Bed time and sleeping babies

Ok for starters My kids have a crazy, early, weird bedtime.... Yes I get odd looks when I tell people what time it is, and even odder comments.. My favorite is..."oh I could never put my kids to bed THAT early... Listen I don't do bedtime for me... (all the time... Though having mommy time is a nice incentive) I do it because that is what my kids need to function the next day. Ok bedtime at my house for the kids (8 year old included ) is 7 pm...At 7 o clock I take all 4 kids up stairs, Nathaniel will shower in the morning so he gets on his pajamas and reads a book in bed. Alex showers and the girls take a bath, everyone is into pajamas usually by 7:15. Then it is time for a story (or chapter in a big book, we are reading the trumpet of the swans right now). Then I take the girls into their room and get them settled down, 9 times out of 10 every one is passed out by 7:45. That one time...well I know when to give up...We had one of those nights the other night...
sighh yes this was taken at 10:29...the girls where wired...It was a fun night....
Hello Caitlynn :). And yes Brianna is "reading" a Stephen King book...good thing there are no pictures LOL, I believe that night Caitlynn was "reading" a book about knights.

And now on to sleeping babies...I love them they are so sweet cuddly and oh squeezable... So for this reason alone I decided to take pictures of my girls napping today ....
don't mind the red mark on her cheek, she had just rolled over...
look at the unruly hair and bright red lips....love you baby sweet dreams...
And now for Caitlynn...oh my word...
I love footy jammies and so do my girls...Caitlynn especially... oh she is just smooshable ;)
check out the sleeping pose...to sweet :) well I hope you enjoyed my pics.
until later!

Good morning

Well this morning my wonderful husband allowed me to sleep in and took all 4 of our wonderful children down stairs bright and early. Yayy me right?... Well no later than 8 am I was awoken by my husband yelling "Oh my G*D!!!!" so I jump up and run downstairs think the things every mother thinks, The baby has found and or swallowed something, or the 3 year old has broken something (breaking something is also a thought for the 6 and 8 year old). I was in sheer panic mode running down the stairs, I didn't even grab my glasses. Which of course meant I couldn't see more that a few inches in front of my face clearly LOL. I get down stairs and Alex tells me "Caitlynn got into the brown sugar"...That doesn't make sense I keep the brown sugar in the freezer... she can't get into the freezer.... I see (sort of) Caitlynn and she is covered in something brown...I squint and feel my way to the kitchen and see (um yeah not so much) the culprit...Someone (Nathaniel) Had gotten out the step stool to get bowls and make his brother and sisters bowls of cereal for breakfast... And he had forgotten to put the step stool away... Which made the counter easy access for a 19 month old on a mission (and this one happens to be very very stealthy) Well apparently she onto the counter and found what looked like the chocolate milk mix she had gotten into last week, and thinking she had made the best find ever got to the floor and started to enjoy her conquests. Unfortunately what she had found was not the chocolate milk mix but a container of baking chocolate....Which led to much spitting and smearing of chocolate every where.. Yes Good Morning mommy! What a fun way to wake up!

Today is..

Quiet, The boys got out of school at 1 we were home by 1:05, the girls were both snoozing by 1:25 and now the boys and I are watching discovery kids enjoying the beginning of the weekend. Oh and the girls are both still napping Yayyyy..

Oh and the cheesy meatball soup... Turned out awesome, I made a cheese sauce to add to it. Made a roux of butter and flour, added 1.5 cups of milk and salt and pepper, then added about 1 cup of shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheese. Then poured it into the soup for the last half hour in the crock pot... (I cooked for 4 hours on high and easily could have done 8 hours or so on low). Oh and my husband loved it also, ate 2 bowls of it when he came home from work. Whats not to love about meatballs and cheese! I'm not sure what i want for dinner tonight though...will probably have general tso's chicken and rice and veggies of some sort LOL. I think we still have half a bottle of this sauce in the fridge..
http://www.mirrotek.com/12-pack-of-general-tsos-sauce-14-oz-bottles-p-114.html?zenid=2poea0jlr4oo9lnrrjhgncfru4
it is pretty good, I usually like mine hotter but this one is mild enough for the kids so it is a keeper...
Tomorrow, I'm still not sure I may make refried beans, or ham.... one of those 2 probably.
well until later!

stuck in a rut...

