Busy Busy Busy

I was trying to come up with a focused blog post, but so much has been going on that I really just feel like writing. We have definately have been on the go recently.

Saturday was the start of my rather busy haul. I woke up at a decent hour and go into the shower because I had to get myself and the boys ready to leave so I could take them to my mom's house to spend most of the day and all night because I had plans with my best friend to go get our make up done and go out for the night. I got a phone call that morning though that made the day a little clouded. My father in law's father died on Saturday morning. Grandpa Smith had a stroke two years ago and never recovered. He'd been batteling every bit of those two years and he finally won and passed away. I was deeply saddened by it, mostly for the loss that I knew my father in law and husband and their entire family were feeling. However, Jimmie Smith had a really good life and was a really good man and I think, as does my father in law that he was ready to go. He's at peace now, and I'm thankful that he's no longer in pain and in a better place. I will always enjoy hearing stories about him and I always have. I didn't know him very well, but I do know the family that he raised, especially my father in law, who in turn raised my husband and he did a damn fine job :) So RIP Jimmie Neal Smith.

So I went to my mom's house and my step dad's parents were in town for the day along with his sister, so I ate a little pasta salad and skyped with G to deliver the news about his Grandpa before I left. The boys hardly realized I was going. Always nice to not have the extra guilt of them crying when I walk out the door! I drove out to Plainfield and Stef was finishing up getting her hair cut and colored and then we got airbrushed makeup done. Seriously, my skin looked like porcelin. It was really fun to get makeup done like that. I definately think I will be doing it every time I have a special occasion! Like when G comes home I will DEF get my make up done. Let's just hope his flight isn't like an 8 am arrival time. I'm sure the stylist would charge double for a 6 am wake up call ;)

We went shoe shopping and got a killer pair of heels (two actually, one for her one for me) and then went to our homes to get dressed. Stef made me sit around like a guy because she had to detour back to DSW to get the tag thingy taken off one of her shoes but I sat in my cute black dress and hot shoes and watched SATC2! Wishing of course that I had EVERY outfit that SJP wore in that movie. We decided to just go to Houlihan's for dinner since we were going to be going to Mo's anyway. Dinner was good and I saw some of G's coworkers, all of whom said they missed him... glad it's not just me ;) Mo's was awesome. The bartenders were so great, we had a really good time. Crazy. Lots of stuff I'm not going to mention. But it was really really fun.

I got home around 2:30 and found some tylenol and then fell into my sister's bed(who was thankfully not in it!) I just managed to get my pj's on before I fell asleep. I was exhausted. I woke up at 9:15 before the boys even were awake. I felt good and was happy about that. Rae came over and we all had breakfast and then I packed the boys up and we were on our way home. I got a call that the showing for Grandpa Smith would be the following afternoon/evening. So my mom said she'd watch the boys so I could attend that since the funeral would be on Wednesday in TN. The boys and I had a relaxing rest of the Sunday which was good because I was still tired and so we napped and had pizza and watch a movie.

Monday went by in a blur. I got up and picked up the disaster area of a house and started getting ready while a storm raged outside. It cleared up by the time I left for Terre Haute and the drive down there wasn't too long. The showing was sad but uplifting. It was nice to see how many people loved Grandpa Smith, though I was glad I didn't take the boys. I was able to stay for much longer than I would have been had they been with me. Plus funerals are just no place for little ones. At least not my little ones. I talked to people, but mostly family and G skyped on my iPhone while I was there so his parents got to speak with him for a minutes, so that was also good.

I got home and the boys were already asleep. Isaac of course woke up but Lysander stayed down so I took them upstairs and Isaac layed in bed with me and watched movies until we both fell asleep. Good news today was that we were lazy all day and slowed it all down. Now they are asleep already and I quiet which is an important and infrequent part of my life!

You know, now that I write all that down it doesn't sound that busy. It sounds like I had a lot of downtime. Wonder why it didn't FEEL like that at all. huh.

