We Can Haz Veggie Soup

As it starts to get cooler we eat a lot of soup. There are at least four or five different kinds that I make on a regular basis and most everyone likes it. Today I made some vegetable beef. And then I took pictures of everyone enjoying it. I love when people like my food, especially when it's kids getting some good veggies in their systems. (I also hid a cup of butternut squash in the breakfast this morning!)

Tigger's cheeks slay me. The eyelashes are pretty good too.

Asking for bowl number FOUR. You may notice it's a different color- he ate his and his sister's.


Silvermist had multiple bowls as well. She told me, "I enjoy this."

Mater made a valiant effort and then had to take a rest.

Well, I said most people liked it.... :) Hercules looked at the bowl and decided it wasn't even worthy of being put down in front of him. But this is one of my most favorite pictures of him. His mouth is actually full of milk.

Yummy Vegetable Beef Soup
1 lb ground beef
1/2 chopped onion
2 stalks celery
2 diced potatoes
1 chopped carrot
1 chopped bell pepper

Saute those all together. Add:
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
about 6 cups liquid- I used 1 can beef broth and 4 cups water with powdered beef bouillon
1/2 bag frozen corn
1 can mixed vegetables
2 bay leaves
Lawry's season salt and Mrs. Dash to taste

Let it all simmer about half an hour or so.

It's yummy! Kanga and I added the rest of last night's leftover yellow rice to our bowls. Even more yummy!

Feasting

Here we are, very serious about our mashed potato jobs:


Tarzan and O'Malley took charge of the washing and drying. Duchess and I peeled and chopped.

Silvermist scooped them all up and put them in the pot.

Aurora ran the water. (I was beginning to run out of jobs at that point, but she thought she was the bee's knees so it worked out fine.)

And then we ate tons of lovely food! I survived! Poor Kanga has bronchitis and had to stay home, but Mrs. Potts helped out and I did more of the cooking last night than I ordinarily would have, rather than letting the kids help. They like it a lot, but they are SO SLOW. :)

I forgot to take pictures while everybody was here. That makes me sad. But it was a little busy. I said 11:30, and it was closer to noon by the time I had everything on the table. I think it went well though! Some people were asking about various menu items, so here's what I have links to:

the Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes I put much less butter than it called for.
cornbread dressing
Ellie Krieger's cucumber salad
candy apple pie

We also had smoked turkey breast, sauteed green beans, and a lime jello salad that my family always makes for holidays. Real coca-cola is the key to that- all I had in the house was diet coke and so it separated into layers. Still tasty though. And I have to say, I'm kinda proud of myself that with the exception of the graham cracker crust on the pie, the entire dinner was gluten free AND soy free. (not dairy free though. I live for cream cheese dishes on holidays. My record is 8 blocks in one meal, spread throughout various dishes. I think only 3 this time. Maybe 4.)


Copper was trying really hard to get to Mater's lunch. But he had already eaten most of it. Plus it's not so sanitary to just let them all feed off the one tray. :) So I put Copper in a chair of his own and gave him some mashed potatoes.


I love the look on his face. Okay. I have successfully hunted and trapped my food. It is squishy. What the heck do I do with it now?

His answer? Finger paint awhile, then throw it on the floor. Don't think he ate one bite. But he had fun. And also ended up with potatoes in his eyebrows. Nice.

Thanksgiving Countdown

Menu is set! I'll have a signup sheet for ingredients in the living room today, just because people are asking what they can bring. Don't feel like you have to though- I know this week is going to cost more at the grocery store and I plan accordingly. :) It's something I just like to do every year. But help is nice too, if you want. I'm good with it either way.

People were also asking why I start so early and what on earth I'm doing with the kids all that time for weeks ahead. Their attention spans aren't so long for most things and I don't want to overdo it, but they're perfectly happy to work on something everyday for fifteen minutes and then it takes us a month to get it done. For example? Turkey place mats with leaf feathers for all the guests.

After this day, I realized it was somewhere between lunacy and suicide to set that many of them loose with Mod Podge at the same time. I'm still cleaning up sticky. So, one at a time now, we go outside to choose leaves from the neighbor's yard and then come in to stick them to the paper turkeys. After all the kids have made one for themselves and for the babies, then we go with round two, and three, and sometimes four, to make sure that attending family members can have a place mat too. They're turning out cute and I'm going to laminate them all. You'll get to take them home after the feast is done.

