Thursday, November 01, 2007

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Inspired by Fat-Free Oatmeal Cookies at www.fatfreevegan.com

Yield: 24 BIG cookies

2 cup Quick oats
1 cup White flour
1 cup Whole wheat flour
1 tsp. Baking soda
1 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup White sugar
3 tblsp. flax seed meal
1 cup vegan chocolate chips
1 cup Apple sauce
4 tsp. Egg replacer powder
4 tbsp. Water

Preheat the oven to 375.

Mix the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips in a large bowl. Whip the egg replacer with the water, mix in the apple sauce. Add apple sauce mix to dry mix. Stir well with a hefty spoon until everything is combined. Drop onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake for 12-13 minutes.

*These cookies are almost like a cookie shaped muffin top. Very good but obviously low fat.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Menu Planning Monday


Visit the home of MPM for more menu ideas!

Check back over my last few blog entries for recipes and photos from last week's menu.
Monday Campfire Family Club potluck
4-bean salad - a mix of 2 Guy Fieri recipes - Black Bean Salad and 4-Bean Relish,pineapple salsa and tortilla chips (organic white and baked blue)

Tuesday Pumpkin Carving
Coconut Broccoli w/ tofu & Brown rice

Wednesday HALLOWEEN!
Pumpkin casserole and salad

Thursday
Falafel patties, tahini sauce, flatbread, salad

Friday
whole wheat flax spaghetti with no-meat meatballs or italian "sausage" & sauce, salad

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Chocolate banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting


Cupcake recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen - Chocolate Banana Cupcakes. I got my batter all ready and then remembered I had thrown out my old, hand me down from my parents' wedding nearly 40 years ago, cupcake pan a while back - so these ended up being mini cupcakes. SO CUTE! I baked them for about 11 minutes vs. the 20 minutes recommended in the recipe.

Peanut butter frosting
1 tablespoon Earth's Balance, softened
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1-2 tablespoons soymilk
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Whip together butter and peanut butter. Add powdered sugar and whip to combine, adding soymilk as needed.

More Oatmeal Muffins



I made a double batch this time - healthier kid version with raisins and a "mommy" version with chocolate chips and pecans. Yum. They were a huge hit at playgroup. Recipe is here\.

Soyrizo & Potatoes


(the leftovers)

1 package soyrizo - soy chorizo
1 very large sweet potato, peeled, diced and cooked (I microwave steamed)
4-5 medium baking potatoes, peeled, diced and cooked(I microwave steamed)
3 green onions, chopped
thick handmade corn tortillas
vegan sour cream (recipe follows)

In a large non-stick pan "fry" soyrizo until heated through. Remove from pan. Spray pan with oil and add potatoes. Cook potatoes for 5-6 minutes, stirring frequently. Add soyrizo back to pan and cook on medium-high for 20-30 minutes, stirring just occasionally so that soyrizo and potatoes get nicely browned. Add green onions in the last few minutes of cooking.

Serve in good tortillas topped with vegan sour cream.


Sour Cream recipe coming soon*

Oat Waffles with Fruit Sauce

Oat Waffles
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups soymilk
2 tablespoons olive oil
1.5 tablespoons real maple syrup
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Grind the oats in a large food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Spoon on to an oil sprayed, hot waffle iron. Made about 3 fillings of my standard waffle iron - about 12 waffles.

*Adapted from The Garden of Vegan: How It All Vegan Again! by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer


Fruit Sauce
a mix of 3 cups frozen mixed berries & mangoes
1 tablespoon real maple syrup

Defrost or heat in pan the fruit enough to whirl it through the food processor. Process in to a smooth but chunky sauce. Heat in pan, add syrup. Pour over waffles.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Green Week

William's speech therapist wanted us to work on a color for the week. This last week was green week and we wrapped it up by making a green poster.

