15 Minutes

Alternate title:

Why Mommy Drinks a Fifth of Vodka Every Night

*I feel the need to add a disclaimer here, there is no vodka in my house. It's just a funny way to introduce the following story.  The absence of vodka in my house has nothing to do with me drinking it all last night and not yet making it to the store today. Really.

On to the story.


The other day, in a very short time span, our home was filled with so much mayhem activity all I could do was laugh once the kids were tucked in for the night.  The alternative, cry hysterically, is not an option for mommies, well this one anyways.  Here is a slice of life, just a quick 15 minutes, could be taken from any part of the day, as long as that day includes a two year old.

To keep things neat and tidy, we will set the time for Monday, 7:30 pm - 7:45 pm

7:30 pm

We had just walked through the door and the kids were starving.  They probably were starving, I hadn't fed them since Saturday.  Or wait, maybe it had just been approximately 90 minutes earlier that each one had a snack and drink.  Anyways, they were starving, so they told me.

Nights like this were made for leftovers. I heated up lasagna casserole and dished out plates. Now where were the starving children?

Quickly Sweetness and K-monster came to sit and eat. I got them situated and went to check on CJ.  She had jumped into the shower. I turned around and here comes K-monster holding out his hands yelling, "MATCH! MATCH!!" He handed me my ID and drivers license.  Yes, that is a match, however, that means he has emptied my wallet, again. It has been at most 30 seconds since I left the kitchen.

I ushered K-monster back to the table and sat him down. Stuck everything back into my wallet and grabbed a scoop of food for Panther. I came in from feeding the dog, CJ is out of the shower and K-monster has gotten the jar of Vaseline off the counter and dug right in.

I took away the jar, cleaned up his hands before he could touch anything and set him back in his chair to eat.

He was so hungry, only fingers would do to get the food to his mouth fast enough.

I poured everyone a glass of milk. Handed CJ her plate. K-monster, with very messy fingers climbed off his chair - touching every possible surface within his reach.  He starts to manically run from cupboard door to cupboard door pushing off one to run to another.

I grabbed him, quickly washed his hands and tried to get him to drink his milk. I wiped down the chair and other things he touched to see him out of the corner of my eye, climb on top of the oatmeal canister, laying on his belly, and push off the wall with his feet and roll forward.

That's it, time for shower.

7:45 pm 

Are you tired? I could add that he has taken to getting up at 4:45 AM. Or our other adventures through out the day.  However, what I will add is, I love this guy and ALL his antics.

But once he is in bed -- I'll take a stiff drink if you got one.

The Whopper

No we do not have a nice veggie garden this year.

I am not a master gardener.

I am not even a committed gardener.

In the desert, one must be a hard core gardener, and have a reliable and good irrigation system.

We did, in honor of Earth Day, plant some hardy full sun variety of flowers though!

Petunias, marigolds, geraniums and a couple of other varieties that I don't know the name of.

As I mentioned, I am not well versed in gardening.  Although, I do like to eat produce from a garden.

And the winner in this game of two realsies and a whopper is:  Kelley F.  Please email me your address so I can get your prize mailed off to you.

Birds

We had another momma bird trying to make a nest above our front door.  She gave up rebuilding it and decided the one used and now abandoned by our first set of doves would work for her.

She is much more skittish than our other one.  I have only seen one egg.  But once again we get to watch life emerge at our front door!  During Easter, this seems very relevant.

Summer time!

Summer is not officially here, however, we are consistently in the 90s, which means it's time to cool off!  Since all the kids are bigger this summer, gas is so high, and our hot season is so long, we decided to get a big little pool for our backyard.

That sounds odd doesn't it? See it is 10 feet wide at its largest but only 24 inches deep.  Therefore not only can K-monster stand, it only comes up to his waist.  However, there is enough room for all three of them to flop around!

 Blowing bubbles!

Looks like a lot of fun, however, the sun needs to do its job and warm the thing up before Mommy will spend much time IN it.  Right now, I get to watch them.  My hope is that all this swimming will make for tired little ones, who go to bed and sleep past 4:45AM.  Okay, truthfully I hope they sleep past 6:45 AM, but someone has taken a liking to 4:45 AM and it is NOT Mommy.

 These two get cold easily, and seem to have Daddy's fair Irish skin

She never gets cold, never stops moving, here she was jumping up and down making big waves, and odd faces.

While I watch the kids swim, I notice neighborhood sounds.  The silence of our air conditioner stands out when the neighbor's kicks on, and it makes me happy, that ours is still quiet!  Maybe the pool will keep us cool enough to keep ours off even longer!

2 Realsies and a whopper

Let's play a game.

Oh come on, I know it's Monday, but isn't playing a game at the beginning of the week better than poking yourself with a stick?

This comes from a children's radio station.  Callers, children, call in and tell the host 2 things that are real and 1 thing that is made up, in any order, and the host must guess which one is the whopper.

The girls have started to try and play this with us. Let's just say, this is not a game that is fun to play with those who know you well.  It's more of a get to know you game.

I will say, the host does a great job of being enthusiastic and "remembering" kids when they call in and tell them they sound older and all that.  At times, it's all a bit too sweet for me, however, it is nice to have a radio station that engages the kids and I don't have to worry about some trashy news story coming on and having to explain whatever was mentioned.

So, to the game.

I am going to list three things.  Two are real and one is not.  You choose which one you think is the whopper.  I will even have a prize, I'll choose from the correct answers a winner.  I promise it won't be a stick you can poke yourself with.


