it's a small (web) world

It has been nearly a year since I began posting recipes to a food blog....
I stand by the fact that I do it completely for fun - by no means do I have an inclination toward become a professional food blogger.

But with that said, it is still kind of fun to watch your counter and see that one of your recipes has been pinned 5,000+ times on pinterest.  Wow!  That is a lot of Strawberry Cream Cake.  It's my mom's recipe and all credit goes to her.  Way to rock it on pinterest mom!

Then today I saw that another recipe that I had posted (for French Toast Casserole) was actually mentioned and linked to in this online Deseret News article.

Not bad for a food blog with only 12 subscribers :)

Crayola's never heard of it...

T had his sweet sister paint his fingernails yesterday.

This morning, when Conner came upstairs for school, T showed off his nails and said,

"my fingernails are painted.  which color do you like better?"

Conner's reply was, "neither"

T looked down at both hands and said, "I don't have that color"

24 hours later...

Hard to believe we had a snow delay yesterday.

The only proof that there was snow in our backyard yesterday is the pile of boots and gloves left in my laundry room.

What a difference 24 hours makes...

Snow Day: No Spring here!

After a number of "Slush Days" in the past week or so, we awoke to a true Snow Day today with a 2-hour delayed start for school.  Everyone wisely used their extra two hours by donning the snow gear and getting outside!

Somehow, a couple of the kids "lost" their snow gear.
 I guess I am just grateful for the pants :)

Those bare chests became the number one target for K and her friend, Tori...

J was our most determined (shock!).  After everyone else came inside, and three left for school, he was still outside with his best buddie.  They weren't going to waste a minute of the snow day fun!

OMSI {On View} The Art of the Brick

My mom came into town last weekend for a quick visit (NOT associated with a surgery for me!) and one of the things we did was to spend Saturday afternoon at OMSI (Portland's hands-on science museum).  Their traveling exhibit through April is Nathan Sawaya's "The Art of the Brick" - sculptures made entirely out of Lego's.  Three of Portland's own Lego artists also had work on exhibit.  

It was a really fun exhibit to walk through...one that we may have to visit again before it leaves....

time is of the essense...

With my older kids I was really good about writing down all the funny things that they did and said.  They each have an entire binder filled with those memories.

Poor J and T have the child #3 and child #4 lot in life...less photos, less journaling and no home movies!

In an attempt to correct this, I may be posting more of the funnies here because otherwise they will be forgotten.  And these two little guys ought not be forgotten.

I love spending my afternoons with the two of them while the "big kids" are away at school.  Our routine after lunch is that T takes a nap and J and I sit down and practice his reading.  After reading J will generally request 20 minutes of "media".  Today after reading I told J that I needed 30 minutes of the computer before I could let him use it.  He promptly went over the the kitchen oven and set the timer!  He keeps passing the kitchen and each time he does he will holler out how many minutes are remaining.

The best part....I stood up to get a paper from the kitchen counter and he said, "you are wasting your computer time".  Boy oh boy, he is tough!

Wash my mouth out...

J asked me a question today about how often his dad did something for work, to which I responded, "frequently".

J's eyes filled with horror and said, "you just said freakin' " (a no-no word in our home).

It took me a minute because I was sure that I hadn't.  When the light dawned on my, I repeated the word "frequently" so that J could hear that I wasn't saying "freakin" even though it sounds similar.  I even defined "frequently" for him so that he could understand that it is not a bad word.

He walked away not convinced and reprimanded me that "if the naughty word is part of another word, it is still a naughty word".

I will definitely have to watch that :)

Soak it up when you can get it...

It's hard to imagine, as I look out the window at the current cold and wet, but for two days this week we enjoyed SUNNY 60-degree weather!

Not only did we get a 48 hour respite from our Northwest spring, one of the sunny days happened to fall on a school holiday so the kids actually took advantage of it and played their little hearts out (after they put in 1 1/2 hours of weeding at my insistence).

I personally chose to enjoy my sunshine by mowing the jungle of a lawn and weeding until I had completely filled two trash cans and two 5-gallon buckets.  I'm not sure that my efforts made much of a dent in all that awaits us come warm weather, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.  For the record, weeding buys you complete solitude like nothing else - kids will interrupt you while you are sleeping, while you are on the phone, while you are using the restroom, but they don't even come close when you are weeding for fear they will be asked to help!

It may be another month or two before we see two days of sunny skies again, but here is how the kids enjoyed their 48 hours...