Posie Gets Cozy

I try to wake up at 6 a.m., squeeze in scriptures, exercise, and time with Adam before he leaves for work, then wake up the kids by 8. It doesn't usually happen this way, and I know that I'm setting myself up for mockery by revealing this idealistic, often unobtainable, routine. Darla was just blogging about not being the mom who "wakes up early for exercise and meditation" but struggles getting three kids out the door so they can sign in Cole for preschool on time. It made me smile because I can relate to that. We never get anywhere on time and I'm grateful I don't have to deal with the pressure of school yet. I usually don't wake the kids up until 8:30 or so because I get sucked into the computer. This morning I was searching through page elements on Jessica's site and found this blog:
http://kellymccaleb.typepad.com/ She has wonderful crafty things to buy, plus links to other wonderful blogs like Posie Gets Cozy. Check out the March 28th entry of Posie Gets Cozy. It is a collection of wonderful spring pictures taken somewhere in Portland. April in the northwest has many, many elements of "Mindi's version of heaven."

Games

I'm not much of a shopper, but today we went into BigLots. Just the name BigLots! kinda scares me. Did they just think, "Here we have a store that is BIG and we have LOTS of stuff...humm, what can we name this here store? I got it! BIG and LOTS together. Perfect." We were looking for a Hooked On Phonics for kids that teaches Spanish, because a friend said you could find said item there. But Hooked On Phonics was no where to be found. Which is good. If I owned any Hooked On Phonics tapes I would just walk around quoting Brian Reagan (I tried to find a YouTube clip of Brian and Hooked on Phonics, but couldn't. If anyone out there finds one, please send it to me). Instead we found two great Leap-Frog games for only $10! Whoohoo. Here is a picture of our exciting find. Plus Sierra and the ABCs. Right after I made this video, she got a lot better. I promise.

Treasure Wednesdays

This month's First Presidency Message by President Monson is called "Treasure of Eternal Value". I love treasure. I love scriptures about treasure (see Matthew 6:19-21). I love movies about treasure (see Fool's Gold). I love books about treasure (Treasure Island). Don't pass up clicking on the Treasure Island link. It takes you to deadmentellnotales.com which I think I'll add as one of my favorite websites. So I'm offically naming Wednesday, Treasure Wednesday, in my blog world. I'll start out with three of my most valued treasures:
#1-My marriage:

#2-My children:

#3-Gram & Pop's house:

Every Wednesday (except the cursed days we are sick, which has been the last two Wednesdays) we get to pick up my sister, Janelle, and go to Gram and Pop's house. Gram spoils us that nobody's business. She always feeds us a wonderful lunch and makes sure I get to take a nap. It is a dream come true, really.

Cheezburger site

Some of them are silly, and some make you LOL. www.icanhascheezburger.com

Three for Tuesday

Jessica Smith has a great blog. She does "Two For Tuesday" and posts a bit about a favorite thing. I'm going to copy her here, but since this is my third post today (plus all the page elements I've added, geez I've spent too much time in front of the computer today!) I get to call it "Three for Tuesday". My favorite thing this week is my new Prana Yoga mat. Adam bought it for me at Bukoos while we were in Utah last month. I said it could be my Mother's Day gift, but I couldn't wait to use it. It is only effective if I get my yoga done before the kids wake up. Otherwise, they hog the mat and climb all over me and it is less than effective. I was taking a picture of my feet on the mat, then Kaia insisted that I do the same with her feet. Then Sierra and Kaia wanted to make sure that I posted a picture of them and their sweet yoga moves. Notice that my toes have recently been to the salon. A rare treat. I ran applications on 6 students who want to rent our house and there was enough money leftover for a pedicure. Plus, I left my business cards on display at the salon so I can write it all off on my taxes. Waahaahhaaa.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

My buddy, Maren (freshman year roommate at BYU), has a great blog. She found out about "Self-Portrait Tuesday" and started her own tradition. If you go to her blog, here and look up "Self-Portrait Tuesday", you'll better understand the following:

I was already in my jammies when I found out about "Self-Portrait Tuesday" and I wasn't about to change. I tried several locations for my self-portrait. At first I thought it would be a good idea to capture the horrible dinner mess that was still on the table. Or maybe the pile of dishes in the sink. But when it was all said and done, I chose this picture of me and the only clean background in sight. This is me huddled in the corner of the kitchen. I think this says a lot about myself. Much of my self esteem seems to be based on the condition of my home. If there is ever a picture posted with a mess in the background, you can be 99.98% sure aliens have taken over my blog. (Um, the alien reference comes because I recently saw the episode of Rob & Big where they buy a time machine from a guy who thinks everyone is an alien. I don't watch that show on purpose, it just happens to be on sometimes when I walk by and I get sucked in.)

Joy School

Several times per day Kaia will ask me, "Where are we going when we wake up?" It is bad news when I don't have an answer. Today was a Joy School day. We started out with a game Sierra created. A few days ago she cut up a diaper box into small squares and rectangles. She put numbers on each square. We used the rectangles like pancake flippers and flipped each square. Then lined up the numbers in order. It was fun and I was impressed with Sierra's creative skills. Please notice Kaia's face in the picture. She is currently yelling at me, "Is this the number 7?" I didn't answer right away because I was trying to get a blog worthy picture, thus the anger and frustration. Another highlight was our homemade bran muffins. The girls helped me grind up the wheat into flour then each took a turn adding the ingredients into the mixer.

Joy School Bran Muffins
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup wheat bran
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp honey
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup water (should use milk, but I didn't have any, so I came up with the raisin/water combo)
1/4 cup oil
handful of raisins

turn oven to 350. Put water and raisins together in saucepan, bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Mix all ingredients together, put in muffin tin and cook for 20 min. Don't try to double this recipe unless you have an army to feed. Best when served hot, with honey butter and some sort of sprinkles for the kids to sprinkle on top. We used both pink sprinkles and Halloween sprinkles. They ate them all up. I did warn Raiyn and Josslin's mom that all the bran and whole wheat flour could lead to a tummy ache.

Which brings me to another topic. I'd really like to wean my family from white flour and white sugar as much as possible. Adam was doing really well on the Eat to Live diet for a few weeks. Basically the diet encourages you to eat as many fruits and vegis as humanly possible. It was exciting to have so much fresh produce in the kitchen. So here is my plan. I'm going to create a 12 meal menu and shopping list. I know there are books out there that help you do this. In fact I bought one at Deseret Book, only to return it because the recipes we not what I would call healthful. I would love help and suggestions from fellow bloggers/eaters.