2012 Garden!

After weeks of anticipation, I was finally able to put my garden in today!  Huzzah!

This is the first real garden I've had in basically three years.  Wait - maybe two.  I don't remember now.  Who cares?!  I have a garden!  It is also by far the biggest I have ever had.  I still think I might have over-crowded it, but we'll have to wait and see.

Why yes, I do have 9 tomato plants.  Wait - you don't think that's enough?  Dang.  I loves me fresh tomatoes.  I realize that 9 plants is probably overkill, but I don't care.  I love 'em.  And I will be sharing the love with anyone and everyone probably around August.

I have 6 different types of tomatoes, a jalapeno, cucumbers, zucchini, crook neck squash, rosemary, basil, sage, oregano, lavender, carrots, green beans, two types of sunflowers, marigolds, and bachelor buttons.  (The flowers are more of a border - I read somewhere that marigolds are a rabbit deterrent.  Don't know if I believe that, but hey, it's worth a shot.)

And... here's another view.

Quinoa Baby

For dinner tonight we had Indian-spiced pork kabobs, quinoa tabbouleh, and fresh fruit.  It was, and I'm totally tooting my own horn here, fantastic.  (Especially the kabobs.  The quinoa?  It's growing on me, but there's a sort of aftertaste I'm not in love with...)

Tess was the only child to eat everything offered to her.  Not only that, she ate plenty of it.  Don't let the picture fool you - that was her second helping of the quinoa.

I love this age. 

All of my kids were like this as babies - they would eat just about anything.  But somewhere along the line Spencer became finicky about certain things, and Josh followed suit and took it to a whole new level.  Cole will still eat most of what's offered, but I've noticed him being a bit more picky lately as well.

I refuse to be a short order cook, which means I only cook one meal a night for the entire family because I refuse to cater to each child.  I also refuse to make only kid-friendly meals, because 1) most true kid-friendly meals are not very healthy, 2) I want to eat adult-friendly meals, and 3) my kids won't eat them even when I do make them, so what's the point?  This means that my children often do not eat the main dish I make.  I always try to have at least a side-dish they will eat; Spencer and Josh ate bread and apple slices for dinner.

I'm hoping that some day my children will learn to appreciate the sometimes adventurous meals their mother makes.  If they don't, then I curse them to hope they have children who are just as picky about food, so they can have the same joy I do in trying to get kids to eat.

Joshie's Career Goal

(At least according to his Preschool "I Am Special" book.)

Temple Trip

So yesterday we trekked all the way up to the Chicago temple with four kids in tow.  All in all, it was not that bad.  (Although we decided our next trip would be to the Louiseville, KY temple, mainly because we've never been there.  Also, we're pretty sure the weather and the traffic will be better.)

The drive up was pretty uneventful.  The kids all behaved pretty well, the snacks were yummy, Tess took a short and much-needed nap, and we only got lost once.  Okay, not lost so much as took one wrong turn.  Which is ridiculous, because how many times have we driven to the temple?  But seriously, now that I think about it, it seems like just about every time we go we take some sort of wrong turn, or there's an unexpected detour or something like that and we have to reroute.  Whatever, thank goodness for Google Navigation on our phones is all I can say.  Anywho, we got there with just enough time for Lance to make it to the 10am (Chicago time) session.

Unfortunately, it was a chilly, windy, rainy day.  So finding a park to eat lunch at and play was out of the question.  I decided to take a chance and see if the tri-stake center down the street was open.  I had never done this before, but for some reason this felt like the best decision.  (Rather than finding a McDonald's or eatin in the car or something.)  So we drove down there, and low and behold, it was open!

I got all the kids out, grabbed our lunches, herded everyone inside and went into the first classroom we could find.  Turns out it was a little nursery room, complete with a few toys and a low table with chairs, perfect for little kid dining.  Score!

I felt very blessed at this point.  I couldn't help but think something along the lines of "We are being so blessed for coming to the temple!  I can't believe my good luck with this!"

The kids spent a good hour eating, playing, and running around. They were so glad to be out of that car! I spent most of it cleaning up after them because I didn't want to leave any sort of mess there. I also took some pictures, just to document our good fortune.

 

 

About every ten minutes I would say "Who needs to go potty?" and both Josh and Spencer would answer "Not me!"

