halloween

Halloween was great fun this year.  We love our friends and we love trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  Near the end, Lily was saying her candy jack-o-lantern was too heavy and she needed to go home.  We gotta LOT of candy.

Our pumpkins, the princess and the pirate

 Our little animals, kitty, poodle, and the chicken 

(yes, I know, he looks like a girl)

 Our dinner group kids

 My sweet girls

 the little boys.  They are 10 weeks apart (Sam is older) and Matthew is 10 lbs heavier (maybe)

They started talking to each other after we'd left them there for a few seconds.  

I wonder what they're thinking.

 the girls of the group

 And our little girl chicken

 All the candy two little girls could ever want and Charlie Brown's: The Great Pumpkin.

Such a fun Halloween

stomach flu

I loathe the stomach flu.  Similar to the way I feel about getting a cavity filled, in fact I might actually take the cavity.  I know I would, no contest.

I know some have an easy time with the stomach flu.  One kid pukes once.  Lucky people. 

This got a few of us talking about which you would rather have: Stomach flu or head cold?

See in our house, kids go big on the stomach flu. They throw up in car seats (I've lost count of how many times I've taken a car seat apart to wash it), they throw up in their beds, and they throw up on their mom.  Sam had it last Sunday (as in 10 days ago!) and it was so sad.  Little guy threw up 6 times.  6 people!  All in his bed. 

My mother has a strong affection for bleach.  I don't.  But when it comes to the stomach flu, I love the smell of bleach.  I quickly went to work on cleaning the entire house, washing hands 1000 times and doing laundry.  3 days later, no one had it.  We were safe.

Yesterday, Eloise got it.  This time she threw up on the sidewalk on the way into church. Super great, huh.  She was fine all day and then threw up last night, thankfully in the blankets on the couch.  Bust out the bleach and laundry, again. 

All is well and no one else has it.  Life can resume in a day or so.

So after all this, give me a head cold any day.  No bleach, laundry, tearing apart car seats and making beds 3 times in a matter of an hour.  And you always know when a head cold is coming on, the stomach flu, it's rather sneaky.

What would you rather have?  Stomach flu or head cold (you can't say neither b/c that's a given)

what's happening?

*Sam is walking all over and into everything.  He even figured out how to climb up the chairs and onto the dining room table.  I found him up there pushing buttons on my laptop.  He didn't open anything sketchy.

*I bought Sam's first pair of shoes at Target the other day.  We have the fancy kinds from Nordstrom from friends but they don't have velcro and this mom-of-3-kids-who-don't-know-how-to-tie-their-shoes, isn't about to tie a squirmy infants shoes.

*I had no idea where the infant boys shoes section was at Target.  I actually thought for a moment that they might not have one.  Welcome to the world of little boys.

*We decided that we would send Eloise to public school next year.  The choice was right and it is what we believe the Lord has called us to do.  I can't say that this will be the choice for the next two kids, but I can say that we're listening intently for the direction

*She's doing great this year.  We're working on letters, numbers, and anything else she wants to learn. I think we're heading towards reading.  I just need to get a few books that might help in that process.

*Sam is in LOVE with his big sister.  He walks around the house giving her hugs all day long.  Lily and Sam haven't quite formed that bond yet, but it's probably b/c she's so rough all the time.

*Dave arranged a girls night out at Pok Pok for my birthday.  If you're ever in Portland, be sure and hit this place up.  Very different, very authentic Thai but OH SO GOOD!

*I'm currently stuck in the rotation of 3 lunches for my kids: Gardenburgers, grilled cheese, and PB & J.  BORING!

*Sam doesn't eat anything.  Literally.  He loves carbs, pretty much like Eloise and myself.  But I've managed to work up a sweet smoothie that he'll drink down with  no problem.  At his age, with Eloise I thought I did something wrong, with Lily I thought I was doing things right (she was eating everything), with Sam I realize that they are born that way.  He'll get his veggies in soon enough.

*I cut the peels off my kids apples.  There.  I said it.  I have no shame.  My mother did it for me and I do it for my kids.  I know, all the nutrients are in the peels, but people, when you have texture issues, it doesn't matter.  They're still eating the apple.  And Lily will eat an apple whole with the peels just not when I cut them into slices.  There are worse things I could be doing.

*I made this chicken pot pie last night, very good.

happy Fall!

pumpkin muffins

Best pumpkin muffins ever!!!

Seriously!

Here's a new recipe for pumpkin muffins.  She has the original version but I bypassed it and went straight to the ones with honey.  I purposely didn't try the original ones b/c I thought they would be better and i'd never be able to try the honey ones.  BUT....I was pleasantly surprised and I LOVE the ones with honey.  I did reduce my cooking time to 20 minutes and that seemed to work perfect.  They are moist and oh so delicious.  We added a few handfuls of mini-chocolate chips to ours.  Lily said we needed to add 111 handfuls.  We only added 4.

And I just discovered a sweet recipe for some cheesy chicken pot pie.  I'll be making it this week as I have a ridiculous amount of already cooked chicken in my freezer. (BTW - you should really be following Kitchen Simplicity, her colorful Monday's are gorgeous)

And while I'm on the food topic, I've got to remind myself here that working out really does make me feel tons better.  I've slowed down a bit over the last two weeks because of traveling on the weekends, but I've got to get back into the groove.  I'm determined not to overeat amidst this holiday tri-fecta we're about to venture through.

weekends

Where did the last two weeks go?  My word, we've been busy.

Two weeks ago, Dave's work took the entire staff to Five Pine Lodge in Sister's, Oregon.  It was great!  We had a fabulous time getting to know everyone better, enjoying our beautiful room, and having a wonderful evening out without kids (we had babysitter's).  Our kids slept great and even enjoyed the gigantic bathtub with water falling from the ceiling.  (I don't think the owners thought about what would happen if three small children were in there together = LOTS of water everywhere!)

Last weekend I got away for a girls weekend.  It's my annual INN girls weekend.  We've been doing it for 10 years!  This was the first time I'd been away from Sam all weekend.  It was great to have conversation late into the night without the worry of being woken up by someone or getting up to face the morning of feeding kids.  We shopped, ate, talked, ate some more, and drank lots of coffee.  Nothing better.  I love girls weekend! Pictures of that are on someone else's camera.   I'll have to hijack the card to be able to upload.  But we're all super cute, I promise.

Sam started walking.  Sweet boy.  He has a fever today and has been crying non-stop, so the walking was accompanied by consistent noise coming out of his mouth as he followed me around the house all day.  Super fun!  He's living up the lodge life here.

Now that these fabulous events have concluded, we're enjoying a week of nothing.  I'm menu planning and gearing up to make some serious pumpkin treats.  And trying to keep the waist line small too.