This is me

Let's just come out and say it: I love being a housewife. Sure as a newlywed it can get a little dull. But I love the accomplished feeling of having a clean house for Mark to come home to, or to have dinner just about on the table when he comes in from a long day at work. Granted, I do not sew, I do love to cook, enjoy cleaning, and admit that I feel a sense of accomplishment to put neatly folded clothes away in our dresser (and maybe sometimes organize the drawer while I'm at it). At the same time, I'm not a hard core conservative feminist. I have dreams and career goals that extend past raising a family. It's no secret that those who choose to do the "housewife" thing are a dying breed aside from outside of Utah.

I came across this article of healthy breakfast foods to eat:

As we're trying to eat healthier the article firstly caught my eye. But then I discovered that this article was written by a woman who is a "housewife". Her blog ACharmedHousewife intrigued me. She's more hardcore and creative than I could ever be, but I thought it was neat that yahoo would post an article and advertise her in such a way that put the idea of being a housewife in such an oddly unique way.

In my studies in marriage and family, I have learned the great benefits both long and short-term for the kids. I know for many, the idea of having "mom" stay at home is impossible and in some cases, it is. But to all the stay at home moms, THANK YOU!

The Ups and Downs of Cooking

As a newly married woman, I take pride in the fact that the only dinner I've completely ruined (though my husband would argue it's never happened) is homemade macaroni and cheese. Yes, I did the unthinkable and placed raw macaroni in the oven with a mere 3/4c of milk and left it to bake for an hour expecting it to come out delicious and soft. WRONG! Since then, I haven't had any blunders aside from "oh I'll put more/less of this in next time". But then, Mark's birthday came around................
August 24th, 8am. I took Mark to work for the day so that I could have the car to run some errands. I was to meet him at 12:30 where we would go out to lunch together to celebrate his day. I had the day all planned out: bake the cake, clean the house, wrap his presents, meet him for lunch, come back and frost the cake, and make dinner to have ready right as he came home from work at 5:30(meatloaf and mashed potatoes). He wanted a yellow cake for the occasion. In the past we've made super moist cake by adding applesauce to substitute one egg. I did so again...adding moisture to one of those already "super moist" cakes. After spraying the pan with cooking oil, I put it in the oven. All seemed well aside from the middle that had raised up--until I turned it over after only 10 minutes of cooling. Imagine the shock and horror this new wife has the day of her husbands birthday looking at the cake that is halfway on the cooling wrack, with the bottom half still in the pan. After a few desperate phone calls, I was given some advice: grease the pan with Crisco and flour, and in the future substitute applesauce for vegetable oil only. (Thanks Grandma and Shelene!) So 2 cake mixes later, this was Mark's cake. We celebrated with my parents, his siblings, Nathan and Tippe and one of my sisters. We also got a later surprise visit from my sister Shelene who dropped by on her break from working that night. Although it had a rocky start, I felt like things turned out well for Mark's first birthday that I was in "charge" of.

For those who never use them, or don't have a kitchen aid, they all come with a wire whisk, flat beater, and a dough hook. On one of my first days of school, before I succumbed to doing homework, I decided to make Amish White Bread. Rather than making a mess mixing the dough myself, I decided I would try out the dough hook and see what happened. It was the best thing ever! Of course I still had to knead it at the end, but I didn't end up with dough all over my fingers. It was interesting to watch it grab more and more flour from the sides as it grew. Pretty soon it was just swirling around in the bowl like one of those crazy bread machines. (Okay, someones a little addicted to cooking/her kitchen aid.) The bread turned out perfect. Not too dry, and with the 1c of sugar, had a sweet taste to it which made it all too addicting.
Surprisingly, we are going through a lot less flour, sugar and eggs now that I am back in school and have less time for cooking. This will probably continue due to recent events: In support of his wife, Mark also helped me to throw out doughnuts, cookies, and unhealthy food we had in our apartment in attempt to start eating better. I couldn't let him part with ice cream so we hid it in the back of the freezer with the promise I would not have any without him and we'd only have 2 scoops. I think the homemade doughnuts I've yet to try will have to wait for a day where we decide it's okay to have a treat and invite people over to help us eat them as well!

Parenting 101

A few weeks back, Mark and I helped out my older sister Shelene and her husband Eric for a weekend. They left Thursday morning, leaving their 4 children (7,5, and 16 month twins) in my hands. Mark came up Thursday evening and took the day "off" on Friday so he could be there to help.The kids are all wide awake by 7 am so their 7pm bedtime is greatly welcomed. I'm always reminded of how hard my sisters work when I step into their shoes for short spurts of time. How each of them do it day after day is amazing.

Eric and Shelene have some great kids. Although they know "Aunt Brittany" is a sucker and will let them get away with a little much at times, they were great helpers. One of my favorite parts was getting to drop off and pick up the kids from school. Another was watching Mark interact with the babies and seeing their eyes light up as he played with them. I left too early to pick up Alexis on Friday with Spencer so he was left alone with the babies once they woke up from their naps for a good half hour. I was pleasantly surprised/relieved to find the babies were happily playing and Mark seemed to be enjoying himself when we returned.

We brought the camera but I just didn't have time to snap as many pictures as I'd like.

This is what happens when I leave Mark in charge of all 4 kids while I go take a shower:

Alexis was in the same position as Spencer only on my laptop.The babies were using the big monitor in the corner to watch signing time.

You can't really tell but the girls actually have pony tails in! Thanks to "Baby Signing Time" for keeping them occupied and still enough while I did it! They love this series and as you can see, they can sign quite a bit!

Spencer really loves to draw and as you can see, he is quite the artist at age 5. Mark started drawing and then Spencer decided to copy his picture. Spencer is great at drawing but he really has a talent for copying original pictures.
We really had fun watching the kids. Spencer said at one point "you guys are just like our mom and dad". I'm not sure if he meant by our "roles" or how we were making them toe the mark with rules and their behavior. Thanks Eric and Shelene for letting us hang with your awesome kids!