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It's my birthday

I'm a quarter of a century today. 1/4 of the way to 100. And I feel like I'm still such a kid. Not because I act like a kid, or anything like that. I just feel like I still have so much to do before I'm really an "adult."
Because you know, being a mom to triplets, that's so not something adults do.
Actually, I don't know why I feel young. Maybe because this past summer I was still carded to play Keno (legal age in my state is 19).

In any case, I'm enjoying my birthday hugs from my little ones, and super enjoying the fact that my husband is actually cleaning the house so I don't have to. Yeah.

Plus, my awesome parents bought me a kitchenaid stand mixer. And I've only wanted one of those since I was, I dunno, 15 yrs 3 months and 2 weeks old. Not like I've been counting or anything. haha. (That age was totally just thrown out there, to drive the point that I've wanted one for awhile now.)

AND my sister got my a pretty kick-ass cookbook. And last month, for our anniversary, my husband got me a deluxe mandolin slicer (and running shoes). Good thing kitchen-y things excite me, otherwise I might be offended that I got kitchen utensil/appliances/cookbook. But I really love the fun gifts I received.

And just to prove how much of a dork I really am, I'm wearing a tiara and birthday button-ribbon thing today. And just in case you don't believe me... A picture....

As of late

I've always enjoyed cooking and baking and generally just playing around with food and coming up with yummy things that people love to eat.

Before I got married, I never really had to cook often, unless I wanted to. And to be honest, it was like an occasional hobby before I got married. I made a few things really well, and when my husband and I were still just kind of hanging out and dating, and I was still trying to impress the heck out of him, I would cook, but it certainly was not an every night thing. So then we got married, and had triplets, and eating out or getting take out or fast food was not financially sound. That first year of marriage we ate a lot of crappy hamburger helper, not that I couldn't do anything better, but being pregnant with triplets and then having newborns, I didn't have a lot of energy or focus to plan meals, grocery shop, and then cook. So I've really been improving and exploring recipes since that part of our lives. I love to cook. I love to bake. I love slice, dice, chop, mix, bake, braise, broil, etc...
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL....
I've discovered canning! AND I LOVE IT! We don't have a super extensive garden, so I haven't done much canning this year, because I don't want to buy a million pounds of extra produce when I go shopping. Luckily though, my parents have a decent garden, and my in-laws have a great garden. My parents will be great, but it's their first year having their garden, and I think they are planning on adding more stuff every year until they have everything they want/need.
Anyway, this year all we had in our yard was our grapes. We picked our grapes, washed them, made them into juice and from there made our own jelly! It's fantastic. A little over a quart of juice made 8 jars of jelly! And I also made my own sauerkraut this year. 6 pints! And I did my own pumpkin puree, but since they have lower acidity that other fruits and veggies, I didn't really can it, per say, I just made the puree from fresh pumpkins and then froze it for later use.
Can't wait to expand on this next year. Also, I plan on asking my in-laws if they have an overflow of jalapenos they wouldn't mind parting with. I really want to make/can candied jalapenos.

moody eaters

When my boys were babies and on baby food, I thought I was so lucky, the didn't seem too picky. And now they aren't so much picky, as they are moody eaters. One day they will love something, the next time I make it, they act like they're being served prison food. Sometimes they like hot dogs, sometimes they hate them. Sometimes they won't touch any meat at all, sometimes they love meat. So, as a mom, it's tough to make sure everyone is eating well. I decided to share some tricks to get my moody eaters to eat just about anything.

1. Put ketchup on it. My kids used refuse eggs, until we put ketchup on them. If they don't eat their veggies, we put ketchup on it. I personally, think ketchup is gross anyway, so getting them to eat this way is not my favorite, but if it gets them eating, I can deal with gross.

2. Re-invent the recipe. Last night I made sloppy joes, total kid food, right? Well, they didn't touch them. I wasn't going to make anything else, it was a long, rough day. So, they got crackers, cheese, lunch meat.. But today, I had leftover sloppy joe, so I boiled up some pasta for lunch and heated and mixed in the leftover sloppy joe. They actually LIKED it!

3. Let them help make food. When they are being especially moody, I let them help in the kitchen. If we're making something that isn't really safe for them to help with (something involving lots of cutting and hot stoves/ovens) I fill the sink with soapy water, give them cups and spoons OR I give them bowls and spoons and let them pretend to cook.

4. If all else fails, go to their all time favorite. My kids love spaghetti or any kind of Italian food. We eat a lot of spaghetti and ravioli around here. I've started expanding on the Italian foods I make, and so far, they love all of it. A new household favorite, which I was surprised the kids loved so much, is Eggplant Parmesan.

Do you have picky/moody eaters? What do you do to get your kids to eat?

Let's get organized!

