More Quick Takes!!

Go me for keeping up with blogging (sort of).  Happy Friday and enjoy the quick takes!

--1--

I have blogged before (I think?) about decision fatigue and how I'm a regular sufferer of the condition.  Well, this week has been extreme for that.  Those of you who know me well know that I'm a pretty indecisive person in general, and it can be extremely difficult for me to even decide what to wear some days, so ever since becoming a Mommy I find myself regularly feeling completely drained by the constant onslaught of decisions that are required of me.  We had a deadline this week to decide whether L will continue competitive gymnastics next year (we commit to increasing hours of practice each time she moves up a level so it's a pretty big choice for her), plus we have a couple different weekends coming up where we are double-booked and are needing to decide between a couple of different activities/church events/birthday parties.  The kids have been mildly sick and so there's always the "she had a fever yesterday so do I keep her home from this activity even though she's bouncing off the walls today? oh wait now she's laying down on the floor; oh wait now she's doing jumping jacks" choice.  There have been other busy things and mild stress for both me and M and so today I'm finding myself just exhausted.  Sleep hasn't been great so that doesn't help.  Muy muy excited for the weekend.  Anyway, my apologies if I don't write good.  :)

--2--

I have such great helpers in these girls.

Srsly.

You see here a girl who "stuffed" a double batch of stuffed shells for her Mama, without me having to ask.  She just wandered into the kitchen and said, "Can I help with dinner?"

Last night she came into the kitchen as she was getting ready for bed and asked if I would read to her.  I replied that I probably couldn't because I had a dishwasher full of clean dishes to unload before I could refill it with the sink-ful of dirty ones, followed by another sink-ful of pots and pans to wash.  She said, "I'll help you Mama," and unloaded the entire dishwasher for me.  The whole job was done in 15 minutes and we were able to read together after all!

There have been several mornings in the past two weeks where I have come upstairs to find that N has made breakfast for everyone.  And C has been quite the little chef in the kitchen as well these days.

Just had to give them a little blog shout-out.

--3--

This little girl loves to steal Mommy & Daddy's shirts and wear them.  She just wanders into our room and selects one out of the dresser and asks me, "On??" until I help her put it on.  She will wear it and walk around tripping until I ask her, "Can I take off your shirt?" to which she responds "uh-uh" and runs away from me.  She particularly likes my race t-shirts.

As a side note, look how red her hair is getting!  I keep wondering what her "finished" color will turn out to be.  I'm guessing strawberry blonde.  So pretty :)

--4--

We have gotten into a lovely little ritual of having tea as we work on school in the afternoons.  It has happened three times this week.  I find it really soothing and I think the girls do too.

Sometimes our afternoon school consists of games, as I have been really into gameschooling lately and have recently added a few new educational board games to our collection (mostly for free using Amazon points, huzzah!).  In the past few weeks we have tried You've Been Sentenced, Super Sleuth and Word on the Street Junior.  I'm excited to play Sight Word Zingo with C when it comes in the mail in a few days.  I have started our Progressive Phonics readers with her and she LOVES it and is really zipping through them.  She is suuuuper motivated to start reading... usually there is somebody around who is willing to read to her but she is also interested in all of the chapter book series that the older sisters are enjoying silently, and curious to begin them herself.  :)  It always makes me happy to see everyone in the house with their nose in a book!  But I'm a geeky bookworm like that.

--5--

These gals decided to have ice cream in the backyard yesterday on a beautiful, sunny, 50-degree day.

That's SoDelicious dairy-free ice cream for Miss J, lovingly scooped for her by big sister.

We got this wonderful glimpse of spring yesterday after a cloudy, cold, rainy week... aaaaaaand it's going to snow tonight and tomorrow.  No April foolin'.

Who else is ready to be done with winter???

--6--

What have you all been eating lately?

I have been loving Minimalist Baker-- they skew on the Vegan side of things, and (if I put our family into a category, which I don't really) I would put us more in the Paleo category these days, but who doesn't love a good meatless meal to save a little money?  We really enjoyed the vegan sloppy joes (I subbed black-eyed peas for the lentils... delish!), and the vegan alfredo is the only dairy-free "mac n cheese" I have found that all of my kids will eat hungrily.  (J is the only one who is sensitive to dairy, but who wants to make two separate dinners every night???)

This past week I made quinoa tacos and I think this one was my favorite yet.  And super easy, too!  I just made the quinoa taco "meat" and we had it taco salad style, with tortilla chips, cheese, avocado, chopped bell peppers and tomatoes, etc.  So yummy, and the kids liked it too!  I would highly recommend this and it's on our list to make again soon!

--7--

Speaking of eating, here's my breakfast today:

I've been on a huge crockpot steel cut oats kick lately.  Yummmmm.  Perfect for a cold snowy morning.  Set it the night before, wake up to the house smelling delicious, and scoop yourself a bowl of hot mush.  Pictured above is my favorite combination-- oats from the crockpot with raisins, walnuts, and a drizzle of maple syrup mixed in.  Two out of four kids like oatmeal, too, and the two who don't are old enough to make their own breakfast, so I get the morning off.  :)

Sometimes, I just have to talk about food for a little while.  Thanks for letting me!

And that's it!  Have a great weekend everyone!

(and for more quick takes, visit This Ain't the Lyceum!)