P is for...

...Puppy dog! Pnut made a puppy dog P today. I gave her the cut out letter, she used a Q-tip dipped in glue to put the black spots, ears, tail, and tongue on. The eyes were pre-stuck. We did talk about where body parts should go (eyes on top, tail on the bottom, etc...), but she pretty much managed to get them where they belonged.

After that we did some dot painting and used our new crayola animal stampers that Monkey got for Christmas from my friend Angela's family. They had a great time, but let me tell you- art projects with a 1 AND a 2 year old are a lot like playing whack-a-mole sometimes. I turned away from him for a second to help her and I look back- Monkey has the blue dot paint stick in his mouth. And no, this stuff apparently doesn't wash off easily. Nice. I think he managed to do more painting on his body than on his paper. C'est la vie!

Laughter Lives Tuesday

I've been doing some blog research & came across the MckLinky site- great stuff for the blog by Brent Riggs. Anyway, on his personal family blog he has a feature called "Laughter Lives Tuesday" where you post a funny story so everyone can have a good laugh. I know that today isn't Tuesday, but since I linked my blog on there to practice, I have to share a story.

Funny stuff happens around here all the time, but yesterday I happened to have the camera close at hand. I was helping Pnut get dressed up as Abby Cadabby in the living room and Monkey comes walking out of the playroom, fully dressed, with his diaper stuck to his pajama bottoms. He's 1, so I know he didn't get his pants off & back on by himself. As far as I could see while he was in there, he was in there playing with the Little People. Somehow he managed to get his diaper off and out the leg of his pants. I have to say, he was QUITE pleased with his little achievement & ran away from me squealing when I tried to catch him to put another diaper on him. Apparently our playroom isn't just for playing with toys! Boys!!

Learning to Live Dangerously

Lesson #1- let your child eat chocolate pudding with no bib. I hadn't really even noticed he didn't have a bib on until Jimmy pointed that fact out to me. Ha! Nothing like working without a net! Spray & Wash is supposed to be a "laundry additive", isn't it?

Nothing Says "Fun" Like...

Going to the grocery store with 2 kids in tow. Wonder if bribing them with mac & cheese when we get home will work? First we go have to go to Walmart & then to Kroger. At Walmart there's only one seat in the cart, so Addison gets to walk. This makes everything take twice as long. The upside is that I'm no longer that harried looking woman with a baby strapped to her body screaming his head off from the time we set foot into the store until the time we walked out (for some reason, the overhead lighting perhaps?, Sullivan HATED the grocery store with a passion for his first few months of life). Yes, in those days complete strangers walked up to me & offered to help me with my shopping or my baby. I'm sure mostly to just make. it. stop.

At Kroger there's at least a 2 seat cart, a sample of turkey lunchmeat & a free cookie from the nice bakery lady. Ahhh... Can't wait till we get to Kroger! I've literally spent 2 hours cutting coupons & looking online at the Kroger sale ad. Hopefully I'll save some $ this week!

I guess I should go get the kid who napped when he was supposed to and the kid who played for 2 hours before crashing for 30 minutes. She should be all kinds of fun!

I'm thinking dinner is going to be veggies, applesauce, $3.99 Kroger rotisserie chicken & some of the "bribery" mac & cheese. I'm already exhausted thinking about shopping.

On a bright note today- my sweet husband moved the TV that's been hanging out on our bedroom floor for months downstairs to it's new "holding" place on the dining room table. I'm thinking it'll be much harder for me to get a daily bruise on my thigh from smashing into it in the dark there. :) That's what we do here- move things from one holding place to another (yet another example of why I named this blog Ignore the Mess). I did manage to get rid of 2 bags of clothing from my closet over my vacation & went through the pile of coupons today. Small victories.

**Update: saved $8.34 with coupons. For some reason though not all my coupons doubled at Kroger, so now I have to go back there & find out why. With 2 kids. More fun.

Sunday Bread (aka "Easter Bread")

Today I made my 2nd Zopf...it's delicious. This is traditionally Sunday bread in Switzerland, where my mom is from. The funny story is that the entire time I was growing up I thought it was Easter bread, because that's what my mom called it & that's the only time she ever made it. My brother & I took a trip to Switzerland a few years back & when we stayed with my cousin Karin, she made it for us. Our reaction was of course and awed, "Oh, you made Easter bread for us!!" And her reaction was of course loud & prolonged laughter followed by the explanation that in Switzerland people make this bread on Sundays. Every Sunday. Not just Easter Sunday. As I'm sure you can imagine my mom was quite amused that her ruse had been discovered...and she still only makes this bread on Easter.

