My Littles

Before I do Spring Break Part II, an update on daily life...

Bubba

  I can see him growing up right before my eyes.  The influence of his peers in showing more and more.  Some good ways, some not so good.  Like Gangum Style.  And You Tube.  I cringe every time I hear any reference to Gangum Style.  He has taken to saying it as a replacement to any exclamation- it can mean "Oh no!" or "Great!" or just randomly uttered with no apparent connection to anything except inside his head.  He asks if he can watch You Tube videos- "I promise they are appropriate, Mom!"  Appropriate in content maybe, but trashy junk as far as I am concerned so "no" is my answer.  Unless it is research of some sort.

 He was invited to a sleep over last weekend.  He had a good time even though they stayed up much too late.  The friend's parents went on and on about what a polite, respectful kid hi is when I picked him up.  I'm not surprised because I agree, but it is still great to hear.

He survived a week of school with a substitute.  By reports, she is not the kindest of ladies out there.  It was a good opportunity for us to discuss persevering with a positive attitude when the circumstances are not the best.  We got his latest reading testing results.  The difference between this time last year and now is remarkable.  He is reading at a 4th-5th grade level.  Why we need to know this exactly, I'm not sure, because to know this they have do test for it.  We know he is reading well, his teacher knows he is reading well, shouldn't that be enough?  But I guess that is a part of public school, thanks Congress and the Texas Legislature.  He does not really have trouble with test taking so I'm not going to worry about it much.  He enjoys the popular books the most, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Humphrey the Hamster books, A to Z Mysteries, etc. I tried to interest him some more classic books without much success.  But I am not complaining because he is an almost 8 year old boy who is choosing to READ.

He has changed his mind about wanting a hamster!  Instead he wants to use his incentive chart to earn the Skylanders video game...  Peer influence at work again!  You would think I would be bale to tell you more about it since he tells me LOTS about it, but for some reason it all seems to go in one ear and out the other.

He plans to continue with dace next year.  Miss Amanda has offered to scholarship him 100% next year.  She gave him several choices of classes and he chose to continue with ballet.  She is very pleased.  She said typically this coming year (8 years old) is there time when boys quit, but if they stick it out they will often continue on for many years.  We'll see!

 

Duchess

  Ah, my girl.  Not a ton of new stuff to report with Duch.  She continues to do well in school.  She is reading great.  It sounds as if she is friends with many of the kids and talks about them all.  Here is a recent conversation that illustrates the difference between the info you get from boys vs girls. 
Duch: Mom, Kate has the same shirt as me.
Mom: Really?
Duch: Yes, and Kate shares a locker with Anna.  They are in Miss Pitcock's class.  Anna is Vivien's sister.  Vivien, Anna and Ruth are cousins.  And I share a locker with Ruth. 
It's like 5 degrees of Duch!

She had one of her art projects selected to be in a district art show.  She had a hard time understanding why she couldn't take her mask (the orange one) home with her when every one else did.  She was so proud when the whole family went to see it on display with projects from the whole district!  We took her out to diner and she got to chose- Red Lobster it was!

She is also continuing with dance.  She dances around the house and walks with her arms held in various dance positions.  She can not wait to get her dance recital costume. 

We went to see Disney On Ice last weekend.  It was a very princess focused show.  The tickets were donated for staff and patient families at work.  It was pretty fun.  Duch loved it best of all, as is to be expected.  The show was about 2 hours long and had Ariel, Merida (Brave), Rapunzel and Belle.  And the horse, Maximus, from Rapunzel.  How do two people actually manage to skate in that costume???  I made it very clear before we went that we were NOT buying any souvenirs.  I did let them get an $11 bag of artificially colored sugar, aka cotton candy.  Duch did not like it but likes the crown that came with it.  The show was over lunch so we also had hotdogs, but surprisingly a kids meal with a drink, hotdog and chips was only $5. 

She has enjoyed playing with the neighbors very much, as have all the kids.  I think it is funny that she still says she had a "play date" with the neighbors even if they just played for 15 minutes when they all happened to be outside at the same time.  I tried to tell her that is not really a play date, it is just "playing outside with the neighbors" but she didn't believe me.  One of the neighbor boys had his birthday party last weekend and they all had a wonderful time!

