german cuisine

the husband had a day off of work yesterday. i made german cuisine for dinner. we do this once every month or two. i cant begin to explain how good the saeurbraten and spaetzle is. the pickled meat melts in your mouth. i know pickled meat sounds gorss, but it really isnt.the whole meal is ridiculous! yummo.

shrinky-dinks

last night my kids had friends over. we made shrinky-dinks. remember them? i loved them as a kid.

1. you color with sharpies on a piece of #6 plastic.

2.throw them on a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil.

3. bake them for 1-5 minutes (wait until theyre small and flat) at 275 degrees.

4. voila! a shrunken art masterpiece.

i think you can buy this special clear plastic at arts and craft stores, but we use ours from recycled plastic containers, like strawberry containers and food carry out boxes. just make sure that it is the #6 plastic. if you and your little ones have any questions, drop me a line. ill help answer anything i can.

here is a picture of the kids peering into the oven watching the magic at work.

camera happy

here are a few pictures of my adorable family from today. enjoy.

a few birthdays around the corner

leah will 9, mary will be 2, jax will be 1, and scott and i will be 29. this may be a good excuse to break out the sewing machine and make some presents. im not so crafty, but here a few ideas that i have, thanks to etsy.

charleigh jane the bully

charleigh has been hitting mary a lot lately. she is 3 and a half where as mary is almost 2. ceej is being quite the bully. it is driving me absolutely crazy. today i went to the extremes.

she has begun lying, saying that mary is hitting her when im not watching...i hear mary scream in pain and charleigh yell, 'mary! dont hit!' at first i didnt know who to believe, but marys tears are pretty obvious in this who-done-it case. so any way, ive done everything to stop the hitting, time-out, taken away toys, hit her myself, lectures, etc... nothing seems to be doing the trick.

today at lunch i did i think the meanest thing ever. i told her if she continues to hit, she will have to live with another family. i caught her attention. she would have an ugly bedroom with black walls and no toys, a really mean mom and dad that didnt love her, and no baby brother jax. i related her hitting, to roxy, a dog we no longer have. roxie has a different family because she bit our neighbor. ceej had about a million questions and ended up in tears. i instilled how important it is never to hit, all the reasons, and the consequence.

so hopefully she is done hitting. or this is just the beginning of years of therapy. hopefully what i did will turn out positive. any parenting advise on this matter would be wonderfully appreciated.

happy birthday lindsay

i baked another loaf of bread last night. same recipe, same ingredients. horrible. it did not rise. i have a loaf of brick. i think i will make some soup today for lunch. possibly serve some brick with butter. today is my good friend lindsay's birthday. the big 29. we will be baking her my family favorite apple pie. it is so scrumptious. hard to screw up. last year i think i baked about 20 of those apple pies. pictures to follow.

pediatric brain tumor foundation

check out this link . donations for a handmade apron. my good friend lindsays step mother in law makes these. and its always nice to donate to a worthy cause.

todays bread

it turned out beautiful. maybe didnt rise exactly how i predicted it would, but hey its only my first time working with yeast. really great flavor. the girls gobbled up their slices. so did scott and i. wonderful success.

in the kitchen

we feasted on crab legs last night. they were amazing. the butter was even better. this morning i decided to make this recipe of a loaf of honey wheat bread from all recipes. it is in the rising stage. here is a picture from the kneading stage. ill let you know how it turns out.

crab legs on the menu

were just about to go off to the grocery store. costco and meijer. crab legs are on the menu for tonight. we are having my dad over. yum i cant wait. as i sit at the computer the girls are head butting each other. good times. it will be a nice night...hopefully.

guess what??!!

no silly im not pregnant. leah found our long lost camera today. it was hiding in the game of life. a fitting place to be hiding. so here are a few pictures from tonight of jax.

hold em

when the babies were napping i taught leah how to play texas hold em. she is a horrible bluffer. i totally won. actually i kicked her ass. finally i can beat someone. who cares that it was her first time and that shes only 8.

good day

so far today is a good day. we slept in, ate a big breakfast consisting of a german baby, mashed potato pancakes, sausage and grapes. yummy and carb-a-lishious. scott is now at work after snow blowing one house today. we are expecting my friend christen over for dinner tonight. i am re-serving the awesome pasta that we had last night for saras party. time to lay mary down for a nap. hopefully leah and i can find a project to do. i am still in need of a shower, and want to watch a quick david wilcock video. we will see what time will allow today.

