The Squishy Pickles

2012-01-29T16:48:00.006-06:00

Still no Etsy shop yet. Sorry. But I am still sewing blankets for anyone interested. I have gotten a lot of emails lately so I thought I would just post my prices and info. Please add $2.75 for each additional pound. I ship via USPS. Lap Pads, toddler blankets and some twin blankets fit in a medium flat rate box. E-mail me at 1squishypickle at gmail.com for more information.

12 x 22 Lap Pad (2 pounds) or 14 x 20 Lap Pad (2 pounds) $20

36 x 52 Toddler Weighted Blanket (4 pounds) $50 Labor + Materials (about $75 total)

40 x 72 Twin Weighted Blanket (6-8 pounds) $75 Labor + Materials (about $110 total)

54 x 72 Full Sized Weighted Blanket $115 Labor + Materials (about $200 total)

Custom Sized Blankets Available. E-mail for a price.

Weighted vests begin at $30.

Ummm....yeah.

2011-07-05T13:04:00.003-05:00

Really? It's been 6 weeks since I last posted? Gosh. Life has been, well, full I guess.

What did I want to scream from the top of every mountain? Once again, Dill's preschool program was slashed from the school budget and I was told there was a 10%-15% chance of it being restored. The state money was cut and the schools district was $720 million dollars in the red. Dill's teacher actually told me if she was in my position she would get a lawyer. A lawyer? Why a lawyer? Well, because with preschool not being offered in our school district, the only placement left for Dill would be in a self-contained special education classroom. And not even the one at our school! That one was full. He could now be placed in any one of the schools located within the 227.2 square miles of our city. I cried. Then I cried some more. All of the accomplishments Dill had made over the past 2 years could potentially be wiped out just like that. I was devastated.

Immediately I called private preschools in our area to see if anyone had any openings for the fall. There was no way Dill could not be in some kind of school program in the fall. He had to have something. I needed him to have something. Of course this had to happen the last week that most schools were open. Many didn't have openings. Many didn't want him because of his diagnosis. They couldn't adequately provide for his needs they said. No problem. I'm glad they were upfront. I finally found one school that had openings and was willing to try him out. They also had an opening for Sweet Pickles too! The only problem was it was the afternoon session. Dill has OT twice a week in the afternoon. We tried to move OT around, but it didn't work. Now what?

The next day Daddy Pickles found out that the new mayor would be visiting his fire house. The perfect opportunity to tell the new mayor in person how he had to find money in the budget SOMEHOW to save preschool. Then I found out others weren't allowed in that day. Only the fire fighters on duty. That didn't stop me. I sat down and for 2 thoughtful hours composed a letter for Daddy Pickles to hand deliver to the mayor. Only, the mayor never showed up that day. I was so devastated. I ended up mailing the letter anyways figuring at least I tried. I was sure the letter would just be added to the pile of others that came in and nothing would be done about it.

A week later the state passed their budget and kept preschool funding, but slashed the amount drastically. Budgets would finally be available to principals, but they wouldn't say if preschool was saved for our city. The budgets were hand delivered to the principals on a Friday morning, but on Monday morning Dill's teacher still did not know the fate of her classroom. Monday afternoon I was invited to a volunteer appreciation luncheon at the school. It was supposed to be hosted by the principal, but she was called into a budget meeting so the secretary thanks us instead. Right at the end the principal showed up and thanked everyone for helping her through her first year as principal. Then she started walking around to the different tables saying thank you. Of course mine was the last table. I smiled and asked if she learned anything about preschool in her meeting and she said, "Let me sit down and tell you what I know." Hrmph. Must not be good news if she has to sit down.

I must tell you that I think our new principal is amazing. She has set high standards for the students at our school and a lot of them are excelling. Our last principal was, well, let's just say she had been a principal for waaaaaaaaaay too long and it was time for her to move on. I was on pins and needles waiting to hear what she had to say. She started by telling me that her budget was delivered late Friday morning and that many principals received phone calls from high ranking people in the finance department on Thursday night. These phone calls were to let the principals know that even though the city tried and tried, it just wasn't possible to keep the preschools up and running. When they received their budgets in the morning, the preschool line item would read ZERO. I tried my best to keep from crying. My brain was going 9 million miles an hour. What would happen to my Dill? What was I going to do? How could this be happening? She went on to tell me that very early Friday morning there was a meeting where they decided that no matter how great the budget deficit, they just could not cut preschool funding. They would find a way somehow to make it work. I just couldn't hold back anymore at that point. The floodgate of tears burst forth. Then she went on to say not only would Dill have preschool next year, she was moving his classroom in from the trailer in the parking lot into a huge classroom on the first floor in the main school building! More tears of joy. The woman probably thought I belonged in the loony bin. I wanted to hug her, but I didn't. I just thanked her profusely and walked out of the school and into my truck and cried some more.

Remember that letter I wrote to the mayor? Nah, I've blabbered on enough in this post. You'll just have to wait for another day.............

2011-05-16T08:14:00.002-05:00

I have something that I want to scream from the top of the tallest buildings, but I have to wait until next Monday when it's "official." My son's teacher told me to lawyer up because I'm sure going to need one after the announcement is made official. After hearing that, I don't know if I can keep my mouth shut that long.

I Love ERGO Baby Carriers!

2011-05-13T19:39:00.003-05:00

Make-Baby-Stuff.com is giving away an ERGO Baby Carrier. Click below for your chance to win! I used one with Sweet Pickles and I sure wish I would have had one with Dill. He never wanted to be put down!

Blogger Issues

2011-05-13T13:07:00.003-05:00

I know Blogger has been having issues for a few days, but I have been having trouble for a while with Google Friend Connect. I can't follow any blogs through them. Every time I click on the follow button I am just brought right back to the same page. Has anyone else been having these issues too?

2011-05-11T13:19:00.003-05:00

I'm participating in an ABC I Spy fabric swap at Flynn 'n Fabric. For now I have the letters C and M. I might switch out one of those letters for Q or X. Linnea is throwing in 20 extra I Spy squares for taking one of those challenging ones. Won't you come join us?

Help is Just a Click Away

2011-05-04T08:40:00.003-05:00

What do awesome moms do when they can't find something for their kids? They find a way to create it themselves! Patty from Pancakes Gone Awry wants to start a LEGO Social Club for kids on the autism spectrum and others who have social developmental delays. She found an awesome LEGO Skills Club that is based on research through The Center for Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Health. They will train her how to run the social group, but at the cost of $1000. She has applied for a grant from Pepsi Refresh to help defray the costs of starting the club. Let's help her out and vote. You can vote right here or click on the graphic above. I'm pretty sure you can vote daily for the entire month of May. Be sure to like her Facebook page as well! Thank you!

2011-04-27T08:17:00.000-05:00

I just linked up my weighted blanket tutorial to Sew Much Ado's We Did It! Wednesday. This is the first time I've linked up to something like this! I wish I had more time to sew so that I could link up more.

Fun!

2011-04-25T21:14:00.002-05:00

My weighted blanket tutorial was featured on ohdeedoh today! How fun. :)

2011-04-24T08:45:00.001-05:00

He is risen!
Alleluia!

Happy Easter everyone!

Beet juice frosting anyone?

2011-04-23T08:18:00.003-05:00

Sweet Pickles will have his 3rd birthday in 9 days. He has requested a fire engine birthday cake. I'm going to attempt this one.

The only speed bump? How the heck am I going to make a red fire engine without using typical red food coloring? Dill Pickles and red dyes do not get along. I asked for suggestions the other day on Facebook and I received quite a few. Yesterday at the store I picked up pomegranate juice, strawberry juice, and beet juice. Let the frosting coloring and taste testing begin!

2011-04-19T20:55:00.002-05:00

I came across an interesting blog today. It's called 100 Days of Real Food. We already try not to eat a lot of processed foods and of course food allergies keep us from eating many processed foods. I wonder if I can convince Daddy Pickles to give this a try. But does that mean I'll have to give up my Diet Pepsi? *gasp* I think that is one thing that I may not be able to live without!

Weighted Blanket Tutorial

2011-04-16T20:49:00.020-05:00

Finally! The long awaited weighted blanket tutorial.

Here are the materials needed for making your blanket. How much fabric and how many pounds of poly pellets depend on the size of your finished blanket. For this blanket I used:
2 1/2 yards of cotton fabric (top of blanket)
2 1/2 yards of muslin (inner fabric)
2 1/2 yards of flannel (back of blanket)
8 pounds of poly pellets
thread

Wash your fabric in hot water and dry in the dryer. Iron fabric after drying.

Figure out the size of the pockets that will hold your poly pellets. This blanket was for a twin sized bed, so my final measurements were 40"x72". I like to have 2" around the edge of the blanket for seam allowances and ease of sewing. This left the available area for the pockets at 36"x68". Each pocket will end up being 6"x6" except for the top and bottom rows. These pockets will be 6"x7". I am not great with math so here is the fantabulous way I use to figure out each blanket.
Draw your grid on the muslin.
Lay the top fabric right side down and then lay your muslin on top with your grid facing up. Smooth out the two fabrics and pin, pin, pin!
Sew across the bottom of your blanket and then sew the up the columns. I like to start from the bottom and sew my way to the top to help prevent puckers.
Calculate the weight of poly pellets required in each pocket. This blanket weighed 8 pounds. I have a digital scale that measures in ounces and grams. I usually measure in grams because the math is a lot easier! Eight pounds is 3,636 grams. Divide by 66 pockets and you come up with 55 grams of poly pellets per pocket.
Measure 55 grams of poly pellets and pour them into the first column. Do this 5 more times until all of your columns are full.
Sew across the row closing your poly pellets into the pocket. Be sure to push all the poly pellets away from your sewing foot and needle. It is not fun when your needle hits a poly pellet. Continue weighing, filling and sewing across the rows until you reach the top of the blanket.
Lay your flannel right side up and place the blanket top side down onto your flannel. Be sure to smooth out the flannel as your lay the top down. This will prevent puckers and wrinkles.
Pin around the edges of the blanket leaving about 9" open on the bottom. This will allow you to right side out the blanket after sewing. Sew around the entire blanket and don't forget to leave the opening!
Right side out the blanket paying special attention to the corners. Sometimes I use the back of a spoon to poke them out.
Pin or iron around the outer edge of the blanket.
Sew around the edge of the blanket making sure you close the opening at the bottom of the blanket.
Viola! Your weighted blanket is complete! Snuggle up and sleep well!
Feel free to e-mail me with any questions. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible!

Disclaimer: I am not an OT nor do I play one in the bloggy world. The standard formula for a weighted blanket is 10% of body weight plus 1 pound. Always check with your OT to determine the proper weight for your blanket.

