What were they thinking...and why did I buy it?

I usually do pretty well when buying the kids toys. I try to find toys that are unique, educational, fun and hopefully safe. I failed miserably in my most recent purchase. Thank goodness it was a small purchase. Jessie has recently discovered "bubbles" and loves to chase, catch and pop these small wonders. I bought her and Jackson what I thought would be a cool little gadget that makes bubbles. As the picture shows, it's a whistle that you pour the liquid soap into and simply blow the bubbles out as you whistle a tune. So what's the problem you may wonder? First, this simple device has words like "turbine" in the instructions...I knew right off the bat we were in trouble. It took me 10 minutes to properly figure out how to pour the soap into the whistle. 10 minutes is a long time in toddler-child worlds.

With the whistle properly tanked up, I discovered that you have to seriously BLOW into this whistle to get a few measly bubbles to appear. This whistle is not a quiet whistle....this whistle is LOUD. After a few blows for a few puny bubbles, you're ears are really ringing. But let's not stop at ear damage, OH NO...let's go for eye damage as well. Now as you are blowing in hopes of achieving your bubble dribble, one thing that happens is you spray soap out of the whistle and into your eyes. Lovely. My eyes are burning, my ears are ringing and my children are disappointed. Thanks Bubble Whistle by Little Kids...NOT impressed.

On a side note, this whole whistle disaster reminded me to keep abreast of the most recent toy recalls. Sadly, there are many other disasters (but of a much more serious nature) out there. FYI:
TOY RECALLS

Spidey Can Dance!

Before I share a video of my very talented son, I should probably explain the get-up. This past weekend Jackson was invited to a superhero themed birthday party. The party was at the Bull City Gymnastics and was AWESOME. Jackson wore his spidey suit and was allowed to jump off ramps into large foam pits, swing from ropes, balance on beams, and roll around endlessly. It was great fun and I'm sick with myself that I forgot my camera. This place was great and I've already signed him up for a week of camp there this summer. I highly recommend for other moms/dads of high-spirited, energetic kiddos! They even have a Saturday drop-in for $10.

Anywho...after the party, we just haven't been able to quite pack up the Spiday suit. Jackson has continued to do just about everything in this hot, polyester, skin-tight suit. Today he raked, ate lunch, walked the dog, played the piano, and yes, even danced for me!

He is quite a talented dancer....I wonder where he learned his fancy moves (make sure you catch the end of the video) :)

Our New Pal

After clearing LOADS of leaves off the front garden readying the space for some gorgeous Amsonia 'Blue Ice' flowers, Jackson and I stumbled upon a little fella' lounging in the sun. This sweet little snail was lucky enough to become our newest addition to the family. Jackson was quite busy much of the afternoon preparing a special nest for our friend and learning how to care for a snail. I was suprised to learn that they love fruit and need a steady supply of calcium and can easily get that from egg shells. We have yet to name him but Jackson is absolutly smitten with his new pal. He continues to remind me to walk and talk softly so we do not frighten our snail.

Welcome little friend!

Kermit, I love you

One of my coworkers suggested a CD to me the other day when we started chatting about the music our kids listen to. I told her that Jackson is stuck on Laurie Berkner and has literally listened to her new CD at least 40 times so far. At this rate, the CD will not last until Easter.

My coworker suggested a series called "For the Kids" and I went on good ol' Amazon and purchased the first of the series. The CD features different artists like Tom Waits, Billy Bragg and Wilco, Cake, and Sarah McLachlan singing kid appropriate songs.

One of the songs that really perked my ears was the Rainbow Connection. I knew I recognized this song from somewhere in the past, but just couldn't place my finger on it. Sarah McLachlan sings The Rainbow Connection on the CD and it's so pretty and soothing. Jackson loved this song in particular along with the Hoppity Song which, in my opinion, is pretty annoying.

So knowing me....I had to do a bit of research on the Rainbow Connection to put my nagging brain to rest. The Rainbow Connection was a favorite of mine as a kid when Kermit sang it! It sounds a bit different now, but still such a sweet song.

See which one do you like best?

Sarah's version:




Kermit!

Busy Days

These past few days seem to have been busier than most. I think the warmer weather has everyone wanting to do those special projects and "lists" that we all keep - or at least should keep.

I just registered Jackson for Kindergarten today and that in itself was quite a task. They almost require as much paperwork for Kindergarten as they do college admissions. But he is now officially registered and ready to go. You should see the "homework" they sent us home with. They supplied us a 10 week course pack that includes a task a day for 10 weeks to help ready him for the fall. It's about an inch thick!!

