Halloween and then some

Halloween started bright and early for us this year - bright and early Saturday morning. Yeah, we are pretty hardcore about this holiday. We gussied everyone up in their costumes, willing or not, for the trunk or treat at Jason's school.

We were going with a superhero theme this year. Our main source of costumes is freecycle, so we didn't have a lot of choices and ended up with two costumes for the same hero. But Josh cleared that up by announcing that he was the Spider-Man from the first movie and Ben was the Spider-Man from the second movie (like he had actually watched them or something). Jason and I had been considering dressing up as supervillians, but the week got away from us so Jason pulled out the cow costume and I went as a tired mom (not seen here).

Ben had a rough day - he was not a fan of costumes. We had been unable to get him to try on his costume all week. Friday afternoon he seemed interested when we first tried on both Josh and Michael's costumes at the same time (Michael had been wearing his every chance he got all week and once he was in the costume, it was impossible to get it off of him). Ben was excited to wear his costumes and be just like his big brothers. Sadly, that enthusiasm did not carry over to the next morning and both times we had to get him dressed in it on Saturday ended up being full-on wrestling matches. Luckily, I outweigh him by a couple of pounds.

Our reluctant hero:

Two funny things about Josh and this Halloween:

1. For some unknown reason, he kept telling everyone, "I am Spider-Man and I have the guts!" What are these "guts" of which he was so proud? He did have padded muscles in his costume...

2. He competed in the Warhead competition at the trunk or treat. And lost. But he was the only kid his age to compete. The fact that I was egging him on and that he had no idea what a Warhead was probably helped.

We left the trunk or treat early to run errands and Josh's soccer game. Jason dropped me and the younger boys at the church to make some copies for Primary while Josh played. The copies didn't take all that long so went and played under one of the most magnificent trees ever. It sits right in front of our church and had obligingly dropped a ton of gorgeous yellow and orange leaves on the ground. The boys hung out in the tree and then played in the leaves while we waited for Josh and Jason to return.

This is definitely my favorite time of year.

Did I mention that we can't get Michael out of his costume once he puts it on?

We also attended a very fun Halloween party with delicious food and gracious hosts, but I didn't take any pictures. We had a great Halloween, but I am getting ready to hide all the candy and am excited for Thanksgiving and other Fall fun.

The First Victim

of the Halloween orgy of sugar:

It only gets worse from here on out. Our hope is to "recycle" candy from one Halloween event to the next (2 down, 2 to go) so we end up with the minimum amount of candy possible. Luckily, this year I am not tempted to "sort" through the candy.

Warning

You know how all kid/infant pajamas have a warning about flammability on them (ie warming footie pajamas too close to an open fire is a bad idea)? You know how some people have quotes on their walls in vinyl lettering ("Families are Forever" and such)? Well, I have decided to combine those two ideas for a necessary and artistic addition to our kitchen. I am considering getting some vinyl lettering that says,

"Consumers Beware: Operator Error in Progress"

Why would I put such a gloomy statement in my kitchen? Well, I am batting 0 for 4 in the dinner department this week. Pretty much all my fault. This has been especially frustrating in light of my gluten-free experiment as chicken nuggets or a bowl of noodles are not possible back-up plans for me. Jason, however, has been making a nice dent in our Costco bag of chicken nuggets.

Sunday: I found this exotic-sounding recipe on a GF slow cooker site for Ethiopian Chicken Stew. Yum. I have loved all the Ethiopian food I have tried. And the recipe called for onions. Double yum. It called for 3 large onions, diced. I cut that back to 1 1/2. It would have been fine if these had been sauteed in butter and olive oil with garlic onions. But 1 1/2 large onions stewing in a crock pot for 6 hours? Yuck. It was a gloppy onion mess. Onion everywhere. The crock pot itself even smelled of onions 2 days later (yes, I cleaned it). I did salvage the chicken by removing it from the stew, adding it to rice and covering the whole thing in sour cream. I firmly believe that there are a multitude of culinary sins that can be covered/cured with sour cream.

Monday: In the afternoon, I took out the New York strip steaks we had bought and thought of pan frying or broiling them to eat with rice and veggies. I left them on the counter to thaw because they were frozen. They were frozen when we bought them and frozen the entire time we had them. A little bit later, I discovered a large blue growth on one of them. Blue is not normally a color I associate with meat. Luckily, the steaks were individually shrink-wrapped so I hoped the other ones were fine. I cut them out and sniffed. And told Jason to fend for himself while I pulled out the leftover onion chicken and the sour cream.

