Baby seeds

Aiden, Aiden, Aiden.

Awhile ago, after Finn was born, Aiden asked me that question that all parents dread.... "So, how do babies get in the mommy's tummy?"

Hmmmmmm..... He's 6. What to say, what to say??? Age appropriate is a must. Don't think he's ready for the whole Talk yet. Then I remembered something I read somewhere. A mom somewhere had explained to her daughter that babies came from seeds. A seed that was planted deep in the mommy's tummy, that grew into a baby over time.

Well, yeah, kinda. And hopefully that wouldn't garner to many questions. So, I went with it. And Aiden was happy with the response.

Fast forward to after dinner last night. "So, Mom, how is the baby seed planted in the mommy's tummy?" Oh, crap. Yes, out of the blue, just like that. What to say, what to say????? "Um..... The daddy puts it there, Buddy," hoping that would be enough. "But how does the daddy put it there???" You're killing me, kid..... Hoping to pass it off, "Well, the daddy just puts it there. That's part of a daddy's job." Aiden gives me a withering look. "Well," he says, "I think it has a lot to do with love." Huh, smart kid. "Yes it does," I say.

"So, where's the box?" Huh???? "Box, what box, Buddy???"

"The box that the baby seeds come in....." Oh boy. "The baby seeds don't come in a box, kiddo. They're inside the daddy."

That gets me a mom-you're-insane look. "I think you're wrong mom, seeds come in a box."

We left it at that.

Snack time

I'm not sure how we did it, but we have some pretty.... unique kiddos.

It's snacktime.

Aiden wants a bowl of cereal. But then, Aiden always wants a bowl of cereal. Never something sweet. It baffles his teachers, friends, and sometimes us.

Paige wants celery and peanut butter. Or, like today, pickles. Sometimes it's salad. Yes, she does enjoy the occasional cookie and chocolate is her best friend, but she doesn't always head for the sweets.

Finn's into bananas these days. Or really anything he can feed himself. He's about had it with jarred foods and things that must be fed to him using a spoon.

Don't most kids ask for things like chocolate chip cookies or brownies?

Adventures in candymaking

Not to be boastful, but cooking has never really been a challenge for me. I'm not a gourmet cook or anything like that, but I manage to keep my little family well fed and happy. I can cook from recipes and have them turn out correctly the first time. I am also one of those people that can take 5 seemingly random things from the pantry and make a decent meal of them (if I have the time and/or the inclination). In the last year and a half, I have taught my husband the fine art of family cooking, and he's not too shabby either. Both of us are also accomplished bakers. Cookies, cakes, bars.... either out of a box or from scratch. I've never really understood how someone can screw up a Betty-Crocker-out-of-the-box cake, but I know it happens. (Sorry to those of you who can screw up a Betty Crocker cake, no offense intended....)

So, my sister-in-laws make these fabulous peanut butter confections that are ingloriously known just as peanut butter balls. We've tried to come up for a better name for them, but so far have had no luck. Chris calls them "schweddy balls" which is waaaaay worse, but that's Chris for you. I decided that I wanted to make some of these glorious little treats this year, and had one of my sis-in-laws email me the recipe. Looking at it, I was not daunted in the least. After all, why should I be??? It's just pb, butter, powdered sugar, rice krispies, and chocolate. Right? If I had only known......

The middle peanut butter part went together without a flaw. Tasted right, was the right consistency, molded into the little balls just perfectly. Nothing to this, I thought. To melt the chocolate, I did everything according to instruction- even putting a pyrex bowl in a pan of hot water to melt the chips slooooooowly, even when my instinct told me that I should just microwave them like I do for other projects. Cool, the chocolate melted just like it should- nice and smooth. (Milk chocolate chips, by the way. We are NOT semi-sweet people in this house.)
So, I dunked the first pb ball into the chocolate. And it sank. Into the sludge. I fished it back out with a spoon, but the excess chocolate was not dripping off like I though it should. Okay, it's too thick.... I'll just thin it out a bit; if I don't, there's no way this one bag of chips is going to cover the whole mess of pb balls I have here. So, I pour a couple tablespoons of milk into the mix. Cold milk. Uh huh.