Jessie is full of discovery this spring. She loves to pick all the dandelions in the yard and study each leaf and flower she finds. Jackson even suggested she taste an earth worm and had I not been there to distract her, she probably would have had a little worm snack before dinner.

Brad has been very busy with work and Craiglist finds....more on that later....and we both have been busy trying to spruce up the yard for spring. There were azalea bushes being ripped up and new plants being planted today. My veggie garden is coming along nicely and I've almost finished weeding the front gardens. Shew...

But all in all, no matter how busy we get, there is ALWAYS time for a little play (and no, I'm not talking about my 4 year old or my 1 year old).

Mmm sauce.....

Our household eats a LOT of chicken. When you restrict beef and pork from your diet, you're really not left with a lot of options. I've become pretty creative with my families menus to help keep the no beef/pork thing not a big deal. Now granted, my sweet hubby does get his occasional steak and or bacon, but for the most part we're a chicken kinda family.

Chicken legs, chicken breasts, ground chicken, not so much chicken wings....but our ultimate favorite...chicken thighs! These little nuggets of dark meat are simply delicious and we cook them often. My favorite is when Brad grills them up on the charcoal grill cajun style. Just great. But on nights when time is of the essence and waiting for a grill to heat is not an option, I opt for a simple method to cook my favorite cut of el pollo.

Yummy Combination = Black Iron Skillet + Favorite Sauce.



I actually have 2 favorite sauces and they are a life-saver. You really can use either of these sauces on just about anything, veggies, pork, rice etc. The first is Kikkoman Teriyaki Baste & Glaze....now don't get confused with the Kikkoman Basic Teriyaki, Look for the Baste & Glaze! It's a rich, thick, sweet glaze that really sticks to the meat. My 2nd choice is from House of Tsang, the Classic Stir Fry Sauce. This sauce is still sweet, but slightly more salty and acidic. Both are great and an easy way to prepare some lovely thighs.

I simply turn up the heat on my skillet, start cooking the thighs and halfway through drizzle sauce on top and flip. Cooking thighs till they have a nice golden crust.

Even the 1 year old who never eats meat, enjoys these! Yum. Now time to go eat the leftovers in the fridge.

I have Sproutage!

In an earlier post I described my new spring garden which I recently planted from seed. I have exciting news...at least in my mind it is! I've been checking the progress of our seeds and over the last few days have noticed a definite sprouting action on many of the plants. The most activity I see is the mescaline mix and the spinach. All this rain has definitely come in handy for at least something other than making my yard a mud pit and doubling my laundry from a 4 year olds mud soaked pants.

I still have yet to see action on my beans but haven't lost hope. One major pest problem I've realized that I have is in the form of a large, snorting, pug that resembles a walrus and a definitely cuter, yet still destructive 1 year old who enjoys tromping through my garden. I'll need to figure out a barrier in the future, I believe.

Salad here I come!

Little River Eager Beavers Here We Come!

Brad and I took our tour this morning of our district Elementary school, Little River Elementary, and it pretty much sealed the deal on where Jackson will be going this fall. I have been tossing around a few Durham school for some time now and it has taken quite a bit of energy to figure out which one works best for our family and for our son. We submitted our application for Jackson to an area Magnet school and a year-round option. We got into both which only made my choice that much harder.

I did the old-fashioned good/bad list for both the magnet school and Little River and well...it's pretty obvious who won. Little River is a medium size school located off a fairly quiet road in the North Durham countryside. The school seemed very clean and orderly when we visited and our tour guide was attentive to the details that make the school special. Our tour guide showed us the 5 kindergarten classes as well as some of the older classrooms. She showed us some artwork and written work that was displayed on the wall of the 5 year old hallway. One part of the Kindergarten day that I was really excited to hear about was the arts activities that the children will get to participate in each day. Each day of the week holds a different activity including music, art, chorus, and character education. Character education is a great feature in which a guest teacher speaks once a week on a monthly topic. This month's topic was honesty and next months is courage.

We're so excited to see Jackson grow and continue to develop into the great little man that he is. We're excited to join the PTA and really get involved in this school. My sweet, little baby boy is no longer so little and I'm sad to see those fun toddler years go, but really excited to see my handsome young man grow and watch his learning sky rocket as he enters his first school.

Yay Little River Eager Beavers!!

We Heart the Museum

This past Christmas our beloved Mama Jan bought our family a membership to the Museum of Life and Science. This truly was a gift that keeps on giving. The Museum of Life and Science (NCMLS) is about 20 minutes from our home and is great for rainy days, cold days or grumpy kid days. The museum has a plethora of indoor and outdoor activities. We visited today and it's so much fun to see Jessie and Jackson enjoying each others company and learning new things. The favorite activity for all today was the music room. It's a very cool room that is large enough for a 4 year old to run laps in. The room is divided into different quadrants and every movement of your body is met with a brilliant, loud, musical collage. I even enjoyed spinning and waving my arms in this room.

