Loving This Mom Stuff
  • Sunshine

  • February14th

    4 Comments

    Happy Valentine’s Day to YOU!

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    The first Valentine’s Day that Schmoopie and I celebrated together, which was nine years ago, we went and had Uno’s Pizza down on The Plaza. We then went back to his house and he gave me tickets to see The Beauty and the Beast Musical that was coming to town. He also gave me Conversation Heart Candies, which are one of my favorites – not just any though, they have to be Brachs, and he must have known that because that’s what I got! I think I gave him beef jerky… he was on a no-carb diet at the time, so it was better than a box of chocolates. ;) I don’t know if he remembers all the details of our dates back then, but I do, so I thought I would share (and hence remind him).

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    I always knew that I wanted to be a mom, I just didn’t realize I would get such great kids. Over the weekend, the kids and I spent Saturday night at Sha Sha’s house and then went onto my mom’s house on Sunday. It was a fun weekend! The kids behaved exceptionally well! I know I probably don’t say it enough, but these kids I’ve got are fabulous. They really, really are.

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    Punkin has her Valentine’s Day party today at school and she was so excited to hand out her Valentine’s to her new classmates. She picked a brightly colored outfit to wear, including her pink shrug, because of course she had to wear a Valentine’s color today.

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    The kids woke to find special surprises from their Grand Cyndy on the kitchen table. I’m sure it started their day off on the right foot…who doesn’t like presents first thing in the morning?!

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    We don’t have anything special planned for tonight, but maybe I will think of something fun as the day goes on. We might bake some pink cookies and make heart-shaped sandwiches for lunch.

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    Whatever you decide to do today, give yourself an extra smile in the mirror – you deserve it. :)

    Oh and as much as I wish I could take full credit for these adorable Valentine Cards, the idea came from a blog I read, although I can’t seem to find the post right now.

    Hugs, Liz

  • February7th

    4 Comments

    Watercolors

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    During one of our many snow days of the last few weeks, the kids got to do a little watercolor painting. We found some coloring books and odd pieces of cardboard from the garage and they had a ball.

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    Luckily I grabbed the small Crystal Light containers we’d been saving and used that for their individual water bowls. “Luckily” you ask? Oh, that’s because there was some spillage throughout the art session and I’m just glad I didn’t have to clean up massive amounts of water.

     

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    Punkin decided to paint a portrait of me as her project. She made me sit still to capture my “details”.

     

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    Sunshine took her time and was dedicated to painting in the lines of her Mr. Potato Head.

     

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     This is Bingo’s newer, bigger, cheesier smile.

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    I really liked Sunshine’s art. It’s tucked away in my pile of  “keepers” so that I can frame it and hang it in the new house.

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    See? Doesn’t this painting look like me? I thought so! Sadly, she felt she messed up a few minutes after this and painted some big black streaks across the entire painting. :( Oh well, just another reason to break out the watercolors again soon.

    Hugs,

    Liz

  • February3rd

    4 Comments

    Snow Day…Again

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    Yesterday was cold. But, it was also a lot of fun when we got the kids outside. Here are some photos that were taken while we were out playing in the snow.

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    It’s another snow day here for Punkin, I have no car at the moment (mine is out of commision and the one I was borrowing from my dad is needed by him) so the kids and I are hanging out inside the warm house today. It really isn’t too bad. Lots of playing “Hot Lava” by the kids, where they pretend all the carpet is hot lava and run around like crazy people. I’m catching up on editing some photos and Schmoopie is off to a meeting here in a few minutes. We’ll be doing some reading, math work and spelling tests later today. Hopefully all three kids will rest for a little while after lunch too. That would be swell!

    Stay warm out there!

    Hugs,
    Liz

  • February1st

    4 Comments

    Potato Soup and A Blizzard

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    Yesterday it was cold out. Today it’s a blizzard here – literally a blizzard. It started a couple of hours ago and it’s only growing stronger. When things settle down out there, the weatherman predicts we’ll have upwards of a foot and a half of the white stuff. Punkin is on her sixth snow day and I think she will probably be out of school the rest of the week.

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    With all the cold, the little kids and I made potato soup in the Crock Pot, yesterday. I winged the recipe since I’d never made it that way before. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but it still satisfied us all. Even Punkin had two bowls and she rarely has seconds of anything other than sweets or bacon.

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    Sunshine and Bingo washed all the potatoes for me and had a blast doing it. I don’t let the kids help with cooking too often. It’s just one of those things that I would rather do myself; not that I don’t want them to learn, I just prefer to do it all.

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    Maybe I should start letting them help more. It will be more work for me, but in the long run it may play to my advantage as they get better and better.

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    I have a cookbook for kids somewhere in the storage unit. Maybe after we get moved I can break it out and try some recipes with the kids. They would LOVE that.

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    They’ve helped with cookies and rice crispy treats before, but not much more than that.

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    Yes, I think this will be something that I can work on. Any ideas on good kid-friendly recipes they could help me with? Maybe we can do something today since we are stuck inside…

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    Keep your fingers crossed that as the weather gets worse, we don’t lose power! We’re stocked up on food and milk, so we should be good as long as we have heat to keep us thawed out.

    Happy Blizzard!
    Liz

  • January20th

    2 Comments

    Three of My Favorite Things…

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    1. My children.

