Kids Say the Darndest Things

I told this to some folks last weekend, but I just gotta tell it again.

Last week I was cutting Audrey's nails.  Christian bites his fingernails, so I just don't think about checking his toe nails.  While I was doing hers I thought I better check his.  When I saw them I realized that they were not as long as they probably should have been, considering how long it had been since I cut them.

I said to Christian, "please tell me that you don't bite your toe nails."

He says to me, "I don't bite my toe nails......anymore."

AHHHHH.  Boys are so nasty!!!

This has been a pretty busy week at our house.  Grass is growing (thank the Lord) so Chris has been working long days.  With Christian in half day pre-k, everything has to be scheduled around the 9am and noon drop off and pick up times, so sometimes that involves a lot of a.m. running around with Audrey in tow.  This week I filmed the announcements, did the usual Publix and Wal-Mart runs, worked with Chris one day (thanks to Andrea for baby-sitting), and all manner of homemaker/mom type stuff.  Mostly I like to be at home in the evenings, but we've been out a couple of nights this week too.  

So, LOTS of stuff going on the whole week, but it's still been a good one.

Wednesday night we were at the church so Christian could practice for the Good Friday service.  God bless our Kids Town volunteers, since I'm not sure you could even pay me enough to be in charge of that kind of thing!  He is totally pumped though, and  I can't wait to see them in action!  You should come too.  

Avalon Church:  Friday, April 6th at 7 p.m.

Since this coming week is Spring break for Henry County, they went ahead and had the Easter egg hunt for all the kids at the pre-k yesterday.  After our snacks and before the actual hunt, Christian's teacher was reading a story about Easter.  She says to a room full of 4-year-olds, "let's tell your parents what Easter is really about."  I fully expected them to say bunnies or eggs or something.  I was delighted to hear most of them say that it is about Jesus.  They were sort of calling the answers out all together, so made sure I was sitting close enough to be able to hear Christian's answers when the teacher was going through the story of Easter.  I was proud that he was getting most of them.  :)  

Jesus died on the cross.  Check.

He was in the tomb for three days.  Check.

What happened on the third day?  "He rode again."  

Then there I am snickering during the Easter story.  LOL!

I couldn't help but get a mental picture of Jesus on a Harley. :)

We'll keep working on that one.

Here's a few shots of the kiddos from the last couple of weeks.

Gotta love em.

Love that hair!

Intent on getting the whole alphabet on the driveway. :)

I love it when he smiles with his whole face!

mixed fruit

A few weeks ago my mom was by the house and got some jam while she was here.  One of those jars was a mixed fruit batch.  Yesterday she asked if I had any more of it.  
Sometime back in the fall (I think) I made some mixed fruit jelly.  This was sort of a fluke.  I had several different kinds of fruit, but not enough to do any of my regular recipes.  As such, I decided to take the blackberry plum jam recipe that I am so fond of and tweak it a bit.  In all this recipe calls for 2.75 pounds of fruit, so I came up with that much of whatever I had on hand.  I really only made this batch so that the fruit didn't go bad.  I never even had any of it, but since Mom liked it I tried today to recreate it.  
I think I have all the same fruits: plums, apples, blackberries, and strawberries, but I have no. idea. of the measurements.
I guess she'll have to tell me how close I got to the mark. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   


As long as I can remember, I have enjoyed some yogurt now and again.  I am not a yogurt-a-day kind of gal, but I'll pick it up at the store from time to time.  The only stipulation has been that it cannot contain any actual fruit.  If you know my history, you know that previous to 2010 I didn't care for fruit in anything.  Making my own jam changed that for me.  I still tend to buy fruit-free yogurt, but now sometimes I add my own.  About a month ago I made some pear spoon fruit.  No, I did not make that up.  When I very first started jamming I saw a recipe for Blueberry Maple spoon fruit in a Food Network magazine.  This pear one was actually supposed to be a jam recipe, but it was my first time using it and it didn't quite go as planned.  At any rate, it's totally delicious in vanilla yogurt!  The kids and I have eaten it up.  I love preserving!

new stuff

Awake
This is a new tv show that comes on NBC.  Chris and I happened to see the previews when we were watching something else and decided to record it.  It's pretty interesting.


The Shack
Alright, so this book is unlike anything I've ever read before!  My dad had just read it and recommended that I read it too.  He told me that it was a little hard to get into, but that I should give it a go.  He told me the basic idea and I was so interested in it that it was actually a very easy read.  There was apparently some drama about whether this book was fiction or non-fiction.  It's totally worth reading.


