Happy New Year!

Am I late to the party??  ;)

Of course I am.  I can't say my life has been terribly busy; it's more that this blog has taken a much lower priority than homeschooling, menu-planning, reading other people's blogs...haha.   Here's a rather lengthy catch-up post to bring this blog up to date.  Expect another one of these in about two months.

I helped throw a shower for a friend of mine expecting a little girl (who has since been born and is unbelievably adorable). Here's the Pooh cake I made.  

Thanksgiving:  

I made my husband's employees cinnamon rolls for Thanksgiving.
They do such a fantastic job, I wish we could do more sometimes.  

This was Fall 2011.  But....our whole family got together this past Thanksgiving and took pictures,
so we got to recreate it....

Here is our family, Thanksgiving 2012.

My middle daughter turned 6 on Thanksgiving. I have a twin sister, and every seven years or so, our birthday falls on Thanksgiving.  Honestly, it's really no fun, so I feel bad to have handed that down to my daughter.
But we made a cake and sang and I don't think she really cared!

Birthday Party:

My two daughters were born a week apart, so they get the joy of sharing birthday parties every year....just like Mommy and Aunt Jenny.  ;)  This year they wanted a Princess theme.  It was a TON OF FUN!  We had their friends come dressed up in fancy dresses then painted nails and did updos (complete with little tiaras) on all of them.  Then we took them to Corvette Diner for some dinner and fun!

A princess has to get used to picture-taking.
They were all pros at this!

Here is one of the birthday girls and some friends. We had a blast! 

More pictures.  See, told you they were pros with the camera! 

They all got some straws stuck in there hair by our lovely waitress. 

We came back to the house and ate princess cupcakes!

 Disneyland - one last hurrah!  

We were watching my son ride a roller coaster, and my daughter suddenly decided she wanted Minnie Mouse hair. This was the best I could do, even after breaking one of her plastic hair bands.  

I love this picture of my youngest daughter's face.  =)

A little hard to see, but here are my older two on the Thunder Mountain Railroad. This ride is a hoot! Goes WAY too fast for the limited restraints they offer, so you fly all over your seat.  I can't stop laughing when I'm on it.

Here's my youngest and I on the ride.

 ER visit:

During a Christmas Cookie Exchange, my daughter was playing with a friend and got pushed over in a chair.
The result = six stitches! This was a first for Mommy and I had to call in reinforcements (thanks Mom!) to stay calm during the ordeal.  But what a joke that was.  My daughter took the whole thing like a champ and never even cried.  We showed the nurse pictures of our Disneyland adventures, which kept my daughter distracted while she received the shots.  

While the awesome doctor was stitching her up, we took some pictures to show her.
She loved seeing what was going on.  Thank goodness for brave children!!

Christmas:

Here are my girls wearing there pretty Christmas dresses from Great Grandma!  

On Christmas Day, we went to the home of my twin sister and her husband, up in the Bay Area. My sister is an incredible hostess and amazing cook.  For Christmas appetizers, she served pears wrapped in arugula, blue cheese and prosciutto (WOW) and puff pastry topped with creme fraiche, shallots and thinly-sliced apple.  Siiigh.

She also let my daughter put together his veggie tree. How cute is that!  

Here's a quick glimpse at the spread.  We started with a pear/blue cheese/candied walnut salad. The main course was turkey, baconed brussel sprouts, parsnip hash, cheesy potato pizza, crescent rolls from scratch (courtesy of moi), and cranberry sauce.  It was very drool-worthy.

Growing up, my grandma always gave us granddaughters new pajamas for Christmas. My mom has carried on the tradition, and this year she had them personalized (since my sister and I tend to name our children with names that will NEVER be found in a souvenir shop).  They loved them!  

  

Thought I'd end this post with a cute pic of my son and Flounder, one of the dogs we watch occasionally.
She loves the kids and always manages to sneak into their rooms at bedtime.

Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year!
And January.  Hope you had a good January, too.  =)

Holiday Spending.

