Jack and my Juice

that sounds kind of wrong, but it's really just two completely unrelated topics.

Jack is the cutiest cute baby I have ever seen. He is loving, cuddly, sweet and quiet. (Quiet is a big issue in our house... I seem to have some noise sensitivities). I totally love that he knows when he is tired and ready for bed. He will be fine, just bouncing along with a smile, and then he squawks that he is ready for bed. I just hold him in his sleep time position (face in my armpit) and he is out! Done. I <3 him.

Okay, Juice. I like to start my day with some juicy juice. It is green juice, and super hydrating. Yum. Some people find the taste very vegetabley, but i guess it is a taste you work up to. I think it tastes fresh.

I have a fancy high powered juicer, and it wasn't cheap, but if you are going to juice veggies every day, the investment is worth it. I also have a centrifugal juicer, and it worked for a while. I still use it for fruits.

My fave juice recipe:
1 head of lettuce (never iceberg)
Handful of spinach
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 cucumber
1 apple (I like granny smith)
1 lemon, peel removed
handful of cilantro for zing

my babies aren't really babies anymore

I am going to miss how my babies talk.  I should have written these things down as they happened but I never seem to do that.  When Alex was 2, everytime we went for a walk he would "ssssmell ssssumsing."  It was always BBQ or dog poop.  When CSI first started, AJ was 3.  He would sing the theme song, "ooooo, ah deee, oo-oo, oo-oo" Today, Lucy told me that she "earned a bruise."

Christmas!

I made them all pose prior to opening presents. :)




Christmas in the Arevalo household was really nice. Adan was home for once so we got to do all the santa chores together. I did not make it to be until about 2 AM, but the kids let us sleep in until 8 AM, and then only one was up.

Santa was very nice to us this year! The boys got bikes from Santa, and Lucy got a lap table with art supplies from Santa. I got a brand new digi camera and a wireless printer. From us, AJ got his first cell phone, and Alex got a PSP. Lucy got a tag reader and 4 books. We also do a secret santa in our family. Everyone draws a name, even the kids and everyone has a chance to pick something and give it to another person. AJ got $20 bucks from grannie, Lucy got an easy bake oven from me, Alex got a transformers game for his PSP from AJ, I got a tote bag that says I grow my own food from Katie, and Adan got a bunch of tool sets from Jerry. All of the secret Santa gifts were perfect and suited the receiver so well!

We had a really relaxing day. Mom and Jerry and Grannie came over about 11:00. We ate homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast and had chicken, ham, potatoes, jello salad, green salad and rolls for a late lunch or "linner" as we like to call it. The boys and Adan took a bike ride. Lucy made us all some itty bitty, teeny weeny little easy bake sugar cookies. Grannie took naps in the "box room". My mom and I sat and knitted and crocheted while we watched various Christmas movies... of the muppet variety. I lurve me some muppets.

I haven't blogged in foreeevvvveeerrrr, my imaginary readers won't know, but in the intervening months we have moved again and are in a new house. More on that later.

Want some trashy jelly?

I made some.. okay my mom made some while I did English homework. See linky

http://grammie710.vox.com/library/post/apple-waste-jelly.html

Breaking Blog Silence

I have decided that my sabbatical is over. Life just became too much for me to handle and I had to crawl under a rock for a few weeks :)

I just spent 4 glorious days in California. I spent the days with my best friend from high school, Cortney and we went shopping, ate out, saw a movie, went to the salon and had a baby shower. Tons o Fun! I wish I could have stayed for weeks instead of days. Of course I did have some family obligations, but the friend fun was more fun than the obligations were no fun. More later!

Competitive Sports

I will not ever be a sports coach again. I also think I should not attend the games. I am just not competitive. I have an inner sense of justice that says we should help the less talented learn, and bench the better ones until everyone plays well. I don't like the feeling of striking out or missing the pop fly in left field. I don't like to see other people experience those feelings. I am just not a competitive sports kind of gal.