So that takes a long time.

Then, as I mentioned before, for a week or so we were looking through grocery circulars and cookbooks and Pinterest at different recipes, and reading books about Thanksgiving to give them ideas about traditional foods. We get on all kinds of tangents explaining what various vegetables are, and what they taste like, and if they have gluten and I can or can't cook them.

Now that the menu is done, we'll do things like put graham crackers in ziploc bags for them to beat into crumbs with plastic hammers. They'll beat happily for twenty minutes, I'll have to transfer the pieces into new bags two or three times as they rip through them, and when they're done? We have ONE tiny step of the candy apple pie done. So I put the crumbs away and we do another step later on. Takes awhile.

The day we do the mashed potatoes, every kid who wants to help has his own job. I've got somebody at the sink washing potatoes and one with a towel to dry. For awhile I had to be the peeler, but now that's Duchess. Yay third grader! Then I chop them, and somebody else puts them in the pot. After they cook then we have mashers and mixers and butter people... it's a huge affair and takes all morning.

And then we take days off to do important motor skills work like hammer golf tees into a big pumpkin.

They hammered for almost two hours over the course of the day. Then I pulled all the tees out and they started over. Fun times.

Sum Up

In Inigo Montoya's voice... no, there is too much... let me sum up...

I have gotten completely bogged down in the fact that it is Tigger's turn for Friday Focus, but my computer ATE about fifty pictures that included four really cute ones I was going to use of him. I'm at a stall while I keep thinking of the post in my head that makes no sense without those pictures, and I couldn't possibly write a post about anything else while it's HIS turn...

I'm one of those people who make a lot of rules for myself in my head and then feel terribly guilty about breaking them, even though very few other people even know them or would care if they did.

So. I'm just gonna move on.

We're getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. O'Malley, Aurora, Tarzan, and Silvermist are super excited about doing some cooking and planning. Hercules and Tigger are able to help some too, even though they're a bit clueless about the reasons. We've been looking through grocery store ads and I've been trying to talk to them about traditional holiday food. Turkey has sunk in. That and pie. Other than that, they keep thinking we're planning a tea party. They want to make cucumber sandwiches and cookies and strawberries and tea. You can tell we've had tea parties before. :) And those things would be fun, but I really want to do the whole big holiday meal. Hopefully today or tomorrow we'll have the menu settled and I can start having them do things to freeze.


In the meantime we're practicing on breakfast. They love to help me pour and stir.


Hercules is happy to be tall enough that he can climb up and help with the preschoolers but he's not quite sure what to do when he gets there. :)

We're also doing some fun fall crafts that I found on Pinterest. I am SO loving that website. I have a board now for daycare ideas. We take walks and save leaves to make all sorts of things, and I think we're going to do some other stuff for Christmas presents for moms and dads. We're just about done with the Mother Goose body work and instead of buying something else before the holidays we're just filling in with crafty stuff, reading, and cooking. It's nice.

Words

I got out the dress up clothes yesterday- they've been in the attic for awhile so it's like they're brand new. Silvermist and Tarzan have been working through gender issues with the costumes.

Tarzan: "Silvermist tell me this not for boys!", waving a magic wand with a glittery star on the end.

Me: "You can use that if you want to! It's a wand. Like Harry Potter! He's a wizard."

Tarzan to Silvermist: "YEAH! See? I need this! I a LIZARD!!"

Noah's Ark Animal Workshop

We had a home field trip yesterday! I don't know why more companies don't do this- it's so great for small operations like us. I do not transport. Ever. There are too many littles who need car seats and aren't independently mobile, and I'd need a bus or something. Craziness. So when the Noah's Ark lady called and asked to set something up for us, I jumped on it. It was really nice to have something new and different for the kids to do. They've been excited about it for a week! We asked everybody to wear a shirt with an animal on it to get into the spirit of the day. We had monkeys, fish, frogs, pandas, lions, and a mouse, among other things.

I'd never heard of Noah's Ark before- it's set up similarly to Build-a-Bear Workshop, except she comes to the house like a Tupperware party. The kids get to choose an animal, stuff it themselves, do a little wishing star ceremony thing, and get a birth certificate. There's special pricing and just a few choices for daycares, but we were happy. She said the tie-in right now is that Zookeeper movie, so the kids got to pick a giraffe, monkey, or lion. The lion was super cute, but everyone wanted giraffes and monkeys.

