Monday night DESSERT night

Jonathan is in class late every Monday night. The boys and I mourn his absence by having dessert on Mondays before bedtime... Makes us all feel better :)

2nd Street Market

Took a family outing to the 2nd Street Public Market/Trader Joes this morning. The market is downtown Dayton - we get our local raw honey and local maple syrup there. We shared a pretzel the size of our head! We even saw a train on the way out. And of course, we love Trader Joes. With the new budget, we still go once a week, but are now much more strict about sticking to the list :) The kids love finding the cow... b/c they get a sucker... all organic and cane sugar... so much healthier, right?!? Ha ;)

Basketball

When Henry was 5yrs old, we told him he could play basketball when he was 7yrs old. I'm not even sure how serious we were, we just figured that was 2 years away and he'd probably forget by then. He did 15 months of swimming, and he would still remind us that he was playing basketball when he was 7yrs old. Well, guess what. He turned 7yrs old in November, and guess what reminder we recv'd from him.... remember, guys, you said I could play basketball when I was 7!!! Now, of course, we could have exercised our parental authority to say no :) But, we didn't have a really good reason to, so we decided to start looking for our options of where to play. Where we live, there are basically 3 different leagues for this age group. All are about the same price. All seem to have good reviews, but we chose Upward Bound for this first time round. Not necessarily b/c it's a 'christian' organization, but they also seemed to give you the most bang for your buck. We had a very good experience - and Jonathan was able to coach which was very fun too! This was low commitment, and what was nice was it gave the boys some time with Jonathan (Wyatt would go to practices). As far as Henry goes, he had a wonderful time. There were a few kids he recognized from school on his team and other teams, and he even knew some of the cheerleaders :) He took this very seriously. And it was a great opportunity to work with him on making others more important than just playing the game. Over the course of the season, he had multiple fans. Uncle Devon, Aunt Beth, and Reuben/Theo came to games, his first grade teacher, Grandma and Grandpa Berry, his close friends... it was very meaningful and we are always reminded of how THANKFUL we are for the community we have here! Fun stuff! 

Grandparent visit!

 Mom and Dad were making a few rounds to visit kids this month -- and we happened to be on their list! Yay! We had a really nice time with them… probably one of our nicest! Henry had a snow day on Friday - and they got in on Thurs night, so that worked out great! We worked on electricity, made homemade gum, took a big walk on Saturday, stopped for ice cream for my Dad's b-day, read books together, ate chinese, watched a movie, played a riviting game of monopoly with the kids, and even fit in Henry's basketball game! The boys were really looking forward to this visit -- as they get older, they anticipate visits like this much more than they used to! We were thankful for the time Grandma and Grandpa put into them -- it was a fun wknd!


Oh, and thank you Mom and Dad…!!! They did a lot of baby holding, changing diapers, finding pacifiers, reading books (or I should say listening to the boys read!), and so on.. I figure it's keeping them young :) And it's much more relaxing than the stuff we used to have them do…. like tear out drywall, build swingsets, cut and sand trimwork, etc.



 We are heading to Indiana for a spring break visit in March -- so maybe they'll put us to work :)

We are COLTS fans..

 … in case you were wondering.

Happy Valentines Day!

Hmmm....??

I just opened this container of applesauce. I just bought it last week - exp date is 7/22/14. Here is what I found... Thankfully I was using it for baking and all of the kids were in bed -- so I wasn't rushing as usual to get it in a bowl for Myles. Anyways... Just an FYI to always check your stuff!!

The other new kitchen helper

I got a new blender over Christmas... The real deal blender that I've been drooling over for the past few years! I love it!






























I've been blender-less for a year now b/c I outlive every blender I buy. And this last time I just decided I'd sit tight and wait. Thanks to some generous family members.... my wish has come true.

So... since I've got this new blender, I've also acquired some more kitchen help. He is wonderful. He loads the blender, taste tests everything BEFORE we've even started the blender (of course we don't tell our customers that!), and turns on switches. Of course today he also threw a ceramic bowl on the floor, but that's beside the point... he's still in training.

Anyways, today our smoothie consisted of cucumbers, broccoli, lemon, kiwi, and apple. We were supposed to also add green grapes, but they were too exp at the store. So the plan was to add in a little honey or banana to sweeten it up. But my helper was so busy taste testing and throwing bowls on the floor, that he forgot to add our secret sweet ingredient.

