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The kids and I made cookies after school yesterday.

I wasn't sure at all how yesterday would go. Sara is attending two different preschools at the moment. The morning one meets three times a week, the afternoon one meets every day. I was worried about getting her from one to the other, mainly because she wants to ride the bus. While we have plenty of time to get her from school one to home in order to meet the bus, it doesn't leave a lot of time for her to eat lunch.

The easy solution (and I'm sure Sara's preferred one) would be to grab something quick. However, as a mom who struggles every day with weight and issues, I prefer a healthy lunch. She has a busy schedule she needs fuel, not fat and salt and sugar disguised as food in brightly colored bags or boxes. I readily admit that I give my kids fast food. I hope that by teaching them how to eat all sorts of food, they can avoid the struggles that I have when they get older. And that basically boils down to portion control and moderation.  So while I don't mind the occasional kids meal, at least one part of it needs to be somewhat nutritious. Chicken nuggets with apple fries? Do-able. Grilled chicken sandwich with fries? Manageable. Tucker can actually eat an adult sized meal with no problem. He has the metabolism to burn it off right now, but he won't always. So it's worth the battle to keep him at a kids sized meal (which is plenty big) and then let him supplement with additional fruits or vegetables.

Yesterday, Sara had a bean burrito for lunch...well, what she'd eat of it. She was too excited to eat much and was worried that she's miss her bus. As she was (literally) hopping on the bus, she asked me if we could make cookies that afternoon.

Heck yeah! I LOVE to bake. Everything about it is soothing to me. The kids are at the perfect age for helping me bake too, and I love having stuff to do that doesn't involve spending tons of money, watching TV, or eating crap. I love that you can work in a math lesson or two without it sounding like you are trying to work in a math lesson or two.

By the time the kids' bus was due, I was excited to hear about their days and to get started with the baking. I heard the bus coming, and went outside to meet them......only to find out that Sara would be on the second bus drop off about thirty five minutes later. Oooops. Parental fail. I assumed the school would put the preschoolers on the same bus as K-2. But they didn't.

So, 35 minutes later, Tucker and I were hanging at the bus stop waiting for Sara. This is going to work out beautifully! Every day I'm going to get 35 minutes with just me and Tucker. He's a great sport (most of the time) about not getting tons of one on one attention. So the fact that we can have this time every day makes me incredibly, blissfully happy. I still have two mornings a week with just Sara, so she is in no way being left out.

Sara got off the bus, no worse for the wear. I was concerned that she would be upset that Tucker wasn't on her bus, but she was with the big kids, so she was in hog heaven. They all think she's so cute, and I'm not going to say or do a thing to ruin that image.  ::snort!::

We walked back home, got right to the cookie making, and finished up right as R was walking in the door. I was pleased that this recipe for oatmeal cookies turned out so well, because the recipe has changed on the oatmeal container since the last time  made them. Guess I should have written the old one down, huh? But I pretty much remembered it, so all was well in the end (and yes, I wrote it down this time.)

I wish that smell-o-vision and taste-o-vision were available because these bad boys turned out as well as I've ever had cookies turn out.

YUM!

School Days!

School started today!

They were really good sports. It was cooler and windy, and the sun (as you can probably tell) was in their eyes for this picture. But they stood there anyway.

You'd never know they bickered the entire way to school, only to stop and become something akin to the Wonder Twins once we had to brave the gauntlet parking lot. Some of those parents are nuts! I thought people were going to get shot over parking spaces today.

I'm not above letting the fairy tale teach the lesson

So! Lately we've been having some issues with the resident diva thinking that the entire world exists just to serve her every need. While she is awfully cute, that's not how we roll here in the Dahl house.

At dinner the other night, she thought it would be hilarious to splatter stuff all over the floor. R and I? We were not nearly as amused.

The solution we used this time was to make like Cinderella and have her scrub the floor. Yes, with a toothbrush.

The giant arm? That's me being helpful and showing her she missed a spot.  She was welcome.

She is a cutie pie, though, right?!? Now if can just teach her to use her powers for good.....

Labor Day, indeed.

Every now and then, between furniture re-arranging sessions and feeble attempts to de-clutter our clutter prone house, R and I will talk about stuff we could do 'out there'.

Of course, 'out there' refers to yardwork in excess of weed pulling and mowing. Last year we planted some monkey grass and a bunch of pansies. Most of which has, of course, died.  Sigh.

This year, we've been talking about more of an all-around overhaul. When housing maintenance came to 'fix' (and by 'fix' I mean paint over) the water damage in the corner of the kitchen, the maintenance worker suggested that we try using a drainage hose to divert water coming out of the downspout at that corner. R and I agreed that we would much rather bury the hose, even though to do it correctly would mean digging a trench from the back wall of our house to the fence. When he measured the distance, it was 28 feet. That's a pretty good amount of digging, but worth it to not have to deal with the drainage hose when we are actually using the back yard or when R is mowing the grass.

But hey, since we'd be digging, I suggested installing a drainage hose at the front of the house as well. I wanted to rearrange some of the landscaping in the front, and if we were going to be digging up and replanting bushes, we might as well fix the front drain as well. Then, perhaps, I could keep my mulch in the flower bed instead of it washing onto the sidewalk and entryway.

I have big dreams like that.

Today was amazingly pleasant. After almost a solid week of temps in the high 90's with high humidity, today the temperature wasn't expected to reach 80. My kind of weather!

We agreed this morning that today was the day. After we went to the Y, we dropped by Lowe's to pick up some edging for the tree in the front, the drainage hose, and some weed killer.