Huck

 



The busy 2 year old!  He is working very hard on being able to put up 2 fingers to tell you how old he is.  Many times he holds up one finger on each hand to make two.  In just the last month his speech is getting better.  Still not what I would like, but improved.  He is making more sounds and getting closer to the actual word, like "bash" means bath which is more than he was doing a few weeks ago.  We are going to hold off on the speech eval for a little bit and see how he does. 

I have started the process of night weaning him.  I have told him he can have Mama Milk at bedtime and in the morning, but no Mama Milk at nighttime.  I try very hard to get him to go to sleep in his bed.  Usually somewhere between 1-3 AM he'll wake up and come in our room and then I would nurse him back to sleep.  Sunday and Monday he would not go to sleep in his bed and wanted to nurse all night.  This Mama needs some more sleep than that!  So I started on Tuesday.  The first night he cried/fussed/stayed awake for about an hour.  Last night he fussed for about 3 minutes.  Hopefully that will continue, but I'm well aware that it may take much more work than that!  He is in that awkward phase where if he takes a nap during the day he will stay awake until 9:00 at night, but if he doesn't take a nap he is a wreck by 5:00 or so.  If he does nap I won't let him sleep longer than 2 hours or past about 3:30, because then he'll be up until midnight! 





I'm pretty sure that Huck will be the first kid to need stitches or break a bone.  He seems to have no fear.  He will jump off anything!  He LOVED the bounce house at the neighbors party.  The next day he would not believe me that it was gone until I took him and showed him.  Then he just looked heartbroken :-( 

The Bigs:
The Hubby and I decided to take out all the bushes in front of our house.  Some were dead and the others were scraggly looking.  The Hubby worked really hard to get the rusty metal edging out while Bubba and I chopped off  all the branches of the bushes.  We got about 5 of the stumps out, but one side of the house had 20 stumps!  Yesterday the Hubby was out working and a tree service drove by and offered to grind them all out, so thankfully that is all done.  Worth the money to not have to do it ourselves.  Today the plan is to go to the nursery to pick out new shrubs.  We are looking for low maintenance plants as neither of us is super interested in gardening.  I would like some kind of flowering bush, though.    I post some before and after pics later.

Spring Break

Thanks to The Hubby, I should be able to do some more blogging.  See, I am sitting at the kitchen desk at our fancy new computer!  One of the things that kept me from blogging as much as I'd like is how time consuming it was to upload pictures before... and let's face it, that is what makes it much more interesting.  So now my only excuses are a house that needs cleaning, dishes that need washing and a toddler who is demanding my attention- so, we'll see.

To backtrack a little bit, Spring Break!  Spring Break started for Bubba with an invitation to a birthday party at Great Wolf Lodge.  It was an invitation to spend the night!  We have never been there, but from what I knew about it there is a great, big indoor water park and some type of game called MagiQuest where the kids run all over the hotel on a quest for something.  There were going to be just 3 other boys along with the birthday boy and his family.  He had a wonderful time and could not stop talking about MagiQuest for days (weeks?). 

Meanwhile, those of us at home dropped The Hubby off at the airport Saturday morning to go to Florida for Hanks Open and his Grandma's memorial service.  We came back home and I started some laundry, jumped in the shower and sat down at the dining room table to make a list of what to pack.  Huck came wandering in with his hands and feet soaking in water.  He lead me to the kitchen where there was water all over the floor.  Poor Huck, I blamed him for the mess thinking he had poured water from a cup on the floor (as he has been known to do.)  But the spill kept getting bigger and bigger until I realized the water was coming out from under the laundry room door.  The washing machine had overflowed.  I was pretty sure the waste water pipe out of the house was blocked because it has happened before.  I called a plumber who could come in 3-4 hours.  We took care of a few errands then the plumber came, he rooter-ed out the drain and I could finish laundry.  I got the call to go pick up Bubba, we walked out the door and found my van had a flat tire!  We took the Husband's car to get Bubba.  I called AAA to come put my spare tire on.  It was dusk when the AAA man got here.  I went to throw something away in the outside trashcan and there was a opossum in the trashcan!  The AAA man chased him away for me.  Geesh!  We got the tire patched Sunday morning and finally were able to get on out way.


We headed to San Antonio where we were meeting my sister-in-law and nephews.  The drive went pretty well and we got there just about 6:00 ish I think.  Sara had the great idea to order pizza to the hotel room.  We were staying at a Residence Inn in a 2 bedroom suite, which was great because there was plenty of room for everyone and still a chance for some quiet-ish space. 

