Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope all my friends and family have had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  It was just the 4 of us, be we cooked up a feast.  Not pictured is pumpkin pie and yellow cake with Almond joy frosting.  Yum!!


Ahhhh. All cleaned up! Time to relax...... :)

Happy Veteran's Day

Giving thanks to all the veterans today, especially my husband. :)

Happy Halloween!!

Lucas already had several costumes at home, so I told him to choose one. He chose to be a mail carrier.

Logan had asked to be Link from the Legend of Zelda. I had originally told him no because of the cost of the costume. Then I found some videos on how to make the shield and sword so I thought I'd give it a try. My plan was to make the shield and sword, I found a hat on Amazon and then I was going to get him a green shirt and brown belt. He could just wear a pair of jeans and it would be good enough. To me, the shield and sword were the main parts of the costume. We went to the thrift store to look for a green shirt. Logan and Shaine were with me. We came out with tan pants, tan long sleeve shirt, green shirt, belt, and boots. More time and money was put into it than my original plan, but Logan absolutely loved it!

We took the boys to the church and then did a trip around the neighborhood when we got home.

11 years old!!

I know I say the same thing every year, but time truly passes so quickly and I can't believe that Logan is already 11 years old!! We had planned on taking him into DC to do a river boat tour (that I'd already bought a voucher for), but they were canceled due to the govt. shutdown. Not sure about the reasoning behind that. Turns out, it rained all day on Wednesday (his birthday), so it all worked out in the end. He chose to eat at a new restaurant he hadn't tried for lunch, then we went to get him a new soccer ball (his exploded in the Jeep), and then we went to The Cheesecake Factory for birthday cheesecake. :) We haven't had his party yet, so I'll update his video once we do, but here is his last year! He got to see both my parents and his dad's parents in a years time and I think the last time that happened was from birth to one year old for him (he didn't get to see my step-mom, his Mimi, because she was stuck at work when my dad came)! Yes, it was a good year!

Logan, I love you very much and want you to know that you can do anything your heart desires if you put your mind and heart into it! Be your own spotlight!!

The goings on around here....

Do you have any idea how hard it is sometimes to keep from laughing when trying to decipher what your child is saying?? Tonight at dinner, Logan was complaining about how hard it is for him to tie his shoes. He can do it, but can't get them tied nice and tight. He said he can't do it with one hand. Shaine pointed out that he has two and it is possible because millions of people do it around the world. Lucas was listening to this and exclaims that he has seven hands. He then goes on to say that his hands do something and for the life of me I could NOT figure out what he was saying. Logan and Shaine weren't any help either.

Lucas: "My seven hands make ?????"
Me: "Your seven hands make what?"
He repeats what he said. I told him I had no idea what he was saying. He said it again, this time more slowly. This went back and forth a few times.
Me: saying the only thing I could even come up with, yet knew it wasn't right. "Your seven hands make sandal sex" I'm dying here.

Lucas looks at me. "NOOOOOO!!!! Souuuuuuundal sex"
Me: "OHHHHH! Sound effects??"
Lucas: Big smile. "YES!!"


The next morning he was asking me about it again, so I took a video:

Hair cut day . For the first time ever, I got to just sit on the bench while Lucas got his hair cut. Usually I am standing close to him helping reinforce what he needs to do and repeating what they ask him to do. Sometimes I am even holding his head still. Yesterday, I sat and Lucas did everything he was asked. He sat still and followed directions. We've been going to the same place for about 6.5 years. They gave Lucas his first cut, so they know him well. I'm just proud of him!

Also, we went to Olive Garden for lunch (Shaine wanted never ending pasta ). Lucas ate lunch without any prompting at all. Usually we are having to say, "Okay, now take a bite. What are you going to eat next? Lucas, eat. Take another bite." Sometimes we are even feeding him because he is kind of in his own world and can't focus enough to even pick the fork up and take a bite. He happily eats when we give him a bite, though. However, yesterday, none of that took place. He ate a whole breadstick, all of his pasta, his grapes, and his salad (deconstructed, but he ate it all....tomato, lettuce, cabbage, carrot, black olive, and crouton)!