Jack said his other favorite activity was the "cool space stuff" and the gift shop where he scored a solar system mobile which we still have to hang in his room tonight. Jessie really enjoyed the indoor animals, in particular the very large owl. She couldn't take her eyes off that thing....perhaps she knew that all 26 pounds of her might appear as a large snack to the owl. Eek.

I really hope to send Jack to one of the museum camps this summer. The camps are a bit on the pricey side, but I've heard they are all wonderful.

Thanks again Mama Jan for a great gift!

Here's a cool video of the Sound Space I mentioned earlier:

Let the Birthday Parties begin....

It seems this time of year is when we are invited to a barrage of birthday parties, including my soon to be 5 year olds. Yesterday we took Jackson to his classmate Josh's birthday party at Pump It Up Party Zone. We'd never been to this establishment before and upon opening the door to the gigantic warehouse full of inflatable jumping platforms, Jack's first words were "Whooaaaaaaaa". He was indeed very excited! I really wish I could have stayed and taken pictures for the blog, but Jessie was still recovering from a pretty bad bout of fever and flu like symptoms. We ended up leaving Jackson at the party with Josh's mom watching and taking my germy Jessie out for a drive while Jackson jumped his heart out.

Jackson had a great time and was covered in sweat when I came to pick him back up. This place was definitely a possibility for future birthday parties, the only problem being that it is pretty far away from us out in RTP. I believe this year we'll try and organize a "Space Adventure" birthday party for Jack, possibly at the Morehead Planetarium. In the meantime we have a few more birthday parties to go to...the next being another classmates at the Bull City Gymnastics in Durham. Can't wait to see Jackson fall into the big pit of foam at the gym.

This week has been really tough though with the illnesses going around. I'm thankful we're on the tail end of it. Jack has deal with the croup now for about 1.5 weeks and Jessie is finally getting over her flu mess. It's so hard when the kids are sick and you're tired and life just keeps on going. Hopefully this weekend can be restful and healthy!

Spring Garden

Jack and I have worked diligently over the weekend and Monday on clearing the space for our spring garden. I've heard spring gardens are much more fickle than summer garden, but I'm hopeful that we'll grow at least one or two things edible. I'm planting the spring garden in the same spot that I grew our very lush summer garden last year.

My summer garden was all done through young plants which we just transplanted into the ground. I'm being a bit risky this time and trying seeds which we purchased online. I'm hoping this is not a recipe for disaster. The seeds I purchased online are from Park Seed Online. I was really happy to see such a large selection of veggies and fruits from their site.

Jack and I decided on six veggies to plant and so far we have sown the seeds for five items. So far we have lima bean, bush bean, carrot (jacks personal favorite), spinach, and a mescaline mix. I have the seeds for broccoli as well, but the instructions seemed pretty complex, so we may leave that for next year. I really hope the lettuce/spinach grow. How nice would that be to just walk outside your back door and pull off some leaves for a nice salad. Mmmm..

The instructions for planting seed are very different than planting seedlings. The carrot for instance is to be planted just 1/4" under the soil so that the sun can germinate the seed.

I'm nervous about our results...fingers crossed!

Dinner Dilemmas

So most of you know I don't eat beef or pork. This can make for some very mundane eating around our house, unless of course you just LOVE chicken and/or turkey. We do eat a lot of fish, but I try to limit the fish to once a week because of all the mercury scares out there (husband rolls his eyes). I'm constantly looking for "beef like" recipes to satisfy my hubby and to diversify the kids palette just a bit from poultry.

I love this recipe and it's super simple. Jackson was nudged a bit to eat it but once he tried it, he liked it. Jessie is always a bit leery of eating meat but if you put anything on a toddler fork or spoon, she eats it up.

Give it a try for a healthier version of meatloaf.

Mom's Turkey Meatloaf

Spring has Sprung

While Brad and Jackson went to their 2nd practice today, Jessie and I enjoyed some of our gorgeous weather. It was 72 and breezy and just great. We spent time outside prepping our spring garden and looking for flowers. Jessie looks like such a little spring chick with her fuzzy, sparse red hair. Here are a few pics of her enjoying the daffodils in our yard. For future reference she's 15 months old in these pics.

Our first practice

Tonight was the Orioles first practice. Jackson was SO excited to go to his practice on a "real field", he even asked the coach if it was a "real field" just to make sure. The coach is awesome. He is very much into teaching the 5 year old's the rules of the sport and making sure they are learning good technique, all the while making the game really fun. So far so good!

