Norwex

I have a new job. One that I can make my own hours: work as much as I want to and whenever I want to. But also one that I never, ever thought I would want to do before.

I just started selling Norwex products. Norwex is a company that sells products used to clean your home (and body) without dangerous chemicals. The product that is most well-known is the Antibacterial Microfiber Enviro Cloth. It cleans just about everything, using just the cloth and water. Microfiber picks up dirt, dust, and all the other microscopic yuckies by using fine fibers and static electricity - unlike regular cloths that pick up some but smear most of it around. The Norwex antibacterial microfiber also has a silver agent embedded in the material that has self-purification properties. If you use it dry, it will dust a surface like you have never seen before. When wet, it picks up bacteria and germs which are then broken down by the silver agent. They also have many other products that work fantastically to clean.

How in the world did I decide to sell Norwex? I have never wanted a job in sales. I don't like the thought of pressuring people to buy something. But, when I visited my grandma last month and saw some Norwex products, I fell in love with them. And I knew that other people would want to buy them. The quality is top-notch, there is a 2 year guarantee on most of their products, and so many families are moving away from using harsh chemicals to clean. People are starting to realize that a typical house often has more toxic pollution inside than outside, due to harsh cleaners, air "fresheners" and other chemicals. Also, Norwex products are more environmentally friendly - no waste and no chemicals is better for the earth! I am somewhat known in many of my social circles as, well, a bit of a hippie. Since so many people ask me questions pertaining to healthy and sustainable living, why not have a product to offer them that will help them reach those goals? And of course, I can make a little money as I do it :)

So, I signed up to be a consultant and sent away for my starter pack. It comes with a few of the basic Norwex items to try out and then demonstrate for potential customers. I kind of let my house get dirty while I waited for the products to be shipped to me because I really wanted to try them out as soon as they arrived. First I tried the mop. It has a dry mop pad and a wet antibacterial microfiber pad. The first thing I noticed about the mop is that the height is adjustable, which is really nice. I envision shortening the mop and letting the kids play mopping often :) After using the dry mop pad, I can say that it is much faster and easier than using a traditional broom, since it is very wide to cover a larger area at a time, plus it easily pivots and slides under my table and chairs. It even fit under my stove, and I brought out a ton of disgusting junk from under there! The only drawback compared to a broom is that it was more difficult to dig into the corners of the walls with the Norwex mop than with a broom. After dry mopping, I used the wet mop. You just wet it in the sink, wring it out, and then stick it to your mop and scrub your floor with it. I usually use a steam mop, which I love, but the Norwex wet mop did just as good of a job without the need for electricity (and fear of burning one of my children as I did once to Rowan's poor toes). But the best part about the mop? It cleans the walls so easily and cleans them really well. I never knew my walls were so dirty until I used this.

A blog that I regularly read has a great review of the Norwex Enviro Cloths. Here is what Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking has to say about the Enviro Cloths (she has no affiliation with Norwex): http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2010/02/enviro-cloth-a-simple-frugal-natural-cleaning-tool.html

I guess I won't review everything, but if you come to a Norwex party, I can tell you more about other products. Because that is how Norwex works, it is similar to Pampered Chef, Tupperware, etc. in which someone hosts a party (and can earn some awesome rewards by doing it), a consultant comes to demonstrate products, and guests can order products that they want. With Norwex though, you don't have to have a party to buy something, you can also order directly from a consultant. If you want to host a party, buy any products, or learn how to become a consultant, please contact me. So, who wants to host my first party? :)

*beginning May 2nd, this will be my official Norwex website: http://kirstentatum.norwex.biz

"Magic" soup

I have made this soup about a hundred times, but it is always slightly different. I add whatever I have: different veggies, different cans of stuff, sometimes I add ground turkey or chicken, sometimes pasta. But last night, the soup was magic. It had just enough flavor, just enough kick, and a great amount of vegetables. So I need to write it down to see if I can create that magic again. This soup is delicious with different variations, but it might make magic if you make it this way:

1 jar Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic pasta sauce

1 can mild regular Rotel*

3 cups beef broth (or 3 cups water and dump in the rest of a container of Orrington Farms beef-flavored vegetarian broth. hmm, not sure if I can recreate that exactly)

about 1/2 of a large sweet onion - minced

about two handfuls of baby carrots - minced

3 stalks of celery - minced

1 cup sweet potato puree

1 can of cannellini beans - rinsed

Dump it all in a crockpot, and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Or longer - this soup is really forgiving. You can brown meat and add it at the beginning, and you can also add pasta, but I suggest cooking the pasta near the end and adding it when you serve. Otherwise the pasta just soaks up all the liquid and you are left with more of a chili. But then again, with any substitutions, it just might not be "magic."

