Easter! I think this is the first year that it was not freezing cold in Madison for Easter. This year, our Easter celebrations were spread out over a week, and the entire week was wonderful weather. Our building (plus some other wonderful neighbors) had a huge Easter egg hunt the weekend before Easter. Almost 400 plastic eggs were scattered around our yard for the 19 kids to find. I think just a couple days ago someone found two eggs that had been still hiding all week :)
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For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on a special project to give the kids for Easter. I found the idea on a blog, and itstead of paying for someone else to make everything for me, I looked at her pictures and made it myself (well, except for the leaf beds and pillows, one of our many friendly neighbors sewed them all and her daughter cut them out). I am so proud of the way they turned out!
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Kids say the darndest things
Rowan: Puts his arm around me and says, "Mommy, you're my best fwend"
Ellie: Insists, even though I've corrected her many times, that she likes to drink "soil" milk (soy milk) and eat "almints" (almonds). No amount of arguing will convince her of the correct pronounciation (but I'm pretty sure she's just saying it wrong on purpose now).
Rowan: At a music playgroup, a friend (and neighbor) leads the group. She asked Ellie her favorite food (macaroni)and we included that in the song. Rowan was next, so our friend asked him his favorite food. He answered, and my friend and I looked at each other thinking, "Did he just say ...?" So she asked again and he said again, "Barf." Yum Rowan.
Ellie: Our friend's daughter was at our place doing her homework and asked me what the word "cautious" meant. I said, "Hmm, well.." and I couldn't figure out right away how to explain it. So Ellie said, "Cautious means very careful." Thank you Ellie, for showing that you are smarter than your mom already.
Rowan: At a neighborhood potluck, Rowan flung his arm across the table to be silly and knocked a cup of milk on me. I faced him toward me and sternly said, "Rowan, look at me. You just spilled your milk on me. That was not nice. What do you say to me?" Rowan smiled and said, "You're welcome!" Not exactly what I was hinting at...
Both: Their new trick now to avoid getting in trouble is to say something like, "But that's what it says in my story! It says 'Ellie does not pick up her toys.'" Those of you who watch PBS kids Super Why know where that comes from.
Ooh, a bonus video! This is what happens when parents run out of ideas to entertain the kids. We were doing this for a while before remembering to film it to embarrass ourselves.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Ellie's new skills (and other random pictures)
Ellie has been taking a tumbling class, which she really likes. I like it too, because it is really the only class that she has taken, besides swimming, that actually teaches the kids skills instead of just playing games. The soccer class she took? Never once did she actually play soccer.
Another skill Ellie loves to show off is her new interest in drawing things and then cutting them out. Here are some examples:
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Ergo carrier
An Ergo carrier is the one big thing that I really want for our new baby. Yes, we have a ring sling, that Ellie lived in as a baby/toddler. Her and I trekked all over Cairo, Egypt with that thing! With Rowan, I bought a mei tai made by a mom. I used that a lot when he was a baby to go on walks and play outside. With this baby, since we pretty much have all the required baby gear, all I really want is a nice baby carrier. I figure that I will be wearing this baby as long as possible, so that I will still have two hands free - one to hold on to Ellie and one to hold on to Rowan. I am starting to save up money to buy this carrier, since it is pretty pricey.
Well, lucky for me (hopefully I am lucky!) there is a giveaway for a brand new organic ergo carrier on this blog: http://clotheslinecontentment.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/my-first-giveaway/. If I win, I can use the money I'm saving to buy more pretty cloth diapers :) Feel free to sign up for the giveaway (as long as you are entering to give it to me)! ;D
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
What have we been doing lately?
We've been:
Trying to get a good picture for valentine's day cards
Playing city with our toys
Faking smiles for the camera
Creating valentine pictures
Playing house with our tiny dolls in a soda 12 pack box
Drinking emergen-C with crazy straws
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Trader Joe's
This post is long overdue and much anticipated, so here it goes. This is a list of everything we frequently buy at Trader Joe's (and the prices if I have them).
Veggie and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips $2.39
White Cheddar Popcorn $1.59
Pita Chips (lots of flavors) $1.99
Cheese Crunchies $1.59
Potato-lentil Crunchy Curl chips $2.69
Salsa Authentica $1.69
PB & J nut mix $4.69
Dried mango slices $2.99
Kettle corn popcorn $2.xx
Cinnamon almonds $4.99
Cereal Bars (like nutrigrain) $1.69
organic apple sauce $2.19
Organic yogurt 32oz $2.99
Whole wheat couscous ???