 

 

The next morning we got and headed to Sea World!  The weather was cool but sunny.  We saw the dolphins, sharks, and rays.

 

 

 

 

We also saw the show Aquatica.  It is kinda a Cirq de Sole type show with beluga whales, dolphins, birds and people diving a sky dancing.  It was cool. 

 

 

 

Then we went to the Bay of Play area.  It is a giant play area with climbing and tunnels and the like.  It was so obviously NOT designed with any parent input.  It was impossible to keep up with you kids and there were many exits so that your kid could end up wandering off into the park.  Even the toddler area has 2 exits on opposite sides of the play area.  The kids had fun, the moms- not so much...

 

After that we planned to leave the park, get some lunch and go back to the hotel to try to let the little boys nap.  The little boys, however, had other plans.  Since they were not going to nap, we decided to go swimming.  Everyone got changed, we walked down to the pool and it was closed!  Such disappointment! So we decided to take the kids to the Alamo.  They were not thrilled...

 

at the Alamo

We had dinner on the Riverwalk, which was fun but stressful as the kids were tired and finding a place to eat that did not have a long wait was difficult. 

 

The next day we started the morning out by swimming at the hotel pool. 

 

We then packed everything up and checked out of the hotel.  We returned to Sea World for more fun.  We saw the penguins and alligators. 

 

 We saw another show and then Sara and her boys headed back to Austin.  My kids and I headed over to see the Shamu show, which we just missed.  So we feed so flamingos and ducks, did some shopping, ate a late lunch and then saw the next show.  It was great.  Huck had a hard time because by this time he was tired, but it was still worth staying longer for. 

 

 

 We left about 5 and headed up to Austin for part 2 of the trip.  

 

I'll post part two another time.  I have jinxed myself and Blogger is not making it easy to post pictures after all.  Plus I have a house to clean and a toddler who wants my attention...







Happy Birthday, Huck

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The above was contributed by guest blogger, Huck, age 2

I can't beleive my baby is two years old!  If you ask him, he is NOT a baby nor is he a big boy.  He is a Toddler!  And he is very much so. How to describe my boy... hmmm..

Perhaps some vital satistics?  At his 2 year old checkup he was 27.7 pounds, 35 inches tall and his head was 50.17 cm.  Which makes him lean, tall and big-headed :-)  He is a healthy boy, although he has had a run of ear infections this year.  He does have some new eczema on his legs that I am not sure of the cause.  I suspect diet since when we were on our Spring Break trip and eating junk it was much worse.  Or perhaps the car seat, like my nephew, since we spent a lot of time in the car?   He had a finger poke for some blood work and 1 shot.  We used the Buzzy Bee www.buzzy4shots.com for both and he did not even make a peep.  The nurse was amazed at how well it worked and was telling everyone in the office. 

He is very busy all the time!  He climb anything and has recently mastered climbing down out of things, like the playhouse in the backyard.  He runs, jumps, crawls, gallops...  Lately he has been enjoying wodden puzzles.  He is quite good at them.  He likes the shape sorter as well.  He like zippering up his jacket/ PJs.  We are seeing some emerging pretend play as well.  He plays with his brother and sister and is a little mimic.  Duch and Huck have been playing together more and more and often enjoy each others company.  The one area of concern in regards to development is his expressive language.  I don't have concerns about his receptive language as he understands everything easily.  He follows commands, he points to pictures, knows the parts of his body and appropriatly answers questions.  However, he uses mostly sounds as opposed to words.  He has only maybe 10 words that a stranger would recognize.  We are going to take him for a speech evaluation as I would prefer to intervene sooner rather than later. 

He is a pretty good eater.  He will eat a variety of foods.  Some favorites are bananas, oranges, mac and cheese, steak and any and all sweets.  He will flip out for fruit snacks, which is why I won't buy them.  The Hubby, however, has no problem buying them...  He is nursing several times a day, mostly before naps, at night and after a fall of some sort.  He does not show any signs of self-weaning. 

He goes to sleep at night in his toddler bed in is room, but wakes up and comes to my bed at some point during the night.  He can open the door from the inside now so I hear him rattling the door knob for a bit before he wanders in to ask for Mama Milk.  He takes a nap when I am home, usually for 2 hours or so, but does not nap when home with the Hubby (unless it is in the car.) 

