Bento Meals

So... today I have been exploring a type of meal. Paul has mentioned the little boxes of food that he sees in Japanese movies. Today I have done research and discovered what they are.... bento. Tonight I made my first bento meal. I'm considering buying the bento boxes too. I think it's an awesome way to eat healthy on the go and if Paul gets a job where he needs a meal then I can send him off with a healthy bento meal. :) The kids love the idea too. :) Here's a picture of my first bento meal.

This one isn't very good b/c it's supposed to be a balance of colors and the carrots throw it all off. I needed something like black olives to go there and make it more balanced but oh well. I was working w/ what I had at 9pm. hehe! Here's it is... it's brown rice, peach, carrot, lettuce, and fritatta. I'll give the directions for the fritatta too.
Ingredients:
veggies in your fridge. I used cucumber, carrots, and potato. You want to cut them very small so they will cook. I poured a little bit of oil in the pan w/ some garlic. Once it was hot I put my cut veggies in and sauteed until they were tender. Next, I greased down my rice cooker and cracked 6 eggs in it and mixed in some rosemary. Then I poured in my veggies and turned it on. When the cycle was finished, so was the fritatta. See, super easy!! :)

glasses and trains... oh my!

Okay, this morning started off with Paul finally convincing me to just call the eye doctor so get my eyes checked. He's been after me for a while but I didn't want to spend the money but my headaches were getting worse. If you don't know, the kids lost one of my lenses and Paul and I haven't been able to find it anywhere. It's been about 6 mos since I've had functional glasses. Well, I went to the eye doctor and I can now SEE!!! YAY!! I found out that I am 20/40 in my right eye and 20/50 in my left eye. Apparently, it's an easy fix. I have no astigmatism or anything... just near-sighted so they had my glasses ready before I came out from having the inside of my eyes checked after the pupils were dilated. Here's a pic of me in my NEW glasses. :)

I don't know if you remember or not but we had started a new rewards system where the kids earn fake money for good behavior and chores. Then they get to spend it at the "Mommy-Mart" which consists of little treats, family walks, going to the park or out for ice cream...etc. You get the idea. Collin has been wanting a train set for a while so we told him that if he saved up $40 fake dollars then we would get him a train set. So... for a month he's been saving and only getting the cheap little $3 treats once in a while. He'd sit there and watch as Ronni ate her $5 candy and sometimes he'd have nothing. He just said that he wanted the train instead. Well, today he got it!! :) He saved up $43!!! hehe!
Collin helped Paul complete some chores today and Paul knew Collin had enough money so together they sat down at the table and counted the money. Paul made a big deal out of counting the money and we could see the excitement building on Collin's face as we got closer and closer to 40. Here was his reaction:

So, together they went off to Target to get the train set and here it is....

I was just very proud of him for saving up for an entire month. I think that's pretty good for a 4 year old.

Another math class down and one more to go...

Yay!! Today, I passed the final of another math class. I only have one math class left. Hooray!!! I'm excited and just thought I'd post a quick update. :)

Millions of peaches, peaches for me....

That's the song that has been playing in my head since yesterday morning.

See why this song keeps playing in my head? Yesterday morning we met some ladies for church and headed out to a peach orchard. The people who worked there were boxing up peaches to send to stores but they allowed us to choose from the "reject" peaches. They sent them in this mini river and we got to catch. Collin thought it was so much fun! :) Some were shaped funny or weren't quite ripe enough or too small or had a little hole or something in it. Some I just couldn't find anything wrong with and there were some that were completely busted (didn't choose any of those obviously). Anyways, they sell them very cheap. Above is $10 worth of peaches. Oh yeah!

Also, we went blueberry picking for FREE and got tons of blueberries, we have a bunch in the freezer, I mashed some up and put it in plain yogurt, I turned some into jam and then we have some to just eat in the fridge. Yum yum!!

The kids aren't quite as excited about the peaches anymore. LOL! This is after our tummies had been filled with some, some were in the fridge, and, as pictured, some were canned. :) Yes, there are some jars that are blueberry jam. Those are not funky peaches. ;)

I continued canning late, after the kids were in bed. Here is what I have left. Someone is going to do a demo on canning peach pie filling at church on Thursday. These are the hard peaches so I'm hoping they'll make it. If not, then I may be canning some more by then. :) But, I'd love to have some peach pie filling. That would make holidays super simple!!! =D
So far I have 11 pints of peaches, 2 pints of blueberry jam, 3 quarts of peaches, 2 pints of peach jam, and 1 quart of peach jam.

just splishin' and splashin'

So, yes.... here it has reached the three digits before the heat index and that's with the South Carolina humidity so going outside is pretty miserable unless....

