Those of you who have been getting my e-mails know that since Hannah has arrived, my cooking theory is “cook lots, cook less often”. I wanted to let you know a few more of my fast food discoveries. Maybe they are just endeavors, since I am sure others do the same.

I bought several big bags (I don’t plan to go back for while) of boneless skinless chicken breasts from Cargill. Instead of dividing them out into quart bags to freeze, I put them down in layers on my cookie sheets with cereal plastic in between. After they were frozen, I broke them apart and put them into gallon bags. Now, they are separate in the bags and I can just pull out a few and use them individually in a casserole, fry them, or grill them. I don’t have to thaw a big massive lump in the microwave (which in our microwave takes a long time).

Next is a really great thing. Cook up lots of hamburger (I did 5 lbs.) some day when you don’t need it. After draining it and it cools, get your husband to put it into small containers and put it in the freezer. Then, it is ready for spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, soups, or whatever.

We used some of the hamburger to make “Quick Pizzas” for lunch. I toasted some bread (this was homemade bread, I don’t know how it would be with store bread–and if you don’t have any homemade bread, just get my sister Miriam to make some for you. That’s what she did for me!), then I spread on some pizza sauce straight from the jar, spooned on some hamburger, added mozzarella cheese and some pepperoni slices and microwaved the whole thing. They tasted great, and as an added bonus, it was a surprise for Andrew since I am sure he was expecting our usual lunch time fare of deer baloney sandwiches.

We had another chance to spoil Paul’s cousins Sunday evening. Due to, hmmm, due to what? I guess due to us not checking for phone messages as soon as we got home from church on Sunday, we didn’t find out about this opportunity until right as we were leaving for the evening church service. Jeremy & Lynn dropped off Steven, Sam, and Emily at our church, and we brought them home from there. That means there were all of 5 car seats in the minivan! It was wall-to-wall car seats except for the two front seats, which is where Andrew and I rode.

We needed milk, so we stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home. My husband goes to great lengths to make sure little kids feel special and to do things they would find fun. Part of that was extracting Steven and Sam out of the back seat of our van and through the maze of car seats and seat belts and taking them along into Wal-Mart. I went through lots of songs singing to Paul and Emily to keep them (mainly Paul) from crying until they got back.

Andrew had lofty plans for the evening. I was skeptical because I knew I would be spending the first hour feeding Hannah and putting her to bed. Plus, Paul had a short nap that afternoon, and I knew he was tired. But, as usual, Andrew’s ideas work out superbly. We cleared our dining room table. Then, Andrew lined all the kids up on one side and gave them chocolate milk and potato chips to those who were able to chew them, and bread to Paul and Emily.

Then, he set up his laptop on the other side of the table and started our Winnie the Pooh DVD. (I think Paul thought he was in his dream world! He loves Winnie the Pooh.) After one of the movies (they aren’t very long), Andrew served ice cream cones, including ones with a tiny bit of ice cream in to Paul and Emily. (At this point, I am sure Paul was in his dream world!)

After that was over, Paul and Emily used the bathroom and I put both of them their pajamas. Then, Andrew read stories to Paul and Emily.

Steven read our big Curious George book, and Sam listened in on Andrew’s readings.

It was a delightful evening, and I attribute that to Andrew and well-trained children. I probably wouldn’t agree to keeping three of someone else’s kids through a church service if it was just anyone, but, I had no fear with Jeremy & Lynn’s because they put a lot of effort into training them, and I knew they would behave excellently, which they did.

We took some really nice pictures of Hannah after church today. She is wearing a dress from her Aunt Lucy, the pink crocheted blanket was made by her Aunt Miriam (a.k.a., Aunt Mini), and the shoes are from her Aunt Katie. I think she is absolutely adorable!! (If you hover the mouse over the image, then left click, you can see it in a larger size.)

Guess what our little girl has started doing? Instead of noisily sucking her fists, she now sucks her thumb! Does she ever enjoy it! She is so different from Paul. She wants to suck something just for the sake of sucking. She isn’t hungry, she just likes to suck to go to sleep. I decided I wasn’t her human pacifier, so she sucked her fists to go to sleep initially. Just yesterday is when she started with her thumb (that I know of), and it is her right thumb. I guess she might be right-handed then.

We enjoyed a windy, sunny Saturday. Paul loved being outside and picked dandelions and buttercups. He likes to carry sticks, as you can see.

Andrew came outside and helped Paul hold Hannah. After she was on his lap a few minutes, he tried to push her off. I guess he has his limits!

Andrew, Hannah, and Paul enjoyed sitting on the swing.

Those were some fun times on Sat. Even more fun was when Andrew watched Hannah for her “happy time” (her wake time), and then put her down for her nap. That way I could start on a nap early, and boy, I got the best nap I have had in weeks! It makes a difference.

Other than that, I got some chicken meat frozen, ran the dishwasher, and got a lot of laundry done. We had a movie night, which we haven’t had for a little spell, and watched a Miss Marple movie. It doesn’t seem like I did very much, but I was busy all day long. For the first time in a while, Hannah decided to cry for a spell before she went to bed. I held her, and she seemed to be in pain. I don’t know for sure what was the matter. It hasn’t bothered her today at all, which is great!

I am sure I rescued my husband from certain predators such as this when we got married!!

Now, I am the one with the great electronics.

Here’s my computer wizard in action!

