Kite Festival

We set off to go on a morning hike yesterday. Then I remembered that the kite festival was going on, so we decided to check that our instead. It was ok! Not much there, and very little kites in the air. There was not a huge wind, so that was part of the problem. But we made the best of it and everyone had a great time! We looked at a few kites, the boys made kites at a craft table and we walked along the rocks at the beach. It was a good way to spend some time together outdoors. However, I would skit the kite festival if we were going to be here next year!!


                                            the boys liked this kite the best!

making kites

Tyler's kite

Henry's kite

E in the Mei Tai the Elizabeth made for us-she loves being on my back!

Tyler took this pic of us. I love how well it turned out!

couponing

I have been couponing for a long time. In CA I loved going to the commissary with my stack of coupons and see how much I could save. When the extreme couponing show started, of course I watched! Since then, I have changed the way I coupon and have learned so much. While I am no where near an extreme couponer, I have built a pretty good stockpile of things that don't expire. I don't and will never buy things that we won't use. To me that is just silly! But if I can get something for free or close to free, I am going to use all of the coupons I have! My favorite thing to stock up on is toothpaste! Since we moved to RI, it is a little different for me to coupon. We don't have a super walmart, just a regular one that is old! The Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS are really small and don't carry all of the items that are on sale weekly. There is no Kroger and no Target! So my deals are limited here unlike when we were in VA. If one store did not have something, I would just go to another. Here, not so much! But I am making it work and still getting some great deal. I follow a few blogs and Facebook pages of other couponers. They help me with the deal match ups. My favorite two are the Krazy Coupon Lady and Freetail Therapy. I have a coupon binder that I love! I used the printable page dividers from the Krazy Coupon Lady and it si so easy for me to organize them and to find them! It did take me forever to get it put together, but now that it is done, I am so happy that I did it this way. Here is what my coupon binder looks like:

Today I made the rounds, going to Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Walmart. While I was not able to get everything on my list, I did get most of what I wanted/needed. Here is what I got for $9.50:

-6 tubes of Colgate toothpaste=all were free with the sale price and the coupon
-1 box of Sally Hansen wax strips=paid only $.99
-Finesse Shampoo and Conditioner=B1G1 plus both of them had a try me label on them where I can get the total amount of the purchase which makes them free when I get the rebate!
-4 scotch magic tape=$.22 each with the coupon
-2 fly swatters=free with coupon
-4 cans of beans-I had no coupons for these, but we needed them and they were cheaper at walmart than the grocery store!

So my total for all of this was $9.50 for 19 items or $.50 each!! That is a 91% savings!! If I would have had the coupons, I would have paid over $47! I love the thrill of a good good buy!

Fireworks

We went to the base to watch the fireworks. There is a great place to sit on the grass at the water and see them over the bridge. The kids all got bathed and in their jammies (I am not sure why we did this, as they all got pretty dirty running around before they started!) The family next to us has a really sweet dog that loved the kids. She kept coming over and sitting with us. Of course the kids loved it! The fireworks were some of the best I have seen the finally went on for over 5 minutes straight and was amazing! Just like at the baseball game E fell asleep during the fireworks. The cutest thing was Keith told all of the kids that they have to keep their shoes on. E had hers in her hand and was sleeping holding them. When I took them out of her hand, she started screaming! All in all, it was a really great July 4th weekend!

                                      The is one of my favorite pictures of the kids together

The bridge at sunset

The dog joined us to watch the fireworks!

Watching the fireworks!

The Bristol Parade

The Bristol is the oldest parade in the country! We had to go check it out! It was only about 30 minutes down the road. We had been told by others and read that you needed to be there early to get a good seat. The parade started at 10:30 so we left at 7! There was virtually no traffic and it took no time at all to get there. We parked and found a great stop right on the street! Then we sat...for 2.5 hours!!! It was actually not that bad, there was a grassy area behind up that the boys played in with a few other kids and E went walking around the street saying hi to everyone and pointed out all of the dogs! The kids did pretty well, considering it was such a long wait for it to start. Once it started, Henry and Evelyn loved it. Tyler hated it! It was loud and he wanted to play in the field! Boy was it a long parade...3 hours! We were all ready to go by the time it ended!

