Camping… That has been our goal this summer, to go camping with the children. With success in this area has come, also, antisocial tendencies. We have hunkered down to fun in the sun as a little family unit. No kids running here and there to events of every kind this summer, just my man and I, our two girls, two boys and the dog. The kids said their favourite part of last summer was camping and we heard them!
Wild horses couldn’t tear me away. This thought lingered in my heart as I drove away from my childhood home once again. A summer visit of great significance, things were different this vacation. I witnessed the knitting of the north to my eldest two’s souls; and realized with their connection made, I was even more bound to this land, in as much as is possible while on this temporal earth.
Since Garnet was diagnosed with hypoglycemia the traditional meat and potato meals have been out the window in our house. While it was a struggle to learn to cook with NO SUGAR and LOW STARCH I am finding a groove. Add to this dietary restriction four kids to cater to….
To be honest, this Mama isn’t the catering type. If I serve them something they don’t like (after having tried it) I will reintroduce it over and over till they DO like it. This is how I won on the avocado front!
All that good parenting advice aside, I like to treat them now and again. That means asking what they would like for supper or making something I know they will love. On the weekend I surprised them with pancakes and strawberries for lunch (high protein and fiber, sugar free but they didn’t no that). The other night I needed a meal in a hurry and dared to ask for their hearts desires. They all agreed on ‘salmon h’orderves’. I started making them cracker topped snacks years ago and to them it is the fanciest of my meals.
Salmon h’orderves is what they call the meal in the photograph at the top of the post. Salmon salad atop some greens on a cracker and then topped with cheese, in this meals case we had havarti. I boiled a few eggs, steamed some broccoli and made an avocado salad for good measure… done in little time. One of my oldest kids found the home made apple cinnamon sauce in the fridge and requested it as ‘a side’… since it too is sugar free I agreed with little pressure.
The kids had seconds and thirds and…I told them I was done making h’orderves when they pleaded for fourths. A speedy, healthy meal all around and all the better because my crew thought it was grand!
Do you make your kids h’orderves’? If so what are yours like? Fancy actual h’orderves or ‘kid style’ ones?
Bless you and your meal making efforts!
TTFN
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| (Photo’s from summer past, a rough version of soccer on Papa and Nanny’s lawn.) |
Had my first game of ‘scrub baseball’ with the kids. Riddick, the family dog, was tied to a tree so he would stop breaking up the game. He has a nutty streak that just wants to destroy every ball he sees.
My youngest, being only three, spent most of his time bursting in and out of the game… apparently he was a little confused as to which game we where playing. I would be just about to pitch the ball to the child at bat when someone would yell, ‘Baby boy, playing through!’, on cue a boy and his yellow soccer ball would madly run in and out of our way.
The older two figured the game out in no time. Hit the ball with bat, put bat down, run to big tree and back to home before being tagged. We had the expected attempts to nail the runner by throwing the ball AT them as hard as possible, the occasional stomping of feet when one didn’t make it back to home before being tagged, and one person got hit with the ball… that was Mom, of course. I knew no good could come from being the first person to teach my oldest boy to pitch… he got me in the back and then I taught him, with excellent patience and grace I might add, to aim over the plate and not AT the batter.
My five year old daughter did a great job at running to the little person’s base and back (had a shorter run for the shorter kids) but forgot to put the bat down and that sure slowed her down… considering it’s almost as big as her.
The older two really liked getting Mom out and thought it was fun to try to block me on my way back to home base. The required, but rare, scrub baseball tackle entered the game at this point. “Mama will knock you down”, I grinned between wheezing for breath, as I picked my 8 year old up off the ground. Dusted him off and we both laughed about it. Of course he pulled it again in hopes of another wrestling match with Mom… ah boys…
So we didn’t completely stick to baseball, but it was a good first lesson!
My parents introduced us to pretty much every game under the sun, the ‘scrub’ version that is… less rules, rotating teams, no counting score and just fun… I will always cherish the times my Grandma Smith got involved and wowed all us grand-kids. She was such a sportsman! I hope to encourage my children to JUST ENJOY it like she did. I figure, like my parents must have, introduce the kids to enough sports in your own back yard and you help encourage them toward an active lifestyle. We learned quickly it was about fun and activity. That it didn’t matter much how amazing we where if we where hearty of spirit and ready to play!
