Soft pretzels

As some of you know, I believe that if I have the time to make stuff from scratch, I will try it and it will be awesome. Such is the case with these soft pretzels. I am not a huge fan of pretzels, but others in my family are and instead of buying those nasty freezer things I thought I would make my own. I am glad I did, they were awesome (based on the fact I don't think they made it 2 days in this house!) I thought it would be a fun afternoon activity for the kids and I and it was. Sadly, we haven't had an opportunity since, but maybe with it turning colder and getting darker earlier, this might be something we will have to try again. I took a little bit of the pretzel dough and rolled it into the ball and gave some to each kid. I was hoping Gwen would be a big help with this project, but she got very frustrated when the things didn't turn out as she expected and wanted me to do it...Nate just jumped right in there and made the same shape over and over again, a snake, and then he would kind of throw it on the cookie sheet and say "Bam, a snake". It was quite hilarious. Here is a before picture:

After:

I attempted to make them actually look like pretzels, but it was a little more challenging than I expected. I guess with practice, I might be able to get some that look ok.

Here is the recipe, it is from the cookbook Petit Appetit:Eat, Drink and be Merry....by Lisa Barnes I highly recommend it if you are looking for Easy Organic snacks, I've made some good things from it...they have it at the local library.

Changes

Lately I have noticed some things I'd like to change in our family. Mostly I want to change Nate and Gwen's dependence on junk. It might be my fault, but I'd like to get healthier stuff in them. I guess I shouldn't have bought the cheese crackers and stuff that they've become addicted to. So, I've been looking for other types of snacks to give them that might sneak some nutrition in. Nate has been refusing to eat/try dinner so I'd like get as much healthy options in beforehand. To that end yesterday Gwen and I made granola bars. With pumpkin, apple and lots of sugar, which I guess is better than lots of preservatives. The kids really have liked the granola bars, that didn't harden up as much as I thought they would, I am wondering if it is because I made the applesauce myself and it was a little "juicier" than store bought. I also made yogurt and today we made smoothies. The kids enjoyed that also. Gwen enjoys helping me in the kitchen and my kids really like fruit. I have to figure out how to sneak some vegetables in, I think, but for now I am happy to get some good nutrition in them. I hope these small changes improve our overall health.
The kids are doing well. Nate cracks me up, he wakes up in the morning and looks like a drunken 2 year old, hilarious! He stumbles out rubbing his eyes, wobbling a little bit, hair kind of crazy. He has also decided to nap again, we are going with it because he's not 100%. I am trying to decide what to do about him. He seems to have a lot of congestion in his lungs he has a terrible random cough and a clear runny nose.
Gwen is doing well and appears to be planning her birthday party. She is funny about it she wants all the girls and then she mentions 2 boys she'd like to invite. And explains how the second little boy doesn't like princesses, but it will be ok, I am sure we can talk her into whatever we want to do, it is a long way from now. She has been rearranging Eric's bookshelf which is hilarious. Eric has painstakingly arranged his bookshelf. She can't read yet and alphabetical order doesn't mean a thing to her, she is arranging the shelf by "penguins and roosters". This goes against his plan of books he's read and books he's not read. She is so helpful!
Eric has finished one of his classes, he is gearing up for spring break and the big visit from the Godfather and his girlfriend. We are glad he is back from MD, it ended up being a rough trip for him-it took longer to fix than he expected and the car we rented had no cruise control. :(
I am working on an Easter Egg Hunt for the Parish. That is taking up some of my time. I don't have much else going on, I am just happy to no longer have a fever and can eat foods again. Some day I hope to get the pictures off the camera and post them here, but first I need to charge the camera's battery and that apparently is too big of a commitment for me! Don't worry Mom, I'll get to it soon!

