Take The Lid Off!

I know Earth day was Yesterday, but I wanted to share some important information and I missed it. So here it is anyway.

At our house recycling is a must, because Emily is all about being "Green" and saving the planet. She is always telling me all of the great things we can do with the trash. Like planting flowers in the bottles that can't be recycled, and other stuff like that. (I have to purge her room every once in a while just to make sure she is not "recycling" anything weird.)

I thought we were doing a pretty good job. We have two garbage cans in the kitchen. One for Garbage and one for the recyclables. We are also lucky enough to live in a city that offers the big recycling garbage can that we can put our stuff in and set out on Garbage day. The only problem is the city is not very good about getting the information about proper recycling to us. (I have been looking for it)

We were getting most of our stuff into the right cans and I was feeling pretty good about our efforts. Then, Emily went on a field trip last year to the DUMP. (I know that sounds really exciting.)

When she came home she told me all of the things we were doing wrong. Here are a few of them.

When recycling a plastic bag you can not just put one bag in. You have to put a lot of bags inside one bag and tie it shut. Then at the dump they throw the outside bag away and recycle the bags that were inside.

When recycling a metal can you should wash it out and remove the label. Then let it dry before you put it in the recycling. Because if the Paper or cardboard gets food and water on it then it is not recyclable anymore.

Don't recycle cardboard that has food on it (like the pizza boxes)

Then last of all before you throw that plastic bottle in the recycling.... TAKE THE LID OFF!

Before I would screw the lid back on my water bottles, milk jugs, soda bottles, etc right before I threw them in the recycling and I have noticed that I am not the only one with this habit. If the bottle arrives at the dump with the lid on it then it is just thrown in the garbage because they don't have time to unscrew all the lids. I guess in the recycling process the lid has to be off because the trapped air causes problems.

So for years my bottles that I thought I was recycling have just been thrown in the landfill. I am sure that other things I thought I was recycling have just ended up being thrown away too.
So in the spirit of Earth Day I thought I would just pass this on so we can all learn from my mistakes.

HAPPY LATE EARTH DAY!

Flashback Friday

I was going through some of my photo disks and came across this video of Joseph.

He is 2 years old.

I am glad I caught a few things on Video......They grow up so fast, and my memory did not do this justice.

HAPPY D'STER

="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKnCI-GbZs77CxApr5I1QF-BokNT5EU2zL12VKCo3SwVoD5dWHVtvHfc-G5rp6uezNLrRH34Xk5w0_qbSxUK9k3DlAwTcIReFITeVu4qB8bvHDxxRMVf8k4Z_gGjcayQXqAAw8rKZFlEdg/s1600-h/Joseph's+eggs.JPG">div>In Ryan's family his dad is nick named D'ster. Even our kids will call him this and sometimes they will chant it when they want him to do something.



We had started our Easter festivities on Saturday by coloring some Easter eggs.










Of course all of Josh's were green. I colored one red and tried to give it to him, but he quickly took it out of his carton and handed it to Emily.




Joe and Emily were excited for the Easter bunny to come and they told Josh all about it. That night they set out their baskets and went to bed.


Easter Morning Josh woke up and asked if the D'ster bunny had come.

The rest of the day was filled with D'ster baskets, D'ster candy, D'ster eggs

and even new D'ster church clothes. Emily and Joe thought it was funny Josh was calling it D'ster.

At Grandma and Grandpa's the kids had a D'ster egg hunt.
Emily and Joe were happy with any egg they found,
,

but Josh only wanted the green eggs.

If he found an egg of another color he would either pass it by or give it to Joe.






In the egg hunt they each got a special bag that had a chicken in it that you filled with candy, wound up, and let it walk. Then as it walked it pooped out the candy. (I think it is supposed to be laying eggs) The kids loved this and decided to have races with their chickens. It was very entertaining.

I thought Josh would catch on that we were saying Easter, but he is still calling it D'ster today. I guess the word Easter is new to him and did not make sense, so he changed it to something that did. So for now............Happy D'ster!

Grandpa's Helpers

My parents came for a visit last week, so we took a trip out to help my Grandma. One of the things my dad did was dig out the tiles that were in her lawn and reset them. This was interesting to the boys so they started helping him.

They would leap on the tiles that were unburied like they were video game characters trying to reach the end of the board.

Then when grandpa got the grass dug up they would pull it up and carry it to the wheelbarrow. After a few holes they got sticks and started to fish in the muddy holes. until Grandpa was ready for them to pick up more grass.

They thought this was a fun game.

I don't think they realized this was work, and I was not going to tell them.

