Simple, Ordinary Lives

 

Happy 4th of July!!!!  Today, my family is thinking about those serving our country in uniform, those away from their families....we pray for PEACE every day... and want them to come home!

We thank them. We are proud of them.  God bless them and God bless America.

Guess What we Made?

Ice Cream sandwiches!  I have had a recipe cut from a magazine for about five years in my recipe binder and I got some inspiration from Mary Beth as well~ check out the ice cream sandwiches they made here (scroll down a bit).

 

I baked some double chocolate cookies, added a scoop of vanilla and Claire was my sprinkle helper.  We also used coconut instead of sprinkles on some of them.  Matt and the kids loved them.  I think I would prefer mint chip ice cream without the sprinkles...or even strawberry ice cream!  I guess the possibilities are endless!

 

 

 

Totally Random Post

 

Here are a couple of shots of our bedroom and bathroom (after Matt finished painting)...if the words 'neutral' and 'boring' come to mind, that is okay...but I prefer to use the words 'clean' and 'simple'. 

 

Yesterday Claire decided she wanted to bake sugar cookies.  She found a recipe and went to work.  I didn't even set foot in the kitchen except to snap the following photos...

 

 

 

 

Today we had some inner tube races in the pool (racing each other from one side of the pool to the other).  Matt and I raced each other too!  We were laughing soooo hard!  It was great fun AND good exercise!

 

Somebody did not want to put away the clean dishes...I don't know who could be so lazy...the pile just kept growing....

Celebrating!

I decided last minute Saturday to make the drive to my parents house.   They had a little party to celebrate John and Ana's birthday (my brother and his wife).   Matt had to work this weekend anyway, so I thought it would be good for me to do the drive by myself (for the first time)...I know, I'm such a wimp...but usually we travel as a family and I don't like having to stop to make potty runs  with all of the children.  It's tricky...you can't leave everyone in the car and only take in Jack (who is usually the one who needs to "go")...the whole "I have to go NOW" when you are booking down the freeway is NOT what I want to hear when I'm on the road solo.  Luckily the drive went perfectly.  We drove three hours straight~no stops!  It was a miracle :)

The kids got to have some awesome "Uncle John" time!

 

 

 

My parents BBQ'd steak, chicken, and shrimp!  The meal also included a green salad, pasta salad, fruit salad, two cakes, and home made ice cream!  It was all delicious!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to UNCLE JOHN and AUNT ANA!!!! 

  

I can't believe their baby is due in six short weeks!!!  I am sooooooooo excited! :)

 

John and Ana's house looks amazing!  John was working on the front yard plants when we drove up today.  I love all of the details including the front door!

 

The fireplace with tile detail.

 

Looking into the kitchen from the dining room. 

 

Kitchen tile detail.  (I apologize once again for my non-existent photography skills).

 

Okay,  I had to include a photo of John's office (the tower).  The boys love this room for obvious reasons :).  If you look in the above photo of the front of the house you will see a room above the front door with two windows.  That's it.  It's a very cool room and you can get there via the "hidden stairs".

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too!  The three middle boys are at my parents house this coming week, so Andrew and Claire and I are going to be quilting and sewing and crafting...at least that is the plan. 

Our Day (in detail and with photos)

6am~

• I get up
• briefly check email
• do some Yoga, mostly warm ups and a couple of poses
• heat water for coffee/tea and prep for breakfast (french toast)

7am~

• children start to wake up~greet them
• change the baby
• visit with Matt and the baby in our room

7:30am~

• eat breakfast

7:45am~

• children clear places, get dressed and do morning chores
• I get dressed and start cleaning the kitchen

8:15am~

• Matt takes the children to Vacation Bible School while I feed the baby
• get Jack and Matthew ready for our walk, strap them into the Jogger and we are waiting out front when Matt gets home

8:45-9:15am~

• walk in our neighborhood

9:15-11:15am ~

• Matt gets ready for work
• I finish unloading and loading the dishwasher, make an oriental cabbage salad and start to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough
• Jack is coloring at the table and Matthew is in the high chair playing with toys

• Jack takes turns coloring and helping me
• Jack gets the diapers out of the washing machine and helps me hang them on our rack outside

• I start another load of laundry (whites)
• Matthew falls asleep drinking a bottle. I lay him in bed.

