Bonnie's Lemon "Lick-The-Floor-Clean" Cake

Bonnie makes a fantastic homemade lemon cake that has four scrumptious layers of lemon curd sandwiched between moist lemon cakey goodness, topped off with a mountain of fresh whipped cream and sweet-tart berries. It is the picture of perfection, and I'll post some pictures of the actual cake when she sends some to me (hint, hint!!). She made one for Valentine's Day, and our family got to come over for the first-ever Lemon Licking Cake Tasting! No, it's not actually called "Licking" cake, I just made that up.

She came to our house a few weekends ago and baked two more of these delectible perfectionisms (hey, it's a word now!) for a baby shower while we listened to the audiobook The Secret, which I will write more about later. When the cake was done, she whipped the cream. As she transferred a spoon coated in whipped cream across the kitchen floor, two things happened. First, a small "plop!" Next, two small boys plastered themselves on the floor to lick up the results of the plop. The floor was clean, by the way. Or I could say... the floor WAS clean.

Sammy was especially excited about the prospect of actually licking the floor!! And when he graduated to licking the whipped cream spoon itself, he was in High Heaven. Until Bonnie (oooops) accidentally dropped (after a couple of firm shakes of her wrist) another plop on the floor.

She had to do this, as my camera had needed new batteries and the first plop-licking was un-photographable. But my new camera batteries were raring to go, so her ploppings were photographed with delight. Oh, that sounds so wrong...

We were all bent over laughing by the time the whipped cream was all licked up.

And two little boys can't wait to taste Bonnie's Ploppings again.

Eight Thousand Words

For Caleb

So we're on our way home from the American Indoor Sports Arena last night, where we went to walk around and watch the people and kids (not that kids aren't people) play soccer.

Mike says "Griffin, what does the cow say?" and Griffin says "Eat More Chikin!" just like the good boy that we taught him to be. Actually this time we had wanted him to say "moo", because Sammy tries to say it now (it comes out "mmMMm") whenever he hears someone else saying it, and we wanted to hear Sammy try to say it so we could laugh at him.

"No, what does the REAL cow say?" we asked Griffin.

"Moo" he said after a moment's hesitation. We really should stop confusing him, but it's just so darned funny!

Than Mike said, "Griffin, do you know what Caleb says?"

Griffin went silent.

"Caleb says "Get a Garmin, or get lost!" can you say that? "Get a Garmin, or get lost!""

Griffin ponders things for a little bit, while Mike and I repeat this phrase over and over so that he can become very familiar with it before saying it back to us.

I stop talking and shush Mike, because I think he's finally ready to say it.

The golden moment has arrived!

"Get a Garmin, and GET LOST!"

We laughed all the way home.

The Sammy Game

Sammy is now backing down the stairs by himself, so I don't have to play The Sammy Game anymore. It went kind of like this...

Sammy climbs up all of the stairs. Sammy selects large throwing object (usually something the he knows Griffin will object to, such as Thomas the Train). Sammy then proceeds to throw said object as hard as he can from about 12 feet above the hardwood floor. This makes a loud crashing sound. Sammy giggles. Sammy selects a second large throwing object. Mommy stops what she is doing and runs to the staircase. Mommy looks up at Sammy and says "Sammy, what are you doing?" Sammy throws said object as hard as he can, narrowly missing (and sometimes hitting) Mommy's head. Mommy runs up the staircase to retrieve the little mischief-maker. Mommy carries Sammy down the stairs and sets up the child safety gate. Mommy walks away. Sammy knocks over child safety gate and climbs over it. Sammy climbs up all of the stairs. Sammy selects large throwing object...

This was known to go on for hours, interrupted only by breakfast, naptime, lunch, the arrival of Daddy, and dinner.

Sammy protested greatly every time I showed him how to back down the staircase by himself. He didn't want Mommy to have a reason to end The Sammy Game. But now it is over, and Sammy has decided to cut his ties to Mommy and embrace his freedom. He is now Master Of The Staircase.

Cookie

I made cookies today, and this is the second time Sammy has tasted my chocolate chip cookies. The first time he reacted very favorably to them, and even cried when the cookie he was munching on was all gone.

This time I sat him down in his high chair and sat next to him, laying the cookies down on the table beside us. He took one look at them and grinned from ear to ear.

"Cookie!" he pronounced, and then proceeded to cry until I had placed bites of the cookie on his tray, at which point he gobbled them up like there's no tomorrow.

He said it a few more times, looking his sweetest, until the little bits of cookie were all gone. He then threw the biggest tantrum I have ever seen.

The End.

Beautiful

Love the way
Winter's chill disappears into the sunny breeze.
Laughter rings as little ones skip lightly across chalk-colored driveways.
Grass softens and strengthens for the coming green.
Buds emerge from tree branches long held silent.

Love the way
Friends grow closer every day.
Husbands and wives find new ways to love.
Children learn new things about their world.
Distant relatives discover electronic communication.

Love the way
Warm whole wheat cookies smell fresh from the oven.
Small boys sleep away the afternoon.
Windows show tiny handprints.
Dishes are all clean and put away.

It's a Wonderful Life

Wow. I just got back from www.wilhoite.blogspot.com, and was reminded of my mortality. This young lady, who is married and the mother of a just barely one-year-old little boy, is struggling for her life with leukemia. She was just diagnosed in 2006. The doctors say she has only two months to live. Eight weeks. What would I do with only eight weeks to live? I think I'll go spend some time with Griffin now.

