Just another lazy Sunday

We had another carefree summer day today. We are so ready for Jason to come home, the only downside is that means our summer is almost over. We've had such a lazy summer that I'm not looking forward to getting back on a schedule.

Today we woke up, talked with Jason for a while on the webcam, ate breakfast, then biked to work at the church nursery. Then we biked back home and played "airplane."



Rowan tried to "airplane" Ellie, and luckily she was gentle with him.

They posed for a sibling picture

And Rowan and I posed for Ellie

For lunch, we made some strawberry cornbread muffins.

And then painted. Yes, I followed my sister Tara's wonderful mothering example and went through all the work to let the kids paint. Of course they loved it, and I found a genius way to hang up the paintings to let them dry.

I used magnets to hang them from the stove hood. Isn't it a great idea? ;)

Then I copied Tara again and gave the kids some shaving cream to play with.

Rowan jumped right in to the fun

Ellie used her shaving cream to wash her doll's hair.

After cleaning up, we went outside to play for a long while. Our building is now full again, so we have lots of fun neighbors to play with.

Rowan likes to give rides

and get rides too!


When we were outside, I put my hand down in the grass, right on top of a bee. Apparently that bee did not like being squished, so he stuck his behind right in my pinky finger. The poor bee flew off and left half his bottom in my finger. I think it hurt him more than it hurt me, although now my finger is quite swollen and hard to bend.

For dinner I made mango fried rice. I think it turned out great, although Ellie wouldn't touch the mangoes, which made Rowan not eat it at all. Once I made him take a bite though, he ate the rest of the bowl. By the time we finished dinner and ice cream, it was time for bed! And now I'm watching the newest Harry Potter movie online. I know, I know, it must have been illegally downloaded, but there's no way I'm going to make it to the theater to see it.

Sunny Saturday Snapshots

Look Mom!


Monkey see, monkey do


Raspberry for you


Secret smile

Beautiful girl

Perfect pout

Fun with sticks (she is getting so tall and slender!)

And more sticks

Rowan on his big bad bike

Local biker's hangout

Creating genius

What a belly (but nothing to rival Ashlyn's)

Who knew Kmart had good deals?

All of the talk on the coupon thread I post on has been about Kmart toy clearance. Since there is not a Kmart in my city, I tried to ignore all of the hype and not get too jealous. But I just could not take it anymore! So I drove the kids and I to 2 Kmarts today, one of them is an hour away, and then the other is a 1/2 hour further. Was it worth it? I think it was. We didn't really have anything else to do today, so why not? This is what I bought:

All of the toys were on clearance, plus an extra 50% off this week. So, most were 75% off (or more). Many of these toys will be for my kids for Christmas, and a lot will be for birthday parties and other gifts for others. And of course I had to give a couple of the toys to the kids to play with on the car ride home. :) My combined total at both stores was $117.65. But, I had $105 in prepaid debit cards (from instant wins and trades), so I only paid $12.65 out of our bank account. Score!

Here is a list of everything I bought, for those who are interested:

Shake and go car $4

Imaginex jungle toy $5

Imaginex animals $2.50

Imaginex jungle set $17

Pearl quest electronic game $3

Barbie flip phone $2

(2) Barbie dress-up slippers $1

Thomas the train laptop $11

Play-doh caddy $8.50

(2) Play-doh 50 pack $6

(7) Play-doh make and display $.75

(2) Play-doh ez crafts $1.75

Care Bear $6.50

Little Puppy pack $5.50

Leapster Backyardigans game $7 (after coupon)

Disney princess card games $2

Playmobil pirates $1

Playmobil knights $1

(2) Anne Geddes beanies $1.50

(2) Little Einstein play set $3

Little People 50th anniversary school $6

Magnex set $4.50

(2) Moon sand $1.75

Just in case anyone tries to add it up, I also used a $5/50 coupon at each store, so $10 off my total :)

Garden goodness

Doesn't it look good? 2 giant yellow squash, 1 giant zucchini, green onions, carrots, cilantro, a bowl of lettuce, and a cup of raspberries. Some of the squash got a little out of hand in the couple days I didn't get to the garden. They are huge! I guess I need to go check on them more often. I have a lot more onions and carrots to harvest!

New accomplishments

Both Ellie and Rowan have some new accomplishments they would like to share.

Rowan:



He can go on command now, but he hasn't learned how to hold it or tell me BEFORE he goes. So he's still in diapers, however, I haven't had to change a poopy diaper in over a week (besides this morning when all three of us had stomach bugs).

