Works for Me Wednesday

PROBLEM: My kids love to eat Lunchables, but I don't love spending $2.50 apiece on a little tray of lunchmeat, cheese, and crackers.

SOLUTION: For the cost of a couple of Lunchables, I can buy ingredients to make my own for a week or more. I just cut up some lunchmeat and cheese, put it on a plate with some crackers, and voila, homemade Lunchables. The kids are just as happy as with the real thing; happier, really, because they can have these a lot more often!

So this week homemade Lunchables are what's working for me. To see what works for others, head over to http://www.wearethatfamily.com/ for more WFMW ideas!

Jungle Jack's The Wackiest, Wildest, and Weirdest Animals in the World

Here's another book review blog for Thomas Nelson...

Summary
The Wackiest, Wildest, and Weirdest Animals in the World (by Jack Hanna) arrived at my door this weekend. It's a collection of information about unusual animals in the world and has some fun facts about them. There's also a DVD with bloopers from Jack Hanna's animal shows.


My Reactions
This is a children's book and it definitely appeals to children. As soon as I pulled it out of the box, my kids were excited by the cover art and begging to read it right away. We sat down right then and started reading it together. There were 30 animals featured in the book and we enjoyed reading the stories and unusual facts about them. The kids really liked the pictures and the information. My daughter is still quoting facts about the blue-footed booby at random moments! My son has been pretending to be a great white shark and an anteater since reading the book. They also really enjoyed watching the DVD.

Overall, I would say this book was definitely a hit! I would recommend it for kids from around 3 - 10.

I am Supermom!

Okay, not really. In fact, I usually feel VERY far from Supermom. But did you ever have one of those days when everything just went right?

My Saturday didn't start out like anything special... got the kids up and dressed and eating - believe me, some Saturdays that's about all we hve accomplished by the time Aaron gets home from work! But today was different... and I'm giving the credit to Sandra Lee from Food Network.

The kids were playing and Brekken napping while I checked my Facebook page and had Food Network in the background. Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee was on and she was making pulled pork sanwiches in the slow cooker. It looked good. It occurred to me, I have a slow cooker and a pork roast in the freezer. So I moved away from the computer and put together pulled pork for dinner. While I was right there, I felt motivated to do a load of dishes and followed up with a load of laundry.

By then the kids were bored and wanting a project, so I pulled out a picture frame and some beads and they made a picture frame for Grandpa's birthday present.

Lunch went smoother than usual, with everyone actually eating without arguing or refusing their food. Then we finished up another project I'd been working on. You know how my kids love to draw on chalkboards. But the one in the backyard can't be used if it's rainy or too hot (it's in the full sun). So we took plain boards and covered them with chalkboard paint, too. On Saturday I mounted them on the covered front porch, so they can be used when the weather is less ideal. I have to tell you, I love using my drill (and yes, it's mine, not Aaron's) - it makes me feel so handy!

Mounting the chalkboards payed off immediately. They were all occupied with drawing on the new boards - even Brekken. So then I had a chance to create the baby gifts I'm making for my sister and sister-in-law. (Lissa and Sarah - if you're reading, close the page now!)

I made diaper wreaths with little baby gifts attached all over the wreaths. It was actually pretty fun and easy to put them together, and I think they turned out well!

All of this and I managed to finish up with enough time left to get a shower (long enough to wash my hair and shave my legs in the SAME SHOWER!) and get the kids dinner before Aaron came home. Turns out that Haley LOVED the pulled pork. She had seconds and even ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. Aaron and I loved it too, it turned out really well.

And then for the topper to my day, Aaron watched the kids while I went over to Rosa's for a Girls' Night. We ate chocolate fondue and talked for hours and it was a blast! And when I got home, Preston was already asleep and Haley was at least in bed, if not already asleep.

It was a great day. I got everything done that I needed to. My kids didn't fight and whine during the day (probably because I kept them busy all day). I even cleaned house and made a home-cooked dinner. Ah, if only days like this came along more often!