After all the kids got their animal skins, Miss F talked about how to stuff them. They were careful to listen to the directions- it was actually pretty impressive. Here's Aurora and O'Malley, taking notes....

Okay, I got it! We put the fluffy stuff in here!

Tarzan begins the stuffing process...

Everyone joins in...

After the animals were all stuffed, Miss F handed out rainbow wishing stars, and they did a little bonding ceremony. It was pretty cute. First they held the stars up in the air and made a wish.

After that she asked the kids what they wanted to do with their animals and then they would rub the stars on themselves and the animals.
If you want your animal to know your voice and listen to you, you have to rub the star on your ears! Then rub it on your animal's ears so he can hear you!


Animals recognize people by their special smell, so rub the star on his nose so he will always remember what you smell like...


The most important part of all- you want your animal to always love you, so rub your wishing star over your heart, and then tuck it inside with the stuffing!

Okay, give your animal a big hug- you're all done!


We tried repeatedly to interest the younger boys in this project, but it was no use. Hercules screamed and kicked when I tried to make him sit in my lap to stuff his monkey. He and Tigger were much more excited about getting to hang out in the living room with O'Malley's big kid toys that they usually don't get to use!
At least they'll get the future benefits of having the animal to snuggle at home. It's doubtful any of these kids will actually remember making them after awhile anyhow, except for maybe Duchess. :)

Then later on in the afternoon we made foam picture frames with animals on them. I took a picture of everybody with their new special animal friend and once I get them back from Apple I'll send them home to go in the frames. We made one for all the babies too, even though they didn't make animals with us. Mater helped a lot.



Love me some chunky Mater!!

Pasta Salad

One of the things Silvermist pesters her mom to make most often is pasta salad. We tend to eat it at least once a week here. In fact, it got comical because we realized that we were making it every Friday for awhile. This would be no big deal except for the fact that Roo has speech therapy every Friday during lunch time and they like to see her eat, to check on her mouth positioning and all that. The therapist commented that she'd only seen Roo practice on pasta salad for the last four weeks. :) Oops. But yeah, everyone likes it because I put a ton of different stuff in it, and they can all pick through it. Some kids eat the whole plate. Bianca used to pick out the veggies and leave the pasta on the plate. Chip always leaves a big pile of celery. With Aurora it's the cucumber. At least I feel like they have a lot of options and are getting exposed to different textures and tastes.

The problem with trying to write out this recipe is that there isn't one. I make it differently every time based on what's in the fridge. Some days it's awesome, and there have been times where it's just missing something and I'm not sure why it doesn't taste as good. But it's very forgiving and you can throw in or leave out what your family will or won't eat.

Basically it's got several components that are a must, then within each set of ingredients things get switched up. It needs:

• pasta
• sauce
• veggies
• fruit
• protein
  

For the pasta, cook a pound of something small- shells or spirals or elbows. Drain, rinse, and ice. I leave it in the sink with a bunch of ice cubes in the colander and occasionally run more water over it while I chop veggies. The colder the better.

For the sauce you've got several options. Usually I start with sour cream or plain yogurt and maybe a spoonful of mayo or a squirt of ranch added in. I never measure anything when I make this, which is problematic when I want to remember a time when it was particularly good. Then I add spice. Almost always some Lawry's seasoned salt and Mrs. Dash. We love both of those. And then something else- sometimes it's lemon pepper, other times it's a Homemade Gourmet mix. I used to sell that stuff and I have a lot in the cabinet. My favorites are Cilantro Citrus and Mock Spinach, which is mostly dill and garlic I think. Oh, and fresh basil from the garden when I can.

Occasionally I use Italian dressing as a base and then put McCormick's Salad Supreme on it. When I do that though, I like different protein. Hunks of mozzerella, and definitely leave out the fruit! My family likes this one a lot, although some of the daycare kids tell me it's too spicy. It's not really, but it's got bold flavor for sure.

For fruit I almost always use a drained can of mandarin oranges, but I've used red grapes a couple times too. It just seems to taste a lot better when there's a little sweet fruit in it.

