Foolish Friday!

By Jana

My obsession with holidays has gone too far! My daughter has April Fools in her top three!  We start out breakfast with eggs (vanilla yogurt with an apricot half on top).  For lunch we have our sandwiches inside out (thin breadsticks little cream cheese wrap the cheese slice around a little more cream cheese used like glue and wrap the lunch meat  around it.  For dinner I mix it up the meatloaf cake, spaghetti pie or you can have a milkshake for dinner too!  Have fun foolin’ your friends! 

Milk shake dinner

1 T vegetable oil

1 onion

1 stalk of celery chopped

1 clove mince garlic

1 bay leaf

½ t salt

6 C cauliflower florets

2 C chicken broths

½ C cream or ½ n ½

Heat oil, over medium heat fry onion celery garlic, bay leaf and salt.  Stir occasionally until onion is translucent (8 minutes) stir in cauliflower water and broth bring to a boil.  Reduce heat cover and simmer until cauliflower is tender (10 minutes).  Let cool for awhile then discard bay leaf and blend to puree the soup until smooth.  Let cool completely (I put it in fridge for about 30 minutes).  Strain soup into sauce pan and stir in cream heat over medium heat, until steamy.  Serve it in heatproof glasses and parfait spoons!  

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Our April Fools Tradition!

My family has a fun April Fools dinner tradition. Each member participating in the dinner gets in between 3-5 dollars (depending on how many people are coming) and pile into a car and head to the grocery store. Once there everyone goes on their own and tries to find the weirdest/funniest thing they can think of to eat for dinner and buys it. No one reveals what they bought for dinner until you get back home and everyone puts it out on the table. After everything is made, each person has to eat a bit of everything brought back. It's crazy what the dinner will consist of; pudding, cereal, hot pockets, candy, ice cream, fried chicken, little debbie's, and more! 

Last couple of times we've done this with our friends we've all dressed up as wacky as we could to get us in the crazy mood, plus, it's really fun to run around the grocery store looking silly and trying to be covert with your basket of dinner riches!

If  you like silly dinner recipes and want more as well as get some ideas for some harmless April Fool's pranks check out these fun links:

www.familyfun.go.com April Fools Recipes

www.familyfun.go.com April Fools Kid Pranks

My Preschool Blues

Tomorrow my 4 year-old will start her last semester of preschool. September will bring Kindergarden and someone else watching her for the larger portion of the day.  Yoyo (our daughter's nickname) has been going to a preschool provided by the high school as an educational opportunity for both the high schoolers as well as the preschools. It's extremely cheap ($25 a semester) and Yoyo has a great time charming all the kids and teenagers. The down side is that it's only an 8 week program and the focus of it is more small motor skills and social skills not learning letters, numbers, etc. that they need to know before they go into kindergarden.

Luckily, Yoyo loves to learn which made it easy to teach her the alphabet and numbers at home, so I've never been worried about her being educationally where she needs to be in September. What does worry me, like I've mentioned on this blog before, is that Yoyo has some severe food allergies and this preschool has been so good about keeping her safe but I haven't been able to bring myself to trust her future kindergarden/school. The preschool is 3 days a week for almost 2 hours a day and with the little time they have with her they work so hard to make sure she isn't exposed to any foods that could hurt her. Starting next September,  Yoyo will be spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week away for me and in someone else's care. There will be only one, maybe 2 adults in the class and 2-3 times as many kids in class than what is in her preschool class. I'm excited for her to start school and reap all the benefits that school provides, but I am so nervous to leave her and her allergies in someone else's care for the majority of the day.

 How can I trust that they will do just as good of a job watching over Yoyo as her preschool class does? I keep coming back to this thought as we get closer and closer to September and I hope that with time I can ease my thoughts and find trust in the system.  But, for now, as I send her off tomorrow to her first/last day of preschool,  I will be sad that we are getting closer to her last day in this wonderful program. She has had a great teacher who has been so good at taking care of her and I wish I could express to her how wonderful she had been to the both of us, but I don't think there are words that will correctly express my gratefulness.