Ellie:





She is really moving along the Kindergarten Hooked On Phonics set, and she really enjoys reading. Next we move on to Spanish!

Burgers and fries

We have visitors! Yesterday my dad, grandma, and aunt drove up from Iowa just for the day, and although it was short, we had a great time. Now our former neighbors are visiting and staying in our place for a couple days. It has been so much fun having all the kids together again. Don't they look like they are having fun? As you can tell by the pictures, Rowan just adores them.

These four are best buds. Ellie (4), A (5 1/2), N (2 1/2), Rowan (2). I've been asked before if all of them are mine, and it could almost happen, if Rowan was prematurely born. There are only 8 months between N and Rowan.

Ellie took this picture. She is becoming quite the photographer!

Tonight we had a neighborhood BBQ, and all of the families we know and love were able to come. We had a blast! I organized the BBQ to get all the neighbors together, since we have two new families to our building, and our former neighbors were visiting as well. But I have to admit, I've been searching for a reason to make these, my main contribution to the BBQ:

Burgers and fries. Every BBQ has burgers, right? But these burgers are made out of cupcakes, brownies, and frosting. And those delicious-looking fries? Those are actually sugar cookies. The idea was stolen from http://www.bakerella.blogspot.com/, who also provided me with recipe for the cake pops I made for Ellie's birthday. Isn't this the cutest idea? And even better, they are soo good!

Wonderful, lazy summer days

I don't have a creative caption for this photo, but I just had to include it


Happy Birthday Rowan!


Rowan had his birthday yesterday. My "baby" is two years old! We didn't have a party for him (but don't tell him that when he's older and actually cares), but we did have a pretty fun day. First we went to a theater that has a free movie every week for kids. Then, we went bowling! We only played one game, because it took the kids 1 hour to bowl that one game. Plus Rowan thought it was hilarious to run across the lanes and bother other bowlers. I don't think the bowlers thought it was as funny as he did.

So, we came home and made these cookies to share with the neighbors.



They turned out pretty cute for having four grubby little hands helping me :) And don't tell my neighbors how many times Rowan licked the cookie dough (because I didn't tell them!). I guess I wasn't in the mood for birthday cakes this year, because I didn't make a cake for any of us. Poor Jason had nothing, Ellie had cake pops, my mom (and kids) made my birthday cake, and Rowan had cookies. The kids sure didn't complain; they will accept sugar in any shape or form.

Today was a pretty good day too, although it was more fun for me than the kids. We went to Old Navy this morning, because there was a great $5 sale on swimsuits, t-shirts, and shorts for the whole family. My lovely sister Tara was kind enough to send me a $50/100 coupon she scored at http://www.oldnavyweekly.com/ (they update coupons that you search for on that site at random times, so it is very difficult to get the good ones). And, I was lucky enough to win $50 in Gap giftcards through http://www.enjoytheriderewards.com/. Since Old Navy and Gap are owned by the same company, I was able to use my Gap giftcards at Old Navy. So, I had basically free $100 at Old Navy to spend! I bought: for Jason - swim shorts and 2 t-shirts; for me - 2 tankini tops and 1 bottom, 1 pair of shorts, 3 t-shirts, and one splurge on a full price zip-up sweater; for Ellie - one bathing suit, one bathing suit top, one sweater, one pair of pants, one long-sleeved shirt. Rowan didn't get anything, because I am well-stocked from Tara (well, Bryson) and neighbors. For those 16 items, originally priced at $258, I paid $6.39. CRAZY!!! Oh, and in addition, because I "spent" more than $50, I received a coupon for $20 off of $20 valid July 6-9. That coupon will be sent to Tara to thank her for the $50/100 coupon.

Then, for lunch we went to a stir-fry restaurant I had never been to before. It is a neat place, you go through a salad bar-type line and add everything into a bowl that you would like stir-fried together. You give it to the chef, and then your waiter brings it to you when it is cooked. Let me tell you, it was pretty crazy trying to fill my 3 bowls while keeping my kids from tripping up the other restaurant patrons. I must have apologized to the whole restaurant by the time we sat back down at our table :) The food was pretty good (well, I did pick it myself, didn't I?), but the kids didn't really eat theirs. It's okay, because I brought it home for me to eat later. Oh, and did I mention that I had a coupon for a free stir-fry from my birthday? Oh, and that when I arrived there I saw the sign that kids 4 and under eat free? Yes, our bill was only $2.09, to pay for the lemonades I ordered for the kids. CRAZY!!! I'm sure our waiter thought he was not going to get much from us because all our meals were free, but I paid $10, so his tip was pretty good :)