No Naps

We have started the transition to no afternoon naps for Nate. He totally needs them, and wanders around her from about 3-7p in some kind of crazy 'I need to sleep, but I gotta keep moving or I'll fall asleep' daze. This is pretty terrible for me, he loses all ability to listen and if Gwen looks at him the wrong way he cries...and then she cries too, because she is overtired also. I've decided to go with it because then he goes to sleep really early, and Gwen goes to sleep really early and he doesn't wake her up. It is pure silence around here by 8, 8:30 at the latest, it used to be much later than that...
Gwen sometimes likes to help out with cooking. I have gotten a sesame street cookbook from the library so she could help me cook, but of course she didn't want to help tonight, but we did get everyone to eat dinner, so that's a start.

My kids are pretty affectionate. Gwen goes through these moods where she wants to hold her "baby" Nate often obliges. (I can't help because I'm slaving away over dinner)

Eric has become quite the waffle maker. We seem to be having a lot of waffles on the weekends and occasionally during the week, if it is a special occasion. Gwen takes her syrup pouring very seriously! Nate is apparently taking lessons.

I don't know what is going on here, but it appears Nate wants to cut up one of Eric's old GI Joe's. He actually told me what he was going to do, but needless to say, I took away the scissors.

We also have ghosts in the house, so if you come to visit, PLEASE be watch out!

Sometimes having an intelligent child is a problem, or maybe it is having literal children. Never tell a literal child you want his peas in his belly, cause this is what he does!

I guess if we didn't want these shenanigans at the dinner table, we shouldn't have pulled out the camera.

A joke

We have been working on having the children sit and eat dinner with us. It is a struggle to get them to sit still for a long time. But, sitting down together for a meal is very important to me. These days we are often having breakfast at the same time as each other, well 3 of the 4 of us, and sometimes Eric and I will also sit together. We are also working on eating dinner to get dessert, but that will likely be a struggle for a long time. Nate will usually sit with us for about 5 minutes before he's off, unless it is pizza or enchilladas. Tonight was a more quiet evening, Nate was playing quietly, and Gwen sat and made conversation with us. Told us a little about her day and then broke out with her first joke...(that she had heard earlier on PBS kids)

Why did the banana go to the doctor?

because he wasn't peeling well.

Eric thought it was hilarious and laughed. So then she said

Why did the ban ap cherry go to the doctor?
because he was getting squeezed.

Eric and I both laughed, it was so random and spontaneous. This broke down into her trying to think of different fruits and some random punch line that didn't make sense trying to get us to laugh. It was so cute and funny. I then tried to cut her off (after the 15th joke) because it was getting old and said Daddy she's learned new songs and broke out with Johnny Appleseed...which is an old prayer we used to sing in Girl Scouts when we wanted it to rain and it always worked (sadly it has not worked here, I've tried it.) So then she started praying the prayers they must say at school, she made us close our eyes and busted out this prayer that they must encourage at the beginning of the day. She started out Thanking God for her friends and her teachers and then said Thank you that I don't have to wear my backpack to school today...We could not help it we laughed again. I think the random stuff we hear from her taken out of context is so funny and I can only imagine what goes on in a school room full of 4 year olds who have almost manage the full meaning of the English language, but not quite...I don't wonder why during our orientation the teacher said "If you only believe half of what they say to you we'll only believe half of what she tells us". Dinner was a lovely meal and it is a small glimpse of the random fun I hope to have at the dinner table as our family grows into more understanding of conversation...hopefully by then they will appreciate my dinners or at least eat it!

Candied apples

It was kind of rainy looking around here, and I thought we would like to make Caramel Apples. Seemed like a fun thing to do, plus Eric loves them! We didn't get to it last week, so I thought, maybe Sat while Eric was working out in the yard, I thought it would keep the kids out of his hair.

Here is Gwen getting the toppings together.

Sadly Eric was so excited, he wanted to help, so my plan to keep the kids out of his "hair" didn't work. :(

Here is the first apple, it looks good, yes?

Gwen trying her hand at it.

She so wants to do this...Daddy, please!

Sprinkles!

The leftovers, Gwen got to eat them, straight off the spoon, she was in heaven.

