Juicy

So I got THIS for Christmas and love.it!
If you know me well enough, you know that my kids get very very limited amounts of sugar. Like, birthday parties only and they have to share a piece limited amount.

'So do you not give them juice'

Before the juicer, nope... they get milk and water only! But now, I will make them a glass of freshly prepared juice with the juicer a few times a week. (ATTENTION GRANDPARENTS: Don't take this as all clear to give them juice... only juice that comes straight out of a juicer is allowed). Put fresh fruit in and get fresh juice with absolutely nothing added out and serve.. period.
And they love it.
One of G's many nights rummaging through the house here lately, I found 2 packs of raspberries, 2 packs of strawberries, and 2 packs of blueberries on the counter and he was trying to figure it out.. when I caught him, he said "Make juice".
Loves it!

Now, the 2nd part of this.. anyone who knows me knows it bugs the poop out of me that the "pulp" left over might go to waste.

So I have been keeping it frozen and in the freezer and dated. I have used all the pulp I have created now!
from Orange juice, all the orange pulp went into 1) frozen orange pops (just froze the pulp into pops) for the boys and 2) orange vinaigrette dressing (add vinegar and a small amount of the fresh juice).
from the grape/blueberry juice, I mixed the pulp with peanut butter and made it into a sandwich for the boys lunch yesterday... they loved it!!
from the apple juice, I made apple/Cinnamon pancakes for breakfast by simply mixing the pulp into the batter.

I am going to make some raspberry juice today and use the pulp for raspberry vinaigrette. J loves vinaigrette dressing.

I am still waiting to make carrot muffins from the carrot pulp.

Thanks momma for this present.. I love it...

Wow, what a week

Internet for me has been off and on all week long. We are getting J's digital phone and all of that installed upstairs (aka. his new office) and it has been screwing with the wireless internet in the house. Comcast has been out twice and will be out here a third time Monday night.

Long way to say, "sorry for the lack of posting".

OH, I wanted to publically respond to the comments on the last post... please, keep the ideas coming.. I need them.

Emmilu said...
I assume it is stupid to ask if he can climb over a very tall baby gate?? We still have 4 super tall gates (with walk through doors) strategically placed throughout our house to trap our boy in/out of places... but he recently was injured trying to climb one of them. I honestly think the first thing I would do is call the pediatrician and tell him he needs to find out why he is not sleeping... 5+ times every night is a lot of night waking.... He is never hitting REM if he's doing that. I'm surprised he's not a walking zombie during the day. Hang in there, I know that is so scary.
He has proven that he can climb over anything. Unfortunately, we had to give up the baby gates for G a long time ago. The one we have is exactly what you are talking about, extra tall with a walk through door. He has got some monkey toes or something because he climbs by hanging on with his toes to places you can believe. But thank you, thank you, thank you about the idea of his night waking.. I guess we have been so "OMG how can we get him to stop" that we didn't see the whole "why isn't he sleeping."
I am starting to chart his waking and all of his sleep habits for ammo when I do call his doc.

Amanda and Michelle said...
is enrolling him in the CIA black-ops program an option? Holy Cow! Bless your heart, and thank God he is ok. the only thing I can think of is the crib and bed nets for caging in karate-kid-little-ones.
I wish it were because I would love to have the extra green comin' into the house. He was out of a crib at 16 months when he started climbing out... we just put him a toddler bed then so he wouldn't hurt himself... We use to have one of those nets... intially bought so the cats wouldn't get in the crib, but of course, we couldn't get it to fit our cribs. Thank you so much though.. keep those ideas coming.

Jessica said...
Oh my gosh! Your kid is amazing! I'm sorry this has gotten so out of hand for you. Does the alarm stop him at all, or is it just making it so you can catch him every time?
It just makes us catch him before he gets too far rummaging through the house alone. It has made him wait at the door until we tell him it is ok to come out. We have also just ordered this...

The objective of the "Good Nite Lite" is to educate children to stay in bed until it is morning. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 years of age are just starting to grasp the concept of day and night and how it relates to regularly scheduled rest. The Good Nite Lite can assist children with better differentiating the concept of nighttime and daytime and reinforce the benefits of appropriate sleep patterns. The Good Nite Lite device itself is an innovative combination of a traditional night light and a built in timer that changes the visual display characteristics to reinforce a regular sleep pattern.
Believe me, when it comes in and I put it to work, I will defintely let you know if it works.

Now, for the week.
Most of the week, Uncle Berek and Jenny were in town to visit and spend time with the boys... We had a blast and they fixed us breakfast Friday morning... which was so good.
Plus, I think D might be trying to steal Uncle "Bear"'s girlfriend... he was a little taken to say the least.




THEN
This weekend, we helped friends celebrate a birthday. A man who I have known and been close to their family for over 18 years turned 60 and he had a surprise party. Then I hung out with some buds afterwards and had a great time.
One thing I did learn from looking back on the pics...
My big butt needs to start wearing makeup.. I look like I haven't sleep in years...

Poison Control and late night jitters

So, Thursday morning, 4:00am, I woke to a very familiar noise... someone going thru the fridge and as I slowly, with a groan, got out of bed, I heard a not very comforting noise of glass breaking...
damn... I said to myself as I hurried my pace to the kitchen...
What I saw was quite disturbing...

"G, put it down slowly... do not walk" (then I remembered how the Early intervention people displayed to me that G does not understand 'not')
"No move feet G, take the knife out of your mouth and lay it down"

Before I could really get the words out, I got the large butcher (not the square kind) knife out of his mouth. He was surrounded in a mass of broken glass from a jelly jar. He had taken this knife and was scrapping jelly off the glass and eating it.

