I think I’m going to have to look for the old baby books that I have stashed somewhere in my basement. I have one that is geared for kids that are asking questions about how babies are made and where they come from. Fiona has been asking a lot of questions.

My first instinct is to allow her to ask the question and then followup with questions of my own to sort of drag it out so I can see if this is something that she really wants to know about or if she’s just kind of repeating what she heard somebody else say. I think at age six it’s ok to drag it out a little bit. After all, she is still little.

I have a friend (hi friend! you know who you are!) that is pregnant and due in June. Fiona is tickled pink about it to the point where she is asking about my friend every day. She wants to know how the baby is doing and how did the baby get in my friend’s tummy. She keeps saying things like, “But how Mom?”

So I told her that I had a baby book that I needed to dig out of a closet somewhere and we would sit and read it together. Seriously, I said that to her just to buy some time. I will look for the book but I won’t bring it up unless and until she asks me about it again. Like I said, she is still little.

Kinsley said the cutest thing today. She said, “Mom..I’m a good girl. Did I choose a perfect outfit?”

See that green thing? It has to go! I wanted it gone last weekend but it was too muddy and slushy outside. Today the mud and slush have returned. I don’t care what happens with this weather that green thing will be gone before the week is finished. Mark my words: G-O-N-E ! ! !

I had to share this one with you guys. We were coming up the street and as soon as I took one look at this yard I died laughing. It doesn’t take much to crack me up. I was hysterical. This is what the snow covered up in October. After that snow it just kept coming and covering up everything. Can you imagine the snow melting away only to reveal THIS?

This is me trying to be artistic.

My clothes feel different. My size 16 pants are loose and comfortable on me. I also have two types of size 14 jeans. The first type are the 14’s that are so super tight it hurts to try and get them all the way up. I don’t even bother. I just fold them up and put them in a pile on the shelf in my closet. I know I will wear them soon enough. There’s no rush. The other size 14’s that I just bought from the store fit great! Those go on the hanger and I can wear them out along with the 16’s that are fine as long as I wear a belt. The tight size 14’s are around the corner. They won’t be tight when I wear them either. I know because I have made up my mind that is the way it will be.

Here’s what I did this week:

• Mar 3rd – 3.0 miles on the treadmill, arms & abs
• Mar 4th – 3.0 miles on the treadmill, arms & abs
• Mar 5th – Break
• Mar 6th – Tandem Training & 15 minutes of Pilates
• Mar 7th – Break
• Mar 8th – 1.0 mile on the treadmill, x-training & abs
• Mar 9th – Break

The 15 minutes of Pilates was a demonstration that was happening at the gym that I was asked to be part of. That was an eye-opening experience. Through that 15 minutes of instruction I discovered that I have a horrible arch in my back that explains why some of my core ab muscles are so week. I didn’t even know that I had that problem. Now that I’m aware of it I am able to really focus in on those core muscle groups to make sure that my back is more flat when I’m doing crunches. My ab work is far more productive now that I am aware of this issue. Sometimes even when I’m lying in bed there is an arch. You can totally stick your hand through there – RIDICULOUS! So  now I am really focusing hard during my ab work and everything else that I’m doing to cause my back to arch. Weird, huh?

I’m pretty sore all over today from working out hard at the gym. I was sitting on the couch thinking to myself, “What on Earth is wrong with me?” Then it dawned on me that I am super sore.

The body parts that hurt: my butt, abs, shoulders, back, chest, thighs, and my ribs. I am just sore all over. I may need to take a break from working out today and just rest.

Getting up at 5:30 in the morning was hard on all of us but worth it in the end to get Fiona and Kinsley the swimming and tennis classes that they needed on just the right days.

Kinsley is growing up fast. She crashed on the recliner in the living room. Her legs are dangling over the arms of the chair. She’s snoring and she’s sweet.

I know when I pick up Fiona from school she is going to ask me if we can skip the gym today. That’s A-Ok with me. I think we’ll come home, I’ll figure out what’s for dinner, we’ll get our PJ’s on and just RELAX.