Menu Planning Monday

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Check out Laura's blog for Menus!

baking/snacks/treats
another try with amazing vegan oatmeal muffins for plaqygroup
impossible pumpkin pie (Thanksgiving test recipe)
chocolate banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting


breakfasts
steel cut oats with berries, apples or pumpkin
oatmeal muffins
whole wheat flax pancakes

lunches
leftovers
salad & soup
bean burrito

dinners
Mussaka with whole wheat couscous and broccoli
potato & black bean soup, cornbread (from a vegan mix), salad
Soyrizo & potatoes in store bought hand-pressed corn tortillas with tomatoes and (homemade) tofu sour cream
tempeh "chicken" salad (will add dried cranberries) sandwiches, couscous veggie salad
vegetable and "sausage" calzones and salad
Thai rice noodles with fresh mint

Amazing vegan oatmeal muffins

I started with Diana's Awesome Oatmeal Muffins from Recipe Zaar, a great base oatmeal muffin recipe that contains no egg or dairy. I will definitely try this recipe again with other liquid/pulp/spice combos.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups 100% apple juice
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons cinnamon*
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice*
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3+ tablespoons flax seed meal*
1/3 cup chopped raisins
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour

*flax and spices were eyeballed - measurements are estimates

preheat oven to 400*
in a large bowl soak the oatmeal in the juice for 10-15 minutes to soften the oatmeal
add the apple sauce, stir well
mix together the salt, baking powder, baking soda, spices, sugar, flax seed meal and add to the large bowl
stir in raisins - making sure they don't stick together
add flour and stir just until combined
fill mini muffin tins that have been lightly oiled and bake for 6-8 minutes
cool on a rack

yum!

Next time I think I will do orange juice and pumpkin and add pecans. I may try this as a savory muffin too - maybe pureed veggies as the pulp with soymilk as the liquid.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Healthy (vegan) brownies

Yum! I am so impressed with this recipe! It is altered from this Vegan Brownies recipe on www.allrecipes.com. Carl and I were both really impressed with the chocolaty goodness of these moist cakelike brownies. They were excellent warm out of the oven and even better cold (this morning *blush*).

Blissful Brownies
2 cups unbleached all-purpose white flour (next time I might do 1.5 white and .5 whole wheat)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup Splenda (this stuff freaks me out but I figure on occasion it is ok for Carl and I - the kids don't eat chocolate so I felt ok about using it in this recipe)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Ghiradelli)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup light soymilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (the original recipe called for 1 teaspoon but I love good vanilla)

Preheat oven to 350*
Mix dry ingredients together.
Mix wet ingredients together.
Mix all ingredients together until well blended.
Spray 9x13 baking pan with oil. Spread mix in pan. Smooth top.
Bake for 25 minutes in preheated oven, until the top is no longer shiny. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting in to squares.
While baking lick the spoon and bowl - there are no raw eggs - enjoy the batter!

The label game

I love how a 4 year old can be convinced that nearly everything is a game! This week we played the label game. The boys told me what items around the house they wanted to label, Zachary helped me sound out the words on to cards and then they taped them up (we are loving painter's tape for taping stuff up around the house!).

Monday, October 15, 2007

Blog Action Day

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day
click graphic for more info

In high school some friends and I started an environment protection club. For some reason, in recent months I have thought about that club but for the life of me I cannot remember the cute name we made up for the group. Regardless, my radical idealism as a 16 year old suburban high school student looks quite different than my everyday life as a 33 year old SAHM of 2.

My everyday environmental actions are subtle. I am not marching for global warming or picketing at the doorstep of companies that pollute. Instead we quietly use cloth diapers, buy organic when we can, limit processed foods and over-packaging, recycle, walk for errands and teach our children not to litter.

What did you do today to keep the world a greener place for the next generation?

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Menu Planning Monday

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I picked up a new vegan cookbook at the library - Vegan Planet: 400 Irresistible Recipes with Fantastic Flavors from Home and Around the World by Robin Robertson. This week most of our recipes come from this cookbook. I am also trying out some holiday type of recipes to decide what to bring to my parents' for Thanksgiving. My brother is a vegetarian (has been vegan in the past) so there are always some dishes made animal free but not dairy/egg free. Today I tried to make a carrot-mushroom "loaf" with vegan gravy. Ohmygoodness, it was HORRIBLE :( I spent 2 HOURS cooking and had to throw most of it away. Thankfully I also made a big tray of roasted red, purple, yukon gold and sweet potatoes and we had beautiful farmer's market tomato slices with cracked pepper, sea salt and balsamic so dinner wasn't a total loss but I could have spent 15 minutes prepping potatoes and slicing tomatoes instead of all the time spent chopping, shredded, mixing and cooking veggie loaf ingredients.

