Tips to be Toasty

It's beginning to feel like spring. The sun is even out here these last couple days. It makes me so happy.

But...it's still cold, there's no denying it.

We love rice bags that we heat in the microwave.

I made the kids owls a while ago and Mackayla kind of brought them back into popularity at our house. She constantly begs for them "owl. owl."

I finally made her her own owl.

Whoo

They're in their new grandma Sylvia outfits. Thanks grandma.
My latest favorite warm drink is steamed milk. I have a really hard time drinking enough, ever, but especially in the winter because it makes me cold. Ridiculous excuse. fine. 

We bought some Torani syrups (hazelnut and caramel) for $6 and have had tons of steamed milks over the last couple months. It's cheaper than going and getting one at the local coffee shop and tastes exactly the same! 

Plus microwaving a cup of milk and adding a bit of flavor is pretty quick and easy.

I made croissants the other day. It's always been something I've bought but they're pricey.

I used less than half the butter in the recipe and they were soooo good and definitely more healthy.

More healthy, not a health food...I have a weakness for carbs.

Spinach Apple Sugar Crusted Almond Salad

A good friend told me once they way she plans dinner for the week is by ingredients that need to be used up from other ones.

If she uses half a can of tomato sauce, she will try to plan a meal around that can for another meal.

I love the idea and love when I can plan around ingredients and use them up perfectly too!

We had some leftover velveeta cheese and not much time so I made a recipe for chicken enchiladas using velveeta, chicken, fresh tomatoes, onion and jalapenos and cream of chicken. 

It was great!

(We also have a shake at dinner every night too for extra veggies and fruit:))

But the reason I'm writing this is for our favorite quick and easy salad.

Since names for food lately seem to include every ingredient, I will call it a

Spinach Apple Sugar Crusted Almond Salad:

Bunch of Spinach

One chopped apple

Raw Almonds (+ Sugar)

Favorite homemade viniagrette 

(or we love Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing!)

While I chop up the apple I turn on our slow-as-molasses stove to medium and let it start heating up the almonds.

I only had a few this time, but it's totally worth it.

Throw in a bunch of sugar (again, I don't use exact measurements:). I would say start with however many almonds you use, then add half as much sugar. (1 cup almonds - 1/2 cup sugar)

The sugar starts to clump up, just keep stirring until it starts to melt, 7 or 8 minutes total.

Once you add sugar, stir constantly or very frequently or the sugar will burn.

Adding cinnamon is GREAT too.

 A bit of the sugar always clumps up on the almonds when they're done. Maybe it's because I'm not a professional chef, but they taste delicious so I declare it's fine. 

The kids LOVE them!

Science Museum

I love science museums.

Educational fun!

A tip for my Pullman friends: if you buy a family membership there, you also get in free to science museums around the country. Ours paid for itself a hundred times over. Memberships there are $70 (compared to $95 in Portland) so it's a better deal than many others. When we moved to OKC I used mine there at least once a week and their museum is huge!

I am glad we made it to the Portland OMSI, I wish we had more time to explore the city.

Water boats:

 Water breaks:

Water works:

Water is wet:

Flying balls:

Flying sand:/

Indoor sand:

Sitting in sand:

Working together:

 

Playing together:

 Being silly:

 Building cities: 

 Across from the city: 

 Appreciating photography from around the world

 Learning about the world we live in.

A Hunting We Will Go

Truffle hunting, of course.

Oregon has the perfect climate for this rare food. The expensive mushroom-like rarity is apparently 'pungent' and has a unique flavor. I am so curious to know what they taste like!

Preparing for the hunt:

 The drive. 

Oregon forest law- harvest a tree, plant a tree. 

Often, baby trees are by huge towering pines.

 We went with a truffle hunting group our friend is part of.

As I hopped out of the car with my giraffe rain boots, I noticed every other person in the group of 30ish people had on brown hiking boots. There is no way to hide giraffe boots. Or three kids.

I was officially an outcast.

No one seemed to care in the least:)

 We had no luck finding truffles among the douglas firs, but found tons of other cool things. 

This is blurry, but it's a cat-tongue. Kind of squishy and soft, growing off of the wood.

 Chantrelles, a kind of mushroom:

I cooked some up tonight and put them in cous cous!

 This is something like witches hat, kind of squishy little orange things.

Macey and Cody each found one of these things below. I think they're called 'konks', but really, I have no idea.

You can cook them and make a medicinal type tea.

Macey kept smelling in her bucket and telling me it smelled so good!

The smell made my stomach turn and smelled like rancid wood so when we got them home I just couldn't do it and ended up throwing them away.

Sorry!

It was nice to get outside and enjoy being away in the forest.

Even if one hand was for Mackayla and one hand was for Macey as they each took turns face planting it, we managed to have a great time on a Saturday while Ben is out of town.

****

As I was tucking Macey into bed last night she firmly told me, "Mom you can go now without laying by me and I won't be scared of those white shapes in the room that look like scary ghosts or the dark shapes." I rarely lay by her-it sounded super reassuring, right? She's actually a pretty brave little girl when she wants to be.

