They spent Thursday night at our house so Meg could babysit for me today. I love it when they stay here. We had everyone stay here over Thanksgiving weekend and it was the most wonderful thing…everyone under one roof. I can remember how happy my mother was when we would go back home to visit and stay with my parents. I understand now.
What a gift this little grandbaby girl is. And what a gift it is to watch a daughter mother her baby. I had no idea!
XO
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We celebrated our first birthday of the year this weekend.
And some pictures of our “Wish Candle.”
You can read more about our tradition on the post titled Wish Candle.
This is one of my favorite pictures because you can see some of the thought that goes into each wish.
Blaire wasn’t here and we missed her! It is one of those hard changes that come with the kids growing up. Maybe we will have to Face Time her for the next birthday we celebrate … which will be next week.
We’ve had a few very busy weeks with the boys’ wrestling schedules so it was a gift to stop for a while and celebrate.
XO
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We had a quiet day today.
Shane had speech therapy this morning. He has made so much progress. He’s mastered all his sounds except his “r blends” and the “th” sound. He occasionally forgets a sound and makes an error, but for the most part he says all his other sounds correctly. He is working on dysfluency right now. Shane sometimes stutters which can happen in some children who have Apraxia. We say he gets “bumpy.” We have such a large family that I am sure there are times he feels like he has to get out what he wants to say very quickly before he is interrupted or we move onto another subject. We’ve all had to slow down our speech and be aware of giving each person adequate time to talk. The other thing I am so much more aware of is rushing. When we first started working on Shane’s dysfluency I had to pay attention to how often I said, “Hurry up, guys.” It was really hard to look at how much I rushed the kids.
Greg, Sam, Jack and Max – We are so proud of Shane! Tubs (Sam’s nickname for Shane) ROCKS!
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I made this Saturday. It was a cold, windy, winter day and seemed like the perfect day for a pot roast. I just used a basic pot roast recipe I found on my Epicurious app. I love that it is an old recipe! I usually don’t even follow a recipe for pot roast….this is something I know how to make from watching my mom!
Recipe from Epicurious (House & Garden, January 1963):
Season 1/4 cup flour with salt and pepper and dredge the 5 lb. rump roast in the flour. Cover the bottom of a dutch oven with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil. (I don’t measure the oil, I just make sure the bottom is covered) Brown the roast on all sides. Add 2 sliced onions and cook for about 10 minutes on low heat. Add a few carrots, peeled and sliced and add 1 cup liquid as well as any seasonings you are using. I used parsley and more salt and pepper. For liquid, I used chicken broth because I had some in the fridge. You can use wine, tomatoes, vegetable broth, or even a combination. Simmer 3 1/2 – 5 hrs, until meat is tender. Add additional vegetables (I added potatoes – mushrooms are good as well) during last 30-45 minutes or so.
Enjoy! 
elicious:
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The link to our year end video
I decided this is an easy way to update our blog! (And this is why I haven’t written in the past year)
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Learn from the way the lilies in the fields grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.
I know they are tulips, not lilies, but they are our reminder of our Scripture Reading for the week - Matthew 6:24-34.
No worries! Trust in His graciousness.
And a few pictures from yesterday.
Not 3 minutes after this last picture was taken the camera died and a disagreement between the boys ensued! Fight resolved, battery charged, it’s all good!
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The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity and I haven’t been able to sit down and write. I have been visiting a lot of other blogs though, and am enjoying all of them so much! I had no idea how many wonderful women and families were out there blogging!
We recently celebrated Greg’s birthday. Our cake didn’t turn out so well! We made a vegan cake for Meg….she isn’t eating dairy right now.
The cake, for some reason, completely broke apart. We were sitting there eating and talking and a chunk would just break off and fall onto the table. Blaire used granulated sugar for the frosting instead of powdered sugar. In her defense, the recipe did say unbleached sugar. We had a great evening laughing and celebrating. (Notice the margarita candle? It was the only candle we could find!)
It is always fun to hear what everyone wishes for each other. This year was no exception!