I'll take some oatmeal with a side of bacon please

2011-04-15T14:58:00.008-05:00

Kids with autism and sensory issues thrive with structure and visual cues. Here are some visuals that we have around our house to help Dill Pickles. Of course Sweet Pickles benefits from them as well.
Dill has a bit of an obsession with bowling and golfing of any kind. Wii Sports has both and Dill would play all day if we let him. The boys are given 3 Wii cards a day. (Their real names are hidden under the moustaches.) They are clipped to our family bulletin board in the kitchen. When one of them want to play Wii, they must give me a Wii card. I set the timer for 20 minutes and when the timer goes ding the Wii is shut off. When all 3 cards are gone, Wii is done for the day. It took a few days for them to get used to the new routine. There was lots of crying and pleading for more time, but not any more. Now the boys fight over who gets to turn the Wii and TV off!
Breakfast used to be another struggle in the Pickles house. Dill likes to eat the same thing over and over for breakfast. Sometimes we run out. *GASP* What kind of mom runs out of something? :) In effort to get Dill to vary his menu a bit and avoid meltdowns when a preferred food is not available, I came up with this breakfast menu. I bought a cheap picture frame from Dollar Tree. Then in the Boardmaker program I made pictures of every possible thing Dill could have for breakfast. We have cereal, oatmeal, toast, breakfast bars, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, sausage, bacon, monkey milk and juice. I laminated the pictures and then put Velcro on the back. There is a long strip of Velcro on top of the plexiglass in the frame. I realize most people don't have access to Boardmaker. You can use clip art, Google some images or even take your own pictures. After dinner I present Dill with his breakfast options for the next day. He chooses what he wants and places the pictures on his menu. Sweet Pickles does the same. This has made breakfast a zillion times easier in the morning.

Monkey milk? I know you want to know what that's all about. Long ago when we were trying to transition Dill from Alimentum formula to rice milk, Dill wanted nothing to do with the rice milk. Out of desperation I bought Zoo Pals disposable cups. My mother-in-law had Zoo Pals paper plates and Dill loved them. He liked the monkey the most, so we put his milk in the monkey cup and called it monkey milk. Dill drank it like it was going out of style. Eventually it got kinda pricey so I found a create your own sippy cup. Daddy Pickles drew the same monkey on Dill's cup and then there was a permanent monkey milk cup. Two and a half years later the name still sticks. Whatever works, right?

Have you done anything creative to get your son or daughter to try something new?

2011-04-11T10:05:00.010-05:00

I can't be the only mom in the world who gets excited about decorating their child's bedroom. It was time for Dill Pickles to move out of the crib and down the hall to his big boy bedroom. Of course I had the perfect bedroom planned out in my head. I searched in catalogs, stores, blogs and on-line to find the best themed bedroom for our little Dill. Finally- perfection found in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I was able to find this set gently used on Craigslist. Excellent! It even came with a matching area rug. Daddy Pickles and I put together Dill's new furniture and washed his new blanket and sheets. I was so excited to see what Dill Pickles would think of his bedroom. He liked it I guess. Well, as much as a 17 month old can tell you they liked it.

Dill stayed in his crib for a while, but within a few months he was climbing out. Not just once or twice, but CONSTANTLY. We quickly converted the crib to a toddler bed and it worked for a while. Getting Dill Pickles to fall asleep was a big problem. Huge. Finally I resorted to rocking him to sleep. I had an infant and I was exhausted. I did what I needed to to to get him to sleep.

Then one night I thought I heard furniture moving. Seriously? Who is moving furniture? Daddy Pickles was at work and there was no way that Sweet Pickles was moving furniture. I opened the door to Dill's bedroom and found his crib, which was not on wheels, pushed all the way across his bedroom. For a while I had suspected that Dill had some issues, but everyone told me that he was just being a boy. Or as a special education teacher I had too much knowledge and I was making myself think that I was seeing things wrong with my child but really, he was fine.

One day I said forget it all. There is something wrong with my kid and I am taking him for an evaluation. Dill Pickles and I went for a 15 minute screening at a private therapy clinic and within minutes of meeting him they assured me that I was not making things up and yes, there was more to it than just being a boy. Dill Pickles most definitely had major sensory issues.

So what does all of this have to do with the really cute Pottery Barn Kids toddler set I got on Craigslist for a steal? Have you ever seen a weighted blanket for sale in the PBK catalog? Me neither. The ones in therapy catalogs cost an arm and a leg and are usually made for institutional use at a school or therapy clinic. Know of any catalogs that sell a weighted blanket made out of fireman material? Didn't think so. I wanted what was best for my son, but I didn't want a blah blanket for his bedroom. He was going to be using it every night to sleep and I was going to see it every time I walked past his bedroom. What was I to do?

I called my mom. Isn't that what everyone does when they need help? My mom and I sat down and thought and tinkered. We drew and we calculated and here is the results of our labors.

Here it is- the very first weighted blanket I ever sewed. Well, with my mom's help of course. It doesn't match the rest his bedroom exactly, but at least it's not institutional blue or some other boring color. Since sewing this one nearly two years ago I have sewn countless others for friends, friends of their friends and for my son's teacher and classmates. I love sewing and I love sewing things that really help someone out. I've just finished sewing another weighted blanket for my friend's daughter. Want to sew your very own weighted blanket personalized for your child? A tutorial is coming soon. I promise. It's my first tut ever so I want to make sure I get everything right.

2011-03-31T13:09:00.001-05:00

I can't wait for warmer weather. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way. Dill Pickles has been having a lot of trouble for the past week. Meltdowns over seemingly innocent things have become the norm lately. I couldn't figure out why, then I read this post at The SPD Blogger Network and it clicked. Hop on over and check it out. You might be in the same boat too.

2011-03-29T13:03:00.006-05:00

Where have you been Mama Pickles? You know, I wonder that myself sometimes. The past few weeks have been filled with reading, thinking and sewing. And, oh yes, potty training hell. Sweet Pickles just doesn't seem to care that he has tinkle running down his leg and he certainly isn't phased when he walks around the house smelling the the elephant house at the zoo. He's going to be 3 in May and I just don't know what to do with him.

I've been doing a lot of reading trying to figure out what kind of education will be best for the Pickles family. I finished reading The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. It was amazing. Classical education is what I want for my children. Reading through this book made me realize how much knowledge I did not acquire while in elementary and high school. I've moved on to reading The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education by Leigh Bortins. I haven't gotten very far through this book because I have had a lot of sewing to do in the last few weeks, but more about that later. When I finish The Core I have Designing Your Own Classic Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Education by Laura Berquist waiting at for me on my nightstand. As much as I want Dill Pickles to attend school with his peers, I just don't see that as a reality. Sadly I don't think our local Catholic schools will be tolerant of his sensory needs and I just don't feel comfortable with our local public schools beyond kindergarten. Daddy Pickles and I want to explore all of our options now so that when the times comes to make a decision, we will be well informed.

I have been busy sewing weighted blankets for everyone but my Dill! As my mom liked to say long ago when I was young, "The cobbler's children are always the ones without any shoes!" Dill's teacher has asked me to sew a weighted blanket for his classroom and two of his classmates wanted weighted blankets for their homes as well. Busy, busy, busy. I love sewing and I love that I can sew one for so much less than the expensive ones in the therapy catalogs. I'd like to think that mine are a lot prettier too! April is Autism Awareness month and I'm trying my best to put together a tutorial for making your own weighted blanket.

That's what I've been up to these days. How about you? What things in life have kept you busy?

2011-03-27T18:39:00.004-05:00

SPD Blogger Network and Soft: Clothing for All Children are having an awesome Spring Sensory Giveaway. Over $200 worth of amazing sensory items are being given away in a really cute Easter basket from Pottery Barn Kids. Check out these great prizes!

"I'll Tell You Why I Can't Wear Those Clothes," by Noreen O'Sullivan

Soft Seamless Sock 2-pack

Vestibular Wedge

Sensory Body Sock

Alex Toys Monster Bubbles

Alex Toys Sack Racing: Frog and Monkey

Squiglet Fidget Bracelets

One complete Springy Soft look for girls OR

One complete Springy Soft look for boys

Click here for your chance to win this wonderful prize pack! I know Dill Pickles will just love the Sensory Body Sock and I think I'll pass the soft seamless socks along to a friend. Dill doesn't seem to have trouble with seems, but her daughter really dislikes seems.

2011-02-27T20:12:00.004-06:00

Can someone please wave a wand and make the sickies plaguing this family go away? Pretty please? Thank you. Much appreciated.

2011-02-14T18:36:00.000-06:00

Happy Valetine's Day!

2011-02-11T16:56:00.004-06:00

I started The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of 1st Graders to College by Oral Lee Brown last Saturday and finished it Tuesday night. It was a book I just couldn't put down. I really enjoy reading about education a lot, especially administration and reform. When I was still teaching I used to read books on this subject all.the.time. I have a whole box of these books sitting somewhere in the garage. Daddy Pickles and I really should go dig those out.

Finishing The Promise makes me want to read How to Walk to School by Jacqueline Edelberg. I read a review of this book a while ago in some parent magazine and it has been on my list of books to read for over a year and a half now. (Side note, I just discovered that I lost my list of books to read when my computer crashed. I am so sad. I guess I'll just start a new one maybe in a post here so I can always have it available.) How to Walk to School is about a group of parents coming together to transform their failing neighborhood school. This book is available at my local library, but I think I'm going to check Paperbackswap.com for my own copy. I'm pretty sure this is a book I'd like to have on my shelf.

Until I get a copy of How to Walk to School, I started The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I am curious about homeschooling. I always thought I would send my children to a Catholic school, but now I'm not so sure that it would be the best environment for Dill Pickles with his sensory issues. I guess I'm reading this book to learn more information about homeschooling. So far I am really into this book and I keep trying to find ways to sneak away and read it. I really am torn about what is going to be the best type of education for Dill. Hopefully this book will help me sort these things out a little better in my brain.

2011-02-06T07:55:00.002-06:00

I asked Dill Pickles what he wanted for dinner last night and he said, "A big pizza like Mommy and Daddy's." Hmmmm......that can be a hard one since Dill has severe milk allergies. I've tried a few dairy free frozen pizzas and he didn't like them. We've made our own mini pizzas on English muffins and sandwich rounds. Dill didn't like those either. A big pizza sounded really yummy especially since I had a few DiGiorno pizzas in my freezer that were on sale last week. What was I going to do.

I thought and thought and then remembered that Michelle over at Just Add Whine posted a recipe for homemade pizza dough. She eats clean, like we're trying to do, so I figured her pizza crust had to be healthy. And delicious. I tweaked her recipe a little bit because I didn't have any white flour in the house. You can find her original recipe here.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 cup water
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups oat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) yeast

Using the dough cycle on your bread machine, put ingredients according to how written. When dough cycle is complete, either roll or form with hands to desired shape. Bake on parchment lined pan for 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees. Top with sauce and topping of your choice and then bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until cooked through.

I made 6 small pizzas. Three were cheese and 3 were mozzarella flavored soy cheese. I thought they tasted delicious and they got a great big thumbs up from Daddy Pickles. Dill Pickles INHALED his pizza as did Sweet Pickles. I see this recipe being used a lot in the future. It was a lot easier to make than I thought and healthy to boot!