TTFN
My five year old just got a ‘salon’ cut and she is thrilled. Perhaps a stylist in the making, this girl was pumped just about getting to watch the hairdressers do their work, let alone getting a new look herself.
For weeks she has been asking to have a ‘bob’ and insisted she genuinely wanted short hair. I didn’t know what to think. My eldest has had such a flip out thing about getting her hair cut. The last time I got her hair cut shorter, many many years ago, she almost had a panic attack. Well my little lady is entitled to be her own person so I decided to go for it. She is anything but conflicted. Absolutely tickled about her cut and really looking forward to showing it off to her Daddy tonight.
She looks adorable, I am thrilled about the style too. Bobs always reminds me of Christoper Robin from the A.A.Milne stories, back when bobs where more commonly on sweet little English boys.
While I clearly know my girls are different persons, it can be hard to know when to learn from the experiences I have had with eldest daughter and when to just drop them because they don’t work with my youngest daughter. Same struggle has been going on with my parenting of my two boys… sometimes I use the old saying ‘boys will be boys’ and other times that doesn’t work for them both.
With two girls and two boys (the same sex siblings being about 5 years apart with each set) I learned long ago that no matter how experienced you are as a parent, or how many children you have, you still have to work with their personalities. No cookie cutter kids in my house.
Their uniqueness is a treasure to this mother!
TTFN
Readers are popping up all over the yard, following the sunny spots really. The front step is a favorite place to sit. Just the other day my mother (in law) and I sat upon it and enjoyed tea in the sun together.
All the sports equipment is reappearing. It emerges from the garage and is instantly spread all around the yard. Catch with Dad is a favorite. In the above picture we are enjoying the front yard, during a part of the day with more sun there. My littlest man is wearing his biking helmet, though he didn’t bike much. It just happens to be a favorite outdoor fashion accessory of his.
Our drive way takes up the whole west side of our yard. It, the driveway, is taken up by a large collection of pine cones. They are forever falling, thus providing forever fun. My five year old collects them like nobodies business. One minute they are eggs, next minute she is just the maid trying to keep this yard clean (by golly) and later they became newspapers. She would pass them off to her older two siblings who (TRUTHFULLY) then bike up and down the block throwing a pine cone into each yard; calling at each stop ‘NEWSPAPER’! I laughed so hard and didn’t want to ruin their fun but kept my fingers crossed that the neighbors would forgive us…
Speaking of bikes, you bet the bikes are out and busy! All four of our crew are now puttering around. The bigger two are so good at it they could motor all over the city, if they where so inclined.
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| (The kids working on a dinosaur excavation toy in the back yard.) |
Back yard fun has included a lot of clean up, all the winter gunk seems to collect there. But, there has been fun too. Just today the kids where digging up dinosaur bones ( an Easter present from their grandparents). The other day they got to dig in the backyard sandbox for the FIRST time this year and it took a lot to talk them back out. Of course the back yard is home to the famous apple trees and my eldest is often up there pushing her monkey child limits. She likes to go up high enough to see her friends house (two blocks up in our crescent) and then try to signal her to come over and play.
Neighborhood kids are popping up left right and center. They zero in on our yard like puppies to bacon. I smile, set my limits, enforce my limits and let them enjoy the yard with my children as long as they behave.
Basically I know it is spring because I have gone from demanding the kids “Get out side and get fresh air”, to demanding they “Get inside ALREADY”!
TTFN
Had one of those days, well almost… I managed to slow it all down and cut myself some slack just in time. Disorder was the perfect word to describe how my brain woke up yesterday, maybe it never completely did wake up! I messed up a planned play date and just couldn’t get my self caught up.
Finally I realised it was ‘one of those days’ and so I STOPPED trying to run the ship as I always do and put it on coast… Stopped worrying about the play date failure, the dishes, the floors, the filthy play room and all the rest… stepped away from my to-do list… and then my littlest man and I went for a walk instead.
