Rare Saturday

It's a morning of rare occurrences.

First of all, the remnants of Hurricane Isaac are steadily soaking our parched yard.

Second of all, it's barely 9 am, and we have eaten breakfast, played, and made two loaves of banana bread (that are actually out of the oven!  This means that they were in the oven by 8!)

Third, and most surprising?  All three boys are quietly playing in the basement.  I don't hear yelling, screaming, or crying.  I'm almost afraid to go down and see what I might find.  But I decided to tempt fate and sit down with my coffee for a few minutes and enjoy what is a nice, peaceful, rainy morning.  Something we haven't had in months.

Usually on a Saturday I have gotten up early, been for a run, and came home to a house full of playing boys (usually still in their PJ's).  Sometimes even there is breakfast waiting for me (have I mentioned how much I love my husband?).  Saturday mornings are at once lazy and crazy.

So forgive me for indulging in a quiet moment.  All too soon one of the boys will be calling me, trying to complain about something the other did.  Or, eventually I will have to go down to the basement, as I promised.

Enjoy your Saturday morning, I hope it's as nice as mine!

calm within the chaos

I'm sitting here in the recliner in our living room, nursing Novak. All around me is laundry. In one basket, a load of Nate's clothes I folded this morning. In another, a pile of Nile's clothes, clean, but needing to be folded. And in another, a half-folded load of diapers. The rest of the diapers are on the floor partially sorted, patiently waiting for me to stuff and fold them. And, I can hear the washer entering it's final spin cycle on a load of swim trunks and beach towels (we have swim lessons tomorrow). All of these will need to be put away, hopefully before Tom gets home from work. Hopefully.

The kitchen is a disaster from Nile and my baking experiment this morning. (peanut butter oatmeal sandwich cookies - which are very, very good! Maybe too good...)

I have a to-do list a mile long, some things that I should have already done (preschool registration papers for next year), and some I would just like to do (scrapbooks are way out of date, I need to set up the boys' college savings accounts...)

But I'm not complaining one bit.

I am exactly where I want to be. And I wouldn't change a thing.

Unless, of course, you know of any laundry fairies that are available...?

Fun with Nile

Since I had the opportunity to stay home an extra day with Nile, I thought that we'd have some fun. I feel like so often I don't spend the quality time with him that I should. Either I'm nursing Novak, or I'm making lunch, or we're getting ready to go to preschool or the gym. Add in a nap or quiet time in the afternoon, and I find the day has gone by and I've hardly spent any one-on-one time with him.

Today, I made an effort to correct that.

Nile and I sat down with our latest issue of Family Fun magazine, and picked out two projects to do. Both required me to do some prep work, so while I got ready, I gave him "ingredients" and let him "play cook" in the kitchen.

Then, we made silly ornaments out of pieces of yarn and cornstarch glue.
And we made "tarts" with a frozen pie crust and raspberry jam filling. Nile helped brush on the egg wash.

Of course, they wouldn't be complete without fluorescent orange frosting (Nile's color choice) and LOTS of colored sugar sprinkles. :)
Notice that, in all these pictures, he's still in his PJ's. Nothing better than a day home with Mom, hanging out in PJ's.

Note: I'm 0-for-3 on projects/recipes from Family Fun. None of them have worked out without having to make changes. So, although they have good ideas, at least when I do them, I have to be prepared for tweaks. Today, the cornstarch "glue" for the ornaments was WAY too thick and had to be watered down, and the frosting for the tarts needed to have extra water added in order to mix in all the powdered sugar. Live and learn!

Run, run, as fast as you can...

One of the boys' favorite books is "The Gingerbread Man" - I read it almost daily to Nile. For a few weeks he's been asking to make his own Gingerbread Man. So, we bought some premade gingerbread dough (even I know when to let Pillsbury take over) and borrowed some cookie cutters from my mom. Today, since we had to stay home for the morning (cousin Emily came for a visit), we decided to do it!

Step 1: Roll out dough and select your shape.


Step 2: Bounce excitedly as your brother gets to cut out a cookie. Ask ten times if it's your turn yet. Switch places with your brother. Repeat 10 times.


Step 3. Watch mom put cookies in oven. Ask her 15 times if they are done yet.
Step 4. Watch mom take the cookies out of the oven. Ask her 10 times if they are cool yet.
Step 5. Ask mom again when they will be ready to decorate. Get frustrated when mom tells you we don't have the ingredients to make royal icing.
Step 6. Send mom to the corner store (i.e. gas station) for powdered sugar.
Step 7. Watch mom make icing. Ask her 5 times why the egg yolks don't go into the icing.

Step 8. Finally! Decorate the cookies!


Step 9. Ask mom 50 times when you can eat the cookies. Sigh when she says not until after naptime.


Step 10. Eat a cookie and pronounce it the "greatest cookie ever."

I suppose I'd have to agree. They do look pretty festive, don't they?