Dinner queen

Can I just say I'm proud of myself? I've had dinner on the table every week night ever since Man went back to work full time after Christmas, I'm still mostly caught up on laundry, I've acquired an exercise buddy, and I'm back to making menus again. Princess is helping me fill in some menu spots which works out for me, since her favorite foods are so inexpensive and easy (grilled cheese, quesadillas -- wait, it's all cheesy... hm) and I think it's a good thing to involve the kids in menu planning and food prep anyway.

The weather here is turning nice enough to wear short sleeves in the afternoon so this Sat I get to go up to the self help office, borrow some shovels, and start digging up my little tiny patches of dirt to attempt a little garden. The only I have to worry about is the gophers that seem to have taken over all the lawns here. I'm looking into some sort of powder stuff that's supposed to smell like fox urine that the little beasts don't like, and I'm starting to not resent the neighbor's cats quite so much ever since watching one of them catch and kill a smallish gopher.

Tag is still learning how to dress himself. He's almost 4 and still has a hard time visualizing how his clothes are supposed to work on him. I told him to get dressed the other day and found him wandering around the house wearing this:

By the dawning of the sun, they'll take over the world!

They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, NARF!!






One day Tag was scowling at me. Surprised, I asked him what in the world he was upset about. "It's a Brain face." I just about died laughing. Ever since then I've been able to say "are you pondering what I'm pondering?" to have either of the kids say "I think so Brain..." They have yet to finish that up with something like "... but where are we going to get a duck and a hose at this hour?" but I'm sure they'll get there. They do finish up "Gee Brain, what are we going to do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night... try to take over the world!!" Seeing Tag say that with his Brain face makes me laugh every time.

"I feel the need. The need for expeditious velocity!!"

(re-added the pics, which were somehow broken during the Great Google Outage of a few days ago)

Pricebooking (boring post unless you're a tightwad)

Has anyone else done a price book? I have a friend here who swears up and down that Albertson's was cheaper than the commissary and I've heard of this place called Smart and Final which is a restaurant supply store that carries a lot of bulk foods and cooking equipment. I wasn't surprised to learn that Costco and the commissary hands down beat any other grocery store in the area, but I was surprised to see that going to both of those stores is worth my dollars. It's kind of funny to see that they can have such wildly different prices for some things. I have a spreadsheet with the better deal highlighted in yellow and it seems to be pretty evenly split. The commissary is way better at produce (except bananas!!!) and meat, and Costco is far better at bulk dry goods like flour, some cheeses, canned soups, milk and corn dogs. Not to mention the free meal's worth of samples you get on a Saturday morning. I do miss Aldi quite a bit though. The selection of frozen veggies around here is mighty slim and the farmers' markets are a bit of a drive and available only sporadically. Another surprising thing is how much of the Costco selection focuses on organically grown products. I wonder if it's competing with Trader Joe's which is mostly organic.

We awoke unto fog

Recent pics

How grown up can a pair of kids look? It surprises me every day how much they've grown... which reminds me of how old I am. ;)
Pebbles has been falling asleep without nursing lately. They were watching some Veggie Tales when I happened to glance over. Princess is such a patient sister to gently care for her sister and let her sleep like this. She got a great big hug after Pebbles was safely stowed in bed.
Speaking of Veggie Tales, has anyone seen the new ones ever since Jonah has been out? We saw Lord of the Beans the other day and I was totally blown away at how far they've come both visually and musically. It's been interesting to watch their journey and I'm glad that they've stuck with it. Tag's favorite three favorite movies of all time are The Incredibles, Jonah, and Lyle the Kindly Viking. I think he mostly likes the music in the latter two.

Interestingly, my Butterfly Princess's favorite movies to request are Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses and Hero. Yes, Hero, the Chinese kung fu movie starring Jet Li (with a brief appearance by Donnie Yen, can I get a cheer from the ladies!). It has a very vibrant color scheme and ladies who fly all over the screen in flowing robes and flying hair.

Proof that it can get cold here:

I took this pic this morning before the sun peeked over the neighbor's house. This is my front lawn (or a portion of it that the gopher hasn't completely destroyed). Everywhere that the sun has touched is green and gold and happy. This small patch was the closest thing I could find to winter here and it's defrosting even as I type.

Birthdays and blessings

My Butterfly Princess has had her 5th birthday! She told me that she thinks that when she turns 5 she's going to grow so tall that I'll be surprised. I told her that it might not happen the day she turns 5, but I'm pretty sure it'll happen at some point. We had a fun day. She and I went on a date this morning so she could pick out her birthday breakfast (biscuits, eggs, and cantaloupe) and her dinner was amazingly easy: quesadillas. I added tomato and chicken to mine but she wanted just plain cheese. I'm sad that I forgot to take a picture of her cake this year. It was chocolate with pink icing and purple hearts drawn on. She decorated it very well with pink and red sugar and rainbow sprinkles. I'm so pleased with how amazing of a little girl she is. She's so kind to her friends, including all of them in the games they play. She is willing to play with people who are older, younger, boys or girls, and remembers them when she wants to share something she loves. We took cupcakes over to a new friend today and have a play date for later in the week. Princess had no idea how old her new friend was until I told her and really, Princess didn't care. All she knew was that she had a good time with a friend and wants to see her again soon.

