from my kitchen to yours

i've been wanting to write this post for two years now. no joke. since before i potty trained my big girl, who will be five in december. hard to believe...but my brain has been completely depleted of any and all brain cells enabling me to formulate a rational thought since i had my third baby children. now that things have settled somewhat #3 has discovered that there is life outside of mommy's arms/separate from the milk supply, i have a few minutes now and then to breathe and do something that doesn't involve feeding, wiping, or cleaning up after another human being. don't get too excited, it's literally only a few minutes :) life is still crazy busy, but now i am able to step outside the chaos and invite you inside. an inside look at my life would reveal a good deal of meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking (and eating, of course. i like to eat. hur, hur, hur). cooking is a large part of my daily routine, whether or not i feel like it (which i usually don't), but i usually must do in order to prevent more chaos. the large majority of our of meals are real food, which, of course, means no processed or pre-packaged foods. the processed foods that we do eat consist mainly of cereal, white rice, pasta, sandwich bread, crackers and chips on occasion, and sugar as a sweetener...not terrible, in my opinion. we've also cut back a lot on meat.
*click here for more information on real foods.

for the most part, i actually do enjoy cooking. i just get tired of having to do it several times a day every day of my life. so, when i do cook, i like my ingredient list to be fairly short, with minimal prep, and pretty quick and simple (and cheap). these types of meals are few and far between when trying to eat healthy AND satisfy picky preschooler and toddler taste buds. i realize that not all of these are exactly healthy or follow the "real food" guidelines (and my list of desserts is quite extensive), but here are a few of my favorite go-to recipes:

cranberry pecan muffins
scalloped potatoes and ham
curried couscous with broccoli and feta
curry chicken
hobo dinner
broccoli bacon quiche
easy chicken enchiladas
pesto chicken pasta
applesauce bbq chicken
tilapia parmesan
pineapple chicken kebab packets
easy skillet chicken cordon bleu
pasta with sausage, tomatoes, and cream
prizewinning meatloaf
creamy chicken noodle soup
ghost chili
tomato basil soup
strawberry cream pie

Bon appétit!

survivormom

Does anyone remember the days of laundering for one...or perhaps even post-marriage laundry bliss - sitting with your cute little pile of his and hers - cheerfully folding those 1-2 warm and fluffy, fresh from the dryer loads each week? Well, after three babies (if your house functions like ours), it will look like your laundry room vomited clothes all over the house. Currently, I have three overflowing baskets (plus a pile on my couch) of crumpled up and crammed and wrinkled clean laundry, just screaming to be fluffed or ironed or, for crying out loud, folded or hung up and put away! Those joyful housekeeping days are over.

But...I am proud to announce that my downstairs is clean now. That will probably change about .03 seconds after my children wake up in the morning, but, for now, I'm golden. My husband is out of town for a week, and I'm being held prisoner in my own home by three little people who refuse to sleep, so, I'm basically amazing. haha..

The good part about the internet is that I can show a few pictures or write a few sentences about my day at home with the monsters children, and you can all think that I have my stuff together and raising my angelic children is always easy breezy and filled with joy. The truth is, however, that I struggle daily. I don't have it together. I do my best, but, honestly, it's HARD. My kids are alive and healthy, yes. Thank GOD! We are incredibly blessed and many moments are filled with joy, but what I don't take pictures of and share are all the minutes during the day that I spend trying to model kindness and selflessness for my 4 year-old who turns everything into a competition and refuses to include her little sister in anything. What you don't see are the countless times I find myself scooping up my 2-year-old because she is battling tough emotions that are too much for her to handle. She's sad because her daddy isn't here. She's mad because her big sister won't share her toys. She's frustrated because she's too small to do it by herself. She's angry because Mommy won't let her jump off the couch. She's grouchy because she hasn't been sleeping enough. She's hurting because she just scraped her knee or hit her head for the twelve-hundredth time. She's embarrassed because she just had an accident in her tutu. What you don't see are the moments when I'm too exhausted from caring for two sick babies through the night that I lash out at them in anger because I'm just too tired to deal with it. My heart is broken almost daily when I am reminded that I can't handle sleep deprivation with grace.

I love my kids, but even an "easy" day is exhausting. It's impossibly difficult to be everything to everyone. When I think about mothering, I understand why God created a woman's brain the way that He did. At any given moment, I am simultaneously thinking about six hundred different things - the kids, the chores, the errands, etc. I realize that these are all normal parts of life and that every mother struggles with these same things, but it is incredibly overwhelming. My family is 1,200 miles away, and my husband isn't here. I haven't had an adult conversational in weeks. An effort to get out of the house is stifled by transporting three small children, playing referee and doctor more than Mommy, and having to run errands for groceries and diapers. The kids are whiny and clingy and needy, and I feel about the same. So, what really happens when Daddy is gone for a week?