He is more shy around strangers and takes a little bit to warm up.  He will stick close to my side or climb into my lap and put his chin down on his chest until he is more comfortable.  Once he warms up he is free with smiles and waves.  

He loves to play with balls, coins, blocks, puzzles, computers and the play kitchen.  He loves Mickey Mouse and still loves Veggie Tales.  He does appear a bit more interested in TV these days as his attention span is growing. 

He can be very stronged willed at times.  He will NOT share his food with his brother or sister, even if he is finished with it.  He would rather throw it in the trash than let one of them eat it!  Sometimes he will set his mind to something random and there is no changing it! 

We got to celebrate his birthday with Uncle Mike, Aunt Sara, William and Dillon which was great fun.  We were still on our Spring Break trip on his actual birthday so we celebrated a few days later when we were all back together.  He is a blessing to us!

Ear Infections and the Beach

|Right now the kids and I are at home in Dallas and it is 34 degrees outside at 11:00 in the morning.  The Hubby is in Playa del Carmen, Mexico where is it 70 and cloudy.  My mom is in Panama City Beach, Florida where it is 50 and sunny.  Neither of them have perfect beach weather but I'd still rather be there than here!  At least it is sunny here.  The Hubby had to go to Mexico for work.  His boss owns another bar there and the woman who runs it was going to be gone, so the Hubby was sent down to look after it.  My mom's friend asked her if she would like to go to the beach, so they packed up the car and drove to Florida for an undetermined amount of time. They plan to read books, look out at the ocean and do some shopping. I hope that when I am retired I can do things like that. 

Both Duchess and Huckleberry have had ear infections the past two weeks.  I got paged at work from the school nurse telling me Duch was in the clinic complaining of an ear ache.  I took her to the doctor and sure enough it was infected.  That makes her 4th ear infection in 12 months.  She had 1 the first 5 years of her life and suddenly she is having trouble.  The pedi was concerned because she said she should not be doing that since she had her tonsils and adenoids out.  So we may be in for another trip to the ENT. 


At the doctor

I let her stay home from school, looks real sick, right?

While we were there she looked in Huck's ears and they were clear.  That was a Tuesday.  Thursday night I knew Huck had an ear infection.  He couldn't sleep and was hitting his ear.  I thought I would try to wait it out and see if it would clear up on it's own.  Friday he was okay but then Sat afternoon he woke up from his nap with a fever of 104.1.  So off to the doctor's we went Sunday morning.  Thankfully our pediatricians has Sunday hours in the winter.  He had an infection in each ear.  That make 7 ear infections for him in the past year!  So both of them were put on Omnicef.  We may be in for an ENT consult for him as well.  I'm more concerned for him because that is a lot of antibiotics for one little guy's gut.  He does take probiotics each time, but still.  I am also getting concerned about his speech.  He has no problems with his receptive speech but his expressive language is made up of about 4-5 sounds.  He imitates syllables and intonation, but most things sound the same.  I think he is very good at communicating, he just doesn't use understandable words.  I am self-referring him to ECI for a speech evaluation.  I'd rather do it sooner than later and I understand the process can take some time.  It could be that some ear tubes will help, we'll see. 

Now this poor baby looks sick :-(

Bubba, thankfully, has stayed healthy.  Just a little bit of congestion.  I am so grateful that we have (at least so far) avoided the flu.  Knock on wood!!!! 

I put some baby clothes and baby equipment in a consignment sale this weekend.  I was kinda sad to see all those sweet baby clothes leaving the house, but we do not anticipate another kiddo in out house needing them.  This sale has a cool on-line system where I can see what sold so I know I made about $100.  I chose not to discount or donate the things that did not sell.  I'll try again next time, maybe lower the price or maybe not.  As a consignor I got to shop the pre-sale.  I got Duch 5 or 6 outfits, a few shirts and a pair of jeans for Bubba and 1 outfit for Huck for $60. 

Sweet baby clothes...

Bubba is going through books so fast we can't keep enough in the house for him.  He loved the Ready Freddy series and just finished The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Clary.  I love that he loves the books that I read as a kid :-)  I wonder if he'd be interested in Ramona Quimby, Aged Eight?  We need to take a trip to the library.  He made a chart to earn a hamster.  He is doing extra chores to earn each check mark and once he has 20 he will earn his hamster and everything that goes with it.  We told him he has to wait until at least after Spring Break so that we won't need to find a hamster sitter.

