Have been so forgetful!!

I have just been plain not willing to let the time pass or just forgetful - not sure which. Thanksgiving is a mere week and 1 day away and I have 12 people coming over for dinner! Just rearranged the livingroom to better suit company and open it up a ton! The kiddos woke up this morning like it was Christmas (seriously just about that excited .. but they are pretty excitable) jumping around and D saying how much he loves it. LOL.
Now I have to get to the pile to go to storage, go through my craft stuff - fabric is done, now it's to beads, wire, scrapbooking extras, computer parts, odds and ends, and thread & needle stuff. Gah! I seriously have a craft issue.

I am going to try and go as handmade as possible, but the boys in my life are not making that easy at all! Miss Chatterbox is easy, though!! She wants fairies, a lamb from Judy Liz, and a white deer from Fantastic toys. She also wants a fairy house and I will be searching for one for Gramma Kathy to get her. Should be fun!!


The D-man, however, yearns for a Nintendo DS - yikes!! Starting the hand-held electronics thing a bit early. I think I may look into Leapsters, too, though. Hubby says the DS does have educational games, but not sure if I'm ready to sink a couple hundered into a game for 6 year-old who is getting a lizard for b-day that isn't cheap.

And daddy is asking that the kiddos pick out his present all by themselves. I asked them what store they wanted to go to and they said WalMart and I almost choked. I told them that WalMart is the answer to all the shopping one can do . .that we could go to a more electronis-type store, we could look on-line and we can keep thinking about it. So, changed tactics and asked what they want to get him. D answers, "Daddy like pirates, cause he was going-ta be one for Halloween. So, pirate stuff." And Chatterbox goes off on a Halloween tangent and we get home, so conversation turns to what snack is. I will keep working on them to ditch the WM idea and shop elsewhere. I do understand the need for big-box stores, but I want them to appreciate the other things, too.

Off to do something in the way of going through beads to take to girls group tonight.

Later!!

The struggle

hmm . .so I have really been struggling to try and work on my time and scheduling myself time for this, that and the other. I get a good plan worked out and BAM, something comes up.
Miss Chatterbox has a bad day and needs constant attention, I need to take so and so to this, hubby has a ton of homework and cannot help with anything, a volunteer gig takes way more time that expected, taking someone to the airport and on and on. I absolutely have no problem doing those things - this is not me complaining about having a gazillion things to do. This is me wondering what on Earth I am going to do to make a schedule work?!
Agghhh! I seriously have all these wonderful ideas and fun projects ... things I need to research for the cleaning stuff and books to read to get even more info on herbs and essential oils ... new items to put together for my Etsy store and blogs, networking sites and social sites to keep up with ... kids to take to appointements and take to and from school ... kids to rad to and spend time playing with or crafting with ... dishes to do, rooms to clean, clothes to fold ...
In otherwords all the gazillion things every mom has to do everyday. I just can't see to get a schedule to work for me! And if I don't schedule then there are certian things that I just simply don't get done and those things tend to be the creating things.
Anyone out there in mommy crazy land have any ideas?!?!?! It almost seems like now that I only have one at home it's harder to get things done.
Anyway, I would love some hints and ideas that you might do to try and get things done.
Timers, charts, hour-by-hour time schedules . .etc. Then how you work around big interruptions ie taking 4 hours of your day to do something to help someone that you had not planned on.

getting my act together

Ok, so once again I totally bombed the blog test - if there is one.
I am not giving up, though! There are so many fun things going on that I forget to stop by and do my bloggie ... well, maybe if I knew there were people sitting there, waiting for me to post I might be a bit better - ROFL!!

