Lil' Chefs

I think I may need to make this a segment on here: "Meals with Monkeys".  If you know me, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE cooking and baking with my kiddos. I have fond memories helping my mom in the kitchen and as an adult, I now appreciate the skills and recipes she passed on to me. If cooking with your kids scares you, here are a few tips that might help. First, keep it simple. You don't need to grate fresh vanilla bean or use a gourmet cookbook that requires a lot of ingredients and steps. Kids are happy with just placing pieces in a dish or pouring liquids in a bowl. It's about giving them the experiences and informal training NOT perfection.  Secondly, prepare for a mess. It's going to happen. It can be cleaned up, and the whole cleaning up thing can be a great teachable moment for the kids (you may even find they hate cleaning up so much, that next time they are a little more careful about keeping the ingredients in the bowl and out of their hair). 

On the menu tonite was fresh guacamole ( to compliment our tacos).  Lils likes "smashing" the avocados and cutting the cilantro and Parker likes to mix in the red onion ( and then "cry") and squeeze the lime juice.  Funny thing, they never ate the guacamole until they started making it with me. Now, I can't keep them out of the dish!

 

and this little piggy...

screamed bloody murder b/c it was broken!!!!!

Tonite, while eating dinner, Lillie's chair slipped from underneath her and she and the chair landed on her poor little pinky finger and broke it! Thank goodness our pediatrician happens to be one of our closest friends and neighbors b/c instead of driving to the E.R. we drove to his L.R. (Living room) and got Lillie "fixed up". In fear of having child protective services after me (2 kids with 2 broken bones in 4 weeks cannot look good) Dr. Sean came to our rescue and we are VERY VERY grateful! A little Motrin and some buddy tape later, we are almost as good as new...

Cast #2

Bengals Orange... of course!!!

Cast #1

So here it is... a very bright RED cast (for the Cinci REDS of course). Next week Parker has to have some more x-rays and gets to pick another color. Two weeks after that yet, another cast and then a 4th cast toward the end of it all! Yesterday morning I took him to the orthopedic surgeon who had to reset his arm (very painful and not good for a mom to see) and told us the recovery for both bones being broken would take awhile. Parker has been the bestest patient. I can't say my nursing skills are all that great but when your patient is so sweet and kind, it's easy to take care of him. I have to say sending him to school today was harder than sending him the first day. He looked so vulnerable and anxious. I'm sure he will do great and will get lots of attention but still, noone can take care of him like Mom, Dad and little sis...

ANOTHER first... this one I could have done without!

Well, it was bound to happen I just wasn't sure when or how. Today while we were at the playground after school, Parker was on his favorite apparatus: the monkey bars. You can probably finish the story from this point. He slipped. He fell 7 feet. He got the wind knocked out of him. He cried out. His arm was broken! After several hours at the ER and a lot of paperwork I can say we survived our first childhood accident. He did really well (superb, actually) and was brave even thru the tears. He is super relieved that he should be recovered in time for his first flag football game mid October (it's all about the sports). Tomorrow we go to an orthopedic surgeon to get his opinion and a cool permanent cast.

For those inquiring minds he broke his two radial bones in his left arm (right below his wrist). As a lefty, he will have an interesting and frustrating month.

My running buddies

Every morning we start our day with a "jammie run". We do a 3 mile loop and the kids listen to music and eat cereal. It's a great way to start our day and they are good comic relief when I am running up those hills in 100% humidity.

Summer Box of Fun

So, my last post was about the simple pleasures of summer. We have had a great time going "back to the basics" and enjoying things that I did as a child during summer break. I failed to mention that we had a little help in the form of... Dollar Tree!! I love that store and I feel like I should give a "shout out" to it in the form of a blog entry. Who knows it may help other mommies create some wonderful memories for their kids this summer as well?!?! Feel free to comment on your own Dollar Tree finds

A few cool things we bought at Dollar Tree to kick off our "Summer Box of Fun"

1- Butterfly nets. They are essential. You cannot make one out of homemade materials and you can't beat 2 for a $1. We actually bought 4 so we can keep a set in the car on the off chance that we have a butterfly sighting while we are out and about (yeah, we're a little serious about our butterflies around here)

2- Magnifying glass. What a great invention! The kids love to look at rocks, bugs and even mulch thru the lense... Hours of endless educational fun (just don't look up your brothers nose.. GROSS!)

3- Buckets and shovels. Where do I begin? The kids dig up worms for fishing bait, they dig for "treasure" at the park, they make sand castles and sand fortresses, they keep fun little frogs in them, and they make mud soup and other gross concoctions.. the possibilities are endless.

4- Chalk. We make impromtu hopscotch boards wherever we may be at, we love a LARGE game of hangman and of course there is always the infamous tracing of bodies on cement so it looks like a crime scene. Totally cool but tastes nasty (don't ask.)

5- Personalized Water Bottles. You better believe we drink gallons of H2O (and then pee on some random tree at the park b/c the porta-pots are N-A-S-T-Y). We found some great water bottles that had little inserts so the kids could design their own. Makes a great arts and craft project when friends come over too.

6- Wood bird houses (with the paint and food). They had these fun little unfinished wood birdhouses that the kids painted and then displayed in our backyard trees. It's been a great way to get little feathery friends in our yard and discover which birds like to visit our neck of the woods.

While Dad's away...

The kids campout!

Trev, HURRY HOME!!!!

One fish two fish...girl fish boy fish...

I am not exagerating when I say my kids are fish (Trout, I think. although Parker resembles electric eel). They LOVE love love the water. If you are going to take a bath at our house(visitors be warned), goggles are a prerequisite, as is staying in there for a minimum of 45 minutes and practicing every swim stroke known to man.

So, this winter we signed the kids up for swim lessons so they could swim every week during the cold months. In previous posts, I have complained about Lillie's need to imitate everything Parker does, but in this case it was a huge advantage. Withing 20 minutes of the first class, Lillie had jumped into the 13 foot pool unassisted, treaded water for a minute and swam to the ladder on her own. There was no way she was going to let her big brother show her up. I have to admit, as a dancer, Lillie could use some work...as a swimmer and an athlete, the girl has got some skills. Anyway, the 8 week class was over on Friday and both kiddos got their certificates of completion! We celebrated with blue icecream from UDF!