The first one I made went to my parents house the other day. My brother was here visiting & after all the cooking my mom did for Thanksgiving I thought it would be nice for her to have something special made for her for breakfast the day after. I got one piece to see if it tasted okay the day after they had it (because you can't always trust that your family is being serious & not just nice when they say it turned out great)...but of course that wasn't enough, so I had to make one for our house...and after all, today was Sunday!

Now I just have to work at the braiding part- she makes a cross & then somehow braids the 4 strands. I watched a video online, but they did it too fast; read several explanations online & tried to re-create those with string- again, a disaster; so I opted to do a 3 strand braid like you might do hair. It's the only way I know. So my zopf isn't as pretty as it should be (until I get my mom to show me with dough in person!), but it still tastes perfect!

Here's her recipe:

500 grams all purpose flour

1 package dry yeast

50 grams butter (1/2 stick)

1 egg

1 dash salt

1 grated lemon rind

1/4 liter milk (just a hair over 1 cup)

All ingredients have to be room temperature.

Sift flour & yeast together into cuisinart (I did it in Kitchenaid…turned out fine), cut butter into small pieces on top of flour, add next 4 ingredients, turn machine on to mix everything well, then add lukewarm milk slowly.

Mix for 3 min.

If dough is soft or sticks to bowl, add 1-2 tbsp flour & mix again.

Cover with plastic wrap & let rise in warm place till doubled (about 45 min) My mom heats the oven to 140 degrees, then turns it off & lets the dough rise in there.

Braid.

Put on greased cookie sheet (or better yet, parchment paper), brush with egg yolk.

Bake in center of oven for 30 min. at 400 degrees. Enjoy!

Housekeeper of the Year...Ummm...That Would Be a "No"!

Yeah, I'm never going to win that award. 4 dogs, 2 kids. Enough said. By Friday every week the house is a wreck- fur everywhere, sink full of dishes, piled up laundry, nose prints & finger prints everywhere...so you'd think it would be time to clean it all up. Probably. But then the weather today was just gorgeous- not a cloud in the sky, warm enough to not wear a jacket- so being out there definitely looked better than being in here. Cleaning can wait. While the kids ate breakfast I packed a picnic lunch- ham & cheese sandwiches, juice, yogurt, goldfish & some cookies and then off we went.

I parked at my parents & we took a long walk in the stroller to the playground, enjoying the fresh air & sunshine. Then we played at the playground with our sand toys- me, 2 kids (and of course all the other assorted kids that wandered over to join in the fun). We made castles, moats, knocked down the castles over & over. When we got tired of the sand toys we played on the swings, slide, ran in the field till Addison announced that she was ready for a picnic. They ate way more (& more enthusiastically) than they usually do. Then we played some more before walking back to my parents house.

It was one of those perfect days filled with sunshine, laughter, smiles & all-around happiness. One of those days that you know you're going to look back at when they're grown up and remember happily (hopefully in a general way, "Remember all those times we _____" because there have been many of them).

Perfect day. Coming home to a messy house didn't even stress me out. :)

Tot School Trays

These are our new Tot School trays that I got from Oriental Trading. The shelving unit is "new" for us too...thanks to my parents for doing some redecorating in their kitchen. Ignore the mess on the kitchen counter above- there's always something up there (grrr!)

On the shelves I'm keeping some of the kids' more "educational" items. I got the Tot School idea from Carisa at 1+1+1=1. If you're interested, head over there for lots of great information.

Basically each day I put out about 5 trays of activities for Peanut. These are all learning activities (although she calls them her "games"). Shown here L-R are foam stickers to put on a paper (fine motor, and believe it or not, stickers are one of the hardest things for her), M & Ms to sort by color (and then eat), animal mommy/baby puzzles to match, mommy & daddy name puzzles. All the activities are pretty quick, which is perfect for a 2 year old.

Peanut has caught on to sorting by color really well and LOVED having a special M & M treat. Now my challenge is figuring out some things for Monkey to do while Peanut is working! Having a little brother is great, having a little brother who is in constant motion & trying to get into everything you're doing- not so great. Peanut and I have actually started calling him Bulldozer because of his ability to go over, knock down, and destroy things. :))