Is It Naptime Yet

I was first introduced to hummus when I was pregnant with Lilah. My supervisors took me and the other student worker out to lunch and they had me try hummus since I had never had it.

I then forgot all about hummus until Jon  and I went to a Mediterranean restaurant near UNLV for our 5th year anniversary and I once again tried hummus and I loved it and I remembered I loved it and have since bought hummus and had hummus on other occasions.

While at Sam’s yesterday she had hummus, homemade hummus from a recipe we both aquired at a Home and the Range activity, but I don’t know where I put mine, though I’m almost positive it’s in the pile of reciepes I need to organize for my reciepe book.

Anyways, Sam had bought tahini to make her hummus, the odd ingredient that I don’t have, and brought some to me today since I forgot to take some home yesterday and I made my first batch of homemade hummus this afternoon. I am so happy because it’s so much cheaper than buying it and all but Lilah really love hummus in our family though, since this isn’t spicy like the kind I just bought she’s more inclined to eat it. I just think it’s funny that Eden loves hummus and will eat a nice portion with her pita bread while Lilah mostly eats the pita bread. Very opposite than what I’m use to.

This is the recipe for hummus that I’ve made. I’m full from lunch, so I can’t wait till it’s slightly chilled and ready to be our afternoon snack. Now I just need to make my own pita bread to lessen the cost even more and make it even more my own.

Hummus

1 can Garbanzo beans
1/4 cup liquid from can
3-5 Tbsp. Lemon juice.
1 1/2 Tbsp. Tahini
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Combine all ingrediants into a blender and puree till smooth or desireed texture. Add a little more oil before serving.

Just a note: I’d stay closer to 3 tablespoons lemon juice. I added more to help puree it a little bit smoother and now it has a lemony taste, not bad, but I’d rather taste the garlic and olive oil more. I think I’d save more of the canned juice next time for making it a smoother texture or add oil.

1. Watching my daughters learn and being an active part of it.
2. Afternoon naps with three girls snug as bugs in one bed.
3. Beautiful Spring Days enjoyed at the park with friends.
4. A wonderful husband who works hard and goes to school to support our family.
5. The trash men who take away our trash each week for us. I’m happy I don’t have to burn trash or take it to the dump myself.

We have some family coming into town next week and they’ll be staying at my parents house. It wouldn’t be a problem except we have two families coming and both guest rooms will be needed and the downstairs guest room had been overtaken with bow making and Christmas stuff.

My sister Carolyn wanted to help my parents get ready for our siblings arrival, so we went over there Saturday night to help out. I also wanted to give Jon alone time for studying.

We cleaned and got Subway out of it since my parents were going to a dinner and were not there to make dinner for us while we sat around and talked, I mean cleaned.

We got the upstairs great room cleaned up and ready for my one year old niece to play in and the downstairs bed cleaned off and ready to sleep in. We also hung a mirror that my father doesn’t like, but how often does he go in the guest room? Not often, and if it weren’t for the fact that we were hanging it while he was there it probably would have been months, if not years before he noticed.

Since the kitchen counters were still filled with papers and other things and I needed to go back to Henderson to pick up things I went over there today to clean up some more. I admit that I keep my kitchen counters relatively cleared off, but mostly because my kitchen is so small. I have to worry about our desk and end table piling up. I definitely inherited the ‘cover every horizontal service with papers’ gene and Jon inherited the ‘cover every vertical service with books’ gene.

I mostly just help organize and then clean a few areas. I then made some cookies for us since they had the just tear apart and bake cookies.  I ate way too many because cookies are a weakness of mine and I just love them.

After cleaning I picked up my wedding ring from the jewelers and came home.

I’m making pizza tonight.

I don’t think I’d be a very effective cleaning lady. It makes me too tired to cook dinner or clean my own house.

Saturday was the first day of practicing for Lilah. I sat next to her to help her hear the melodies and read the words up to the speed of the song. She did quite well and was very good for the whole practice overall.

She was assigned to be one of the Lullaby League Girls, which also will maker her a snowflake girl later on in the play.

The flying monkeys have yet to be determined because the director wants to make sure those kids are listening and not goofing off. Lilah wants to be a flying monkey so she can run and jump across the stage, though I’m not sure if they do that, and so she was very well behaved after the director made that announcement.

I know Lilah can be well behaved and I’m pretty sure she’ll get to be a flying monkey too.

The dates of the play are: June 17, 18, 20, 22-27. Just so you all know and can block out a night in June to come see the cutest Lullaby girl!

Family night is June 16th, so if you can’t afford to buy a ticket let me know and I can see if I can hook you up for that night, though I won’t know how many tickets I get till later. Tickets will be around $12 a seat and on the group nights, Mon-Thurs $8 if you buy 10 or more on their website, which I’ll post once it’s open to let you buy tickets later in April or May.

All proceeds benefit the Senior Citizens of the Las Vegas Valley.

I had my first practice for the  play last night. (Lilah’s first practice is Saturday and we’ll find out her parts after that.) I was excited and poor Kenzie who rode with me had to leave and show up majorly early so we weren’t late. I did not want to be late so I left with plenty of time to get there. Now we know we can leave at least 10 to 15 minutes later and still be early.

