Panic

The other night my husband was playing a bunch of make me cry country songs. Ones about little girls growing up and how "You're gonna miss this" and memories and all. And I sobbed my way up the stairs to cuddle my little one to bed and my heart hit panic mode. Full blown panic. Because no matter how hard I search, I cannot find the pause button. In fact, somehow I must keep hitting fast forward. I don't think it's a case of over scheduling ourselves and having no time, we only have one child in school and currently only one activity (Ezra's basketball). It's simply the speed of life. And it's frightening. Today they spend the majority of their time on the couch, in the kitchen, riding bikes...with me. Tomorrow they'll be gone. Boo hoo! I know God created the seasons of life. And with His help I will learn to accept it. But for a while, I'll probably fight it with tears and panic.

One cure for that kind of panic is chocolate. The other is spending time with my kids. Monday I mixed the two.

Lately I've been loving almonds and dark chocolate. I found this old recipe from Better Homes and Gardens in my files and it looked easy. It was.
The simple version is that you roast and coarsely chop 1 cup of almonds. Add 1/2 cup of chopped dried cherries. Set aside while you melt 3 ounces of chopped dark chocolate over low heat in a double boiler (or a large mixing bowl set on a small saucepan of water if you don't have a double boiler). Remove from the heat, and add three more ounces of chopped chocolate. Mix until all chocolate is melted and smooth. I might tell you that I didn't have enough really good dark chocolate in the house, so I mixed semi-sweet and unsweetened baker's chocolate. 2 parts semi to 1 part unsweet. Take bowl off top of double boiler, add nuts and cherries, mix together. Plop spoonfuls of the mixture on wax paper. Put them in the fridge for 20 minutes to set up. Store at room temp. You can get the longer directions at BHG.com.

I placed mine into Valentine cupcake liners to make them cute and also so that you have something to hold them in since the chocolate melts all over your fingers easily.
Then the girls and I worked on some cookie dough together. Look at those orange noses--perhaps I've been putting a little too much carrot juice in the smoothies???


Mmmmm...maybe pink cream cheese frosting will take away some of the orange. For the afternoon I managed to find the pause button.

Miss Nora Liv

We have a new two year old in the house. As I was putting her to bed tonight I couldn't help but think back to that first night after she was born. Tadd had gone home to sleep in a bed. Ezra and Caroline were staying with their Grandparents. It was just me and my itsy bitsy little Valentine with the red bow in her hair. Tonight when I put her to bed there was no red bow in her hair. She was not (quite so) itsy bitsy. But it was just the two of us snuggling for a few minutes. She is so grown up these days. She's still tiny as can be--but she makes up for it in talk. I can't imagine life without her.
She loves shoes, as you can see. Yesterday she came out of my room wearing a pair of 4 inch Jessica Simpson heels. And she was walking in them! She also loves to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and knows all the words to the first verse and chorus. It makes my heart squeeze every time I hear it--and I can't imagine how much He must love it.
Nora has a few favorite things, among them: turtles, polka dots and the color orange. Her birthday was filled with each of those things. She has been enamored with turtles ever since we visited Uncle Nathan and Aunt Megan and saw their turtle. She requested a turtle cake with orange polka dots. I was pretty intimidated by the request, but I must say that I was very happy with the cake results. And when I showed it to her she said "OH, thank you, thank you!" Which, of course, made all effort worth it and then some.

Last Saturday night, Grandpa and Grandma Tractor, Great Grandma Kilcup and Uncle Brett came over for dinner to help us celebrate. Nora was blessed with lots of fun presents. She got a super cool turtle night light from Grandpa and Grandma and an outfit that was orange with polka dots. What more could she want? Well....besides a real live turtle. Which--she got! I'll devote a whole post to our dear turtle Mr. Tommy. Ezra and Caroline each spent some of their own money at the dollar section at Target to get her a cute little mask and some bracelets. They do adore their baby sister.




She loved having us all sing to her and talked about that and "blowing out the cake" a lot the next day or two.

Today on her actual birthday she attended the Valentine's party in Ezra's classroom and felt like that was another birthday party just for her. She will never lack for parties on her birthday! Happy Birthday, precious girl, Mommy sure does love you!

When Blogs Collide

Last Friday we packed up and went down town to the Seattle Aquarium to meet the girls (and technically, maybe the boy) of the diaries of the happy sanitarium.

We were there to see the fishies and the baby sea otter. She's the tiny ball of fluff up on the wall...she kind of looks like a fuzzy rock. That's partially just how she looks and largely because of my photography "skills". Our kids were all quiet, well behaved and ready to learn the finer points of marine biology.



There was never any running around...



...no climbing on any exhibits...


...no silliness...
...no splashing...
and certainly no burping contest between those two who are only two weeks different in age.
Naomi and I walked peacefully behind our perfect children with smug smiles on our faces, never losing any of the children (haha). And when we found this real live human trimming coral, none of the kids pretended to pinch him through the glass.
What? You don't believe me. Well, we did have a lot of fun : ) And that's the actual honest truth.
Thanks for a fun Friday, girls!



After we left Naomi an her girls, we headed up into Pike Place Market. The Market has its lure to tourists and local. And it can be fun to take company to see it. But, may I just say, I'm not too attracted to it. There, a local gal and here I am admitting that I don't like Pike Place Market. I never buy any food there because I know I can get it cheaper elsewhere. And I always feel like I need to take a bath in vinegar when I leave because I feel so germy. There are lots of weirdos who talk to my kids. And keeping track of three kids all alone in that mess is scary to me. Thankfully the kids are all pretty nervous around the crowds and so they stay close to me. We did have a lot of fun buying treats from the Pike Place Bakery (the hardest part was choosing which one we each wanted) and then eating them while watching the Flying Fish. Ezra and Caroline wanted me to take their picture on The Pig before we left. Then we hiked up the hill 7 blocks to Daddy's office. We bugged him for a while until he decided to pack up shop and come home a few minutes early with us instead of riding the bus home. The best part is when Ezra told Tadd's boss "You won't see my Dad anymore today because he's coming home with us now!" I guess we always are telling our kids not to be sneaky!
And when we came home, Tadd went up in the attic and found that--a gigantic wasp nest. Thankfully it's dormant and he was able to remove it without any stings. Now to make sure the attic is totally sealed off so that they won't be able to get back in--because we know they will try hard!

Unexpected Weight Loss "Program"

Last Friday night I stayed up late laboring over cinnamon roll dough. Ezra had a basketball game at 9 AM, which meant we all had to be out of the house by 8:30 on a Saturday morning. I thought having something ready to pop in the oven would expedite that. So....I mixed, kneaded and left in a warm spot to rise. 20 minutes later I remembered that I had forgotten to add the butter to the dough. Oops. I took it out, added the butter, mixed and kneaded again and put it back in the warm oven to rise--if it dared. This would have been a great place to lose weight, eh? Just leave out the butter. But I was worried they wouldn't taste good. As I went to make the filling I found that I was out of brown sugar. Go to the store at 10:15? Nope, not me. I subbed in white sugar, rolled up and cut my rolls and headed off for some shut eye. We ate the rolls Saturday morning, all was great. There were a dozen left over. They sat on the stove waiting to be enjoyed another day. Fast forward to Monday night. I was planning to dive into the cinnamony goodness the very next morning. While the oven was on broil cooking our salmon, I turned on a stove burner to steam some broccoli. While waiting for the water to boil, I crossed the kitchen (thank the Lord!) to work on something else. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, a scream (me) and the sound of shattering glass. I had accidentally turned on the burner where the leftover cinnamon rolls were resting in their glass 10x14 pan. And they exploded. Glass. All. Over. Kitchen.
Now, there are many silver linings here. Usually my little Nora is whiny at this time of night and is in my arms or standing and staring into the oven. This night she was in the other room playing with her Daddy. Often my big kids are in the kitchen getting the plates to set the table. Thankfully they had finished and were sitting across the room coloring. And I am often staring into space right over the stove. But I wasn't. Any one of us could have had burning hot glass exploded into our eyes/head/body/faces...but we didn't. Praise the Lord!
And even though my husband tried valiantly to convince me that we could save one or two of the cinnamon rolls...they all went in the trash. He also cleaned up the pile of big glass pieces sitting on the stove. When I see a huge mess staring at me, I have trouble finding a starting point. If someone else can identify the starting point and get the ball rolling, I can cease crying and start working. Thanks for being good at identifying the starting point for me, Dear! Made it easier for me to take apart the stove and clean out all the tiny pieces.
All in all, I think I'd rather have eaten the treat and gained the weight!

Assistant Coach Daddy has fun with his boy!

Ezra is number three. And Coach Romar, I know your contract expires in 2020, but you can let your successor know that Ezra has given a verbal to the UW. He's just waiting for the paper work to be sent over for his signature. Maybe by the time it gets here he'll know how to spell his last name. Go Dawgs! Oh, and Go Fire! That's who he plays for now : )

Let's Do Lunch!

Ever stare empty eyed and empty minded into the fridge, the back of your mind panicking because you need to make something, anything for lunch--and you can't think of one single solitary thing that sounds good? Yeah, me too. Maybe if I share some of my lunch ideas with you, then you can share some of yours with me and we'll all come away richer!
I don't have pictures for our entire lunch menu, but I do have a few.