Soy Cheese Pizzas-I'm still trying to figure out how to make the cheese melt a little better.

Cheese Pizzas

2011-02-04T16:04:00.005-06:00

What do you do when there's 20 inches of ice an snow on the ground and it's -5? You paint with ice of course!

Sweet Pickles is channeling his inner Picaso.

Dill Pickles is busy painting thundersnow.

Ice paint is not hard to make at all. I filled up our popsicle molds with warm water and a few drops of food coloring.
Place in the instant freezer provided by Mother Nature.

Viola! Ice paint.

2011-02-02T09:58:00.001-06:00

I used to read a lot before I had kids. When I moved into my townhouse long before I met Daddy Pickles I was trying to cut corners so I never transferred my cable service. I read books instead. All.the.time. That's all I did. I got my news from the Internet, the radio, the newspaper or if there was something crazy insane going on, I walked across the courtyard to my friend's townhouse and watched her TV. I read tons after Daddy Pickles and I got married too. Then came the baby Pickles. My reading time went out the window.

I started reading more last year, especially when Sweet Pickles was in the hospital for so long. I needed something to do in the middle of the night when all the beeping monitors won't let you sleep. I polished off the whole Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Thanks to my sister Sheesh for letting me borrow them. I decided setting a reading goal for myself for the year might help me read more. At first I thought a book a month would be good. But then I thought about it. Twelve books in one year? That's pathetic. I used to read 12 books in 12 weeks. Twenty-four books a year sounded good; that's 2 books a month. Nah. Let's split the difference and say 18 books. Eighteen books seems like a doable goal. If I do more- super! I had better not do less.

January brought Run Like A Mother: How to get Moving and Not Lose Your Family, Job or Sanity by Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell. I loved this book. I started running last year and I stopped for various reasons. I can't wait to get running again.

I also read Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian. I read it for a book club I belong to. One of these days I'll actually make it to a meeting. I can't say it was one I would have picked up on my own, but it was interesting.

February so far is bringing The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of 1st Graders to College by Oral Lee Brown. It's for book club and I'm picking it up from the library on Friday. Anything education interests me. I can't wait to start reading it.

I'm not sure what other book I will read when I finish The Promise. Diagnosing Jefferson by Norm Ledgin has been going back and forth from my dresser to my night stand for almost 5 years now. Maybe it's time I finally read it.

My sister Sheesh loaned me The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I loved the Percy Jackson series so I'm sure I'll like this book too. Geeze. I need more hours in my day.

How about you? Do you have any reading goals for the year? Have a great book I should add to my to be read list?

2011-01-30T08:48:00.001-06:00

It's cold outside. It's Saturday and we're out of ketchup. Heaven forbid you run out of ketchup in this house. Especially on a Saturday when Mama is home alone with the boys. I really had no desire to drag 2 boys to the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon to get a lousy bottle of ketchup.

I dug through my recipe binder and found Tosca Reno's ketchup recipe I copied out of one of her books months ago. I always meant to make this, but never did. Now that I have finally made it, I don't think I am ever buying ketchup again. Is it really possible for ketchup to taste amazing? I mean, it's only a condiment after all. But wow. This stuff is good. The boys wanted to eat it out of the bowl with a spoon. I can't blame them. It really was that good. I saved and washed out our old ketchup bottle. From now on I think I'm going to make a double recipe so I can fill the bottle. And it's so cheap too! Here's Tosca's recipe with my tweaks in red.

1 can tomato paste
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp Sucanant sugar (1 1/3 Tbsp Agave nectar)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves (I omitted because I didn't have it)
2 Tbsp cider vinegar

In a small bowl mix all ingredients together. Place in a tightly sealed glass container.

That's it. Easy peasy delicious! Try it and let me know what you think!

2011-01-29T16:33:00.003-06:00

I shocking got a ton of stuff crossed off my to do list in the past few days. Now just to find the time to blog about it all!

I have to say the thing am the most excited about crossing off is cutting and sending off my fabric to the boy themed I Spy Swap sponsored by Stacey at Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy. I have wanted to make an I Spy quilt FOREVER and this will give me the perfect opportunity to do so. I sent off 200 squares of 10 different fabrics and I will be getting 200 squares of 200 patterns of fabric in return! Now my new dilemma is do I make one big quilt for the boys to share, or do I make 2 small quilts each with 100 squares. Hmmm..........

Dill Pickles went with me to the post office to mail off the squares. He had a bit of a meltdown there because I was sending away "his" bowling pin fabric. Bowling is one of his newest obsessions and one of the fabrics I happened to pick up had bowling ball and bowling pins. Dill did not like that someone else was getting his bowling pins and demanded the post office lady return my package "right now right now!" I assured him that we could go to the store and buy some more fabric for him. He requested a bowling pillowcase. I told him will do. That brought the meltdown to a slight constant whine. Boys.

2011-01-21T09:02:00.001-06:00

We're in for a big one this weekend ladies and gentleman. And no, I'm not talking about the most heated NFC championship game to be played in the last 70 years. I'm talking about a potty boot camp this weekend for Sweet Pickles.

Little Sweetie will be 3 in May and it still not potty trained. He knows you have to go on the potty. Every once and a while he will do it. He can put on and take off his clothes. He tells you after he's gone and done it and wants to be changed. But little Sweet Pickles seems to just care less. Carrie at This Mama Makes Stuff shared how she potty trained her little guy. Maybe potty bribed is more like it.

I'm not above bribing. She shared what motivated her son and I think it is the perfect motivator for Sweet Pickles: a wall of Hotwheels cars. Every time her son pooped in the potty, he got a Hotwheels car. Mama Pickles stocked up on cars when they were $0.49 just before Christmas and now we have a wall of Hotwheel cars just a waitin' for some poop in our bathroom.

I'll let you know next week how it's going. And maybe I'll even get a pic of our bribe, er, um, reward board up too. As long as I have the patience for my computer. :)

2011-01-19T20:58:00.004-06:00

It's Wednesday so I guess that means I should have more confessions for you.

#1 I got on the scale the other day and almost fell of backwards and hit my head on the counter. I can't believe the number I saw. I am disgusted with myself. I am making an appointment with a nutritionist/dietitian mere minutes after getting the written orders from my doctor on Friday afternoon.

#2 I haven't updated my personal family blog in 2.5 months, but I am too irritated with my computer to upload the pics to it. We still haven't been able to get it up and running back to where it should be and it takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R. for the pics to load. Same reason for not posting here much either. I just have no patience for a slow computer.

2011-01-12T08:02:00.003-06:00

When I was a lot younger I listened to a radio station that had a bit called Confession Wednesday. I'm glad I don't remember any of them because I'm sure they were highly inappropriate for my age.

It's Wednesday. I have two confessions for you.

#1 I have a horrible Diet Pepsi habit. I'm talking like 5 or 6 cans a day. I keep trying to wean myself down, but haven't been successful yet. Maybe by putting it out there I can keep myself mroe accountable.

#2 The other day I found myself saying to my children, "I am not the entertainment director on a cruise ship. Go find something and play!" I just wanted 10 minutes alone. I felt bad about it later because as part of Dill Pickle's issues he isn't really capable of sustained play on his own for a good period of time. All I wanted was a few minutes of Mommy time. Is that so bad?

2011-01-10T09:27:00.002-06:00

When there's a birthday in Dill Pickle's class, the kids are allowed to bring a pre-packaged store bought treat. Most of the time it is something that Dill is allergic to. His teacher has a mini fridge/freezer in the classroom and lets me put a few cupcakes or muffins in the freezer for him. This way he can still have a special treat when there's a birthday in the class and not feel left out.

I checked the birthday poster the other day when I dropped him off and I noticed there was a birthday over the weekend. The birthday girl would surely bring treats today so I figured I had better make something. I went to the fridge and the cabinet and saw that I didn't have the ingredients I thought I did, so I pulled out my recipe binder. In this binder I have all kinds of recipes- ones we love, ones to try out and ones that will never be made in this house again. I found this Fruit and Veggie Muffin recipe from Erin at $5 Dollar Dinners. I've never made it before and I had all the ingredients.

Ingredients
1 cup flour
3 T canola oil
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup mashed or grated fruit or veggie ***See ideas below!
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In bowl, combine eggs, oil, sugar and mashed fruit or veggie. Whisk. Mix well.
3. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix until it forms into batter. Add nuts if you like.
4. Pour into muffin cups.
5. Mini muffins: Bake 8-10 minutes. Regular muffins: Bake 15-2o minutes. Tops will turn golden.
6. Cool on cooling rack and then serve to hungry little people!

***Fruits and Veggies: 1 cup mashed banana, 1 cup grated apple, 1 cup squash and 1 cup grated apple (double the recipe), 1 cup grated carrots (add 1/2 cup raisins if you like), 1 cup peeled and grated zucchini, 1 cup blueberries, 1 cup bananas and 1 cup strawberries (double the recipe)…or 1 cup of any other veggie you like…just mash or grate them up!

I made these muffins with 1 cup grated carrot and 1/2 cup raisins and of course omitted the nuts. I also used 1 cup whole wheat flour even though she suggests 1/2 cup white and 1/2 cup wheat. We are trying to cut white stuff out of our diet so I don't have any white flour in the house. The muffins smelled heavenly while baking and they taste great too!

I like Erin's recipes because not only are they frugal, a lot of them are also dairy and soy free too! She is having a book signing for her new book The $5 Dollar Dinner Mom Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook at a nearby Borders this week. I just might go.

2011-01-07T20:13:00.003-06:00

The sickies have hit The Squishy Pickles. It started last Saturday morning with Dill Pickles. He woke up with a fever and was vomiting. All day. The vomiting subsided a bit Sunday, but then we were greeted with a lovely rash. Huh? What could he be having an allergic reaction to? He hasn't eaten anything since Friday at dinner and all he has been drinking if G2 Gatorade. Daddy Pickles and I decided a trip to the doctor was in order on Monday.

Scarlet Fever. When you hear it, makes you kinda go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!! right? Run for the hills before you get some crazy illness from centuries ago!! Turns out Scarlet Fever isn't anything more than strep throat and a rash. Dill got a script for some antibiotics and the doc said "Don't worry about Sweet Pickles. Scarlet Fever only happens in those 3 and over." Wow. Glad we escaped that one by 4 months. But guess who started vomiting right when Mama and Daddy Pickles were ready to hit the sack that night? Little Sweetie. Back to the doctor the next day. Yep. Scarlet Fever. Guess we like to buck the rules around here.

Which brings me to what I originally wanted to write about. Somewhere in time, Dill Pickles got it into his little head that when you are sick, you need a pukey pot. Not a pukey bucket or even a pukey garbage can, a pukey pot. Of course it had to be my 8 quart Farberware soup pot. When there's puke flying everywhere, you're going to grab what you can to contain it, so I let him throw up in the pukey pot. I washed it out every time and then used a lysol wipe and also tossed it in the dishwasher and made sure to run the sanitize cycle.

