A Couple of the Kids' Latest Crafts

   It's about time I put up some craft photos!  Last week's theme was about winter and we made snowflakes out of paper, glue, and silver or blue glitter.  Babydoll chose blue.  First I gave them a square piece of white printer paper and helped them fold it into gradually smaller triangles.  Next they cut little triangles out of the sides of the folded paper being careful not to cut completely down any one side, and cut off the tips of the three triangle points.  Babydoll hadn't made one since a year ago so she was completely delighted when she unfolded her paper and found herself looking at a giant snowflake!  After opening up their paper and delighting in what a few randomly placed snips could do, it was time to bling it up!  They took a bottle of glue (with the top only half open) and put glue wherever they wanted on the snowflake.  BD tends to want to make big puddles of glue when you hand her a glue bottle, so I helped her with the glue.  For some reason I only have a glitter container with holes in the top for sprinkling for the multicolored glitter, so I poured their chosen glitter color in a small cup, left their snowflake on the big piece of paper they were working with it on, and let them sprinkle the glitter by hand.  This is, sadly, the only step in the process I got pictures of.

I took lots of pictures of this step

See the faded Big Bird tattoo on her arm? Her aunty Allie took her to see Elmo and Grover at a bank in our town, she got prizes!

And the finished products...

Babydoll's is on the left, Sweet Pea in the middle, and one of my daycare kids made the one on the right.

This week is about people in other parts of the world, today the focus was on Japan.  During art time they made Carp Kites.    Proud Momma moment, this was BD's best cutting so far!!

Babydoll started coloring her carp, but was in a hurry to glue on her streamers so she quit. 

After making their "kites" they had a blast flying them around the house!

Peace

   What a difference a day makes.  Today was a MUCH better day! I stayed up until 2AM getting prepared for the day, and woke up at 6:30.  Only 4.5 hours of sleep (which was broken by kids waking up twice) but the day went so smoothly that it was completely worth it!  Everyone was in a good mood and behaved a whole lot better, and I was happy once again.  I took some pictures of my Little Man during naptime today since he was awake and figured I'd post them here, because I have to admit, I think my kids are pretty dang cute:o) 

He just wanted to play with the camera

Can I scratch today from the record and pretend it never happened?

    First off I've decided on blog names for my kiddos.  My 7 year old daughter will be referred to as "Sweet Pea" as per her request, my 3 year old daughter is "Baby Doll", and my 10 month old son is "Little Man".

   ((edited at later date, older posts have been updated with these nicknames))

   I love my job, I really do, other than professional musical theater I can't think of another job I'd want.  Most days go smoothly, the kids are in a good mood and play nicely together, routines go as planned for the most part, outdoor play or large muscle indoor play cures any hyperactive behavior.  I know what I'm doing when it comes to discipline and generally have a firm but gentle, authoritative but loving control over the children in my care.  I don't think I was quite ready this morning for the day to start, however, and it didn't get off on the right note.  Major arguments broke out (that were resolved and ended with happy hugs), there was some hitting, tantrums, tears, and general unruly behavior.  Every single person in the house was cranky today and it made for a long day!  I felt like I would finally be able to breath deeply once all my kids were in bed tonight, but even that didn't go quite as planned.  I put Little Man to bed at about 6:40 because he was quite tired at that point, and then left to do some grocery shopping. Spencer would handle bed time with Baby Doll and finish up homework with Sweet Pea and I would come home at 7:30, hang out with Sweet Pea for a little while and get her to bed at 8:00.  That plan almost worked out except that about 10 minutes before I got home Little Man woke up, apparently thinking he was just taking a nap, and my quiet evening would have to wait.  I gave Little Man the rest of his bottle from earlier that evening and after a good burp he went back to bed at about 7:50.  SP went to bed just fine 10 minutes later, and I finally got to settle in for the evening.
   After catching up on recordings of Desperate Housewives, Legend of the Seeker, and Chuck, it's now 11:15 and I have some serious prep work to do for tomorrow.  I am bound and determined to make tomorrow a better day which will probably mean staying up late tonight and waking up early so I can have a few more minutes to myself before my kids wake up and the troops arrive for the day.  Activities must be planned, the house must be picked up, and I will NEED to have my coffee before I let anyone up or open my doors at 7:00.  Wish me luck, tomorrow is another day, and it WILL go well!

More Birthday Surprises

   I thought my birthday was over, but it wasn't!  My mom told me last weekend that there was more to my gift and that it wouldn't be here for about a week (after giving me the cd and potato bag) but I thought when I got my laptop that she had been referring to her contribution to it.  Little did I know she had ordered THIS!..

   It was a very thoughtful gift!  She knew I had been following The Pioneer Woman pretty closely on her blog for 3-4 months now.  I hadn't asked her for the book, or even told her about it, but had been talking to other people about it and hinting to my husband that I sure would like to have that cookbook.  And now it's sitting right next to me, a cow staring at me and fried chicken begging to be cooked!   I've looked through about half of it so far and read some of the recipes thoroughly, and so far its even better than I expected.  It's not just a cookbook with fabulous pictorials, it's stories of ranching and photos of the country I wanted to be apart of as a child.  I've already made, from her recipes online, her moms Christmas cookies, Fancy Macaroni, and the A-MAZ-ING Sherried Tomato Soup, and I look forward to cooking up more goodies in the very near future!!

