Just a quickie!

Today started off kind tricksy....  Millie slept NOT A LOT last night... she's probably getting teeth and was up and down like a tart's knickers....  !!  I got to the point where I was DREAMING I was feeding her and couldn't tell if I was sitting in the chair or laying in my bed.... ugh...!  Anyway, a cup of caffeinated tea and a dark choc or two later and I was good to go.  Jessie went to a sleep over at her friend's house today and I spent the majority of my time on the couch.  Millie made up for not sleeping last night by sleeping most of the day away in my arms ( never a bad thing....! ) I managed to get a little of my crocheting done, face timed with my mum for ages, and managed to get some of my book read.  I'd borrowed the book "Let's pretend this never happened" by the Bloggess from the library, but everyone else got to read it before me!!  Finally I got my hands on it and it's just as funny as I thought it would be!!! ;D  Hysterical in fact.  I wish I could write half as well as she does, but then of course I'd have to have had the crazy experiences she had, and, well, I just haven't yet!! ;D  So anyway, if you haven't read the book, DO, it's awesome!!!  ( just don't try and read it in bed next to your sleeping husband... your stifled laughter is sure to wake him and he'll be cranky about it...  oh he will... you know he will.....)

So, yeah, reading, crocheting, laughing, playing with baby... not a bad day eh?  Top that with 45 degree temps, a quick walk in the fresh, sunshiney air, beating a friend at Words with Friends ( YES!!!  .. I'm quite terrible at WWF! ) and having take out Chipotle for tea... well... it's a day that would be hard to beat!

Now Jessie is off sleeping over, Jackster is fast asleep as is Millie....  I'm off for a quick drink of something yummy... Here's a little clip of Millie ... she may be crazy....!!

Blabababababalllllllll

One of these days is not like the other!! :D

Well I thought today was going to go one way, but it swung around and went in another direction.   It basically swayed like a tree in the wind, and I just hung on for the ride.  It wasn't crazy or anything, just not what I was expecting!!  I guess that shows me, eh?  Don't expect, just ride.

Well I decided to get on and get the living room all done in one go instead of doing it every day last week.... Monday through Thursday were rather ugh days with fog, and snow, and cold etc.... today felt like a day to get stuff DONE so I did this week's missions all at once.  I took anything out of the living room that didn't belong, I checked under the couch cushions, I dusted everything that needed dusting ( HAH!  Get a log fire and see what DOESN'T need dusting!! ) and I moved the furniture and vacuumed along the baseboards and around the whole room.  The place looks lovely now!!
I made a simple pasta and cheese sauce dinner with another loaf of banana bread for tonight, I've got the kids to sleep ( well, Jessie is still awake in her room but the other two are sleeping )I'm showered and ready for bed and I can't WAIT to sit down and rest.  Hooo boy.  Busy, busy day...

But now for something completely different.....  

Miss Millie this morning !!


Cute eh?! :D

And January is GONE! 1/12 of the way through the year!! :D

Yeepers!

Today was super....  Rex had to get up early to go to Omaha for a root canal.  That wasn't super.... but since he got up early that meant I got up early and was able to get a great start on the days chores and so on.  Millie got up early too though.... so.... that was sort of that!!!  I did manage to sit on the floor with her and finish off a book I was reading whilst she played happily!

This afternoon I took Jessie to her drama class.. a rather dramatic event all in itself since, whilst the north south roads were dry as bone, the east west roads were THICK ice and snow where it had been drifting and blowing off the fields.  Talk about your terrifying ride!!  It was a pretty quiet journey that's for sure!  We made it one piece though so Jack and I and sat and waited for Jessie, me with my 3 crochet projects and a book to read..... turns out that was rather ambitious of me since, rather than stay sleeping in her car seat, Millie chose to wake up and need a constant supply of milk and attention!  Jack made a new friend and spent some time teaching him the ins and outs of Angry Birds and other assorted games on his MY iPad!!  It's practically his...I barely see hide nor hair of it most days! Jack's new friend's sister joined us and serenaded Millie and me on her violin.  She wasn't allowed to use the "stick" yet, so she just plucked the strings!!

Jack in the corner with his bud, as Millie listens to the violin!

Where IS Perry??

Anyway, we made it home again through the treacherous roads and I spent the rest of the afternoon with laundry and Millie!  She must be growing since she's eating MORE and napping LESS.... dang it. She'll be 10 by the time I get that sweater made for her.... might be a tad small by then!!! :D

When Daddy got home he'd purchased a calendar for Jack.... I THINK he likes it!!!

Snow day! :D

Well... what a week!!  A blown off Monday, a Fog Day Tuesday and today a Gen~ You~ Ine Snow Day!!  Perfect!! ;D  We woke up this morning to six inches of snow so despite a relatively good night's sleep I still felt that we should indulge ourselves once more since we can after all!! I got up and lit the fire and put some Easy Peasy breadstick dough into the oven.  The kids saw the neighbor lady clearing her driveway so they put on their snowgear and went out to help...  they came in to hot chocolate, a warm fire and fresh out of the oven bread!!  Not a bad start to the day at all..!! :D Nor, I might add, a usual one!  I could get used to it though...! We had a lovely day all round really, I got some laundry done, made fabulous soup ( using the left over soup from yesterday and an added ham bone ... oh man, I ate three bowls of it!!! ) and I also spent some time cutting up plastic bags to make plastic yarn!  I'm going to crochet a basket from the bags... they look great!  Right now I'm just cutting and knotting !! ;D I'll keep ya posted how it goes! :D

Stack your plastic bags and then roll them up so you can cut the handles and bottoms off.....

Like this!

undo the strips and, looping them together

make a long string of plastic yarn...