Nate, well, he actually didn't get to help but he squealed until he got to sit in the lap and enjoy the leftovers.

I went to do something after I got the kids up from naps, possibly throw away a dirty diaper, and this is the scene I found, actually, this wasn't the exact scene, but I had to get the camera, and Gwen got in on the action! Nate crawled onto the chair, by himself! He is becoming quite the little climber...

It seems I might have a worse problem with Nate trying to get at the sweets. :( But I should mention, that after I moved the apples away from the chairs more towards the center of the table, he crawled up onto the table!!!! I moved them off that then, but if you might notice, we may have overloaded the apples with caramel (or toppings) either way, the apples looked rather sad and we have to work on our technique. Which Eric doesn't mind, since he figures that means more apples for him!

Blueberries!

As I mentioned last year, I love the blueberries! I realized a little too late that they have pick your own blueberry fields around here. So we found that the there was one farm still open, we went this weekend. I felt the blueberries were very picked over so we only ended up with 3.5 lbs...Not what I was hoping for, but the kids seemed to enjoy it, for a while. Eric seemed to not enjoy watching the kids while I picked.
We put the kids to work in the beginning, of course. Here we are getting ready to show Nate what we were doing.

Nate, starting to realize what was going on...

Before this trip, Nate not so fond of the blueberries, but I am sad to report he now likes them pretty good. (sad because I now have to share my blueberries with 2 kids!)

Gwen & Nate chatting it up in the blueberry trees/bushes.

See how Nate is eying up my blueberry pail...we probably would have ended up with 4lbs if those 2 kids didn't eat so much!

Gwen has become quite obsessive about the map, when I pull it out she must look at it.

Telling Daddio where to go...

I made a blueberry pie yesterday, we all shared some.

We have a strict no shirt policy for blueberries!

I am beginning to wonder why we allow Nate to wear a shirt during dinner at all, learning to eat is a messy business.

Since this is Nate's first blueberry pie experience we took lots of pictures! He says "mo, mo", which I am going to translate to "more, more". (oh and we missed you Uncle Eric...just not the same without you!)

Spaghetti Dogs

I need to run some of the pictures that I haven't run what with the packing and the moving and the unpacking. So, while Eric watches a movie, I will sit on the couch with his and do some posts, which I won't all post today, just so you have to come back and check.
A couple weeks ago, likely a month ago, now, I read this post, that sent me to a blog, that I now read regularly, I got hooked when I saw this. I talked to Eric about it and he wanted to be around for the "fun" so we did it on a weekend. So, Gwen and I one Saturday for lunch we decided to make spaghetti dogs...
Here is Gwen showing you her technique.

She would only stuff the hot dogs with one thing of spaghetti per hot dog, I upped that for her and made it more in the center.

But then she finally got the hang of it.

Here are the pre-cooked version. We cooked them until the noodles are al dente.

Here are the finished product.

They weren't actually all that bad, to eat. Gwen pulled the spaghetti out, as best she could, when Nate gets older, I think we will likely make them again.

Nate the Great

In cleaning up for the garage sale, I found the cord for the camera! Wohoo! How did I decide to celebrate, by doing an entire post to Nate! Nate, as I have mentioned before is a very happy, jolly baby. He doesn't really like Daddy kissing him, well, really anyone but me kissing him...I can always sneak one in!
Sometimes I really have to wonder about Nate, I think he is going to give me a run for my money, here he has figured out how to pop the top off his tray. Seriously, should he have been able to figure it out?
and now he uses it to play peek-a-boo!

Have I mentioned he likes corn?

CORN! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Here he comes! Watch out!Nate tries to open the gate, he LOVES to go up the stairs, he also likes to watch people through the bannister.
Nate makes it VERY difficult to do any chores...he chases after the vacuum. He doesn't listen when you tell him no...he just smiles at you shakes his head and continues on...
as seen here:

Vacuums! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

The little man has started walking, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, he doesn't realize this is a mode of transportation he can use to get from A-B!

Nate walking from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.