   My only regret is that I hadn't started reading her blog a little sooner and had this book back then when she came to Minneapolis to meet us Minnesotans and sign cookbooks at the Mall of America.  But I'm over it and my life will continue on just fine.  Speaking of life continueing on just fine, tomorrow we're taking the girls to Sesame Street Live!  Traffic and parking may be interesting with the Vikings game and all, but we're going and will have a great time with our girls.

My Kitchen Project

   It's probably no surprise, based on my apparent obsession with organization on this blog, that I've read a few organizing books and visited a few organizing blogs.  I also enjoy talking about organizing, not all the time, but I do.  I'll talk a little about each here and there, but I'm going to start with "It's Hard To Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys"  by Marilyn Paul.  This book was lent to me by my friend Jeni, and it was excellent.  What it helped me with the most was searching deep down into my soul to find my true reasons for getting organized, and staying organized.  I found that my reason wasn't just so I could find things easily, but because it made me feel more peacefull, I would save money, and I wanted to teach my kids to appreciate an orderly home.  Another thing that stuck with me was exploring what my idea of a "clean" home is, and what does a room look like when it's "ready" for use or company.  If you're looking for a good book to help you stop just picking up/getting organized only to let it fall apart a few days later, it's worth looking into.
   It's time for more pictures of my organizing process.  Obviously we want things to be in sensable places, and I was pretty good at that aspect of organizing, but had missed several areas/groups of things.  My friend Jeni has a friend named Sarah who is, so I'm told, a superstar organizer.  I've never met her but already know if she had a blog I would read it daily.  Come on Sarah, you've got so much inspiration, encouragement, and help to give... we need your blog! :o)   Anyway... one thing that I'm told she's great at helping with is getting everything in the most sensable and efficient place.  Here are my pictures of how I've arranged some of my kitchen areas so that everything is more efficient.  First you have to understand that my kitchen is very small and I really don't have to take more than a couple steps to get to anything in there, but it's certainly a time saver to have not only like-items grouped together, but related items kept near eachother.

This is a picture of my baby/kid cabinet.  Top shelf is all the kids cups.  I replaced a lot of cups of different shapes/sizes that didn't stack well together and went all over the place, with some perfect sized easily stacked cups that I got 6 for $2 at Target.  Top shelf also has the sippy cups and the dishwasher detergent.  Second shelf is all baby stuff.  Baby bottles, formula, cereal, snacks, bowls, and food live on this shelf. 

Directly below this cabinet is a drawer that now contains bibs and burp cloths.

Directly to the right of the kids cabinet is my coffee cabinet.  An entire cabinet dedicated to coffee, coffee cups, and coffee filters?  You know you're Jealous!!   Sorry, the point is that it is directly above my coffee pot.  The best part of this set up is that I can pour my first cup of coffee and make the baby's bottle all without moving my feet, which are very very sleepy when I wake up in the morning.

This picture shows where my towels and hot-pads are in relation to where the towels hang and the oven and range are.  The dish drying towels hang on the oven door looking pretty while they wait to be used while the hand drying towels hang from the handle of the refridgerator, which is directly across from the ovens.

   Pots and pans live under the stove and Tupperware lives across from the stove, next to the fridge so I can put leftovers into containers and then easily put them in the fridge.  Silverware should really be over on the fridge side where the plates/bowls are, but non of the drawers on that side are wide enough to hold them.  They live in the drawer next to the bibs, which works too since I need forks,spoons, and butter knives when I'm cooking on that side.  I took pictures of my revamped pantry situation as well but will have to save that for a different post because they are, I think, on my husband's computer. 

   To sum things up, check out that book I talked about and linked to, Sarah should consider blogging, and you have now had a partial tour of my kitchen.  Have a fantastic weekend!!

Ramblings

   I've been going back and forth since starting this blog on what I will call my children here.  I don't know how good of an idea it is to have my children's picture on the world wide web and include their real names right there with the pictures.  I started with names, then changed it to initials.  Just having initials though seems boring and too impersonal, so I might use nicknames instead.  The tough part is picking a nickname because I call them several terms of indearment, some include their names so wouldn't work.  The baby is easy, he's Little Man - emphasis on Little.  My middle child is either Baby Doll or Baby Girl, probably Baby Doll because she loves dolls, and her big sister has treated her a little like a baby doll since she was born.  My oldest is the hardest because I've called her so many nicknames in the last 7 years, but she wants to be Sweet Pea. 
   It's about 10:00 and my goal today is to get to bed by 10:30, I can't keep this 5 hours of sleep each night thing up!  I need to get some things picked up, start the dishwasher, and get rested up for work tomorrow!  Thank you all for reading my blog!  I've been having so much fun writing it and love to see that people read it!  My job can be isolating and blogs and facebook remind me that there are people out there.  So if the mood strikes you, become a "follower", participate in the polls, and comment till your fingers fall off! well not that much, I don't want that on my conscience :o)

How it all turned out

   Despite my refusal to look online for a recipe involving chicken and orange marmalade (I know there are plenty of them out there) because it would take too long to find something that I could make without going to the grocery store, dinner turned out pretty good!  It tasted orangy, but not  too strong.  Even though it was practically boiling in juice it could have been a little more moist.  How could I have turned that orange juice/white grape juice/orange marmalade into a sauce to eat the chicken with?  I have a hard time eating white meat without a sauce or dip of some sort, so I broke out the ranch.  It was good with ranch, but only a tiny bit of ranch or it overpowered the orange flavor.