SNOW CREAM!!!!!!!

well, it is yet another snow day around here. that's right, the last day of school before march break, and we get a snow storm. i'm not joking.

and so... what do you do when school is cancelled and you're exhausted and low on funds and low on groceries and therefore also low on snackables? you find an easy recipe online and open the back door. {wink}

i looked up a recipe online, and since there were four ingredients, and there's four of us, we each had to remember one ingredient:
blithe: 1 cup sugar
bram: 1 tbsp vanilla
asher: 2 cups milk (although when i asked him what he was supposed to remember, he said, "2." "two what?" i asked. "too much!" so helpful. thanks. haha)
me: 3L (1 gallon) snow

basically, mix it all together in a bowl. dish it out. enjoy. :)

the verdict? from the mouths of babes....

this makes my mouff freezing!

this tastes good!

this tastes like outside!

this makes my taste buds freeze!

dat's why it is snow!

diss makes me shiver why it's so good!

and i would add, it tastes like christmas. you know... if christmas was, um... edible?? is that right? somehow i don't think so... please tell me you know what i mean, though. haha

that all means it's good. :)

gotta love snow days!!!!

apparently, i'm the "awesomest mommy EVER!"

so! what started as a crappy kind of day turned into, apparently, the BEST day of blithe's life! and i know bram and asher had a great day, too. and ok, i had a pretty fun day, too.

yes, this morning i was in a funk. not cool. then we went grocery shopping. having learned my lesson last week, i was determined to have a better experience grocery shopping today. so we went in the morning, before the kidley-winks were tired and cranky and out of control their usual selves more active than i prefer. and i put asher in the cart. he wanted to walk, and he cried for the first minute or so, but he adjusted once he realized that i wasn't letting him out. no way was i going to chase him all over the store again. when you're the only adult with three young kids in a crowded grocery store on a saturday, the last thing you need is those three kids running in every imaginable direction at the same time. i refuse to leave my cart to wrangle wayward children. i just. plain. refuse. so, with asher in the cart, and having given blithe and bram very specific warnings instructions, we headed into the store.

apparently, they love fish. who knew! well, ok, i know bram loves fish. whenever we go out to eat (which, granted, is rare), if there is fish and chips on the menu, that's what he wants. he won't even hear of anything else. just fish and chips. and he eats the fish first. he'll leave fries uneaten, but you wouldn't even know there had been fish on his plate at one point. i swear he licks the plate clean when i'm not looking. LOL but the other two?? since when do they like fish?! but, they all wanted it, and there was some marked down, so i grabbed some. we also got our usual items, plus a couple extras.

• pizza crust. this is in the bread section, and you get two crusts and packets of sauce. and it's only about $3 for the package, so it's great to have on hand. and really, who doesn't love homemade pizza??
• toaster strudels. i'll admit, i'm not a morning person. i prefer to stay up at night when i have some quiet time to myself, and then i get up in time to do whatever it is we need to do for the day. lunches are made quickly, but they're also pretty basic, and blithe and bram dress themselves, and asher gets dressed when we're home from the bus stop, and that's our weekdays. weekends? with no obligations? please! you're lucky if i'm out of bed before 9! or maybe you're not so lucky. depends on where you are when i get up, and what you've been up to that necessitated my early rising. either way, this is the one meal per day that i want to be as easy as possible. so i like to have easy-peasy brekkies on hand for the kids. usually it's cereal, which they can pour and fix themselves. but once in a while, i splurge and get them a treat, and this week it's toaster strudels, on sale 2 for $4.
• ice cream. alas, asher needs fat. and it's hot. and the PC ice cream was on sale. so we got Chocolate Crunch and Banana Split. and all i can say is: le drool! yum-tastic! seriously, try them. delicious!
• ice cream cones. for those days when we don't have clean bowls just need a special little something. so today was the day, gentle readers. we each had 3 cones, i think. LOL
• 2 cans of whipped cream. nuff said.
• strawberries were on sale this week, too, so i got some. however, i plan on picking some up from a local farmer later this week. possibly grabbing a flat and dividing them into pre-measured packages and freezing them. much nicer to have local produce than store-bought. but they were there and so was i, so i grabbed some.
• a package of sponge cake. (see 2 previous listed items.)