But eventually Spencer decided he needed to.  And then Josh did, too.  And then Josh started jumping around and doing the potty dance, and I just knew that he had been holding it in all this time, dang it.  So I swooped everyone up and we rushed to the bathroom.  We got in.  Everyone was going potty.  And then from Joshie's stall I hear "Mooommmmmyyy... I need new clothes!"

What?

So yeah, apparently Josh decided to have an accident while standing in front of the toilet.

IN FRONT OF THE TOILET.

Are you kidding me?!  I mean, for a recently potty trained child I get this.  But Josh is five and a half.  He knows better. He can do better. 

And yet, there he was, soaked from the waist down.  (Because a five and a half year old bladder can hold quite a bit.)

Boy, was I ticked.  Especially as I cleaned up all the pee on the floor around the toilet.

AROUND THE TOILET.

Josh just couldn't understand why I hadn't brought extra clothes for him.  "You brought them for Tess and Cole!" he whined.

"Tess and Cole are babies.  They are expected to have accidents.   You are five.  You aren't supposed to have accidents." I replied.

So I had him take everything off and I tried to dry it as best I could, but it was just way too much pee.  I mean, seriously, a lot.  I briefly thought about making him just wear wet clothes the rest of the trip, but that would have been way too mean. 

Making him wear wet clothes for the next hour, though?  Not too mean.

So I made him put his pants back on, got everyone and everything back into the car (much to Tess's dismay), and off we went to the nearest Target.

Oh boy, going to Target with four kids for an unexpected quick trip?  Yeah, not so great.  First, this target had the smallest boys department I had ever seen.  Seriously tiny.  Second, they no longer had any sweats or other cheap pants, so I had to buy Josh another pair of jeans.  (Fortunately, they had some for only $8.99!)  Third, Josh kept loudly complaining that "My pants are cold!  My pants are COLD!" and so of course everyone around us looked at his wet pants, which I was hoping no one would notice, sheesh.

We finally bought the clothes and trekked back to the minivan, where I made Josh change.  Have you ever had a five year old change in a minivan?  You'd think it was the hardest thing I had ever asked him to do, for Pete's sake.  And then he and Spencer started fighting again and Cole was whining and Tess was fussing and I started to wonder where all those blessings from going to the temple went!

Anyways, he finally got changed and we finally got back to the temple and I was finally out of patience and it was finally my turn to go in.

And all was well. 

I was able to sit in the chapel for about 15 minutes and just decompress and think and read my scriptures and feel at peace. Because that's how awesome the temple is.

We really are blessed to be able to go to the temple.  (Even if we do have to deal with accidents before hand!)

Temple Wear

Okay ladies, this has been on my mind all day and I want some of your input. 

We're going to the temple tomorrow, and all day I've been trying to figure out what to wear.  It's that age-old decision between form versus function.

See, my outfit has to be nice enough to go into the temple, but comfy enough to handle 6+ hours in the car with four children.

Apparently my church wardrobe cannot be both comfortable and cute.  Either the dress/skirt looks really nice but isn't something I really want to wear in the car all day, or it's totally comfortable but makes me feel a bit frumpy and not nice enough to wear into the temple.  Okay, I do have one dress that fits the bill for both, but it's a bit too dressy for when I take the kids to the park/library/wherever while Lance is in the temple.  It's one of those dresses that I have to wear high heels with, and that's a deal breaker.  No high heels on temple trips.

So dang. Does anyone else out there have this problem?  What do you do about and/or wear?

E-N-D

Well, we all know that Cole is in love with the alphabet.

But now he has discovered a new love: timers.  Specifically, the timers in the kitchen.

This began during a particularly rough week, where Cole spent an exceptional amount of time in his timeout chair.  He knew that once the timer beeped he could get off of that chair and go back to the business of being two years old.  He grew to love that beep!

Pretty soon, we would come running into the kitchen whenever the timer beeped, whether he was in timeout or not.  And pretty soon after this he started shouting "E-N-D" when he saw that the timer was done.

That's right - he had discovered letters on the timer.  Oh, the joy.

Now, no matter where he is in the house, no matter what that boy is doing, if he hears the microwave being used he comes running as quickly as those little legs will carry him.  And he'll wait and wait until those beloved letters flash on the screen.