                                The kids in their patriotic outfits!

                                  Watching the parade after it finally started!

                                            Evelyn loved this little car

                    
                                       Tyler with the firetruck when it stopped in front of us

The Pawsocks

The Boston Redsock's AAA team, the Pawsocks, play about an hour up the road. I was trying to come up with something inexpensive for us to do as a family, and the team was playing at home, so we decided to go! The tickets are really cheap, $5 for the kids and $7 for us, so for $24 all 5 of us went! We got general admission tickets, so the seats were first come first serve. We wanted to be as close as we could, so we were there when the gates opened...2 hours before the game started! The plus side...we got great seats...the down side...we had a LONG time to wait!! Once the game stated, the kids all loved it! E got a little ancey about the 5th inning, so she and I went walking around the stadium. Henry especially loved it, he first said he wanted to play on the team too and then at the end he wanted to know when his TBall games were! Tyler enjoyed it as much as he could, considering he dislikes sports greatly!!! The Pawsocks won the game! YEAH! And after the game, they had a really great fireworks show. E stayed awake through the entire game, but when the lights went out for the fireworks, she fell asleep immediately. The fireworks did not even wake her up!! We will definitely be going to some more of these games!

                            Henry's favorite thing was before the game when the drew the white lines!

                        waiting for the game to start

                             watching the fireworks

                                           E fell asleep!

                                                             Fireworks

Children's Museum

I know I blogged about the children's museum in the last post, but here are some pictures from the night. The water zone was the favorite of all three of them! I would have more pictures, however, the camera battery died while we were there!

Crane operator Tyler
Construction worker Henry

All three kids at the water zone in their wet smocks!

E playing in the water with a ball

E walking in her water smock, she was so cute!

Henry playing in one of the water tubs

Tyler opening and closing the doors to let the water flood the bottom

What a great evening

While the kids were watching TV yesterday, we saw an commercial for the RI Children's museum. The boys were so excited and asked if we could go. I said I would find out about it and they day went on. While looking at the website, I found that certain Friday's a month were free from 5-8. Just so happens that last night was one of those nights, so we decided to go check it out. It is smaller than the ones we are used to, but everything they had was new to us and things we have not seem before, so that was great! The favorite thing among all three of them was the water room. We spent a lot of time in there. We did both floors twice we were having so much fun!

When we were done we were all hungry and it was at least 45 minutes till we got back home and it was already 6:30, so we tried to find a place to eat. Not too far from the museum is a HUGE mall that has lots of restaurants. We chose Cheesecake Factory, and prayed that all three would behave. The last time we took any kid there, Tyler was about 12 months and threw a plate across the room and it shattered! The wait was about 30 minutes, so Keith took the kids across the street to a park and the capitol building. They had a blast climbing the marble steps of the capital and it really made the time go fast for them. We talked to the boys a lot about using soft voices and behaving in the restaurant. To our surprise, all three were as perfect as we could have hoped! Even Evelyn was not her usual squaky self! She just sat in her high chair and pointed to what she wanted! Tyler had grilled cheese, Henry had cheese pizza and Evelyn had grilled chicken and veggies. They each ate half of their meals, as did I, so we all have lunch today too! When we were leaving, we were telling the kids how proud of them we were and Tyler told us that he loved that place to much that he wants to go there for his Birthday Dinner!

We had to walk through the mall to get back to our car, and since we were so happy with their behavior, we got them ice cream cones in the food court. It was really late by then, 8:30, so I ran into children's place and got all three of them new jammies. We changed their clothes before we left and all three were sound asleep by the time we got to the intrastate! I am so proud of them and their good behavior. It was definitely one of the best nights we have had in a really long time!

I am done with positive reinforcement!