In other news, the boys have been eating the meals I've been cooking with veggies hidden in them and I've enjoyed them as well. Each time I make a new one I eat it and figure out what I'll do to make it better. Oddly I think I have more kitchen knowledge than I thought I did. Probably comes from the restaurant industry and having a chef for a husband and the fact that trial and error seems to be my way to really learn.

Grover is doing pretty well. He's been getting lots of mail and that's a nice mood elevator for him. Since everyone has been so good at sending packages and letters he's had a surpluss of stuff and been able to share. I'm glad that the support he's getting from home is spilling over onto other soldiers. They all need to be supported.

I'm going to stop here before I just ramble one. I'm going to go enjoy my quiet. :) Shhhhhhhhhhh

Change of menu!

A couple of Christmases ago my mom bought me a cookbook that Jessica Seinfield wrote called Deceitfully Delicious. The basic premise of it all is pureeing fruits and veggies and putting them into meals without kids knowing. I tried it a couple of times before but I didn't really prepare well enough before hand for it to work out right.

So this time I picked out ten recipes all of which I was fairly positive I could get the petites to eat and all of which you add purees of veggies that I would NEVER convince them to eat. Lysander will almost always eat peas and raw carrots, but that's about it on what veggies I don't have to shed blood sweat and tears to get him to eat. Isaac is much less picky about eating, but still, things like spinace and broccoli he won't touch. So here's the breakdown of veggie purees that I picked out to "hide" in food so they could get a more balanced meal:
Butternut Squash
Spinach
Beets
Broccoli
Carrots(only because it's used in conjunction with other veggies)
Cauliflower
Sweet potatoes

I successfully made them all within 24 hours but not without making a ridiculous mess!

Did you notice the teeny food processor I was using? ;) Yeah. Didn't even have a switch. It was button you had to hold. At least now I know if I can do it with something crappy like that, I can do it with anything! :) That last picture is almost my final product. I was still roasting sweet potatoes. I got them all labeled and dated(restaurant habit) and then put into plastic containers because the last thing I want is my fridge to be covered in a bag of veggie puree that's busted.

Since all the purees were ready I decided to go ahead and make the first meal tonight. I chose home made pizza because I thought the boys would definitely eat that. They worked out really well, except I will say that I did not know that foil is not automatically non stick... good tip for anyone else who is pretty much a novice in the kitchen. Two out of the three worked out though ;) As it turns out that was good because one for me and one for the boys to split. The pizzas were made by putting a layer of spinach puree on the pizza crust, a layer of tomatoe sauce over that, and a layer of mozzerella cheese over that and then bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes. It's actually supposed to be made one mini pizza crusts, but Walmart doesn't always carry a variety ;)

I really liked it. The point of this recipe was not to hide the taste of the spinach, but just to hide the green. Isaac, forever my good eater, loved it. He barely touched the crust but he ate every bit of topping includding the spinach. Lysander however, is not easily fooled. He picked all the bread off he could and then ate a bit of cheese but he could see a few green spots and was not having it. In the end I asked him to take a real bite and he did and he ate it but would then no longer eat anymore. So I'll call this first dinner 2/3 a success since Isaac and I enjoyed it. I actually think Grover would have enjoyed it as well. Maybe if he were here and Lysander saw him eating, since daddy carries a touch more weight that mommy does, he would have eaten a bit more.

I'm not sure what I'm going to try tomorrow. I have nine more to try to find at least five that they will both eat. I'm sure that after I make something I'll find some tweaks to make it better for my kids. The pizza will definately need some seasoning. The boys aren't really all about food being bland. They are their parent's children after all. G and I season the hell out of stuff(but we both know how to do it so that it's not over powering). In all honesty, I'm probably only brave enough to try all these new recipes because I'm making them for just me and the petites, as Grover and Fred are chefs I'm a little weary of making things for the first time if they are at dinner.... they probably get a little nervous too!!!!!

More backyard toys!!!

