Field Trip Day!!

The day Zach has been waiting for all month has finally arrived.

Field trip day!

I went with his class on the field trip today. We went to the Children’s Museum and then for pizza afterwards. There were so many parents who came to help that it was split up into two groups of three girls with two parents (only 6 girls in his class) and three parents with their kid plus another, then everyone else went with their own parent.
Zach had sooo much fun. I, well I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was be, but I spent a nice chunk being mad at my sister’s camera I borrowed to take on it.  I'm kinda kicking myself cause I took my sister's camera so it could easily go in my pocket while not being used since I didn't want to haul a purse around all day... yeah it sucked. Like epically. And on top of that the photos are SMALL – like web sized small. And it didn't matter how I messed with her settings the pictures just blew. I took 250 photos... I ended up with only 93 ones semi-salvageable, and they still suck. I guess I'll just chalk it up to a lesson learned.
But yeah, it was fun. This was my first time going on a school field trip with one of the boys. Usually my mom goes since I'm always going into the class to help and do parties. But she said she'd much rather stay home and play with Belly than go with close to 50 1st grades to kid-mayhem central.

Here are a few pictures:

And how Zach rocked his St. Patty’s Day green since we had to wear red:

Germs.

"Momma, bend down."
(lean over and look at Ryan)

"No, like sit on the floor on your knees."
(sit on my knees) "OK... what do you want?"

"This..."
He reaches up and kisses my forehead.
"Oh, thank you Ryan!" (lean to kiss him)

"No."
He kisses each cheek, my chin, my ears, my shoulder, my nose.

"I can't kiss your lips Momma. Lips have germs."

Recipe: Crock Pot Pork Chops

Yummm…

What you need:

2 butterfly pork chops	2 cans golden mushroom soup
1 can sliced potatoes	1 tbsp flour
1 cup water	1 tbsp cooking oil

1. Heat your oil in a skillet on medium heat. While oil heats separate the halves of the butterfly pork chops, sprinkle with pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
2. Brown both sides of your pork chops until they are golden (insides will not be cooked). The time it takes to do this will depend on the size of the pork chops. Remove pan from heat, but don’t mess with it after that!!
3. Cut the pork chops into smaller pieces (I cut each into 6 pieces, you can do more or less depending on the size you want the meat to be) then place them in the crock pot.
4. Whisk your water and flour together until there are no clumps at all. Pour the water/flour into the pan you cooked the pork chops and turn the heat to medium again. Continue whisking until the bottom of the pan feels clear. Add the two cans of soup and whisk until mixed. Heat to boiling.
5. Pour all of the stuff in the pan into the crock pot with the pork, stir until it covers all the meat.
6. About 30 minutes before you are ready to eat add the potatoes and stir until they are coated.
You can cook it on low for all day, or high for about 4 hours. I cooked it on high for 2 hours and then on low for another 3.
Enjoy.


(You can find more recipes and other handmade stuff here:)

A bad day at Black Rock.

Apparently I did not hold the exclusive rights to having a bad day yesterday in my house.

Zach had a bad day at school yesterday. He didn’t get in trouble or anything, but when he was walking to the van when I went to pick him up he had his “woe-is-me” face on. So, when he was in and buckled I asked what was wrong and this is what I was told.

“I only have one friend at school.”

“Uh, no you don’t Zach. You have at least 3, because you’ve been friends with two boys in your class since K4.”

“No Mom. I have one. See, it started when we got to class after breakfast. My friends were doing stuff they shouldn’t, and I told them to stop or they would get in trouble. Then Ms. (teacher) saw them and they all moved their clips. They say it’s all my fault and don’t want to be my friend cause I’m a tattle tale, but I didn’t tattle on them!”

“I’m sorry buddy. I’m sure they’ll forget about it by tomorrow. Did all your friends blame you?”

“No; Austin, Kayden, and Nick would still play with me. But now Kayden and Nick say me and Austin can’t be their friends either.”

“Well why not? What did you and Austin do?”

“We told them that it couldn’t be a three way tie when obviously two of them lost the race. And they did Mom, they were slow and they lost bad.”

“Surely, you, Zachary Evan, were not rude enough to tell them that?”

“Um… maybe.”

“Then tomorrow you better take your butt to Kayden and Nick and apologize and ask if they’ll be your friends again.”

