Category: Uncategorized (Page 38 of 201)

Just after breakfast every morning we take a walk.  The big kids ride their bikes and I push the little kids in the double stroller (with the new awesome tray that I created!).  It’s good for everyone.  The kids love being outside and I need the exercise, so it’s truly a win-win.

Levi, in particular, ADORES being outside.  So, if I’m not moving fast enough in the morning he will take his shoes and stand by the door yelling for me.  Yes.  Seriously.

That boy.  Just making sure he’s not forgotten in the chaos around here.

Josiah turned 7 last week.  Crazy, eh?

He decided he would like a super hero theme so we did our tradionial “Pinterest Scouring and Dreaming” (the kids LOVE this part of the process) beforehand and then here is what we came up with:

And then the other stuff!  I forgot to take a picture of the sign on the front door, but it read, “Welcome all superheroes.”  Then the boys got to make their own Captain America shield out of a Frisbee and we shot silly string at the giant car slide (pretending to be Spiderman shooting webs.  Thanks Nana and Bumpa for the target!  🙂  )      

And as a special bonus, Josiah’s Kindergarten teacher even stopped by to have cake with us.  Josiah was thrilled!

I’m new to the Instant Pot community, so I thought it would be fun to keep track of the first 10 recipes I tried and let you know how they turned out.

1.  Boiling water.  You may laugh at this, but I was a little freaked out by some of the reviews of people saying they got really hurt while using their steam release valve, so I wanted to just try it out with no food in it first.  And it worked great.  My first attempt at using the IP worked GREAT!
2. Mac & Cheese. This was my first real attempt at a meal.  And we all LOVED it.  Very simple–and had ingredients we mostly just have on hand.
3. Chicken & Rice Teyriaki bowls.  This worked quite well, considering it was only my third thing I tried.  You combine all the ingredients (rice, frozen chicken, raw broccoli and raw carrots) and then just turn it on.  The only catch is making sure all the rice is going to get covered with the liquid, and knowing that the broccoli will pretty much disintegrate, but I was ok with that. Super easy.  At the end you scoop it out and top it with Teyriaki sauce.  Nom.
4. Pasta.  I’ve actually tried a few different kinds now, and each one is a tiny bit different.  My favorite to make in there is elbow macaroni, because it’s a little more tough.
5. Ribs.  This was seriously fun and easy.  Only two ingredients: apple juice and ribs.  Well, I guess three if you count the BBQ sauce at the end…
6. Eggs.  This one will need a little tweaking because I apparently like my hard boiled eggs a little more on the dry side, so site I was reading like them a little more “gooey” and I was not thrilled with that.  So, I need to test some more.  I think it will be 7 min. but I have yet to try that number.  I have done 5 and 6 min. so far.
7. Chicken Breast.  I just needed some shredded chicken for our taquitoes the other day, and this worked like a charm! Simply put in the frozen chicken breast and a little bit of water, set to 15 minutes, and done!  It does take a little longer to come up to temperature because they are frozen, but I can walk away and do other things while that’s cooking.  I call that a win!
8. Broccoli & Cheese Soup.  This was amazing–and very healthy!  I even got to try out the “sautee” setting on my pot. It’s close to the amazing soup they serve at Panara Bread, but with waaaaaaaay, less calories.
9. Knock off Hamburger Helper. Ok, it’s actually called: Creamy Shells and Beef.  This was easy and delicious.  I definitely prefer this to the box hamburger helper.  And as a bonus it makes a lot more too!
10. Parmesan Garlic Artichokes.  This was the first thing that actually didn’t work.  I guess I need to do some more research on Artichokes, and how to cook them.  I have another ready to go, so I plan to try again this weekend.  I’ll keep you posted.

• Maddie turned THREE!  Yup.  How can she be 3 already?  She is definitely our most “spirited” child as well as a complete social butterfly.  We didn’t have a big party or anything, because, well, she’s three and doesn’t understand yet.  But we did sing to her and she opened gifts.  Her favorite was her Moana microphone, which she carried around for DAYS.

• Jen & Kristen visited Ireland!  Ok, that’s not really anything that we did, but we got to hear all about it when they came back and Jen even brought back the kids gifts.  Josiah got a “Where’s Larry” book (a spin off of “Where’s Waldo–very cute), Chloe got a beautiful shamrock necklace and keychain, and Maddie and Levi got adorable shirts and stuffed sheep!

• Nana & Bumpa came for a visit!  This was a huge highlight for us.  They even brought Abby (their dog) who the kids adored–especially Maddie and Levi.  We made a big map and they would update us on their location so we could map out their travel.  The kids loved this.