And then protein- a couple handfuls of shredded cheese and whatever cold lunchmeat type stuff I have. Cubes of turkey ham, rotisserie chicken, just whatever needs to come out of the fridge.

And then I chop a ton of veggies. The standards are carrot, celery, red bell pepper, cucumber, green onion, and zucchini. I put them all if I have them. And usually buy extra for the beggars who stand by the chopping board. :)

Everything but the kitchen sink pasta, yes? It's yummy. Just throw tons of stuff in there and serve it cold. I'll add pictures next time I make it so it's easier to visualize. I have a feeling I made it sound way more complicated than it is.

Friday Focus: Silvermist

Silvermist continues to entertain us all on a daily basis. She says some pretty outrageous things and they usually come out of nowhere, which makes them funnier. This morning she was in the kitchen trying to walk with a pink plastic phone between her knees. When I asked her why, she informed me that she had to put it somewhere, and she did not have any pockets in these shorts!

She's turned into my best eater lately. (Part of that is because Stitch is gone. There was nobody to touch her on sheer quantities eaten.) Mostly I think it's because her mom cooks the most like I do, being that we are both food allergy families. She isn't surprised by fruits and veggies, loves to try new things, and hardly ever tells me she doesn't like something. I'm going to start posting more recipes soon, because she goes home and asks her mom to cook all this stuff that I make. It's kind of fun. I'm more accustomed to the type of kid who professes to only eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs and wants to know why my mac and cheese isn't bright orange. I love that while I'm making lunch, Silvermist is usually standing right there by the cutting board begging for bell peppers or celery or whatever I'm chopping. Okay, well honestly I could deal with a bit more personal space. I've stepped on her a couple times because she sneaks up behind me very quietly. But she gets her veggies in, and the fact that she stands there munching makes a couple of the other kids do it too, even if they won't eat the lunch once it's cooked and plated.

Chip looks a bit shell shocked here. I think this hug was a sneak attack.

We're having Island Explorer summer- lots of islands and ships and pirates and treasures and seashells. Eyepatch day was a big hit for everyone.

"Did you take a picture of me? Why not? Take one of me! Do I look pretty? Let me see!"

And she just informed me that she has big snarls in her hair and so she has to go to the doctor. I'd like to see just what he plans to do about that...

Monthly Recap- May

Things have been pretty busy around here, as evidenced by my sad lack of posting lately. We had a new baby start this week and she's settling in nicely. So far she's very laid back and easy- just sleeps and eats and plays and smiles.

I love the way she sleeps with her arms flung out over her head. It doesn't look particularly comfy to me, but hey it works for her, and it's cute. :)

Mater and Lady are working hard on getting mobile- any day now I expect to see them crawling. They've both decided that they don't like hanging out in the living room much anymore and like to spend more time in the playroom watching the big kids.



We had a dinosaur day a couple weeks ago that everyone enjoyed. The kids helped me make stegosaurus sandwiches for lunch and we did lots of playing and learning about dinosaurs of all kinds.




Okay, so you really have to squint one eye and use your imagination- but this is our stegosaurus. Quesadilla body, chips for spikes, red pepper and cheerio for his face, and mandarin orange legs. Luckily the kids are young and easily forgiving when it comes to my artistic... lack. Plus when you're 2 1/2 and you make it yourself, you think it looks great regardless. :)

We're starting a unit called Island Explorer today- lots of ships and water and islands and pirates for the next month. Should be exciting. Duchess will be home for the summer, Stitch and Bianca will be away, and we've got a couple interviews scheduled. This seems to be a big time of year for change, right around the end of school and then again in August when it starts back up.

Snippets of Days

I'm skipping the next 30 day blog topic- it wants pictures taken more than ten years ago. I was teaching sixth grade and Kanga was living it up in the corporate world in DC. Don't think that anybody who reads this really cares much. :)

I've been trying to take more video. It's a challenge for me to get the length right because I don't have any editing software that I know how to use. So either it's too long to upload or it's too short and I don't catch them doing anything funny. I've got a couple that are just cute and representative of stuff we do all day, which is kind of fun.

Here's O'Malley and Silvermist playing with the new Moon Dough barn we got this past weekend. Kanga and I went on a supply fee spending spree and the kids are having a great time with all the new toys. This is an example of the kind of video that is too short and doesn't show them doing much, but it is the only one I can get to upload right now.