What I have to do is take the last couple of months I have left before school starts to prep myself for the change that is coming and learn to trust these strangers with, basically, my child's life and future.

Oh Lord! Give me strength!

From collages

Yoyo on her first-first day of preschool and also on her last-first day or preschool. She's changed so much! And after looking at these pictures I apparently like pink and brown outfits for Yoyo, ha!

Frazzled Monday

(Me and my kids on St. Patrick's Day)

I woke up this morning with the energy and desire to get a lot accomplished within my home. I started piecing a blanket together for my son last night (that I had cut and got ready to start before he was born) and I wanted to start sewing it today. I was ready to clean each room and write a couple of blog pieces and I realized that I could actually (maybe) even get some reading in if I managed my time well. All that excitement was quickly squashed by my kids!

My 21 month-old decided that his own toys were just not exciting anymore and my bathroom drawers are a prefect place to play. My 4 year-old just wanted to play and do all the wrong things at the wrong time and be apart of my phone conversations at the same time. Neither one of them will leave my side! I couldn't even go to the bathroom without the both of them sitting outside the door. Every time I turn around they've destroyed a room, gotten into something they're not suppose to, or are fighting with each other.  Don't get me wrong I love my kids, but my whole day has been spent on the phone catching up with friends and family, being a referee between the kids, and walking around in circles cleaning the same places I just cleaned. I got nothing done that I wanted to get done besides a load of towels in the wash.

To top it all off, today is the anniversary of my father's death and I haven't even got a chance to think about it.

What I realized is that most of my day's lately feel like this. The laundry is never finished; there's always a load to clean and load to fold. There is always something to clean, something to cook, a task to be done, etc.  (I really hate that! There's no brake!) My life is one big circle of the same chores to do over and over again. Clean, tidy, wash, shop, cook, clean, tidy, wash, shop… When is there time for me? How do I find that balance?

I know some mom's that are great at that. They can let something slide in order to do something for themselves. I don't know if I can do that. I feel guilty every time I let something for my home and family slide while I do something for myself.  I'm going to have to figure out how to do it all without guilt because lately I have been staying up REALLY late in order to get some "me" time in.  And that has not made me a happy, energized, patient mom each day especially when my son has started to wake up at 6am.

So, to not just have this be a whining, complaining blog piece; How do you do it? Any suggestions on how to balance my time better? How can I get in all the things that I need to do for the family and still find time for me? And please tell me I'm not the only one that gets like this sometimes!

Village Top ‘O the Morning!

By Jana

This is one of my very favorite Holidays I tend to go a little overboard.  We have a leprechaun who throughout the year is known for stealing a sock or two from the laundry but on St. Patrick’s day he steals shoes and the kids have to search all over the house to find them usually filled with surprises.    The beauty of St. Patrick’s is you can add green food coloring to almost any dish although left over green rice is sometimes challenging! 

Lucky charms are an easy St. Patrick ’s Day breakfast.  

We also like to make Irish flag cake for breakfast.   

1 C milk

6 eggs

1 C flour

¼ tsp salt

Green food coloring

3 T butter

Peaches

Cool whip

Mix milk, eggs, flour, salt, food coloring in blender.  Melt butter in a 9X13 Pan in oven pour batter into hot pan.  Bake @ 450 for 25 minutes it puffs up and waves like a flag.  Spread Peaches on a 1/3 of the flag going up and down.  Then in another 1/3 spread the cool whip and leave the other 1/3 green.  

  

 Couldn’t get my camera fast enough. 

At our house it just wouldn’t be St. Patrick’s day without Shamrock Pop

24 Cups which is 6 Quarts of popped Corn

2 C sugar

2/3 C half n half

1 T light corn syrup

½ t salt

1 t vanilla

½ t green food coloring

Cook sugar, milk, syrup, salt to a soft ball then remove from heat add vanilla and food coloring.  Pour over popped corn and mix put on pan of wax paper to cool.  A few years ago I threw in some (gold coins) yellow m&m’s.     

