Its been awhile...should I just keep that title? :)

Jefferson and I spent Memorial Day weekend abroad...if you consider Canada abroad... :)  It was a lot of driving, but we had a really good time and got to see a wedding.  :)  It was our first vacation since our honeymoon and my parents took care of the girls, so it was just us.  And a gazillion hours in the car.  Seriously.  We met new people, experienced things we don't get to here in the US, saw beautiful country, and just enjoyed ourselves in general.  There are a couple of things that we noticed about Canada.  The people are nice.  Its the little things, but they're nice.  When someone was merging onto the highway everyone moved over.  If you had to hit your breaks because you were going faster than the car in front of you and there was a car beside you, that car moved over.  It was a welcome change of pace.  The people there take pride in their work and their city.  The city was clean and they had recycling bins on the corners, not just trash cans.  In Canada, when a teenager graduates from high school, it is not automatically assumed they are going to college.  They may go into the work force, they may go to college, which is like a technical school here, to learn a trade, or they may go to university, which is comparable to a 4 year school here.  The people that we met that are in the trades take just as much pride in their work as those that have jobs after getting their 4 year degrees.  It was a nice change to come across a person that lays tile yet is proud to do that.  I feel like, as a country, we have gotten away from that.  Certain jobs are looked down upon and we expect everyone to go to college.  Somewhere along the way we need to get away from that and realize that everyone is not meant to go to college.  If everyone went to college, who would work on cars, collect trash, and keep the roads up.  Speaking of roads, I expected them to be in bad shape because of their winters (we had a mild winter this year.  we only had one -40 day this year.) but they weren't.  They were in better shape than many of the roads we traveled on to get home.  This was our view at sunrise Friday morning after having driven for many many hours.

The girls in the meantime were with my parents having a blast.  Amelia decided to reward my leaving with saying Nana before she said Mama, which of course made my mom super happy.  They got to have movie night with Ken and Donna, spend some time around they house, and go to see Mae Mae and Uncle Scott on Sunday.  They have been a little cranky and tired today, to say the least.  They always have so much fun when they are there, but i'm pretty sure all that are involved are as worn out as the girls are.  All 3 got in on the action of the slip n slide Ken and Donna gave Dori for her birthday.  

They even went on a bear hunt with Mae Mae! :)

Speaking of birthday, Dori is now 5, has graduated from preschool, and is starting kindergarten in the fall.  I don't know where the time has gone, but it has gone fast.  She had a huge birthday party with many friends and family and had a blast.  She was so excited to have everyone over, spending time.  

Her five year stats: 33 pounds, 40 inches tall, both in the 10th percentile.  She enjoys playing dress up, having royal tea parties, and building legos.  She has gotten pretty good at writing her letters and is working on expanding the words she can read.  She enjoys gymnastics and goes once a week to River City.  

Until next time....

Normal for the next 9 weeks

Our normal for the next 9 weeks is here.  It means Jefferson taking care of the girls until after bedtime, which includes putting all 3 to bed and dinner for all 3 because I am working until 830.  At least my schedule has changed a little and I am now only working until 830 Monday through Wednesday.  I'll be off at 545 on Thursdays and am off on Fridays.  And its only until the end of the school year.  I have successfully put together meals for the week so Jefferson doesn't have to cook, just has to feed them.  All of the recipes we have tried are on my pinterest board here http://pinterest.com/cggreen3/food-stuff/ but the one that Jefferson has deemed the best thing I ever cooked was honey sesame chicken.  It was so good I called on my way home and he told me to stop and get something for dinner because he had "saved me a taste, but not enough for dinner."  That was an understatement.   That one will definitely be in the weekly rotation.  Tonight we're having spinach lasagna rolls, which i'm super excited about it.  Honestly though, it may be excitement just because it means I get to eat before 9 pm.  :)  This was all that was left of the chicken.  Then Jefferson admitted I only got what the girls didn't eat from their plates, which was about bites of chicken.  :)

Now that I don't get home until 9 or after I have to find the motivation to exercise.  I can't do it at 930 after I've eaten, so I'm working on getting motivated to get up at 630 to do it.  Its really hard to stay on weight watchers when you are starving by the time you get to eat in the evenings.  Here's to hoping I can motivate myself soon! :)

Dori is close to finishing preschool, which is ridiculously hard to believe.  She has Kindergarten camp at St. Catherine's this summer and then its on to the real world of school.  Where did the last 5 years go?  Her 5th birthday is May 16 with her birthday party the Saturday afterwards, so we're all looking forward to that.

