If You Give a Mom a Mess

So, things have been kinda quiet on the blog lately.  Don't for one minute think it's because things have been quiet at home! LOL  We've been working hard around here.  The sun has been shining......off and on....literally by the minute and that gets us doing as much outdoors as possible.  Mostly, we've been working on remodeling our dining room and bathroom.  I'm doing the dining room and Husband has the bathroom.  (Both of which are finished at the time of this posting)

Have you ever read those books If You Give a Moose a Muffin or If You Take a Mouse To the Movies?  Basically, the story line is about how if you start them out with one thing, they'll need something else to go with it and on and on it goes until they circle all the way around to the original thing you gave them in the first place.  Very good books!  I love them!

I think I might be a mouse......or at this point in pregnancy (32 weeks, yay me!) a moose.

I started out to clean the laundry room two days ago.  But, if you give a mom a mess.....she'll notice that she needs to refill the dishwasher soap container.  While she's doing that she'll notice that the liquid soap dispenser needs to be refilled as well.  Rabbit trail #1.  Then, when she goes to move the "bin tower" from the laundry room into the under stairs storage that got cleaned last week she'll notice that a can of Beta food has been spilled on the floor. Since she doesn't like bugs living in her house she will stop what she was doing to thoroughly vacuum all hints of said fish food in the hopes no bugs have noticed yet.  Rabbit trail #2.  When she gets out the shop vac, she will notice that it's not sucking as it should be and will empty the tank and clean out the filter.  Rabbit trail #3. 

Do you see where I'm heading with this!?  TWO DAYS....Between real life and rabbit trails it took TWO DAYS!!!  And Mt. Laundry-more....Don't even get me started on THAT!  And then, since Israel wasn't feeling well today I let him spend the day watching Word World in my bed during which time he fell asleep and peed in my bed.  Yup, 2 more loads to add to Laundry-more.

And I wouldn't change it for the world.  There will be a day when I have no laundry to do (comparatively) and the house will stay clean and none of my white furniture or trim will have finger prints on it.  Today is not that day.  (And, since I plan to have, like, 5 Million grandchildren I imagine that day might be the day I die.)

LuLu Belle Cruise part 2

Alright, I promised the rest of the pictures!  So here's some of those Sea Lions.  Kinda funny about these sea lions.  See the really big ones?  The bulls?  Those are the ones that no one would mate with so they got sent to live here with the "teenagers" LOL 

I also promised a picture of some ice bergs.  These are really tiny ones.  It was the end of the cruise and neither Sydney and I were motivated to go take pictures of a glacier after the winter we had!

And one last picture of Don and me.  We have a similar one in our living room that was taken on the same boat about 10 years ago.  I'm really excited to print this one and hang them side by side.

That's about it for the blog.  If you would like to see more pictures you can check them out on my FaceBook page.  I'll be uploading this month's photos to an album tonight.

Cruising Alaska

I live in the small Alaskan town of Valdez.  It's a cozy little thing perched right on the edge of the water.  There's lots of fishing, fish processing, and tourism going on around here in the summer.  This weekend we were invited by our friends to go on a cruise on their tourist boat.  We took it as an opportunity for a "date" with just the Bigs (Bigs refers to Sydney, Hannah, Elijah, and Mattie) and sucked Aunt Chelsea into babysitting for us for the day.  Elijah opted out of the cruise so it was just us, the girls, and our friends that were visiting from out of town.

It was a kinda rainy day so we dressed in layers (You can always take it off if you're too hot but if you get cold and don't have more to put on, well, sucks to be you) and headed for the Lulu Belle.  (Visit their website http://www.lulubelletours.com/ for more great, Alaskan pictures)  As you leave the harbor there are two fish processing plants.  There happened to be a boat docked there unloading fish so I snapped a pic.

 

The next thing we saw was a group of otters.  There's a technical name for them and Fred, the boats captain, told us SEVERAL times what it was but clearly I wasn't listening and I'm not concerned enough to google it! LOL  Aren't they cute little things?  We actually have otters in abundance here.  The kids and I regularly head down to the docks to look for our favorite otter, "Spot", named that because we always "Spot" him.  Truth be told it's most likely a different otter every time but they all sorta look the same so.........



Next up was a hump back whale.  We had so much fun watching this guy.  At one point he was about 40' or so off the front of the boat.  He was clearly feeding and kept getting closer and closer to the land which dropped off sharply under water making for a perfect back scratching area!



I think it may have been quite possible to sit there and watch him (her?) all day.  His movements were so fluid and perfect.  It amazes me how perfectly God designed these massive creatures to be able to move so deftly through the water.  And to live on something as tiny as krill and shrimp to boot!  I mean, seriously?  Can you imagine how much that guy has to eat just to get a belly full?  Anyhow, on with the show.......

I think the next thing we saw were the Dall Sheep.  We saw a Mama and her very tiny baby.  Can I just tell you that to THIS Mama it looked like that mountain was straight up and down?!  I know those things are very sure footed but I was seriously having a heart attack!  Would somebody please get that baby off there?!!

