Finally, My Pinterest Addiction Bareth Fruit

Crud.  School's out.  It's been 7 hours and I'm struggling already.  The idea of having a fifth child seems so doable until I have the current 4 all home at the same time.  
Enter Valium.  And birth control.


I haven't really planned much in terms of academic maintenance for the summer.  But I did at long last put my many Pinterest hours to good use.  Can the words "Pinterest" and "good use" be used in the same sentence?  Because my husband would argue that they contradict each other.  At best.  BUT, behold the instagram summer journals...

So far I haven't done much more than stare at them while trying to decide what exactly I will demand be written in them, but they really do have great potential.  20 bucks says they're still blank come September.


Another thing that comes with summer is Tootsie's dance recital.  Today was picture day.  I want to love it but to be honest, it seems a little too similar to those nut-job beauty pageants that are really just an excuse for moms to dress their 5 year olds up like hookers.  It feels one set of false teeth away from ridiculous.  But she laps it up like a golden retriever on a desert island.  So of course I pull out my camera and let her work her tap dancing, booty shaking mojo.  And then I thank the good Lord that we have 364 days until we have to do it again.  

And finally, because I have absolutely no ability to stick to one topic, I want to ask you something.  When and how have you chosen to talk to your kids about the birds and the bees?  Why do you feel the way you do?  For some reason I keep running into this topic of conversation with various individuals.  I've been surprised at how greatly opinions seem to vary from one person to the next.  I came across this article recently but haven't yet decided how I feel about it.  Please, internetz, do impart your wisdom.    

Impulse Control is Not My Forte

Last Friday I took the kids to the IFA store to look at the baby chickens.  It was only a few minutes before I found myself driving home with 6 of them in a cardboard box.  I don't know what happened.  We were all, "oh look how cuuuuute and fuzzyyyyy!"  And then I was like, "yes I'll take 6 please".  I don't remember what my train of thought was in between those two moments (I did NOT go into the store with the intention of purchasing one single thing - I'll tell you what).  But alas, we are now proud chicken owners.  Actually, I'm not very proud.  In fact, I'm kind of embarrassed about the whole thing.  Ryan will gladly tell you how thrilled he is that I took it upon myself to bless our home with 6 family pets.  No, I don't have a problem with impulse control thank you very much.  Okay, maybe I do.  They're really cute though.  And with any luck they'll provide us with a few years worth of amazing organic eggs.  And LOTS of fertilizer.  


Tootsie insisted on choosing names for them.  So would you be surprised if I told you that she has finally settled on Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy, and Peaches (the black one-of course)?  

We supposedly got 5 buff Orphingtons and 1 black Sexlink.  But over the past few days one of our "supposedly" buff Orphingtons has mysteriously turned white, doubled in size, and sprouted feathers on her feet.  I did a little research about this sort of chicken mutation and found out that we may have one of these on our hands.

I think it looks like a muppet.  I can't put my finger on which one exactly but there's some muppet in there for sure.  For now though, she's still pretty cute (see below).

Right as I took this picture, Peanut Baby reached in and gave Peaches a little love choke squeeze.  All six chickens wince a little bit whenever they see Peanut Baby approaching.  And for good reason.

                          Haiiiii Mom!  Am harassing chickens and just generally acting like a derp.  Is fun!

Tootsie is something of a chicken whisperer.  She can get any one of the five Fluffy's to jump into her hand just by saying, "chickee - chickee - chickee".  It's all very magical.  Until one of them craps on her hand.

I asked Ryan if he would build our chickens a small modest home.  He cautiously agreed knowing full well that there was more to my request than implied.  I repeated the words small and modest a few more times just to show him how low my expectations really were.  And then I showed him this...

Good news, we're still married.  But our chickens are going to have to live with something more along the lines of a plastic bin enclosed by a baby gate.  Some day.  Some day.  *sigh*  

Not to give you subject matter whiplash or anything, but yesterday I had the in-laws over for dinner.  The actual dinner was nothing to write home about, but at the last second I decided to bust out a batch of these Lemon Bomb Cookies.  I got the recipe from my mom, so I don't know where it came from originally.  I wish I knew, because I would send that person flowers every day for the rest of their life.  Internetz, these cookies are the KING of cookies.  They are so good in fact, that my notoriously difficult to impress mother-in-law asked to take some home with her.  They are soft and chewy and have little bits of crushed up lemon heads inside.  I know!!!  Those chickens had better deliver because I'll be making these on a regular basis in the near future.  Here's the recipe...

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
4-5 ounces lemon head candies, crushed (use food processor for best results)
3 tablespoons lemon juice 
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together dry ingredients and set aside.  Cream together zest and butter.  Add eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and lemon extract.  Gradually add flour mixture and mix until just blended.  Stir in crushed lemon drops.  Roll into 1-inch balls and bake on parchment or greased baking sheet for 10-12 minutes or until edges are slightly brown and centers are almost set.  Let cool.


Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice to make glaze (add lemon zest and a bit of butter if desired).  Spread glaze over tops of cookies.


