Our Anniversary

Hubby surprised me by coming home early, and thanks to our state tax return coming almost immediately back we went out to dinner at PF Chang's to celebrate! Oh, and he brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers :) I love flowers! Dinner was awesome, kids were great and food was amazing. I didn't even get sick! Last two times I went to PF Chang I got "glutened" somehow, sucks but it's the roll of the dice when you go out to eat!

Strawberry Cream Cheese is frosting!!

I bought Udi's gluten free bagels today, and popped one right into my toaster once our groceries were put away. I wanted to try flavored cream cheese, so I got strawberry flavored. It tastes like frosting, and would be great on a brownie but was TERRIBLE on a bagel! Just thought I would spread that bit of news around so someone else doesn't ruin an expensive bagel like I did!!

Paying it forward

Remember I posted a few weeks ago about that great second pantry I built, using the shelves from a friend's mom's house that was getting repossessed? Well we went back to the house over the weekend to pick up the brand new mattress and boxspring, and for one last "go over" before the bank changes the locks. I was only looking for things my family could use, when I realized there were piles of clothes everywhere that still had tags on them - Macy's, Kohl's, at least a thousand dollars worth of clothing just laying there! I realized I should do SOMETHING with them, a woman's shelter or something of that nature would love them! I don't know of any elderly centers that take donations, or of a shelter nearby to where we were... but I knew I could give them to the assistance league that was on our way home! So I found trash bags and took seven or eight bags of either new or almost new clothes and shoes to the assistance league. I didn't document it or ask for a receipt, I don't want the tax write off, I just wanted them to go to someplace good! The assistance leagues in major cities do so much good with the money they make selling clothes just like that, and the clothes they sell for such a cheap price that alone helps so many!

I feel good having done a good thing. I don't get the opportunity to donate often, we don't have extra money, but this feels good to have helped at least someone somewhere :)

*UPDATE* The assistance league only takes clean sellable clothing, and even though most of this had tags on it they all had a bit of cat hair so they said no thanks over the phone. I called a local women's shelter, which turned out to say no as well because of the cat hair. I got so frustrated! None of it needed to be washed, just brushed off and I explained that, didn't matter!!! So I opened all the bags, shook the clothing off outside and put them back in the bags. I called Goodwill and they said they will happily take the clothing, and thanks for shaking it off but they would have happily done it. They seemed so happy to be getting a donation of so much clothes, totally opposite of the others I called. So I documented it all and took the tax write off, after using the Goodwill's site for figuring donations it added up to over $1400 in donations! I am happy that we helped, but I am sure the tax receipt will help ;)

Bragging Rights!

As a mother I have to brag about this one. Big Kid has wanted to be a dentist since he was five years old, and last week the twins had their first dental cleaning. While at the pediatric dentist's office Big Kid asked how long our dentist had to be in college to get his degree, and he said 8 yrs for general dentistry, 10 for pediatrics. He said if Big Kid ever wanted to he could come shadow him for a few hours. You would have thought he offered him a new video game he was so excited!

We scheduled a two hour block this afternoon for Big Kid to shadow the dentist. When I came to pick him up he looked like he was leaving a theme park he was so happy! The dentist came and jumped into the chair next to me and told me what a great afternoon they had, Big Kid was proud to tell me he asked lots of questions and witnessed a crown being put on! He asked if he could come back sometime to see a tooth being pulled, and the dentist asked him if he wanted to make it a monthly event - so the first Monday of every month Big Kid is going to be shadowing a pediatric dentist! WOW!! Our dentist is awesome, sort of reminds me of a clean version of Dane Cook. Very personable and seems very comfortable with himself - a happy person. I am just so impressed that he cares enough about my child to want to do this! I think he's pretty impressed, the office staff said they have never had a single child interested in shadowing anyone there - ever! Big Kid was jumping up and down tonight, saying "I want to do it again I want to do it again!".

Hubby and I are so proud that he already knows exactly what career path he plans to walk, and that he is going out there and getting such an early start!! How many almost 12 yr olds are already shadowing a professional in the field they want to work in?! Yep, this is me wearing my proud mama face :)

Zpizza for my birthday!