Whole wheat cinnamon-raisin english muffins $1.79
whole wheat tortillas $1.99
whole wheat pita bread $1.59
hummus (many flavors) $1.99
hummus white bean and basil $3.99
frozen whole wheat blueberry waffles $1.99
frozen sweet potato fries $2.xx
trader joe's fish sticks $4.99
Swiss beer fondue $5.99
frozen Chicken potstickers ???
frozen Buffalo burgers $5.xx
The items near the end of the list are occasional splurges, and we don't usually buy all of this at once. And we always leave with one new item to try, since there are so many good treats! I'll keep updating this as I think of other items we have tried and would recommend :)
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Snow Day
It snowed here overnight and lightly all day today. I'd guess maybe 3-4 inches total? Not enough to affect the normal day-to-day activities around here, but enough to cover the ground with a beautiful new coat of snow. There has been snow on the ground here since the beginning of November, but it had been over a month since new snow. So the dirty, icy, old snow is now covered with pretty snow :) I had been waiting for it too! Ever since I found a recipe for the kids to make ice cream with snow, I've been hoping for some new snow. Here is the recipe we used:
- 1/2 cup half and half (milk may be used in a pinch)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 4 cups crushed Ice
- 4 tablespoons salt
- 2 quart size zipper-seal bags 1 gallon size zipper-seal freezer bag
The kids had fun with this and enjoyed the ice cream. It was pretty good! The kids also enjoyed making this creation outside with the neighbor kids:
It was recycling at it's greatest really. The giant balls used for the caterpillar were snowmen made weeks ago that had fallen apart. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the snowballs were almost higher than Rowan's shoulders. So after some heavy-duty pushing and shoveling from Nina and some helpers, they were able to pry the balls off the ground and put them in a line. Then I went upstairs and filled 5 spray bottles with water and red, green, blue, purple, and orange food coloring. The kids had a blast decorating it! And no one was harmed in the making of this caterpillar. Oh wait...
Rowan took a tumble during the construction phase and scraped his cheek on one of the giant snow balls. He went inside for about 2 minutes and then wanted back out to help decorate. What a trooper :)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tweet tweet
I have never tweeted before. I do have a twitter account that I created long ago to enter a contest, and somehow I have strangers following me even though I've never used it. I just don't get the concept. And who needs twitter when you have facebook? I mean, on twitter you can only fit in 140 characters, but facebook can fit a lot more. But just for fun, here is what today would have looked like in tweets:
7:05am - Alarm went off just as Ellie woke up. I pretended to be asleep and told her she could play in the playroom, then I snuck onto the computer.
8:45am - It's so hard to tear Claire away from Ellie to take her and Grace to preschool. Ellie always tries to sneak out with us.
9:15am - It is ridiculously cold outside! Too cold to take the kids grocery shopping. We'll have to make do with what's in the cupboard.
9:55am - Time for my very important meeting with the assembly chair (and neighbor) about taxes for the assembly. LOL
11:45am - Ellie is hiding in the closet with her friends, hoping I won't find her to take her home. Will Nina notice if I leave without her?
12:01pm - I get to spend the afternoon with the sweetest and happiest baby I have ever known. And the kids love her too! :)
12:45pm - Time to take my kids to school! I love Tuesdays and Thursdays :)
2:10pm - Washing dishes and watching The Bachelor on the computer. What? I already watched all the episodes of Scrubs and washing dishes is boring
3:15pm - It's a little warmer now (10 degrees), so Coraline and I will walk to pick up Ellie and Rowan from school. Hey, why is that fire truck ...
3:16pm - ... and those 5 police cars sitting in our neighborhood?
3:34pm - Birthday party again? Come on Ellie, can't we play another game today? I am just stuffed from all your imaginary lemonade and butter cake.
5:00pm - Dinosaur Train, I love you! Thank you for entertaining my kids with your funny antics and dinosaur facts.
5:15pm - Researching homeschooling ideas. Love the idea of the "workbox system." http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/
5:45pm - Dinner of pita pizzas and sweet potato fries. This is what you get when you don't go grocery shopping.
6:05pm - Rowan is imitating everything Ellie does, including crossing his arms and pouting. How can he be so cute?!?
