Poked

Today we were playing Go Fish. Well, we were trying. Luke was fascinated with the card and trying to grab them from our hands. It was chaotic. Hattie got on this thing poking me and saying "poke" over and over. I told her to stop. I turned to tell her and she poked me RIGHT IN THE EYE. I thought I was going to be be blind for the rest of the day. I couldn't get by eyes opened for like 30minutes. You know, when one eye is hurt, the other one reacts.

Hattie felt so bad. She said, I blow in it.

I finally recovered.

I forgot to tell everyone that Saturday was my baby sister Joy's 24th birthday! Happy Belated Birthday Auntie. We love you!

Kraft Magazine

I don't know, maybe everyone already knows this, maybe not.

Kraft puts out a free quarterly magazine called Food and Family. My mother-in-law, Judi, and my sister-in-law, Jerre both had the magazine last summer and I read it. To subscribe click here. It is FULL of great (pretty) easy recipes, using different kraft foods. I love it.

Last night I made these, Marvelous Mine-Meatloaves. I made the BBQ rendition, I'm sure the other kinds are great, but my family LOVES BBQ sauce for some reason. They were VERY easy and not very time consuming either. Hattie and Silas each ate one of the mini-meatloave. If you know my kids at all, that's pretty amazing for them to even eat meat. Jody just raved. It was funny. He thinks I should open a restaurant. I'm like, yeah, in all my spare time, right dad?? (My dad always asks me what I do in my spare time)

I do love to cook. I love looking thru cookbooks and magazine like Southern Living for recipes. I always tweak them, but that's half the fun...

Oh, what I did different to the BBQ mini-meatloaves was I used fresh minced garlic. That makes a huge difference to me. I served them with mashed redskinned potatoes.

Anyway, we enjoyed it. Just thought I'd share the love.

Thursdays

Thursdays are kind of hard for me. Silas has school in the morning (while he's at school, I exercise and run some errands) and speech therapy in at 3:15 in the afternoon. So between picking Silas up from the Y and getting him to speech, I try to get lunch and naptime in.

Today our apartment building (yes, we are still in the apartment...we are waiting on the bank for this and that) was testing smoke alarms. LOUD beeping at odd intervals until 1 pm. It seemed like it would NEVER end. Jody had been at home on the computer in the morning (we weren't here) and he said it started 10:30. I didn't want to lay the kids down until it was over. With every beep, Hattie said, dat too yowed.

For some reason, on Thursdays, Hattie and Luke don't go right to sleep. I'm tapping my toe for them to fall asleep b/c we have to leave the house by 2:50.

I rush to take a shower and get dressed. Then I let Silas up from his "rest" . I get him ready to walk out the door and I get Hattie and Luke up.

We rush out the door and get to speech. Then we wait around, play at the playground or somewhere until Silas gets done.

Today we were invited to play at a playground after speech so we went. Anyway. You don't want to hear the rest...I just so happy the kids are all asleep for the night.

I made a really good supper, I'll have to post the recipe. Mini-BBQ meatloaves. Mmmmmmm.

The Dentist and American Idol

Hattie and Silas had their FIRST dentist visits on Tuesday. It was a great experience. Our hygienist was super friendly and fun. The dentist wore a Scooby-Doo and Shaggy tie. And Luke slept thru most of the visit. The kids each got a balloon and 2 prizes from the prize basket. For me, the best part was the fact that the dentist said they both have GREAT teeth and we are doing a good job brushing. Yay.

Jody and I are watching American Idol. Its not my favorite type of show where there are all these different stars singing, raising money, etc. But the African parts are REALLY hitting home for me and Jody. Just having lived there, having experienced AIDS and Malaria, its really emotional watching those stories, seeing those kids. It makes us miss Uganda so much. We agree the Malaria charity is AWESOME and so useful. Wow.

So glad spring is finally here. We are really enjoying the weather.

My Voice

Friday night Jody and I went on a date with our friend's Mike and Jessica. We went to the indoor driving range. Jody's dad got me a set of ladies' lefthanded clubs. So this was the first time I had used them. We had SO much fun. I loved it. Jody was proud of me too.