Hubby brought home a hawaiian Zpizza and the new donkey kong game for the wii for my birthday! WOOHOO!!! I'm eating the second half of the pizza now, yumm, and plan to play the game after our library class today. GOOD BIRTHDAY!!

if any gluten free goers haven't tried Zpizza and live near one, I highly recommend them. It's not pizza hut pizza, it's a really tasty healthier version. They have tons of toppings available, really! And hubby and big kid say the gluteny version is awesome as well. BONUS!

Field Trip!!!

Today was our first homeschool field trip - and it was awesome!! We went to a museum to see a great exhibit that was about what we had been studying lately in social studies, and big kid was so attentive and even asked questions!!! I was so proud! The docent was awesome, answered all of his questions and then some. She even took the time after the tour to tell him the story of Romulus and Remus when he asked what the greek carving was with the kids and the wolf! Excellent day. I see many more field trips in our future :)

Egg, Dairy and Gluten free Chocolate Cake... and no, it's not taste free!

Ok I have to admit I look at most things that are "free of" more than two ingredients and cringe, thinking it will taste like, well cardboard! This tastes surprisingly good! The trick is the cook time - it varies so make darn sure yours cooks through the middle!

I want to mention first that when I call for "flour" in any recipe, I have made the recipe using both "normal" all purpose flour and The Gluten Free Pantry's All Purpose Flour. I don't mess with other gf flours, they are all awful in my opinion.

1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
3 Tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
5 Tbs vegetable oil (or canola, whatever you use)
1 C sugar
1 Tbs vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Cup water

Mix flour, cocoa, soda, and sugar in a large bowl. Add oil, vanilla, water and vinegar, and slowly stir until well combined. Once completely mixed pour into an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan.

Bake for between a half an hour to 45 minutes, depending on your oven's mood and the time of year, moisture content in the air, who the heck knows I just know my bake time always varies a tad! Do the toothpick test in the middle of the cake to ensure you don't have any uncooked batter left.

The best present ever!

My mother gave me these for Christmas, and wow am I using them! I have a somewhat small kitchen, and the way the builders used the space is just silly - I have four tiny drawers and barely any counterspace. Notice even in this photo you can see the sink on the left and the stove on the right! Someday when we win the lotto we'll remodel...

In the meantime I'm using these stackable cooling racks! How genius are these? They click into each other making the stack very sturdy, I may go for another level! And yes, those are my gluten free peanut butter cookies. I have mastered those, my entire family loves peanut butter!

The twins turned three!

Big deal for us, they are growing up so quickly! Because their birthdays follow Christmas so closely, we didn't give them a ton of presents. I am so glad we didn't because it took them two hours to open the four we gave them at our little family party! They had to take time to play with each gift before unwrapping the next box, and when it was time for bed they slept with their "real" Buzz Lightyear and Woody dolls! Course we heard Buzz's laser going off everytime thing two rolled over...

It was sort of fun leaking presents to them, Nahnah was here Sunday so she gave them her presents Sunday afternoon to open, then Monday morning I gave them the big Buzz Lightyear spaceship tent (scored that on clearance at Target 75% off) and they played in it most of the day. Our good friends came for dinner and gave them all three Toy Story movies (whoa!) and then we had cake. I tried my hand at a egg, dairy and gluten free chocolate cake, was honestly really good! Course I used real icing that had milk in it, that helped, but the cake itself was pretty darn good... and moist! I'll post the recipe in a bit once homeschooling is finished today :)

Birthdays for your kids can be so much fun as long as you don't stress about them! We have the twins' party this weekend, invited six other kids around their age, then the grown ups celebrate - my birthday and our anniversary. March brings big kid's birthday, Dad's birthday, and Nahnah's birthday! When I typed that I ran the chorus from beastie boys "fight for your right to party" in my head HA! I love parties, and I love seeing my family members smile at their parties! I can't wait!!!!