So how do you reconcile your non-love for super strong and competitively driven coaches with your children who love sports, and your child who wants to love sports but isn't good? How do you "go with the game" while feeling bad for your benched child? The mother in me wants to come out and say.. Hey stupid head coach.. HELP him get better at the game instead of benching him!! But that's not how the game is played. Team over individual. :P

Maybe I should just put Adan in charge of the sports?? Got any tips for a for a sensitive mommy?

Compost yer diapers

in no. california!

http://www.earth-baby.com/home.php

CPSIA and books

Most people who know me, know that I have a love for books. As an teenager, I would go to the library and buy the used books from the booksale. Books are such an amazing part of my life, and I especially love OLD books, CLASSIC books. One of my favorite authors is Daphne du Maurier, who I found at one of those old library book sales. I hurt for what the CPSIA is doing to our children's products businesses, but even worse is what is happening to libraries, schools, charities in regards to used books. It scares me to think that our libraries may no longer be haven to our young people. Maybe it will come about that we will have a whole generation of children that have never read many many amazing books, just because they went out of print in 1989 and had to be dumped in 2009. I found the following post heart wrenching.
http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2009/03/cpsc-childrens-books-not-useful-after.html

Chores

I was talking with the mom of the children I watch and she was telling me how her oldest is really, really disrespectful to her. She does have some extenuating family circumstances that I don't have, but I have to wonder if it isn't partly because she doesn't expect him to be respectful. For example, he really has no chores around the house. He does one thing, clean the cat box. It made me think about the chores my children have.

I think I must be a slave driver. My kids have a LOT of chores.

Now, the boys do sleep in the same room, so the bedroom chores are split between them as opposed to both having to mop the whole room. Also on busy weekends, we may not get all the Saturday chores done because we just aren't at home. But we try to stick to this plan.

For our system, we have a master list that is on the fridge. It includes all the daily and weekday chores. It is laminated, and each day they check off what they completed.

We also assigned each child a room, and that is their Sat. chores. I have a list with all the chores for each room, laminated, posted on the door to that room. As they do the chores that day they check it off with a projector marker that is hanging from a string on the door. So far this works best for us.

I found the nifty chore charts at Chart Jungle, http://www.chartjungle.com/chores.html I found this site about 7 years ago, and have loved this zone cleaning type of system ever since!

What chores do your kids have? What are your thoughts on children having lots of chores vs. not many chores?

*edited to add in response to comments*
I really feel that it is important for the children to help out because they live here as well. I don't pay allowance for doing chores because chores are just something you have to do as part of a family. Sometimes family duties aren't fun, but you do them anyway! LOL

The kids don't enjoy doing chores and generally don't do them unless told to. Everyday we have chore time, and we all go down our checklists and do our respective tasks. The 5 year old is a pain about this, and occasionally spends 4 hours on one item, but she doesn't get to do anything else until those are done.

We started handing out chores at age 2. Something simple like feed the dog, or put the shoes in the shoe closet. It helps to have the chart, that they can check off when a job is done.

Lucy, age 5

Everyday:
Brush Teeth
Clean Room
Make Bed
Take Bath
Feed Dog
Sweep Upstairs Hallway #1(We have 2)
Take Out Recycling

Tuesday:
Empty Dishwasher

Saturday:
Sweep and Mop bedroom
Dust bedroom
Clean Doorknob and light switch
Wash Window
Clean bathtub in bathroom #2
Clean Sink
Clean Toilet
Clean Mirror
Clean Doorknob
Wash out Trash Can
Sweep and Mop
Clean Light Switch
Wash Window


Alex, age 8

Everyday:
Brush Teeth
Clean Room
Make Bed
Take Bath
Empty Upstairs Trashes
Clean out Cat Box
Sweep Kitchen
Sweep Landing of Stairs

Wednesday:
Empty Dishwasher

Saturday:
Sweep and Mop bedroom
Dust bedroom
Clean Doorknob and light switch
Wash Window
Clean bathtub in bathroom #3
Clean Sink
Clean Toilet
Clean Mirror
Clean Doorknob
Wash out Trash Can
Sweep and Mop
Clean Light Switch
Wash Window

AJ, age 10

Everyday:
Brush Teeth
Clean Room
Make Bed
Take Bath
Empty Downstairs Trashes
Feed and Water Cat
Clean up Dog poop
Sweep Stairs #2
Sweep Hallway #2

Thursday:
Empty Dishwasher

Saturday:
Sweep and Mop bedroom
Dust bedroom
Clean Doorknob and light switch
Wash Window
Dust Living Room
Clean TV Screen
Straighten Bookshelves
Clean Door Knobs
Clean Light Switches
Clean Walls
Wash Windows

Our foster son, age 15, also has a similar list, but I didn't list because when he leaves it will go back to being my list LOL.