Ok, so this is my first rant on here! I have read and been told (like everyone else) that positive reinforcement will work a lot better than getting upset when the kids do things I don't like. While I am sure that is true in the long run, it is not for me right now! This move has been very hard on Tyler and myself. Henry is the type of person that will adapt to any situation and be just fine! Tyler and I need time to adjust and feel comfortable. We have not met anyone here yet, so the kids and I are home most of the day, unless we are at the Y. So naturally, the boys are bickering and fighting with each other a lot. Yesterday they were playing very well together and I commented to both of them that I was very proud of them for playing nice, using kind words and speaking softly. Within 30 seconds of me saying that, they were back at each others throats about something! It was so frustrating! I felt like if I had not pointed out that they were nice, they would have never known and would have kept playing nicely!

Today Tyler had a fantastic day. He smiled all day, had fun and did not cry at all! Even when he had to get of off Skype with yaya, he said goodnight and went into his room. I read them a chapter out of our book, and then it was lights out. I gave his a kiss and told him I was proud of him for having such a great day and was happy that it was getting better here for him. He immediately started crying about missing VA and his friends! I wanted to kick myself again for pointing out something! AAHH!! Being a mom is so frustrating sometimes!!!

Loosing Weight and Getting Healthy

After I had E I was the heaviest I had ever been! It took a while, and a lot of pushing from my mom, but I finally decided that I needed to change and get back in shape. I tried weight watchers, and it was just not for me! I did not need to sit in a meeting with some very needy people and listed to they "yeah for you's"! What I needed was to watch what I ate, be aware of what I was eating, and use portion control. It has not been easy, I LOVE FOOD!!! I have not eliminated anything from my diet, contrary to what my dad says, I can still eat rice! :-) I set a goal for myself that in a year I wanted to loose 40 pounds! I am at the halfway point, and I have lost 25 pounds! I am so excited and happy that I can wear another smaller size! I think that now that I feel like I have the eating part down, I need to start the exercise part! We joined the YMCA last week and I have been going everyday, although on Monday and Tuesdays I just take E and H to swimming lessons, so I am not working out. I think on those days I may try to do something at home to exercise. Today at the Y I even ran for 2 minutes! For me, that is a huge accomplishment! I have never been a runner, and I am thrilled that I was able to do that! I am very happy to have a friend here that can help keep me on track while we are here!

Cardboard Castles

A friend of mine posted on her blog a list of things that she wanted to do with her kids this summer. After seeing this one, I decided that the boys would love it, so we gave it a try! They had a blast, and I am happy to have found The Imagination Tree. What a great website. I am planning on doing a few more of the crafts she has on there. Here are some pics of the first castle we made, this is the smaller one. We have a bigger one still to paint and the boys want to make one for E to play with that is purple! I love how they want to do things for E too! So sweet!

Painting the castle
Finished castle from the front

From the side

Playing with the finished castle!

Recipes for my monthly cooking

I am a few days late on this one, but here they are! Here is a pic of my freezer, it was a lot more organized before the frozen veggies went in, but you can get the idea!


-taco seasoning

-homemade pizza-we just buy the bough in a bag and add whatever toppings we want

-crockpot pork chops with potatoes I leave out the green beans and cook them seperatly

-italian chicken-dump a bottle of dressing in a bag with chicken!

-salsa chicken-dump salsa in a bag with chicken. I top this with cheese, olives, sour cream and avacad0

-chipotle chicken and sun dried tomato are marinades from the store, but I am looking to find a homemade one

-BBQ chicken-dump a bottle of BBQ with chicken

-honey terriyaki chicken

-garlic parmesan chicken-can't remember where this came from-1 cup Parmesan cheese, 1 packet italian dressing seasoning. Dip chicken in oil, then in cheese/seasoning mixture. Then bake or wrap in saran wrap and then freeze.

