Let’s Go Camping!

Big Sister has been begging to go camping for months. We’re not particularly outdoorsy, but we’ve been known to camp from time to time. I mean actually camp too, not drive an RV to a hook-up or sleep in a cabin. Actually set up a tent and a campfire and stay outside…on state sanctioned camp grounds (come on, we’re not animals). Well, with Spring Break this week, I decided this might be a good time to have a quickie campout (or camp-in) as a test run for what a real one might be like with two little girls. Although I have been called “prissy” in my lifetime, I’m actually pretty good at roughing it as long as I’m not in danger of someone seeing me peeing outside…I don’t handle that well. I’m worried about the girls deciding in the middle of the night that they don’t want to sleep outside when we’re an hour from home, so practice campout it is! Plus, it’s hubby’s birthday, so that will make the campout extra special…and gives us an excuse to make 2 desserts!

We borrowed a fire pit from some lovely friends, got a tent, and set out to camp in the great, just barely outdoors.

I did some pre-camp out work yesterday by making my second batch of homemade graham crackers. After making them twice now, I believe I will make some tweaks to the recipe next time. If you embark on making these graham crackers (and believe me, you should), add more flour. Increase the flour in the batch to 2 3/4 cups and some for dusting. When the recipe says dusting, I think they incorrectly use that word. To me that means it should be ready to roll out. I had to knead a significant amount of flour into the dough to make them roll out and be in a fit state to move to a cookie sheet. The crackers taste amazing, and if you add more flour and roll them out thin enough, they really taste and crack like graham crackers. If they are too thick, they are more like graham cookies…which are still delicious.

We had dogs, chips, fruit, pork ‘n’ beans, s’mores and pineapple upside down cake and were ready to rough it. The hot dogs rocked (highly recommend Oscar Mayer Selects Premium Beef Franks…so delicious), the Doritos were…Dorito-y and made for lovely color when mixed with dirt on my children’s faces, the fruit was ripe and yummy, the beans were beans, and the “Snores” were ooey, gooey, perfection. We didn’t make it to the cake, so Hubby will have some eating to do over the next few days, but I’m sure he’ll manage.

I’m just going to say it, part of the inspiration for this camp out was the graham crackers. I wanted a reason to make S’Mores with homemade graham crackers. I love a good S’More. I have definitely been known to make one with a candle lighter or, in the much more hazardous way that my husband taught me, by briefly touching the marshmallow on the stove (the electric stove that is) and lighting it on fire. I blacken my mallow. I think it’s partially out of impatience and laziness. I don’t like standing over the fire “toasting” a mallow. Just set the thing on fire…it’s so much faster and totally scrumptious. Hubby and I both had the S’Mores scene from “The Sandlot” running through our heads while we assembled ours: “First you take the graham. You stick the chocolate ON the graham. Then, you roast the mallow. When the mallow’s flamin’, you stick it on the chocolate. Then, you cover it with the other end.” Ah, Sandlot, good times.

I’d say the camp out was definitely a success. The weather was great, there were very few mosquitoes (yes, we already have mosquitoes), and the outside dog didn’t drive us totally insane. Big Sister got to make “Snores”, Little Sister got to climb in and out of the tent, and Big Sister and Hubby got to sleep outside. I actually felt a little left out of the last activity, but we thought it would be too cold (mid-50’s for a low) for Little Sister to be outside all night, so I slept in the house with her. After Little Sister went to bed, I went out to check on the campers, and just like any good, 21st century camper, they were busy with camp out activity…watching Cake Boss on the iPad. I said, “You’re really roughing it, huh?” Hubby said, “Who said anything about roughing it?” Touche….

MORNING: The campers stayed all night in the tent! I was very proud of Big Sister for sticking to her plan and not making her daddy get up in the middle of the night to bring her in. She had so much fun that she asked if we could do it again tonight. The answer was no, but we can definitely do it again soon! I slept later than they did, so I didn’t get a picture of them emerging from the tent.

They did apparently have a small encounter with a wild animal who actually devoured part of our extension cord (AKA: the iPad power source):

Hubby and I tore down camp so that the “animal” didn’t eat our new tent.

This is the stuff childhood is made of…and it’s fun for adults too! When you have a 33-year-old man saying that this was a great way to spend his birthday evening, that is pretty high praise (and a pretty awesome man). We will definitely camp-in again…and might even camp-out pretty soon. To quote my baby girls’ favorite band (The Fresh Beats…of course) “What a great day!”

Every great evening begins with the phrase…

“Let’s put as much of this stuff in our hair as we can?!!! Won’t that be fun?!!!” Oh…it was. After a pretty bummer first half of the week, I was looking for some chill time. Hubby played in a golf tournament on Thursday night, so that left the girls home alone. I really thought that meant that “chill time” was not in the cards. But, it’s funny how things work out.

