The Most Wonderful Thing in the World and Is It too much to ask Part II

I think fresh garden peas are one of the most delicious foods in the world. Ours are just coming on this week. Yum, yum!


And...
I got Eleyna to clean up the basket in her room by giving her a single pea for everything she cleaned up. I know, I know, the magic answer is to stay with them while they clean up. I just want to be able to say, "Go clean your room!" and be done with it while I clean up the rest of the house.

Is it too much to ask?

Is it too much to ask to get your kids to clean their room? I've made up all kinds of games, tried all kinds of tricks, all to end up with a 3-year old moaning and groaning and protesting and falling on the ground because her legs don't work or she's too tired or she just can't do it.
I've tried rolling the Cranium dice to pick a color, then cleaning up 3 things of that color. I've tried picking a Candy Land card, then cleaning up 3 things of that color. I've tried having them clean up 10 things throughout the day, but they end up cleaning up 10 socks at a time, and it just never works.
Evelyn is great - after her 10 minutes of moaning, she'll just clean it all up. So I put some things in a basket for Eleyna to clean up, and she just won't do it. After telling her just to clean up the basket, she came out of her room all smiley and happy and went to play with some toys, cheerfully ignoring me while I asked her if she cleaned her basket. Then she snuck downstairs and again happily ignored me until I dragged her back upstairs. Now she's just screaming and crying. Yes, I even tried standing next to her and offering to help, but she just lay on her bed and cried.
Is it really worth it? Anyone have a magic answer?

The Sneaky Chef

I love cookbooks. When I sit down to read a book, more often than not, it's a cookbook. That doesn't make me a great cook, and most often I still scrounge about at 5:00 wondering what I'll cook for dinner, but I dream about being a good cook with meals on the table every night. (Of course it's not that easy to stay motivated to cook when your kids would rather have fish sticks or Ramen noodles.)
Anyway, I just got this book from the library called The Sneaky Chef, and I'm really excited to try it. There are about 10 main recipes for vegetable purees and mixes that you then "sneak" into your recipes. For example, there's a puree of spinach and blueberries that you can sneak into brownies or hamburgers, a puree of carrots and sweet potatoes to sneak into pasta sauce. Basically if the color of the pureed veggies or beans matches the color of your food, you can sneak it in. (It's basically like making baby food, so if you have a baby, then it does double duty. Or you can even just use baby food.)
That way, when your kids only eat their one delicious carrot with fresh dill straight from your garden, you're not quite so stressed out, because they just ate carrots and sweet potatoes in their Mac 'n Cheese without even knowing it. Eli sure had no clue tonight as he ate half the box.
Someday they may realize that the vegetables on their plate actually do taste good.

There's Something Wrong with this Picture

No, I'm not posting pictures of myself in a tight shirt before taking "The Bowflex Challenge" (see posts below), although this would be an appropriate title for that, too.
I'm talking about this:
"You WILL get out of this car and play!" (said in a very angry voice)

Yes, this morning those words came out of my mouth. We got to the park and Eleyna didn't want to get out because it was too cold. I gave her the option of 3 jackets and a blanket, but she defiantly refused. Well, I dragged her out of the car and carried her to the park where she sat bundled up eating food for the next hour. It is probably selfish of me, I agree. I wanted to visit with my friends who were there, too. However, Eli had a fun time and you can't say I'm too selfish because I ended up hardly visiting with my friends and instead held Eli's hand while he crossed one of those rickety park bridges over and over. (and over and over...) At least he had fun, well, until Evelyn "helped" him down the slide and he ended up hitting his face on the slide, and until she "helped" him not cross the logs surrounding the park, which he really wanted to do.
If you knew what I went through to get to the park, you'd probably also understand why I really wanted to get out of the car. Let's just say it involved a spanking, a "That didn't hurt", and a spanking later on without the "That didn't hurt".

But, hey, it's all worth it, right? Here's one example why: