Stuff and changes.

So much has happened in the past few weeks. We watched the demise of our pool party and the birth of the trade off. More on that later lest I jinx it by mentioning it.

Oh DM if you are reading this. We need ribs ASAP! Lets get together for dinner soon. I'll bring the hungry tummies and the sides. DM= the rib lady.

We bought a truck that we badly needed. Our poor cars are like that one teacher we all had in school that was wayyyyy past their prime, limping along and hating life. We really needed to get something that we could really depend on. I really love it. I feel like a teenager getting their first car only not MY first car( which had a blown head gasket and I never got to drive it).

Squee! so excited. Thanks to SIL and BIL for letting us buy their truck and for taking such good care of it.

We started back to school a few weeks ago and wow the kids are just doing so well. They are very dedicated and I love seeing Sketch reading so well.

So enters my pet peeve. Handwriting. I cannot stand my childrens handwriting. I have tried and tried to correct it but it is like BURNED into their brains to write like mad doctors.

So do I continue to beat my head against the wall and endure hours and hours of correcting handwriting and complaining from kids who just don't think they should have to write legibly? Or do I throw up the white flag and let them write how they wish and decide I don't care if their handwriting makes them look like illiterate, backwoods hillybilly's on paper?
(no offense to backwoods illiterate hillbillies. I totally support your right to be illiterate and backwoods and eat swamp rats and the like. Power to the people!)

moving on.......We bought MTA a car for her and her Fartypapa to fix up before she turns 16. She is over the moon for her first beater car..LOL. We had hoped to do this with my husbands oldest son but that didn't manifest much to our disappointment.

So for the next year and a half or so she and Fartypapa will fix up the car and ensure it is safe and well maintained. I will ensure it is cute and fun!

MTA started seminary this year. She loves it. More time with teenagers. *le sigh*. For those of you who read this blog but don't really know what seminary is, basically its a religious class that is geared toward highschoolers, it is kind of like a short class that gives teenagers a more involved understanding of their religion.

Also this year Fartypapa and I have decided to join a homeschooling co-op...sort of. MTA and MacGuyver jr. are being enrolled in a leadership history class of sorts. They go once a week for two hours and will get an indepth look at the founding fathers and the constitution. I am not a huge history buff so in regards to history they get exposed to what is in their curriculum and that about covers it. Don't get me wrong, their curriculum is good and I am entirely happy with the level of knowledge they are getting but when my girlfriend invited them to this class I was so excited. See she is practically on fire for History. She will give them a different perspective than my own and will hopefully give them some of her enthusiasim. MacGuyver jr LOVES history. LOVES it. He loves the stories of the past and why people did what they did and how our country came to be. this class is literature based so I am thrilled for him.

Fartypapa got promoted at work and we are thrilled about it. I love the fact that he loves his job. That is so hard to find today. He really does love it and he really likes the company he works for. We are really feeling blessed and thankful.

On a similar note, my daycare kids went back to school. They are such good kids. I sure hope they get to come around again once in awhile.

I think that is all the updates for now. Posting a poem from a fellow blogger tomorrow so be sure to check me out tomorrow.

Also for those of you who followed my cookbook blog, I am sure you noticed that I haven't updated it. It's not because I haven't written any new recipes. It is because I decided to only post recipes that I won't actually put in my cookbook. So eventually I will update it but for now not so much.

Also if you have any recipes you want to share please do so and I will post them in that blog and give you all the credit! I am always looking for new recipes.

Until tomorrow
Take care of you and yours.
Mrs. F.

Days of Our Lives

After a few days of daycare drama I am already ready for the weekend. I love them but I need a break. We are having a real clash of the titans over simply eating what you are served. I think we are currently on a hunger strike. Poor guy he would be so much happier if he just ate his lunch and got it over with.

Why do kids think we are trying to poison them? I mean really how bad can cheese, potatoes and hambuger be? Or cheese noodles and chicken? I mean its not like im trying to get them to eat sushi. LOL.