-spaghetti-I just make up the turkey and sp sauce, then freeze in serving size portions

-chicken for salads-I just skillet cook the chicken with some seasonings and freeze to have on top of salads

-breakfast burritos-can't remember where this one came from either! I made 16 of them, so I took 12 eggs and cooked them. Then I added one red, yellow and orange pepper sliced and one onion sliced. I put a little of the mixture in a tortilla, then added salsa and rolled in foil and froze. He heats them in the microwave and says they are great!

-PB&J-I just made the sandwiches and froze them-super easy and E loves them!

ENJOY!

What we are doing this summer!

I want to keep the boys busy this summer. Henry has been wanting to do karate for a while now and I am so happy that the base has a class he can take. He had his first one on Tuesday and loved it! I cannot wait for him to get his uniform, he will look so cute! Tyler loved gymnastics in VA! I found him a class at the YMCA and he had his first on on Thursday. He was not too sure of it since the one in VA was more of a play based gymnastics and this is true gymnastics! But I know that he will gain good self esteem from it, so we are sticking with it. He did say he enjoyed that it was an all boys class! I have also signed them all up for swimming lessons at the Y. Evelyn's is a mommy and me class, and the boys are both in a beginner class. Thankfully they are in separate classes, so I get some quiet time everyday!! The boys are going to a summer camp on Wednesday mornings that started this past week. They loved the first day and cannot wait to go back. Tyler will be taking a class through the school system in July that is for Kindergartners that are going into first grade. He will ride the bus everyday! He is petrified of the bus, so we have watched it every morning as it has picked up the kids in the neighborhood. (they are still in school here till next week)! The bus driver is really nice and waves at him every morning. We have a park just down the street from our house that we have been walking to in the afternoons. Evelyn loves the slide, she can climb up the stairs by herself, but still has trouble getting her leg out from under her when she sits down to slide! I got a library card and the boys are both signed up for the summer reading program that they offer. We checked out our first 4 books a few days ago and have been reading them at night before bed. I am going to find some activities and places for us to go on the weekends as a family.

My months worth of meals..DONE!!

Before we moved to RI, I started freezer cooking and it made life so much easier. A week before we moved, I sat down with a calendar and made out our meals for 4 weeks. When I got here, I went to the store and started cooking and marinating! Here is what we are eating:
Tacos (6 meals worth)
homemade pizza (3 meals worth)
crockot porkchops with potatoes (3 meals worth)
crockpot chicken thighs (3 meals worth)
italian chicken (2 meals worth)
salsa chicken (2 meals worth)
chipotle chicken (2 meals worth)
sun dried tomato chicken (2 meals worth)
BBQ chicken (2 meals worth)
honey teriyaki chicken (2 meals worth)
garlic Parmesan chicken (2 meals worth)
spaghetti (5 meals worth)
cooked chicken for big salads (3 meals worth)
16 breakfast burritos for Keith
14 PB&J sandwiches

I know, this is way more than a months worth, but some we will eat for lunches, like the tacos and the sandwiches for E and I to have for lunches. My goal is to eat out once in a payday, so twice a month as a family. I will post the recipes on here later tonight. Now it is so easy, I just take a meal out at night and it is ready to cook at dinner time. Some of the chicken meals I will toss in the crock pot to cook and some I will cook in the oven. Of course I have to add the veggies that I will cook with the meals, but at least this way we have the main part of the meal already done!

So I had this great Idea...

I have been trying to come up with fun and free things for me to keep the kids busy this summer. Since I seem to get lost everywhere I go around here, going anywhere is not fun for me! So I decided that a few days a week we will do theme days! Today was the first one, Dinosaurs since the boys love them right now. I spent a hour last night finding a movie about dinosaurs that was not animated on Netflix. I finally found Walking With Dinosaurs. It was on BBC and rated G, so I thought it would be great! I found a really neat website, Creative Kids at Home, that has a huge section all about fun things to do to learn about dinosaurs. I also printed a few coloring pages for Henry and a few work pages for Tyler from Print Activities. I was all set! This morning I told the boys what we were going to do. They were super excited and I was excited they were into it! After breakfast I put on the movie for them to watch while I made the dough for the fossils. Within about 10 minutes, the boys were both scared and wanted to turn off the movie! So I put in an episode on Dinosaur Train from PBS! So back to the dough I went...well, apparently I did something wrong, because it never came together for me to knead it! Ok, strike #2! We did manage to do the printables, so I guess 1 out of 3 is not bad!!

