Saturday, September 17, 2011

"The Military Wife" Poem

This poem, I had read while we were still in our first year of Korea.  I found it on another military wives blog and knew instantly that I needed to repost it.  I love it.  I love how honest it is.  This is a hard life.  Being a military spouse is not for the faint of heart.  It takes just as much dedication to your husband and marriage as is required of your spouse and his dedication to service.  We (I say we) have been in the Army for seven years now and I don't know if it will ever get any easier.  I don't know if uprooting our life and starting over will ever feel normal.  I don't know if leaving friends and making new ones every couple years will ever become second nature.  But we (I say we) are in this until my husband decides to leave his Army career and become a civilian.  We will figure it out.  We will make this work.  Because this is the life we chose. 

There's another quote that I believe with my whole heart:
"Everything is going to be alright.  Maybe not today.  But eventually."

I don't know who wrote the poem below "The Military Wife", but I would like to give her a hug.  This is an incredibly accurate description of life as a military wife and I think everyone should read it, treasure it, as I do.


Thursday, September 15, 2011

Lock up your daughters

Last Thursday, we hit the outlet mall right around the corner to stock up on fall and winter wear.  While it seemed a little crazy at the time (what with the 90 degree temperatures), I am immensely thankful we had enough forethought to plan ahead for the season change.  Now that there's been a high of 65 degrees, all those pants and long sleeves are coming in very useful. 

One of the last stores we hit was the Gap outlet.  After already accumulating quite a few outfits at Osh Kosh, Carters and Old Navy, we didn't really NEED anything at Gap, but it is Gap and it is an outlet.  That means you have to at least browse the selection. 

And am I glad I did!  I saw this shirt right away in the baby boy section and knew I had to have it.


See what I mean?  That face can melt hearts.  He can be so sweet and loving and helpful.  Zander has a natural charm factor.

However.

Once you witness the destruction capabilities of the rest of his body, well. 

Let's just end there.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Zander and the Tent


My boys are very much outside boys.  They like to run, play, climb and wrestle outside.  However when we moved to Kansas, the temperature outside was reaching a high of over 100 degrees.  There was no way I was letting them outside.  So we invested in a pop-up tent.  The one I bought (from Walmart, very disappointed in Toys R Us and Target for not carrying these products in stock) is Cars themed.  I wanted just plain multicolored, but had no such luck.  It does have two play areas though - the actual tent with two entrances, and a tube that attaches to one of the entrances to crawl through.  We have decided it's best to separate the two so Gabe and Zander have their own play areas.  As you can see, Zander is a fan of the tube you crawl through.  Even though the weather has gotten much better (today was a high of 65 degrees), both boys still very much enjoy their tents. 

To anyone that has stir crazy children, pop-up tents are worth their weight in gold!

Mini Pies


I saw this link on the Pinterest boards (if you haven't joined Pinterest, do it immediately.  I'll wait) and put it under my recipes to remember.  When Krystal was invited to a BBQ, we decided that was the perfect time to make them.  I am all about baking batches of cookies, pies, cakes... as long as they have a place to go other than my hips and thighs.

The recipe on the blog is very descriptive and thorough, so I figured we didn't need to post picture by picture details of our steps (like with the cake pops).  However, I do have a couple things to add that we found helpful.

Things we learned:

- Each 9 inch pie crust (we bought store crusts rather than make them) cut out 13 three inch stars before rerolling out the dough.  All in all, we used three full crusts and ended up with 27 pies.

- If you mince the apples, put in a little cinnamon and brown sugar and let it sit BEFORE you start rolling out the pie crust, it will create a really nice syrup and soften the apples.


- I did a trial run of the pies before the BBQ and found that raspberry jelly was too thin.  When the pie was baking, the inside boiled out all over the pan.  So, we altered the filling and used raspberry preserves instead and cut two tiny slits in the pie top.  This worked much better and actually tasted much better with the preserves instead of the jelly.


- Lastly, we debated the best way to seal the crusts together.  Using one of the left over sucker sticks from the cake pops, we pressed the layers together to close it, but varied the technique.  I felt like the end of the stick pressed it together better, while Krystal used the side to press it closed.  It's completely a personal decision, you can use a fork if it really makes you feel better.

          

After baking and cooling, we covered each with a powdered sugar based glaze, but added some of the raspberry preserves to the raspberry pies and apple juice and cinnamon to the apple pies.  This added a little more sweetness and we were surprised how fast the glaze dried, making them much easier to transport than the cake pops.  Over all, they didn't really taste like pies, but more like homemade pop tarts.  I think it's mostly attributed to the crust to filling ratio.  A pie has much more filling than crust, even in a double crust.  With these, because the stars were so small any more than one teaspoon of filling boiled out in the pan.

