Quotes Sept 2010-Feb 2011

Feb 15, 2011

Collin, after my apology for losing my temper upon discovering that the kids had taken Vlad's iPhone and we had driven away, leaving him without a means of communication: You know, mommy....a lot of times things could be worser....like losing your pet snake, or your toys....

Well, I agree with the pet snake thing.

Jan 10, 2011

Collin: Mommy, Spencer punched me!

Me, looking at Spencer who is dressed in a Ninja suit and Collin who is dressed in a Ninja turtle suit: Honey, you're playing Ninjas. Of course he punched you.

Jan 9, 2011

Collin, in a no-nonsense voice as he bravely stands guard with his new toy horse in hand and watches while I search through the garage for the robber that Spencer claimed to have heard: I have a big horsey, and I'm not afraid to ride him!

Collin, playing with a new toy horse: I really love my horse. *Sigh* But, I gotta eat, so I hafta kill him!

Spencer, trying to interpret for Katya: Mommy, she needs the elephant of surprise!

Jan 7, 2011

Collin, in a random act of humor while stalling with his math homework, picked up a cup and put it to his ear: And you better not put any pepperonis on that pizza, or you're in BIG trouble, Mister!

Jan 6, 2011

After a frustrating day of squabbles, injuries, schoolwork procrastination, incessant messes, and lots of whining and crying during which I had reached my limit of patience and understanding:

Me, watching Claire climb up on the counter AFTER she was already tucked in, digging around for a water bottle, and knocking my favorite asian tea cup lid to the tile floor where it broke beyond repair: "Oh, NO!! Claaaire!! That was Mommy's favorite!" sigh

Claire, sizing up my distress in her patented matter-of-fact manner from her perch on the counter: Don't be sad, Mommy... betause, I wuv you!

Me, picking up the pieces of the lid and melting from her obvious concern: I love you too. (Going over to give this most sqeezable girl a hug). I break things at my Mommy's house too. It's no fun, huh?

Claire, mournfully: No. An', I'n sowwy I bwoke dat.

Me: It's alright.

Collin, finding every reason to procrastinate during school including shoving his hair from side to side until finally he had scooted it all up in a strange pile on the top of his head: "Look! I can see out now!"

Something tells me it's time for haircuts.

Jan 4, 2011

Collin, frustrated over a squabble with Claire: Mommy, Claire hitted me wif her mermaid.

Me: *quiet*

Collin: Can you talk to her about that?.........in a MEAN way?

Jan 3. 2011

Spencer, when I had to get after him to finish a chore only 20 minutes after lunchtime when I had been commenting on how wonderfully he was treating his sister: Are you thinking, "What happened to him - he was such a good boy at lunch."?

Collin, looking at a small clock with a serious face, "The compass says....we're completely lost!"

Jan 2, 2011

Claire, upon arriving home after a three-day roadtrip from Phoenix: it IS our own house!! Hooray!! We found it!!

Nov. 4

Spencer, when the planet Neptune went missing while we were assembling our solar system mobile: I'm telling you, Mommy - it's under your butt somewhere!

It's official: I've gained enough weight that my backside is no longer just the moon, but is actually causing total eclipses.

Oct 28

Spencer, trying to explain the concept of adoption to Collin: God sells children to parents, and the money parents pay with is LOVE.

Sept 27

Spencer, after internalizing what a truly terrible thing it is to be throwing rocks at cars that are driving by: Please, Lord, Please don't let there be chips on the car. I cry out for mercy! ....Mommy, do you think there will be chips if I cry out for mercy?"

Sept 1

Spencer, frustrated at his reading assignment: My dander is up!

Plants, Sprouts, and Tidbits

For those of you who actually know something about gardening, you've been screaming from your seats on the other side of the screen, and I finally heard you. I finally got the message. You've been saying, "Don't plant all those seedling together in one big bucket! How are you going to transplant them later?!" Yes, I finally realized that the roots of all my over-anxious seedlings are starting to intertwine. They finally have to move out of the family home and get their own place. So transplant, we are. I actually hadn't planned on doing this so soon, but it's a necessity. Come to find out, if you plant five tomato seeds in one hole, you get five tomato plants. Who knew? If you plant two wax beans together, you get two wax bean bushes sprouting out of the same place!! Who would have guessed?! So now we're off to get some planting cups which will hopefully give our plants a place to roost safely until the time of transplanting to barrels. Next year I expect to be able to plant right in the barrels and not worry about all this transplanting business. In the meantime, would somebody please tell Mr. Sun that it's time to change the world to Spring? We need some warmer weather so I can move our greenhouse outdoors before too terribly long. Thank you. 

Our sugar peas - or maybe that was sweet peas. I don't know, honestly. 

 The champions of our indoor greenhouse, so far. They are about 6 inches tall from ground to tip of leaf. The jack-o-lanters aren't far behind.

