Spring Break

N was on Spring Break from Preschool last week. Most of the week was spent inside due to crummy weather, so we did a lot of crafting.

We went to the Easter party at our church the weekend before Spring Break. They had a puppet show, they read the story of Easter and had an egg hunt. Honest to goodness, N collected about 50 eggs! N also got his picture with the Easter Bunny. After getting his pic with the bunny he gave him his signature fist bump.

That afternoon D's parents came over to dye eggs with N. L's not quite ready for that sort of activity, so he sat at the table and played Play-Doh.

On Monday morning N and I made Eggs using coffee filters, markers and a spray bottle. I got the project idea from "The Chocolate Muffin Tree" blog.

Monday afternoon we planted Morning glories. I filled this wagon with a bag of potting soil D picked up at the hardware store. N and I planted our flowers then the boys loved playing in the dirt wagon! They liked burying various small toys and challenging each other to find them. Later in the week, N and I expanded our garden to include carrots, peas, pumpkins and columbine. He really enjoys watering them and watching them grow. A few of the plants are planted in clear plastic cups. That was a neat container to use because we can see the roots taking shape before the plants break through the surface of the dirt. I picked up several childrens' books about gardening at the library. We read those throughout the week.

Our craft of the day on Tuesday was hot gluing recycled containers together. N loved this project. He liked creating it and he played with it a lot after it was made.

On Wednesday we went to Rainbow Play Systems to play on their indoor equipment. We ate McD's on the way home. N fell asleep in the car (which is very rare), so I drove around in the country to let him snooze for a bit. I can't remember what day we painted with water colors, but here's a picture of it. Ha.

On Thursday I took the boys to a local meat shop to pick up our Easter ham. N was convinced we bought a chicken. I kept telling him it was a big ham, but he couldn't be corrected. So, for all he knows, we ate chicken at Easter lunch! Ha! We also went to Target for a few things and the boys were absolutely wonderful!! I have to note that because the week before we had the most miserable, disastrous shopping experiences EVER at Wal Mart. I was shopping with the "kid cart" that has two kid seats. Half way through the store I...or L realized both seatbelts on the cart were broken. Therefore he was able to crawl in and out of the cart. If L could crawl in and out, that means N could too. Once L got out and walking he did NOT want to get back in the cart. He was "that" screaming baby at the store that day. N actually was pretty good. If the boys are good shoppers I let them get a free cookie form the bakery. N was good, so he got one. L did not! And boy did that cause a stir! L screamed "cookie, cookie, cookie" all the way through the store until we left. At one point while we were checking out, L wiggled his way out of the cart and ran away from me! Ugh!! It was one of those moments where I was just trying to keep myself held together, buy my darn groceries and get the heck outta there! I just needed to keep myself together until we got to the car where I thought I was burst into tears....I thought for sure I'd never ever me able to leave my house to go shopping with my two hooligans again. But, on Thursday of last week they proved they could be good shoppers! And, might I add? I complained to a few people at Wal Mart that the kid shopping cart had broken seat belts. There were very nice about it. I didn't think much of it until I went back today and found a new kid cart. And it is awesome! Here it is.

The best thing? The seatbelts work and they are four point harnesses! If you look at where my brown bag is sitting, you'll notice there is another seat to place a third child or child in a car seat. My friends with three kiddos will appreciate that! There is also a ledge near the handle you use to push the cart where you can place your grocery list, sippy cups, etc....

Anyway...Friday we went to a Children's Museum one hour west of here. Mom watched L so D and I could take N for a fun day out w/o having to work around L's nap time. We had so much fun. The museum is smaller than other one's we've been to, but it was very interactive. N was sad when we had to leave and said he wants to go back. We also ate a pizza place that had a train track you can watch while you eat. N liked that. It was a fun day. We had a great Easter weekend. I'll post more about that later.

Bacon Cookies, Potatoes, Marinade

I've tried a few new recipes this week that I thought I'd share.

The other night I got together with a few friends for a chocolate night. We sat in a friend's living room, talked and sampled various chocolates. It was soo fun!! A much needed MNO (Mommy's Night Out). I found a new favorite that night. It's Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea salt. It's so creamy and delicious! I baked something to share with the girls. Every once in a while I hear of a fad food and get curious to try it. This time my curiosity was peaked about the combo of chocolate with bacon. I found a chocolate chocolate chip cookie with bacon recipe. The boys and I baked it as a project one day. I made half the batch with bacon and half without. It was a fun recipe to experiment with, but I doubt I'll make them again. It was fun just to say I tried it. :)

One night I made the following recipe as a side dish and I think it'll be a new fav at our house. This is something similar to what my Dad makes.

Skillet Potatoes

4-5 red potatoes

1/4 cup EVOO

1 teaspoon salt

dash poultry seasoning

dash pepper

Poke potatoes with fork. Microwave for ten minutes or until mostly cooked. Stir remaining ingredients in skillet. Slice cooked potatoes then add to EVOO mixture in skillet. Stir to coat potatoes. Cook on medium-high until crispy brown. Four potatoes made plenty for D and I to eat for dinner and I had some leftovers. Tomorrow morning I'm going to use up the rest of the potatoes to make a breakfast skillet. I'll add a couple scrambled egg whites and some turkey bacon (leftover from cookies) to the potatoes for a yummy breakfast.

