Today's letter writing went a little better. I had Dylan do one page of C's and one page of D's. They were fairly easy for him to understand, so I was afraid making him do 2 pages of C's would bore him. It worked out. He would trace a couple and then would go into a speech about "When I get done with these I am going to..." and name various things he wanted to do today. He repeated that numerous times. But he made it through the letters without any frustration.
Last nights dinner was a little different. I made steaks (those are nothing new) with a whiskey cream sauce. So good! Butter, broth, onions, cream, and of course whiskey!!! YUM. I didn't take any pictures of it for a couple of reasons. One it is fairly boring to look at, and two, the crew was starving. Dylan was in and out of the kitchen every five minutes asking if dinner was done yet, and Ryan was hollerin from the living room that he was hungry. Anyway, it was good. There was absolutely nothing light or healthy about it, but that's ok every once in a while. The sauce had that wonderful whiskey flavor without the bite of the alcohol. I used the recipe from the website The Pioneer Woman. I have used a few of her recipes and recently bought her cookbook. She knows what she is doing, that's for sure! Along side I made sweet potato onion fries. They weren't crispy, but they still tasted good. They had salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder on them and were tossed in olive oil. The chili powder really balanced out the sweet. I would make them again, but wouldn't waste the time cutting them into strips, instead would just chunk them.
Yesterday afternoon, Ethan was walking towards the coffee table in the living room with a block in each of his hands. He stumbled over another toy, and fell into the table. He now has a nice bruise on his forehead. Honestly I am surprised he isn't covered in more bruises. He tends to be very clumsy at times. And I don't know why he likes to carry things. He is always carrying something for some reason. Most of the time, it is a block or 2. Anyway, he cried for a while, but is fine. It wont be the last bruise I'm sure!

Well last nights Bolognese Sauce wasn't as good as I hoped. It tasted fine, but really not much different from a jarred sauce. I expected a much deeper, richer flavor. I won't give up on a good Bolognese though. I will look up more recipes and try something with more ingredients. Not a total fail, but a little disappointment. Over the weekend I had made Ryan a Coconut Cream Pie. I told him it was his Valentine's Day gift. I can't stand coconut. Ick. But he likes it, so that's all that matters. I made this pie once before and once chilled, the meringue started to separate. It got a little watery basically. So I got online and started asking around, and was told that it was possible that the meringue wasn't cooked completely. Part of the trick there I guess is getting the meringue onto the steaming hot filling asap. I was a little slow on that part the first time. I was also given some tips to help make my meringue more stable. One of those ways was to find a thing called "Meringue Powder." So I just happened to come across it in the store that I was in and bought it. It is a super fine powder that you just add water to and then whip up. It did take a little longer to beat that the normal egg whites. But Ryan said the pie was great! So that was a success. I haven't given up on the traditional meringue, but until the powder is gone, I will use it. Even though I cheated a bit, I was successful. Here are 2 pictures of the pie. When I took these pictures the pie was half gone, so I had to work with what I had!

I also wanted to show the papers I am using to teach Dylan how to write. It is so frustrating on my part. I really don't know what I could do differently. Most days it is a struggle to get him to do the papers. We do 2 pages a day. Its not a lot. I don't think that I am asking all that much from him. But he is pretty resistant to it most of the time. There are days when he will do it without any issues, but not many. Today he spent most of the time whining about not wanting to do them. It took him an hour and 15 minutes to do what is pictured. Like I said he whines that he doesn't want to do them, or that he can't. But once he gets the papers done, he is so proud of himself for doing it. I just don't understand! Anyone have any ideas?

An uneventful weekend. I did have mom over for dinner on Saturday. Her birthday is later this week. I just picked up pizza and she got to spend time with the boys. It was a nice evening. Both boys were exhausted and were in bed shortly after 7 that evening. I was of course thankful, because I was tired too. Must have been something in the air! Dylan had his Valentine's party at school today. He was so excited to go this morning. He got to pass out his Valentine's to everyone. When we were headed home, he says " I love Valentines day." So cute.
After I picked up Dylan, I ran down to the car wash to get the winter gunk off of the car. I just used the automatic washer. Its warmer than it has been for a long time, but its not that warm. I'm not going to stand out there with a hose in this weather. Of course it scared Ethan, but his cries didn't last long. Once we pulled out of there he stopped crying.
On my grocery trip today I made sure to get the things I needed to make a Bolognese Sauce. I have been wanting to make one for such a long time. Its basically a from scratch pasta sauce. Slow simmered for hours. The house smells so good right now! I hope that when its dinner time, it tastes as good as it smells. There are quite a few variations to the sauce, so if this one isn't all that great then I will try another.
I do my best to cook nice meals everyday. I do cook everyday (its rare we go out to eat), but I wish I had more time to cook better. I am always trying to rush through recipes, because there is always a kid whining. Ah, speaking of whining. Ethan is now waking from his all to short nap. Great....