Tuesday: My Pampered Chef Angel appeared with my rice cooker. I was banking on this nifty device to get me through the tough times. Historically, rice and I have had a rocky relationship. I can't seem to figure out how to make rice well. How something that has only one ingredient can be so difficult to get right is beyond me. Enter the rice cooker. Microwaveable even. I was saved! Luckily, I have pounds of rice in our food storage cupboards so I would never go hungry or wander the kitchen wondering what to eat again (for the next two weeks anyway). While we are in the basement storage area, let me tell you what we also keep in that same cupboard: Shampoo, conditioners, soaps and air fresheners. That's right. I zapped that rice in the microwave and it came out tasting like Herbal Essences.

Wednesday: The main course of dinner actually came out pretty well. I am even looking forward to eating the leftovers. Success! And then I decided to make pumpkin pie without the crust. Let's pretend it was for the beta-carotene. It turned out relatively edible, but I would really, really recommend that when the recipe on the can says to beat the egg before adding it to the other ingredients that you do so. Otherwise, you might end up with pumpkin pie that has scrambled egg-like chunks throughout.

Just some things to think about if I ever offer to feed you.

How I Survived Day 2 GF

On day 1 GF, I ate almost 2 pounds of bananas. On day 3 GF, I broke my no-more-than-$1.50-a-box-for-cereal rule and bought Rice Chex. But, day 2 GF was the best. On day 2 GF, I made to-die-for peanut butter cookies. And only shared one, rather grudgingly, with Jason.

I MUST share this recipe! I give all the credit to my cousin-in-law, Steph, but I must share it. Delish. And already gone (okay, that might be a little disturbing if you think about it) so I don't have any pictures. BUT, these are the best peanut butter cookies EVER (are you loving my overuse of caps? but, really this is worth YELLING about). I don't see how flour could in any way improve them and I may never make peanut butter cookies with flour again.

Behold, the recipe:

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1. Mix all ingredients in bowl.

2. Roll into 1-1.5 inch balls. Roll balls in some sugar.

3. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and press flat.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes.

So, if you are thinking (as I was) that I might lose weight while not eating gluten, you are wrong. The only thing that is holding me back from making these again (shame apparently not a motivator since I have no problem telling the world on my blog) is the fact that I used up the last of my brown sugar making them yesterday. That, and although I do live in the land of plenty with 24-hour grocery stores, I hate grocery shopping with my kids.

But, really, make them. Love them. Drop off any extras (ha!) at my house.

BOO! (At the Zoo)

The biggest excitement of our week was Boo at the Zoo. Friday night, Michael and I headed to the National Zoo for some spooky fun and yummy treats. I was lucky enough to snag two free tickets for the same night that Josh was already scheduled to go to his friend's house, so he wasn't upset that I was only taking Michael. Of course, I just told Josh that Michael and I were going to the zoo and neglected to mention the Halloween party action going on there. Discretion being the better part of happy family life sometimes. And Ben spent some bonding time with Opa. Lucky Opa.

Truth be told, the scariest part of the night was me driving a stick shift into the District. Normally, I consider driving into DC against my religion. Yes, you may (or may not) attend the same church as me, but we don't have exactly all the same beliefs. My beliefs lead me to strongly oppose any driving in DC and I go for years holding to that belief. However, the tickets came with a free parking pass, the zoo was built on a rather steep hill and my 4-year-old doesn't have the greatest stamina so I chanced it. Luckily, my Dad lent me (with mixed but mostly positive results) his GPS. In any case, after a harrowing drive, we arrived and parked at the bottom of the zoo.

Our visit consisted of a meandering walk up the pathway which was dotted with booths giving away treats - mostly healthy, organic snacks but some chocolate candy. Michael loved the snacks and ate the entire time to keep up his energy.

Along the way we saw several silly displays of skeletons involved in real life activities like playing poker, working in a lab, getting married and using the bathroom.

And since this is the zoo after all, there were several graveyards for extinct species. Interestingly enough, these were quite a hit with the kids, although many of them couldn't possibly be old enough to read the signs, and you could usually find large groups of them running among the tombstones.

Usually sandwiched between Josh (the nonstop talker) and Ben (the nonstop runner), Michael seemed to enjoy his brief time as an only child. We walked at his pace. We went where he wanted to go. We did some people watching and picked out his favorite costumes. We spent time looking at the animals he wanted to look at (the invertebrates it turned out). All in all, a great time.

Except for the fact that I had to drive the stick shift home. That got my adrenaline rushing.

