Autumn Through the Years

Every October since 2005, I've taken my kids' photo at the same spot in Letchworth State Park. I really enjoy going back year after year and seeing how the kids have grown. I hope it will be a tradition we continue for years to come.

Can you believe how they've grown? I can't.

2005




2006




2007




2008 (aka the year the kids dropped Liv)





2009 (the year where nobody sat still)






2010

Autumn Weekends

I’m going to try and go easy on the photos here. Really, I am. But we had such a great weekend it will be hard not to share them all. But I will persevere! I’ll only share a few. But I will gladly send you to my Facebook page if you want to see more. You wanted to be my Facebook friend anyway, right?

Anyway, we usually spread our Fall activities out over a couple of weekends, but when warmish weather presented itself this weekend, amidst the 40 and 50 degree temperatures we’ve had recently, we decided to get the big ones out of the way—especially considering that Hub and I are spending one of the weekends away. You get kind of good at predicting how cold October will be around here judging by the first few weeks. Sometimes it is in the 80’s and sometimes it’s in the 40’s. This year has been much of the latter, so it was pretty lucky that this weekend was mostly 60 and 70 degree weather. Hub worked most of the day on Saturday, and the kids and I spent most of the day at my mom’s house visiting with out of town family.

Sunday though, we took our annual trip out to our favorite farm where we rode the train out in to the orchard, and picked about 2 pecks of apples (whatever that means). We packed a picnic and did appley things, and finished it off with ice cream; though to my disappointment, they were out of my favorite pumpkin ice cream. It was the perfect day for apple picking though. Breezy but warm, borderline HOT. We had a grand time.








And Monday, we kept Liv home from daycare since the kids were off of school, and we headed out to Letchworth State Park, one of my all time favorite places and the spot where I have taken a keepsake photo of my kids for the last 5 years. (I’m planning my Autumn through the Years post for tomorrow, so you’ll see those photos then.) It was a bit grey and did end up raining while we were walking through the craft fair, but it was sunny and great when I was taking my photos, so I couldn’t have been happier. The photo of my girls and me was taken by my friend J who we ran in to, which was weird considering how specific my photo spot is, and how absolutely huge the park is. But there she was, and she took the picture shown here, as well as a photo of our whole family (but I haven’t seen that one yet).








I love my family all the time, but weekends like this, full of family fun and tradition, really make me remember what I’m in it for as a parent. These kids, man. They just…well, cliché as it sounds, they make me whole.

Today

Today I saw a tiny baby while we were at Tae Kwon Do, maybe 2 or 3 months old. Just alert enough to be smiling, still round and roly poly with the soft tufts of baby hair. Snuggly and just loving her mama.

I didn't only get a twinge today. I got a huge lump in my throat and my eyes filled with tears at the prospect of never having that again. My own gurgly, drooly snuggly baby.

Today I realized that I do, in fact, want another baby.
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Homework.

I ranted on Twitter last night about the amount of homework that Bud, my first grader has. I am all for reinforcing the concepts of what was learned in school that day and I am up for reinforcing good reading habits at home (he has been reading chapter books since he was 5). But when I open my 6yo’s backpack to find that he is to write his spelling words 3 times each, complete a math work sheet, do a family leadership activity, AND read 6 of the 12 books in his bag as well as pick his favorite 2 to RE-READ, I get a little bit antsy. He spent over an hour on homework last night, and I think it sucks.

Yet I try to project a positive message about it because I don’t want him to associate annoyance with homework because of me. He’ll learn it on his own soon enough. Let’s not forget that Hub or I do not get home until about 6PM. FIL usually takes Bud to TKD, (which is an activity his school promotes) and they are waiting for me when I get home. FIL is not really the “help the kids with the homework” kind of guy. There are some things they can do on their own, but typically, they need to wait for Hub or me to get started. (We also have a standing rule that they CAN NOT TOUCH THE GD PENCIL SHARPENER!! On account of there being pencil shavings all over the kitchen on numerous occasions) So yes. They wait.