Anyway, I am weary and need some time to regroup. I hope this weekend offers it.

Funny story follows.

Superman comes running into my room followed closely by his brother Walker TR. The conversation is as follows.

Superman " Mom you have GOT to look at my face!"

Mrs. F. " whats wrong? "

Superman " Look at my face! it has bumps!" ( yes he was very excited)

Mrs. F. after carefully checking it out. Stay lunch, two old bug bites " What I don't see anything dear"

Superman " I have bugs bites , look!"


Walker TR " I told him he has two bug bites on his face. See mom right there"

Mrs. F" Yes Walker but those are a week old"

Walker TR " Oh I didn't know " exit Walker TR

I look at Superman who is caressing his face as he walks toward my bedroom door exiting only to hear him say.....wait for it....

Superman " Oh I thought there were bugs coming out of my face"
Shrug.
Exit Superman.


*blink*


Mrs. F " AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....*snort* AHAHAHAHAhAhA

Not too Quick on the Uptake.

This past week Farty Papa and I were faced with the fact that we are not so quick on the uptake. Myself more so than him. So we planned Macguyver jrs party for the 11th because hey two weeks is enough prep time to set up a 20ft pool no problem. Wow....the level of wrongness is so high. Turns out we have to level the ground , enter 2 tons of sand. Then we have to set up the pool , enter half a day of work, sweat and probably some cursing. Then we have to fill the pool, enter a huge water bill ( we knew this) and crossed fingers as we hope the liner has no pinholes and the pump didn't arrive cursed. So needless to say a week is not enough time so we pushed his party to the 25th. Turns out there may be a scout campout that weekend and Macguyver jr says to me :

" what a bummer I will have to miss that campout. I really wanted to go"

...
....
......!!!!

So before I scalped him I walked away so no one fear, he is still alive.
Moving on. Now I am waiting on news of when said scout campout is and if it is that weekend then we will push it back another week . Le..SIGH. Thankfully I have yet to send out invites. DM is going to laugh her A$$ off at me for this one. It may work out if the campout is that weekend because I was told of a family gathering on the 25th that I didn't realize had been hammered out as a sure thing.

I swear I don't know wether I am coming or going and I have gone through the past few weeks with that odd feeling of " Do I have toilet paper on my shoe and I am the only one who doesn't know about it?"

I swear by the time the party comes I will be unhinged. I will need the party more than anyone else!

On a different note, our days lately have been sans school. I have found it really hard to homeschool with daycare kids here. So my kids have had a longer summer break than average for them. They actually hate it. I didn't see that coming. So next week I have decided to start up again at least somewhat.

On an even more different note, I hate picky eaters. I swear if I had a quarter for every parent that I did daycare for that said " My child is a picky eater but I don't know where he gets it from" I'd have a lot of quarters. Another one I like is " my child is a picky eater? really? Wow, he's not picky at home" Huge pet peeves of mine. I really believe kids are picky eaters because they are allowed to be. I know I am gonna raise hairs on people but I will have to deal with the fallout of my radical ideas.

Now don't get me wrong I am not a force feeding mother. Nor am I a mom that won't allow her kids to dislike anything. Far from it. However I am a mom that won't allow my kids to dictate what I cook and server and I will never be a mom that is a short order cook. No way. One family , One meal. I am trademarking that saying so don't take it. :D

When I was a kid my mom decided our meals and we ate it. If we didn't we went hungry. It wasn't long before we ate what we were given , if only to fill the empty spot. She bought and cooked what she could afford. Cheapest cuts of meat, noodles, canned veggies. We didn't eat like kings but we ate and we grew up with a broad range of tastes because of it. I will never like canned peas. Ever. Or canned spinach. However that led me to believe I hated spinach and peas period. I don't . I discovered as an adult that I love frozen peas and fresh spinach.

