What the . . .

I was searching the bedrooms where I had last seen Athena heading when I heard a thumping sound coming from the bathroom . . .

Funny, I don't even remember calling a plumber.

Free board games. W00T!

I went to Toys R Us last night and got some nearly free stuff. Allow me to brag . . . er . . . share.

Twister $8.99
Operation $8.99
Connect Four $8.99

I then used these coupons: $5 off Operation, $4 off Twister, $4 off Connect Four
Then I received a $5 gift card for spending over $20 on Hasbro games
Then I mailed in a rebate form to get $3 back on each game.

So I paid 16.31 out of pocket and got a $5 gift card and $9 back in rebates.
That's like paying $2.31 for three awesome board games.

Rock on. I will store these away until an occasion presents itself.

Cranky Mama

I am cranky this morning and not being a very loving mama. I am not a morning person but I think I need to tweek my weekday schedule a bit or I am never going to get out of this rut. Along side the crankiness, several of the first items on my daily schedule consistently do not get done because I get up late (and cranky) and want to jump right into other stuff as to not fall behind. I recently came across blog post that got me thinking about making small changes for the better. Here are a few things I want to try that will hopefully allow me to accomplish two goals: be more productive and less cranky.

• make sure kitchen is clean (for the most part) before I go to bed. Trying to get breakfast on the table when the table is still nasty from dinner and there aren't any clean bowls or spoons is a typical early morning cause of stress. And so easily preventable.
• Get enough sleep. aka: stop staying up until 1am doing stuff that is not that important and can wait until the next day.
• Wake up before the kids. I have a harsh knee jerk reaction to the one responsible for waking me up in the morning, especially when I stayed up way too late. I would rather that thing be an alarm clock than one of my kids.
• Start an early morning routine of exercise, followed by prayer, shower, and coffee. All before the first tiny foot walks down the hall.

 I really don't want breakfast and other kid related "chores" to become . . . well . . . a  chore. We should be enjoying breakfast together, tidying up together, and then enjoying all of that free time together. I don't want to simply check "feed kids" off of a list of tasks that I need to complete before I can get to all the stuff I really want to be doing.

To be fare, I woke up this past Sunday with a bit of a cold so I haven't been feeling 100% but I think a proper routine would allow me to function better, even while under the weather.

Success!

I mentioned in a few notebooks past that Shannon was struggling with his reading lessons. I decided to keep plugging along but I told myself that as soon as he starts to get frustrated I would just say, "Hey, I think we've done enough. Great job!" and move on. But as soon as I would say that, he would calm down and want to keep going. So after about a week of that, things just started clicking. It is so amazing. He is just reading up a little storm over here. What's interesting is that Chloe, who was quite a bit more comfortable with reading single words than Shannon was, has now fallen a bit behind as she seems to get confused when reading words together in a sentence. Which is totally fine considering she is only three years old! I didn't expect her to learn more then just the letters and maybe some sounds this year.

It is so incredible what shifts can take place in just a matter of weeks. I feel so blessed to be the one who gets to facilitate their learning. If I can remember to get a video of Shannon reading, I will post one. I am the worst at taking pictures. I like to think it is because I am so busy living the moments that I forget to stop and take pictures. Yes . . . that's it.

Motorcycle Fail

So I took a motorcycle safety course with my dad over the weekend. I had never even been a passenger on a motorcycle but it's something I have wanted to do since I was 15 and watched Easy Rider with my dad in our living room. My dad found out the dates for the course and my job was to just call and confirm my registration. I did it pretty quickly amongst a million other things going on at the time. So I was all signed up and just had to buy some boots and wait for the class. When we were finally heading to the course, I think it finally dawned on me that I was going to be riding a motorcycle.

