Where are their parents?

Have you ever wondered where Max and Ruby's parents are? There are actually quite a few characters out there in children's literature and television where you never see the parents and sometimes there are no adults at all. You don't see the parents in these books:

Well, it's not just us parents who've noticed. Sometimes when we are reading one of these - Lily asks me..."Where's the baby's Mommy?" So I tell her - The mommy is taking the picture. Sometimes when I've look through our pictures I've had the same thought. I have about a gazillion more pictures of my child than I have of myself, or my husband. She is cuter. Maybe Max and Ruby's parents were always behind the video camera and didn't like the sound of their voices recorded... I know that feeling. It's just too bad that they got so obsessed with recording their children they kind of lost connection with them. I mean...Max hardly speaks and Ruby has completely taken over the role of responsible parent and she's still in bunny scouts! Sometimes you see Grandma, but she doesn't live with them and there is never any hint of the existence of a mom and dad. Poor little rabbits.

Now that's comfort

Mmmm. Lasagna cooking in my crock-pot since this morning is making the house smell so good! It's been raining all day. At noon the sun was coming out, and for about 5 minutes I thought it was going to stop... then more clouds rolled in and blocked out the sun. It seemed like night already, it was suddenly so dark in the house! My hard-working husband was washing windows today in this crazy weather - so I figured I'd surprise him with lasagna goodness when he got home. Lucky his job today didn't require use of the ladder - that scares me. I took a short nap with Lily because she isn't sleeping too well. She just started a cold, and when she doesn't sleep well - we don't either. I don't normally like to nap during the day - it just makes me tireder, but today it was so cozy to snuggle under my blankets with the sound and chill of the rain in my room. That extra hour will help me make it through tonight.

Lately Lily has randomly been turning to me and saying: "You good mom, mama!" I really hope it's true. It makes me feel good to hear it from the person I'm mom to. I love how happy and sweet this kid is even when she's not feeling good. I mean - yeah, you can tell she's not happy when her nose starts running and all, but she'll still dance around and be silly in-between times. No wanting to lay in bed for her! I took her out to the porch all wrapped in a blanket to look at the rain. I wasn't sure she'd remember having seen that much before. She watched for a few minutes, and then asked me to make it stop because she wanted to watch Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Ha ha! "Turn it off, mom - make it go away, I'm done watching the rain!" She just told me she needed some chocolate milk "to feel better". 

 

 

A few minutes ago as she was watching the rain pour down out the window and said: "We need to get some rain boots, mom so we can go out and splash in the puddles!" We definitely do! My brother has a big beach umbrella up over his scarecrow in the front yard. It looks more silly than scary - it's fun :) Anyway, just thought I'd share the crock-pot lasagna recipe. It's too good not to share. I love that you don't have to pre-cook the noodles. I don't make lasagna any other way. 

Crock-pot Lasagna

1 large (16 oz) carton cottage cheese
1 egg
Fresh grated Parmesan cheese
2 large jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce (1 lb+ jars)
Cooked ground beef or turkey, if desired
Sauteed onion & garlic to taste
Lasagna noodles (uncooked)
Grated Monterey Jack or Mozzarella
About ¼ cup warm water

Mix cottage cheese, egg, and ¼ cup Parmesan cheese together in a small mixing bowl.
Combine spaghetti sauce with cooked meat, sauteed onion & garlic.
Pour a little sauce mix in the bottom of the crock-pot (about one third mix).
Break some noodles to fit and lay in crock-pot – only about one layer.
Put a portion (about half) of the cottage cheese mix on those noodles.
Add another layer of noodles (place criss-cross from the first layer).
Pour more sauce on noodles (about ½ remaining mixture).
Sprinkle grated cheese on that.
Add noodles again (criss-cross), cottage cheese mix, noodles, the remaining sauce, and more grated cheese. Top with a little extra of the grated Parmesan.
Pour ¼ cup water over the top. Cover.
Cook on low about 6 hours or high for 3-4 hours. 

Enjoy!

All Dressed Up

So I got Lily's Halloween costume done a little early. Yay! She was invited to a birthday party where the kids all wore costumes so it was a good motivator - otherwise I'd still have that to do. This year's costume was Mike's idea. I think it turned out pretty cute! We might still get her some cat's eye glasses. It would have been cute with saddle shoes too, but I think her black dressy shoes look cute enough - it is just a costume. Maybe I'll have to make me one too and all go out to the Corvette Diner - maybe :) 

Here are some pictures from the birthday party - It was Lily's first invite to a non-family party. 

 My big girl :)

 Look what a pro handling that bat!