E-N-D!

But the fun hasn't ended there.  The other day I came into the kitchen and discovered this on the fridge:

I asked Spencer if he had put 'end' on the fridge.  Nope.  Joshie?  No, Mommy.  Umm... Cole?  Did you put that on the fridge?

To which he happily replied "E-N-D"!!!!

You might think it was a fluke, but it wasn't.  We have moved those letters several times, and included others, and they always return to E-N-D.

Not only that, but he has also started sounding out basic words, like c-a-t (kuh-aah-tuh) and red (ruh-eh-duh).  He'll be three in about a month.

Good heavens.

In all fairness, I don't really think he's some sort of child prodigy.  (Or, as Calvin says in one of my favorite strips ever, 'child progeny'!)  I place most of this on all the educational electronic toys and games he has.  However, I am interested to see how this affects him in preschool next year.

Until then... this is the E-N-D!

***********Addendum!************

About five minutes ago Cole came up to the kitchen, crying and bleeding from his lip because he had fallen off of the desk downstairs.  He cried for a solid minute before the timer went off.  He immediately stopped crying and said "Oh, it's an E-N-D!" 

And all was right with the world.

A Head Cole with New Decor

I have a head cold right now.  Not just any head cold - the type where if you bend down your head feels like it's gonna explode and you kinda wish it would just to get it over with.  The kind of cold that doesn't respond to anything - sinus rinses, Coke Zero, heavy drugs, death threats to all cold viruses in existence...

This cold started with a light sore throat last night, so I knew it was coming.  What I didn't know was coming was my throat catching on fire at 2:30 in the morning, so that I couldn't sleep, swallow, or breath normally until the ibuprofen kicked in, much, much later.  I dunno.  Is it worse to know the cold is coming, or to just come down with it all of a sudden?

I'm dying. (I'm not dying.)

But I am certainly not feeling or thinking at my best.  The new layout for blogger took me a good 5 minutes to figure out.  I'm no tech dummy, so either Google did a really bad job with the redesign (a distinct possibility), or I am really out of it and should just go to bed.  I'm thinking it's a combination of the two.

So instead of blogging about the enlightening experience I had this morning when the power went out during aerobics (Zing!  Did you get that pun there?!  I still got it...), I am instead going to blog about something that requires a bit less logic.

Home decor.

I know, you're super excited.  But I was super excited to get some new home decor up this past week!  Do you ever feel like your house decorating gets in a rut and you just need a few new projects here and there to spruce things up?  That's totally where I was.

The first problem was with my ginormous mantle.  Seriously, it's huge.  And tall.  Which makes decorating with it on a budget a bit difficult.  During the holidays it's a bit easier, but you can't keep pumpkins or eggs or evergreen boughs up there all year.  (Maybe I could get away with the pumpkins...)

Anywho, I decided to jump on the initials bandwagon and put up a bunch of "M"s.  As in Madsen, not Maren.  Or as in "mmmmm", as Cole says whenever he looks up there.

This project cost me around $5 at Hobby Lobby, and that's only because I didn't wait for things to go on sale and I didn't have a coupon.  Hey, sometimes when inspiration strikes you just have to forget about the dang budget.

I kind of feel like I should have one more giant M up there, a little bigger than the largest one that's already up there.  Painted in dark blue.  What do you think?

My next project was completed at a craft night with some friends.  Awesome friends.  Awesome friends who let me stay late at their house and talk their ears off because I haven't had a real adult conversation in several weeks.  Awesome friends.

Anywho, the inspiration for this came from some tutorial found online, but I don't know where it is now and I'm too lazy to go find it.  It also cost around $5, and that's only because I went a little crazy in buying the scrapbook paper because it was 50% that week.  It was super easy to make, too.  Paint the canvas, cut out some leaves, glue them on, and then slap a coat of Mod Podge over everything.  (Don't look too closely - my Mod Podge layer wasn't exactly even, something I didn't notice until I was hanging my work of art up yesterday.  Dang.)

It's no Mona Lisa, but this little art critic sure likes to grab for it every time we pass.

It hangs in the little alcove that leads to our master bedroom.  And look - it matches the big M on the mantle just perfectly!  I'm cool like that.