Tonight for supper I tried a new marinade for our grilled chicken. Here it is below. I ate my chicken plain, but D made his into a yummy sammy. He put a couple slices of turkey bacon and one slice of cheese on top of the chicken and it was delicious!

Delicious Grilled Chicken Marinade

Courtesy of food.com

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 5 ounce Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons italian seasoning
• 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon white pepper (I didn't have this)

1. Put the amount of chicken that you want to grill in the bottom of a big bowl.
2. In another bowl put all above ingredients in and whisk together.
3. Then pour the prepared marinade over the chicken, and refrigerate overnight, or for 4-5 hours.

Kindergarten and Shots

Today was N's doctor visit to get his Kindergarten physical and immunizations. I can't believe my baby's getting ready to go to K-garten...Or at least I think we're going to send him..... I've been agonizing over sending him next year or holding him back one year. Due to his summer birthday he will only be five years old for a few weeks before the start of the school year. Our Kindergarten is full day. I really struggle with a five year old (a young five year old at that) being in school for seven hours. I'm concerned that he will get tired and lose his ability to concentrate/sit still which could then lead to behavioral problems. He's a really good kid and he's even better for teachers and those of "authority," but I'm still concerned with the length of the day.

Because we're so on the fence about it, we've decide to buy ourselves some time to make the decision. I'm making the effort to have options set in place so we can make our decision at the end of the summer. A lot of growth can take place over the course of three months. If N matures socially and behaviorally this summer, then we will send him to K-garten in the fall. If he's not ready, he'll repeat preschool one more year. I've got a spot reserved for him at his current preschool and I'd sign him up for one more additional day of "school" at our Park District. That way we'd work towards more days of school in a row. Our Park District does offer a four day per week preschool program that's longer than other preschools and it is specifically geared towards preparing kids for a full day of kindergarten, but that program costs four times the amount his preschool costs! Eeek! I can see this program being very beneficially to our community, but we'll have to forego that option unless they can figure out a way to lower the price.

As I said above, I'm doing all the things required for Kindergarten registration. Therefore N had to get a physical and immunizations. Today was that day. My friends may have noticed that I've been psyching myself up for this day more than I had to psych N up for this.. All Mom's know that Mom worries more about the shots than the kids do. I asked all of my friends who have children already in Kindergarten how they prepared their kids for the shots. Did they space out the shots, did they get them all at once? From the time the boys were newborns, I decided to space out their shots. I've always felt it wasn't right to give multiple (more than two) shots at once because I don't like the idea of putting so many viruses and chemicals (preservatives) in a child's body at one time. It just seems like too much at one time...Well, I got to thinking about it and realized that the fact that N is now old enough to comprehend how it feels to get a shot and being that he's physically big enough to put up a fight, I felt I had to change my tune. I have one friend who spaced out the shots for her kindergartner and she regrets doing that. She said spreading out the shots for her four year old caused more anxiety and stress for her child than she expected. Even she, another mom who spaced out shots, said getting all three shots in one doctor's visit was the way to go. So, I decided to have all three done in one visit.

I wanted to prep N for the visit, but I didn't want to freak him out and cause unnecessary fear. So, I took the approach another friend recommended. She said play up the idea that immunizations are done to keep our bodies healthy and treat him to something good after the appointment. A few weeks ago, N saw an episode on Magic School Bus about being healthy. The episode involved the Magic School Bus and it's characters literally going inside the body and looking at how the white blood cells and red blood cells keep the body healthy. I told N that the white and red blood cells drink the "juice" in the shots and that juice make them bigger and stronger to keep his body healthy. I told him that, yes, the shots will hurt for a minute, but only for a minute and then it will all be done. I told him if he was good at his appointment we'd meet Daddy for lunch and N could pick the restaurant we ate at. He was excited! He immediately chose Pizza Hut. He's been wanting to go there for a while, so it was a no-brainer decision for him. One other friend suggested one other thing for the appointment. She said her daughter had her shots a few weeks ago and she closed her eyes and made her best mad face while she got her shots. N loved that idea, so he went along with that too.

When we arrived at the appointment N marched up to the lady who works at the front desk before we even check in and he said, "I'm getting my shots today. I'm going to close my eyes and make a mad face so I don't cry." The lady laughed and said she was proud of him for being so prepared for it. Then N went ahead and took the reward stickers she has sitting out on her desk and told her he was going to go ahead and take one because he knew he was going to be a good boy. She laughed. N was a little rock star during his appointment. Our pediatrician is so great. He made N a part of the appointment by asking him what things he should look at. "Should I look at your ears?" "What should I look at next?" And Nick would say, "You forgot my eyes" and "You should look at my nose." The pediatrician also has the kids "blow out" the light on the tools he uses to look in their eyes and their nose. The nurse did the shots at the very end of the appointment. I had to help "give N a big bear hug" (as the nurse called it) while she did them in case he fought back, but he didn't. He said ouch and flinched a tiny bit, but other than that, he did super well!! So we headed to D's work to pick him up for lunch afterwards. N loved that! He loved one on one time with both D and I and he really liked the buffet at Pizza Hut. He just loved the fact that he could walk up to the buffet, look at it and pick out whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He really didn't over eat and I don't think he would have. He just loved making his own choice. He also liked being able to bring food to D and I. Such a cutie.