The Missing, The Messy, and The Dead (or half-dead)

We had a lot of drama here on Friday. While playing in the bathtub Friday morning, Owen discovered his tooth was loose. In hindsight, I realize that he had probably never in his 4 1/2 years entertained the thought that his teeth might fall out. I, of course, was expecting it, and I was completely surprised by his reaction. He totally freaked out. Thought it would be gone forever, not caring that it would be replaced. Even telling him he'd get money for the thing didn't help matters! He carried on like his life was over for an obscene amount of time before finally resigning himself to the fact that he was soon going to be toothless. At least in one spot. But once the drama was over, he began to get a little excited, even proud, about it. By the time the girls came home from school that day, he was boasting loudly about his loose tooth. Emily is the sort of person who seizes on opportunities the moment they present themselves. And she LOVES to pull teeth (don't ask me why...I can't even look at a loose tooth without getting all shuddery). She has pulled every one of her own baby teeth out, and even pulled out a couple of Lauren's loose teeth. As soon as she saw Owen's loose tooth, she immediately convinced him that she could pull it out in a flash. 30 seconds later, she came running to find me, tooth in hand. Owen stood in the kitchen with a shocked and bewildered look on this face, and a paper towel stuck in his mouth. So, my son has turned another corner. Passed another milestone.

He has.....a missing tooth.

How many of you out there have kids whose mess just kills you?

I know I'm not the only one. I have tried, really hard, to get my oldest child to care about keeping her things cleaned up. We've spent hours organizing her room, making sure all her special treasures have their own orderly place to hang out. The neatness usually lasts about 1/2 a day. I would give up, but somewhere in my mind, I keep thinking that one of these times it's gonna hit her that she really likes it when things are neat. My mom keeps telling me this is payback, and that I was the same way. I don't remember that. It's probably true, though. I'm still not a neat-nick (my mom is), but I do like order and neatness. So maybe there's hope. Until then, I guess I'll just have to adopt this motto:

I got looking at my plants the other day, and it made me laugh. And cry. Poor things. I do much better with outdoor plants. For whatever reason, I cannot remember to water my indoor plants. They all look sort of.....

....bedraggled....
......half-dead...
....um....yeah....

Guess it's time to get rid of a few. I do have about 3 plants that are still surviving without too many obvious signs of abuse. Maybe I should put them up for adoption before it's too late.

The rest of this week will be spent trying to finish up a few different things I've already started. This afternoon, I'm making Valentines with Lauren (Emily's class isn't doing them this year). I found a really neat idea for Valentines, thanks to the "do it yourself" guru Martha Stewart. You can check it out here. We've just started the project, so I have no photos to share, yet, but hopefully the finished product will be as cute as Martha's was.

I also have a jean skirt I'm trying to fix. It's an old skirt, but I still really like it. The problem with it, is the material in the back near the pockets have worn through, and it's not really very modest to wear it like that. I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do to salvage it. I do have one idea, so we'll see where that leads.

The bathroom upstairs still needs to get finished as well. I started painting it about a week and 1/2 ago, but never got around to painting the rest.

I'm sure there're plenty of other projects I could list here, but I'll be doing good to get these done this week.

On to today's recipe post.

Here's a recipe I made up. My family likes it, so maybe yours will, too. We were in a rush the last time I fixed this, so I didn't take the time to snap a photo. Wondering what to make for dinner? Here you go!

Ham and Cheesy Rice with Broccoli

1-2 cups cooked ham (diced, or cut in small pieces)

1 can cr. of mushroom soup

3/4 c. sour cream

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 reg. size bag of frozen broccoli

1 cup uncooked rice (I prefer Jasmine brand)

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup bread crumbs

Stir all ingredients (except the bread crumbs) together in a very large bowl, mixing well. Spread evenly in a greased 9x13 casserole dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake at 350* for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until everything is bubbly and rice is tender.

I've never done it, but I think this would freeze well prior to baking.