some recent realizations…

1. Putting kids to work yields iffy results.
2. I own a LOT of blankets.
3. Putting 2 kids on the same job is asking for fights and a bigger mess than you started with.
4. Windows Live Sync is a wonderful thing. Especially if you have more than one computer you use regularly.
5. Weekends, when all 3 kids are home during the day, mom gets no more than 37 seconds of quiet at a time, and absolutely no time to concentrate on anything.
6. A beard trimmer, with guides, will double as a set of clippers for giving a small boy a haircut.
7. If you say you will do something “over the weekend” this means that the kids start nagging for it to be done as soon as they get home from school on Friday, and continue until the promised event is done or until they annoy you to the point that you cancel said event.
8. I need a new copy of Office ‘07
9. I still enjoy cooking…
10. Google docs Rawks for so many things.
11. Temperatures over 100 in mid October is obscene.
12. Well.. I enjoy cooking when it is not obscenely hot…
13. Men who think they know more than you on a given subject will not accept that you might have learned something they don’t know… no, this isn’t a new revelation, but I feel the need to remind myself periodically.
14. When PMS strikes, it is entirely possible that nothing will sound good to eat, except dark chocolate, and baby carrots. No, not together, that is nasty…. and no, I am not pregnant.

The repurposing of a bag…

Last month some time, I picked up one of the several one skein knitting books that are out there, at my local library. I liked several things out of it, and I made a couple of them.. One of the things I made was a soap sack. I don’t know why, we haven’t used more than 3 bars of soap in the last 5 years, we are just a liquid soap family… But the urge struck, and I figured if nothing else, I could always give it as a gift. So I finished the bag (really fast knit, took me less than a day) and it has been sitting on my desk waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

Fast Forward to yesterday. I was sitting at my desk, watching my NCIS DVD’s and knitting when my 3yo runs up to me… both hands overflowing with marbles, telling me he needs a bag to keep his “Marmles” in. So, I looked around, and spot the soap sack. Solid fabric, so the marbles won’t fall out, good size, and drawstring top. Perfect. We dumped the marbles out of his hands into the bag, then we went into the play room and gathered the ones that he had dropped. He has been hauling it around ever since. As if it were his favorite blanket. I am guessing this is a repurposing win. At least this is putting the bag to us, and he loves it..

One day there was

a little boy, he was only three years old, but pretty quick thinking… He ran into the kitchen, where his mama was working, and asked “What ‘cha doing, Mama?” His mama tells him that she is making banana bread, because she realized that they had some bananas that were getting ready to go bad. At the same time she is measuring and adding the flour to the mixer, and greasing the loaf pans to bake the bread. The little boy looks at her for a minute, and says “I want some ‘nana bread!” then he looks into the oven. The oven is not yet hot, and is still empty. At which time the small boy sits on his butt on the floor in front of the oven and tells his mama that he can’t see the ‘nana bread and it needs to get in there soon so he can eat it.

He waited very impatiently for the bread to make it into the oven…. all of 5-10 minutes… But he was very patient for the hour that the bread took to bake. By then, his older sisters had gotten home from school, and they were all impatient to have some bread as an after-school snack. The bread had a very short life span, and was deeply mourned when it was gone.

Adventures in Bento’s

I have recently become somewhat familiar with bento boxes, mostly for packing lunches for the kids. They love them, they are cute, compact, and  you are able to get a surprising amount of food in them.

We packed our first bento lunches last night. Nothing spectacular, a couple hard boiled eggs, some baby carrots, a piece of banana bread and a granola bar each. While we were at it, we made a list of things they want in their lunches… I hit the grocery store today and got it all…  As we packed tomorrow’s lunches this evening, I took pictures.

My younger daughter, she eats slowly, so she can’t eat a large lunch in the 20 minutes that they have for lunch at school. Here was her choices for tomorrow.

lunch #1

top section is cheese and ham, cut into pieces to fit on crackers, included in the lid but not shown, middle section is grapes, and grape tomatoes,bottom section is cantaloupe.  When the whole thing is stacked and belted it looks like this

Lunch #1 stacked

My older daughter eats more, and she eats much faster, so she can take more to be eaten in her 20 minutes. She chose to take two 2-later boxes, and here they are.

lunch #2 box 1

Top section has grapes, grape tomatoes, and raw broccoli florets, middle (actually the bottom of the bento) is cantaloupe pieces, and on the bottom is the top of the box, it has her flatware and some wheat thins crackers.

Top section has cheese, ham and crackers, middle (again, actually the bottom of the bento) has salad, just prebagged salad, mixed with raw spinich,  and the top  has more ritz crackers for her ham and cheese.

Lunch #2 stacked

This is both containers stacked and belted.

My girls love the system, we put the containers in thermal bags, with reusable ice cubes, and cloth napkins (which we use around the house anyway) and they are happy.

I do want to note that yes, there are a lot of fruits and vegetables in my childrens’ lunches, no I don’t force this on them, these are what they CHOSE for their lunches, and yes, my 9 year old actually wanted salad in her lunch.

Another upside is they love helping to chose what goes into and helping to pack their lunches. So far, it has been fun.

Some days I wonder…

why I bother to get up in the morning.

First, let me state that it took me over two hours, yes HOURS of laying in the dark, listening to Hubster snore,  last night to be able to get to sleep. Part of it, I admit, was enjoying the feeling of having Hubster back in bed with me. Have I mentioned that I really missed him? And then there was that whole pesky, my brain won’t shut off problem.

So I finally drift off to sleep.. only to be awakened this morning (like most mornings these days) to kids fighting. Unlike most days, I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. I was aware of Hubster getting up, telling the kids to zip it,  and I heard him on the phone, trying to straighten out business that I was unaware of while he was gone. I still pretended, and tried, to sleep.