So today I am going to be totally random and share a recipe for some yummy pumpkin muffins. It started as a pan of bars recipe I found and have switched up a bit to put more good stuff in it and still keep it kid-yummy.
Here it is:
1-1/2 cups pumpkin pie filling
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 cups applesauce (unsweetened is best)
1/2 cup safflower oil (or a vegetable oil)
4 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons (or to taste) cinnamon
2 cups wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans *optional
1/4 cup white or vanilla frosting *optional
about 48 pieces of candy corn *optional and you may need more
orange food coloring *optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 2 muffin tins with wrappers or lightly grease. I have only one good tin, so I have to do this in 2 batches, but they bake better when you only do 1 tin full at a time.
In a large mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, sugar, applesauce, oil, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a meduim to small bowl; gradually add to pumpkin and applesauce mixture and mix well. If adding pecans, stir in by hand after pumkin and flour mixtures are well mixed.
Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full. If you do 1/2 instead, you will end up with about 28-30 muffins, instead of 24, but I think the size is better for little ones.
Place, one pan at a time in preheated oven and bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center muffin. Cool while you bake second pan full.
** (optional part - helps to make the muffins more kid-appealing) While your last batch cools, combine frosting and food coloring in a small bowl. Place orange frosting into a small piping bag, or resealable ziplock and snip off a small tip on one end. Pipe small dots where you would place the eyes, then place candy corn over the frosting dots so they stick. Then, pipe funny pumpkin mouths onto the muffins. Serve for a snakc, breakfast of special treat.

These muffins could also be given a more Thanksgiving flare by making little turkey-type decorations of pilgrim hats on top. Or decorate for fall by piping a leaf shape on top. My son absolutely loves them and his classmates the past 2 years devoured them, too!

I will try and post a picture of the yummies tomorrow!

Soccer fun!

Yesterday the family got to take our little guy to his first soccer game! Oh, my! I was so fun and the kids really enjoyed themselves. They are amazing little athletes and just kept going!
The team has kids from 4 to 6 years old, the one 4-year-old was very much no into playing, though. She was off doing her own thing - I really don't blame her at all, all those kids running around crazy. Our 4 year old thought it looked interesting, but she said she was not ready to play.
"Next time it will be fun, Mom" Translation, I'll do it next year, after my brother tells me how fun it is and talks it up for a whole year.
She is waiting for T-ball, though. Really excited! And so is he, finally getting them into wanting to do organized sports. Didn't push before now because we really think that they should just be able to play around and enjoy running and jumping and being silly before organizing games. We play our own versions of those type of games and teach them to bat and throw, but nothing major and if it only lasts 3 minutes, then, so be it . . . they tried for a bit and they can try again another time. Encourage the fun, not the getting it done the right way.
Ah, there I go getting all preachy sounding, didn't mean to. Just how we do things and how they have fun. A benefit of living in the boonies and having room to really run and play, too. can't do that as easily if you live in the city.
The little guy seemed to really like it, but we need to work on focusing this week - -he's out on the field posing like a rock star and watching the airplanes and birds, not the bright pink ball! Haha. He sure can run, though. Stopping .. .well, not so fast. LOL!
And boy was he tired after. Took a nap from 6:30 to 8 and was still asleep by 9pm (a bit later then normal fora school night, but he needed to eat and do stories before bed since he crashed basically in the middle of dinner.

Here's to soccer and cute little kiddos having tons of fun!

camping with Grandpa

Yesterday my father-in-law decided to take my son camping in our woods, just down the driveway from the house. So, they are packing all their 'gear' back and forth from the garage and house to their spot and little sister has to help, too.
Hubby and I are hanging out in the house putting away lunch dishes and I am considering what craft project to try and do an we look out the window and both burst into gales of laughter. There is this little convoy of campers that starts with Grandpa carrying very brightly colored kiddo folding chairs and the tent, then little sister in her bright pink sweater directing her brother and cheering him on as he works his way down on his little electric 4-wheeler (which does not go even as fast as he can walk). And he has gear in the back of that - it has a small cargo spot.