Well, my previously beautifully smooth bowl of chocolate clumped into a boulder of solidified mess that I couldn't do a thing with. I had one of those "smack your foreheads you're so stupid" moments. You don't pour cold liquid into warm chocolate. Of course it clumped. So, I tossed the clump, then I melted the rest of the first bag of chips with some leftover chips I had in the pantry. Still same thick consistency. Then I heated a few tbsp of milk and poured it in, thinking it would thin the choc out nicely. Can you imagine the words that I said when it clumped into a solidified mess again? Good thing the kids weren't paying attention. I almost threw in the towel then. But, I had one more bag of chocolate chips hiding in the back of the pantry. Not the good milk chocolate Ghirardelli chips that we love, but some stand-by Nestle milk chocolate chips that aren't near as good.

This time I put the milk in the bowl with the chocolate and melted it together. We didn't get a clumpy mess this time, but somehow the chocolate went from being acceptable milk chocolate to almost semi-sweet yuck. I'm not sure if I burned the chocolate, or if it reacted to the milk in some way. The result was just as thick as the original Ghirardelli chocolate, but (at the end of my candy-making rope by now) I covered the rest of the pb balls without trying to thin it out further. It was Christmas day, and if I screwed up this last batch of chocolate, we would have been left with just the naked pb balls.

Apparently candy making is not my forte. Unfortunately, I take getting things like this right as a personal challenge. My husband may be stuck eating mediocre peanut butter treats for awhile, until I master the art of melting chocolate for dipping.
See how the one on the far right actually looks like milk chocolate??? I'm still not sure quite what happened. Chris and Paige both tell me they're tasty....... but I'm not so sure.

We'll see how they turn out next time!

What a week!!!!

Between Paige's birthday, getting ready for the holidays, work, and everyday life, these past two weeks have flown by! We've celebrated together, cooked, eaten, and hopefully started some new family traditions-- not to mention the oodles and oodles of pics I've taken! I've tried to share some of the best here with you......


Christmas time at our house has always been a little different. I'm a nurse, and the hospital never closes. People have babies on Christmas (whether they want to or not!!!), and sometimes I have to work Christmas. As a result, our family has gotten very flexible about how and when we celebrate the holidays. Chris and I have discovered over the years that we actually like celebrating on different days. It seems to take a lot of the stress out of it for us. And, let's face it, it's just fun to open presents before everyone else does!!!
I'm a great believer of exposing our kids to many different types of experiences. Last year we celebrated Christmas, so I though this year it would be fun to celebrate the Solstice. December 21st is usually the first day of winter, and the longest night of the year. So, on Monday night we explored what "the longest night of the year" meant in terms of the earth, the animals, and how we live. We read stories, shared what our favorite parts of winter are, and spent some quiet time together as a family. It was actually very peaceful, and the kids not only engaged, but enjoyed it as well. And yes, if I knew enough about Hanukkah or some of the other winter holidays celebrated around the world, we'd probably celebrate those, too.

After that, it was our Holiday Celebration as usual, with the opening of the traditional PJs and movie before bed. Aiden and Paige chose to turn all the lights out but the tree, and watch UP, pretending like we were in a movie theater. Then it was cookies and milk for Santa, and off to bed to anxiously await the morning. The great thing about kids is their imagination. If we tell them that all it takes is an email to Santa letting him know that we're celebrating on a different day this year, then that's all it takes.

The kids let us sleep to a leisurely 8:30 in the morning. Santa is smart.... We put the baby gate up at the top of the stairs so no wayward children can sneak down. And then Santa leaves their stockings just outside their bedroom door. It buys mom and dad about 30 extra minutes in the sack!!!

