Telling Myself Stories

Maggie had been out of the shower long enough that she probably could have dripped dry, but she was still in the bathroom wrapped in her towel.

"Go get dressed, Maggie," I said.
"I'm telling myself stories," came her quick reply. I'm not sure how that prevents her from getting dressed, but apparently it does.

After a few more reminders, she eventually walked out to her dresser to get her clothes. While she walked she was singing herself a song, the words of which included, "I'm the only boy in my class, the only boy in my class."

I guess she wasn't kidding about the stories.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

When I saw this recipe, I HAD to try it! And since we got invited to an awesome Memorial Day BBQ, we had the perfect excuse today. Sophie, Maggie and Michelle helped (although Maggie got distracted and ran off to play, so she's not in the pictures).

Dipping the berries was sort of a messy affair, but Michelle and Sophie didn't mind cleaning the chocolate off their hands.

After dipping the berries in white or dark chocolate and sprinkles, we let the chocolate harden in the fridge and then filled them with cream cheese frosting. (As a side note, for some reason the frosting turned out grainy--any ideas of why or what I can do to prevent that in the future? It's just cream cheese, a little milk, powdered sugar and vanilla.)

Festive and delicious!

Ballet Barre

Jeff and Sharon finished one ballet barre today; now that we see that it works well, we will be making another one before she starts teaching in July. We modeled it after this blogger's barre.

Now mirrors and then our studio will be complete!

Ending and Beginning

Today is the last day of school. For the first time ever, and I think only time actually, all 4 of the girls have the same end day of school. It's bittersweet; the end of homework and projects and tests signals the beginning of spending lots more time together, for better or for worse. I'm nervous about the potential arguing, but excited about our summer science projects, library trips, swim team, dance camps, the garden, etc., etc., etc.

The first of our poppies bloomed today. It comes from a rather weedy-looking plant (Jeff has tried to pull them more than once), but the bloom is breathtaking. So summer will be what we bring to it--our rather weedy family can produce amazing things when we put our minds to it!

Still, I'm going out to lunch today. It might be months before I have another moment alone.

Reinventing the Wheel

At our house, we are fond of reinventing the wheel. Ok, maybe not reinventing the actual wheel, but we do like to try doing things from scratch occasionally, like the time we made butter from cream, or the occasional spaghetti sauce we've made starting with fresh tomatoes. This weekend, we had 2 such instances.

Yesterday, Jeff decided it was too hard to call around to find a place that would rent us a carpet stretcher and then go rent it and return it, so instead he built one himself.

 In case you want to build one yourself, all you have to do is take the leftover strips from the carpet you tear out of the dining room and nail them to a 2x4.

It totally works and it's basically free. And it saved a phone call and 2 trips to the store (to rent and return equipment).

 

 For dinner tonight we had hawaiian haystacks. I realized that we were out of flaked, sweetened coconut, but happened to have a fresh coconut on hand. It took 4 of us about 25 minutes to open and prepare the coconut so we could have coconut with our hawaiian haystacks. Cooking the rest of the dinner took about the same amount of time.

Just sayin', sometimes we like to reinvent the wheel.

Snow Day!

For us, this is what a snow day looks like:

First, Jeff clears the driveway by piling all the snow into a gigantic pile. Then, he and Sophie shape a sledding track into the mountain.

While the kids sled, Jeff scavenges snow from other parts of the yard to increase the size of the hill.

Ready, set, GO!

Utah

Jeff and the kids had to fend for themselves for a few days the week before last while I went to Utah to meet Jon and Laura's new little guy, Christian. I had a great time with Matthew, Christian, Jon and Laura, and with Naomi, David and Cassie.

Hermes has Friends

A few weeks ago Sophie and Maggie accepted a hand-me-down hermit crab and all of his gear from a friend. They renamed him/her Hermes (he's the big one). He has adjusted really well to his new home, and today we got him 2 little friends, Artemis (he/she is green) and Racerunner (but I will probably call Racerunner Nike, to fit with the ancient gods and godesses theme). Here they are getting to know each other.

I'm Blue!

A few minutes ago, Maggie popped up in between Sophie and I (we were talking about important 9 year old stuff) singing:

"I'm blue, abidee abidoo, I'm blue."

Apparently, when she was finishing off her blue Bottle Pop, she walked past a mirror and immediately thought of "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 65.

New Year, New Goals

I have 2 major goals this year:

1. Become healthier through healthier eating.

2. Become more relaxed despite my hectic schedule.

Goal number 1 is pretty self-explanatory. I've got a bunch health issues that I'd like to boot out of my life. Some of them aren't going anywhere--there's nothing I can do about them. But there are some that I could control, if I work at it. I am making small changes, one at a time, and working towards a healthier me. Right now I am working on not snacking after dinner.

Goal number 2 is a little more nebulous, at least in my mind. There are lots of reasons for me to feel stressed out a lot of the time. Some of the reasons have names: Sharon, Michelle, Sophie, Maggie... For the past several years, I have reviewed my list of commitments over and over again, cutting out things that are unnecessary. I think I am now down to the basics, but I still feel a lot of stress. I have tried to consider why I feel stressed. One reason, which I should have realized earlier, is Jeff. Not Jeff himself, or anything he does, really, but being married to someone who has ADHD puts a certain amount of pressure on the non-ADHD spouse. Because he can't sit still, Jeff accomplishes a ridiculous number of tasks per day. When you add that to the fact that he literally cannot sleep more than 6 hours per night, the pressure really begins to mount! With these realizations, my first step in being more relaxed is to accept that the number of things I accomplish in a day will not match the number that Jeff accomplishes in a day. If I figure out a second step, I'll let you know what it is, but this one will take me a while. In fact, maybe that should be my goal for the year. ;-)