Colorado Crockers

Dearest Eliana, I can not believe I am the mommy of a 7 year old. When you woke up and I told you I didn't know how to be a mommy to a big kid, you pragmatically told me "ask Mrs. Amy. She has done it twice". Ahhh yes. You have so many great qualities, child, but the ability to get a joke isn't one of them. I love watching you read the children joke book and having to explain why they are funny. While jokes my not be your thing, it isn't because you don't like silliness  You love to pretend and explore make believe worlds of your own creation. You creativity is so endless, I am blown away on a daily basis. I am enjoying this stage of independence and responsibility. I love that you can care for your brother for me when I need your help. You can make your own breakfast, get snacks for your sisters, sort laundry, sweep and mop, clean a bathroom and ride a bike. You are pretty sure you know everything and hate to be wrong. Little ...

 This is the fairy birthday cake. I wanted to get these cute little cup cake wrappers with little paper toppers with fairies. Eliana told me that wasn't very creative. She didn't want CUPCAKES but a real CAKE and she wanted me to make the fairies. Right. I will get right on that. Annabelle just nodded.  Each child who came got fairy wings, a wand, a butterfly hair clip, bright colored fairy hair and a necklace. The were all beautiful. I think all children's birthday parties should include alcohol  Not for the children. For the poor parents who throw them...and the ones who are forced to attend. This years theme for Eliana and Annabelle's birthday was "Fairy Garden". Of course Matt was in Korea the whole week before the party. And the week before that we were recovering from Sandy. It was a feat to pull off, but we did and the girls seemed to have a lot of fun.

Some children have imaginary friends. My son has a best friend already, who isn't imaginary, but seems to be along the same lines. My son loves boobs, mine in particular. Yes, I am sure when he is a teen this post will embarrass the crap out of him, its ok, we have a therapy fund set up for all our children. We sort of expect to screw them up and figure the best we can give them is Jesus and a good therapist. I have happily breast fed all my children. I do this because it is unequivocally best and because I am cheap. Somewhere in my head I once upon a time believed it would help me lose weight. That dream died so I enjoyed another brownie. All of my children have enjoyed nursing, and I pretty much have always enjoyed it too. My son takes this to a whole new level. At first I would say it was a newborn thing, and then I blamed it on a growth spurt. Now lets just call a spade a spade, it is straight up gluttony  The chunk has fat ...

Should. This word and I don't get along. Maybe it is my authority issues, or maybe I am lazy or maybe just obstinate  My reaction to "should" is always "Says who?!" My questioning nature (which sounds so much nicer than "rebellious")  shows up more and more in the way I choose to parent my kids. First, I must confess, I really like my kids. Not just " love them because they are mine" though that is true, but like them as people. I find my days go so much better when I treat them like that, like people I share a home and a life with, rather than treating them like something that needs to be managed or controlled, or on my worst days, escaped from. Elie is in the first grade. Actually, it would be far more accurate to say she is first grade age. Because we are not doing first grade. First, I thought it was because I just suck at home schooling. After a bit, I realized I suck because I don't buy it, I dreaded doing it and it felt...fak...

Extra credit given to those of you who said "whoa..." in Joey from Blossoms voice in your head :) Alright, who can tell me which kid is which?!

I am not sure who is in your circle, who you hang with, and how much you might or might not know about them. Let me give you some insight into the life of a mother of four children 6 and under. Buckle in and put on a bib, it is bound to get messy. I can pretty well guarantee any mother in your life, and certainly the mother of four, is lacking sleep. So when she says the baby did pretty well last night, it means he was only up 3 times. If she rolls her eyes at you when you gripe about an early meeting or night spent up late for a client dinner, it is only because she can't even remember the last time she slept, uninterrupted, for more than a few hours. You might notice that said mother is often wearing cotton knit. This isn't because she is absolutely clueless of what is in fashion. It is because she doesn't give a rip, this was clean and comfortable and she didn't care if the baby puked on it. If you do happen to catch her in denim ...

I am a big fan of food. I like to eat. I put high value on family meals, sitting down together to enjoy good food and sharing about our day. I also have a new born. This is one of the times in my life I am trying to reconcile my "wants" with my reality. Some days, my kids survive on string cheese foraged from the fridge and apples stolen from the the fruit basket. Not exactly the type of sit down, balanced fair that I had pictured in my mind. My life gets crazier as the day progresses, with peak insanity striking my home about 5:30. Poor Matt, who usually find himself walking through the door at a bit before 6, is rarely greeted by the smell of cooking dinner , the sight of a clean home with children quietly playing. More often he has to shove the train track out of the way with one foot while opening the door, try and find at least one of the children' pants and help himself to a string cheese to prevent starvation. My oven was made some time during...

*Picture stolen from a blog who had a similar recipe to this* I have discussed before that is have an intense dislike for mornings. It was bad before kids bad has gotten progressively worse. I feel like every morning the sun greats me mockingly, reminding me of how little sleep I managed to get the night before. Enter the breakfast cookie. Matt has been traveling again. This means I am up with the kids. On mornings he is home, he gets everyone breakfast before leaving for work. When he is gone, I stumble down the stairs, cheery babe in arms, and growl a greeting of  'morning' to any small person I happen to pass. My kids learned while they were quite little not to bug mommy before her morning coffee. These cookies buy me time to make a real breakfast. It holds over small tummies until my eyeballs stop rolling into the back of my head. I suppose they could be a meal if you are on the run bright and early. I refuse to commit to being anywhere wit...