While watching Tangled for the bajillionth time (yes it’s a word!), big sister was inspired to raid the “hair accessory closet” in the bathroom. This raid was punctuated by a crash followed by a loud “I’m OK!” The crash came after she stacked two step stools on top of one another trying to reach her basket of hair stuff. I dodged a bullet on that one. No twisted ankles; no bumped noggins; and she seemed to learn a lesson: If you can’t reach it with one ladder, ask for help.

With at least 7 headbands and a basket full of clips, ribbons, and ponytail holders in hand, she went back to watch her movie. I tried to just sit and watch her play with everything because it was quite entertaining. (You forget the motor skill necessary to put a ponytail in your hair until you try to teach a kid to do it.) After putting a clip and a ponytail in I got the bright idea: “What if we see how much of this stuff we can put in our hair?!” With a little apprehension (possibly brought on by how excited I was), big sister agreed…Let’s do it!!!

We clipped and ponytailed and barretted and bowed and pinned and twisted and braided and tied. As you can see by the photo, she looked fabulous….

Little sister was a little tougher to tame (as usual). I kept putting bows in her hair and she pulled them out. Then I’d put them back, she’d smile so sweetly, and then take them out. I finally succeeded at getting a headband, a clip, and a bow all in at once and tried to take a group shot:

Little bit kept walking too close to the camera

Finally got a good one!

Then I discovered hot truly difficult it is to take a good picture of the back of one’s own head, so I asked Abbey to do it. The first was too close (I mean about 6 inches from my head close) and then she got too far away (like across the room away). Finally, she took the shot below, and yes I AM wearing 3 headbands. I didn’t feel that one was enough.

Momma's awesome hair!

That was all done without a mirror. Yep, I’m talented.  I highly recommend “crazy hair night”. It was a blast. Here is a shot of the carnage:

Hair accessory explosion!

This little adventure with my sweet girls reframed and reenergized an otherwise sucky week. Sometimes it’s takes little things like this to remind me what is really important and worthwhile. Sharing this sort of time with my girls is utterly priceless.

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I went on a mission trip with several kids from his youth group (more on that coming soon). During one of the activities, we were asked to talk about our favorite family memory. The kids mostly focused on bigger stuff: family vacations and special traditions. Personally, my favorite family memory is playing games when the power went out. We couldn’t watch TV (which my family LOVES to do…we still love it), so we had to make do. We sat in the middle of the floor and played games like Scattergories and Pictionary. Normally, my dad doesn’t like those kind of games because they don’t “require enough strategy,” but we could always get him to play when the power was out. We probably only did that two or three times my entire childhood, but I remember it vividly and very fondly. I hope my girls will remember things like this that way. Next time…their daddy is going to participate! I’m sure we have enough headbands.

 

 

Princess Pancakes

Momma's helper!

We have been waiting for a full week for daddy to get back, and he’s finally here! It has been quite a week. Exhausting is an understatement. We went on trip to Houston to see my grandparents, but it was an extremely quick one. We left home on Thursday morning and were back home on Saturday evening. That kind of trip is tiring for grown people, but it is crazy for kids.

See the sweet, adorable little girl to the left? You wouldn’t think so, but she can be a holy terror. She pulled out all the stops during my latest week of single parenting. While we were on our trip, our sleeping arrangements were, well…cramped.  She didn’t have a room to sleep in, so she had to wait to go to bed until everyone else did. In general, not a big deal, but as anyone who has ever been around children will attest, when they are tired, they get crazy. She isn’t one who dissolves into tears when she is tired (at least not usually), she gets insanely hyper and nearly impossible to calm down. Although I was extremely happy to see my grandparents, and my girls were very happy to see Gee-Gee and Jambo, I don’t think I could handle another night of her being over-tired.

Cut to, home again on Saturday! I thought “Great, we’ll get to bed on time, and it will be fine.” Well, she was, again, so tired from the trip and her lack of napping in the car that she still tried EVERYTHING she could to NOT go to bed. Why? Because I dared to tell this poor, mistreated child that she couldn’t watch anymore TV and to go brush her teeth. That was around 8:50pm. She finally went to sleep at around 10:45. Yeah…2 hours. These two hours were not filled with simply annoying getting out of bed and asking for drinks of water…ohhhh, no. Remember, I said she pulled out ALL the stops. Screaming, crying, rolling on the floor, sassing…and that was just me. No really….  Ok, I didn’t roll on the floor. Upon threat of terrible things like losing her fave TV show for-eh-ver and a pop on the pop0 (which I HATE) if she woke her sister up, she continued…and woke her sister up.

Luckily, Grammy was here to help. I might have locked myself in a dark room and rocked back and forth in the fetal position if she hadn’t been here. As it was, I did sit in a dark room and rock back and forth, but it was to help my other sweet child back to sleep.