Yesterday it was partly sunny. I wanted to practice just to see if I would even be able to do the whole picture thing. I think that I can, as long as the boys cooperate. If I have the right amount of light coming in to the room, it will be fine. Again today its cloudy. So anyway, I thought I would share my practice shots. When it comes time to do the real pictures, I will dress them better. At least in shirts that go with the background better. I have an off white sheet and a green sheet that I am using. I think I like the off white much better though.

This one would have been nice if I didn't cut his head off! Note to self next time! Oh, and the flash was on in this one and completely washed him out. Ick.

That smile turned quickly and all of the sudden, practice was over.

Sitting down and asking Dylan to do something structured has never gone well. Mainly I think its because its me that he is sitting down with. He seems to do well with his teacher at his school that one day a week. I have never had much luck though. Despite that, I am going to give it another shot and try. I am going to keep my expectations low, and keep it fairly short. So I finally found some traceable letter sheets online that I actually liked. I wanted to find a paper with minimal distractions on the page. So many of the ones I saw had pictures all over them along with the letters. So my intentions are to have him do those sheets everyday during Ethan's first nap.
Today was the first day of this effort. It went OK. Not great, but not horrible. He made it almost 30 minutes. The last five minutes I struggled to keep him still and focused. The papers have 2 rows of 5 uppercase letters and the same for lowercase. We did 2 papers of the letter "A". I will give "A" at least 1 more day, hopefully 3 though, before we move on to the next letter. He knows all of his letters. The challenge at this point is to get him to write them. I have tried it before, but not with the traceable papers. I'm hoping this attempt goes better than past attempts. So anyway, he managed 2 papers, but the last one was a little struggle. On the back of the paper I also had him free hand some letter A's. Not bad! Then we started to fill out his Valentine cards for his party on Monday. We will do a little at a time. Since I know that he cant (or wont) write his name, I make him spell his name while I write it.
Seems like I am going to have a problem with Ethan's nap though. This is the second day where he has slept less than an hour for this first nap. Dylan and I just barely finished what we were doing when he woke up. And now that he is up, he is in a horrible mood. Go figure.
Did I mention that I am going to attempt pictures of the boys? Like good pictures and not just snapshots? I keep waiting for a day when the lighting is right in the living room. I guess its harder than I thought to have a sunny day. So anyway, I am still waiting to do that.

I had a horrible weekend. You ever get that feeling where nothing you do is right? Nothing you do is enough? That's how I felt. I don't always feel this way. I do the best I can daily. I'm certainly not perfect. I will never be perfect. I am just me. As I started writing this I realized I really don't want to talk about it. Enough.
Today at school Dylan is decorating his shoe box for the valentines party they are having next Monday. He was pretty exciting to decorate the box this morning. This week, he and I will work on writing out his valentines cards for Monday. The boys are slowly getting over their colds. Dylan is coughing less, and Ethan is snotting less. Hopefully it wont be much longer before they are back to normal.
That's all for now I guess. Just in a slump. This post is so short its really almost pointless...

We have been knee deep in snot all week. Both boys have a cold. But, both are doing well with it. Ethan's cold is mainly a very very snotty nose. Dylan's cold is mainly post nasal drip and cough. Ethan is surprisingly sleeping very very well despite his nose and congestion. I have been wanting to get out so bad. But with both of them sick like this, its just not happening. By the time we got anywhere Ethan would be head to toe covered in snot. I have to constantly wipe his little nose to keep him from wiping it all over himself! And it is so cold out! 12 degrees right now, still windy, so who knows what the windchill actually is.
We just barely got clipped by that big storm that moved across the country. We got lucky. We did have ice. In some areas of the county it did bring down trees and power lines, but I am so thankful that it didn't make our power go out. We lose power on sunny days, so I am very surprised that we didn't lose it. Since then it has been very cold and extremely windy. I am so ready for summer. I want to be outside with the boys. And I can't wait until our beach vacation! The boys will love the pool and ocean. But its a little too early to be dreaming about summer. That dumb groundhog says it will be an early spring. He better be right. I know I could look it up, but I wonder how often he is right...hmm.
I've been slacking lately on pictures. Part of that is this stuck in the house thing we have going on. All the pictures look alike, because we can't get out. Sometimes it just gets to me. I have cabin fever. A big case of it. I got to the grocery store and that's it. It would do me a world of good to get out for a bit by myself. That hasn't happened in weeks. Many many weeks. Every mom needs time for herself. Unfortunately I don't get that very often. Cabin fever...I told you.