Maggie and Niles Crane

I suppose it's a little weird that Maggie remind me of Niles Crane.  They don't look a lot alike.  She doesn't wear suits or have a brother.  Nor is she a psychotherapist.  

  source 

But, if you've ever watched Frasier, Niles and Frasier drink their fancy sherry and really savor it.

Maggie is the same way, but with cough syrup.  She loves cough syrup and will try to manufacture a cough to get some.  I'm on to her, though, and give her honey in those instances.  

Here she is enjoying the fine delicacy of grape Delsym...

She takes little sips, smiles at herself in the mirror, and takes more little sips.

I think she licks the cup out, too.

Oh, yeah, so delicious!

I'm so glad Maggie enjoys the finer things of life :)

The Hot Chocolate Unibrow (and a Tip)

Our girls love, Love, LOVE hot chocolate!  I think their favorite part about hot chocolate is using it as a vehicle for marshmallows or whipped cream...can't say I blame them.

We got a Keurig for Christmas from my parents, and we bought some hot chocolate K-Cups, so Leah feels SO cool making her own hot drink!

For Gracie, though, hot chocolate is more of a full body (or at least a full face) experience.

I love how the hot chocolate smudge is almost the same color as her eyebrows!

You may be wondering how one gets a hot chocolate unibrow.  I'll let you know in case you want one of your own...or in case you're just curious :)

All you have to do is go to do is use a travel mug.  Make sure that the little cover thing has a little bit of hot chocolate on it, is up, and it touches you between the eyebrows as you're drinking.  You, too, could have a hot chocolate unibrow of your very own. 

A side note about the mug:  I got 3 child size travel mugs at the Dollar Store.  But, I got 2 with penguins on them and one with a snowman on it.  Of course the girls have lots of feelings about who has the matching mug and who is left out.  I don't know, for the life of me, why I didn't get 3 of the same.  Rookie mistake...

Anyway, here is my tip!  When you are making hot chocolate or any other hot drink from a powder for your kids, do you have a hard time getting the water to the right temperature?  I know I do.  First it's too hot, so I add some cold water.  Then it's too cold, so I add more hot water.  Then it's too hot...so I go back and forth until I've used like 3 envelopes of hot chocolate mix and have 40 ounces of hot chocolate.

My friend suggested just turning your tap water to as hot as it will go and filling the mug with that and adding your drink mix from there.  It TOTALLY works!  It's hot enough to be an awesome hot drink for kids, but not too hot to where there is crying.  I don't know about you, but I don't think there should be crying while enjoying chocolate in any form.

Give it a try!  Hot chocolate unibrow optional.

A Morning at the Coffee Shop

We are starting a nice little tradition in our house of taking the girls to our local coffee shop one Saturday morning a month or so.  

Perhaps "tradition" makes it sound fancier than it is...it's more of a routine we hope to develop.  I feel like it's something the girls will always enjoy and hopefully never feel like they are "too cool" to hang out with their parents at a coffee shop.

I plan to get exponentially cooler every year of my life so that our girls will be fighting to hang out me instead of creepy high school boys.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Anyway, the girls always get cremosas (it's an Italian soda with some half and half.  I like to make them at home, too.  They also go by the name "special drink" at our house...which isn't really a defining name as pretty much anything that isn't milk, water, or apple juice is called "special drink.")

Maggie likes to get a grape cremosa because it's purple.  The taste is questionable, but the color is the coolest thing in the world, of course.  Sadly, they were out of grape, so she went with roasted marshmallow.

Leah tried cherry lime due to the suggestion of our friendly barista, and it has become her "usual."  She shares a taste, too, which is quite nice of her...although, she does carefully monitor how much you drink :)

Gracie gets her own cremosa, and I usually get her something I like or something pink.  We're all about the colors in our house.  Mostly, Gracie likes to drink whatever I have.  She yells, "COFFEE!  COFFEE!" while pointing and grabbing.  

It's so endearing.

I think she still thinks we are the same person :)

Aaron had the great idea to try 4 handed war (which, when I tell people that we play war, I always specify, "You know, war...the card game," so that they don't think we are pretending to shoot each other and stuff.  That's a little silly of me.)  It's war with 4 players instead of 2, and if there is a tie, the players who tied each get two cards.  I have no idea what we would do with a 3 way tie.  We only go through the deck once, so the game goes pretty fast.

We try to do an activity while we're there so they don't run around the place looking for something to break because they're bored.  We also try to leave while they are still being well behaved so they don't run out of good behavior and make us regret going out into public that day!

