Bad Mothering

Today had to be one of my worst days as a mother. Of course I'd like to say that my children had the worst days of their young lives, but I really don't think that was the case. I know what the problem was, I had a long list of thing to accomplish, and nothing on it even hinted at playing with or spending time with the boys. Time and time again I have found that if I will take just 10 minutes and play baseball or put a puzzle together with Isaiah he is more than happy to go off and do his own thing for awhile. Nate seemed really clingy today too. He probably needed held. Pretty soon he won't want to be held. WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER THIS STUFF IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT?

Jeremy had work today and didn't get home until after 6:00. Being the wonderful husband that he is he let me leave for awhile, by myself, to do some shopping. I usually feel a little guilty for leaving him with the boys after he's worked all day, but tonight I just took advantage of the offer and left. When I got home he was reading to both boys. Looked like nothing much had happened. Then I heard the rest of the story...

Nathan loves to climb up on the kitchen chairs. Tonight he climbed up and spilled Isaiah's orange juice on the floor. Jeremy went to the sink to get something to cleaning it up. While he was gone, Nathan dropped Jeremy's glass onto the floor. The glass of course broke. Nathan has now earned some time in his highchair. It has wheels and Jeremy pushed it out of his way so he could clean up the mess. He pushed it next to the fridge. Where Nathan gladly played with the water button making yet one more mess. DOESN'T THAT JUST MAKE YOU SMILE? :) Nathan gets into so much more than Isaiah ever did. What a dear husband I have!

Two of my sister-in-laws let their kids play with beans. I decided to try it. It works great for about the first 5 minutes until someone (usually Nate) realizes that they are so much fun to throw. :( Maybe it's a boy thing. Anyway, you really should try this very cheap way to keep your kids busy sometime. Of course they are a choking hazard, so keep a close eye on small kids. I give them each a bowl or two and a couple measuring cups. If you put the kids and the beans on an old sheet the clean up is much easier. That is until they start throwing the beans. :(

Say Something

• I feel like I must post something, but I don't know what. One of these days maybe I'll post some pictures.
• Tonight while I was teaching piano Jeremy gave Nathan his bath. Nathan pooped in the bath tub. :( My wonderful husband cleaned it all up. :)
• When we got home from Rosedale Hans and Angela had food (yeah!) in our fridge and tulips (YEAH!) on the table. I finally threw them out tonight. Isaiah noticed they were gone and asked "Mommy, where are those bootiful fwoers?"
• In the past 1 1/2 weeks Isaiah has told me I'm bootiful, I'm a sweet girl, He wuvs me soooo much, he likes me and he wishes he had two mommies. He also asked me yesterday which girl he was going to marry. Tonight I heard: (Isaiah)"Jeremy, I'm coming upstairs. I'm going to call you Jeremy". (Jeremy) "OK, but I'd prefer you call me Daddy."
• Nathan is growing up quickly. He understands what we say very well, but sometimes is able to fool us. He has the most amazing chuckle I've ever heard. He and Isaiah play pretty well together sometimes and other times Isaiah picks on Nathan until Nathan screams. Other times Nathan thinks Isaiah is the funniest thing around. Isaiah can get him to laugh better than anyone.
• My cousin Michelle (thank you!) has told me several times to use a blog reader to keep track of the blogs I follow. I thought it sounded like a good idea, but never took the time to do it. Plus, it's just so exciting to go down through my favorites, one at a time, and see if anyone had posted anything. ?? While we were at Rosedale I made the switch. Let me tell you, it's great! I have cut my internet time down so much. Now I sign on to blogger, go to my dashboard and look, no one posted anything today, again. It's great. You must try it.

Can't think of anything else to post. I'll be back soon with a recipe. Hopefully.

Pose Photography

If you live in the area and are looking for a good photographer check out Pose Photography!

Still Here

I feel like I should post something on here, but I really don't know what to post. Life is a little crazy right now.

We got home from Rosedale around 11:3o PM Friday night. It's crazy to bring two little boys into a house they haven't seen in 6 weeks at that time of night. They both slept for most of the last two hours so they were ready to play when we got here. I think it was about 1:00 or 1:30 until I put Nathan to bed and Isaiah followed soon after. We went to bed around 2:00 and Isaiah was still not sleeping. Jeremy hung blankets over the windows in their room hoping maybe they'd sleep in. Nope, 7:30 and Isaiah was ready to get up and start playing again. Oh to be 3 and live to play! The late night is hard, but it was so nice to wake up at home and have a day to unpack and relax.

