The First Bike Ride

 The training wheels came off!

 Their faces crack me up.

In fact, Noah has a lot of amazing faces.

Faces, I'm telling you.

He's had super expressive facial expressions since he was an infant.

 Frustration/concentration.

 Sometimes he's a thinker. :)

 And believe it or not, this is not an extreme face for him. We see this one almost daily.

 Nathan went up and down the driveway dozens of times.

  "Mom! Take a picture of my feet off the ground!"

 Everybody. :)

Today

1. I realized this morning (or, rather, reminded myself) that it really does require my getting up at 6:00 in order to get us all to our destination by 9:00.  All the dressing, breakfasting, distracting, comforting (there's teething in the house), etc., just takes a long time when you have three kids under the age of seven.  Although the strange thing is that on school days, we do rush it a bit and leave very early.  I don't know why it takes so much longer on other days.  The only things that would alleviate this necessary-for-me early wake-up time would be if I took my shower and made lunches the night before, but I'm usually so busy doing other things (like trying to give some attention to one of the too many hobbies I have)--not to mention that at that time of day, I'm running out of energy--that lunches fall low on ye olde priority list.
2. That was a whole lot of punctuation right there.
3. It's kind of nice that Noah thinks that the best snack in the world is a big piece of homemade bread with "lots and LOTS of butter on top!"  Sometimes simple is best.
4. I explained to Noah that butter is not exactly good for you, and that lots of it (as I continued slathering it on) is not healthy.  He replied by telling me that butter makes you really fat, and that if you eat enough of it--say, one stick in a single day--that you will make a huge splash when you jump into the swimming pool.
5. On his own, Noah figured out how to count by fives to 100 today and how to count from 101 to 200.  He was pretty darn proud of himself.  He also used some triangle blocks to make a "new shape" with five sides.  I told him it was called a pentagon, and he was amazed and very impressed with himself.
6. We followed that with doing tally marks and learning to count by 5's.  I felt pretty brilliant when, for our tally mark assignment, we counted all of the stuffed animals which the kids had spread out all over the play room floor by putting them away.  I just do not have the gift of making my kids think working is fun, so to get Noah to clean up and think it was great was a victory!  Every time he tossed one into the toy box, he said, "Toss!" and I'd draw a tally mark.  At the end, we counted them--FIFTY-ONE stuffed animals.  WHAT IN THE WORLD??!?!  Time to give some stuff away!
7. Clara is teething.  The last time she was teething (was that only two weeks ago? yes, it was!), she got two molars and two smaller teeth.  Right now, she is cutting two more molars, and y'all, it is rough.  She is usually so easygoing and sweet, and she is actually pretty unkind when she's hurting and not medicated right now.  Give her some Ibuprofen (and some times even that just takes the edge off), and she is her regular old self.  But when it wears off, watch out.  She is a screaming, drooling, tantrumming mess.  I actually went back to 2009 on the blog today to look something up and discovered that Noah was the same way, only worse.  Between all three kids, he definitely had the worst time with teeth.
8. I've updated the Asian Dumpling Soup recipe here on the blog to be more specific about the type of broth and dumplings I use, which should make the recipe more user-friendly overall, since it's actually not always easy to find those items.  You can always make do with whatever you find at a HEB or Stop and Shop or whatnot, but this is what I've been making lately, so I thought I'd update it.  Also, the scallion pancakes at Trader Joe's are fantastic with the soup.
9. The end!  Good night!

Today's Cookie Message and Other Homeschool Bits

Aunt Emily came to visit this week, and one of the wonderful gifts she gave to this mommy today was that she helped Noah with his home school.

Peeking at them making a collage.

My dear little kindergartener.

This afternoon, after a cold front blew in, we lit a fire and moved the kids' table in front of it.  I can't think of a better place to do your math; can you?

And how do you like his cookie message?  Thank you, phonograms, for teaching him "oo" and the long "e." :)

A Glimpse

A glimpse into our home schooling time today:

He loved the surprise of sounding out "Hi" and that I wrote him a greeting made out of cookies.

In a House with a Bunch of Little Kids

How can it be that one of my kids misplaced one of Noah's school shoes somewhere in this house?  We have looked EVERYWHERE.  

It is only the 2nd day of school!!!

Aaaargh!!!!!!

