this one is dedicated to all my fellow Seinfeld fans

Hayley has taken a huge liking to soup these days. I must also add that all pickiness on her part has gone out the door where soup is concerned. She loves to help out in the kitchen, and I really need to let her help cook more because she loves it so much. Her and I are reading a book together right now called "Granny Torrelli makes soup". Do you see a soup theme here? Today I bought her this hardback really beautiful soup recipe book for only $5. It has some of the regulars like minestrone, split pea and ham, etc. But it also has some unusual soups like cold cucumber with smoked salmon. Guess which one my little "soup nazi" wants to try first? You guessed it...the cold cucumber/salmon one. I am glad she wants to try new things, and I will surely not criticize the cook, for I want more of her soups!

Nancy Drew Rocks!

Friday night I started not feeling well ( a little cough, and just generally achy) . Saturday I had a mild version of stomach flu, and pretty much slept the whole weekend until about 1 or so today. It felt like such a wasted weekend. So tonite we went out to dinner, and then the girls and I watched the Nancy Drew movie on demand. It was so great! Nancy Drew books were the first books I can remember reading, and thus sparked my lifelong love of reading. I was in the 2nd grade when I first read "Secret of Shadow Ranch". Another girl had checked it out from our school library and as soon as she returned it I grabbed it up. The rest is history.
P.S. If you love Nancy Drew you will love this that was a gift from my girls and Mark last Christmas. It is every aspiring super sleuths dream to have a peek into Nancy Drews diary/scrapbook.

a little patience

After yesterdays online class, I thought a lot about having more patience and spending more quality time with my kids. I struggle with this a lot, because I feel like there is always so much to do around home, and so many things to get done at work, etc. I find myself tired and snapping at them when I should just take a deep breath!
My biggest challenge in life is to let the small stuff go, or "don't sweat the small stuff".
This has been very, very hard but I feel as the weeks and months go on this has become easier. Part of A New Earth (the book and online class I mentioned in yesterdays post) that I have already learned is about knowing that you can only control yourself and not what others do. I think I am a little bit of a control freak and I come by it naturally. When I think about mornings around our house I get tense and this is because the girls are so difficult and lots of tantrums occur. I usually react to this but now have a different approach that I hope will work, and become "routine" for me. And who knows it just may be a much smoother time in the mornings for us around here. Today actually went really well and I can say that I did not have one fit from either child. I almost want to pinch myself! When I felt a conflict come up this morning, instead of correcting the girls or trying to change their behavior, I took the class suggestion from yesterday and imagined the kids negative words passing through me instead of staying with me and making me mad. This may sound a little strange, but it really worked. And the best thing is that it was a very simple thing to do, with a much better outcome than in days past. I know it will take some time to become a thing that I don't have to consciously think about, but it will be worth the work if we can have much better time together with the kids.
And with that I am out! And now I can't get the Guns n Roses song out of my head "...a little patience...ya ya."

Doing what oprah tells me to do!

So the joke in our house is that I do whatever Oprah tells me to do. I don't really, it just seems that way. Often she has some really great shows, and has featured a lot of wonderful books in her book club. I have always loved to read, Mark loves to read and it shows in our house by how many books we have and how much our children love to read. I can't say that I have read every book ever picked for the Oprah book club, but it is pretty darn close. I did however have some trouble deciding if I was going to read the newest book A New Earth . As a general rule I loathe "self-help" books. But I have heard a lot of buzz about it and have seen a few people who have chose to read it, so I decided to give it the once over while I was in Barnes and Noble the other day. After reading the back and a couple of pages of the first chapter I decided to give it a try.
Turns out I love it! Today I took a chance and decided to get online to take the class (they are offered every monday-one chapter a week) even though it was on chapter 4, and I am still on chapter one. So the class went a little over an hour, and much of what was discussed really hit home with me, which was shocking. It is no secret that I am struggling with the kids lately in the patience department and certain "attitude" problems with our oldest. It will be a real test to see if I can take some of what I learned today and start applying it in my every day life. I can't wait to read more, and go back and take the classes on the other chapters. Best of all, the online classes are free! Here's to looking at things from a different perspective, and for more calmness in our house.

chaos at our place

Today we made a decision to give the girls their own rooms. I basically said, it's now or never, because they will be gone this next weekend to the grandparents and then Uncle Keith and Auntie Carla on Sat. night. This will give me lots of time to get this enormous project underway. Plus spring break is coming up and I want to have everyone moved by the end of spring break. Don't laugh, because we knocked a bunch of it out today already, much to my surprise.
I am also underway with the mixtapes, just making some final decisions and then it is GO TIME.
I can't wait to get miss Hayley moved, I think I am going to paint one wall in her room a bright yellow. We picked up a new quilt for her today on sale at Target. It is rainbow striped. She loves it, and Mark will be happy to know that I have sold the two Pottery Barn duvet covers and synthetic down comforters that go inside. He hates them with a passion, because they don't stay straight. I don't mind it, but hey, it's a new room and Hayley wanted to change. She is getting so grown up. Little sis will now get bunk beds, one bed for her, one for the plethora of stuffed animals. Hayley is going to move out of the loft bed and into a cutie pie little antique twin bed.
I wish it was a trundle, but when she has friends over it won't kill them to sleep on the floor!
Anyways, I am not dead, just shoulder deep in stuff everywhere. So don't be alarmed at my break from blogging!
Happy St. Patricks day tommorow.

two thumbs up

We saw Horton Hears a Who today and we really enjoyed it! There are a lot of reviews out there right now that disagree that this was worth seeing. My best judge is if my kids enjoyed it...and they did! We thought it was cute, kept our attention, and we did not expect it to be exactly like the original Dr. Seuss. Go see it! Enough said.
With that, have a great weekend. I am on top of my mixtapes this weekend and need to get them out to my mixtape group.

television, movies, oh my!

Tommorow (technically today I guess) the girls and I are going with two other families from school to see Horton Hears a Who . We are all pretty excited to see this movie, especially because we don't go to the theater that often. We love Dr. Seuss, and I am so excited to see how they bring the book to life.
I am up this late because I just watched the last Celebrity Rehab and then the reunion show. I was actually surprised at how many have stayed sober. It feels a little like you are cheering on a cousin or something when you watch it. I love Dr. Drew Pinsky! Mark says he is still on Loveline which is on a local radio station here in the Seattle area (107.7 the end).
Another show I want to call attention to is one that I think my friend Rosarita would be awesome at. I really want her to be on this show because I think she would kick butt! The show is called Don't Forget the Lyrics . Mark and I were sitting down to watch The Simpson's Movie (yes, we are months behind) and that show happened to be on. We watched it for a few minutes. It is kind of fun, if you don't have more pressing television to watch. But we do know that Rose would be great at it! By the way, we thought the Simpson's Movie was pretty funny. Not a bad deal for $10 at Target.

back from the dead

This weekend was so much fun on the scrapbooking retreat. The weather was gorgeous, the girls were awesome, and we accomplished a lot. I would have loved to have stayed one more day. When I muster up the energy to go unpack my "U-haul" of scrapbooking items, I will take pictures of some of the pages I scrapped. My one regret is not taking pictures of what other people scrapped because there were some awesome layouts done by my fellow girlfriends.
Darci brought her Cricut machine, and although I did not use it, I want one. She used it a ton, as well as Tina. I think it would be well worth the money to have one, and not have the frustration of running out of alphabet stickers that you need!
Thanks girls. I really neeeded this weekend away to relax, eat good, and have fun. My kids had a great weekend too and they actually missed me " a ton" they said! Now Molly wants to have a birthday retreat at Uncle Jamie's cabin.