A couple days ago I went to the mall and I thought of two things...

First thing:  we should consider rationing out the holidays by last name.  Or neighborhood.  Or even Pepsi fans vs Coke fans.  This way we will average out the number of people at the mall in any given month.  We were crazy to think everyone in America should celebrate Christmas in December.

Second thing:  the holidays are not an excuse to spend money.  Sure, we like to give gifts, but I'm going to implore you all to only spend money you actually have.  Shopping can be such an emotional rush, but there is always always regret on the flip side if you let the holiday feel-goods determine your spending limit.  Go into the holidays with a budget....like, a REAL budget.   Not a spending limit but an actual budget.
Write down all the names of the people you buy gifts for (don't forget to include individuals like postal workers, teachers, neighbors, etc, if you generally gift these people).  Then figure out your limit for each person, add all the prices up, and make sure it's a figure you c.an afford because its money you actually have.  If not, tweak your budget.  Please please please do not justify credit card spending with your need to supply presents to your friends and family.  Essentially, you are giving away a borrowed item with the expectation to pay for it in the future.  That's not what the holidays should ever turn into.

Oh, I'm not saying this from a high horse either.  I've been there.  In fact, one Black Friday a few years ago I applied for a store credit card at one of the stores I stopped at because I didn't have enough money on my other credit cards to buy anything.  (Yes, that was extremely humbling to type.)  I can guarantee I didn't need any of the stuff I purchased on that card.  In fact, I don't even remember what I bought.  And no doubt I paid much more than the crazy Black Friday steal-of-a-price for it when interest was tagged on over the next several months.  How foolish.

I'm not saying it is wrong to buy things, but it is unwise to buy them if you don't have the money in your bank account to pay for them.  So in short, please just be prepared with a battle plan for your shopping over the next month so regret is limited and you're not a slave to your credit card.

Another catch-up post...

The other night my husband nonchalantly let me know that it's been awhile since I wrote a good blog post.

"Eh hem...a good blog post??"

"No, I mean a blog post.  Just a blog post.  They're all good."  

My thoughts exactly.  =)  Only kidding.  I know I'm not stellar at blogging.  Case in point:  the dates between my last post and this one.  Once again I'm left playing catch-up.

1. PUMPKIN FROZEN YOGURT!!!!  

Ingredients used were pumpkin puree, vanilla yogurt, sugar and pumpkin pie spice.
I strained about a cup and a half of yogurt, mixed it with a cup of pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup sugar and a generous shaking of pumpkin pie spice.  Yummy!!!

2. Shabu-shabu = drool.  Stuart and I had an hour to ourselves one evening and found this whole in the wall place that advertised itself as Japanese fondue.  And yes, it's mighty similar to the concept of fondue, only a thousand times more satisfying.

Here is the plate of veggies and udon noodles, the two sauces (ponzu and satay) and my personal pot of spicy soup broth.  We were also served meat and rice.  The first steps involve cooking 2/3 of your meat and veggies, pulling them out and enjoying them with the sauces and rice.

The last step is when you put in the remaining veggies and your noodles into the broth and let it cook,
 then that gets poured into a bowl where you enjoy it as soup.  Oy, my mouth is watering right now.

 3. Museum Day (haha)

Not much to say about museum day, except for free Krispy Kremes and this hilarious mascot.  Aside from him being the least energetic mascot I've ever encountered (but I' not judging..it was SO HOT), the kids kept tapping me and whispering, "Mommy, we can see his NECK."   Sure enough, from the kids vantage point, you could easily see the guys scruffy neck and chin.  So much for convincing the kids they got to meet a real dinosaur.  

 4. BAKING!

It has been ridiculously hot the past several weeks so baking is at a slow crawl.  But I did manage to bake these little guys for a silent auction.  Fun fun!

 5. Pinterest Fun!

I sent my sweet little nieces a surprise package.  Once they opened the box, their instructions were to pop one of each color balloon and enjoy their loot.  My sister was really thoughtful and face-timed us on the iphones so we actually got to see them open the goodies. It was a lot of fun, and because it was mostly stickers and virtually weightless balloons, the box was super cheap to send!  Thanks pinterest!