Skunk Virgin No More

As of this evening at about 8:30 pm, I had never in my 26-year-old life smelled a skunk. Not once. Not even when everyone else in the car was screaming and coughing and hacking and crying and holding their noses and rolling down the windows, then quickly rolling them back up again. I simply did not understand what the big fuss was all about.

Sometimes, growing up, Mom and Dad would say they smelled one in the neighborhood, or even outside our house, and as they closed all of the windows, my sister and I (she's still a Skunk Virgin) would scoff and laugh at the silly people who reacted so strongly to something so minor as a cute little cuddly furry skunk. Fast-forward to this evening.

We were innocently driving home from a lovely marriage presentation (seminar? talk? lecture? class?) that the pastor and his wife had put together for us (well, not just us) at church. We were almost to our street when off of the median jumped a cute little cuddly furry skunk, who proceeded to run right under the van and stop as we drove over him. We heard a couple of very small noises coming from under the van, and then there was this big crack in the universe, as my Skunk Virginity came to an end. It was all over. And I will regret this in the morning.

No, we (or, I should say, Mike) did not kill the insipid little varmint. Oh, no. He got to toddle off into the already set sun as I died a slow death knowing that my life would never again be quite the same. My innocence has been destroyed. I will never see life in the same way ever again. My nose hath been corrupted.

I can't wait to go to the car wash tomorrow and ask for a tomato bath.

True Worth

"True worth is in being, not seeming -- in doing, each day that goes by, some little good -- not in dreaming of great things to do by and by."

Alice Cary

Our Love Story

I would like to share the story of how Mike and I met each other and fell in love. I thought it was an appropriate time of the year, having just celebrated Valentine's Day.

I was 21, and I worked at the Christian Book and Gift Store. Emilee was a manager there. She trained me as the store's "visual merchandiser" (a job I absolutely loved!!). We became good friends and hung out a lot outside of work. She and her husband Ken got four tickets to a KC Royals game and Emilee asked me if I wanted to go to the game with them. She said that Ken was inviting one of his friends too.

"We're not trying to set you up or anything, nothing like that... it's not a date... it's NOT a DATE!!!" they both urged emphatically.

So we went to meet Ken's friend (guess who!) at IBM, where Mike still works. When he walked out of the building, I thought he was good-looking, but I didn't form any opinions about him since I didn't know him. I had never dated anyone before (unless you count the guys I met in a Christian chat room, but that's another post... plus, I didn't like any of them once I actually met them); I wanted to wait to date until I knew I was willing to marry the man I was dating.

Some might say this is idealistic, but I knew what I wanted and wasn't going to settle for less. I know that I had been protected from a lot of heartache since I didn't attach myself emotionally to anyone before Mike came along. I had learned a lot about courtship over the years, and I really didn't want to get hurt by quickly developing an in-depth relationship with someone and then having him break it off because he wasn't as serious as I was. I wasn't going to date, I was going to court (makes me sound like a criminal!). I had my mind made up, and nothing and no one would change it. WELL.

After the baseball game we all went to Sylas and Maddy's for ice cream, and we sat at this little round table. It was so small that we couldn't really all scoot up all the way to the table. I sat across from Emilee, and Mike sat across from Ken. Which meant that I was sitting next to Mike. We had to sit so close together that our knees kept on bumping, and I was a bit embarrassed about it at first, but quickly realized that it wouldn't do any good to get embarrassed and red-faced about something that didn't seem to matter to him, and I tried not to pay attention to it, but it was hard!!

Mike and I got to know each other a little better over the next couple of months (we met in July of 2001), by going to Ken and Emilee's house and playing cards and visiting with them. I kept asking Emilee if this guy was ever going to show any interest in me (yeah, I was already starting to change my mind about the whole dating/courtship thing), but she said that she wouldn't give him my phone number unless he asked her for it. Well, I must have bugged her about it every day at work, because I really liked this guy!!

He was a Christian, and he was polite, funny, witty, smart, and "established" (he already had a house and he had worked at IBM for a long time). Those had all been on my list of requirements for my "perfect courtship relationship". I knew I didn't want to get involved with a guy who didn't have a steady job. I didn't have any age "requirements", but an older guy was probably going to fit my ideal a bit better. The fact that Mike is eight years older than I am is a definite plus, in my opinion!

So anyway, here I was pestering Emilee about Mike, when is he going to call me, do you think he's even interested in me, and on and on... I'm sure I drove her nuts. Then one day, about 3 months after our first (it's not a) date, I got a call from him. I knew it was him because we had caller ID, and when I saw his number I whooped and shrieked and told Mom he was finally calling me!!! I'm sure she was relieved, because she had heard little from me but "Mike this, Mike that" for a very long time... maybe since the day I met him?

He WAS calling to ask me out, and he came by either that night or the next to pick me up for dinner. Our first real date after months of getting together in a group setting... I'd say it wasn't too far from courtship standards. Call it "modern courtship". Plus, I was 21 and he was 29, and neither of us were immature by any means. Since neither one of us could decide where to go to eat (a problem we still have to this day), we ended up going to a place we really aren't too crazy about, but we did have a great time talking.