**UPDATE**
 The story here is that one--it had to be one, right?!?--of Noah's school shoes disappeared into thin air on Tuesday.  None of the kids remember playing with it.  Nathan and I spent about an hour turning our house upside down, trying to find it.   We looked in every cabinet, scoured every bookshelf, looked under every piece of furniture, checked behind every door and in the back of every closet, looked through every toy bin and basket, and checked and double checked the car and the backyard.  No luck.  It has disappeared. 

I'm sure we'll find it in some random place eventually.  The problem is that it's his only pair of uniform shoes.  So I sent him to school in tennis shoes on Wednesday and explained to his teacher what happened.  She was pretty laid back about it, but I knew I did need to get those shoes ASAP, so I've ordered him another pair.  The thing is, they're not cheap, especially when you get expedited shipping.  But I'm not going to fret too much about it, since the one that was lost was half of the pair he wore for all of Pre-K that, luckily, still fit.  We were going to have to go up a couple of sizes soon, anyway.

But GRR.  For real.

The Last Day of Summer

Well, school starts tomorrow, which means that today is the very last day of summer.

I am not really ready for school to start.  That is to say, I have everything in order, we have all of Noah's school supplies, his backpack is packed, his uniform is clean, and I have even looked over this week's curriculum.  But I do not really feel ready.  Life is about to get really busy, and I haven't really wrapped my mind around it all yet!

We've been so nice and laid back this summer.  After school ended last year, I was just so relieved not to have to get three kids out the door at 7:30, and that, all by itself, made life at our house a little more fun.  But once June hit, I suddenly realized that I need to make sure this summer is super fun!  Summer's a mentality, not just a season, right?  So I made an effort to be more open to saying yes to just a few more messy play ideas and more intentional about getting some planned fun in while we had the chance.

To that end, Noah, Jane, and I sat down and made a Summer Fun List.  It included suggestions from them as well as me, and, happily, we have been able to check every single thing off (the zoo is forthcoming).

The Summer Fun List was a huge hit with the kids.  Every day, Noah would ask, "Mom, can we do the next thing on our list today?"  And both of them loved checking things off as we did them.  We'll have to make this a summer tradition.

And speaking of traditions, I'm intentionally trying to think up and incorporate traditions in our household.  For example, we have a cake (or half a cake) on each of the kids' half birthdays.  We also had a cake when Noah read his first book (a very simple reader, but we definitely wanted to celebrate!).  And here are my two newest ones: a family game night on the last night of summer, and pink frog on the first day of school.  Even the little things will make good memories, don't you think?

Happy Almost-Fall!

When it's Hot

When you live in Houston and you go on a picnic when it's 100 degrees outside, and all of a sudden you see a fountain, well . . . 

I mean, what option do you have, really?

 

Soaked to the skin and so happy!

A Nice Day

And now I sit--in bed, lamp on, a laptop being a ridiculous convenience, when you think about it--writing about what a nice day it's been.

Bright and early yesterday morning, we got up, got the kids out of bed, and headed out of town to go blueberry picking.  I love to pick fruit, and have long before I was a gardener and got interested in such things.  It started when I first went blueberry picking about ten years ago (at this same farm, now that I think of it).  Anyway, I always enjoy the picking process, how much cheaper you can usually buy the fruit for, and the absolute bounty you can drive home with.  I love how you can actually be in the position of finding as many recipes as you can to use up your ____ (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, apples...).  There is just something about the surfeit of one type of food that makes you feel like you are reveling in Plenty.  And having a large amount of one item also makes me feel connected to my farmer ancestors, who would have been doing what I'm doing with my blueberries: making hay while the sun shines, if I may use an agricultural expression.  Making lots of blueberry dishes while you have blueberries, then canning the rest, perhaps.

Anyway, I made a blueberry crisp last night (which, my friends, you must make if you ever have six cups of blueberries sitting around--seriously, ten years ago it made me a true blueberry fan), and since it was cooked after the kids went to bed, I let Noah and Jane have some for breakfast.  It does have fruit and oatmeal in it, after all.  Then, I made blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes.  We had a regular blueberry feast for breakfast!  And breakfast wasn't until 10:00 (read: leisurely morning).

Clara was under the weather this morning, so we skipped church and stayed home.  Throughout the day, there was lots of neatening on my part, kiddie pool time for the kids, and video games for Nathan (his brother, Andrew, stayed with us this weekend).  My kitchen is now ready to face the week.  And I even watched a movie and relaxed a good bit.  I hand-pollinated my cucumbers to make sure they keep producing (I've picked three so far! Hooray!) and soaked some beans so I can plant them tomorrow.