Hey, school starts next week, and days of sleeping past 6am will be severely curtailed, I was just trying to enjoy it while it lasted….

Anyway, eventually Hubster comes in and starts trying to get me out of bed… Why? Because he wants coffee… Why can’t he make his own coffee you say? Because he’s to lazy, I mean, because mine tastes so much better. *roll eyes*

He eventually sics our 3 year old on me, sets him up on the bed with me, and quickly leaves the room. Said 3 year old proceeds to jump and bounce and tickle me until I get up.

So, I am up, and dressed, and make his coffee… I know I have to go get Hubster’s uniform first thing, so I head out to do that…. After I get back from that Hubster decides he needs gas in his car, and sends me out to get that.

Ok, I know some of you are asking why he can’t just get gas on the way to work? Well, we get gas at Sam’s Club, much cheaper than anywhere else, and it is in the opposite direction from his work, but well worth the trip out of our way for the savings. Yes, we actually save more than the cost of the trip to get it.S

So, Here it is less than 2 hours after I got up, and I have spent less than a quarter of it at home. Blah. At least it was coolish out side this morning (by coolish, I mean it was under 100, barely.)

The rest of the day hasn’t been too bad, just normal day stuff, feeding three house apes,  packing a lunch, searching for missing uniform components, searching for missing locker key, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, gathering up and sorting laundry, feeding three house apes, cleaning up the mess they have made today, maybe a little time for reading and knitting (Currently working on another pair of socks, this one out of Knit Picks Stroll Kettle Dye, in the Bordeaux color, they are working up nicely.)

As Hubster was getting ready to go to work, he was all dressed in his uniform, and bent over his desk, which sits directly in front of mine, checking something on his computer. Something about the uniform and the pose, and well, HIM, just made me go YUM, and I grabbed my camera and took a snapshot… No, I am not going to share it, because of the uniform, and what is visible on his uniform, it is just not a good idea. But trust me, it is a good picture, and is the highlight of my day, and probably several others.

Hubby socks

ARE DONE!!!!  I finished them yesterday, with just 4 days left until he returns (today it is 3 days, but not like I am counting or anything)  They are in hiding with the rest of the Christmas stuff…

On the other hand, I am seriously wondering about my children’s sanity. The oldest (9) and the youngest (3) are each holding pencils rolled up in  washcloths, and then a rubberband to hold it on.  They will at random point them at each other and shout things. Things like “Expeliarmus“  and “Impedimentia” but I think my favorite is from my 3yo. He is pointing his at his sister and yelling “Expelidavra” I am wondering if it will kill the wand that flies across the room?

Ahh… the joys of children…

I will let them do this until I can’t stand it anymore, and then I will find work for them to do.

See, Mom’s not so dumb.

Time gets away from me…

I have busy days and not so busy days. Any day that my husband is home is a busy day in an entirely different way than days when he is not home. When he is not home I do things like laundry, dishes, cleaning up the house, etc. When he is home we try to do things together, or as a family if the kids are not at school, we catch up on recorded programming, we play games, chase each other around the house, make trips to the library (I only do that when he is home and I don’t have to take the 2yo with me, I take the older kids, he stays home with the toddler.)

Things like errands don’t only happen when hubby is off, but do usually wait until he is home, since most days he doesn’t go to work until noon (and gets home around 10pm) this is not too difficult. But occasionally I do have to take the small monkey out with me. If it is just him, it is not that big of deal, it becomes an ordeal when I have to take all 3 with me. Sometimes I swear the bigest mistake I ever made was teaching the kids to talk.

Attack of the Evil Migraine

I went to bed early last night because I had the start of a bad migraine coming on, and was hoping rest, quiet and dark would help. It did help, but it wasn’t completely gone when I got up this morning, so I got up and started my day anyway. I made coffee for the Hubster,  got the girls lunches packed, and them off to school, I came home and picked up the kitchen from that, fed the monkey boy, and myself, and did a few house hold chores. Then Hubby comes in and tells me he is “Not feeling well” and he is gonna go lay down for a couple hours before he goes to work, and see how things go.  So here I sit, with a headache that is steadily getting worse, taking care of the toddler, because I am the mom, and that is my job. While the man who doesn’t feel well, mostly likely because he stays up way too late and doesn’t get enough sleep, is napping in the other room… Anyone wanna have band practice? I can wear ear plugs and you can wake him up…

life gets in the way…

of all my online fun…  Between kids being out of school for the weekend and Hubster having days off. I am working on another pair of socks, about 3/4 done with those. And I have been reading some as well.

I baked bread yesterday, it turned out really well. I used the recipe my friend Bethany posted on her blog. Really yummy, escept that I cut the sugar in half, I just didn’t want it quite that sweet.

I’ve been catching up on laundry and housework, gearing up for another week of school.

Sick kiddos and hubby home

my oldest has been home sick the last couple of days. She woke up Thursday morning not feeling well, and when I asked her if she wanted to stay home she said yes.  When the child who LOVES school says she doesn’t feel well enough to go, I don’t argue, she stayed home Friday as well, but she is improving. No real major symptoms that require medical help, a little bit of a sore throat, small amount of coughing, and a low fever, if it had continued I would have taken her in, but as she is improving I will probably send her to school Monday.

Hubster is on his third day off, in a row, he goes back to work tomorrow. This is a good thing, he pretty much makes me crazy, telling me what I need to do while he sits on his ass doing nothing… right at this moment he is laying in (yes, in the bed I made this morning, not on top of like a sane person) bed reading a book.  It was nice that he was home yesterday when  I got up with a migraine and after I got my middle child off to school I went back to bed. He kept an eye on the sick child and the baby, but for the most part, he makes me wanna smack him, with something hard.