Menu Plan Monday

Another busy week- Brownies, planning an end of year party, Walk-a-thon. I'll be glad when school is over and I can stop to breathe. The start of school and the end of school are the craziest times in a mom's life.



Saturday- The kids had homemade pizza (we went to a Tri-Stake youth dance festival on Friday and had IHOP). The adults went to Olive Garden to celebrate my Stepmother's birthday. I had the chicken crostina, which I had been wanting to try since it came out. It was so good, I almost asked for the recipe. Yay Olive Garden for reading my mind! Perry had this and really liked it. The smoked mozzerella fontuda was very good, too.
Sunday- Chicken and rice (which we didn't have last week), corn, biscuits
Monday- Walk-a-thon surprise
Tuesday-Spaghetti, French bread
Wednesday-Leftover spaghetti
Thursday- BBQ chicken, corn on the cob
Friday- Homemade pizza

For more yummy ideas, visit I'm an organizing junkie

Menu Plan Monday Debut

I know I've been tagged and, while I have no interest in having my house burn down, I'm still working on that post (okay, mainly finding a few people to tag). This post is a little easier, since I basically wrote it on Friday.

My menus go from Saturday-Friday, since I do my shopping on Saturday. I'm also switching out winter and summer clothes, so things are pretty quick and easy this week. So, without further ado....

Saturday- Hot dogs and brats on the grill (woohoo Spring!), fresh corn on the cob, pasta salad, and deviled eggs (my friend brought the last two things).

Sunday-BBQ chicken sandwiches (done in the slow cooker), corn on the cob.

Monday- Mac and cheese (Perry's out of town).

Tuesday- Baked ziti, French bread, salad

Wednesday- Roast chicken, green beans, stuffing.

Thursday- Chicken and rice (made from yesterday's leftovers), corn, and biscuits.

Friday- Pizza and popcorn night. We have a tradition eating homemade pizza in front of the TV and renting a movie.

For more yummy ideas, visit I'm an organizing junkie.

Tagged

4 jobs I have held you may not know about:

I'm pretty boring on the job front.
Market research interviewer (yes, the people you run from in the mall- but it really helped in getting over my shyness, which is why I took the jobs)-twice
Veterinary assistant/receptionist/kennel worker-3 times

4 movies I have watched over and over:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Phantom of the Opera
Sense and Sensibility
Pretty much any of the Disney cartoons starting with Little Mermaid


4 places I've lived before now:

Tennessee (Franklin and Chattanooga)
Texas (Richardson)
Arizona (Glendale and Tucson)
New Mexico (Playas and Silver City)

4 TV shows I love to watch:

Lost
Scrubs
My Name is Earl
Monk
I'll add a 5th- just about any "reality" show- except for Survivor

4 Favorite Foods:
Lasagna
Mushroom Swiss Burgers
Chicken Parmagiana
Fried Artichoke Hearts
I'm also going to add the chicken crostina from Olive Garden that I had Saturday night.

I've had this post sitting in my draft box forever, trying to figure out who to tag. I'm going to tag Emily and Tara.

Music

We sang this song at our Easter program at Church a few weeks ago. I wrote down the lyrics before the program so I could have them to write this post, then the paper was upstairs, the computer downstairs, and I never thought about them while upstairs and couldn't be bothered to go up and get them when I was downstairs. So when my sister-in-law posted this, I saw them upstairs and carried the paper with me to not forget to bring them downstairs. They then got lost on the kitchen counter for a few days, but they've finally made it to the computer. We sang this song last year, and I wanted to copy down the lyrics then, but as I've already illustrated, the road from point A to point B is long and has many side trips, lol. I always tear up at the end, it's a miracle I can finish it at all.

Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands
Lyrics- John V. Pearson
Music- David R. Naylor

Behold the wounds in Jesus' hands,
The marks upon His side,
Then ponder whom He meant to save
When on the cross He died.
We cannot see the love of God
Which saves us from the fall,
Yet know that Christ from wood and nails
Built mansions for us all.

