Spring Break

We enjoyed a nice long staycation this year for Spring Break.  Marc was swamped at work, so the kids and I had a blast on a few excursions, and a lot of playing at home with all our friends.  

We had tea parties...

Played games and found treasures in the back yard...

Had the time of our lives at LegoLand...

Went on rides...

Won contests...

Did a little shopping (and a lot of coveting)...

Enjoyed Spring...

Went out to eat and celebrated cousin Melissa visiting...

Had fun getting ready for Easter...

And as the final, crowing glory to the week, someone whose name rhymes with SMACK, won FIRST PLACE in his karate tournament!!!

He may have been a smidgen excited...

He REALLY outdid himself.  See for yourself! 

What he is saying is

"Representing Sharkey's Karate Studios, my name is Jack Mallett.  My style is Shorei-Ryu, I will be performing Wansu.  With your permission, I will begin.  Thank you judges."

Man, how I wish I could get him to talk to me that politely!  Though as an aside, I have to note that the waitress at Maggiano's where we ate that evening, said Jack was THE most polite boy she'd ever met!


It was kind of a great day to be Jack Mallett :)  

The surprise and sheer GLEE on his face when he realized he'd won first place (with a new form, no less!) is something I'm so glad Marc caught on video.  He was so stunned, he stood there in amazement and had to be prompted to shake the judges hands!

Way to go Jack - we are all SUPER proud of you!!

Daddy's Special Oatmeal

It wouldn't be fair of me to give up my special recipe if I didn't give up Marc's too.  Even though technically *I* make this 90% of the time the kids request it, it is still, always and forever, "Daddy's Special Oatmeal"  And it's so easy, it really shouldn't be called a "recipe", but it's something the kids eat at least four times a week - sometimes for breakfast, and sometimes for lunch or dinner, and sometimes for  all three!  Here's how we do it...

DADDY'S SPECIAL OATMEAL

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Old Fashioned Oats

1 Cup Milk

1tsp-1tbsp ground flaxseed*

1tsp-1tbsp wheat germ*

*these are the healthy ingredients that Mommy includes.  Daddy might not even know where they are in the kitchen, and he certainly wouldn't be caught putting any of that stuff in HIS special oatmeal.  But as far as I'm concerned, what they don't know won't hurt them! (and neither does a tablespoon or two of pumpkin puree if you can sneak it in, hint hint)

To taste:

Smart Balance/Butter

(we use about a tablespoon)

Pure Maple Syrup

(a tablespoon or two...or four)

Cinnamon

(a dash or two)

Brown Sugar

(a sprinkle)

Half and Half

(a splash)

To prepare, mix the oats and milk in a large microwave bowl.  It's going to bubble up to 5 times it's starting size, so be generous with your bowl size if you don't want to clean it up off your microwave turntable!    Microwave it at full power for 3-5 minutes, until it sort of "gels". 


 If it's still soupy at ALL, keep cooking.  See the soupiness below?  This is bad.  This is not what you want.  You can jiggle the bowl and it sloshes around.  Keep it cooking!

See this below?  This is PERFECT!!  Kind of like how you don't flip a pancake until the bubbles form on top?  Like that. Jiggle the bowl and NOTHING MOVES.  

Now add in everything but the half and half and stir it all up.  Splash the half and half on top, and you're done!  




Of course, any of the mix ins are optional and adjustable, depending on how you like it.  You could add raisins, craisins, chia seeds, nuts...but this is the way that works for us.  The key to the entire recipe is the "gel factor" - if you don't achieve proper gellation, the rest is moot.  It'd be like eating pasta that wasn't al dente.


Al Dente Oatmeal.  It's Daddy's Special! :)

Playing Hooky on Navy Pier

I'd been waiting for the first stretch of nice weather to sneak the kids out of school for a day of sightseeing in the city.   Auntie Treecie's visit was perfect timing and we decided to make Friday into a long weekend for the kids.  Paul had the day off too, and he and Ulia and Cam were going to meet us, then we'd all meet Marc for dinner.  I'd bring Marc a change of clothes and then he could take Jack to a cub scouts event at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Perfect!!

Except you know what they say about the best laid plans...

First, I managed to forget the Museum tickets and change of clothes at home.  I had to turn around for them halfway to the city.

My bad.

Then, due to some weird, "lake effect" weather pattern, while it was 80 degrees here in Naperville, it was 50 degrees on the Lakefront.  And the 'nearby' restaurant turned out to be a mile or two walk, pushing a double stroller with 80lbs of kid in it.  In flip flops.

Due to Molly's poor choice of footwear, she got blisters and refused to walk (or even wear shoes for that matter).    Paul came down with full-blown dysentery and the Egan crew had to bow out, and then poor Patrice and Marc started feeling icky too.

So if you looked at it through a certain lens, the trip was a disaster!

BUT WE MADE IT!!!!  

18 months living in Illinois and we finally went sightseeing!!  The other stuff just adds drama to the story in my mind, I was just so thrilled to finally be downtown.  

We enjoyed some "test batch" ice cream at Ben and Jerry's

I was giddy with anticipation when I saw that Schweddy Balls was on the menu!  For the uninitiated, they are based on a Saturday Night Live skit from the nineties (back when I could stay up late enough to watch SNL, ha!).  Here is a link to the skit, but the fun doesn't start until about 2 minutes in.

Those balls were mighty tasty Ben and Jerry's style!  Then we began our trek to dinner at the Grand Lux, stopping on the way to chat with Bob Newhart.