We bought a few more things to play with in the backyard since my last post. I know the last time I talked about this I was sharing my amazement at what it all costs, but in all reality, I think I have now spent under $400 and I've managed to totally justify it all in my head. The biggest justification being shown plainly in the following pictures! :)

This is the boys playing with their Pirate ship. It's what cost the most money out of everything I bought but it was DEFINITELY worth it. They freaking love that thing and it is SUPER cool.

This is the inflatable outdoor easel. You can use chalk and chalk paint on it and it's super fun as well. You just get it wet after they are done and it all wipes off the canvas. Who doesn't love to color outside on a canvas that's taller than you are?!

This is their Cars table and chairs. Perfect for taking a juice break or even eating dinner outside which is what they are doing here.

Probably the most comical thing I've ever done for my kids is go down this slip and slide to show them how it worked. They laughed their little hearts out when I did that. AND they wouldn't even do it right, they just ran up and down the tarp in the water. Still super fun :)

I will say that I might have overlooked myself in the outside buying department. Next time we go to the store I might need to buy myself a lawn chair. So far I've been sitting in the baby pool to sun or turning on the slip and slide and laying down on  it but I probably should get something a little more comfortable. Not that I don't spend most of my time playing with them anyway, but when they are just playing together and not dragging me from one toy to the next it'd be nice to read and book and lay down... for five seconds until they realize mama is relaxing and put a stop to it! ;)

Approximately 329

About 329 days... About 47 weeks... About 11 months... I can't decide how to keep track of how much time there is left until Grover gets home. It's amazing how your mind can be tricked into thinking there's not very much time left. It differs from person to person. I'd say most people wouldn't count down by days when there's over 300 to countdown from. To me, 11 months sounds like a ridiculously long time because it's still almost a year. 47 weeks doesn't sound too bad. It's not a huge number, under 50, and I know my weeks normally fly by. Still, no matter how you look at it, there's still a REALLY long time until he comes home. I mean, my calender doesn't even go to the month he gets home. There's another point too, we don't even have any idea when exactly he comes home. They always keep the arrival time pretty secret but we don't even have an exact month. April or May. Really? That's like an 8 week time frame!! But I digress.

So 329 days... I need a project for 329 days. Kind of like Julie & Julia when she made Julia Childes recipes and blogged about it for an entire year. Don't worry, I won't bore you with me trying to cook. For a couple reasons but the biggest of which is I have kids and that chick didn't and I am a freaking disaster in the kitchen when I'm trying to cook new things. ;) Still though, to have a constant thing that I'm doing daily that's interesting to me, maybe something I could do with the kids, or at least that I could work around the kids. Some might say that this blog is me doing that, and I agree. I like blogging, and it is going to be interesting after all this is said and done to go back and look at this. Of course I'm probably going to be like "Stick to a subject when you're writing!" and "Stop being so whiney about your husband being gone, man up!" But again, I digress.

I'll tell you what though, when GJ does get back we might have to take a leaf out of those people who I saw on the news a few months back who wrote a book about having sex 365 days a year! ;) **Sorry family members who just read that, unless you're a part of my dad's family or my Aunt Julie and then I'm sure you're laughing quite hard right now**

Anyway, 329, 47, 11... I'm going to just focus on how exciting it is that we are slowly but surely knocking time off this thing. I'm going to try to live in the moment and not wish my life away, but I'll always know APPROXIMATELY how much time we have left until we make HUGE embarrassing signs and wave American flags and I'm annoyed because too damn many family members are attending the coming home ceremony and I tell them all that they can be there but they aren't allowed to speak to my husband until the boys and I have hugged and kissed him as much as we want ;) (I'm only sort of kidding there). Then we have 30 days off to take a vacation and just be together. 30, now there's a number I can be down with!

Grover

Just recently it occured to me that some might want an update about Grover. :) I thought this would be the easiest way to let everyone know how he's doing.

On May 2 or 3 he arrived in Talil(not sure if I'm spelling that right) Iraq. For the first couple of weeks he had the CHU(what they call their rooms) all to himself because he arrived ahead of the rest of the 219th. During the first few weeks we got to talk a lot because he was just kind of setting up things and learning from the people they were replacing what they were going to be doing.