After the oohs and aahs over Santa gifts, and waiting laboriously while I threw breakfast in the oven, the kids had a grand time covering the living room in ribbon, paper, and boxes. Aiden and Paige did a great job taking turns opening gifts this year, and Finn watched with wonder (and tried to eat the paper). The kitties made an appearance, looking for prime pieces of ribbon. Chris guessed his present again this year (arrrggggggh), and I got some great things that Chris and the kids picked out for me. We had a blast just hanging out together and enjoying the morning.

The afternoon brought a couple projects we'd been looking forward to. 1st, we made pine cone bird feeders. Remember those pine cones that Paige gathered for her nature walk? Well, I finally had a great use for them. The kids and I tied a ribbon around each one, slathered them in peanut butter, and rolled them in bird seed. Voila! A homemade treat for those few silly birds that didn't go south for the winter. Paige thought it was great fun, but Aiden thought it was kind of a chore. Of course. And he had to touch the peanut butter (eeeewwwwwww.....).

The last project we worked on was decorating a gingerbread house. We got one of the kits, hoping to make things easy. Let's just say that we all discovered what NOT to do..... Hopefully we'll be more successful at it next year. The kids were really into it (for about five minutes). Paige kept chanting, "eat the house, eat the house!!!", and was supremely disappointed when we told her it was for show only.

All in all, it was a great day and a great celebration. I'm hoping in the years to come, that we can discuss as a family what our favorite parts of different traditions are, and come up with a unique set of traditions all our own.

It really is time to get ready for Chrismas

Well, Paige's birthday is officially over for the year, and we're going to be celebrating the holidays in just a matter of days. Guess I'd better get the presents wrapped and under the tree.... I think I actually have everything that is going to go under the tree, but I'll have to check the stash just to be sure. I should do that today. Should, but will I???

I've also decided NOT to send out many Christmas cards this year. I usually send over 50. I think they are a great way to update people who we don't talk to through the year. But in this technological age, with Facebook, e-mail, blogging, and the like there aren't many people I don't connect with in some way. As I was going through my Christmas card list this year, I realized that 90% of the people on that list either read our blogs or are our "friends" on Facebook. So, there wouldn't really be anything new or exiting to talk about in our yearly Christmas letter. Also, I think sending out fewer cards will do a tiny part to reduce waste. I love getting cards in the mail, really I do. But then I feel guilty throwing them away- or even recycling them- at the end of the season. Some people may think that not sending cards and updating electronically isn't "in the season", but it works for us!

I'm going to have to get out and get some stocking stuffers. Then I'm going to have to find the stockings. I know I bought the kids new stockings last year, but (of course) they weren't with the Christmas things and I can' find them anywhere!!! Oh well. I was going to get new ones soon, anyway. Finn needs a stocking, too, and I like for them all to match.

Hard to believe we're mid December already, and that it's going to be the new year soon.

Paige's Birthday Party

A birthday party should always start with a great cake. I made an R2D2 cake when Aiden turned 5, and it turned out so well that I decided that I must make all my kids' birthday cakes. Did I curse myself???? Probably..... I'm my own worst critic, and it seems that I keep trying to out-do myself every time a birthday rolls around. My cake ideas always start small and seem easy, but by the time they're done, they've morphed into monsters!

Paige had a My Little Pony party this year. I could have made her a pony cake, but I saw a picture online that inspired me. Plus it looked like it would be a lot easier to make than a pony cake. After two days' work, one botched frosting recipe, one made up frosting recipe, and extra cake baking, we ended up with the confection to the left. Not quite what the original picture looked like, but it's close. and pretty cute. The bottom cake is a three layer milk chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting between the layers, then iced with homemade white chocolate frosting. The cupcake on top is french vanilla cake with good ol' store-bought vanilla frosting. I piped on all the dots myself, then put some of her pony toys around the edges.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Tasted pretty good too!!!