Hopefully we don't end up with too many more disasters this week.


Breakfasts
steel cut oats with berries and cinnamon
leftover pumpkin pie pancakes with almond "cream"
leftover pumpkin biscuits with vegan sausage

Lunches
homemade hummus with veggies to dip
leftovers
soups & salads

Dinners
Monday - Seitan Stroganoff, pasta & broccoli
Tuesday - Roasted corn chowder, asian coleslaw & pumpkin biscuits
Wednesday - Savory spinach bread pudding and salad
Thursday - Orange & Thyme scented white bean & “sausage” chili, salad & cornbread
Friday - Take out or leftovers

Extras
small batch of Texas caviar
apple spice cake
if time allows - try a pumpkin pie recipe

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

9/365

Last week I was asked what we "do" when we homeschool. I usually find it hard to define. We talk. We play. We read. We go places. We investigate and discuss. We play with friends. We meet new friends. We play on the computer. We do not do packaged curriculum or have a set schedule or a daily goal to meet. But we do have some workbooks because they like them and so we use them on (rare) occasion. Yesterday was one of those days. Zachary asked to do some workbook pages and his "30 minutes a day" preschool workbook held his interest for over an hour an a half. William colored in an old workbook and generally wrecked havoc. As a retired classroom teacher I think I expected to do more "school at home" but as I think about it more, get to know my kids better and what works for our family - I think we are definitely more on the unschooling end of the spectrum, for now.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Playing Catch-up

I have been taking my 365 pictures - I just haven't posted them.

I left off on Friday 6/365

Last week was tough and I was excited to get out to a ladies' craft night. I stopped at Target on my way and spent a blissful 1 hour shopping A L O N E. It was lovely. I got to church at 7:30 and by 9:30 was almost done with the tutu I was making for a birthday party on Sunday. My phone rang and a very sad "come. home" greeted me. My poor babe cannot go to sleep without momma. I got home and he was out within 2 minutes of touching me.

7/365 Saturdays are for Soccer

This picture is awful... but it isn't about the picture. It is about the memory. Arriving at DS1's soccer game and DS2 seeing Grandma and running to greet her.

8/365 Sunday birthday party day

The kids eating cake and ice cream. The family of the birthday girl are our very special friends. It was so nice that they even had cupcakes and soy ice cream that William could eat.

Outtake... the kids made leaves on tees with their hands and fabric paint...

Menu Planning Monday

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After a health scare we have adopted a vegan diet to hopefully reverse some medical concerns. This is our first week of Menu Planning Mondays - Vegan Style


Breakfasts
fruit smoothies
scrambled tofu w/ vegan "sausage"
banana bread or pumpkin muffins
steel cut oats w/ apples and cinnamon
steel cut oats w/ soymilk and berries

Lunches
black bean burritos
salads
cheater soups
leftovers
veggie sandwiches


Baking
banana bread or pumpkin muffins
attempt rye bread


Dinners
Monday - Campfire Potluck - Texas Caviar, blue baked tortilla chips & organic white corn tortilla chips
"Texas Caviar."
3 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1.5 cups defrosted white corn
1.5 cups defrosted roasted yellow corn
3 cans mild Ro-Tel, drained
1 can blackeyed peas, drained and rinsed
3 T. chopped fresh cilantro
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1.5 cups fresh salsa
Salt, garlic powder, chili powder to taste

Toss all ingredients in a large bowl. Chill and serve.

Tuesday - Black bean soft tacos & zucchini w/ red peppers
Wednesday - Potato, sweet potato & black bean soup (I will add some sweet potato to the recipe) & Arugula salad (I might try my hand at some fresh bread as well)
Thursday - (Soccer Practice) - vegan chili in the crockpot, baked chips, green salad
Friday - baked tofu sandwiches, low fat vegetarian coleslaw
Saturday - take out for a picnic in the park
Sunday - leftovers or something wonderful

Friday, October 05, 2007

5/365

Thursday's picture is private for now. I may be ready to share it later.