The last part of the month the rest of the 219th arrived as did his room mate and good friend Derek. Or Mac as we like to call him :) Grover is attatched to the 219th so I was really glad that Derek was going with him. It made me feel better to know a good friend was going to be watching his back. Though sometimes I feel like he and Derek have spent more time together the past three years than either of them have spent with me and Khirstin(Derek's wife) :)

So when the rest of the 219th arrived we stopped talking as much. He has been extremely busy and I'm sure it'll get worse before it gets better. He did email me a run down of his day. They are seven hours ahead of us, so it goes like this
4:30 wake up and work out(this is 9:30 the previous day our time)
Get ready for work and walk a half hour to get there by 7 am(midnight our time)
Lunch at the chow hall at 12pm(5 am our time) and it's a half hour walk there and half hour walk back
Work again until dinner at 6 pm(11 am our time) and again back to work hour round trip walk
Right now he's getting done with everything between 10-11(3-4pm our time)

Then we skype for as long as he can keep his eyes open(I normally try to make him get off before midnight his time and 5pm our time.) So not a whole lot of free time for him. He says that it will be different eventually. That they'll work half days sometimes so he'll have some time to do things. If I know G... and I really do kinda well, he'll never take a half day. He's a work aholic. He might leave a little earlier than he is right now, but that'll be about it.

We did find out that he won't be getting his R&R now. Not going to lie, that was a pretty big blow to me. The time line of all this started back on February 4th, and basically the whole month of February he was gone 20 hours a day and we barely saw him. Then he was off the first week of March and that was great but March 10th he left for Seattle for six weeks. He was home for four days over Easter weekend before he had to go back to Seattle, but that was an effing disaster because he had strep and we all got sick. So the last time we saw him was April 27th and it literally will be 12 months straight until he gets home. First three months we saw him sporadically, last 12 months he's a watercolored version of himself on skype. And we have 11 months more to go.

Good news is he is going to have 30 days straight off when he gets home and I will be planning the best family vacation EVER to Disney World :)

As far as what he actually does while he's there I really don't know. He's intel, so everything is top secret, but mostly he just says he prepares briefs and attends briefs and corrects briefs. Sounds fun. :)

That's about all I got as far as G is concerned. He seems really happy and like he enjoys whatever it is that he does. He is already listing things he's looking forward to when he gets home(which I honestly try not to think about because it seems too far off to even think about what I'm looking forward to). He is looking forward to real milk, and no sand. :)

Just keep him in your prayers, but also set your mind at ease because he really is okay! :)

Things I never thought I'd do in life...

We live in a house that was built in 1890. Since 1890 the house was renovated at least four times, and every time it was done worse than the time before. When we had our roof redone, there was five layers of shingles to tear off. When we redid our carpet upstairs, there was four layers of flooring to tear up. There is basically always something going on with this house, whether it's a problem we've had for awhile(like the windows that desperately need to be replaced) or something that just springs up... it's a constant thing.

I should stop here and explain that we've been working on renovations since I moved in here in February of 2006. We've been working on trying to refinance the house to renovate for almost two years now. My husband had a previous marriage and long story short, his credit was shit after the divorce(excuse my language, but honestly, there is no other word to describe how bad it was). Of course, right around the time we started trying to refi, the housing market crashed and it became next to impossible to get a loan. You have to have a much much higher credit rating to do so now. So now I'm months away from paying off the last bit and getting a refi process going. Then I'm going to get out my list of things to renovate that Grover made for me before he left and get to paying people to finish making this historic house beautiful again!

So you have all the usual problems that you'd have in an old house, and then you add on top of that... Isaac and Lysander. Who's main mission in life is to leave a wake of distruction in their path.

