A Good Whirlwind

He turned 5 weeks old this past weekend, born on September 12th. 7 lbs 12oz, exactly the same as both his big sister and brother. Labor was long, but not intense until the very end when I promptly got an epidural, took a nap and woke up to push for 13 minutes and he was here. He's still curly and just starting to smile and I want to hold him as long as humanly possible while he still tries to lift his head from my chest like a little inchworm.

When he was almost 2 weeks old, we moved into a new house that just happens to be 3 doors down the street from our old house.

So here we are. Getting back to some sort of new normal.

Right Now

In the past week or two, we've had a 7th birthday, the last day of school, a lot of rainy lazy days, a lot of bickering, a lot of longing for rainy days to stop so that we can go to the pool, a lot of flower growth in the backyard and next week starts the first Flower CSA pickups! 

Watching Orange is the New Black and trying to pry our eyes open for long enough to watch an episode (or two!) every night! 

Reading Love Does and Call the Midwife

Eating so many strawberries! 

Listening to way too much bickering and a LOT of laughter. 

Making a new art "studio" (desk) space for the kids to have and destroy and be creative and make all the messes they want without us bothering them about cleaning it up. 

Prioritizing down time and not having plans so that they can play and do what they want, growing flowers and making time to actually do my hair since I got 6" chopped off and it's shorter than chin length now.  

Quitting blog reading daily.  My feedly is so full, so it's so nice to not have the time suck and to just look at it on a Friday night.  I miss them, but my head feels a lot more clear when I'm not using blogs as a constant disconnect from reality in my day. 

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Playing Catch Up

Life has been speeding by lately and it's felt really good to just let got of some things, including feeling like I "have" to write here in a certain manner with specific regularity.  I need to figure out the new groove for summertime and I think sporadic posts when I can squeeze them in and have them not feel like a chore are going to be the name of the game for a while.  Taking my kids to the pool is just better!  So here's whole bunch of random for you today:

-It's the first official day of summer vacation.  We celebrated on Friday with a Last Day of School Summer Vacation Extravaganza Bonanza.  It involved playing outside as late at they could keep their eyes open, catching lighning bug (if the spelling bothers you, I promise you that I looked it up and lightning is the correct spelling in this context! Also, do you call them lightning bugs or fireflies or something else?) and popsicles - we get pretty wild around here:) 

-We're planting and growing fairy gardens and a sunflower house.

-We whitewashed the garden boxes with lime and I can't believe how much better it looks. 

-I'm so in love with this project.  If you have a minute, check it out.  And if you love it like I do, get on board and back the Kickstarter, I know they'd love your support! 

-Homeschooling has been on my mind in a major way. Is it a big deal? I can't decide. 

-We've been planting and watering and watching everything grow and it still blows me away that all of those tiny seeds plus some dirt and sunshine and water are going to grow into an entire garden of veggies and flowers and herbs.  I don't know that I'll ever get over how amazing it is to witness.  

That's all I've got for now, we have summer fun to have around here! 

Friday Bits and Pieces

I'm sitting here with a chick sleeping on my chest and the poor little thing is so snuggly and SO awkward looking right now.  I forgot how awkward they get! Also, I think their feathers are going to match my hair, which is randomly fun:) The wind is whipping like crazy outside.  When the wind started getting wild, Nick looked outside and said, "Whoa! It really IS Lion-y out there mommy!" 

It was 60ish degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday and it seriously felt like some sort of fog just lifted from the universe.  Between that and the extra sunshine in the evening, life was good.  Even if I did have one kid home sick and puking and the other at school, the one day a week that I usually have a chunk of kid-less time to get things done.  The same kid who was home two weeks ago with an awful ear infection! I just keep telling myself that SPRING is less than a week away. 

I'm working on meal planning and prepping for freezer cooking this weekend and, since I feel like I've had a bunch of people asking me about freezer meals lately and I didn't have much time to dedicate this week to posts, I thought I'd share a few things that I love to always have in the freezer for easy meals to give some ideas.  These are all things that would be great to try if you want to start having meals in the freezer but don't have big chunks of time to spend on cooking a bunch at once or you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. A lot of it is stuff that can just be doubled when you're already making it or can be cooked as you cook other things and have the over or stove going anyway.  