Behold the outstretched hands of Christ,
Our God, who came to save,
Whose love and grace redeems our souls
And lifts us from the grave.
Though bruised and battered as we stray
His guiding hands caress,
He washes and anoints with oil
Then in His arms we rest.

Behold the wounds in Jesus' hands,
Look to your Lord and live.
He yearns to bless you with His love
And all your sins forgive.
Oh empty is the heart of man
When it is filled with sin.
Come, open wide your broken heart
And let your Savior in!

Behold His wounded hands and feet!
Come touch and see and feel
The wounds and marks that you many know
His love for you is real.
Then as you fall to worship Him
And wash His feet in tears,
Your Savior takes you in His arms and quiets all your fears.

Your Savior takes you in His arms and quiets all your fears.

Listen to an excerpt here.

Mixed Blessing

Anneliese woke up for the second night in a row. I didn't mind in the old days, since she would fall asleep as she started nursing. Not anymore. I think she clones herself twenty times and they like to play on the bed. Even while she nurses, she's trying to flip herself around. If she's still enough that I fall asleep, just as I'm asleep she'll sit up, wanting to nurse on the other side. Then she'll usually sleep until normal time (provided the kids are quiet as they get ready for school). I don't know what time she woke up this morning. I stumble to her room without glasses, but I do know I saw the green light on our security panel. The next thing I know, I open my eyes and see green flashing on Perry's side of the bed. Yay power outage! Turning the TV on shows it's 5:15. We reset the clocks and snuggle into the covers again. Perry then wakes up- power's gone out again. He took his shower with a gas lamp. I was worrying about having to find a friend not in the neighbourhood, since I needed to make frosting for some giant cookies and I need my mixer for that. Power came back on, and we turned on the news just as they were talking about the power outage in our area. They never said what caused it, though. If it hadn't been for Anneliese, though, we would'nt have noticed the power outage. I'd still like to sleep through the night for the rest of the week, though.

Seven Already?

Today is Mischa's seventh birthday. She got to spend the night with Oompah and Grandma last night and go shopping and out to lunch with Grandma today. Watching her walk toward the car today when I was picking her up, I was struck by how she isn't a little girl anymore. She is growing up fast. Her art and handwriting have improved so much over the course of the year. Watching her with her friends has really been fun. My little girl has girlfriends. She has such a big heart and an even bigger imagination. She has a room-brightening smile and a cute little snort when she really gets to laughing. She is probably a bigger reader than I ever was. She is insightful, caring, and an all around joy.


Dora and Boots by Mischa

She's TWOOOOOOOOO!

Be afraid, be very afraid. More afraid than Caleb being a dentist (we're at INK- a place in Gainesville that is bunch of stores and offices that let kids play pretend. I have some more pictures, I'll do a post on it sometime).
Anneliese is the stereotypical two-year old. Ugh. If she wasn't so cute.....She's starting to assert herself more, which is good, except that screeching usually accompanies that. She has the sweetest smiles, though, so it's hard to stay mad for long.

So, to recap terror levels:


Caleb as a dentist- Low

Anneliese- Medium

And Josh- High

Cool Site

Thanks to Code Yellow Mom for this heads up. This is a really neat site where letters were found on butterfly wings. They are absolutely gorgeous and it's a great reminder that the unexpected can be found in anything.

Terrible Twos, Terrific Twos

Two is right around the corner at our house. With a vengeance. Our sweet, quiet baby is turning into quite the screech monster. And don't get me started on the hitting. I try to remind myself that this is as frustrating for her as it is for me, but after prying her off my legs 30 times in as many minutes while cooking dinner, I tend to lose sight of that.