Homeschooling

I have to say things with Big Kid are going amazingly well. When we started schooling at home in July he hated reading, I could barely read his writing, his grammar and language arts skills in general were awful... and he had a general distaste for anything that could be considered "educational". Six months later he now asks for more new books, and when he gets them he dives right into them. His writing is improving greatly, or at least his printing is. We haven't even attempted to start handwriting yet, the public school just sort of ignored it...

He is amazing with math, logical problems are his forte. He enjoys science as long as I can insert hands on projects here and there. We decided to go with life science this year, and it's a rather dry book, but it's secular and that's what I wanted. I have started him doing a "word quiz" every day out of a reader's digest collection of their quizzes, and it's teaching him how to use a dictionary and broadening his vocabulary like crazy!!

Social studies is just amazing as well - I truly don't understand what the huge difference is between me and school. Is it the one on one? The interest I take in what he is learning? Whatever it is the gap is huge. He talks about how beautiful Russia is when we read a book about it, how he never knew there were so many beautiful places in the world. We have studied the US, South America and Russia so far... can you imagine what he will think once we have studied all the continents?! I love that he is soaking in so many facts about so many things, in all subjects. He was excited to learn in our Russia book that bears aren't just carnivores, they are also herbivores. I love watching my son learn so much so quickly! He now has me record specials on tv about this animal or Pearl Harbor (yep, asked me to record Tora Tora Tora, I was floored), or about how our galaxy was formed.

Education is a beautiful thing!

New Pantry?

Yesterday mom and I sort of went spelunking, to a friend's mom's house that has been repossessed. No power, no heat, no room to move! She doesn't want anything she left in the house, and boy did she leave a lot! So I grabbed a number of shelving units and closetmaid shelves, and plan to make a new pantry! We have two coat closets in our hallway, and one TEENY and I mean tiny pantry in our kitchen. With the way I coupon and follow our local sales, everything goes on sale every six weeks or so, and so when something is on sale and I have good coupons for it I buy six weeks worth... yes, now you are understanding why I need a bigger pantry with a family of five to feed!!

I can't wait to start, but homeschooling comes first... after school I will begin!! Mwahahaha!

*update* The new pantry ROCKS!! I used plastic shelving that was 3 ft wide (closet is 3ft 1in wide!) to make three sturdy shelves, and then hung a nice little wire shelf system on the back of the door. I did buy a clear over the door shoe rack initially to help organize packets of koolaid, mixes and such, but I instead put that in our coat closet, to organize our hats, gloves and scarves. Worked SO well!! I am so happy to finally have some room to buy a few extra boxes of cereal! YAY!

Family Game Night

We decided last week that we are going to have a family game night every week. The twins aren't quite old enough to participate yet, but will be soon!! Last week we played Clue, which was fun for everyone! Hubby liked it because it's a logical game, not one where by total chance you can utterly lose like Sorry or Life. Every time we play Life he loses his job and lands on every pay space possible! This week I think we'll try Wii Sports Resort - however hubby and big kid have played numerous times, I'll have the handicap tonight as I have never played. They better be nice, I'm the only "girl" in the house!!!

I think it's so nice to have a night where we just play and spend time together - every week! I realized we were going through the motions of every day... and not really spending any "quality time" together! Granted homeschooling I spend a lot more time with big kid than I ever have, and I love that, but hubby misses out on all of that. I think this is going to be a great tradition in our house, we will all benefit from spending time together :)

Mmmmm pizza

I used to run a pizza shop years ago, before I had to go gluten free. As lots of people understand if you work in a restaurant you really don't want to eat what they serve. I didn't until I was pregnant while working there, and then I wanted to inhale half of the shop! I had two favorites, and I still crave them today and now I want to make them when I have the ingredients - I made french fries topped with mozz cheese and bacon bits - it's fried, fattening and omg so good. I also made buffalo chicken pizza (I'll now have to make the dough from scratch), layering buffalo sauce, then buffalo chicken, then mozzarella and bleu cheeses... yep, I have been in the house for too long now!

*Buffalo Sauce Recipe*
super easy - for every 1/2 cup of Frank's Red Hot Sauce use 1/3 cup melted butter or margerine, and voila, buffalo sauce! You can spice it up with more tobasco sauce, or habanero sauce, this makes a basic mild wing sauce.