He kept asking me "What does that face mean?" whenever he thought I was having a facial reaction to anything. Well, apparently I don't even know when my face decides to do something, because most of the time when he thought I was making a face, I hadn't been thinking about anything in particular, and was just chewing or smiling. He says he was just trying to figure me out and get to know me better, but that had to be the most annoying thing that happened that night. I don't know why I thought it was annoying, because now I enjoy it when he asks me what my facial expressions mean. Hmmm... Anyway, other than that it was fantastic. He cracked great jokes, knew how to have a good conversation, and didn't just let me talk the whole time, but also asked intelligent questions, and he responded with more than one-word answers to my questions! What a guy!!

We soon established a pattern. Mike only worked about 2-3 minutes from where my parents lived, but he lived about 30 minutes away in another city, so almost every weeknight he would come from work, pick me up and take me to dinner and the occasional movie, and then he'd bring me back home and go home himself. During the next two months that's how it went.

Then he went to Paris with Ken and Emilee and his parents and Ken's parents for a week. It was a VERY long week, and I missed him so much!! When they got back, he took me to dinner and gave me some presents (a soft, fuzzy black scarf; some chocolates; an Eiffel Tower keychain; some laser-cut glass blocks with the Eiffel Tower etched into them) . I loved the presents, but I was just glad to have him home! I had decided that he was the one for me. Now I just had to wait for him to figure it out too. When he got home it was late November, and we continued our "pattern" for a few more weeks, until one night at Applebee's. By this time I was working at EXPO design center, and Applebee's was right across the street from where I worked. No hard decisions there!

We sat down and made small talk for a while, and then I got really quiet. He asked me what was wrong and had to prod me a bit before I finally came out and asked him what he wanted from our relationship. Where were we going? We had never even held hands, and yet it seemed like we were pretty serious! He told me that he had always been a "one-woman man" and that he had assumed that we were going to exclusively date each other and be a couple. He asked what I wanted from "a relationship". Not knowing that he actually meant our relationship, I said "Well, I want to get married! I want to have children and be a stay-at-home mom." I'm sure this surprised him, and he probably thought I was being very bold. But I hadn't understood him and I just assumed he was asking me what I wanted out of life in general. I found all of this out after we had been married for a couple of years and had a conversation about that date!

Anyway, when I went home that night and the next day told Mom that we were "official". Mom said something to the effect of "It's about time!" and "You're getting married, right?" I just couldn't help myself. I cracked up laughing and told her that no, we'd just decided to officially be a couple until further notice. She seemed a bit disappointed!

Mike and I continued dating for 2 more months (during which time we looked at rings just "for future reference"), and then he took me to a special Italian restaurant called Gambucci's on Valentine's Day, 2002. After we were done eating, he said he needed to use the restroom. This wasn't typical, but I didn't suspect anything yet. Well, when he came back from "the restroom", his shirt was wet with raindrops (it hadn't been raining when we came in). Hmmm... Now I was suspicious. He sat back down in his seat, but he didn't stay there for long. Before I knew it, he was kneeling beside my seat and opening a box with a beautiful ring and asking me to be his wife forever. It was such a wonderful moment, and I answered with a hearty "Yes!!" and hugged him tight while the people seated near us looked on and smiled. He sat next to me in the booth and we talked for a long time. The waitress had apparently seen what happened, and they came out and took our picture, so now I can look at it and always remember how happy I was at that moment. It was so special!!

We talked over the next week and decided on September 21st of that same year as our wedding day, and seven months of planning and preparation later, we were married in our church. We did all of the decorating ourselves, except for the bouquets; I had a TON of help from my very artistic friends and family. The music was played mostly by the church pianist, who did a beautiful job. He always wowed us every Sunday with his talent, and it was no different at our wedding. Everything went off without a hitch (except ours, of course!). I started getting teary-eyed when Dad gave me away, but managed to compose myself. The only time we could have messed up was when we almost forgot to blow out the two small candles on either side of the unity candle. But we remembered at the very last second. Maybe it was because Wesley, my brother, was playing "How Beautiful" on the trumpet (he's a very talented musician!) and we were so overcome that it was hard to remember much of anything at that time! I finally lost it when, after we enjoyed our kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Kidwell(!) the recessional started playing, and I was so overwhelmed with everything that I started crying as we walked back up the aisle. They were tears of joy, and I was able to pull myself together so that I could greet everyone as a newly married woman. I felt so fulfilled and peaceful at that moment.

The feeling gets stronger every day.

Valentine Funny

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did. I'm still laughing!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day to my dear, sweet hubby!! I love you so much and can't wait to spend five more wonderful years with you. For those of you who don't know, Mike proposed to me on Valentine's Day, 2002, and we were married seven months and one week later. :)

Last Night's Fun

So I got these three pages done last night. Or the night before? I don't remember. It's all kind of a blur... aren't I cute?

Cold Season

We all have a terrible cold right now, and are VERY miserable... well, except for Mike, who is watching KU beat Missouri at basketball right now. At least we hope they will! Griffin is almost over his cold, he just coughs a lot. But the rest of us are in full-fledged yuck mode, walking around like zombies with trails of Kleenex not far behind. How I long for some scrapbooking time!! I think I'll go do that now, while Griffin is sleeping and Sammy snuggles with Daddy on the couch. Maybe I'll post pictures, if I happen to finish anything. :)

Ambition

Just some thoughts I had today about finding purpose and direction in life.  Sometimes my "Creations" are just thoughts I have found the time to write down.  :)

You can't do everything AND be successful at everything you do at the same time. But you can "do one thing well" -- the motto of many entrepreneurs -- and everything else seems to find its own place while you are doing that. Not that your life will be perfect just because you are doing something you love to do, far from it. So many things will come up to make you think you aren't doing a good enough job, and that you need to change, and you will try (and fail!) to seek approval from outside sources to find fulfillment in what you are doing.

