Random Giggles

Life Imitates Art

29 November 2017, 11:19 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family

We love this song. It’s a great one. We listen to it every week in the car and the kids think it’s funny. They don’t realize how funny though.

Yesterday this was our Shimri.

In her hands she has two shoes and a sock. She spent at least 20 minutes looking for her other sock. She eventually pulled out the drawer we keep random toys in and investigated if her sock had turned into a Rubix Cube. Since she had the toys out Shimei wanted to play with them (they’d just cleaned up the family room) and she told him she wasn’t playing, she was looking for her sock. We weren’t in a hurry to leave so I decided to just let her “look” for her sock before pointing out to her it was on her foot all along.

They aren’t that great at helping with chores yet (although they are enthusiastic helpers), so they earn their keep by being the entertainment right now.

2 Shared thoughts

Brett

28 November 2017, 1:06 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family, Happy Things, Life, Relationships

Brett doesn’t really have an official nickname at our house, something that greatly concerns Iddo whenever the topic comes up. He’s been known as Emeth Veneeman, Shoe Guy, and Burrpie, but none have stuck the way the rest of ours have. So I’m left just titling this post “Brett.”

I don’t believe in a one-and-only. I’m definitely one to roll my eyes at this song:

Instead I believe that there are many people we could definitely be happy with. Different kinds of happy of course with different people. But still happy and living a wonderful life.

However…

I can’t imagine having anything like the kind of happy I have with Brett if I were with someone else. We fit together in so many ways it’s often spooky some times. We are different unique individuals with different interests and tastes, yet it works out perfectly. We’ve been married for 8 years and known each other for almost 12. I can’t imagine anyone else I want to spend the rest of all the years together with.

He’s perfect for me.

From our first date…

… to now.
8th anniversary

I love you Brett.

2 Shared thoughts

Thankfuls

27 November 2017, 11:37 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family, Happy Things

We’re still in the process of finishing out the fall holidays and putting those decorations away and getting Christmas set up at our house. So here’s one more Thanksgiving related post.

Two years ago we started a tradition of sitting down every night before bed starting on November 1st till Thanksgiving and writing down something we are thankful for on a slip of paper and putting it in a jar decorated with a cornucopia window cling. Iddo called them “Thankfuls” that first year and the name has stuck. This year we let Shimri and Shimei tell us what they are thankful for as well.

The last two years we then sat down after the big meal and read through the jar to see what we’d been thankful for that month. It’s a fun activity. The first year Iddo was thankful for peace a lot while Brett was thankful for the medications that were helping him feel better (a theme we noticed from him this November as well).

Our Thanksgiving was big for us to go through them last week so tonight for Family Home Evening we had a fire in the backyard, roasted some marshmallows (and learned that the freshness of said marshmallows makes a big difference in how well they roast) and read our thankfuls. We might make that the tradition in the future (with fresh marshmallows though) because it was a lot of fun.

Some highlights from this year’s thankfuls:

Shimei was thankful multiple times for his Daddy Bear, Tug-Tug, and Turtle. He just changed up the order from night to night.
Iddo thought grand again and was thankful for the world and all the people. One night she wanted to be thankful for everything on the world till we reminded her about mosquitoes, so instead she was thankful for everything on the world except mosquitoes.
We’re not exactly sure why or how, but towards the end it became a joke for our kids to add “in the sky” to whatever they were thankful for that night, such as “I’m thankful for Daddy in the sky.”
Shimri was thankful for Daddy’s hands and foots one night.
The kids liked when we were thankful for them. It’s important for us to express gratitude to the people closest to us.

In 23 days we filled that jar with 115 thankfuls. Count your blessings indeed.

2 Shared thoughts

Shimei

26 November 2017, 5:27 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family, Happy Things

Shimei is a daring, throw caution to the wind, adventurous boy who lands on his feet unless someone tries to help him. He is constant motion and prefers to run and jump to places rather than just walk. If he’s up to mischief, it’s the innocent kind.

He’s laughter and silliness with such a sweet tender heart that he wears fully on his sleeve. Which means he’s also coming in for a “momma hug” a couple times a day so he can cuddle in my lap and hold his washcloth and suck the knuckle of his finger for a few minutes before he’s off again. If someone else is hurt he’s one of the first to run over and give a hug too. And he loves to help.

