Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

I love having a girl. I always wanted one. I remember being pregnant with Emma and praying to God to give me a girl. Don't get me wrong I love my boys too but there is something special about having a girl. I love the pink, the purses, girly movies, lip gloss, dresses, even the "girl drama". Emma has the girly side but still "kicks butt" on the basketball court too! I hope Emma and I will have that close bond where we can lay on her bed when she is a teen and talk about anything. Emma also loves sleepovers. We have been having a lot this summer. She is a lot like me when I was her age because I always wanted them at my house. I felt better at home. I love listening to the giggles at night and the singing to High School Musical through her door. I know I will cherish these memories...

Recipe Website

If you are like me cooking sometimes can be overwhelming. I never know what to make that everyone will eat. When I do find a recipe sometimes it is hard to follow. I found this awesome website that breaks down into pictures step by step the process of cooking. I have tried several recipes from it and they were so good. I thought I would pass it along. It is http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking

Give it a try and happy cooking :)

My "Baby" is Five

Wow, I can't believe it has almost been a month since I updated my blog! I really think I stink at this. But since school is finally out I think I will be better at updating. Summer has started out with a bang as usual. We have managed to stay busy everyday. Oh, there have been the occasionally "I'm bored" but the rule at our house is if they are bored they can do summer homework (worksheets to review from the year). How quickly they find something to do!

We started the summer with Colin's birthday. We had the family party at the grandparents house with the cousins; Vincent and Gracie. We went to Grammy and Grampy's neighborhood water park (which is huge!!) I would have taken pictures of that but I forgot to bring my camera to the water park. It is really great to take all the kids to because it has something for all the ages--a splash park, sand area for the little ones and large slides for big kids (Curt loves these). Then today we had Colin's friend's party at a place called Peter Piper Pizza. He had his friends from pre-school there. It was fun to watch his first party with friends!

Perspective...

Colin never gets sick so when he woke up Sunday morning holding his throat and crying I knew right away it was probably strep. I took his temp and it was a little high. I gave him Motrin and he became a new kid. Motrin..what did we do before it?? The rest of the day he was fine but when the night came his fever was up to 101 and he felt crummy. I held him but before he fell asleep he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, make it go away". Ouch. That's the worse kind-of pain as a mother is when you can't make it go away. All I knew is in the morning I could take him to the doctor and get him medicine and he would be alright. Sure enough that is what happened. I took him and he did have strep. We came home with the yucky pink medicine and he is going to be alright. I was stressed those two days because my "baby" was sick. Then today everything was put in perspective for me. What if you can't make your "baby" well? Emma has a friend, Alaina, that when she was six found out she had neuroblastoma. She went through all the chemo, radiation and hell it takes to rid your body of cancer and now she is in remission--she is nine now and is still cancer-free. Through her mom I found a couple blogs. They are under my blog list. I just checked the one "what's cook'n.." and they received bad news about their little girl Bree. It hit me that at the exact time I was stressing over Colin's strep they were receiving the news that their one year old still had cancer in her bone marrow. What absolute pain that mother must be going through that she can't "make it go away". I need to remember that even when my situation seems so bad there is always worse. But even if that worse comes to us God will never leave us...even in this mother's darkest hours she is still praising God. In the end that is all we have. That is what I always need to keep in perspective.

Take a Break and Bake

What is it with May? Every year it nearly kills me. I have a dry erase calender hanging in our kitchen to keep track of our family activities and May's is overflowing. Every single day has something written on it. It seems as if everyone panics and has to schedule every school event, meeting, birthday party, field trip, picnic etc in May. It is not the only month in the year people!!! Ok, I feel better now :) Anyway the other day I thought I needed to take a moment for myself and slow down. So I baked these delicious banana crumb muffins. The whole family loved them and that is really saying something. The kids even had them for dessert with a glass of milk. If you too are feeling the craziness of May take a moment and bake something yummy. Your kids will thank you. :)

Banana Crumb Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups or line with muffin papers.

2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon the batter into prepared muffin cups.

3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon of butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean.

We Survived Kinder Camp!

Last night they had Kinder Camp at our elementary school. It was a chance for the future kinder students to meet the teachers and see a real live kindergarten classroom. Colin was not at all keen on going. His Pre-K teacher had an idea to tell him that all the teachers up at Taylor (his new school) were her friends so could he please be nice and say hi to them. Well, that did the trick because he was all smiles after that. He even shook hands with them! So cute! It was just Colin, Emma and I that went because John and Curt had to go to Curt's basketball practice. Emma wants to be a teacher when she grows up and boy did it show! She walked Colin around to each of the centers, storytime area, calendar place and explained what he will be doing at each location. Everyone was so impressed because all the other students were listening more to Emma explaining it than the teacher! There is no doubt Emma will be an awesome teacher. As hard as it has been to let go I know it is time. I just needed to get the signal from him that he is ready..I think I got that last night. :)

What Happened to the Time??

Next week is a big week for me. It is one step closer to something I have wanted for a long time...peace, freedom and time for myself (or at least when September comes). I am registering my youngest, Colin, for Kindergarten on Monday. Yippee!! Now I can finally substitute whenever I want or maybe even try to get a full time position with the school--who knows-- but come September I am FREE! Wow, how come I feel so... sad? I have this feeling of ...oh no, once I put my baby in school, that's it, their ALL gone. I have this lump in my throat. What happened to their babyhood? What happened to the time? I thought it would last forever. The funny thing is I had wished it wouldn't. I would get so frustrated with the long nights of waking up to hungry babies, missing pacifiers, leaky diapers, cleaning bottles, trying to snap onsies on a run-away toddler, putting together all those toys, etc. Don't get me wrong I still really don't miss those days! I like them at this age. But I am afraid that if it is moving this fast--how much faster can it go? For instance the other day when Colin came to sit on my lap and had rested his head on my shoulder I thought to myself--soon he will be too big for this just like Curt. I thought to myself "I wonder when the actual day was that Curt did sit on my lap like this for the last time". If we all knew when and if those times were going to be the last we would surely treasure that moment more. I would have memorized the smell of Curt's hair and his little hands and legs. I would have held tighter and longer, savoring every moment. Now he is a big 5'3 4th grader who no longer snuggles up to me...that time is forever gone. Did I enjoy it enough? Did I take for granted when he called me "mommy". It makes me think of a Steven Curtis Chapman song--I love the words to this song:

There is only ONE who knows
What's really out there waiting
In all the moments yet to be
And all we need to know
is He's out there waiting

To Him the future's history
and He has given us a treasure called right now
and this is the only moment we can do anything about

And if it brings you tears
Then taste them as they fall
And let them soften your heart

And if it brings you laughter
Then throw your head back
and let it go, let it go,
You gotta let it go

Listen to your heartbeat.
There's a wonder in the here and now
It's right there in front of you
And I don't want you to miss
The miracle of the moment

I will make it through the registration on Monday. But I am sure I will be one of the moms you see on the first day of Kindergarten crying --after all he is my baby. Even when he is too big to snuggle in my lap I just might have to make him ;)