and the shopping went well! the kids were even well behaved in the check-out, and that is usually their challenging time. but they survived! see? there is a God!

then we came home, and after an hour or so, the wanderlust in me kicked in and we piled back into the truck and headed out to the Quaker Meeting House near Sparta. i had checked it out earlier this week, and it's absolutely beautiful, and the kids had wanted to check it out ever since they first heard of it, so off we went. they had a blast! it's a beautiful building, about 150 years old, and it's so simple and quiet and peaceful. they asked a lot of questions, and managed to sit quietly in the pews... for about 3 seconds. maybe. but they tried. they also enjoyed exploring the grounds, which are absolutely picturesque. the meeting house is tucked back into a maple grove, so it's surrounded by trees. there's a swing off to one side, and all you can hear is the sound of birds chirping overhead. stunningly beautiful. the kids want to go there one week for service, and i think we just might do that once this summer, and see how it goes (there's a sunday school for the kids, so they don't need to sit through an hour or so of silence).

then back home for a while and they played nicely together. then it was time for supper, so i tried to summon the will to make supper. but alas, the mood didn't strike. haha so i told the kids that we were going to go grad a pizza and come home. we piled in the car, and as i'm driving down the road, a thought occured to me: "they would love a picnic. i'll take them to the park tonight." so that's what we did. i didn't even tell them we were going until i was pulling into the park. we found a table in some shade, the kids each had maybe one piece of pizza and then took off to play. blithe and bram had a blast on the splash pad, getting completely soaked in their clothes (remember, i decided after we'd left home, so they didn't have bathing suits or towels, but who cares!). asher was going to join them, and even took his shirt off and stood at the edge of the chaos pad, but in the end, put his shirt back on and ran over to the playground equipment. there he climbed, slid, ran, swung, rocked and laughed for about 45 minutes. 45 minutes of constant motion, amongst (i swear) every child in town under the age of 17. he only got bumped once, but he didn't get hurt, and it was on his back, so no worries there. he had a great time! needless to say, they didn't want to leave.

but we did. and on the way home, all i heard was what a great day this was, how they loved the park and the quaker church, and how this was the best day of blithe's life. bram dubbed me "the awesomest mommy EVER" and asher told me he had a lot of fun, too. why do i always forget about the park? it's free, it's fun, it's fabulous!! we'll be going there a lot more often this summer. :)

chores, chores, chores

so now, as always, housework must be dealt with. and as you know, i hate housework. i HATE housework. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE IT!

but i have kids who are now old enough to help out around the house. seven, four and two are old enough for jobs (albeit very simple jobs for the 2-year-old). yes, folks, THIS is why i bred. in the hopes that, one day, however distant it seemed at the time, there would be someone here to mow the lawn, shovel the snow, take out the garbage, tidy the house, do the dishes... basically, everything. teehee

and so, on that note, i give you.... .... THE CHORE LIST!!!!

Blithe (age 7)
feed Smokey... twice daily. (it's her job b/c smokey's food and dishes have to be on top of the dryer, out of charlie's reach. but this also puts it out of bram's reach, so it falls to blithe.)

make her bed

put clothes in hamper

help with supper prep

drying the dishes

sweeping (her request, b/c "i LOVE sweeping!")


Bram (age 4)
feed Charlie (our new doggie - boxer/shar pei mix - he's awesome, though dumb as dirt! but i love him!). (once daily.)

make his bed

pick up cars, trains, tracks

help with lunch prep

wash the dishes (he specifically requested this one, and really, who am i to argue? [see why i bred comment above]). (and let me explain this task: he's mostly washing plastic stuff, and the cutlery, minus sharp knives. i may be lazy... er, i mean, ready and willing to instill in my kids a good work ethic... but i do have enough sense not to hand him a butcher knife or china tea cup to wash.)


