A Chinobilly Playdate

What a super fun day we had last Thursday with our sweet friends. I had the best time watching all ten kids cool off in the tiny chinobilly pool, visiting with amazing friends and of course eating tasty food. My girls loved every minute with their friends and even wanted to know if they were coming back for another play date the next day.
Have a great week everybody!

No-bakes

I think Gary Chapman, the author of The Five Love Languages was wrong. This Chinobilly believes there are actually six love languages. And I feel it is my duty to share with the world the 4 people crazy enough to read my blog that yes food IS a love language, a beautiful love language. Just the other day I was sniveling on the blog about having the case of the grumpies. Later that afternoon my sweet friend Stephanie brought over 3 loaves of homemade bread to cheer me up. Oh yes, it did. I felt loved, refer to Love Language #3: receiving gifts, true ,but oh the bread was so good, so comforting, so buttery, so delicious. Gary asks the question “Could it be that gift giving is a fundamental expression of love that transcends cultural barriers?” Possibly, Gary, but I believe FOOD is THE fundamental expression of love that transcends cultural barriers. Maybe I’ll have to pull him aside one of these days, say like when I meet him in heaven, and explain my philosophy. Oh never mind, by then it would be too late. Aren’t you glad you have me to blog about such important matters?
Don’t answer that.
Sometimes though, I just want to self-medicate with a good cookie, and I don’t want to run the oven. Since I was 12, the answer to many of the world’s problems has come in the form of anything served on a dessert plate no-bake cookies.
I’ve had other peoples’ no-bakes, and (my least favorite) purchased no-bakes, but mine are really the best. (It’s a modification of my mother’s recipe and several tweaks here and there over the years.) They are also quick and easy to make, and (unless you need the cookies because your offspring are driving you nuts) they are a great thing to make with kids. Here goes:
No-Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar
¼ cup butter
½ cup milk
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I’ve used crunchy, but if you go this route you should use a little more peanut butter overall, maybe 1/3 cup more).
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups instant oatmeal
Place sugar, butter, milk and cocoa in large saucepan, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil for exactly one minute. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and vanilla until peanut butter melts. Stir in oatmeal. Drop by the spoonful onto waxed paper or a silicone baking mat, and allow to cool.
*Note: you can leave out the cocoa but if you do I would recommend you up the oatmeal to 3 cups.
Love,
The crazy chinoiblly sharing this 6th love language with the world, one recipe at a time.

Playdate with Grace

Hello bloggy friends. I've been meaning to post this layout for a while now....So stinkin' cute! Thanks Stephanie for the super fun day. Hope to do it again really soon.

I get to scrapbook with my friend Jen today then I'm off to bible study tonight. I'm very excited about it. I should be in my garden weeding today but I'm up for some much needed girl talk and scrap therapy (the only thing that keeps me paper scrappin' is the girl talk). Weeds, like laundry will always be there. I do have a bunch of veggies beginning to look promising so I'll try to post pictures soon.

Happy Monday!

Gloomy no more...

*I read this quote that prarie chick wrote on her site and it totally fits my state of mind. Thank you praire chick for saying what I couldn't.*

One day you wake up and the forecast is gloomy,

for the weather and for your attitude alike.

One of those days steeped in the quagmire of melancholy

Wherever you look things are downright messy

and all you can do is pray helplessly for reprieve.

But just when you think you’re about to go down

God sends a helping hand

a listening ear… a shoulder to cry on

and all at once the sun emerges

and the flowers that had closed up tight

waiting for a softer light

open wide and smile at you.

and you smile too.

I finished my chores early today. My kids are were napping. My spirits are lifted after a rough couple of weeks. I promise to be back in bloggy land next week. Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts and prayers.

Fairwell Stinkerbell

**Tissue Alert** For those of you who were blessed to know and love our sweet girl...

Bailee 12-3-06 to 6-18-09

Bailee our precious yellow lab lived a long, happy life. She was such a sweet, gentle, sensitive, loyal girl. She never complained and was a very patient friend. She brought a lot of joy to our lives even in her last days of old age.
Not wanting our sweet dog to suffer any longer, I had to make “the very difficult decision” on Thursday. One of the hardest decisions I pray I ever have to make.
I held her and loved her while the vet did the injections.