GF: Day 1

I am in the first day of an experiment. A gluten-free experiment. I have been toying around with the idea of trying a GF diet for a while and a book a friend sent me recently sealed the deal. Here is the plan: Avoid gluten for two weeks and then eat a lot of it and see what happens. And, since there is no time like the present, I started today. Actually, the logistics were a little tricky - with holidays and family parties over the next few months, I didn't have a lot of good options time wise that wouldn't be problematic or overly tempting. Halloween is in a week, but of all the holidays where I should avoid the associated food, this would be it.

Plus, my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I will have my cake and eat it, too. It might be the day I find out if it is going to make me sick or not, but I will have my cake.

Anyway, back to the present. Today is day one. At about 11am I was pretty sure this is the worse idea on the planet. I love wheat. I crave wheat. There are so many, many wonderful things made with wheat. And many of them are in my house And I have recipes for lots of them. Good recipes. ::sigh::

At lunch, while I was eating rice and Jason ate Great Harvest Bread Apple Scrapple, chicken nuggets and sweet potato pie, Jason asked if I was planning on staying GF if I felt better. Strangely, I can't commit to that right now. Would that be the logical and smart thing to do? Absolutely. But I think we will have to cross that bridge when we get there. Mainly because what will the rest of the family do? At first, Jason very considerately declared that if it was best for me then the whole family would do it. I asked him if he was willing to have Josh give up chicken nuggets, pancakes and pasta. Then I asked him if he was willing to give up crackers and cereal as snacks for the kids. Yes, there are GF options for those, but they might very well bankrupt us. He was suddenly less certain. Would it be possible, yes. Would it be painful, absolutely. However, those are all theoretical questions and this is just my personal experiment so we will just have to see.

On the other hand, I don't know if I can stick to a GF diet by myself with all the temptations in the house. I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast for Jason and Michael and the leftovers on the table were calling to me. The Apple Scrapple bread on the counter is in my thoughts constantly. I have to make cookies for Michael's class this week and I know it will take a great deal of willpower not to taste the dough. I can handle two weeks, I don't know if I have that much control in the long run.

Wish me luck and whatever you do, if you love me, don't bring me cookies right now.

Bonjour mes amis!

Yesterday was Josh's first French class. I am ecstatic. I have wanted the kids to take a language class for a while. Sadly, although we are driving distance from a city filled with embassies and foreign diplomats, language classes are hard to come by in our small(er) Virginia town. And let's face it, I am not willing to drive 45+ minutes each way for a 30 minute foreign language class. So when I got a flyer from Josh's school a couple of weeks ago about a French class at his school, I filled out the registration form and sent it back the very next day.

Fast forward two weeks. The night before class, Jason and I told Josh he had French class the next day. We told Josh that Nana and Uncle Doug speak French. That was very exciting. We told the boys some French words to get him excited about the class and learning a new language. They weren't very interested in "Bonjour" and "Comment allez-vous?" but they loved saying "oui." In fact, they ran around the house yelling "oui, oui, oui."

I guess I should have seen that one coming.

In any case, Josh was excited to go and seemed to have a good time. I don't know what he learned in class yesterday, but he came home with two French flags he had colored and refused to say "Au revoir" to his teacher as we left. But, whatever he gets from this class will be good.

Comfort

Ben is our only child who did not take to a pacifier. Or to his thumb, for that matter. Nope, Ben in an original. Flying in the face of self-soothing conventions, he turned his palm outward and stuck his index and middle fingers in his mouth. And then he grabbed his ear. And held on for dear life. Interestingly enough, he has quite flexible ear cartilage. I don't know if this is caused by this chronic grabbing of it or not, but sometimes it sticks out the other way for a while after he lets go. It isn't anything that doesn't pop back into place given time or a hands-on sibling, but it looks pretty funny. We get lots of comments on it. Our pediatrician seemed a little concerned even until I popped it back into place. If it lasts, he should be good for parties when he gets older.

But tonight he found something just as good: Daddy's ear.

Couldn't Stay Away

The pass to Shenandoah Park is good for seven days and I have been itching to go again, so I conned my friend into meeting us up in the park today on what could be described as a cold and blustery day. As you can tell, the kids didn't seem to mind so much. Well, once we got going and got our blood moving anyway. My kids were covered in 4 layers of clothes and still found reason to cry about the cold. That definitely comes from Jason side - I love this weather. Love, love, love. This is the time of year that I come to peace with living in Virginia.

At the risk of Fall photo overkill, I just had two more pictures to share from our hike today. The Fall colors have become more brilliant in the four days since we were last there and provide a nice background.