One of the upsides of two is being able to let her go out to play with her brothers and sister. One of their favourite things right now is going down our small hill in the backyard in one of their cars. Sometimes they go down on a tricycle-type one. Josh's main problem with this one is getting off. He always catches his leg on the the handlebars. And falls down. Onto the horrible ground that meanly sticks to his hands and pants. And he cries. Because to my kids, this is the end of the world. I was watching him out the kitchen window the other day and watched this scenario play out. For the umpteenth time. This time, however, Liesie was at the bottom of the hill. She walked over and started brushing off his pants. Then she grabbed his hands and brushed them off. She followed this up with a big hug. I forgot that two has some sweet moments, too.



She isn't much of a talker. She still won't say Caleb or Mischa. To fill in some important gaps (milk, cookies, ketchup, french fries), I've been teaching her sign language. So imagine my surprise this morning as the bus pulls up.
"Bus!"
"You're right, sweetie, bus!"
We start trudging up the hill home.
"The bus is yellow."
"Elow"
Woo hoo, on a roll now! I point to her coat- "Pink".
She looks at me.
"Say 'pink'".
She points to the coat.
Falling back on a now known, I ask her to say yellow again.
She points to the now leaving bus.
Snot face.

Can Anyone Help Me Post Video?

Pretty please?

Just One More for Today

I really am going to spread these out over the next few days, but since this turned out so cute and it is green, I couldn't resist.

My stepmother has been teaching me how to sew, so to thank her, I made her this frog pincushion. I had seen this square pincushion over at Rocks in my Dryer , and then I went to the site she had gotten her inspiration from. I was all set to do the square pincushion, but when I went upstairs before I left for Wal-Mart, I saw some green fabric I had leftover. She and my dad love frogs, so the idea was born. I bought some green embroidery thread, some googly eyes, and a dragonfly button.

Losing Teeth

Mischa lost her first tooth on February the 17th. She's been waiting for such a long time for this day to come!

Emptying the Camera

To make room for the pictures he'll be taking in England, we downloaded the pictures from the digital onto the computer. So now I'll have lots of pictures to inspire my blogging. Guess it's just a little luck o' the Irish for ya!

Happy St. Perry's Day! 2007

Tis that time again- Perry's birthday. The big 3-5. And he's off to merry old England. So if you want to send some birthday love to Perry or his twin, Pat, click on over!

We love ya, Hon!!! Even if you are old!

Stopping to Say Hi

I apologize for the big lull there. Things have just gotten crazy around here. Caleb was suspended for two days for hitting two fifth graders in the stomach, so I've been doing a lot of research on ADHD and homeschooling, just to keep my options open. Then I get a soon to be VERY two year old girl all of a sudden. Ugh. It could be worse, I guess. My friend has a three year old girl with Joshua syndrome (I really shouldn't laugh).
Girl Scout cookies have come in (thank you again, Perry, for braving the warehouse to load our minivan full of our troop cookies!), so between sorting and delivering, and preparing our girls for our first ever booth sale, it's been chaos on the Brownie front. We had our first booth sale on Saturday. It started out sprinkling on us on the way there, but quickly turned into the perfect day. Our cookie mom, B, only gave us about a third of our cookies, since she was concerned that they wouldn't sell, since this area had booth sales for three straight weeks. We were at Walmart, land of impulse buys, so I don't know what she was thinking. Luckily, my co-leader is cookie mom for her older daughter's troop and had brought all of their cookies. We sold out of what we brought and used enough of theirs, that when we paid them back with our boxes in B's garage, we didn't have enough boxes and had to pay them for six boxes! We sold 250 boxes! Woo hoo! B was initially concerned about how many we ordered extra for the booth sales, but I think we have the most awesome little sellers in the world! Only four of our girls signed up to help on this sale, so to give all the girls a chance to do this we're helping out the troop we borrowed cookies from at their booth sale this coming weekend (no parents have been signing up to help man the booths for them, how sad). They might not have booth sales at all next year because it's too frustrating for the cookie mom and leaders. I signed up to stay on after our sale to help my co-leader out.
I'm also in a weight loss quest, and decided that I really need to step up the exercise. I haven't been too good sticking with that, but the past few days I've really tried to get at least one walk in. I did two yesterday and the shin splints have caught up to me. I'm going to rest my legs for a few days and start a little less ambitiously, lol. I've never been a runner, so it must be seeing how awesome Perry is doing with his weight loss by running that caused the temporary insanity. The sad part was that you could only call it a slow jog, and I could only keep it up for two minutes at a time, two or three times in my 30 minute workout. I guess I'll need to focus on diet (at least the evil cookies are out of the house) and pilates for the next few days. So if I go AWOL again, you'll know that I feel better.

