Hard Lesson to Learn

NOTE: This post was intended for Monday... My girls did not eat cake today. As difficult as it was not to give in, my husband and I had to teach them a lesson about both following directions and learning to at least try to eat what is on the table. In the past, we would always give in, especially my husband, saying "...but they're my girls".

Today I specifically told them that they could not eat the candies in their goodie bags they got this past weekend. I made that very clear. After lunch, they went upstairs to play. Take heed whenever there is a prolonged period of silence. After a while, the girls came downstairs and walked into my study as I was working at my computer. I noticed something purple stuck to my oldest daughter's face and immediately asked what it was that she ate. "Nothing", she said. I asked her sister and she also insisted that they ate nothing. Then my oldest told me that her sister fed her. I quickly went upstairs and noticed all of the empty wrappers and a Tootie lollipop stick strewn about on the floor. I also noticed my daughter's owl purse lying open on the floor...their method of transporting all of the candy from the three goodie bags and up the stairs away from my prying eyes. Needless to say, punishment was due. First, the girls were separated - one girl was to go to the upstairs bedroom and the other downstairs. It was a great time for a forced nap. Then, they were not going to get any cake.

My husband and I actually sat outside at the dinner table eating the cake in front of them. My husband was enjoying his favorite cake very much, eating three large slices while both of the girls looked on. It was difficult not to want to give in, but we had to stand firm or risk our children taking advantage of future situations. I did give Sagey a small slice of cake, only because he managed to eat four bananas before dinner. He also wanted more cake, but we decided to save the rest for the morning.

Directions are not always easy to follow for children, but they have to know there are consequences to their actions even if it is as simple as not getting to eat cake.

A Relaxing Sunday...after being locked out

The morning routine almost always consists of your having to take a bath after breakfast. I'm sure I will miss this time one day in the near future, so I will have to remember to cherish it while it still lasts.

Today's lesson of the day is to always carry your house keys in your pocket while eating out in the backyard for you never know when you'll be locked out of your own home. The first time this happened, one of the girls was inside (I believe the younger one) and we talked her through the steps to unlocking the back door which involved her having to go get the stepstool.

Today, while we were eating a late lunch, our oldest daughter closed the back door as we all sat down to eat. It was hot - about 100 degrees - and we really should have eaten inside, but we love to take advantage of the warm Texas weather. So, I got up to go get something inside, as I do several times during our meals, and noticed that the back door was locked. One of the girls was playing with the lock at one point on the door knob which meant there was no way into the house. No windows or doors were unlocked and we thought we had to resort to breaking a window. After what seemed like an eternity, Papa saved the day and made it so that we could get inside. I'll leave out those details though...

You girls were then sent to your room and told that you were not going to get cake tonight, but in the end you did learn your lesson and thus got to eat cake.



You were eyeing the cake this evening, unsure of the smushed raspberries. Carefully, you ate around the raspberries but didn't seem to want to even try eating them.

Salt-kissed Buttermilk Cake from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog.

Summer in Texas is so warm and full of light, which makes going to bed at 8pm so difficult as you'd rather be outside running around and pretending you are a bird.

Today's recipe can be found here http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/saltkissed-buttermilk-cake-recipe.html

A Fun Day

This day started out with an early morning birthday party for the younger sister of one of your preschool buddies. 

Your sister had fun riding the pony after you had your turn. 

You three had a great time making goodie bags for the pinata.

Sagey enjoyed the stickers and markers, even getting some blue marker on his face.

Seena was fascinated by the hat and kept it until we got home...

...unlike Sagey who kept it on for a few seconds before handing it back to his sister before she took a turn with the cupcake pinata.

The day ended with a trip to the AARL Field Day location at the Red Cross by the old airport to see what Papa was up to this weekend (that will be the topic of another post). It was a very hot 100 degrees today so we didn't stay too long although we did enjoy a delicious lunch at ZAX while sitting inside the air conditioned restaurant. Papa returned to the Field Day and we went home where we ended the day with some Haagen Dazs Vanilla Bean and Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream (no, the extra "Chocolate" is not a typo). What a fun day!

Ice Cream and a Bandage

A day late in posting...but here is yesterday's little things captured in photographs.

The essence of Summer. My little boy, you've learned to carefully eat your ice cream although you still manage to make enough of a mess to warrant a bath afterwards.

It wonderful to see you enjoying your ice cream today after the past few days of your having been too sick to eat. It seems to have been an inner ear infection as you mentioned your ears hurting and your not being able to turn your neck to one side. You were so tired that you could not even manage a smile. So, it was a wonderful treat to me to see you smile this morning and run around the house and play with you sister and brother.

You tripped over the laces of your new purple sparkly shoes as we were leaving for the post office...shoes, which Papa let you buy. :) Your fall wasn't too bad...a little blood and nothing that a fun bandage can't "fix", but I think it's time to learn to tie your shoes.

Waiting for Pancakes

Monday morning started out much earlier than usual with my husband driving to Dallas for the week. Our oldest daughter was awake when he left and her sister woke up shortly thereafter.

They settled on the two sofas in our great room with one "reading" a German comic book...

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...and the other simply waiting for our day to start. Sagey was still asleep in his crib.

I decided to use the Buttermilk Pancake recipe from William's Sonoma "The Cookbook for Kids". I was a bit hesitant to try a new pancake recipe since I had a tried and true recipe that I love from Cook's Illustrated, but I tried it even though the ratio of dry ingredients to wet ingredients seemed to tell me that this was going to be a thin batter.

The three kids waited patiently while I took each batch of pancakes off the griddle and stacked it onto a plate.

  

 

A dozen pancakes resulted from this recipe...enough for all four of us.

The photo in the cookbook is deceiving as it shows fluffy pancakes. With the batter being so watery, the pancakes resembled crepes more than pancakes. I guess I should have read the one and only review of the book on Amazon where the reviewer suggests to skip this recipe. The reviewer apparently had the same issue with the pancakes...the batter was too thin which resulted in very flat crepe-like pancakes. In addition, there was a noticeable saltiness.

Regardless, my kids liked them and they were happy that we had something different for breakfast.  

Change is good and more change is on the horizon. I am looking forward to several new cookbooks arriving in the mail later this month. For now, we will look to our current collection of cookbooks and cooking magazines for more new recipes to try. It's a great time to teach children that being in the kitchen really can be fun.