    2. Quotes.

    3. Pictures.

    A Hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child. ~Forest Witcraft

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    Children are one third of our population and all of our future.  ~Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

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    You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing.  What!  Is it nothing to be happy?  Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long?  Never in his life will he be so busy again.  ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

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    In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children.  The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted.  The result is unruly children and childish adults.  ~Thomas Szasz

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    There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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    Children seldom misquote.  In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.  ~Author Unknown

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    Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller

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    Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.  ~Neil Postman

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    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.  ~Frederick Douglass

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    If you haven’t time to respond to a tug at your pants leg, your schedule is too crowded.  ~Robert Brault

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    Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.  ~William Stafford

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    Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. ~John F. Kennedy

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    Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home. ~Bill Cosby

     

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    There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. ~Anatole Broyard

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    I hope you have a beautiful day!

    Liz

  • January18th

    1 Comment

    Baking Bread

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    Yesterday was exactly what I had been missing while living in Texas. My day was filled with family, sipping coffee, laughing with my sister, teasing one another and baking. The kids were great and extremely patient while waiting their respective turns to “help” bake the bread.

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    Sunshine was in charge of helping with the pizza dough we made to freeze for later use. She was pretty proud of it, yet confused to why we didn’t want to bake it right away.

     

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    Bingo worked hard at the chocolate chip banana bread. He was the last to go, and was really a great help. By that time my arms were getting tired, so I was glad he was there to do most of the work.

     

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    Here he is taste testing the leftover batter. We concurred that it was going to be the best banana bread ever.

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    Punkin helped with the loaves of white bread. She kneaded, pounded and helped decide on how to score the bread. In the end she chose the most artistic one to bring home with us. We had some with dinner tonight and it was pretty darn good.

     

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    The one on top we brought home. Isn’t it pretty!

     

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    We were pretty worn out after our baking day. We made a total of 2 loaves of white bread, 1 pan of banana bread, 8 frozen pizza dough balls, 3 french bread baguettes, a focaccia bread we ate for dinner and about 40 individual frozen dough balls for buns/rolls. We decided to have a baking day once every couple of weeks. It was a lot of fun!!

    Have a great night,

    Liz

  • January15th

    5 Comments

    Sneaky Sleepy Sunshine

    Posted in: Sunshine

    As Schmoopie and I were telling our company goodbye the other night, we walked into the entryway and I saw this up the short set of stairs near the bedrooms.

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    As we took a closer look we saw our little Sunshine cozied up with all her blankets.

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    I am pretty confident that she inched out into the hallway, hoping to listen to the adult conversation going on downstairs.

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    It’s exactly what I would have done as a little girl.

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    :)

  • January11th

    4 Comments

    Playing In The Snow

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    The kids and I had a great time in the snow yesterday, despite only having two pairs of boots for the four of us. Bingo and I used tennis shoes, although it really wasn’t too bad. The snow was very powdery, so not great for building snowmen like I told the kids we would do. Instead we (okay, they) rolled around in it and threw it in the air. I heard absolutely no complaining about the cold from any of them, which I was completely surprised about. Today Punkin is out of school again. It’s about 9 degrees here. Brrrrrrr.

    After our 45 minutes in the snow, we came inside, took warm baths and then enjoyed hot cocoa.

    What a fun afternoon with the kids! I promised them last night that we would have snow ice cream for lunch today. Let’s hope it turns out!

  • January10th

    2 Comments

    Snowy Day

    Posted in: Bingo, Punkin, Sunshine

    There’s plenty of cold, white stuff on the ground right now! Punkin woke me up this morning and let me know that there was SNOW OUTSIDE! Yesterday we had gotten maybe a 1/2 inch but this morning was much more substantial. The two of us sat on the couch together and watched as the school closings scrolled across the bottom of the screen. When we saw hers, there was a yelp of excitement!  

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    Even though I know Punkin loves going to her new school, she was pretty stoked at the surprise snow day. I have to admit that I was a bit excited too.

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    Sunshine woke shortly thereafter and quickly took herself and her purple robe to the little heater in the living room to get warmed up.   

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    Bingo was in a great mood despite falling off his bed in the middle of the night. Poor kids always seems to have a bruise or cut somewhere. A couple of days ago he came up to me and had knicked his cheek on something. Even he didn’t know how it got there, nor did he really care. He’s a tough one. 

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    We’ve had lunch, consisting of tuna melts and black olives on the side. There may or may not have been a spoonful of mint chocolate chip ice cream for everyone that finished their sandwich. But, now it’s naptime…and let me tell you…THEY NEED IT! After some rest, we may try and bundle up and head outside and then come back in for some nice warm hot cocoa. Mmmmm.

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      Stay warm!
     

     

  • December27th

    1 Comment

    Nostalgia

    Posted in: Punkin, Sunshine

    When I was maybe six or seven, I taught my sister, Andrea, how to tie her shoelaces. I remember sitting with her in the back of my mom’s little blue Nissan pickup on built-in folding seats behind the driver and passenger seats. It was a long drive to school for us as we lived out in the country and the Montessori school my sister and I attended was a good forty minutes away.

    I don’t recall if she only needed lessons during one drive or if it took several sessions for her to catch on. Knowing her, she probably caught on pretty quickly and it was a one day deal. If I was six at the time, she would have been four. Same age as my girls right now.

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    During our Christmas celebration with Sha Sha, I caught Aunt Lara teaching Punkin how to tie her shoes and moments later it was Aunt Andrea too. They must have switched kids, but each of them was trying to teach a girl on a separate moccasin slipper.

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    Now that we will be officially moved back in less than a week, I am looking forward to more memories like this. I want my girls to remember how they learned to tie their shoes on the kitchen floor at Sha Sha’s house in the middle of winter with their beautiful aunts.

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