And a picture of the whole family at the table…
We have a few months now before another birthday in our house. I hope our children remember our “wish candle.” I think I am going to start journaling some of their wishes….
Greg: It was the ugliest cake I’ve ever seen, but it also provided a lot of laughs, great pictures and memories. For the record, it was the only birthday cake where we actually threw out the leftovers…..
Blaire (17): The cake was awful. A vegan cake sounded like a bad idea to me from the beginning, turns out I was right. Shocker.
Sam (15): The cake would have tasted great for someone who likes sand-like icing. It was a bad cake overall but its the one cake that the family will probably remember.
Jack (11): I thought that the actual cake tasted okay and the icing tasted great – as long as you didn’t eat it alone. The cake looked weird.
Max (8): The cake tasted good, it’s just that the icing didn’t.
Shane (4): I liked daddy’s cake.
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Just a few things we’ve been working on for Valentines Day…
We were “inspired” by the jars we saw in Anthropologie at Christmas time and made several of these and filled with candy. I had this filled with M&M’s….for a day! I need to get more this week.
I knitted a bunch of these hearts this past weekend. The pattern can be found here:
http://mochimochiland.com/2007/02/free-pattern-hearts/
Shane and I made this together. 
The sun felt so warm today! Spring is right around the corner.
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Shane had speech therapy this morning. He’s been working on his “S’ sound and “S” blends for about 6 weeks (maybe longer). He is making progress, but he is struggling more than he had in the past with his other sounds (b, d, p, t, m and n). He now says his name which is HUGE! And he says Sam….so wonderful to hear. The problem is, he doesn’t know which words have the “S” so he is putting it on words he had previously been saying correctly. Red is now “SSSSSwed” and Milk is sometimes “SSSSmit” (he can’t make the “l” or “k” sounds either!) I am telling him many, many, times throughout the day, “That doesn’t have an “S” buddy.” And then I am reminding him, “That has an “S” buddy.” He also doesn’t remember that a word has “S” even though he has corrected it many times….Spiderman is still Piderman.
He worked really hard today…I could tell by the way he would put his right elbow on the table and lay his head in his hand. He’d take a moment to kind of regroup then plow away again. He showed so much perseverance for such a little guy.
I was reminded how much progress he has made by my father who visited this past weekend. He hadn’t seen Shane in 6 months. He was amazed by how much he was talking. He only understood about 50% of what he was saying, but Shane is actually talking now and he wasn’t...at all…when he had last seen him.
For some reason the moral of fable The Tortoise and the Hare has popped into my head throughout this week. Maybe it’s God speaking to me, reassuring me and also giving me the gift of patience. I don’t know. But I’ve been repeating, “Slow and Steady Wins the Race.”
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I spent the entire afternoon relaxing on our deck. I forced myself to do it. First of all, I was completely exhausted. Shane had been up all night last night with a stomach virus. First Jack got it, then Shane, although I suspect Max may have had a touch of it Thursday night….oh well…..
Back to relaxing. Shane konked out on one of the lounge chairs so I didn’t want to be too far from him in case he woke up and felt sick. I laid down on the other chair next to him.
“Maybe I should check the garden.” “I should go throw in another load of laundry.” “I should bake some cute patriotic themed cupcakes for tomorrow.” (I blame Twitter and some mom blogs for even having that thought!) “I should get dinner started early.”
Red Flag! This is when it pays to be a therapist and work with moms…I have to practice what I preach! Beware the “shoulds.” Those thoughts that create guilt in moms. You know, when you are doing something for yourself…something that might just be good for your soul and fill your cup a little bit.
I resisted the “shoulds,” like I encourage my moms to do, and closed my eyes and listened to the birds and the rustling of the trees. I watched my little guy sleep so soundly. He has lost his toddler chubbiness and he is changing into a little boy. I love his 3 year old feet. I have the perspective of having older children so I know this time where he is 3 and wants to be by my side at all times is fleeting. That’s not to say it isn’t hard, but I know it will change…because I’ve experienced it with our other children.
I am glad I resisted…
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