Tons of Pictures To Edit

But in the meantime, here are a few from this last week. All straight from the camera because of a problem w/ editing software.

Hand Me Downs

It's every mother's dream for their kids to be able to pass their clothes down from one to the other -- to always have cute clothes for their offspring, but to not have to pay for it on a regular basis. (Ok, so it's MOST mothers' dream -- I recognize that there are the crazies out there that believe that their kids are too good for hand me downs. If you're that mom, stop reading now. ;) ) Now when you have two children of the opposite sex, the likely-hood of being able to do that is very slim, even more so when the oldest is the girl.

Don't get me wrong, I had several gender neutral items from when Kairi was a newborn that Alex wore, and she has had some jeans and a few tshirts that were actually from the boys' dept that she's now been able to pass on to her brother. But for the most part, my daughter is a very girly-girl. Her favorite color is pink. Although, purple and red are close runners up. And even before she was showing such preference for pink, I ended up dressing her in pink (despite any original intentions) because I simply got tired of people calling her a boy.

The area I most regret not being able to pass clothes from one child to the other is in shoes. Kairi LOOOOOVES shoes. She has from the time she was 10 months old. If she can get a hold of shoe, it's almost immediately on her foot. And the more sparkly the shoe, the more red or pink a shoe, the happier she is. So as much as I would love to put Kairi's endless array of shoes on Alex's quickly growing feet, I don't. Instead, they all stay in a basket in Kairi's room where she puts them on her dolls feet. Alex usually wears them on his hands.

But this morning, I found that Alex has claimed a pair of Kairi's shoes. When I tried to trade him these shoes for a pair that actually fits (and are brown), he bawled. So I left them on him. I figure that as long as he doesn't insist on wearing them to church tonight, it's not going to hurt anything. And even if he insists on them for church, they have to come off when he sleeps tonight -- right?


Besides, Daddy's not in town right now to complain. For some reason, I don't think he would approve. ;) What do you think?









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ETA:

Later this morning, Alex was mad at me. I still have no idea why. This was the first of multiple similar fits. He walked up to me like this, and didn't stop no matter what I asked him. Here's just under 3 of approx 15 minutes of his fit. ;)

Dear Chris,

You are such an amazing man. You are a great father and a wonderful husband. I probably don't tell you nearly enough how much I appreciate you and the wonderful things you do for our children. I see you in them every day, from their features to little bits of their personalities. It's amazing to watch them grow and know that you're a part of them.

The day Kairi was born, I wasn't prepared to see that instant bond the two of you had. You were amazing those first two weeks. We both needed you so much, and you were everything we could have asked for. It makes my heart so happy when I remember how you held her so close and worked so hard to keep her calm. Thank you for being her "faborite Daddy eber!" I know that she will never be able to doubt your love for her -- and if she ever starts to forget how much she means to you, I'll be there to remind her that you do everything you can for her.









.









I have to admit, I was worried when I was pregnant with Alex. I was worried that neither of us would be able to love him as completely as we do Kairi. I was worried that there wouldn't be that bond with him. And I was worried because you were going to immediately deploy after he was born. But I was wrong about how perfectly he would be able to fit into our lives and complete our family. You are such an amazing Daddy to him. I know that it took some time for him to get to know you again, but he still loves and adores you. Saturday and today he has spent the day taking me through the house and pointing to every picture of you he can find and telling me "Daddy! Daddy! Lub Daddy!". I know that he will grow up to admire, respect, and truly love you. You are the Daddy that he needs. There may not be as many pictures of the two of you together (Kairi does tend to hog you when she's around), but I plan on fixing that.
















Thank you for being the Daddy that makes our family complete. :)


Happy Father's Day!

Post 200!

I think it's only fitting if in this post I tell a funny Alex story. I loved it ... I think you will too.



The kids play out back almost all day long now. It's a tremendous relief for me, and they LOVE it.

Alex was playing out back this morning, and found the empty dog food bag that was going to be used as a trash sack. He drug it behind him and started putting his toys in it. At some point, he decided that he was bringing it inside.

Just as he started to cross the threshold, he started screaming. It was the kind of scream that makes me run for him -- terrified, hurt sounding. I just knew I'd find him bleeding.

I got to him and he was still screaming in short little bursts while pointing to the sack. Scared that something in there has bitten him, I opened up the sack as carefully as possible. Just at that moment, the sack began to jump, and Alex started screaming again.

I opened up the sack, and found a frog.

I showed Alex the frog, but it just made the screams louder.

Mr Frog was dumped by a hole in the fence so he could make his great escape. And Alex won't go anywhere near the sack now. Instead, he's constantly talking about "frugs", "ack", and "scawwy".

My poor baby boy. Mommy's too busy laughing to sympathize.

Kairi's Cute

Funny Kairi story:

Kairi's cuticles crack quite often. Usually because she spends hours digging in the backyard every day. It bothers her and I end up kiss those booboos multiple times a day. Yesterday she asked me what kind of a booboo it was. She's all about classifying things right now. I told her it was a crack. We had to work hard on how to pronounce it. It was hilarious the way she said it, and I almost told Chris about it, but I'm glad I didn't. If I had, I wouldn't be able to tell you this story about supper.