Funny Kids

Just a couple of quickies-

We had Joshua say prayers at dinner the other night. He's been saying them for awhile, but he always stops and waits for us to say something, then repeats it. This night, Perry was helping him, but kind of using charades to do it. Joshua asked for the food to be blessed, then he paused. Perry made a muscle and pointed at his arm, for "to make us strong", and Joshua then asked to "please bless our elbows".

One of the kids was watching a movie yesterday and paused it during a preview of Charlotte's Web. In it, Dakota Fanning was kneeling down to talk to Wilber. Anneliese kept hitting her on the bottom, saying, "Go, go".

A Little Bit of Sass

On Monday night, we went to Dairy Queen (nyah, nyah Toni) for a treat to go along with our nonexistent Family Home Evening. On the way there, we passed by Chick-Fil-A. Joshua always calls this Cow Foot, even when I tell him the name. On this night, he informed me that this was no longer called Cow Foot, it was Chicken Cow Foot. I chuckled at this, and was rebuked with a "Don't laugh at me".
The next situation needs a little bit of background. Monday was a noisy day. A really noisy day. Apparently Joshua thought I was a mile away every time he talked to me. Noise really wears on me. A lot. So here we are at Dairy Queen (hot fudge sundae, mmmm) and Joshua has been told several times to whisper, since I'm sitting right next to him. I was reading the nutritional pamphlet (only 240 calories for my small sundae, not too bad), so I popped him playfully on the head. And I was met with him standing on his chair and saying, "What do you say now, Mom?". Ouch. I guess they do listen, lol.

A Little Math for Ya

Mischa had to make up a subtraction problem for her homework tonight. Poor wormies.

Baby Lessons

I was watching one of the newest babies in our ward yesterday as he was sitting next to my chair in Relief Society. He's about 2 months old and is so cute (his sister, Daphne, looks just like your old Cabbage Patch Kid, Karina, Toni. It's really freaky).

Okay, returning from my trip down memory lane... I was watching this little cutie waving his arms and legs around, and every so often managing to get his little fist into his mouth. He was so happy when this happened. As I was watching him get more and more excited every time this happened, I had to chuckle to myself. I was amazed at how something so simple caused him so much joy. I then had a thought about this. I thought about how excited we must have been in the Preexistence in learning that we would be getting bodies. I thought about how this little spirit I was looking on was getting to experience the joys of a body and what it could do. I thought about what lay ahead for him- crawling, walking, running, jumping, climbing. I thought about how proud and joyful my kids were (and are) when they mastered these things. Caleb is learning to ride a bike right now. He's very good at falling, but that was another post. We get to experience all sorts of new things thanks to this body. I think about Mischa drawing, or Joshua swinging. The possibilities of this body are almost endless. I thought about my roommate from college. She wrote about taking up ballet again, and how her body remembered a lot of what she had learned many years ago. I think about me, riding a bike again after 15 years (and not falling off!). This body really is one of the neatest creations of our Heavenly Father, and I'm ashamed that I've lost a lot of the joy and wonderment over all I can do. I'm going to have to pay more attention to those things that I've taken for granted.

What have you recently done that amazes you?

Go Ahead, Make My Day

Almost every morning it's the same thing, only the time is different. Joshua comes sliding down the stairs, one at a time, on his bum. He then runs over to me, sitting at the computer, climbs up on my lap, throws his arms around my neck, then as he pulls away, asks for "Disney channel and a poptart". He is so nice and warm, so cuddly. I just can't imagine my day starting any better.