The Round Up

Fun times and not so fun times:

The weekend before last we rented a forest service cabin for a couple of nights.  These cabins are lovely, but rustic, no water or electricity.  The weather wasn't great, but it really didn't matter.  We played board games, took walks, had BB gun target practice, roasted marshmallows and just hung out.  It was a relief to be beyond the daily routine of chores, activities and screens.  It always amazes me when we do things like this how the kids can actually entertain themselves for hours.  We didn't bring any toys beyond some paper for drawing, but they never once complained of boredom (which they do at home all the time).  It's not like they were angels.  There were fights over whose turn it was to launch the rocket and grumbling about the pancakes being weird, but they played all day without begging for my phone or the Wii.  It sort of makes me rethink a lot of modern conveniences.  But only sort of.

 

 

And then the next weekend Porter gave us a bit of a scare.  He had a minor cold for about a week, and then Saturday night he woke up coughing at 3am.  And he couldn't stop.  And then he couldn't breathe.  He came up to our room, tears and snot everywhere, throwing up, and in a total panic.  You could see it in his eyes.  He doesn't have asthma, but occasionally a seemingly minor cold will turn into an attack like this for him.  It had happened before, but never this badly.  Luckily, we had an inhaler from our last ER visit (that we never use), and we were able to get his throat to open back up enough to calm him down.  His breathing was still quite labored, so Bryce took him to the hospital to get some breathing treatments.  He is totally fine now.  I am sure bringing that inhaler with us everywhere we go from now on though!

 



Stand Tall

I weighed and measured the girls today, just because it had been a long time and I was curious.  And then I entered their information in one of those future height predictor calculators on the internet.  I know, I know.  But still.  Even my doctor told me they are usually fairly accurate after age two, if you factor in the parental heights.  It put Porter at 6 foot and Molly at 5'6".  Which makes sense.  Pretty close to where Bryce and I fall.  But then it predicted that Cedar will be 4'11".  I sort of didn't believe it, so I measured her again.  And I gave her an extra inch since she isn't quite two yet.  Same result.  She has always been little, and on the bottom of the growth curve at her well check ups.  But I just can't imagine that she will always be so little!  It's making me laugh.  I guess she will always be my little baby.

Also, unrelated news: I overheard Molly telling Cedar a story yesterday.  It was sort of a fairy tale round up with bears and fairies.  But the last line?  And then the bad witch flew down and made all the girls dance gangnam style.  I think I snorted a little bit into my coffee.

Oh Happy Valentine's Day

The day for which I spend way more time than I meant to melting crayons, driving around town looking for bouncy balls and making things from Pinterest that my kids don't even really care about.  But it's done.  All 44 Lego minifigure crayons and 24 bouncy balls later.

I've also been trying to get out of the dinner rut of our most rotated meals lately.  I tried something new last night, and it was delicious.  Check it out - Vegetable Enchiladas with Creamy Poblano Sauce.  I found the recipe in my Gourmet Today cookbook, but someone else wrote a blog post about it, and actually took nice pictures.  This is a nice meatless meal, it does have a lot of steps, but many of them can be done ahead of time.  I can't say that my kids loved it, but then they don't like enchiladas of any kind.  I will definitely make this again.  Yum.

Shelf Life

Yesterday morning, Sunday morning, I made pancakes.  Everyone loves pancake morning, including my family.  I made my usual batch, and they were promptly eaten up as soon as they came out of the pan.  And at the end, I found myself scraping the last dregs of batter out of the bowl so that I could have something to eat.  This seems to be the story of my culinary life lately.  Not.  Enough.  Food.

They must all be on a growth spurt, because what used to be enough dinner for us all to get our fill, plus have leftovers for lunch, is now entirely gone.  And the kids are still hungry.  A loaf of bread or a 30 oz carton of Goldfish crackers or (this really happened one time) nine apples:  these things last two days at our house.  Things that didn't used to be big hits, like quiche, are polished off completely.  Porter and Molly together will eat five eggs in the morning, let alone the rest of us.  They are healthy, growing kids, and for that I am grateful.  But I think I need to adjust my meal planning and grocery shopping routines, because I have this feeling that things are only going to get worse from here.

Also coupons.  Because yikes.

Also, in the ten minutes it took me to write this post, Molly ran in to tell me she was reeeeaaallly hungry (insert giant moan here).  Of course she is.