Michael on top of the rocks:

Ben showing me how he feels about being forced to ride in the carrier in the cold:

He did eventually change his mind and have a great time, but not before making us and anyone within a two mile radius aware of his displeasure. A big thanks to my friend and her kids for their enormous patience today!

Up in the Mountains

Monday was our annual trip to the Shenandoah "Mountains" (sorry - I am from Colorado, I have to use quotes when talking about mountains in Virginia) to miss the peak of the Fall leaves with Nana. True to form, we missed the peak. However, this time we probably came too early rather than too late. Oh well, we had a good time regardless. And the balmy summer-like weather meant that we didn't have to cart coats and hats up with us.

Josh has become quite the rock climber and scampered all over them while I was making sure Ben didn't fall off the edge. I don't think that I would have allowed him to do some of the climbing initially if I had been aware of what he was doing. However, since did do it, I figured he could probably do it again without killing himself. So he climbed and climbed and climbed and loved it.

Michael also scampered around the rocks, although he wasn't quite as reckless. With all the scenic vistas to see and rocks to climb, I think the highlight for him was probably the chocolate ice cream he ate at lunch. He drank the remnants out of the bowl afterwards and wore not just a little bit of it on his shirt. After that, it didn't matter what we did because the best was behind us.

Ben, as usual, was just along for the ride (see bottom picture) and spent his time trying to catch up with his brothers. Of course, by the time he gets anywhere, everyone has changed directions or activities so he never quite gets there. That will probably come with time.

So, we had a great time. And Nana and I were exhausted. Although fun, these sort of excursions are never restful or relaxing with the three savages in tow.

Perks of Being Sick

It has been a rough 48 hours in our house. From Josh sleep peeing all over my bathroom, including on my toothbrush, to Ben throwing up on the other boys' dinner. Three of us have been sick with a stomach bug. Yuck. So, I have been trying to focus on the positive. Here is what I came up with:

-Ben has been kind of lethargic. Which caused us to be a little worried and buy some Pedialyte, but it has meant fewer tantrums. He has been super cuddly and sweet these last few days.

-Since I was up all last night, I had lots of time to watch whatever I wanted without interruption. I got through Pride and Prejudice and 6 episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.

-Jason come home early from work. Love it. Not that I really got to spend much time with him because I went to bed for 5 hours, but I was so grateful he could watch the boys so I could get some rest.

-I have felt no guilt whatsoever about letting the kids watch TV all day. None.

It can only get better, right?

What He Heard

Josh has great Primary teachers. Great. They have a large class of 5/6-year-olds that they teach every Sunday. As far as we can tell, this is the scripture their lesson was based on a few weeks back:

Matthew 7

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

What Josh heard:

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise Luke Skywalker which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon Luke and his lightsaber; and they fell not: for they were founded upon a rock and the Force.

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish droid, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that foolish droid; and it was destroyed: and great was the fall of the droid and the dark side of the Force

So, at least he got the gist of the lesson. And at least he associated the light side of the force with the wise man and the dark with the foolish man. Some day he will apply the scriptures to other parts of his life than the other way around, but for now I am happy that he pays attention in class and is learning something.

The End of Gymnastics

Michael has been taking a gymnastics class for the last 5 weeks. The results have been mixed. It took him the entire 5 weeks to participate during an entire class (for week 1 he watched for 40 minutes and participated for 10). However, by the performance they did yesterday for the parents, he did everything and seemed to have a great time. Of course, with all the jumping and flipping, this is right up his alley. We even did some of the rolls and stretches for FHE last night and had, for the first time in months, a no-tears FHE (mine or theirs).

Still deciding if we will do it again though. In any case, this video is just a little taste of the routine we saw yesterday. Even Ben was interested to see all these kids get to do crazy stuff while he was confined to the mobile prison (stroller) for 50 minutes.

Parenting with Pain

Okay, so the title of this post probably sounds more drastic than it is. Especially since what I am about to talk about are things that some perfectly sane parents out there already do. These techniques just aren't historically our style.

And some of the pain might be better classified as a temporary slight burning sensation.

Josh is having a difficult time listening and doing what we ask without being asked several times to do so. He is old enough to comprehend the request and act on it; he just chooses to ignore us. So, the other day while considering this problem, I came up with a not very original, military-esque solution. I like to call it the Drop and Give Me 5, Soldier solution. As in, I am very, very seriously considering making Josh drop, wherever we are, and give me 5 push-ups (to start) every time he chooses not to listen. (In case you are wondering, they checked his hearing at his 6 year check-up and it is fine.) I then thought about the reactions various people would have to this. My brother Doug, for example, might be disappointed that we aren't already doing this. Others may find it a little cruel. Either way, it should definitely build up his arm muscles.

