Delicious Recipes to Keep my Family of Four Happy and Full
I’m so far behind on sharing so many things with you all. I apologize. Between being sick (uh!) for what feels like forever and just trying to navigate a busy few weeks, I don’t seem to be catching up very quickly.
Today though, I am here (YAY!) to share with you an amazing birthday party I attended back in March.
This little cutie was turning two and so the whole family flew {around the corner} to help him celebrate.
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H’s class has been learning about famous artists over the past month or so. One way they have been introducing the kids to the art is by having the kids use a famous artwork as inspiration for their own. The class staged a big art show to let the parents see what the kids have been up to. It was lots of fun seeing what H has been doing in class. Of course, I took a million pictures…enjoy 🙂
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So I’m off celebrating my birthday this week (YAY)! To celebrate though, I’m giving you all a present! In my place, I’ve got a few of fabulous ladies behind some of my favorite blogs stopping by to share their ideas and projects with you. We’ll still have WTCW on Wednesday and the Giveaway Linky Party on Friday but all the other posts this week will be from other bloggers starting with Andie from Crayon Freckles!
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the pink nesquik can be taken out and substituted with hot chocolate or a few drops of food coloring to make whatever color playdough you want. once it had cooled off all of the way, Bear and i got out our heart cookie cutters, popsicle sticks, and decorative sequins. and then we made some “cookies” and “cake pops“ with it!
thanks again to Shannah for having me! don’t forget to wish her haPPy biRThdAY!!! i’d love it if you stopped by crayon freckles sometime to say hi and check out some of the other activities that Bear and i do during the day. also, i’m offering free shipping on all domestic orders from my Etsy shop with the code LOVEISFREE
blessings to you all!
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Andie always some really great projects to do with kids. And a big thanks to Andie for coming over to Just Us Four to share this one with us. I hope you will stop by and visit her over at Crayon Freckles!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
In true {recent} blog fashion, I am here several days late to share a little glimpse of our Christmas holiday.
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, the inflatables were humming and lights were glowing all over the house.
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| No, this is not our house but one around the corner from us we visit every year. Rumor has it some guy names Clark lives there. |
Santa stopped for a visit and a little snack too.
To leave presents for the kids…mom and dad too
Ok, I am out of rhyming ideas so picture dump coming your way.
After lots of present opening with the kids and my parents, it was time to get ready for Christmas dinner which would also include Mathlete’s family (4 adults + 5 kids!).
Mathlete’s family has a tradition where each person gets a little mitten with a Godiva mint inside. As long as the mint stays in the mitten, no one can take it. But, if you take it out of the mitten and leave it on the table, it is fair game for anyone to take!
After dinner, it was more present unwrapping with the cousins!
I hope you all had a spectacular Christmas just as our family did!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This weekend was a long one thanks to ole Mr. Columbus.
We set out on Friday morning to make the trip to visit my parents. Dora in the DVD player: check. Snacks for the baby: check. Let’s hit the road!
Along the way, we stopped to visit:
Not literally of course. Some good friends of ours were Stateside from Australia and we were fortunate enough to get to have lunch with them during their trip. Two sad things happened that day though: We forgot our camera (boo!) and we didn’t get to spend more time with them. Hopefully, Naomi can remedy the first one and share some of her pictures with us.
Once we made it to the land of peanuts (a.k.a my hometown), it was time for our yearly tradition:
I can only remember one time in my life that I have missed this festival and that was solely because I had a 2 month old infant at the time. It was a tradition when I was a kid and we are working hard to make it a tradition for our kids.
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We got a lot accomplished this weekend! Mathlete was busy working on my car to get the rear brakes replaced (he’s handy that way) while I (finally) got to spend some time on house projects. We also managed to mix in some fun family and friend time too!
Saturday: We started our day with the farmers market. Lots of fresh fruits and veggies. It was so hot though so we didn’t stay long. We did manage to squeeze in a balloon animal since they weren’t doing face painting because of the heat.