1. A little bit of this.
2. Plus this. Times two. (That's about 3 full loads of laundry in the basket. Plus one in the dryer. Plus one hanging up. Plus one in the wash. And that doesn't even count the load on the couch. Or the two baskets full in my room. Or the suitcase I still haven't completely unpacked from our trip to Texas over three weeks ago..)
3. I make my favorite pie. And eat the whole thing. By myself. And I don't feel one bit guilty.
4. Lots of PBS.
5. Lots of crying and yelling. Mostly, but not completely, by the kids.
6. 300 trees are killed so Riley can get her coloring fix. Don't hate.
7. Peanut butter and jelly for dinner. at 10 pm.
8. Kyle cuts 6 teeth at once. Samantha busts her nose. Riley has an emotional meltdown.
9. Kyle wakes up to eat at 2:15am, and Samantha tags along. Kyle finally falls back asleep at 4:15am, and Samantha wakes him up. I kick Samantha out of my bed. Samantha throws a tantrum in the hallway. Everyone is awake at 4:30am. We have a party. I am angry. We are alerted to DEFCON 1. Everyone settles by 4:45am, and we all survive.
10. Daddy is not allowed to ever leave the house again. 

But, thrown in with the struggles are little moments of sticky hands playing with my hair. Sweet giggles filling the air. Bright eyes showing me the picture they drew just for me. Sleepyheads climbing in my lap with a book. Tiny voices asking me to dance or calling me back to their bed for one more hug and kiss. These are the moments that make my efforts worth it. That remind me to keep pushing onward. To try harder. To be better. Just for them. Because they're worth it.

But I don't like doing laundry anymore.

solo: a how to

several weeks ago, we were told there was a chance my husband might go to europe for a few weeks for work. "okay, sure," we said. with my husband's company, when something "might" happen, it usually doesn't. so we waited for the door to close as the deadline approached...we woke up one morning to an email letting us know that things were moving forward, and not only would he be going to europe, he was going TODAY. he came home at lunch, packed his bags, and we drove him to the airport and said goodbye. the next day, i decided that we would make the 1,200 mile trek back to texas (we had just returned from a road trip to texas about two weeks prior to this) to be with family while he was gone. 18 hours. not including stops. in a car. with a 4 and 2 year-old and 5 month-old. by myself.

so i cleaned the house, packed the car, made arrangements for pet sitters, cried prayed really hard, and drove to texas. for 3 long, tortuous days. with 3 small children. strapped down. in a confined space. with the "kingdom rock" vbs music/tangled soundtrack on loop. by myself.

while my patience was put to the test, we did survive the endeavor, and i came away with great skill and knowledge on what to do and what not to do to survive an incredibly long road trip with three small fries. buckle up...

1. do feed the baby right before you leave to maximize driving time.
2. do not feed the baby prunes the night before you leave. trust me.
3. do have a dvd player to occupy the forward facing squirts.
4. do not forget your kid's favorite movie(s) at home, unless you enjoy repeating why she can't watch "the little mermaid" or "brave" seventeen thousand times.
5. do wait as long as possible to make any stops of any kind while the baby is sleeping..
6. do not wait too long to stop for gasoline, or you may not make it to a station in time. (thankfully, we did not run out of gas, but i was biting my nails for a bit as we drove at "0 mi" as i searched the horizon for gas stations.)
7. do make necessary rest stops for potty breaks and diaper changes.
8. do not put your recently potty trained 2 year-old in panties in a car seat. ever.
9. do pack snacks for the kids.
10. do not give the kids a box full of bunny crackers unless you really like to vacuum.
11. do master the art of carefully tossing things to the back of the van directly into your kids' laps.
12. do not toss a sippy cup with a prominent spout to a 2 year-old.
    
13. do make hotel reservations ahead of time.
14. do not allow your stressed out, overworked, exhausted, jet-lagged husband to make your hotel reservation online from 7 time zones away.
15. if your kids are anything like mine (picky) and/or you are anything like me (particular), there are very few chain restaurants and even fewer fast food establishments that you will eat at. some of our favorites are panera bread, jason's deli, and chick-fil-a. for a quicker stop with a chance for the kids' to play a bit, do make friends with chick-fil-a.
16. if you are already friends with chick-fil-a, do not drive through mississippi on a sunday. also, do not eat at the cheesecake factory with three restless children by yourself while simultaneously trying to correct a non-refundable hotel reservation error. bad things happen.
17. do stop at a hotel after more than 12 hours in a car with three raving lunatics.
18. do not stay in the furthest room from the elevator on the third floor in a hotel with no luggage carts after checking in after 9:00 pm with three screaming banshees who have not yet eaten dinner, are sleep deprived from the night before, did not take naps, and are ready for bed. you will have to lock them in the hotel room kicking and screaming while making several mad dashes to the parking lot to lug as much crap back upstairs as possible. and your neighbors will give you dirty looks in the morning.
19. once you have reached your destination, after approximately 27 tortuous hours in a minivan, do shepherd your children toward your parents and quickly head for the nearest exit! :) you have arrived. kick back. relax. collapse into a pillow top. weep uncontrollably.
20. do not forget you have to make the drive back home! the end. you're welcome.