One

Goodbye formula! Goodbye bottles...

Hello whole milk & sippy cups... Carter's one!

Mmm... birthday cake...

A new interest

Before I get to the meat of this post, am I a bad mommy if I'm sitting here blogging while my children are in their rooms, awake from their naps and calling for me to come get them? I just don't think I'm ready yet... its been one of those days.

So, I'm newly interested in cooking ahead. I don't go all out Once A Month Mom cook ahead cooking, but I am learning the immense joy of havaing meals, or peices of meals, ready to go in the freezer.

It all started with chicken thighs. I found it on sale for 99 cents per pound a few weeks ago and bought some. Trouble it, it was bone-in, skin-on. I hate bone-in chicken. I can deal with skin... bones are harder. Especially after you've frozen the meat and its not completely thawed when you're trying to debone it so you can turn it into something that your 2-year-old will hopefully eat. So, I tossed the whole package into the crock pot with 2 cups of broth. When it was done, I had three 24 ounce tuperwares full of meat and 4 cups of broth, all of which when into the freezer. The next night, dinner was so easy! I made chicken stew and it went together so fast... all becuase I didn't have to cook the chicken.

So now I've pre-cooked more chicken. I've got homemade egg rolls that I made a few weeks ago frozen and ready to go. I froze extra enchilada filling. Extra rice from Cafe Rio style burritos. And now I'm doing beans. Two pounds of beans cost me $2 and, cooked in the crock pot, pretty much zero effort. It will yeild me at least a dozen can's worth of beans... at a fraction of the cost.

Maybe I'm nerdy, but its got me excited. And maybe I will try the Once A Month Mom thing one of these days. Today, a full day of cooking sounds like a nice change from a full day of mothering.

Dear April 6th

As I'm sure you know, you are the date we selected in our real estate contract to close on our house. There are many reasons that we feel like you are, in general, a great date.

1) You fall in the 2nd qaurter of the year, which is decidely spring. Spring is always wonderful, and so are you by association.
2) Easter generally falls near you (as it does this year). We like Easter.
3) An important event, dear to our hearts and of great religious import to us, happened upon you nearly 200 years ago. It even happened not far from where we're now living.

We feel that soon we will be able to add the purchase of our first home to the list of reasons why we love April 6th. However, dear 6th of April, we have one small complant...

Could you hurry it up? We're anxious to see you... and maybe getting the keys to our house has something to do with it too...

We would appreciate you taking our request into your consideration.

Sincerely,

The Thornock Family

Coming soon...

Interested? Stay tuned in the coming months for details, pictures and possibly a tutorial.

I swore I wouldn't...

buy a princess bed. I have no desire to own a princess bed. A bed that cannot be used on my 2nd child when he is ready for a toddler bed.

We own a princess toddler bed.



She saw it at Target. She said, and I quote, "Oooh! Its a princess bed! Lets buy it, and then I can sleep in it!" This was after almost a month of trying to get her to sleeping a borrowed regular, plain-old toddler bed that she insisted was scary. We bought it, we put it together, she slept in it and never looked back. She loves the silly thing. So, we own a princess bed.

By the way, right before I took this picture she came and found me. Here's how the conversation went:

A: Mommy, come with me into my room.
Me: okay, I'm coming.
A: Look! I made my bed!