Michael is having a difficult time with lying. I try not to get too upset about this as I am not sure how clear the line between fact and useful fiction is in his brain, but it needs to be nipped in the bud. We have tried soap, but I worry a little about what might be in those scented, anti-bacterial supersoaps. So, it might be time to break out the hot sauce. It is intended to be ingested orally and luckily I got some free with coupons a while back, so I have some on hand. I do actually know someone who uses hot sauce and probably should ask her how that worked for her.

Any suggestions?

Rookie

Some days I feel like I have my act together and run my life like an adult. And then I have those days when one might think that I had no idea what I am doing.

For example, a couple of weeks ago at church Jason took Ben to the bathroom to change his diaper and the changing pad was soaked. Consequently, all of Ben's clothes were soaked. I asked Jason if maybe it could possibly anyway at all perhaps be just water?? Riiiight. And we, parents of three children, had managed to pack a diaper bag without spare clothes for Ben. I know that he is past the baby stage, but we really should always have spare clothes for a three hour stint away from home. Especially when we are supposed to be dressed nicely even. So, we stripped him down to a diaper and I canvassed other mothers of similar sized children for extra clothes. No go. We sent him to Nursery naked with a diaper. Afterwards, the Nursery Leader told me he was a joy to have and if stripping down the other kids to their diapers would make them happy, she would totally do that. So, that was good, but he was the only child without clothes that day. And you are thinking to yourself, that is no big deal. But, think about the last time your child was without clothing for most of church...

Seven years in Virginia and I still think like a Westerner. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend or believe or remember that when it rains here, it rains for a while. Like a day. Or more. I can't believe that the rain will last more than about 15 minutes and therefore plan accordingly. Which explains Thursday. It rained Wednesday afternoon and night. It was raining Thursday morning. I had Josh run out to catch the bus without a raincoat or an umbrella, because the rain probably wouldn't last all day. I took Michael to preschool in the same condition because the rain probably wouldn't last that long. I took Ben to the doctor and had to sprint while carrying him into the building because I didn't carry an umbrella because the rain would surely stop soon. I left the sliding back door open because the rain had to end soon. (Okay, I did wise up on that pretty quickly when the carpet started getting wet and did close the door.) Then, to show off all my intelligence, I soaked my feet wearing sandals to book club that night because there was a veritable river running through the parking lot since it had been raining for over a day at that point.

And last, but definitely not least, Ben and diapers. Ben figured out how to take off his diaper a while back. Which is fine. He doesn't do it all that often. But, still, I should have known. I did know. I just didn't think about it. I should never have put him down for a nap without a onesie or some pants on. Never. I went to go get him up from his nap the other day after taking my time. Time was my enemy. Because, as far as I could reconstruct from the crime scene, he had too much time. He had taken the diaper off and walked to the side of the crib and peed out between the bars. Okay, that is not too bad. Then, he pooped and it was EVERYWHERE. His face, head, back, hands, legs, diaper area, sheets, both blankets, his bear and the crib itself. Nice. And I can't even say I had no idea it could happen.

Oh, yeah, I've totally got everything under control over here.

The Mess

For about a week and a half, every time we walked into the kitchen we saw this:

And, if we turned our head slightly to the right, we saw this:
All to make this:
Seventeen (+ five my sister-in-law kept) jars of oh so yummy pear butter. A lovely lady at my church was giving away nine bags of pears. They weren't very ripe when I got them and she told me they weren't eating pears. I didn't know what to do with them at first, but I have a steam canner so I couldn't let the bags pass me by.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

Once I had the bags, I went to my trusty recipe website, allrecipes.com, and explored the world of pears. Turns out there aren't too many options. This particular recipe caught my attention because it had hundreds of good reviews and called for orange and nutmeg. Supposedly, it is good on both toast and meat, although I have yet to test the latter. The recipe was relatively straight forward, but I didn't really have the equipment to make this quickly. First I peeled and cored and quartered the pears. Then cooked them with a little bit of water until they were soft. After that, I ran them through the blender and then strained them with a sieve. You can see why our kitchen was such a mess. Some days I used about every bowl and every pan we had. The poor blender may be ready for retirement soon. In any case, at this point I poured the strained pears into the crockpot and added sugar, orange juice, grated orange peel and nutmeg and let them mix cook on low overnight. The smell was intoxicating. I am very pleased with the results. I love it on pancakes, toast and French toast.

But, I might scream if I have to peel one more pear this year.

Up next: applesauce!