Harvest Moon Hurrah!

Yesterday we went to another town festival and had a great time. I dragged everyone there right when they opened because a really great musician from here in Spanish Park, Shaun Barrowes was performing. If you like jazzy music, you should check out his website.





Evelyn was the only one brave enough to ride a horse.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

A few weeks ago we attended our town's first annual Kite Festival! We sat and waited for 30 minutes during boring speeches until finally they launched these kites from Jet Ski's over the water to the grand operatic version of "Let's Go Fly a Kite!"

Confessions

• I only do two loads of laundry, light and dark. Why do an extra load for whites? Just don't tell my mom or my mother-in-law!


• I only dust when I just can't stand it any longer. If I let that feeling pass, it can usually wait another few months.


• Washing windows... You mean people actually do that?


• Sometimes I don't file papers until there's no room left on my desk for anymore.


• After I cook, every cupboard ends up open. It's this problem I have. Don't worry, my mom knows about that.

If my house is clean, it's probably because I lost something.
Just so you feel better, I do the dishes and clean the toilet almost always.

Miss Clumsy

Look very closely and what do you notice about this picture?


Besides that she's beautiful, of course. :)
Yes, she hit her head on the same corner tripping over her same clumsy feet just a teensy bit away from where she got stitches. Luckily she slowed herself down a bit so she just bounced off the corner without it splitting open this time.
Poor girl is such a klutz!

I bought corner protectors at Home Depot today.

Ready to Be Challenged

Evelyn is now in kindergarten! The week before she had a kindergarten assessment, and right before we left, she came out all ready to go and said, "I'm ready to be challenged!"


So far she likes it, except for the time when she was in big trouble and wailing about how school is "Boring", for the 5 minutes of circle time and when they're coloring. The thought that my kids wouldn't like school has never crossed my mind!

I have to say there were no tears on my part. Jake may have shed a few, but don't tell him I told anyone. :)

Tuna, Anyone?

Tuna, Anyone?

Tuna Pasta
(This is my favorite “It’s 5:00 and I don’t know what to
make for dinner” recipe. That happens to me a lot. Sorry there are not a lot of measurements. It’s such an easy recipe, you just throw it all together. It really doesn't have a strong tuna flavor. Our kids love it.)

½ onion, chopped
Olive oil
Shredded carrots, optional
1 can tuna
2 8 oz cans tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar
Basil
Cayenne, if you like
Salt, pepper
¾ box pasta
Sauté the onion in olive oil, and add a few shredded carrots if you feel like it. When they're soft, add a can of tuna and sprinkle the surface area with dried basil. Cook for a minute, then add 2 8 oz cans tomato sauce, some cayenne, salt, and pepper, and sugar (Sometimes I add a little chopped up tomato if I have it.) While that's simmering, I cook up 3/4 box of pasta, we like penne or rigatoni, then mix together and serve with parmesan cheese. (You could cook a whole box of pasta, but you may need some extra tomato sauce or don't simmer and let it reduce as long. We don't eat a whole box yet with our family.)


Easy Tuna Casserole

3 cups cooked macaroni
2 cans tuna, drained
2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
1 1/4 shredded colby jack cheese (or cheddar, since that's all I ever have)
1 cup French fried onions and breadcrumbs (mixed)
Palmful of each - garlic powder, onion salt, oregano leaves and basil leaves
Sprinkle - celery seed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a 9x13 baking dish, combine the macaroni, tuna, soup and seasonings. Mix well and then top with cheese.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until bubbly. Sprinkle with French fried onions and bread crumbs and bake for another 5 minutes.
Serve hot.

A Bad Mom Moment

Yesterday morning I was brushing my teeth when I heard a very loud bang and "The Cry" that tells you something is definitely wrong. Eleyna had tripped over her feet and landed head first into the corner of the wall, splitting her head open. As far as head splitting goes, it wasn't terrible, but it was bad enough. I held it closed for awhile while I called my neighbor to watch the kids, then a friend drove me to the doctor where she got her head stitched back together.
I don't feel like a bad mom because I could have prevented it in any way. I didn't leave her by herself very long, she didn't trip on anything left around by house cleaning neglect. I mean, I guess I could have held her hand while she walked out of the kitchen...
I feel like a bad mom because as we sat in the doctor's office reading books as her head numbed, just me and her, she had the time of her life. I think she was so happy to be alone with me for such a long time. After getting stitched up, she left the doctor's office with a big grin on her face.
Poor girl, stuck between a demanding older sister, and a baby for most of her life. I feel bad that I haven't spent more time alone with her.

Baking

And not the cooking kind, either. Our swamp cooler is about to die, so it doesn't work after 11:00 in the morning. We have to get the house as cold as possible, glide through until about 6:00, then finally cool off again about 9:00 at night. I hate to wish for the weather to cool off, because that just means snow will be here quicker than we want, but ... I wish the weather would cool off.
And about the cooking kind, I miss baking. I don't dare cook anything and heat our house up more. I can't wait to make bread and cookies and an oven baked dinner again.

To make the heat work for me, I did make some fabulous fruit leather outside a few days when it got to be about 100 degrees. I mixed 1 quart of applesauce with 1 T Jello dissolved in 1/4 cup of boiling water. I spread it out on my super handy Tupperware silicone pad, and left it outside all day in a Jelly Roll pan covered with some see through fabric- cheesecloth would work nicely if I had it. (You could also put it in 2 13x9 pans sprayed with Pam and bake at the lowest setting in your oven, or of course in a dehydrator.)

I also roasted some homemade granola in the sunshine, which worked quite nicely.

The Trouble with Sisters

The planets have aligned and I'm finally posting on our blog. (OK, I just turned on a movie.)