Yesterday I got home much later than usual, and Lucy had done all of her homework. It was completely wrong. Bud had started on his spelling work while Hub was cooking dinner. After we ate he did math while I helped Lucy fix her work, and then he pulled out all of the books. This was about when Hub was leaving for work, and I about passed out on the floor. BUT he read the books on the couch while I got the girls ready for bed, and then I had him read his re-reads out loud to me. It was 9pm before he was in bed. 9. PM. (and we skipped the leadership activity because it was lame. And you don’t have to turn anything in on it.)

The message that the school sends is that the reading is important and the progression of his reading skills is important so we must do this every night. Comprehension is important as well, not just being able to read the words, so parents should discuss the concepts of the books with the child after the fact. I’m kind of at a loss here. Obviously, we are going to do it. And I don’t want to sound like the crazy lazy parent at open house next week and admonish all of the book reading, but I do think that I need to come up with a way of expressing that this is a bit too much. Open House is on Thursday and if he comes home with 12 books that night, when we are required to bring the children with us from 6-7:30, I am going to lose my damn mind.

I started hating homework as a kid when my second grade teacher made us write every number from 1-1000 on these skinny strips of paper that she had stapled together. 50 numbers on each side of each page. I’m not kidding when I say that was the turning point for me, where school work became a burden. It wasn’t fun, and obviously there was no freaking point in me writing the same GD numbers in different combinations over and over again. Second grade was 25 years ago and I still remember how helpless and bored and trapped I felt. I don’t want that for my kid.

So what is the balance here? Am I wrong? Do I say anything to the teacher? Or the principal? Do I just suck it up and have to go through it all again when Lucy hits 1st grade next year? While Bud will probably be sent home with an encyclopedia to read every night?

I really have no idea.

Wordless Wednesday-Comparison at 2

We haven’t done this in a while, and I think it’s safe to say that around 2 is the time that babies stop looking like babies, and are officially toddlers with their own toddler faces. Doesn’t Liv look so old with her hair in a clip instead of in pony tails? Sigh…

Chilly Days! Chili!

Saturday was cold. Ok, it was like 62 degrees but it was breezy and I was freezing. We took the kids to the driving range for a bit, and then to the local ice cream stand that was closing for the season, so the combination of being outside and well, cold ice cream made me cold in my bones. I’d already had a hankering for chili, but after the cold afternoon, I was dead set on making it. The problem was that I had never made it before, and I wanted it to be really good, and to not suck. I read a ton of recipes on Saturday night, deemed them all just ok, and decided that I was just going to do my own thing.

I do this with recipes all the time and it drives my family bananas. My mother called me a few weeks ago to ask me for a good recipe to make with chicken thighs. I knew immediately what was good—oven fried chicken—the recipe is on the back of the Bisquick box. Except that I don’t really follow that recipe, only the concept and so, well, I told her just to use the recipe on the box. She found it to be delicious, so it worked out. What was my point? OH! That I can never give anyone a recipe.

So yesterday morning, after church, all 5 of us went to the grocery store. Hub and Bud went to get all of our weekly items, and the girls and I shopped for chili. All the canned tomato products were on sale, and so were organic beans. For a split second, I thought about buying a chili-o seasoning packet, but shook it off and went for spices instead. We came home and I got to work immediately, sautéing onion and garlic, crumbling in the ground beef, and chopping the last of the green pepper from the garden. I combined everything in my crock-pot, and seasoned, tasted and seasoned some more. I was surprised; it actually tasted like chili! I turned the pot on high, and let it go. I taste tested a few times, and each time I was just in awe because I really made chili! And it was good! Not the fooling myself in to thinking it is good because I made it kind of good, but really really good!

Hub is not a chili kind of guy and ate cream of potato soup instead, but he sampled it and deemed it delicious. If not for all the beans, he’d have eaten some too, he told me. And as we were eating he told me to write the recipe down. To remember this one because I’d be pissed if I couldn’t replicate it in the future. Write it down while it is still fresh in my mind. Indeed.

