The cake.

Bren goes for a tower. 😉

The “Slay the Dragon” game I painted.

Brendan and the Magician. His performance was perfect for 5 year olds!!

See, it went like this…

Playing a helicopter game.

Driving a car.

Don’t buy this:

Three loaves of bread worth of yeast costs $1 at my grocery store.
Buy this:

One hundred and twenty-eight loaves worth costs $4 at Sam’s.

I made Walnut-Oatmeal veggie burgers last night. It was the craziest thing but the end result was amazingly beef-like! It even looked beef-like! I never can follow a recipe exactly but this is where I got it from.
My version:
Walnut Oatmeal Burgers
burger mixture:
2 cups walnut pieces
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 cup broth (I used beef since I am not a vegetarian)
1 small onion, pureed in blender
1 T garlic powder
3/4 t salt (I used smoked salt)
1/2 t pepper (I used smokehouse pepper)
for cooking burgers:
oil to brown patties
remainder of 16 oz can of broth plus another can
for serving:
hamburger buns and any desired burger fixings
(I used panfried poblano strips, guacamole, tomato, colby-jack cheese and chipotle mayo- simply mayo and minced canned chipotles in adobo sauce, about 2 peppers to 1/2 c mayo.)
Grind walnuts in blender and combine with the rest of the burger mixture ingredients. Let the mixture rest in refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors meld together.
Form the mixture into patties. The entire mixture will make about 8 burgers. Brown patties well on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the broth into the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.
Serve on buns with all your burger fixings.

Happy Birthday Brendan! Mama loves you!

See how Brendan wrote his name on his worksheet today? 😉

I can’t believe Bren’s birthday is this week. It’s been 5 years since I became a Mom. It sure does pass quickly! I’m ready for another baby. That yearning is back. Oddly enough, the yearning for a girl is not as strong. I really love my boys and really would not mind another son. We have a plan in the works for my DH to update his Microsoft certification by the fall and then for us to find him a job closer to his parents’ house. Once he is secure in a job with health insurance benefits, I will start up the IUIs again.
Homeschool is going great!! Bren is now doing first grade phonics and whizzing through the first part of his Kindergarten math. He is really getting a sense of humor now and his behavior has been great.
Andy is getting so big! We understand a lot of what he wants now and he has a lot of Brendan quirks about him. He adores his brother and they play great together. I wish I had taken the effort to get him sleeping through the night in his crib but his crib days are probably over now. I am thinking of transitioning him to a toddler bed in Brendan’s room after Bren’s birthday party.
I am so excited to be going on a real vacation next month! We are spending a week up in North Carolina and Virginia. We’ll tour Colonial Williamsburg and, if I can talk my mom into it, also stay at the Great Wolf Lodge- with an indoor waterpark!!
He are some Bren-bits & Andy-dotes…
3/3 Andy says snack “nak” & star “dahr”
3/4 Start castles & knight unit, working on different medieval people (King, Knight, Archer, peasant, Baron…)
Everywhere Bren goes in the house, he rides his scooter. Everywhere Andy goes in the house, he rides his bike. Everywhere I
go in the house, I trip on a scooter or a bike.
3/5 Bren made a joke while doing a writing lesson:
Me: You went too fast Brendan. These are not good Es.
Bren: Not “goodies”- or not “good Es”? Haha.
3/7 Andy says beautiful “bee-oh”, made a mess- “may uh meh”, outside “ow-sigh”, socks
3/8 First oddball toy of the week they’ve both had at the same time- socks?!
3/10
Me: Bren which of thease green markers do you want to use?
Bren: Hmmm…Pee-haps…
Me: Perhaps?!
Bren: hahahaha!
Andy opened his first closed door today… groan!
3/11
One of Bren’s favorite books from the past few months is “Caps For Sale”. Very cute book! Darrell likes to annoy him by saying “Cups for Sale”. Today Bren read the word caps in his phonics lesson.
Bren: Like in “Caps For Sale!” Pause. Cups for sale! Hahaha!
Me: That’s a good joke isn’t it?
Bren: DAD’S for sale. LOL! 😉
Andy asked for a “yellow banana” today. He also said “sorry” for the first time.
Bren: Look! I got a pocket in my underwear! Bwahahahaha!
3/12 Last night was very odd here. I spent an hour finishing a book and was still wide awake so I stayed up reading a pastry chef’s blog until 2 am. I woke up to Brendan sitting on the couch with a blanket, clutching his head and saying “I got secrets!! Too many secrets!!” I think he had a very vivid dream. It was hard not to laugh. Also, Andy fell off of the foot of the bed in the middle of the night. By the way he landed I could tell he had done a somersault. He landed on some soft fabric I had there and didn’t even whine when I pulled him back to his normal spot.
3/13
(Reading about Scooby-doo)
Bren: I want a tail!
Me: You silly! Boys can’t have tails!
Bren: (getting upset) But I want to wag my own tail!
Me: You want a Scooby-doo costume with a tail?
Bren: No, a real tail!
Me: Where am I supposed to get a real tail??
Bren: At Big Lots! LOL!
After watching “The Sword in the Stone”, doing magic now sounds like “bibbity bobbity boo” 🙂