Sunday, October 9, 2011

Kristinie the Great is 3!

I will start with this photo because my editing program is not cooperating with me!! Grrrrrrr.... We started our week out rearranging bedrooms. Before God blessed us with our house, I had prayed for the childrens' bedrooms to be near ours so I didn't need to use monitors. Well, not that we would have used them anyway if their rooms WERE on the other side of the house. (I know, you are probably thinking I am a horrible parent - but the last thing our children needed was their parents jumping up at every little squawk to check on them!!) Their bedrooms are just down and around the hall we are on. (We only have one hall, actually.) We let Maddie have her room in the F.R.O.G. for about a year and that was enough for us to realize she was becoming extremely selfish and reclusive. So Mr. Handsome said that if I moved everything I could, she could move downstairs. He would move the large things. As it turned out, all he needed to do was move her bed downstairs. After all the furniture moving I did, I was too tired to take her bed apart and bring it downstairs. We did it all in one day, collecting about eight bags of trash and 10 bags to Goodwill. I even found baby blankets from when our Robert was a baby!!! WOW!!! So Maddie and Beaker share a room, Lindsay and Beatrice share a room, and Robert has the little green room. Everyone is happy. THEN - Scary incident No. 1 happened at bedtime: BUGS!! EVERYWHERE!! All over Robert's wall. They were black and had BIG wings. We used some bug spray we had and they all died. It was pretty scary. Tuesday morning I called Exterminator Guy and prayed. And I forgot that Heating and Air Guy came to put our new A/C unit in. Exterminator Guy came and answered prayer: the BUGS were no termites but Argentinian ants. Illegal aliens in my own home!!  
 The two rather dark pictures are Robert in his new room. He is completely turned around on his bed!! Too funny!! Back to my story: Heating and Air Guy spent Tuesday here with his buddy. Heating and Air Guy likes to talk - a lot. I need to get my brother to get a shirt that says, "Yes, they are ALL mine and NO I don't have time to chat about it!!" Would that be considered rude? I don't know. But anyway, I was getting a little concerned that he would be here until May if he kept talking. In cases like this, I always try to put a pot of water on the stove so I can politely dismiss myself by saying, "I think my water is boiling." Of course, one would get rather suspicious if I did this four to 10 times a day!!
 Beatrice reached a great milestone!! She wrote her name all by herself. I don't know if she can spell it but she can spell B-E-A. I have a funny story to tell but that will have to wait for Wednesday because it happened on Wednesday. She is very excited about this and proceded to write her name on every blank line in her Sparks book - which is where her teachers are supposed to write THEIR names. One of her favorite teachers was in Florida this week and she really missed her. Good thing her other favorite teacher wasn't. Bea would have driven me bonkers!!!
 On Tuesday afternoon we took a field trip to see my Dad and Mom's new puppy. We got to see her before Dad and Mom because she was still with HER mom at my friend's house. The puppy's official name is: Dagmar Gretchen Clover Boo Spotsy Lucy Sara Dogwood Pat-Pat Jones!! I don't know if that will even fit on her papers!! She is going to be called Dagmar except Beaker who yells, "AND PAT-PAT!" whenever we talk about Dagmar!! She is a cutie but I can say unequivocally, I am glad we do not have a dog. I wasn't really thinking about the ramifications of going to see Dagmar until after Mr. Handsome and Robert got home from visitation and I could hear Robert coughing from OUTSIDE - in the driveway!! It was his croupy-this-could-be-big-problems cough. I hadn't heard him that bad since he was about 3 or 4 years old so I knew something was wrong. And I knew it was serious because the cool night air didn't help him feel better. I gave him some tylenol and zyrtec, asked a friend to pray for him, and within minutes after he went to sleep, he had stopped coughing. Not out of the woods yet, I pumped him with tylenol and zyrtec in the morning and we prayed about it. Thank the Lord, his symptoms improved during the day. It was sometime Wednesday afternoon I realized he was reacting to being around dogs. He was around Dagmar and her brothers and sisters and another dog Tuesday evening that shed REALLY bad!! I was sure relieved to figure out the source of the cough and very thankful he is fine now.
 Here is Beaker holding one of Dagmar's brothers.
 This is Dagmar.
 And here she is again.

 The puppy Beatrice is holidng was her best bud!! That puppy just loved Beatrice. When we were getting ready to leave, Beatrice tried to sneak out of the house with it. It was so content with her!!

On Wednesday, we went to the nursing home. The residents love to see us and for some reason get some sort of delight seeing my children act, well, like children. Beatrice and Kristinie the Great were going to sing a call and response song and I thought I was very clear on who was first and who was second. Apparently not. I was playing the piano while they sang and they started YELLING - yes, my little darlings were YELLING and SHOVING each other because they both wanted to be first to sing!!! It was a bit embarassing but the residents got a HUGE kick out of it!! I was mortified and decided that we would probably not sing call and response songs again. Afterward we met my mom for lunch at Atlanta Bread Company. Here's the funny story I was going to tell. Beatrice was writing her name and turned to Dorothy and yelled: (Because it's a bit loud in ABC and Dorothy can't hear that well) Grandma, Guess what? I can write my name!!! Dorothy asks, as any normal adult would ask, "Great!! How do you write your name?" And Beatrice looked at her kind of funny and held up her pencil and said, "WITH A PENCIL!!!" We were cracking up. When we got home, Heating and Air Guy was still working on that A/C. He is a hard worker. He didn't talk so much to me today.

