::a frightful lot of snippets::

~so many little bits and pieces I’ll never get to if I try to make coherent, individual posts,
so here is is, stream of consciousness… buckle up, it may be bumpy!~

Cole’s preschool class had a little Halloween Parade last Thursday.  They all were adorable in their costumes, especially since no one had any idea what to do.  3-4 year olds are stinkin’ cute.

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Bunny was named Peacebuilder for her class in October.  The theme this first month of the program was ‘helpfulness’ and Bunny certainly does love to help people, and was happy when her name was called, though someone pointed out I was in the back of the room, which did tip her off just a little, haha.

Cole had a great time clapping for everyone.  Seriously, if there was an “enthusiastic applauder” award, he’d have won, hands down.

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We fit in one final trip to the ‘bouncy house pumpkin patch’ nearby.  It was jam-packed with kids from our neighborhood, and we were there until well after dark.

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Every Tuesday Carter is dismissed from school about 40 minutes before Cole’s preschool day ends.  So, we have “Mama-Carter Time,” at the park.

Usually he chooses “Turtle Park,” which has a lot of climbing walls.  He’s been practicing on the walls a good half hour a week, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but, dang, he’s becoming kind of a monkey.

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Another new routine we’re in is a weekly playdate with the rest of the kids who have A.M. Kindergarten.  Since they’re out midday, there are still hours to play before time to pick up Bunny, and a couple days a week Carter really likes to simply be home, eat lunch, and play with his toys, but we also picnic at school and go to Running Club twice a week, and to the park playdate once weekly.  Both the boys love the extra playtime with other kids.

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Happy Wednesday!

snippets

::little bits and pieces::

our little Bubo is growing up!  she’s adapted so well to life here in this busy house and now barely flinches when the boys act crazy near her cage.  she even dozed on my lap the other day during quiet time when I was reading in the time out chair.

we love her.  she loves apples.  no really, she will cut a bitch for some apples.  I saw her do it.

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I have not written much about it, but we’ve been enjoying the CSA this year, and have also grown a few tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and herbs of our own.  Something has been off about the tomatoes this year, and a wily raccoon has been eating tomatoes right off the plant, leaving really rude teases about the tomato we might have enjoyed, but the dry-farmed tomatoes from the CSA have been awesome for soups.  THIS is our family favorite, and I make it exactly like the recipe, if you can believe it.  I keep meaning to freeze a batch, but we keep gobbling it down because it is that good.

While I will never be into as savory a breakfast as my husband who has ordered fish and eggs for breakfast (woof), I do like this simple way to get a leg up on the daily vegetable intake.  I quickly sauteed some leeks and bok choy then topped with a very runny egg—it’s best if you let the yolk coat the greens.  As much bok choy as we’re getting, it’s good to have it in something other than a stir fry!  (We have shrimp or chicken stir fried with tons of veggies every week, too.)

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A rare sighting of brother-sister quiet play, post homework.

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You know what is hard?  Taking a photo of someone toasting marshmallows, is what. 

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Yesterday afternoon was the afternoon of our discontent, at least if you ask the boys.  Big sister was playing at a buddy’s house, and it was funky weather outside, so they seemed inclined to amuse themselves mainly by punching each other.

So I took them and fed them to a hungry hippopotamus after making them play for a couple of hours at an indoor play place. 

snippets for my peeps

Lately “snippet form” has been how we live and how I want to examine life.  With three people whose ages added together STILL don’t equal 20, the day is just that: a bunch of snippets strung along like pony beads on elastic cording.  I never know what I will be doing in five minutes, even if I’m doing something that should take 30, because… you just never know, as the great Oswald said.  :)  (For the record, as I’m sitting to finally hit ‘publish’ after proofing this post, it took me 4 hours of snippets here and there to just put together this mess!)