* I am pretty sure that the reason no spices are needed is because of the Rotel. Which is unfortunate, because I am wary of ingredient labels that read "natural flavorings" and "spices." I like to know what is in my food! Unless, of course, I am in another country sampling the local food. Then I'm fine with "don't ask, don't tell." :D

Just for fun

This video is kind of long, but it shows a little bit of how vocal Violet is becoming.  She babbles in her crib when she wakes up in the morning, she blows raspberries and squeals as she plays, and she screeches when she doesn't get her way.  I love it!

Faux food

Happy April Fools' Day!  We celebrated this silly, mixed-up holiday at our house today.  Violet celebrated by waking up at 4:30am, but the rest of the kids waited until normal business hours to begin the day.  When they woke up, I gave them some special juice for breakfast (red jello).  Ellie noticed right away that the juice wasn't moving in the cup, but they still both tried to drink it through the straws stuck in the jello. 

I explained to them about April Fools' Day, and they decided they wanted to trick Daddy.  So, we turned his desk chair, laptop tray, and laptop upside down - and he definitely was fooled.  I think he was worried that it had all been knocked down until the kids yelled, "April Fools!" 

We then made some slimey goo that the kids played with while I made lunch for them.  Grilled cheese!  Well, if you can call angel food cake with cream cheese frosting - toasted on the skillet - grilled cheese.  I did :)  I tinted the frosting orange with sweet potato puree, so that means it was healthy enough to serve for lunch, right?  It sure fooled Ellie, because she ate the whole thing before I finally told her it was not grilled cheese.  She just thought it was really good.



The kids also requested their crazy straws to drink from.  And I guess even their real lunch was faux, because it was meatless "chicken" patties.  That wasn't even planned :)

Ellie decided to dress silly for school, which meant lots of layers and some inside-out clothing.  I don't think anyone really noticed her crazy style (maybe it is a little too usual for her?).  She had a classmate come home with her and stay for dinner, and I planned an April Fools' dinner just for him, because he is such a funny guy who loves to laugh.  First, I told them that we would eat backwards and have cupcakes first.

Of course they were not really cupcakes, but meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top.  I tinted the potatoes with beet puree (can you believe that bright scarlet color is from one tablespoon of beets?)  The kids didn't think that joke was so funny, because they really wanted cupcakes.  But I promised them that a treat was in the works.  After they ate their "cupcakes" I brought them some spaghetti and meatballs.  Or was it?

Looks like spaghetti to me!

They were pleased with this look-alike.  It was a small piece of angel food cake with frosting piped into noodle shapes.  The meatballs are whoppers and the sauce is strawberry jam. 

It was a day filled with sugar, but also with lots of laughs.  There were a lot of crazy jokes played on each other, with shouts of "April Fools!"  But the only one who fooled me was Mother Nature - it's not supposed to snow in April!

Finally!

One of Ellie's teeth has been loose for a long time now.  I didn't realize how long it takes for the first tooth to fall out.  I thought for sure it was going to fall out months ago, but it kept hanging in there.  We did not want to pull it out for her, or pressure her to pull it out herself.  In recent days, I did tell her she could try pulling a little and see if it still hurt at all, but she could still feel some pain if she tried to pull.

Tonight, however, I was pretty sure the tooth was ready to come out.  I mean, look at it.

It's ready, right?  I thought for sure that if she left it in, she would swallow it during the night.  I tried to gently convince Ellie to pull it out, but without pressuring her.  But she insisted that it hurt if she tried to pull on it, so I left her alone.

A few minutes later, she exclaimed with joy, and then ran into the bathroom.  I guess she was checking out her new smile in the mirror.



She did it!  Finally.

Our very own Bieber boy

Before

and After

Happy half-birthday Violet!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Peanutella

When I first tasted Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut spread), I fell in love.  I thought it might have been the circumstances - watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea while sitting on my Egyptian friend's balcony in Alexandria.  She passed me the Nutella to spread on my flatbread for breakfast.  I was captivated with the first bite.  A year or so later, when I found Nutella at my Arizona grocery store, I bought it, thinking that I was probably going to feel let down by this product that I had built up in my mind.  But, no, it was just as good as I remembered. 

