Your Kitchen Tips for the Holidays

This weekend I made a huge batch of chili, and when it wasn't eaten completely I was faced with a dilemma--eat chili every day this week or freeze it for later and hope that I remember it's there. Bryssy told me to freeze the chili in sandwich bags so I could just heat it up one bowl at a time, and I'm convinced she is a genius. It's easier to defrost that way, we can eat it whenever we want, and it easily replaces the canned stuff. So, holiday kitchen tip #1, thanks to Bryssy, is:

1. Freeze individual portions of leftovers so that they can be used as single meals later when you're too busy to cook.

Now, back to the chili. Liz graciously gave me her White Chicken Chili recipe, and that is what I made. It is amazing! What's even better is that when I defrosted my baggie today for lunch, I realized that it would make a great burrito filling, too. Really, any chili is great for eating as is, filling burritos and tacos, and making yummy Mexican lasagnas. Holiday kitchen tip #2 is:

2. Chili is your friend and is very versatile. If your family likes it, keep it on hand to make a variety of dishes.

Kitchen tip #3 is up to you, and so is #4, #5, etc. How do you make meals easier during the hectic rush of the holiday season? Do you have any favorite go-to meals or ingredients? Let's hear them!

Half Full or Half Empty

So many parenting situations can leave us scratching our head wondering if that really did just happen to us and why didn't anyone warn us it could happen. At some point, we must decide do we yet again take the high road and look at all of our wonderful blessings, or do we lay down in a pile of slobber, pooh, dirty clothes and crunched up Froot Loops and give up. Here are some of the situations I have been pondering over coffee this week.

Pooh in the Back-Pack
Last week, my dear, sweet son had an accident at school. There are several down sides to this story. It was his first solid accident at school. His teacher was at a conference, so he had a sub. I am still not exactly sure why or how it happened, but the dirty underwear came home to us with pooh in tow!!! Let me just tell you, it was a BIG accident. After doing some extensive research, I have sadly found that a very few people think it is acceptable to send everything home in accidents like these. After several meetings at the school to discuss the accident from several different angles, I am ready to look at this as the cup is half full, and here is why. Alex refused to let a stranger clean him up. (This fact alone caused most of my meetings.) Alex has never met a stranger, and is very friendly. I often worry about him walking off with the next person that offers him candy. At the end of the week, I was thankful that he does have boundaries.

I'm so Alone
For the last four years, I have spent almost every waking moment (and many sleeping ones too) with my dear son. I have tried to spend enough time with him so that I could send him off to school and not wonder where his childhood went. Now that he is in school, I am alone for five hours every week day. I have so much alone time that I have had really scary thoughts, like maybe I should get a job. I'm going to have to look at this new phase in my life as half full too. Even though I don't yet know what I am going to do with my time, I am lucky to have so many options ahead of me.

Raking Leaves
The weather last week was super nice here; our highs were in the mid 60s. It was sunny and warm, so I spent several days outside raking the leaves from our yard. Our town doesn't have a leaf drop off area, so to get rid of the leaves, we must burn them. We have actually never burnt leaves before, but we found it to be great fun! We made the back end of our driveway the designated burn pile, so all of the leaves needed to be drug, dropped or raked there. My husband is big and strong, so he chose to load the leaves in a box and carry them to the fire. When I was home alone, I was working out a method to move the entire pile like a large snowball. Since we skipped fall last year, I had forgotten a few facts about leaf raking. First, whether you have a cat or even see a cat, you will at some point find cat pooh in your leaves. You will usually find it by stepping in it. I found mine while I was in the middle of my giant pile. After some emotional exercising and hem hawing, I have decided to look at leaf raking as half full too. On the one hand, pooh stinks no matter where you find it. On the other hand, we all had so much fun jumping in the leaves and even watching them burn. I was also very thankful that I didn't have to worry about snakes in the leaves because it is so cold where we live.

So what has life handed you this week, and can you see it as half full or half empty?

Gotcha Day

Nov. 5th was our Little King's Gotcha day! The day we tell our son that "We Gotcha!" and the day that he "gotcha" us too! Nov 5th was the day that we actually took custody of our son and brought him home for good!

The week working up to his Gotcha day we had been spending remembering our Little King's delivery into our family.

Here is the story:

On Oct 29th we went to the airport and flew to Korea (an 1 hour flight to Chicago and a 12 hour flight to Korea)

Here we are BEFORE we left. The was BEFORE we became parents. Don't we look well rested.
On Oct. 31st we had our first meeting in our son. It lasted for 1 hour and we got to spend 20 minutes alone with him. He was very happy to play with me and my hubby. We got our first family shot:

Our second meeting with our Little King was on Nov. 3rd, he was not so happy this meeting. He was pretty crabby... but it was because he missed his nap and he was tired. My Hubby worked his "baby whisper" magic and calmed our son down.
He passed our son off to me, and our little king fell asleep in my arms. This is one of my all time favorite pictures!

On Nov. 5th, we got up early to start our journey home. The President of the Korean agency says a prayer for every child that leaves his care. He prayed for our little king and we were ushered into the van to bring us to the airport. It was only once we were in the van with the doors about the close that our son's foster mom handed him over to me. It was AMAZING the calm spirit that took over me. All morning I had been a nervous wreak! But once my Little King was in my arms... everything was right.

We drove to the airport, got on the plane to fly home to the USA (a 14 hour flight to Chicago- than an hour and a half lay over and another hour flight to Minneapolis - all with a 9 month old)

Our son was a GREAT traveler... better than his mama most of the time. (I get motion sick in cars, planes, boats... I am a gem to travel with) He loved the turbulence, he was laughing while I as laying down praying for it to stop!

Here is our son in his car seat for the first time, on the way home from the airport.
Finally home after 21 + hours of traveling by van, plane, and car!
To celebrate our Gotcha Day we went to a Korean restaurant and spent time looking at pictures and telling the story of our Little kings Journey home. I made our Little King a crown to wear for his special day.
The crown says "Today is my Gotcha Day! Nov. 5th 2008"

Here he is happy at the restaurant with his daddy!

It is amazing to remember our trip to Korea to get our son. I cannot image our life without him!

A Fine Line, Indeed!

As a Parent
The Line between when I fail and when I succeed
Is a very fine line
A Fine Line, Indeed!

Some days I am flying high, feeling like a pro. Everyone is dressed and fed and smiling. The next day (O.K. more like five minutes later) one child is running around naked, another is crying for no explicable reason, and the last one is missing. (My 18 month old likes to play hide-and-seek, even if she is the only one playing. And she's very good at it. A little scary.) At times like these, I am thinking that after five years I still don't know what in the h*** I am doing.

Like I said a fine line.

Like at the grocery store when a few people compliment me on how well my children are behaving . A proud parenting moment. Then my daughter dumps the blueberries all over the floor. As I am down on my hands and knees trying to pick them up, my son says "Look Mom, they're squishy." As he smashes them with his foot. And then the other one starts yelling how he needs to use the bathroom, NOOOOOOOWWWW! And as I am fleeing the scene of the crime, heading for the restroom, he doesn't make it...Niagara Falls at the Stop-and-Shop. Nice. Pride cometh before the "fall", as they say. Literally.

A Fine line.

After recently reading a parenting/discipline book, I resolved that I was not going to yell at my kids. I was going to use reality discipline, and actions rather than words. Well, I did really well with my son who always takes his shoes off in the car and refuses to but them on. I made him walk into school to pick up his brother without his shoes. He really didn't like that. And he doesn't take off his shoes anymore. Success. Then thirty minutes later when my other son starts to act out against his little sister...Crazy mama returned. "I"MMMMMM BAAAACKKK!" (I think I kind of resemble crazy Jack Nicholson when I get really mad.) Failure. Well, not completely--I don't think he will be messing with his sister anytime soon. Although, there may have been some permanent damage done to his psyche. Ahhh, gotta love the mommy guilt.

A Fine Line.

I want to be consistent. But my life is so inconsistent.

As the poem goes, "Nothing Gold Can Stay." There are those golden moments when I want to freeze time, but then someone inevitably starts whining and it's back to reality.

As a parent
Successes and Failures are both guaranteed.
If we can enjoy all the highs and laugh at the lows,
Maybe that's all that we really need.