Paige had a great time at her party this year. She had her Nana and Papa,a friend from pre-school , friends of hers that she knows from mommy's work, and her very best friend Kayleigh here to celebrate with her. They played hard, opened presents, ate cake, and ran around some more. A perfect day in the eyes of a 4 year old little girl.

She got some great presents that she loves, already having tried out most of them. I should have taken an "after" picture of the cake.... she and one of the other little girls dug into the frosting of the cupcake part, making their own "designs". Actually, I think Paige did most of the damage to the cake, since the frosting is her favorite part.

She loved everyone singing Happy Birthday to her this year, and blew out her candles like a pro. We didn't ask what she wished for, but I'm sure she'll tell us anyway! It was a great party.

Learning games

We're trying to be better about actually sitting down and playing with the kids. Sometimes that's hard.... Especially when the kids want to play games we don't want to play. Soooooo, in order to make sure we're doing what the kids want to do every now and then, we've instituted a family game night at our house. Wednesday nights after Finn goes to bed. So far, we've played several rousing games of Go Fish. But the kids are going to get board games for Christmas, and we have a few kid friendly games that we are going to pull down. Hopefully this will expand our options a little.

The kids are also avid gamers on the computer. They play online games, a little Xbox, and have a few computer game programs. One of these is a Hoyle board game packs that has a chess tutorial on it. Well, Aiden has watched that tutorial (we're not sure how many times), and has started talking about chess at the kitchen table during dinner... rooks, pawns, queens, kings, everything. We were a little amazed. Chris plays chess, and has taken to playing with Aiden at night. I think it's so sweet!

Happy Birthday Paige!

What a great day to turn 4!!! First, the day started off with new, gently falling snow (oh boy). While not the greatest thing for mom and dad, it is a very magical beginning to the day for a 4 year old. Then, after rousing mom and dad out of bed, finally, there was present opening.

Now, when Paige opened her birthday picture outfit a few nights ago, we got to have the conversation about being thankful for ANY gift. After she looked at me and said, "Mommy, this is NOT a present, this is clothes!!!!!!" In the end, the birthday outfit was a hit. But this morning's presents more so because she got a My Little Pony computer game and a My Little Pony baby Starsong. She has been playing mommy all day long.

Next, there was a fabulous breakfast of cinnamon french toast, bacon, and flat eggs (eggs over hard, for those of you not in the know....). Paige blew out the candles on her french toast this morning, since she won't get her birthday cake until her party Tuesday.

There were more presents and cards when the mail came. Woohoo!!!! Then, after hanging out at the house for awhile we took the family for a late birthday lunch at Red Robin- Paige's favorite restaurant. Where she ate all her broccoli but only a few bites of her ice cream. Strange kid. Luckily the servers didn't make her cry this year when they sang her Happy Birthday. Chris has pics on his phone of the Red Robin experience, but they won't make it here tonight.

Lastly, on to the Christmas Carnival put on by Paige's preschool. She got to visit with Santa, play games, do crafts, and decorate cookies. Then finally home, to play a little Xbox, then have some stories in her new jammies and head to bed. She said many times today: "This is the best birthday ever!!!!".

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.....

We all remember the magic that the first real snow of winter brought when we were kids. Well, it snowed this morning. Here are some pictures of my kids living that first-snow magic. Enjoy, and indulge in some good memories.

Expensive teething toy....

You would think we didn't buy the kid teething toys.....


But noooooo- he must try to cut his teeth on my $300.00 purse.

Well, at least he has good taste!!!

The Birthday Tree

A Birthday Tree? you ask..... It looks like a regular Christmas tree, you say. Well, it is and it isn't. Paige's birthday is in the second week of December. Every year we face the tree/decorating dilemma--- Do we decorate for the holidays like we did before Paige came along, or do we wait until after her birthday? Birthdays are pretty special in our house, and we didn't want anything to take away from that. Since Paige will be 4 this year (where did the time go???), we decided to ask her what we should do.