Some Quick and Easy Freezer Favorites: 

Bolognese - make a huge batch and freeze in  meal-size portions

Pork Ragu - SO easy and so good! If you have the time to leave this in the oven, it makes more than enough for multiple meals

Burritos 

Soup - freeze leftovers in individual portions for lunches another day

Fried Rice  - only $4ish in the freezer section at Aldi (if you have one nearby!), quick to make, more veggies and tons less salt than most other store-bought frozen meals (and easy to add more veggies) and always turns out so well.  I also make my own with this recipe, but in a pinch it's nice to grab that bag and make it instead of eating out! 

Salmon - Sure, if you're feeling motivated you can marinate ahead of time, but I rarely do because it's so easy to roast along with some potatoes and a veggie like broccoli or serve with a salad. 

Chili - If you want to get outside the box, this black bean and sweet potato chili is AMAZING, but regular chili is so easy to make and always so nice to have. It's a whole meal alone, but I usually freeze it in smaller portions, too, to heat up and serve over baked potatoes on a night that we need something easy. 

Twice Baked Potatoes - another option that makes a meal alone with a salad on the side or as a side dish themselves.  

Sloppy Joes

Rice (or any grain, really) - Cook a big batch when you're cooking it anyway and freeze enough for another dinner. 

Pork Tenderloin

Quiche (freeze it cooked or uncooked) 

Tortellini

Pierogies

Shredded Beef/Pork/Chicken for Tacos/Soups/Casseroles/Quesadillas/Sandwiches
Sandwiches
Beans - cooked in big batches, they freeze and are so easy to have in the freezer. 

What do you love to have around to make life easier? I'd love to hear! 

p.s. If you struggle with lunches for work, The Kitchn did a whole series this week on lunches with TONS of awesome ideas! 

From Sunday Morning

It's Sunday morning and I can hear them downstairs playing. Talking. Negotiating. Bickering. In my still-half-asleep state, I just listen, cognizant of the fact that it's Sunday morning and I'm in bed still with two kids big enough to go downstairs and play and watch tv together while we get up a little more slowly. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while it hits me that my kids are almost 5 and almost 7. That my kids aren't babies anymore. That I'm officially that mom looking adoringly at moms with newborns, half wanting to snuggle a newborn right in the crook of my arm and half eternally grateful to be out of that phase of life and in one where I can wake up slowly on Sunday morning with my biggest worry being that someone will spill cereal or milk or sneak a piece of candy before one of us gets downstairs.

I have this strange dichotomy happening internally where one part of me feels like a terrible parent for not picking up on stuff and helping my kids sooner, but another part of me tells me over and over that I know we're good parents and that we're doing the best we can with what we have. It's something my mom says often, especially in relation to parenting. That we all just make the best decisions we can in the moment and that HAS to be enough. 

In the past month one kids has started counseling and we've decided to start speech therapy for the other and hold him back a year from starting kindergarten.  Especially now that we've seen with our first grader what he'll be doing when he gets to kindergarten and we've seen how hard it was on her. But it's feels weird because they're only 22 months apart and they'll be 3 years apart in school. And it'll make him 6.5 when he starts kindergarten and that makes me squirm because it makes us look like "those" parents. But this feels like a much better balance than just throwing him in and and hoping he doesn't struggle. 

I got to visit his preschool class last week and stay the whole time and we also had a teacher conference with his teacher where she confirmed that she's been feeling the same way - that an extra year of preschool in a play-based environment would be really good for him to build more solid skills.  And he will be in an environment with teachers and a director who feel the same as we do as parents about kids needing to play and having too much pressure and how it's all just too much for them right now, so that feels really good.  

When we talked to him about it, because we've already talked about kindergarten starting next year, he was thrilled at the idea of having another year in preschool, so that was a relief.

So, for now: We had a few warm(ish) days in a row and it was AWESOME. Snow is melting. Seeds are started inside and sprouting and more are ordered for outside. The seed germinating testing is fascinating all of us. The first day of spring is officially less than a month away. Taxes are filed.  Big time-suck commitments are almost over.  We're on our last bag of strawberries from the summer, which means it's almost time to pick more. Things are good.