Back From Biloxi!

We are back from the Kindermusik convention in Biloxi. Lots of fun and lots of great new things to share with our friends and families here in Oxford. We especially loved the Drum Circle on the moonlit beach with the bonfire and the marshmallows!

Spelling Bee!

Ryan, my 5th grader, came in 4th in the district spelling bee for kids 5th – 8th grade! We are really excited to be moving on to the county bee next week. Study? He doesn’t think it is necessary. Oh, well. We’ll see how things go…

Snow in Mississippi

This is how we do it in the south. The snow comes in by truck!

Yep, the snowmen are just HUGE around here!

The boys remember real snow from Christmas in Nova Scotia last year. They were not impressed. Shaela thought it was pretty cool doing a project with Daddy.

Wednesday Families, You Asked For It

Knowing I had 4:30 and 5:30 classes to teach on Wednesday, this past week I managed to pull myself together earlier in the day and get something simmering on the stove to be ready for dinner. Mind you, this does not always happen, particularly on a day when Miss-Almost-Two-Years-Old decides not to take a nap. Yes, many a Wednesday evening will find Ian throwing a frozen pizza in the oven while I finish classes.

The Our Time classes have been having a lot of fun “cooking” also!

This week, as I said, I did get the stove fired up and a pot of spaghetti sauce on the go. After class I was directly told by a couple of moms that this one needs to be posted. (I think they were just really hungry but here it is anyway.) Keep in mind that I make BIG batches of this kind of stuff and fill up the freezer for an option to those frozen pizzas.

1 large can diced tomatoes
1 large can crushed tomatoes
2 small cans tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
3-4 stalks celery chopped (small so Daddy doesn’t know it is there) Throw in the leaves too.
3-4 onions roughly chopped
8 or so cloves of garlic pressed
2-3 bay leaves
3 Tbl basil
3 Tbl oregano
2 Tbl marjoram
1 Tbl crushed red pepper flakes
ground black pepper
2 lb. ground chuck, browned and drained
1/2 cup red wine
several shakes of Tabasco sauce
several Tbls of Worschester sauce

In the morning or shortly after lunch I spend a little time chopping and opening cans then walk by every now and again and stir. Everything doesn’t have to go in all at once. I usually get the cans and most of the veggies and herbs in then go take care of STUFF and every now and again come back and add something else. This works for my ultra distracted way of life! I do turn OFF the stove to go run errands, pick up and deliver kids, etc. Just remember to turn it back on when you come in. The smell will usually remind you!

When I find it on sale I buy the big packs of ground chuck, cook it up and put it in the freezer. This is great for something like this because you don’t have to stand over the stove on sauce making day. If I have leftover veggies sitting in the fridge I will often throw those in. Half a zucchini, last nights green beans, shredded carrots, it all works. I often add a few more garlic cloves towards the end for a fresh garlic kick. In our house you can’t really have too much garlic.

Even the Seafood Hater Ate This One!

Ok, maybe he was just really hungry after having such a beautiful day which was not too hot to play outside. They both took full advantage and played with some neighborhood kids ALL DAY outside! Yeah!! One of the things that has always seemed wrong to me as a transplanted northerner is that kids never play outside all summer! They might get the notion but less than 10 minutes and they are back inside. The flip side of this is that, yes, you can go to the park and play for hours after school in January and February.

So here is the relatively quick meal I came up with after getting home from a meeting at 5:30 and having to sit down with the baby until almost 6 before even taking anything out of the fridge.

I started with one of those boxed Near East rice mixes. I chopped up some sun dried tomatoes and threw those in while it cooked.

Thaw some frozen spinach and squeeze the excess water out of it. Saute in some olive oil and add some chunks of feta cheese. Heat until the cheese mostly melts into the spinach.

I had some catfish and fresh basil that needed using so this is a variation of something I found on Epicurious.

4 catfish filtes
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic

Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper. Mix all the other ingredients and spoon over the fish. Broil the fish without turning until done.

Ta-da! Did it take 10 minutes to get it all done? No, but you know the story on that!

Baby Me

Poor little one. She looks so sad here. We realized recently that as the youngest with 2 older brothers Shaela was growing up in a house where the only thing approaching a doll was a Teen-age-mutant-ninja-turtle, Batman or Superman figure. Grandma and I took her doll shopping. That was a whole new experience for this “boy mom.” This is the baby doll she picked out. I was personally thrilled that it didn’t talk or yell at me when I got near it nor did it drink or wet it’s pants. When asked later what her doll’s name was, she gave it a little thought and my 21 month old said, “ME.”