We also saw a group (pod?) of Dall Porpoise.  Those guys are so fun!  If you stick right around 35mph they will come right to the boat and swim and jump ahead of you.  They are smaller than a dolphin with the coloring of a killer whale.

One of my personal favorites (for sight, certainly NOT smell!) are the Stellar Sea Lions.  I could watch them all day!  They don't really DO much other than sit around on the rocks, occasionally fighting with each other, making burping noises......Wait.....that sounds a lot like my dinner table!  JUST KIDDING!!! LOL  My kids don't burp.  They tell knock-knock or "why did the chicken...." jokes.  Speaking of which....Why did the duck cross the road?  Because the chicken was on vacation!  I know, knee slapper, right?  Never a dull moment around here! LOL 

Oh, no!  It won't let me upload any more images!!!  I guess this will be a 2 part post?  OK, up later are sea lions, ice bergs, and a picture of Don and I.....But I think it'll wait until tomorrow!







Freezer Cooking

I will be the first to admit that the "me" in my head has it all together.  The real "me" does not.  I am the person that thinks about what I'm going to make for dinner at 8am.  Then I get busy with my life. (Children have to be bathed AND dressed you know) I think about it again later,  "Oh, yeah, I need to get that meat thawing right after I......"  Soon enough its 6pm and I'm scrambling to get some sort of tasty goodness on the table before Husband gets home.  I need a plan!

I love those people that cook once a month.  I love the IDEA of cooking once a month.  I've even bought books on cooking once a month.  This week, I used them. Please don't ask me how long I've owned them.  The answer would be truly embarrassing.  Since Mattie recently announced that she really enjoys cooking and would like to be my kitchen helper I enlisted her help in thumbing through this book......

and we picked a few recipes we thought would work for our family.  For the sake of being first timers we only chose recipes that used beef.  Well, that, and we buy beef by the cow so we happen to have more of it on hand.  We decided on four "recipes" from the book......sorta.  We used their Salisbury sauce as a stroganoff sauce instead of on meatballs.  Then, we basically used it for ideas.  Lasagna, mozzarella meatballs, bean, beef, and cheese burritos....We used the leftover lasagna sauce to just put in bags for spaghetti.  We made our own "refried" (actually, just cooked and slightly mashed with seasoning) beans for the burritos and added cooked rice to help thicken it up.  Much less expensive than buying it by the can.

We started with 22 pounds of ground beef, and about 10 pounds of misc. cuts for stroganoff.  We also purchased 2 #10 cans of spaghetti sauce and one #10 can of diced tomatoes as our base for the spaghetti sauce.  I always start with store bought and then doctor it up! LOL  I bought several other items as well but this gives you a general idea of HOW MUCH cooking we did!!!

So, here's a few pics......

Mattie, ready to throw her bread in for rising.

We use an artisan bread recipe for dinner bread around here.  It's so easy.  Just look it up....Artisan bread in 5 mins. a day.  All it requires are flour, water, yeast, and salt.

I used cottage cheese that was 50% off instead of ricotta this time because, well, we still own two houses and we're broke. LOL  None of the kids even knew the difference!

The kitchen in the midst of the cooking mess.

Meat balls!  We stuffed each ball with a piece of mozzarella cheese stick that Joslyn cut up for us.

 For the meat balls I use ground beef, minced garlic, minced onion, eggs, evaporated milk, chili powder, and oatmeal.  Don't bother asking me how much.  I'm a dump and pour kind of cook!
(That said, would you believe that it DRIVES ME CRAZY when I call my mom to ask her how much such-and-such to put in something and she says, "Oh, about as much as would fit in the palm of your hand."  LOL  I'm so random!)

The sauce consists of ketchup (a #10 can), minced garlic and onion, brown sugar, and liquid smoke.


Two of the finished lasagnas.

It's now the end of the day and I am utterly EXHAUSTED.  I hear my bed calling my name.  We ended up with........

 5 lasagnas (minus one for dinner tonight)
4 meatball dinners
2 spaghetti dinners
6 burrito dinners
5 stroganoff dinners

in the freezer
 5 loaves of artisan bread baked and half eaten.  LOL

 

All in all, I think the day was successful.  I have several turkeys in the freezer yet that I would like to do something with so we won't be eating beef every day but this was a great start! 

Shrinky Dink Bracelet

The other day my sister found a wonderful Mother's Day gift idea on PINTEREST!  It's a shrinky dink bracelet with a square from each of the children.  So, this is the blog I used for directions.  I HAVE NOT BEEN TO ANY OTHER PART OF THIS SITE AND AM NOT SPEAKING FOR ITS INTEGRITY SO CHECK OUT OTHER SECTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

http://rustsunshine.blogspot.ca/2012/04/shrinky-bracelet.html

To be fair I should tell you that I ordered shrinky dink plastic from Amazon and did not recycle a #6 container.

Measuring the plastic pieces.  *NOTE*  Make one and then use it as a template so you don't have to do the math over and over!

Hannah clipping the corners so they wont poke Grammy when she's wearing the bracelet.

