Valentine Fairies

On Friday, we made Valentine Fairies. I had no real plan, I just knew I wanted to use wooden clothespins and have some sort of wings. I just pulled out a bunch of pink and red craft supplies and went from there. I found the wooden hearts, yarn and clothespins at garage sales.


Calvin helped punch out tiny little hearts.



Here's what we came up with.


Note: we used mostly school glue because I wanted the kids to be able to do this craft with minimal help, but I found the yarn hair would not stick well without a dab of hot glue. These needed a good couple of hours to dry (perfect to make right before nap time).

Another note: For younger children, I would recommend using the pipe cleaners - they were easier for them to wrap than the yarn.

Playgroup Buddies

We managed to make it to playgroup this week. That's an accomplishment frankly because it involved leaving the house with multiple children in winter.

The baby's favorite toy was their enormous dog Baloo. Baloo is a goldendoodle and very gentle. When he has a full coat, he looks like a bear. The baby really enjoyed sharing the dog's red toy. One chew for the dog, one chew for the baby - repeat. It kind of reminded me of growing up with our dog Snuffaluffagus - Snuffy for short. He let the babies crawl all over him and we let him lick our faces clean. My Grandma was appalled, but we loved the dog and all of his doggy germs.

The Weekend Cannot Come Soon Enough

The photos of this cute baby have nothing to do with this random post. I just thought they'd cheer you up. Babies do that.


I do not know why I am so anxious for this week to be over. I am so grateful tomorrow is Friday.

Here's my list of goals for the weekend:

• Spend several hours on paperwork and filing in my room. Catch up and mail daycare forms. Pay the bills
• Go to the bank, Sam's Club and the grocery store
  
• Hang the photos and artwork on the walls that have been leaning on the stairs for the past month
• Order black and white photos of my family for the family photo wall
  
• Finally finish putting away the Christmas decor and store it in the rafters of the garage
• Get the van back into the garage (did I mention I ran into a snow bank last week and cracked the front bumper? Who needs it?!)
• Find the missing shovel . . . again
• Buy new "hack the ice off a your driveway thingy" since mine broke last week. Hack ice off driveway
  
• Research dental insurance costs and state dental care qualifications
  
• Finish making and photographing the Valentine's Day jewelry and get it loaded into my etsy shop
• Mail a package of crafts to Utah for my girlfriend to try and sell for me
  
• Spend a couple of hours organizing the craft room/office which looks like a bomb went off in there
• Clean my bathroom and frankly the rest of the house
  
• Catch up on laundry, folding and sorting outgrown clothing
  
• Make a concrete plan for spending time on my personal health. Figure out when I can fit regular exercise into this crazy schedule I have. Use Target gift certificate for Wii Fit.
• Update links on blog
• Plan sleepover for Sophie's belated birthday party
• Take a nap
  

If you run into me this weekend, remind me to get my list done. I will feel so much better if I feel caught-up. Getting things accomplished always makes me feel better.
One more day.
I can do this.

Comparison

I took the kids to the zoo on Tuesday morning. the bird show is always so delightful and I was suprised by how much of the tropics trail is being renovated. I also noticed just how sad my old point and shoot camera is after using my new fancy pants camera. I will never go back. I spent yesterday on the phone with State Farm figuring out how to add it to my insurance policy!

Recipe: Lemon Pudding Cake

On Monday, Sophie and her friend decided to make a recipe from the cookbook Lucsious Lemon Desserts. The Lemon Pudding Cake (someone typed out the recipe here) is pretty straightforward which allowed them to do everything except separate the eggs all by themselves. Egg whites can be tricky.

The cake is pretty tasty - great for breakfast but not very puddingy, if that's a word.

Recipe: Brown Sugar Pound Cakes

Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

I made these babies on Sunday morning to give to some sweet ladies. They are from the Martha Stewart Cupcake Cookbook which Susan gave to me for my birthday. Darn you Susan! My thighs curse you and your calorie laden gift! You can see the recipe here.

When they first came out of the oven, I gave some to the kids for breakfast - because I am that kind of Mom - and I thought they were just ok. I expected more. But then, then I made the glaze. Let's take a look.

Oh baby.



Are you seeing the brown butter specks and the vanilla bean specks?

Gorgeous.

Can you handle one more?


Yummmmmmm. Add the icing and these things are divine.


Luckily for my thighs, I gave most of these away. But it was tough. Reeeally tough.

On the Road to Recovery

On Friday, two sweet women from my ward came to hold down the fort while I made my way to the U of M for dental care. Bless them. One of the babies blew out of his outfit. Sorry.