On the way out of the farmers market, we ran into some of H’s school friends and decided to join them for lunch at Red Robin. With 3 4-year olds (or 2 + 1 almost 4 year old), you can imagine the amount of giggles at the table. It was a great time for the moms to catch up too.
From Red Robin, I dragged H to Costco to stock on some supplies. She loves to the “cold room” so we spent some time in there trying to recover from the 100+ degree heat we’ve been experiencing over the past week. We also managed to fill our cart up witht he most heavy stuff I could imagine having to push all the way to the end of the parking lot!
We ended our day with pretty much the best thing for a summer night: ice cream. We all hopped into the car and headed over to Dairy Queen.
Baby E spent most of the time playing with the red spoons from the restaurant.
After we put the kiddos to bed, Mathlete went back out to finish up with my car while I started to put together the little storage unit I bought for our bedroom. We have a desk that is built with two filing cabinets. With all of our files though, it is full and so we have no place for the “accessories” like printer paper, printer ink, etc. I picked up a little shelving unit from Target that I figured I would put together over a glass of wine and the latest episode of the closer. Here are the pieces before their “treatment”
I screwed the small shelves into the two long side shelves. Until all of the shelves were added in, I made sure to leave all of the screws a little loose and then go back and tighten them once all the shelves were in.
Once the screws were tightened, I threw on the screw covers and I was all done. The Closer hadn’t even finished yet so it was a quick fix. I had purchased some little bins and a basket to put in the shelves but I apparently picked the wrong size. So, for now, it is bin-less.
Sunday: We’ve started some sort of informal tradition of going to the pool on Sunday mornings when they open. Usually, we all head there as a family but Baby E went down for his morning nap earlier than usual. So, H and I spent some time at the pool with one of her school friends and her mom (a friend of mine!).
We spent the afternoon at the mall searching for shoes for Baby E. He is attempting to walk so I figured it was probably time to get him some shoes.
I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting and wrapping water bottles for H’s upcoming birthday party.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
If you haven’t caught on yet, we’re no strangers to busy around these parts. It may not always be the kind of busy we’d like it to be but it is there either way. This weekend was a mixture of fun busy and icky (not so fun!) busy.
Friday
Friday was pretty much a blur for me after work. The one thing I do remember: potatoes! Our neighborhood activities committee was hosting their annual Steak and Crab Night on Saturday. They had asked for volunteers to clean, wrap and cook potatoes for the event. Since I never have enough to do, I signed up! One of our fellow neighbors, Laura dropped off my bag of potatoes. The email solicitation had said 50-60 potatoes so I had been mentally preparing myself. Thankfully, she only brought over one 20 lb. bag which turned out to be more like 25 potatoes!
Now that the event is over and no one died from one of my potatoes, I can tell you that I sped up the washing process by washing them in our giant tub. Calm down…(junior – I know you are probably hyperventilating right about now thinking you got one of my potatoes)…the tub has never been used AND I cleaned it with bleach cleaner before starting. Oh, and of course the potatoes were cooked after being cleaned. Here they are after their bath
Saturday
I had big plans on Saturday. Plans to paint, shop, cook and get a lot done. What did I get done: food shopping. That.is.it.
Mathlete spent the morning working on his car trailer so I was on kiddo duty. I put H to work stabbing potatoes with a fork while I wrapped them in aluminum foil.
Then, while Baby E was napping and grandma was at the house, we ran out to the farmer’s market. Mathlete tagged along so he could go to Home Depot while we were in the neighborhood.
I had gotten some jalapenos and salsa peppers from a neighbor so tomatoes were on our shopping list!
H ended up seeing one of her school classmates so they hung out together while I looked at all of the farmers’ booths.
As usual, I put in all of the work and H took all the credit.
We got back home just in time for naptime so I ran out to finish up the food shopping at the grocery store. I had exactly one hour before Mathlete had to go help set up for the Steak and Crab event. I threw the potatoes in the oven and settled down for a nap to prepare myself for the evening to come!