The kids really liked Mr. Newhart, and jockeyed for a seat on his lap.

I don't think Molly intended to give him a lap dance...

But Ben definitely intended to give him a head massage!

We finally got to dinner, and faked having a great time very well.

Between Jack crying that he wanted a burger (but couldn't have one because it was a Friday in Lent) and Ben writhing in pain on the floor because he refused to poop for four days, and Molly whining about her aching feet, and Marc and Patrice being nauseous, and Jack and I being late to his cub scouts event....we still managed to pull off dinner by the skin of our teeth.

Barely!

She Lets Me Do Her Hair

I still remember the first time I realized Molly was a 'hair brusher'.  She'd gotten a Dora the Explorer doll with hair for her birthday (I'm fairly sure it was her second) and she sat on the floor brushing that doll's hair for TWO HOURS.  Brush, brush brush...brush, brush, brush...brush, brush, brush.  She was almost in a trance, she brushed Dora's hair with such methodical focus.

To this day, she will sit with a Barbie doll or her American Girl Doll, and just brush hair for as long as I'll let her.  

It didn't dawn on me until recently that we have this trait in common. 

Every morning, after she uses the potty, brushes her teeth, gets dressed and makes her bed (she's so slow at this that the boys are always done and downstairs) we stand in the bathroom together and I do her hair in the mirror.  She stands on the stool by the left sink...she's almost too tall for me to see the top of her head (I can't bear the thought that she's so big she can see the mirror without a stool!)  

Then I get to enjoy five or ten minutes of brushing the massive tangles out of her hair and styling it into something special for the day.  We use the Tangle Teezer brush that we first saw at KidSnips.  It's been a lifesaver!!

Image from My Beauty-Full Life

We also use gobs of leave-in conditioner and "Morning Miracle" spray gel as a lice-repellant.

Since the great lice disaster of 2011, I rarely let her wear her hair down, even though it's grown long past her shoulders and she'd love to show it off!  So we braid it, we put it in ponytails, or maybe a messy bun (or two), and we still tuck a bow in the front to hold the wisps off her face.  Lately I've been taking the hair at her crown and twisting or braiding it back to her ponytail, so that she doesn't need a bow (but we still usually put one in anyway).  

The day she stops wearing bows altogether will be a dark one in this house!

It's such a special time for me, those few precious minutes where it's just her and I.  Jack gets special outings with Daddy all the time (it's the squeaky wheel scenario) and Ben gets time alone with me all day while the big kids are in school.  But Molly is not "squeaky" or home alone with me anymore, and those few minutes (along with the few minutes we spend doing her bedtime routine) are all the "alone time" we get.

I thank her all the time for letting me do her hair, because I know so many little girls that scream and shriek and won't let their mothers near their hair.  My sweet girl lets me indulge, and stands still while I figure out how to use all twelve thumbs to make a french braid.  

Someday I hope she has the joy of having a little girl of her own.  One with as sweet a disposition as she has, who lets her "Momu" brush her hair and indulge her inner "hair brusher".

If not, she can always come to visit me in the retirement community and brush mine!

The Grass is Always Greener

Thursday is for crafties!  This one is quick and dirty, but packs a punch!  I took a clearance ceramic container from Michaels (I think it cost $8) added some potting soil leftover from last year's garden experiments, and tossed some grass seed on top.  It was in a shaker bottle that the little old guy at Ace Hardware convinced me was perfect for the job.  In retrospect, it was probably a little overkill to spend $14 on it, but he was a little old guy and I'm a girl who trusts the judgment of little old guys, so there you go.

Clearance Planter 

+

Old Potting Soil

+

Grass Seed

+

10 Days (really, ten!)

______________________________

It's brightened up our kitchen table all week!  I know it won't last forever, but I've got 7/8ths of a shaker bottle and a half a bag of potting soil left, so we should be able to keep it growing until summer!

Around the Neighborhood

Wednesday is supposed to be my "around the house" blogging day, but after spending 40+ hours a week for the last three weeks sitting in the bathroom with a VERY reluctant popper, my house is so scary and out of sorts that I actually fled the premises today rather than clean it.

It's hard to blame me when the weather has been so unseasonably gorgeous, dare I even say "unbearably hot" the last day or two.  I have had to make a full-scale seasonal switcheroo of household items and clothing, and we are literally acting as if summer was upon us.  Flip flops, sunscreen, sprinklers, the whole nine yards.  I even had to break down and crank the air conditioning on, even all night long, it's been that hot!

Mother nature is feeling it too!  Spring literally leapt out of the ground this past week.  Usually, the season creeps in gradually as one thing after another begins to bloom.  Not so this year!  Every single thing is blooming all at once - forsythia, daffodils, crabapples, magnolias...you name it, and it's literally EXPLODING forth right now.

Yesterday the kids had a day off of school and we spent it at the zoo.  At 10:00am, we entered the gate through a street lined with crabapple trees full of buds.  At 2pm, we exited, to a street lined with fully bloomed trees!  And when we got home, our own street was in full bloom too!

It only took me about three hours to figure out how to make this collage using Instagram coupled with Diptic.
Clockwise from upper left; daylilies shooting up, crabapples blooming, daffodils standing proud and a sweltering 81 degrees at 7pm.  Has anyone reminded Mother Nature that it's MARCH 21st, not MAY 21st?

I can't even imagine what will happen next, but I expect it to be a very interesting Spring.