But joy comes in discipline, even though it seems that, as you go about your day-to-day existence, you are going to wither up and die and no one will have noticed all of your efforts here on earth. This is what Satan tells you so that you will be less effective in the world. He truly tries to keep you down by telling you this hogwash that you aren't "good enough" or "smart enough" or "working hard enough" to make any kind of difference. And that's just not true!!

The people who have made the biggest differences in the world (good AND bad) are those individuals who focused on one thing they loved doing and did it to the best of their ability, no matter what anyone told them. Some people even died thinking that no one was ever going to know what they had done to change the world, and only after they were gone did people see the contributions they had made. But they still kept at it while they were here, because they believed in it. Thomas Edison was told by his school that he wasn't smart enough to graduate. Michael Jordan was told by his high school basketball coach that he'd never amount to anything. There are so many people who have been criticized for doing something they believed in... and they overcame that criticism because they believed in what they were doing enough to keep doing it, day after day.

I'm not saying that a "positive self-image" is what's going to make you succeed. I'm not a big proponent of "self-esteem", "self-image", or any of those "self-" words, because life is about so much more than just focusing on ourselves. It's about discipline in the little things. Things that don't seem to matter to anyone, and it seems as if you are just busying yourself for no reason in particular, and that nothing and no one will ever be affected by anything you do. But you have to realize that even if one life (could be your husband's, your children's, your friends and/or relatives, or just random people you happen to meet) is affected positively by your daily "existence", then your life is absolutely worth living, and living to its fullest! Even in the tiny daily things you do.

So take heart, ladies!! Most days it seems we haven't accomplished a single thing, but God knows. He knows every struggle, every load of laundry that you squeezed into your day, every dish you washed and placed back into the cupboard for the 10th time this week, every prayer you said that seemed to hit the ceiling and reverberate throughout the room without really going anywhere, and every loving word you said to your husband whether you think he deserved it or not. Your Father knows the longings you have to make a difference in the world and to be recognized for the things you do in your lifetime.

I Thessalonians 4:11-12 says "This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we commanded you before. As a result, people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others to meet your financial needs."

This is a far cry from what many women are shouting from the rooftops today. "Well behaved women rarely make history" is a favorite quote of some well-meaning women who just want to be acknowledged for their contributions to society. Well, I am going to go against the flow here, but I would have to say that I would rather make the Lamb's Book of Life than the history books any day!

Thank you, Chipmunk!

Sammy now says "Thank you," as well as he can with a mouth full of gums (and 8 teeth). I say it every time he hands me something, which is one of his new favorite things to do, and we pass the item back and forth with me saying "Thank you!!" every time. I finally started to listen to the garbled sounds he was making back at me. It is definitely two words that sound like "Tlanlt tloo."

Tonight at dinner, Griffin jerked and looked very pained, and when I asked what had happened, he told me he got a chip stuck behind or between his teeth. I said "Wow, those chips can hurt, can't they?" and he grinned really big and said "Yeaaaah (as only Griffin can do), it was a chipMUNK!"

Who knows what that means!?

A Definite Favorite

This is a meal that I made up, and it is one of our family's all-time favorites! It can be made with or without the sausage. My mom tried it with ground chicken sausage and that worked quite well also. I usually chop up an onion and a couple cloves of garlic and add them to the butter before putting the cabbage in.

Cabbage and Mushrooms with Smoked Sausage

1/2 stick butter
1 head cabbage
1 package fresh sliced mushrooms OR
2 cans mushroom pieces and stems
salt, pepper to taste
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 smoked sausage, cut into chunks
2 packages Ramen Noodles, oriental flavor, cooked according to package directions (drain almost all water before adding flavoring)

Chop cabbage into desired size pieces. Melt butter in skillet on medium heat (this is when you'd add the optional onions/garlic and add cabbage and mushrooms. Salt and pepper to taste and add garlic powder. Stir well. Cover and cook over medium to medium-low heat until cabbage is tender, stirring often. Meanwhile, brown sausage in separate pan. Mix cabbage and sausage together and serve over Ramen noodles. (If you cook the sausage in the same pan as the cabbage, your sausage will not brown and will lose flavor.)

A Clean House

"A clean house makes coming home even nicer." -- So states an advertisement for The Cleaning Authority -- "Your Residential Cleaning Professionals".

Well, some days I feel like a residential cleaning professional. Maybe that should be my new title. No more "housewife" or "stay-at-home mom" or even "domestic engineer", or my favorite, "domestic goddess." No! From now on, I am Mrs. Residential Cleaning Professional! Hear me vacuum!!

Okay, so I'm only a professional in my own home. Hand me someone else's cleaning to-do list and I am completely lost. But I have managed to keep a somewhat clean home -- as clean as two little boys, two cats and a very large black hairy dog will allow -- in my four-and-a-half years of married life. But there is always much room for improvement, especially for a Type W (Wait to clean it until it looks really dirty for Maximum Complement Potential) personality such as myself.