It took me several years to understand that age has nothing to do with how well I can love someone. We have had wonderful visits with all sorts of people out here. We've been embracing the idea that we have so little time where ever we may live that we absolutely must make the most of it. It has been such a heart break for me to spend a painful year or two being lonely only to make a friend and then leave. Again. Either I move or she moves. We always end up having a couple of months of being really close and then Poof! I realized after a while that it was my own prideful heart that was preventing me from accepting other people as potential friends due to silly things like fearing whether they want to my friend... and thus never forming a friendship. I have desperately missed those women who have become my sisters especially when things get so tough and lonely as they have been lately. I was/am getting to be quick and great friends with a lady just up the street only to find out that Man and I are both dealing with a bacteria that could make her very ill. The only thing to do is wait and time simply isn't something we have. I felt like I had flown off of a cliff, taking an emotional chance on making a friend only to learn that spending time with her could hurt her terribly. I once told a good sister/friend that I often felt like I needed permission from other people to get up after every time I get knocked down. She loudly told me that I had permission from her for the rest of eternity to get up any time and fly. So, I have been. My friend up the street has decided that the chance of communicability of this bacteria is low enough that it's worth the risk of social contact to have a friend. We've also made some efforts to have people over and attend ward activities. I feel like whole new worlds have been opened to me just by having the courage to take extra cupcakes or brownies over to people I barely know and spend an hour just chatting while our/my kids play. Part of my new freedom is not being dependent on or fearful of what a relationship might bring me, or what a relationship might take. When Shakespeare said that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, he was right, and he was talking about real love that enriches despite whether it is requited. I'm so glad that my beautiful first baby has been here to teach me such love and such desire to love and serve. She is such a tender and sweet light to me.

Gosh I feel functional!

Except I couldn't spell functional. ;) Why didn't anyone say something?

So my house isn't perfect. BUT! I'm caught up on laundry (or, as caught up as a family of 5 ever gets, which means one load in the wash but everything else is clean, folded and put away, or in very small piles in various dirty clothes baskets), catching up on dishes is going to be a snap, and I've made a good dinner every day this week so far. Which is, like, well, 2 days but I'm taking my triumphs as they come. With man back to the grind stone after a nice, long Christmas vacation things are easing into a routine which, at this phase of life, involves him putting in extremely long hours and me making the sacrifice of making sure that he's able to spend at least some of his precious home time in interaction with our kids. Amazing how easy it is to make friends with other wives in the same situation.

"What are you doing tomorrow, M?"
"Oh, same ol', same ol', but it's one of those days when I won't see DH at all until 9pm when he'll come home and crash into bed."
"Oh, yeah, me too. Wanna have a play date?"
"Sure!"

And I will say that I miss the stairs in the place where we stayed. Now I have to do pushups and situps like I mean them in order to keep weight off, now that Pebbles is all but weaned. Fortunately gyms here aren't cripplingly expensive unless you need child care. We'll have to see how far DDR and my own motivation can take me. -sigh-

Stuff for Smart Masses

Ok, Man has found a website from which I may order anything I choose for him for whatever gift giving occasion [GGO] requires a list of things he would like to receive. Upon sharing this with a friend, he suggested that I get Man the caffeine soap. LOL Ok, so don't get him ANYthing from that website... just most things. In the past, many of you have asked me what he'd like for a GGO and I'm either totally stumped or I hoarde the one idea I have and won't tell you. Problem solved! This website has quite the price range as well as gift certificates.

I'm thinking that this website just made my upcoming Christmas a lot easier. Plush Microbes for all!! Don't worry... the kind of microbe you get won't have anything to do with my opinion of you. I just happen to think that the pimple one is pretty cute. ;) Same story for beer yeast.

In the ears of little ones.

A friend and I have been exchanging baked goods over the past few weeks. She just brought over a wondeful loaf of sweet cornbread (which Man might never see a crumb of! Very tastey) and as I sliced I chanted with Tag:

Me: Mmmmmm!
T: Mmmmm!
M: Goooood!
T: Goooood!
M: Yuuuuuuuu-me!
T: Yuuuuuuuuum-you!

Haha!

Pacifiers and purses: a conspiracy theory

Some of you may remember my pacifier losing and finding adventures. It appears, dear reader, that my waist pouch has been brain washed by Pebbles' pacifiers in a dastardly attempt to make my life an anxious ordeal. The pacifiers have been coaching the pouch in precisely where to hide so that I spend at least a week combing my home, asking at stores and churches, and trying to call my cell phone so we can find it. The last place I saw it was right where it belongs! Since that time we had completely rearranged that little area of the house.

Finally, yesterday I got caught up in all my laundry and found this devious little item at the bottom of a basket full of clean clothes. The cell phone was on "silent".

I had torn closets, rooms, cupboards apart looking for this thing and it has the almighty nerve to hide in a place where I would have found it if I had been a more efficient homemaker and done my homely duty. (I wonder why a plain person is called "homely"?) Funnily enough, this was the very same basket from which I had been pulling clean but as yet un-put-away clothes for a few days.

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.