. Don't know if I can do it again next year. I am fresh out of any ideas that are fun, not wasteful, and not at all mean.

 So glad I found these cool ideas because we made some seriously awesome memories.

 And this little plate is one I made for one of the best women to walk this earth. They are all cupcakes made to look like spaghetti and meatballs, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, and corn on the cob. I put a smile on her face and was glad to share a little fun. The butter is squished starburst. The corn kernels are jelly bellys.

And this is the fun jello.