You can tell how we’re feeling:
Our Last Tommy-Free Day
Jan 7th, 2010 by ECM
My New Year's Resolutions
Jan 5th, 2010 by ECM
This year I’m taking a break from CSAs, wholesale clubs, and locavore menus. We’ve learned a lot from last year’s experiment, but I must admit that it was great relief that I picked up my last farm share and realized that I’m in control of the food that enters our house again! We’ll definitely be buying new favorites–parsnips, rhubarb, and turnips were the best new foods–at the farmer’s market this spring/summer, and I have a bunch of new dishes in my repertory. As for Costco, we will definitely join again later, when we have more kids and go through food faster! Our membership expires today, so yesterday I slipped in under the deadline and picked up one last 25-pound bag of bread flour, stocked up on cleaning supplies and string cheese, and ordered a treadmill (no, exercising daily is not a New Year’s resolution, but since the gym membership has been a fiasco with childcare, I realized that I simply have to exercise at home…and in Chicago winters, that means inside for 6 months of the year!) I feel that I’m definitely more conscious of junk in our food when I’m introducing a child to solids, so Elizabeth’s progress past pureed peas will probably promote healthier meals this spring.
But I have to have a few goals for this year!
First, I’m getting us back on a schedule. The kids misbehave and night sleep more poorly when naps aren’t predictable. My house doesn’t stay clean when I don’t have specific days outlined to do specific tasks. More on that in weeks to come…
Second, I’m getting back into homemade bread making. I’m starting up a sourdough starter today, so hopefully we’ll have sourdough bread starting in a week or two. The good thing about sourdough is that you have to bake every two or three days to keep your starter healthy. So no more storebought bread for us (until I let my starter die)!
Third, I’m going to try to do serious reading 15 minutes a day. I’ve kindof slacked on that lately because I read so many children’s books to Tommy, and I’m reading good, hard-core English literature every week to prepare for my class. But we have shelves full of classic theology and philosophy books that I could be reading as well, not to mention all the books I’ve started but haven’t finished. Right now I’m finishing up Charlotte Mason’s Home Education (which the Johnsons gave us when Elizabeth was born and I started excitedly, but which has been sitting on my nightstand unfinished!). Maybe I’ll combine that with treadmill time and have an inadvertent fourth resolution. =) Leann and I are going to ask each other how we’re doing on the reading front–anyone else want to be an accountability partner, too?
Just Us Women
Jan 4th, 2010 by ECM
With Tommy at my mom’s for the week and Derek working long hours at the office over the weekend, it’s been just us women at home, hanging out and recovering from all of our company and travels! Elizabeth is loving more one-on-one time. She’s said “mommy” once and “mama” several times, she’s scooching all over the floor, and we’re both loving the peace and the chance to sleep in without our little dude waking us up at 5. I don’t really miss Tommy yet, though I did get a quick pang on the way to and from Costco this afternoon–both ways, we got stopped while the Metra train passed though, and I know he would have loved seeing it. But mostly, we’re taking a break from educational CDs, relishing the sweet sounds of Hayley Westenra instead, enjoying a girls-only lunch with three girlfriends from church, shopping (Elizabeth has been SUCH a little trooper about all the errands we’ve run), and making plans for a Jane Austen marathon later on in the week. And we’ll probably play with the new tea sets that Leann gave each of us for Christmas… I’ll try to get some good Elizabeth-only video footage this week and upload it to youtube promptly!
Best of 2009
Dec 31st, 2009 by ECM
For fun, here’s a round-up of some of our favorite new discoveries this year…
Best New Children’s Book—The Greatest Skating Race by Louise Borden
This book combines all of my childhood passions–ice skating, the Dutch Resistance, and running away from Nazis. We discovered it at a random bookstore in Willmington, OH, because it was signed by the local author. Still a bit long for Tommy, but great pictures, and a great concept–a little boy finds inspiration in the historical Dutch canal races as he helps his friends escape from the Nazis during WWII.