We are going to San Antonio and Austin for Spring Break.  We will meet Aunt Sara and the cousins in San Antonio.  We plan to go to Sea World, the Alamo and the Riverwalk.  We may be crazy for the 2 of us to take 5 kids to Sea World during Spring Break, but we up for the challenge!  Then we'll head up to Austin where we'll stay with a friend for a night or two and see some other friends there.  The Hubby will be in Florida for Hank's Open and Grandma K's memorial service. 

Update on our Healthy Eating Challenge: 

Make Your Own Pizza!  The kiddos made these when we had a friend over to play.  I made the whole wheat pizza crust from scratch and the kids liked it. 

 

 

I think we are doing pretty well.  The kids are more aware of what we are eating and frequently ask if something is healthy.  There has been some complaining about "never getting anything yummy anymore" like the donuts they wanted at the store yesterday.  I am so aware of artificial colors- they are everywhere!  I can't look at things the same way anymore.  Duch was invited to a birthday party where the mom made a gorgeous rainbow cake where each layer of cake was a different color of the rainbow.  My first thought was "Wow, that is cool!" but it was quickly followed by an internal cringe at all the sugar and dyes...

 I have slacked off a little on the fruit at breakfast, so I need to focus on that more.  I have cooked more whole wheat goods.  Some were a hit, some were not.  Whole wheat waffles- hit.  Whole wheat mac and cheese- miss.  I think that I did not get the roux creamy enough with the mac and cheese, or maybe I need a different cheese.  I'm not giving up on that one yet.  Whole wheat biscuits- big hit.  Whole wheat pancakes- ehh, kinda in the middle.  I also made mini egg casseroles which were a bit hit.

Round Breakfast- home made biscuits, egg casseroles and clementines

 But on the flip side, I also let the kids buy lunch 3 times last week.  I just didn't get everything together in time.  And we ate out after ballet and had pizza and pasta which was full of white flour.  I blame it on The Hubby for going out of town!

Week Two- How'd We Do?

Week 2- Overall we did okay.  Not as good as Week 1, but still okay.  It seems pretty obvious, but planning ahead really is key.  The times when we did not eat as well were when I had no plan and was trying to figure something out at the last minute...  We had some triumphs and some failures with new recipes.

I made this chicken enchilada casserole http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/04/14/recipe-chicken-enchiladas/  and it was a big flop.  I'm not sure if I did something wrong or if we Texans just need the real thing, but no one liked it.

But this morning I made these Breakfast Cookies http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/05/10/recipe-pecan-maple-breakfast-cookies/  and they were a huge success.  I did not have any pecans so I left them out and I was short 1 Tbs of maple syrup so I used honey.  The kids kept asking "can I have just one more?"  Dutch asked if I would put one in her lunch next week.  The recipe says they freeze well so maybe I'll do another batch to freeze.  They would be good on Sunday mornings when we are rushing to get to church.

This week I plan to try these homemade chicken nuggets http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/10/14/recipe-homemade-chicken-nuggets/  and the homemade waffles. 

Somethings other things we have figured out this week:
After reading this http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/06/07/milk-101-whole-raw-organic-low-fat-etc/ about milk I decided to try to something other than skim milk.  I knew switching right to whole milk would be a huge change so I decided to try 2% milk.  I don't really drink milk but The Hubby and both boys do.  At first they thought it was okay but then The Hubby said he felt like the 2% was giving him heartburn and Bubba started asking for the other kind of milk...  Maybe I'll try 1%?  Or whole milk  for cooking and skim for drinking?  I'll have to think on that. 

The kids like whole wheat pasta.  I made some whole wheat egg noodle-type pasta with meatballs and Buba said "This is the best pasta I ever had!"  The Hubby eyed him like his body had been taken over by aliens for saying that. 

I have not made my lunch for work every day, but thankfully have been able to find some decent options to buy.  There is a good chicken salad, I just don't eat the white bread that comes with it.  I have also had tomato soup, fruit and yogurt parfait, burrito bowl and a mozzarella and spinach sandwich.

But I do find I am hungry and need a snack, peanuts and almonds are a favorite.  The kids are hungry after school and need a pretty good sized snack.  Hummus has come in handy as they all like it and can dip a variety of things in it- Triscuits, carrots, pretzels, tortillas... 