Janey Beth has taken to making nests out of her bedding, putting her stuffed animals in the middle, then sleeping on top of them, pretending she's the mama bird.  It is the cutest thing.  Her bed is a complete mess, but that's nothing new (I even let them make pallets and sleep on the floor all last week). I love to see the sweet, nurturing side of her.  Sometimes I look at her little toddler face and wish I could bottle the cuteness so I could pull it out for a big jolt of joy and love whenever I want.  There is something about those little faces.

Noah has been wanting more of my affection lately.  He is very huggy these days.  And I've been so impressed at what a model of a big brother he's been to Clara this weekend.  While she's in a sitting position on the floor, he'll set himself down in front of her and just chat and play with her.  She loves it, and she is really loving that Noah these days.  He's getting some big smiles from Clara.  Unfortunately, though, he is really into antagonizing Jane.  It's actually beginning to be a real problem.

I can relate to that, honestly.  I loved to antagonize my little brother, too.  Specifically, I tickled him.  He was (and still is) incredibly, incredibly ticklish, and I took full advantage of it.  Tickled him to the point of cruelty.  I probably scarred him for life.  My parents tried everything to make me stop.  The only thing that worked was to make me pay him--first a quarter, then a dollar--whenever I tickled him.  That made me stop, more or less.  But sometimes, oh sometimes, it was worth that dollar.

Well, we'll work with my Noah.  As for little Clara, she is, as always, a sweet baby.  Although her least endearing quality these days is that she is experimenting with her voice.  Actually, she is screaming.  Screaming just for the fun of it.  Screaming with everything she's got.  Screaming so big I can see to the back of her throat.  Screaming until she shakes a tiny bit.  It does not make for an easy dinner conversation, I'll tell you that.  We've also discovered that she is extremely sensitive to mosquito bites.  Each mark swells to the size of a quarter.  It is so awful looking, but it doesn't seem to bother her much, which I can't believe.  I'm going to have to start using the car seat mosquito netting that for some reason I have. 

I finished my last flower square tonight!  I took care that the last square I made was one with a pink flower.  The pink flowers, after all, were the first ones I made and more or less inspired the rest of the blanket.  Now all I need to do is block the remaining squares, join them together, and crochet a border.  Give me a couple of weeks.

Sleep is calling me.  Down goes the computer.  Goodnight!

On the Menu

I must go grocery shopping.

We had to get some emergency milk today.  As in, we-ran-out-of-milk-and-I-won't-have-time-to-properly-grocery-shop-until-tomorrow milk.  This isn't normal for us.  Usually, I am a better planner, but right now the pantry and fridge are pretty much empty of easy-to-grab food (like our usual almonds, etc.) and real dinners.  We are down to peanut butter sandwiches or eggs + pancakes for dinner.  That's all fine and good for a few days, but Mama's got to stock up tomorrow.   At the moment, I'm making my grocery list and menu for the week.  Because it's so completely riveting, I'm sharing the week's dinner menu with you:

• Avocado and cilantro red quinoa (recipe on the back of packaged red quinoa from Trader Joe's)
• Roasted fish, red potatoes, and onions (a family favorite--Nathan calls it "hobbit food")
• Cream cheese chicken
• Savory tomato cobbler
• Tilapia sandwiches with slaw + cold pea soup
• Rotisserie chicken with squash rice casserole
• Orange scented spiced couscous with chicken
• Ploughman's platter

I'm hoping this redeems me this week.

Until later!

Sometimes

As a novice cake decorator, sometimes your cakes turn out pretty well.

 Noah's castle birthday cake

Jane's princess birthday cake

And other times they don't.

 Tiered wedding cake I was supposed to make for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary

Ha ha!  Well, you can't win them all.

Honestly, I can't stop laughing every time I look at this picture.  It's just such a complete and total disaster!

A Wee Bit of Catching Up to Do

So I have a wee bit of catching up to do on the blog, eh?  Just a tad.  I had three blog posts last month.  Three.  The lowest monthly number ever.  Oh well.  Life is busy!  And I've been busy living it rather than writing about it!

I'll try to write individual posts about bigger events like Jane's birthday, but for now, here are a few random pics from the last little while.

For Valentine's Day, I made these cute little lavender filled sachets/ornaments.  I think they turned out so sweet.