The point to all of this is, I have two kids that I do daycare for, LOVE LOVE LOVE them. Adorable on every front. However they are picky eaters. Now I know for a fact they are not like that only at my house. What I find so interesting is this. They are from a split household. They split their time between Mom and Dad. Now Mom and I are good friends. Almost like sisters. I treat her kids like my own. One Family, One Meal. They are not always happy campers at meal time. Now Mom is trying hard to change their eating habits and bless her heart they give her a time. However I have a sneaky suspicion that Dad is not interested in changing their eating habits. The kids tell me Dad lets them pick dinner all the time and it gravitates between , pizza, Panda Express and Burgers. Now this is a man who was concerned that I would not feed his kids healthy meals. This stemmed from a day they were at my house and they have Oven pancake for breakfast and liked it so much they ate it for lunch too. He expressed concerns to their mother that pancakes for every meal was not well balanced. *blink*
In case you don't know and Oven pancake is a dish that is baked in the oven and it puffs up like popovers. It has an eggy custard center that we often top with ham or fruit. It is very good and a part of a healthy meal :P

Needless to say my kids would love to eat pizza, burgers or Panda Express three times a week but there is no way we can afford that and no way we would allow it. So their Mom and I will continue plugging away and hope for the best.

As I said they are treated like every other kid here, they are given the meal. They eat it. They are expected to eat it and if they choose not to they are given another shot at it at snack time. If they don't eat it then, they get an interesting breakfast. Now some parents might disagree with that approach but I am trying to teach the next generation not to waste food and to appreciate what they are given and find contentment. A lot of my generation have a hard time being content with what they have so much so that they overspend, over indulge and even over populate their relationships. ( if you know what I mean)

My kids know there is one meal and they need to eat it and be grateful. There is always another meal and maybe you will get lucky and it will be something you like. LOL.
I try to get my family's input on meals as well so I don't want to come across as I make my family eat vile creations. Ask DM , I'm a pretty good cook. Besides I use her friends as guinea pigs. Not my kids. :D.

So there is a pet peeve of mine in a nutshell.
What are yours?
Till next time
Mrs. F

Clean up on aisle 7.

It seems with everything we have going on, that our backyard is like the poor cousin who lives in the woodshed.

We give it the bare minimum effort to keep it up and try and forget it exists. Largely our backyard is dirt. We live in the desert and dirt comes easy. This has become a dilemma as of late due to the fact that my son Macguyver Jr is hosting his first birthday party in a couple of weeks. This party is to be a BBQ/pool party. Out in the backyard. You are beginning to see my point.

This party would be easy to create if three things manifested ASAP.
The first being a clean, trimmed and mowed backyard. Good thing we have my brother coming over this weekend to help Farty Papa do just that. Crisis averted. Almost.

The second being that we in fact had a pool. Now I may have blogged last year about buying a softside pool and how excited we were to put it up. Alas that was never to be. We in fact never set it up and it was left to it's doom outsite in the elements. Plastic + heat + dust = pool death. We mourned and like good family members we planned to replace it. Problem is the pool we want is expensive. It will afford us longevity as it is a sturdy pool and convenience because we can leave it up year round but it ain't no chump change. We hope to have the new one before the party or egg will be on our faces. And not the good kind.

The third obstacle in our way is a BBQ. Now we have a BBQ but Farty Papa informs me that it is not in working order. I think if I had known this I never would have even suggested this party to my son. HOW can you have a party with no food? I mean there is food and then there is pool party food. DUH.
So this week I intend to go out and clean it as best I can and see if I can get the sucker to turn on.

So say a little prayer for our pathetic pool party. lol. We will need it.
Oh and DM yea I'm gonna need the chairs again..LOL. I'm not proud I am going to borrow tables from the church again too!

Truth be told I am excited about this party. My son has done so much in the past year and he deserves a celebration.

A quick thank you to Farty Papa for being the wonderful father he is. There is no doubt in my mind that our children get their good qualities from him but a few they got from me , make them interesting. :D.
I love you, we love you and I am proud to say you have been the kind of father to our children that I wished I had had for myself. Thank you.
Mrs. F.