Ever since then, I have always had a jar of Nutella in my pantry.  I have used it in many ways - on bread, on fruit, as a dip, as a ganache, in a cheesecake, in milkshakes, etc.  Did you know you can save the gold papers on the top of the jar and redeem them for Nutella products?  I'm waiting on my Nutella t-shirt, and then I'll have everything in their boutique ;)  I know, it's excessive.

Yesterday, I came across this recipe on a blog I check every once in a while.  Home-made nutella.  Except substituting peanuts for the hazelnuts http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/01/chocolate-peanut-spread-peanutella/#more-7109  Of course I had to make this ASAP.  I went to our grocery store last night to get some peanut oil, and Trader Joe's this morning to buy the peanuts.  It was very easy to make.  First you roast the peanuts for a few minutes, then get out the blender. Well, I used my blender, but a food processor would work just as well.  Basically you blend the peanuts until they liquify, then add everything else and blend again. 

It will make a little bit of a sticky mess in your blender

But the final product is pretty good

It doesn't taste as sweet as Nutella.  Which makes sense, because the first ingredient listed on Nutella is sugar, but this peanutella has more peanuts than sugar.  Another difference is that peanutella is dairy-free, while Nutella has some skim milk and whey.  Plus Nutella has some artificial flavor - the only bad thing in peanutella is the powdered sugar.  The cost difference is in favor of peanutella, but not by a long ways.  I figured the cost of mine to be about $2 if I spread out the cost of the oil, peanuts, powdered sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.  If you have to buy all of that up front it would probably be more like $11, but the peanut oil is the bulk of that price and the recipe only requires 2 tablespoons.  A jar of Nutella at my grocery store is on sale right now for $2.69, so it is cheaper to make the peanutella.  Plus the peanutella made about 1/2 cup more than a jar of Nutella.

All this being said, last week I mixed some natural, unsaltened and unsweetened, peanut butter with some nutella, about half and half.  This peanutella tastes just like it!  So, if you want to skip the slight mess and minimal time, just do that :)

A lesson on table manners

This is a project that has been on my agenda for months.  I read an article in a magazine about a mom who taught her kids table manners by rewarding them for good manners during dinner time.  Their reward was a dinner at a fancy restaurant, which I thought would be fun for the kids because we hardly ever go out to eat and they LOVE restaurants.  I mentioned the idea to Ellie and she couldn't wait to start!  But wait she did, because mommy is a procrastinator :)

For the most part, my kids have been pretty good at dinner time.  Recently though, they seemed to have forgotten all manners and it was starting to drive me crazy.  To the point that one night I just had enough and threw whatever I was holding down on the table and left the room (luckily it wasn't Violet I was holding.  I think it was a piece of bread).  Finally I pulled myself together and spent an afternoon making this wonderful chart with Ellie.

I drew the lines and labeled the top, and Ellie decorated it.  We brainstormed a list of rules for the dinner table, and here is what we came up with:

No screaming - use your normal voice
Stay in your chair
Say "excuse me" if you need to get up
No talking with your mouth full
Say "please" and "thank you"
No complaining.
You can have a peanut butter sandwich if you don't like dinner
No feet on the table
No toys at the table
Take small bites
Try one bite of everything
No chewing on your hair

I learned from my favorite elementary school teacher that when you brainstorm, you don't edit or criticize, you just write down all the ideas.  I think I will be going through and editing some of these rules later, but most of them are keepers.  The most important to me are staying in their chairs, no complaining, and try at least one bite of everything.  If they follow these rules during dinner, they get to draw a happy face in the next square.  Do you see the darker squares (every 7th square)?  Each of those squares earn them a prize.  These are the prizes in the order they earn them:

1. Fancy candlelit dinner at home
2. They pick any dessert for a night
3. They pick the dinner for a night and help make it
4. Dinner at a restaurant of his/her choosing

So far this is working beautifully.  The kids think it is so fun and really don't want to lose their happy face each night.  It's wonderful to not hear, "Yucky!!  Mommy, I don't want to eat this, it's yucky!" at dinner every time I serve anything but mac & cheese, spaghetti, or pizza.  The prizes they earn are also easy for us to provide, and I am redeeming all our discover card points for gift cards to restaurants.  It will take at least 4 weeks for them to earn restaurant time, so hopefully we'll get the gift cards by then :)  Now the question is, will these table manners remain after the chart is full? 