Then we went to supper. During supper, I noticed my throat tickling. By the end of the night, my voice was gone. Just gone. My throat hurt, but not when I swallowed, it hurt deep inside. By Saturday I sounded AWFUL.

I guess I was allergic to something in the dome. I don't know.

But here's something funny about it. Hattie tells me everynight, "Sing my song". Her song is from Cinderlla. You know that part when the stepsisters are singing "Sing Sweet Nightengale" and it sounds horrible then Cinderella takes over and sings beautifully?? I just changed the words to "Sleep sweet Hattie Ruth". She just loves it. Don't ask me why, but its her song.

Stick with me here...

I could NOT sing Saturday to save my life. Last night, when Hattie was walking to her room for bedtime, she stopped and turned to me and said, Mama, your frote hurt? You sing my song?

It was so sweet. I croaked it out and she was thrilled.

My voice is somewhat better. Weird.

Silas and Tommy at church

The resident movie star

Lukey loves to play UNDER the exersaucer

Silas's Haircut

BEFORE

AFTER

The Clock

Today was a long day for me. Not bad, but just one of those days. One of those that I look at the clock and I'm like, what, only 4 minutes have passed??

When I was walking out the door, I grabbed my cell phone just to see it had totally died. I never heard the warning noises. I took Silas to school, took Hattie and Lukey to child watch and exercised. I picked up Hattie and Luke and we watched Silas swim. We went to the post office and ran a couple other places. We picked Silas up, went home and ate lunch. I took a shower while they all napped/rested and cleaned the kitchen. And then we headed to Silas's speech class. No one wanted to leave the gym there and then both Silas and Hattie had to poop. SO I went back and forth b/tw the girls and boys restrooms and Luke in the hallway. We finally got home, got supper made while visiting with my neighbor Megan and her son Tommy. Silas and Hattie took the usual forever eating their food as if they are being tortured. Luke screamed b/c we couldn't keep the food on his tray before he shoved it down.

I look at the clock and thought, it much be almost time for Survivor and bedtime, and it was only 6:15. I thought this day would never end.

But it has, and I'm happily relaxing.

Happy Windsssday

Silas says its a nice day to fly his kite. Its very windy here, but I love the sound of the wind. Its so powerful, it reminds me of God. How powerful he is and yet we can't see him. I love it.

Today I rushed to get everyone ready so we could make it to the Library in time for storytime. I am always in a hurry. We were running late like always. As we passed the YMCA I saw my friend Stacy's car and thought, hmm, it is Wednesday, right Emily?? Weird, she's always at the library on Wednesdays. Then we got to the library and there were practically NO cars. No daycare vans, no school buses. I thought, is anyone at story time??

No. NO one was. I don' t know why. I hate that I rushed out for no reason.

So we went to the grocery store. The kids were pretty good. No meltdowns. Luke slept thru the whole thing. We got everything we needed and more. We finally found quick cooking barley. I wanted to try Holly's recipe and another one I've had, but I've had the hardest time finding barley.

We came home and my friend Lisa and her 2 girls came over for lunch. We made these. Silas loved it so much he didn't want to mess it up by eating it. He cried. It was kind of funny.

Ok. Naptime is over, I need to play with Legos and comfort Luke. He just woke up.

Sippy Cups

I love sippy cups. What an amazing invention. It makes my life so much easier in so many ways. I rarely clean up spills. I can give Silas and Hattie cups and walk away.

But there are 2 things that are not good about them.

One: I wonder, are my kids EVER going to understand what it means to use a cup that CAN spill?? We are trying...and failing. I remind them to put the sippy cups up near the top of their plates, not at the edge of the table where elbows congregate. They don't get it. We use cups without tops at least one meal a day and they are getting better, but they don't get it. I read one time to never put more in a glass than I was willing to clean up. That's not much, let me tell you. I put like 2 sips in a cup without a top when I hand it to Silas or Hattie. Ha.

