Robots

For family night tonight, we made R.O.B.O.T.S.

Everyone got an empty, washed can,

and we filled the table with old junk - we didn't purposefully collect this stuff, it's just what was laying around the house and garage (scary, huh?) Davis also took apart an old computer and a couple of old thumb drives for some neat parts.

Then I set up a hot gluing station (I was in charge of hot gluing) and everyone designed their robots.

Henry was supervising - he sat in his high chair for over an hour just watching.

Of course Davis's robot has guns at the end of its... tentacles?

The finished products will live on a shelf that I still need to build in the kitchen/dining room/robot garage, watching over us as we eat.

I think this was one of my favorite Family Night's ever - it took almost no preparation and everyone had so much fun!

Tonight

Randomness...

For Family Night tonight, we celebrated Seuss Week by reading a bunch of Dr. Seuss books and then making our own Seuss-inspired characters.

Then Henry got sick and I had to stop drawing and sit on the couch and watch Cake Boss for two hours while holding him. Davis put the girls to bed. I love him. Poor Sophia, she was so tired today - she napped at school (she never naps, and she told me after school, "I didn't know what happened, I thought I was awake, but Miss Teresa had to explain to me that I had fallen asleep" ha ha!), she had bags under her eyes, and then at bedtime she suddenly started sobbing. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me "I'm so sad, because I don't want to grow up! I want to stay just like this forever!" It made me want to cry too!!

Dinner was so yummy. I don't think I've shared these recipes, and they are staples at our house, so here you go.

Brown Rice That Actually Tastes Good
from Alton Brown
(this is like magic - I really am not a fan of brown rice, but I actually like it this way as much as white!)

1.5 cups brown rice
2.5 cups water
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the rice in a casserole dish. Boil the water, then add the butter and pour over the rice. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Fluff with fork when it's done.

Maple Soy Salmon
from Gourmet

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 (2-lb) piece center-cut salmon fillet with skin

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line bottom of a broiler pan with foil, then oil rack of pan. Boil soy sauce and maple syrup in a small saucepan over moderate heat until glaze is reduced to 1/3 cup, about 5 minutes. Arrange salmon, skin side down, on rack of broiler pan and pat dry. Reserve 1 1/2 tablespoons glaze in a small bowl for brushing after broiling. Brush salmon generously with some of remaining glaze. Let stand 5 minutes, then brush with more glaze. Roast salmon in middle of oven 10 minutes. Turn on broiler and brush salmon with glaze again, then broil 4 to 5 inches from heat until just cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes.

I usually make this dinner with sesame asparagus (I think the recipe was originally from Gourmet too - I have a whole box of recipe cards with recipes I copied out of Gourmet magazine when I had a subscription), but the asparagus at Kroger looked really gross yesterday. So I just stir-fried some snow peas and added sesame seeds tonight. Yummy!

I've totally given up on simplifying my life, or whatever, and just embraced that my brain is a mass of chaos and I have more things to do than I will ever, ever get done. Part of that is that every night after the girls are asleep, I am going to my office away from home

and working. On work, on "work" I've somehow decided to take on "on the side," on church and school stuff, on email and other correspondence that never gets done, on taxes, and most of all - staring at my redundant to do lists and calendars, willing the organization into my brain. So far it's not working, so if I owe you something - a phone call, if I'm supposed to get back to you about something, or we have a lunch date coming up - please remind me, again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For the kids' Valentines this year, I emptied out four bajillion matches, and covered match boxes with scrapbook paper (spray adhesive - don't love using it, but it is just the best for this kind of thing!) Then I had the girls decorate little strips of white paper and glued it on the boxes, filled them with M&Ms, and - voila! I got the idea from here.

The teacher Valentines are large match boxes filled with Ferrero Rocher.

Have a happy ♥ day!
Smooches!

Love

Love is in the air on the windows!





Sophia and I put some thick paper on an old griddle set to the lowest ("warm") setting, then made stripes with crayons (this is how we always use up old crayons, but all we had was fresh ones today). Then I cut the hearts out freehand and stuck them on windows with tape.

Gingerbread Houses

One of the things I love about my Mac, is iPhoto. And one of the things I love about iPhoto, is that when I open it, is shows me thumbnails of all the pictures I've taken the past 12 months. So at the top of the page, there are the pictures from exactly one year ago. And very often, those pictures are of us doing the exact same things as we are doing now. I love seasons, traditions.

Right about this time last year, the kids and I decorated "gingerbread" (actually graham cracker) houses. And this year, each of the girls invited two friends, and we did it again.

It was so much fun and we all ate WAY too much candy!

PS
Amelia stayed in her church clothes and Sophia changed into her pajamas. Usually we would wear something Christmas-y for such an occasion, but this year is a much more low-key (as in, Mom doesn't have it all together) sort of holiday.

Painting the Town Red

and purple and blue and green....

Sidewalk paint: put equal parts corn starch and water in a jar, add food coloring (the plain old cheap dropper kind) and shake until mixed.

Art Class

Sophia was having some troubles, after her friends started making comments about her birthmark and scars at a birthday party a few weeks ago. She was just bummed and down on herself for several days. So we signed her up for a summer art class to boost her confidence - since she LOVES art and has always been good at it.

Her art teacher was made for Sophia! On the first day of class, Miss Debbie said "I'm an artist, so whatever happens is fine with me, I'm just the most laid back person you'll ever meet. And sometimes the art will look like it was originally supposed to, and sometimes the project will go in a different direction, and that's fine too." Sophia Heaven!

This past week, Sophia wanted us to stay in the room with them, and Miss Debbie was sweet to let Amelia participate too. The kids got a pile of wood scraps and made animal sculptures (the teacher hot glue gunned), then decorated them with felt and feathers and beads. It was GREAT!

This is Sophia's giraffe LuLu

And Amelia's turtle Wucy

And our collective bird Strawpizza

I had so much fun, I want to take an art class too!

She's Just a Lion

How do you ensure Daddy can watch the World Cup without interruption while at home alone with three little bored summer vacation turkeys?

and little bit of this

Plant Markers

The girls and I planted a little herb and tomato garden in a flower bed next to the patio.



I made these plant markers - I made ten of them in about fifteen minutes. They are so easy! Just cut the top and bottom off a Coke can with regular scissors, then cut the sheet that's left into strips. Using a ballpoint pen, write on the BACK of each strip. Remember to write backwards (I thought this would be hard, but it wasn't).

They are aluminum, so they will not rust.

Fairy Dust

Like I think all three and four year old girls, my daughters are in love with fairies. Sophia dreams about fairies and dragons and unicorns and mermaids almost every night. They go searching for fairies in our backyard.

So as part of their Easter baskets, I decided to make little bottles of fairy dust for them.

I got the idea from here. I love that catalog, but $68? Sheesh! I found little glass jars at Hobby Lobby - 50% off $1.99. Then I filled them with very fine white sand, two types of gold glitter, and tiny pink glass beads. I tied some teeny tiny jingly bells to the jar, so that it very faintly jingles when you pick it up, tied a ribbon around it - and done! I got everything at Hobby Lobby for around $10 for both (and had enough left over to make five more jars!) You could also decorate it with fake ivy and flowers like the Chasing Fireflies one. Or use different colors of glitter. There are so many possibilities!

This would also make a great party favor at a fairy-themed birthday party!

Spoon People

I'm still feeling a little under the weather (I caught the girls' cold) so we've mostly been spending time at home, laying low, taking it easy, chilling out...

Today we made puppets out of plastic spoons, thanks to inspiration from this blog.



My favorite



Mister Grumpy! I especially appreciate how Mister Grumpy has bags under his eyes!