New year, new baby, new schedule

For a long time I have envisioned a day when I would once again have a clean house.  I have come to realize that a clean house on a regular basis is a goal to be reached far in the future.  Even my standards have dropped to a level of Don't Gross Out Your Visitors, which is much, much less than Spotless, but a few steps above Call CPS now!  This month I kicked my butt into gear and made up a cleaning schedule.  This was prompted by the following: it is the beginning of a new year (thus a fresh start), we just had houseguests so the house was somewhat clean already, our family just got over the month-long stomach plague and I could feel the germs waiting to pounce again, and I felt like I was drowning in housework with no rescue in sight.  New baby = more cleaning/laundry + less free time.  Winter = more time inside (to scatter toys and dirty dishes) + dirty slush on tile and carpet   everything + more laundry.  We are so lucky that this semester Jason is working pretty much completely from home, so he entertains the older kids more with school and playing, he often walks them to school or home, and he's a helping hand with Violet if I'm making dinner.  Plus he usually washes the dishes and takes out the trash/recycling.  And sometimes even makes lunch or cleans the kitchen!   I know, I'm totally spoiled compared to most stay-at-home moms, yet I still feel like I'm drowning sometimes. 

I am understanding that the more children we have, the more organized I need to be.  In order to have any free time at all to watch tv and play on facebook play with the kids, I need to use my other time wisely.  So, the cleaning schedule.  I took an estimate that a house-cleaning company sent me after they toured our apartment.  It had a detailed list of everything they would clean if I hired them.  I broke up the list into catagories of once a month, twice a month, weekly, and as needed.  Then I made up a monthly schedule that dispersed these chores as evenly as possible, with no work on Sunday and a little more time-consuming on an afternoon that I should have more free time.  Now I only have 3-4 things to do each day and if I stick to the schedule, the entire house should be cleaned monthly.  Please understand that this does not mean my house will look spotless all the time!  There are constantly toys and crumbs everywhere still, but at least our bath and toilets should always be clean.  And I'll feel better knowing that even when our house is "messy," at least it is clean underneath the mess.

I also made a food schedule.  Our breakfast and lunch menus will rotate weekly, and our dinners will rotate monthly.  I always like to try new recipes, so those will be substituted in to the menu at will.  Or I'll just be trying out a bunch of new side dishes and desserts.  The food schedule will hopefully help me a lot with making grocery lists and sticking to them.

Earlier this week I sent out my schedule to friends and family, for two reasons.  One, because it took a bit of time to put it together, so I would love if anyone else can benefit from it.  It's an excel file, so it's easy to change anything to fit another person's needs.  Two, if I tell other people I am planning on doing something, I am more likely to actually do it :)

I have been a week on our new schedules, and so far I love them.  Grocery shopping was awesome, because I didn't get anything at all that wasn't on our list.  No quick meals that I grabbed "just in case."  Whenever I do that I end up making the quick meal instead of the more elaborate one that I bought all the ingredients for, and then those ingredients often go bad before I use them.  My daily cleaning schedule is inspiring rather than daunting.  Once I finish my tasks for that day, I can feel free to relax and not feel guilty about the other messy things in the house.  Or, I can not clean all day and do my chores after the kids go to bed.  Sometimes I even get a head start on the rest of the week.  Most importantly, I do not feel like I am hopelessly drowning in housework any more.  And I'm not too embarrassed when people drop by our house.  At least not until my kids run out into the room with underwear on their heads.  And nothing else on.

Family vacation 2011 - Day three

I didn't sleep very well that night, because I kept waiting for someone to wake up.  For Violet to start screaming again, or for one of the kids to get up for the day.  Everyone was quiet all night, until Rowan woke up around 7:15.  I begged him to be quiet (as to not wake up the baby) and bribed him with breakfast in bed.  We whispered to each other while we ate dried mango and granola bars and drank apple juice.  When I felt I could hold him captive no longer, I woke up Jason and asked him to take Rowan out into the lobby to play (or watch Disney channel).  Almost immediately after they left Ellie woke up, so I fed her breakfast and sent her out to join Daddy.  Then, I packed up our many bags.  On our last day of vacation, we had to check out of our room by 10:30am, but we could stay as long as we wanted at the water park.  So as soon as Violet woke up, I called the family back in so we could change into our swim suits for the bazillionth time to spent our last hours at the pool before we headed back out into the snow.  While Jason loaded up our car and I checked us out of the hotel, the kids went to work spending the last few tokens we had.  Ellie divided them up fairly (5 for her because she is 5 and 3 for Rowan because he is 3.  That's fair, right?) and Rowan promptly dropped two tokens into a dumb prize machine that took four tokens to even try for a prize.  Thankfully I caught him before he threw his last token away.  I led him over to a game that the kids had been eyeing all trip, yet had not played.  It was a shooting game that I didn't even realize gave out tickets until this happened when Rowan played it:                            

To our surprise, my delight, and the kids' glee, Rowan had hit some bonus ship and won the jackpot.  168 tickets!  I could not stop laughing at the irony that a 3-year-old who had no idea what he was doing won the jackpot and had tickets just coming and coming and coming out of that machine. 