Asher (age 2)
tidy cars, trains and tracks

put plastic dishes, etc away

help with laundry (now let me explain this task: i take the clothes out of the washing machine one by one, and hand them to him. he puts them in the dryer. and later... i take the clothes out of the dryer one by one, and hand them to him. he puts them in the laundry basket. and we spend the whole time talking about colours, shapes, animals, favourites, etc etc etc)


so far, so good. i've already had to shoo the kids away from the sink b/c they had other jobs they needed to do more urgently than dishes. and they've been feeding the animals very well over the last couple days already. except bram, who seems to think that it's too much work to put more than 4 or 5 bits of food in charlie's dish, but he'll learn. lol

and this isn't to say i've delegated all the work to the kids. as you can imagine, i have a TON of stuff to do around here, including re-arranging the house, organizing the chaos, grocery stuff, cooking, washing pots and pans, laundry, and wishing i could afford a housekeeper. lol

i'll let you know how it all goes in a week (provided i can still find my laptop by then).

wow, it's been a while!

i can't believe how long it's been since i've posted here! my bad. :( ah, well... i'm making up for it with a couple sweet, sweet pics of my boys, playing in the nearly-empty sandbox in the backyard (you'll note all the sand around the sandbox, though *rolls eyes and laughs*)

i guess the reason i haven't posted recently is because there hasn't been much in the way of simplicity around here lately. lots of appointments and trips to emerg for asher, which has taken up a lot of my time and energy. but... he's starting to improve thanks to some wonderful old-man meds (beta-blockers, gotta love 'em! lol)... so... there is something resembling simplicity in our world again.

and that pleases me.

know what else pleases me? sunshine. and temps in the 20s. awesome!!!!! we just had lunch at the picnic table, and the second they were done eating, the boys practically dove into the sandbox!! it's so wonderful to finally be able to spend time outside... in fact, i'm typing this post outside right now! :)

how much do i love spring, eh?!

our evening walk

most evenings after supper we go for a walk to a garden/parkette nearby. bram calls it our "calming down walk." it (usually) helps the kids to unwind before bed. i thought i would share some pics from our walk tonight.

asher loves these walks. as soon as you mention "go for a walk in the stroller" he goes racing toward the front door and waits impatiently for the rest of us to get ready. tonight, he's learning how to whistle while he waits. :)

my mother introduced bram to these flowers, and taught him a funny little pun. it's now a running joke in our family, since these flowers are very popular in our area. they're now his favourite flower. tonight, he ran to the plant laughing, "do you sedom, mommy? do you sedom?" lol

ok, i have no idea what these are, but they were too Dr Seuss-ish to ignore. if you know what they're called, please tell me. their leaves look very marijuana-esque, and then the flowers are these hot pink spiky balls! how weird, yet how very, very cool. i dig 'em.
blithe loves to ride her bike on our walks. she's getting really good at it, gaining more confidence every day. it's so nice to see her grow up right before my eyes. tonight she was figuring out how to pedal standing up, and she's so proud of how fast she can go on her bike. she can be a surprisingly nervous girl; she wants to do something perfectly the first time, and she can get really down on herself if she fails. it takes a lot of encouragement to get her to keep trying, but as soon as she achieves some success, she keeps working on it herself until she's got it. i'm so proud of her!

blithe's art

this morning i was doing dishes while the kids (well, the older ones, anyway) were snacking on watermelon. blithe, of course, finished hers first (and most cleanly) and, since we've turned off the TV for the rest of the day, she pulled out her craft supplies and did "kindergarten stuff" (as bram called it. here's what she drew:

apparently, no one else knows how to do this. that's what she said. the back creature on the left is a dragon, breathing fire out of its nose. and the little blue person? that's princess blithe (see her pink crown?) and she's holding a "peanut butter nut" that she's going to give to prince bram. but she'll add him in another day.

then, she went upstairs and tidied up her desk, making it a nicely organized scrapbooking desk in her room. she put all her crayons and markers and stamps and stuff in the drawer, and you can actually see the top of the desk. she said it's like my desk, although those who know me know that you can only see little bits of my desk. :)

anyhoo, that's our simple morning. this afternoon we have respite for a couple hours, and the older kids and i are going to run some errands, including a little item i picked up on freecycle. i can't wait! :) ttys! h