Culprit: Isaac
Victim: Toilet
Device: Disney Pixar's Cars

All of a sudden Isaac's favorite thing to do is throw things in the toilet. I've been fishing things out of the toilet for a couple of weeks. Well, all of a sudden, toilet not working. So the obvious thing I'm thinking is I missed a toy and flushed and then it was clogged. I tried plunging. Nothing. I then thought we have this snake thing that GJ had to buy after I broke the toilet when Isaac was a few days old(WHOLE other story), I'll try to figure out how to use that... Not a self explanitory tool first of all, but second of all... Nothing.

So then my Mom and Fred come over and Fred tries to use the snake and plunge the toilet. Nothing. Mom says that my Aunt Julie's husband does something with plumbing, so she calls my aunt and she agrees to come over and bring her lovely husband and help me out. I tell her it's not a big deal, we have another toilet, come whenever. So Julie and Joe come today and I of course want to help as much as I can since Joe is doing this for free, and really saving my ass because Lysander does not want to go potty upstairs anymore. (I'm kind of swearing a lot in this post. In life that is totally how I am, but I'd like to keep this clean, so I'm going to pull back on that now.)

So Joe does hsi thing with the snake(as my aunt and I giggle about his skillful use of the snake... yes my family is disturbed) and can't get anything out. So then he ventures down into the scary cellar and turns off the water to the house because apparently on normal toilets you can turn the water to the toilet off but of course not at my house. He tells me I need two buckets and some gloves and a cup. Of course I understand what I'm about to do, and it's really not that bad.

If there was ever a list of THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I'D DO IN LIFE, this would have made the top five. Then Joe has to take the toilet off completely... was NOT prepared for how disgusting that would be. I immediately wanted to go buy a new toilet. Joe snakes the toilet from the other end(more giggles) and finally pushes out the white car and another peice of a lego car. Awesome. By this time of course there is what we will call here... dirty chunky water all over my floor. Awesome. So I thank them profusely(and absolutely mean it) and they leave. Of course while there is "dirty chunky water" all over my floor all hell breaks lose in my house. (I swear, it's unavoidable for that swear word too. That's the last one, promise!) Isaac is freaking out, Lysander wants leftover pizza for dinner and the dog keeps trying to walk in the dirty chunky water.

I believe my Aunt took pictures of the process, but I'm going to go ahead and leave those off. I hope my words created a pleasing enough visual. Floors got cleaned, boys calmed down, and I used the potty and it all went down perfectly. Check that one off the bucket list.

Fun activies with the Petites & the ridiculous money spent doing it

I have two goals for this summer. Pay off our last bit of debt in order to refinance our house, and make sure that the boys have a great summer while not spending incredible amounts of money. So I've been putting a lot of thought into how we would spend this summer. This is the story of all that thought put into action.

My Mom and Dad bought us a zoo membership for Easter(which they are turning into an annual thing because it's such an awesome thing to have). Last year we did the zoo once a week, and that's definately something we'll do for fun again. We live five minutes away so it costs nothing in gas and really the only thing we ever spend money on there is for tickets to ride the train. Definately fun for cheap acheived with the zoo membership.

We also have a park that is within walking distance of the house that GJ discovered last year, and I've already been there a couple times with the boys this year. They LOVE IT. I'm not going to lie, it wears me out because they are still so little in my eyes and they like to climb on the biggest ladders and go down the tallest slides and I have a mini heart attacks every time we go. This time fun for free, so far I have had a couple of really good ideas.

Then of course I get my most brilliant idea... we have a BACKYARD! I should definately get some outside toys and then I can just go out back and lay out and read a book and let them run around and play with toys and it'll be great. Fun for cheap, right? WRONG. Fun, yes. Lots of fun. They love the backyard. I worked hard at the beginning of spring to rake up rocks and plant new grass and I even mowed the grass once so far. I knew in order to have the backyard be a play area I'd have to start early and I followed through. I put even more thought into it and I told my mom to look for outside toys while at garage sales because who cares if I buy used toys for the outdoors, they are just going to get beat up anyway. She found an awesome and pretty big sandbox for only $15. Sand turns out to be pretty cheap as well, so we're "winning" there! Then I found a pool(a plastic one because a blow up one would get destroyed by the boys) which was only $25 and I got some pool toys on clearance and a sprinkler on clearance and I'm feeling so good about my ability to cheaply get toys for the backyard and it be a totally fun place for the boys.