Two: When you "lose" one of the sippy cups, which often roll up under the couch or don't get taken out of the diaper bag or car it is NASTY. Ugh. Its like making your own liquor (if its juice) or curds (if its milk). Enough to make you throw up or consider throwing the cup away.

This happened to me today, but it is a normal occurrence. Just a look into my world.

Sponges

Jody's mom sent those little sponge capsules to the kids for Easter. Silas LOVES those things. And he doesn't just love to see them open, he loves to play with them for weeks and weeks.

So today it was a good time before supper for them to sit and watch the sponges open up. It kept them busy for a LONG time. Then the fun ended. LOL.

Silas comes up to me and says, Mom, I ripped the heads off of Hattie's animals. I was like, WHAT?? WHY?? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

So, without really thinking, I ripped the heads off of two of his dinosaurs.

Ok. I know I'm a little...well, like my dad. I act before thinking.

Silas FLIPPED out. He went ballistic. I sent him to his room.

I went in and he was just going nuts, mad at me.

Once he calmed down I started to talk to him. I told him that Jesus taught us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We talked about that for a while. How ripping the heads off of Hattie's animals was not treating Hattie in a kind way (although at this point and up to now, Hattie didn't even care, she had moved on to baby dolls). He said, well, you were not kind to me Mama.

I don't know if how I responded was the right way. I'm still thinking about it. Silas just does stuff like this sometimes to someone else's stuff b/c it doesn't affect him. I think I drove the point home to him.

The only problem was one of the dino's I ripped was the ever important T-Rex. I told him I was sorry that I destroyed his favorite one...whew.

He got over it, strawberry shortcake on banana bread with icecream and he's not mad anymore. I'm hoping to throw away all these sponges so that we won't even have to talk about this incident again.

Two other quick things...don't you love the weather thing on the side? My friend Jed sent me the link. I wish I would have had it when it was SO cold, you all would have gotten a kick out of it. And the other thing is, wow, what a tragedy at V-Tech. Man. It's really unbelievable. Silas was really interested in the whole thing and wanted to understand about "the students". That's hard to talk about with a 4 year old.

A Sweet Welcome Home

Luke and I had a great weekend. He was an angel baby and all the ladies oohed and drooled over him. He slept well and so did I. We stayed at a Catholic Abbey where a ground of Benidictan Monks live. It was very interesting, I really enjoyed it. We went on a tour of the compound which is over 100 years old. The home-made Choke-Cherry preserves were really delicious.

When I came home I was greeted with hugs and kisses and pictures taped on the walls. Jody had folded all the laundry and cleaned up the house. The kitchen was clean...it was so nice.

The weather is unbelievable here today. We played at the park this afternoon. The kids ate a great supper. I'm glad to be home.

I'm off

Well, its my turn to leave. I'm going to a ladies conference tomorrow and I'll be back on Sunday. I am taking Luke, but Jody is going to be solely in charge of Silas and Hattie. I know they are going to have so much fun. Drinking kool-aid, playing outside (the weather's supposed to be nice), watching too much tv...etc. I know they'll have a great time.

I'm excited to go. I'm going to drive down in Jody's car and listen to WHATEVER I want. No "playtime" music. It'll be great for me too.

So I'll be back to blogging on Sunday or Monday.

The snow is melting. No more diarrhea the last 2 days. Luke is back to sleeping really good thru the night. Silas is making some big improvements in speech. Hattie is being so affectionate lately, its very sweet. We are planning on closing on the house on Wednesday. Yay...........now to the laundry. How is it that there is ALWAYS laundry to do, it seems like we just finished it.

True Bowel Movements

****Notice to readers, this is a little gross, you may not want to read today****

In our home, the last 2 days, bowels have been moving, and in other places than to the toilet.

Silas woke up Tuesday and had diarrhea. But after waiting it all out, we decided he wasn't sick, he could go on to school. No fever, no other episodes, he was fine. I told him that if he felt bad at school, just to tell the teacher and she'd call me and I'd come get him.