My teenager called me today: MIRACLE. Of course she needs a ride but wants to hang out with me tomorrow for lunch. So…I’ll get to see her tomorrow. She’s getting a physical done so I’m picking her up and taking her to that appointment. Then we’ll probably go eat lunch afterward.

I miss that kid.

Mind over matter. I refuse to get sick. I will not get sick. I will not be sick.

• Blog Mommas – I’m super excited about this one. I used to be a contributor over there. I say used to because I am no longer just a contributor. This is my new blog. I hope you like it.
• Tuesday Tip Jar – Blog Mommas is home of the Tuesday Tip Jar. I’m trying to post today’s tip but I can’t seem to get Mr. Linky to cooperate with me. Maybe Soon?
• I woke up at 5:30 AM so I could try and be the 1st in line to get the kids signed up for Swimming & Tennis. I think I was 10th in line. I don’t understand their sign-up rules. They need to find a better way to take the registration forms instead of making us wait.
• Did you know I have a total of TWO recipes on my blog?
• Greek Spanakopita – It’s a Family Recipe. It’s the best Spanakopita you’ll ever eat! Yes, it’s better than what you’ll find out in the Greek Restaurants. No Lie.
• Becky’s Cake Ball Recipe – To Die For. It’s the Yummiest taste of sweetness EVER.
• Did I mention my Husband Rocks the Dad Department? He’s the best Father to my children in the entire world. He’s an AWESOME Father to ALL of our Girls.
• Speaking of Barbie – Did you know Barbie turns 51 today? HaPpY bIrThDaY bArBiE!!!
• The Big Four Oh! – It’s not bad at all. So far I really like being Forty.
• Mean People Suck. Sometimes Nice People Suck Too. Am I permitted to say that sometimes the people closest to me really disappoint in the lowest of ways? I should probably lower my expectations and take each situation with a grain of salt. It is what it is.
• I have 6 new blogs to introduce over on Blog Mommas.
• I have 1 new blog to introduce over on Blogs Rule.
• Getting up at 5:30 am allows me to get A LOT accomplished.
• Fiona is wondering if it’s time to go to school yet. We still have 20 minutes before I have to take her to school.
• I think I will skip the gym today and just workout at home on the treadmill.
• McDonald’s McCafe Coffee Rocks!
• My teenager called in sick on my Birthday. Go Figure!?
• ‘May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.’ Numbers 6: 24-26.
• I can’t stop thinking about Layla Grace. Will you please pray for her and her family? They are having a really rough time right now.
• I don’t know if the Girl Scout Cookies will last before Don gets home on Friday.
• I’m looking forward to my trip to Las Vegas at the end of the month. I’ve never been to Las Vegas. I worked in the Casino industry for 8 long years and have never stepped foot in Las Vegas. How is that possible?
• Spring is almost here. I’m happy about that.
• The pot hole at the beginning of my neighborhood is going to take out my tire. Not Cool.
• I thank God every day that my husband has a job and that it affords me the ability to stay home and raise my girls. You couldn’t pay me to go back to the work force.
• My brother Chris and his family are coming to visit us here in Omaha in July. I Am Stoked! July cannot come fast enough.
• How would you like it if the Government took almost half of everything that you make? Have you been paying attention? That is what’s happening to the people in Greece.
• What’s up with all these Earthquakes? It kinda reminds me of the end times in the bible. Although how can it get any worse than what Hitler did to the Jews?
• It’s time for me to take Fiona to school.
• The Un Mom – Home of the Random Tuesday Thoughts. Give it a try. You might like it.
• Blog Mommas – What are you waiting for? Come Join Us! Dad’s are welcome too! Please tell all your blog friends, k?

The Last Random Thought Tues: Everything Blows!

Our gym has a fantastic daycare facility as well as Swimming, Tennis, Yoga, Dance and Racquetball for the kids. Many of the programs are FREE with a membership. Some of the programs are not FREE but even so it’s affordable and doable.

