The Kitchen

I won't claim to be a great cook or baker.. I follow the recipes and I don't go far from them.. but I love food. My Grandma Jean and my mom always tell people when I was a little girl I would look through the grocery ads and say, "mmmm... Strawberries....mmmmm....peaches...mmmm....bananas..". It's true. I love food. And it wasn't until about two years ago that I began to really enjoy baking and cooking.

We're a very frugal family. We don't have a huge grocery budget, so we have to improvise..a lot. But it's improvising that has made cooking fun. I love to Google substitutions for things a recipe calls for. For example- if you don't have butter or oil (or don't want to use them) you can sub. apply sauce. If you need whipping cream (not for whipping though.. more like for cream in a sauce) you can use milk and butter.

For my 23rd birthday we only had one car and Jordan had it for work and I was home with the kids and wanted to make myself a birthday cake. So I made my first Carrot Cake. It took me almost an hour to grate baby carrots by hand. I called Grandma Jean and I told her what I was doing and she laughed and then told me to use baby food carrots... I didn't do it. Carrot Cake will always remind me of her.

I learned how to make dry beans in a crock pot.. make my own pie crust from scratch, make bread, cinnamon rolls and pizza dough from scratch... I LOVE cooking from scratch now. There is something very gratifying about bringing all these ingredients together and making something that tastes a million times better than something that came from a box. I feel proud when I put something on the table that is made completely from scratch.

My kids love cooking too. They love to help in the kitchen and I love to let them help. My grandma Jean always let me help her in the kitchen. One time I was making brownies with Grandma and my cousin, Hailey. Hailey was 3 years old and told me that Grandma lets her crack the eggs all by herself... and I believed her. So I let her and then I spent the next 15 minutes making sure I got all the egg shells out of the batter. I know better now than to let me kids crack eggs by themselves.

I wanted to share a few recipes I've tried over the last couple of days. They're all new recipes and they turned out great.

PB&J Granola- If you like peanuts and peanut butter this is for you! The first time I made it I got distracted on pinterest and burned the granola. I was so mad I wanted to scream. Like I said before, we're a frugal family. We don't have money to be throwing away food!.. but it was burned so I had to. I tried it again the next day without the computer close by (so I wouldn't get distracted) and it came out perfectly. It only took about 20 or 25 minutes and I turned it every 5-7 minutes to keep it from burning.

Raspberry & Chocolate Chip Muffins- King Soopers had raspberries on sale 4/$5 so we had lots to use before they went bad. I thought these were delicious.

Vegetarian Tortilla Stew- I made a 1lb bag of black beans in the crock pot and added all the other ingredients as the beans cooked. It was so yummy!

whirlwind weekend

This has been an incredible weekend! It was so refreshing and very much needed!

Last weekend Jayden came up to his grandma and said, "Gramma you wanna spend the night with me?" In the sweetest voice you've ever heard! Of course she said yes! So we planned that Jayden and Gabri would have a sleepover Thursday night since grandma and Jordan had Friday off work.

After we dropped them off Jordan, Me and Levi all went to dinner with my mom, brother, his girlfriend and my aunt Renate to celebrate my brother's last day of mechanical school. We then went shopping at TJ MAXX and had a quiet night at home. Dinner and shopping without two toddlers was very enjoyable since we weren't having to chase anyone around the store/restaurant.

Friday we just hung out all day and cleaned, which was great to do nothing and purge the things we no longer need.

Saturday my mom, aunt Renate and cousin Hailey picked me and Levi up. We went to my brother and his girlfriend's baby shower for my unborn nephew. It was a nice girls day out.

Then for the whopper, SUNDAY! We went to church and the service was incredible! A group just went to the Open Heaven Conference at Bethel in Redding, CA. They shared their experiences and it was very powerful stuff. During church I got a text from one of our very best friends saying that him and his wife were in town from California. We went to my in-laws for lunch and got to visit with them for awhile. After we finished eating a fantastic meal (because my mother-in-law is an incredible cook), we headed to my nephew's 7th birthday party. We ate snacks, cookies, brownies and then went swimming (indoors). I love my family and it's so fun to be able to hang out all together. My kids love swimming! All my parent's kids and grandkids were there, my aunt and uncle and two of my cousins.

After the birthday party we went to my Grandpa Bill's baseball field and watched our friend's brother and his wife play baseball and sat and visited with their family for an hour.  It's so great to have friends that live out of state but when they come back it's like they haven't even been gone. It's been about 5 months since we last saw them and besides Brendan's long hair, nothing has changed. Our friendship with them is just as close.

If there is one thing I'm constantly learning and being thankful for, it's my family. I'm really learning the meaning of the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child". I was really arrogant when I first became a mom and thought I could do it all on my own. The more children I have the more I realize I need help and I WANT help. I'm so thankful our families all live so close and we're able to spend time with each other on a regular basis.

I'm blessed.