Sunshine and spring, greeted us. We marched, at a very three year old like leisurely pace, down to the corner thrift store and puttered through there. Stopped to say hello to the bearded dragons at the community center and applauded for Bonny (of Bonny and Clyde) who is now expecting EGGS… BABIES! We then slowly walked back home, examining every newly thawed rock, slightly frozen over puddle and crack in side walk. Hoping most of the way home, we where fully prepared when we found a collection of freshly chalked out hopscotch sets (thank you neighborhood child) and even Mommy had her turn. We found our yard and played in the last of the snow in the back.
Tea with my friend worked out… still managed to babysit my niece later that day (for a couple hours) and even managed to introduce my crew to my newest niece.
Supper, day before last, was wild salmon and an amazing salad…last night… I knew better then to try and just threw beans, wieners and toast at the kids. Still a success in my books if it means we don’t order pizza or something even more pricey.
While I hope my head is back in the game today, and I stop spilling everything I pour for myself, I am especially thankful for a lovely day when it was shaping up to be ‘one of those days’.
TTFN
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| (Awe, my baby boys first snow angel… or alien…) |
It is a good thing we got out in winters first real batch of snow. Only a week later, since the snow storm, and most of it has melted! This is the prairies so we could get more or we could end up with a warm wind that sweeps it all away. Such a strangely warm winter this has been…
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| (I have fallen and I can’t get up!) |
Where I am living weather is a normal conversation to have with anyone and everyone. Weather conversations can get very intense. One specific thing I have started to notice was the difference between my friends out west (on the coast) and my friends here on the prairies. Out west they assume they are entitled to snow-less winters and warm weather… out here we assume we will be punished for good weather, he he he… I don’t know how many times I have heard, this year, ” We are going to get punished in July for this mild winter”! It makes me smile at our differences.
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| (Take picture of snow ball mama!) |
Now my kids and I have an advantage in that we are totally happy with a snowy winter so we don’t get down either way. Kids don’t think about the future like adults do. We often have an attitude of ‘if I think the worst I will not be disappointed’. That attitude doesn’t usually turn out the way we think. Generally we just become more grumpy personalities and in some ways always disappointed as everything is a chance to be negative.
Everything is a chance to not be negative too. Kids are living now and so unconcerned with what may come that they are usually happy with any weather. The attitude of ‘make the most of what ever it is’ seems to flow from children. The more I relax as a mom, and go with their happy little way of looking at life, the better I am at mothering and the better I am at living in general.
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| (If life gives you snow, make snow soup!) |
Baby Boy has been really into making snow angels this past week. New discoveries are always so fun. He calls them ‘snow aliens’ though… not sure where he got it from but I corrected him and he gave me a look as he corrected me in return… and I realized he knew exactly what he was saying. I guess he isn’t as weirded out by the idea of aliens as I am, he he he. “Such a pretty snow alien,” he smiles.
I want to be a woman of praise… living to praise Christ Jesus in all things and the least I can do is learn to praise him no matter the weather. I am thankful for our dump of snow because of the fun the kids and I had in it. If it hadn’t snowed my Baby Boy wouldn’t have discovered ‘snow alien making’ or my five year old wouldn’t have been able to make me ‘snow soup’. My oldest two got to make their first, ever, snow forts and where so impressed with their abilities. I got to watch it all, capture it all and treasure it in my heart. Thank you Lord for working on my heart, strengthening it in you to be able to praise no matter… no matter the weather and with hope to learn praising no matter the circumstances.
TTFN
No aversions to avocados in this house. The kids have had little choice but to figure out how to enjoy it, as I keep introducing it in many different ways… and they have to cope and eat because Mom likes it so much. We have enjoyed my ‘light quacamoli’ for years but this year I found a FAST fresh little side salad, that is so pretty and appetizing, even the kids enjoy.
I can eat this as a meal unto itself it is so tasty. It sure went nicely with the ‘Black Bean Salsa’ soup we had for supper tonight (see picture below).
Enjoy and eat!
TTFN