Then comes Amelia's party the following month.  Where did that year go?  I cannot believe she's almost 11 months old!  I went to buy her shoes today, however decided to wait because her feet are going to be like Dori's.  Super narrow which is going to make buying shoes such fun!  Amelia is still only saying dada but thinks its hilarious when I tell her to say mama.  She looks at me, grins, says dada, then claps for herself.  

I feel like I need to tell you something about Ginny because I have told you about the other two, but she's still going along with the flow.  She is my constant companion, helping me out and loving on Amelia, too much sometimes.  She loves babies and is a little mama.  When we go to music class she likes to take things to the ones that can't get them themselves, helping out wherever she can.  She's also my cuddly child that likes to curl up in your lap.

That's about all I have right now.  Time is flying by between gymnastics, preschool, music class, and working.  We're having a yard sale on Saturday, which i'm hoping will be lucrative.  I want to get rid of stuff and make some money.  Then we have Daisy Days at St. Catherine's.  I'm hoping to get the garden in on Sunday and then its back to the grind of work on Monday.  Hopefully i'll have time to get to the grocery store this weekend too.

Until next time....

Spring break?

Ahhhh spring break.  Its supposed to be a break right?  HA!  Not in this house.  Its the time that I want to get so much done, but it seems that the time flies by and it doesn't get done.  My grand plan was to get one room a day clean over break.  So far at the end of the 2nd day of the week (but day 5 of break including the weekend) I have gotten a room most of the way clean, but you can't tell now because it was the kitchen.  I have managed to get the laundry sorted and am getting ready to switch out another load.  The girls and I got a package sent to Mike today and I managed to go to Martin's, Kroger, and Costco, along with taking the time to get a pedicure with Danielle.  :)  I will be returning to going to Martin's for most of my groceries.  They are just that much cheaper than Kroger.  Prime example, the spaghetti sauce I was looking at buying today at Kroger was 3.59.  At Martin's it was 2.89.  That's a HUGE difference when you add it up with the amount of groceries I have to buy.

We have had a wonderful Easter, 3 times over.  :)  We spent three weekends ago at Jefferson's dad's and had our annual Easter Egg Hunt with the Larson's.  The girls decorated sugar cookies and both Leslie and Lindsey were in from their respective colleges, so it was nice to see everyone all at once.  Its always nice to have family time.

Then the following weekend we were at my parents house for the annual Easter Egg Hunt with lots of people.   It was a lot of fun and I think all the kids had a really good time.  After the festivities, Danielle, Beebs, Donna, Mom and I went to Floyd to Schoolhouse Fabrics.  My first time there and it was awesome.  I got lots of fabric to work on the gifts for all the pregnant people I know.

This past weekend we had Easter here.  Richelle came down for the weekend.  The girls and I went to church after the Easter Bunny festivities and then we all went to Beebs' and Popsie's for Easter dinner.  We all had a really good time and it was a wonderful Easter.

Jefferson and I are going to North Bay, Ontario, in a few weeks for a wedding.  I'm super excited because it will really be the first time we have been away since Amelia was born and the first time since the girls were born that we've been able to take a trip like this.  My parents are going to take care of the girls and we're driving up for the weekend since Jefferson and I both have a 4 day weekend.  It will be a lot of driving, but should be a really good time.

Amelia's 10 month birthday is today.  She really hit a lot of milestones in the last two weeks.  She started clapping, waving, and took her first unassisted steps.  She had corn on the cob for the first time tonight and really enjoyed it.  How is it the baby is almost a year and the oldest is already almost 5??

Ginny made a huge leap this week.  Previously, as in the past two months, she hadn't made the connection that letters made words and that you read them, which I hadn't expected her to.  It seems as though she has now made the connection as she read a book to me Sunday night.  I'm sure a lot of it was from memory, though it had been read to her once in recent past, however she had made the connection, which I was really excited about.  The Easter Bunny brought both Dori and Ginny some of the I Can Read books with the repetition so they can continue down the path of learning and enjoying reading.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter!  Jefferson is building Dori a loft and our good friends the Bakers are coming to visit for the day tomorrow.  Until next time!

Day to Day norm?

