Epiphany

Almost 3 weeks ago, on a Monday afternoon, I suddenly realized that I had become someone who doesn't exercise. In the previous 3 months, our family grew by 4 children, I had 2 different rounds of a nasty cold/flu, and I hurt my knee, and I just sort of stopped exercising after all that.

I didn't want to be someone who doesn't exercise, so I went running the next morning, 19°F and everything. And I've been exercising 4-5 times a week since. And I can tell a difference! My runs are getting easier, my muscles are sore but not too sore, my body is happy.

So this week I decided it's time to start counting calories again and get some extra weight off. I'm 2 pounds down since Sunday. More impressive is the fact that even with 2 sick-and-not-sleeping-toddlers, I haven't needed to take naps!

Telling Myself Stories

Maggie had been out of the shower long enough that she probably could have dripped dry, but she was still in the bathroom wrapped in her towel.

"Go get dressed, Maggie," I said.
"I'm telling myself stories," came her quick reply. I'm not sure how that prevents her from getting dressed, but apparently it does.

After a few more reminders, she eventually walked out to her dresser to get her clothes. While she walked she was singing herself a song, the words of which included, "I'm the only boy in my class, the only boy in my class."

I guess she wasn't kidding about the stories.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

When I saw this recipe, I HAD to try it! And since we got invited to an awesome Memorial Day BBQ, we had the perfect excuse today. Sophie, Maggie and Michelle helped (although Maggie got distracted and ran off to play, so she's not in the pictures).

Dipping the berries was sort of a messy affair, but Michelle and Sophie didn't mind cleaning the chocolate off their hands.

After dipping the berries in white or dark chocolate and sprinkles, we let the chocolate harden in the fridge and then filled them with cream cheese frosting. (As a side note, for some reason the frosting turned out grainy--any ideas of why or what I can do to prevent that in the future? It's just cream cheese, a little milk, powdered sugar and vanilla.)

Festive and delicious!

Ballet Barre

Jeff and Sharon finished one ballet barre today; now that we see that it works well, we will be making another one before she starts teaching in July. We modeled it after this blogger's barre.

Now mirrors and then our studio will be complete!

Ending and Beginning

Today is the last day of school. For the first time ever, and I think only time actually, all 4 of the girls have the same end day of school. It's bittersweet; the end of homework and projects and tests signals the beginning of spending lots more time together, for better or for worse. I'm nervous about the potential arguing, but excited about our summer science projects, library trips, swim team, dance camps, the garden, etc., etc., etc.

The first of our poppies bloomed today. It comes from a rather weedy-looking plant (Jeff has tried to pull them more than once), but the bloom is breathtaking. So summer will be what we bring to it--our rather weedy family can produce amazing things when we put our minds to it!

Still, I'm going out to lunch today. It might be months before I have another moment alone.

Reinventing the Wheel

At our house, we are fond of reinventing the wheel. Ok, maybe not reinventing the actual wheel, but we do like to try doing things from scratch occasionally, like the time we made butter from cream, or the occasional spaghetti sauce we've made starting with fresh tomatoes. This weekend, we had 2 such instances.

Yesterday, Jeff decided it was too hard to call around to find a place that would rent us a carpet stretcher and then go rent it and return it, so instead he built one himself.

 In case you want to build one yourself, all you have to do is take the leftover strips from the carpet you tear out of the dining room and nail them to a 2x4.

It totally works and it's basically free. And it saved a phone call and 2 trips to the store (to rent and return equipment).

 

 For dinner tonight we had hawaiian haystacks. I realized that we were out of flaked, sweetened coconut, but happened to have a fresh coconut on hand. It took 4 of us about 25 minutes to open and prepare the coconut so we could have coconut with our hawaiian haystacks. Cooking the rest of the dinner took about the same amount of time.

Just sayin', sometimes we like to reinvent the wheel.

Snow Day!

For us, this is what a snow day looks like:

First, Jeff clears the driveway by piling all the snow into a gigantic pile. Then, he and Sophie shape a sledding track into the mountain.

While the kids sled, Jeff scavenges snow from other parts of the yard to increase the size of the hill.

Ready, set, GO!