Chloe's gardening philosophy

Every week when we drive to church we pass by an old abandoned farm. It looks like a great piece of property; it just needs some TLC. Matt and I joke that it's "our farm" and now when we pass it we discuss our dream plans for the place. So far we're planning to do a worm farm (and we'll sell the nutrient-rich compost), raise chickens, and grow lots of fruit and veggies in our expansive organic garden. :)

Chloe has quickly caught onto our imaginary planning and joined right in.

Yesterday on our way to Bible study, we drove past our dreamy family farm. Here's how the conversation went . . .

Me: "Chloe, wouldn't it be fun to have chickens on our farm? We could collect the eggs and cook them for breakfast!"
Chloe: "Yeah, we could make scrambled eggs!"
Me: "Yum, I love scrambled eggs."
Chloe: "And we could take the extra eggs and put them in our garden."
Me: "Why would we do that, Chloe? I don't think anything will grow from an egg."
Chloe: "Oh yes, then we could grow egg plants!"

Hope Chloe's ideas of gardening give you a good giggle this dreary Friday!

Thankful

My day yesterday was a busy and full one. In the midst of a lot of cooking, whiny bored kiddos, and continual nose-wiping, I found myself surprisingly thankful. Oh, I certainly had my own share of impatience in dealing with both Chloe and Clive. (Don't you love having to apologize to your kids for your own ugly anger and impatience? Blech.) But in the background of the day, God graciously gave me a thankful heart.

As Bing so thoughtfully sings,

When my bankroll is getting small, I think of when I had none at all. And I fall asleep, counting my blessings . . .

Here's my list of blessings from yesterday.

1. Health. The kids have colds but they're not suffering from any major illnesses. A friend of a friend of mine's daughter (did you follow all that?) is in the hospital for the 3rd time today as doctors try to solve her mysterious sickness. The poor little girl has been vomiting for two weeks straight!
2. Food. We're rediscovering the joys of eating simply. A big ole pot of rice and a big ole pot of pinto beans is surprisingly easy and healthful to boot! Cheap too. :)
3. Money. Have I mentioned lately how poor we are? :) I feel like that's all I talk about sometimes. But that's because I'm constantly floored by how we're making it on so little. God is faithfully taking care of us. My part-time online job has picked up lately bringing in more income and our taxes promise a summer-sustaining refund.
4. Matt. He's such a diligent worker! He just started writing the LAST chapter of his dissertation. Precisely he's in the reading phase which precedes the actual writing but we're still talking about the LAST chapter here! After a busy day of teaching freshman writing classes, he took over kid duty last night so I could rush out to run some errands last night. And then we snuggled up and watched some old Seinfeld dvds. What a treasure I have in Matt. (And he's not listed #4 because of importance. My random mommy brain thought of those other things first.)

What are you thankful for?

Calling all crockpots!

I know I've been an off-again-on-again blogger as of late, so hopefully this post will reclaim my readership. :)

I'm hoping to make Thursdays our crockpot supper nights. Generally, Thursdays are very busy for us. The kids and I get on the road at 8:30 a.m. to make it to our weekly Bible study on time. After study we eat lunch in our church commons area and then drive back home for naps at 2 p.m. All the driving, child management (doesn't that make my job sound refined?), and food preparation wipes me out come Thursday afternoon. I either crash with the kids for a quick nap or hop online to work on these busy Thursdays.

Crockpot to the rescue!

In general, I don't have much crockpot cooking variety. Roast with onion soup mix, bbq beef sandwich meat, or ribs slathered in barbecue sauce is all I've done thus far. This week a chicken with bacon recipe is slated for Thursday's crockpot supper.

Anyone have a fabulous slow cooker recipe to add some spice to our Thursday night dining?

Calamity Clive and Commando Chloe

Clive has certainly made our lives more interesting! He is an active and curious boy, to say the very least.

Somehow even though I know how curious and quick Clive is I still manage to be two seconds behind him on his messes. At least he's into cleaning things up with me! A definite plus since I have a feeling we'll be doing lots of cleaning up after this boy.

