Introducing Frankenwarts....or Our Pumpkin Carving Adventure

Considering the calendar, it's about that time.

Time for Pumpkin Carving!!

Insert pumpkin. In our case, the pumpkin is not at all smooth or round. We'll deal. It will just give our final product....character, right? 

(This is also what happens when you make the decision to carve at a rather late date in the season and all of the 'good' pumpkins have been snatched up.)

Again, character.

Cut the top off of the pumpkin (which we had already done in the above picture), and start gutting!

Add one enthusiastic boy...

And one less than enthusiastic little girl 

(who really did not want to stick her hands in a pumpkin).

But finally did anyway 

(and immediately ran off to the bathroom to wash her hands).

Add the stencil.

Thin the pumpkin a little more after realizing that it's still pretty thick and rather difficult to cut into.

Continue cutting the pumpkin, trying desperately to follow the pattern on the stencil.

Say to heck with the pattern on the stencil and go freestyle.

Finish carving.

Insert light of some sort...in our case, we didn't have any single votive candles and couldn't find the battery operated one that Kellen so logically pointed out would work great, so we improvised.

Go outside to test the pumpkins wonderful awesomeness in the darkness. 

(You can't tell from this picture, but the kids really are posing next to the pumpkin.)

Then give the pumpkin a place of honor next to the fireplace and officially name him....

Frankenwarts!

Decisions, decisions

And perhaps life altering ones at that. 

Or maybe teeth altering???

Paci or fingers?  Hmmm.....the debate continues....

Mornings made easy

If you're at all like me, your house can be chaotic in the mornings. Let's face it. There are a LOT of things that need to be done in the morning...dressing kids, breakfast preparation, eating, feeding, lunch preparation, school items gathered, dressing myself for work, checking calendar for meetings and kids activities, changing littlest kids clothes because she's burped up a portion of her morning meal, the list goes on and on...

I've been working on making my mornings go smoother for a while now. Easier. Less stressful. Less yelling and crying (I'll let you determine who's doing the yelling and who may be crying) Shall I say, enjoyable, even?

While our mornings are still no where near completely stress-free, here are some tips that I've discovered through trial and error that actually work for us.

Make a big batch of a favorite breakfast on Sunday afternoon.  You'll only have to reheat in the mornings and that should take less time than cooking from scratch.  A favorite in our household is what Kellen has deemed "Dad's morning mess".  It's a combination of scrambled eggs, cut up tator tots, and ham (simply lunch meat) that's been pan fried and cut up into squares.  Thankfully, Matt makes wonderful breakfasts, so the preparation for this concoction is all his doing.  He cooks it all up, mixes it into a corningware bowl and into the refrigerator it goes. We spoon it out and warm it up each morning for the kids and I make myself breakfast burritos with it (just add tortillos and cheese and it's oh-so-yummy!).  This breakfast dish normally lasts all week long.  Add some fruit and a glass of milk and you have a wonderfully balanced breakfast.

Lay out clothes for the week.  Kellen is old enough to do this himself, and has for at least a year or so. We have a hanging organizational bin in his closet and the bottom five sections are the (school) days of the week. He lays out clothes for school and any extracurricular activities in each of the daily bins so that he's ready for the week.  For example, his Taekwondo lesson is every Wednesday, so that outfit is in the Wednesday bin along with his clothes to wear to school.  When he gets dressed on Wednesdays, seeing the outfit reminds him to put it in his backpack for the day.  We don't have a similar set up with Tatum in her closet, but can set out clothes for a week or pick out her outfit the night before and place it in her closet.  This saves on arguments in the morning about what to wear, and ensures that all necessary clothing is there - no running around for a pair of socks that are in the washing machine or dryer, etc.  Now, if I would only jump on the weekly clothes planning bandwagon, getting myself dressed would be quite a bit easier as well!

Bathe the kids at night. Baths can be time consuming, so getting them done in the evenings will allow for quicker getting ready in the mornings.  Unless there is a nighttime accident, there shouldn't be a reason or need to bathe or shower them off in the mornings.

Make the kids get dressed before eating breakfast.  You can walk out of the house and take them to school/day care if they're hungry, but not if they aren't dressed.  If dawdling is a problem, this natural consequence should nip that in the bud after a few days. And we all know that the kids won't starve or having lasting damage from not getting breakfast a couple of times because of their choices, right?

Make a launch pad. Dictate a place, preferably by the door, where you can place things that are needed for the kids and yourself for your day. Hang backpacks, purses, coats, lunch bags, etc in your launch pad in the mornings and you'll have easy access to them when you're walking out the door.  Even better, be sure that things (non-perishables) are there the night before.

