Good News

Lest anyone accuse me of only posting complaints on my blog, today's post will be entirely dedicated to ALL the good news going on in our household right now - and there's a lot of it!

FIRST, Joseph has his first loose tooth!

(He vacillates between being excited about the Tooth Fairy visit and terrified at the thought of it falling out while he's sleeping and him swallowing it, thus depriving him of the coveted "prize." He's such a silly goose. Can't believe my oldest is old enough to loose teeth now...*sniff*...Mama moment...NO, wait, back to happy!!! Banish those tears!)

SECONDLY, James has been so well behaved and grown up lately!

Yesterday he even got out his school book and started doing schoolwork all on his own. (And yes, it was definitely motivated by a desire to test drive his new crayons.;-) It's really hard to get him to do the "sit down and follow the directions" kind of schoolwork, but when he decides he wants to do it, boy, he does it! And it's getting very clear that his preschool book is way too easy and boring for him - he needs a challenge! He reminds me of both his Daddy and Grandpa Dan in that respect. I wonder if anyone sells a phonics book entirely based on bugs....

THIRDLY, Gabriella is ALL POTTY TRAINED!!!

 (I confess this is the one that I am the most excited about. ;-) She has been working hard for months, and we promised her an "ice-cream party" once she managed to be dry for a whole week. She's come SO close several times, but then had an accident and we had to reset the clock. But this week she finally managed it, and last night we celebrated with ice cream after dinner. Hooray! That only leaves me with one in diapers. Awesome.

FOURTHLY, Elora is getting more teeth - her 2 year molars!

I count this as good news, although there are moments when she isn't terribly happy about it, poor baby. But she's growing up too. In fact, she hardly even counts as a baby anymore! She's pretty much a full blown toddler, who loves to climb and get into EVERYTHING! She's super-cute. And I'm not biased at all....

and FINALLY, my good news is that my best friend Rachel is coming to visit!!! She and her sister Elsie are driving down tomorrow for a short visit over the weekend. We don't get to see each other but about twice a year, if we're lucky, so needless to say I am VERY excited about it!!

In fact, if you'll excuse me, I need to go work on cleaning my house in preparation for their visit....

Hope your day is as filled with good news an mine!

A Letter to the President

Dear President Obama,

Your recent statement to small business owners - "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made it happen." - shows just how out of touch you are with the people you supposedly represent. You clearly know nothing about the struggles, the effort, and the sacrifices that go into making a business successful. Your implication that somehow you, the government, or the surounding community are responsible for our sucesses - and failures - is both arrogant and offensive.

You didn't spend all those late nights at the office while your family had to sit down to dinner without you yet again. You weren't there for the all-nighters spent trying desperately to fix a problem in order to appease a customer. You didn't give up your vacation because you weren't able to leave your fledgling company lest it collapse without you. You didn't go months without a salary so your employees could get paid instead. And you can't comprehend the joy of success, whether it's getting a new contract or finally getting paid after all those months, because you didn't have to make the sacrifices first.

You can't understand small business, Mr. Obama, because you only know how to run a giant corporation further into debt.

Sincereley,
A Small Business Owner's Wife

{you know} #2

Reason #2 Why you know you've been a mother for too long:


You look down and realize you have absentmindedly been feeding the baby sips from your coffee cup. 

And you used to wonder why she wouldn't sleep...

"You know"

You know you've been a mother a long time when...


...your entire family shares a toothbrush and you're too tired to care. (You were going to catch - whatever they've got this time - eventually anyway.)

little balls of protein

Due to a traumatic oatmeal experience as a child, which I will not go into lest it also ruin oatmeal for you for all time, I cannot eat oatmeal. Like, literally cannot. If it was a choice between oatmeal and starvation, I'm not quite sure which one I'd pick, but it'd be close. I am not normally a very picky person, but this is one instance where I draw the line.

However, because it's my goal for my children to surpass me in every way possible, I do make oatmeal for them. And they love it. Which is good...until they try to share with me. (They're so unselfish like that.) Then I either have to pretend I'm not hungry or show them that I am already eating something else.

So I came up with these little protein balls that I eat for breakfast or a snack instead. They contain oats, among other things, but uncooked, so they don't have that squishy texture I hate so much. These are great because they're fast, easy, and packed with nutrition and lots of protein. You can make them ahead and just store them in the refrigerator for any time you need a healthy snack. They're a little sweet, so they kind of fulfill that "dessert" mentality, but they're also really good for you. Kids love to roll them into little balls between their fingers and then eat them - it's kind of like edible play dough!

Peanut butter protein balls

About 1 cup of raw peanut butter or almond butter
small drizzle of honey
handful of raisins or other dried fruit
handful of chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds, or other nuts
teaspoon of flax seeds
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup dried coconut
about 1 cup of uncooked oats*

*for gluten free balls, make sure you use gluten free oats. Bob's Red Mill is the brand I use.

Mix the ingredients all together in a medium bowl. Then you can roll into little balls and refrigerate until slightly hard, to keep them from falling apart. Or, if you're impatient like me, you can just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon. But just a note of caution - they are very filling. Its easy to start eating them and think you haven't had that much, only to end up way too full. A couple of balls is enough for me, even for a meal. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Note - I haven't tried this yet, but you could turn them in chocolate peanut butter balls quite easily, by adding a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder. You might have to increase the honey a little bit to counteract the bitterness of the unsweetened cocoa powder. You could also put chocolate chips in them and they would taste like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! You can also add whatever dried fruit, nuts, seeds, or other ingredients sound appealing. The possibilities are practically endless.