My Boy and His Momma

Last night I went to Zumba for the second time. This morning when I woke up I felt like my blood sugar was low or maybe dehydrated and even after eating and a couple glasses of OJ I'm still not feeling great. Jayden wanted to go play outside so I started going through the dryer to find his play clothes. As he was getting dressed I laid my head on the laundry basket full of clothes that are waiting to be folded and put away. Jayden asked me what was wrong and I told him I didn't feel good. He then started rubbing my back and laid his head on my shoulder. For several minutes we stayed like this and I enjoyed every second of it!

Moments like this remind me of how special a mom is to a little boy. I'm lucky I have two of these little guys to give me lots of love!

Potty Training The Second Time Around

At 33 months or 3 months before Jayden turned 3 (that's a lot of 3s)... we tried a new approach to potty training. Jordan came home from work and that day they had a speaker teaching the families he works with about potty training and sign language. One piece of advice she gave was to go to the store and let the kids pick out their new big kid undies. When Jordan got home he was all about this idea and I was not for it at all. It's not that I didn't want Jayden potty trained, but we already had 3 pairs of undies that were brand new and had never been used.

Later that day we went to the store and Jayden and Gabriella both picked out their new undies. As soon as we got home Jayden sat down of the potty and did his business for the first time. I had been trying to get him to potty for months and he would never "go". So you can imagine my surprise that all of a sudden he could just do it! Within a week Jayden was completely potty trained (including night time) and only had 3 or 4 accidents TOTAL.

Now almost 3 years old seems to be kind of old to still be wearing diapers, and believe me I was SO over changing his diapers! But after having such an easy time training him (since he pretty much did it himself) I think it was better to wait. He could walk up the stairs, open the bathroom door, undress himself, sit on the potty and flush all by HIMSELF.

This brings me to my next point - Gabriella. She actually started "going" on the potty before Jayden did. We would sit her down and she would just go. I couldn't believe it. I thought she would be potty trained before her older brother! I know girls potty train sooner than boys, but is it really worth it if she can't do everything else by herself (i.e. the undress, re-dressing, opening the door, etc.)??

A friend of mine told me Michelle Duggar (from 19 Kids And Counting) doesn't potty train her kids until they're capable of undressing and redressing themselves. I have to think that a mom of 19 kids has a pretty good idea of how to do things and I agree with her.

Lately, Gabri tells me "Go potty!" all the time. So every time I'll go and put her on the potty and she has only gone twice.  I know she's not ready yet because I've put her in her big girl panties and a dress (to help with undressing herself) and she just has accidents instead of going to the potty.

So what do I do? Do I keep taking her to the potty every time she asks and spend the next 6 months trying to potty train her? Or do I stop taking her even though she's asking me to go and wait until she's completely ready?

By the way, the little princess will be 2 in just 12 days!!!!!

I'm back!

First of all, thank you all so much for your love and support after my last blog. It was really hard in the beginning with 3 kids under 3 years old. I still have those rough moments where I wonder how I'm going to make it through the day without losing my sanity. But God is good and I am learning how to rely on him to be the best mother I can.

I'm starting to get the hang of this new life with 3 kids. Levi is now 2 months.. almost 2 and half months old. He's smiling all the time (Jordan calls him Mr. Smiler which always causes Levi to grin really big) and he's starting to coo! It's adorable! He's taking 3 naps a day which allows me plenty of time to spend with the older kids and a nap or alone time in the afternoon. However, he's still not sleeping through the night, he still gets up about 2 or 3 times to eat.

Jayden is completely in LOVE with Levi. He constantly comes up and kisses him and talks to him or gets him a car to "play" with. Lately he's been asking if Levi can sleep in his room with him. I think Jayden is ready to kick Gabriella out! Gabri is adjusting okay. She is definitely getting into the two year old phase.. if you know what I mean.. So we're having to teach her to obey and to what is okay and what's not okay. She is just as obsessed with Spider Man as Jayden is.  I think they'd watch it all day long if I'd let them.

I've trying to do preschool activities with the big kids. Some of things we've done are:

Putting pipe cleaners through colander

Picking up cotton balls with tweezers

Painting with peach pits

Somethings I want to do with the kids are:

Screwing bolts on to a screw

Rainbow pasta noodle necklaces

There are tons of things I've founded on pinterest.com and some blogs I follow.


While searching my local rec. center's website I found that they have a class for 3-4 year olds to help prepare them for preschool. It's only $24 for 6 weeks and Jayden will go twice a week for one hour each day. I can't wait to enroll him!

This past week I did something I haven't done in over 2 months.. I READ AN ENTIRE BOOK!! I can't tell you how nice it was to actually read a book... and finish it! I read The Help and I am hoping to watch the movie this weekend. Taking the time to read for myself was great. I need to take the time and do it more often. I feel like it's one thing I can do completely for myself. I can read at my own pace, I don't have to share the book with anyone, I get to mentally escape for a little while. I became an avid reader when I became a mom and I'm so thankful I did. Since I didn't care to read during my teenage years, I want to read some of the classics I've missed out on. I really want my kids to enjoy reading as much as I do. I think Gabriella will because she already loves to sit down and have books read to her.

Next of my list to read is "Three Cups of Tea" Has anyone read that yet?