We've been out playing on the two days that it didn't rain since I bought all this stuff and I came to the realization that I really need a few more things to keep them entertained for more than a couple hours. I mean, how can I get a really killer tan while playing with my kids if they are bored after only two hours?

Here is where I realized how wrong I was about how cheap this would be to do. I realized that in order to buy outside toys you have to be a CEO of a multi million dollar organization. There are not outdoor toys for less that $50. More than that, the ones that are $50 are made for 12 month olds, and I'm here to tell you that at 12 months old neither one of my kids would have played with those toys and now that they would play with say a water table, I have to buy the one that's $100 because they are 2 and 3 now. I want a water table for sure, because I know they will enjoy that beyond all measure. We definately need some more bubble toys, and that's not very expensive but I know I'll be buying them at least ten times this summer because since they are cheap, they are cheaply made. I looked at picnic tables, but they are ridiculous, so I found folding chairs and table with an umbrella (CARS of course) that was only $30. What I think would be AWESOME to have is a playhouse. Do you have any idea what a playhouse costs to buy NEW? Again, must be a CEO. So I looked on Craigslist. Apparently the people who have kids who have outgrown the playhouses think that they are still worth what they bought them new for. So now I have to do one of two things, either totally blow my budget and buy the playhouse that I know my kids will love or let my mom keep hunting for one at garage sales and hope those people have sense and aren't asking $400 for it. If she doesn't find one by June 15th then Toys R Us will win again. In retrospect, I should have thought about this six months ago and put a little money back for it. Lesson Learned.

 Last, but certainly not the least, I was really excited that a special activity this summer, and from now on for me and the boys, would be to go to the movies. They are finally old enough to both go, and they really really love it. For the first big movie of the summer, I decided we'd go see Kung Fu Panda 2 today during the morning so it'd be a little less crowded and at matinee price. The boys were so excited to go, all the could talk about was Panda Panda Panda.

When we were paying for the ticket, the girl did a really good job selling their Stubs club card for $12 a year. It gives you discounts on concessions and you don't pay to get tickets on Fandango. The thing she acted like was the big selling point was you get $10 back for every $100 you spend. Now, in my head I'm thinking, it would take forever for me to spend $100 at the movies. At most we'll probably go once a month. Good thing I didn't say that outloud to the girl because she probably would have collapsed from lack of oxygen while cracking up laughing. For three tickets and the $12 membership thing I spent $27. For an 11:30 am movie! Then at the concession stand(where I save $2) I bought three small popcorns and two small(which FYI were about five times bigger than I thought they'd be) drinks and one large drink. After my $2 in savings I spent $30. I'll do the math for you, I was already $57 in to spending $100 and that was in one trip to the movies.

I don't mean to sound like a crazy person about spending money. Truth is, there's really no amount of money I won't spend for my kids to have fun experiences. My indignation comes more from the fact that I was so excited to think of all these "cheap" things to do and then I turn around and end up spending crazy amounts of money. Possibly it's my personality. Both of my parents like to tell me that I have champange taste on a beer budget. Personally, I think champagne is for special occasions, and on special occasions I do tend to spend quite a bit of money. In general though I know how to cut fat out of our budget and there are plenty of things I've given up in my quest to refi and renovate the house.

Even as I've been writing this I've worked out a justification for all the money spent. Next summer the boys will only be 3 and 4. Meaning that they will not have outgrown playing in a smaller pool, sandbox, water table or sprinkler. They will still be small enough to sit in the little kid chairs at the little kid table. Even at 5 and 6 they'll probably still play with those toys. In the end, the big money items will probably definately be worth it in the end. Then, after the boys are done with them I'll pass them on to my neices and nephews or anyone else who I know with little ones that can use them still. The movies are a special thing, once a month, easily factored in to a budget :) And sweetness!! Every two months I'll be saving $10!