Mom To Two Boys

OK, this is in now way meant to imply that my highly intelligent husband is no smarter than a 3 year old.  However, I have found that he is a simple being, and some of the techniques I use with my toddler, can often be modified to work on my husband as well.

In our house, dishes are a never-ending battle. They always need to be done, and neither of us wants to do them. I despise doing dishes…I would rather have almost any other chore in the world than do the dishes.  There are other chores we tend to “argue” so to speak over.  My husband prefers to do no chores, I of course do not find that to be an option for him.  To get him to pitch in, I often give him the list of “to do’s” when he gets home from work.  It might look something like this: Do the dishes, change the cat litter, do the grocery shopping, give kids a bath, clean the living room.  Then I follow the list by, “I really need a hand with all this tonight, which two things do you want to do, and I’ll take care of the rest.”  Without fail, he may grumble a bit but always picks his 2 chores.  I don’t really care what he picks, just so long as I get him to pitch in….and I can pretty well-predict he will pick doing the dishes as one fo them because there are others on the list he despises doing even more like changing the cat litter.  Obviously, after a couple of years of this tactic, my husband has caught on to what I do, but he still plays along.  This is very similar to what I do with my toddler…I give him a couple of choices, each of which I am fine with…like Do you want to wear the blue shirt or the red shirt today?

For more works for me wednesday head over here

Well, we are back from our trip to Michigan and have now fully recovered.  Of course it took a week to recover!

We left for Michigan last Thursday afternoon and C slept the entire 6 hour drive.  The boys had so much fun and it was so great to see M playing with his little buddy T.  Sleeping was a little testy a bit since C was still recovering from ear infections and such, but we made it through.  Of course I was completley exhausted when the weekend was over. We headed back Monday evening.  My friend B and I were up until 2 or 3 in the morning every night scrapbooking, stamping, working on Lailo Designs stuff, and talking.  She also had  Stampin Up workshop for me which was great….she got tons of free stuff so I was so excited.  I will have to post pictures of the projects we made on my other blog soon.  We also had C dedicated at our church up there, which was an incredible and touching service….so personal to us and so great to see our church family.  Some friends of ours who moved from Mich not long after we did even met up with us at church for the dedication. It was a wonderful reunion which ende dperfectly with a good ole potluck! Boy do I miss that good food! :)  We ended the trip with dropping by the MOMS Club meeting.  We didn’t get to stay long, as Mark had had his fill for the weekend and was beyond exhausted, but it was so nice to be able to say hi to everyone and see how everyone was doing, even though it was brief!

I’ve spent the week running errands like crazy and getting unpacked, trying to get caught up on laundry and preparing for another workshop. 

We are going down to missouri next weekend to start looking for houses…pretty nervewracking but also very exciting.

So obviously I missed week 2 of my Tasty Tuesday post yesterday, but with C’s double ear infection and my serious sleep deprivation (we are talking worse than newborn days), there’s not a lot of cookin going on in my kitchen.

 As for this Works for me Wednesday post, I’m lately feeling like nothing works for me! :)  I know, I know, I’m just sleep deprived and have a sick baby. I guess I got really spoiled with M because he was NEVER sick at this age, has yet to have an ear infection, and even when he has a bug he just does not get down and out.  This has been his sickest year by far, but even this doesn’t compare to poor C.

 We are leaving town tomorrow afternoon for Michigan so maybe I will make this a travel-themed post.  Since we have had the pleasure of going on extended car rides many a time since starting our family, I have several tricks up my sleeve, some that work, some that have failed miserably. We always try to start out on the road around naptime or bedtime so that at least part of the long hours in the car are spent with the kids sleeping (hopefully….this is usually no problem for C, but is variable with M).  Also, plan for some extended stops.  Let your toddler out of the car to actually run around and burn off energy for 15 minutes or so.  This is where my hubby comes in, he takes M outside to play, and I nurse  C in the car.  Also, a bag of dollar store presents can be quite exciting for the average toddler. And when all else fails, there is the DVD player.  I know I know, I always said I would NOT be one of those moms who had a DVD player in the car.  BUT, after a drive from Michigan to Iowa that took almost 12 hours because we had to stop every 40 minutes when we reached our limit of listening to M SCREAM (there is no exaggeration going on here), we gave in to the temptation and there have been many more moments of bliss in the car that we could have imagined.  If you haven’t guessed, C is an angel traveler and M has always been an absolute nightmare.  For more Works for Me Wednesday, go here.

