Moving Stinks !

Sure, nobody loves moving. But oy! So much stuff to deal with! then the drama of being displaced and not being able to find your stuff where it's supposed to be, and not having a nice, clean, clutter-free space in which to rest.

Yeah, moving stinks. But it does feel good to sell / give away / purge so much stuff that we weren't using anyway.

In other news, Sally seems to be getting a bit bored with soccer. Not sure if we'll play again next season or not.

Sydney is a riot, she keeps us in stitches constantly. And it cracks me up how she always attracts people to fawn all over her. One day we were loading groceries into the car in a parking lot, and an adolescent boy and his dad were doing the same, when suddenly, the boy walks over to Sydney and gives her a brand new stuffed animal. She was delighted, naturally, and fortunately, Sally was in the back seat of the car, so the boy didn't hear Sally say "hey, why didn't I get one?"

We are gearing up for our New Orleans trip -- October is a busy month with travel. And it's no small feet to pack in the midst of moving. *sigh* This too shall pass...

So We Volunteered in Sally's Classroom Today...

O.M.G.

I don't think either Andy OR I could have predicted how much FUN it would be to volunteer in Sally's kindergarten classroom.

We were excited to go, we figured it would be cool to meet some of Sal's chums and to see how she behaved in the classroom, but we didn't think we would just fall in love with all those kids, straight off the bat!

They are an absolute HOOT!

I had the pleasure of meeting and assisting Carson, Sebastian, Sam (Sally's occasional self-proclaimed nemesis who actually appears to be a good solid kid), Emma, McKenna, Amanda, Regan, Owen, and probably some others I am forgetting.

Sure, I figured I would field this question about 20 times (and I did): "Are you Sally's mommy?"

But I didn't stop to think how to answer when they asked my name, so I just said, "Amy" (though later, Mrs. Kennedy referred to me as "Mrs. Grant" -- yikes, I swear that one temporarily aged me at least 10 years) and as soon as I said it, about 3 kids piped up, "That's my mom's name too!" No surprise, since there were eight other Amy's in my high school graduating class.

I loved watching how the kids worked so differently. Though all about the same age, some where just speed demons with inside-the-lines coloring and spot-on cutting skills, while others would ask me for help cutting or glueing (but you know me--I'm no enabler!) I of course encouraged them to give it a go themselves and if they ran into trouble, I'd help (which of course never happened).

Did you know that if they get 10 notes of praise (they're called "Bison Bravos" at this school) they get a special prize and they get to have lunch with the school principal? (And Sebastian currently has 9 -- allegedly -- and will also get another special prize from his mommy, which is either a trip to a favorite place or a new toy.)

Carson claims to have 78 Bison Bravo notes. You should have seen his face when I politely suggested he may be exaggerating. Wide-eyed and innocent, he swore up and down that he had 78 (then sheepishly admitted that his mom likes to give him some on the sly. Something tells me those won't count toward lunch with the principal.)

Some kids just flat-out do NOT get me (and that's cool, I'm used to it). But you know the smart ones think I'm a riot ;-)

Today we made Apple Men (coloring, cutting, folding and glueing) and Andy helped the kids make Apple Wheels (a big construction paper apple with a cut out window and a wheel with sight words on it -- all designed to prep the kids for reading and writing).

Man, no wonder Sally loves kindergarten. Andy and I had an absolute blast and we can't wait to go back. And even though I think we may have gotten the kids a bit rowdier than usual, Mrs. Kennedy seemed happy to have our help.

Carson told me some tall tales about

Sydney Reads to Mommy

Sally is really taking off with her reading and writing. Tonight she spontaneously wrote (without copying or looking at anything as a reference) "A fox to a box." She wrote some other stuff that sounded a LOT like Dr Suess (I'll refrain from posting it here, lest I commit copyright infringement) and then she asked me how to spell "the end." Then she wrote her entire alphabet from memory, and only left out "k" (which she swears she doesn't know how to draw....makes me rethink choosing "Ellen" for her middle name and maybe "Kate" would have been more useful) and she put the "Z" backwards. Otherwise, it was perfect! Pretty cool for a 5 year old.

And Miss Sydney just gets cuter by the day (hard to imagine, I know). Today she told me she wanted to read me a book. So she picked out "The Really Hungry Patterkilla" by Eric Carle. This is kind of how it went:

"One morning, the sun waked up. There was a little egg on a leaf. He was very hungry. One day, he ate one apple. Another day, he ate...what do you call that?" (prompt from mommy: "pears") "A pear. Then one day, he ate a plum. Then one day, he ate a strawberry." (skips pages) "And then he ate a cake, a cheese, a salaaami, a pie, a shawshage (sausage), and a cupcake! Then he ate a leaf. Then he found a butterfly!!!! Theeee end."

Easy Crock Pot Dinner (omg, SO yum)

Amy's Easy Sausage "Chili"

1 lb mixed dried beans, rinsed (like whatever you would use in mixed bean soup)
1-2T oil (any kind: olive, canola, safflower, whatever)
garlic (to taste...at least 1-2 cloves)
1 onion, chopped fine
small can (the tiny ones) of tomato paste (I like Contadina)
1 lb andouille sausage (or other very flavorful sausage) cut into small chunks
salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves, dried thyme, tarragon, cayenne, tabasco

Start this in the morning for an early supper...

Sautee the onion and garlic in the oil in a pan over medium-high heat. When the onions are transparent (not carmelized), add the dried beans and the tomato paste and stir to coat in the pan. Sautee (stir often) about 3 more minutes. When this mixture starts smelling REALLY good, transfer the bean mixture to the crock pot.

Add the sausage chunks to the crock pot and cover with about 3/4" to 1" of water.

Add seasonings to taste...I probably use about 1T of salt, 1/2T of pepper, 2 bay leaves, 1T dried powdered thyme, 2tsp tarragon, 2tsp cayenne, heavy dash of Chipotle Tabasco, whatever you like.

Cover the crock and cook on low 10 hours or on high 4-6 hours. If it comes out thicker than you like, add some water and stir through.

Serve with tortilla chips or bagel chips and top with a dollop of sour cream (if you like) and/or shredded cheddar

You will thank me......