Smoothie!

We've been experimenting with whole food smoothies the last month or so. This yummy concoction had: 1/2 banana, 1/2 pear (with peelings), 1/2 apple (with peelings), a handful of spinach, a handful of baby carrots, 1/2 a roma tomato, 1 cup chopped pineapple, 1 cup green grapes, and 1.5 cups of frozen blueberries. Add just enough water to get the blender going, and blend on the highest setting for several minutes. Yum!!!

Random Breakfast

Frosty Beauty

2-20-10 Snow Day!

Sammy had a sore throat and didn't want to go out in the cold. But the other two had a blast and a half playing in the snow while we shoveled/swept!

Pattern Boards

... and other imaginative adventures!

Love Notes

Artwork

"A fish and a turtle are going to be eaten by a whale. Yonah is going to be drying off by a fire. And the turtle is trying to save his brother from the whale. There's a bunch of... well, a pelican is landing on an island. This bad guy (bottom right-hand corner) is wanting to stop Jonah with his magic wand. A whale is spraying water out of his blow-hole. These fish are going to get its brother while it's eating lunch. So I tried to get all the crystals. It was the only way to stop the bad guys. Because they were afraid of light, and all the crystals had light. If he collected them. That's a door (upper right-hand corner). And it has a crystal behind it."


"It's a bunch of bad guys over here. They look mean, but they're kind of friendly. A few of them have spikes. But this one (right side) has a taaaaaalll spike. And this (middle) is a silly one. He has no feet, and he only flies. This one (left) has flying feet and a tooth sticking out of his mouth and one eye. And so does this one (middle). He looks like him, incept he is looking blue instead of red. This one (???) has a few spikes, but not many spikes. This one (top left) has a magic wand poking out of his head."

Hoarders, part 2

So there I was, stewing in my own self-conscious guilt about why I have never been able to get rid of useless junk like a normal person, and not able to come up with any insights. All this stuff had been floating around in my head for many months. At least since Kristy made her teaser post about organizing last September.

Meanwhile, one of my friends on Facebook was posting about making her packrat husband throw out all his old love letters from his ex-girlfriend. And I thought, "But you're not supposed to throw away old letters!"

Why do I think this way???

I was pretty sure that someone, somewhere had the answer. Written down. I didn't care if I had to trudge my way through a psych textbook to find it. I needed it, and I was GOING TO find it.

In desperation, I poked around the Hoarders website, and ended up at childrenofhoarders.com's Understanding Hoarding page. It had lots of links and was pretty overwhelming, (I am really starting to think that the older I get, the worse my ADD-like tendencies get. Especially since FB. But that is another rant for another day.) but I did notice there was a short book list. I got on Amazon and looked for those books and added them to my cart. Then, like the good little money-conscious wifey that I would like to be, I ignored the cart and looked for them in my library's online catalog.

I found a few - not the one I most wanted to read, but decided that was OK (this is big. The old me would have gone back to the Amazon tab and ordered it on the spot!) and hoped the others would still be helpful. While I was waiting for the books to arrive I saw the 40 Trash Bag Challenge on Sue's Blog and thought, "How timely!" A few days later I saw it again in a link Danielle Bean posted on Facebook. I loved the idea, but didn't start it. The problem, again, lies in actually being able to make the decision to put things IN the bag.

"Why, oh why, can't I do this?!?!?!?!?! What in the world is wrong with me?!?!?!"

Hoarders, part 1

Have you seen A&E's Hoarders? I saw some friends chatting about it on TimeSuck Facebook and was immediately curious. We don't get cable/satellite here, but I've been watching episodes on the website. They put up a new one every week.

I suspect the show was started for shock value, to make you wonder how anyone could live like that. But I cried all through the first episode I watched, because I could totally relate to the hoarders. I looked around my house and wondered if they might be coming for me next. Realistically, my house is not nearly bad enough for them. But to me it seems like it is! Then, I thought of two different relatives for whom they probably OUGHT to come. But don't ask for names, 'cause I'm not interested in incriminating the guilty. (I probably shouldn't even have gone there. But if you know who I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about.)

I don't think I'm entirely a hoarder. I do not (or should rather say no longer) have the problem of always acquiring new things without getting rid of the old ones. I just can't get rid of the old stuff. This problem has caused me to be stuck in an organizing rut lately. Lately being the last, oh, 4 or 5 or 30 years! I can get 2 or 3 rooms COMPLETELY CLEAN, only to have all the other ones go to pot. I can't ever seem to get caught up, because by the time I can get back to the piles of homeless stuff, they have been picked through, pulled at, strewn about. Moved somewhere else. Fallen over onto the floor. You get the picture. Not to mention all the toys that get strewn everywhere while I am paying attention to my stuff instead of my children.

