favorite things right now

Favorite thing #1?  This picture of Hazel.  Seriously, that’s got to give you a really good laugh.  I need to make it my screen saver on my phone.  Look at those eyelashes!

This little biscuit (Emmeline) is awesome.  When she is good she is very very good, but when she is bad she is horrible.  Thankfully she is good most of the time and we all think she is pretty much the cat’s meow.  One of my favorite things right now is how much the big kids delight in her.  At least once a day Hazel comes and tells me about something funny or cute that Emmeline has done.  Or, she catches my eye and points over at Emmeline when she’s singing a little song or wiggling her hips in a funny way.  I love it that I can enjoy my little kids with my big kids.  It’s awesome.  Gdiapers.  I love them.  I got some for free off of freecycle when I was pregnant with Peter.  I’ve been using both the cloth inserts and the flushable disposable inserts and I love them both.  Now, I have to be honest here because as much as my idealistic side would love to do 100% cloth diapering, my logistical side has no hope of actually making that happen.  I’m just not good enough at laundry.  So, I little bit of everything.  Cloth inserts when I’ve cleaned them, the disposable inserts when I haven’t and when things get really bad (which is about every two days) I slap on the old Pampers (which smell so good).  But aren’t these the most adorable looking things?  And my favorite part is that he has never blow out of them.  Not once.  I can not make anywhere near that claim with those sweet smelling pampers.  Oh, and I love how it feels to hold him with these on.  So soft and non-crinkly. 

Too bad I don’t have the next size up, and I’m not sure if I’m willing to shell out the cash to buy them since I’m not too consistent at really putting them to their full use.

Love the Bumbo.  Peter sits on that counter and squeals and babbles while I make dinner almost every night.  He loves being smack dab in the middle of everything.  He also has quite a time sitting at the head of our family dinner table.  The kids get so delighted by him, the way he holds his hands, the funny grunts and noises he makes.  They’ve decided that he’s the “boss baby” and we need to pay close attention to his babbles since he’s always trying to hold serious meetings during dinner.

Love this changing table.  I need to get a better picture of it with Peter on it since he spends so much of his time there.  Here’s a picture of Emmeline on it as a baby (I just realized that it made my favorite things list last time too!)  As old and cheap and unorganized as it is all four of my kids have loved laying here.  It holds a special little place in my heart.  I’ve spent countless hours stooped over this thing eeking out coos and gurgles and smiles.  Big siblings have climbed up it’s railings to gaze and see and connect with new little ones.  All year long Charlie got to spend Wednesday afternoons with “The Rockland Four.”  I need to do a whole post on these awesome little buddies.  They have so much fun together.  The Rockland Four moms have vowed to keep them together even though they’re headed in different directions next year.  We’ve hired our neighbor Joyce to come over a few mornings a week and hang with Emmeline and Peter so I can get some things done.  It has most certainly been one of my favorite things over the past few months.  Sorry about the bad pictures, but you get the idea.  They do puzzles and play dou and all the things that I find myself too busy to sit down and do with Em (that makes me sad, need to fix that).  I get some errands under my belt and sometimes go running.  I’m pretty sure it’s one of Joyce's favorite things too. I know she genuinely enjoys my kids and being in our home and having a job where she’s really making a big difference.  We’ve started going to the beach!  Oh how I love the beach.  Hours and hours of active, engaged fun for the kids.  Real moments here and there for me to soak in the sun and good friends. For a while this spring we were getting a good bowlful of strawberries every single night.  Hazel would go into the back yard and collect them, wash them. slice them and some other fruit and we’d gobble them up during dinner.  I LOVE stuff right from my own back yard. 

Do your kids love making forts?  I’m not sure if forts should be on my favorite things list (I hate having blankets all over the house).  But, I do love it that Hazel actually slept in this one.  I always wanted to build my own little worlds and sleep in them as a kid.  I love it when I see myself as a child in my kids.  And, look at those LONG legs of Hazels.  How did she grow up so fast?

Have you seen these?  Wiki Stix?  They are one of the best things I’ve ever purchased.  The kids got a big box of them for Christmas and it keeps them happily occupied every single week during sacrament meeting.  They’re creative, quiet,  not messy and provide just enough doodling concentration for my kids little brains to keep them engaged and allow them to listen at the same time. I love how in love Charlie is with his baby brother.  He continues to give him these sweet loves and say, “I just can’t believe he’s really real, and that he’s my brother.” 

I love how my kids spend so much time up on our bed, smiling, cooing, playing with Peter. 

Other favorite things right now (that I don’t have pictures of).

• For Breakfast:
  • steel cut oats.  have you tried them? if you have you know that once you have them you really can never go back to regular oats.  they’re nutty and oh, the texture, amazing.   you can pop them in the crock pot the night before with a little brown sugar, salt and raisins.  In the morning breakfast is so easy.  You dish it up, throw in some frozen blueberries and milk so that those little bowlfuls cool down fast and it’s gone in a flash.  I bought 25 pounds of bulk steel cut oats last winter.  Sadly, I often forget to put them in the crock pot so we’re not going through them as fast as I hoped we might….but, when I do remember I feel like we really start off the day right. 
  • old fashioned oats, uncooked with milk and frozen blueberries.  it’s a perfect breakfast for a hot summer morning.  I got it out one morning thinking there was no way my kids were going to go for it, but they did.  they loved it.  it’s cheap.  it’s pretty healthy.  it’s yummy.
  • Hood tangy frozen yogurt with granola. I know, a guilty little breakfast.  But, I did compare the frozen stuff to regular vanilla yogurt and the frozen stuff has the same or less sugar.  I’m not saying I’m gonna splurge on this every morning, but it’s so refreshing on a hot summer morn.  frozen blueberries
• For getting my baby to sleep:
• summer brand swaddle square blanket :  this thing is awesome.  I love the aden and anais ones cause they’re light and airy, but this is the only one that will stay all swaddled up all long.  it’s big and stretchy and awesome.
• peter’s feet and his curly (almost red) hair.
• herbs in my garden.  I love not having to buy cilantro and basil and chives and all that stuff.  There is something extremely gratifying about just  running out and picking them to add to dinner. 
• early morning runs.  I’m back in the game slowly and I love it.  Sure beats getting up all bleary eyed with grumpy kids .
• reading to my kids at night.  I think it’s my favorite time being a mom.  we’ve been reading all kinds of books.  my favorites from the year are The Little Princess (what an amazing story, so many great things to discuss) and the Ramona books.  The kids often beg for just one more chapter and it’s the one night time begging that I usually cave into.  It kind of beats going down and finishing the dinner dishes.  What are your favorite read aloud books? 
• Bank of Mom app.  If you have an iPhone this is such a great app.  It lets you keep track of how much money your kids have earned.   It sure makes things easy when my kids start to beg for something at the store.  I just ask them if they have enough money, we look on my phone and if they do they can buy it, if they don’t they can’t.   Simple.  And I’m not the bad guy.   And I can be consistent with it (consistency is usually my downfall with these things) because I have it with me all the time.   For once my kids are actually motivated to earn money and save up for things.  
• iPhone pictures/videos.  I love it that I can document so many little ordinary things without having to lug around a camera. Sure, the pictures aren’t pretty and perfect, but neither is life.  There are so many little simple things that get captured that would otherwise get burried in my mushy little brain. 

Strange list, I know…..but there’s just something about writing down things that really make me happy.   Maybe I’ll do it more often.

What are your favorite things?  I’d love to know.