The kidney beans, both white and red, that I tried sprouting to see what would happen. Lo and behold, they sprouted!! Now they're all planted and sitting on a table next to the window in my dining room. Don't exactly know how to grow and harvest kidney beans, but I hated to let a good sprout go to waste!

 Same for the chickpeas.

 And here is Katya, my baby sprout, trying on her big sister's clothing. My camera was the only thing she wouldn't smile for with the apron on.

 And last but not least, I am officially the worst toast maker in the world!! What you can't see is that I already burned and scraped the back side. Then promptly burned the second side. Smoke alarm didn't go off, though, thankfully. It was more considerate of my feelings than that.

Playdough Dinos

Spencer got the idea to make playdough today. We've never actually done this, so I don't know what gave him the idea. I think they wanted to make model dinosaurs. So I popped online and found a recipe touted to be fantastic. Turns out, she was right!! It worked great, and the kids had a blast kneading in the food coloring, and each playing with their own color. 

 I don't know if Claire has played with playdough before. If she has, it hasn't been often. We are not big playdough people in our house.

 It was Katya's absolute first time. This is her very first touch of playdough. 

How do you think she liked it? 

 Spencer, incredibly proud of his mound. 

This is what playing with playdough looks like in our family. 

Looks like the idea grew on her!

 Playing with playdough in the kitchen, otherwise known as ""Blogging Time for Mommy." 

Play Dough Recipe:

1 cup white flour


1/2 cup salt


2 tablespoon cream of tartar (find it in the spice section)


1 tablespoon oil



2 tsp cinnamon (for yummy smell!)

1 cup water



food coloring

Mix first 5 ingredients in a pan. Add water and mix well. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 – 5 minutes. Dough will become difficult to stir and form a “clump”.  Remove from stove and knead for 5 minutes–add food coloring during kneading process. Add sprinkles of dough and knead it in until it reaches the right consistency (you won't need much!) Play dough will keep for a long time stored in a covered plastic container or plastic sandwich bag.

Claire, where is my iPod?

When I want to know where my iPod is, I ask Claire. 

She is the one who plays with it most often, and who usually puts it where no one else would look for it. 

 What could my three year old possibly be doing with my iPod, you ask? 

Playing Angry Birds, no doubt? 

Au contraire! 

(At least, not most of the time!)

She has discovered the "Bob Books" program I put on there for Collin, and now spends large chunks of time busily spelling and sounding out words. She is quickly learning her alphabet and the sounds. She has also started asking to learn to read officially - no doubt so she can keep up with the boys. So each day when I do reading with the boys I am also carving out a small amount of time for her to go over letters and sounds. She's working through the same level 1 See and Say series book that Collin is just finishing.  And she loves it! 

She is so proud of herself, and I am too! 

I love you, my precious, determined, adventurous Claire Bear!

Measuring the Dinosaurs

Lately Spencer has been fascinated with measurements - length, weights, etc. He has started measuring all his toys, carefully weighing them on a commercial food scale we have in the kitchen. He draws each toy with enough detail to distinguish it from the others, and then puts the measurements in ounces next to the drawing. It started last week when his hot wheels car lost a race to another kid at boy scouts - that's when he realized that he needed to be weighing his cars to find the heaviest one, so he could win the race next time. From there it spread to the dinosaurs. This was his dinosaur weight sheet yesterday: 

And let's not forget lengths!! Their favourite dinosaurs right now are the Spinosaurus and the Ankylosaurus, pictured below. 

I love this one, with the dinosaur's dimensions all mapped out! 

I love the mind of this kid, where the love and imagination of fantastic creatures meets careful analytical skills.

Burlap Planter, takes 2 and 3

So I'm still working on the burlap planter design. 

Take 2: This was my second take today, meant to be a sort of round root ball idea. But it sort of flattened out....and I don't think my plant will get enough light through that bush of burlap cuttings at the top. Not sure what to do about that. 

Take 3: This will hopefully increase the roundness factor. There is a soccer ball inside that burlap. I gathered it up and tied it, then spread craft glue 2/3 the way up (modge podge  -sp?- would probably work well too). I had to leave enough space to take the ball back out once the glue was dry, because the ball was only borrowed under strict instructions that it be released as soon as its services were no longer required. Once my burlap is dried into a nice round shape, I'm not exactly sure what to do next. Anyone have any good ideas? There has to be room enough for the plant to peek through (reference to bushy-top model above). One idea is to put those little steel eyelet holes and use those to both keep the mouth of hte planter folded down AND double as a place to loop my hanging strings through. What do you think? Any planter engineers out there? 

And what are the kids doing while I put glue on burlap? They are planning their futures as zookeepers of a dinosaur zoo. No kidding. That's the plan. Here is their small-scale model: Dinosaurs in their natural habitat. The papers under the dinos have grass, trees, rocks, streams, and most importantly: nests with eggs.  Looks like we'll be taking a tangent on zoology here in the next little bit... 