To the Zoo We’ll Go on the Allee-Allee O

The Allee-Allee O, the Allee-Allee O

We have been having so much fun this summer in our Zoo Train Kindermusik classes! We even did a trip to the Memphis Zoo and invited everyone from all the classes to join us. Lots of families went to the zoo – but you know who’s kids I took pictures of?

No, no. Not those little ones! Mine!

Ride ‘em COWboys!

Now that is a monkey if ever I saw one!

No comments, please!



Yes, even the big ones eventually wear out!

Parade Photos

We had so much fun at the 4th of July Parade! There was a GREAT turnout for the Kindermusik contingent. Enjoy these photos and check back in a few days for more.

Notice all the Kindermusik shirts? Green, blue, pink, purple – they were all around along with the red, white and blue!

Getting lined up was only the beginning.
More photos coming in a few days. Stay tuned!

Summer Time and the Livin’ is Easy…

Well, in theory anyway! You have probably noticed that very few posts have been going up this summer. It has been a time to spend with the kids and trying to take it easy. Please note the TRYING. With three kids in the house Mommy and taking it easy do not go well together. It is time to start gearing up for fall now so check back often for lots of fun posts. While you wait here are some fun moments from our summer time.

Multiple Occupation Mania

Isn’t it lovely to have a group of friends who are so very talented? Here is another delightful look into Motherhood by Karen Forgette. This one appeared in the Oxford Eagle just a week or so ago. Again, my children are shown but don’t let them fool you. They are fabulous actors. (If you didn’t know that you might really think they were sometimes grumpy little monsters!)

A few weeks ago, I read a letter to Dear Abby from a man whose fiancée suffered from multiple personality disorder. The man worried he would not be able to cope with her many personalities and mood swings throughout the course of their marriage. I felt sympathy for him, especially since my own husband was unaware when he married me that I would eventually suffer from a similar disorder known as Multiple Occupation Mania, or MOM for short.

Multiple Occupation Mania is characterized by a woman’s rapidly changing perception of her profession. For example, a MOM sufferer may begin her day believing she is a time management expert. Her job is to ensure her clients are awake; fed; clothed; equipped with necessary homework, backpacks, sports equipment, permission slips, lunches, and snacks; and sent to school within a 45 minute time frame, 30 minutes on a good day. This state is characterized by the frequent utterance of such phrases as “Hurry,” “You should have told me that yesterday,” and “I thought you finished that last night.”

Occasionally during this phase, a MOM sufferer abandons her efficiency expert persona to become a search and rescuer. This search and rescue stage is easily triggered by unanticipated remarks such as “I can’t find the black leggings I need to wear for picture day” or “Who took my pre-algebra book?”.

As her day unfolds, a woman who has been diagnosed with MOM spins in and out of several occupational personas. She may perceive herself as a chauffeur. During this phase, she can be heard muttering, “If I pick child #1 up from school at 3, I can grab #2 at the church at 3:12, and #3 from Stone Park at 3:17. Then #1 goes to Scouts, #2 goes to piano, #3 goes to the dentist, and I’ll swing by the grocery for rotisserie chicken.” At other times she may believe she is a personal shopper. She will stride through the stores, list in hand, checking off socks for Matt, a birthday present for Christie, deep purple nail polish for Annie, and a dwarf camellia for the back yard. At home, she may morph into a judge, staring solemnly at her son and pronouncing, “For shoving your sister, you are sentenced to two days of extra chores.”

During the homework hour, a mathematician emerges as the MOM victim tells her daughter, “As I recall the Pythagorean theorem deals with the three sides of a right triangle, but let’s double-check that on the internet.” Next she is convinced she is a short order cook as she prepares a casserole, which her son and youngest daughter love but her oldest daughter hates; rolls, which both daughters love but which her son hates; and broccoli, which everybody hates but which is good for them. A MOM sufferer may finish the evening believing she is a personal trainer as she coaches her son’s soccer team, spots a back walkover for gymnastics practice, or leads a jaunty bike ride through the neighborhood with her brood.

Multiple Occupation Mania can be undetected for several months, even years, until one evening in a fit of overload, the MOM victim will burst into tears and shriek, “I’m only one person” or “There’s only so much of me to go around.” At this point, her spouse must intervene, as mine has on several occasions, unless, of course, he is suffering from Demand Abundance Disorder, or DAD.

(Karen Forgette is recuperating nicely at home with her husband and three kids.)