The Toolbox

My Husband and I recently attended 10 hours of a “Love and Logic” parenting class.  Love and Logic is a parenting philosophy created by Jim and Charles Fay, PH.D. (Father and son).  Nate and I attended thinking we would learn some more tools to cope with the growing unwanted and undesirable behavior from our 4 year old and 1 year old boys.

This is what we found: A very effective toolbox.  The class covered topics ranging from bedtime tantrums, whining, public outbursts, allowance, chores, choices, consequences, and love.  I was reminded throughout the class that children are smart, capable, loveable, and a joy to have.  I consider myself lucky to carry the title of mother.  Parenting is hard and taking this class provided me with a fresh deep breath and a new perspective.   The newest tool I like to carry around in my new toolbox is choices.  I learned to give both of my children a little bit more power, by letting them choose between two acceptable choices.  For example “Wes would you like cheerios or toast for breakfast?” or “would like to turn the TV off now or in 5 minutes?” I have discovered that by giving my boys a little more control over their lives they are happy and we seem to get along better.  I have stopped simple arguments by letting Wes make choices.  He is not always happy about the choices, but he makes them and moves on.  I feel a little less pressure as a mom to do everything and less anger when my kids don’t appreciate the choices I was making for them.  

The class does not guarantee that your children will always be happy and always make great choices, but at least he/she will have the opportunity to make and learn from his/her choices.  My greatest hope is that my children grow up to be happy, healthy, independent thinkers.  I want to be able to look back and feel confident that I provided a loving environment for them to thrive in. Hopefully doing the hard work while they are young enables me to enjoy my children as they grow into adults. I have always loved opportunities to learn and stretch myself.  It was nice to be able to step outside my parenting style and open myself up to new ideas, and strategies.  If this class or its curriculum is available in your area, it is worth your investment.     

Stephanie Halladay

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My Quick Thought:

If the class is not available in your area and you're interested in learning more about the Love and Logic method, either click on the link to the Love and Logic site or on the link to Amazon.com where you can buy the book or book on cd. 

I really encourage at least a peak into this method because it's whole purpose is to take the anger and frustration out of parenting by giving you more tools or options to help create a learning and nurturing environment for your kids. It also gives you methods of disciplining without yelling and I've found that helps me enjoy being a mom again.


http://www.loveandlogic.com/ 

Amazon Link to Love and Logic

Stacie

Incredibly Late Valentine's Day Family Ideas

I realized last night at about midnight that my resident holiday specialist wrote a cute post of Valentine's family fun weeks in advance and I completely spaced posting it. I guess this month ended up being busier than I thought it would be. Anyways, to honor her and the great work she puts into creating the holiday posts for this humble little blog I'm posting it late so that you guys can have her great Valentine's day recipe for next year. Actually, I think you should make her love muffins for you're family all year around to let them know you love them.

And I STRONGLY suggest you keep your eye on this little blog for Jana's upcoming St. Patrick's day post . It's her FAVORITE holiday and she has some wonderful and fun traditions to help her and her family celebrate this unique holiday.
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By Jana

Call for Cupid

I want my family and friends to know I love them not just on February 14^th but EVERYDAY!

There are 5 love languages that a person can use to show their love to others; physical affection, words of affirmation, quality time, service, and gifts.  Food can help people feel loved, it can be a gift, and homemade counts as service!  AND if you do it together you can spend quality time and give kinds words and hugs as you make it!  Which means you can use all 5 love languages while make this recipe together. Nice right?

It is pretty easy to have the kids help in the kitchen and make love muffins.  On Valentine’s Day we make these love muffins which are super easy with a basic raspberry muffin mix and muffin liners.

 How to make the liners into the heart shape:

 Outside of the liners just put in a few marbles to shape the muffin into a heart. 

Then mix and make the muffin mix and poor into the liners and bake as directed on the mix 

And of course you have to make a Love Potion to go with the love muffins!   

12-ounce can pink lemonade concentrate

1 cup raspberry sherbet

12-ounce can of lemon/lime soda 

In a pitcher, mix the lemonade concentrate with the recommended amount of water.

In a separate pitcher, combine the sherbet with 1 cup of the lemonade mixture.  Add the soda, stir, and serve.

Have a happy, wonderful, loving Valentine's day!