One SERIOUSLY delicious dinner roll...

UPDATE:
Since this dough is so sticky and difficult to work with, to form the balls you can use a heavy-duty spatula or spoon. Dip it in flour and make sure it's coated well. Then use it to cut balls out of the dough to plop into the muffin cups, sort of like you would make ice scream scoops. It works very well.


If you're wondering why I'm blogging about dinner rolls, just consider it a memory aid - I know I can find the recipe easily on my blog.

:) I found this great recipe yesterday, and really liked it, and it was fast and easy and delicious, so I thought I'd put it up here in case anyone else is looking for something similar.



Quick Yeast Rolls


2 tbsp shortening or oil
3 tbsp white sugar
1 c. hot water
1 package (.25 oz) dry yeast
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour


Mix shortening, sugar, and warm water. Allow to cool until it's lukewarm, then mix in yeast until dissolved. Then add egg, salt, and flour. Dough will be really wet and sticky. Cover and allow to rise until cool.

Divide the dough into 8 greased muffin cups (may want to lightly flour your hands to form the dough balls). Then cover and allow to rise again until doubled in size.

While they'r rising, preheat oven to 425 F.

Bake 10 minutes.

Voila!! Easy Peasy!

You can print this recipe (complete with picture!!) at:

Print Quick Yeast Rolls

My new burlap planter. Take 1

So, now that nearly all my plants have sprouted (still waiting on the peppers and eggplants), I have some quick work to do to get ready for transplanting. We do plan on putting most of the plants in barrels, but there are a few that I want to put into hanging planters that I can move into my kitchen once the weather starts to cool down in the fall. I want my herbs, tomatoes, and possibly one strawberry planter, to be close by. But I don't just want ANY hanging planter - I want a cute one. None of these plastic mop buckets-turned-planter, thank you very much! I want something chic and rustic, and cute! So I got the idea to make a burlap-style planter. But where am I supposed to get burlap? Particularly, where am I supposed to get enough burlap to make at least four planters, and also a compost bag? Well, I had the idea to call a local coffee shop. Turns out the guy had stacks and stacks of used burlap bags just sitting around, and was more than happy to give them to me. He literally gave me a pile three feet high of burlap sacks in the back of my van. So now I'm working on cooking up some really cute planters. Problem is, I really don't want to sew anything, as my machine is not working well right now and I don't feel like using a needle and thread.  So today I started tinkering around, and this is what I came up with, step by step. It's not Martha Stewart, but it'll do, and I'll still work on the design until I get it right. 

Step 1: for the support of the dirt and plant, I needed something inside that was sturdy and would hold moisture. A milk bottle works just great. The regular pour spout will be the place I plant my tomato or strawberry plant, and the top opening will be where I put the herbs. I just slit around it with a utility knife and took the bottom off. 

Step 2: Put your bottle about how far you want it from the edge of your fabric (how much overhang do you want?), then hold the jug in place and fold the fabric in half with the jug inside, and mark the point where it meets the first edge.

Step 3: cut them even

 If you're lucky, you might even get a stray coffee bean to sniff while you work!

Step 4: with the jug in place, and working one side at a time, carefully hot glue and press the fabric firm against the jug so that each side is covered with burlap

 When you've done all four sides it looks like this:

Step 5: Gather all the corners up above the top opening. At this point, I hot glued those sort of triangle flaps down, but it didn't really seem necessary.

 Step 6: Holding the jug down, use your twine to tie four strands around the planter - start in the middle and tie two around the firmer girth of the bottle. Make sure they are quite taut. Then tie one around the top edge, just a bit above the end of the plastic jug, so it pulls in a bit farther than the other strands. The final tie goes around the small round jug neck at the bottom of the planter. If you want a cut edge to the top of your burlap planter, move on to the next step. If you would like a folded edge, take the top edge of the burlap and fold it outwards and down, then tie one extra strand around to hold it down.
 Step 7: tie four strands vertically, one on each side, to secure all the horizontal strands to each other. Again, make sure they are quite taut. This should result in a sort of grid pattern around the planter.

Step 8: Now it's time to cut the edge of your burlap. Cut out anything that is in the way for a budding plant, and anything that is just too floppy or flappy. 

Step 9: Hot glue under the flap and fold it down and hold it until the glue has cooled somewhat. 

 Step 10: Let your son pose with the new planter.

 Step 11: Tie four more cords, about 18-24 inches long, one on each side of the planter, from the second horizontal strand. Then collect all these four strands together and tie them in a big ol' knot that is as centred as you can make it.

 Voila! You have a new, cute-ish planter for your favourite sunny window. Now you can enjoy herbs all year long!