I was ok with this for a while. Then we went through the latest round of illness and I decided that is was just wrong. Even though I sanitize the life out of it, I just can't let my kids go puking in a pot that I use to make chicken soup. Yuck. Gross. Awful to the extreme. So tonight while Dill Pickles was at basketball, Sweet Pickles and I hit the thrift store looking for a new pukey pot. No luck unless you want a 2 quart sauce pan. Somehow I don't see that making a good pukey pot. I will keep searching though and hopefully before the next round of illness hits The Squishy Pickles we will have a brand new pukey pot so Mama Pickles can use her pot to make some chicken soup.

How about you? Do you have a pukey pot?

2011-01-04T08:44:00.001-06:00

I just read the funniest book I have read in a looooooong time. I was laughing out loud so much, Daddy Pickles came into the bedroom and asked me what I was smoking. When Did I Get Like This?: The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer, & Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be had me laughing so hard I cried. I marked passages to read to Daddy Pickles so I could show him that I'm not that loony. There are other moms out there who think and feel the *exact* same things as me. Gosh, there are so many stories in her book that I want to tell you about, but then I'd be afraid I'd spoil it for you. Run to your library and get this book. Now. You will need it. It will make you smile and be happy to be a mom. Amazon even has it for Kindle. I'm not an affiliate, I just want to make it easier for you to get to this book. Go. Now. Do it. Push all other books to the side of your nightstand and give this one a read.

2011-01-03T08:00:00.001-06:00

Not a thrilling post, I know. But I learned the hard way that things on your hard drive don't last forever. My laptop crashed the weekend before Christmas and I was able to save a lot of stuff, but not all. So next year when I go looking for library books for December I can come right back here and know where it is.

A City Christmas Tree by Rebecca Bond
Christmas for Ten by Cathryn Falwell
An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco
Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney
What’s Coming for Christmas by Kate Banks
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro
The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola
Four Friends at Christmas by Tomie de Paola
Sharing Christmas by Kate Westerlund
The Spirit of Christmas by Nancy Tillman
Little Owl and the Star by Mary Murphy
The Bakers Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale by Aaron Shepard
The Friendly Beasts by Sharon McGinley
There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve by Pam Munoz Ryan
Mary, The Mother of Jesus by Tomie dePaola
Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson
The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski
The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola
A Pinata in a Pine Tree: A Latino Twelve Days of Christmas by Pat Mora
Joy to the World by Tomie dePaola
All for the Newborn Baby by Phyllis Root
The Mighty Santa Fe by William H. Hooks

I'm not sure what our book theme will be for January. Last year I'm pretty sure it was snow. I don't know if I want to do that again or not. I guess I'll know when I hit the on-line card catalog and see what's available at my library. Wish me happy hunting!

2011-01-02T20:26:00.003-06:00

My goodness. I didn't post a darn thing in December, huh? I guess that's what you get when you wait until the middle of November to start sewing a birthday present and 4 Christmas presents. Every year I say I am going to start sooner. Go back and check my posts if you don't believe me. :) And each year I don't. Hrmph. Maybe one of these years I'll learn my lesson.

I have ben composing lots of posts in my head; do those count for anything? I'd like to post about the awesome capes, shirts, crowns, masks and arm cuffs I sewed for Christmas for my sons and my nieces. I also need to get around to documenting the Christmas books we checked out of the library so I know for next time. I guess I'll need to get right on that because most are due tomorrow.

And I've also decided I just need to take time for me. I love Daddy Pickles and my little pickles with all my heart and soul, but I just need to make some time for Mama Pickles. My sister gave me the book Run Like A Mother for Christmas. I've only read the first chapter or two, but it is already kicking me in the butt to start running again. I ordered new running shoes yesterday because I'm sure my pair from February are just too worn out as they have become my daily shoe.

I'd also like to clean up our diet. Daddy Pickles and I keep trying to eat healthy food and we succeed it at for a little while. Then slowly, bit by bit, all the junk ends up in the house again. I have no willpower. I don't. No matter how hard I try, if it's there, I eat it. Daddy Pickles promised me that he will stick to it this time. We're starting off slowly. No more store bought cookies in the house. I'd like to move on to chips and the like next, but Daddy Pickles wants me to cut out my Diet Pepsi. I don't know about that. I don't drink coffee so that's my morning joe. Who knows. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

2010-11-27T22:21:00.004-06:00

Chronicle Books is having an awesome promotion right now- Celebrate the Haul-idays! All you have to do is visit their web site and find $500 worth of books you'd love to have on your shelves at home. Post the list on your blog and BAM! You're entered to win all of those books. You can win my list too! Just post a comment on this post and if I win, you win my list too! Hurry. This contest ends December 10th.

Here are the books I'd love for the boys:

Duck! Rabbit!

Monet's Impressions

Creature ABC

Stereobook: Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs Roar, Butterflies Soar!

I Know a Lot of Things

The Dinosaurs' Night Before Christmas

Eric Carle's Dream Snow Pop-Up Advent Calendar

N is for Navidad

And to Name But Just a Few: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue

C Is for Caboose

Tools

Art Up Close

C is for Construction: Big Trucks and Diggers from A to Z

The Elves and the Shoemaker

Walk the Dog

The First Christmas

The Hanukkah Mice

The World Almanac for Kids Puzzler Decks: Trucks, Trains & More, Ages 3–5

One Too Many

Zoom

Around the World with Mouk

The World Almanac for Kids Puzzler Deck: Kindergarten Skills, Ages 3-5

Big Rabbit's Bad Mood

Magritte's Imagination

B Is for Baseball

Tony and the Pizza Champions

The Big, Bigger, Biggest Book

Oh you can't forget some books for mom!

Every Day's a Holiday

I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper

Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms

The Little Book of Saints

Don't forget to post a comment so you can win all of these books too! You can also go here and see all of the other blogs participating in this awesome promotion. See one with a great list of books? Leave a comment for them as well!

2010-11-03T12:00:00.001-05:00

My grandmother passed away a little while ago. It was expected, but that isn't making it any easier. I love you Grandma! The boys will miss you GeGe. I think I'll be taking a blog break for a bit.

2010-11-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Dill Pickles had a really tough day yesterday. That meant Mommy and little Sweet Pickles had a rough day too. I was trying to get Dill calmed down to take a nap or at least stop bouncing and crashing all over the house. He was sitting, errr.....no, he was jumping and climbing all over me while I was sitting in the rocking chair trying to get him wrapped in his weighted blanket. I was really at the end of my rope and really tired because I didn't sleep well the night before. Out of no where Dill grabs my face with his two hands, looks me in the eye and starts singing "Two, four, six, eight! Who do we appreciate? Mommy! Mommy! Yeah Mommy!" I started crying. Where on earth did he learn that I asked. My teacher he replied. Now you have to give me a high five and sing my name! I sang and gave him a high 5, then I tossed him into his bean bag with his weighted blanket to take a nap. The nap didn't happen, but somehow we managed to have a peaceful, meltdown free afternoon.

2010-11-01T09:28:00.004-05:00

How about a post with lots picture and random stuff. I guess it's all kinda related. I finally started the Harvest blocks from Shannon Makes Stuff. Did you you know it's illegal to sell spray paint in our wonderful city? I'm sure that ban has greatly decreased the amount of tagging. Yeah right. I bet the taggers have no problem heading off to the suburbs to buy their spray paint. I should have been like them and did it too. No wonder the paint at Joann's was $0.69. This is what the wood looked like after 2 coats of paint. I found some other paint that we used 4 years ago to paint a mural on Dill Pickle's wall when he was a baby. I figured old paint couldn't make it any worse, right?

Our wonderful pumpkins. Daddy had to represent his favorite football team while Sweet Pickles chose a happy jack o lantern.

Mama Pickles went with a scared pumpkin and Dill Pickles wanted a jack o lantern with teeth. Every morning Dill brings his pumpkin into the house and it goes everywhere with him. The bathroom, his bedroom, the basement. I think it's his new best friend.

Instead of real candles we used battery ones from Walgreens. The bigger pumpkins had 2 candles; the smaller pumpkins used 1. They worked out really well. Especially since Dill has been lugging his all over the house. :) Finally! The finished Halloween costumes. Aren't they the cutest race car driver and dalmatian you have every seen? I ended up making a hat for Sweet Pickles because I just couldn't see him keeping that hood thing on his head. Daddy Pickles helped me turn a pattern for a monkey beanie hat into a dalmatian. I told Daddy he should become a pattern maker.

Speaking of Daddy Pickles, I love him with all my heart, but last night at 11:15pm he came to me with a big hole in his work pants and asked me to fix them. I thought I had quite a few more years before the boys started bringing me last minute things. Maybe Daddy just wanted to help me get ready for them.

2010-10-28T16:43:00.003-05:00

I know I try to stay anonymous on here, but we can let my first name slip, right? Heard of the blog ohdeedoh? They write about everything for kids and I was in one of their posts today! My friend Sarah was looking for a boyish dollhouse for her son and I told her about one my boys have been drooling over at Costco. Our friend Roni is a contributor at ohdeedoh and thought it was a great find too so she decided to blog about it! Read her post here. Check out the rest of the posts too. Some of the kids bedrooms are insanely beautiful. They would never last a second here.

2010-10-27T22:44:00.003-05:00

Yahoo!! Both Halloween costumes are finished with time to spare! Here's Sweet Pickles in his dalmation costume. I still don't have a picture of Dill Pickles in his race car driver costume, but he is wearing it tomorrow for OT. Sweetie has his Halloween party at school tomorrow. He can't wait to be a puppy.

2010-10-23T15:34:00.003-05:00

Well that's odd. My Google Followers hasn't appeared on my blog in a while. I finally decided to tackle it today. Some good ole Googling (is that even a verb?) told me that Google Followers doesn't seem to appear when you use the Shelfari widget. I deleted Shelfari and tada! My Followers are back. I dunno. I liked having my Shelfari there, but I like my Followers too. Maybe we can come up with a friendly compromise.

2010-10-21T22:29:00.002-05:00

Can I please just get 5 or 6 more hours in the day? Really. A nanny and housekeeper sound good too. I don't need both. Just one or the other. :)

2010-10-15T12:00:00.002-05:00

One Halloween costume down, one to go! I wish I had a better picture than the one that is on Daddy Pickle's phone. Maybe I can get Dill to stand still long enough to snap a pic. When his race car driver costume is on he is raring to go!

Feeling your pennies are pinched a little too tight? During the month of October if you create a wish list at Growing Tree Toys, you can Win Your Wish List! All you have to do is create a wish list before October 31st and you can win up to $1000 worth of toys from your wish list. Mine is full of building blocks, dress-up clothes and yes, even a doll house. I don't see any reason why boys can't play with doll houses!! I could put more on my list like the puppet theater and puppets. Oh what fun I could have shopping!