A few nights ago, about an hour after we had put him to bed, Cody came into our room looking a little dazed and amazed. "I just counted to one million!" he exclaimed. The next day I told him it would take three days to count that far and he said maybe he had skipped a couple of numbers. ;)

Big Baby

Today Mackayla woke up a short while after she went down for her nap. She is teething, so I wasn't surprised. (It's amazing that it took me a few children to figure out that when my children get really irritable for no apparent reason they actually do have a reason, although I always hear some kids never show any signs of teething. Her teeth are almost through though!)
I had big plans to clean our house.
Instead I went in an swept her up and held her. I think she probably would have gone back to sleep after a while of crying, but today I was just thinking about how she is getting so big and I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold her while she sleeps much longer.

At 18 months:

You love doing anything your brother and sister do.

You love being outside.

You are in church nursery now. That means you are officially on the role and just keep coming with me:)!

You love animals. Your favorite books are about animals, especially Noah's Big Boat, right now.

You still love blueberries, hot dogs, apples (and will eat everything but the stem:))

You love to crawl around on the floor like a kitty, meowing.

You love your dad.

You say new words every day and can put two words together.

Usually a nice holler works well for you though!

You love doing animal sounds.

You love waving goodbye when you see that someone is leaving.
You love backpacks. Sometimes you get a backpack and sing the Dora song that says 'Backpack Backpack.'

You love helping.

You have the camera figured out

And love to pose

I took you to the doctor and they weighed and measured you. Our pediatricians everywhere else always gave us a printout of the stats, but these ones don't. I wrote them down and lost them in the abyss of my purse. I think you are 24 pounds. But I do remember you being in the 75% for height and 68% for weight.

 You love clothes and bring new outfits out several times a day, and love to try on shoes. Between messy eating and changing for fun you sometimes go through several outfits a day! Right now you love putting shirts on for pants. I'm not sure if you haven't figured it out or if you just like to do it. Often you are just naked because you love getting undressed too.
I love your little faces. This one is especially priceless, but it doesn't come until the phone rings:

 We love you Mackayla!

Tread Lightly

Disclaimer: This is way too long and written in the most non-judgmental way possible for me. Everything we did that I write about was for OUR FAMILY, and only ours. Only some of my closest friends will know how hard this was to write. I didn't write this to justify our actions or defend our decisions. Maybe our experience will be enlightening for someone else taking the road less traveled.

The 2011 DVM graduating class at Washington State University was around 100 students.

That degree was not earned easily.

A handful of the graduates were married.

Four of the 100 had kids.

Those years are not for the faint of heart.

At graduation they had a huge screen showing picture slides of all the graduates
This is what we submitted to be shown at the ceremony, May 7, 2011 (our anniversary!)

I love that Ben considers us part of his graduation. He worked so hard and ultimately did the school work, but we worked together to accomplish that goal.

To think we could have done it without our kids would mean we would have missed out on some of the best memories of our entire lives.

I love these pics taken by my sister and her husband.

Ironically, I would do it all over again, and again and again, I loved it so. much.

Some of my best friends and memories were made struggling through the years of learning how to be a wife, mom, and student all at the same time.

During those years I learned a lot about life. This is one of the better lessons:

Ben and I scrimped and saved for three years prior to school. Ben sold his truck, his horse trailer and his horses. He worked summers during vet school and we took out some student loans. The price of education for a doctor of veterinary medicine is similar to that of lawyers, doctors and dental students, to put it in perspective.

During those four years of school we did not go out to eat (unless our parents treated us, we love you), we did not buy extra things, and our "budget" consisted of 'trying not to spend money' we didn't have to spend to survive.

These are the years I learned how to be a mom and how to be a homemaker, (that includes my attempts at cooking!). We had pondered and prayed endlessly about having kids when we did. We had talked about waiting until we were done with school. By the time I got pregnant I already knew Ben would be going to vet school. He was just finishing up his bachelor's degree. In fact, just a couple days after Cody was born Ben flew to Washington for his interview! Before I got pregnant I added the numbers over and over again in my head. How do moms not work when their husbands are in school?  Have you wondered that? But as we prayed and talked we decided we would take the plunge into the unknown, do our best, and trust it would all work out. I believe God answers prayers.

After I had my first baby, having done paralegal work, I got a job as a legal coder that I could do from home. I battled with a little bit of baby blues that seemed to extend to a bit of post partum (nothing incredibly serious, but still a bummer) and I was also 'blessed' to either not have a child who didn't need sleep, or I didn't have the capability to get him to sleep - day or night. I worked as a legal coder part time for several months and then just couldn't make it work and keep my sanity. After that, during vet school for extra income I also babysat, delivered medication, made beaded watches (broke even:)!), and a few other random things (chacha - ugh!). Mostly though, I was home with the kiddos.