By the way, I got the idea and the how-to from Pippa Middleton's book, Celebrate, which I would recommend.  It's an event planning book, organized by season, and I really like it.  When I opened it up, I expected that she would be trying to be the British Martha Stewart, but, actually, her ideas are far less fussy.  There's nothing in there like a craft that will take me an entire weekend and make my fingertips sore, for example. :)  But everything is still classy, sweet, fun, and thoughtful.

This is my Janey Beth after a party at Mother's Day Out.  My happy girl. :)

Jane and her friend, Elizabeth, having a little play date at our house.  In their laps: Jane has Pink Rosie, and Elizabeth has Pink Rosie's friend, Banana Pink Rosie. :)

I ran across this handsome guy at a lovely garden store I just discovered.  I want him.  But I have no place to put him. I'm tempted to buy him and save him to put out in my cottage garden I dream of having one day.

That's it for today, friends!  More later.

This and That

• I was feeling pretty annoyed that this one woman I follow on Pinterest has posted about 100 pictures of stuffed bunnies over the last week, flooding my "home" page, until I took a step back and realized how funny and absurd that really is.
• Noah's gymnastics classes are going well.  He definitely gets a lot of energy out in 45 minutes!  Today, I was glad he got all his roaring out while he was there.  :)  He's learning to do a cartwheel, but so far, all he does is put his hands down on the ground and, instead of his feet going over his head, they spin around from one side to the other.  So funny!  I wonder if, in his head, he sees himself doing something different.
• Janey still loves ballet.  She asks me almost every day if today is Monday.  I have to say, she is one of the most coordinated in her class.
• Clara's giving kisses now.  Big, sloppy, wet baby kisses.  It's so sweet!  She grabs your face with both hands, pulls you in, and basically sucks on your chin or your cheek.  It only sounds gross if you're not her parent. :)
• We have a lot of Easter chocolate around here. A lot. 
• Noah: "Why is it called Sin City? Is there a lot of sin there?" "Um, well, yes." "Oh.  That's not good."
• For some reason, Jane pronounces the "ed" on the end of all past tense verbs.  Like "I brush-ed my hair," and "I fall-ed!"
• By the time 8:00 rolls around every night and the kids are on their way to bed, I am too brain dead to blog.  It is now 8:21.  Good night.

What's Been Keeping Me

So several things have kept me from the blog for three weeks.  Here's a short list:

• Pinterest.  I knew it'd be a black hole for my time and had stayed away for a year or two despite friends encouraging me to get with it already, but I finally caved and have spent quite a few hours pinning craft ideas, crochet patterns, dream house ideas, etc.
• Cleaning out the garage, which happened this weekend.  Our garage was a disaster.  Imagine a disaster of a garage and multiply by a disaster factor of about 7.  We had unopened boxes from our move a year and a half ago, scattered tools and gardening supplies, about 50 cans of paint, dirt and leaves, old leftover supplies from our renovations (think stacks of wood with nails sticking out of them and boxes of cracked tile), etc.  It was truly awful, not to mention hazardous.  My hero of a husband cleaned it out and organized it this weekend, though, and after many hours of work and a trip to the dump, it is much, much better.  Like a new place entirely.  And, bonus!  We found a bunch of stuff we forgot we  had!  And the boxes of toys we opened were completely new to Jane and, therefore, total novelties.
• Nathan's travel.  He was gone for work for about ten days, first in Calgary, then in Boston (sorry, Boston friends--he would have loved to have gotten together with you, but the trip was quite short and he didn't have any free time).  And for at least a couple of weeks before he left, he was working every day in the evenings in preparation for these trips, so he was a little MIA even when he wasn't out of town.  Also, when he's out of town, it becomes even more clear that three kids is A LOT of work, especially when you don't have that extra pair of helping hands at the end of the day.  So by the time everyone was in bed in the evenings, I was too mentally exhausted to blog.
• Nathan took our laptop on his trips, which meant that posting pictures involved extra trouble, and I wasn't up for it. [see point above]
• I've been crocheting Jane's flower blanket, but, as I think I've mentioned, I've been a little drained in the evenings, and I haven't gotten as far as I would have liked.
• Noah got really sick this weekend.  He had a stomach bug or food poisoning, and he couldn't even keep water down for about 24 hours, poor baby.  He is still recovering, and I don't think he's up for a full day of school tomorrow, so I'll probably keep him home for one more day, lucky dog.  He made it clear that this is okay with him as long as he does not miss his book party on Wednesday, okay???
• Jane was randomly sick last week.  She threw up twice with only slight other symptoms, but it was enough to keep us home for about three days and thwart all our other plans, just in case.
• We had our kitchen and the odds and ends in our living room painted, F.I.N.A.L.L.Y.  The bits of painting that remained had disturbed my peace for long enough.  But clearly, not enough to make me pull out a paint brush and sand paper (Nathan, either), so we finally decided to call in a professional. At this point, the only things left to do in our house are updating fixtures and curtains, painting a few rooms, and renovating the upstairs bathroom.  Oh, the upstairs bathroom.  {Sigh.}  That is a conversation for another day.
• I read The Great Gatsby for book club.  The discussion meeting is this week, and it is going to be super fun, because the husbands are invited, and the couple who is hosting is going to have a little Gatsby-esque cocktail party.  Okay, so it won't be all that Gatsby-esque, as it will be a much quieter affair, I'm sure, but they will be serving cocktails. :)  And I think it'll be fun to see what a book discussion is like with the guys.  They'll mix things up, I'm sure.
• Jane turned three!  Pictures to come.  And Clara turned 6 months!  I'll post about that, too.