I guess all the crazy deal-shopping was tiring for the kids, because when we came home I sent them to their beds for a rest (after Ellie had a HUGE meltdown over something silly). After about 10 minutes, I realized that neither of them were making any noise. They both fell asleep! Neither of them nap anymore, so I was very (pleasantly) surprised. I even had to wake up Ellie so we could go to the splash park with our neighbors. We stayed there for almost 3 hours (!), shopped at Trader Joe's, ate dinner, then bathed and the kids went to bed. Ah, what a great day!

It's so HOT!

I know, our temperatures are nothing like those of you in AZ. But add in the fact that humidity is high, we have no air conditioner at all, and we live on the second floor of our building, our apartment is so miserably hot and sticky. Two weeks ago the high was 59 and today it hit 100. It never came close to 100 last year. Ugh.

So, we spent all of today out of the house. In the morning we went to a friend's house to watch her 3 kids. They are (almost) 4, 2, and 5 months, and my kids have a lot of fun with them. Unfortunately, they did not have air conditioning either, but their house was cooler than ours. Here was our schedule for today:

6:30-9:30 = wake up, eat breakfast, check Facebook, email, coupon thread, and a bazillion blogs. Listen to Ellie read a couple of her Hooked on Phonics kindergarden books. Eat a snack, draw some pictures. Put together a crockpot dinner.

9:30-12:30 = friend's house. Chase two 4-year-olds and two 2-year-olds around while carrying 5-month-old baby. Also make grilled cheese for everyone while holding 5-month-old baby.

12:30-1:30 = pick up a couple of things from Target, sloooowly because Target has air-conditioning. Call Nichole to ask if Warren wants a clearanced video game

1:30-2:30 = drive to the McDonalds on the other side of town because it has an indoor play area. Call mom to complain about the heat. Sit in the car (with the air-conditioner running) for 1/2 hour in the parking lot because Ellie fell asleep and she NEVER does that and she desperately needs it. Call Tara and ask her how long I should let Ellie sleep.

2:30-4:30 = play in kids' area, buy ice cream cones and eat them, wash up, play some more, buy double cheeseburger and fries to split three ways, play some more (because it is air-conditioned!)

4:30-5:30 = play in a nearby splash pad that thankfully is mostly shaded by trees at this time of day

5:30-7:00 = drive home, eat dinner from the crockpot, take a cold bath.

7:00 = Bedtime for the kids!

Tomorrow our day will be similiar, because it will still be hot, although the high is only 88. I hope this warm front moves out soon!

Trying out new recipes

I feel like I have a little more freedom with trying new and different recipes, since it is just the kids and I eating here. Jason is great with my attempts to branch out and try new meals; he always eats at least some of what I make and never complains, but there is a lot less pressure to get it right when I know I can just whip up a couple of sandwiches or scrambled eggs if my cooking experiments turn into disasters, and my kids would never know. There is no one to witness my failures :)

So, last night I made a strawberry salad. I tweaked a recipe I found on allrecipes.com to include ingredients that I already had in my refrigerator. It was DELICIOUS! Here is the recipe I made:

Dressing:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3/8 cup white sugar This is a guesstimate. More than 1/4 cup, less than 1/2 cup :)

1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1 Tb. minced onion.

Mix all that up, refrigerate at least an hour. Then toss lettuce (I used mixed greens, but spinach is what the actual recipe calls for) and strawberries, pour enough dressing over to make it yummy. I only used half of the dressing for a huge salad. For a little crunch, you can sprinkle on poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or slivered almonds.

Then tonight, I made this veggie cereal recipe from here. Yes, it sounds gross. But it intrigued me, because I dislike eating veggies, and so do my kids. So I figured it was worth a shot to find a way to get them in our diet.

Veggie Cereal

3 T raw pecans

3 peeled baby carrots

1/2 cup cauliflower

1/2 cup broccoli

1 large peeled, cored apple

Chop the pecans and carrots in a food processor. Pulse until all they are chopped into small pieces. Add the cauliflower, broccoli and apple and pulse again until all ingredients are about the size of couscous. Scoop a generous serving in a cereal bowl, add cinnamon and almond milk.