Just like that, it was over.

Our “Stinkerbell” was gone...

Now I have spent these past days with tears in my eyes, and wonderful memories in my heart. I miss her terribly already. It feels like there is a huge aching hole in my heart that she used to fill. No one could have asked for a more loving and loyal girl.
Thank you for being such a wonderful and faithful companion Bailee girl, we’ll always remember you.

Rambly Ramblings

Hello, just sitting on my blog porch. Thanks for joining me! It’s been a strange few days; I’m in a funk and bein' a grouchy gus too! Snivel, snivel, snivel.
I babysat one of our nieces over the weekend; such a sweet baby. Having another body in the house sort of threw our whole routine out of whack though. The kids and I are still feeling out of sorts and she's been gone since Sunday morning! Good grief!
I got a great surprise from the mailman on Saturday though. I’m taking 9 week online photography course beginning June 22nd and the instructor, Karen Russell, sent a really neat binder all wrapped up so super cute. Maybe it’s a girl thing but I felt really special receiving such a nice “present” to put all of my lessons in. I'm hoping that I will gain some much needed experience in the photography department. I sure do love learning and hopefully Ethel (that's my camera's name) and I will do well. I'm very excited about this course!

My, my, my it’s a B-I-G binder.

We missed church on Sunday due to some conflicts in the babysitting schedule. I was sort of bummed to miss the last message in the “7 series” but it will all work out. Thank goodness I can listen online while the girls nap. Anyway, Matt and I decided to take the girls to see a movie, their first movie! We were amazed at how good they were through the whole movie. They never sit that still long at home! All of us enjoyed the experience and we are looking forward to seeing Ice Age 3 in July.

Well, I've been rambling long enough. As much as I'd like to hang out in my room all day.

This lovely chore awaites!

The picture is proof that sticking to a cleaning/chore schedule is woth it. So glad I don't have 4days worth (that's 2 loads a day) of laundry to fold EVERY day.

Blessings,

The Grouchy Chinobilly Housewife

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 4

Man do I have big plans, hopes and dreams for our garden. We planted the garden on the first of May, a little premature perhaps considering how cool it's been here lately. My great helpers lasted all of 3 and a half minutes before they got sidetracked by lizards teasing Oli. The nice thing about their short attention spans is that it meant they were out of my hair and I could plant in peace. Truly though they are great little helpers and the garden has been a joy a lot of work for all of us. The kids really love to help me weed and water the garden.
So in the past several weeks, I’ve been rambling about how this chinobilly gardening wannabe started a garden from scratch —preparing the soil, sprouting our plants, and now planting and caring for our new masterpiece. I treasured the garden so much as I watched it grow from nothing but a speck in our backyard to the prettiest garden I’ve ever seen. I’d ground even the dogs if they so much as thought about setting foot in it. But after The Great Strawberry Massacre One Sunday in 2009, as well as several stealing-more-than-one-unripe-strawberries-while-mommy-wasn’t-looking-episodes, and even a few plants suffered death by overwatering, I learned to roll with the punches and not take the whole dadgum thing so seriously.
So I hope all of you experienced vegetable gardeners got a kick out of watching these rookies chinobillies at work. I've enjoyed the journey too! You know where to find me…'til next time.

Of princess pedicures and cupcakes

When Matt and I got married, he had his sights set on starting a family sooner rather than later. I was slightly more ambivalent; I knew having a child would probably wind up somewhere in my future, but I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to procreate. Still, we decided to take a "let nature take its course" approach to family planning—an interesting strategy for a woman who just married a man with 6, count them 6, other siblings. After 5 years of “letting nature take its course” we decided to get serious about starting our family and no one was more excited than Matt. After another year of fertility treatments and heartbreaking let downs we knew the Lord was telling us to stop beating our heads against a wall and adopt so we decided to travel the road of adoption. Again, no one was more excited than Matt – he’s an excitable guy! I was excited too!
So after Kim announced, "You need to meet us in 5 hours to pick up your twin daughters!" and it was determined that all fingers and toes were present and accounted for, I could feel the fear hovering so thick in the air, I could have cut it with a knife. Though I was beyond ecstatic, praising God for His blessings, I was also scared stiff, in one single instant, my life, my love, metamorphosed into something completely different than what I had imagined it would be.
So when I called my friends to share the news of our amazing blessing, all I could really say was, "So, what do you do with girls?" They all knew the answer, of course, "what you do with girls" is the same thing you do with boys!
During these last few short years, I gained and lost a total of 56 pounds, went through about 16,000 diapers and made approximately 6,840 bottles. I lost 2,523 hours of sleep and did 31,392,847,287 loads of laundry. God help my poor washing machine. And somewhere along the way, something miraculous happened: I figured out exactly what to do with girls:
We play together, we learn together, we pray together, we work together, we talk together…we make a dang good team! We do this together…

