Harvest time

Last week was harvest time in Jackson's school's garden, and Jackson was so excited to bring home three good looking medium-sized onions for me to cook with.  I remember Jackson telling me he planted onions along with his friend early on in the semester, while most everyone else in Jackson's class planted potatoes.  I'm really impressed with his harvest and can hardly wait to cook with them.

We went up to the school as part of the Chicken Coop Tour on Sunday, and we took a look around the garden to see what is growing since most everything has been harvested.  I was amazed to see about a hundred growing tomatoes, gigantic clumps of basil throughout the garden, and a plethora of other garden veggies and herbs.  The garden is so incredible I can hardly put words to it...there never seems to be a time where nothing is growing!

 Meanwhile, last Friday Jackson's class was treated to a popsicle party, as their class had the largest percentage of donors to the garden program of any kindergarten class.  Jackson was pretty excited to end his week on such a high note with a special popsicle party!  We're really proud to be a part the garden program at Jackson's school, as it affords such an incredible learning experience and provides a valuable asset to our community.  We're already looking forward to whatever Jackson grows next! 

 

Farmer Jackson

Time out for Girls' Night Out

In May 2006 I quit my paying job in finance to stay at home with sweet baby Jackson, who was about 10 months old at the time.  Not knowing any other stay at home moms in our area I joined our early childhood PTA group with the hopes that I could meet up with women like me.  I also joined a Kindermusik class with Miss Lisa at a local church for the same reason.  Jackson was a late talker, and after I'd been at home with him for a few months I was nearly desperate for an outlet where I could talk with other moms during the day.

In August 2006 I met Kate with her daughter Jane, and Cynthia with her daughter Olivia, at Kate's house just a couple of blocks from our house.  That was the beginning of our playgroup where even six years later the moms still get together even though our children have long since outgrown the need for a playgroup.  Over the past six years our playgroup attendance has ebbed and flowed, but we've always had a core group of about seven or eight women who always made it for play dates or girls' nights.  I absolutely love getting together with these women, and I always look forward to our Girls' Nights Out together.

We finally got together again last weekend, and it's amazing to me that we pick up where we left off with each other with such ease it's as if there was no lapse at all.  We were missing a few girls from our group on our recent outing, but hopefully we'll catch up with them next time.  I'm so appreciative for these fabulous women and their children!

 

Girls' Night

The crazy fun child

Holden is full of life, full of mischief, full of fun, full of love, and wholly entertaining.  Here are a few recent pics of Holden fulfilling the "full ofs" I just mentioned.

 

Ready to catch some rays

 

Playing with his favorite cat, Lucy, by running around the house with a thick ribbon Lucy chases

Holden with some bling, posing in front of his newest art creation all over the walls and doors in the hallway 

 

Baby swing?  No thanks.  I'm a big kid. Higher, higher!

 

Thinking.

 

Holden's ruse...he wanted to go potty before his bath, but he decided a pirate ship ride was in order after using the potty instead

Putting things in perspective

Some days are just rough, no matter how you spin it.  While I enjoy our busy schedule sometimes things get a little wonky around here...

A few Wednesdays ago we had a crazy afternoon at the house with Campbell bouncing off the walls at home after school, Holden getting into things more than usual, and Jackson not wanting to do his homework that was a little longer than usual.  On top of that I had gone to the doctor earlier in the day and heard the unwelcome news that back surgery - my sixth operation - was probably the next course of action to try to alleviate the excruciating pain I've been in since January. 

So as I tried to hurry along the homework process and keep the crazy little ones at bay so Jackson could concentrate, I felt a bit defeated when the power suddenly went out right as I was contemplating what to make for dinner before we headed to church.  Over the next hour the power went out four times, effectively disabling my ability to make dinner as well as further pummeling my normal "go with the flow" attitude into the "holy mama, can I make it to bedtime" attitude.   