The first evening of class was just classroom instruction so not too scary. But I somehow had failed to grasp the fact that we were going to be tested on this stuff and that if we passed we could do down to the DOL and get our endorsement. Oh yah. So that part got me a bit nervous. The next morning we were geared up and ready to ride at 7:45am. We started out with very basic skills and each exercise built on the one before it. So it was actually okay. By the end of the first day of riding I felt pretty confident. The next day, I seemed to have forgotten the basics and the whole practice just seemed to not be as solid as the day before. By the time the test came I was a nervous wreck and pretty much blew the whole thing. I wasn't really too upset about it, considering I had really just wanted to learn how to ride and get familiar with the sport. My dad, by the way, got 100%. What a show off.

My dad and I have formulated a plan to get some practice time in this summer and retake the course in the fall. I do know there are people on this earth (my friend Laura being one of them) that were able to pass the test on the first try, having never ridden a bike before the course, but I was not one of them. Among all the gifts and natural abilities God has given me, if motorcycle riding is not one of them, I'm okay with that. If it would have been a karaoke test or a make-a-chicken-pot-pie-from-scratch test, I would've schooled all those guys.

The Storm Before the Calm

Last week was nuts and this week even more so. Let's take a look at last week:
Monday - Prepare to make meals, get in a lot of school time because rest of week will be crazy
Tuesday - Go into spokane to pick up chicken, start preparing meals, gymnastics in the evening
Wednesday - Occupational Therapy, Albertsons to score free cereal, more meal prep, teach Childbirth Ed in the evening
Thursday - More meal prep, soccer in the evening
Friday - Fun at the park, get home and prepare to be gone most of the weekend, go to first day of motorcycle safety course in the evening (wanna know how that went? See next post)
Weekend - mototcycle safety course, church, resting

This Week (watching my cousin's daughter Tuesday - Friday):
Monday - More meal prep, coupon class in the evening (had a lot of fun. Pamela rocks)
Tuesday - Last of the meals will be prepped, meet with doula network officers in the evening, stacey will come home early to get Shannon to gymnastics
Wednesday - Occupational therapy, Childbirth Ed in the evening
Thursday - Soccer practice and then meet with NFP instuctor (we have an awesome woman instructing us in the use of the Creighton Method)
Friday - Date with my husband. We're going to Taste for Life, a benefit for Hospice.

And then . . . nothing. Peace. Quiet. A week to prepare ourselves for Easter. Although, most of the things I have scheduled this week are things I will enjoy, I am very much looking forward to the stillness. Next week I do not teach, gymnastics is over, and I don't have any other meetings. Our family will be together every night. A very Holy Week indeed.

Freezer Meals

I was able to score boneless, skinless, chicken breasts for $1.58/lb last week but I had to buy a 40 lb case. So, the weekend before the purchase I planned several meals I could make and freeze and I purchased the remaining ingrediants I needed. The awesome thing it, I had most of the dry and canned ingrediants already in my stock pile. I basically had to purchase about $35 in produce and herbs. I also thawed out 12 lbs of chicken from a previous score (1.88/lb).

I used recipes from my two favorite freezer meal books:
Don't Panic Dinner's in the Freezer and Don't Panic More Dinner's in the Freezer

I bought these books when I was 8 months pregnant with Athena so I could load up our freezer before her birth. So here are the meals I made last week and part of this week:

Chicken Parisienne (crockpot meal) x 3
Chicken Cacciatore (crockpot meal) x 3
Chick Breasts Stuffed with Pesto (oven) x 2
Buttermilk Herb (grill) x 3
Chick Pot Pie (oven) x 6 this one is a family favorite
Grilled Honey Lime Chicken (grill) x 3
Teriyaki Chicken Stirfry (stovetop) x 4


So, I made 24 meals and I believe the cost came out to about $5.25/meal. Not too shabby. Oh, and I should mention, each meal will feed our family for dinner and then Stacey's lunch the next day.

Now I'm hoping to find a deal on pork and repeat the process. I would like to spread these meals out over a 4 - 5 month period. We're not huge beef eaters but if I find a deal, I have recipes for that too.