“There’s a problem… I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Austin and I created the ‘We’re Cool and Everyone Else is Losers’ Club. So now everyone is even madder.”

((big sigh and head shake from me)) “Zach, it’s a little early in the school game to making clubs like that. Apologize to your friends tomorrow, that’s the end of it.”

And while we are on a Zach note, though I’m not doing project 52 (intentionally) this year I did decide to play along with a few groups on Flickr and added this photo of Zach to two groups, which both do themes. One group is doing the themes of “Power” or “Up” this week. The other is doing the theme “Darks and Lights.”

You should go check out all the awesome photos posted. :)

The stressing point.

I’m at breaking point for stress.

And this time it’s not because of a bratty Belly, a frustrating Zachy, or a misbehaving Ryan.
I need happy music. ((goes and turns on happy music))

Some of my readers know about the rocky relationship I have with my father and step-mother. And I always feel horrible enough about it without my father “joking” about it in front of the boys. I love my father more than anything, I always have. I was willing to put up with so much disappointment, broken promises, and careless neglect from him when it came to me, but I just can’t allow that for the kiddos. (Mainly the boys since Belly really doesn’t know them) It’s not like they don’t care about the kids, they do. They love them so much, and try so hard to be good grandparents, but at a point you just have to say no. And the boys love them soooo much too.

There were several reasons that led us to no longer send the boys over there, I won’t say what they all were, but one was my father’s alcoholism. The very sad part is that my father is a much nicer man drunk than he is sober so nobody (including my brother and I) has ever gave him any reason not to drink. But I (and John) don’t want the boys seeing that and thinking that it’s OK. I don’t want them growing up knowing that about their grandfather, not at this age where they are old enough to pick up on it.

My step-mother called me today wanting the kiddos to come out for the weekend. The kids already have plans so I don’t feel bad saying no. But I felt bad enough to suggest maybe we could come to dinner on Sunday instead.

You’re probably wondering what’s so bad about that.

My father may not be drunk when we get there, but he’ll probably already be working his way to it. He’ll make comments in front of, and to, the boys about how it’s my fault they never come over anymore and how I’m just a mean mommy – in a “joking” way of course. I can’t stand these comments. They make me feel horrible. Like depressed horrible for days. Because I love my father, my father loves the boys, the boys love him and miss him. I want  them to spend more time with him, but I just can’t, and he refuses to see that. He refuses to see all the times I tried and tried to make it work and then have to watch the disappointment and hurt the boys would feel when he never showed up. This is going to set off the same reaction every holiday does. The boys will start asking and begging to go do sleepover again, and since I can’t tell them all the reasons why not, I get to be the bad guy and just say no. Stupidly, I’m going to be happy the whole time. I’m going to bask in getting to see my dad. I’m going to believe him when he says he wishes he got to see me more. Then I’m also going to be hurt and disappointed when I get home and remember I can’t. I can’t put myself constantly through this anymore. No that’s a lie, I could. I can’t keep putting the kids through it though.

Now I get to worry and stress about this all week, but I can’t let it show, or let John know or John will say no, we aren’t going. And I really do want to see my Daddy.

Saturday Snapshots (3/12) + Update

Oh… what to say about this week.

I had to play a ton of catch up on housework from having us sick most of the week before. This included washing everyone’s bedding, main stuffed animals, and doing a full disinfecting of the bathroom. Not to mention a ton of laundry since only puked on stuff got washed the sick week.

Zach had a friend from school come over one day. It was wonderful watching him play with a friend from school. It was his first no-reason-to-come-over time having a friend at the house.

Belly has been beyond bratty. No idea why. Though she was very good today for a change.

Ryan got in trouble at school every single blessed day last week, which led to a melt-down this morning when we told him we felt he had not done anything to deserve ice cream money today.

The boys and I finished reading Ramona the Pest last night. We were supposed to start Ramona and Beezus tonight (we didn’t realize when we started Ramona the Pest that it was the second book) but poor Ryan fell asleep before we got to reading.

Today was a beautiful 64 degrees and sunny, so once the boys got home we spent most of the day playing in the backyard.

Well, I guess that’s it. Fingers crossed next week is completely back to normal so I can get back to blogging!

Saturday Snapshots (3/5)

(in case anyone is wondering why I haven’t posted all week, my house has had a stomach bug going through it all week, which is finally gone)