Of course, she was all for putting the tree up. As you can see, we have half a tree up on the coffee table. Well, as you know, Finn is crawling right now. Therefore we have a smaller tree on top of a table where he can't get to it and eat it. We took bets to see how long it would take the cats to figure out how to get up under it to sleep..... Remy blew us both out of the water and was under the tree about 5 minutes after it was up.

After the tree was up, we pulled out all the decorations, and were trying to decide which ones to put on the tree. I started thinking about putting the presents under there, and wondered if I should also put Paige's birthday gifts under. Then I had what my family thinks was a brilliant idea. We'll decorate the tree for Paige's birthday until after her party, and then decorate it for Christmas! That way the tree is up, but we aren't overshadowing her special day with Christmas.

So, I went to Wally, found some pink, silver, and purple ornaments and away we decorated! I've save extras of her birthday invitations over the years, and my plan is to laminate them and put them on the tree as ornaments as well, adding to them every year. I was saving them for scrapbooking, but (let's be honest) when am I ever going to get to scrapbooking them? I think it will be a great way to show how we celebrate her birthday every year.

So tonight, I'm going to wrap birthday presents and put them under the birthday tree.

The nursery is done! (finally....)

So, when I was pregnant with Finn, we turned the bonus room into a kids' room and moved the big kids in there together. They love it, and I'm not sure why I ever thought they would like separate bedrooms. As a result, we had a boy's room and a girl's room already painted, decorated, etc. The plan was to put the baby into whichever room was decorated appropriately after he/she was born- since we didn't know the sex ahead of time. In the meantime, both rooms became storage areas. I was okay with the arrangement at first.

But as the pregnancy progressed, it bothered me more and more. With Aiden and Paige, we knew their sexes before delivery so I was able to finish their nurseries ahead of time. As the weeks went by without me setting up the crib, changing table, putting clothes away, and all those little nesting things I began to slowly go insane. I had bedding sets picked out for a boy or a girl, and the common color in both was brown. I decided that I wanted the corner bedroom to be the nursery regardless of the sex of the baby since that is the room closest to our room.

That particular room was Paige's room as a baby, and had a chair rail with a fairy tale mural and lavender paint. I decided to paint chocolate brown over the lavender to make it more unisex, thinking that I could match either bedding set to the chocolate. So, at 35 weeks pregnant, I took myself to the home improvement store, bought some paint, and painted over that pretty purple paint. We got the crib set up and the changing table moved in there, and I finally felt like I might be ready for the baby to come.

And along came Finn. I bought the bedding set I had chosen for a boy, and love it still. While the brown wall definitely made it feel like more of a unisex nursery, the mural still had a hint of princess to it. But I just couldn't paint over it. It was a one-of-a-kind mural hand painted by a friend of mine as a baby gift. I agonized over painting over it.... and it took me 9 months to decide. But, this week, I finally did it. And I am soooooo happy with the results.

Not to say that I didn't love the mural, but Paige doesn't sleep in there and might not sleep in there again. And she's not that into princesses, and never has been. I figure that by the time she wants a room of her own again, she'll want it to look more "grown up" anyway. I hope I'm right!!!

Finn; 9 months old

Where, oh where does the time go??? I can't believe our little man is 9 months old!!! And a busy 9 month old is he......



Finn is:

eating mostly solids, and refusing more than a couple ounces of formula at a time

scooting and "army man" crawling

waving hello or bye-bye at us

babbling a lot; he can "say" Aiden, kitty, and Dada

starting to drink out of a sippy cup

sleeping 10 to 12 hours a night, most nights

getting more and more demanding if he doesn't get his way right away (uhoh)

He still just has that one tooth, but man he knows how to use it!!! We call him our Mini- Monster, and with good reason most days. But he's one of the sweetest, most loveable little guys out there. He keeps us on our toes wondering what's going to come next.