11:15am~

• I take a shower.  Jack plays with toys.

11:30am~

• I pull out the salad I made earlier and eat some.  I finish the cookie dough and while the mixer is working, I make Jack some peanut butter and jelly tortilla to eat along with some raisins

11:50am~

• leave to pick up older children (yes, I have to wake the baby and my hair is still wet)

12:20pm~

• we arrive home and the kids show me the new song they learned at VBS  (with the hand motions), then I take Matthew in the bathroom with me while I spend two minutes blow drying my hair...when I come out of the bathroom this is what I see 

• now I'm back in the kitchen (this is where I live)~ I do some organizing
• I receive two phone calls and make one
• the children are playing Clue (the boardgame)

1:00pm~

• I start baking the cookies (finally)
• Matthew is with me in the kitchen playing with three calculators and other stuff
• I am doing other odd n' ends while cookies are baking ~figuring out dinner, going through mail and tossing junk, we got the Nutcracker audition information in the mail so all the kids are excited and looking forward to auditions...I had to measure everyone today so they would know what parts they can OFFICIALLY try out for...now  Claire is watching the 'behind the scenes' of the Nutcracker DVD, the boys are playing with Legos and blocks

• Jack brings me a dead fly (isn't that nice?)

• I put some brown lunch bags on the kitchen table and suggest every one makes puppets
• we sample the cookies
• Matthew thinks they are delicious
• I bake bread  

3:00pm~

• I clean Matthew and have story time with him on the couch while the children finish their puppets

• I bring the clean/dry diapers into the house

3:45pm~

• family rosary - each child leads a decade and we all pray for the intentions that they mention
• I hang the second load of laundry outside to dry

4:00pm~

• we sit and visit in the living room, talking about whatever the children want...then we do 'four o'clock cleanup'  we tidy the entire house (each child is in charge of certain rooms etc...), the table is set, any laundry is folded and put away 

4:30pm~

• video time for the kids while I make dinner...today I washed the dishes from cookie baking, made a green salad, and chopped vegetables for our cream of vegetable soup.

5:15pm~

• while the soup is simmering, I upload photos and begin this post
• Matthew is sleeping
• finish dinner prep 

6:45pm~

• we eat the soup, bread, and salad for dinner

(oops, blurry photo :(

7:15pm~

• boys clear the table
• Claire loads the dishwasher
• everyone into pj's, brush teeth
• Matt home
• visit with Daddy while he eats dinner
• children to bed with lights out at 8:30pm

Hope you all had a wonderful day too! :) 

My Jack and Matthew Morning

While the big kids were at Vacation Bible School, Jack and I went to the grocery store to stock up on some good sales.  What a nice feeling to have a stocked pantry :)  Jack thought since we were out shopping, that we should stop and see Daddy at work.  We did see Matt only briefly because he was meeting with a rep but that is okay because we got to ride on the "robot stairs" (escalator) a few times. 

This is what happened while driving home~

 

I didn't want to bring Matthew in for just 15 minutes and then pack him up again to pick up the older kids so Jack and I unloaded the groceries and then we decided to "wash" the inside of the car.  I handed Jack a rag and he went to work "cleaning" every surface!  Boy, does he do a good job~and he is such a joyful worker :)

 

 

~Now for some Jack quotes~

1) The other morning while baking...  "This is too hard to stir for my tiny four year old hands."

2) "I don't understand!  Matthew has a heart AND a brain but he still can't talk!"

3) "Mom, I love you EVERY SINGLE DAY, even Wednesday."

 

Monday Morning and Photos from the Weekend

 

Today was the start of Vacation Bible School.  There were some very excited children here this morning!  While the older children were having their morning away enjoying games, crafts, songs, and snack time, the little boys, along with their Mamma (me) had some fun of our own :)

The following photo shows Jack with his pre-school activities~  cutting along marker lines, using the hole punch, using the plastic needle to "sew" his lace card and water colors.

 

While Jack was busy, I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and did some of my general chores.  Matthew was content to eat some snacks and watch Jack from his high chair.  After morning chores were finished, we headed to the library (we never tire of it).  The boys spent some quality time with the felt board and we checked out some books.  I picked up two Real Simple magazines and a Wonder Time magazine for 10 cents each (it was IN the budget :) hee hee.  After library time, it was off to Baskin Robbins for ice cream (had gift certificates).  I was sad that they didn't have the New York Peppermint Patty ice cream anymore.  It was my favorite!  Did any of you get a chance to try it???  It was yummy extreme!   Anyway, that was our morning.