Here are the disadvantages of only having sisters:

• Loves to try on Princess shoes
• Loves to wear bead necklaces
• Cries, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" when I even touch a comb to his head.

And yet, he's definitely all boy. He's our first big climber. (I'm afraid he is going to learn to climb out of the crib soon, since when I get him out he's standing on his bottle to get higher up.) He can down an ice cream cone in less than 5 minutes as his sisters daintily lick the ice cream and it all melts down the opposite side. He loves cars and trains and food.
Oh, and he's finally putting words together like: "I want some!" (Sounds like awe-some), "I outside again!"

10 Years since high school, 9 years of marriage

This weekend was my 10 year reunion. Jake couldn't understand why I've been looking forward to it so much. I just really loved high school, especially now that it's been so long that I've forgotten all of the reasons why I didn't love it. I had really great friends, so many fun memories. Besides the fact that only a few of the friends I really hung out with came, I had a really great time. It was so nice to catch up a teeny tiny bit on people's lives.

So, the best things about being out of high school?

1) I finally don't look 16. Maybe I look 20? ........ Please?

2) I'm finally glad to be tall. I hated being tall, especially in junior high when I was taller than the boys.

3) You really can't trade life experience for youth. (Cliche, I know.) Especially since I'm not a great book learner. I forget things too quickly. I have to actually experience it to remember it.

4) I've had the greatest friends in the past 10 years. I feel so lucky to have met them and so sad to have left them behind moving around so much.

5) I'm glad to finally have my own opinions about a few things, at least about my own household, maybe not about politics yet. It took me longer than most to get past my parent's ideas about things.

We also celebrated our 9 year anniversary this weekend. We stayed in a fabulous themed-room hotel, decorated like Morocco. It had a wonderful jetted tub and aromatherapy shower (if you like to be stifled and extremely hot, which Jake did.) It was a relaxing kid-free vacation. (Here are some pictures.)

So what have I learned in 9 years of marriage? Jake and I are absolutely opposite in every way possible and perfect together anyway.

My latest hobby

So the reason that I haven't blogged much lately is because I have a new hobby that takes up all of my time where the kids are fine and I can do something for myself. I have taken up programming again. (I worked for 2 years as a programmer a long time ago, long enough ago that I can hardly grasp that that was part of my life.)
I haven't decided yet if it's really worth it. I mean, it's not like I'm contributing to our family or even programming anything that's really useful. I've had this idea for a recipes program for years now, so I'm finally working on it. But it's not like there aren't a million of those programs out there. Anyway, I'm really enjoying it and learning a lot that could someday be useful, I guess. The problem is that I have the Meyers' obsession to work on projects, and sometimes I find myself working on it too much and neglecting the kids. That's the last thing I want to do. When I can do it reasonably I find myself being a better mom because I'm more involved when I'm with them and not so tired of playing that I just tune them out. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes I'm just a bad mom altogether.

Anyway, if you care, which you probably don't, I'm just so frustrated right now because my computer can't handle all the fun. I'm using JDeveloper, and it takes about half of the time I have just to wait for it to respond. Usually I use Jake's computer, which is a thousand times faster, but tonight he's playing game with a friend from Texas. I just right clicked on something, and it took a full minute to come back from all the right-clicking stress. Oh, to be rich...

Chicken comes from a pig

As we ate our Kentucky Fried Chicken tonight in our sauna home, Evelyn intelligently told Eleyna, "This chicken comes from a pig."
She is just beginning to learn that we eat dead animals and was a little confused.

Eleyna's word of the day is: "traptured", meaning to be trapped or captured. This word was created as she played at the playground with a little boy friend who was Prince Edward while she was Giselle.

Eli's word of the day: "Don't." He just learned to say it and yes, he definitely knows what it means.

Movie Star

Eli loves to sing. He may not talk much, but he loves music. It is really adorable. Try to ignore my voice, (and the 2nd flooded basement mess) and you'll hear him singing along:

Maybe this is why our microphone broke. I didn't let him use it after this, though, I promise, Jake.

I was looking for pictures to post since we don't have any up for the month of July and I found this beauty that Eleyna took of herself:


and this:


and this:
and this:
Maybe next time I'll get onto my terribly slow computer where our good pictures are and post some better pictures.

Man, I'm Lame...

My Personality

Neuroticism	54
Extraversion	34
Openness to Experience	1
Agreeableness	80
Conscientiousness	46

You do not experience strong, irresistible cravings and consequently do not find yourself tempted to overindulge, however you are sensitive about what others think of you. Your concern about rejection and ridicule cause you to feel shy and uncomfortable around others. You are easily embarrassed and often feel ashamed. Your fears that others will criticize or make fun of you are exaggerated and unrealistic, but your awkwardness and discomfort may make these fears a self-fulfilling prophecy. You tend not to talk much and prefer to let others control the activities of groups. You prefer dealing with either people or things rather than ideas. You regard intellectual exercises as a waste of your time. You dislike confrontations and are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny your own needs in order to get along with others, however you are not affected strongly by human suffering, priding yourself on making objective judgments based on reason. You are more concerned with truth and impartial justice than with mercy. You have a strong sense of duty and obligation, and feel a moral obligation to do the right thing.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.

Thanks, Dad!

My Dad came last weekend to build shelves in our new storage room. They look so great, and they are going to hold so many things. Our basement has been pretty chaotic since our two floods, so I can't wait to put everything away and have it clean for the first time in about 4 months.

The sewing desk and Storage Wall

the Food Storage Wall and Storage Wall

the Craft Counter and Craft Storage wall

Thanks, Dad! You're wonderful!