Here goes:
1. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (duh).
Home made bread makes a big difference with sandwiches for me.
2. Meat and cheese sandwich. This is Ezra's fave and he'd eat it everyday. I use whole wheat bread, Kirkland brand deli thin sliced ham and Havarti cheese. My favorite combo is Kirkland brand turkey, cheddar, ice burg lettuce and mayo. Serve with a dill pick or cucumber slices on the side and also some sort of easy fruit--apple, orange, grapes, etc.
3. Tuna fish. Chicken of the sea. Wait, I don't get it, is it chicken or fish? Hehe. Name that blonde. My kids like tuna without the sandwich. I simply open two cans of tuna, drain, add mayo and pickle and stick it in a bowl for them. Easy as pie. I usually serve wheat thins and cheese and bell pepper slices to fill in the empty spots.
Yesterday when I mixed up our tuna, we were out of pickles. So I changed things up a bit. I added mayo to the tuna, placed it on a bed of ice burg lettuce, grated some cheddar over the top and glopped on some pineapple salsa. Delish!
4. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. I use my favorite Trader Joe's tomato soup. If it's just the kids and I, I only use cheddar cheese. If Daddy is home, or we have friends over, I try to spice it up and add some Gouda, Munster or pepper jack. This particular day I added carrot juice to the tomato soup to infuse some health value. I thought I'd get away with it since I didn't add that much. Plus, it's orange. For the first few bites I was in the clear. Then Caroline mentioned that it tasted different. I stalled for the next few bites. Ezra chimed in that it wasn't the same. Finally I admitted what I had done. They were fine with it for a while. But then the carrot juice started to get a bit overpowering. The "earthiness" sort of sneaks up on you. I guess I won't try that again because usually they love tomato soup. I also got distracted by the lateness of the hour and trying to get Ezra to school on time and burned the sandwiches. Win some, lose some.
*You can put tomato soup in a sippie cup for your messy toddler. Caroline used to love drinking it up--made lunch more of an adventure for her and clean up less of an adventure for me!
You can add carrot juice to other things with better success--like smoothies. Carrots have a lot of natural sugar and lend a real sweetness to an otherwise tart smoothie. I like the taste best in a smoothie when mixed with orange juice. The citrus overpowers the earthiness of the carrots. And when I feed my family a smoothie filled with spinach, carrot juice and flax seed I can feel like a super mom for a minute or two.

5. Not so healthy--but a BIG hit with the kids--corn dogs. If you want to enjoy the meal as an adult, you can add some Trader Joe's sweet potato fries. I like TJ's better than Costco's. I could eat the whole bag. That happens to be 5 servings. Don't ask how I know. They are that yummy. Usually we have bell pepper slices with our corn dogs.



6. Mac and cheese. Old stand-by. Kids love you for it. Any fruit or veggie as a side goes with this. Or apple sauce. Endorsed by Mr. Potato Head.


7. Bagels and cream cheese. Often we add lunch meat. The kids don't enjoy adding spinach, but I do! I buy the honey whole wheat bagels at Costco and store them in the freezer. They mold very fast. They defrost easily, though. They are not my favorite bagel, but they are the cheapest and easiest to freeze and defrost. The very best way to consume said bagels is to spread on the cream cheese, add some fresh turkey (the kind you stick in a freezer bag for later on Thanksgiving day), a thick layer of spinach and a thin layer of cranberry sauce. Home made or the jarred version that Trader Joe's sells year round. Yum!

8. Quesidillas. We usually have left over black beans in the fridge, so I generally throw some in for added protein and fiber. Serve with sour cream and pineapple salsa for dipping. These go great with a fruit smoothie or a carton of yogurt.
(You can see that Ezra's top tooth is finally growing a mate. And he lost his fifth tooth last week--down on the bottom. I paid him a dollar to pull it last Tuesday night because it was sticking straight out and disgusting me. I wanted to pin him down and twist it out even though he was screaming. And that's pretty much not allowed. So, instead I bribed him to do it himself.)
9. Dipping Day. When you don't feel like making anything, don't. Just slice up a variety of veggies: carrots, celery, cucumbers, baby tomatoes, bell pepper slices, snap peas, etc. Place them with a container of dip, such as Uncle Dan's on the table. Add some apple and pear slices and a jar of peanut butter. Put out some cheese and crackers if you're worried bellies won't fill up enough on fruit and veggies with dip. Try not to gag when your kids dip their peppers in peanut butter and their pears in Uncle Dan's. It was all going to mix together in their bellies eventually. Aunt Megan taught us another version of this that she calls "slices". She slices up apples and pears, smears peanut butter on the sides of them and then adds various toppings--nuts, dark chocolate chips, etc. It was rather nummers.

And no matter what you eat--don't let your siblings dress you--or you'll look like that!
I am fresh out of lunch ideas. Please, share some of yours with me!