Oh, and RIGHT after I turned off the camera, Silvermist turned to me and goes, "You have a really big mouth. I have a little mouth."

I have no idea where that came from but it made me laugh and I wish it was on film. Reminded me of Santana on Glee. I half expected her to bust into song and sing me "Trouty Mouth".

"Friday" Focus: Silvermist

If I wait till Friday something will happen! I have a bit of time now and I'm thinking of it and that is indeed a miracle. And just as an aside, somebody got to this blog yesterday by googling a refrigerator color called Silvermist. Wonder what brand that is? I bet it's pretty, but nowhere as cute as OUR Silvermist. She dances! She sings! Her dimples are to die for!

This may be my all time favorite picture of her. Love those sparkly eyes and the crater dimples!

We do a lot of singing during meals. Now that I think of it, probably not the best idea, since my mother always used to tell me it was bad manners to sing at the table. It's the easiest way to keep everyone happy when mealtime begins and ends at different times for different kids though, so we sing. This was the "down came the rain" section of the itsy bitsy spider, if I remember correctly. Either that or "up came the sun". Not sure which.

The favorite activity for The Letters Are Lost has definitely been squishing out the toothpaste. I'm hoping nobody has tried to do it like Ramona Quimby, all into the sink. We had a big discussion about how this was special toothpaste JUST for art and should not be tried at home. She had a blast with it, although I'm pretty sure she got some in her hair. :)

She loves her some frosting. The cookie is merely a vehicle by which the shoveling takes place. I'm so happy that her food choices are opening up- she's been outgrowing a couple of her big allergies and tolerating more ingredients lately and it's AWESOME. I made our favorite chicken soup today for lunch and she was super excited that she can eat it again. She was the pixie girl I referred to in that post, when she was brand new and we didn't know the extent of what she could and couldn't eat. She jumped up and down and clapped. "OH!! I CAN EAT THIS SOUP?!?!" For the last couple weeks they've been paring down her diet to get baseline and do testing on what her tummy can handle, so it was constantly, "Please can you find me something I can eat?" with this pathetic little face. We made it through the rough times though and now we get chicken soup with rice. Life is good! Sometimes a bit muddy, but definitely good!

Pictures Galore!!

Oh, I am excited. Today is Your Favorite Photo. It's going to take a lot of paring down to get to one particular favorite of each small child. I think I'll be leaving myself and Kanga out of this one. I We tend to be vindictive and take unflattering pictures of each other singing or dancing or leaning over with our backsides in the air. No need to post those.

My problem is that a lot of my favorite pictures have already been posted on other days. Oh well. Maybe you've seen some of those before. I guess the Hall of Fame just turns out like that sometimes.

Duchess:
My original Pink Lady, cheesy with bunny ears for Easter 2005. Sometimes I miss this tiny girl!!

O'Malley:
Boys with fair skin have to get sunscreen on their heads. It does marvelous things to their heads.

Mushu: When your brothers are having "dress like a pirate" day at their school, there's no way you can show up in regular clothes. He thought he was the coolest thing in the world!


Silvermist:
She decided she ought to wear my shoes around the house for awhile.

Aurora:
Chocolate is tasty. 'Nuff said.

Roo:
I took her with me to grab milk once. It was fun to be out in public with her and she was a big helper. :) This is the day she learned to say "I buy it?" Her momma didn't think that was as funny as I do.

Stitch: Breakfast makes her happy. Heck, just eating, any time of day or night, makes her happy.


Bianca:

She gets two pictures because I was trying to show her love of curling up in funny places, and then I realized that first picture was caught mid-blink and isn't actually a great shot of her.


Chip:
Weebles wobble, and sometimes they do fall down, right on top of their friends who are lying behind them!

Hercules:
Hello world, it's me!!

Tigger:
I particularly like this one because it was right after we put him in the hateful watermelon and made him scream. He's had a bath, he's with his mama, and he's so content. All is well.

Lady: Okay, I know I just put this picture of her up yesterday, but it's by far my favorite. I have a bunch of her sleeping and a few where she's being serious, but this is the only one where I've managed to catch the smile. :)


Mater:
I know you've seen this one before, but I have a limited number of Mater pictures just yet. :)