I am also having this kids keep a summer journal. I bought them each a notepad that has the wide lines that they learn to write on. I plan on having them try to write what they want or have them draw a picture and then tell me what they want to say about their day. They are excited about this too!

Tomorrow we are going to try Egg Heads! I am really hoping this one turns out better than today's plan!

Rhode Island

so I have not blogged in forever (again) and need to update! I have a feeling I will be blogging a lot now that we have moved to RI, as I have no real contact with others at the moment, other than my kids! The kids and I got here on Saturday. The drive was not too bad, until we got to New York! The traffic was horrible, I was always in the wrong lane, we nearly got hit by a merging suv, took the wrong exit, ended up smack dab in the middle of New York city, then the Bronx, and finally Yonkers before we managed to find our way back to I95! After that it was smooth sailing! The kids were happy to be here and to have daddy back. They love the house and their rooms. They are very happy that there is a park about a half a block down from the house. I found a summer camp for the boys that is on Wednesdays for half a day. Their first day was yesterday and they loved it and cannot wait to go back next week. Tyler is signed up for a Kindergarten going into first grade summer program through the school district for the month of July. I am excited about it, he gets to ride the bus there and back and it is M-Th, so he will be busy that month! Henry is taking a Karate class at the base gym one night a week and loved his first class. Tyler has his first gymnastics class tonight at the Y and it extremely happy about that. I am hoping that once school starts in the fall that I will find something for E and I to do. That is about it for our first week here! I am sure I will get more into a routine as the weeks go on,

The Food Pyramid

Since I have been on such a mission to feed the kids healthier foods, I decided that they needed to be involved in the change. I have always given them choices as to what they want to eat at meals. Now I need to get them to choose better! So I printed the food pyramid and I found a weekly chart that they can cross off what they eat daily in each of the groups. We went over the chart together and talked about each of the groups and what was in them. I was pleasantly surprised when the both told me what groups the needed to eat more of! Of course they need to eat more veggies, and they know it! They each picked out what veggies they wanted for tomorrow and are happy and excited to do it! Tyler picked carrots and tomatoes. He likes these, so it should be a great way to start. Henry picked carrots and tomatoes. He likes carrots, tomatoes not so much! But we will start with that!

cooking and other homemade things

I have always loved to cook. I am sure that my passion for cooking came from my grandmother who was an amazing cook. Many times I have wished that she would have still been cooking when I was old enough to want to learn everything she knew! Back in the day moms did everything and did not complain or think that it was too hard. If my grandmothers stayed home and got everything done, then I can too! I have a very old edition of Better Homes and Gardens cook book that was my grandmothers. They used to cook everything from scratch. The food was amazing. That got me thinking about what my family eats and what can I do to make it better for them. I decided that I was going to try to make everything that we eat out of a can or box from scratch. Yes, a bit overwhelming, but not that hard either! I started with canned soup. Just about ever meal I make has some form of canned soup. I found a great site that had a super easy recipe for cream of anything soup. Great! I made the cream of chicken and cream of mushroom versions. Very easy, not a lot of money to make them and it makes a lot! Now I just want to try to find one that is a little healthier! This is definitely healthier than the canned one, but I just want less of the heavy cream! Henry loves sweets! So, what can I do to let him still have what he likes, but just make it better for him! We tried a recipe for homemade poptarts. They were awesome! And so easy to make. I was surprised at home much they really tasted like the poptarts out of a box! I can make up a big batch and freeze them. I also found a recipe for homemade gummys. They are basically just jello and my kids eat them up! So much better than packaged gummy bears and these don't get stuck in your teeth! Another plus! I have also made: white bread cinnamon bread-I usually make these into muffin size rolls instead of a big loaf refried beans taco seasoning graham crackers ketchup Cooking from scratch is not as hard as I thought! And the kids love helping me. Teaching my kids how to cook has been so much fun. After we make something, Henry always wants to take whatever it is to Yaya and Papaw! Today we are making cinnamon bread and poptarts for our breakfasts this week.

changes...some HUGE, some small!