The ad goes on to say "Life's too short to clean your own home." Well, as a Residential Cleaning Professional (RCP) myself, I would have to say that my life is long enough to clean my own home. I know that's not the case for everyone, so don't take offense. Not everyone is called into the Residential Cleaning Profession! But I do actually enjoy the process, and especially the end result, of cleaning... yes, even the toilets! There is a certain satisfaction in entering a freshly cleaned bathroom, knowing that you are going to be cleaner coming out than you were going in.

Okay, enough potty humor. The reason I wanted to post this blog is to list the many, many things these particular RCP's do to maintain the beauty of the homes they clean. I could take quite a few pointers from these people!

This is what they do every time they come to your home:

Bathrooms:
tile walls, bathtubs and showers cleaned and disinfected
shower doors cleaned and disinfected
vanity and sink cleaned and disinfected
mirrors and chrome fixtures cleaned and shined
floors washed and disinfected/carpets vacuumed
toilets cleaned and disinfected
mildew chemically treated
cobwebs removed
general dusting

Kitchen and Eating areas:
countertops cleaned
outside of range hood cleaned
top and front of range cleaned
drip pans wiped
sinks cleaned and disinfected, chrome shined
fronts of other appliances cleaned
floors vacuumed and mopped
cobwebs removed
microwave wiped out
general dusting

Sleeping and Living Areas:
flat areas damp cloth dusted
stairs vacuumed
accessible closet floors vacuumed
all readily accessible floors vacuumed
wood floors vacuumed and dust mopped
cobwebs removed
picture frames dusted
window sills and ledges dusted
louvered doors dusted
mini blinds dusted
ceiling fans dusted
lampshades dusted
intricate items dusted
heavy knick-knack areas dusted

And these services are provided on a rotating basis:

Bathroom Detail Cleans:
tile grout scrubbed
shower door given extra attention
spot clean doors and door frames for fingerprints
knick-knacks individually cleaned
fronts of cabinets wiped
baseboard wiped
extra attention to floors

Kitchen and Eating Area Detail Cleans:
inside of range hood cleaned
grease filter cleaned
drip pans cleaned
doors and frames spot cleaned for fingerprints
appliances cleaned and shined
knick-knack areas cleaned
outside of cabinets cleaned
baseboards wiped
all kitchen furniture hand wiped

Sleeping and Living Area Detail Cleans:
doors and frames spot cleaned for fingerprints
window sills and ledges damp wiped
knick-knacks individually cleaned
furniture hand wiped
baseboards wiped
furniture and upholstery vacuumed
carpet edges vacuumed
areas under accessible furniture vacuumed

Okay... wait... maybe I DO want these people to come clean my house ;)

Regardless, I know I'm going to be adding some of these things to my cleaning to-do list! I always forget to remove the cobwebs, clean the inside of the microwave, DUST, and vacuum the furniture. So I guess I'm not doing too bad, I just have some things I need to work on. I think I'll print this list out and work it in to my cleaning routine. Or maybe I'll start with making a cleaning routine. Whoa! I'm on a roll. Any other RCP's out there?

Happy 50th Blog!

This is my fiftieth blog. So happy fiftieth blog to those of you who have been reading. :)

Griffin has been really sick over the last few days, poor guy. He has a very runny nose and had a fever for a day or two also. He has been coughing SO much, and even got sick quite a few times as a result of coughing so much. At first I thought he must have the flu, but he only gets sick when he coughs, so I put two and two together and figured it must just be a bad cold. Now Sammy has the runny nose/coughing. He lost a whole bottle this morning after a particularly rough coughing episode. Griffin has been sleeping very well the last few days, so I'm praying that Sammy will do the same and get over this bug quickly!

I have been reading a lot of material on homeschooling. Just trying to figure out what is right for us, even though the boys won't be in school for a few years. I really want to use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I think this is what my mom used to teach my little brother to read -- Wesley isn't so little anymore and will be going to COLLEGE this fall.... time flies!!! He's already smarter than me, no fair!!! ;) He'll be studying something computer-related, like Dad and Mike... the men in the family get along very well. We women never understand what they are talking about -- all those letters and numbers make my head spin -- but it's great that they can relate on the computer-language level.

I am going to call my grandma, it was her birthday a couple of days ago and I have been so busy with sick little boys that I haven't taken the time to call her!

So again, happy 50th to me and my adoring fans. ;)

Obedience Training Update

Here's an update on how the obedience training is going with the boys. I have been correcting Griffin every time he does something wrong, and I make sure he knows the reason I am getting after him. Sometimes this means a spanking, if it is something like hitting Sammy or picking on the cats or the dog, or directly disobeying something I tell him to do -- for example, I tell him to "Stop jumping on the couch, please" and he looks at me defiantly and jumps a few more times, just to make a point. I don't just let it go or act like I didn't see it or tell him again to "Stop it!!!". I respond immediately and he knows that I will respond the first time, so the bad behavior isn't happening nearly as often. I don't just jump right in and spank unless he is hurting someone else, and even then I sit down and explain what he did wrong before I give him the spanking, and three small swats usually is enough to make him regret what he did.

Other times it just means sitting down with him and talking to him about why something is wrong. He is still learning what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and I understand that. But sometimes he just constantly wants to test the limits -- we have some days where it seems like all I do is correct him all day long! -- and he does things that I haven't specifically told him not to do (removing the vent covers from all of the vents on the main floor wasn't in our list of house rules), but that he knows he shouldn't do. This happens a lot when we are in a store or at someone else's house, church, the gym, etc. He thinks the rules might have changed, so he will test the limits at each new place we go.