Blessings, Trials and something to look forward to.

It has been a long long time since I have blogged. I could say I've been busy, I could say I haven't been inspired, I could say I have been hiding. All would be true and all would also be a lie.

The truth is far more uninteresting. I haven't blogged lately because it stopped meaning what it used to , to me. It used to mean a way for me to chronicle my life for my childrens sake. To document changes, successes, failures, joy, pain and all of our lifes "moments". It used to mean a way for me to focus on the little joys and quirky moments that display all of my blessings quietly. So quietly sometimes that if I am not keyed in, I can miss them. It used to be a way for me to not miss those moments.

Somewhere it became more like those banal Christmas letters we all get from people we know we aren't important to. I don't want the story of my life to get lost in a christmas card. I don't want that for my kids either. So I stopped blogging. It wasn't a concious decision it was a series of moments that I encountered where I chose not to document my life.

I recently had a conversation where there were several opinions about blogging, the internet and people oversharing. I guess I have never been one to worry so much about oversharing as much as I worried about withholding myself from those I loved. Or holding back myself so much that It changed who I was.

I personally love reading blogs about those people who are important to me. I wish those around me did it more. In a society where we are all so busy and so wrapped up in our own lives, struggles etc. It gives those around you a chance to know when even small things happen. I may not talk to my family every day or my nieces or nephews but I read about them whenever I can. When I do see them I have things I can ask them about, begin a dialogue with them about things that are important happenings in their lives. I like that.

I like knowing one of my sister in laws loves her cats. I like knowing that she has suffered something and allows those that care about her to share in her pain. It's a way to bond even though she is states away from me. I like knowing when my brother in law hires a stretch hummer to woo his wife. I like knowing about new babies on the way and getting the glimpse of the very tender heart of one of my sister in laws. She likes to have people think she is tough and that she doesn't care what others think or say about her. I like knowing that she really does. I like that I know this. I like knowing moments in the lives of those people I love.

Suddenly I began to see those banal Christmas letters quite differently. Instead of seeing them as a needle to poke me with, to remind me that while I may merit a once a year letter I do not merit anything more. A subtle your not welcome here sign. I started seeing them as a window. A window that allows me to see moments in peoples lives whom I may wish I was closer to but for whatever reason it is not meant to be. It dawned on me that it was a blessing. Something I am now grateful for.

What does all of this meandering have to do with my blog. Well I began to think that perhaps there was someone out there who wanted a window to my family. I had closed that window and drawn the curtain and what if I had shut someone out? I decided that it was a good thing to blog about my life and my family. I know that 99% of the world will never see or care what I write but there are a few and more than that....I care. I will see it and perhaps one day it will allow me to write my life story to give to my children one day.

I decided that I was holding back so much that it changed who I was. It changed how I approached something I loved. I no longer care if blogging makes it look like I spend all my time on the computer. I no longer care if it makes people talk or wonder about my commitment to my family. If you actually read my blog those two things would be laughable.

So here I go again. A life story unfolded and unfolding.
Mrs. F.

A Fun Day

Today promises to be a good day. The kids are going to the park with Grandma. She is going to teach them to play tennis. They are happy with any excuse to go to the park. This will give me some time this afternoon to sort through the kids books that came yesterday! I love books. So far , from what I've looked at, these books are perfect. I am so excited for next year!

I also will have some time to research some vendors for my business. I need to find wholesalers for most of my materials. I am excited to get things really moving. I have made some beautiful designs that I am anxious to put out there and see if anyone agrees!

The kids are getting a day off from school , their cousins have a half day so I decided to just give them the day. Half days are generally our day. lol. They are currently finishing up their chores so they won't have anything to do when they come home. It always shocks me how quiet the house gets when the kids leave. The dogs get forlorn and follow me around , even to the bathroom. They hop up on the couch if I am sitting there, and lay next to me or they lay on the floor at my side of the bed if I am napping or working on my laptop. It's quite funny. Have you ever seen a beagle sad? If you know beagles they are very emotional. They wear these emotions on their already sad looking faces.