Baby Cradle project

Today, we made a cradle with the daycare kiddos. It was super easy and a lot of fun!
We followed the plans found at www.kidscanmakeit.com/WW0001.htm.

I estimate that the overall cost was $15.00. This cradle is STURDY! This is not plastic piece of junk that will break in 5 days leaving you out 40 bucks.

Adan cut out the wood and sanded, and the kids and I assembled it. The kids ranged in age from 3 to 11 and all had a great time.

Picture Catch up!

Here are some pictures of the ice storm we had, and of our ghetto sledding attempt.

So after the ice storm, we saw a hill, and we saw that kids were sledding on it. So we grabbed a couple of trash bags and went over to sled. Who ever told you that you could slid down icy snowy hills on trash bags lied! then we tried the lid to my rubber maid tubs.. also a no-go. We finally gave up, although we did do some cool hill surfing on the way home.

Our very first meeting

On Sunday, my second baby turns 8. He has his own ideas, and thoughts, and marches to his very own drummer.

That's him in my profile pic, approx. 6 years ago.

A few minutes ago, he walked up to me as I was talking to Adan, and said, "Mom, guess what?"

"What?"

"Chicken Butt!"

He did not even crack a grin. :D

The following was written in 2002 when he was about 18 months old.

The First Meeting

We sit in the dark watching bright images jump out at us from the television. He snuggles deep into the space created by my hip and the arm of the couch. His fleece sleeper is soft against my skin and I can smell the Johnson's shampoo from his bath. As I rub the stubbly hair of his shaved head, it's hard to remember how it all started. (Of Course I remember the very beginning- I mean our first meeting!)

We walked AJ to the neighbor's house and I climbed into the car. We had everything prepared- clothes for both of us, diapers and a book to read, and Lire (this was before the Euro) in the ashtray for the tolls. We drove up to the tollbooth.

"Cinquecento Lire."

We handed over the Lire and drove through Soave's medieval city walls. I remember peering through the thick February darkness searching for the tiny sign that signaled the alley to the hospital. In between breaths I waddled up the steps and onto the elevator. Nurses clad in white greeted us.

"Buone notte."

As if in a dream, I climbed up on the table and the nurse examined my progress. While under the electrodes, She asked a series of unknown and indistinguishable questions.

"Dove in tensione?"
"Dove eravate sopportate?"
"Avete altri bambini?"
"Quanto anni avete?"

I answered to the best of my abilities and with our contrived sign language, she communicated to me that I was not progressing. Exhausted and frustrated, I left the room and walked out to the covered bridge between the buildings. I looked out the wall of windows. The sight took my breath away- Soave castle- surrounded by medieval walls and towers, back lit, stood out to me in the darkness.

I stood on the bridge, admiring my amazing surroundings. A nurse hustled by carrying two bags, and running behind her was a very pregnant woman, her breath puffing out her cheeks in her struggle to keep up. A few minutes later, the nurse returned and escorted me to my room. My room contained 2 narrow beds with a window on the far wall. I opened the window and leaned out over the crown moldings. I could still see the beautiful view of the castle beyond the trees.

My husband and I lay down on the narrow beds and tried to sleep. Despite the excitement we drifted off to sleep to the sound of the frogs croaking in the stream below our window. A few hours later I awoke to severe pain in my abdomen. I knew it was finally time.

I woke Adan up and we again waddled down the long corridor covered with pictures of babies. Again I climbed up on the table and was examined. This time the nurse gave me an encouraging smile. She escorted me down the hallway and into a dark room.

Through the haze of pain I thought I had walked into a B-rated hospital horror movie. The room had green ceramic tile on the floor, walls and ceiling. The only light in the room shone down upon a reclined chair in the center of the room. Gleaming stainless steel legs and stir-ups rose from the seat. At least 4 people stood around in the room, dressed in green scrubs and facemasks, conversing in low Italian tones.