I really wanted to do the Thursday Thirteen but life got in the way... hopefully next week.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

4/365



We are trying to eliminate naps but he fell asleep on the ottoman while watching sesame street at 4pm. It is going to be a LATE night.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

3/365


Today was dental check ups for the boys. Their teeth looked good although we need to brush better on their back teeth. Zachary has a little looseness in his front bottom teeth - suggesting he could have a loose tooth soon. How is that possible? He isn't even 5 yet. My baby!

Monday, October 01, 2007

2/365




Carl is 33. Our pumpkin patch plans were foiled by rain and a last minute doctor's appointment but we still took time to decorate bowls of ice cream (rice dream for W) with sprinkles.

Homeschooling 101

This is where we are at - 101. Figuring it out, making plans, rethinking, reassessing. The only thing we are sure about is that we will be homeschooling. While unable to sleep tonight (this morning) I found this quiz -







What Type of Homeschooler Are You?




Salvador Dali Melting clocks are not a problem in your reality. You are an unschooler. You will tolerate a textbook, but only as a last resort. Mud is your friend. You prefer hands-on everything. If your school had an anthem, it would be Dont Worry, Be Happy. Visit my blog: http://www.GuiltFreeHomeschooling.org
Take this quiz!








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Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code



Interesting.

1/365


This weekend I decided to start a 365 photo journal. I will take a picture each day for the next year. I thought I would start on Oct. 1 but while making breakfast on Sunday a bagel begged to be photographed. We celebrate "birthday weekends" in our house - the birthday person gets to pick all meals, all outings and all activities for the weekend closest to their birthday. This past weekend has been Carl's birthday weekend. His breakfast of choice this morning was fresh whole wheat bagels with cream cheese and lox. While schmearing his bagel I discovered that the hole was a heart. A heart shaped hole in my love's bagel. How sweet.

Menu Planning Monday

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I decided to try this whole blog meme idea and found a site that promotes Menu Mondays - great idea! So here is our dinner menu for the week:

Monday (Carl's Birthday) - cheese ravioli (vegan ravioli for William) and salad
Tuesday - chicken marsala (TJ's marsala sauce), dairy free mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus
Wednesday - linguine with seafood sauce and salad
Thursday (soccer practice) - crockpot black bean chili and salad
Friday (I might go to a craft night at church!) - take out
Saturday - dinner at an organic farm festival (or on the way home)
Sunday - TBA

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Real, live LOs!

It feels *so* good to scrap again. It makes me so mushy about my family and gives me an outlet and release that I don't get in our day to day life. I have a couple of other LOs in the Stand Up and Scrap contest - they ended up being really special LOs to me, I can't share them now but I will post them later.

I am loving Christina Renee's goodies - I think I DL a freebie from her right before my digi break started. I never got a chance to use it (and I am sure it is gone now with a lot of the digi kits and LOs I hadn't backed up). Anyway - I just love this collab kit she has with Shabby Princess.
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Another Christina Renee collab - this time it was a freebie! I did some recoloring to get a more kid friendly look to the background.
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Some of those Stand Up and Scrap papers were just perfect for this simple page.
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I am so honored to get to create for my long time friend, Chris Wasielewski who is making the leap from paper to digi.
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Complete credits and journaling can be found at in my DST Gallery.

Monday, September 17, 2007

7 Months Later

After an extended creating vacation, I am back. I had major laptop woes. From a major crash (why didn't I ever back up my fonts?) to dropping the stupid thing while it was open and cracking the screen) the Toshiba and I were just not friends. As my birthday/Christmas/Arbor Day/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Flag day gift for the next year DH bought me a refurbished Dell business class computer - with the idea that it should be hardier and better able to withstand my abuse. I am now working on DL'ing, unzipping and reloading fonts, getting caught up in the digi world and picking through my pictures from the last 7 months.

Watch this space for a new LO... soon!

Monday, March 26, 2007

That is some yummy pasta!