Rowan was pretty proud of himself.  And Ellie was a lot jealous.  She played the game right after him and won two tickets.  And then started crying.  "It's not fair!!  Why did he get so many tickets!!!  Whaaaahhhh!"  Honestly it was a relief that Rowan won those tickets, because without them they could only afford to redeem a couple pieces of candy.  His jackpot tripled their ticket total so they could each have a plastic piece of crap toy AND a candy necklace.  It's amazing what $10 in tokens can buy, right?  :)

Off to the waterpark, where we enjoyed another two hours of swimming and sliding.



Then, back to reality.  The frigid air welcomed (or shocked) us as we drove back home.  But first, a stop at Culvers to pick up lunch.  And on our 53 mile trip home, we passed four different Culvers.  Now that is Wisconsin.

Oh, and I should mention, Violet came home with a souvenir too, but hers wasn't a plastic piece of crap.  Hers was a nice, pearly white souvenir  :D

Have you ever tried to get a picture of an angry baby's first painful tooth?  I promise it's there, even if it's hard to see 

Family vacation 2011 - Day two

When this hotel was built, someone really knew what they were doing.  In order to get to the waterpark, you have to pass a gift shop (with a giant candy display in the doorway), a lounge blasting the Disney channel all day, a coffee shop with pastries in full view, and, the most enticing, you have to walk through an arcade.  So, every time we went to the water park the kids begged to play the games.  Which were NOT included in the room price :)  But, you could conveniently charge tokens to your room via the wristbands worn throughout our stay.  On our second day we planned to stay mostly dry and explore the arcade, the small indoor theme park, and tubing at Christmas Mountain.  First we went to the arcade, while we waited until 10:30 for the theme park to open.

The kids are so excited!

We taught them foosball, because it took about 100x longer to play than the other games. 

As long as Ellie and I kept scoring, our ball would return so we could keep playing

After spending most of our tokens, we headed to the indoor theme park.  Which, as it turned out, did not open at 10:30 like the waterpark, but 2:00pm instead.  Hmm, there went our plans for the day.  We decided to come back, change into our swimsuits and eat an early lunch, then go back to the water park.  Actually, this time Jason stayed behind with a sleeping Violet while I took the other kids to the water park.  Then, we came back and changed again into clothes and went to the indoor theme park.

We weren't sure what to expect, but I had measured Ellie before we came and thought she could ride just about everything there.  The requirement for everything but the go karts was 48 inches, and she was about 47 1/2 inches without shoes.  I guess my measuring was off, because the signs with height limits were much higher than her head.  I actually asked a supervisor to come out and talk with me because the signs were ridiculously higher than her head.  Someone came out with a tape measurer and sure enough it was 48 inches.  Apparently I need a basic measuring refresher or something...

Anyway, there were only a few rides that the kids could do, but they really liked all of them.  There was something called the crazy trolley (or something like that) that was like a trolley, but it went around and around like a ferris wheel.  Imagine my surprise when the attendant asked if I wanted to ride on it with Violet.  I mean, it even had those bars that push down on your legs to keep you in your seat, but it's okay for a 5-month-old to ride?  Yes, she is 5 months old.  Some people might not know it because I haven't blogged in a couple months ;)   Well, I hopped right on because I was pretty confident that I could hold her tight and, well, when else would a 5-month-old get the chance to ride an amusement park ride besides a carousel?

Violet on her very first ride.

Another ride the kids could do were the bumper cars, but only with one of us driving with them.  I took my turn with Ellie, but as you can see from this picture of Jason and Rowan, it was hard to take pictures.



Ellie had to enjoy this ride by herself.  The ride actually had a minimum and a maximum height requirement, so she was the only one in our family who could ride it.  I think she really liked it; she said, "Mom, that ride made my tummy feel funny, but it was fun!"

And of course the kids loved the teacups.  They loved that they could spin the cups themselves.  I rode them one time, but I spun the car so fast at the end that the attendant had to stop the car when the ride stopped and I sat in the car for a minute or two before I could get off.  That was enough tea cups for me!

After the theme park (which also had an arcade and we HAD to play those games too), we decided not to go tubing at Christmas Mountain.  It was already 4:30, we would have had to go back to our room and bundle up, and Rowan is not tall enough to tube according to their rules.  So, we went back to the room and changed into our suits again (while I ordered pizza online) and went swimming for the last time that day until we came back to wait for our pizza.

And wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  We ordered from Dominos, which now has a handy dandy pizza tracker on their website.  The tracker will tell you exactly what step your pizza is in the process.  I ordered our pizza to be delivered at 6pm.  When we returned to our room it was 5:50pm, and the pizza tracker told us our pizza passed the quality check at 5:47pm.  Perfect for a 6:00 delivery, right?  Well, the pizza tracker did not move beyond that point.  At 6:20, when it still hadn't moved to "out for delivery" we called the store.  Jason was told that they got busy and the pizza would be ready in 5 minutes and delivered in 10 minutes.  Um, okay, by that time I was hoping that they made us new pizzas instead of our pizzas sitting out for over 1/2 hour.  We were all starving and if it wasn't for cable tv we would have had some screaming kids.  At 6:50 (20 minutes past the "10 minutes" delivery promise) Jason called yet again and  they tried to explain something about the drivers, yada, yada, yada, and that they would void our charges.  I would hope so!  It was finally delivered around 7:15pm, and I tried to tip the driver, thinking that it wasn't really his fault that it was so late, but he refused the tip saying, "It's too late for that."  I'm hoping he meant that the pizza was too late and not that he was being snotty because we got him in trouble or something.  Either way, the pizza was free.  Plus I had splurged and ordered some chocolate lava crunch cakes and they were AMAZING.  I guess it was worth the wait to get everything for free, but it was pretty rough.

I think the day not going at all as planned (although still enjoyable) was a premonition for that evening (which was not enjoyable).  The night that Violet WOULD NOT SLEEP.  I don't know if it was teething, or a tummy ache, or just over tiredness, but she was practically impossible to get to sleep and then she couldn't stay asleep.  Which would be rough at home, but it was horrible in a hotel.  I walked the halls with her for at least a couple hours, with her screaming at points and just staring around with her red eyes wide open at others.  When she finally fell asleep (around 11pm) I brought her back to the room and tried to lay her down and she immediately started screaming.  She wouldn't nurse, wouldn't be distracted, and wouldn't calm down for me or Jason.  For about 45 minutes this continued until I finally tried giving her some tylenol, thinking that maybe it was pain from teething.  She gagged that up and threw up a bunch of phlegm (probably from crying so much), but she seemed to calm down a little.  So I gave her new tylenol, walked her to sleep again, and sat up in bed with her sleeping.  Every time I tried to put her down, no matter how long I waited, she cried.  I think I dozed off and woke up and put her down and finally she slept (around 1am).  And through all of this screaming??  The other kids did not make a peep.  I had no idea that they could sleep so well!  I guess all the swimming (and going to bed late from eating dinner so late) really wore them out.  So, I went to bed, restlessly waiting for someone to wake up...

Family vacation 2011 - Day one

First, let me start at the beginning.  I had been looking at taking a trip to the Wisconsin Dells this winter for fun.  I mean, what is more fun than a waterpark when it is snowing outside?  So, I started looking for deals.  There have been a few bargains, after all, winter is not the busy season for the Dells.  Then a great deal came up.  Buy a $100 giftcard, get a free night's stay.  The giftcard could be used toward anything at the hotel/park, including rooms.  My grandparents gave us some Christmas money that could pay for the giftcard, so I pounced. I bought the giftcard and used it to pay for one night, then used the free night for the second night.  The giftcard also paid for most of the fees and taxes, and the $10 to upgrade our room (more about that later).  The best part is that the room included wristbands to get us into the indoor water and theme parks for three days - check in, our second day, and check out. 

Now, when to go?  Should we go toward the end of winter, when we are soo sick of the cold but it still won't be warm for another month or two?  Should we go near Christmas since it was a Christmas present?  I decided that the third week of the kids' winter break from school would be perfect, since most kids only received 2 weeks off and it would probably be a slow week. 

After a LOT of packing (our car was FULL!)  we set off on the relatively short drive - 1 1/2 hours at most. I should mention that Violet is much better in the car; she only cried for about 15 minutes of the trip. We arrived around 10:30am, even though check-in wasn't until 4pm, because we could get into the waterpark early.  The hotel staff was so nice though and let us have our room right then since it was ready. We loved our room.  Besides being a normal hotel room, it had a half wall that separated out a set of bunkbeds for the kids (that was the upgrade I made).  After exploring the room a little, we ate lunch (with all the food I packed) and changed into our swimsuits.  Violet fell asleep, so I stayed in the room with her while the rest went swimming.  The best part about the hotel is that it is connected via a skywalk to the waterpark, so we didn't have to go outside at all, plus it made it easy for me to just meet up with them later. 