• I also made a table for the double stroller.  This may not be exciting for you, but I’m pretty proud of myself!  I bought the double stroller years ago from a random person on craigslist and I didn’t realize it didn’t have the bar/table across the front.  It works just fine without it, so I didn’t care.  But now that we’re going for longer walks I thought it would be nice for Maddie and Levi to have a space to put their toys and books.  So, I concocted a way to make a table for cheap (under $10!) and voila!  It already had the holes in the side of the stroller so I purchased a rod the exact size so it can slide right in.

Apparently in the change over to summer I don’t have it in my schedule yet to sit and write anymore.  I’ll have to see if I can squeeze that back in… I have seriously tried to sit down and write this post 3 or 4 times and keep getting distracted.  Gah!

We’ve had a great start to our summer.  We’ve had family visit, made trips to the park, eaten ice cream, set up new summer chore charts, gone for run/bike rides, and enjoyed playing in the sprinkler.

Here is a little bit of fun from the beginning of June…

• First and foremost–Maddie learned to use the big toilet!  Whoo hoo!  I think that’s where I left off in my last post.  It went AMAZINGLY smoothly.  Seriously.  She had one accident early in the morning as she was just figuring things out, but then that was it.  I can count on one hand the number of accidents she’s had since then.  INCLUDING nighttime!  Wowza.  I guess she was ready!

During potty training–notice her prize toy she showing you in her hands.

• Kylene and Justin came to visit!  They stayed for a few days during the first week of summer.  They kids got to go to the pool with them, and Justin took Josiah to Valleyfair and Kylene took Chloe to Michael’s (yup, those were their requested destinations).  We enjoyed hanging out with them and the kids loved wearing them out.

all together!

Reading on the hammock with Uncle Justin

We found cute shirts at Sam’s Club that we HAD to have… hehe!

• We celebrated Father’s Day!  There were many hand-made gifts and the kids prepared a song each to sing for Tim.  It was adorable.  I also made him “hamburgers” out of cupcakes and brownies! Aren’t they cool looking?

• We enjoyed ice cream on the patio!  I know that probably doesn’t need its own bullet point, but oh, well!

Come back soon for Summer Happenings (Part 2)!  🙂

Well, we totally lived it up today on our first day of summer vacation.  Wanna know what we did in way too many details?  Why, then, my friend… read on!

• Got up at normal time and made cinnamon rolls for the kids
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• Let Chloe sleep in
• Loaded up the kids and went garage sale-ing!
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• Scored a few nice things: roller blades and pads for Chloe, kids show shovel, coloring book for and a ton of extra pencils, books for the big kids, awesome boots for Chloe and a few other random items.
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• Chloe learned how to roller blade while Josiah learned how to turn on his skateboard all while I weeded around the three trees in our boulevard.
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• Talked on the phone with Kylene!  Our weekly phone call.
• Walked to the park with Chloe and the Littles so she could practice on her roller blades some more.
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• Tim and Josiah went to Valleyfair to meet a friend and spent the afternoon there.
• The rest of us played in the sprinklers and enjoyed lounging out back until nap time.
• After the Littles went down for naps Chloe and I sat out on the back patio enjoying ice cream cones and just talking.  We ended up watching a little bird making a nest in the bird house for a long time.  It was just the perfect weather to sit in the shade with the breeze keeping us cool.
• Introduced Chloe to using the home phone to talk to her friend.  It was adorable.
• Potted our new tomato plant.  Josiah is very excited about having tomatoes!
• Cut some rhubarb from our garden and made rhubarb crisp.  Nommmmm…
• Welcomed the boys home and heard all about how many rides Josiah went on without being scared!  I was seriously impressed.
• Ran to Target with Levi after supper to get prepped for tomorrow…  I am (drum roll)  potty training Maddie.  (Gulp).

I feel like today was abnormally long.  Ha!  We seemed to really cram a lot into one day, and yet there was a lot of relaxing in there too.  I suppose it’s the best kind of day then, right?  😉

Yup.  I took the plunge.  I cut off my hair.

I know, it’s just hair.  But I’ve had the same long hair for quite some time now, so this was a pretty big step for me.  It turned out a tiny bit shorter than I expected, but overall I think it’s fun.  I wasn’t so sure at first….

But now that it’s been a couple of hours, I’m coming around to it.  It’s fun to have so much weight (literally) off of my shoulders.  I also had some highlights put in.  A nice summer look.  🙂

And for your enjoyment I’ve put together an assortment of before and afters.  I’m a sucker for a good before and after… you should know this about me by now.

I love this picture.

There are many moments in the day where they are not getting along.  Being so close in age is hard.  They are constantly “bugging” the other one.  They seem to just get under each other’s skin just for the fun of it.

But then there are times like this.  Times where they are just happily ticking each other and belly laughing.

🙂