 

She was a little nervous about the bounce house. She popped right back out after her dad stuck her in (just like she did after we bought her a ticket to the one at the pumpkin patch). Dad going in with her warmed her up (couldn't do that at the Pumpkin Patch). She had a blast with him, and even started bouncing on her own.

Though I think she preferred holding his hands and going super high! I think the most fun was sliding out the entrance... My ankle is feeling a lot better, but still not 100%

Lily also had fun playing in the miniature house our friends had built in their backyard for their kids. I can't say as I blame her - it is super cute!

I would love a house like that. Isn't it darling!?

I am so behind on blogging when I think of all the posts I've wanted to do, but I don't really want to spend all my time on the computer. I reminded myself sewing Lily's costume that it isn't a good idea to stay up all night, even if that sometimes seems like the only way to get anything done.

I've been spending every spare minute lately preschool planning. I am really excited, though not quite ready to begin. I also recently made some new pillow covers to match our newish couch. I should have written a post when we got that because it is the first one we ever bought in our 9 years of marriage and replaced the purple love seat we'd been lugging around. Exciting to me :) It was also a fun trip with Mike in my grandpa's old truck to IKEA. We got a new lamp too - new to us - one of Mike's customers was getting rid of it and it was a more modern style to compliment our couch - score! I recovered the lamp shade to match the couch too. Yeah, I know that doesn't sound that exciting, but it was really bugging me to walk into our room to all this mismatched stuff. Like, really mismatched - our new couch is print with primary colors in it (so not what I would have ever have thought we would buy, but I love it), and then we had green pillows on our office chairs and purple plaid pillows that we were constantly pulling out to set hot plates on when we eat in our room... Eating pillows, if you will - if you've ever lived in a place too small for a kitchen table you probably know what I'm talking about. The lampshade was turquoise...So now they all match > next project: the curtains! We would have loved to get a cool new shelf unit too, but we'll save that for when we have a place of our own. We've learned from experience how each new place you live changes what you think you need. Anyway...enough blogging for tonight. I am in need of some sleep :)

Knocked off my feet

So it often seems that just when I start getting going on something, or several somethings...just when I'm busy, motivated, and feel like I'm making some progress - something happens to knock me off my feet. This time quite literally. I twisted my ankle and boy does it hurt! I was just walking over to the couch and turning to sit down and it felt like something cracked inside of it. Lame :( So now I'm icing and resting and not getting nearly as much done. At least if this had to happen I should have gotten an interesting story out of it - something exciting, heroic, and maybe a little dangerous...I could have been climbing Mt. Everest, or at least saving a snail from an oncoming tricycle, but No... I got hurt trying to sit down on my own couch. Now that's silly.

Anyway, I had to share this video and photos of Lily from this morning. Lately if she gets hurt she's been saying "It hurts so much!" with the cutest emphasis and I got it on video today. Don't worry - no Lily's were hurt in the making of this video. Don't be fooled by her pathetic expression!

Some pouty faces:

 
I thought this face a funny contrast to the PJ shirt she had on.

Looks like she's struggling a bit to keep a straight face. Don't play poker with this girl!

First Prayer

I've not been very good about praying with Lily every night, though I have personal prayer throughout the day - but I guess kids are just extra good at picking up on spiritual things. Recently Lily has been the first to remind us to say a blessing over the food. And it's so cute to hear her repeating after me as I say our simple evening prayer. Still, the other night I was shocked to hear her say her first prayer all on her own! She and I were squatting on our sitting room floor and she sounded like she was trying to start a prayer so I started her out: "Heavenly Father..." She repeated and then went on to say (as I always do): "Thank you for this day..." but then she kept going: "Thank you for give us some cheese. Thank you for animals. Thank you for plants. Thank you for palm trees. One palm tree, not 2 palm trees --- Amen." She probably would've kept going from there, but the palm tree thing was cracking me up and not knowing what she would come out with next -- I kind of encouraged the Amen. Now I kinda wish I had just let her go on, I mean she's an innocent little child it's not like Heavenly Father was going to get mad at her! Ha :) I just have this horror of being disrespectful because of the awful feeling I remember having after I was cheeky with Heavenly Father in a family prayer one time when I was a kid. I wasn't even 8 years old. I wasn't even that cheeky. Our family had been searching and searching for a house to buy to get us out of the rental we were living in, and I guess I was getting impatient. I asked for Him to help our family to find a new home..."Right NOW"! (finishing very indignantly and rudely) I felt so ashamed at speaking to my Heavenly Father that way. I still feel bad about it. The ironic thing is... I'm pretty sure the answer to my prayer came really fast after that. It's a testimony to me that Heavenly Father loves little children. By the way,  I'm pretty sure Lily's prayer was inspired by the little 'book' we made in nursery that week. (Just one palm tree.)