Christmas Pajamas

It's always fun to get new Pajamas on Christmas Eve! 

Christmas Eve Best

My two handsome boys.


David was excited to get a new shirt and tie.



Josh loves to wear vests.


Rachel said she felt like she was in the Nutcracker when she put on the dress that I made her.


Emma just wanted to come up close to the camera.


She finally stood still when Rachel held her hand.


Here's the four of them - all ready to go to church.

Curly locks

Rachel had been asking for a perm, so today I finally gave it to her. It took longer than I had planned and there's a section that didn't curl very well but she's still pretty happy with it. Hopefully it will turn out to be "wash and wear" like I planned. She looks pretty cute!

Giving Thanks

Despite being away from all of our family, we had a very nice Thanksgiving. I didn't want to cook a big meal for just our immediate family, so we decided to invite some families in our ward over. Turns out, a lot of people here don't have family around either. We had two nice families over and that way I didn't have to cook everything my self. We had the traditional fare - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, green bean casserole, rolls, and pie. We had a nice 20 lb turkey (that only cost me $6.00, thanks to Bag 'n Save). It was difficult deciding on a cooking/preparation method since everything I read or heard turned out to be something different. "Brine it! , smoke it!, cook it upside down!" I opted to cook the turkey in a turkey bag. The only problem (if you can call it a problem) was that the turkey cooked in 3 1/2 hours. It was ready way before everything else was. I thought it tasted pretty good. Everyone liked my cornucopias made from ice cream cones (steam the end and bend it to make it look authentic) and a good time was had by all. Again, I was so anxious about the preparations that I didn't take any pictures. I guess I need to be better about that. And now, I can take one deep breath, because Christmas is coming, and I have a lot to do....

Mishaps of a harried mom

Being a mom for these past 8 years, I have done many things that a "perfect mom" wouldn't - picked my kids up late from preschool, let teeth brushing slide, let my kids eat food off of the floor, and a number of other things I do not wish to enumerate. But, I think the crowning achievement of my absent-mindedness occurred last night. After 4 kids and about 8 years of diapering, I put my 18-month old to bed with no diaper on. I am still trying to figure out how I could have consciously snapped a onesie over a little naked bum. I guess I had my mind on other things. Thankfully, she was just wet when she woke up. Otherwise, I think I would be really sorry. I guess that's one way to cut down on diaper use, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Is it really November?

Omaha truly has some of the strangest weather that I have ever experienced. Now I don't even think it is strange to have snow in April in Utah when there are buds on the trees. Not that I'm complaining! Today the highs are in the low 80s. I thought that it was really warm a few days before Halloween when it was in the mid to upper 60s. It cooled down for a few days with highs in the 40s, but it has been warming up ever since. It has been nice for the kids to be able to play outside for the past few days. It's pretty weird for your kids to be playing outside in 80 degree weather and then it starts to get dark at 5:30. Even though I love this weather, it will probably make it feel really cold when it goes down into the 50s next week. I guess we will enjoy it while it lasts.

One two, buckle my shoe

When we lived in Utah, I attended a few classes put on by KBYU about reading and children. Each class would focus on some different aspect of how important reading and literacy are for kids. One class in particular was about nursery rhymes. They couldn't really tell us why, but they said it was so important for kids to learn nursery rhymes. I thought, "sure, they can be fun and cute", but I didn't really understand why they were so important. I hadn't really thought about this until I found a link to Scott Adam's blog. In case you don't recognize the name, he's the creator of the Dilbert comic. He had a really strange neurological disorder where he couldn't speak. He had this problem for 18 months and doctors offered him little hope. Read the blog to find out what happened. It was a nursery rhyme that saved his voice, or rather the connection between his brain and his mouth. Last night David was reading me some poems that he learned in school. Actually, he was reciting them because he had them completely memorized. It actually astounded me how well he knew these poems after reading them a few times in class on Friday - and then telling me them on Sunday. It got me to thinking, maybe there's something to these nursery rhymes after all.

Some good deals and some good recipes

Recently I came across a few good deals and some recipes that I wanted to share. Check in your local area to see if a pharmacy near you is offering some generic prescriptions for $4. I think that Walmart started the program in some select states. In our area it is offered by the Bakers Store. Bakers is owned by Kroger. I don't know if other Kroger stores will follow suit but it might be worth it to check out. With insurance, we normally pay $12 per prescriptions (generic) so $4 is a pretty good deal. I've had some sick kids lately and I was able to save some money on prescriptions.