Oh, and for all you photography enthusiasts, have you ever tried the technique called free-lensing?  OHMYHOLYCRAPIMOBSESSED!  It's not exactly healthy for your camera but it's super fun.  We'll see if I still have good things to say about it by the time I destroy my lens.  Read about it here.

A Post From My Inner Weakness

I know that lately I've been all, la la la, my kids aren't eating any sugar for a year and stuff.  But truth be told, Tootsie never really grasped the idea to begin with so she was kicked out of the contest early on, and Spanky was caught cheating about ten thousand too many times so he's out too.  At this point, there remains only one in the game.  He is awesome and stoic and quite frankly, the only one of my children I can trust anyway.  So I will support him and cheer him on.  But I have fallen.  OH DEAR GRACIOUS I have fallen.  I don't know what has gotten in to me but I've been making the most evil of desserts lately.  And consuming them.  In front of my son who isn't eating any sugar for a year.  Beause my heart is only slightly larger than a raisin.

Exhibit A: Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting

This is the most amazing cake recipe I've ever tried.  And I don't mess around when it comes to cake...

Cake

3 cups cake flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

7 large eggs

2 Tablespoons vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

6 Tablespoons plus 1/3 cup seedless strawberry jam

2 1/4 lbs strawberries, hulled, sliced (about 6 cups), divided

Strawberry Frosting

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 8 ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature

5 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

3/4 cup fresh or frozen strawberries, pureed in food processor

2-3 teaspoons lime juice

To make the cake:

1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans with 2-inch high sides. (I used 10″ cheesecake pans – aka springform pans – ) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add sour cream, and beat for 30 seconds. Add flour mixture in three additions, beating to blend after each addition. Divide batter into prepared pans.  Bake cake 52-60 minutes (mine was done after about 53 minutes).

2) Now make the frosting:

With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until smooth.  Add the strawberries.  Mix well.  Add lime juice a bit at a time until you reach desired consistency.  Store in the refrigerator until it’s time to frost the cake.

  3) Remove cake from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the pans, then turn cakes out onto a rack to cool completely. I threw the two cake layers in the freezer for about an hour to make the cake assembly easier, but you don't necessarily need to do that.

 4) Using a serrated knife, divide each layer in half horizontally. Place one half, cake side down, on a cake plate.

      5) Spread a thin layer of strawberry jam over the cake, then spread a thicker layer of the frosting over the jam. Arrange 3/4 c of the sliced strawberries on top of the frosting in a single layer. Repeat two more times with cake layer, jam, frosting, and strawberries.

            6) Top with remaining cake layer, cut side down (I used a bottom piece so that the top would be super flat). Spread two cups of frosting over the top and sides of the cake in a thin layer, then frost with remaining frosting. This recipe makes a very big 4-layer cake that will feed a lot of people. It says it serves 12 people but I would say more like 16-18 at least.  It was HUGE!

Moves Like Spanky

My kids aren't typically the "significant accomplishment" types.  I mean, you know, I love them.  But really they're just average kids who happen to have lounged around inside my uterus for 9 months (give or take).  They don't very often do anything that I consider to be blog worthy (except for Peanut Baby who I have consistently featured for, oh, about 13 months now - lets face it, until they hit 2, you could easily blog about almost everything they do).  Every once in awhile though, the kid I'm about to list on ebay pulls off a miracle and makes me proud.  And his pint-sized six pack makes me want to buy myself a freaking ab-roller.

*Pardon the cheese ball music.  It's his FAVE right now.

I'm Bringin' Twinkies Back

How?  HOW has it been an entire year since I brought this kid home from the hospital???  My mom always tells me that the older you get the faster time goes.  I'm starting to believe her.  I think I spent the first six months of Tessa's life in complete and utter disbelief that we somehow made it out of the whole birth ordeal unscathed.  After that, I felt like I just couldn't catch my breath.  Time was going by so fast.  She was sitting up and then she was crawling and then she was chewing up and swallowing little bits of garbage  waving bye-bye (which is also hi, I hate you, and come hither).  Now she's ONE, and has the the most serious case of snaggle-tooth I've ever seen.  But ohmigosh, she's my favorite. 

Oh, hai.  I needz braces.

This baby changed my life.  I think they all do to a certain degree but this one managed to punch me in the gut and remind me not to take life for granted.  Not to take motherhood for granted.  She has brought our family closer together.  And somehow, some way she has put the idea of possibly having one more in my head.  Damn her!  With any luck she'll turn in to a rotten fit-throwing toddler and knock some sense back into me.

Or I can just pull up this post-delivery picture of my feet that managed to gain 25 lbs. of water weight EACH in less than a week.  That should work too.  

Peanut Baby has been infatuated with the movie Despicable Me since last summer.  Infatuated to the point that a few months ago, we got in the habit of sitting her in front of it in the middle of the night so that we could sleep (ahhh, the beauty of being the 4th child).  So we thought it only appropriate to stick with that theme for her birthday.  

Who doesn't love a minion made out of a Twinkie?  A TWINKIE!!!  Who still eats twinkies?!?  Probably nobody considering I got a box of 50 for like $1.00.  You know what they say though, you only turn 1 once.

Happy Birthday Peanut Baby!  