... you are in the water!

I have to say that I really love having a pool in the backyard. Ronni cracks me up though. Here's a pic of what she is doing.

Now, imagine listening to her give herself a pep talk of, "I a dolphin. I a dolphin. I a dolphin." I think it's hilarious! She makes me laugh. And she has to wear her goggles even though she rarely puts her face under the water. =D

Flashback to April

I realized that I didn't post about some fun things that happened in April. Things got a bit hectic there for a while. Sorry! :)
We went to lunch and play at the local gardens here which was tons of fun for the kids. You take your own sack lunch and there is a children's show put on while you eat.

Before the show.

They even had painting for the kids before the show started. :)

Meet the narrator whom my kids thought was hilarious, especially when he couldn't find the audience. :)

See, Ronni loved 'im.

The Frog Prince

Collin getting comfortable to watch the show.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

He thought that one was a little bit scary.

The Three Little Pigs


And then of course, we had our annual March of Dimes. However, this year I won a prize. I got second place for most money earned individually. YAY!! Thank you everyone who donated. Here are the kids holding our plaque.

And.... again with their painted faces.

Collin had balloons and Ronni had a butterfly.

The 3rd of July

Yeah, we celebrated on the third instead of the fourth b/c the third was a Saturday. So much easier. It was tons of fun too and I forgot a camera for the whole thing! I am hoping that some of my friends who had cameras will send me some pictures. :)
First, we went geocaching again. I don't know if you remember a few posts back when we went geocaching in the rain and couldn't complete it b/c of the rain. Well, we went to that one again this morning b/c it was a BEAUTIFUL day and perfect for geocaching. Well, we still couldn't find it. So, we went on a hike instead and found a beautiful pond w/ lily pads that even had flowers blooming on them and frogs and water bugs jumping around. There was a little stream flowing from and underground well that the kids and I played in. Then we left for lunch.
Later, we went to a friends house where the kids played, we ate smoked meat and veggies and yummy peanut butter and chocolate dessert. The guys went off to buy fireworks, the kids played and the moms played a board game (not sure what it was called but it was fun!). Then, when it was dark the guys shot off fireworks and had way too much fun doing it. :) Someone got a blackmail picture of me hehe. Ronni decided that fireworks are very pretty but they are loud. She sat on my lap with her hands pressed to her ears the ENTIRE time. It was funny but she kept asking for more. Collin was the oldest kid there and he got to play with the sparklers and both the kids played with the poppers. They had so much fun.

Catch-up

I am sorry for not updating. We have really had nothing too exciting happening here so I haven't felt the need to update but, I know my mom. She'll start fussing at me soon. hehe! Luv ya, Mom!! =D

Since Paul has graduated his schedule has been different from day to day. This has been nice some days... difficult b/c we never know what he's working but nice b/c we get him in the evenings sometimes and it's nice to have him home for dinner. Paul also got our pool set up last month so the kids and I have been spending a lot of time outside. All three of us have fabulous, natural looking tans now. :) Okay, so if you looked at me you wouldn't be able to tell b/c I still look pretty pale to most people but, trust me, it's a tan.

I finished my last semester w/ flying colors... woo-hooo! And I am now signed up for my new classes.

1. Quantitative Literacy: Statistics, Probability and Problem Solving
2. Quantitative Literacy: Quantitative Problem Solving and Literacy
3. Survey of Literature
4. Survey of Literature: Analysis and Interpretation
5. United States Consititution

I am really excited about the lit classes. I know -- weird, but I am. Look, my last term was nothing but maths and sciences so I'm grateful for a little bit of creative thinking here. :)

Collin has been spending a lot of time playing physics games -- found here  http://www.physicsgames.net/ He's a goofball b/c he'll ask me to help him so I try to figure it out and can't get it so he'll go back to it, figure it out and then tell me that he's smarter than me. Bleh! I will admit though, I think he may be in some things.

Ronni cracks me up in the pool. She can just barely touch the bottom so she'll walk around, holding her hands up in the air and say, "I a dolphin! I a dolphin!" LOL!! It's so funny. My little dolphin hasn't figured out how to close her "blow hole" when she goes under water though. Hopefully by the end of the summer she'll get that part down.

Well, I can't really think of anything else going on with our family. Paul is still job hunting though so if anyone knows of a job who wants someone w/ a B.S. in Business Management, let us know. =D