My crafty boys

Yesterday, I bought some clay for Abby to use. I thought we might make some cool clay food for her doll house or maybe something for her American Girl dolls. I remember making miniature food with Julianne many, many years ago, but we had a book to follow. I have no idea where the book is now or even what it was called, so I looked up "Sculpey" on the Internet and found a website with some very intricate projects-no thanks. Then, I found some simple kids projects. I'm not sure what happened, but Abby went to the neighbors, and I got busy doing something else. Then, the timer on the stove goes off and Ben comes into the kitchen and takes a cookie sheet out of the oven with these lovely creations on it. I must have been in a time warp or lost in a book on the patio swing (more likely). I never saw them make them, but I thought Ben and Nate did a really good job, even if I did think Ben's hippo was a pig. Now, Gabe's creations? I'm not sure what they are, but he has already broken them in half anyway.

As we were driving home from Wal-mart, Abby asked me,"Mom, does Jesus know what pajamas I'm going to wear tonight?" I said,"Yes." Then she asked,"Does He know what I'm thinking right now?" Nate chimes in,"He's just like Santa, only not as creepy." I added,"And, Jesus is real". Abby said,"Santa is real too." (I usually try to avoid this discussion and talk about how there was a real St. Nicholas) Nate disagreed with her. I was trying to hush him in the front of the car and then she pipes in with,"I know he's real because part of his beard is stuck in our fireplace." Mmm, that's a new one. I didn't know we had part of Santa's beard stuck in our fireplace. I'm going to have to check that out, but I'm thinking it might be some of the insulation.

Seasons and Jesus

Well, I'm finally back. Maybe this week I can catch up my life or it will soon be forgotten.

But, It's late, so I'm just going to relay a funny story that happened last week when I was trying to be the good mother and review some simple concepts with the twins before they had forgotten everything they learned in First Grade. Too late...

So, we're reviewing "time", which except for the half hour and hour, they have forgotten. I have this great book on "Time", called,"Telling Time", and I started reviewing months, which they thought were weeks. Come on! Then, I start going through the months and explaining/quizzing them on something we celebrate each month. It went downhill from there: Me: Okay, what is another thing we call January 1, that we celebrate with a party?" Gabe: July!-good grief!

Me: No, New Year's Day. Me: February, what do we celebrate on February 14th with a party, and hearts. G&A: Valentine's Day! Me: Okay, now March. What do we celebrate in March with rainbows...and what's at the end of the rainbow? G&A: a pot of gold! Me: and who does the pot of gold remind us of? Abby: Jesus! well, yeah, if we were talking about the 3 leaf clover, and the Trinity, but in this case, "Jesus" cannot be the answer to every question.

We then went on to talk about March coming in like a .... Gabe: leprechaun! Me: no, like a lion, and it goes out like a ... Gabe: mouse! After that, I asked them if they had ever heard of "April showers bring May...." again, the answer was not what I was expecting. Abby: thunderstorms! I said, "no, May flowers" Gabe said,"hey that's a little rhyme!" Now, I know they learned that in school. In fact, I know I have said it many times to them every spring when it was raining. I felt a little like the teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". All in all, it was an entertaining morning, and I definitely have my work cut out for me this summer.

Ben's senior luncheon

Today, was Pine Creek's senior luncheon. It's hard to believe we're already here, again. It seems like Julianne's was just a year ago, not three, and now, Ben's. We were there for 4 hours, and then we had to leave. I felt badly for the kids who were still waiting to be capped, the group waiting to sing, and the senior class president, Greg who was still waiting to give his closing remarks. It must have gone on for another hour, and over half of the tables were empty. Like us, people had places to go, had to return back to work, or pick up younger siblings. It was a very nice time. All of the kids had something nice to say about their loved ones who were capping them. Ben brought along Jon Diaso for support. I want to include what Ben had read about Tim, who capped him. I was so proud of both of them: Tim, because he is everything Ben wrote about him and more, and Ben, because he recognizes what a great role model his dad is and chose to honor him publicly. I love my family!

"I want my dad to cap me, because he has taught me what it means to be a man. He didn't teach me through words but through his actions. My dad has given up his money, time and dreams to provide for our family. He has showed me how to live a life of significance through humility and selflessness. He has done this through devotion to God and through sacrificing himself for those around him. He has never had to earn my respect, because I have never had to earn his love. My dad is a true man."

Pumpkin muffins

Our family is pretty fanatical about pumpkin muffins. Most people only eat pumpkin during the fall. We eat it year round - with chocolate chips. My kids don't eat banana bread or pumpkin bread without chocolate chips. I've ruined them in that respect.

The first chocolate chip pumpkin bread I ever had was from our neighbor in AK. Her name was Mary Jane Baer, and I think I even have the recipe card from my mom's collection. It was full of butter and eggs and very good. I made that recipe after I got married for years, but then I found an even better recipe that had orange juice in it. I added fresh grated orange and that became my standard pumpkin bread recipe. We would make it every Sat. morning into muffins, so it would be quicker, and they were usually eaten up by the weekend. I have probably given over a hundred mini loaves to teacher, Sunday School teacher and friends over the years.

A few years ago, I joined Weight Watchers and found that my pumpkin bread wasn't so healthy (yeah, I was in denial). So, I tweaked the recipe, putting in some whole wheat flour, reducing the sugar, even cutting the fat in half. They weren't as perfect as before, but my family was still eating them. Well, now, I am unveiling a new recipe. It is definitely lower in fat, higher in fiber, and my kids are still eating it, but they know the difference-anyway, the older ones do.