few things to mention

my cousin sara is in town from oregon. i cant begin to tell you how exited i am to be hanging out with her. she and i are pretty darn close. she was my coach when i gave birth to leah almost 9 years ago. we were each others maids of honor. my kids just adore her. the hubby does too. sara came over for breakfast this morning and we feasted on scrambled eggs with cheese, onion and red pepper, new york bagels with butter and cream cheese, and banana bread from this recipe. yummy.

today is really cold. -4 degrees. in fact, leah has no school today, or monday (mlk day). so yeah, 4 day weekend! we are hosting a family party here on sunday in honor of sara being in town. hopefully it will be a little bit warmer for the people traveling to my house. i cant wait to see everybody else. i hope they can all make it.

scotts brother chris, and my soon to be sister in-law lindsay, have set the date for their wedding. we will be traveling there, all six of us in the car, to boston. i cant wait. we had a road trip last november for a wedding and everything went so well. this time we should be spending about a week of vacation there. thank goodness for the dvd player in the car and leahs personal dvd player that attaches to the seat in front of her. we could never travel without them.

scott and chad have been working on their side business. dwell tek. snow blowing, yard cleanup, landscape design, home improvement etc... their website is up, and here it is. check it out.

roger

charleigh has an invisible friend. he came about last night. his name is roger. half the time he is a kid, and the other half he is a guinea pig. i dont know... kids have wild imaginations. on the other hand, roger did help mary find her pink snuggle bee. charleigh was nice enough to let roger sleep in until after breakfast. he was so very tired you know.

january nineth

winter is cold. i am quite unmotivated in the dreary days of january. it it just ugly outside. brown shriveled up plants, no flowers, snow over everything and a half frozen over pond. the big picture at the top of this page is from my backyard garden in the summer. i really miss that. i make my way to my backyard every few days. i miss the colors. this coming spring we are putting in a pool. a nice size pool. i am really exited to rearrange my plants and put in a lot more vegetable and fruit plants. i cant wait for spring. here are some pictures from my garden last year.

its been a long day already

tonight is meatloaf night. scott is off to work. kids are napping. leah has an hour left of school. im blogging. what goes good with meatloaf? ill tell you. alcohol. in abundance. maybe some jager.

wife needed

ive said this before. i really need a wife. someone to help with the kids and house work, a little companionship would be nice too. please apply below...

1. knows her way around a vacuum and mop.
2. isnt terrified of poopy diapers. lots of poopy diapers.
3. washes windows and mirrors.
4. can make a mean dinner with ingredients found in the house.
5. willing to have one or two children on hip('s). at all times.
6. she must be willing to help with 3rd grade homework. yes, its harder than it sounds.
7. has a green thumb.
8. knows the importance of a bedtime routine.
9. has magic kisses for boo boos.
10. can handle four kids at the grocery store.
11. knows how to work on demand for repeated viewings of dragon tales.
12. pets the dog when pets are needed.
13. can break up a toddler fight.
14. she must enjoy loading and unloading the dishwasher.
15. knows the difference between marys and charleighs clothes. panties and socks too.
16. knows her way around a bottle of wine and how to open it.
17. eager to let the mommy take a nap.
18. and a shower. uninterrupted that is.
19. nurses baby at night... all night.
20. has all emergency phone numbers memorized.


if youre at all interested, can do all or even one of those tasks. please leave comment. i will contact you!! oh yeah. i dont pay my staff as i dont get paid for my responsibilities. thank you. and yes i am serious.

mommy is sleepy

leah-beah and i rang in the new year in style. ahma (my mom), aunt linda and papa tim came over for about an hour from 10ish to 11ish. then the bean and i watched the johnas brothers preform, and the ball drop in time square. we reflected on the all the things that happened in 2008. what a good year for our family, quite busy! ceej (charleigh) clonked out on my bed around 11pm and jax passed out nursing soon after. meanwhile scott worked...overtime until 3am. after carrying the bean and ceej up to bed, i tucked myself in bed watching survivorman. what a good show. charleigh woke as i was falling asleep, around 2am. a nightmare. that woke leah up as well. back to sleep. 4am barf. lots of it. all over charleighs bed. gross. she stayed up until 6:30am with diarrhea every 10 minutes or so. back to sleep. back up at 10am. more diarrhea every 10-15 minutes. i think we went through about 40 diapers from 4am until about noon. 1 sick kid is hard. 1 sick kid with other kids, you can only imagine... i wish i could sleep like baby jax for about a week straight.