Warning – the photos you’re about to see aren’t my best but I’m posting them anyway. If you don’t like ‘em don’t look.

I’m not a photographer and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Back in high school I took Photography and really enjoyed it; I even remember some of what I learned. But now for the most part I just want to snap quick photos to capture a moment in time – I’m not trying to produce a piece of Art. This is why my little point-and-shoot Sony Cybershot has been perfect for me until I took it to Angel Face’s basketball game. To be fair, it was user error, not the camera. Life and learn, right?

This year almost all of Angel Face’s basketball games were on Friday afternoons and I’m tied up with the daycare until 5:30 so I couldn’t go. But they had one Saturday game scheduled, and I was there – with my camera. Of course the girls wouldn’t stand still while I took photos so I tried to pan with the action like I was taught in Photography. It probably would have worked better if I’d remembered to change the shutter speed, and if the girls hadn’t kept changing direction on me! Since Angel Face improved 100% over the course of the season I’m happy to have some photos of her in action – even if they aren’t the best.

Angel Face’s coach started using her for defense right away. She’s tall and has long arms so she’s perfect to guard and get rebounds. She started the year a little timid, but by the end of the season she was holding her ground, pushing back, and even racked up some fouls!

I swear we really do feed her, she’s just naturally skinny.

This is my favorite photo. I think it’s really cool how Angel Face’s head and upper body are relatively clear while the rest is blurry. Run, Angel Face, run!

Of course I couldn’t resist taking a shot of my two men: Teacher and Little Guy. Little Guy had recently discovered his tongue and spent several days with it hanging out until he uncovered his belly button. Teacher wasn’t thrilled with Little Guy licking him, but he endured it stoically. I love it when he’s stoic!

If you know me you’ll know that I don’t like to cook. The problem is that I’m running a child care and the kiddos like to be fed – three times a day! Over the years I’ve found some recipes that are quick and easy enough that they don’t take much time or attention away from the children.

Pizza Casserole is basically a mixed up pizza with noodles instead of crust. It’s one of my favorite recipes because not only is it quick and easy, the kiddos love it and we usually have all the ingredients on hand. Best of all, it’s adaptable enough that if you don’t have all the ingredients you can make substitutions, and you can add your own favorite pizza toppings to make it just the way you like it.

I’m not big into measuring when I make this so bear with me; I’ll guesstimate measurements as well as I can. Here’s the ingredients:
1 can Spaghetti sauce, your favorite type
1 package Rotini pasta, or any other shape you have on hand
1 lb Hamburger
1-2 C Mozzerella cheese
Your favorite pizza toppings like:
Sliced pepperoni
Peppers
Tomatoes
Olives
Mushrooms
Sardines I won’t eat ‘em but if you like them, go for it.
Etc.

Put water on to boil as you brown the hamburger. If you’re using veggies you should cook them now too. When the water is boiling add the pasta and cook according to the package directions. When the hamburger is brown, drain the grease and stir in the can of spaghetti sauce.

Add a handful or two of sliced pepperoni, but be sure to peel the slices apart or you’ll end up with a huge pepperoni chunk in your casserole. If you want to include any other toppings, now’s the time to toss them in. Turn the heat down to simmer to keep this mixture warm until the pasta is done.

When the pasta is done and drained, add about half of it to the meat and sauce mixture. Stir well and take a look at the casserole. If it’s too saucy or there doesn’t seem to be enough for the number of people you’re feeding add more pasta. If there’s not enough sauce you can add a little water, tomato juice or tomato sauce. When you done messing with it you can either stir in about 1 cup of cheese and serve, or pour the casserole into a 9″ x 13″ pan and sprinkle the cheese on the top. Bake in a 350 oven until the cheese melts and serve. Since I’m usually rushing to get lunch done I just stir in the cheese and serve right away. The cheese melts and the casserole has usually cooled to the perfect temperature for the kiddos.

Enjoy!

Keeping up with housework is hard when you have children, especially when your children are young. Little Guy and Z-Man sometimes go into Tornado Mode – whirling through the house at breakneck speed, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. When you add in the extra work, mess and lack of time the childcare brings to the mix it’s no wonder our house is always in some state of messiness. By the time I get one room picked up the children have attacked another room and brought it to ruin.