2010-10-13T08:50:00.002-05:00

What on earth was I thinking when I waited until 2 weeks before Halloween to start sewing 2 Halloween costumes????

2010-10-11T13:05:00.008-05:00

I just got back from a fun shopping trip to Joann's and Michael's with my mom and sister. Dill Pickles wants to be a race car driver for Halloween. I am going to sew his this costume except he wants the middle contrast to be red, not yellow.

Sweet Pickles want to be a dalmatian so I am going to attempt to turn this pattern into a dalmatian. I'm pretty sure I can. I'll just have to jazz up the ears a little. Grammie suggested being thrifty and using the same pattern for both boys instead of buy a separate dog pattern. Why didn't I think of that?
At Michael's I picked up some Mod Podge. I want to try and decorate my house a little more for the holidays, but we need decorations that can stand the abuse of 2 little boys. Shannon at Shannon Makes Stuff had this great tutorial for making a fall harvest decoration. Instead of me running around trying to gather all the pieces, I bought the DIY kit from her ETSY shop.

If this turns out pretty well I'd like to make this one too. She sells this as a DIY kit as well.
Now I'm off to hem and wash fabric while the boys are pretending to take a nap!

2010-10-10T22:00:00.003-05:00

Yahoo! I received my book swap partner from Zoe at Playing By The Book. I will be sending a wonderful picture book to and receiving a picture book from Claire in Australia of Ope Shope Hope. How exciting! What book to send, what book to send? I have a bunch of our favorites running through my mind right now. As Dill Pickles likes to say, "This is going to be kinda tricky."

Speaking of Dill Pickles, today was his 4th birthday. Happy Birthday to my favorite big brother! Well, I guess if you'd like to be technical it still isn't his birthday yet because he was born just a few minutes before midnight. :) Sadly, his day was spent on the couch and in bed sick. We had a small party for him yesterday at Grammie's house and then Dill and Sweet Pickles were set to have a sleepover at Grammie's house while Mama and Daddy Pickles went to a wedding. By 8p Grammie was calling Mama Pickles to let her know that Dill was rather sick and at 10p Mama and Daddy Pickles picked up sick little Dill Pickles and Sweet Pickles and brought them home. Dill was ok with being sick on his birthday. I told him we could have cupcakes tomorrow if he was feeling better. Daddy Pickles was sick today too. I hope no one else gets it!

2010-10-09T12:00:00.001-05:00

Is is sensory or is it behavior? Isn't that a question we're always asking? I know I am constantly pondering that in my head. Earlier this week I went to conference given by Carolyn Murray-Slutsky and Betty Paris who wrote the book Is It Sensory or Is It Behavior? Let me tell you it certainly made me think. It made me thing about a lot of things. Of course Dill Pickles constantly popped into my head while we were watching short video clips of students. We had to figure out why the child was acting the way they were and what they were trying to tell us. I could only think is this how it's going to be for Dill once he gets into first and second grades? Are his teachers going to understand his sensory needs? Are they just going to think he's a bad kid who can't sit still and pay attention? Sometimes it was all I had to keep from crying. But who knows what the future holds. For now I just have to live in today and only think about one tomorrow at a time.

2010-10-07T20:42:00.003-05:00

It has been feeling a lot like fall around here. So much that the other day we actually had to turn our heat on. I was resisting as long as possible, but when it dropped to 61 degrees in the house I had to give in. The boys have been very into leaves and fall. We got new fall books from the library. I'm working on getting them up in Shelfari, but I saw this wonderful idea on I Can Teach My Child. All they did was take duct tape and make a bracelet sticky side out and then take a walk outside. Because the sticky side is out, little ones can stick anything they want to their bracelet. I bet the boys would love collecting leaves on a walk. Be sure to check out the original post.

2010-10-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

I love books. I often wonder if it is the teacher in me, or was it my love of books that lead me to be a teacher. Anyways, I picked up a few books to help me out with teaching Dill and Sweet Pickles about our faith. I just love paperbackswap.com and half.com for books. Nothing like free or cheap new and used books. These are my newest books. I already read The Catholic Home a few weeks ago when I got it from the library. I liked it so much I had to buy it.

2010-10-02T12:00:00.001-05:00

With 2 weeks of great days at school under the belt for Dill Pickles, I think I can finally post about what was causing his crying at school. We usually call Dill Pickles by a nickname, for the sake of the blog, let's call him DP. He goes by DP almost all the time, except for when he's in trouble. Then it's most certainly the full name Dill Pickles. At school last year, Dill just wrote DP on his morning sign in card. This year his teacher wanted him to try writing Dill instead. She felt it was important to learn how to spell his full name. I agree. There are going to be formal times when he will need to write his full first name. Apparently Dill was not ready to make the switch from writing DP to writing Dill. All he had to do was trace over the letters, but it was too much for him and he just didn't know how to say it, so he cried. And cried. And cried.

One day on the way to school I asked Dill for the 9 millionth time why he was crying and he blurted out, "I don't like school because writing Dill is too hard. I just want to write DP." Wow. I thought about it and you know, Dill is still only 3. Writing his full first name might be too hard for him right now especially since he does have fine motor skill problems. I told him I would talk to his teacher.

Dill has 2 teachers in his classroom, a regular ed pre-school teacher and a special ed pre-school teacher. Since it was the special ed teacher who told me at the beginning of the year that she wanted him to write his full name, I figured I would talk to her. She was with another parent. The regular ed teacher walked up to Dill and handed him his name card with his full first name and a marker. He started sobbing. This confirmed for me that he was just not ready to write his name. The special ed teacher came running over and I explained everything to her. No problem she said. We can switch back to DP. Since that day **KNOCK ON WOOD** we have not had any crying at school. I wish just wish we could have figured it out sooner so Dill didn't have to be stressed for so long. It was only a week, but I'm sure it felt like an eternity to him.

2010-10-01T21:50:00.003-05:00

Zoe at Playing by the Book is coordinating a picture book swap. It sounds like a lot of fun, so I signed up. Want to participate? Clicky below.

2010-09-30T12:00:00.003-05:00

We had an appointment with our new allergist the other day. I wasn't too fond of our old one, but we were limited to him because of our insurance. We found our new allergist when Sweet Pickles was in the hospital. He was the pulmonologist who consulted with the infectious disease doctor. When we found out he was an allergist as well we asked if he was taking new patients. He said he only dealt with the "big" allergies. We rattled off our list- milk, eggs, peanuts. Come on down was his immediate response.

At our appointment I told him Dill was having some issues with using the nebulizer every morning. It was a constant fight. He said no problem. We'll give him a puffer with a spacer. Poof! Just like that. When we mentioned the same problem to our old allergist, oh well, it's just something you'll have to deal with. He's too young for an inhaler. Our new allergist also gave us an eczema treatment plan (which was a heck of a lot more than our other guy did). After only a few days of this new cream- shazam! The boys legs look incredible! I can't remember the last time the back of Dill Pickle's knees looked normal. Maybe when he was born? I can't wait to see them looking like normal legs again.

We go back in 2 months for Dill Pickles and in 4 months for Sweet Pickles. Have I mentioned I love our new allergist?

2010-09-18T21:13:00.003-05:00

Lots of separation anxiety this week at school for Dill Pickles. I think we may have solved the underlying issue, but I am afraid to post about it for fear of jynxing it. I will post about it next week as long as we keep having success. Sweet Pickles loves school. He even made a point to tell Dill Pickles that he is a big boy and doesn't cry at school. Way to help your big brother out there Sweetie. :)

I did make this yummy dinner last night. We all loved it except for Dill Pickles. It was something new so of course he "Just couldn't like it." I will make it again and hopefully Dill will try it again. I think it might have been the quinoa. It does have a different kind of texture. Due to allergies we obviously omitted the cheese.

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup water
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
4 large green peppers
3/4 pound lean ground beef (90% lean)
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cans (8 ounces each) no-salt-added tomato sauce, divided
3/4 cup frozen corn, thawed
1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese

Directions
Drain tomatoes reserving juice; set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add quinoa. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile, cut peppers in half lengthwise and remove seeds. In a Dutch oven, cook peppers in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water; invert onto paper towels.

In a large skillet, cook the beef, onion, garlic, parsley, paprika, salt, pepper flakes and pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink. Stir in one can tomato sauce, corn, quinoa and tomatoes; heat through.

Spoon into pepper halves. Place in a 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Combine the reserved tomato juice and remaining tomato sauce; pour over peppers.

Cover and bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until peppers are tender. Sprinkle with cheese; bake 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted. Yield: 4 servings.

2010-09-13T23:07:00.003-05:00

Transitioning back to school has been a lot harder on Dill Pickles than anticipated. I'm hoping after another week of the new routine he will be ok. The littlest things that wouldn't seem important to one person are so important to Dill. He wakes up at 640a every morning. Last school year he would watch the last 15 minutes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney Channel. When Shaun the Sheep came on he knew it was time for his nebulizer. Then breakfast, then get dressed and off to school. The Disney Channel has changed its lineup. Now it's Handy Manny and Dance-A-Lot Robot. He likes those shows. But it's a new routine. And it is taking Dill longer to adjust than I thought.

2010-09-06T12:00:00.001-05:00

I can't believe school is starting tomorrow! Where did the summer go? My boys are growing faster than I ever thought they would.

Sweet Pickles

Dill Pickles

2010-09-05T12:00:00.002-05:00

Daddy Pickles and I both attended Catholic schools. We wanted our children to do the same, but I just can't see a Catholic school being a successful place for Dill Pickles with his sensory issues. We unfortunately know that the school closest to our house wouldn't be a good match for him based upon talking to others in the neighborhood. This saddens me, but this will just bring us to do something better for him ourselves.

Starting in a few weeks Dill Pickles will be attending Children of the Lord at my mom's church. It's a Sunday School-like program that goes on during 9:30am Mass. I taught Children of the Lord when I was in high school. It makes me smile to now be sending my son there.

While I am confident that Dill will learn a lot, we will still be doing things at home as well. I was so excited to read a post by Lacy at Catholic Icing announcing that she would be posting a Catholic pre-school curriculum weekly she is using at her child's co-op pre-school. I'm sure I could have come up with things like this myself, but it will be so much easier to use the bulk of what someone else has come up with and tweak it a bit for my own. I think we will do her activities on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I still have to decide if we will do them right away when Dill Pickles comes home from school or in the afternoon after naptime. We will just have to see what will work best for us!

2010-09-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

I've updated our Shelfari with our new library books. Can you guess why we chose this theme? :) We have a few more on request from the library. We hope they come in soon!

2010-09-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

Sweet Pickles wanted his own calendar in his bedroom like his big brother Dill Pickles, so I stopped by Dollar Tree a few weeks ago and picked one up. I thought I had more contact paper than I really did, so I had to come up with some other way to laminate the calendar because I promised him he would have it the next day.