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Cole and I had fun making Easter baskets with Dot Paints.  He’s still not really very into organized crafts, though.  He loves puzzles and his interactive books, though.  Every morning when we drop off Carter at preschool, Cole and I sit at the table at “Carter’s school” and work a puzzle or two together.  I feel like we should hustle out the door and let Carter have ‘his’ school to himself, but hopefully it’ll help Cole when it’s time for me to leave him there two mornings a week next fall.  We’ll see!

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Speaking of “Carter’s school,” they had an egg hunt on Friday, and Cole and I helped set up, then I got to watch the kids tear around searching for loot.  Carter has eagle eyes, and found so many that he was given the ‘extra special job’ of re-hiding some so that the pokier kids had a chance.

He had as much fun rehiding eggs as anything.  It was all part of the game to him.

Cole mostly blends in with the preK class because he’s so tall.  It’ll be funny to see him with kids his age next year, he’s so much bigger than most 3 year olds.

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Look who got a waffle maker!  I made a double batch of whole grain batter so I could freeze the extras for breakfast during the week – this batter is light and fluffy because it has whipped egg whites folded in, and that is not weekday morning cooking in this house.  Bunny can’t abide by a cold breakfast—cereal is a dessert or snack to her—but she is not so spoiled that I am spending an hour on breakfast on the average school morning.  The recipe I used is in an old, out of print cookbook, and I adapted it to be partly whole grain anyway, so here:

Whole Wheat Waffles (1 batch)

2 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk (or, 2T vinegar with enough milk to make 2 cups)
1 c all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c butter or ‘buttery spread’, melted (or oil)

Heat waffle iron.  In a large bowl, combine egg yolks and buttermilk, then add flour through salt and mix until smooth, then stir in butter.  Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and fold that into the batter.  Bake in waffle iron according to instructions (different irons use more or less batter, time).

The kids loved the waffles, and a double batch made enough to freeze for probably 3 breakfasts.  I toasted some today and, you can HAVE my Eggo, man.  These rock.

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I saw a tip a few weeks ago suggesting muffin tins for coloring eggs and we tried it out this weekend.  Every year before I’ve used every cup and mug in the house and had a huge hassle with cleanup.  I’m fully converted to this technique.  Full-on, fully.  :)

Watching eggs take on color… not as bad as watching paint dry, but still a little boring.  Cole wandered off after 2 eggs (see: inattention to crafts, above).

I made most of the colors this year with food coloring and vinegar, and we all agreed the colors were a lot richer than the little tablets.

Pretty!

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Our Easter morning tradition—aside from nibbling on chocolate bunny ears—is cocoa with a Peep on it.  This year it was chocolate overload.  Hopefully “EB” will bring the more colorful kind next year, as it was just a bit too much.  I think, by the time it was cocoa time, the kids had consumed as much chocolate as the average Swiss citizen does annually, so maybe they were just ‘over’ the flavor.  I tend to just let ‘em at it with regard to Easter goodies, to “get it over with”, and, go at it they did!  I am sick of chocolate just from watching them ingest all that.  Blech (and I love me some chocolate, too).

Easter dinner was dessert-free as a result.  I had thought about making a lemon cream or meringue pie, but it seemed like too much by the end of the day.  So, we had a feast of ham, fauxtatoes, greens, corn on the cob, artichoke hearts, deviled eggs, and a really yummy salad.  It sounds like a lot, but really, I put the ham in the oven at 275 for a long time, and the rest was minimal work… okay, the eggs were time-consuming, but I made them so much earlier in the day that it didn’t feel like part of the work for dinner.  :)

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This little dude is in our thoughts as he undergoes a sleep study tonight to try to determine… why he doesn’t EVER sleep, among other things.  Fingers crossed that an answer comes quickly, because I know he—and his MAMA!—need to sleep more than an hour here and there.

Hope you had a great weekend, and are having a great week, too.

snippety snippets

Bunny-ball season has opened ‘round these here parts.  Oddly, the ball has grown, upping the difficulty.

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One Friday Paul grabbed a couple of beers from beer-thirty at work and brought them home to share one with me.  We had 90 degree temps that day, so it was a Hoppy Ending to the day, indeed.  How funny is that label, anyway?