1.  We have a new bird nesting in our flower pot.

2. We have planted a wonderful vegetable garden.

3. We have kicked summer into gear with a big, little pool in the backyard.


All answers must be submitted by 9AM on Tuesday, by leaving a comment.  At 10AM one of the realsies will by revealed.

Alleluia

He is Risen!

Happy Easter!

 From Sunny AZ

 

With love, candy,

 And Cookies!

Grandma Linda

We were blessed with a visit from Grandma Linda.

several games of wiggle worms were played

She was able to attend CJ's piano recital, watch the girls at gymnastics, and see the Easter program.
To top off her visit, the county fair was going on and we spent a day there as well!

 We saw a shark show

 Big equipment!

A Llama

 A Sea Lion show

 Of course we did a few rides.

A monkey show!

In the 4-H section, the girls did "chores"

However, there was a  train table, and he became unaware of all other things around him.

It was a busy visit, but we appreciated her coming.  I volunteered one day in CJ's classroom while she stayed with the other two, that was nice to do as well.  We sent her home to a fresh batch of snow, we did offer to let her change her tickets and to stay in warmth and sunshine a couple of extra days, but she had work and obligations to get home to, even with the snow.

Hope

This is Holy Week.

A busy week.

We are trying to ensure that the kids understand what Easter is all about.  We have books about Easter.  The girls just recently studied the Passover at first communion class.

The message of Easter is Hope.

In Sunday School the kids learned songs, memorized Bible verses, and shared the meaning of the symbols of Easter.

 CJ spoke about the Easter Lilly

 Sweetness actually sang and said her parts!

 K-monster, as Eric likes to refer to him, spent most of the time stuffing his face from the fellowship treat table.

That is until the last song, that had actions.  He quickly ran on stage and did the actions with everyone!

We also have a simple 12 days of Easter project we are working on, although this year we have done the condensed version.

And of course, we have dyed eggs!

It was really nice to have Grandma Linda help with the egg dying. It doesn't take long for this to be a huge mess with little fingers sharing cups of colors and stickers!

And she's off. . .

It appears that the little birds aren't the only growing and flying the coop.  Okay okay...no despite their best efforts we're not allowing the kids to get their own place, yet.  However, Sweetness has mastered (I use that term loosely here) riding with out training wheels.  She's not only off, but she is one who would use her bike as a get away vehicle.

I know many of you just got a fresh batch of snow, this video is not to make you envious of our sunny wonderful weather, but you may enjoy it if you like!

It looks like she has grown too tall as her seat is already as high as it will go. A year ago when she got it, it was too big, a testament to how much she has grown in the past year.

Her training wheels actually fell off nearly 6 months ago. Unlike her big sister, she did not feel the need to learn to ride her bike the very same day. She took her time, she did it on her own terms, she did it -Sweetness style.  A couple of weeks ago, her gymnastics coach got a taste of Sweetness' will power, I think they have it worked out now, but her coach was surprised at her refusal to do backward rolls.

Empty Nest

The eggs have hatched!

Momma kept them protected and hidden away so we didn't even see them until they were big!  Well based on the size of the eggs, these pictures show that they have their feathers and are not just a couple of days old.

Then Momma would actually leave the nest.  Over the weekend, the babies have flown away as well.  It was fun to have our visitors and to see Momma have a successful year.  Spring has sprung, the babies have left the nest!

Piano Recital

Little Miss CJ had her first piano recital.  And she rocked it!

On the other hand, while mom remembered to video tape her playing, she did so sideways.  Enjoy!

Runaway River by John Thompson

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Pancakes

The kids love pancakes.  When we are short on milk, I actually make them for breakfast.  We have breakfast for supper every couple of weeks as well.  Sometimes I use pear or apple sauce instead of the oil and honey. Often I add cinnamon to the mix.

From the Tasty Kitchen on The Pioneer Woman blog.

First you make the main batter in bulk.  Then when you make the pancakes, you just use a portion of the basic mix.

Pancake Mix:
8 cups Whole Wheat Flour
3 Cups Quick Cooking Oats
2 Cups Instant Nonfat Dry milk
3 Tablespoons Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon of Salt
2 teaspoons Sugar

To make pancakes:
1 whole egg
1-1/4 cup milk
1 Tablespoon Oil
1 Tablespoon Honey
1-1/2 cup Pancake mix

Preparation:

Mix ingredients thoroughly. Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place. Makes 12 cups.

To make pancakes, combine everything but pancake mix; mix well. Add mix and stir until batter is blended, but slightly lumpy. Fry as usual. Makes about 12 pancakes.

A bright idea!

You  may recall that in February we had a fun visitor named Chris. The kids were enthralled with some of his gadgets, and he was very patient with the kids looking and playing with them. Chris had the bright idea recently while placing an order for himself to get one for each of the kids.

Yes he got each of the kids their very own head lamp.

They are BRIGHT!

They have a flashing mode

The kids LOVE them!

Thanks Chris.  It looks like night hiking is in our future!

a song

Look at my big helper scrubbing down the stove top.

It turns out she has a song that she hums/sings while she works

She continued singing it when she moved on to the dishwasher

 From the first frame, it was stuck in my head as well.  Any guesses?

Suddenly her big sister showed up and was disappointed that most was already done, however I think she enjoyed making the fridge shine so she could see herself.

Well I'll tell you the song, but first I warn you, if you don't want it stuck in your head, STOP READING NOW!!

All while she cleaned, Sweetness sang over and over the John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt song.  I warned you...now you're singing it aren't you?  Maybe you can find something to scrub down and work it out of your head.