With thirty minutes before we needed to be at church I herded the kiddos into the car, headed up the road and made the executive decision to hit up Wendy's for dinner.  With a screamer, a couple of complainers, and general bad moods plaguing our car I plugged in my iPhone as soon as I could and pulled up my "Get Groovin'" play list...my last ditch effort to pull it all together before throwing in the towel for the day gone awry. 

As Ryan Bingham's "Southside of Heaven" blared through my car's speakers followed by Coldplay's "Life in Technicolor ii", I took note as each child separately calmed down while the music played.  Holden started clapping to the music, Campbell started bobbing her head to the music, and Jackson sang along.  It was a pretty awesome transformation to witness, and as we finished listening to the songs before we went in to Wendy's for a sprint to see how quickly we could eat dinner and still make it to church on time, I reflected on how thankful I am to have days and moments like that. 

While they're not easy or fun, having rough days to pepper the great days reminds me that we're all human and we're all learning about the world, ourselves, and about each other every day.  It reminds me of how incredible (and incredibly complex!) my children are, how thankful I am that they're mine, and how powerful music is in our family.  And it reminds me to always put things in perspective.  We have been so richly blessed with our lives and with each other.

 

After hitting the "reset" button...holding hands/feet in the car

"Who's Who At The Zoo" - Campbell's class

On 2 May, Campbell performed in Act V as animals of the African plains during "Who's Who At The Zoo" for her preschool's spring musical performance.  Campbell and her classmates sang "I'm a Little Zebra" and "Elephant Walk", the same songs Jackson sang at one of his performances when he was at preschool.  Campbell did a great job singing, and it's pretty amazing to see the change from year-to-year in how much the children sing from age two to age five.  Nicely done, little Campbell zebra!

 

Campbell with her classmates

 

Sweet Campbell with some girlfriends

 

Campbell and her Daddy after her performance

 

My little monkey and zebra

"Who's Who At The Zoo" - Holden's class

Holden took part in his first musical at his preschool on 2 May, where his class sang "The Itsy Bitsy Monkey" and "Five Little Monkeys".  Holden sat with his fingers in his mouth for the entire first song, but he started getting involved in the second song, holding up the fingers for how many monkeys there were left.  Nice job, little monkey!

 

Not sure about this...

 

How many monkeys are left?!

 

"TWO little monkeys..."

 

Holden with his class of eleven boys and one little girl

Up up and away

I have no shortage of reasons to make cupcakes and other treats this week with it being our snack week at Campbell's preschool and Jackson's given day on Wednesday to celebrate his birthday at school since he has a summer birthday.  I purposely chose this week for Campbell's class to make treats so I could make fun things to celebrate the end of the school year.  Here was Monday's creation, a cupcake balloon bouquet...so much fun to make, and pretty easy, too:

 

Happy end of the school year!

Toaster doubling as knife storage

Holden's new favorite way to help me around the house is to put the silverware away when I unload the dishwasher.  He pulls his little chair into the kitchen and puts it in front of the silverware drawer so he can stand on the chair to be tall enough to unload the forks, knives, and spoons into their correct spots.  Recently I found I was missing several of my knives, even though I had no dirty dishes in the sink and the dishwasher was empty.  It confounded me, but frankly they were just butter knives, so we carried on.  Then I happened to slightly nudge the toaster to center it on the counter one afternoon, and I noticed several of my kitchen knives were slid neatly under the toaster.  Holden must have thought they looked better there than in the drawer!

 

New knife storage, courtesy of Holden

(Cup)Cake Fun

I was so excited to help plan a going away celebration for Jackson's second student teacher last week, although we were so sad to have to say goodbye to her.  Since crafting, baking, and parties are right up my alley I was happy to come up with some ideas...including a couple I've wanted to try out for some time now.