First of all, our good friend (and when I say good, I mean the person that gets our children if God forbid something happens to us and my family can't take them good) is deploying today.  Keep him in your prayers, thoughts, whatever you do please!


I made a couple of things last night that I first want to share.  I found these recipes on Pinterest (where else? :)) and they turned out really well.  The first is homemade chocolate syrup, found here: http://tinyurl.com/7rjnhsh.  Jefferson drank two glasses of chocolate milk and I had it on ice cream with strawberries (we obviously have not started counting points again...).  It was really easy and is really good, without high fructose corn syrup.  Easy and good enough my mom said she may make it for my dad to use.  :)


The next thing I made were Easter Egg Nests for Dori's springtime school program.  That recipe can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/6pn6wht.  They were super easy and really good.  I'm pretty sure there weren't any left when we left the reception today (though i'm not sure there was much left :)) and I'm not going to lie, I liked it when I heard people say they were cute and picked one up to eat.  :)  I also brought one to the homebound student I'm working with right now and she told me it was really good and I should become a chef.  Pretty high remarks from a high school freshman! :)  I did make a couple of changes.  I used my small Pampered Chef scoop to drop them on a cookie sheet, made them into the nests, but did not wait until they were cool to put the jelly beans in them.  I pushed them in while they were hot and the stickiness of the coconut held the jelly beans in them.  


The salsa chicken I talked about a couple of posts ago was pretty good, but I overcooked it.  I cooked it like I normally do stuff in the crockpot and not just for 4 hours.  Next time i'm going to shoot for 4 hours. :)


I apparently need to stay off of pinterest....I also made this skirt http://tinyurl.com/7g8775o.  The tutorial made it very easy and the girls skirts are really cute.  The only thing I changed between Dori's and Ginny's is that I did not add an inch of elastic past Ginny's waist size because I did that with Dori's and it fell off of her.  I was a little upset with myself that right after I finished her skirt I had to then immediately take it in.  Here's Dori's:

Please excuse Dori's shirt choice.  She was wearing jean shorts when she tried it on.  :)

Here's Ginny's:

We got Dori's daisy sticker and calendar for the upcoming school year.  Super excited about that!  I also met a friend of ours yesterday at the quilting store for her to pick out fabric for pillowcase dresses I'm making for her to give as a shower gift.  They are going to be incredibly cute!  So many things to do like always!  :)  

We're going to be able to actually put in a garden this year, which i'm really excited about for the fresh vegetables, and by we I mean the girls and I.  Many thanks to Kate and Brian for buying a house that won't hold their garden bed! :)  I had just told Anna Mae I didn't know what we were going to do for a garden then Kate needed someone to take hers!  Yay for fresh (and cheap!) food!

It has been a full week this week!  We went to the park with Richelle, Laura, Elly, and Emery on Monday, typical Tuesday of dropping Dori off at school, going to Beebs' for playtime, going to gymnastics for Ginny, then back to pick up Dori.  Wednesday I was that lady that took two of her kids to the gun store to get Jefferson's gun worked on plus running errands, then today we had music class and Dori's spring program.  My mom came up for that and is staying until tomorrow.  And she wonders why the laundry is piled almost to the ceiling! :)  Easter egg hunt at the NoVA Greens this weekend but my sister and her family are coming to stay at our house, then Easter Egg hunt at my parents the following weekend.  Hope we don't have to hitchhike because we run out of gas!  Since I have pictures of Dori and Ginny, i'm going to add a picture of Amelia with Richelle at the park.  That girls LOVES to swing!  :)   Apparently i'll have to add one later...the picture won't upload!  :)

Happy birthday Grace!! :)

Until next time!

I'm baaccckkkk!

I'm baaaccckk!  :)  It hasn't been 1 1/2 years this time!  


The girls and I went to Grace's birthday party today at Beebs', which is always a good time.  Dori had a tough time deciding whether she wanted to go to Beebs' or to stay at school for stay day, but cupcakes and Grace won out.  :)  Plus I know Danielle has some wonderful pictures from today that I can't wait to see!


Dinner is cooking as I type, while i'm working in the crock pot.  We're trying a new recipe (thanks Pinterest and Danielle!).  It smelled absolutely wonderful when I left for work, so hopefully it tastes as good as it smells.  The recipe can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/6ofvdn2.  I'll let you know how it is! (and if the girls ate it! :))  Though with Dori at gymnastics this afternoon, she'll usually eat well when she gets home.  I guess an hour and fifteen minutes of gymnastics will do that to a girl.  Now how to convince Jefferson to go to Boyer's for ice cream after dinner....