I saw this on another blog and I can't remeber where for the life of me. I have a laminator at home and I just used two laminating sheets overlapping each other. Make sure that the sheet feeding in first is on top of the second sheet.

As it feeds into the laminator it will get kinda wonky at the end. I wasn't worried because my cards did not go all the way to the end.

Once your laminating is out of the machine you will see that the wonky part is now a little wrinkly. That's ok. You're going to cut it off anyways. :)

Of course I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I'll try and take picks of both boys' calendars tomorrow.

2010-09-02T19:51:00.003-05:00

Both Dill Pickles and Sweet Pickles start school on Tuesday. I am excited, but sad. As challenging as our summer was, I am kinda sad to see them go. But they won't be gone long. Dill's class is only 2.5 hours long and Sweetie's is 2 hours. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be busy days. Take Dill to school, take Sweetie to school, hang out for an hour, pick up Dill from school, pick up Sweetie from school, head to my sister's house for lunch, take Dill to occupational therapy while Sweetie stays with my sister, get Sweetie, head home. Phew. Leave the house at 7:45am and return at 3pm. Wow.

I found something else to add to my Christmas list- this adorable spool doll Nativity set at Holes in My Shiny Veneer. I just had to post it here so I wouldn't forget about it! I should have plenty of time to find spools on sale at Michael's and then raid my mom's fabric stash for the necessary scraps. Yippee for a Nativity set I don't have to worry about the boys breaking into a million pieces!

Hmmmmmmmm.........

2010-08-28T11:44:00.002-05:00

I thought had scheduled 2 posts to go automatically but they never did. Hmmm..... maybe I don't know how to schedule posts afterall. I put them up today and I guess I'll have to figure out what I did wrong. I was so proud of myself that I had written stuff ahead of time. Oh well.

Mama Reads Again!

2010-08-27T12:00:00.002-05:00

I love to read! For a while I wasn't. The little pickles kept me too busy. I just did not have time. I was not a happy Mama. Then one day I decided that I needed to be happy and take some time for me. I started reading again here and there. There was plenty of reading time while Sweet Pickles was in the hospital. Who can sleep there when you have machines beeping and booping and people coming in and out of your room all day and night. So here's a list of all that Mama has read since June. I think it's a pretty good list if I do say so myself.

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and The Battle of the Labrynth by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian by Rick Riodran

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain

Loving Lefties: How to Raise Your Left Handed Child in a Right Handed World by Jane M. Healey

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Look Me in The Eye by John Elder Robison

Right now I am reading The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions for Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day by Meredith Gould.

Books in my 'To Be Read' pile include:
Wild Things: The Art of Raising Boys by Stephen James and David Thomas

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen

Growing an In Sync Child: Simple, Fun Activities to Help Every Child Develop, Learn, and Grow by Carol Kranowitz and Joye Newman

Have any good book suggestions? I am open to just about anything.

Christmas in August?

2010-08-25T12:00:00.002-05:00

It is August and yes, I am thinking about Christmas. I've actually been thinking for a while about it, I just have not had the chance to blog about it. As I fell over a toy for the zillionth time the other day I decided that the boys had too many toys. They don't need any more toys and certainly not toys that are loud an obnoxious.

I tried to make my own toys/gifts for Christmas last year and it kinda worked out, but not like I had hoped. I didn't get nearly everything done and this year I vowed to start sooner. Then Sweet Pickles got sick and life was put on hold. I did finally manage to finish making pillows for my sister that were supposed to be her Christmas gift almost 2 years ago. I just gave them to her the other day while they were in town visiting. I forgot to take a picture of them, but they were really nice.

I have lots of ideas of things I'd like to make for Christmas gifts. Alphabet bean bags, number bean bags, softies, card table play houses, pillow pets. I just need to sit down and figure out who is getting what and then get started. I think that will be my goal for the week. I'd like to post them on here so I won't lose my silly piece of paper with my list, but then my sister would know what her kids are getting .....errrrr....... supposed to be getting for Christmas. Think she can keep a secret?

Hello?

2010-08-24T10:41:00.005-05:00

Yes, we are still here. It has been quite a summer.

Sweet Pickles ended up being in the hospital for 2 weeks. He was sent home at one point with a PICC line so that we could administer his IV antibiotics at home, but ended up right back in the hospital less than 36 hours later. After nearly another week in the hospital Little Sweetie was finally able to go home.

Once home Mama and Daddy Pickles had fun administering IV antibiotics 4 times a day for the next 6.5 weeks. Finally near the end of July, Sweet Pickles was deemed healthy enough to stop taking antibiotics and the PICC line was removed. Our summer fun was finally ready to begin at the end of July, because, well, there's only so much fun you can have when you are hooked up to an IV for 7.5 hours a day.

We have been busy the past month doing all the things we couldn't do before- swimming, visiting our cottage, playdates with friends, going to story time at the library and bowling. School starts in 2 weeks and we'd like to cram as much fun as we can into our remaining free time. Once we get back into the swing of our school routine, I hope to be posting regularly. I have lots of things rattling around in my pickle jar. For now I will leave you with this picture of Sweet Pickles and his PICC line that he lovingly called his "tubie."

Can we please just get well?

2010-06-07T22:44:00.002-05:00

I was sick. I got better.
Dill Pickles was sick. He got better.
Sweet Pickles got sick. So far he is not better. Little Sweetie has been in the hospital since last Thursday with a staph pnemonia. Sunday he was transferred to a children's hospital. Today we learned he has an abscess on his lung. For now they are hoping it goes away with the multitude of antibiotics being given to Sweet Pickles. If not they will have to sedate him and drain it with a needle.

Please send good thoughts and prayers our way. Being hospitalized this long is starting to get tough for the whole Pickles Family.

Yuck!

2010-05-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

I think that's the only word for it. I was sick all last week. This week the boys are sick. We've also gone from winter to summer in a matter of days. Yuck!!

Summer is Coming

2010-05-15T20:17:00.003-05:00

Before you know it, summer will be here. Dill Pickles does best with structure, structure, structure. Can I say it again? Structure. Lazy days of laying around doing nothing turns into meltdown after meltdown round these parts. So far we have 3 things planned for the summer; our usual weekly OT session, a new weekly group OT session and free bowling from Kids Bowl Free. Ok, that will take up about 9 hours of our week. What do do with the other 159 hours left in the week? I'm not so sure yet. We're looking into a 2.5 hour day camp program. It's so close to summer though I'm don't know if they have any spaces left. Of course we have the summer reading program at our local library that kicks off June 14th. This year's theme is Reading is Art-Rageous. I found this weekly meme and I thought it would be fun to try and participate. We'll see how it goes.

Yes you can!

2010-05-12T20:04:00.002-05:00

Yes, you can re-dye a playsilk! A trip to the grocery store this afternoon produced 5 more lemon lime and grape Kool Aid packs. I can't find any blue Kool Aid to save my life, so I bought some Berry Jammer by Wylers. Just before dinner I mixed up 4 cups of hot water, 1 cup of white vinegar and 5 packs of green Kool Aid. I poured it into my big soup pot and brought it to a slow boil. I plopped the playsilk back in viola! The color went into the playsilk as fast as the last time. I quickly did the purple and had the same great results.

I have been going back and forth between typing this post and coloring the last 15"x60" playsilk with the Wyler's Berry Jammer. That playsilk sucked up the color just like the other ones. I am so excited to finish these and make some more. The weather was cold and rainy here today and the boys had so much fun playing with them.

You'd think I would have picked up more batteries for my camera was I was out, but no, I forgot.

Regular Moms vs Special Needs Moms

2010-05-11T23:03:00.002-05:00

I follow the blog Hopeful Parents and I loved this post from today. I laughed so loud I was afraid I was going to wake the boys. I cried a little too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Playsilk Follow Up

2010-05-11T22:09:00.004-05:00

Oh well. I was just talking with my mom about my playsilks. Her Bachelor's is in Textiles. I called her to ask if she thought I could redye the playsilks I made tonight. Maybe it would give them a more even color. She wasn't so sure it would work. Seems the vinegar might have already set the color in the fabric and not allow it to take in any more color. She said I could try it again and see what happened. I might. For future endeavors she suggested a bigger pot, more water and more Kool Aid packets. She said the generic Kool Aid most likely used a different/cheaper color agent which made it harder for the fabric to soak it up.

Something else I forgot to mention. When I used the generic Kool Aid, my hands were stained something horrible. When I used the Kool Aid brand tonight, not a drop of color on me. I was afraid of looking like a rainbow at pre-school pick up tomorrow!

Playsilks and Pretending

2010-05-11T20:05:00.005-05:00

Dill Pickles has trouble with pretending. I am always looking for ways to help promote creativity and open ended play with him. I've been wanting playsilks for almost a year now, but I just could not justify spending $10-$15 on a square of colored silk. I stumbled upon a blog a while ago (I can't remember which one) where the mom made playsilks. I thought that was a great idea and I tucked it away in my brain for someday.

A few weeks ago playsilks popped back into my head and I knew there had to be a tutorial out there somewhere. I Googled and came up with this one from Confessions of a Stash Junkie. I ordered three 35"x35" and three 15"x60" Habotai 8mm silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company. They arrived quickly and I stashed them on the every growing pile on my dresser. Yesterday when I was at Food for Less I picked up a bunch of generic Kool Aid packets on sale. This morning while Daddy Pickles entertained the boys, I tried my hand at dying two scarves- one 35"x35" and one 15"x60".

I followed mama k's tutorial to a t. I even used 5 packets for good measure. After an hour, my water still wasn't clear or a milky color and it was getting close to lunch. I had to stop and rinse them out and let them dry. Here's some pics.

I love the bright colors! I did wash them in the washing machine and the colors faded a little but not too much. The boys had so much fun with them. Actually, they were fighting over who was going to get which one. I knew I had to do more after they went to bed, so I quickly ran to Jewel after dinner. I picked up some grape, lemon-lime and lemonade Kool Aid brand because they did not have any generic brands. The large orange scarf did have a few white spots in it from being wrinkled in the jar, so I thought I would try putting the mixture right into the pot and then put the scarf in the pot. I also thought maybe using 5 packets was too much, so I only used 3 this time.

I was in for a surprise, let me tell you! First, my camera battery died and I didn't have any replacements. Then, wow. Maybe it was because I used the Kool Aid brand and not the generics, but the scarves sucked the colors up the instant I put them into the pots. The parts of the scarves that went into the pot first are a deep color and the part that went in last is a lighter shade. It looks tie-dyed. Maybe if I used all 5 packets there would have been more dye left for the rest of the scarf. Who knows. The next time I try it (and I assure you I will be making many more of these for us and as gifts for others) I will use 5 packets and a smidge more water.

Where has the time gone??

2010-05-02T08:32:00.003-05:00

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Pickles!! We love you!!

Procrastination

2010-04-28T20:46:00.003-05:00

Instead of cleaning my kitchen or making applesauce oatmeal muffins for Sweet Pickles to bring as a birthday treat to Moms, Pops and Tots tomorrow, I am updating my Shelfari. Procrastination reigns supreme tonight!

