FYI

Today I discovered that Peter loves candy canes. The Christmas tree candy cane count has gone from 12 to 9 today (to be fair, Noah ate one).

Animal Farm

I know you all thought with a title like that I'd be writing about my kids, but I'm not. I read Animal Farm by George Orwell over Thanksgiving and I really liked it. It was very interesting and captivating. I like the symbolism and I'm glad I read it. Any other comments?

Overheard

Today Grace and Claire decided to clean the bathrooms to do service, which they learned about in primary today. As Claire walked out of one I heard her say, 'Well THAT bathtub is filthy' in a very matter of fact tone. Ahh, kids.

The Bee

Grace gets to compete in the school spelling bee along with one other student from her class. Congratulations, Grace, we know you worked hard for it! First grade spelling is pretty awesome, so it should be quite a competition:)

Feelin' Crafty

My camera keeps taking really terrible, usually blurry pictures and I'm not sure why (probably user error) so my pics aren't great, but here are two crafts I have recently made that I'm pretty proud of. Number one is a "Merry Kissmas Countdown" it's like an advent calendar only with hershey kisses glued onto a ribbon--super easy (thanks for the idea Nat). I also made one with mini-peanut butter cups for Trev since he doesn't particularly like kisses. Up close and blurry:I also made this cake plate for my mom using a candle holder and a fancy glass plate that I adhered together. I gave it to her for her birthday and she loved it (of course why wouldn't she, I mean, it's awesome...and it was from ME).

Does Terrible + Funny = Terribly Funny?

I have an embarrassing (to myself) story to tell, so brace yourselves. It was a busy day today and I didn't exactly get around to changing Peter's diaper when I should have. I kept thinking, 'oh his diaper is probably full I should change it--but I'm in a hurry, I'll change it later'. After I dropped off Grace at piano I had two returns to make at two different stores. At the first store I made my return and Noah had to go to the bathroom so I decided to change Pete while I was in there. It was completely soaked with pee as was his onesie and his pants so I stripped his diaper off...before checking to make sure I had a clean one in my purse....which I did not. So I had a half naked, wet baby with no diaper in a rather gross bathroom. All I could do was grab a few paper towels, wrap them 'gently' around him and snap his onesie back up and pull up his pants and go. The really terrible part is that I only had 30 minutes to run these two errands before I had to get Grace so instead of going to the store across the street to buy a diaper...or run home to change him...I went to the second store.

I am not proud of myself.

The ENTIRE time I kept thinking, this is a terrible idea. He is going to pee all over me out of spite. But the trip was problem free and lightning fast-hallelujah home depot-and then I ran home and changed him and got to piano with a few minutes to spare.

This was not a great day, but I thought it was a little funny and will probably get funnier as time goes by. As long as Peter isn't permanently scarred from the experience (and he seemed perfectly content in his paper towel diaper), I think we'll be fine.

Easy Healthy Recipes

I need some ideas for dinner that are 1) easy 2) healthy and 3) my kids will like. With Trevor working nights it is hard to get motivated to make a nice meal for dinner especially if the kids are just going to throw it on the floor (Peter...well Noah, too) or complain that it's "blech".
Tonight was pretty successful with Ramen noodles cooked with frozen peas and cut up carrots topped with crispy sauteed chicken breast seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. But I need MORE...MORE I say!!! Any ideas would be much appreciated.