Our Easter holiday...

Our Easter holiday was such a nice one. We celebrated the resurrection at church services in the morning, opened Easter baskets after church and "played" the rest of the day. My mom is here visiting for a couple of weeks and it was so nice to have family with us for the holiday.

So from our family to yours, we hope that your Easter was filled with glorious celebrations and wonderful family time.

Two pounds...

Ever since we brought him home, we have been trying desperately to put weight on our little boy. At our last checkup he had only gained 4 ounces in 6 months. So we've been working with the doctor in trying to add certain things to his diet that would help "boost" weight gain. The right kind of food...the good stuff.

Enter my Amish cookbook...

For about a month or so now, I have been cooking my way through this Amish cookbook. It is the old-fashioned kind of cooking - everything from scratch basically. Cooking where the meat slow cooks for hours in your oven and your entire house smells wonderful. Cooking where you can read and understand all the ingredients you put into your meal. Cooking where it's such a good meal that there aren't a lot of leftovers. Hmmm...yeah, that kind of cooking.

Well, today was a great day...if you are into the whole gaining weight and all. I took him in for a weight check and we are happy to report that he's gained a whopping 2 pounds since January. In my book, that is fantastic!

Hats off to the Amish...

Clean kitchens are way over-rated...

After an incredibly LONG day yesterday, Daddy finally made it home safely...and we are glad. I was dragging so badly last night after rushing around everywhere and trying to accomplish everything I needed to do that by the end of the evening, I felt completely deflated. I was so glad to see "fresh troops" walk through the door.

Today however is a brand new day and with it brings renewed energy (on my part - given a good night's rest) and another day filled with fun things to do. After doing some school this morning, my two smallest ones took on a cooking project...Amish, of course...and they loved it. Now, the house smells wonderfully of "Blueberry Cake with Struesel Topping" (get the book I tell you...worth every penny).

Just don't ask me how clean my floors and counters are...

A precious moment...

Well, we are going on day three at this point (of being without Daddy) and as always our lives were pretty busy today. The girls had gymnastics this morning which left me an hour with just my boys. My oldest son asked me if we could go for a run while the girls were at gymnastics (my husband runs with the older children quite often...me, I run by myself...much, much, much s..l...o...w...e...r).

That being said, of course I said "yes". So we packed up the jogging stroller and headed out. After we dropped the girls off, we started on our run. Now, here's where I should mention that my son loves to talk during a run. Me...I'm just looking to survive to the finish line. However, God gives you precious moments with your children sometimes at the most unexpected places. So here we were out running in the country and my son is just asking and talking with me about all sorts of things. It was such a wonderful conversation.

At the end of our run he told me "thanks Mom, this was such a fun, recreational run". I smile through all my huffing and puffing while sweating profusely....then thanked the Lord above for this precious moment, even in the most unexpected places.

My poor kids...

Alright...I am the first to admit that I can go a "little overboard" when I find something that I am interested in. Who doesn't, right? Right about now though, the kids are wishing their Daddy was here to help them out though...

You see, I have fallen in love with this certain cookbook called "Cooking from Quilt Country". It's Amish cooking at it's best and I love it. The kids though are not quite as sure. Of course, a few months ago I was cooking my way through a French cookbook and they LOVED that one. This one...maybe not as much. This past weekend I fixed an egg salad sandwich which did not get very good reviews from my crew (Daddy was here to agree with them on that one...they know his "vote" counts for a lot). So today for lunch when everyone got to the table the only question they asked was..."Is it Amish?" Oh, my poor kids....it's so terrible being fed good wholesome cooking. At least the reviews on that sandwich were a little better...not great, but better. I'll keep trying.

Today was an orthodontist appointment, piano lessons for one child, a quick trip to the grocery and a full day of school. It's dinnertime now...potato soup and cornbread have our name written all over it. It's loud and busy here. The kids are dancing to music to on the TV radio and later before bed, we'll start a new book to read.

Whew...day two of being solo is almost over...so far so good.

Flying solo...

Today, my husband left on a business trip...which leaves me alone with one, two, three...oh, yeah that's right, four kids...all by myself. Thankfully, he doesn't have to be gone too terribly long but we still miss him while he's away. On some days, it's just nice to have "fresh troops" come walking through the door. Needless to say, while he's gone for the next few days I'm going to try and not get too stressed out about stuff here while he's gone.

Take for instance this afternoon...

The kids had a piano recital to be in (which I must admit was right in the middle of our little one's nap time). I strapped him in the stroller, gave him my camera phone to play with and prayed that our kids played first. YES!!! They did. So after filming what I could so Daddy could see it later, we strolled ourselves out of everyone else's way and out to the hallway. (I was only able to get a couple of pictures taken - you know juggling a video camera, a camera and a two year old is not always the easiest thing to do). Anyway, that bought us about an hour, but after that he was so done, tired and we had to leave. After celebrating with milkshakes we headed home, changed clothes and decided not to miss out on the beautiful day we were having here. So...we went on an extra long bike ride to a park. By the time we returned it was dinner, bath and time for bed. They were good and worn out. Yeah for me!!!

Now, it's on to day number two...