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Here are some shots from the weekend~

 

Bedroom disorder is completely fine with me when this is happening...

 

the 'not my favorite' stencil is going bye bye forever!  I don't even have a photo of  the finished room...but stay tuned.  I will share a photo in the next day or two.

 

Here is cutest one year old that lives with us :)

 

Matthew loves the water.  He kicks his little legs so fast.  He thinks he's swimming.

 

Luke and Patrick are the best of friends.

 

The Mamma with her boy!  This is truly me at my most comfortable and most enjoyable~ in my (our) kitchen with my apron on, preparing something yummy, scooping up children, answering questions, helping with a craft, answering the phone, writing on the calendar, wiping the counter, filling the Brita pitcher, wiping the floor, sweeping the floor....this is my life...my very fortunate life!

 

The raspberries on the counter were used to make a lovely fresh raspberry tart and I forgot to take a photo of it!  It was beautiful though...and tasty too.  I will just have to make it again real soon :)

What are some of the things you like most about being a mother (father, uncle, Aunt, godparent)???

 

 

Funny Food!

 

The children really wanted to enter the funny food contest over at The Crafty Crow! (www.belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/

This is the breakfast face that they came up with.   Lucky Daddy got to eat it for his Father's Day breakfast!

 

UPDATE~  I just realized that my photo is up at Flickr but not in the right place...so I guess we didn't enter the contest...bummer.  It's funny, because I had never uploaded photos on Flickr before but I saw it posted with all of the other funny food contestants.  Maybe I didn't save it properly.  If anyone can help me out with this or if anyone with a typepad account can help me link correctly, I would be very grateful.  It is very frustrating for non-tech people like me!!!  It's not like I try to do anything fance around here...I'm just trying to do the basic blog posts!  :) 

Simple Summer Craft

 

As soon as Matthew went down for his nap at 11am, we got out the paints to make some colorful fish!  As I'm sure you know, I have a thing for watching my children (or any children) CREATE!  I like watching their faces concentrating and thinking about what color combination/design they want to make.  Their hands/fingers are unique in how they hold the paint brush and how they move it to make lines, or dots, or zig zags!

 

I simply cut a very basic fish shape (x2 for the front and back of the fish) out of the colored paper that the boys picked out.

 

Polka dots for Luke's fish!

 

The boys really took their time to get their fish just how they wanted them! 

When the paint had dried, I stapled part of the fish together and the boys stuffed it with bits of newspaper.

  

I attached a piece of string to hang them and stapled them shut. That is all!

 

Hang them up and enjoy your summer!

 

The idea for these came from a library craft that my children did at the park about eight years ago!  :)

 

 

Summer is Nice

I'm rushing to add a new post here...it has been a few days....I just have not been able to schedule in some blogging time for myself!  We're figuring out our summer routine which is fun, but we also have Matt's new work schedule thrown into the mix too.  Yesterday was the ideal summer day for us with the temperature in the 90's!  We swam in the morning, had lunch outside by the pool, then came in to cool off.  We changed out of our wet suits and drove to the library (which is literally 1.5 miles from our house) and everyone checked out books and we got the movie 'Parent Trap' (the original one).  We got back home and read books and colored and then I started prepping for dinner.  We had an evening swim and ate dinner and then the boys crashed!  Matt and I got to watch Cranford.  We finished disc one and are now anxiously awaiting disc two!!!!  

 

Andrew and Claire are with my parents this week!  They are getting lots of beach time, Mickey Mouse waffles (yes, my Mom has the Mickey Mouse waffle iron), going out to dinner, going to the movies (Indiana Jones) etc....

When we met my parents, they had these lovely vegetables for us!  They are from my Dad's garden.  The spinach is pictured above, but I also got a huge bag of mixed lettuce as well.  Thank you Dad!!!!  

Hope to see you all tomorrow ...I would really like to get a post up each day.  Let's see if I can do it.

PS~ Yes, I know there is a tiny creature on my spinach leaf.  We won't eat him :)