Books and Muffins: A lovely Combination!

2010-04-27T20:46:00.004-05:00

We have our new library books! I am working on getting them into Shelfari, but I have to find them all first. Dill Pickles is CONVINCED that he is packing a suitcase with his swim trunks and his swim shirt, getting on a purple plane and flying to a vacation house so he can go to an indoor water park. Him parading around the house in full swim regalia is the norm these days talking about how he and Daddy Pickles are going to go in the tube. Today he decided that he was bringing all of his library books with. I think most of them are still in his suitcase. I guess I'd better tell him that if his luggage is over 50 pounds, Southwest Airlines will charge him.

I'm not a morning person. I never really was and now that I go to be later and frequently get up at night with little boys who can't sleep or to roll over a snoring husband, I am really not a morning person. In an effort to make the morning routine a little easier I have been making batches of waffles and pancakes and freezing them. I've also decided to try making some muffins. I made 12 of these muffins last night and as of now there aren't any left. While I was waiting for dinner to cook I whipped up another batch, this time I added the flax seed and some cranberries. I'm allergic to flax seed so I omitted them the first time so I could see what the muffins tasted like. The cranberries were also waaaaaaaaaay in the back of the cabinet and last night at 10pm I was too lazy to get a chair and get them out. I unfortunately can't find the blog I got the recipe from, but it wasn't hers anyways. She gives credit to Tosca Reno.

Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins
1 cup Dry old-fashioned oatmeal flakes
1 cup Unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup Skim milk, soy milk, rice or almond milk (your choice)
2 Egg whites, beaten
2 tbsp Ground flax seed
2 tbsp + 1 tsp canola oil
1 tbsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground nutmeg
3/4 cup Whole wheat flour
1/4 cup Dried cranberries
1/4 cup Dried cherries
1/4 Raisins

Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare muffin tin by lining with paper or silicon liners, or cooking spray. Combine oatmeal, applesauce, milk, eggs, flax and oil in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, combine dry ingredients, including dried fruit. Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and pour wet ingredients into it. Stir until all ingredients are just combined. Using small ladle, fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 15 - 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

And last but surely not least, we found out today that Dill Pickle's pre-school class has been saved for the 2010-2011 school year!!!!! But I am told next year at this time it will be up on the chopping block again. They just mysteriously "found" a large sum of money, but that money won't be there next year. Oh well. One year at a time I guess.

Goodbye Gardening!

2010-04-22T21:28:00.003-05:00

Our library books are finally due tomorrow. We have reached the renewal limit; it's time for a new theme. Dill Pickles usually picks the next theme, but he couldn't come up with one for the next round. Our current theme has been gardening based upon Dill's latest obsession with growing plants. He has been learning about plants and gardening in school. His class planted a Peace Garden today and Sweet Pickles and I were on hand to help. Auntie Sheesh helped as well. I haven't gotten a chance to look at the pics she took on my camera. Maybe if there aren't too many other classmates in the pictures I will post some. I think I will take this lack of a theme opportunity to check out some math themed books. Dill has been bringing math themed books home from the classroom library. I found a bunch in the Lakeshore Learning catalog last night. Now I'm off to see if they are at my local library. If not, I guess we'll try request them. :)

Still waiting.....

2010-04-21T20:16:00.003-05:00

.... sort of. Insurance finally came through and said oh yeah, we're supposed to cover that. So now we wait for our therapy clinic to bill us for all of the co-pays we owe for the past four months.

Still waiting on the decision to be made if Dill Pickle's classroom will be slashed with the budget. At parent teacher conferences tonight Dill's teacher said she still knew nothing, but she has a city-wide pre-school meeting on Friday. She said as soon as she finds out anything, she will let us know. Daddy Pickles and I signed quite a few petitions and will be writing out own letters to our wonderful politicians. Maybe we should have Dill make an appointment with these folks and deliver them in person.

2010-03-31T21:40:00.003-05:00

Wait wait wait. That's all I seem to be doing lately. Waiting to hear from our insurance company if they are going to cover Dill Pickles occupational therapy. Monday they were supposed to announce which pre-school programs would be closing and which would be staying open. Nope, they changed their minds. Now they are waiting until Friday. Nice. They had better not push it back again because I don't know how much more waiting I can take.

2010-03-24T08:25:00.001-05:00

I don't have to wait any longer for a letter from the school to explain what is going on with Dill Pickle's classroom next year. It was on the news last night and in the newspapers today. Next year our great and wonderful city will only be offering the Pre-School for All program in schools that have 93% poverty or more. This means Dill Pickle's current classroom will not be open next year. He will either be in a special education classroom or bussed to a school with 93% or more poverty so that he can be in a pre-school class with typical developing peers. We are beyond upset and angry. He has come so far in the 3 months he's been at his current school. What the (*#@(*&$(* are we going to do?

2010-03-20T21:34:00.002-05:00

17,000 teachers were pink slipped in our state yesterday. Now schools must struggle to find classrooms for some 425,000 or more students who lost a teacher. I know at least one of Dill Pickle's teacher got a slip. I've even heard that next year his classroom won't exist due to budget cuts. He's in a state Pre-School for All classroom. His school district and many, many others have not received their money from the state to help with education. I am hopeful that he will still have some classroom to go to in the fall, afterall he has an IEP that mandates he is in a classroom. But our school district is the largest in the state and they try to get away with "bending" the rules. Dill Pickles and I will not be bent or broken. He will not fall between the cracks. I will not let him.

2010-03-07T22:15:00.002-06:00

Can someone please explain to me how some of these moms who have 8 kids and homeschool them all find the time to post daily? I have 2 kids and aparently I can't even post once a month. *sigh* At least I updated our bookshelf to show what books we are enjoying this month. Later this week we plan on attending a HUGE flower and garden show. Dill Pickles is obsessed with flowers and plants lately. We hope to put this obsession to good use by starting our garden from seed this year. We'll see how that goes. :)

2010-01-13T22:03:00.002-06:00

Back to update you on our "Snow Dough" experience from this afternoon. It lasted for all of about 15 minutes. Once we made snowmen the boys took the snowmen apart and started throwing the play dough balls all around the kitchen. Lovely. Snow Dough balls covered in dog hair. While I was excited to try it, next time I think I need to wait longer in between play dough days. We brought out our play dough box on Monday and the boys played happily for over an hour. I guess they used up all of their doughmagination the other day.

2010-01-13T11:54:00.003-06:00

It seems that the day goes smoother for Dill Pickles when it's structured and planned. Yea for figuring out what seems to work! Oh my for almost no time to get anything else done. This afternoon we plan on playing with "Snow Dough." The homemade recipe was inspired by a post on My Montessori Journey. Here's the basic idea:

1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)

I added 1 tsp. of vanilla and 1 1/2 tsp. of a white/shimmering glitter and it doesn't seem like enough. It smells a bit vanilla-like, but I can still smell the salt. I think next time I would add 1 T. of glitter. We'll see how the boys like it this afternoon after nap time.

2010-01-10T20:12:00.003-06:00

Maybe I really need to start making my Christmas gifts in March! I still need to make my sister's Christmas gift from 2008. I did make a bunch of gifts though. Dill and Sweet Pickles each received a wooden name train. They also got bean bags with a letter from their name on each bag. I think they really like them a lot. Of course I still owe one to my niece as a Christmas gift. My needle kept breaking and I was getting frustrated so I just stopped.

I added a Shelfari to the sidebar. We pick a monthly theme and check out lots of books from the library based on the theme. This month is winter. The boys really like all the books. I can't believe I actually checked out Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I had to memorize that and a ton of other Frost poems my senior year of high school for English class. I thought I was done with Frost. Aparently not.

I'm really going to try and write more here. I want to. I really do. I am just beat by the end of the day, especially is Daddy Pickles is at the fire house.

2009-11-27T22:48:00.003-06:00

Each Christmas I say it's going to be a homemade Christmas. I've been sort of successful at it for the past 2 years, but not nearly as successful as I'd like to be. I still owe my sister her gift from last Christmas. So far this year I've made one Christmas gift and one birthday gift. I have one more birthday gift and five more Christmas gifts to go. Maybe next year I should start in oh, say, June instead of November.

2009-11-25T22:53:00.003-06:00

Ahhh... the joys of semi-single parenting when Daddy Pickles is at the fire house. The bedroom monsters showed up tonight. They were purple and orange and blue. Shooing them into the kitchen didn't work. Ushering them out the front door didn't work either. Why oh why did the monsters have to visit on the night that Mama Pickles was supposed to make a pumpkin pie and pumpkin cranberry muffins for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow?

2009-11-21T19:27:00.000-06:00

How hard can it be to find a measley 20 minutes a day to write a post? Aparently very hard in this house. I am trying to do better. I promise.

2009-08-04T21:22:00.002-05:00

You know, the more I read and the more I learn about homeschooling, I'm thinking that it might be the way to go. :)

2009-07-30T21:08:00.006-05:00

I don't know that I even have the means to put into words how I have felt for the past week, let alone the past month. As a special ed teacher I knew our state sucked at providing for its students with disabilities, but I never knew just how crappy Illinois was until I tried to navigate the system for my son Dill Pickles myself.

Way back in April, my mom's gut feeling that my son has sensory issues and possibly sensory processing disorder was confirmed. Occupational therapy helps treat sensory issues and yesterday, July 29th, was the first day my son actually received his first day of real therapy. You want to know how? Daddy Pickles and I paid for it ourselves. Sure, he has an occupational therapist through Early Intervention that provides services at our house- if he decides to show up. We got sick and tired of waiting for the "system" to start working correctly. Months of promises have turned into nothing. Transition to pre-school? Yeah, that's a joke. By law we should have had our transition meeting already. But you know, it's summer and heaven forbid our HUGE public school distrct dishes out any money for summer staffings. Our HUGE public school district is a joke. Part of me wants Dill not to qualify for early childhood services because maybe nothing at all is better than crap. And as a former special education teacher/administrator I know it's not always the teacher's fault. They can only do so much with what they are given. They can only spend so much of their tiny paycheck to supplement the little they get from the school.

I could go on forever, but I'm starting to get upset all over again after I finally calmed down a bit. Daddy Pickles and I have a feeling I'm going to end up homeschooling Dill. That's not a bad thing, but I really wish he could be in a classroom with his peers. Tell me, what teacher is going to go out of his/her way to help a kid who bounces around more than a Super Ball thrown into a ceiling fan? There aren't many. Teachers already have to do so much work in the classroom and then take hours more work home with them. I just pray we are fortunate to find one of the few that are out there.

2009-07-12T22:27:00.005-05:00

I guess it's been a busy summer because I haven't been able to post here nearly as much as I'd like. I have all these ideas swirling around in my head- things I'd love to write about and activities I'd love to do with my boys, but I just never get a chance to sit down and blog during the day. Ever. By the time the boys are in bed I'm just beat. I'm hoping with the arrival of our new dishwasher on Tuesday the dirty dish monster will finally be tackled.