Despite his messiness, Clive is an absolute darling. His smile is infectious and I can't seriously be angry with him for more than 5 seconds. (Unless those 5 seconds include his whiny cry that is. He is already showing us that he's a stubborn boy and often refuses to sign please.)

To round out this alliterated "C" post, I'll tell you about Chloe's first no-undies experience.

We've been attending the local gym lately and it includes a huge kid-friendly pool. It's a blast to finish up our workout time with a swim in the pool! But, taking two small children swimming is also a bit stressful for me when I have to do it alone. The worst part of the swimming time is when we're all finished and I have to change and dry everyone in the family bathroom. Chloe is usually semi-able to dress herself but when she's wet and dripping she can't pull on her pants too well (who can?).

Anyways, I try to dry and dress the kiddos as quickly as possible. I had done a super-speedy dressing job on Chloe and when I went to pack up our belongings I saw it. Chloe's clean pair of pink cupcake undies. Oops! There was NO way I was stripping her down again to put those undies on so Chloe went commando. And then the kicker was she said she liked not wearing undies. Hope I haven't inadvertently started something here!

Tell me I'm not the only mom who has ever done that?

Enjoy the pictures below from recent times in the Horn household. Can you guess which picture Chloe took?

Clive's first haircut

This week we bid farewell to Clive's curls.

I had mixed emotions about Clive's first haircut. At times his curls were incredibly darling and picturesque. But Clive is genetically predisposed to have wavy hair, not curly. Lately his locks have grown beyond the cute curly level and have progressed into scraggly mullet-ness. And have you seen a 13 month old eat? It's beyond messy. Add overgrown hair to the mix and Clive is a disgusting (but still smiling and lovable) sight at meal time.

And so, it was decided. After a few failed attempts with a scissors, Matt opted for the electric clippers. Just like most toddlers, Clive does NOT enjoy appliances that make loud buzzing noises. Blenders, coffee-bean grinders, and automatically flushing toilets are tear-inducing enemies (though strangely he's ok with my hair dryer).

Clive cried and screamed throughout the haircut ordeal. But he soon forgot his woes when he sat at the dinner table and we all praised his new do.

Sigh. He looks way better with his hair trimmed and Matt did a fabulous job. But, I'm afraid my baby has become a little boy. Where does the time fly to?

I don't remember feeling this melancholy for Chloe's first hair cut. Maybe it's a boy-mama thing. Or maybe it's that I was too lazy to cut Chloe's hair until she was 2 1/2 .

Though the process wasn't too pleasant, I love the fact that we can cut Clive's hair at home with a clippers. When he gets older I'd like to buzz his hair short; talk about easy to manage! How many of you cut your kids' hair at home?

Reasons why I love Sundays

I love Sundays for several reasons. One facet of Sunday I particularly relish is getting everyone dressed up for church. I know that probably sounds horribly old-fashioned. But I love the hustle and bustle of getting ready (presuming we're not running late) and then finally piling into the car for the family trip to church.

Now that we have the cutest children in the world it's even more fun to get all gussied up on Sunday. They just look extra adorable in their church duds! And I never thought I'd enjoy dressing a boy but Clive looks so snazzy in his little man clothes. Let me assure you, sweater vests are all the rage in his church nursery room.

We tried to capture their Sunday-cuteness yesterday but it didn't go too well. As you can see, Clive does not like to be restrained for photo purposes.

Another reason I love Sundays is the football watching. We don't watch TV during the week so for the Sunday afternoon/evening football games we soak it up.

Usually we watch football together at home as a family. But this year we actually got invited to a real superbowl party! It was tons of fun eating chili and chatting it up with the other moms while the guys watched football over the din of playing children. And we still honored our packer fealty by all dressing in green and gold (Chloe's idea). It's official. We're a family of nerds.

And what an incredible superbowl it was, eh? We were rooting for the underdogs, the Cardinals, but both teams played some outstanding football. Who did you cheer for?