So, here is my chili recipe, of which I am eating seconds of for lunch today, and that I have even packed a container of for my parents because I am so proud of it.

Ingredients:

2lbs of ground beef
2 medium sized onions (diced) (ish…I like A LOT of onion in my food)
1 large green pepper (diced)
2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped small)
2 tbsp oil
1 large can (29oz) crushed tomatoes
1 large can (29 oz) tomato sauce
1 can light red kidney beans (do not drain)
1 can dark red kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
2-3 Tbsp Chili Powder
2-3 Tbsp Cumin
A few shakes of paprika
A few shakes of Frank’s Red-hot
Salt

1. In a large frying pan sauté onions and garlic in oil until tender
2. Add ground beef to frying pan and crumble; cook until brown.
3. When the beef is nearly brown, stir in green pepper and continue cooking
4. Remove beef mixture from heat and drain
5. In Crockpot combine crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and beans
6. Add beef and seasonings.
7. Stir very well and taste, adjust as necessary
8. Cook on high in the Crockpot for 3-4 hours
9. Enjoy it! Garnish with taco cheese if you want! Marvel at your greatness.

I think Hub was a bit annoyed with me as I ate my chili, and I kept proclaiming that WOW! I was really good! I really thought it would suck, but it doesn’t.

So yeah, now I have a chili recipe just in time for fall and winter.

Knowing the Difference

Yesterday was a bad day. On the way home from my mother’s on Tuesday, Liv threw up in the car. Not once, but 3 times. She continued to do so through the evening and spent a restless night in our bed. Though she was better in the morning, she was still sporting a bit of a fever so I kept her from daycare, and I worked from home.

I was exhausted. Drained. I didn’t even give any thought to breakfast until after the big kids were on the bus and FIL asked if I wanted anything from Tim Hortons. I did, of course. My standard large black coffee. I should have stopped there, and made some oatmeal, but I asked him to get me a pumpkin muffin. You know, the one with glazed caramelized pumpkin seeds and the butter cream filling. I regretted it as soon as he pulled out of the driveway.

I took it as a sign though when he came back and they were all out. Instead he brought me a glazed pumpkin donut, which I took one bite of and threw in the trash. I was good. It was near 10 at that point, and I had a call to be on, so I drank my coffee and didn’t eat. And then I began dreaming of toaster waffles, plugging them in to my calorie app in different forms, essentially deciding that I wasn’t NOT having waffles and screw you life change. So, I finished my call, and I cooked 4 fricking waffles. I went light on the butter and syrup, but there you have it. 763 calories. I immediately felt bad in mind and in body. That guilt that I’ve been working hard to eliminate by making good choices, the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach from eating something that was so dense and sweet.

It was near 11 by the time I ate those though, and save for a few goldfish crackers when I was doling them out to Liv, I didn’t eat until dinner time. We had a decent meal, beef tips and rice. I was hungry after dinner, so I ate one of the banana muffins I had baked while waiting for the big kids to get home, had some water and I went to bed.

Here is the difference in this occurrence to all of those in the past: I got up this morning and started over. Yesterday was a blip. I can start again. I don’t like the heavy feeling in my stomach. I don’t like feeling out of control, as tasty as that option is. I like being tied to my calorie counter and making choices that fit.

In the last 2 weeks I’ve seen a change in my appearance. My skin is better, less oily and has a glow. My pants fit a little bit better. The number on the scale is 6 lbs lower. I feel good about myself. I’ve worn heels to work, worn perfume and jewelry. All of the things I was tying myself to in my weekly wills were happening naturally just because I felt good about myself.

So I know this time is different. I can feel it. I’ve tasted success and have felt better about myself than I have in years. I’m sure there will be more blips, but I am committed to staying on the path. In only 2 or so weeks, I’ve come too far to look back now.