Make lunches the night before. Have a kid that goes to a day care where their lunch can be heated up? Great...pack their lunch when you're cleaning up from dinner with some of the leftovers.  Add anything extra that needs to be added to round out it out and viola', lunch is ready to throw in the lunch bag for the next day.  This principle applies to grown-ups, too!  (Grown-ups, as an added bonus, you'll end up saving money by eating out less often for lunch during the week!)

Get up a few minutes earlier than your kids. This one can be tough, especially if you're a night owl. But I've found that getting up even 15 minutes before the kids, and taking that quiet(er) time for myself to grab my shower and begin getting ready helps me to get a small jump start on making the mornings go smoothly.  Added bonus for those of you who can get your workout and/or quiet time in during this time as well!

Try some, try all...I'm not promising miracles, just a slighly smoother start to your day. Care to share your tried-and-true morning tips?

Meal Swap!

Since Tatum was born over three years ago and I enjoyed the gracious gifts of frozen meals from a great group of friends, I've realized the power of having ready-made meals at your disposal. I know, I know...it takes me a while.  Apparently the frozen food industry has really hit on something.

Whoda' thunk?

Anyway, I asked for and received the recipes for those wonderful gifted dishes and my quest to keep a freezer stocked with meals began.  In the past three (or so) years, I've done a pretty good job of keeping my freezer stocked, only going one stretch for a few months where I ran out of meals and didn't replenish.  Not too shabby in my book.

Another friend (who moved from an idea into a business) introduced me to this thing called meal swap.  I have taken up the meal swap banner with my Sunday School ladies, and we have had three meals swaps in the last year or so.

The idea is that anyone interested in participating in the meal swap would sign up by a certain date and then cook (N minus 1) of the same meal for swapping. Ex, If we had 10 folks sign up, you would make 9 of the same meal. Or you could make more of the same meal and be sure you were able to keep some for yourself!  Your call!

A "swap time" is then determined for everyone to get together and swap the meals. The end result would be that you take home a number of different meals that freeze well, but have the efficiency of purchasing ingredients for and making one type of meal at a time in bulk.

I have found it best to try and stay consistent with portion sizes and convey that to the group (ex, medium size square baking pan, 9X13 pan or 3/4 filled gallon size ziploc freezer bags for soup).  In addition, it is helpful to bring a large container to the swap itself to carry your items back home.  Large laundry baskets or even rolling coolers work well for this purpose.

Calling all work outside the home moms. Or stay at home moms. Or anyone who wants simplicity! This type of thing is a must-do in my opinion. Pull a meal out of the freezer one night and reheat the next. No fuss. No fret. No worry. Try it!

During the last meal swap, I made Pizza Pasta Casserole. Think spaghetti + pizza and you've pretty much got it. It's a family favorite and regardless of the size I make, I think Matt could eat the entire pan if I let him.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the meal, but trust me that I'm just saving having your mouth water on this one.

Pizza Pasta Casserole Freezer Recipe

2 lb ground beef (can use ground chicken or turkey, but my family doesn't like it quite as much)
2 jars spaghetti sauce (28 oz cans)
24 oz spiral pasta, cooked and drained (2 12 oz bags)
4 c shredded mozzarella cheese
6 oz sliced pepperoni
Optional: 1 large onion, chopped

In a large skillet cook meat and onion until meal is thoroughly browned. Drain fat. Add spaghetti sauce and noodles, stir well.

Divide mixture in half and put one half in each 9X13 pan. OR Section out in 4 to 6 8X8 pans. Top each with cheese, then top with pepperoni.

To bake one immediately, preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes or heated through. Serve.

To freeze, cover with saran wrap, then foil and place in freezer.  (It's helpful to use a sharpie and mark the recipe and heating directions on the foil before freezing). Thaw overnight in refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350 and bake 35-40 minutes or until heated through.

Enjoy!

Patience

So Matt and I are in the midst of some circumstances that we had hoped would obtain some closure yesterday.  Things didn't end up going that way, and we're now still in a holding pattern.

Afterwards, I told Matt, 'Maybe God is trying to teach you some patience through all of this.'

Matt turns to me and says, 'Or maybe you.'

I had a questioning look on my face so he continued, 'You're going through this, too.'

I just looked at him and said, 'I'm married to YOU. My whole life is an exercise in patience.'

Croup, cont.

I took Jacey in to our pediatrition for her follow-up to the ER visit this morning.  Just for the record, she weighed in at 12 pounds and 4 ounces (um, gained 5 ounces in a day and a half?). 

After the doctor's examination, he proclaimed that he was still hearing the stridor (noise when breathing in).  Once he made that statement, I realized what sound he was hearing. Yup, she's been doing that for a little while, I just didn't know what it was (ignorance was probably truly bliss on that one).  He and I discussed the ER visit, and he was disappointed that they hadn't prescribed a steroid for her, so he did - once a day for four days.