Things did get a little crazy at the end when Maggie got cold and put her coat on backwards.  

Let the good times roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It All Started with the Soup...

I shared a delicious soup recipe yesterday and mentioned how it prompted a rather emotion experience from Leah.  

It all started with me requiring her to have a bit of soup in order to have some ice cream cake.  A bit of soup is different from a bite.  Here's a little diagram...

So, you can see that there is bonus cheese on top of a teensy bit of actual soup.  I don't feel the least bit mean making the girls eat this.  

Doesn't eating soup build character?  I'm pretty sure it does :)

Obviously, we are huge fans of ice cream cake in this house, as you can see in the following picture of Gracie...

Leah was hugely conflicted!  Should she eat a bit of soup and taste the sweet reward of ice cream cake, or just be satisfied with Amish friendship bread, cheese, and oranges for supper?

This was clearly a huge dilemma, as she spent about 10 minutes deliberating.

10 minutes seems a little excessive, even if she is cute!

Finally, I set a timer for 5 minutes and told Leah she had 5 minutes to make up her mind, and if she couldn't make up her mind in 5 minutes, that meant that she wasn't going to eat the soup or get a treat.  

The seconds turned into minutes and when the timer went off, she still hadn't made a choice, so the choice was made for her.  No treat.

Leah was kind of freaking out about this.  I calmly told her she couldn't have a treat and that was just a consequence of her decision.

Then, of course, she wanted to eat the soup!  I told her she was more than welcome to eat the soup, but she couldn't have the treat, because she didn't make a choice in time.  

Back and forth, the mind changing drama marched on.  I stayed pretty mellow through the whole exchange (maybe because I had a cold); I just kept reiterating that she made a choice and this is what happened.  

Leah left the table and went into her room.

I gave her a minute and followed her into her room, where I found her crying on the floor.

Even though we have a house full of emotional, talkative girls, they rarely cry on the floor.  It makes me sad when they do that.

I sat down beside Leah and asked her why she was so sad.

"I'm sad because I made an awful, awful choice!" she sobbed.

"Honey, is not getting to have ice cream cake a big deal or a little deal?" I asked.  

We have to differentiate what is a big deal and a little deal in this house.  

A. Lot.

"A little deal," she answered.

"That's right.  We all make bad choices sometimes.  I ate 6 cookies today and  that was a bad choice, because it made my tummy hurt.  That was a bad choice, but it isn't that big of a deal."

In my defense, the cookies were really little, but oh, so delicious :)

"But, I'M awful!" Leah cried.

I think my heart broke a little right there.

"Look at my eyes, " I choked out in my cough strained voice.

I gently cupped the side of her sweet face in my hand.

"That is a lie," I said, with the fierce love of a mommy in my voice.  "That is a lie.  Who loves you more than Mommy and Daddy?"

"Jesus does," she said softly.

"That's right," I said.  "How much does Jesus love you?"

"A lot," she answered.

"Honey, please remember that Jesus loves you SO much that He died in your place.  He made your heart new.  You are NOT awful."

She nodded.

"If anyone ever tells you that you're awful, you look at them and tell them that that is a lie.  And you walk away.  Do you understand?  You are not awful!" I over-explained through the beginning of tears in my voice.

Leah snuggled up right next to me, "OK, Mama."

I really hope that when Leah looks back on her childhood, she remembers this...her mom sitting on the floor with her and speaking truth into her life.  

I hope she remembers us sharing the implications of the Gospel with her again and again and again.

I hope she learns to have good grace on herself and those around her.

I hope she remembers the truly important things, and not the times that I get irritated with her because I have to tell her a million times to put her shoes away or take care of her lunch box or stop talking in the reeeeeally annoying baby voice she tries to use.  

Because, when all is said and done, I don't really care if she eats soup.  

I want her to see herself as Jesus does.

And, I want her to know that the fierceness of her mommy's imperfect love is wildly dwarfed by the love of her Savior.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

I have this board on Pinterest called "It's Cool to Eat Soup."  

I think it's cool to eat soup, but not everyone in my family shares that sentiment.  I make it once a week anyway (usually on Monday so I can have leftovers for lunch the rest of the week), and require the girls to each have the tiniest bit of soup before they can have a treat.  

This brought on quite the emotional experience for Leah the night I made this soup, but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup.  I barely adapted it from here.