Often when I sit down at my laptop, I have a blog post pretty much written out in my head. I am an internal processor who refines with the written word. Forgive me, this time, for that isn't the case. I have such a heart for "the least of these". Not "least" because they matter the least, but because that is how they are treated. Even our government throws money at the problem, when love and knowing a new way of life is more the cure. Conceptually, my heart bleeds for the broken and disenfranchised. The old, the orphans, the sick tug at everything from my heart to spirit. I talk to others about them, I blog about it. I even give money to causes. I feel so frustrated by myself when my actions struggle to line up with my heart. Yesterday, baby boy was being high needs. He isn't, usually. Pretty chill for a babe of not yet 3 months, content to watch his sister, nurse and nap, snuggle with whomever has a free arm. Not yesterday. He wanted to be held, not hap...

I have a little exercise for you. Put away your running shoes, it isn't that type of exercise. This one requires a paper and pencil. Quickly jot down the things that fill your time. Things like work, shop, clean, surf the web (damn you FACEBOOK) care for children, talk with husband. Now, write down what percentage of your time you spend doing each activity. Ok, new sheet of paper.Now write down what you say your priorities are. Compare lists.  Do you see where I am going with this? Of course you do. If your list is like mine God, family and relationships are close to the top of the list of things you believe to be important. Funny how my time doesn't reflect that. How much of my day is spent caring for stuff, buying stuff, or working so I can pay for my stuff? Driving my kids to activities isn't really the same as being present with them. Occupying the same couch as Matt isn't the same as being invested. Calling my friends for dinner once a week is...

So I thought I might loose some baby weight by joining a CSA (community supported agriculture, or a "farm share") but I am thinking it might not be the case. I have made some amazing pesto, both cilantro lime and basil, that is just delish on pasta or chicken. And then there is the mint that just begs for mojitos. Greens are so good cooked up with bacon and onions. Everyone knows that cucumbers taste great with feta.  But the real problem? Beets. Before I join another CSA, I am going to ask if the farmer has a strange beet fetish. I have received a bunch of beets EVERY WEEK since the summer started. I had never cooked beets before, but always being one to try new things I gave it a go. We roasted them. We steamed them, We grilled them. And as my friend Jen ever so politely put it, the still "taste like dirt". Literally. Huh. So here I am, a crisper full of beets, greens removed and sauteed. I remembered my friend Jodi telling me about a chocolate b...

I don't really feel like I have the words to sum up a life, everything I write will fall short. My friend Aimee passed away yesterday. She fought long and hard, but in the end, the cancer won. You may remember that I wrote about her several years ago. Aimee was in her early 30's when she found out she had stage 4 breast cancer. I didn't understand it then, I still don't today. It seems so unfair, her life cut so short. Just as she should be celebrating her daughter graduating from Kindergarten she is making choices weather to keep fighting or keep comfortable. I know when her husband Joe stood at the alter and said "Till' death do us part" he was assuming they would be old and gray, rocking in chairs and watching great grandbabies. And that is how it should be. Her husband was her biggest advocate, he has stepped up in every way, and now he is left to parent their kids by himself. Our kids are the same ages. I remember watching our first borns learn ...

I buy bananas at Costco. I buy 6 lbs at a time. This sounds like, and is, a lot of bananas. Strangely enough, rarely do I have one go brown. If I do, the girls are thrilled because it means I will be making bread, muffins or this awesome cake. If you left the frosting off, you could call it breakfast. But if you leave the frosting off, we can't be friends any more. If you want to eat it for breakfast, I won't tell. I will be too busy hiding in the bathroom so my kids don't see me eating cake. Peanut Butter Banana Sheet Cake Ingredients: 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 1 cup milk 1/2 cup applesauce 2 squished brown bananas 1 1/2 cup  brown sugar 2 cups flour (if GF use 1 c. brown rice, 1/2 c. oat and 1/2 c. sorgum with 2 tsp xanthan gum) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda 2 eggs 1/2 cup greek yogurt 1 tsp vanilla Frosting: 3/4 cup butter 6 Tbsp cream cheese 1/2 cup peanut butter 3 cups powdered sugar 1/2 c. coco powder  1 Tbsp vanilla

Once upon a time, long ago, we were expecting our first child. Not knowing wither the child was to be male or female and being a first time mom, I devoured any and all information I could. I formed many opinions, most of which I disregarded as the reality of parenting collided with the " and the plan is..." Three little girls later, we found ourselves with considerably less opinions and more children. When we discovered another child was on the way, and the child was male, we found one opinion yet remained. We would leave our son intact. Before having babies, I must say I gave very little thought to penises. I am a girl with all sisters and it wasn't exactly a dinner conversation at our house. But when I found myself facing the reality of raising a boy, I just couldn't get my head around loping off a piece of a perfectly healthy child for no good reason except that it exists. The research and science backed my choice and so our son has re...

 Dad swung by our place on his way to Cairo to check out grandbaby #10  My mom's folks approve! This is great grand kid #14 for them.  My mom wasted no time in snuggling baby J, who looks massive in this picture.  Grandma and Grandpa Ross both said he passed inspection!  Nana was impressed by how much he had grown since she saw him last And Grandpa Craig couldn't wait to take J on his very first carousel ride.