We were going to pick strawberries this morning. Unlike other years when it was either just me, or Andrew and me, or Paul and me and we could leave and get there early in the morning, it just takes some time to get everyone breakfast, pottied, dressed, and loaded into the car with appropriate accouterments. Also, our neighbor called and offered us some bread dough. She had more than she had pans for, so I shaped it quick and took it along. We got to Jeremy (Andrew’s brother) and Lynn’s house at 9:30. I was going to leave Hannah there since they live very close to the berry patch. I called right away to see if they still had berries, but they were picked out. I was going to head back towards home and get some chicken meat from Cargill on the way, but Hannah was crying and thought she needed to eat. Hence, we camped out at Lynn’s doing our whole routine, visiting and baking the bread. We got reloaded and headed out around 11:30 and stopped at the Cargill Company store (Cargill is a local chicken plant) on the way home.

My wonderful husband has been the facilitator of this blog. He has been encouraging me to do this ever since I discovered some interesting blogs in the recent past. More than that, he even has fully given me this evening off (except for nursing Hannah) so I can “blog”. He gave Hannah and Paul a bath. It was the first time he bathed Hannah, so I took some pictures. They got along just fine.

Andrew even set the table and served supper, which was a casserole out of the freezer. Right now, he is showing me how to insert photos and then how to get this thing up and out on the ether.

Be not deceived, I didn’t wait until my house was in order to start this blog!! The dishes and laundry are waiting, among other things too numerous to list.

Paul definitely keeps our lives from becoming dull. Besides just being overly cute (biased opinion, I know, but still mine), here’s a few interesting things.

On Sunday, he was eating some snacks in church. One of his favorite things to eat in fish crackers. After eating a few, while he was chewing he crunched up the one in his hand. Because he knows the meaning of gentle, when he got the next one, I told him, “Be gentle with the fish cracker”. He immediately started gently stroking the fish cracker! He gets that from when he is going to touch Hannah, I say, “Be gentle”, and he then gently strokes her.

Last week, I decided to try to teach him to color with crayons. He seemed to have some difficulty holding the slender crayons in a way to make a mark on paper. I bought this nifty-looking crayon wheel at Wal-Mart. It looks like a little cog wheel with big fat “cogs” that are crayon bumps. That afternoon Paul and Hannah did unsynchronized napping and I was tired. While Hannah was napping, I asked Andrew if Paul could play down in the basement while Andrew worked. I gave Andrew the new crayon wheel and some paper to let Paul draw on. When I got up a short time later, Andrew said I wouldn’t be surprised, but I would be disappointed to know that Paul was gnawing the colored crayon knobs off the crayon wheel. Andrew assured me it was “highly non-toxic”. Well, that’s Paul, always putting things in his mouth and chewing on stuff. I have since provided more supervision to the “art lessons” to keep the crayons out of his mouth.

On Tuesday, I took Paul and Hannah up to visit their great-grandma Gardner. It was only the long trek to Mt. Solon, which is about 30 minutes from here, but it was still the biggest event of the day. I make a big effort to go see her once a month and trim her toenails while we are there. With two little munchkins, I had to get creative on how to manage visiting her and not get overwhelmed myself or have Paul destroy something in Grandma’s house. Since Gail lives just on the next hill over, I arrange to leave Paul with her (a bonus is he gets to play with his cousin Bobby) until I get the toenail trimming done, and then I go bring him over to Grandma’s. That way when he is there I can have my mind on Paul and Hannah.

Going to Grandma’s turned into a bigger event than I anticipated. Hannah decided she wanted to eat before we got there. I stopped and nursed her on the way. That put us a good 20 min. later getting there.

When I got to Grandma’s, Hannah took a nap on her guest bed while I trimmed Grandma’s toenails. Then, I went to get Paul. When I came back, Hannah was howling and Grandma was sitting on the bed beside her. Now it was about 12:30. Paul was behaving exceedingly well. I got his snacks out from the diaper bag (I never leave home without them, pretty much, and it’s a good thing!), and he ate a lunch of snacks beside me on the couch while I nursed Hannah again. Grandma is a determined hostess and finally convinced me to eat share some cheese and crackers (with Vanilla Wafers and some sort of chocolate sticks for dessert) with her. I warned her that there would be crumbs all over the floor from Paul eating crackers, and she assured me it was o.k. So, after Hannah was done nursing, I held her and sat right up against Paul’s high stool so he wouldn’t fall off, and we had a nice time eating our little lunch.

After lunch, Paul played with Grandma’s plastic fruit while I gathered up all our possessions and got Hannah loaded up.  When he found the red apples, he would hold the plastic apples, and then go rub the red apples on Grandma’s kitchen rug. He likes to make association between like items that way.

We had a very nice visit, and Paul and Hannah settled into nice naps on the way home when we finally left at 2:30.

Around here Mondays are recuperation days. That’s when Paul, Hannah, and I recuperate from Sunday, which is our biggest day of the week in which we work the hardest (I know it sounds backwards, but that’s how it is with little kids). This Monday was extra special since Paul’s cousin Bobby came to spend the afternoon with us. Gail dropped him off about 11:00 a.m. while she went to town. He was a wonderful gentleman and willing to be generous when Paul was greedy with his toys. I had to intervene at times so Paul could learn to share. By the time Bobby was leaving later in the evening, on his own initiative, Paul gave Bobby his little stuffed Tigger (a favorite of Paul’s).

Bobby pushing Hannah

Paul & Bobby on the swing

Bobby on the slide

Paul and Bobby were at our fence watching
our neighbor on his tractor.

Reading to Paul and Bobby just before their naps.