Then, I go nab the camera (they were a good distance away, but I tried) and little Miss Thing tells her brother to stop, stop . . . and runs around the back of the 4-wheeler and gives it a good smack, then I hear her say "now it will go faster, don't worry". And run in front of him saying 'you can do it, you can make it . .. go D, go!!"

Jelly roll-ups

So I am getting ready to send off my little guy to school on Thursday and trying to think of all the things I need get set - - lunches, waking up on time, and all that good stuff. And do all this without getting to sad . .. he is starting Kindergarten and in our state they have full-day kindergarten, ahhhh . . . and staying excited for him.
So, I have been really immersing myself into Etsy and my new team and also looking at healthy lunch goodies and in general avoiding thinking about it.
I found a cute sandwich idea and tried a version out on my daughter, who is 4, for her before bed snack and she is completely addicted . .it's hilarious. She nows thinks the best food on Earth is a 'jelly roll-up' ie: a piece of bread with the crusts cut off, then rolled flat with a rolling pin. Spread jelly of choice on it and roll it up - -yummy-licious. LOL
So, In honor of her discovery I am going to do a jelly-mini and find the most scrumptious looking BigSkyMontanaEtsyTeam member to feature, right after lunch.

DIY Scrap Stage

It's amazing how much extra wood someone has after they have deck built. My in-laws had a remodel done last summer and there has been a huge pile of left-over wood just sitting there. And then, when I re-did my son's room, I took out a shelf in the closet made with a large board that was just sitting around.
So . .. what can I do to use that instead of it rotting? Well, the kiddos love to play dress up and have puppets and all, so why not make a stage. A simple, easy one since tools are not plentiful around a geek house.
I found several 3 1/2 inch screws and the drill bit and the hack-saw and got to work.
There were 2 4x4's of roughly the same length as the width of the large board and then a 2x4 that was only a few inches longer than the length of the board. Phew! Not too much cutting to do at all.
I measured the 2x4 against the board and then cut it off with the hack saw. Then placed the 4x4's on either side of the board and marked spots for those, then spots for the 2x4, so they would flush together at the front area of the stage. Using the drill (thanks goodness we at least have that LOL), I put 2 screws through the top of the stage and into each 4x4 - one at the front of each board and one at the back. Then, I screwed the 2x4 into the 4x4's with 2 screws on each end.
Phew . . . hardest part done :-)

Then, I went on a paint-finding adventure in the garage (can you say, save too much stuff) and found an interior, non-oil light blue color and painted the sides and top with 2 layers each (dried for about 12 hours in between) - I even had some kid help for the painting, teaching them how to use even, smooth strokes and they both put in a very good effort. We let it dry for 24 hours and brought it in the house to decorate with water-based acrylics. I let the kid's decide on all the pictures I would paint and also had them painting at the same time.
Then, after another 24 hours of drying, I sprayed the surface with a sealer to protect the paintings from feet and such.

The project itself was so much fun to do together and now it's a very popular part of the dress-up/ pretend play room, which will eventually be turned back into my daughter's room - she's been sleeping on brother's bunkbed for awhile now.

Icky girls

One of those too funny kid moments. Driving in the car 4-year-old daughter says she wants to be older than her brother, I told her that it's nice to have an older brother so if boys are bugging her when she gets older that her brother will take care of them. I said to son, 'you'll just tell those punks to leave your sister alone, won't you?!', to which I get gales of laughter from both, since mommy does not normally say things like that.
Then silly mommy proceeds to say to daughter, when you get older you'll be able to tell your brother which girls to stay away from. *thinking, oh, crap . .. why did I just say THAT!*
And then I get asked 'what girls would I want to stay away from mommy?'
'Um, icky girls,' replies mom who should have kept her mouth shut! OMG!
To which smart little girl in her car seat says, 'Yeah, the icky girls. You know icky girls are the ones who don't take a bath-tub when their mommies tell them to.'
To which mommy replies with gales of laughter! I least I am saved from explaining what I really meant.