Tonight we had a heating/ a/c guy out to give a quote for a new system. He has done some work on our old system and has been here a couple of times. He is very friendly with our kids - he has a boy William's age who also has a head full of blond curls. It rained most of the day and we were cleaning today so by this evening the boys were being insane, they were hungry and getting tired. They kept running through the livingroom, knocking this poor guy's paperwork down and yelling. They didn't want to leave the room so they got a special treat of a picnic dinner. I had already made penne with broccoli and chicken in a tomato cream sauce (no sauce for William). They were sitting pretty nicely on their big picnic towel, eating dinner when Zachary paused, peering at a piece of penne and announces "PENIS PASTA!". The A/C guy was cracking up. Carl and I were mortified but giggling and he just kept at it "penis pasta! Penis Pasta! PENIS PASTA!" Soon after Zachary bid farewell to the technician by calling him "Fan Man". Oh boy, the stories he has to tell tonight!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

I like lime-y green

Is that obvious yet?
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On a Whim by Julie Mead
Font - DB DIXI by Darcy Baldwin available at Blue Flombingo
“pee pee, pee pee” you yelled at me. you often do not have the words to explain what it is you want the world to hear but you still let your will be known. today you were proud. Some great accomplishment that involved pee pee. I was afraid. I followed you to the bathroom where you giggled and giggled as you showed me your baby on the potty, going “pee pee”.

The Barf-fest Continues

Now Zachary has joined the festivities. It is 5am and I am up with Zachary who started barfing in his bed shortly after William barfed in our bed. Yesterday in a 30 minute period I cleaned up William barfing on the play tiles, peeing on the floor, pooping on the floor ("pee pee" no, honey that is a big POOP on the floor *gag*) and then Zachary overflowing the toilet when he "wiped myself with one square of toilet paper" uh, yeah. Right.

I am supposed to have a 7:30am optometrist appointment this morning but I am not sure how that will work with two potential pukers and DH having a HVAC guy coming this morning to check our AC that doesn't seem to want to make cool air. I think I will try to get the kids in to the pediatrician too since this is now day 6 of William having high temps, runny nose, coughing and barfing.

In laptop news the screen mess up has expanded - it now goes out to the right of the screen too - so I have a giant "V" of blacked out screen. I should try to take a picture of it later. Really quite annoying.

I did get my Bunco invites made and sent out -
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credits on DST

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

A hot, hot night

And not the fun kind of hot. William had a temp of 104 last night. Poor peanut. Stripping him down and giving him our last dose of children's Motrin got him down to 101 this morning. Carl went out this morning and bought more Motrin and Tylenol, hopefully I can keep his temp down today. He seems pretty unaffected by it, happy and playing like normal. His cough is a bit grosser though. Yuck.

Unfortunately we will likely have to miss homeschool co-op tomorrow. Zachary announced this morning that he wanted to do homeschool today. I asked him what he wanted to learn and his answer: "dancin'"! Ohmy! Mommy is way unqualified to teach that. We did some silly dances and then he decided that was enough and wanted to do math. We have been doing finger math and he is really getting it. He keeps announcing that 2+2=4! Love it!

Today's task is to digi scrap Bunco invites and email them out and then work on the princess purse and mug inserts for prizes. And thank you for all of the condolences for my hurt laptop. I doubt it will get fixed - it is at least $400 for a new screen and that is without any labor involved. DH has a 3 year rule for computers so according to him this one won't be replaced until early 2009. Ugh. So I am stuck with this for the long term. Bummer.

(I feel naked posting this without a graphic/picture - I need to work on my invites and come back quick to post them!)

I broke it...

I broke my laptop. It still works but I now have a giant gash through the screen that serves as a constant reminder of what a complete klutz I am. I was sitting with William on the couch, my laptop on the arm of the couch. William fell off the couch and in the process of trying to keep him from falling on his head I knocked my laptop down and it did something bad inside. I am glad it still works but now I have to type blindly when I hit the left side of the screen. Digiscrapping is ok because I can shrink the screen but sending emails is a pain. Blah. That stinks.

William spent the weekend throwing up and now has a cough and runny nose. I was so impressed with how well we all made it through cold and flu season but it looks like we may be suffering at the back end.

My first broken laptop LO:
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All the goodies are by Corina Nielsen and available at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com. The font is by Darcy Baldwin and available at www.blueflombingo.com - full credits at DST.
The paper is from Corina's The Big Day Collection - look at these crazy colors!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

William's Speech Evaluation

We knew William was behind in his expressive speech but we had little idea he was so behind. The preliminary guess of the Speech Language Pathologist we saw on Friday was that he will test at an 11 month level. He will be 26 months this month. His receptive language is fine but he is just not hitting that big language explosion that is expected at his age. Tomorrow I will start the phone calls looking for more info and services for him.