The girls had requested I make cupcakes "for daddy"~ yeah right ~ and we play princess and paint their nails (Bree had been coloring her toenails now for weeks and I was trying to avoid the inevitable).

We baked cupcakes before breakfast so they would have plenty of time to cool. After we got home from MOPS we ate lunch while wearing our tiaras. And had a great talk about princesses and how the girls are God’s princesses. It was a very sweet time just hangin’ with the girls. After lunch we realized the girls needed to wash their feet before I could paint their toenails so we soaked their feet in the bathtub for a bit. Then the nail polish was chosen and the fun began. After the girls toenails and fingernails were all dolled up I frosted the cupcakes, got out the sprinkles and let the princesses go to town decorating "daddy’s" cupcakes.

Life is good, very, very good!

To protect and serve

Always on duty...

Even with a sore foot...

Oli spent the day at the vet today. He mysteriously hurt his foot on Friday and it progressively got worse over the weekend. By Monday he wasn't even putting pressure on that foot so off to see the vet we went. Oli spent all day there getting x-rays etc. I think he wants to become the mascot for the animal clinic like that fat cat that greats him at every visit. Maybe their treats taste better or something...

The doctor says she couldn't find anything wrong with him but wrapped his foot up and told us to keep him in "confinement" for 3 weeks. I laughed. I think Oli did too. He knows he has a job to do and he doesn't take his job lightly. His little girls are too important.

Out of Africa Trip

We took a trip to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park on May 6th (yes, I am that far behind on my posts).

Doesn't Matt look like his dad?

We conned invited Matt’s parents to spend the day with us. Truly, the kids are still talking about this trip. It was so amazing!
We started off on the Serengeti tour. It was a 45 minute Safari-like tour that felt like it lasted only 15 minutes. Each of us got a carrot when we boarded the bus. The tour guide drove the bus through the “Serengeti” where we got a personal introduction to Humphrey the camel, and the giraffe (can’t remember the poor guys name) who gave Matt a gentle slobbery, wet kiss. Awesome!
After the Serengeti tour we hopped on a trolley. The trolley took us on a tour of the Wildlife Preserve. We saw lions, tigers, wolves, hyenas, Boom-Boom the rhinoceros, a crocodile, grizzly bears and so many more critters. We got off the trolley at the lions habitat and walked the rest of the way at our leisure.

Matt wants the lions job...

The only disappointing part of our day was the meal we paid 46 bucks for (so NOT in our budget). I would highly recommend taking your own lunch or a 2nd mortgage.
Fortunately, we ended our day on a high from the Tiger Splash. We watched 2 tigers romp and play in the pool with their caretakers. It was so exciting even the kids sat still. Simply amazing…the sitting still part.
We needed another couple of hours to finish seeing the rest of the habitats but the kids were tuckered out after Tiger Splash so we took the trolley back to the entrance and headed for home.
It is a day I will treasure forever. Experiencing the wonder and excitement of two of the sweetest little chinobillies I know was so worth it. I’m tellin’ you it’s exactly the ideal place for two or four or six young whippersnappers to spend a day. So please, I beg of you; make the time to load the fam in the car and spend the day together ~ just pack your own lunch!

This is not a paid advertisement. Out of Africa Wildlife park has never heard of me. Out of Africa Wildlife park doesn’t even know I exist, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. I’m a nobody to Out of Africa Wildlife park —just another fool that paid $46.00 for a sorry PB & J lunch. But dang we had a great day!