Helping me chop the veggies for dinner.... 
Lucas picked out some new cookies at the store tonight. I think he liked them. He had cookie all the way up in his eyebrow.  They were raspberry Oreo fudge cremes. I tried one and I must say they were yummy, but I managed to keep my face clean while eating mine....LOL!
And we started soccer!!

Oldie but a goodie....

In honor of Father's Day, I'm sharing a couple of my favorite "dad" posts! Here and here.

13 down, lots more to go.....

June 4th, 2000 I married my best friend. I know that when I met him online just after I turned 17 (1996) and he was 21 no one thought we'd actually make it this far. But we have and it keeps getting better and better. I love you, Shaine, and I'm so glad we found each other! Thirteen years down, lots more to go.....
 

And for a blooper.... After noticing Shaine wasn't looking at the camera in our picture, I pointed to the little camera at the top of my laptop and said, "Look at the camera right here." This was the next picture I took. We laughed so, so hard at this! What is especially funny is that Shaine said his eyes don't even open that wide. And they don't. He can't wear contacts because he can't open his eyes wide enough to put them in. You wouldn't know that from this picture. :)

Granola bars!

I have tried several recipes trying to find an alternative to the boxed chewy granola bar at the store. "Oatmeal guys", as Lucas likes to call them. I rarely follow a recipe, so I have tweaked a few to my liking. I think I've made enough changes that it now qualifies as my own recipe. LOL! Logan doesn't typically like granola bars, but I let him try these tonight and he liked them, even asking if he can have one for breakfast. Here is the one that I mostly based mine on.

 I think next time I will double this recipe to get a full pan. Eventually I would like to order some Sun Drops to use in place of the M&Ms.

No-Bake Chewy Granola Bars
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup sucanat
1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats (not rolled oats)
1 1/2 cup Rice Krispies type cereal (I use Erewhon brown rice cereal)
1/4 cup hemp hearts
1 T milled chia seeds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 - 1/3 cup mini M&Ms
* see notes below for substitutions

In a large bowl, stir oats, rice cereal, hemp hearts, and milled chia seeds together. Set aside. In a small pot, melt butter, agave nectar and sucanat together over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. Reduce the heat and cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in vanilla and stir. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well until all ingredients are moistened. After mixing well, gently fold in M&Ms. If you aren't careful you will smash them open as they get warm, so stir carefully. Pour into lightly greased small jelly roll pan and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness. You can press them to one side if needed. Cool on countertop for two hours or until set before cutting into bars. Wrap in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Notes: You can substitute honey for the agave nectar, I just don't care for the honey flavor it gives them. I guess you can likely use light Karo syrup, but I was trying to avoid it. For the sucanant, replace with equal parts brown sugar. If you leave out the hemp hearts, just increase the quick cooking oats to 1 1/2 cups (instead of the 1 1/4 cups that I used). You can leave out the milled chia seeds, too. If you want to do chocolate chips instead of the M&Ms, use about 2 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips. You press them into the top of the bars once the bars are pressed out into the jelly roll pan. I must say, they may be closer to a rice crispy treat since I upped the amount of the rice cereal. If you want them to be more oatmealy, reduce the rice cereal by 1/2 cup and add an extra 1/2 cup of oatmeal.
Update August 8: Today I doubled the recipe and learned that it is best to not take up the whole pan. You really need to be able to press from the side and top at the same time to really compress them to get them to stick and set up. I just went in to cut one to check it and it wasn't as firm as I like them to be. I removed a piece from the end and pressed from each side and the top to kind of squeeze them towards the middle of the pan to pack them down better. So, next time I will either stick to a half recipe that only fills half this pan or use a bigger pan. Just a little FYI.

JEEP!!

After a few weeks of trying to decide what we wanted to do, we decided to get rid of the Jag that was giving us trouble. There was one vehicle that my husband was particularly interested in. After looking at used prices, we decided it made more sense to just get a new one. We love it!!

Resagna

Lucas has started pretending that he is Garfield. He calls me Odie, Shaine John, and Logan Nermal. Well, Garfield likes lasagna, or "resanga" as Lucas calls it, so he decided he should try it out. Yesterday at lunch he ate a pretty large serving of it and liked it! So proud of him for trying something new!!!