Spring Registration is tomorrow. In order to ensure my kids get the classes that we need them to be in I am getting up at the crack of dawn to try and be the first one in line. I’ll be up at 5:30 am to get myself together. At 6:00 am I will get the girls up and ready and we will be out the door at 6:30 am to beat the rush hour to get these girls registered.

This semester Kinsley is going to be in Preschool Level 3 Swimming. Fiona is going to be in the Youth Aquatic program, Level 3 Stroke Development. Then on Mondays after school she will have Tennis lessons with her cousin Jackson. The fun part about all of these classes is that Kinsley will have swimming with her cousin Elijah too. Kim and I tried to set it up so that they could do these classes together. I’m excited for the kids!

Registration is at 7:00 am which is why I’m getting up so early. I’m going to be turning in Kim’s registration’s too. It’s the only way to guarantee the kids get their spots in those exact classes we need them to be in.

After the gym today we did dinner, baths, set out our clothes and now the kids are in bed! Now it’s my turn to get my shower out of the way, this post posted, and gather everything up for tomorrow. After we turn in the registration forms we’ll probably go eat breakfast somewhere. It will be super early and we will have plenty of time before school starts.

The Swimming Lessons are FREE with our gym membership. The Tennis Lessons are not free but if you have a gym membership the cost is only $10.00 per session. Fiona’s Tennis Lessons will go for 5 weeks. That’s $50.00 – Not Bad! Now I must say goodnight!

Remember how I told you that Don Rocks the Dad Department?

The first picture is of the girls showing off their Barbie Stuff.

The second picture is of the girls goofing off in the jungle at the zoo.

I can’t wait for Spring. It’s trying to come. It was warmer today. It’s going to rain all week. But before long Spring will be here and we will be at the zoo again! We love our zoo.

BTW, I did not dress the girls. They dressed themselves.

Here’s what mine looks like when it’s done cooking. Spanakopita is a Greek dish. Tradition in Greece for the New Year is to make some sort of cake or pie and add a coin wrapped in tin foil to the mix. Whoever should bite into the pie finding the coin is supposed to have good luck for the entire year.

What You Will Need

• Cooking Brush
• Metal Baking Pan (17 x 11 1/2 x 2 1/4)
• 1 Large Onion
• Vegetable Oil
• 1 Packaged of Chopped Spinach
• Dill Weed
• Salt & Pepper
• 1 Box of Filo Dough
• 5 Large Eggs
• 3 Packages of Feta Cheese (If you get a huge block of Feta from Sam’s Club you can probably use 3/4 of that and it would work out fine too.)
• Parkay Margarine (My Mom always said it has to be the one that has 60% vegetable oil so that is what I’ve always used. I did try it once with a different type of butter and it didn’t turn out quite as good.)

Prep Work

Initially you’ll want to store the filo in the freezer if you are not going to cook the Spanakopita right away. Before you do cook the Spanakopita you’ll want to move the box of filo from the freezer to the fridge. The night before you cook the spinach pie just put the box of filo out on the counter from the fridge overnight. You don’t have to take the filo out of the box to thaw. Leave it in the box.

Directions

Chop 1 large onion. In frying pan or skillet brown the chopped onion in a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Put the chopped spinach frozen straight from the box into the pan and let it cook while the onion is browning. Cover the pot while the spinach and onion are cooking. Sprinkle Dill Weed, Salt and Pepper over the browned spinach and onion mix while it’s cooking. After the spinach and onion are browned and all the juices are steamed out (you do not want it soggy or wet) set it aside to cool towards room temperature.

In a large bowl you’ll want to start cutting up your feta. I usually just take a fork and mash it up. It doesn’t have to be super fine. You want it to be somewhat chunky so when people bite into their piece of the pie they get a taste of the cheese. But do mash it up. Once you’ve got it mashed up in your large bowl then you can work on your eggs.

Beat 5 Large Eggs in another bowl. Once that’s all mixed up with a fork you can add it to the cheese and then mix that up real well. By that time the spinach and onion mixture should be cool. Add that to the cheese and eggs and mix it all up. All of this should be done by hand. No machines required. It wouldn’t work out if you used a machine. Set everything to the side.