Amazon now has a grocery section and right now you can save $10 off an order of $49 or more. The grocery products qualify for free shipping as well. Just use code GROCERY3 when you check out. I didn't really spend a lot of time browsing through their products - it's mostly stuff in bulk. But, I did buy diapers and saved some money. They have all the major brands and it saved me from how much I pay at walmart. You can also use the coupon as many times as you want!

Most of you probably already do this, but check your Sunday paper coupons. I used to think they only had coupons for products that I don't usually buy. At a recent shopping trip, I saved over $15. This week I found coupons for milk, sour cream, toilet paper, soup - stuff we all buy. If you find a grocery store that will double your coupons - even better.

Here are some great recipes. I am trying to eat healthy. It always helps me when I eat a good breakfast. This recipe might even be from the south beach diet, but I found it on allrecipes.com. It's a really good (and healthy) pancake recipe. Here goes:

1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal (not the quick cooking kind)
1/4 cup low fat cottage cheese
4 egg whites (sometimes I use 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites)
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon Splenda (if you like it a little bit sweet)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until it's all mixed up. Cook on a medium-high griddle sprayed with Pam.
Makes 4-6 pancakes.
This only makes one generous serving, so double it for more people.

Here is a recipe for whole wheat bread. This uses all whole wheat flour. If you are using a mixer, you'll have to make sure it isn't too big for your kind of mixer. I have a Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixer and I have to 3/4 the recipe.

Add the ingredients in the following order.
4 cups warm water
3 T yeast
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup gluten flour
1 T salt
7-10 cups flour

Mix all ingredients together and add enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the bowl. You want a thicker dough, but not too thick that it is hard for the mixer to mix. Knead for 9 mintues in the mixer. Form into loaves and put in greased pans, 3 large pans or 4 regular loaf pans. Let rise for 20-25 minutes. Put into a cold oven (bread will finish rising as oven heats up.) Set oven for 350. Bake for 28-30 mintues.

Don't leave out the gluten flour - it is very important to help the heavy wheat bread rise.

This bread is very tasty - especially right out of the oven. You can have 3 fresh loaves of bread in about 1 1/2 hours. So, there you go, some good stuff I wanted to pass on.

Halloween

We had a very fun Halloween this year. Here are the kids all ready for the party at Dad's work.


Here's a closeup of Rachel's cute makeup.



I didn't even realize it until after the costumes were made - we have a doll version of each costume. David and Josh were especially excited and had been playing "pumkin girl(boy) and Peter Pan!" for quite some time now.


Here's Emma. She didn't want to wear her hat that identified her as a hersey's kiss. She also wouldn't stand still for a picture with her siblings.





Fun at the church party and trunk or treat.


Halloween Night! We only visited a few neighbors because Dad was out of town. I was worried about being home to hand out candy. Turns out, I shouldn't have been. I think we probably had about 10 trick or treaters.

This is how much candy we had left over.

All in all we had a great Halloween.

The Big Red Barn and Pumpkin Farm

Last weekend we went to one of the local pumpkin patches. Unfortunately, this is not a picture of the place we went - I just had to have one for the blog. I was in such a hurry getting everyone ready that I forgot to bring my camera. I was pretty sad that my blog wouldn't have pictures of what we did :(. Anyway, it was pretty fun - although not really worth the $5 to get in and $1 for the hayride, but that's okay. There were lots of animals around - goats, pigs, horses, cows, llamas, rabbits, and chickens. There was also a cat walking around that Rachel had fun petting. Emma really liked the corn box (imagine a sand box made from hay bales that contains dried corn instead of sand). There was a tiny village of little houses. David and Josh really liked trying out the old fashioned teetor-totter. We took a hayride and picked out a nice looking pumpkin. It was a fun way to spend a saturday afternoon.

Books, books, books!

I love books. I rarely pass up an opportunity to order books when my kids bring home a book order. I also have discovered an online bookstore called book closeouts that has great deals on books. This also means that I have collected a great deal of children's books. Ever since we moved here there have been books in several different places - kids rooms, living room, basement, and every place in between. I decided to gather all the books and organize them. It was actually kind of fun. This is what I discovered:These are the duplicates. Some of them were gifts but I know of at least one that I ordered twice from a book order. This is why it's a good idea to organize your books!

David loves dinosaurs and I can't resist a cute dinosaur book. So far we have 23. And every time there is a dinosaur book in a book order David thinks we need to add to our collection.
I also love collections. Here is the "If you give a mouse a cookie..." set.

David loves the David Shannon books. It is always fun to see your own name in print. The David books are filled with all sorts of silly things that a little boy named David does. My favorite one is when the David in the book is making a face in his school picture. When I got my David's preschool pictures back, I noticed that David was doing the exact same thing.