Unfortunately, she didn't have quite as good of a day today as she did yesterday. Perhaps she was just really tired yesterday after the stress of the ER visit, but yesterday she slept and ate and that was about it.

No such luck today.

She was quick to get upset and took a long time to calm down. Not a good combination, considering. And the world's best pacifier didn't even calm her down, it just caused her to spit up and burp more.

There's a limit to the amount of time one can hear their child cry inconsolably before the Mommy heart just breaks.  It was a stressful day for this Mommy. 

What would you do?

It's a question I frequently ask my students. One that requires quite a bit of self reflection.

Ready?

What would you do if you KNEW you couldn't fail?

(Hard one, huh?)

The next one....
...........What's stopping you from doing that very thing NOW?


Really.  What's stopping you?

I've been thinking about this for a while now, only my self reflection comes with a twist.

What does God want me to be doing now and preparing to do in the future?

I certainly feel like I'm in the job that God wants me to be in, touching lives and doing what He wants me to do. But I feel the gentle push that there's supposed to be something more for me to do.

Care to share your list?  And pray with me as I wrestle with mine?

Croup

In case you're unaware, croup is a scary word for the mommy of an infant.

Croup - According to WebMD, is a common respiratory problem in young children. It tends to occur in the fall and winter. Its main symptom is a harsh, barking cough. Croup causes swelling and narrowing in the voice box, windpipe, and breathing tubes that lead to the lungs.

The 'overview' goes on to say that this can make it hard for your child to breathe.

Why, you ask, am I writing about croup?

I'm smack dab in the middle of it, courtesy of Jacey.

And just for the record, when your very level-headed, over 15 years of medical experience husband asks, "Do you want to take her in or do you want me to?" at 1:00 AM, after sternly saying, "You have got to calm down," in response to my increasingly panicked, "There is something very wrong with our daughter," and after listening to the seal sounds coming from your daughter and discovering that her fever really is consistently over 102 degrees, you realize that you're correct.

There is something very wrong with our daughter.

And that isn't a pleasant realization.

That's a snippet of the events that led to me driving the 2 minutes to our local hospital, praying to the Lord to, 'Please help me to stay calm and with Your strength, help us get through this," and telling a seal-sounding Jacey, "It's ok sweetie, Mommy is taking you to the doctor and they'll help to make you better."

I had turned down Matt's offer to drive by the ER to see how busy they were, simply responding, "She's 3 months old and sounds like this, we'll get triaged to the front of the line, I'm sure."

I didn't get to test that theory (not that I'm complaining!) because the ER was empty.

Thank you, Lord!

By the time I had the paperwork completed and had taken Jacey out of her carrier, we were getting called back to be seen.

By the way, a day after turning 3 months old, Jacey is weighing in at 11 pounds and 15 ounces. Just in case you were wondering.

So, her pulse-ox looked good, her fever was still over 102, and she quickly convinced everyone that heard her that she had croup.  My first experience with croup.  Our third child and a complete novice at this...guess she didn't want things to be status quo around the house!  We saw the doc, and he ordered a chest x-ray just to rule out pneumonia (how crazy is it that she's had 2 chest x-rays already in her limited lifetime??), and confirmed the croup.  Her lungs sounded clear, x-rays were taken and ruled clear, tylenol was given (no, I hadn't given it to her because we basically took the temp, retook the temp minutes later, and then I walked out the door), a breathing treatment was done on her and an oral steroid was given.

She was a true champ!

Were were in and out in less than 3 hours, and I was super impressed by all of the wonderful treatment she received!

Matt bought his littlest princess a new cool mist humidifier today (isn't that what every little princess wants?), I've kept tylenol in her system, and she's basically eaten, slept and pooped all day.  Oh wait, she's spit up and also peed on me as I was getting her into her bath tonight.  Such an eventful day for her!

I'm praying that the kids have a good night tonight and that they ALL sleep well.  Kellen can't even hear me talk about Jacey being sick because he starts crying and talking about how worried he is about her...he's very not ok with her being sick and is scared something horrible is going to happen.  Bless his heart!

As for me, I've gotten to hold my princess quite a bit today...she's sleeping best laying on my chest, and I'm ok with that.  I've realized (again) that nursing is the best pacifier I said I would never use.  I've been reminded that the first rule of parenting is to never say never. And I'm praying for quick healing for Jacey.

Because croup, and everything that goes with it, is pretty darn scary for this Mommy.

Pumpkin patch

I took my three pumpkins to the pumpkin patch in a desperate attempt to get some 'cute' pumpkin and fall pictures.  I say a desperate attempt because, well...it was. I tried to take them the day prior, but Daddy decided to take Kellen fishing and Tatum decided to make some very poor choices at school.

So I went to plan B on that night, and Tatum just went to bed really early, in an attempt to make her realize that she had cheated herself out of some fun.