I had no sooner than dropped him off and was taking Hattie and Luke to the child watch at the Y so I could go exercise when one of Silas's teachers found me in the bathroom washing Hattie's hands. She said, you need to come back, Silas is sick.

Well, apparently, Silas walked up to his teacher and said, "Now Kaffy, I have diarrhea. If my tummy hurts, I may need to run to the bathroom and call my mom". So, I explained to her what had happened and she said he could stay unless he got sick again.

He was FINE, until last night. Jody went to put the pacifier in Luke's mouth at about 11:30 and he said, I think Silas pooped in his sleep. Sure enough, it was GAG-Nasty. I won't go into the details. But I had to throw a book in the trash and strip the bed while Jody cleaned Silas up.

Then today...Silas is FINE. So is everyone else. But then this happened....

Hattie always poops in the potty. Its great. No yucky diapers anymore from her. So she was pooping privately, like she always does when I hear, "Mama, I have di-RE-ah." I go running. Don't worry, she didn't have diarrhea, but she had sat on her little potty chair without the potty part and had proceeded to poop in the hollow part of the potty.

Ugh. Gross. She said, "I so sorry mom." I of course told her it was fine, not her fault , etc.

I hope all the bowels get straightened out here.

Weather

So, I thought Spring had sprung. I know, everyone says, this is North Dakota, you never know what's going to happen.

But to wake up this morning and see snow covering the ground...I was shocked. What???

I really didn't want to get the kids all bundled up, go out to the car (that was NOT parked in the garage because I didn't think I needed to do that anymore)...ugh. But of course I did. The day must go on. I never imagined that I (the girl whose parents said, uh, why don't you go get your license now, Emily?? I had been 16 for like 6 months) would get in the car and just drive in several inches of snow while it was still falling. I feel like such a WOMAN. Ha.

I think that as I type this blog, it has finally stopped snowing.

We are expecting 60's by Sunday. Maybe this is the last snow. I guess why I don't like it so much is that everyone else besides the Dakotas seems to be experiencing spring. OH well. That'll make me appreciate it that much more when we finally get the spring weather.

New House Pics

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures

Painting eggs...the "magic" crayon was a HUGE hit.

Worn out from all the hard work.

Marshmallow Easter Bunny treats. Not that cute but definitely delicious.


Luke got a hold of one of the dyed Easter eggs and his mouth and hands turned blue.
We had a great Easter. We painted eggs, made little crafts, had a fun easter egg hunt this morning, good time at church. It was a good Easter. The best part in Hattie's words were, "Jesus a-yive".

Movin' on Up

We are set to start moving to our new house in about 10 days. The cabinets and floors are currently being installed. Lights and plumbing are next on the list. We are SO excited. Sorry I don't have pics to post yet (Nicole), I haven't been over to take any, but I'll try to.

Today I spent the morning trying to de-clutter the kids rooms. They look SO good...if I do say so myself. Silas even noticed when he got home from school. We are hoping that someone will be interested in renting our apt so we can get out of our lease a month early. So I'm trying to make it look more appealing when someone does come.

For those of you that are praying for us: PRAY A RENTER WILL TAKE OUR APT MAY FIRST. If no one rents it, we will have to pay rent and mortgage in May.

Tomorrow is going to be our Easter craft day. The kids are very excited to dye Easter eggs and make some jello. I found a cute marshmallow bunny I think we are going to try on Kraft Foods. I'll have to take pics and post them tomorrow.

What are they talking about??

Who knows what these two talk about. They are always talking. Its pretty cute.

Daddy's HOME

You have never seen happier kids than when Daddy came home. It's just so sweet. They were jumping up and down when they saw him coming toward the doors. Even Luke wiggled and laughed at his tall daddy and reached up towards Jody. Even some of the bystanders "ahhed". This one guy said to me, "That's just awesome."

Silas was amazed at the baggage claim. He looked adorable riding on Jody's suitcase on the way to the car. Hattie kept saying "my daddy come home". Luke joined in the talking with his baby blabbing. (So much for a quiet child, he can "talk" along with the others. We rarely have quiet moments these days.) We are all so happy.