A Lucky Little Leprechaun

A Lucky Little Leprechaun got away from Joseph's Leprechaun trap last night, but since he did actually catch him, the Leprechaun left him some of his gold. This was very fortunate, because otherwise Joseph wouldn't have had any breakfast- Green pancakes and Green milk are just way outside of his limits. That mischievous little Leprechaun!

Also Samuel used one of the gold coins (AKA Chocolate eggs for Easter which Mom was smart enough to buy!) as his green for school. He taped it onto his shirt. Going to a school that has a uniform policy, makes it hard to dress in green on St. Patrick's day. It was fun going to school today to drop the kids off and see all the different ways the kids had gotten around this. Most of the girls had some kind of green in their hair. Emma even put on green eye shadow. She actually did a pretty good job- maybe I can get some pointers! There were green shoelaces and green jewelry and green striped socks (which are actually illegal, but I'm sure they will get away with it!) I used some of Emma's green stretchy foam that she wears in her hair for soccer to tie around Joseph's arm.

Joseph got this idea from school where a little Leprechaun keeps leaving them notes and even left them a lucky wishing rock yesterday. Rob helped him design the trap. Luckily, we still had this box around that I took an hour to make with him for his Valentine's box for school and then he never got out of his backpack, "because I didn't know what it was for." Uh, what? What did you think we were making it for? Didn't you grab a clue when everyone else in the class was getting out their boxes? But I digress..
Next year we will catch that lucky little Leprechaun and then Joseph says he will ask for the 3 wishes instead of the pot of gold, because the Leprechauns never actually let you have the pot of gold. They always trick you. But if you can get 3 wishes then you can ask for a pot of gold for one of your wishes! Smart kid!!

Happy St. Patrick's day to you all! And Top of the morning!

Mother-Son Fun

Thus far, in every ward we have been in, there has been a Father-Son outing and a Father-Daughter party. Not once has there been a Mother-Daughter or Mother-Son one, so when they had the Father-Daughter Party this last weekend, I decided to get my own Mother-Son thing going. I asked a couple of friends if they wanted to get together. We played a game like the Newlywed game with the boys, to see how much we knew about them and them about us. Max would just come out and ask me the questions and I would whisper the answer to him and then he would say it out loud and jump around like he was king of the world. We had pizza and salad and brownies and ice cream. We played Mexican Train and the boys played some kind of relay game and dodge ball downstairs while the women chatted upstairs. It was a good evening. Rob had fun with Emma, too!

One Wow kind of cooking day, deserves another

I have heard from a few people that I cook pretty good. This is sadly untrue. I have a couple good recipes that I love to use and I love to find new ones to use. My easily being distracted makes being a good cook out of the question and the chance of chopping off an extremity very probable. The other day I decided to make chicken noodle soup with our left-over chicken and gravy. I chopped onions, carrots, celery- nearly missing a finger several times and got it all going. I then decided that I had started the bread way too late, so I began making baking powdered biscuits to go along with our soup. I mixed the dry ingredients, made a well in the center and poured the milk in, mixed and then began to look at rolling them out, when I stopped- Something was wrong. Did anyone else catch that? Yeah, a key ingredient in a 200 calorie biscuit- the butter!! I tried to cut in butter to the already mixed dough. Don't try it. It doesn't work. I could have kept trying, but I decided to cut my losses and start over again- saving as much of the butter as I could. Luckily, I did this, because just then the bread machine beeped at me that it was beginning it's final rising stage. This is where I take it out, let it rise in a nice stone bread pan and then cook it in the oven. I lifted the lid and found a nicely shifted pile of flour. Key ingredient I forgot- the liquid! I poured the water in and restarted the bread. That night around 9:30 pm, I realized I had let the second batch rise too much and had to punch it down and put it in the fridge to try again another day.
We finally sat down to dinner at 7 pm. It was a busy day! I took the first bite and immediately tasted soap. I frequently taste soap, so I carried on and it got better until I looked at my husband's face. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "I taste soap." So the investigation began. We ended up deciding it was the noodles. I had bought a big box from Costco and put them in the laundry room with the rest of our food storage. The box I got into that night had obviously gotten wet and then dried. The noodles seemed fine and I was in a hurry, so I really didn't investigate. Too bad- It ruined the soup. I had told the boys they had to eat all their soup before getting a biscuit, so they were chowing down and Emma had already finished hers. I am happy to say that no ill effects have surfaced so far from that unfortunate ingestion! So we had baking powdered biscuits for dinner- thankfully, I had redone those!
The next day I was in a hurry again. I yelled down for Emma to peel potatoes while I did my hair and got dressed for work. I came down and helped her cut the potatoes- nearly missing my fingers yet again. This irony always gets me when I think that I am on my way to the ER one way or the other! We boiled the potatoes, while I ran around like a mad woman. I added the evaporated milk and white pepper and then called Sam to come gets some before fencing class. I dished him up a steaming hot bowl of potato soup- yep, just potatoes! I neglected to put anything else in that soup. When I told Rob, he asked that I please take a break from cooking and to refocus myself so as not to kill anyone in the ER that night! I am happy to say that no one met their demise at my hands that night!
Here's to better cooking days in the future!

Family update

We sold our home in just one day on the market. Our goods ship the end of this month, but we don't leave until July. It will be an adventure to camp out for 3 months. We have started getting the children ready. We have cut off their TV during the week. It was one of the best things we have ever done. The boys are outside in the beautiful weather riding their bikes and jumping on the trampoline. Emma walks/runs on the treadmill every day now (we had been forcing her to at least 3 times a week for the past couple of weeks to try and get her back into shape. Soccer starts soon and she is huffing and puffing running even 400 meters right now.) Emma wants to be on the treadmill now, because it is the only time she is allowed to watch anything. She takes her father's laptop down and watches a Netflix movie while she is running/walking. Today when I got up and came downstairs, I found Joseph already downstairs reading a book. They play Legos, we have played family game and Rob has practiced fencing with the boys. So much more family time and productive time. I love it!
Joseph wanted to snuggle the other day, so I gave him a brush and had him brush my hair while he snuggled. He was so proud of himself for "making" curls at the end of my hair. He had to show Dad when he came home. Emma has been practicing hair-do's as well.
I straightened my hair the other day and Max said, "Mom, who brushed your hair today?" I told him that I brushed my own hair. He said, "it's beautiful!" So cute!
The other day we were going to get the kids. When we walked outside it was drizzling. Max said, "I can smell like a tiger!" I was confused. He told me that his teacher said it was like a tiger when it started. Then I figured it out. "March comes in like a Lion!"
Emma got Honorable Mention on her Science Fair project.
Samuel is taking Fencing Lessons. He practices with his plastic broadswords at home. All the boys love it.
Emma is taking turns with her friend playing the piano for Young Women's on Sundays. I am so glad that they encouraged her to do it. She has really started to practice and do better with her piano. Sam on the other hand thinks I am torturing him every time I make him go practice. He will love it when the piano gets taken away at the end of this month.

More Flowers and Creativiness

I made some more flowers. The top picture has 3 different techniques in it. If you want the tutorials you can go to the links from the first post I did on the flowers (which I must say, I stole off a persons blog that I blog stock. I hope she doesn't mind, but she always has fun and creative ideas and writes really well.) My favorite is the one that looks like a poppy. It was super easy and turned out really cute! The brownish roses were labor intensive.I also finished one of those Tag along blankets which are suppose to be so fun to touch, for our friends in Hawaii who are having their baby sometime this week! Yeah! Don't you just love the monkeys. It is a super soft material! I thought it was perfect for Hawaii.
I am just in a creative mood these days, I guess!