Nieces

Maylee has no teeth yet, but she is loving this apple.

Claire and Rose dressed up as princesses/brides the last time we had them over to play.

So fun!

Haircut

Rose has been playing beauty parlor again. After I found her taking several huge chunks out of her (finally) long, curly hair, I had to trim it up myself. I still need to take her somewhere to get it fixed right, but is it worth it?

She's happy with her short cut, which is not combed and fixed here because we were just on our way to pick up the kids after school.

And I can still put her hair up in a little pigtail on top. She loves getting gel and mousse in her hair, and fixing it, and she'll sit still for me, too. Too bad there's not much of it anymore.

She just told me that her favorite part of her short hair is the front. Usually I comb the top layers forward so you can't see where she hacked it off right on the hairline, but she definitely does not have to worry about hair in her eyes.

Resurrection Ruffles

This morning at breakfast Ellen asked me how old we'll be when we're resurrected. "Will we be babies?"


I told her I didn't know, but that we'd probably be at our perfect age.

Jack said, "Like five?"
Mom: "You think five is your perfect age?"
Jack: "Yes, because you don't have any ruffles."
Mom: "What are ruffles?"
Jack: "You know, you get ruffles on your face when you're old. Look at my face. I don't have any."

Mom: "You mean wrinkles?"
Jack: "Oh yeah. Wrinkles."

It's true. No wrinkles or ruffles on these cute little faces.

Confirmed: we've got a two-year-old.

I walked in to the hallway the other morning after taking the older kids to school to find this:


He was super excited about his accomplishment, and spent several minutes searching for more cars to add to the line up. I love this two-year-old phase of organizing, picking up, lining up, and repetition. During lunch the same day, Elijah repeated over and over and over "Mom, where are you?" in his cute two-year-old voice. Even though I was standing there the whole time. Answering. "I'm right here." And taking a video. Once I figure out how to get it off my phone and onto the blog, I may do that. At one point he gets excited to eat some cucumber slices and repeats "pepino" several times. I feel really good about this because it means I'm not a complete slacker when it comes to teaching my kids Spanish.


My children and I have a hard time playing with each other because, while they have their own very rigid agendas about what playing with their toys means, I just want to do this:


Elijah and Rose were pretty excited that I was playing with them at all, and that it didn't involved picking up games. Although Elijah did fight with me for his turn to vacuum. Two-year-old. I hope it lasts.

Then they went back to launching cars and everyone was happy. The end.

Gingerbread houses

Waaaaay back in December we made gingerbread houses. When I was making the pieces, I lost count and cut an extra roof piece instead of a front door, so Jack and I improvised and made a stable, with a star on top and a manger with a baby inside. I'm still not sure how I feel about turning a sacred scene into an edible explosion of sugary color, complete with a little ginger baby Jesus resting his candy head on bubble gum wrappers. I didn't really think that one through.


Rose and Ellen went with a more traditional design, using all the dumdums available for trees, lampposts, and tasting. Good thing Uncle David has his candy shop, which definitely came up during this activity.


All the pictures of Ellen are action shots. She could not be bothered to stop and pose, since she was so busy covering every surface with a layer of royal frosting followed by a layer of coordinating candy. This is exactly what decorating gingerbread houses with children is about.


I had to work really hard to suppress my conservation instinct, which I dutifully inherited from my Mom, back when we were a little gingerbread house factory, creating little masterpieces to sell to teachers and kids at school. We couldn't use up all the candy on the first house we made, right?

Seeing as the goal here was to get rid of all leftover Halloween and Veteran's Day candy, Ellen did more than her part for the cause.

It was so fun that we did it again the next week with some friends, and then we smashed them and ate them on New Year's Eve when we got back into town afterwards. Nothing like starting a new year with a sugar rush. Mmm.

Clean house and healthy body

Lately when I ask Rose to help me with some household chore, especially picking up her toys, she tells me that I should do it because her arms hurt, or she's so tired, or because "you like to clean, Mommy." I usually respond that I do not like to clean, but I like to have a clean house, and there's only one way to get it.

As any visitor to our house will tell you, we don't live in a magazine house, and there's a reason the playroom has a door. So I can close it. But I'm better at doing chores that I used to greatly dislike. I start a load of laundry every morning, wash all the dishes every evening right after dinner, wipe down the bathroom periodically, and sweep the kitchen floor.

Soon after we moved in to this house, looking out the dirty kitchen window was bugging me so much that I decided to clean it, inside and out. Just looking out that window now still makes me feel happy. every. single. time. I like having a clean house.

Recently a friend of mine told another friend, "Lorraine actually likes eating carrots and celery all day." What I really like are Doritos, dark chocolate, lemon squares, and cheesecake. I also like feeling healthy and having the energy to attempt staying one step ahead of my kids, not to mention being able to button my pants. I also want my kids to like good food, so I try to make our meals as clean and simple and unprocessed as possible.

The good news is that healthy habits are also delicious. Fruits and a lot of vegetables are naturally sweet. My kids call frozen corn "candy corn" and they love plain carrots and cucumbers. When I got kale in my food co-op basket a few months back, I googled a few recipes. I decided to try kale chips. All the recipe descriptions and comments went on and one about how much kale chips taste just like potato chips.

That is a lie. Especially if you have just eaten potato chips. I have an unpublished post exposing kale chips, but I kept making them and I have somehow become addicted to kale chips. Elijah likes them, too.

So... clean house, healthy body, there's a spiritual principle here as well, but I think I'll just wrap up with this recipe.

Kale chips
1 bunch fresh kale, washed, dried, thick stems removed, and torn into bite-sized pieces.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.
Bake in a 275 degree oven for 15 minutes, turn with a spatula, and bake till crispy.

And a bonus: Pineapple Pomegranate Pistachio Salad
Fresh grapefuit, mandarin oranges, pineapple, pomegranate, pistachios

It's a rainbow in your bowl.


And this story. Today I picked up Elijah who was crying "Mommy, Mommy," and I changed his diaper and said, "you're so tired. Let's take a nap." And without missing a beat his cry changed to "Daddy, Daddy." Ha.