7:33pm - Bedtime for the Tatum tots. Free time for the Tatum parents :)
8:15pm - Intrigued by the idea of living in a yurt. Neighbors, would that be a viable idea for living on the goat farm? http://www.yurtinfo.org/
9:00pm - Mash a banana in a bowl, add a spoonful of nutella. Scoop in some strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and you have a perfect bedtime snack :)
9:43pm - Why have I never watched the show Modern Family before? This is hilarious!
10:06pm - Time to update the blog!
Friday, January 22, 2010
How do you deal with this??
On Wednesday I spent 3 hours running errands (translated: shopping) while Jason stayed home with the kids. When I came home, Ellie came running out with a wooden fire truck. That I had stored away in a box (which admittedly is in the living room waiting to go down to storage) for Rowan's NEXT birthday. This is how the conversation went.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Winter fun
See this little guy? We befriended him for a while by leaving nuts just outside our balcony door. The kids love watching him eat with his little paws. He was even starting to get semi-comfortable with us. That all ended one day when as he was heading for the nuts, Rowan smashed a monster truck into the balcony door right in front of the squirrel. Bye bye little squirrel, it was fun while it lasted.
This morning we woke up to this odd sight.
We have never seen ice spikes on the trees before!
Ellie really loves playing outside in the snow. Finally! But Rowan is still young enough that it is not fun trudging through snow up to his knees. So, we play outside a little bit, but most of our fun is inside :) The kids received this earth-friendly dishes set made of recycled milk jugs for Christmas, along with some wooden food. They love playing picnic and restaurant, so today Ellie and I made this menu for her restaurant by cutting out pictures of food, gluing them on paper, and labeling them. I love Ellie's creative spelling, like "mufin," "ches," and "petzza."
Hmm, looks like I need to take some pictures of the kids actually playing these games :)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Back in the swing of things
Now that we are back in town, and have a working car, I have started to bargain shop again. There is a lot of clearance going on right now, with stores getting rid of excess stuff after Christmas. I did miss out on a bunch of it, but there are still deals to be had. Today I went to the bank (to deposit months of checks, oops!), Kohl's, Einstein Bagels, Michael's, and Target. I bought: a 4 pair set of thick socks for Rowan, a fabric play food set, a pair of snowboots for Rowan, a pair of snowboots for Ellie, 3 other pairs of shoes for Ellie, a play wooden rolling pin, two wooden castle 3-D puzzles, a pack of 3 wooden pegs, and a bagel with cream cheese. For all of that I spent less than $20. Woohoo for coupons and clearance!!
Here are the wooden puzzles and pegs. Rowan and Ellie each painted a puzzle, I painted the pegs, and then Jason and I raced to see who could put together the puzzle first. They were hard to figure out! You had to punch out each piece, but carefully because the only instructions were to match up #1 with #1, #2 with #2, etc. Then there were diagrams of all the pieces and each slot had a corresponding number. By the middle of the puzzle, it was so dang confusing that you just figured out which piece went where without the stinkin' diagram (please pardon my language). Well, Jason barely won the race :)
It was a fun afternoon craft. I doubt the wooden castles will hold up for long, but I will be buying more wooden pegs to make more dolls, since the kids fell in love with them!
Monday, January 04, 2010
Tatum tots
My friend Keeley coined this phrase for our kids, and I love it! For those of you who haven't heard, we are adding another Tatum tot to our family sometime around August 1st, 2010. Which means I am about 10 weeks pregnant now, with 30 weeks to go. And boy has it been rough so far! It seems that with each successive child, my "morning sickness" gets worse. This time around I have already had to have i.v. fluids and now have a prescription medicine to help with the nausea/vomiting. Taking the medicine was a hard decision for me, because even when I am not assisting in a human being's growth, I am pretty anti-medicine. It takes a major headache lasting for hours for me to take an ibuprofin. But once the nurse convinced me that being dehydrated and not retaining any calories was worse for my baby than any potential slight risks from medicine, not to mention the fact that I wanted to hide the pregnancy until after my sister's wedding (and I didn't want to vomit all over her beautiful dress), I decided to take the medicine. I am taking the generic version of zofran, and it is not a miracle drug, but it does seem to take the edge off the nausea. So, I still feel sick all day, but the vomiting has definitely decreased. I'm just hoping that this pregnancy will be like my others, and that the sickness will leave around week 14 :)
We were naively, ambitiously hoping to not reveal the news to our kids until we knew if it was a boy or a girl, so there would be no room for, "But I want a sister!!" Because as I predicted, Ellie is already clamoring for a sister. But the kids know and are extremely excited for a new baby. Rowan thinks the baby is residing in my belly button for now, but Ellie has everything figured out already. "Mommy, when will the baby in your uterus come out your vagina?"