I climbed onto the chair. The light blinded my eyes. One of the green clad figures put up some handrails on the sides of my chair. Then, pain, all around me and in me, filling my ears and blinding my eyes. In the background I could hear many voices, shouting.

"Spinta!"
"Push!"
"Spinghere!"

I tried to understand, but the pain in my ears kept the Italian words from being translated. Moments later it was over. One of the green clad figures handed me the prize, my son, and we had our first meeting. I allowed a nurse to take him and clean him and weigh him and do all those necessary trifles. He was returned to me and we walked to the recovery room.

I held him as he drifted off to sleep. Adan and I counted his fingers and toes. He was all there. Our Alexander David.

Sitting in the dark with him now, I sigh with love. I know this peaceful moment will not last. In five minutes, I will have to put him to bed and we will start another round of our battles. He will snuggle into his bed, and trick me into thinking he will go quietly, just like he has done since that February morning in Italy. No matter how much he fusses, and how much I complain about his fussing, in 20 years, I will think back with tears in my eyes, to the bedtime battles we used to have, just like I look back at our first meeting now.

Moms never notice anything

Last night after dinner I walked through the day care room and I noticed something strange about the small book case. The top of the book case had been depressed and the sides were all cracked and, well, broken. Then the mystery bookcase breaker had decided to repair the damage with my brown packing tape. Brown is close to tan right??

So not only is the bookcase busted to hell, but then it was wrapped in brown packing tape. Grrreeeaaat. Well in my mind the only person who commit this kind of carnage and then try to cover it with tape would be Lucy. I interrogate ask her what the hizell happened to the book case. She looks at me blankly and says I don't know.

Lucy and the truth don't always have a close relationship so I ask again.. Again she says she doesn't know. As I give her the look of death, stare her down sigh dejectedly, AJ walks up and admits to sitting on the book case and trying to repair the damage. He claims he tried to tell me while I was on the phone but I told him to wait, so he just figured it would not notice if it was fixed. Sure.

Ice and snow and snow and ice and chinese food

So Kentucky has been declared a state of emergency. Yup... we had an ice storm. A big one. So tonight we decided to go for Chinese food. A little background first. We had not left the house since Sunday afternoon. Tuesday school was canceled. (We are hoping school will be back in session on Monday.) Wednesday our power went out and was out all day. It was pretty dang cold in the house so we decided not to chance it over night. We were packing up to go the shelter when the power came back on. YAY us! the world is icy cold and sparkling so we did not venture out of the house the rest of the week either. Today, seeing as we had no food left in the house, and everything is still closed except the one Chinese buffet in town, we decided to go to dinner. First we chiseled the 8 inches of ice off the top and sides of the car. Then we spent 20 min. trying to start the car. We finally got it all good and started and the kids packed in, and we tried to back up. Yeah, the tires were iced to the ground and the whole car was pretty much surrounded with ice. We had to get out of the car and chisel away the ice that was under the tires. Finally, we made it out of the parking lot and to the chinese restaurant. As we slid across the icy parking lot, Lucy declares: It smells delicious here! It makes me want to eat the walls!

Guess it is time to feed the kids!!

You can see pics of the weather on this other local blog...

Moving is super fun!

I have not posted hardly anything in the last 2 months.. my life slowly, err, rapidly spun out of control! In October, we put in a request for a bigger house. When AJ turned 10, we became eligible for a 4 bdrm house but of course the waiting list for those was like 162 years. With our adoption coming up, we figured we would write in and ask if we could go ahead and get a 5 bdrm house. The 5 bdrm houses here on post are actually 2 house put together. Soooo that means 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms, 5 bdrms and 3 baths. This would be perfect for the day care because I would have dedicated space... My fingers were triple crossed.

We were told that we had to wait 10 days to find out if we were approved for the 5bdrm. I called back 2 weeks later and found out that they had said yes!! YAY us! Unfortunately we were #15 in line and our anticipated a move in February or March. We were told to call back at the end of November to check on our place in line.