Valentine's Day pretty much was a big failure of a day.  I made the kids scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast to try to get at least something healthy into them.  The school had Dads and Donuts that morning, so The Hubby took the kids to school and they had heart shaped Krispy Kreme donuts.  Lunch was whole wheat tortillas with hummus, a whole carrot (they are loving eating whole carrots like Bugs Bunny), an apple and fruit leather.  Then came the school parties...  Dutch had ice cream sundaes with all kinds of toppings and Bubba had cookies, chips, fruit punch, chocolate covered pretzels...  Plus all the candy that came with their valentines... Sigh.

  I made dinner for the family- beautiful sea scallops, bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, rice and salad.  For desert I planned to make chocolate fondue.  I messed up the chocolate I bought...  it wasn't melting the way the directions said it would so I turned up the heat and ended up cooking it instead.  So I melted chocolate chips.  The kids didn't know the difference.  They had fruit, marshmallows and pretzels to dip.  They were not really that impressed.  Sigh again. 

 

 

In other Valentine's Day news, Bubba got his first real Valentine from someone other than a classmate or family.  One of the new neighbors made him a really sweet card to say thanks for being a good friend because she is "new in town.  But it doesn't mean that I like you because I don't, that would be weird."  It was free dress day at school so their Valentine's gifts were clothes, Dutch got the outfit above and Bubba got a new zip-up hoodie since he wants to wear his other zip up hoodie every day.  Poor Huck got a hand-me-down t-shirt.  My best Valentine's gift was The Hubby helping the kids clean up the playroom and vacuuming it for me :-) 

 

I got another glimpse of the sweet heart of oldest son.  At ballet one of the dads brought some left over cupcakes.  Bubba took one but had not eaten it because he was working on addressing his cards for school.  Another girl arrived but all the cupcakes were gone.  She asked Bubba about his cupcake and he offered it to her.  At first she said no but then changed her mind and said yes.  He gave it to her without hesitating saying, "I had enough treats at school today." 

 

If you want to get an idea of the personalities of my kids, play a board game with them.  Dutch, Bubba and I played Life last weekend.  Bubba was very cautious, never taking a chance on spinning the wheel, counting his money regularly.  Dutch played chance at every opportunity.  Bought everything she came across.  And that is exactly how they are in real life.  They are asking to play Monopoly, but I'm not sure Dutch is up to it yet. 

 

We are starting to plan a Spring Break trip.  We are going to go to San Antonio with Aunt S and cousins W and D.  It may be crazy for the two of us to take 5 kids to Sea World during Spring Break, but we are going to go for it!  Wish us luck!

Trader Joes vs Kroger

Week 1 of the 30 Days of (Mostly) Whole Foods is complete.  To keep myself accountable I'm going to post our meals and evaluate how well I did.  But first, a little grocery store comparison.  Last week we went up to Trader Joe's and spent $92.47.  Today I went to Kroger and spent $116.93.  How do the compare?

Whole wheat pasta-           K-1.49    TJ- 1.39
Applesauce pouches-         K- 2.59   TJ- 2.99
2 lbs organic apples-          K- 5.49   TJ- 2.49
cage free, grain feed eggs- K- 2.49   TJ- 1.79
organic canned tomatoes-  K- 1.09   TJ- 1.49
whole wheat bread-            K- 3.29   TJ- 1.99
organic spaghetti sauce-     K- 3.09   TJ- 1.49
hummus-                            K-3.29     TJ- 1.99

Over all I'd have to say Traders Joe's is the better choice.  They have better prices on most things, especially produce.  Also, they have less to choose from so there is less chance of impulse buys.  No temptation to buy donut holes because there are no donut holes to be found!  Or at least I did not see them.  The down side of Trader Joe's, it was crazy crowded and, at least for now, it is far away.  Once they open up down here I will definitely be doing shopping there regularly. 

As for this weeks meals, let's see how we did.
Sunday- Breakfast, whole wheat blueberry muffins, apple sauce and yogurt
              Lunch- ham and cheese on whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat pretzels and carrot sticks
              Dinner- spaghetti with 1/2 whole wheat pasta, 1/2 white, organic tomato sauce, fresh bread, salad   
Pretty good job, the plain yogurt sweetened with honey was not a hit, but otherwise there were no complaints, only compliments.  They loved the muffins.