I have been in a cleaning,organizing, and dust-busting mood lately! I have re-organized my kitchen, freed up a ton of counter space, and de-cluttered the cupboards. The next day I cleaned and re-organized the bathroom. So I was extremely pleased when I read that this month's Project Marriage was to change something in the bedroom. Either something big or small. Well, the timing of this challenge couldn't be better with my "Let's whip this place into tip top shape" mood and all. I have SO many ideas for the bedroom. We have two closets in the house. One in the boys' room and one in the unfinished basement. So, not having a closet in our bedroom means that our room gets pretty cluttered at times. We have a dresser and a clothes rack type thing in there. We actually have two dressers, but one is filled with junk. SO one idea I had for the room is to buy my husband an inexpensive, yet functional filing cabinet for his office, and all the papers from the junk dresser can be filed away. Then we can sort through the rest of the junk and either put it in storage, or sell it or find some functional use for it, and open up the dresser for actual clothes. Replace the flimsy little clothes rack thing with either a sturdier rack and get some sort or canopy or curtain to put around it so it has more of a closet-y feel, or fashion some sort of wardrobe to hang clothes in. I've also told my husband that the little chair in our room has got to go, either up to his office, or to a yard sale.
We also have a hand-me-down headboard. One with a mirror in it. I don't really love the mirror headboard, and I'm having a lot of trouble convincing to let me make changes to the headboard. I want to take the mirror out, and make a chalkboard to put in there instead. Not that we need a chalkboard in our headboard any more than we need a mirror, but I think it would be cute. And the final change I'm planning on making is pulling out the sewing machine and making some fun accent pillows, and maybe new curtains. But if all I get accomplished is creating more functional space and finding a tidy way to store clothes with having no closet then I shall be pleased.

A technology free date night.

I really love my husband, so I was really excited when July's Project Marriage was to have a date night.
Did my husband wine and dine me? No. Did we go to a movie? Not a chance. My parents are partners in a ranch, so we loaded up the kids and went up to the ranch for a weekend. We had our own cabin, and the boys had their own room, so while we saw our kids much of the time, the grandparents would watch them and give the Mr. and I some time to go off together. I love that our date was a weekend away from neighbors, and falling asleep listening to big rigs, traffic and sirens.
What types of things did we do? While the boys were up where my parents were staying, we caught and removed mice from our cabin, one night, after the boys were asleep, my parents sat at our cabin and babysat the sleeping boys, we took an off road jeep ride, did some sunset hiking, saw a lot of deer and wildlife, when we got back from our drive, we sat outside of the cabin and had a couple of owls join us. The next night the ranch was hosting a 4th of July dance, so the owls weren't aroud too much, so we sat outside and star gazed. During the day we got to go fishing and go to the shooting range. SO much fun!
I sure love my husband, and I love that we like to get dirty on our dates! Plus I LOVED that the Mr. had no cell phone signal or internet while we were up there, so we actually really spent time talking and listening to each other!

Top 10 annoying things people ask me/say to me

I'm a mother of triplets. These are the top 10 most obnoxious comments and questions I get regarding having triplets.

1. I don't envy you!
Great. You don't envy me. Well, guess what! I don't envy you either. I have 3 precious little boys, a house full of love, and about a million reasons to smile everyday.

2. Oh wow! Instant family, I guess you and your husband are done having kids.
Whether we're done having kids or not, it's not of your business. Which brings me to number 3...

3. You need to try for a girl now.
I'm happy with my boys. I have nieces. Again, us having more kids or not is nobody's business but our own. And please don't think it's up to you to make the decision of me subletting my uterus for another 9 months.

4. What did you use to get pregnant?
My husband. And quite frankly, I don't appreciate the assumption that the only way anyone could possibly have multiples is with some sort of infertility treatment or something. Also, I don't feel comfortable discussing my husband and I's sex life. Just assume that sex makes babies and leave it at that.

5. How do you tell the two identical ones apart?
They are my children, I spend all day with them everyday. They may look identical to you, but I know my kids. Their personalities shine through and to me, they are so different and truly each their own little person, how could I not be able to tell them apart?

6. How do you do it?
Really? How does anyone raise their kids, whether multiples, siblings of different ages, or only children? Raising kids is a challenge, and just like any other parents, we raise our kids with love, teach them how to be respectful and well-mannered, and basically just do the best we can.

7. Oh wow! You have twins?
Can you count? I have 3 kids here, that would make them triplets. Yes, only two look alike. It's because two are identical and one is fraternal. But yes, they are triplets.

8. Why didn't you pick names that rhyme or all start with the same letter?
Because we didn't.

9. Triplets, wow, I know someone with twins and I had to babysit them once....
Great, good for you for knowing someone else with multiples. I'm raising multiples, so I really don't care about your story about the time you babysat 3 month old twins.

10. Did you know you were having triplets?
I really don't understand this question. Did I know I was going to have triplets before I even knew I was pregnant? No. Did I know when the pregnancy test read positive? No. I found out at 13 weeks. And as big as one gets with more than 1 baby growing inside them, and with medical technology, yes, I found out before delivery day that there were 3.