LO with Penny Springmann's Shoot for the Stars kit and 2 pager template - also a Darcy Baldwin font!
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Friday, March 09, 2007

An Update!?

Wow, I have a blog! LOL!

We have been keeping busy. The weather has been nice and we have spent a lot of time outside or at the park.

Our preschool homeschool group has evolved a bit. Our Monday mornings are now an open park/playdate for all age homeschool families and on Thursday mornings 3 of us are getting together with our 6 kids to do more directed "preschool time". Each mom will take a turn of a month or so of teaching a group of lessons. H started a group of lessons about the 5 senses yesterday. She made "touching bags" with different textures inside and the kids felt the items inside and then described them. They made textured collages and then we played outside. A's house is perfect for our preschool time and my boys love being over there. In fact Zachary loves it so much that there is much wailing and drama involved when it is time to leave.

This morning we did salt painting and smooth painting and talked about the bumpy and smooth feeling when we touched it. Zachary painted a "T", "H" and an "A"! We had 3 big letters and talked about what word we could make from them - now we have "HAT" spelled out on our kitchen wall in big bumpy letters! I am so proud!

William is really, really 2. Now when you ask him how old he is he says "FIVE" and holds up all 5 fingers. Stinker. He thinks he is sooooo funny. Well he is pretty funny but we like hearing "two" also! He has no fear. We have had to move the loveseat in front of the fireplace to keep him from pulling the glass insert out again. When we are outside he will chase the cat anywhere - including off the side of the high deck. Yikes. William wants to keep up with everything his brother does. It isn't even that he wants to be like his big brother - he just doesn't want to be left out. As a result my 25.5 month old peed on the potty this week! He also pees on the floor many times a day since he won't leave any clothes and earlier in the week he peed in a toy bin and then brought it to me! At least he is getting the idea, I guess.

Zachary's new skill that he is so proud of (besides painting letters) is peeing in the bushes. He has been successfully using the potty for some time now but is terrified of the toilet and peeing standing up - so this week I have encouraged (yikes) him to pee in the bushes outside which after some hesitation he now finds wickedly cool. And success! We have had toilet peeing now too!

I have been in a bit of a scrapping funk but I did complete this page of Emme at her 2nd birthday party: (ACOT Spring Fling collab kit and a new handwriting font by Darcy Baldwin):
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Last week I did a page about a quick clean with Traci Reed's new boy kit
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Full credits for both on DST

Saturday, February 24, 2007

We are family!

A small part of my big family at Thanksgiving 06. The credits list is HUGE and can be found at DST.
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We have started taking afternoon walks with William actually walking! He loves his bear backpack harness thing - which is awesome because if we didn't have that he would be in the street in moments! Thursday afternoon we took a puddle walk during a break in the rain. I took my dSLR with us and the battery died! The boys LOVED splashing in the puddles and I loved watching them love it.

This weekend we have plans to visit our city's big brand new library! It looks gorgeous from the outside, I cannot wait to see inside! I am very anxious to go to Costco tomorrow to pick up my first big set of printed LOs. I am printing at 8x8 size... I hope it works well! A $20 experiment!

Scallop recipe - it was from the cookbook "How to Cook Everything" - I will try to get the recipe tomorrow and post it!

Friday, February 16, 2007

Happy Friday!

The week sure flew by! The boys and I had a tough Valentine's day - they were just super crazy and a trip to the park was disastrous when William kept trying to run away down big hills (straight towards the road) or in to muddy ravines. I gave the boys a bath after the park (about 50% of the bathwater ended up on the floor) and then an early picnic dinner on the livingroom floor. When Carl got home we put them to bed and then had some nice time together - interrupted by both boys waking up, screaming a number of times.

Carl made us scallops in a lemon glaze, fillet mignon and crusty hot bread. Our fresh asparagus was left out because of the multiple wakings. We had dinner and watched American Idol in between tending to the boys. We had a rare treat of mid-week wine, it was good stuff - 7 deadly Zins.
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My valentine and I with Traci Reed's New Black Lace collection available at ACOT:
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Corina's Papa Collection


This beautiful and very special collection is 20% off today at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com.