Doing legal coding with my helper buddy

After the first year of living on savings we began taking out minimal students loans for some living expenses. Buying a sweater for $30 on loans feels wrong, but thinking about buying a sweater for $30 times 30 years of interest at 7% feels like a sin. It made self control a little easier. We took out barely enough to survive each semester and always paid tithing on any extra income we made. One time I bought a pair of nice running shoes with birthday money from my parents and it felt like a huge exorbitant purchase. It's the only time I remember buying something even remotely that expensive. Anything above ten dollars that wasn't simply to allow us to survive was carefully considered and discussed. I cannot count the number of times I would wonder how the numbers added up at the end of each semester and would conclude that I believe in paying tithing.

Also at the end of that year we had an opportunity that felt like an answer to our prayers. We were applying to manage several apartment complexes of campus housing. We knew the hiring manager and he told us we unofficially had the job, we just had to formally interview. This job would allow us to get through vet school. Because I had PREVIOUSLY decided that I was going to be home with my kids, this was the perfect job-it would allow me to do that.  I can't explain what happened at the meeting to decide our fate. It supposedly lasted a long time and was split 50/50 but they ended up giving the job to a different, and I'm sure, nice, couple. They barely could speak conversational english. It was not in the cards for us. It was humbling.

Working is a wonderful option. I admire the women who do. I babysat one mother's kids during her husband's first year of vet school. I know the hours involved with that dreaded first year (oh, and all the other years). I knew she rarely, IF EVER, saw her husband. But I don't know how it is to work at a job and raise my kids alone. Occasionally she would bring her new baby over wearing the same thing from the day before, after she had worked all night long. I would bathe that sweet baby maybe not fully realizing the sacrifice that must have been for their family. It kind of brings tears to my eyes thinking about how hard they were working for what they believed in. She is a GOOD MOM. I admire that family.

I have another friend who, after paying childcare, made $2 an hour. But she told me that at the end of the month they needed those $2 an hour paychecks to make ends meet. She is now the manager, but she never could have known that in the beginning. It was right for her family. She told me how judged she felt when people found that out, and that is sad to me. It is so easy to judge each other. But frankly,  we're all doing what's best for our own families.

I have another brilliant friend who is an attorney. Amidst other associates who might not choose to raise a family she chose to have a baby. She is finding balance between staying up all night and working to provide a living and pay off student loan debt while her husband finishes medical school. That takes courage and sacrifice too.

Ben, me and baby #3!

We did not get through vet school without other help. As we sacrificed and worked towards accomplishing that thing called self reliance, we found we needed some help just to get us through the toughest years. And while we put in the grit and hard work of fulfilling a dream, our parents gave us the extra push to get us through. I'm afraid there is not enough we could ever to do repay them. It seemed like someone was always sending a baby outfit or helping out with new car tires or coming to visit. When I toot my own horn about being frugal, I'm not acknowledging that moms would occasionally send generous care packages, that my mom would send a new shirt just because or that my mother in law surprised me by sending me my much loved sewing machine for my birthday. And much more. One dear friend used to send us gift certificates. I was so grateful that at graduation both of our parents were able to attend. It was a tribute to them and as much their accomplishment as ours.

Ben's overwhelmingly long hours in school completely ruled out the slightest possibility of him working during the school year, and the probability of me finding employment to justify paying for daycare and substantial enough to cover living expenses was minimal in this small college, land-island town, but as I mentioned earlier I had PREVIOUSLY decided not to work. Our family needed the stability of someone in the home when one of the parents couldn't be there, and that decision felt right for our family. Aren't we lucky that we don't have to judge each other? We can leave that to the judgments of God. Praying and doing what is best for YOUR FAMILY is always the right answer.

An unforeseen ending to (or prolonging of!) school led Ben to his internship (again, a great decision for our family). Even though internships barely pay enough for ONE PERSON to survive let alone five we never went without and always had some to spare. I believe in working hard and I. Believe. in paying tithing.

What a blessing we had to know that things would get better. I can't imagine living far below the poverty level without the hope of a better life. That sacrifice will always be worth the benefit. Even at our lowest point, we knew things would change.

I feel blessed to have a husband and family who support me in my decision to stay at home. I am grateful for a mother in law who raised her son 'at home' and a mother who raised me 'at home.' It is becoming a lost art that is not valued. I am not concerned with what the world values. I feel that for our family and our circumstances, staying at home for me is the best option and the one I humbly and gratefully choose. The numbers don't always add up, but the blessings do! I don't assume that every mom should stay home, every family is different. Everyone's circumstances are different. Am I admitting that I'm not smart enough to have a high paying career? I don't think so. Some moms can find a lucrative enough job to make it worth finding child care. Others choose not to. But there is not one right answer.
I DON'T think we should judge each other. Good people can choose different things.

Basically, I DO think living within our means is so vitally important. Even if sometimes that means having less. Sometimes having less is more. This is what really makes me happy:

The easiest thing to do is to support great causes, sign stirring petitions, endorse grand philosophies. The hardest thing to do - and it is getting harder all of the time - is to be a good husband, a good wife, a strong father, a strong mother, an honorable friend and neighbor.
~James Q. Wilson "The Moral Life"

This is a great article: What is truth?