I called back 2 weeks later on November 15th, because I am super patient, as anyone who knows me can tell you. :D They told me that our house would be ready next week. Next week? Whaaa? They won't release any more information, but I should call on Friday (5 days away). So, I call Friday, and they say that the house will be ready on Monday. Monday of Thanksgiving week, we walk into the office to find out what is going on. The lady at the desk tells us that our house will be ready on Friday at the latest. She tells us that we will have 5 days to move, but they won't release the address to us until the day we are to start moving. UMMMM so how to I transfer our phones and cable? How do I forward our mail?? I asked her what street the new house is on and she tells us the same street we already live on. KICK ASS! The houses on our street rock, and that means we would have like 2500 square feet with no stairs!!!!!

On Tuesday we decided to drive down the street and figure out what house will be ours. We found a double house that had construction workers in front and begged them for a tour. They obliged us and we walked through some awesome luxuriousness. The master closet alone was big enough for my kids to live in!

At lunch that afternoon we began to wonder if the lady at the desk was possibly not smart. Maybe she looked at our current address and just told us that street instead of the street the new house was on. We became paranoid and decided to call the housing office again. We spoke to a different lady, and she told us that our house was actually ready right then. She invited us for a tour. I knew at that instant we would not be moving into luxurious awesomeness.

Instead our new house was smack dab in the Army Housing Ghetto, AHG for short. Our little street is fairly quiet but the 2 neighboring buildings are all double houses also. That means 5 other families requiring 5 bdrms. That is a lot of Army brats to have deal with on a daily basis LOL. It seems that each family has at least 1 dog. At least 2 of those dogs are outside daily before 6 AM. Barking dogs are super fun at that hour.

The inside of the house was okay. Nice mocha colored walls. BUT the living rooms are small, and there are basically 2 sets of stairs. YOu have to walk up or down stairs to get anywhere.

Adan really did not want to take the house after seeing the crazy awesome flat house, but if we had turned it down, it would have been 6+ months before we were offered another one. So we took it.

The wanted us to move over Thanksgiving weekend, but we said no... Luckily they gave us some extra time to move. My mom and dad came down from LVille to help us move, and we managed to get everything done in 4 days.

I was able to get the daycare unpacked and looking good with in a week and had my inspections the next monday. On tuesday I started back up. I was glad to be able to get everything going so quickly but it has meant that I have had no time for the rest of the house. We finally got the office mostly unpacked and the sewing room mostly unpacked this weekend. We hung up the paintings and family pictures today. Slowly this house is starting to look like home.

We have moved an average of every 9 months since we got married. The last 2 moves though, have been much closer together. We moved in Nov. 07, in Apr. 08, and then again in Nov. 08. I am ready to stop moving!!!! Hopefully this is our last duty station. Hopefully we can stay in this house(s) until we get out. I would love 7 years of no moving!!!

Ten years, man! Ten!

Where’ve you been for ten years?"
"I freaked out, joined the army, went into business for myself. I’m a professional killer."
"Oh, do you have to do postgraduate work for that, or can you jump right in?

In 6 days my first baby will be 10. This is worse than turning 30! I feel like someone punched me in my breathing mechanisms!

Anywho, we are going to go mini golfing as a family, and invite 3 friends for a movie date. Ad wants to see city of Ember, so I hope it is showing!

He wants to have an MP3 player for his birthday... So I guess we will be breaking the bank.. I mean a young man only turns 10 once, you know!

Fun with zoo animals

Today we went to the zoo with our Susie Goodness children. We all had a blast! We were able to feed the lorikeets. One of them was in a bad mood and bit Ad on the hand. He is tough though, and did not even make a sound. One of the lorries perched on Aj's head. He looked a bit nervous after the bite his brother just got. We saw the gorillas, and one of them would knock on the glass to get the kids attention. They would knock back and then the Gorilla would look at them and knock on the glass at the same place. The zoo is so fun. I am so glad we managed to get the membership! Lk told me her favoritest part was the monkeys who knocked on the glass.

Lk's Birthday

Lk turns 5 on Saturday. I can't believe my baby is 5. I can't believe it has been 5 years since that adventure in my mom's office :) My mom is the lifesaver of the year for 2003, according to the Ventura County Red Cross, dontcha know?