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Grocery shopping
So, I always post my amazing shopping deals. But what about my not-so-amazing deals? Today, for the first time in a long time, I actually did my entire week's grocery shopping in one day. Usually I go to each store when I am in the neighborhood. Here is a not-amazing, but more typical shopping trip.
First, I went to Super Target:
2 boxes Kashi Crackers $3.98 - $3/2 coupon = $.98 for both boxes
2 boxes Pepperidge Farms Baked Naturals crackers $5.00 - 2 $1 Target coupons - 2 $1 regular coupons = $1 for both boxes
1 Steaz (organic tea) $1.09 - free coupon = $0
1 Simply Lemonade $2.04
2 Amy's Organics frozen kids meals (I'm ADDICTED to these!) $6.58 - $1/2 coupon = $5.58
1 cooked rotisserie chicken $4.99 - $1 Target coupon - $2 off any deli item coupon = $1.99
Total = $11.59
Next, Copps (our grocery store):
On Wednesdays, Copps will double 5 coupons $1 or less, if your total is $25 before coupons.
Arnold's Naturals 100% whole wheat bread $1.99
3 3/4 lbs Roundy's Natural chicken breast $7.63 - $1 off any meat coupon doubled = $5.63
2 Quaker rice cakes $4.00 - 2 $1 coupons doubled = $0
2 Quaker mini rice cakes $4.00 - 2 $1 coupons doubled = $0
1.10 lbs bananas $.43
1.27 lbs apples $1.26
Clearanced white chocolate-covered pretzels $1
2 gallons skim milk $3.78 - free milk coupon = $1.89
Kraft singles $1.66
3 8oz. Sargento shredded cheese $4.98
1 Jennie-O turkey 8.24 lbs price matched to $.39/lb $3.21 - $2 off a turkey coupon = $1.21
minus $.20 for using 4 reusable bags
minus $5 for a previous deal on Kelloggs cereal
Total = $14.85
Finally, I went to Trader Joe's:
2 bags veggie & flaxseed tortilla chips $4.78
dixie peach 100% juice $3.69
strawberry/Kiwi 100% juice $3.49
2 jars salsa $3.38
2 liters sparkling water $1.78
honey plantain strips $1.79
blueberry whole wheat frozen waffles $1.99
strawberry cereal bars $1.69
4 lbs organic gold potatoes $3.29
organic baby spinach $2.49
1 lb. bag organic kiwi $1.99
organic baby lettuce $2.49
organic baby carrots $1.69
organic broccoli slaw $1.99
corn tortillas $.99
whole wheat flour tortillas $1.99
whole wheat english muffins $1.69
white whole wheat flour $2.99
Total = $44.19
Grand weekly total = $70.63
Of course what I buy each week is different, but it averages to about $60-80 a week. It all depends on what's on sale, what coupons I have, and what meals I have planned for the week. I'd say this is a pretty average trip though. See, I told you I didn't get EVERYTHING for free or pennies :)
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Meet the new additions to our family
Today we welcomed two new members to our family:
Meet "People" and "Tinkilie." Yes, those are the names Rowan and Ellie picked for their bears they "built" today at Build-a-Bear. People is Rowan's bear, the lighter-colored one, and Tinkilie is Ellie's bear. They are both in only underwear because 1) Ellie wears underwear to bed so now her bedtime buddy matches, 2) Rowan is now potty-trained and loves underwear, and 3) The clothes are expensive! But the underwear is "only" $3.50. Speaking of that, Ellie wanted every outfit in the store for her bear, so she would love to get some outfits for Christmas ;)
I think they make good bedtime buddies, don't you?
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Quotes
"Mommy, I must be smarter than you, right? Because I'm the smartest person in the whole world!" - said Ellie on our walk to preschool this morning.
"No Mommy, talk Daddy!" - said Rowan with a scowl after I vetoed his request for cookies before dinner. Apparently he was talking to Daddy, not me.
"Do you have a baby in your tummy?" - Ellie asked our neighbor, who is NOT pregnant.
Same day - "Thomas, your hair looks funny." - said Ellie to our neighbor who shaved his head that morning.
"Looks... like... apple juice!" - said Rowan, as he looked into the toilet he just peed in.