Later, peeps.  It's bed time.

Nathan's Party Trick

IMG 1657 from Lauren Benesh on Vimeo.

A Few Random Things

A few random pictures to tide us over until I get to the rest of them:

Swinging is the best!

This is the swing in our backyard that Nathan built.  It goes reeeeally high.  Our kids are now swing snobs: if it doesn't go ridiculously high, it's a sub-par swing.

Jane's Self-Portrait 1

Self-portrait 2

Matching daddy and son.

By the way, this reminds me of something funny.  Nathan has recently decided that if he's going to work and he has not shaved, the best thing to do is to just wear a sweater over a dress shirt.  His theory is that if you look preppy enough, it counteracts the scruffiness of an unshaven face.  Ha!

Christmas!

Sabbath

Nathan and I are working towards making our Sundays a true day of rest every week.  Usually, we don't get all our little household jobs done on Saturday, which means we are still catching up on Sunday, working around church to achieve this or that.  Well, I am tired; not the sleep-deprived kind of tired (okay, I am that, too), but the there-is-a-task-I-should-be-doing-every-hour-of-every-day kind of tired.  Just the run-down kind of tired.  And because we are pretty sure that never to take a real rest is not the example God gave us on the seventh day of Creation nor that Jesus gave us in his life on earth, we are trying to alter the way our weekends work so that Sunday is truly a Sabbath.  The thought of a true day of rest sounds heavenly. (Hey, maybe there's something to that!)

All that to say that this ole blog might get updated at least once a week now....

Overheard at Our House This Morning

Jane: Call me princess.
Nathan: Okay.  Do you have a prince yet?
Jane: Noah.
Noah (from the other room): I'm not going to dance!
Jane: So you're not going to the ball with me?
Noah: I just don't like to dance.

Lately

Sisters!

Somebody had a lot of fun painting . . . herself.

I had to just throw her in the bath after this.  There was no other option!

Noah had a little more self-control when it came to the paints.

Grandma with Noah and Jane.

Jane refused to smile.  But sometimes when you are two, you gotta act two.  No girl can be ridiculously cute and sweet all the time.

By the way, I don't think I've introduced the world to Jane's baby doll, Pink Rosie.  As you can see, she is well loved.  She is in dire need of a bath.

Daddy Dogpile

On the first cool day of fall this weekend, we dug out some warm clothes for the kids, and they ended up looking so cute!  Special thanks to Emily, who made that sweater for Jane.

And since we discovered that what you see here encompasses their entire cool weather wardrobe, we followed this with a shopping trip!  Everyone now has close toed shoes and jeans that fit.

Two and a Half

Today, sweet Jane is exactly two and a half years old.  For Noah's half birthday this summer, I made him a cake, so I did the same for Jane today.  I made a chocolate cherry sheet cake.  With chocolate sauce on top.  And do you know what her reaction was?

She cried.

Out of disappointment.

This is what she said, while one great big tear rolled down her cheek: "Mommy, I wanted pink icing!  You didn't give me pink icing!"  "Well, Baby, I don't have any pink icing.  But I made you a cake with chocolate sauce on top!"  "Noooo, Mommy, I-wanted-pink-icing-like-you-made-for-Papa-all-I-want-is-straaaaaawberries!"  (I made my grandfather a strawberry cake for his birthday a month ago.)

And then she ate every last crumb.