rachel's continued ramblings

just a little update: so I posted at the end of january about my “ 33 pound waif ” and her new tiny person accommodating car seat. well, I picked her up one day last week and thought she felt REALLY heavy. so I thought I’d put her on the scale, just for curiosity’s sake… 38.2 pounds. yes, that’s right, she’s gained 5 pounds in less than 2 months. crazy! dave, of course, suggested that in not very long, we’d be able to SELL the carseat while it’s still in really good shape and get some good money for it. I gave him a dirty look.

dave found this recipe at some point when we were living in ohio. he apparently had a hankering for some chowder of some kind. so I have no idea where the credit goes in this case. but we’ve been making it ever since, so it was definitely a winner! 1 lb. bacon cut in small pieces 1 cup chopped onions 4 cups diced potatoes 2 cups water 1 tsp salt (and some pepper) 2 cans cream of something soup (chicken or celery) 2 cups sour cream 3 cups milk **edited to add: apparently, dave says he adds a clove or two of garlic as well. chop them up with them up and add them with the onions.** in a big pot, cook bacon over medium heat. add onion and cook until tender. drain off grease. add water, potatoes, salt and pepper. cook 15 minutes. stir in soup, sour cream, and milk. cook until heated through. easy, but best to do all you’re chopping, dicing, and measuring ahead of time. if you like it thick, simmer a little longer… don’t make this if you are dairy intolerant or on a diet! lol. a...

normally, a tardy post of this nature would just get backlogged to the monday it was supposed to have been published. but I’m freely admitting today, that I’m late. oh well. I have successfully made a meal plan and, dagnabit, I’m going to post it! and you’re going to read it. and enjoy it. or I’m gonna come over there and… wait. sorry. moving along… I am going to backlog the menu, though, because I always start my meal plans on monday, and I really don’t care that it’s wednesday, I’m still going to post what we ate on monday. and tuesday. and as you will soon see, it’s SO exciting, how could I not post it?! monday: leftover chicken soup tuesday: leftover tacos wednesday: dinner at church thursday: creamy italian chicken ; noodles; broccoli friday: pizza ; green beans saturday: hamburgers; tots; fresh veggies sunday: waffles ; sausages but wait! there’s more! while I was at it, I decided to go ahead and plan the next week as well! next monday: leftovers next tuesd...

eek! another week, flown past! shane was mysteriously absent from this week’s POTDs. he makes an appearance in the collage of ‘extra’ pictures, though. I must try to hunt him down so he can get in the book a few times, at least! first part of the week: layla completed her first scrapbook album of her very own this week and was very proud of it. it was a lot of fun to help her with it too. the sheet of this week’s extra pictures: only one side this week. some layla artwork: some more layla artwork, the ‘sheep’ card she made in sunday school, and an assignment she brought home from school: and the latter half of the week: we have a couple ‘dog’ appearances, as usual. wednesday, she made them tails. saturday, she turned plastic plates into frisbees and they ‘fought’ over it. kind of wondering how long this phase is going to last! and that’s week 12. I’m starting to rethink the adding of too many pieces of art and such… I can see that it’s going to get really full really fast… hm...

sunday’s POTD: micah is apparently in training for when he loses use of his arms or something. we’ll just hope he doesn’t need to use that ability. ever. monday’s POTD: layla has been bugging me to let her choose and print some pictures. we finally did it and she was SO excited to get them put in her album. an extra pic: I think this was some sort of rocket. he was running around like a crazy person, making whooshing sounds. and it’s blurry because he was going so fast, NOT because I take bad pictures. tuesday’s POTD: layla is well versed in proper scrapbooking. the album isn’t done until you’ve done the ‘writing about the pictures’. I love it. I asked if she wanted to write or if she wanted me to. she said “you write, and I’ll tell you what I want to say.” sounds good to me. I was actually really impressed with her ability to express herself about what was going on and how she felt about each of the pictures. I had her ‘inscribe’ the inside cover of the album herself. she wrote her...

so, this is a little bit odd, and just a tad random, but I find it amusing and felt like writing about it. the kids and I have a little bit of an inside joke. it’s about “shorts guy”, and we look forward to seeing him every ‘band’ morning. shane is in first year band over at the junior high. it is before school for the elementary kids, but at the same time that school starts for the junior high kids. so on tuesday, thursday, and friday mornings, we get to drive him there amid all the other band students and junior high kids. a few blocks from the school, we always pass this one kid. he lives in the neighborhood and walks to school. we call him “shorts guy” because he ALWAYS is wearing basketball shorts. dead of winter, wearing shorts. anyway, we started looking for him in the mornings, wondering if he was running late or home sick, if we didn’t see him. one morning, after dropping shane off, the rest of us saw him running down the road toward the school, obviously late. Then we start...

I’ve always been into smoothies. but I kind of go in phases with them. there will be times that I have the ALL THE TIME, and then other times when I’ve forgotten about them and don’t have them at all. right now, I’m on a major smoothie kick. I was reminded of their sweet, wonderful yumminess a while back when I read a post on the pioneer woman’s site about smoothies . of course, she’s all photography-savvy and has a clean kitchen and whatnot, and I don’t, but this is my take on smoothies. actually, it’s just today’s take on smoothies. it changes daily, depending on what I have on hand or what I’m in the mood for. as you’ll notice, it’s also a shameless plug for my 3rd favorite kitchen appliance. (the first being my coffeemaker, obviously, and the second being my coffee grinder.) so today’s smoothie consisted of the segments of 1 clementine (I have a 5 lb. box that I need to use up before they are not so good… plus, I figure the vitamin c will not hurt me any.), a BUNCH of frozen raspb...

almost two weeks ago, I posted a link to a guest post that I wrote over at my friend, louise’s blog about scrapbooking. of course, I mentioned project life, and of course, I probably didn’t do an adequate job of explaining myself… and then today, becky higgins (creator of PL) posts this video explaining (way more eloquently) EXACTLY what I was trying to say. check it out.

so it occurred to me that the pictures I post of my project life weeks are kinda replacing my updating and reporting what is actually going on around here. my bad. so I will try to do better about posting the ACTUAL pictures and explaining what we’ve been up to. (if you don’t care, that’s fine, but I know of a certain SIL and niece who like to see, so this is for them! ) sunday’s POTD – we did a kid swap with some friends. layla went with her age/gender counterpart to her birthday party, and shane’s age/gender counterpart came home from church with us. they spent most of the day shooting each other with nerf guns, recovering darts, and building elaborate stands for their guns with tinkertoys. Also on sunday (because micah was obsessing about certain nerf guns that he was claiming were HIS), I made good on a ‘date’ I owed him and took him out to ice cream at dairy queen. something I learned about micah that day: he doesn’t think cones are edible. he refused to eat it, yet was determ...