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Earlier that same day, the boys and I went early to surprise Bunny at Girls on the Run practice.  They got bored of bothering her, and hit the playground a little, but mostly partook of the water fountain.  It is a known fact water from a fountain is the sweetest, most refreshing you can find.

Cole tried his best to fill his camel hump, he guzzled so much, while Carter cooled off all over.

They played just a bit more after big sis was done, then we went home to get in the pool.  I even got in – to my waist.  I remember playing in the pool in the spring while it was being filled with well water from a hose and loving it, but my blood is too thin now.  Brrr!

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Young kids are such eager helpers.  While their older sister is growing into pre-tween induced immunity to helpfulness, the boys insist on helping—whether I want it or not.  It’s a challenge some days to include them.  Misting the flowers and sweeping with kid-sized brooms keeps ‘em happy and feeling like they’re contributing while we parents wield loppers and the scary pruning shears.

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There is nothing like a large box.  Instead of the millions of toys they have, Santa really should just hang out by the loading dock at an appliance store and bring my kids big boxes.  The kids have been playing with this one for a week, and it’s almost ready to be cut up for the recycling cart.  They’ve been dragging every cushion and pillow they can find in to make a Napping House, where naps never seem to happen.  It’s been making me crazy—the mess of half the house being pulled apart, the quarrels over whose house it is or isn’t… but to each kid’s life, a big box must come every once in a while.

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Colored bubbles are really pretty and crazy-messy.

 

At least they’re washable.

“Bunny, don’t let your mom buy those again,” said Paul.  ‘Cause he knows it was totally my idea to buy three bottles on a whim.  I am a sucker for these kinds of things.  :)

Tuesday Snippets

~itty bits not worth their own posts, probably not worth mentioning at all, but all the same~

I like my rain boots and am glad to have ‘em, but I was getting tired of wearing them.  Very, very tired. (Very.)

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Did I mention the weather has been a bit zany this spring?  Yeah.  Hail.  It was not a big deal, but I had a hard time convincing Cole to hurry up and get in his carseat so Mama would be able to stop being pelted with ice nuggets.

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On a whim I bought some regular popping corn and made it old-school, on the stovetop.  My family is riddled with full-on popcorn junkies now.  For the past month it seems that a day rarely goes by when I am not shaking a pot (or 3!) of kernels in the afternoon.  In related news, butter consumption has also risen, since that is the only way to go.  Hoc-tuey to the faux butter on popcorn.  (I do like butter spray on corn though!)

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You’re looking at a stymied squirrel.  This booger has been poaching seeds from the bird feeder for the past few weeks.  I don’t really mind him taking the odd seed now and then, but he has gotten damn picky and taken to tossing pawfuls of the smaller millet seeds for the song birds as he cherry picks for sunflower seeds.  So, last time I filled the feeder I moved it over to a new hook out of reach of branches or the screens.  He no likey.  I have to admit to a smug feeling of, “Take that, you rodent!  My superior human brain has foiled you!  Hahahaaha!”  Mr. Squirrelly Man (my daughter’s moniker for him) tried from every angle, including hanging upside down from the gutter, but had to settle for some nut from a tree nearby.

The birdbrains show no appreciation, but are pretty to look at.

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The other evening Bunny performed a complex hair transplant on Cookie Monster here.  She named it the “Bunsley Hair Clinic.”  After the procedure Cookie declared, “Me ready to rock out with me cookie out, thanks, Bunsley!”  Sadly, by the next morning, his luxurious locks had fallen off.  Bunsley Hair Clinic has no comment at this time.

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Recently Cole sat all by himself—nearly motionless, except when the clippers got close to him—for the first time getting his hair cut.

He’s getting to be such a big boy, and is starting to look forward to preschool next fall.  Cole says he’s not ready yet for me to go away and leave him there, but he will be “when brother Carter goes to big school.”  For now, he says, “I’ll stay with you Mom, okay?”  No problemo, Buddy.