So... Our customers weren't super thrilled with the taste of their drinks. However, we made it right by telling them this one was on the house! They finished the entire smoothie while guessing all 5 items that were in it. Whew... The helper and I will be doing some more training before the next round.

*this is just a bonus picture... she is not old enough to be a kitchen helper.... YET*

In the kitchen

 We have a new budget. And it has seriously impacted my grocery budget. We have always eaten "healthy" - what I mean by that is organic, whole foods, no preservatives, no food colorings, no white sugars, LOTS of produce, etc. You get my drift.… However, the past few years b/c of an increase in children, increase in work hours for myself and Jonathan, and an honest decrease in paying attention to my spending, the grocery budget has slowly increased. B/c my time was much more limited, I was trading making a lot of my own stuff for convenience in the way of healthy things… well, that gets expensive after awhile. B/c healthy things packaged are expensive… and a lot of times, still not as healthy as you'd like them!

So… enter loss of job. Bingo. I now have more time and I have to decrease my grocery budget. But, I am determined not to do it while sacrificing a healthy lifestyle. (I feel like this is what I read on most food blogs :) I know I'm just another woman who is trying to make good choices for her family while being a good steward of all that God has put her over!) When you 'work' as a mother, many times you have to trade off something else for that time you're not at home, or in my case, at home but behind my laptop. For me, it was cleaning and a lot of time in the kitchen traded off for a lot of Trader Joes foods :) (I still love that store!) Ha!

Now, I must stay I am thoroughly enjoying my time in the kitchen. I'm trying a bunch of everything… really trying to make foods that are going to save us money in the long run but be healthy as well. So, Wyatt and I have been in the kitchen a lot. A lot. We have made granola, granola bars, pita bread, tortillas, two different kinds of whole wheat pizza crust, we've been soaking beans, and making soup, and freezing it, and then making a new recipe for pancakes… He is learning a lot! And he's great with a rolling pin! Today he was spanking the dough as well as giving it a fohawk... really? Boys :)

 I think our favorites so far have been homemade tortillas. We've done these a few times now… they are great in lunches. And the boys loved them spread with PB and honey then topped with some of our homemade granola. We roll them up and pack them in Henry's lunch. The great thing about the pizza crust is both times we've made them, we roll them out into about 15 mini pizzas and then freeze them. So easy… and we are suckers for pizza in this house. So the boys can pull out their own crust, get the sauce, the cheese I pre-shred for them, and make their own pizza comletely on their own. I jsut put them in the oven. They love it b/c they feel very independent, and I love it b/c it's one less thing I have to do! :)

Anyways… that's what we're doing over here. Exciting, huh?!

Messes

I must admit that kids have chilled me out a bit. I have learned what really trips my trigger... and what I can let go of. For example, messes like this don't bother me anymore. They do after awhile, but I can actually go 12-16 hours now without even touching it (I know, for some of you that sounds pathetic... but it's improvement for me!). In fact, I can walk around it, over it, through it just to get to the bookshelf and the most I might do is kick something out of my way. Because I know at 7pm, it's pickup time and everyone helps. Even if you didn't make the mess, you pick up. But there was a day that I would have been cleaning up messes like this as they were happening... and I'm serious. Have you ever tried to follow around a 18-month old cleaning up? It's tiring! Well, after this many kids, I decided I could either spend my day doing that (literally) or actually get something else done. 

Now.... what I still can't stand is a messy kitchen. It's weird... It feels much more personal to me to have a kitchen that looks like my family room. So, if I would have photographed my kitchen, you would see a clean counter, dinner prep cleaned up, and very few dishes in the sink. I can THINK better when my kitchen is clean, I can function better, I actually feel like I can be a nicer person when my kitchen is clean! (Is that even biblical...? I'm sure it's somewhere in the Bible that clean kitchen = nicer woman!) There may be a day when I have to give this up too...! I hope not! :) 

But I love pictures like this for my own record... this will be a great memory :) It makes me smile already when I think of how much fun Wyatt and Myles had this morning. Wyatt built a satellite and Myles just walked around pulling anything out he could find. So fun to be kids! 

Some of the ones I missed...!

Thanks to my sweet sis-in-law...