I must say it is a little, ok a lot, overwhelming to come back to a fully furnished house. After living in an apartment with only the basics you get used to the feel of opening a cupboard and seeing empty shelves, and closets that aren't packed full. The down side of this is that you don't have the odd spice or pair of shoes when you'd like to have them. Now that I'm back in my kitchen I'm trying to figure out what I can do to organize my space better. I'm starting to agree that clutter can cause stress. I was amazed to open my cupboard and see how much stuff I have in there! I'm ready to pull out my organizing book again. One thing that makes my kitchen look nice, but really takes away from the amount of cupboard space is that 3 of the cupboard doors have glass in them. Maybe I'll post a picture sometime and you can give me feedback.

Most of you know that due to our lovely economy Jeremy is without a job. He's been blessed to be able to do some construction jobs and that has helped a lot. We always say that God will provide, but when all people are talking about is how bad the economy is and how no one has any work it gets a little scary. God really has provided for us in so many ways and we feel very blessed. Even so, the not knowing that goes with not having a regular income is stressful. I don't like to post bummer news, but this is such a part of what my life right now that it's hard to leave it out. I am amazed at the peace that God gives us when we seek Him. He really is in control.

In closing, I'm wondering at what age you should start to teach a child about the Trinity.
Isaiah "Mommy, God made my booboo feel better. Jesus isn't very good at that". ???!!

Cinnamon Knots

One thing about living at Rosedale for 6 weeks, that is hard for me, is not having the usual baking ingredients in my kitchen. It's not a hardship by any means, just not convenient when I get an urge to bake. I don't know what it is about this place, but it puts me in the mood to bake cinnamon rolls or something along those lines. This year I came a little better prepared. I brought yeast and cinnamon. What else could you need? When I started looking on Taste of Homes website for a cinnamon roll recipe that didn't require anything strange beyond cinnamon and yeast I was amazed at how hard it was. Do you all keep maple flavouring in your kitchen? That one would have stumped me at home too! Most rolls also have frosting that calls for powdered sugar. Something I didn't think was worth bringing or buying considering I use very little of it at home. Anyway, this is getting much longer than I thought it would. I finally found this recipe. I've made it three times since we've been here!!! I did give some of them away, but we ate way yonder too many ourselves. (Did you hear Andy Griffith in that last sentence?) Another thing I learned from this recipe is that, low and behold, you can actually knead bread without a Kitchen Aid! Wow! What a great workout for my arms. Or it would have been if I hadn't eaten half the knots myself. :( You really should try this recipe. You won't be disappointed! P.S. the full name is Cinnamon Love Knots. Something just doesn't sound right about that name...

Sunday Night

We are enjoying some beautiful, spring like weather. Finally!

We've had a good weekend. Friday night I went with LaRonda to a women's spa night with ladies from her church. There were a lot of ladies together talking, eating, soaking their feet, painting their toe nails and finger nails, waxing eyebrows (ouch!), spray tanning (I stayed far away from it) and other great girl things. I didn't know anyone but LaRonda I had a great time and made new friends.

We all went to Tim and LaRonda's house for supper and overnight on Saturday. We decided to stay overnight so we could put the children to bed and have more time with Tim and LaRonda. What a great idea! (thanks guys!) We sat in their hot tub. So relaxing! It made us realize how little time we spend with other couples without children. We actually talked and talked without any interruptions. (once Isaiah decided to fall asleep). Great times.

It's hard to believe that we leave for home on Friday already. I'm ready to go, but I'll be sad to leave. What can I say. I'm sentimental.

To celebrate the warmer weather Jeremy and Isaiah did a round of disk golf here on campus. I took Nathan out also for a little while. He was wet and muddy by the time we got back, but he loved it.

Here are a few pictures. (The hats came from my cousin, Greta. Aren't they cute?!)

I couldn't resist taking this picture. Has anyone attended RBC without having their picture taken here?

(I think I climbed into this window. Once, a long time ago. Don't tell anyone)

For Pappy

Quinoa

Do any of you use/like quinoa? I'd like to try it, but I'm wondering if its good and the best way to fix it.

More pictures

What a face! He wants to climb onto the table, but knows he's not supposed to be there. Little monkey.

For those of you that haven't been to RBC, here is a glimpse of what the apartment building is like that we are staying in. Jeremy is standing in the door to our apartment taking the picture. Our apartment is at the end of the hall on the second floor. The stairway is on my left. The first floor is laid out pretty much the same way.

I love this picture. (Actully, Jeremy's arm looks small on this picture. Bad angle. But that's for me to know and you not to know. :))

Hide and Seek

In case you didn't know this, let me tell you that Jeremy is a great daddy to our boys. He sure knows how to have fun. Here's a picture I took during a hide and seek game. This one even had me looking for longer than 30 seconds.