Monday- Breakfast- whole wheat waffles from the freezer and clementines
                Lunch- ham and cheese of pita (chicken salad for me), apple sauce pouch, strawberries
                Dinner- (made by the hubby) broiled chicken thighs, mixed veggies and mac and cheese, salad
Again, pretty good.  I did not eat the mac and cheese with dinner but the kids did.

Tuesday- Breakfast- don't know what the kids ate as I had to be at work early...
               Lunch- ham and cheese on pitas (Bubba's with spinach), carrots and pretzels with hummus
              Dinner- steak and chicken tacos on corn tortillas, lettuce, tomato, onions
I forgot to eat breakfast so I had oatmeal at work and I don't know what the kids ate.  It was nice of the Hubby to make a dinner that met the whole food criteria :-)

Wednesday- Breakfast- pancakes (white flour frozen ones) and bananas
                     Lunch- PB&J on whole wheat bread, carrots and ranch and an apple
                    Dinner- whole wheat french toast, apple sauce
We had the pancakes in the freezer so we might as well eat them...  I had planned to make home made chicken nuggets but by the time we got home from dance I had lost my motivation...  Maybe I'll make Wednesdays breakfast for dinner days since the hubby is always at work...hmmm.

Thursday- Breakfast- whole wheat waffles from the freezer and clementines
                  Lunch- everyone bought lunch
                 Dinner- Pizza and past from Tony's
So, not such a great day...  The kids asked to buy lunch and, honestly, I was out of sandwich bread so it was easy.  I was tired ofter work and did not feel like cooking so we just did Tony's.  Oh well, not the end of the world.  But there is nothing from Tony's that would even remotely meet the criteria from the challenge.

Friday- Breakfast- pancakes or waffles and bananas
            Lunch- ham and cheese roll ups, tricuits and an apple
            Dinner- Bubba was at a sleep over and had hamburgers, Dutch, Huck and I had take out Mexican- fish tacos on corn tortillas for me, cheese quesadillas on flour for them.  And french fries.  What kind of restaurant serves fries with Mexican food?  Oh, Del Taco.  I had never been there before, don't think I'll be going back either.

Saturday- Breakfast- blueberry whole wheat pancakes
                Lunch- chicken noodle soup (from a can), Triscuits and carrot sticks
I have to say, the soup coming out of the can was pretty gross looking.  I won't buy that again. 

I had 2 Dr Peppers during the week and lots and lots of water and lots and lots of coffee.  A few ice teas in there as well.  The kids had a few random snacks that we had in the house, but over all I think we did pretty well.  As the bad snacks get eaten I will not be replacing them so I think it will wean itself out a bit.  The kids really did not ask for "bad" food either, instead they were asking questions about what makes each kind of food healthy.  We did not have any major meltdowns, may be a coincidence but who knows.  So we'll keep it up.

But I do have one complaint.  Dutch celebrated the 100th Day of School on Friday with an all-morning long event.  It was a ton of fun and I got to help shepard her group around to all the different stations.  I know I am not the first to say this, but why do we have to have food at every school event?  The celebration started at 8:30 in the morning.  They had:

• a cupcake (thankfully not the huge, artificially-colored icing ones from the grocery store),
• Hershey Kisses,
• Fruit Loops made into a necklace,
• punch with fruit juice and Sprite
• trail mix with chocolate chips, Skittles, M&Ms, butter popcorn, marshmallows & 5 other ingredients

So much sugar and artificial coloring!  I don't want to be "that mom" that complains, especially when I did not help plan anything, but still...  And when I asked the kids what their favorite station was, none of them said the food stations.  They liked the cup stacking, t-shirt painting and the exercise stations the best.  And we have Valentine's Day parties coming up where there will be more cookies and candy...  I am NOT send candy with my kids Valentines.

Overall, I am much more aware of everything we are putting into our bodies and it is a good thing!

So Far, So Good

 

Day 4 of the 30 Day Challenge: So far we are doing well!  I knew my kids would do well.  Here are yesterdays school lunch requests:
Bubba- ham, white cheese, and SPINACH on a (whole wheat) pita
Dutch- ham and cheese on a pita with a little bowl of hummus on the side for dipping
I also gave them both carrot sticks and whole wheat pretzels for dipping in the hummus.  Their lunch boxes were empty when they came home.  So far we have followed most of out rules.  I didn't have fruit with breakfast yesterday because I ate oatmeal at work since I had to be there so early.  Last night the Hubby made us a great whole foods dinner- steak tacos with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cheese on corn tortillas.   He bought us corn tortillas even though he used flour tortillas for himself
 :-)  I have realized I'm going to need to buy a whole lot more hummus!  My kids are gobbling it!

So, how about some updates on the kiddos?  Let's go youngest to oldest.
Huck-  My baby is turning into a big kid.  He is in constant motion and insists on being included with the big kids.  He loves to play in the backyard, loves to climb the playhouse, swing, run around and follow the big kids.  He loves playing ball and is starting to play more with blocks, both the big cardboard blocks and the Duplos.  He still plays in the play kitchen a lot.  Sometime soon we'll get out the tool bench and tools for him, I think he'll love it.  He'll sit still a little more for books but we still have to turn the pages pretty quickly.  He loves Veggie Tales and we have trouble getting him to leave the DVDs in their cases.


He got himself ready to go out in the snow dusting

Put on his own make-up to go to the Cub Scout Banquet

Reminds me of a birth ball!  Only a doula would think that :-)

We really have to watch him because he has figured out he can reach whatever he wants if he stands on a stool.  So if I put something up on the counter away from him, he'll just go get one of the new kitchen stools, move it where ever he wants and climb up to get it.  And he takes the stools all over the house- bathroom, playroom, bedroom...
He is still nursing and not looking like he is interested in weaning at all.  He nurses before naps and/bed and whenever he suffers an "injury," either physical or emotional.  Some days I think he survives on air and breast milk because he eats so little, but the next day he out eats us all.  Typical toddler! 
He goes to bed in his own toddler bed most nights.  He doesn't stay there all night, but it is a start! 



Is there anything sweeter???

Dutch-  Is reading!  She really is doing well with it.  She sounds out words, looks at the pictures for clues and uses the sentence to get the context.  She is very proud of herself!  We do book reports every week and she can do it by herself now.  It's fun to see her blossoming, she is more comfortable at school and not quite as shy.  It's fun to see her with her friends before and after school.  Today is the 100th day of school and the big kindergarten celebration is on Friday. 
I think she is sleeping better than she did before she had her tonsils out.  She used to wake up almost nightly but now it is only 1-2 times a week.   I don't hear her snore as much and when she does it more like loud breathing than actual snoring.
She was invited to a birthday dinner for a friend at The Magic Time Machine.  It is a fun restaurant where all the servers dress up in different costumes. 
She continues to love ballet and is learning the recital dance. 

Dutch and the Birthday Girl

Bubba- His reading skills have "sky rocketed" according to his teacher.  I agree.  He is reading like crazy and we have to enforce lights-out or he'd stay up until midnight.  Last night he read "Freddy in Peril" for 70 minutes.  I don't know much about it except that it is about a hamster.  It was given to us by a friend who's son loved the series.  I am so happy that he enjoys reading!  I was just listening to a NPR story about how much of a difference having books in the house makes in a child's literacy.  We definitely have a lot of books around here! 
I am seeing the influence of his peers more and more.  Which is good and bad.  Some of the good things- he asked me to buy more blueberries because James told him blueberries help you to focus more and Dylan told him spinach is good.  The bad: Magic game cards and talk about The Hobbit and playing zombies... 
He had the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet this past weekend.  It was at the Boy Scout museum so that means there were roughly 70 boys running wild around the museum.  They played zombies...  They have a desert contest and he won for Most Creative Use of Marshmallows- he made Indoor S'mores which are a marshmallow dipped in chocolate and rolled in graham cracker crumbs.  So not whole foods...But he won a Cub Scout water bottle and was very proud of himself!


We had a beautiful weekend and the kids spent much of it in the backyard.  Some of the games I heard being played- mountain climbers, super heroes, cowboys, and army men (and girls).  There were lots of costume changes and props involved.  We had a school friend over Friday afternoon and neighbors Sunday afternoon.  Love it!  We also had a picnic lunch on Sunday.  And painted  MomMom birthday pictures. 

We decided to take the kitchen table out and eat all of our meals in the dinning room.  The kitchen table is not really big enough for 5 of us anyway, so we moved it into the playroom.  One of my biggest "clutter" problems was the end of the kitchen counter so we decided to add more storage.  We put in a long desk and a really big cabinet from Ikea.  The kids sometimes eat breakfast at the desk and both the hubby and I will sit down there to do some work.  It is working for us and the kitchen feels more open.  Someday we'll update the cabinets, counter and floors...