Having been snowed in for three days now, I'm feeling a bit "stuck". I'm painting our master bathroom cabinets, which were a horrid yellow, and I think I have decided to paint the walls a nice antique blue... maybe. We have painted every other room in our house, we just ignored our bedroom and master bath! No one ever goes in there anyway!!! It's time!!!

Snow in Georgia?!!

Wow - in this photo you see the FIVE INCHES of snow on my car! We live in the south, this NEVER HAPPENS! Hubby said this is the most snow he has ever seen. Me being a yankee I'm used to this, but not in our area! And where I'm from if your governor declares a state of emergency you can't drive on the roads... our neighbors are doing it for fun!! Ugh. Love the snow, hate the cold! I want southern weather back!!! The white Christmas was nice tho, have to give mother nature that one :)

*Update - we are on day three of being snowed in, hubby is none too happy about attempting to work from home, big kid is unhappy that there is so much ice on top of the snow. Thing one and two haven't noticed the difference other than looking at the snow out the sliders, saying "wow mommy snow!" and going right back to whatever they were doing!

Wow, two new gluten free foods in one month that TASTE GOOD?!!

Yep, bought a bag of "food should taste good" chips/crackers yesterday and ate half the bag before I made myself put them away! They taste like a cracker my grandmother used to keep in her New England home when I was little, it brought me right back to her table. It made me miss her and want more of the crackers all at once! Definitely will be buying more of these, yum! And they're health food healthy and I still like them! AMAZING! Flax seeds, sesame something, all sorts of good for you ingredients and THEY STILL TASTE GOOD! I'm sold!

Freecycle HAUL!!!

Ok, so normally I don't post about every freecycle item I pick up or give away, it would take over my blog. Today I have to brag!! We picked all of these up from a fellow freecycler and homeschooler, I was so wowed. The twins played with a few while I cleaned them all (yes, I'm ocd about cleaning everything) and fixed up the boxes with packing tape. What a find!!!

Monster party invitations!

The twins turn three this month, and they requested a "monster party". Not Monsters Inc, just "rarrr monsters mommy". Okaaaay! Big Kid and I turned art class into making monster invitations yesterday, and wow did he do a great job! Together we made nine or ten invites, and they are all just awesome!! I hope people enjoy opening them, it was so much fun making them! Next on the to-do list is to get some posterboard and make a pin the ___ on the monster. What should we pin on the monster? Eyes, tails, mouth, teeth, what? We are trying to keep the party small, so they aren't overwhelmed. Our halloween party was pretty big, and they were a bit scared of the crowd!

I can't believe my "babies" are almost three! They are so much fun to watch grow, I feel so happy to have been able to stay at home and witness their "education"! Yesterday they started playing games together, elefun and a big mouth frog game similar to hungry hippos. They played with the board of sesame street chutes and ladders, but didn't really understand the game play. They are old enough to take turns easily and "play" the games, but not really old enough to understand rolling dice, moving spaces and such. We're going to try letter bingo this week, they have known all of their letters for a year and a half so that part is easy. I'm wondering if they'll enjoy the covering them up part!

To make the invitations I just cut little teeth out of white paper, a bunch of different sized white circles for eyeballs, little black pupils, and then started cutting the shapes of the cards out. Big Kid came up with the idea of the arms wrapping around the card instead of folding a plain old card, which was awesome! I had so much fun making these!!! I wrote silly little sayings like "Bring Your Little Monsters" and such on the cards :)

UPDATE* Here is a link to another blog that has lots of ideas for monster party items. I don't have ANY of the crafting machines and such she mentions, but it sure gave me a lot of ideas to run with! I can make most of her stuff by hand, and they are just great ideas :)

What do you feed your toddlers?

We have two almost three year olds, and one has a somewhat limited palate, the other eats a variety of food. No allergies, just picky! Every morning they try to kill each other over a big warm bowl of infant oatmeal and bananas (yes, infant cereal), they eat nutrigrain bars, most any type of fruit, applesauce, plain bread, rice, yogurt, steak, pork chops, some chicken dishes, most rice dishes, smart puffs and pirate's booty, cheese its, chex mix (they love the really hard brown pieces!!!), they love cookies and potato chips! OH, and of course they love chocolate birthday cake. Of course we don't give them those last three that often, they aren't near as healthy as everything else!

