You can't rush art

My children are FULL of funny one-liners these days. When I took Spencer to the doctor to confirm that he had the H1N1, like his sister, he was NOT. HAPPY. He fussed at me the whole way there - even telling me that if I made him go that he was not going to give me any more kisses. That is a serious threat. But I took my chances and made him go anyway. He was pitiful and shy and traumatized the whole time. But while we were waiting on the snot card to turn flu or not flu, he perked up some. And when we were walking to the car, he was sucking away on his sucker and wearing his Bob the Builder sticker. I said, "See, son, it was not that bad. No one hurt you. There were no shots. I told you it was not going to be bad." And he grinned from ear to ear, cut his eyes at me and with a wave of his hand said, "piece a cake!" I refrained from pinching him and stifled my giggles.

So the other night, we were carving pumpkins. I was happy to have David AND Bay to help us. After last year, when the children whined and said that I was not doing it right, I was happy that the pumpkin carving team was with us once again. We always try to wait until the week of Halloween because we all know how gross and rotten pumpkins can become, right? Of course, it is not as dangerous here where the temps are cooler, but I still like to have pretty punkins as long as possible.

Anyway.

Jessa drew a picture of what she wanted. She also wanted to add make-up. Yep. Make-up. Spencer selected the features he wanted from an array that I had drawn. Of course, once the guts were scooped, they both decided that they wanted to draw their ideas directly onto the pumpkin. This was all OK because I gave them washable markers. I also put the Windex on the table so that they could clean off any boo-boos. Well, this turned into a full-fledged, old-fashioned pumpkin scrubbin'. I am pretty sure that Martha Stewart would have even been proud of the sparkling clean pumpkins we had.

So Bay was working with Spencer, a pumpkin, and a three-year old vision of what he wanted the pumpkin to be. Poor Spencer was not feeling 100%, so he was somewhat impatient when Bay did not capture his vision accurately. But in the end, they were both pleased with how it turned out.

Then there was David and Jessa. She being our dramatic girl was feverishly working on transferring her ideas onto the canvas that was her pumpkin. David was just sitting there after de-gutting, waiting on the princess to complete the outline she was making for him. It was starting to get late, so David finally said something to try and hurry her along and then she looked at him indignantly, sighed, and announced, "You can't rush art." Alrighty then.

Jessa posing with her artistic creation.

I am sure you would agree we should not have tried to rush it.

In the end, her pumpkin was cute, too. And did I mention they were both really clean?

AND since I am NEVER in any pictures, I decided to remedy that.

So, enjoy, well, ME!

*And please notice how overjoyed all of my family members are to be in a picture with me.

It really warms the cockles of you heart.

Ah, treasured memories.

We may need to frame some of these babies.

Feel the love.

Pasta - hold the noodles

Being a mom can be hard. I am not sure if all of you are aware of this, but moms are expected to provide like 3 meals a day for their children. I know, right? Can you believe this? Now, it is easy when they are babies. All liquid diet. Just put the formula in the bottle. Voila! Food for child. Child eats. Full child. Repeat in 3 hours.

As they get older, it gets more complicated. You have to introduce new foods. They get opinions. They like some things and not others. By the time they are the age of my children it is downright difficult.

OK, so breakfast is not too bad. There is cereal. That is not tough. Oh, but only if they wil eat it. . . Which may or may not happen. Yes, I have 20 boxes of cereal in my pantry because every time they express interest in trying something, I fall for it. Seriously, look:

And FYI, this is 2 rows deep. I could not find a way to get them all in the picture. And I drew the line at lining them up on the counter just for a picture. Plus, it may be embarassing.

I must confess that my children eat cookies for breakfast on occasion. Well, they eat them sometimes. Actually it's most mornings. OK, fine, IF they eat, it is cookies. BUT, I do bake them fresh. Well, I place the sugar cookie on the cookie sheet, and then place the cookie sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. But it is a HOT breakfast. And before you judge me, the cookies have less sugar than many other more traditional breakfast foods, like children's cereal, donuts, cinnamon rolls. Stop judging me! Their tummies are somewhat full when they leave. Block checked. I said don't judge me.


Dinner is not too hard because let's face it, I cook about 37% of the time for David and me. I can just give them some of what we are having. And I am pretty sure the "law" is that I, as their mother, have to provide 3 meals a day - whether they eat what I provide or not is up to them, right? You can look it up. During the other 82% of the time, we eat out. And every restaurant must provide a form of kid-friendly chicken, i.e. tenders, fingers, nuggets, filets. Yep, it's another law. (I am an expert at obscure fictitious laws.) And they are mostly happy with a form of chicken. Block checked.

Then there is lunch. Sandwiches are pretty easy, right. And now Jessa even eats her sandwich elsewhere most days. She does not even leave a mess! But my precious, discerning (that is a nice way of saying PICKY) kids will only eat PB&J sandwiches. OK, and I got Spencer to eat a girl cheese that one time. The same sandwich over and over can get boring, right? So maybe I, as the dynamic, creative mother that I am, might try to mix it up a bit.

Enter Chef Boyardee Microwaveable meals.


I have been giving my kiddos these Chef Boyardee Pasta meals since they had teeth. They love them. And boy are they easy. There is only one problem. They love the meatballs, but they do not enjoy the pasta.

Each container has 10 meatballs. (David once told me I should work for Quality Control for the Chef because I carefully inspect their products making sure there are 10 meatballs - no more, no less.)

I place these balls of meat on toothpicks. I learned a long time ago that my children will eat most anything if it is on a toothpick. But those darn noodles will not go on a toothpick, so you see my problem. They do not eat the noodles. Maybe sometimes they will eat a spoonful or two, but they always eat the meatballs and ask for more. I have thrown away enough ABC and 123 pasta shapes to feed a small army. Maybe even a large army.

So I think that Chef Boyardee should make these meals with just meatballs. I mean, they have a variety with just Pasta and no meatballs. Isn't it only fair to have the other option, too? This may be meat discrimination. I'll have to check with Adkins people and see if I have a case.

It worked for Honey Bunches of Oats, right?

Being a mother is hard what with the children wanting to eat like three times EVERY day, and that is not even counting snacks. They even want to eat on the weekends. The least the Chef Boyardee peeps could do is try to help a mother out. I'm just saying.