Roll it into a ball and you are ready to go!! ;D 

Banana Bread, Baby! :D

So.... another uggh sort of day!  Bleary and grey, a non perfect night's sleep and I did NOT feel much like getting Up and At'em this morning!  I DID get up and I suppose I was SORT of "at 'em" but what does it tell you that I finally had my breakfast at noon??  Yah.  That sort of a day!  I fought along for a while, the kiddies both did Math and I helped them both with it whilst juggling a tired and squirmy baby who would frequently yell in my ear and I bounced her and helped with math...  I did a load of laundry, cleaned the toilets, emptied the dishwasher yeah yeah yeah but didn't get the mission done today.... I'm hoping that my mojo will return with the sun and I'll get the whole week's worth of missions done on one day!  THAT'S my new plan!!!

I'm still working on going through the pantry to eat....  today I made Quinoa for breakfast  lunch, Jack ate pumpkin oatmeal left over from yesterday for his breakfast. The Quinoa was delicious!  I grated some sharp cheese on it .... Yumm!  For dinner I made bean and vegetable soup using a bag of dried beans, I also made some Easy Peasy Breadsticks... LOVE those things!!  For a post lunch, pre dinner snack I made Vegan Banana Bread... I was surprised how delicious it was!!  I didn't have the oil it called for so I used coconut oil and I used less sugar than suggested but it was fantastic and I'm sure as heck making that again!!  I am constantly amusing myself at my "there's nothing to eat in the house" thinking!!  There's TONS of food!!  For instance, if the family would put up with beans beans and more beans we could eat for weeks!! :D

Oh......  You want the recipe!?!? ...... OK!!  The recipe came from this blog and it's really simple. 

You need...

4 very ripe bananas

1/3 cup Earth Balance ( I used coconut oil)

1/4 cup applesauce ( I DID use applesauce!!)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar ( I used 2/3 and actually that was a little too sweet for me) 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour ( I just used up any flour I had.....)

1 teaspoon baking soda. 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mash bananas in a large bowl.  Add melted Earth Balance (oil) and mix.  Add everything else but the flour and baking soda, mix to combine.  Add flour and baking soda and stir until just mixed.  Pour into a greased loaf pan.  Bake uncovered for 15 minutes, cover with foil and bake another 30 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool a few minutes in pan and transfer to a wire rack or plate ( or to a cutting board where it will be sliced whilst warm and the entire thing devoured before it even has chance to cool.... it's your call...!!)  

Taking a Fog Day and a Harried Homeschooling Mama's guide to Math....

Now, to be fair, most days I could easily be described as Foggy but today was a real pea souper!  One glance out the window at 3am last night told me that it was going to be pretty nasty out in the morning!! I could barely make out the trees across the driveway.  Sure enough, at 8 am when I finally awoke to my husband's goodbye kiss it looked pretty flipping gross out!!  I didn't really have to worry about it as I didn't plan on going ANYWHERE today but I was surprised at how lackluster I felt and how hard it was to get motivated to do anything....  I DID get the beds stripped and washed and yaddah yaddah but the Whole House Cleaning thing.....  ppttthhh.  Didn't happen.  Sorry!   We decided to call it quits and spent the day doing as little as possible or as much as we felt up to.


Miss Millie had a fun day......

Helping me with laundry.........

Feeding herself a cookie!! (Farley's Rusk...!)....

And just chillin' in her spaceship!!!

 I spent a little time working on some crochet....

On the hook today... a cardigan for Millie.

I've realised that this blog has moved away from it's original purpose, that of showing how to be an AP Parent.  I still AM an AP parent but these days the title of Harried Homeschooling Mama seems a touch more ... hmm.... apt??  So in that vein, here is Harried Homeschooling Mama's guide to Math on Fog Day.......

Did it suddenly get to be bed time and you've just realised the kids have not done their math?!?!  A simple and speedy solution can be found with the help of a lipstick and the bathroom mirror!!

LOL!!!! ;D   Simple AND fun !!! :D

Night all!!

Sunday.... renew your spirit and all that jazz! :D

The Bayer / Hrdlicka clan went home this morning leaving a huge hole in their wake...it's always so quiet when they leave....  not meaning that they are a noisy bunch, just that there is always someBODY someWHERE to talk to, have a cup of tea with, play with, sit with.... when they leave the house just seems so EMPTY!  Anyway, they set off early because the weather was due to be foul in Minnesota and they needed to reach MN before a) it got worse and b) it got dark.  They called this evening and had made it home safe and sound.  So, once they drove off I decided to spend sometime cleaning up and then dedicated the rest of the day to sitting by the fire, reading, crocheting and... yes... a little Frasier!!  

I cleaned up the basement, swept up popcorn, picked up glasses and plates, put away the tumbling mats, switched off the wii, stripped the bed in the guest room, ran the bedding through the laundry, cleaned up the dining room, vacuumed up MORE popcorn ( whenever my kids have popcorn somehow it manages to get EVERYWHERE!!!) vacuumed the living room, cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher and tidied up Jessie's room.  She had worked really hard lately to get her room nice and clean but you can imagine after having 3 girls in it all weekend long it got rather messed up!  I knew she was going to be so disheartened to see it messy and she gets overwhelmed trying to clean it up so I did it for her.  It doesn't take me long, somehow I've learned how to quickly tidy a room and she was so thrilled when she saw what I'd done!  Anyway, once the house was tidy hubby lit the fire and we spent the rest of the day loafing around.  It was a rainy old day ... perfect for loafing!

Millie decided that SHE was going to do something today though.....  she rolled over!!! :D  Yeahy Millie!!  To be honest I wasn't in a hurry for her to roll since we all know what comes next.... crawling. Oh boy...!! ;D

Here's a few pics from our weekend... Enjoy!!

My Miss Millie!

Alicia with her baby, Fiona and my little cherub!

Sleepover!