Ellie is our little fish

                                  Rowan wanted to just float on his back all day

     Violet finally went swimming.  She acted like the water was no big deal and she was almost even bored.

After swimming

The rest of our first day was more of the same.  We came back to our room for snacks, then Ellie and I went back to the water park to ride the big slides.  There were only four big slides, but I was right about it being a slow week because we never had to wait in line for the slides.  We came back to the room for dinner - Jason went out and bought some Wendy's.  Bedtime was surprisingly not bad.  I took Violet out to the lobby in her carrier until she fell asleep while Jason put the older kids to bed.  I think everyone was asleep by 9pm, which is not bad for a hotel stay for this family.  The night was a little rough for Violet (and me) and she woke up every 2-3 hours, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  She saved that for the next night...

Reviews

Lately I have bought a couple items for our family that I would like to review.

First - The miSwivel Feeding Chair

I love it!  I ordered this a few weeks ago from kids.woot.com at a great price.  I liked the idea that Violet can use it from now until she can use a regular chair, since it reclines for now and converts to a booster later.  The chair was shipped to us and arrived while I was in AZ.  When I came home and opened the box, I started to worry that Violet would hate the chair because it looks like it would feel exactly like a carseat.  And we all know how much Violet likes the carseat ;)  But she doesn't mind this chair.  She will happily play in it, which is a lifesaver for me since I spend half of my awake hours in the kitchen.  Now I can finally cook with hands free!  And, Jason and I don't have to eat dinner in shifts because she joins the family at the table.

Second:  Stoplight Sleep Enhancing Clock

I also purchased this from kids.woot.com for a steal.  And so far, it is worth every penny.  Rowan has been waking up too early lately, because he doesn't know when it is morning and when it is the middle of the night.  This clock has a stoplight that signals when it is time to wake up.  When you set the alarm, the red light comes on until the designated time, then the clock switches to the green light.  Green light means go!  So far Rowan has not come out of his room when the light is red, and once he ran out of the room as soon as the light switched yelling, "It's green!  The light is green!"  We have it set for 7:00, which is an acceptable wake-up time for us :)  The only downside of this clock for us is that there is a constant light in our kids' room.  As some of you know, our kids sleep in total darkness, so I was worried that the light would bother them, but it doesn't seem to be a problem.  The red light does not illuminate the room, however the green light does.  But I figure it's not bright enough to wake them up from sleep.

Third:  Trader Joe's Gingerbread House Kit

The kids have been begging to make a gingerbread house.  I have seen kits in stores, but they are so expensive!  Plus we bought one a couple years ago and it was disgusting.  Everything was hard and inedible.  So, I had grand plans to make the gingerbread and frosting myself and buy candy to decorate it with.  But then I saw these kits at Trader Joe's this morning at a reasonable price, $7.99 each.  I figure it could cost close to that to buy all the materials separately to make our own.  And I have learned lately that I am still making plans that are too big for me to accomplish now.  So, I bought the kit (two of them in fact, to reduce the amount of arguing that sharing one would bring).  They did require two additional ingredients - egg whites and a tiny bit of vinegar to make the frosting.  The kids loved them, and they were not difficult to put together.  All the ingredients tasted great, and the gingerbread is soft, not cardboard-like.  The coolest thing about them is they came with three tiny, adorable people (and a dog) made out of candy.  If you want to buy these at your Trader Joe's, you might want to grab them now.  They were flying off the shelf at my store!

                                                                           The kit

Ellie's house.  See the cute little people?

Rowan's house.  He made me write "Happy Thanksgiving" with the frosting.  Oh, and his people are inside the house :)

I also helped Rowan make the gingerbread man on the side.  I should have bought one for myself!

2 (.367) months old

I meant to write a blog post when Violet turned 2 months, really I did.  I even wrote an outline, see??

shots and reaction - slept 2:30pm
smiles and coos
In addition to kissable chunky cheeks, chunky thighs
only falls asleep in Ergo - picture
3rd time mom no tylenol
still in cradle
hemangioma
reflux?  dairy free runny nose
saw obama - cried through it
11 lb. 5 oz.

Unfortunately I never finished it.  Maybe one day I will, or maybe you can decipher Violet updates by my notes.  In the meantime, I will let Violet tell you how the past month has gone for her:

Homeschooling - how is it going?