 Ingredients:

• 1 lb chicken breasts, trimmed
• 1 and 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained (I used petite diced because I like the smaller bits.  Target's store brand petite diced tomatoes are way better than Walmart's.  Seriously, everything is better at Target!)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped
• 3/4 cup onion, chopped
• 2 (or 3) cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 or 3/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 or so teaspoon cumin
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Shredded co-jack or cheddar cheese, crushed tortilla chips, lime, or whatever else you want to use to garnish your soup

*The recipe originally called for minced serrano pepper.  I forgot to buy it, but would have probably gotten a jalapeno instead, because that's what I'm more familiar with.  I didn't miss the spice, because I added more chili powder and cumin.

Look at this super fun garlic chopper thing that my brother and sister-in-law got me for Christmas!

I just put peeled garlic in, roll it around, and it works like a charm!

Moving on...

• Put the first 9 ingredients and 1 teaspoon salt and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in your slow cooker.
• I used my big, 6 quart slow cooker.
• Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.  

I went for 8 hours on low.  Plus, my chicken was still about half way frozen and it worked great!

This is what was going on while I was cooking:

and 

Of course they always are so happy to sit by each other and nicely have a drink and a graham cracker.  They never ever fuss or fight with each other.  Ever. 

Ha!

:)

Back to the recipe!

• Prior to serving, remove the chicken breasts from the soup.  
• Put the chicken on a plate.
• Use two forks or your teeth to shred the chicken (I'm kidding about using your teeth to shred the chicken!  Please!  Use the forks!  Use the forks!)
• Season the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper or to taste.
• Put the shredded chicken back into the slow cooker and stir to combine.
• Serve up some soup in your bowl and top it with whatever you like!

I liked this a lot!  I thought it tasted pretty fresh for something from a slow cooker.  I feel like a lot of chicken tortilla soup recipes call for black beans, and while I am totally a fan of black beans, I really enjoyed this without them.  I think leftovers would freeze well, too!

Enjoy!

Triumphant

I love pretty much all things Fancy Nancy.

I like that she's fancy (duh).

I like how her books teach kids fancy, big words.

I like that she's kind of princess-y without being obnoxious.

I did NOT, however, like that this puzzle was almost the end of me.

But, don't worry, I wasn't about to be owned by a 100 piece puzzle designed for ages 6 and up.

Leah got this puzzle for Christmas and it's "lenticular."

You might be wondering what that is.  It means that each puzzle piece has two views as the scene shifts when you tilt the piece.

Hence it's incredible level of difficulty for those who are not naturally puzzle-y inclined.

I've come to the conclusion that Leah and I are not naturals :)  It's not a task that involves talking or creating, so it's not a natural thing for her.  I don't tend to want to try things I'm not reasonably sure I'll be really good at (which I realize I need to work on), and 100 pieces seemed a little steep to me ;)

The first time we tried it, I was like, "Forget this...let's have a snack!"

A couple of days later, I wanted a "quiet" activity for us to do together while the younger two were napping, so we pulled the puzzle out again.  

At first, I was the good mom and tried to have us totally work together.  That worked for about one minute until Leah got distracted by drinking (loudly slurping) hot chocolate...

...with marshmallows

...through a straw.

So, while Leah chatted, I got down to business and showed that puzzle who was boss.  It took well over an hour (maybe closer to two) and we finally finished it!  Once I got like 70% of it done, Leah was less overwhelmed by the size of the task and was fitting pieces in like a crazy, natural puzzle person!

Here's the finished puzzle from the first angle...

...and from the second angle.

See what I mean?!?!  Really hard!

I'm glad we could conquer the unofficial hardest-puzzle-in-the-world.

Or at least the hardest-puzzle-in-our-house :) 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the Ladies!

Leah and Maggie were pretty darn excited to be wearing the 2013 glasses, not to mention the Happy New Year Crowns.  

The glasses are so huge that Maggie's are looped around her piggy tails and not her ears.

We've been pretty sick around these parts, so they stayed up until 7:30.

I don't think they even know what midnight is.

That's the beauty of the darkness of winter...7:30 and midnight look exactly alike.

I like that kind of trickiness.

Poor Gracie was (and still is) sick.  

She really wants to be celebratory!  She's such a little trooper in her horsey jammies with her glasses that are too big and her crown that won't stay on.

Sooooo...about this whole blogging thing.  I always want to blog, so I figure I might as well just jump in and do it!  I'm not going to let myself obsess about each post being perfect or hilarious or deep or clever or whatever.  I really just want to capture our lives and have something fun for us to look back on.  

We'll see where it goes from there!