So how was everyone’s Easter?  If you want the honest truth, ours was miserable.  Hubby was on call all weekend.  C was miserably sick since Thursday night. A non-stop faucet coming out his nose, and thus his mouth since he couldn’t breathe through his nose and had to hang his mouth open all day.  He is compeltely miserable.  Spent the entire night Saturday holding him up right on my chest while he drifted in and out of a fitful sleep. Fever. Poor tyke.  He has a double ear infection and thankfully has begun an antibiotic this afternoon.  He is beyond tired and can barely keep his eyes open.  I had super cute matching outfits for the boys to wear to church, that obviously did not happen so luckily the tags are still on and i will try to return them.  I honestly hope everyone else’s Easter was better.

 The good thing is that this is all happening now because we are to leave Thursday for Michigan.  C should be on the mend by then and we are super excited to make this trip!

I’m at a loss to come up with something that works for me, but thought I would share our little reward chart that we’ve started with M.  For those of you who know M in real life, you know that he is a bit of a challenging/difficult little boy.  He also has an odd OBSESSION with television and movies….I am telling you, he better be the next Steven Spielberg to make all these fights over the television worth it.  I am constantly arguing with him as far as how much television is appropriate, and he’s only 3.

 At any rate, he has been going through a rough patch lately and his behavior has been worse than usual. I recently began him on a reward chart.  He gets a sticker for each task he completes successfuly (we are working on the successfully without whining part). Right now the list of “tasks” focuses on his daily routine to get him doing those things without complaint.  Off the top of my head, we have: Change diaper in the morning (always a struggle), get dressed, eat breakfast at the table, play with C nicely/share, pick up toys when done playing with them,  going potty, taking a nap, putting PJs on, brushing teeth, and cleaning up toys before bedtime. After 5 stickers I let him watch a show or a movie. So far even though he complains about it, it has been going pretty well! For more works for me wednesday, click here

I’m always on the lookout for a new recipe, so I’m sure many of you are the same. Since I’m such a disorganized person, I’m trying to create some organization to my blogging. =) I’m sure there’s someone out there that already does this Tasty Tuesday that I should be linking to, but I don’t know them yet, so. I hope this helps you all out with some new (and hopefully easy recipes). Feel free to share your favorites too.

The first one I’ll post here is for Tater Tot Casserole.  There’s nothing fancy about this at all, but that’s why I love it. This has become our old stand by when I don’t know what else to make, partly because I have the recipe memorized and partly because I usually have the ingredients on hand.  It also has a huge sentimental value.  A wonderful friend of ours from church brought this to us as our first meal home after I came home from the hospital after having C. I’ve found after both of my pregnancies/deliveries, whatever food was brought to us those first few days home become quick favorites, probably because I’m famished!  For instance, I never would have even touched chicken salad (you know, the mayonaise, sandwich filling type stuff) except TWO people brought it after C was born, I am now obsessed with chicken salad and constantly looking for a good recipe for it, love trying different versions!!!

Tater Tot Casserole

1 lb ground beef
1 package of frozen vegetables (our favorite is peas, but you can use mixed veggies, green beans, corn)
1/2 package of tater tots
1 can cream of mushroom soup
onion
garlic salt

Preheat oven to 375

Brown meat with onion and garlic salt (both of these to taste).  In a square 8×8 casserole  mix meat, soup, and veggies.  Top with tater tots and cook for 35-45 minutes until tater tots are golden brown and soup bubbles up through them. yum!

I spend way too much time surfing the net and checking out people’s blogs.   I also have a strong desire to start yet another blog, dedicated solely to my stamping addiction.  So here it is: http://stampinscrappinandcraftin.blogspot.com/  I’m sure I’ll still post about this topic on here plenty, as it is so much a part of my life, but I use this new blog for my class schedules, specials, and mail order options for projects, as well as pictures from projects and classes and workshops.