He admires his sisters and adores his brother. Seeing the world through his eyes it is a constant source of wonder and amazement.

Trucks are awesome. He loves his truck-trucks. He likes to take his big truck out each week so it can see the garbage truck when it goes past. Things that go vroom will always catch and hold his attention and when he’s playing with his trucks he has to lay down so he’s at wheel level with them.

My little cuddle bug sure makes me smile.

2 Shared thoughts

Shimri

26 November 2017, 5:07 pm by Giggles

Categories: Family, Happy Things

We like to tell people that Shimri was kind of pissed about having to leave the Spirit World when she was born. She spent the first several months of her life looking at everything with a very critical eye and passing harsh judgements on just about everything. Then she started to accept her fate of mortality and warmed up to this place called earth.

And now, while she still has difficulties with large transitions and anything that upsets her routines, she’s an absolute hoot to be with. Part of it is that you can tell her mind and spirit are so much larger and older than her body would have you believe. She does things with such determination and purpose that it’s funny to watch in a little 2-year-old body.

She is careful, cautious, thoughtful, and opinionated. You always know where you stand with her and getting hugs or cuddles from her is a high honor because she won’t go to just anyone. She has an incredible memory and it is fun to see what associations she makes.

This is a girl who is going to go places in this world and heaven help anyone who tries to stand in her way. I can’t wait to see where she goes.

3 Shared thoughts

Serving Sizes

25 November 2017, 11:45 pm by Giggles

Categories: Food

I saw an infographic earlier this week stating that to prepare for Thanksgiving you would need a pound of turkey for each person, a half pound of potatoes, and one slice of pie.

Clearly that graphic was supported by the turkey farmers and not the pie bakers.

We get a 5 pound turkey breast, or as close to that as possible because they don’t come any smaller, and call it good for our family. I remember learning that a serving size of meat should be roughly the size of a deck of cards. I think if you were to weigh it the serving should be a quarter pound. So why would I need four times that much for each person? No wonder everyone always has so many turkey leftovers they can’t figure out what to do with.

My grandma’s rule for mashed potatoes was one per person and one for the table. But we love mashed potatoes at our house. Well, some of us do. Others gag on them, so more for the rest of us! So we do our 5 pound turkey in the slow cooker and then do roughly 5 pounds of potatoes in the pressure cooker. Mashed potatoes!!

I’m pretty sure a serving size of pie is just one slice, probably less depending on the pie. But who really eats just one slice of pie? Especially if you happen to have a variety of pies around? You have to sample them all. We actually do a cheese cake and top it with homemade cranberry sauce. But in March we celebrate Pi day and everyone eats a lot more pie than just one slice.

If I’m going to over indulge in food and be a glutton for one day, it’s going to be on pie, not turkey. Maybe we should reverse that infographic and make it a pound of pie for each person but just one slice of turkey?

2 Shared thoughts

My little turkeys

24 November 2017, 10:53 pm by Giggles

Categories: Life

My little turkeys won’t be little for long so I’m doing what I can to preserve as much of their littleness as possible. Thanksgiving just kind of lends itself to hand prints.

For Iddo’s first Thanksgiving in 2013 I made a table runner out of some muslin cloth and Brett and I did hand print turkeys in the middle and every year we have our kids do a hand print turkey on either side. I kind of thought it would take us longer to fill it up but we probably only have another 4 years before it’s full and I have to make another one. It’s fun to see the prints grow and become more defined (baby hand prints are very smeared despite our best efforts).

I’ve been making pillow covers for the throw pillows on our couch as well and this year I did a hand print fall tree. We have a right pillow and a left pillow and I love them. I finished them yesterday so I’m going to take advantage of the fact that Thanksgiving was real early this year and leave them out for a few more days before we trade them for the winter covers.

And these turkeys didn’t last, but they were fun. I was inspired by the wide-eyed turkey cupcakes I saw online but went with a more “did it with kids” version and our little turkeys made some great little turkeys. And more importantly, they had fun doing it.