I also love books that I read as a child. Beverly Cleary was one of my favorites. We have some books now that I never read as a child so it has been fun to rediscover them.
You gotta love Little House on the Prairie. They are several new ones - about Laura's mother, grandmother, and daughter. There are also some in an easier reading format for very early readers. Rachel is such a quick learner that I think she's already past the level of the easy reading books (she hasn't read them all..) That's okay. Sometimes its fun to read an easy book.
Dr. Seuss books are great. As I am teaching David to read I am learning that these books are great for a young reader. Even though they have some strange names it's all about rhyming and rhythm. Green Eggs and Ham is great for a beginning reader.
Eric Carle is one of my absolute favorites. I remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar from when I was a kid. I have discovered a lot more fun favorites now. Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? Is one of Josh's favorite books. His artwork is beautiful as well.
We have also gathered quite a few books about how much parents love their kids - including the classic "Love you Forever" by Robert Munsch. The cover has a baby on the front in a pile of toilet paper. The author must be a dad.

So, there you have it! Some of our favorite books. And now I know which books we have, so I don't order the same one twice.

Looking at the world through a red-colored hamper

The other day I let Josh watch a favorite TV program in my room. The other kids were at school and he didn't really want to go down to the basement by himself. Since my room is also right next to the laundry room, it is often filled with laundry needing to be sorted and various baskets and hampers. As I was going about my daily routine I walked by my room, glanced in, and saw this. Apparently, Curious George looks much better with a red tint. Josh has a way of making me smile :)

Soccer Boy

This is David's third year playing soccer. He loves having a sport! He does a great job even though he is a little timid around the ball. This year he has weekly practices in addition to games. His games are played 4 on 4 with no goalie. That makes for some pretty high scoring games. The kids spread out a little bit more, too. I'm glad he is learning and having fun. I kind of like sports at this age. The focus is on learning a sport and having fun, not winning.

Soccer Girl

Rachel has had a fun time playing soccer this year. This was the first time she played soccer. Before she either did dance or gymnastics (I have a one sport rule). She said she really wanted to play soccer. It turned out that her friend Marissa was on her team and her Dad was the coach. Unfortunately, 3 of her games are on Sunday. If I had know that, I probably wouldn't have signed her up. She does get to play in 4 games (she's already had 3). She also has a team practice once a week and on Saturdays they have a clinic with a soccer coach from England. I think that it is really good for her. She has a lot of fun playing. Hopefully next year I can find a team that doesn't have games on Sunday.

Everything old is new again

So last week Rachel found an old cell phone. We're talking non-flip, no color screen, and no camera phone. Pretty much ancient history that I used 6 months ago. She also found the charger and asked if she could have it. I explained that it has no service and can not be used like a real phone would. She didn't really care. I tried to figure out what she would do with the phone. Well, she spent a long time listening to all the different ring tones. She played some games. She used the calculator. She also wrote messages, set an alarm to wake her up, and set up reminders for church. I made her erase the reminder that was set to go off at 12.02 am. Anyway, she is very excited with her faux cell phone. Who knew it would be so much fun.

Super boy

Since Josh was so excited about his superman underwear, I couldn't resist when I saw these Superman pajamas, complete with cape. He had actually mentioned that he wanted some pajamas for his birthday so I thought it was perfect. He put them on as soon as he got them and started running around saying "I can fly!!!!!!!!!" He was pretty cute actually. He was being very careful in them because he said he never wanted to get them dirty. Then later on I found him riding his bike in them. After his bath he wanted to put them back on (of course!). So much for that fresh out of the bath smell - his pajamas smelled like outside. Anyway, I was in Josh's room picking up his towel when I heard the unmistakeable sound of a child falling down the stairs. The bump, bump, roll, bump, cry. I went down to console him and as he was crying he was saying "I can't fly mom" I thought that he had fallen down the stairs, but it turns out he was trying to fly. Poor kid, I think he felt like Buzz lightyear when he tried to fly out the window. At least he didn't try that one.

Day at the Zoo

Monday was a teacher development day. That meant no school for the kids. We decided to make use of our zoo pass and spend the morning at the zoo. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time!

Here they are in the desert dome.

They had fun feeding the goats in the petting zoo.

Me and Emma barely escaped a goat that chased us down for our graham crackers.

Rachel had fun staring this big silverback gorilla in the face. She claims that it smiled at her, but I don't think I've ever seen a gorilla smile.

We made our way to the gift shop so that Josh could spend some of his birthday money. He found a cute monkey that can give him hugs.

This really is a great zoo! We haven't even seen everything that the zoo has to offer. Next time I think we'll see the elephants... and maybe the giraffes.