( I thought I lost this post due to a net hiccup and turns out it POSTED! I wasn't finished yet so I will finish now)

This evening DM and I are going to do sushi and then to a new asian market here in town. I am excited. I love asian markets. They have so much more to offer me and my way of cooking than traditional markets. Love love love them! I have promised myself that I am going to learn to make my own Sushi this year. I need to invest in some of the gear and then I will be ready to start.

Farty Papa is not feeling well this week. We think he got attacked by a really vicious allergy. He was really miserable yesterday and he didn't complain once when I had to help a friend out with something, which meant her two children had to come over and play with ours. By the time I got home I could tell he was just burnt. I felt bad for making him babysit but I think he understood that my friend needed some help. I taught her how to make homemade laundry soap. She needed to do laundry, had no soap and no money to buy any. Mrs. F to the rescue!

I was happy to help but something tells me Farty Papa needs some pampering tonight. I'm happy to help him with that too! *grin*

Until tomorrow.
Mrs. F.

P.S.
I hope to have pictures coming soon.

A full plate

Once again I find myself busier than I have ever been. I always have in the back of my mind to take on less. To do less. Often because at the end of the day I growl at myself because my kids have to play in the backyard instead of going to the park. Mom just doesn't have the time to pack up five kids and make that trip. I always feel lacking in the mom department. Why do Moms always feel so lacking?

So here is the break down of what I'm doing!

I am expecting a delivery tomorrow of the kids school books for next year. So exciting. I am so relieved to have that out of the way. The kids are eagerly awaiting summer and the pool being set up.

I am still working on my cookbook and trying to find any opportunity I can to cater parties. I have written probably ten new recipes in the last month and I hope to have them uploaded to my Foodie blog soon.

I am working on getting my website up and running for my new business. I haven't blogged much about it but it's exciting. I make handmade jewelry. Look for The Silver Lining coming soon!

We homeschool five days a week and we will continue throughout the summer. However we will have shorter days because I am not keen to have them inside most of the summer.

We got some sad news on Sunday. It seems MTA's best friend is moving away in June. I can't even express my sadness for her but she seems to be handling things very pragmatically. How did she get so level headed? I'm really proud of her for seeing the big picture and oddly I think the internet will help her stay close to her friend and feel connected. She is one of my Hero's. I wanna be like her when I grow up.

A bit of randomness. I have a new obsession. I am HOT for this new thing I found. I want one so bad. Check this bad boy out!

http://www.trikke.com/Trikke-Showroom/hp/T78-Convertible

You see I want to lose a bit of weight and this is the first and ONLY piece of equipment that ever got me excited. Farty Papa has seen many things he likes in the fitness world but me? Never. However this seems right up my alley. I need low to no impact due to bad knees. I need something that is going to be fun as well as faster paced. I want no jumping around and all that business. Nope. This is perfect for me. I would love for MTA and I to each have one and then we could go along with the boys when they go on bike rides. MTA hates bike riding and quite frankly my girly parts have forbidden me from riding my bike . EVER.

Only one problem. They are so expensive. If I could afford it I would get one for everyone in my family. I can so easily see this little scooter being life changing for my family. We just can't afford it. How cool would it be for a group of homeschooled kids to be told" Close your books it's time for Phys Ed. Get your Trikkes! " I would love that. We would be on those things ALL the time..LOL.

I so wish we could afford them. I bet they are worth every penny. I would give them free advertising. Heck I'd pimp my car for them! LOL. Oh well. Maybe someday we will be able to afford them.

I wish that I could afford the really great things I want for my family. Maybe this business venture will be an answer for my family. I love creating and designing jewelry and to be able to make a living at it would be amazing.

Well time to sign off and get dinner going. Mozzarella chicken over pasta with garlic fococcia and a micro green salad with fresh green beans in a chunky vingrette! YUM!
Until next time
Mrs. F