I don't think that worked so well for me, because she had a repeat of poor choices the next day.

So I went to Plan B myself.

Take 'em to the pumpkin patch and reward the kids who had good days by allowing them to pick out their very own mini pumpkin. A nice reward system, don't you think?

The change of clothes were set out in a lame attempt to color coordinate the kids (I should really just give that up now) so that the pictures would look as good in real life as they did in my head. Hmph. I will say; however, that the kids looked adorable!

Enjoy!

Trash to Treasure, or what I did with my stuff

In a recent post I discussed purging my t-shirts from my closet in an attempt to declutter. Well, I thought it might be nice to re-purpose that fabric.  I've also been wanting to make a wreath more suitable for our front porch than the fall wreath currently in place that I won at a ladies night for losing the most turns at Bunco. The one that hung there until late this summer when a dear friend reminded me that it was no longer fall (and hadn't been for some time) and I finally took it down, only to put it back up two months later.

After a quick google search for rag wreaths, I found this tutorial. This was one of many that popped up, but it seems straightforward enough, right?

So I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased a wire wreath (less than $2.50).

Then I came home and started on the fabric strips.  First I cut a small starting point and tried ripping the fabric. I don't suggest using that method.  T-shirt fabric does rip, but not in a very even manner.  On my second attempt, I just eyeballed the size I wanted and cut the strips. Worked much better that time. I then decided to try and be a little more efficient, and neatly folded the t-shirt in half, eyeballed and cut. Even better.

I cut from the bottom up and layed the strips aside until I had cut the t-shirt up to the sleeve. I then folded the strips, cut, folded again and cut to get the size strips I thought I would need.

I didn't use the same types of knot as the above tutorial. I folded the strip in half, threaded the open ends through the wire, pulled them through the loop made by folding, and then pulled the ends tight to make a knot around the wire.

Here I go!  Knot away.....

I finished 5/8's of the wreath on day 1.

Here is the finished project (day 2).

And here it is actually hanging up on my door.  I'll probably get a 'real' wreath holder, but part of the t-shirt hem works really well for now!

What cool wreaths do you have hanging on your door? And do you have any other ideas for me? Share!

Fresh fireplace

I decided to change things up on my fireplace for the fall.
Here's what it looked like before.....
(not that I was completely happy with the 'before' look)

And here's what it looks like now....

It's certainly not going to grace any magazine pages, but at least it's a little more seasonal!

Any ideas for me to take it up another notch?

Clutter control. AKA - I have too much stuff.

So a friend of mine posted a link on facebook to this post on being a minimalist.  It was an interesting concept and somewhat similar to the FlyLady concepts I've been working on for a while now (declutter, love what you have, get rid of what you don't use, etc) and other organization and clutter things I have posted about before.

So I was inspired. Again.

Only this time, I figured that I would start with something easy.  My something easy was t-shirts. Now let me just say that I love t-shirts. I'm a t-shirt kinda' girl. However, when my t-shirts are stacked on top of one another in as many piles as will fit on the shelf separating the two racks in my closet and I can't even reach the ones toward the back and don't even remember what they looked like, I think it's about time for a purge.

I got home from work today and decided today was the day for this oh-so-small of a step. I pulled all of the t-shirts from the shelf in my closet and placed them on my bed. Then I separated them by size (you know, for inventory sake, not because I'm a little OCD or anything). 

The result..........36 t-shirts (1 small, 20 medium, 14 large, and one random shirt with no discernible size on it). And these are my true t-shirts. Not the ones in my sleep drawer. Not the holiday ones. Not the ones actually designed for ladies that 'fit' a woman. Just regular ole' t-shirts.

Hmmmm......I think that might be overkill.

That's enough for a shirt-a-day habit for over a month. I could wear t-shirts every day for one twelfth of a year.

I work in a professional setting and can occasionally get away with wearing a t-shirt on Fridays before a game day weekend. Occasionally. If the shirt isn't faded. And you can read the writing. And of course, if it's an Aggie t-shirt. Not all of those 36 shirts met these criteria. And no, I'm not saying that I'm only keeping Aggie shirts (although considering...it would make the most sense), but it would be nice if there were opportunities to actually wear the shirts I was going to keep.

My goal was to keep only half of the t-shirts from that initial inventory. And just so you know, I set the goal before I counted and before I started going through them so that I wouldn't 'cheat' with the project.

And I started purging. The shirts I had forgotten I owned, and hence had not worn in ages were the first to go. Next were the ones with the writing and graphics that had come off in a washing machine in a time long, long ago.

When I finished, I was down to 17 t-shirts. 17. Seventeen. Which is probably still too many, but way better than it was! And you know what, my t-shirts fit very nicely on my shelf in my closet now, and don't cause the clothes hanging above them to bunch.

Baby steps.