In honor of Lk actually reaching the 5 year mark, here is her birthday wish list, verbatim.

Music thingy like a radio
A clean house that is this big and touches the ground. (playhouse)
A long fake pink rattlesnake or a rainbow one.
5 my little ponies with a house
a little stroller for my babies
my own little tv that has channels in it.. then I could watch tv whenever I want, but not when I am going to bed. I won't ask that.
I bet I want something else too, 8 thingys.
candy
fake candy for my ponies
2 little dogs
a pony that's a baby one
a fly pony
a pony that has a bicycle that has a controller and a helmet so it could be safe.

Where has the month gone?

I haven't posted anything in a long long time, and I wanted to post like 5 different posts just so I could neatly tag and file these updates away and find them later shoudl I want to find them, but then i decided that was way too much work. So one update it is!

First the Garden... We moved the garden to the side of the house, luckily it was all in pots!! Unfortunately with it being out of eye sight, we slacked a bit on the watering, but I don't think it mattered. We had mushrooms growing in a few pots. Our tomatoes did not really produce at all and I don't know if it is because there was not enough drainage, or if the soil wasn't good. Basically we got no produce from our big ole garden. It was sad. This winter we are going to build raised beds, and I am going to get the book square foot gardening and see if I can do better next year.

Daycare - I have opened a home daycare. It took a while to get everything together and I still feel slightly under prepared, but I am open and 3 children in my care. 2 are only before and after school care and one is all day. They are all 3 really nice children and fit in well with my three. The only downside is waking up at the butt crack of the morning every day. I am now seriously dragging arse!

School - We are homeschooling the kidlets this year. We are using www.amblesideonline.com for our curriculum. This is a literature based curriculum with "living books". This plan appeals to me because i love to read, and really love classics. I like the idea that our children will know all those stories that our culture is built upon and that are alluded to frequently. I am so thankful that an atmosphere of great reading and learning was fostered in my home as a child. I was given books of classic literature many times as a child and now i already own many of the books on our school book list. Unfortunately we are po' and can't afford many of the other books, but luckily many are now public domain and I have been able to print off their readings for the first term already. I also found Paper Back Swap
I was able to post 35 of my fluff books and have gotten many books for our school years present and future. Ambleside online is great also in that there are many support groups and they are super active. Any questions I have are quickly answered in a very friendly way.

We are currently reading the Bible, An Island Story, This Country of Ours, The Discovery of New Worlds, The Awakening of Europe, Fifty Famous Stories, Retold, Parables from Nature, Aesop's Fables, Burgess Bird Book, Paddle-to-the-Sea, Robert Louis Stephenson's poems, Trial and Triumph, Assorted Fairy Tales, James Herriot's Treasury for Children, Just So Stories, Benjamin Franklin, Tales from Shakespeare, Da Vinvi, Marco Polo, The Story of Inventions, William Blake poetry, American Tall Tales, The Heros, The Princess and the Goblin. And that's only for the first term!!

I decided not to start LK this year, and she will start next year when she is 6.

Business endeavors - I have been renewed in making DD a business that actually makes a profit. I can already see a difference. I decided that I just don't have time to devote to 2 businesses at once. I can't do it. I believe this is why i have failed to show large profits with my businesses. I told ArmyMan that I can't continue PP because I just don't have the time for it, and he professed a desire to do it himself, so I told him if he made all the paper, I would do the decorating into cards, and he could take pics, and then I would put them on the website. So far, he hasn't made any paper LOL. We shall see if that works out. I just have to find time to finish the website.. Maybe next month LOL.

Anyway that's the update for the month. Hopefully, in the next couple of days I will post my 101 things in 1001 days list and get going on that again.

Balloon Glow

Last week the kids and I went to a balloon glow with grampa. It was tons of fun.. I took way too many pictures to post here so click on the picture below to visit my snapfish album and see all the awesome pictures! Unfortunately you will have to register for a snap fish account to see the pics.. but it's the only picture place that automatically works with my phone.



We had tons of fun. It wasn't too crowded.. we ate popcorn, and toured all the balloons.