Works for Me Wednesday

PROBLEM: My kids love to draw with sidewalk chalk. But due to Preston's habit of running out into the street at random moments, I don't like to let them go out in the front yard to draw on the sidewalk or driveway. I'm always worried that Preston will get into the road before I can catch him. And even though we live on a mostly quiet street, we do have a few neighbors who like to drive down to get their mail and go too fast for comfort.


SOLUTION: In our backyard, we have an old picnic table. If you know Aaron, you probably know that he doesn't enjoy the outdoors... so the picnic table is almost never used. Trying to convince Aaron to go have dinner at the picnic table and enjoy the evening outside pretty much never works. So I came up with another use for the picnic table.

I bought chalkboard paint at the Home Depot - around $4 for a spray can of paint. I covered the picnic table with the chalkboard paint and now the kids can draw with their sidewalk chalk while safely contained in the backyard! And if I should ever convince Aaron to come eat outside, we can just throw a tablecloth over the chalky picnic table.


So that's what's working for me. To see what works for others, head over to http://www.wearethatfamily.com/ for more WFMW ideas!

My Name is Tara, and I'm a Blog-aholic

I realized today that I'm addicted to blogs, both writing them and reading them. If I go a few days without posting something on my blog, I get antsy, thinking: "There must be something I can post about. What's going on in my life? What jokes have I heard? What are other people blogging about?" And then I think of something to write about and stick it out there for the "entertainment" of those of you who are reading this. Really, it's all about what's entertaining me, but I appreciate you reading it so I have an excuse to keep posting more. =)

And reading blogs... definitely addicted to that. When I started reading blogs, I was really just checking in on Mandy's every couple of months. Then I started looking at blogs by Melissa H. and Rosa and Melissa S. Then I discovered that all of these blogs had links to other interesting blogs. So I started following some of them. And I discovered some other blogs out there (usually by complete strangers) that are fun to read or have good ideas so I had to follow them, too.

So what made me suddenly realize that I was a blog addict was that I was adding a new blog to my reader (so I can be alerted when something new is posted - heaven forbid I should miss something new!) and I realized how many I am following. I've gone from a year ago when I just looked at one once in a while to now that I have 22 blogs that I check up on every day... plus several others that I just check in on from time to time. It's no wonder that I never have time to actually eat during my lunch break - that time is reserved for blogs!

Is there a 12-Step Program for Blog-aholics? Maybe I could create a blog about that...

Update on George - in case you were interested...

George got to come home yesterday. He is improved enough that they thought he would be better off with us than at the vet. So he is eating a drinking a little and acting a bit better. Tomorrow we get to learn how to administer subcutaneous fluids... which he will need a few times a week for the rest of his life.

As much as I was upset about losing George, I do have to wonder about the expense and effort of this for the rest of his life. But at the same time, I just cannot have him put down when he is acting so much better and the vet says he could have anywhere from a few weeks to several months of good-quality life.

So... I guess we're going to learn some veterinary skills. And George will be getting more well-travelled. We have several trips coming up that we can't/really don't want to cancel. But we don't feel like we can leave George to fend for himself with the other kitties - even though it's just a couple of days each time. So George will be travelling with us. We'll see how that goes!

Sad day...

We're sad at our house today. Our kitty George (blue George, as opposed to his brother silver George) is 11 years old, which is getting up there for a cat. He's always been very healthy, but over the weekend he suddenly went downhill. He started throwing up, was very lethargic, wouldn't eat or drink, and lost almost 3 pounds in a matter of 3 days... when you have a cat who only weighs 7 pounds to start with, 3 pounds is a lot to lose.

When we took him to the vet on Monday, we discovered that he had developed hyperthroid and kidney disease. Apparently, cats with kidney disease rarely show any symptoms until it hits a critical level, at which point they crater abruptly. So George is in almost complete kidney failure and they're trying to give him enough fluids and IV therapy to turn things around enough for him to come home again.

Unfortunately, the diagnosis of kidney disease is fatal, it's just a matter of how long he has any quality of life. Still waiting to hear from the vet on what they're thinking on that...

It probably seems silly to be all upset like this over a cat, but for me, I've had the cat longer than I've had my husband! Aaron just loves all cats, so it's upsetting for him. And of course the kids have known George all their lives, so Haley and Preston are quite upset and missing him a lot.