I thought this was okay. I made a huge bowl of it and served it for dinner. Ellie said, "Eww, yucky!" (we are still working on politely refusing foods). But I told her it was rainbow cereal, and that got a couple bites out of her. She didn't really like it, but at least she ate some. If she knew what was in it, she wouldn't have taken even one bite! Rowan didn't really eat any, but he usually doesn't eat dinner anyway; he snacks too much. I ate my whole bowl and the kids' portions and saved the rest for breakfast the next couple mornings. Even if it's not exceptional, I'd much rather eat my veggies this way :) The kids ended up eating carrots and whole-wheat pita bread dipped in hummus, which is pretty healthy anyway.

And here is a bonus picture of Rowan eating blueberries for his bedtime snack. Isn't he sweet?

I caught some smiles!

I met up with a friend in Madison at Chuck E. Cheese, and I caught some smiles with the camera.

A day in the life...

Today was a pretty typical summer day for us in Madison. We woke up, web-cam chatted with Jason, went out to the garden to do a tiny bit of weeding (no friendly gardeners were at the compost this morning to listen to Ellie chat for 45 minutes straight like yesterday), came home and packed a lunch, and then biked to the zoo. Well, I biked, the kids rode in the bike trailer. Well, my electric bike biked, I pedaled a little, and the kids rode in the bike trailer. The zoo is pretty cool, because it is free and has a lot of fun animals. Well, entrance is free, but we MUST ride the carousel ($1 each) and feed the goats ($.75 each) each time we go.

Here we are arriving at the zoo, don't my kids look excited?

Okay, maybe they don't look excited yet, but wait until they see all the awesome animals!

They are looking a little more lively, right? Ooh, wait until they feed the goats; Ellie was begging to do that since we arrived at the zoo.

Hmm, Rowan is starting to smile a little, let's try eating lunch, maybe they just need a reboost of energy. Some turkey and ranch sandwiches, carrots, strawberries, and string cheese should help.

Now, the carousel. Nothing could be more fun than the carousel!!

See Rowan's death grip on the pole?

Seriously, they had a great time, even if it may not look like it. After the zoo, we came home and took a rest. Which meant Ellie watched a movie, Rowan scooted his cars and blocks across the floor, and I played on the computer. Then, it was pedicure time.

While Daddy is away, the girls will play.

(Don't worry, Rowan begged for and received a light coat of sparkly toes too)

And for the next two pictures, Ellie decided she wanted to be the photographer. So, here is a great picture of Rowan and me:

This one might be a good one if it wasn't so blurry:

Heard from Jason

Jason arrived safely in Cairo! He even said that he has arrived without jet lag, because he was able to sleep on the plane and then again soon after arriving in Egypt (he flew in at 7pm Cairo time). Thanks to a friend who lives in Cairo, but lived in Madison last year, Jason has a place to stay and was given a tour around his new neighborhood.

Now the countdown until his return begins :)

I have neglected the blog

and I realize it. It seems like there is too much going on for me to blog, but here is a very quick update.

Today I am driving Jason to the Vegas airport, where he will be flying (eventually) to Cairo, Egypt. For ten weeks. Again. But this time, the kids and I will be staying home. It's just too expensive for us to buy tickets, and we didn't suffer through a Wisconsin winter to miss out on enjoying the beautiful summer! I am not looking forward to being the sole adult/parent in the house for that long, but military spouses do it all the time, and for much longer periods, right? I think that we will survive without Daddy for the summer, but can I survive without Jason, my husband? Luckily technology today is awesome and emails and webcams can keep us all in contact.

And now a couple of pictures:

Jason, his sister (the beautiful bride), his brother (the ring-bearer), and Ellie (the flower girl)

Ellie spent the entire wedding ceremony dancing with the big girls

Rowan had more fun exploring and climbing

And the promised picture of Ellie's birthday "cake." It was cake pops, roses, and candles arranged in a box. The cake balls are soooo good!!

Birthday Fun

Whew, Ellie's 4th birthday is over, and I am exhausted! If our camera had a memory card (ours is MIA), I would have done the day in pictures like Tara did for Easter.

The celebration started Thursday night,when we ate dinner at Red Robin for Jason and Ellie's birthdays. Jason and Ellie both had free meals, and then the staff came out with balloon-decorated ice cream sundaes to sing a LOUD, enthusiastic birthday song. Just what Jason was hoping for :) But Ellie grinned as she hid in her daddy's arm. I think we could have just done that for Ellie's birthday and she would have been perfectly happy, because she really loved it. Funny, not eating out for 4 months made it like a brand new experience for the kids.

Last night I stayed up past 1am cleaning and preparing food for Ellie's birthday party today. Instead of a birthday cake, I made cake balls and pops (cake balls on a stick). Those were fairly easy to make, but took a long time since each one had to be coated in chocolate. The other food we had was fruit salad, sandwiches, veggie tray with dip, hummus and pita bread, chips and salsa, cheese slices, kettle corn, and lemonade. Quite a spread!

Ellie woke up this morning to find the huge dollhouse that Jason put together for her. I bought it for her before Christmas (at an amazing price), so I've been impatiently waiting to give it to her. So far she loves it, we just have to find somewhere to put it in her room. At 10am we went downstairs for her party. We played a few games, ate some food, sang happy birthday, opened presents, and then just let the kids play. The weather was pretty good (upper 50s) until we tried to light the candles and then it started to be really windy. Isn't that how it always goes? :)

After the party we came in for a short rest time. No one slept, but the kids played in their beds for 1/2 hour while the parents refueled. Then, after Ellie tried out her new stamp set, I took the kids back outside to play for a while before Ellie's friend came over for a "play date." No, Ellie didn't hide her in the closet to stay forever :) Next we had a yummy meatloaf for dinner and finally, I took Ellie on the bus to get her free birthday Coldstone ice cream cone. Cotton candy with M&Ms, yum. We ate it outside on a bench and everyone who saw her smiled at her sticky blue mouth as she devoured her cone.

As soon as I can figure out how to get the few pictures and video off our camera, I will post them. In the meantime, there are some pictures on my facebook page.

Tidbits

- Rowan likes to say "Room" to Ellie when she's being naughty; he's telling her to go to her room for a time-out

- Ellie snuck out of the house one morning before anyone was awake to go to her friend's house. She climbed on a chair to unchain the door.

- Jason and I went to dinner last night at a new Asian restaurant and I had sweet sticky rice. I used to get it all the time when I was pregnant with Ellie, and this was the first time I've found it since then. It was soooo good!

- We have a huge garden plot all to ourselves this year. I hope we can keep up with it this summer!

- Ellie just asked me if China's sky was made of sand, since the kids at school always say that underneath the sandbox is China.

- Rowan burned his toes on our steam mop a week ago, and it was very painful for him. I think they are healing, but look horrible!

- Jason is probably going to Egypt for the summer to study Arabic and do research for his Ph.D. All summer. And the kids and I will stay in Madison.

- Tomorrow is Jason's birthday and Saturday is Ellie's! One night this week we will go to Red Robin for their free birthday burgers and Coldstone for free ice cream.

- I just started a new workout dvd called 30 Day Shred and my legs are killing me!

- Last night, while Jason and I were at dinner, Ellie found some medicine in our neighbor's bedroom, chewed it up, spit it out because it was yucky, then freaked out our neighbor by coming to her with a dyed-blue mouth asking for a drink of water. Poison control said she would be fine. We had a little talk with Ellie.

- We are coming to AZ in 3 weeks and we are so excited to see Jason's sister get married to a wonderful guy!

Neighborhood Easter egg hunt

We did an Easter egg hunt today with some of our neighbors, and had a great time! Our neighborhood didn't have anything planned for the kids, and since we don't have a car to take us anywhere else, we had to plan our own egg hunt! So, I used emails, facebook, and door-to-door invitations to put together an egg hunt in our play area. Another dad and I hid the 180 plastic eggs around the yard, and then 12 kids had a blast finding them all. The 3 toddlers searched in the sandbox, and everyone else had a huge area to hunt through. The older kids found their 15 eggs quickly, so they helped the preschoolers find the rest of the scattered eggs. It was way more fun than having our own egg hunt in our house.


Here's a bonus picture of Rowan, sleeping with one of his best buddies, a sock monkey he received from Aunt Nikki for Christmas. He calls it "Mono" which means monkey in Spanish. He always takes at least two animals with him to bed, and they rotate depending on who he wants, but Mono is always one of them. One of his "friends" closes the door and turns off the light at bedtime. Rowan and Ellie are different in so many ways, but it's neat to see Rowan going through the same stage of loving stuffed animals.

Building towers

Rowan received these blocks for Christmas, and the kids are just now really enjoying playing with them. Ellie builds the towers up, Rowan builds sprawling landscapes with them. And of course, like all good brothers and sisters, they fight over blocks.





Rowan's genius building style


The final product