Jumping!

Last week we met some friends at Jumpalooza for some morning fun!

It’s not exactly geared for James’ age, but he still had fun wandering around and sliding with Mommy.

I probably could have gone the entire morning without seeing Natalie – she was having such a great time!  Of course I sought her out a few times to make sure she was still around and okay.  :)

That’s my blurry Joanna sliding down the big slide!

James is sooooooo cute.  He would stand on these mats and then jump off them like he was one of the big boys.  I could just eat him up!!!

Natalie and one of her best buds Cayley.

James was flirting with the baby girls in strollers.  :)

Found a bench to pose and be the handsomest boy ever!!!!!

And this was actually at home, and maybe not even the same day, but I LOVE it!!!  He is a hoot!

Here’s one where you can pretend he’s not wearing pink glasses.  :)

I took mostly pictures of James that day because I was following him around.  The girls were off on their own – so fun!

Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans

I am rather behind on blogging, but I have to slip this recipe in before I forget exactly what I did.  Because I am sooooooooo making these again.

I pretty much followed this recipe that I had pinned at some point.  It turned out so amazingly delicious that I want to blog exactly what I did so I can do it again.

Ingredients:
1lb fresh green beans  (I had just over a pound, grown in Splendora by the lady we get our milk and eggs from.)
Bacon (I had 8 slices in the fridge; use what you’ve got.)
2T butter
1T sucanat (since most people probably don’t have this, brown sugar will work just fine)
1-2 cloves garlic (I used just under a teaspoon of that garlic that comes in a jar that you keep in a fridge that’s already all chopped up and wonderful.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  The recipe said to grease the pan, but I figure 8 pieces of bacon meant I didn’t need to.  I was right.  :)

Wash and dry your green beans.  Grab a little bundle (mine actually worked out to be 10 beans each) and wrap a slice of bacon around it.  Lay it seam side down in a baking dish.  A 9x13 Pyrex worked perfectly for me.

Repeat this until you’ve used up all your green beans and/or bacon.

You can ignore the little potatoes.  They were lonely so I sliced them up and threw them in – yum!

In a little saucepan combine the butter, sugar, and garlic over low heat.  Stir it up until everything is melted and combined.

Use a pastry brush and brush it over the green bean bundles.  Life is short; use it all.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Remove the foil and give it another 15 minutes.

I felt mine were perfectly delightful at that point, but you could also give them a couple of minutes under the broiler if they need to crisp up.

I feel as though I had not truly lived until I had these tonight.  I urge you to try something like this.  I don’t think you’ll regret it.  If you do, you can deliver that pan to my house.

Musikgarten workshop

Back in the spring I took a workshop to become certified to teach baby and toddler Musikgarten classes.  That workshop was spread over 6 different Fridays from February to April.  I just finished my class to be certified to teach Cycles of Seasons (for ages 3-5 years).  We decided to do the workshop over 2 1/2 days instead of six (or so) weeks.  We met Sunday evening, all day Monday, and all day Tuesday.  I liked this much better, though I am completely and totally exhausted.  And the weekend is days away.

Matt watched the kiddos on Sunday.  There was a nursery Monday morning, then my mom watched James and Ray in the afternoon until Matt got home while the girls were at Andy and Christiana’s house.  I taxied everyone around at lunch time.

When I came home Monday evening, Matt had gone to pick up the girls, and my mom was outside with James (who was very clearly tired and grumpy.)

When he is grumpy, this is typically what I get when I try to sing to him.  He hollers at me and holds up his hand.  Ha!

There’s my sweet boy!

Tuesday was pretty much the same, childcare-wise, but Matt watched the boys in the afternoon since my mom had to work.  And then it was enchilada night (Thank you, Lord.) so Matt took James over and Andy and Christiana took the girls over.  I just had to take myself.  :)

In the afternoon (still in training) we went outside for some sensory nature activities.  I had my camera, so I took some pics.

I laid on the ground and look up at the trees…

and the clouds.

Then I zoned in to take a picture of a spider web on the flowers.

And the little wimpy flowers in the background.

And then I took pictures of people watching nature.  :)

Kendra:

Theresa and baby Lily:

Kaylea:

Back inside… baby Lily was in the nursery both mornings and then with us in the afternoons.  She did SO GOOD!  I know she was super tired and her schedule was all messed up, but she just did so well!

Then I took pictures of our graduation ceremony.  :)

The woman in blue is Leilani, who runs a studio on the other side of town.  She was our trainer and is soooooo knowledgeable.