I made a supply cake for Ms. K to go along with a goody basket full of things she might need to start her teaching career, as well as a couple of gift cards she could use just for herself.  I loved how the supply cake turned out, and frankly I was sad to have to walk it up to school last Friday!  The supply cake included a roll of paper towels, wire-bound notebooks, crayons, glue sticks, glue bottles, Sharpie markers, dry erase markers, pencils, and a ruler.   I drew my inspiration for the cake from here:  School Supply Cake Tutorial.  I made a few changes to the supply cake tutorial and added several things to the cake after talking with Jackson's kindergarten teacher about the supplies she thought would be the most helpful for a new teacher just starting her career.  Here's my supply list to make the cake:
  

Supply List:

• One roll of paper towels (plastic wrap off)
• 12" diameter scalloped cardboard cake base
• Several large rubber bands 
• Six one-subject spiral bound notebooks 
• Seven boxes of 24 count Crayola crayons
• Fifteen small glue sticks
• Eleven bottles of Elmer's glue
• Five black Sharpie markers
• Eight dry erase markers
  
• Twenty four number 2 pencils
• One 12" ruler
• Three inch cylinder cut from the thick cardboard center of a roll of fabric (I got my cardboard roll at JoAnn's then took it home and cut it with a hacksaw)
• Ribbon (I had five different varieties of complimentary hues)
• Artificial Gerber daisies (I picked these and the ribbon up when I was at JoAnn's as well)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks

 

Finished supply cake

 

Back side of the supply cake

The cupcakes were as much fun as the supply cake to make, and it was equally as hard to part with the little cuties when they were complete.  The good thing about making cupcakes, though, is that I made almost four dozen.  Since I only needed a little more than half of those for Jackson's class I was able to keep some cupcakes at home for the Dean Three (and me), which was much appreciated! 

I made frog and rainbow cupcakes to celebrate our beautiful springtime weather, I will definitely keep those designs in my file to make again.  The kindergartners loved picking out their cupcake for snack time, and it was funny to see their reactions when they bit into the rainbow cupcakes and saw the rainbow colors.

 

Most all of the cupcakes, minus the *several* I tasted for "quality control" purposes

 

Close-up of the frogs

Crash course instructions:

1. Tint your favorite white or yellow cupcake recipe green before baking the cupcakes 
2. Vanilla/white/butter cream frosting tinted green and green sugar sprinkles to frost the tops of the cupcakes
3. One jumbo marshmallow cut in half to make the eyes
4. Blue, green and brown mini M&Ms to make the center of the eyes (use a little dab of reserved white frosting to make the M&Ms stick to the marshmallow)
5. Red and black tube gel/icing for the noses, mouths, and tongues

 

Rainbow cupcakes

Crash course instructions:

1. Make your favorite white or yellow cupcake recipe and divide the batter equally into four bowls
2. Tint each bowl with a different color (I used red, yellow, green, and blue this time)
3. Put approximately 1 tablespoon of each color of batter in every cupcake cup.  It doesn't have to look perfect
4. Frost each cupcake however you wish.  Because these were for school and I didn't want the kids on massive sugar highs I put tiny dollops of white frosting on the top of each cupcake then put rainbow colored sprinkles from Williams Sonoma to finish them

 

Rainbow cupcake without the wrapper

 

"Quality control" on my part to show what the inside looks like

When the cat's away, the mouse will play!

About once a month I get to spend a day just with Holden, when Campbell goes to Plano in the morning to spend the day with her Gran and Jackson is busy being a kindergartner.  I absolutely love these days with my little guy, and I've found his personality is supremely different when he's by himself.  We didn't do anything special today, but we got some snuggle time in and it was fun to see what he wanted to play with since there was no one here to tell him he couldn't play with their toys.  Holden went straight to Campbell's bed when we got home, and he took both of Campbell's kitties off her bed as well as Campbell's baby dolls' pack 'n' play.  He loved on Campbell's kitties all morning and took them with him wherever he went.  Campbell NEVER lets Holden play with her grey kitties, but it was sweet to see how well he cared for the kitties while she was away for the day.

 

Holden thinks the doll-sized pack 'n' play is a pretty cool little place to sit with Campbell's kitties

 

Taking Campbell's grey kitties on a pirate ship ride