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Kid = Kimberly Geswein
Kit = Corina Nielsen

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Spring Chicken LO

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full credits
William was so little! These pictures are not excellent and I have had them sitting for a long time waiting for the right kit to work with them. This fun kit compliments the vivid colors in the photos - and my cute kids!

Glitter, Glitter Everywhere

What was I thinking? Zachary helped me make a list of 11 people that we need to give Valentines to. And then I set a 2 year old and 4 year old free with red paint, red glitter glue, silver glitter, stickers, glue and paper. Ohmy. My kitchen table looks like a giant Valentine! We finally just had to walk away - we have Valentines in various stage of drying and we will write in them after lunch.

William has been exceptionally crabby and we are all sneezing this morning. The rain came back in town and so has a cold. I am hoping to get a LO done with Corina's new Spring Chicken



I have a LO that will be revealed with a new Corina collection tomorrow. I got to borrow Kimberly Geswein's beautiful daughter, Katie for my LO. I am itching to share - that kid is SO cute!

Monday, February 12, 2007

New Car! New Car! New Car!

After a few delays on Saturday, Carl was home with our new van! It was pouring rain and the birthday party we had planned to go to was canceled (not because of the rain but because the birthday girl was sick). The rain kept Carl from getting the carseats in but I did take the van for a solo spin around the neighborhood. We have a bunch of fun little extras - power sliding doors and liftgate, power rear quarter windows (the 3rd row windows), power adjustable driver and passenger seats (which I didn't think was that big of a deal but now that I can brace William's car seat against the passenger seat and still be comfy - I think it is an excellent deal!), fake wood paneling (LOL), upgraded fabric... but those are all just extras - the important part is that it is SAFE!
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Sunday we got the seats installed and went for a drive. We met my parents, brother, his GF and Emme for lunch. We had really good Chinese food with a bunch of fiascoes - Carl dumped his soup in to his lap and William dumped his soup on to my foot. After lunch we went to an indoor play place. William spent the first hour like this...
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He eventually woke up and had a great time with Emme and Zachary.
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There was a group people there with some really rowdy dads. They were throwing balls at each other (the dads) and their kids - hard. It was pretty chaotic for awhile. There was one very friendly dad that was making us a bit uncomfortable with just how friendly he was to these kids he didn't know. He kept following Emme in to a dark, secluded spot underneath the play structure - creepy.

Zachary had told the OFD (over friendly dad) his name at some point, because Zachary is a friendly guy like that. At some point Zachary and another child crashed in to each other - Carl saw it and said that Zachary was being too rough. So Zachary and I sat down and talked about playing gently and he was reminded that if he could not play gently we would have to leave (I was having a hard time with this since the group of DADS were not playing gently - I should have given them the same talk, although I wouldn't have had them sit on my lap for the talk!). So a few minutes after Zachary and I talk I hear OFD yelling across the entire play area "Zachary, Zachary" and I think - wow, they must have had a friend named Zachary arrive because he certainly cannot be yelling for MY Zachary like that. OFD gets off his butt and walks across the play area, past me, glancing over his shoulder and says "you don't mind, I need to talk to Zachary" - I quickly informed him that I DID in fact mind, and asked what the problem was. WTF. You don't get to call my child across the room and talk to him. NO NO NO. So he tells me that Zachary pushed this girl and he needs to talk to him about it. UH, NO! Dude, that is MY job, which I have already done. I did talk to Zachary about it, again - and that wasn't even the girl he crashed with - this guy had NO idea what he was talking about. It was so odd. Thankfully he left soon after and we had some quieter playtime before we headed home for a dinner of PB&J and cereal.

Friday, February 09, 2007

To buy and to sell

The Odyssey is sold and there is a "sold" sign on the demo Sedona that Carl test drove tonight - he will go back to finish the purchase tomorrow. Hopefully we will be going to a gymnastics birthday party in our new van tomorrow!

In other news... ACOT's birthday bash is tomorrow! Join me 1-2am EST (or 10-11pm my time) at ACOT! There will loads of games, contests, crops and prizes all day and I will be closing up the festivities late at night!
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