Softball

The Softball season has started again and Emily had her first game on Tuesday.

She loves playing and is getting pretty good at it. She hit the ball both times she was up to bat.

This was an extra special game because all of her Grandparents were there to watch.

"That's Funny"

Warning :this post has a PG rating due to language, but I had to share. I hope you find the humor in it like I did.... P.S. I did get permission from Ryan before posting it.

The prescriptions are all working and everyone is starting to feel better, so life is returning to normal.

There is a conversation in our house that I have started hearing repeated over and over again throughout each day. It is one between Joe and Josh. One of them will see or hear something that they think is funny and then the conversation starts.

"That's funny"

"Yeah That's funny"

Laugh, Laugh, repeat whatever they thought was funny, laugh some more.

This morning the boys were up and Emily was getting ready for school. After she ate breakfast, she started making herself a lunch. So she went to the cupboard and got out a brown lunch sack. The boys saw the bag and immediately got their own and began packing their lunch too. (This means something they will eat when they return from driving Emily to school) They each got a banana and a granola bar.

Soon it was time for Emily to leave. Ryan was going to drive her. He was in the basement so he called Emily down and headed into the garage. The boys grabbed their lunches and headed to the car. Ryan told them that they could not go he was just driving Emily to the school, but the boys started crying and saying they really wanted to go. (As they stood in the doorway holding their bags.)

Ryan was not ready to handle the whining today so he yelled,

"FINE, JUST GET IN THE DAMN CAR!!"

Which was followed by the boys laughing and saying,

"That's Funny, damn car" as they climbed into the car. Repeating it and laughing.

Ryan then said, "Don't say that it's a bad word!"

But it was too late, the conversation had started and Ryan was heckled with his words the whole drive to school.

When they returned home the boys came in, sat down, and ate their lunch, while Ryan took some time to himself shoveling the walks.

I am grateful for my kids, who remind me to find the humor in things....

I have been laughing about this all day.

Who Is The Sous

For as long as I can remember I have loved to cook. I enjoy every part of it. Finding a recipe, molding those ingredients together into something tasty to eat, and then most of all taking pleasure in eating the item I made. I enjoy all kinds of cuisine and like to try to cook most of them. I find cooking a joy and a release from the day. A place where I am truly in charge. When It is time to cook dinner, it is a time for me to step away from the kids, cleaning and other stuff to focus on something I enjoy and to have a minute to myself to think while I cut and cook the meat and vegetables. I will admit that there are days when things are busy and we quickly throw together spaghetti or Tacos so we can move on to other things. But I usually find two or three nights a week when I can make something fun.

Once again it is getting close to dinner time. I don't need to look at the clock to know this because I can hear my kids going through the cupboards in the kitchen and asking me the age old question.... "What's for dinner?" usually followed by "can I have a snack?" I head into the kitchen and pull out the meat I have defrosting and the other ingredients I will need. Tonight the menu is Teriyaki Pork Stir Fry. This is one of my favorites. The flavorful sauce and the fresh veggies make it a treat for me. (My kids like the meat, but usually pick out most of the vegetables)

Suddenly I hear the familiar sound of the stool coming across the kitchen towards me, mixed with the familiar three year old voice asking the following questions......

"Are you making dinner?"

"What are you making?"

"Oh you are making chicken" (all meat is chicken to Josh)

"I will help you cook the chicken mom."

I begin cutting up the pork and Josh starts his narration of what I am doing. Then he notices the rice cooking on the stove and sees the little bubbles coming out the side of the lid and popping.

"Mom hurry the water is coming!"

"No Josh, it is supposed to look like that."

"Okay mom you keep cutting the chicken."

Josh then opens up the spice cupboard and begins pulling out the spices he thinks I should add to the meat.

"Mom put this in."

"No Josh that won't taste good."

"Oh will this taste good?"

This continues for a bit as Josh pulls out each spice container one after another telling me it would be good in the dish....I finish the meat and put it in the pan to cook.

"Okay mom I will stir the meat."

I let him help cook the meat, because it makes him feel like he is helping and it doesn't hurt anything. While Josh is stirring the meat I start cutting the vegetables. Suddenly the orders start coming at me again.

"Oh mom you are cutting those. Cut that one. Are you cutting them right. What are you doing with that. Do I like that."

It then occurs to me that I have been demoted from head-chef to sous-chef. Instead of being the one in charge I am now being ordered about my kitchen, and the little sanctuary I had is no longer.

I really don't mind having the kids help me cook. I think it is a fun way for us to spend time together. The meal was good, and in the end it was nice to know that Josh was happy he helped make dinner. But next time he can be the Sous-chef.