I know this stage won't last forever (it should only take a few weeks or maybe a couple of months), and I try to remember that fact when it seems like I am punishing him for the thirtieth time that day for smacking Sammy or running into him and knocking him over just to make him cry. Of course, my mom also pointed out to me that I need to teach Sammy not to constantly be in Griffin's business. Sammy just loves his brother and wants to be doing whatever he is all the time. So I'll be working with Sammy on his "independent play" skills. :)

When I first started this "intense training", I thought that I shouldn't have to follow him around all day long and constantly tell him not to do things, but how else is he supposed to learn what is acceptable and what is not? A 2-year-old's sense of reason isn't fully developed. I used to think that he should be able to figure out by himself that if something he did was going to make a mess or cause an accident, he shouldn't start doing it in the first place. I was wrong!

Something I have learned is that if I don't tell him not to climb up on the coffee table, then I shouldn't get mad at him if one day there is a cup of coffee sitting on it and he climbs up and accidentally knocks it over. If I have let him climb up there in the past, and there has been no punishment, and maybe we even laughed because it was cute, and then one time he climbs up there and there happens to be an accident, it is no one's fault but my own for not teaching him to climb up there in the first place. I have had to re-teach him in a lot of areas that were acceptable, but now are not because they could cause an accident at some point.

If an accident does happen, I do not punish him for it. This was a totally new concept to me. I had always just reacted to things he did, and if something spilled or broke or got messed up, I got mad. But this is the opposite of what needed to happen. If I teach him that something is not acceptable, and he does it, and then an accident happens, I punish him for the thing he did wrong, not for the accident. Accidents are just that -- accidents. It is my job to make sure his behavior won't cause an accident. Sure, it takes a lot more time on my part, but that's what being a mom is all about. I am there to guide, teach, and correct. Someday soon he will be able to reason for himself, and then he won't be under my "wing" quite so much, but for now it is up to me to teach my boys right from wrong.

That's all for now. Sesame Street is over and it's time for "workbook time". Griffin learns a new Bible verse every week and we get to read stories and do fun activities. Then we'll make lunch and Daddy will come home to eat with us. It's going to be a good day!

My Home Management Binder

Here it is! I had fun putting this together. I got the instructions from an e-book I purchased from www.keepingthehome.com. It is an excellent book that I highly recommend to anyone wanting to better organize their time at home. Her first rule is that you can't start working on the inside of the binder until you have finished the outside of it, and it makes you smile when you look at it. I love that rule, because now I actually want to go pick up my binder and go through it. I did a scrapbook front (imagine that!) and the pictures definitely make me smile. The pictures are (clockwise from top left):

Me on my bed with my cat Sassy when I was 10

Sammy after his first bath

Sammy's first time in his new swing

Mike's first mud puddle

"Monkey Mike" climbing the doorpost

Griffin's two-toothed, drooling grin

There are some more things that are special to me on the cover, too. Under the picture of Mike's first mud puddle there is a black-and-white snapshot of Griffin's feet when he was a baby. I just love little baby toes! And above Griffin's picture is the little dump truck that was on his birth announcements. Behind some of the pictures is a picture of a beautiful flower I found in a magazine that was in an aqua blue vase. I smiled when I saw it, so I thought it would go well on my cover, even if you can only see a tiny bit of it. :)

Here are the sections I chose to have in my binder:

1. A zippered pouch for pens and extra divider tabs

2. Sections for:

Schedules

Menus

Recipes

Phone numbers

Cleaning

Exercise

Books

Purchases

Gifts

Holiday

Emergency

Hobbies

Health

Other (just in case I forgot something!)

3. Extra page protectors so thatI can add more to each section

4. Blank notebook paper

5. My Blessing Book -- at the end of the day, I'll write down the things that blessed me, made me happy, brought joy to my life and a smile to my face. Nothing negative allowed!

6. In the front pocket of the binder I put a thin 2007 calendar so I can keep track of personal things that happen on a monthly basis (if you catch my drift). :)

I loved getting up this morning and opening my binder to check my schedule and see what to do next. Someday I'll have it memorized and won't have to refer to it so often, but for now it's a lifesaver! I can't wait to see how it grows and changes with our family.

Things That Make Me Mad, a.k.a. Why Can't We All Just Get Along? :)

I'm going to post some things that make me mad. I'm not trying to stir up trouble or anything, I'm just going to post this for my own benefit, and I'm going to have fun looking back over the things I've written 10 years from now when my life will have changed.

The first thing that makes me mad is the website I checked out yesterday, which I won't post the link to because I don't think it is worth your time to go there. It is the sole intent of the woman who started this blog to poke fun at and criticize "housewives", as she condescendingly refers to us as. Wow. What a waste of time! I would think that someone so educated as she so apparently is would not stoop to devoting an entire blog to making fun of those who choose a different career than hers. I realize that some women who choose to stay home to raise their children -- and yes, I do call it a career, because if she weren't taking care of her children, she'd be paying someone else big bucks to do it -- believe that ALL mothers should not work, and that, in my opinion, is not correct. There are some mothers, like this woman, who would not make good stay-at-home mothers, for the simple fact that they would make their children feel that they aren't worth her time. This woman criticized a stay-at-home mom who was with some friends at Starbucks and had her young daughter with her, and the mother apparently didn't look at or speak to her child in the 20 minutes she was there. I believe that children should be able to sit still and be quiet and listen to adult conversation for 20 minutes! If they can't... well, let's just say that MY children can't do this yet, so I admire any mother who has the patience to teach her children to sit quietly while she has some time with other adults. God bless her! So I guess the thing that really makes me mad is that a woman can look at someone else's life and say that it isn't worth as much as hers because that woman isn't doing something the same way that she is.