We get home and R immediately starts to dig in the backyard.  We haven't had a lot of rain here lately so the ground was really hard. About halfway through, we got smart and watered the area so that we would dig it up easier. While we waited for the water to soak in, we moved around to the front of the house.

There we moved a couple of bushes around, but mostly made a huge mess, helped along by our resident diva's free hand with the water hose. A preschooler + hose + lots of dirt = a huge, muddy mess. But hey, everyone was happy, and dirt can be cleaned off. R and I were being productive, S had our full attention all to herself, and T was getting a much needed break from little sister annoyance. Everybody wins!

After we finished the front, I went inside and R, God bless him, went around to the back and finished digging and burying the drainage hose with a little assistance from T.

Therefore, we totally deserved the Reeses' peanut butter pumpkins we had after dinner.

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Writers Workshop Thursday - 10 Dos and Don'ts of Airplane Etiquette

1) DO - actually check to make sure your carry on bag fits appropriately inside the sample size metal thingy at check in. That's what it's there for, the rules do indeed apply to you too, and I don't want your approved TSA sized bottle of horrible smelling lotion/cologne/perfume/shampoo/hairspray dripping on my head, soaking into my bag, or stinking up the plane because you or someone else had to shove your over sized bag into too small a space. 

2) DON'T - be a jacka$$ to the flight attendant. Planes are over-crowded, on tight schedules, understaffed, and full of impatient, demanding people. If the FA tells you that you need to check your bag, just check it. If the FA says they can't serve you another drink, let. it. go. If the FA asks you to get your seat out of the lap of the person behind you, make like the Nike slogan and just do it. 

3) DO - have your boarding pass and ID ready before you get in line to board the plane. Those of us who have this ready will thank you profusely - if not out loud, then definitely mentally. 

4) DON'T - take your shoes off. Especially if your feet stink. If you aren't sure/weren't aware, the people sitting beside you will give you some pretty reliable cues. And if you have gas, for the love of God, take some tums, pepto, or bean-o. Just because we didn't hear it doesn't mean we don't smell you and and yes, we can indeed tell that it's coming from you. 

5) DO - have some sympathy for people with kids on your flight. If you are annoyed by restless/cranky/crying kids for an hour or two, imagine being in a car with them for six or more hours. That's probably why they are flying. And do you really want a distracted, distressed, exhausted parent barreling down a highway you or someone you love also occupies at 65 mph or more? Nuh-uh!

6) DON'T - look at porn during the flight. Seriously - what are you planning on doing about it in that tiny little seat anyway?!?

7) DO - use common courtesies: please, thank you and excuse me when appropriate, don't throw your trash on the floor, clean up after yourself if you spill something (or you know, pee on the seat or on the floor of the bathroom.) 

8) DON'T - treat your row mates like a captive audience. Some people like to talk, some people don't. Know which one is which. 

9) DO - keep cell phone conversations at a reasonable volume level and appropriate for the people around you. It's the same with all electronic devices..your seat mate may not have the same appreciation for Yanni that you do. Nor do toddlers need to hear the f-bomb or the details about your drunk hook-up last night. 

10) DON'T - for heaven's sake do not make jokes about bombs, terrorists, crashing planes, or anything else of that nature. Not funny. 

Thanks for the prompt Mama Kat! 

Pickled spaghetti

Last Friday, I made zucchini parmigiana as a way to sneak some more veggies into dinner.

Or so I thought.

Apparently, the days of being able to put tomato sauce and cheese on things to get the kids to try it are long gone.

T takes one look at it, sniffs and announces, "Gross! Spaghetti with pickles? NO WAY!"

::helpless giggling::

It never occurred to me that he'd think sliced zucchini = pickles. But honestly, I could see how he arrived at that conclusion and why he refused to try it.

No matter. R and I ate the zucchini and loved every bite.

I keep having this image in my head of T trying to impress a girl with his cooking by throwing pickles, ketchup, and cheese in a bowl and heating it, saying that his mom used to make it... Ahhahahahaaaaaaaa.

Anyway, today we were headed to the commissary after the Y and I asked him what he wanted for dinner.

T: I want spaghetti and meatballs, but not the pickled spaghetti you made the other night. Just regular spaghetti and meatballs, okay. NO PICKLES.

Pickled spaghetti. It's what's for dinner.

Sinus infection Monday

Last week I felt like I'd been invaded by seasonal allergies. Attack of the killer mold spores!!! Seriously, I think this geographical area is poisoned or polluted or toxic or something as much as the fam and I have been sick in the past year or so. I think it's all the corn fields. Maybe in Field of Dreams KCos built the baseball field in an allergy fueled delirium. It's totes possible....

Saturday morning I woke up and realized my sinuses had hijacked my entire body. By hijacked, I mean felt like they'd been belted with  a hammer. My teeth even hurt. Yeech. The only thing that even remotely helped was to stand in a very hot shower. Unfortunately, I couldn't spend 24/7 in a very hot shower.  So it was pretty miserable. With the medication I'm on, I can't take certain over the counter medications - ibuprofen and most cold medicines/decongestants among them. Boo!!!!!!

So today I woke up and didn't feel any better. I dragged myself to the Y hoping that some low impact sweating would help relieve the pressure. For whatever reason, it did. I felt almost normal. WOOOHOO! It took a few hours for the effect to wear off, so between exercise and hot showers, which work well together anyway, I think I've got this thing licked.  Take that shelves full of chemically induced relief. I found my own remedy. HAHA! And no one will mistakenly think I'm trying to manufacture meth. Bonus!