So I get mad. I get frustrated. I get discouraged. I get depressed. I get to hating myself. I go hide my head in a silly Facebook game. All the while The FlyLady's words "You cannot organize clutter - you can only get rid of it!" float around quietly in the back of my head. (Side note - apparently sometime since I stopped getting her emails 4 or 5 years ago, this phrase was modified to "You cannot organize clutter - you can only organize the things you love!") But I couldn't just get rid of things. I couldn't even tell you WHY I can't get rid of things, but there is something there, some idea (or ideas) buried deep in my belief system, that keeps me from throwing away or even giving away most of the stuff.

The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Why should my mistaken impressions, or worse yet somebody else's, rob me of multiple hours every week that I could spend doing something else? I have much better ways to spend my life than to keep picking up the same piles of stuff that get knocked over, or need to be moved so we can use the space they're occupying. It's like my FlyBaby friend Erin said, "I don't want my kid to grow up hearing, 'No, Mommy can't take you to the park today. I have to move this pile of crap from over here to over there.'"

I thought and thought and thought (and even prayed a little. Though not enough. Another story of my life I intend to change) about why I cannot just say, "Oh, I haven't used that in x years, it's OK to get rid of it." I desperately wanted answers, but no amount of introspectiveness brought them out of hiding.

Adventures in King Cake making

What do allergies and living in Colorado have in common?

Neither are conducive to getting a good King Cake when you want one. (Plenty of yeast, dairy, & eggs in there.)

We tried to make our own tonight. I used this cinnamon roll recipe (subbed whole grain spelt flour and rice milk) and pinched the ends together instead of cutting out the rolls. Then we made the frosting out of powdered sugar and rice milk, and colored organic cane sugar with food coloring (I know, I know!!! But it's a King Cake!) for the toppings.

The results were pretty, but left a lot of room for improvement taste-wise. I think we will have to try again tomorrow! :)

Pre-frosting

Post-frosting

Can't wait to eat it!

Can't let the extra frosting go to waste!

We couldn't stop handing out slices until SOMEONE found the baby!

Sammy wanted to make sure Katie had a turn at the baby, since he got the one last year.

(Or so he says. The post says otherwise!)

homemade popsicles - a lesson in problem solving

It started out innocently enough. We were working on our second lesson of Right Start Mathematics (Level B) and using our craft sticks as tally sticks. I inadvertently called them "popsicle sticks" and the mania began. "I want popsicles. Mama, will you please get me a popsicle?" I told them we didn't have any. "Oh, I know! We can make popsicles!" They were pretty excited and convincingly insistent.

Then there was the problem of what to use to make them. We finally decided on bananas, apple juice, and 2 spoonfuls of leftover cranberry jelly. We don't have popsicle molds here (just why that is, with these popsiclephiles, is beyond me!) so we used our applesauce cups that we keep around for side dishes, snacks, and painting.

Then the real problem. How do we get a popsicle stick to stand up in a bowl of liquid. I thought about stuffing blueberries in the bottom and trying to prop it up, but in a moment of inspiration, I turned to my big boy instead. After all, what new 5-year-old doesn't need a lesson in problem-solving?

His first idea was to stick an ice cube in it. We tried that. The stick refused to go into it. We fished the too-hard ice cube out, and before I could even get it into a nearby plant pot, he suggested we stick an apple in the cup. Genius! I cut 2 ~1/3" thick apple slices, trimmed them so they were round, and stuck the knife through the middle to make a slit. As an added bonus, the apple floated nicely on top of the thick banana mixture, making a nice drip-stopping base. We stuck their sticks in the apples, froze the popsicles, and 4 hours later...

Distractors

Now that Katie is interested in Hooked on Phonics, I fretted for a short while about what to do with one kid while the other is doing their reading. I shouldn't have. They find their own things to do. Usually the *same* thing. Yesterday it was this NickJr.com printable.


The left one is Sammy's, and the right one is Katie's. Sammy kept rolling dice until he could color in all 6 rows. Katie gave up quickly and played with Benny and the Little People instead. But Mama was able to give everyone the attention they needed while they got their reading done, and that's what counts!

Benny runs!

A mere 5 days after walking on his own, Benny started running.

Recycling crayons

How this idea escaped me before, I don't know. But when I stumbled across it (while searching for Thomas the Tank Engine images, of all things!) I was very happy to have something to do with our bits and pieces of broken, dull, chewed crayons!

Crayola crayons melted much more evenly. The leftover restaurant crayons tended to separate into different layers, and were very stinky.

They were a big hit, and are now the first thing the kids reach for when it's time to color.

Let me see that!

My dad took this picture of B the other morning:

After the camera flashed, B walked toward him, reaching for the camera, and said, "Yemmie seedah!"

Photos from our latest trip

2009 Thanksgiving+

(lots and lots of photos here!)

AND...

200912 Natchitoches - City of Lights