It’s really amazing how a 4-year-old’s tantrum made me question my value as a human being and feel like a failure as a parent. My biggest worry through the whole hairy mess? That she would go to sleep before I was able to go back to her room and hug her. Grammy sat in her room with her, got her calmed down, while baby went back to sleep. As soon as I walked into her room, big girl hugged me and said she was sorry for “yelling, and screaming, and being rude”. Maybe I’m not a total failure as a parent.  She even went and hugged Grammy to apologize for how she acted.  That was only day 4 of our daddy-less week! How would the rest go?!!!

Thankfully, I have awesome friends who kept me company throughout the rest of the week, so we didn’t have anymore insane evenings like that. We got back on our regular schedule, and, besides the normal 4-year-old-ness that goes with the territory, things went swimmingly! Because of that, tonight, I decided to make a supper treat for my sweet girls:  Princess Pancakes! To be honest, I just called them pink and purple pancakes until now, but from now on, they will be Princess Pancakes.

Princess Pancake herself helped me mix them up (as you saw in the first photo), and I always use too much food coloring! She said “those are daaaaaark pink!” Indeed! I had a moment where I thought Baby Pancake wouldn’t eat them because they looked weird, but she never missed a beat. Of course, she has never met a carb she didn’t like.

Purple pancakes! They didn't look quite as purple when they were turned over, but we knew.

Pink pancakes...REALLY pink pancakes!

Momma needed a little more than pancakes to make it supper. The girls both had applesauce, but that’s not really my bag. So instead, I made some lovely scrambled eggs with cheese. The only thing that would have made it better is some turkey bacon, but alas…the cupboard was bare (or the fridge was).

Momma's finished Princess Pancakes

We are all so glad daddy is home now! He was too tired, so I didn’t get any pics of his return, but maybe tomorrow when we’re all a little better rested. We saved him some Princess Pancakes, but they ended up in the freezer for another day.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Want some?

Um…what’s that you say? Christmas?! Not even!

It’s really hard to think about Christmas when it’s 100+ degrees outside, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately! I’ve decided that shopping/preparing from July to December would probably be a good idea. Makes things easier on the budget, and it makes things less stressful. What can be bad about that!

Now, I used to shop all year. The last time I did this was 2002. Just married. I innocently started buying little things here and there and putting them up for Christmas. I tended to favor my mom because, well, I know her and I know what she likes. I put things all over the apartment. I made things too. Then, about a week before Christmas I started pulling everything out. Holy geez! There was stuff everywhere! I had done a pretty good job buying for everyone, but I had completely overbought for my mom. If I had been smart, I would have put some of it up for birthdays and next Christmas, but I was 21 and excited to give it all to her! So, I ended up having to go shopping to fill out everyone else’s haul so that she didn’t get more than everyone! Ever since then, I’ve been afraid to shop all year. Afraid of spending more money in my quest to spend less. Afraid to run out of room to hide things because I’ve overshopped!

Cut to now…9 years later. I’m ready. I can do it! I can be frugal AND have foresight! I can shop smarter, not harder. So far, Abbey is the one who has benefitted from my early shopping. One thing was supposed to be a birthday present, but I forgot to give it to her…it became a Christmas present! Score! Then, the other day, I found a gently used Leapster 2 (which we almost got her for her bday at full price) with 4 games (1 of which she will never see…no offense to those of you who like Spongebob, but we don’t) for half the price of the game system alone. Score number 2! With the exception of her “big gift” which will have to wait because we can’t hide it and a very few stocking stuffers, I’m done with her! Sweet!

Tomorrow, I embark on phase 2 of early Christmas. I’m going to start preparing to learn to make jelly. Yes, you read that correctly…jelly. We have a gnarly apple tree in our yard. No, it doesn’t grow gnarly apples. The previous owners of our property apparently never, ever pruned it. It is very bizarrely shaped, has a chain that has grown into the trunk, and is, frankly, ugly…but man does it grow some apples!

Zach shaking the gnarly tree's limbs...easy harvest!

Last night, my family and I harvested apples. It was hot. There were ants and other creepy crawlies, but it was fun. Abbey had fun aiming the rotten or otherwise no good apples at the trash can. Lily had fun picking up the apples that fell to the ground and carrying them around.

Working hard

Lily sorting some apples

Abbey did a great job sorting the good ones from the duds, and she had a lot of fun too!

My sweet little apple picker

After we finished, we decided to get a few pictures of our haul! As you can see in the background, there were a ton leftover. They mostly had bugs or were otherwise not ones we wanted to take in the house. I even got to get in a picture!

The harvesters with their haul!

I got a pic too!

When we were about to head in, Lily decided she was going to help us carry everything inside. The basket probably weighed about as much as she does! Needless to say…she didn’t get very far!

She wanted to help carry the apples in!

We had a great time picking apples, and if you are someone who knows me in real life and we’re close…look out for some apple goodies this Christmas! That is, of course, assuming that I can pull them off. We shall see. Stay tuned!