Punching holes in the corners.

The finished project...Modeled by the Lovely Mrs.  Rachel Johnson.



Sydney had other pictures of the children actually working on their projects but if you've stopped by her facebook lately and witnessed her prolific use of the word GUTS you know that she lost over 1,000 pictures yesterday due to technological difficulties.  Those were some of the pictures.  Bummer.

The sun has been shining in Valdez so we've been playing outside almost constantly!  I have wonderful pictures of our time at the beach yesterday for those of you who aren't FB friends but they'll have to wait for another post.  See?  There's my carrot to get you to come back and read again!  ;)

Mother's Day

Let me just begin by saying....THE KIDS ARE HOME!!!! I'm so happy!  I will have another whole post about their time in Tatitlek so keep watching.  For today though, I thought I'd share about being a mom.  I mean, it's Mother's Day, right?

A couple weeks ago Husband and I took a trip to Anchorage alone.  It was a lovely drive.  6 hours each way with no one to interrupt our conversation.  We aren't "weird" at home.  Everyone knows us.  Everyone knows we're expecting our 10th child.  Everyone knows our kids.  OK, maybe we're still considered weird, but at least everyone already knows it! LOL  But going into a different town is.... well, different.

We don't have shopping where I live so I usually do a hefty amount when we go to "town".  It's inevitable that at some point while buying $1500 worth of groceries or 9 different sizes of clothing that the subject of how many children I have comes up.  This time it was Old Navy.  I was bantering back and forth with the checker, who was a BRAND NEW trainee (I was her fourth customer) and the manager that was training her.  I was kinda giving her a hard time.  But in a fun way.  We were all having a great time.  And then it came.......

"So, is this your first baby?"

"No, she'll be my 10th"

At this point you can almost physically hear jaws hitting the floor!  It's really somewhat entertaining.  This time I was met with lots of  wows and good for you type comments.  Sometimes it's not like that.  This time it was though, and we had a great time talking about my masses and how things work, etc.

But, it also reminded me how weird we are. LOL

Then, to top it off, on the way home that weekend Husband says, "Honey, do you realize we're moving into DOUBLE DIGITS?"  As if there was something momentous about that.  Like it's a big thing.  I shrug my shoulders, "Yup."

But it gets me thinking......about 10.....about the NUMBER 10.  Why don't I think I have very many children?  Why don't I think about our "huge" family?  Why doesn't my jaw drop when I think about the size of our family?  And then it hits me.  I don't have 10 children.

I JUST have Sydney.....my artist.

I JUST have Hannah.....my helper.

I JUST have Elijah....my scientist.

I JUST have Mattie.....my sensitive one.

I JUST have Luke.....my special gift.

I JUST have Joslyn....my drama queen.

I JUST have James Michael....my fine blend of Tigger and Dennis the Menace.

I JUST have Israel....my little "Echo".

I JUST have Liberty....my "baby"

I JUST have these children.  Not 10, but 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1.  Individuals.  My children are not a herd.  So yes, 10 might seem like such a huge number to others.  But to me, I just see them one by one.

I am the most blessed mom on the face of the earth.  I hope you you had a wonderful Mother's Day today and you took time to "count" your blessing one-by-one, I did!

Day 3

I would love to tell you that I've been diligently working, getting all sorts of projects finished.  I DID get all our homeschool materials unpacked and organized yesterday.  It took ALL DAY but I had great company so I didn't mind so much.

Today, I did nothing.  Zip.  Zilch. Nada.  It's my sister's birthday today so the kids and I went shopping for gifts and then met Rachel and Chris at the Totem for brunch.  My pregnant self is perpetually indecisive so I ordered two breakfasts under the guise of feeding one to Liberty.  I ate a little of both.

When we got home in the afternoon I tried unsuccessfully to take a nap.  The little stinkers were tag teaming me.  No nap today.  But I did get to lay in bed for a little while and relax.  I'm not going to lie and say it was as good as a nap.  It wasn't.  But, it's what I was given so I took it.

Now on to the fun stuff!!!!  I bathed the kids and got them ready for bed (Yes, right after nap time LOL) and then I fed them....Are you ready for this?.....Bananas, yogurt, and a half a brownie for dinner.  They're pretty sure they're in heaven!

After "dinner" we got busy putting the caterpillars we got in the mail the other day into their individual containers.  We do this every year.  We order a classroom refill kit from insectlore.com as well as a praying mantis egg case.  Usually we get more but we ran out of school allotment this year for the first time ever!  So here's the pics...............

Israel and James Michael getting ready to make caterpillar homes.

Mashing down the food in the bottom of the cup to keep the caterpillar from getting lodged underneath.

James Michael helps Israel re-locate a caterpillar.

James Michael makes a new friend.  He named him Iron Man.  Israel, who has recently been nick-named Echo also named his Iron Man.  Can you guess why we call him Echo?

James Michael and Israel playing with their new buddies!

Liberty helped too, of course.  She was in her high chair rubbing yogurt in her freshly washed hair.  Nice Kid.