Spring Baskets 2012

As per our Spring Basket tradition, on the first day of Spring, Rich hid all of their baskets ... and the fun began! 

Rosalie LOVED looking through her basket!

Jonathan has been wanting a Webkinz bird ... he was so happy to find one in his basket!

Aaron loved his new Webkinz...but probably loved his new Wii game the most!

What is better than Star Wars Legos for a 9 year old boy? I suppose it was a toss up for Martin ... his new Wii game was pretty awesome too!

Thursday Dinner Winner

Last week I made White Chicken Chili.

I forgot to take pictures of the chili that I made, but the picture provided in the blog above is a good one! 

I absolutely LOVED it. It is an excellent recipe and very tasty. It is definitely one that I will make again. The only thing that I will change when I make it again is that I am going two puree to cans of white beans instead of one. So, I will use 3 total cans of white beans instead of 2. We loved how the pureed beans thickened the chili ... but both Rich and I found that we were wishing it were just a bit thicker.

The children did not love this recipe. Martin eats everything without complaining. He's always been an excellent eater. He did say it wasn't his favorite. Jonathan seemed to like it the most of all the children. Aaron had a difficult time with it, but he has a difficult time with just about every thing! (He's come a long way, though!)

Rich and I both loved it, though. We have found that the children warm up to new things after they've had it a few times. So, we'll definitely be having this again! 

Tadpoles are Growing!

We are having so much fun watching these tadpoles grow! 

We noticed last week that some of them were growing their hind legs!

You can see the legs quite well in this picture. The metamorphosis is pretty amazing to observe!

My singer ...

She sings a lot. She reminds me so much of me when I was 3 years old. I used to sit on our front porch and sing as loud as I could without any thought of who could hear me. She does the same thing. All through rest time the other day she was singing as loud as she could. Finally, I crept upstairs to get a video memory of it. Rosalie is such a happy and joyful child. She is full of smiles, laughs, and pure joy. I don't ever want to forget the times that she sat alone on her bed and sang songs without a care in the world!

Family Fun Night - Outdoors

Last weekend, I took Martin and Rosalie out grocery shopping with me.  While walking around the Harris Teeter, I picked up a package of Bistro Naturals Uncured All Beef hot dogs and got the bright idea that we should roast hot dogs in our fire pit.

This was a first for our children and they kept thanking us over and over again. It was a huge hit and we had so much fun. The weather was perfect - warm, but cool enough to enjoy. They had so much fun roasting the hot dogs that they were not able to eat all that they roasted! In fact, Martin and Aaron ate so much they weren't able to eat the dessert that I made to go with our meal. (chocolate muffins ... which were super yummy ... I'll have to share that recipe later!)
Aaron kept saying ... "I cooked my own supper!"
We will definitely be doing this again soon!

Growth Journal

Rosalie 

3 years 1 month

37 1/2 "

36 lbs

54th percentile for height

87th percentile for weight

Jonathan

5 years 5 months

43 3/4"

41 lbs

43rd percentile for height

37th percentile for weight

Aaron

7 years 3 months

47 1/4"

53 lbs

25th percentile for height

53rd percentile for weight

Martin

9 years 11 months

51"

64 lbs

8th percentile for height

30th percentile for weight

A middle of the night memory...

The other night, I heard some milling about upstairs, I saw the bathroom light was on ... and then I heard some noises in the kitchen. So, I got up and went to the kitchen. As I walked into the kitchen, I came face to face with Jonathan. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at me. In his hands he held a half eaten banana. I very calmly asked him, "Jonathan, what are you doing?"

And he very calmly responded, "Isn't it obvious?"

Yep, he said that. 

He went on to say, "Mommy, I am so hungry!"

So, I told him to finish his banana and then go back to bed!

We've all been there, right? We've all woken up hungry in the middle of the night! He could have grabbed one of the banana chocolate chip muffins I had made the day before ... but he grabbed a banana. I thought that was a pretty smart snack to reach for.