  

Date Coupons

My kids have recently committed to not eat any sugar for a whole year (there's a pretty big chunk of change involved in the endeavor so don't feel too bad for them - besides, I have a feeling there's going to be some cheating going on - Spanky, I'm talking to you).  Usually for Valentine's Day I just give them a useless hunk of junk from the dollar store with a few treats thrown in.  Because kids are dumb and they don't know the difference.  But this year, with the whole "no sugar" thing (which they may or may not be adhering to) I've struggled with what exactly to give them.  For the most part I don't really believe in giving them full fledged gifts for anything except Christmas and their birthdays (truth be told, we've been known to "forget" to give them birthday presents before - oopsy).  And wasn't Christmas like, yesterday?  I'm sick of stuff.  I didn't want to give them just another thing to unwrap and not care about.  

Ryan and I have been talking a lot lately about how we want figure out a way to spend more one on one time with the kids.  They need it.  Especially the boys.  Sometimes it seems like days or even weeks will go by before I realize that I haven't spent any time with them individually.  It's all just a whirlwind of coming and going, and helping with homework and scouting, and driving them to lessons and hollering at them to get their jobs done, and then having the cops show up because they've been riding their mini motorcycle in the neighbor's driveway, when clearly the street is a much safer place to be.  I speak the truth.  Douche bag neighbor called the cops, because he is a stellar human being.  Anyway, I just mean to say that I know they need some time with us. Individually. Alone.  Away from the chaos that has become our lives.

SO!  We've decided that instead of giving them more stuff accompanied by sugary crap they're not supposed to be eating anyway (but probably still are), we'd give them something else.  Our time.  Which is something we should be giving them anyway but apparently we both failed parenting school and now we have to make our kids believe that having time with us is a rare and valuable gift not to be taken for granted.

We came up with 1 special activity per month that we thought they'd be excited about doing with one of us (Ryan and I alternate every month).  I made little coupons and printed them out on some thick card stock.  Then I put each date coupon in it's own envelope and labeled it with the month they'll get to open it.  I figured that they can open their envelopes on the first day of every month and we'll put their coupons on the "date chart" I made.  The coupons can't come down until they've actually gone on their date for the month.  Hopefully, having their coupons staring us down every day will help motivate us to follow through.  Also, I'm planning to take a few pictures on every date so that next year for Valentines Day we can give them some sort of memory book about the fun things we've done.  See how I so craftily drag this idea out so I don't have to think of something for next year?  I suck at parenting.

But I'm kind of excited to give these to the kids over a big Valentine's dinner tomorrow.    

These are just a few of their date coupons.  They're each getting 12.  It's going to be a long year.  

We debated whether or not to include activities that cost money because we wanted this to be more about spending time together, not necessarily spending money.  In the end though, we decided that having a few outings that cost money wouldn't make a difference.  We chose some things that we thought would be meaningful to each of them individually, and also some things that were kind of generic that we thought all of them would like. 

Oh, and just so you know, Peanut Baby isn't getting any coupons.  I gave her some boob coupons about a year ago (you guys, she's almost ONE) and she has cashed them ALL in.  

Be My "Valentime"

I've had this recipe for chocolate doughnuts in my back pocket since last February. Actually, since February 14th to be specific.  The day my pancreas and my uterus got into a bit of a feud which ultimately ended with my uterus getting it's ass kicked.  And then Peanut Baby was all, "Hi loosers.  I'm here."  Last year I was planning to spend Valentine's Day making chocolate doughnuts with my kids and then we were going to go "valentining" later that night.  By the way, is it just me or has valentining become a thing of the past?  My neighbors always seem so confused by the whole ordeal.  Anyway, things didn't pan out the way I had planned.  It was a bad day.  So we're going to try it again this year (if you're one of my neighbors, act surprised, okay?).  We gave these bad boys a test run today.  And aside from my complete inability to allow my children to freely distribute sprinkles as they wish (I'm a sprinkle nazi - are you surprised?), they turned out pretty darn cute.  If I wasn't just coming off a raw food cleansing diet I would most definitely have partaken.  The kids, however, have no problem hoovering mass quantities of sugar.  Not an issue there.  We're having wilted spinach soup tomorrow night for dinner to balance it out.  They're so excited.

Tootsie continues to call Valentine's Day, Valentime's Day.  It's cute.  I don't have it in me to correct her.

I don't know why I just told you that.  Twas lame.  

Baked Chocolate Doughnuts with Vanilla Glaze

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup dutch-process cocoa

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees and coat a doughnut pan liberally with cooking spray.  Stir together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.  Add the eggs, vanilla, milk, and lemon juice.  Stir together for about 1 minute.  Add the oil and continue to stir until just combined.  Transfer batter to disposable icing bag or ziploc bag with corner cut off. Fill each cavity in pan 2/3 of the way full.  Bake 7-9 minutes or until doughnuts spring back when lightly touched.  Cool completely before icing.

Or just throw them in this thing.  It's WAAAAAAY easier.

Vanilla Icing

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 Tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

dash of lemon juice

Dip the top of each doughnut in the icing.  Decorate with sprinkles.