Also, we didn't put sticks in the middle of the pies because were in a hurry.  I think if you were going to use a stick, a popsicle stick would work better than a sucker stick.  Of course this all depends on the size of the pies you make and how much you fill them.  I always worry about weight distribution and would hate to see a pie fall off a stick and break into a million pieces (along with my heart). 

Overall, I am definitely planning on making them again.  They are SO easy to make (much more so than cake pops) and definitely adaptable to any taste preference.  Enjoy the recipe and tips!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Life in the Car Pool Lane

I've entitled this posting "Life in the Car Pool Lane" because some days, I feel like my life begins and ends with dropping Gabe off and picking him up.  Yes, I'm a stay at home Mom.  Yes, we don't have much else to do during the day (unless you count spending mindless hours perusing the aisles of the Super Target).  But in all reality, people (aka the establishment) take this car pooling very seriously.  A LOT of thought, effort and planning went into this system.  And I do appreciate it, after all it keeps Gabe safe from being kidnapped by a stranger or getting hit by a car or being lost inside the elementary.  But I will say that it makes me feel a lot better about my own OCD tendencies when I try to explain the system.  It's a little intense.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

The car pool system starts in a line created by who ever shows up the earliest and parks in front of the gate that leads to the back of the school.  School lets out at 3:50pm and I try to leave the house by 3:30pm to get into the line by 3:35-3:40pm.  I've shown up at 3:25pm before (because we were running back from errands and I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to stop home first) and I was still five cars back from the front of the line.  In the below picture, you can see where the school is.  I am currently parked on the road leading into the school and it's probably around 3:35, based on the amount of cars parked from the entrance.  The grey and red cars are actually in the driveway entrance of the school. 


They open the gate that separates the parking lot from the back of the school at 3:45pm and line starts filtering into the back pick up area.  At this point, Zander is screaming his head off because he's sick of waiting in a parked car.  His water bottle is probably pouring out all over the floor, soaking whatever snack has also been cast aside and toy that was used to try and appease him.  The picture below is of the cars parked behind the school, this is the official pick up area.  You can see the first cone, but I don't really have a picture that represents this organized chaos.  Basically, there are six cones that cars (mostly vans) park next to.  In the windshield, you put a paper plate or something that says your child's name (or who you're picking up) and they call out the children based on those names. 

Side note:  I've begun to notice that the paper plate with the first and last name on it is rather antiquated.  There are people with big flashy signs in their windshield and even those that hang signs from clothes hangers on their rear-view mirror.  I guess that's how you can tell the car pool veterans from us newbies. 

Back to the point:  Six children (or families or car poolers) are released at a time directly into those vehicles.  Then those vehicles move, six new ones take their places, six new children load those vehicles, and so on and so forth.


Below are pictures of the glorious women that brave the car pool lines and announce the first and last names to the teachers waiting inside the school with the children.  First is the "Walkie-Talkie Lady".  She walks through the line first and radios back to inside the school which children will be let out first and gives a running list of names from the boring paper plates or cool flashy signs.  I feel kind of bad not knowing her name and taking a picture of her to post on my blog, but this is an important part of the system.  I couldn't NOT document this phase of the car pool pick up.

Anyway, as you move slowly forward to the actual cones, you hear the "Blow-Horn Lady".  You actually hear her before then because she's yelling names and lanes (cones) for kids and parents to meet.  For example, when I get close enough to be in one of the lanes, she'll look at our ho-hum plain white paper plate and yell "Brong, Lane So-and-So.  Gabriel Brong, Lane So-and-So."  At that point, Gabe has already been waiting outside because "Walkie-Talkie Lady" has announced that I'm in the line and for him to be released from the building.  He and I listen to which lane we've been assigned from "Blow-Horn Lady", I drive to that cone.  I park the car.  Open the side door.  He climbs in and gets buckled.  I drive off.  Lane So-and-So has opened up for another parent.


All in all, it's a fairly smooth system.  There are teachers or volunteers inside the building with the children, letting them know when "Walkie-Talkie Lady" calls their name.  There is one adult making sure the child/children go to the right lane (cone) and an adult at each lane (cone) to ensure that the child/children KNOW the person driving the vehicle.  It runs pretty fast and usually we are out of the line and on our way within 5-7 minutes of school letting out.  Once we get to the "Walkie-Talkie Lady", Zander's usually calm enough to understand that it'll only be a couple more minutes in the line.  It helps that by that time, the line has started to move and we're not completely stationary. 