Well, it's going a bit differently than we had planned, which is not surprising.  After all, this is our first time homeschooling, so it is understandable that we might have to tweak our methods.  Our changes came down to two main factors - Ellie needed more structure and we don't have much time to plan activities.  She was getting bored because we weren't supplying her with enough projects to do.

Our new and improved homeschooling style has a name - we are using the Charlotte Mason method.  Basically we read a chapter of a quality book each day, have Ellie copy a sentence we choose out of the chapter, and then draw a picture about what we read.  We have actual "school time" which lasts 1/2 hour to an hour each morning and begins whenever Violet goes down for her morning nap.  Rowan joins along with us and listens to the chapter (we are currently reading Little House in the Big Woods) and trys writing a word if he wants to, otherwise he just draws.  Here are some examples of their schoolwork:

Rowan's drawing.  Not sure what it is, but there are a lot of somethings!

Ellie's copywork



The copywork helps with reading (Ellie reads each sentence before she copies it), writing words, and learning punctuation.  Ellie seems to like having actual school time more than the free style we tried before.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (afternoons) Ellie goes to preschool where she socializes, does art projects, and learns during circle time.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays Rowan goes to preschool and I do math or science projects with Ellie.  On Friday mornings the entire family goes on a field trip.  So far we've done mostly outdoor field trips because we know in a month or so we'll mostly be indoors due to weather.  In addition, Ellie is taking ballet and yoga in the community.

Right now this is the method that works for us.  I am sure it will mold and change as we go along!

Nature walk

Ellie led me on a nature walk today.

The leaves are starting to turn bright colors

But not quite as bright as these hairclips I bought for her and Violet to share

She doesn't even care if she looks like Princess Leia with one behind each ear.

On our way back home we found a really neat tree-lined path

Come on Mom!

Look Mom, I'm taller than you!

Aren't the leaves going to be beautiful?

But not as beautiful as Ellie :)

Today was not my day

It was supposed to start out well.  Jason promised Rowan that he would wake up early to spend time with him, leaving me to sleep in with Violet.  Unfortunately, Violet also woke up, but at least she was content to stay in bed with me and gaze around while I dozed until she fell asleep again.  So, I had a late start to the day, but from the time I woke up until just a couple of minutes ago, I have been running nonstop.  Here is a picture that pretty much sums up my day:

I put these dishes in hot soapy water to soak just after I woke up.  They are still sitting there now, in cold scummy water, waiting for me to drain the water and refill so I can wash them.  I just never got a chance to clean them today.  In between snacks, lunch, walking to and from preschool (twice), having a friend over to play, playing outside after school, and running to ballet, we were pretty busy.  Throw in a fussy 5-week-old, and my hands were too full to wash dishes.

I mentioned ballet - today Ellie started another cycle of ballet class tonight.  It is at an inconvenient time for us, but not impossible.  I lucked out and a neighbor volunteered to have Rowan over to play with her boys, but I did have to wake up Violet to race to ballet with Ellie.  Big mistake!  She was not happy with me, and she was very vocal about it.  In fact, I must have looked pretty flustered, because one of the moms at ballet (a complete stranger) kindly offered to pick up or drop off Ellie any time.  Hmm, a little odd, but she was very sweet.  Violet calmed down a little as we sat down to wait for our ballet girls.  Then, she exploded in her diaper.  Ah, that made her feel even better - for a few minutes.  Then she was not happy about the stuff in her diaper.  The problem?  I didn't have any other diapers.  I grabbed one during our rush out the door, but I must have dropped it on the way to the car.  So, I took the screaming baby to the car to hunt for something that could be a diaper.  I found a cloth wipe (and some disposable wipes) and headed back into the school, but I didn't make it there without falling into a small hole in the grass and scraping up my leg.  See?

I totally fell to the ground, but luckily I had a tight grasp on Violet and she was unharmed (she was also unharmed when Rowan brought her to me this afternoon, but that's another story).  So, I went into the bathroom, wiped up Violet, and made a temporary diaper out of paper towels and the cloth wipe.  I felt a little embarrassed going back to the other moms, because I now had another reason for them to feel pity for me, but I asked the helpful mom to hold Violet while I cleaned off my leg as well as I could.  And yes, it was as painful as it looks :)

Then, I came home, put a real diaper on Violet, and put all three kids to bed.  Thankyouverymuch.  I don't really drink alcohol, or I would be having a nice glass of wine or two right now.  Instead, I indulge in gooey treats.  Like warm peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with frozen vanilla custard and nutella on top.

Now, who wants to go reach in the sink and unplug the scummy water so I can wash the dishes???