Just Some Thoughts

~ Well as I mentioned in my last post, Pizza for dinner Tuesday night didn't go as planned I neglected to read the entire recipe through (a very bad habit of mine) and the crust had to rise overnight in the fridge. So we changed the plans last min and had a wonderful time preparing chicken tacos. I will post more about it later with pictures too.

~ I am on the search for a good cookie recipe without lots (if any) sugar. Any suggestions? We are doing excellent on making our own things but I am finding that the kids still want something sweet to eat with their lunches or after dinner. I love the idea of making the no bake chocolate peanut butter cookies (we called them haystacks growing up) but with the peanut allergy that Rascal has that crosses those off the list. So I am searching for the perfect cookie recipe.

~ I needed to do an update on Baby A soon. She is talking more and more and you can even understand a few more words from her now. She is going to a different allergist on the 30th to have her food allergies tested again. hopefully this will shed more light on the matter than the last allergist did. I am debating on getting Rascal retested to see what they say about his allergy. Our previous allergist gave us way too much contradicting information. Wouldn't it be great to get him retested and know his allergy isn't nearly as bad as we thought ?!?!?! I would do it in a heartbeat but Rascal is so very scared of the allergy doctor and he gets major anxiety about his allergy so I will just see how things go.

~ On the same note as allergies....I am going to try out something this year. I have heard that if you eat local honey that your allergies will get tons better. Not sure if it is true but Rascal loves honey on his pancakes so I thought I would switch to local honey, start feeding it to him now and see if his springtime allergies get nearly as bad as they usually do.

~ Speaking of Rascal...He is a bucket of laughs. He loves life to the fullest and could careless what anyone thinks. Case in point:

 (Baby A's tutu as a beard + Baby A's Dora sunglasses = goober!!)

He is constantly cracking us up daily!

Baby A had her very first (of many I am sure) time out the other day. Look how pitiful:

 Rascal had his Ds and she wanted to play with it (which isn't allowed) and so since he wouldn't give it to her, she leaned over and bit him hard on his arm. It drew a little bit of blood. She has been biting the boys for a few weeks now but has never tried to bit anyone else. I think she is trying to get her frustrations across to them. So I had to punish her and I stuck her in time out. Believe or not she stayed in the chair facing the wall crying so I think she got the point. She has yet to bite again. And yes that picture about breaks my heart. Those sweet pigtails are deceiving though.

~ Scooter had to study for 4 tests last night and this morning. In fact we were late to school due to cramming a few more minutes of studying in. He has to label all the continents and oceans in the world, a Reading vocab test with words like: schema and commutative property of addition, a glossary test with words like: superlative and compendium and a timed multiplication test. I only wish I were kidding. It is crazy what they expect kids to learn these days. Just for the record I had no idea what any of the words I just listed meant. Scooter did great studying though, he flew through labeling the continents and oceans, flew through most of his definitions and went faster than he usually does on his math. That is still his weakest subject and I am going to try really hard to find fun ways for him to learn it all. Now I am so anxous to get him from school and see how well he did on all his tests.


~ Did you know that if you buy a bunch (I don't mean a lot I mean.....the kind where the stalks are all attached at the bottom and not separated, not sure what the technical term is) of celery you can cut the bottoms off about 3 to 4 inches up, place it on a saucer of luke warm water overnight and then plant it the next day and you will regrow your own celery! It works we did the experiment ourselves and the boys are loving watching it grow so much and so fast! No lie... I planted it in a pot on Monday and this is what it looked like on Tuesday :

If you look closely you can barely see it just peeking through the crack in the soil.

This is what it looked like on Wednesday:

Crazy huh?

and Today it looks like this:

WOW huh!!! In just 5 days we have seen crazy growth and I am so excited to see how it turns out. The boys are super excited to watch it grow and love taking turns every other day to water it. This not only helps cut back on buying celery but it has made for an EXCELLENT science experiment for the boys.

Now what are you waiting for ......... go grow your own celery (it is super easy and takes water every other day in our experience.)

~ Speaking of homemade......we made our own applesauce in the crock pot (see recipe here) and it was so yummy. To give you an idea...me and Baby A both hated store bought applesauce, didn't matter the brand or the flavor it was just gross. Well we both LOVE this homemade applesauce . We warm it up a little and man it is GREAT!! Here is a picture:

It is a tad chunkier than I wanted it to be (although that was really no big deal) but the food processor I have doesn't work so I had to smash the apples with the back of a spoon. SO YUMMY!!!!

You can check out all our new recipes we have tried, on my recipe blog.

~ I am stepping out of my comfort zone and starting a bible study next Wednesday. I will know absolutely no one there and will be leaving Baby A in a nursery were she has never been before. I have been wanting to get back into a bible study for a while now but didn't want to drive back and forth to town to attend one. Well I called around to some nearby churches and found that one really close by has a bible study every Wednesday morning. It is SO SIMILAR to my old bible study and that brings me some comfort. It is also at a friend's church that lives down the street so that helps too (she won't be there though). I will be coming in half way through the study but they said it shouldn't matter. It is a study about Isaiah so it might be a bit intense. No matter what I am really looking forward to digging into the word of God and learning about it more. I also hope to find some moms that live close by that have some of my same interests.

~ That's it for now. I will be back later to post about my fun afternoon in the kitchen with two special helpers!