Did I tell you I got a GPS for Christmas? It has changed my life. I have a tendency to get lost easily. Usually, it's not a huge deal, I just drive around until I find what I'm looking for or I stop and ask for directions. I used to call my husband - when I had one - and ask him to look up addresses for me. Well, no longer! Now my handy little GPS tells me exactly where I need to go and if I still manage to get lost, she patiently recalculates and starts again. I've heard there is a way to change the voice to swarthy male with an Australian accent. I'm going to have to try that.

My kids are fascinated with the GPS and Calvin has conversations with it in the car.

GPS "In .2 miles turn right on France Avenue"
Calvin "OK lady, we'll do that! Mommy, did you hear that? Take a right!"

I've lost my train of thought . . . back to the toothache. After what may have been the most painful injections of Novocain ever, the dentist discovered my bicuspid (next to the tooth with the crown) had a white filling which had loosened, allowing decay to get behind the filling. She took out the filling, drilled out the decay, performed a root canal and then packed the tooth with antibiotics and a temporary filling. In four weeks, I have to go back and have that all removed, have the tooth filled with a permanent filling and then find another dentist to do a crown.
Teeth are expensive. I would like to formally lodge a complaint with someone about how crappy my teeth are. One of my biggest regrets of my childhood? Not getting braces. Thank heavens I had some money set aside for emergencies as this tooth is going to run well over $1000.00 - with no dental insurance. It makes me wonder what other people in humble circumstances do for dental care.

The very, very good news? My dramatic toothache is gone. I am sleeping again at night. The stomachaches from overdosing on Advil and Tylenol are subsiding and life goes on.

I planned to spend the weekend resting and recovering from the lack of sleep the week before. Instead, I unexpectedly had the kids and spent Friday night and Saturday morning at the 4th grade invention fair. Max was pleased with his invention and there were some pretty cute ideas at the fair. I babysat Saturday afternoon for three hours and the rest of the weekend is a blur.

The kids were out of school today and it was a regular work day for me. Calvin, Max and two of the boys spent the entire day playing Star Wars action figures, watching Star Wars and playing Wii Star Wars. Sophie had a little girlfriend who I was watching for the day and they made jewelery, baked and played games and American Girl dolls all day long. I spent the day chasing the newly crawling baby and the newly walking baby. It was busy and yet normal.

Did anyone make New Year's Resolutions? I've been thinking about mine and I will share them with you soon. It is somehow late already and I made a goal to be in bed before 10:00 tonight. I may just make it!

FYI, Max stayed in his too long footed jammies the entire day and Calvin stayed in this church outfit which he slept in last night. I have no excuses, it just happened.

Valentine Craft

On Thursday we made caterpillars - because caterpillars and Valentines Day go hand in hand! I cut up some cardboard egg cartons, punched out some little hearts and provided white paint, silver glitter and pipe cleaners for the antenna. You'll need quite a bit of white paint because the cardboard really sucks it up.

One More Day

Went to the dentist yesterday. I have a large cavity on my bicuspid next to the tooth with the root canal. She scheduled the filling/possible root canal for Monday. The Tylenol with codeine the dentist prescribed? - useless. I spent last night texting my doctor friends about just how many drugs I could take as the pain was just relentless. 4 Tylenol Codeine and 12 Advil later it was morning and I got no sleep - again.
Three nights of lots of drugs = nasty stomach cramps all day today.

Surprisingly, I was so exhausted today that I was actually alert - does that make sense? Sweet Marsha stopped by to help with the kids this morning. I called the dentist again to ask for something stronger to help me sleep and she said that if the Tylenol was doing nothing, I had an infection and needed to see an endodontist for a root canal. Crap. Crap. Crap.

Endodontist root canal = $998.00
Convincing the director of the graduate dental program at the U of M to let me in to their program = $550.00

I am headed in tomorrow. Thank you Marsha and Paula for watching the kids for me.

I'm off to try really really hard to get some sleep. Thank you for letting me whine.

**edit - Thanks to a tip from Koo 2 Tylenol PM + 4 Advil = sleep for me!! I could hardly believe it when I woke up this morning! Thanks for the tip Koo. I love sleep.

Recipe: Fancy Lemon Pound Cake with Glaze

This is another recipe from my new Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove Cookbook. I loved the cake but if I were to make it again, I would make a glaze that did not have butter in it. My kids inhaled this for breakfast.

ingredients
1 1/2 cup cake flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 T. lemon zest
2 t. fresh lemon juice
4 large eggs
2 t. vanilla
1 cup unsalted butter melted

glaze
2 T. melted butter
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioners sugar

Oven to 350. Butter and flour loaf pan.
Whisk flour, baking powder and salt. In food processor, pulse sugar and zest until combined. Add lemon juice, eggs and vanilla. With machine running add 1 cup melted butter. Transfer to large bowl and fold in flour mixture until just combined.
Bake 60-70 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes in pan and then completely on a rack. Drizzle with glaze.