Dill Pickles is still very interested in reading dinosaur books. We just got a new batch last week at the library. One favorite right now is Edwina, The Dinosaur who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems. Edwina loves to bake chocolate chip cookies for everyone in town. Dill Pickles has been dying to make chocolate chip cookies and drink monkey milk (rice milk) just like Edwina and Reginald Van Hoobie Doobie on the very last page of the book. The other day Dill spotted a box of blueberry Jiffy Muffin Mix in the cabinet and insisted they were chocolate chip cookies and we just HAD to bake them. Sure sweetie, I'd love to turn on the oven when it's 87 degrees outside.

Dill Pickles says, "Stir, stir, stir."

Sweet Pickles wants a turn too!

The cookies are ready for the oven

We colored while we were waiting for the cookies.

It was so hard to wait for them to cool.

Sweet Pickles couldn't wait for the cookies, so he chomped on his crayon. Chocolate chip cookies and monkey milk just like Edwina. Yummy!

2009-06-30T20:40:00.002-05:00

Teaching My Little Bookworm inspired me to go looking for a recipe for homemade recipe for puffy paint. I can't wait to try it!

What You Need:
For Each Color:
1 Cup of Flour
1 Cup of Salt
1 Cup of Water
Powdered Tempra Paint - Amount varies based on desired color
1 Squeeze Bottle for Each Color
Mixing Bowls and Spoons for Each Color

Here's How:
1. Mix the flour, salt, water, and tempera powder together in a bowl.
2. Stir until the mixture is thick and drips in thick, puffy drops from your spoon.
3. Pour or spoon paint into squeeze bottles.
4. Have students apply the puffy paint onto paper. When dry, the paint will remain puffy and will appear raised.

Tips:
1. As students work, if the paint begins to separate in the bottles, shake the bottles to mix the paint again.
2. You may refrigerate the puffy paint for storage for a few days. Check it for spoilage before using. As always, do not allow children to put puffy paints in their mouths or around their faces. 3. Wash off hands promptly.

2009-06-23T21:55:00.001-05:00

While we were at the library the other day, I picked up the pamphlet "Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!" 100 Books for Every Preschooler. The books were broken down into groups. I'll highlight the ones we've already read. As we read more, I'll come back and highlight those too. More books to read, yahoo!

Especially for Babies
Black on White by Tana Hoban
Dots, Spots, Speckles and Stripes by Tana Hoban
The Everything Book by Denise Fleming
Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings by Matthew Van Fleet
Good Night, Baby by Clara Vulliamy
Hand Rhymes by Marc Brown
Max's Breakfast by Rosemary Wells

Rhythm, Rhyme, and Good Sounds
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow
Here Comes Mother Goose by Iona Opie
I Went Walking by Sue Williams
Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino
Jamberry by Bruce Degen
"More More More" Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams
My Very First Mother Goose by Iona Opie
Old Black Fly by Jim Aylesworth
Over in the Meadow by Ezra Jack Keats
Pat-A-Cake and Other Play Rhymes by Joanna Cole
Rain by Manya Stojic
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw
Tomie dePaloa's Mother Goose by Tomie dePaola
Tortillas and Lullabies/Tortilla y cancioncitas by Lynn Reiser
Tortillitas para Mama and Other Nursery Rhymes by Margot Griego

Simple Concepts
1 Hunter by Pat Hutchins
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
Color Farm by Lois Ehlert
Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Wals
One Guinea Pig is Not Enough by Kate Duke
Spot's Big Book of Colors, Shapes and Numbers by Eric Hill
Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang

Let's Hear It for the ABC's
ABC I Like Me! by Nancy Carlson
Alphabatics by Suse MacDonald
Ape in a Cape by Fritz Eichenberg
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
Kippers A to Z by Mick Inkpen

Pattern Stories
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock by Eric Kimmel
Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodinka
The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy
The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by James MArshall
Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
The Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort
The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Paul Galdone
Titch by Pat Hutchins
The Very Hungry Catepillar by Eric Carle
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

City Sights, City People
Abuela by Arthur Dorros
Biscuit Visits the Big City by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
Listen to the City by Rachel Isadora
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Night on Neighborhood Street by Eloise Greenfield
Parade by Donald Crews
Round Trip by Ann Jonas

Sleep Tight, Sweet Dreams
Asleep, Asleep by Mirra Ginsbug
Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban
Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Good-Night Owl! by Pat Hutchins
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen
Time for Bed by Mem Fox

Favorites and Classics
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Corduroy by Don Freeman
Curious George by H.A. Rey
George and Martha by James Marshall
I Like Me! by Nancy Carlson
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt
Olivia by Ian Falconer
Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
The Story of Ferninand by Munro Leaf
Swimmy by Leo Lionni
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats
The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza

Very Begining Readers
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
Mine's The Best by Crosby Bonsall

Starting School
Annabelle Swift, Kindergartner by Amy Schwartz
David Goes to School by David Shannon
Edwards Unready for School by Rosemary Wells
Franklin Goes to School by Paulette Bourgeois
Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! by Nancy Carlson
Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate
Off to School, Baby Duck! by Amy Hest
School Bus by Donald Crews
Timothy Goes to School by Rosemary Wells
Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes

2009-06-16T21:13:00.002-05:00

ABC and 123 is hosting a giveaway from Baby Love Blankies. The blankets look so warm and lovable and the I Spy bags adorable! I have had making I Spy bags on my list of things to do FOREVER! How wonderful would it be if I could win them and cross something off my list. I know Dill Pickles would love the Thomas the Tank Engine or Dinosaurs bags. Those are his favorite things right now. Sweet Pickles loves anything that his big brother loves so I know they will be well loved and fought over. :)

2009-06-15T21:21:00.003-05:00

Teaching My Little Bookworm is hosting a "Pre-School Activities in a Bag" giveaway. I've wanted to buy one of these books for a while, but it would be wonderful to win one instead! Click here for your chance to win.

2009-06-15T14:52:00.004-05:00

The Bookworm's Booklist recently posted the top 30 picture books according to School Library Journal. She is asking other bloggers to copy and paste the top 30 from her blog and then highlight all of the books we've read to Dill and Sweet Pickles. We've read the books in red. The Squishy Pickles plan on participating the in Chicago Public Library's Summer Reading Program and it looks like we already have a great start to our summer reading list.

#1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)

#2: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)

#3: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1979)

#4: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)

#5: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003)

#6: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1941)

#7: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (1955)

#8: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (1939)

#9: Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (1928)

#10: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004)

#11: The Story of Ferdinand by Monroe Leaf, ill. Robert Lawson (1936)

#12: Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (1994)

#13: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (1948)

#14: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, ill. Lane Smith(1989)

#15: Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes (1996)

#16: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (1987)

#17: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (1947)

#18: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (1970)

#19: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (1982)

#20: George and Martha by James Marshall (1972)

#21: Bark, George by Jules Feiffer (1999)

#22: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, ill. by Mike Smollin (1971)

#23: Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban (1964)

#24: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, ill. Lois Ehlert (1989)

#25: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (1942)

#26: Corduroy by Donald Freeman (1976)

#27: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (1902)

#28: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, ill. Ray Cruz(1972)

#29: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (1969)

#30: Brown, Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr., ill. Eric Carle (1967)

2009-06-14T21:47:00.001-05:00

Sweet Pickles enjoys his big boy reading time.

2009-06-13T19:50:00.001-05:00

Dill Pickles read his first book out loud tonight! He was so proud of himself. The book was "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton. We used to read this book all of the time, but then it was pushed to the back of the bookcase. The Pickles took a trip to Wisconsin Dells for a few days so I grabbed a few books that we hadn't read in a while. Blue Hat, Green Hat was one of them. I read the book maybe 4 times in the past few days. This afternoon Dill Pickles wanted to read it before nap time. I wanted to challenge him, so I told him to read it to me. Dill did ok, but he needed some help. Tonight before bed, Dill wanted to read it again, but he said he wanted Daddy Pickles to listen. So I got Daddy Pickles and Dill pickles read the whole book by himself! No, he didn't read the words, but he it's a very repetitive book and he looked at the pictures. I hope this is the beginning of a life long love of reading!

2009-06-09T16:45:00.002-05:00

Land Of Lincoln Readers is the theme of our library's 2009 summer reading program. Registration begins on the 10th and I plan on registering Dill and Sweet Pickles. Since they are under the age of 9, they must have 25 picture books read to them by the end of the program to earn a reader's t-shirt. I don't think we'll have a problem reading 25 books. I'm sure we'll tackle that in the first week! We love reading around here. Dill Pickles is really into dinosaurs lately so we have a few dino books checked out from the library. We read them each at least once a day.

2009-06-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

Another big thank you to Katie from Katie's Literature Lounge. She hosted a giveaway for the new book "Abigail Spells" by Anna Alter. If you've been to the Pickles house you will know that the living room floor is often covered in book! Dill Pickles love to read books and Sweet Pickles has just started becoming really interested in books. We love books in this house and can't wait until it arrives. I usually never win anything and in one weekend I've won two giveaways- how exciting!!

2009-06-08T20:23:00.000-05:00

A big thank you to Allie from No Time for Flashcards. She hosted a Melissa and Doug Chunky Number Puzzle give away. I posted my comments and we were chosen in the random drawing. Dill and Sweet Pickles are going to be so excited to have another puzzle. We already have the Melissa and Doug Chunky Alphabet puzzle and the boys love it so I know this one will be a hit as well!

2009-06-08T19:50:00.001-05:00

The Squishy Pickles welcome you! Quite a name, I know. I've been wanting to start a blog for the longest time, but I just couldn't come up with a name. The other night my son Dill Pickles and I were reading the book "Five Little Piggies" by David Martin and in the story little piggie was making roast beef and added some squishy pickles. Dill Pickles began laughing hysterically and I decided that The Squishy Pickles would make a wonderful blog name. I happen to love eating pickles as well.

I follow a lot of other blogs written by moms and they often have contests or or fun things to do, but you must post about it on your blog. I just didn't feel right posting it on my other blog. That blog is mainly for my family members so that they can see pictures of my boys Dill Pickles and Sweet Pickles. So instead I've created a blog just for that purpose. I'm sure they'll be other stuff here too.

Let me tell you a little about The Pickles Family. Mama Pickles stays home with her two wonderful little boys. Before these little joys entered my life I was a special education teacher for 8 years. Once Dill Pickles and Sweet Pickles are older and in school I'm thinking about returning to teaching myself. I miss it a lot, but I wouldn't trade my days at home with the boys for the world. Daddy Pickles is a fire fighter and a nurse. He's a busy guy. Dill Pickles is 2.8 years old and always on the move. Sweet Pickles will be 13 months in a few days and he is never more than a few steps away from his older brother.

That's it for now. Grab a jar of your favorite pickles and take a bite. I hope they're nice and crunchy. Or squishy if you prefer.