They practiced for almost a full 2 hours tonight and I was impressed that they kept their attention that long. They had the boys and girls doing a series of different exercises including a batting, catching and ground ball session as well as a fun little scrimmage at the end.

Jessie kept herself busy cleaning up the fields of all trash, cigarette butts, and bottle caps. Gross yes, but she was very helpful and learned how to deposit all said trash in the trash can. Needless to say, we used quite a bit of sanitizing liquid this evening. Bluck! Her favorite moment came when she encountered quite a big rock which just had to move from one spot on the field to another spot on the field. It was a very serious moment as you can see in the pics.


We have another practice tomorrow. I can only hope things go as smooth as they did tonight.
Go Orioles!!

What have we gotten ourselves into?

Brad and I have been eagerly awaiting Spring of '09 for the simple fact that we would be able to register Jackson for a real t-ball league. We've used a previous league in earlier years (which I will not mention) and we were moderately happy with Jack's experience even though they were horribly dis-organized. So this year Jack is joining forces with the North Durham Little League and we were thrilled to see that his coach seems organized and excited about playing.

I truly believe Jackson has a special skill when it comes to baseball. The boy can hit farther than I can and throw farther than most. He's gifted, but I try to remind myself that he is just 4 and not to place too much pressure on him to rival the 10 year olds.....although he probably could do it.

As excited as we are to get started, I was shocked to see how much and how long practices are. His first practice is tomorrow from 5:30-7 and then his 2nd practice is the very next day from 1-3pm!! 2 hours for a 4 year old is gonna be tough!! I know things will slow down when the games start, but I'm a bit worried my spacey, spastic son will tire of such long practices, unless of course they offer skittles and co-cola at the events!

Check out the League - we'll be playing as the Orioles this year! Yay! North Durham Little League

Doozy of a Day

I had one of those days today where everything seemed just a tad over the top, where it's all just a wee bit more than you can handle and you are left feeling completely zapped. I'm sure most mom's can relate.

Usually my days are pretty well managed and organized - their is a plan in place and we stick to it (as best you can with a 4 and a 1 year old). Today just started out rough with Jessie getting her 15 month shots. That 1 year old officially knows and remembers who the doc is and is not happy about seeing him. After leaving a PACKED doctors office we headed off to get Jack and I'm pretty sure they gave him coffee at school today.

Although it was a hectic day, I was able to get all the Spring/Summer clothes off to the consignment shop down the way. I use Kangaroo Pouch on Guess Rd. http://www.thekangaroopouch.com/. I have been pretty happy and am pleased to get a bit of gas money each month.

So on days like today, it's nice to have a handy recipe that is easy to throw together. Here's a keeper for the recipe box - especially if you have kiddos, mine eat this stuff up!

Chicken Fried Rice
3-4 cups of cooked COLD white rice
1 cup of steamed broccoli or peas or any veggie for that matter
2 eggs (pancake style)
1/2 chopped onion
2 large chicken breast or 3-4 chicken thighs (depends if you like the dark or the white)

I usually start by cooking the chicken and onion in a bit of vegetable oil till no longer pink and onions are translucent.
In a separate pan, I add scrambled eggs and let cook thoroughly on one side and then flip to cook on the other side. Remove and cut into small strips.
In a larger frying pan combine your cold rice, broccoli, onion, and chicken. Dash with as much soy sauce as you like and cook till heated through. Add your cooked egg at the finish and voila! Kids love it, it's healthy and low fat to boot.

Tweet Tweet

As most parents, Brad and I started decorating and preparing Jessie's room well before she was born. Her room...this little babies room, used to have LARGE looming, evil-taloned eagles soaring across the wallpaper. Very scary and traumatic. So we pain-stakingly removed the wallpaper and painted her room a cheery yellow. We placed her cute furniture in her room and her toys/clothes etc. and then slowed to a snail-pace crawl in the decorating department. Well it's time we jumped back into it and finished up this sweet-pea's room. This all comes in conjunction with the fact that we're sick to death of sharing our bed with a squirming, large, loud 1 year old.

In light of our decorating enthusiasm, I found these awesome vinyl decals that I might use to help add that extra charm to our little bird's room.

http://www.janeymacpress.blogspot.com

I love the birdy decals (our affinity for the bird nickname will come in another segment). I'm also thinking of having B. paint up a version of the dandelion for another room.

March Snow

I'll save you the reasons for starting my blog. I simply want to share my beautiful family and avoid multiple emails with my kids pictures. So therefore.....Welcome to Shug's Shack.

First off a strange and welcome March snow that Jackson and Jessie thoroughly enjoyed. Stranger than a March snow is that in less than 4 days from this snow, we will again be in t-shirt weather. Gotta love NC.