Last week we had the same thing for dinner every single night: I cooked a pile of chicken breasts in the crock pot and we had shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches every night. One day I got a cosmic crisp apple to go with our dinner. I also bought a classic honeycrisp to compare flavors. Apples are so expensive! These were big apples, but I spent nearly $6 on two apples! We all liked the cosmic crisp best, but I didn't think the honeycrisp was as good as usual either. Not that I plan to make a habit of buying $3 apples! The kids were quite excited to try the famed cosmic crisp though and they like to talk about it "remember when we had a cosmic CRISP?!?"
Amber likes to "work" on her computer, looking at grainy dark pictures she has taken on her little pink camera.
Jay keeps at least five pillows on his bed in a jumble and the tooth fairy was having a hard time finding his lost tooth, so he hung it on his bedroom door in a baggie to make things easier.
Cartoon time
Another pair bites the dust! Amber got stuck in the mud one February day and Rose came to her rescue, pulling Amber right out of her boots. Then Rose went to work tugging Amber's boots out of the thick mud, ripping one of the two remaining handles halfway off in the process. I decided this was a good moment to toss this ragged old pair and get out the pristine new pair I had been saving in the closet. Amber is now in her third and final pair of pink Crocs "Handle It" boots-- she's in the largest size available. She has worn these pink rubber boots for very nearly half of her life and taken them on all kinds of adventures, from climbing the Eiffel Tower to tromping through the mud to running at cross country practice and beyond. These boots are the only footwear that has held up to our wild child's roaming!
Wearing her clean new boots while digging. That mini shovel is totally her most-used Christmas gift.
Life skills: messy but important.
Peanutella sandwich: always a fave.
Afternoon reading time with my Rose-girl. Rose likes to come snuggle up next to me and get as close as possible.
In February Jay passed his first taekwondo test and earned a yellow belt! He was pretty happy! He is enjoying taekwondo more and more, and is always interested and happy to go to class.
One day while we were listening to the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon, Rose drew pictures of everything she heard. Definitely a lot of destruction!
UGH, one day right before preschool, when Amber put on her new boots, she said "ow! there's something sharp in my boot!" An examination revealed a sharp object wedged straight through the sole and poking into the boot. I spent an exceedingly frustrating 15 minutes attempting to remove the shard. It was buried too deep in the boot to pull it out from the bottom, so I had to reach into the boot to pull it out. But I have big hands and the little girl boot shaft was too small for my hand to make a fist while grasping the sharp object! I tried using tweezers to no avail. I couldn't see where to pinch because my hand blocked the light in the boot! Arg! With mounting exasperation, I balanced my phone flashlight on the edge of the boot and kind of peeked in and kept trying to remove the pointy thing. And failing. Finally I got out needle nose pliers, jammed them blindly into the dark boot, and pinched as hard as I could at the very end of the handle. Somehow I managed to grab the sharp thing and at LAST it came out. It turned out to be a piece of wood--a giant splinter! What? I thought for sure it was a nail or something! Hopefully Amber's boots won't leak through the scar this wood shard created!
Jay enjoys checking audiobooks out from the library and listening to them in his room. His current series is called Ranger's Apprentice, and sometimes he dresses up as a ranger and prowls around the house.
One Saturday, Rose and Layne built a large fort in the basement.
That same Saturday, they excavated the still-drained-for-winter irrigation canal and kept coming back to the house showing me their finds: a dead crawdad, bits of pipe and trash, and two decidedly grubby dollar bills.
Sister art time. They often share a chair and each color on side-by-side pages in an open coloring book.
In the name of ART, Amber commandeered the tissue paper that came in the box of my new running shoes. Rose joined in.
Mustache day at school: Rose drew, colored, and cut out her own matching mustache and unibrow set.
Track season began on the first Monday in March (last week). Some days Jeff remembers to text or call to clue me in to when he might be home, but other days I have resorted to Strava-stalking the man to see if he has finished the workout. This particular day he rode his bike with the team while they did their tempo run on the bike path. Adjusting to track season is always so hard! Suddenly Jeff is gone for 2+ more hours every day. Track meets start up this weekend, and our Jeff-time will be shortened even further.
Hat day at preschool! Amber knew exactly which hat she wanted to wear. Arrrr! Amberrrr the pink-boot pirate!
Dental cleanings all around this week. No cavities! Whew!
A few days I took Amber to play at the park while I ran laps around her. The second day she got bored of the tiny playground and ventured further afield to mountain climb the water fountain, dig holes in the sand volleyball pit, and spin on the merry-go-round.
On Saturday (March 7th), my friend Danae and I went to Fountain Books in Kennewick for a book signing. We met Julianne Donaldson, author of Edenbrooke! I am terrible at talking to people I don't know and actually didn't say much to Julianne. She was very nice and even wrote my name in the book she signed for me. Danae and I had to take a lap around the bookstore to settle our nerves after the encounter, haha. It's so fun to meet authors but that doesn't change how awkward I am around strangers! It's also always interesting to find out just how small some people are in person! I was trying not to hunch, but I still hunched and leaned in our picture. There were 7 other authors at the book signing, and I tried my best to read one book from each of them before the event. I managed to read five of the 8 authors. Whew. But I had only read their books on my kindle so I didn't get their signatures. But I managed to talk to some of them and tell them semi-coherently that I enjoyed their books. It was hard though because there were some whose books I didn't love as much as others and I had a devil of a time remembering who was who and who wrote what! Haha.
Saturday night shenanigans: the balance game. We have officially started greeting Ian, who lives next door, as our "second son" and now he calls Jeff and myself "second dad" and "second mom." I had friends whose parents were like second parents to me when I was growing up and it makes me smile to be the second parent to my kids' friends.
Amber loves Ian. Fiercely. She attacks him with hugs and fists in equal measure. He never knows what he's going to get, and he is very good-natured about it.
They all held hands and did a silly kind of spinning zigzagging game while giggling gloriously. Kids' laughter is the BEST.
Sunday morning, March 8th, was a rite of passage for Jay: his first manly necktie. No zippers or clips, just a half Windsor knot, demonstrated by Jeff. Jay's old zipper tie broke and it was time to move on up.
Morning snuggles in bed before school with Rose.
While Rose and I snuggled in my bed, Amber did a dance show for us.
Then Amber joined our snuggle-time.
Oh, to be five years old and enjoying a bowl of popcorn.
We made cookies together this week and I am officially convinced that I need a new cookie recipe. This one consistently turns out mediocre-to-terrible cookies. This batch was alright, but Safeway bakery makes better. Jay and Rose were in transports of ecstasy when they got home from school and ate homemade cookies for snack. I may make delicious bread regularly, but homemade cookies are RARE in my kitchen. That is sad. It's time to change recipes.
Amber loves making cookies and snuck as much cookie dough as possible during the process.
She tickled my neck right when the camera clicked.
Intrepid Amb-explorer at the park.
Amber rarely simply sits on the couch.
View from my back field running loop--the willow trees are trying to bloom!
Live big.
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