Aside from navigating the home schooling world, that's what I've been up to lately.







 (There you go Honey.)  =)

  

  

Last few weeks in pictures..

Life is flying by right now.  Here are a couple pics to update what I've been up to:

Threw a "Mustache Bash" Adoption Shower for a friend adopting THREE BOYS.  One of her favorite desserts is vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing.  =)

Iced Coffee - YUM!

Enjoying the first day of school!

My lovely sis treated me to my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season!

Got this marvelous idea from a friend - chocolate chip cookie dough put into cupcake batter!

Cupcakes disguised themselves as Spiderman.  =)

I found a new path while riding my bike.  It was so pretty and completely empty.

Aaannnnd......I got a little behind in laundry.  Don't judge.

Hope you are all enjoying your September!

On the other hand...

Almost two weeks ago I blogged about the mean words a completely random stranger said to me.  I won't lie, they hurt.  But I also knew the person didn't know me and probably had plenty more issues of her own.

Jump to today when I went to a doctors appointment.  The doctor started asking me some basic questions, starting with, "What do you do for work?"  I answered simply: "I'm a mom."  To most people, it's a rather generic answer that potentially implies I'm uneducated and socially unproductive.  However, this doctor stopped punching buttons into the computer and looked up at me.  "That's wonderful!" he said.  I smiled, surprised by his response.

He continued: "How many children?  1...2...?"
"Three," I said.
"Ah, so you're a busy mom."

There it was.  That's the response that ALWAYS comes.  Three kids?  Wow, you must be busy.  No longer are moms with more than 1.2 children blessed; we are now busy.  Well, I did have one OB/GYN who celebrated my third pregnancy and kept reminding me how much fun my dinner tables would be.  That has always stuck with me.

But then the doctor today said it again...."How wonderful!  Will you be having any more children?"

I rarely, if ever, get this question.  Most people consider 3 to be a large family; that only ladies in denim jumpers would consider more.  So they don't ask.

When I told him that we were currently in the process of adopting, his praises continued.  "You sound like such a wonderful mom!  That's what we need....more great mothers and fathers."

By this time I was beaming.  I've rarely ever been praised by strangers for having children and choosing to be a stay-at-home mom.  But he was genuinely praising my position, and I was hugely touched.

So, to all you mommies out there:  YOU'RE WONDERFUL!  =)

Mango Smoothie

My whole summer has been a competition:  me vs the heat.  I'm a wimp when it comes to hot weather, and so instead of surrendering, I fought back.  I dragged in our wimpy ol' one room air conditioner (which literally only cools about 1 foot in front of the system), turned all the fans on to HIGH, visited my mom's pool nearly every afternoon aaaaand......

....made these:

My kids know it as mango ice cream (its the consistency of frozen yogurt).  Want to know the recipe??  You sure?  It's really complex.  And time consuming.  Totally worth it, though.

Got your pen ready?  Okay, here goes:

TOTALLY COMPLEX, TIME-CONSUMING, MILLION-INGREDIENT MANGO SMOOTHIE:

Start with some mango (frozen is preferred).

Grab some plain yogurt (we use Fage).

Dump those into a blender, in equal parts.  

Blend till smooth.  Pour into glasses.  

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done and consume...but not too much.  It's totally loaded with artificial sugars, preservatives, and fake stuff.  ;)  Only kidding.   

Enjoy!

Revenge.

"It must be such a downer to look in the mirror every day."  That's the comment I received from a stranger while I was out on a walk today.  

Truthfully, I have no idea what causes people to be so mean to others, especially to a complete stranger.  However, it was a good reminder about the power of words, and I will use this as motivation to do the opposite - to compliment a complete stranger.

I don't know who all reads my blog at any given time, but if you read this, could you try doing the same?  Just one compliment this week to someone you don't know.  To me, that is the sweetest revenge.  =)