I ripped him up, calmly took him back to his room and explain to him why his spanking was coming and that he in NO WAY needs to be playing in the kitchen and how bad bad bad it is and how he can hurt himself.
Then I cleaned up the kitchen and thought that was it.
As I was putting him back in bed for the 2nd time, I saw the destruction in the living room.
water bottle on the couch with uncle Berek's iPod touch (thankfully the top still on the water bottle)
birth control pills... one is missing... call poison control.
change jar emptied and scattered.

When I returned to the living room from the 3rd time putting him back into bed, I broke down... J was there to comfort and say "he is fine... he isn't hurt".

I responded through the sobs "we are going to wake up one of these mornings and he won't be ok".

This has past the point of funny and "OMG HE IS A NINJA"
He is putting himself in real danger and it has to stop.

So, we put a alarm system on his door... a siren goes off through the house if his door become ajar.
It wakes the whole house.
Last night we discovered just how much he is getting up.
5 times I counted... J may have a different number since he got up every time but the last.

Anyone else have any ideas??
We keep the door unlocked because he needs access to the bathroom and we don't want to move the urinal into his room...
So???

**Also, we do have drawer locks where the knives are.. he knows how to unlock him... we also have a fridge lock and a dishwasher lock... he had ripped the fridge lock apart.

8 mouths to feed

You know people, I adore every living creature in this house. The four legged babies I have are still my babies, even after little humans. Sometimes though, the day gets hard making sure the 2 cats get fed once a day, the 2 dogs get fed 2 times a day, the 2 itty bitty humans get fed 3 square and 2 snacks, then us big ones get at least 3 good meals. There are some days when I feel like all I am doing is feeding, watering.. whatever.
I use to have it harder when G was into his whole "lets eat the dogs food and drink their water stage."

Unfortunately too, that is when Sasha was going through the whole "I have diagnosed Giardia stage" too. But that is another post for another day.

But now.. oh now, I have a precious baby that is willing to help...

Thank you sweet boy.. I am sure Pluto appreciates you as much as you do me.

Hey

I know, posts have been slacking lately...
sorry.. we are busy trying to get the house sell ready before we put it on the market on the first of February, plus, we are trying to plan a The Jungle Book party for D's 2nd birthday and have discovered that absolutely nothing exist partywise pertaining to the Jungle Book... so most stuff, we are having to make ourselves. Great.

Plus, I got a new camera with my birthday money and I haven't put it to use yet.. I want to read up on everything on it first. Sorry.

Also.. the other day, I had a girls day with my momma... I took some of my Christmas money and took it to Southland Greyhound Park (we went to the Casino part), and turned my Christmas money $400.00 richer. Of course, I spent most of it on the house to get it sell ready, but he part I saved for myself..
I got a new 300 series dremel, with a mini saw horse and the flex shaft accessory and cross cut blade accessory.. plus more bits to do more stuff.

I love it.. and yes, I know, I am weird.. oh well.

Hugs

New Years Resolutions.. did they fall to the wasteside?

This was the first year that I made New Years resolutions and actually kept them in mind throughout the year. I wrote them on my white board in the kitchen and they stayed there!

How did I do?
Well, I had 6, 3 of which were not measurable... so with them, it is a matter of opinion if I finished them.

Here were mine:
1) More coupon shopping - I did do better this year
2) Prepare and take the PE in April 2009 or October 2009 - I suck
3) Do more for March of Dimes - We are doing away with out team, so this one doesn't count
4) Keep scrapbooks up to date - I suck more
5) Get more organized - I did good on this one.. label anyone?
6) 120 lbs and stay there. - I am a big fat sucker

Time snuck up on me on the PE, I didn't really 'try' on the weight thing and I just feel very overwelmed by the scrapbooks... but I did something? right? Bueller?


New Ones!!!

1) Prepare to take PE in April 2010 or October 2010 (very last chance I could do it)
2) Get down to 120 or lower and stay there
3) Get scrapbooks up to date

That is all I am going to put because we have a hectic first of the year for ourselves.. We have to spend most of our time getting the house prepared to sell, planning 2 birthday parties (did you know they don't sell The Jungle Book theme party supplies.. anywhere... like not even overseas), putting the house on the market, storing stuff, selling stuff, packing stuff...
I am tired already.

I hope everyone has a terrific New Years... be safe tonight, there are crazies out.. and don't be one of them.

Lots of Things

First off, I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We did. Santa was wonderful to us all this year!
Oh, you want an update on how G reacted when he saw the train table Santa brought him??
He walked into the living room, opened his arms up as wide as can be and yelled out with a gasp "TRAIN!"

We won't go into how much that deceptiveness scares to bajeebees out of me.

Christmas was great and it was fun seeing the boys react to Santa's presents.





G has figured out clothes boxes already and tends to toss them with a 'clothes' sigh.
We will have to work on that.
But they had a great Christmas and was spoiled as usual.
So were J and I.


Also, my only baby girl in this house, had a birthday yesterday. Sasha was the first of her litter born Dec. 29th 6 years ago. 8 weeks later, she was J's Valentine's present for our first Valentines as a married couple. I hate to think that she is over middle aged for her breed, eventhough she still acts like a pup. I love her very much and can't wait to spend another 6 years with her.


We went and watched Marley and Me on Christmas Day.
I bawled like a big fat baby, and came home and hugged my pups... then cried some more.
Then I thanked God for giving us these pups to help teach the boys things a good dog can. Responsibility, empathy, gentleness, playfulness, boundaries... and so much more.
I recommend seeing it... I still liked the book better, but the movie was wonderful.