Could It Be True?? The Last "A Post A Day In May" Post

Today was such a busy day. I know this because I was only able to check my email twice today! Twice. That's simply not enough for me. I'll get to more of my busy day in a minute. But before I do, allow me this sappy little moment. I can't believe that I've hit the end of "A Post A Day In May". It's been crazy. I was so nervous starting this blog, you know, putting my whole life out there in blogger land and now it just seems so normal. I've met some new blogging friends along the way, people that I admire as parents, crafters and human-beings. The best part is, I feel I've "discovered" what this blog is going to be about: me and my kids, how we function and what we do. I was really hoping that it would be more about my crafts, but I just don't have enough time and truly my attempts are so meager that I really hate to share them. I was also hoping that I could share more recipes, but my pictures are just horrible. Don't get me wrong, I still plan to share my crafts when I get to them and my cooking when my husband's actually home for supper and we're eating more than mac-n-cheese! Mostly, you're going to read about Eli, Sadie and me and what we do for fun, projects we work on, books we read, moments we share, my parenting triumphs and defeats. Hopefully, we will all learn together: you from me and me from you. I'm hoping (fingers and toes crossed and eyes closed really tight) I can pull off three posts a week. So, please don't make today your last stop at Two Cups of Coffee. Come back and visit now and again.

And now onto this: The other day, Eli told me that he wanted a crown, a prince crown, not a princess crown because he's a boy not a girl. Well, wouldn't you know that I was reading Amanda Soule's book The Creative Family and there just happens to be a pattern in it for making a crown. So, last night I made him this crown, complete with ribbon in his favorite pattern, camouflage. I was pretty proud of my handiwork and was all excited to show it to him. First thing this morning I told him I had a crown for him. He looked at it, screamed "NO!" and then threw it on the floor. I was so bummed. By noon, I was able to get it on him. I'm thinking tomorrow he's going to totally dig it.Eli's best friend turned three on Wednesday. He had his party today. This is my tried and true frugal way of wrapping presents. First, you use the Christmas wrapping paper that you've had for ten years that you think is pretty ugly and wrap the present with the ugly Christmas part on the inside and the white part on the outside. Then, let your kids go wild and crazy with the markers and the stickers.
Well, not this wild and crazy with the markers:
Radoms:

• We got our CSA food again. We got quail eggs. Anyone know what to do with quail eggs? The Farmer's Market totally rocked today. We got honey, radishes, lettuce, bacon and get this, FREE MILK!! Apparently, this guy is a "Milk Evangelist" and just loves to spread the good word about his milk and was just hoping to get the word out. Now the word is out. I'm just excited it's not ultra-pasteurized because I need that to make some cheese that I've been waiting to make.
• Am I the last person in the world to try this No-Knead Bread recipe? Seriously. It's so easy and delicious. I am in love with the genius who thought of this. I'm baking some right now. Want to come over?
• We have become a two car family again. We just purchased a new used-car. Yes, we are back to our high-polluting ways, but Dennis needs a car for his rotations next year. I was not about to give up my car and he didn't really feel like biking 30 miles to work. It's a cute Mazda 3, sporty wagon/hatchback thingy, the kind that are popping up everywhere now.

Plan on stopping by tomorrow. I'm going to have a little give-away in honor of surviving "A Post A Day In May".

Author of the Week: Eve Bunting

Eve Bunting is one of those authors that is always on my radar. She's the author of over 250 books! That's a lot of books each one illustrated by a different illustrator so each book is a surprise. While I don't go to her every week like I do some authors I do visit her quite frequently. She has a wide range of books for all ages written about a wide range of topics. If you have some sort of topic, theme or problem that you're working on at your house, Ms. Bunting has probably written a book about it. Moving into a big boy bed? Yep. Teacher having a baby? Yep. Visiting a grandma in an old-folks home? Yep again. Mom getting remarried? Yes. Monster's under the bed? She's got that one covered. Homelessness? She's got that one covered twice. Adopting a baby? Mom having a baby? Surrogate mother? Teen Pregnancy? Seriously, this lady has a book about it.

She has fiction books about America's past historical moments: coming to America, pioneers moving westward, Visiting the Vietnam Memorial, and the Los Angeles riots.

She has holiday books from Father's Day to Hanukkah, Thanksgiving to St. Patrick's Day.

Yes, there are some less serious stories too. Hurry, Hurry is one of the cutest books I've ever read. And Little Badger is funny too.

While you probably won't go and pull one of her books off of the shelves just for the heck of it, she's a good author to keep in mind when you're dealing with a new issue in your house.

Monster Cookies

I'm sitting here eating one of these Monster Cookies wondering why in the world I just made a huge batch of cookies. I need cookies like I need a hole in my head. I just made rice-krispie bars yesterday and those are almost gone because every time I walked by them, I took just a little tiny piece. Well, you walk by them enough and that little tiny piece adds up to a WHOLE PAN. Anyways, these are some tasty little cookies: oatmeal, peanut butter and M&M's. Yummers. Why are they called Monster Cookies? I think it's because they are supposed to be gargantuan, but I just made regular sized cookies so I could eat more.