So as usual, I have not posted in here in forever! (so that usually means this will be lengthy!) I have been feeling like everything is out if control lately, and that has been bothering me. The move is coming way too fast, only 6 weeks and I will have packers here! That leads me to all of the things that I would like to get done before then!
We always do a big clean out before we move. It is one of the best parts about moving...we are forced to do it! We have so much clutter and junk around here it is crazy!! Not only are we in a smaller house with very little storage, but we just have too much stuff! My biggest hurdle is TOYS, TOYS, TOYS!!! We just have too many! It is overwhelming to the kids and to me! I signed up to do a consignment sale in April. My plan is to try to sell as much of it as I can. But the tagging is time consuming, so I have now decided to sell the bigger things and take the rest to goodwill! It will go much faster to just get it out of the house! Evelyn's clothes for the sale are about half tagged. I need to get it all done!! Once I have all of that done, I know I will feel so much better and lighter!

I need to get the entire family more organized. As it is now, there is no real schedule for getting the basic things done-laundry, dishes, general cleaning, etc. I feel that the boys are plenty old enough to be helping out around here is a bigger way. Now, they are responsible for unloading the silverware in the dishwasher and Tyler has to bring down their laundry basket when I need to wash their clothes. It occurred to me after a conversation with a friend that they need/can be responsible for a whole lot more! I do WAY to much for them and that is not teaching them anything other than to be lazy and mommy will do everything!! So I am going to have them do more things around here. Nothing huge, and we will start slowly be adding one thing to each of them for a few weeks till the have about 5 things each. I am starting with getting dressed! They are both capable of getting themselves dressed for school. So why am I still doing it for them?! We are going to pick out our clothes after bath each night, and they are responsible for making sure that they are dressed before it is time to go to school. Oh, and I am not calling them chores! I think that chores sounds negative!! So we are calling them responsibilities!

I need to get myself on a schedule as well! I have cut out a lot of my useless in the car time. I am home much more now. I need to have a daily list of things that need to be done. If I do a few things a day, then the weekends are not so heavy with "chores"! I am sure my mother is going to read this and say, finally, after 31 years she gets it!! Yes, I have been resistant to admitting that I need to change too!! But I finally get it now, better late than never!

In dealing with some behavior things with Tyler, I have realized that I have not been teaching them lately. I have just expected them to know how to act and behave. One of the things that I love most about staying home with my kids is that I get to teach them how to be helpful and how to act in situations. But somehow I have forgotten that I still need to teach, even though they are getting older. They dont know what talking back is, so when I tell them not to talk back, they have no idea what I am asking them not to do! I need to get back to showing and teaching the kids that they are important. We have all gotten into a rut when it comes to daily family time. I just tell the boys to go play, instead of going with them to play. I think that when I change my ways, a lot of the negative behavior will change as well.

Homemade Poptarts

I have really been trying to have the kids eat better and healthier food. Since they eat virtually nothing, it has been hard! One of Henry's favorite food is brown sugar poptarts. The ones from the store have so much sugar and so many things that I have no idea what they are in them! So I found a recipe on a great blog for homemade ones and decided to try it out. They were fantastic!! I was very surprised how much they tasted like the ones from the store! As usual, when Henry makes something, he wants to take them to Yaya and Papaw! They even said they were great!! I have definately found a replacement for the yucky store ones!! Now if I could just find a homemade ketchup that they would eat, we would be great!!!


http://www.salad-in-a-jar.com/family-recipes/homemade-brown-sugar-cinnamon-oatmeal-pop-tarts

a new bedtime

One of the things that I wanted to accomplish was to get the boys out of our bed and into theirs; both at bedtime and all night!! So I decided that today was the day, I was ready for the fight tonight at bedtime! I took the boys to Target and they each picked out a new bed spread and a new stuffed animal to sleep with. All day I talked about how they are big boys now and they were going to sleep in their own beds tonight. Bedtime came and I was ready! They whined a bit, but climbed in bed. I sat with them for a few minutes, Henry fell asleep within 5 minutes! Tyler took a little longer, but he fell asleep too!! I am so proud of them! Now I just hope that tomorrow is not a lot harder!

Chopsticks

Keith had sushi for lunch today. He always uses chopsticks with sushi. Today the boys were fascinated with them. They both wanted to know how they worked and they wanted to use them to eat their pizza! So Keith tried to show them how to hold them and how to pick up their food with them. It was a very fun lunch!

Time to move again!

We got our official orders to move! Now it's time to clean out and decide what to keep and what to get rid of! I decided to sell all of my scrapbook supplies. I have a TON! I have not used them since we have been here, so they needed to go! I sold a bunch of stuff to a couple of friends in Japan. Now I just have to get the rest organized and take pictures to list on craigslist. I had no idea I had so much stuff!!

But that is the easy part! The kids toys, that is a bug mess! Not only is the playroom a disaster, but I think I am more attached to some, ok, a lot, more than the boys are! They are just growing so fast and I want to keep them small!! So the playroom is the next to tackle! Besides, we wont have a playroom in the next house, it will be a small 3 bedroom, so I need to only keep stuff that I know they play with!

I have lots of baby stuff that I should get rid of. But I just can't! We got rid of everything when we moved to CA, and then when we got pregnant with E, we had nothing! I really don't want to start all over again if we deiced to have the fourth child! I have 4 bins of clothes of hers that are too small, but then again, I held onto the boys clothes for a long time. And bins don;t take up that much space!!

Then there is all of the kitchen stuff I have! I went hog wild with pampered chef a few years ago, and as a result, I have 2 shelves full of stuff!! I should get rid of some of it, but someday I may use it!! I love kitchen gadgets and this is one of my weaknesses! So I am sure that I will keep the 10 chip and dip trays I have and all of the PC stuff and just put it into storage. Someday I will have a house that I can have it all out to use in....someday!

So the pre-move clean out continues, a little everyday and by May we will be ready to start our next adventure!

Oh, the places we find Evelyn!

Evelyn has become a little climber and is into EVERYTHING!!! Here are just a few places she has been lately!

Stuck in her carseat!

Hanging onto the TV try! (no, she cannot see over it!)

On the Fireplace step!

Checking out the fridge!

Taking stuff out of the bottom drawer

Helping with the dishes

Henry Made Bread!

I am trying to have all of us eat healthier and better food. I found a great blog (the simple dollar) that had a recipe for making homemade bead. Henry, Keith and I decided to give it a try. The bread was awesome! No more store bought bread for the Paquin's!! Henry was so excited about it that he took the entire loaf to Yaya and Papaw!

Mixing the dough
kneading the dough


Flouring his hands

more kneading

dough before rising

dough after rising

folding the dough to put into pan

putting dough into pan

Finished Bread!!

Back to a regular schedule!

I never thought I would hear myself say that I am glad the kids are back a school!! While I loved having them home and being able to be lazy and do whatever we wanted, I realized this morning that I like a schedule! I also realized that I really miss my morning times alone with a cup of coffee and the news. In Monterey I would always get up before the kids and make coffee and sit in a quiet house watching the news. I have not done that in over a year. Over the Christmas break, I found that when I got up before everyone I was much more relaxed and happy. So this morning I got up, made a cup of coffee and just sat on the couch! I have to say, my morning was much smoother than when I get up at the same time as the kids and we are rushing! So I will be doing this every morning! Now if I can get my weekly household chore schedule worked out I would be even better!! I just put Evelyn down for her morning nap and my goal is to get a double batch of taco meat and a double batch of spaghetti meat made up and in the freezer!