It makes me mad when my children disobey me or blatantly disregard something I have told them to do. This is why I am working so hard with them to teach them obedience. I'm not going to follow anyone's "instructions", but I'm using many different ideas and instructions to find what I agree and disagree with as far as raising my children goes. I love the way children obeyed in the 1800's -- and am reading (along with many other books) a book called The Mother at Home by John S. C. Abbott. He wrote it in 1833. What an inspiration! When a mother can tell her children to play quietly with blocks in one part of the room while she is busy in other parts of the house, and they willingly obey her and don't fight with each other or throw blocks across the room or get bored or start running around, she has really accomplished something. Her children obey her!! Now, I wouldn't want my children to "play quietly with blocks" all day; I like the noisy rowdy times just as much as the quieter times. But if I needed to get something done around the house, how nice it would be to know they wouldn't be running around trying to get my attention in so many different ways! I believe that I do know what is best for them, even though I am not perfect. It is my job to instruct them and guide them and ensure that they come to know Jesus as their personal Savior and have a wonderful relationship with God as His children. I take this job very seriously!

Okay, I can't finish this entire post because Sesame Street is over and I need to finish getting ready for Sammy's party tonight. I don't know if I really had much more to say anyway! :)

Training to Obey

Wow, I haven't posted in over a week! I will not be spending time on the computer during the day anymore, unless the boys just happen to take a nap at the same time and I don't have anything pressing that needs to be done. So my posts may become more infrequent. I have been spending the majority of my time with the boys, teaching them and training them to be obedient. I have been studying the website www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com and have learned so much about how to train my children to be godly, and it starts with obedience in the home. Griffin and Sammy both have rebellious streaks, and it is easy to just let them have their way and not fight them. But the harder way is usually the better way, so I'm going to buckle down and work with them. It is hard for me not to sit down at the computer and check e-mail or browse the web while they are awake, but I've already noticed a difference in their behavior. The true test will be Sammy's birthday party on Friday. We'll see how they do. I'm not expecting them to be perfect angels, but I would hope that the hours I'm spending teaching them will pay off. Griffin's Bible verse for the week... Deuteronomy 27:5... "We will listen and obey."

Carody

Family Pictures

We were invited to dinner at Bonnie and Caleb's house last week, and had a wonderfully yummy dinner of chicken fettucine alfredo, Greek salad, rye rolls with butter, beets, and broccoli. Griffin loves broccoli. It was all so good! While we were there, Bonnie took pictures of us. I didn't know she was going to do this, but it was a nice surprise! She wants me to put more pictures up with me in them (I'm always the one behind the camera), so here they are! I will consider these my "before" pictures, since I still need to lose about 70 pounds before I'm at my goal weight. But I've lost 15 so far (I lost the 5 pounds I gained back over the holidays), and I'm working out at the gym more regularly now. I like to go after the boys are in bed. The gym is open until 10, so I have plenty of time, and it's not too busy at night. It doesn't keep me awake like I was worried it might. It just makes me even more tired. I love how I feel when I'm done! I don't like getting to that point, but I love being done and feeling so good about myself. That's enough to keep me going back for more.

Cooking, Baking, and Playing

The last few days have been pretty uneventful. Cozy, but not much going on. I don't like to drive on snow and ice, so unless Mike takes us somewhere, I pretty stay at home. Mike worked from home Friday afternoon and all day today. It was nice for him to not have to drive to and from work, but he worked from 8am 'til 7pm tonight, with two hours off for a break. So we didn't see him much! Griffin got to go outside and play with him in the snow today, though, and it was his first time of official "snow play". We went to Target last night and found some mittens for him (and a matching hat that makes me laugh every time I see it... he looks like the court jester). He had boots, but his little tiny fingers get so cold so fast that he couldn't really play until he had his mittens. They had so much fun! My pictures of them playing didn't really turn out that great with the combination of the sun shining off of the snow and the reflective windows (I got a great picture of the camera, though!).

We have only eaten out once this year! I love saying that. But hey, two weeks is a long time for me to not eat out. I did go to Spin Neapolitan Pizza with Bonnie last week (was it last week?). That was SO yummy. She also took me to see Charlotte's Web, and I wasn't ready for how sad it was! It has always been one of my favorite stories, so it was a very special thing to go see it again after so long. It makes me not want to eat pork. I haven't since I saw it, it just hasn't appealed to me. We'll see how long that lasts.

We had these little mini meatloaves tonight. SO good. Here's the recipe. It's from Kraft Food & Family magazine.

Marvelous Mini Meatloaves

1 pound ground beef (or beef substitute)

1 box stuffing mix

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

3/4 cup BBQ sauce

3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Mix first 4 ingredients together, then press mixture evenly into 12 cups in a muffin pan. Make an indentation with a spoon in the center of each meatloaf. Put in a tsp. of BBQ sauce. Bake pan in a 375 degree oven for 35 minutes. Take out pan and put a bit of shredded cheese on each meatloaf. Bake for another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

We all loved these! There are also Mediterranean, Mexican and Italian variations to this recipe. Very versatile. The stuffing keeps it moist, too.