Mary Kay Andrews
She is an author that I just found out about about a month ago.  I am having a great time reading her stuff!  It's the normal romance novel stuff that I always read, but with some mystery tossed in too.  She's the kind of writer that pulls you in right away.  If you're a girly-book reader, you should try her out.


Fruit Loops
Yep.  Fruit Loops.  Although I've never been much of a cereal eater, at the age of 32 I have discovered a love for Fruit Loops.  Silly maybe, but delicious.  It's the simple things!

family fun

Sometimes family fun time means doing stuff that otherwise isn't all that spectacular, except that you're doing whatever it is with the people you love.
Today, Chris got a hair cut and then we went to look at some houses that we have no intention of buying.  
On the way back home we made a very important stop for a pack of SweetTarts.  Well...really it was to use the facilities in a gas station since we have a newly panty-wearing little person in our family, but getting some SweetTarts to share made the stop way more fun!
After lunch came the glory that is nap time (in which I also took part), followed by snack time.  Today we had ice cream sandwiches, and I'm pretty sure the kids thought that meant it was a holiday of some kind. :)  
We've just come back in from playing outside together, and I got one of those gooey feelings where I think, "I know this time doesn't last forever."  I am so thankful that we get to hang out together, and beyond that, that I know how special family time is.  No...that doesn't mean that everyday, all the time feels lovey and sparkly.  It just means that there were a few moments today that felt that way, and I love it.  

yesterday

What a great day!
My mother-in-law offered to take Audrey yesterday morning while Christian was at school, so I felt a little like I was on vacation between nine and noon.  Nice. 

Before I had kids I was not a drive-thru kind of person.  I don't mean that to say that I was too uppity to eat or drink from a drive-thru place.  I just was of the mind that God gave me legs and they work just fine.  Usually I could park my car and be in and back out before I would be out of the drive-thru.  Having kids has changed that, since anyone who's ever done it before knows that loading and unloading the car seats is way more time-consuming than it really should be.  I thought that it would be faster once we got to the kind of car seats that the kids could buckle themselves...wrong.  I digress.
In the three hours that I was kidless, I was not only able to come home for a few minutes, but was then able to make it in and out of the bank and seven stores before I had to go back to get the kids!  The only drive-thru I hit was Dunkin Donuts.  It was fantastic!  I had a lot of little errand-type things to do and items to pick up.  I'll admit that it did occur to me to use the time to sit on the couch curled up with a book, but I figured I better get as much done as possible.
During nap time I watched the special features on Breaking Dawn Part 1- another nice little treat for me. And let me just say, holy wow, were they interesting?! 
I love being a mom...especially one that gets to stay at home.  I also love when there's time for just me.

some Thursday tidbits

After all the belly-aching I did a couple of weeks ago about potty training, my girl already has it under control!  I can't possibly tell you how relieved I was once I realized that she got it!  I guess you just never know. :)

Recently I had been harassing my mom because she doesn't have a smart phone.  I realize that there are plenty of people who don't have them and live their lives just fine.  The problem is that she has a terrible habit of not answering her phone or returning text messages until hours or even days have passed.  My husband and my sister both had this same disease until they got smart phones, and then poof, they kept up with their phones!  Mom also has a home phone line, but does not have working phones hooked up to it.  This makes it pretty difficult to get in touch with her!  In this day and age there is no reason for that.  She tells me today that her iPhone is on the way, and I couldn't believe it!  I am fervently hoping that her iPhone is the miracle that helps her be reachable too. :)

Last week I made something that was supposed to be a cinnamon pear jam.  It turned out to be a cinnamon pear "spoon fruit."  Canning is such an interesting thing to me.  Sometimes in preserving the recipe sets up like a full-on jam and then others won't set even in the fridge.  On occasion I have dumped everything back in the pot and cooked it again to get that consistency that I want.  Other times it's just a spoon fruit!  When that's the case it can for sure be used on biscuits or over waffles or something like that.  This time around I went a different route.  I had some vanilla yogurt so I mixed a couple of tablespoons of yogurt with a couple of teaspoons of the cinnamon pear goodness.  I crumbed a graham cracker in it and called it a snack.  The kids loved it (and so did I)!  When Christian was about halfway through his, he says to me, "Mama, this looks like dessert yogurt."  Score.  Great use for my not so jellied fruit!