I found this recipe from Cooking Light just recently online. BTW, I love online recipes. I love to just search and search and find something to make for dinner, or to bake. I would love to get rid of all my cookbooks, freeing up 2 shelves in my kitchen, and just store my favorite recipes from those cookbooks digitally. Someday, I want to take all my mom's recipe cards and scan them, so they will be in her handwriting and put them in a book for all the women in the family Some day.

Anyway, here is the new recipe, which I have tweaked, adding 1/2 whole wheat flour, some flax, and orange zest.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. canola oil

3 egg whites, 1 whole egg

3 c. flour, 1/2 white, 1/2 wheat

1/4 c. ground flax, or leave it out

2 t. cinnamon

1 t. each ginger and nutmeg

1 1/4 t. salt

1 t. baking soda

1 bag of chocolate chips

the zest of one orange

preheat oven to 350

Combine first 4 ingredients and mix well. Combine dry ingred. in another bowl and add to wet. Mix until moist. Add zest.

spoon batter into 2 loaf pans coated with cooking spray and bake for 1 hour.

OR spoon into muffin cups and bake 27 min.

YUM! These don't last long around our house. I try to freeze them, and they barely get frozen before someone takes them out and eats them. My big boys eat about 4 or 5 at once, and Ben, will mash them up and add more chocolate chips and melt the whole thing in the microwave and consume a 1 /2 gallon of milk with them. It's disgusting.

Abby's birthday school snack

The twins are in separate classes, so I had to make twice the birthday treats this year. Did they want the same thing? Of course not! And, really why should they have to, because they're twins? They already share the same birthday, and usually the party, which we're not having on this year. So, I asked Gabe what he wanted. I was trying to steer both of them toward these very cute birthday cupcake ball things on bakerella.com, but no. Gabe just wanted chocolate cupcakes. I don't even have a picture, because they came out so bad. Because of the Feingold diet, I can't make cakes from a mix, which I never did until we moved here, and cakes from scratch fell time after time. So, I decided to just make the cake on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, even though, I have a high altitude cookbook and they always turn out when I use it. Will i never learn? Probably not. I don't know why I didn't just use that recipe. I took out the cookbook, looked at it, and then used the one on the cocoa box. So, these cupcakes fell in the middle, after overflowing over the sids sticking to the pan and the adjacent cupcakes. I pretty much had to peel the top layer off of them, after cutting them from the pan (even though I used cupcake papers). I made the chocolate butter frosting, and let Tim frost them. There weren't even enough to cover all the kids in Gabe's class, so I had to take out some frozen peanut butter cupcakes that none of us really liked. Nasty. Some poor kid ate them though.

Abby, on the other hand, wanted fruit skewers with bananas, grapes, and chocolate dipped strawberries. She wanted cantaloupe and pineapple, but I drew the line.

It only took me about 3 hours to make 28 of them. I made extra, for the teachers, since they deserve some kind of treat that isn't a nasty cupcake. Why would it take that long to make a few fruit skewers? Well, I had to get pliers to cut the skewers down, then dip the strawberries, and hunt for a half an hour for something that I could sick the skewers in (an upside down colander) whose holes for the most part, were the right size for the skewers. I then added the grapes, which slid grape juice along the skewer, so I had to wipe that off, then the banana, wipe the banana slime off, then I decided, what the heck, add another strawberry: wipe more juice off the skewer. The end result was pretty. The teachers were impressed-what I live for-not really, but it doesn't hurt. And, most of all, Abby was happy and so were her friends. Yea! I did something right!

Ben's 18th Birthday

Wow! Where has the time gone? I now have 2 adult children.

Ben didn't want to have a big birthday party.He told me,"I don't like to celebrate myself, it's dumb." Ben claims most things are "dumb", unless it's Madden football, Star Wars, Willy Wonka, Pooh, tuna melts,chocolate in any form and most of all milk, by the gallon.

So, he requested dinner out and a new cell phone he could text on and money. His favorite store is the dollar store, mainly because he likes to take Gabe there. Nate gave him a gift card to the Dollar Tree. Our friends, Jason and Carrie offered to take our twins to play with their kids. It's kind of weird to exclude them from Ben's celebration, but they wanted to play with their friends, and we knew Ben would have a better time without the whining, and attention getting tactics they use.

So, we had a nice dinner with Ben at Champs, and Ben got a Red Sox jersey from Tim's trip to Boston, his new phone (mentioned earlier) and Gabe and Abby gave him Willy Wonka bars and a stuffed Pooh bear the next day when we celebrated with cake. Ben was too full to have cake when we got home on Sat. night, so we waited until Sunday after church to have the infamous Linda's Fudge Cake (which we had also had the weekend before). It all seemed kind of anticlimactic to me, but he seemed to be happy with how things turned out.

It's so hard when your kids don't want to do things the way you think they should be done. Control. I just don't have it anymore, over the big ones anyway.

build a bear and life.

Gabe and Abby were invited to their little neighbor's birthday party at Build A Bear on Sat. They got to each make a bear, which they love to do. Not only did they get to go to the party, but the little girls' parents took our kids to and from the mall and then kept them for lunch and cake. So, Tim and I got to go out to lunch at La Baguette and really talk.

I have been preparing for a talk I'm giving to MOPS at the end of the month, so I wanted to talk to Tim about our early years of marriage, from his perspective. i knew from my perspective that they weren't great, and I knew that I was the cause of most of the problems, but I had forgotten what a selfish jerk I was. It was kind of depressing, but good. The best part is that God has been merciful and grown us up a lot in the past almost 25 years, and our marriage is stronger than ever. I just wish it could have been that way from the beginning.