Boyer's is this wonderful local ice cream shop on Patterson that is super yummy!  Check them out....http://tinyurl.com/7wg2vo2.


Outback is running a coupon right now for $10 off 2 entrees if you like them on Facebook.  Get 2 sirloin meals and basically you get one free.  Totally worth it for Outback, but don't forget to tip your server on the full amount of your check, not just the discounted amount.  


We are in the process of getting Dori's tuition money together for St. Catherine's in the fall.  One, I am super excited she'll be attending there this fall, but two, really, how is she going into Kindergarten?  I look at the girls and cannot believe how old and big they're getting.  


I am excited we're back to having nice weather.  I was able to walk with Anna Mae and Claire this morning while Dori was at school.  It was nice to get out and get some exercise and have adult conversation, though it seems recently I've had more adult conversation than normal since Danielle is in town and we have been able to get together. 


Speaking of conversations, I am not the type of person to not be able to just drop things.  I want to know why something happens, even if I think I know the reason.  Ever have a person just fall out of your life and disappear?  I feel like i'm a good person and a good friend, so when this happens I always wonder what I could have done differently.  This has happened a couple of times in the past few years and I just wonder what happened.  


Until next time.... :)

A New Life for the Blog??

Let me begin by saying I have been wishy washy on starting this back up.  There have been many times that I decided I wanted to blog just because, but never sat down and did it.  Now i'm sitting, as I usually do while working.  My student, whom I am really enjoying working with, is taking a test, so I have a little while.  


I started this in August of 2010, then got pregnant with our 3rd child and never came back to it, for a number of reasons.  That one was a rough pregnancy.  I was sick through the entire thing, with a few days of not being sick around the 28 week mark.  I was then put on bed rest for high blood pressure.  Thank God my mom is retired and could take the girls to their house and keep them while I was on bed rest.  Fast forward 9 months and Amelia is healthy, happy, and lively.  She tried to keep up with her sisters.  Its only a matter of time before she lets go and is running.  She won't let go yet, but practically runs when holding on to something.  


I don't know what the point of this blog will be but a mish mosh of my life.  Maybe this will be therapeutic somehow?  :)  We shall see.  


We're taking the girls to see NC State women's gymnastics this Friday at William and Mary and i'm super excited.  I told them about it this afternoon and you should have seen their faces light up.  Maybe this will light the fire under Dori that sometimes things are hard and you have to work for them?  She has been wanting to go back to her previous gymnastics class because its easier, however when its easy for her she's bored and does what she wants to.  Not exactly a way to get ahead.  I know she's only 4, but some things need to be instilled in them early and a good work ethic I believe is one.  I will not be a parent, however, that makes my child continue something they truly dislike.  If she makes the team and doesn't want to do it, then so be it.  She can try something else.  


Ginny is taking a dance and gymnastics combo class and loves every minute of it.  We get to spend more time together because Dori has preschool 3 mornings a week, so when I drop her off, its just Ginny, Amelia, and I.  


Amelia is 9 months old and moving along.  She finally cut the latest two teeth and now has 6.  She's calling her dada which he eats up and happy as a lark, unless she's hungry.  


Ever feel like you don't have enough time to do what you need to, let alone what you want to?  My house is not ever the cleanest around, but I have 3 happy healthy kids, a happy, wonderful husband, so what else do you need?  I try to remind myself of that when I'm freaking out about the house being dirty or a lack of funds. 

So, that's just it.  I don't even have anything fun and exciting to post for dinner because I don't have any idea what we're having yet.  I'll figure it out when I get home from Target, which is where i'm going when I get off work as soon as my student is done with her test.  My goal is to get back on and stay on weight watchers and to be able to exercise more.  Since daylight savings time is here again, I can exercise once I get off of work since Jefferson will be at home with the kids, then he can go while I cook dinner.  Sounds like a great plan right? Well, we'll see.  I have a lot of great "on paper" plans.  :)  


Plans for the evening....help J finish his application for school, make some towels, maybe make a table runner for a gift.  :)  We shall see.  I'll let you know when I make something fun and exciting for dinner as its usually on the healthy side and quick.  Until then...