I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that we’ll never live in a June Cleaver home, but that doesn’t mean I’ve totally given up. Every morning in addition to my daily cleaning/dishes routine I try to do one extra task to work towards Cleaver Nirvana.

Today’s task was to clean out the kitchen utensil/junk drawer. This is the drawer where things that we need but don’t use very often get tossed; like the food chopper, chop sticks, straws, plastic “silverware”, etc. Since the baby lock broke it’s been one of Little Guy’s favorite places to dig for treasure. He can often be found sitting IN the drawer, happily choosing an item, examining it – including the all-important taste test, then tossing it onto the floor next to the drawer. Of course he’s not the only reason the drawer is a mess, the older kids aren’t too careful when they put things away; I think their favorite method is open-drop-slam.

I don’t mind organizing, I actually like it. I find it therapeutic to throw away things we won’t use, sort like things into groups and put each group away neatly. I know, I probably have issues. Today I started by dumping everything out of the drawer onto the floor. Not only did it give me a clean slate to start with, it was fun!

After wiping out the drawer and finding crisp new shoe boxes to replace old squished ones I got to work sorting, grouping and throwing away. It didn’t take long before I was putting the last articles in the drawer and admiring my work. Doesn’t that look tons better? Maybe it’s still not worthy of Cleaverdom, but I’m happy with it.

Now I just need to replace that darn lock to keep Little Guy out of the drawer and teach the big kids how to put things away properly… that could take a while!

What do Asparagus, Brussels sprouts and Clam chowder have in common?
Humming the theme from Jeopardy…

They’re all foods that my family has had for dinner the past three nights. Not only that, they’re all foods that most of my children like – no kidding! Angel Face isn’t fond of asparagus, and clam chowder doesn’t do much for Z-Man, but they all downed Brussles sprouts like there was no tomorrow. They also love artichoke, crab legs, sushi, calamari aka squid, raw spinach, scallops… ummm… that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

Now you’re probably wondering how Teacher and I get our kids to eat such un-kid-like foods. The truth is that it’s not hard because WE like food – lots of different kinds of food – and from the time our kids are ready for table foods we’ve fed them pretty much the same things we eat. Of course we tone down the spices for the little ones, or make two different sauces if we think the kids won’t like our sauce, but the idea is that they eat what we eat. We encourage them to try new things but never force them to – usually what happens is that they see how much we’re enjoying something then they want to try it too.

It’s great to have kids that eat almost everything because when the family goes out for dinner Teacher and I can pick almost any restaurant and know that the kids will find something they like. And we know they’re getting the nutrients that they need because they’re not eating the same old things all the time. Best of all, we get to share the foods we love with the children we love.

So what’s on the menu tonight? Pizza – cuz I’m cooking and I don’t like to cook. Teacher is the head chef around here, and always does something special on the weekends. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with this weekend!

I can’t remember the last time there was enough snow to go sledding over Christmas Break, so this year we took advantage of it. Teacher, Uncle Jon, and I braved the Wisconsin cold to take Jo-Bear, Z-Man, and Little Guy sledding. We would have taken the older kids too, but they’d been up most of the night playing computer games with friends so we knew we wouldn’t see them until after noon.

Instead of the legendary hills of Plamann Park we decided to sled the more moderate hill near Teacher’s school. This was Z-Man’s first sledding expedition and we didn’t want to scare him. Besides, I remembered how tall the Plamaan Park hills are, and how much I hurt after climbing back up over and over the last time we sledded there. I was more than happy to sled the smaller hill!

The temperature was a moderate 18 degrees – moderate for a Wisconsin winter that is. There was a brisk breeze on top of the hill that had me curling my fingers inside my gloves and wishing I’d worn a hat. But it was a good hair day and I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t end up taking a lot of photos because I needed to take my gloves off to work the camera. Looking at the photos now I wish I hadn’t been such a wimp, and that after sledding down the hill I’d stayed to take some pics of the boys sledding down. Maybe next year, but until then I hope you enjoy these photos…

Teacher loves cold, snow, hockey and pretty much everything about winter. Don’tcha love that hat?! It was a Christmas present from me – I figured he needed a crazy hat for recess duty. I think I may get him a crazy hat every Christmas.