Things I have learned while wasting away in the car pool lane -

-Your child has to be listening, at all times, for his name to be called.  If he's not (as mine usually isn't), and is instead wandering around not paying attention, you will get very funny looks when you try to explain to the adult at the lane that the kid with the Batman t-shirt and Star Wars backpack really is yours and you're not trying to kidnap him.  Then you usually have to pull out of the line, so he can meet you in the extra space (or holding area, as I like to call it) and you don't screw up the flow of traffic by taking an extra couple minutes trying to get your kid's attention.

-Make sure your child is paying attention to his name.  It saves face for everyone.

-Don't try to get out of the car and yell for your child.  You get even more weird looks.

-Minivans really ARE the preferred vehicle for families.  I had some idea, but not nearly as much as when I wait for 10-15 minutes with nothing to do except stare at the vehicles in front of me.

-Bring a book with you in the car.  Then you're not stuck looking at the vehicles (vans) in front of you.

-There are three other red Dodge Caravans that wait in the car pool lane.  Two are almost always ahead of me.  One has a "Proud of my Eagle Scout" bumper sticker.  I like to think our families would be friends and smile at them whenever I see them.  They probably think I'm crazy.

-When picking up your child, you have to have a door that opens on the right side of your vehicle.  Children are not allowed to walk around vehicles for fear of getting hit by the car pool traffic.

-There is always a "father" picking up a child on his motorcycle without a helmet.  It makes me extremely nervous every time I see him.  I wonder how having my child walk around a vehicle is less safe than having one hang on the back of a motorcycle with no helmet.

I'm sure this is much more than you ever wanted to know about the car pool lane and my time in it.  I have to wonder, does anyone else have a system like this?  Or did we just pick a school with a crazy OCD car pool organizer?

Friday, September 2, 2011

Pinterest

Pinterest

Or as I like to call it, tbe newest online addiction.

If you haven't been there already, go to http://www.pinterest.com/ and sign up NOW.  If you already have an account, click on the "Follow Me" link on the right side of my blog.  Do it.  I'll wait.

If you're a little skeptical, keep reading.  I promise I can change your mind.

Pinterest is (I don't even know how to describe the awesome genius of this website.  There are no words.) a website you can visit to be inspired.  Inspired how?  There's really no limit to it's depth.  I know, I'm getting a little overboard, but I get like that when I'm really passionate about something.  And I'm passionate about this website.

Imagine a place where you can "pin" any and all your ideas for any and all subjects.  And they will be saved on "boards" until you want to visit them again.  Also, there are endless amounts of other people's ideas and inspirations.  I had created a saving system prior to being introduced to this mecca of creativity. 

It was a plain black binder with plastic page protectors.  In it, I would print off any ideas I saw online and file it in there to save for later use.  It was in no way ideal.  Pages would fall out of organization, paper was wasted, ink was wasted, browsers would be closed accidently.  I felt a little like the hoarder, saving and gathering random pieces of paper, and that made me nauseous.  I evolved to using "bookmarks", where I "bookmarked" every website where I saw something I wanted to remember.  This was also less than ideal.  My "bookmark" list grew and grew, links were broken, I saved "bookmarks" on the laptop and couldn't access it on the desktop, I forgot what I was saving it for.

Pinterest has solved all these problems.  Once you create an account, you create "boards" with any title you want and then you can search for specific ideas or just browse the current "pins".  Every pin has a link that describes the picture, tells you how to recreate that idea.  People that follow you or you follow are updated with your/their latest pins.  You can tag other people that have pinterest accounts to share ideas.  Everything is saved.  Everything is organized.  New ideas and inspirations are posted daily.  The creativtiy never ends.

For all of you that are still not won-over, let me share a couple of my "pins". 

I have a "board" entitled "Design Ideas" - here's one of my "pins" to remember:


Here's the link that describes how this particular piece was made:  http://taliachristine.blogspot.com/2011/02/once-upon-time.html

Another "pin" in Design Ideas -


Here's the link for how to make your own coasters:

See what I mean? 

Two ideas posted on Pinterest that are easy and cheap to replicate.  

There are lots and lots more.  There are outfit ideas, hair cuts, photography, weddings, recipes, DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, holiday gift ideas, all kinds of projects for kids, quotes, decorations... the list is endless.

So.  If you are a crafty or want-to-be crafty person, a recipe connoisseur, a clothes horse or someone that just wants to save money by doing it yourself - please check out Pinterest

It will change your life.  It's definitely changed mine.