Best New Children’s CD–States and Capitals Songs from Veritas Press
Okay, I’m one of those weird homeschooling moms, buying educational CDs for my 2 year old (no offense to the homeschooling mom reader who told me about this great find!). But Tommy’s obsessed with his United States puzzle and placemat, and I figured that he might as well learn the capitals of the states as he learns where they are. He begs for this CD almost every day. It’s annoyingly repetitive and hokey, but Tommy loves it, and I’m very up on my US geography now. =)
Best New Toy—The Little Engine That Could Train
Tommy loves the book, so somehow Derek stumbled across a wooden Brio-compatible train to go with the story! As soon as Tommy opened his present, he exclaimed, “I have a book about that!” Classic and classy, in our humble opinion.=)
Farmer Boy Doughnuts
Dec 30th, 2009 by ECM
That night was Saturday night. All day long Mother had been baking, and when Almanzo went into the kitchen for the milkpails, she was still frying doughnuts. The place was full of their hot, brown smell…
Almanzo took the biggest doughnut from the pan and bit off its crisp end. Mother was rolling out the golden dough, slashing it into long strips, rolling and doubling and twisting the strips. Her fingers flew; you could hardly see them. The strips seemed to twist themselves under her hands, and to leap into the big copper kettle of swirling hot fat.
Plump! they went to the bottom, sending up bubbles. Then quickly they came popping up, to float and slowly swell, till they rolled themselves over, their pale golden backs going into the fat and their plump brown bellies rising out of it. They rolled over, Mother said, because they were twisted. Some women made a new-fangled shape, round, with a hole in the middle. But round doughnuts wouldn’t turn themselves over. Mother didn’t have time to waste turning doughnuts; it was quicker to twist them.(from Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder)
I had a ton of extra oil in the wok from egg rolls the other night, and when Tommy asked for pancakes and I realized our milk was gone, I decided to make some sour cream doughnuts instead. I used the electric wok instead of a kettle and candy thermometer, fried in canola oil instead of lard, and used regular sugar instead of powdered for the mess factor. I tried rolling some and shaping some into Os, and the round ones were easier to flip while the twisted ones did not turn over on their own like Mother Wilder’s. The recipe is right–serve immediately (while still warm). These are not sweet on their own, so sugar or syrup is a necessity!
First Blood
Dec 29th, 2009 by ECM
Well, it was going to happen eventually… Tommy just propped his sister up in front of one of his puzzles with plastic knobs, and she promptly nose-dived into it, cutting her lip. A thumb-sucker with a bloody lip isn’t a happy camper. For some reason, these things didn’t happen when Tommy was this age…
Christmas in Detroit
Dec 28th, 2009 by ECM
Our second Christmas was celebrated on Christmas Day–at Grandpa and Grandma Muller’s house! We crammed many family gatherings together into five days, and the kids got to see most of their Muller side relations. Highlights included Tommy learning how to say “Go ahead–make my day!” and Tommy deciding that Uncle Matthew is his best friend (poor Reagan!). After a harrowing drive back through a blizzard, the kids decided that 5 am was a great time to get up this morning. (As if waking us up 1-2 times every night for the past two weeks and fighting naps and bedtime like they’re the plague wasn’t exciting enough for them…) I love seeing our friends and relatives, and I’m so glad the kids got to see so many people this Thanksgiving/Christmas, but this whole travel thing is getting really old. Can’t everyone we love just move to the north side of Chicago? Yeah, I wouldn’t want to move here if I were you, either… Well, here’s to a full month at home before our next adventure!
Christmas with the Willetts
Dec 21st, 2009 by ECM
The kids woke up for their first Christmas in matching PJs–a fun idea I got from Janet. I’m going to try to make this a tradition at our house, too, since the kids loved being “twins”!
We’re having a fun time hosting all the Willetts here, and we’ll be heading to Detroit on Wednesday for Christmas, Take Two!
Ode to Kleenex With Lotion
Dec 18th, 2009 by ECM
Oh great Kleenex With Lotion, how wonderful you are! Half a dozen boxes of you I have gone through this week, and yet my nose has skin! You may be more expensive than your lotion-less cousins, but the extra price is worth the comfort to we poor sick Mullers. I first discovered your brilliance when similarly sick in the home of the Burgesses several years ago. How fortunate that the great hostess of that place confided in me your value as I used several boxes while languishing in her guest room. Since then I have sought you out, especially when your makers run 50 cents off a 3 pack coupons in the paper. But I would purchase you even if the cost were dearer. Betwixt you and I there is a strong bond, and I am off to purchase more of you when my husband comes home from work tonight…
Poop Machines…
Dec 18th, 2009 by ECM
…that’s what my kids are. Sorry if that’s gross to my non-parent readers. All I’ve done in the past week is change dozens of poopy diapers. We are really going to have to take potty training in hand after the holidays.