Ok Lately it seems I have been stuck in rut when it comes to making dinner.... I need new ideas for ground beef. We have lots of ground beef... A few months ago my parents purchased a cow and pig, and we bought half of the meat from them....We still have probably 100 lbs of ground beef...and I am tired of burgers and spaghetti. LOL.
Well yesterday I made Autumn spiced ham
recipe here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Autumn-Spice-Ham-Steak/Detail.aspx.
It was good, but our ham steaks are really thick, which I think left us with a really really tough peice of meat, I think next week I will try it again, but cook it in the crock pot.

Tonight I am making Cheesy meatball soup....
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cheesy-Meatball-Soup/Detail.aspx?prop31=2&strb=1
I don't have any corn so that is out...I left out the carrots in hopes that hubby will eat some of it tonight LOL.
I used a can of beef broth and a can of water instead of the bullion.... And I threw it all in the crock pot to simmer instead of cooking it tonight... Now I have a question though... I have a jar of alfredo sauce, or I can make a cheese sauce out of cheddar and Colby jack cheese that I have... Which would you do??

funny things kids say...

Last week during dinner Alex burped at the table. To which my husband told him, "we don't burp at the table". Alex then says, "But why do you do it?". He he he... Then hubby replies with "I don't know but don't it's rude", and he muttered "you just have my bad genes"....Nathaniel piped up with "no he doesn't he has tiny blue jeans!!!!"

It's been a little while since I updated, just busy here. Last Saturday Hubby and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! My mother in law came up and babysat the kids so that We could go out to dinner. My parents gave a beautiful card and some money for dinner, and my MIL gave us a gift card to dinner, so we got to go to red lobster and enjoy all you can eat shrimp!! yummm I pretty much had coconut shrimp and shrimp scampi (my favorites), hubby pretty much had the same and a portion of the shrimp Alfredo that he couldn't finish. Then we went to old navy and picked up some tights for Caitlynn. Then to Toys r us and got the majority of Christmas shopping done for the boys (we finished the girls earlier last week). Then to target to browse and pick up a few more things. We still have to shop for each other and our extended family but other than 1 or 2 more things we are pretty much done with the kids!

Thats all for now :) until later!

It's a House party!

A while back I joined this site
http://www.houseparty.com/
What an awesome site, you apply to host parties and if you are chosen to host they send you a free party pack to make the party happen!
Well imagine my children's joy, happiness and utter excitement when they found out we were getting to have a cartoon network, star wars The clone wars party! Oh they have been ecstatic for weeks. And weeks ago I got our party pack, That was hard keeping hidden, It contained a light saber, an awesome plastic sculpted mask, lots of paper masks (that are really quite sturdy), balloons, glow sticks, posters, temporary tattoos, and stickers. Oh and a reusable tote bag with yoda on it, and the DVD with the first episode of The new cartoon network show Star Wars the Clone wars. Last night our party happened!

Ravioli part 2

yay for movie night!!
And now onto the food!!!




... I made a mistake when I stacked up the ravioli's...I should have put them out on a cookie sheet in the fridge..Some of the noodles got a little gummy...and stuck to the others...Then I tried to take them apart...some of them ripped...well than I just said forget it...and plopped the pile of them stuck together in the pot of boiling water.. The ones that were stuck came apart while they were boiling...no more tearing hahahaha...next time I'm just throwing them in the pot!
OK so first you want to boil the ravioli's for about 10 min.
then drain...notice the pieces of ground beef, from the noodle i ripped open LOL
Then put back in the pot and add the extra meat from making the ravioli's and the rest of the jar of spaghetti sauce, let heat through
Then serve and enjoy! We topped ours with some mozzarella cheese. It was a very good meal That we all enjoyed...except for Alex... yeah he complained all through dinner...figures hehe
here is my 2 year old's plate
:)