Monster Cookies
from Lorraine LeBlanc in Watt's Cooking (My dad used to work at a power company.)

1/2 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup peanut butter (I used the natural kind)
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 1/2 cups oatmeal (I used instant and old-fashioned, otherwise I wouldn't have had enough)
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup M&M's

Cream shortening (butter) and sugars. Add peanut butter. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Add oatmeal, baking soda, chocolate chips and M&M's. Drop by 1/3 cup (yowzers that's a lot, I just used my little cookie scoop) on un-greased cookie sheet; flatten slightly with a spatula. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes (that's how long mine took, so I'm assuming a little longer for the gigantor ones). Makes 20 five-inch cookies (or 3 dozen normal sized ones).

Ramblings.

I'm too tired to post anything too exciting today. We were gone for the weekend (which was a fabulous trip to see some good friends in Pennsylvania. Really good friends. The kind you wish were your next door neighbor...) and I'm feeling the need to recover. Must. Drink. More. Coffee. And so far, yesterday and today have felt like the longest days ever.

Yesterday, I was supposed to take the kids to a birthday party. This particular friend lives an hour away and the party started at 9:30am, so I was scrambling to get things ready, not to mention that I was hurdling over stuff that still wasn't put away from getting home at 11 the night before. I finally get the kids in shoes and coats and am ready to walk out the door when I discover that I can't find my keys. I knew that Dennis was the last one to have them, so I started to search all of the possible places that they could be: in his "key spot", left in the door, in his pants pocket that are in the laundry, behind the couch... They were no where to be found. We have no cell phone (yes, you read that right. We don't have a cell phone.) and Dennis was in class. I knew that he was going to be in class until 11:18 (yes, 11:18!) so I sent him an email asking him where the keys were, figuring they were in his pocket. He called at 11:20 saying, "Ummm... sorry. They're in my pocket. Do you need them?" At least at 11:20, I was over wanting to kill him as I'd had 3 hours to get over it, so I just said no. Why didn't I use the spare keys you ask? Good question. Said spare keys are now my keys because my previous set of keys got lost in the hugest leaf pile you have every seen last fall. And we're just too lazy to get another set of spare keys.

Today, the kids were playing quietly in the closet. Note to self: when kids are playing quietly in the closet and you're thinking that this is too good to be true it probably is too good to be true. I open the door to see that Eli and Sadie have gotten into the markers and have colored all over the floor, some toys, and themselves. I get them out of the closet, clean them up, and shoo them to the table to color. I go upstairs to take a shower and get ready. When I get back downstairs the table and two children are covered in flour. Note to self: do not leave flour on the table where your children can reach it. I've never had an anxiety attack before, but I think had one this morning. I had to take LOTS of deep breaths. All of these crazy antics happened before 8:30am. I think I'm just going to sleep in from now on as I don't think I can handle all the craziness! Now, if only the children would cooperate...

Totally off the subject: I feel the need to add some sort of picture so here's a card I made for one of Dennis' nephews who had his HS graduation this past weekend, which we missed. Dennis has three nephews who graduated this year and we're going to miss all of their graduations. That's the hard part of living a thousand miles away from your family.

Easy Bird Feeder

Materials:

• pine cones
• string
• peanutbutter
• bird seed
  

1. Tie your string to the top of the pine cone. You could do this as the last step, but then you run the risk of getting peanutbutter and bird seed all over your hands and shirt!

2. Smear peanutbutter onto the pinecone.

3. Sprinkle bird seed over the peanutbutter covered pine cone.

4. Hang it up in the tree.

Voila! Now you have to sit and wait for the bird (or squirrels) to come.

Easy Toddler Activity: Cereal Counter

This is a very easy activity for toddlers and pre-schoolers. It only takes a minute to set up and it kept Sadie busy for 30 minutes so it gets an A++ in my book.

Materials:

• play dough
• stir stick or skewer
• O-shaped cereal

1. Stand a skewer or stir stick straight up into a wad of play dough.


2. Count the O-shaped cereal as you put it on the stick. (Sadie didn't do this part. She just put them on the stick!)

Voila! So easy.

Picture Collage

I finally finished Sadie's picture collage now that her 18 month pictures have arrived. Sadie's was missing a picture frame and really felt kitty-wompous, but even after adding the picture and rearranging some of the other pics without putting too many extra holes in the wall it still feels a bit kitty-wompous. Now I feel like I liked the old way better; maybe it will grow on me. It's that darned upper-right hand corner picture that feels off. What do you think?



These collages are above the each of kid's bed. I made the letters by applying fabric to pre-made paper mache' letters using spray glue. Here's E's: