Guess who's 4 months?

This guy!

Pax turned one month on the 12th. He weighs16 lbs , he's 27 inches. 90th% for weight, and off the charts for height. He loves watching his brother and sister, playing in his new excersaucer, nursing, grabbing anything and putting it in his mouth, classical music, and Daddy playing guitar. Oh, and he's a pretty good sleeper.






I may just eat him up!

New Plan and a Food Challenge

After me and kiddos bust through the Church doors and disturbing Mr. Sloth's peaceful morning alone at Mass a few weeks ago Mr. Sloth came up with the idea that we would switch days going to Mass so we each could go but not have to be in the back with children like is the case most every Sunday. It has been fantastic. I've also been getting up at 7am on a regular basis as opposed to just getting up when the kids get up. Today I was up, showered and dressed by 7:20am. So not only was I on time for Mass for one but I was early and had quiet time for prayer. When I came home the kids had finished breakfast, Mr. Sloth had dressed them and he and Demand had made the beds.

I love this new system!

Now for my food challenge. Inspired by one of my friends who also uses cloth diapers I decided to be better about using mine. I had just bought two big boxes of diapers (size 2 and size 5) so I decided I wanted them to last a month. This gave me the idea to see how long I can go between grocery store visits. I'll wait as long as possible and then go an a big Sam's Club run. Of course I'll have to pick up things like milk and fruit, etc but you get the idea.

We entertained twice this weekend so we have lots of food in the fridge to start with and I had recently stocked the freezer with a decent amount of meat.

Today/tonight: yogurt with granola and oatmeal for breakfast, left over ziti bake and homemade macNcheese for lunch, fruit and spinach dip for snacks, left over pulled pork and salad for dinner.

Tomorrow: left over blueberry muffins for breakfast, clementines and pretzels for snack, left over baked beans and hot dogs for lunch, and I just took pork chops from the freezer and we'll have pork chop bake (pork chops, cream of mushroom soup and potatoes) for dinner. We may still have salad left over or I have Trader Joe's broccoli in the freezer I can serve with fresh grated Parmesan.

After we eat all that food I'll see what we can make for Wednesday and Thursday but I think we'll have lefter over French Onion soup that I put in the freezer for meatless Friday. Mr. Sloth can make the bread to go with and we have a giant block of Parmesan to shave on top.

I just dug out frozen OJ but I think we have more juice in the deep freeze somewhere. We have plenty of milk but juice is running low and that is crucial in this house. I think we'll have Turkey next week and maybe ham as they are both in the freezer as well. It will be hard coming up with sides for Turkey without going to the store but I may have enough potatoes and I have a jar of gravy and frozen veggies.

This should be fun, I love seeing what dishes I can come up with on the fly. I was getting close to emptying my fridge before I let Mr. Sloth head to the grocery store hungry and with children.

I'll let you know how the plan is working throughout the week.

Storyteller

I can't get over how cute this girl is! I wish we could adopt her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wqc1vvaEng

Don't Forget

Things I don't want to forget


How Demand tells "chokes". Not only does she call them "chokes" and not "jokes" but they make so little sense that sometimes she doesn't even get them.

I love how Happy plays a game where there is a "shawk" (Shark) in our fireplace. He does a good job at trying to make us afraid of it. And I have to admit at times to keep him off my heels, legs or whatever he is hanging on at the time I'll say, "Go get the shark, (Happy)!"

And I hope I never forget how the sweet smile of Pax. I love how you enter a room and he lights up his face, smiles and starts talking to you. And even if he is really trying to say, "Mom please pick me up, Happy is trying to feed me Hot Wheels."it's sweet just the same.

Update from this morning

Trip to SuperTarget went fine despite the bitter cold and Happy crying the first five minutes. Playdate went well and I was even able to get Pax to fall asleep in my arms (a Sloth miracle) The kids brought baloons home so Happy was entertained and didn't fall asleep in the van. Happy went down pretty easy for his nap, crying only half as much as he has been lately.

Mommy got a few minutes of rest in too.

Thanks for the prayers.

This man inspires me.

11:15pm-went to bed
12am-Pax hungry
2am-finally get Pax back in his own bed
2:05am-Happy wakes up screaming. The only way Mr. Sloth can get him to stop is to give him what turned out to be the loudest toy we own.
2:45am-I remove toy which is keeping me awake and give him a book.
3:30am-Happy wakes up screaming again. Mr. Sloth eventually takes him downstairs as his 'tornado siren' of a cry is bound to wake the other children.
4am-Happy back in crib and not crying after a chat with Dad.
5am-Demand comes in and is cold and needs to be covered.
6am-Pax hungry again.

And I can't have coffee anymore.

We have a playdate this morning and we have to stop at the store first. I'll have to wake up Happy which feels so wrong. Straight from the playdate I have to drop Demand off at Good Shepard but I know the boys will fall asleep in the van which means Happy might not transfer well to his crib.

This could be it, this could be the day that does me in.

From Winter to Food

Big week of homeschooling planned. The theme for this week is food for Little Saints is "Let's eat out!" All about food which is what this family likes. There are so many cute ideas for this chapter we may just do all of them. Demand is going to love it! It's also the month dedicated to "The Holy Name of Jesus" I'd like to do something with this theme but I haven't decided what to do just yet.

Last week the theme was "Winter" and we made snowflake crystals. Here's what we did.




They turned out so nice and they were so easy to make.



We also painted a winter scene. It took some convincing. Demand is really into the show "Sid the Science Kid" right now and a particular show involving rainbows. She can name the colors of the rainbow in order....which is better than her mother can do. She wanted paint a rainbow and I had to convince her to try and paint a snow scene. Then we shaved a bar of soap onto the picture for snow while the paint was still wet. She thought it was fun! (Apparently it was an Irish Winter scene as we only had Irish Spring in the house)


That microplane has never been so clean!




Eventually she did paint a rainbow.


So we usually try and incorporate cooking into our week somehow but a whole week around it will be fun. There's a muffin puzzle letter match game, home made playdough (I'll make edible) cakes made from playdough, pretend pizzas, real pizzas, pasta sorting and a bit on loaves and fishes...hmmm maybe daddy can make bread for this one! All sorts of fun! We also have a playdate this week, doctors appointments, and Good Shepard and I have a party to go to on Thursday. Busy, busy.