They drink milk and water, that's all they'll accept, and even after the doc says they should be very overweight for drinking this much they still drink around 5 to 7 sippies of milk a day... which works out to what, 45 to 56 ounces a day! They are not anything near overweight btw, they are perfectly sized to keep their pants up but definitely don't fill them out!

They won't eat bread once it has something on it, aka a sandwich, and they really shy away from most vegetables. Won't even touch deli meat, it's a texture issue. They used to eat cheese but won't eat it now. Other kids have offered them fruit snacks, candies, etc. and they say no and won't let it pass their mouths, which I still feel lucky about! I have tried giving them a gummy vitamin, but they just aren't old enough for them and I don't dare give them those hard chewables yet!

Anyone want to share what their toddlers eat? Maybe we can help each other??

After Christmas Sales

Wow - lately between hip2save.com and southernsavers.com I have really scored some good bargains!! The twins turn three soon, so I am trying to find some good toys for them at good prices, and wow is that working out! Ok, so I did pay full price for their talking woody and buzz dolls that I ordered, but I did get free shipping!!

I stopped at Rite Aid today and got ornaments, my fave candy in the world (peeps!!), toys, a really cool wooden organizational thing to hang on the wall for letters and keys (for my mom), a pkg of loose leaf for school, and my construction paper to make birthday party invitations - all for $16.32 after coupons! AWESOME! Receipt said savings was $42.75.

At CVS I used my $5/25 email coupon, and $5 ecb I had earned, and got nail clippers, eye shadow, 4-2pks of reach toothbrushes, a coke, and two pkgs of easy ups for $16.14. Again, awesome! I had to do two transactions so I could use the $12 ecb I earned from the first on the second, but I didn't mind! According to the two receipts I saved $49.35.

At Macy's this week I bought 2 prs of junior's levi's, 2 prs of toddler jeans, and four toddler polo shirts for $40 - the first pr of levi's for me was originally priced $44 for just that one pair! They are running a sale through 1/17 or so (check the hip2save post) where you get a $10 macy's coupon good on any apparel for every pr of jeans you buy, even if they are $9.99 on clearance! So I paid $22 for my two prs, then used one $10 coupon on each pr of toddler jeans, which ended up $2.30 each after the coupon, and earned another two coupons from buying them. I found some great striped toddler polo shirts on sale for $3.40 each, and got four of those to use one more coupon. The last one my mom used to get two toy story shirts for the twins, I think she may have paid $10 oop because they weren't on sale. How cool is that?!! Those receipts said I saved a total of $109.17!!! Whoa... I usually don't shop at Macy's, our clothing budget wouldn't cover a shirt there, but this one was too good to pass by. I was heading near the mall to get a Thomas the Train mat laminated at school box, which turned out to be only $2.17 to do, and it's a big one! I have to remember they do that, it's such a great service for an awesome price!

At Kohl's today I returned two prs of jeans for big kid, he needs "relaxed fit" not "standard fit"... whatever. While I was there I noticed their toy dept was so very nicely organized, and there were signs all over saying 50% to 75% off, so I had to stop! I grabbed gatorgolf for the twins for $8, regularly $27. There are TONS of 50% to 80% off racks in every dept, so I grabbed the twins a two pack of their favorite cars pj's for $12... normally $32! Great steals considering I didn't have my usual 30% off coupon! I never look at the amt saved at Kohl's to begin with, because their "original prices" are never what you pay to begin with ;)

New Gluten Free addiction!!

Ok, so everyone knows I love eating cheesecake, brownies, cheesecake brownies, baked goods are my weakness. However - I have discovered Udi's gluten free bagels and have had at least one a day since I found them! THEY TASTE LIKE REAL BAGELS! I have had them plain, buttered, cream cheesed, jellied, and love every single way I have prepared them. Who knew I missed good ol' bagels so much!!!

I found them in the frozen section of my local publix, what an awesome treasure!!!