Lori:

It was a great workshop, and I’m so excited about teaching this class!  I’m loving this curriculum.  We’re doing preview classes for baby, toddler, and cycles in July (so we can practice – ha!), and then we’ll be starting up teaching regular semesters of all of them in the fall.  Yay!!

James… mostly.

I’ve looked at this picture so many times in the last week that it no longer looks like anyone, but when I ran across it at my grandmother’s house it stopped me in my tracks. 

Obviously you can tell from the quality of the photo (and time of year) that it isn’t actually James, but I can’t get over how much it looks like him!  {It’s me, in case you weren’t sure.}

It prompted me to go outside and see if I could catch a similar picture of James.

I failed. 

But I did get some really cute pics of my baby.  :)

Loving the fake “cheese” smile.

Those eyes!!

After that we all ended up in the backyard and there was dirt and water and it was hot.  All those things together make this:

 

I just want to squeeze him ALL. THE. TIME.

They were all soaking wet and very gross!  Everybody came in and went straight into the tub before lunch.  It was gooooood fun though.  And I got my laundry hung up.

Joanna is so grown up.

Joanna was asking me the other day how to spell our last name, but I was mentally involved in something else and couldn’t tell her. {I’m sure it was some form of rocket science or bimolecular engineering that I couldn’t spell Pence for her… ahem.}  Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t because she came over a couple minutes later and showed me this:

She already knew how to spell it!!!  The massive scribbles came later, before I could get it scanned.

And also this week she officially became able to tie her shoes!!!!

The double knot still trips her up (the loops are confusing), but I am just so impressed!  And also so happy not to have to tie her shoes for her.  :)

Random Food Post

Sometimes, depending on my mood I guess, I like to cook like people on television, with their little bowls of ingredients.  It’s fun.  And pretty.  :)

We had a big salad for lunch one day.  This was Joanna’s:

I LOVE reading The Pioneer Woman’s blog.  Her photos and recipes (and other stuff) are just amazing!  I saw this recipe for tortilla rollups and they just spoke to me.

So I mixed up some herbs with my cream cheese and set to work!

I do not have a fancy gadget that juliennes veggies, BUT I have an amazing new knife, so my carpal tunnels and I were still on speaking terms after this event.

Anyway, I filled my rollups with turkey and veggies in varying combinations, and stuck them in the fridge overnight.   They don’t need to be in the fridge overnight, but it was night and I didn’t want to eat them until the next day. 

And normally I don’t use plastic wrap ever, but obviously I had some, and I like to follow the recipe pretty exactly the first time I make something.

Here they are the next day, all ready to eat!

Matt loved them.  I have texture issues with food, so I didn’t really go for the variety pictured.  BUT I loved the avocado and turkey version.  Yum!  The kids each ate a few bites, but I think there was too much flavor in the cream cheese spread for them.

I will totally make that spread again though, and just get box of wheat thins and go to town.  Yummo.

I pretty much always have the ingredients for my favorite cookies on hand any time I get a hankerin’.  Then I mix ‘em up, scoop them on a cookie sheet, freeze them, then put them in a ziplock in the freezer.  Of course, once they’re there, they call my name and don’t really last so long.  Oh well.

Aren’t they beautiful?

They have oats and peanut butter and freshly ground whole wheat flour in them.  They’re practically health food!  Anyway, I highly recommend them for your freezer.  :)  Here’s the recipe.

Ponderences and funny things

Today I bought Joanna a boys' bike so that when James gets it as a hand-me-down, it won’t be pink.  {It is a pretty bright green, and I’m sure we’ll put streamers on it, so it’s a nice compromise.}

James is the first of my children that I have wanted to squeeze his cheeks all the time.  Is it a boy thing?

Today at lunch my mom was peeling a shrimp and started asking me whether a shrimp was a crustacean or a mollusk. And I'm like, uh...... but my first thought was not "Hmmmm... let me think back to my last science class." Nope, my first thought was "Hmmm... I wonder if that was in The Little Mermaid."

A couple of weeks ago I was at a restaurant with Natalie and she was like “Momma, momma, momma, momma, momma, momma” and I had kind of tuned her out.  Then I turned to her dramatically and gave her a stare.  She said “say ‘what’.”  Ha!  {By the way that story is way more funny told in person, but I don’t want to forget it.}

James has come up to me like six times in the last few minutes to give me a kiss and wave “bye bye.”  No wonder I want to squeeze his cheeks all the time!!

Eight times.  Oh, I love that boy!