I cut out all of the recipes from their magazine and started a new recipe book. To sign up for their free magazines which have tons of awesome recipes, go to www.kraftfoods.com. Their website also has tons of recipes. I want to have all of my recipes in plastic sleeves in a 3-ring binder (thanks for the inspiration, Mama G!) so that I can just pull out however many I need for a week's (or a month's) worth of dinners and put them in order in my binder and write my grocery list from them. Then I won't have to find all of my recipes in various cookbooks. Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to post this recipe here, because it was truly amazing, and we loved it. I didn't know what to make for dinner a couple of days ago, so I started to cook some chicken, thinking I'd do something Mexican, but it turned into this.

Chicken A La Carody

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used frozen, but fresh would work too)

olive oil pan spray (any kind of pan spray should work)

2 tbps olive oil

1 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp salt

2 tsp pepper

2 tbsp jerk or cajun seasoning (optional)

4 tbsp butter or margarine

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup milk (more for thinner sauce, less for thicker)

4 tbsp sour cream

white or brown rice, cooked (optional)

Spray a skillet with pan spray. Drizzle olive oil in skillet. Turn heat to medium and place chicken breasts in pan. Chop onion into little pieces (or big if you prefer). Smash garlic cloves under knife; peel. Cut off the hard end of the clove and throw it away. Okay, I didn't know anything about garlic cloves until about a year ago, I always used garlic powder, so I thought I would just describe the whole process. Put the onions and garlic into the pan with the chicken. Sprinkle each chicken breast with salt, pepper and jerk seasoning. Turn over multiple times (I'm quite the "flipper" when I cook.) while chicken cooks so that the seasonings are distributed fairly evenly. Cook chicken in pan until onions are soft and chicken is cooked through. Remove just the chicken from the pan. Add cream of mushroom soup and milk to onions, stirring continuously to get up all the little chicken bits from the bottom of the pan. Put chicken back in pan when sauce is completely heated through and is thickening. Spoon sauce over chicken until it is almost covered. Put one spoonful of sour cream on top of each chicken breast. Turn chicken over so sour cream is on the bottom. Serve over rice, or by itself with veggies.

Hope you like it! Let me know if anyone tries it.

Sammy is fully stocked up on baby food jars. He still doesn't like many of them, but we're getting him used to them slowly but surely. He needs to eat more than just bottles! He loves our food, but he really can't digest so many things that we just need to stick to baby food for now. He'll get used to it soon, I hope. He seems to take it better if it's cold, so we'll just keep doing that for now.

Sory I haven't posted in so long, I'm working on getting organized. It's a slow process, one that might take my whole life to complete! :)

Bathroom News

So the toilet paper dispenser-holder-spring-thing went missing from the bathroom a couple of weeks ago, and about a week and a half ago I noticed that the water wasn't draining properly from the sink. Hmmmm... Guess what Mike found in the sink drain pipe today?

Griffin's First Pictures

No, they're not pictures OF Griffin, they are the first pictures he took all by himself. The first one is one of me at the computer in my skirt (!) and the second one is... well, it must be "the view from down there" or some such thing. Anyway, he had fun taking them! :)

Sammy's First Word

Okay, he said his first TWO words today. Mike and I thought, oh, how cute, he's saying "Daddy" instead of just Dada -- we don't count mama and dada as his first words, because he's been saying those for months now, they're easy. But when we all came downstairs this morning, Sammy saw Miles and went ballistic, giggling and squealing, and saying "Kitty!" I should have known that would be his first real word, as excited as he gets whenever the cat is in his line of sight (and touch).

Also, while we were still in the bathroom, I was trying to see if Sammy could say any other words (since we assumed at that point that he had expanded his vocabulary to now include Daddy, not just Dada), and I said Ball, and he said, with great certainty, "Bah!" and went and picked up a little red ball from his bathketball set. Oh, he's so smart! And not even one yet. I can't wait until he's talking to Griffin so that I will be able to listen in to their little-boy conversations. What fun!

My Favorite Places

These are some of my favorite places in my house. I love my clean kitchen, it is so nice to cook in it when the counters are clear and there is room to work! Mike took the second picture, he knows how much I love my kitchen to be clean, and he has been such a big help in making sure it stays that way! The island is another of my favorite places because it is where I blog and read e-mails, and there is also a bit of counter-space there as well. Miniature apples, leaves, sticks and small red berries make up the snow-covered ornament hanging beside my garage-sale clock. I'm going to leave it up all Winter, I love it so much! I don't want to take down the Christmas cards that cover both sides of our kitchen/dining room doorway, either. I might just leave those up until Spring, too! It is a bright place in the dreariness of Winter. The three pictures on the wall beside the Christmas card doorway I found at a local antique mall. You just never know what kinds of treasures you'll find in places like that!

The Penguin Bucket

"The Penguin Bucket" is what we lovingly call this metal pail that also corrals the toys that end up strewn around the house at day's end. Griffin decided that it could also be fun to sit in. It lasted all of about cfd x bbbbbbbbgugttvv v c vc v c v... excuse me, I had a bit of an interruption by Sammy, who REALLY wanted to type something... where was I? Oh yes. It lasted only about 30 seconds, then he was out of there and on to bigger (haha!) ventures. We didn't think he'd fit in there in the first place, so it amazed us when he fit, except for his head of course.