The practice was fun and hopefully I can get my alto parts down. Most of them are pretty simple and easy to hear so I just need to rehearse.

I got an e-mail today telling us our other parts, besides being an Ozian I am a Jitterbug and a Winkie. I was afraid I would get a Jitterbug part. You need rhythm and  high energy and I have neither. I’m not sure if the director was really watching during tryouts and if she got the memo about me never dancing, which wasn’t so much a memo but something I filled out on the try-outs application. Oh well. I have begun working out this week as to get more in shape and ready for when the choreography is shown to us in April and hopefully it will pay off after four weeks.

If you do come to the play please don’t laugh at me for not having any rhythm during the Jitterbug sequence. Maybe I can fake rhythm, ’cause this white girl can’t dance.

I like to post pictures of the roses Jon gives me for our anniversary. Even though they’re the same kind each year, I love to receive them and have them on our table.

We celebrated our anniversary by going out, but our actual anniversary was spent at home.

On Sunday Jon made a cute love note scavenger hunt while he was home supposedly studying. It was fun to find each thoughtful note and then try to figure out where the next one was.

I gave him books. The typical gift and later wrote him a love note to find in the morning.

I made us a special dinner on our anniversary night and we didn’t do anything particularly special or out of the ordinary.

Sometimes it’s just nice to be with your family and enjoy your happy life together.

Some days homeschooling seems impossible. Kids are ornery, mom is ornery and we are just not getting along. Other days it goes wonderfully. They ask for more “work” or ask me to read another story or just try so hard to figure things out. Some days we unschool and I let the girls do whatever they want.

What I do love is to look over and see my daughter has written her name for the first time all by herself.

Or the other is reading a book about ants and follows the words with her little finger.

Some days one school thing is enough for this momma and her girls. Some days one school thing is too much for this momma and her girls. Some days all we do is learn in both conventional and unconventional ways.

What I do know is these little kids are sponges and the soak up knowledge so quickly along with grow far too quickly.

1. Lazy afternoons spent with friends.
2. Home cooked meals. ( I feel like I haven’t really been cooking lately since I’ve been cooking the same things over and over again and there is always something that is canned or frozen involved.)
3. Little newborns. I was able to hold and cuddle Sam’s Matilda today and it was so fun.
4. My out of shape body. I’m not grateful that it’s out of shape but I am grateful that I have a month to get in shape before we learn dance steps for the play.
5. The joy of seeing little girls get bigger and experience new things.

Yesterday was an eventful day. It was my only nephew’s baptism. The girls and I went and I was asked to give a talk on the Holy Ghost. One thing I want to note is that families are in charge of getting the speakers and doing a musical number and if there’s more than one child both families or each family is asked to have someone give a talk etc. If your child is getting baptized the same day as another, try not to make the musical number all about him and if you’re giving a talk, try not to make the talk all about the relative that’s being baptized or your family history. I’m sure my nephew may not have picked up on this, but as an adult that was in the other family, I felt like I was an outsider at my own nephew’s baptism. Make it personal to your experiences yes, but also make it generic for the other child and their family. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

After the baptism my sister did a luncheon to celebrate my niece’s birthday which is coming up. We went to her house and the girls had lots of fun playing and eating cake. After doing this we stopped by my parents to pick up my mom’s sewing machine. Lilah wanted to see Grandpa  even though we had just seen him at Aunt Kristi’s, so he came out and checked her tooth out. Grandpa said it was ready to pull, but I was skeptical since it still seemed attached in the middle. He asked her if she wanted him to get a string and pull it out and Lilah shyly replied no, so he told me to do it once I got home, which I didn’t because it grosses me out.

Well, I guess the fact that Grandpa Harvey said her tooth was ready to come out stayed with Lilah. While in time out last night she pulled her own tooth out! I was a little grossed out but mostly curious about the whole lost tooth thing.

We took some pictures and a video and put it on Lilah’s blog in her own words. Since hers is a private blog I’ll just post the pictures and video here for my own records.

Which leads me to my IOU. While Lilah stood in time out I thought about what money I had on me, she hadn’t yet pulled the tooth out, but I knew it would come out soon and I knew I didn’t have much change or any small bills.  Since we almost solely use our credit card I never have a lot of cash on me or small bills. I wondered what I would do if her tooth did fall out and sadly I knew what I would have to do.

Raid the girls’ piggy bank.

So that’s what this momma did, I took four quarters from Lilah’s own piggy bank and placed them under her pillow last night as she slept. We are kinda encouraging the Tooth Fairy myth, but more in the ‘how do you know it’s not true if you never see who puts the money under your pillow’ sense. Lilah was sad to hear the Tooth Fairy took her tooth, so I said she just does tests and then gives it back to me. I think I’m going to write a little letter and mail it out tomorrow so it will come back in an intriguing way. I don’t know if Lilah does or does not believe in the Tooth Fairy or if she wants to. She says it’s a superstition, thank you Martha Speaks for the vocabulary word, and that fairies aren’t real, but I’m sure the child in her wants to believe in something magical, just as I did at that age.

So my daughter has lost her first tooth and I’ve learned that I need to start having ones and quarters on hand for the next few years.

They grow up too fast.