Uncle Jon loves sledding, skiing, shoveling, and just plain winter like Teacher does. I think they’re both nuts since I don’t like being cold. I’d much rather go swimming somewhere sunny. Uncle Jon has a pretty cool hat too, doesn’t he?

Jo-Bear just plain loves being outside, no matter the weather. Yes, I know his coat is filthy. I’m not the one who bought a 9 yr old a white coat – blame his grandma for that. I’d wash it if he’d ever let me have it for a day, but he’s outside every chance he gets so it’s gonna have to wait until spring.

Z-Man is thrilled to go sledding, he’d been begging to go for weeks but our weekends were so packed we didn’t have time until Christmas Break. Isn’t he just adorable? If you look at his little finger you’ll see me wrapped around it. Well, not really, but he does get away with a lot.

Little Guy hates his coat, despises his hat and absolutely loathes mittens. He isn’t sure why we brought him out here in the middle of the snow and you can see on his face that he doesn’t quite trust us.

Z-Man gets ready for Uncle Jon to push him off. You can see Jo-Bear in the background about to jump onto his sled too. Z-Man is sometimes a little timid when it comes to new experiences so I was concerned he’d be afraid to go down the hill by himself. But once down with Teacher and he was ready to go solo.

And Z-Man’s off! He laughs so hard each time he goes down that I don’t know how he manages to hold on.

Little Guy was right to be suspicious… I’d been pulling him in circles on the top of the hill as the others went up and down and he seemed to like it. Then Teacher decided that it was time to take Little Guy down the gentle side. Teacher settled Little Guy securely between his legs and grabbed the rope. Little Guy doesn’t know what he’s in for…

I snapped a quick photo before they took off… then I was so busy watching them go down the hill I forgot to take a photo of it. I know, I’m such a dork.

My biggest fear was that they’d wipe out and Little Guy would be terrified of sledding afterwards, but they made it! Jo-Bear went down right after them and had just glided to a stop as Little Guy got out of the sled and tried to stand up in the snow. This was only the second time he’s worn his boots and he hadn’t quite figured out how to walk in them.

Teacher couldn’t see Little Guy’s face to tell if he was scared, excited, or something else, but he wasn’t screaming at the bottom of the hill, so I think he had a good time.

The biggest “kids” had a good time too!

One of the best things about being a sewing WAHM (Work at Home Mom) is getting packages in the mail. I’m as hyper as a kid waiting for Santa when I know there’s a package on the way. I watch for the mailman Sorry – mail carrier all morning, popping my head out the door numerous times until the mail arrives. When there’s a package I grab it and dance through the house to the kitchen counter where I tear it open in a flash. If it’s something more exciting than hemp fabric I examine every inch of whatever-it-is then show it off to whoever is around to see it. Hemp is nice enough stuff, but it’s pretty boring.Since the mail generally arrives between 10-11, Little Guy and Z-Man are the lucky ones I show off to most often. Little Guy usually isn’t impressed although he’ll try to eat whatever-it-is if I let him. Z-Man shows a little more interest, especially if it’s something he thinks he can play with.

Last week I got an exciting box in the mail…

When I read the return label I squealed in delight – it was the “freebies” I’d ordered from Frost Fish Cove Soaps. Opening the box I was greeted with the most incredible scent of lavender, tangerine, and something I can only describe as “fresh”. Nothing like the artificial chemical scents that surround us most of the time.

I dug around in the styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap to find each little treasure. I’d ordered Herbal Laundry Soap and Ultra Salve, then let Tory choose a scent for bath salts and finally put in whatever she thought would be good. She chose Lavender Vanilla for the bath salts – one of my favorite scents – and rounded out the order with Honey Almond Lotion.

Of course I need to test each of these products before I send them out. I think I’ll do some laundry, then maybe take a bath…