Reality Check

I apologize for not blogging the past 2 weeks. I had my blog all written and because I have yet to figure out how to set it to post later, I didn't remember until we were on the road to Kentucky. And last week I was just too dang tired. So anyway, as you all know, Rachel and I took our kids to her parents' house in Kentucky for a few days and we had a blast. The leaves were all different colors and the weather was gorgeous and the kids ran around outside all day and got to see their old buddy Alex. While we were there, Rachel and I were talking and she asked me if I was going to go back to teaching. I said that yes, I would love to because I kind of miss it, and that I plan to go back to work at the earliest when Micah is 4 and can go to preschool every day, but that I might wait until he starts kindergarten. Which is in 3 or 4 years, depending on the plan I choose. That is not a lot of time. That just hit me, especially when I thought about how time has flown since I became a mom, less than 4 years ago. So I decided I needed to enjoy my children as much as possible, because all too soon they're going to be teenagers, sleeping all day and spending more time with friends than family. I did a good job of it, too, on our trip. But it's been harder since we got home. Right now Ethan is sitting at the dining room table, crying because I made him sit in there instead of in front of the TV. And Micah keeps pressing the power toggle on the laptop, interrupting me here. Still, he's also putting Elmo stickers on my shirt and the other day Ethan asked, "Is God in your tummy or your body (what he calls his bottom)?" "He's in your heart," I said, and he looked down at his chest. "Where your feelings are. You know where you feel happy or sad? That's where God is." I am constantly being reminded to focus on the good in my life and in no area is that more true than with my children.

Cake Pan Co-Op

I've been meaning to start a cake pan co-op for several years now, and I'm finally going to do it. It seems such a shame to have these cute cake pans just sitting around in my cupboard when someone else may have need of them.

If you have specialty cake pans that you are willing to share (and you are local!), leave a comment here with a short, descriptive list of the pans you own. If you plan to throw a themed party and really need that special cake, check back here and see if anyone has the pan you need. If so, it's up to you to arrange a pick-up with the owner of the pan.

I'll begin by listing my pans in the comment section of this post. Happy baking!

What to do until Thanksgiving...

Doesn't it seem like Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year? I was in a Hobby Lobby this summer and they already had aisles of silk poinsettias and ready-to-make ornaments glistening in the 100 degree temperatures. The retail stores really set the pace for the holiday season, but I don't mind too much. I like to shop early so I can enjoy decorating and celebrating later. I also love to see what is en vogue for the coming season. It's exciting.

There is something about this time of year that does bother me, however, and that is the skipping of Thanksgiving. With the stores full of Christmas merchandise and the near lack of commercialism that surrounds the little November holiday, it can be easy to jump right over it as soon as the jack-o-lanterns have been taken off the porch. I noticed that there is even a new Christmas special scheduled to air the week before Thanksgiving this year. Really? Was there not enough room in the listings during the 29 days after Turkey Day?

In our household when I was growing up, we did not decorate for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. My parents felt like it was important to take a day to be thankful, and that Thanksgiving Day should get it's own celebration. Now as an adult with a household of my own, I am fanatical about preserving Thanksgiving as a time for reflection and togetherness. I may shop for Christmas all year, but you will not see one ounce of glitter until the Christmas closet explodes on Black Friday. No candy wrapped in red or green, no Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks--there will be lots of time for all of that later.

So, I guess the point of this whole thing is, please, give Thanksgiving a chance.

Here are some ideas for what to do in November:

1. Eat well. You really have no reason to indulge from now until Thanksgiving, so take advantage of it and get into shape before the good stuff starts flowing.

2. Think of others. It can be so challenging to keep up with our own business in December, much less the needs of those around us. I like to prepare our Thanksgiving and Christmas donations in November so they are ready to go when the food and toy drives begin.

3. Finish unfinished projects. My November tradition is that I finish as much of my long-term to do list as I can so that I can enter Thanksgiving and Christmas with a lighter heart and a lighter load of guilt.

4. Get ready for Christmas. Clean the house, do the shopping, get organized--when it's all done, you can do nothing BUT enjoy the holiday season.

5. Be thankful. That's what the whole holiday season is all about, isn't it? :)