On Thursday, I spent the morning making chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for Beaker's birtrhday. Dorothy and Oz were coming over on Friday so we could give her her birthday present - Bitty Baby Twins!! I made two batches of chocolate chip cookie bars and one batch of chooclate chip cookie dough cupcakes. They have to be my favorite cupcakes so far!!
 Here is Beaker licking the batter off the beater.
 I was waiting for the cookies to cool and decided to take a photo of my pantry. The top shelf is usually a little neater but we have dribs and drabs of chips left that everyone got bored of and they wont' finish them. I took a picture of it because I wanted to have documented proof that we do our best not to eat anything that is processed. I've come a long way from Twinkies being my favorite food group!! Our chips are all organic, blah blah blahs. Except for those Tostitos - they are not from me. They were given to me. And there are moon pies that were given to me!! We are not above eating junk food now! But on principle, I will buy one bag of chips to last two weeks (At Costco, they are easy to find) and some sort of snacky thing like all-natural fruit snacks(I'm not sure what that means but the box assures me there are no artificial preservatives and food colors and addtitives - which brings me to another thought - if a fruit snack is not grown and it is made, doesn't that make it UNnatural - just sayin'?) which last about two months. And the rest of our food is fresh, or frozen, rarely canned and rarely anything that is a "hollandaise medley" of sorts. I am proud to say that our children will eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, shrimp, tilapia, crab, lobster, salmon, spinach(as long as it is fresh sauted), all kinds of meats and fruits, too!! Maddie is the pickiest eater out of all of them but she still does great. Everyone eats what's put in front of them. They know the consequences of turning their noses up at something I've made (and I have made some bad meals that we've all suffered through together - I"m thinking Gorgonzola meatloaf which was gorgonzola overload!!) Maddie quickly reminds them of how she had to eat her dinner for breakfast and when she refused it, had to eat it for lunch. It cured her and has cured everyone else.
 We do eat cereal - well THEY eat cereal; I ususally have toast with homemade plum or strawberry jam.

 I know, my pantry is not very impressive - in fact quite boring!! I am sure people wonder how we even eat without cans of cream of mushroom soup, ritz crackers, and boxed cake mix (we survive!). But it's a great feeling to know that I am doing what I can to feed my family the very best I can. Plus what a great accomplishment to make a meal from scratch!! I am still learning so much about cooking and hope I will get better but it is great to be able to make something - in most cases cheaper - and know that it was made from nonprocessed foods!! We do love our processed foods though. Allowance time brings home the worst kind of junk you can imagine. But since their main meals are healthy and good for them, it's not a big deal when they want fun stuff to eat.
 Heating and Air Guy was finally finished on Thursday. He said he would be back Monday because something isn't working right. Here is Lindsay playing with pieces of pvc he gave the kids. They also got some wire from him. Both of the things entertained them for hours!!
 Here are the wonderful looking cupcakes. I should have cut one in half so you could see what they looked like. Chocolate chip cookie on bottom, cupcake on top. The best of both worlds!! And both from scratch - not a box!
 These are sliced baked potatoes from pinterest.com. If you have never been there, you must try it. I no longer have to print things out!! It's a virtual bulletin board.
 Friday has finally arrived!! And here is Birthday Girl with her Bitty Baby Twins. Their names are Robert and Lindsay!!
 And here is Birthday Girl with her twins in their carrier. She gets up first in the morning and opens all the doors to every bedroom and you can hear her dragging her carrier behind her!!! Too funny!!
 Here is Birthday Girl with her cupcake and her Hello Kitty candle (doesn't that candle look familiar?!!)
 Making every effort she could to blow it out. Mommy had to help a little. Beaker needed an old windbag to blow that thing out!! HA HA!
 We went outside after dinner Friday to play with the children while Mr. Handsome and Oz hid our wires from our entertainment center. They had to drill holes into it and pull the wires through. It looks fabulous now!! OH - and the Great and Powerful Oz being the Great and Powerful Guy he is hit our mailbox when they arrived!! In his big black Honda pickup truck!! Yep, yep, yep, he did!! It's nice to know not much has changed!!
 My third finished chore card organizer. This is for a lady who won it at our homeschool support night meeting. I donated it. I think I've arrived!! Someone asked me if I had an etsy shop!
And I end with Beatrice working on her AWANA verses with one of her favorite teachers - the one who was in Florida last week!! Our arrival home tonight brough the realization that our Lindsay has a phobia of crawly things. We pulled in the driveway to find a baby copperhead. Our friend, bobtail cat, is not around anymore so I guess the snakes are coming out to visit. Mr. Handsome got a broom and a shovel and killed it. As we were recovering from that, I heard a blood curdling scream behind me (Mr. Handsome had us all wait in the van while he took care of said snake.) and Lindsay screaming, "SPIDER! SPIDER!" And yes indeed, in our van, there was a spider. So I grabbed Mr. Handsome's nose spray he had just bought from the pharmacy and beat the spider to a pulp - I hope. And that is how we ended our Sunday evening!

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