In a small sauce pan on the stove you’ll want to start melting some of that Parkay on low. My husband usually buys me 5 or 6 small tubs of that Parkay with the 60% vegetable oil. I start with one tub and go from there. All I do is grab a serving spoon and plop some Parkay in the sauce pan and allow it to melt slowly on low heat. While that’s working I grease my metal baking pan with more Parkay.

You’ll need to figure out how many sheets of filo you are working with. Some boxes come with them already separated out into two batches. That’s Nice! If you pick up filo that doesn’t do that you’ll want to make sure to use half the sheets for the bottom of your pan and the other half for the top of the pan with the spinach, egg and cheese mixture being the filling in between all of the layers.

So you’ll start laying your filo dough one at a time in the bottom of the pan making sure to brush the melted Parkay in between the layers. Do this every single time you put filo down to cover the bottom of the pan. Try and work it out so that it’s even across the pan. You’ll figure out a way to eye ball the sheets and make it work because it’s not going to be a perfect fit. Also, make the filo come up a little bit on the sides of the pan all the way around the pan for the bottom half of the pie.

Once the first half of the filo dough has been set up you’ll add the spinach, cheese and egg mixture to the pan spreading it out as evenly as possible. I use the back of a big spoon to spread it out. You could probably use one of those icing utensils to do the same thing too. Once you get the mixture level you’ll start adding the rest of the filo brushing melted Parkay in between each layer to finish up the top of the pie.

After completing the layers roll the edges and brush with melted Parkay all along the sides and on the top of the pie. Using a sharp knife cut half way into the pie and make even slices for serving later. I believe in the cooking world it’s called scoring. If you don’t score your pie before cooking it then you will have problems cutting out the pieces to serve.

WARNING ! ! !

The Filo is extremely flaky and crunchy after it’s cooked and will make a HUGE mess when you are trying to cut the pieces. So pre-cutting OR scoring through the pie BEFORE cooking it is VERY important.

Make sure you preheated your oven to 400 degrees so it will be ready to go by the time you are finished getting everything together in the pan. I usually cook my Spinach Pie on 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Once it hits the 30 minute mark I check it to see if it’s golden brown kind of like in the picture above. If yours isn’t golden by the time 30 minutes has passed then leave it to cook longer and keep checking it every 5 minutes until it’s done.

In our family we LOVE it. I usually make it for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I LOVE it so much that I can eat it cold for breakfast! If you have any questions at all feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to provide an answer as soon as I can. I’d love to hear how this turns out for you.

I must give credit where it’s due. My husband Don rocks in the Dad Department. He has been working his butt off all week long. I don’t know what it is about this week but he’s been up pretty late working until 1, 2, 3, and sometimes 4 o’clock in the morning. His work has been crazy busy.

It’s not very often that I get to have the house to myself but today I do. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to kick back and not have to worry about Fiona and Kinsley asking me for everything including the sun. I can actually kick back, relax and get a little bit of my own work done uninterrupted.

Don took the girls to the Zoo to watch a sneak peak of Barbie a Mermaid Tale. Afterward they are going to check out the Aquarium. I am tickled that he actually thought to do this activity without me. I am stoked!

He let me know that he might have to take a nap while they are watching the Barbie movie. Oh and at the start of the movie Kinsley realized that she still had her pajama pants on. So Funny.

You Rock It Babe – I Love You!

I’m Down 9 lbs : )

Here’s the rest of the most commented posts.

Anybody out there want to do a link exchange w/me? What that means is I would link to you and you would link to me and that’s how we might make new friends and discover new and interesting blogs to read? Why Not? If you’re blogging, have a blog, and reading my blog…then we can network.

If you’re interested shoot me a quick note and tell me, ok? : )

Anybody out there who has a blog and is reading my blog at this very moment want to join my blog network? It’s called Blogs Rule. I’m hoping it will be a fun blog directory to be part of…ya know? If you’re interested check out the banners that are available and then shoot me a quick note from there too…ok?

The buzzer on my washing machine just went off so I have to go! I’ll blog ya later for sure! : )