To set the scene, Chris and Kairi sit on the same side of the table. Kairi dominates Chris' attention through most of the dinner with her description of the day.


K: And Daddy! I have a CRAP!!!
C: (Looking bewildered, amused, angry and confused all at the same time) You have a WHAT?
K: A CRAP! See Daddy! On my finger -- it's a CRAP! Kiss my crap, pwease. It make my crap better.
C: Wait! What?!? Kiss your crap? Kairi! You don't say that word!
Me: (Laughing hysterically) A craCK Daddy. She has a craCK in her finger.
C: She has a what?
Me: A crack in her finger. Well, actually in her cuticle.
K: Yeah! See Daddy -- it's right there. A crap!
C: Kairi, say craCK. Cra-ckkkkkkkkkkkk.
K: Dat's what I said Daddy. A crap-k.
C: No Kairi, listen. CraCK. CraCK. CraCK.
K: Caa-wa-kkkkkkk. Crap-k.
C: (heavy sigh) Kairi, try again. CraCK.
K: (exasperated with her Daddy's obsession over something that she knows she has right)No Daddy. Just kiss my crap booboo and den I eat.
Me: (Still laughing) We've worked on it all day. You're not going to get it any better.
C: (Laughing, but still sort of horrified) I just keep imagining her announcing after church on Sunday in the middle of the chapel that she has a crap and the looks everyone is going to give us!
Me: More hysterical laughter
C: I'm serious Steph! If Joel or an elder hears her, you may never get to teach a class after all!
Me: (Laughing) No, Chris. It'll be fine. Besides, they'll blame you. You're the sailor.
C: (Finally willing to joke with me about this.) Oh yeah, that's comforting.
K: DADDY! You still haven't kissed my crap! I wanna eat! Kiss it!

I would like to introduce

A new family member. At least for today she is. Kairi was very very upset this morning because this family member was locked outside. Kairi begged and begged and begged for me to let this new person in.

Would you like to meet this person?

Her name is quite strange, so please be polite. Her name is cat-poo. Say it fast like kapoo, but throw a VERY soft t sound in it.

Cat-poo is invisible and was outside this morning. Kairi just wanted me to rescue poor Cat-poo. I just had to open the door a little little bit and Cat-poo would come inside.

"Please please please, Mommy, let Cat-poo inside. I ca-not open da door myself Mommy. So please open it so I can wescue poor Cat-poo! She needs my help! I'm coming Cat-poo! Mommy, hurry! Open da door!"


I'm not sure when Cat-poo will need to be rescued again, or if she's even ever coming back. But today she was here.

My Menu!

If you'll scroll to the bottom of this page you'll see a calendar. That's my menu! You see, if I don't make a menu plan at the beginning of each pay day, then I spend at least an extra $100 on groceries and $150 on take out -- I don't have that kind of money to spare! So several friends and I started menu planning together in an effort to save money and provide our family with wholesome meals. When I do it, it's awesome. When I don't, I immediately remember why I should. :)

I wanted to give you a tour of the calendar real fast.

First of all, every meal can be clicked on for more details. Those details might include the rest of the name, just in case it was longer than the box. It might include a recipe link for it. Or it might just be what I serve with it. So click each meal for more details.

Second, you may notice that most meals are followed by (CP). That's to remind me that it's a crock pot meal. Because of the fibro, I'm ALWAYS tired -- especially by evening. I don't want to cook then. I am usually excited to cook in the morning, though. So I prepare my food in the AM, throw it in the cp, and call it good. It makes my evenings go sooo much smoother. I have 2 crocks, so if you notice that I have two cp recipes up, it's not because I was brain dead. I really can cook 2 cp meals at a time. Or the timing just works out where I can prepare one after I've finished the 2nd meal.

As noted right above the calendar, I don't usually post breakfast and lunch. That's because they're fairly predictable. The kids want either pigs in a blanket (made w/ beef sausage) or Nutrigrain bars for breakfast. And since that's easy and fast, I'm ok with it. I might make eggs for breakfast as I always have them on hand, but the chances of them eating eggs are slim to none, so I usually stick w/ the other. Lunch is leftovers. If I don't make myself eat them for lunch, then my fridge fills up and food gets wasted. I try to keep everything on hand in order to eat a turkey melt for lunch (bread, turkey, cheese, and tomato) in case supper wasn't good or there weren't leftovers ... but those are few and far between.

What happens when I don't want to do what's on the plan for that day? Either I move things around, OR I have a few frozen meals (like Voila's Garlic Chicken) that I can throw on. I'm in the process of trying to make some more of these on my own so that I can just freeze them for future use and not waste the money, but in the meantime I'll buy the prepackaged stuff.


One last thing ... if there's a recipe up that doesn't have any extra info, that's because it's one that I have in my head and never think about needing a recipe. Just comment or email to get more details (like what in the world IS that? ;) ).