I was way too lazy to haul a camera over to the event so I have zero pictures! The food was so yummy though and it was a super fun night. After it ended, we tagged along with Rock Boy and Shopaholic to the after party…almost felt 21 again!
Sunday
The feeling of being 21 definitely left before Sunday morning when the kids woke up. A late night + lots of wine = a reality check on how old you really are! I dragged myself out of bed and worked on getting food for Baby E and H. Thankfully, H was just as tired from her mock sleepover the night (with soccer shot and JB) before so she did a lot of vegging on the couch. Baby E just wanted to scarf down some breakfast (clearly I was suffering since I didn’t even both to put a shirt on my child for breakfast!)
We followed up breakfast with a trip to the pool for some relaxation in the water.
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Yes, I am a terrible mom for forgetting his sun shirt but he is wearing 100 SPF.
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The rest of the day was filled with the icky busy stuff: mowing grass, errands, etc. We did cap off the weekend with our weekly Sunday dinner…the perfect way to end a weekend and a great preparation for the week ahead! Lots of food, fun and laughter!
Was your weekend a mix of fun and work or more of one than the other? Any neighborhood parties you attended? Do you have a weekly “ritual” like we do with out Sunday dinners?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Back here, I mentioned my disaster of a playroom. At that point, I wasn’t courageous enough to share pictures of it because that would mean actually going it. I had avoided it for awhile for fear of getting lost in it out of procrastination but I finally decided that I needed to do something about it. I think it had gotten so messy that H didn’t even want to play in there. That’s bad on so many levels but mostly because it meant that more and more toys were making their way to the family room. Just in case you think I am exaggerating, I will share with you some pictures in all their embarrassing glory
I am not even sure how the kids are supposed to get in the door with a pile of stuff semi-blocking it
Two hours, two full trashbags and a giant box headed for goodwill later and the playroom was restored to a more organized version of itself…a more play friendly playroom if you will
It’s nice to have a table you can actually see
All I have left is printing the labes for all the bins and baskets in there. With two kids using it who don’t read yet, I haven’t really made it that big of a priority. I have at least put in some effort to find a template for labels
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| [Apartment Therapy] |
Is your playroom a disaster like ours was (will be again)? How do you go about keeping it in play friendly shape?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Friday afternoon brought us a HUGE rainstorm. Knowing that H was going to be itching to go play with her friends, I preempted the complaining about not going outside by inviting them over for a movie and pizza!
Baby E wasn’t so interested in Gnomeo and Juliet so she decided to spend his time climbing the window sill
Mathlete has been working long hours and, unfortunately, that includes some weekend days. So, we didn’t see him for most of Saturday! Once he got home, we headed over to Rock Boy and Shopaholic’s house for a cook-out. I absolutely love impromptu gatherings so two days in a row really made me happy.
E is a big fan of ceiling fans and there are two in Rock Boy’s house. It was hard to get him to focus on anything but those fans.
When she wasn’t getting some Baby E time, shopaholic was slaving away in the kitchen getting dinner ready for us while Rock Boy worked on containing the grease fire grilling up the meat!
With the food all ready, it was time to settle down and eat
It was such a gorgeous night out (rare for July because it is usually so hot!) that we all hung around outside for awhile after dinner before having dessert.
Dessert is served to end the night.
Well, except for this guy who insisted on one more drink.
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| Disclaimer: No babies were given alcohol in the making of this blog (or ever). This bottle was empty and rinsed before he got it. |
Sunday brought pool time! H had been begging to go the pool all weekend. She and Baby E are still both at the age where they need constant supervision at the pool so I am not very comfortable taking them alone. Mathlete was home with us so we dragged him out to the pool! Someone was very excited
I got a lot more pictures from our pool time but have no idea where they went on the camera. Oops. We rounded out Sunday with our weekly Sunday “family dinner” which was (apparently) picture free this time around.
Did you have a great summer weekend? Are you fortunate enough to have a lot of frequent impromptu get togethers with family and/or friends?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
**I lost some links along the way to the pictures above. I have given credit where possible and will come back to update the links once I locate the other pictures.**
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.