This is the mom-terview I I saw on Facebook, but wanted to post it here, too. BG is 10 1/2, MG is 8 1/2, and LG is 5.

This was fun, LG went first but got silly and punchy very quickly

1. What is something mom always says to you?

BG – “I love you”
MG – “I love you”
LG – “yes, you may”

2. What makes mom happy?

BG – me
MG – me being with her
LG – me not having my voice raised (we’ve been working with her on not whining and no screaming inside)

3. What makes mom sad?

BG- me getting hurt
MG – a place without wifi
LG – me getting hurt

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

BG – she tells silly stories
MG – make Daniel Striped Tiger (a puppet) walk and talk
LG – me smashing cars (?!)

5. What was your mom like as a child?

BG – geeky!
MG – like me!
LG – organized (??)

6. How old is your mom?

BG – 37
MG- 37
LG – 37

7. How tall is your mom?

BG – bigger than a bread box, but smaller than a house
MG – bigger than a box ‘o’ Isabel
LG – bigger than me!

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

BG – chat
MG – play on her laptop
LG – play games

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around? (they all had a hard time with this)

BG – *shrug*
MG – be like a Mama
LG – go out to the movies

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?

BG – her cooking
MG – writing a book about her kids
LG – it would be for Mama writing a book

11. What is your mom really good at?

BG – cooking
MG – loving me
LG – bursting balloons

12. What is your mom not very good at?

BG – skiing and gymnastics
MG – doing bad things
LG – riding ferris wheels (“but I’m good at that!”, “just write it, I don’t want to talk any more”)

13. What does your mom do for a job?

BG – works on her book
MG – play on her laptop
LG – write a book

14.What is your mom’s favorite food?

BG – pizza
MG – nuts
LG – mary janes

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

BG – she can go on walks with me even though she’s hurting
MG – her being cool
LG – her not embarrassing me

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?

BG – she’d be a lion, protecting her cubs
MG – Spike from Tom and Jerry – protecting his puppy from Tom
LG – she would be a mouse

17. What do you and your mom do together?

BG – snuggle
MG – answer questions like this
LG – go out for McDonalds (?!)

18. How are you and your mom the same?

BG – we can both roll our tongues
MG – we both have brown eyes
LG – we’re both girls!

19. How are you and your mom different?

BG – she has pretty brown hair and I have pretty blonde hair
MG – she wears glasses and I don’t
LG – my mom has long hair and I have short hair

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

BG – she says it a lot
MG – ‘cos we like to snuggle and she says it a lot
LG – kissy

21. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?

BG – out to dinner
MG – a place with wifi and her kids, like the Y
LG – the Library

That was fun! Perhaps they will accede to the demands of the media again sometime on a different topic.

We all remember when I accidentally set my grandmother’s oven on fire this summer, right? I had completely forgotten she stores cookies & crackers in it, and had simply started preheating it. I check every oven before preheating now, though!

Well, anyhow… I’m still getting used to cooking in my mom’s kitchen. There are some differences in how we organize things, and in which products we buy. I was never a big fan of canola oil spray, but she has it, so I use it. It works well, too. I wonder why I was opposed to it? Well, that isn’t the point.

Today was a high-pain day, and I was making dinner in a bit of a rush. I had started the chicken cooking in the oven, and was prepping two more 9×13 pans with potatoes and vegetables. When I sprayed the oil on the pans to prep them, it pooled up, and wasn’t smelling right. I was about to add the potatoes into the pan when I noticed what I had used to spray the pans.

It wasn’t canola oil.

It was Resolve Carpet Cleaning spray.

Both are red bottles. One is great with food. The other, not so much. eeek!

I washed the pans about 5 times before I trusted them with food. I’d have preferred not to use hem, but we only have 4 pans that size, and I already had one in the oven.

So, please people out there – don’t put carpet cleaning spray near the food!

Over the past couple weeks, as part of studying Ancient Civilizations, we’ve studied the ancient Jewish people and specifically, Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. It turned multi-media when we learned about the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! In our Homeschool Coop, we even had a mom who knew the music! On Friday, we also had fun making individual coats of many colors using paper the movers left behind, then pieces of construction paper as fabric. They were really cool.

On Saturday, MG had a birthday party to attend, which meant we needed to make cupcakes! I futzed with an existing recipe, and ended up with the perfect chocolate cupcakes, which were fluffy, moist, and looked beautiful, too! In the spirit of many colors, I set up 5 ziplocs of frosting, each in a different color. Then I snipped the end off a corner of each ziploc, and the girls were able to decorate with many colors. It was so much fun! And much less messy than I was expecting! Plus, multi-colored cupcakes taste better than solid-color cupcakes!

We’re settling into our temporary home, and finding little joys like little bursts of color. We hope all our friends are also having brilliant days.

After 5 years of living up the hill from a beach where you can dig for clams, I got a dairy-free clam chowder recipe perfected enough to post it. Of course I could tweak it for years, but this is delicious, and I couldn’t stop eating it. When BG cried because it was gone, I knew it was good! LG and MG disliking it means nothing, of course!

Some days are hard, and it’s easy to get frustrated. But then there are the days where your feet never seem to touch the ground. I try to hang on to that feeling for as long as possible, and clearly LG really likes the feeling, too!

ps: The spelling bee was a tie! It was also postponed about 4 times, but it was a blast when it was done!

We are moved into our transitional home, living with my mom & step-dad. So far living here is much better than expected (and I’m not just saying that since my mom reads here). There have been some bumps along the road, for sure – moving costs at least twice what people think it will, and it’s exponentially more difficult.

We’re starting new routines and trying to settle in, making our spaces ours in small ways. We’ve also been more structured with the homeschooling, and I’m really proud of how the girls have responded! This past week we started a wonderful new spelling program which uses “rimes” (or rhymes) and sequential spelling – so learning thin, then thins, then thinned, then thinning, etc.

BG and MG are really proud of how well they are doing! So today they are holding a spelling bee – there are still tickets and there’s still space for more of an audience! It was originally scheduled for 12:30pm Eastern, but now we’re at 1:15-1:30pm Eastern. so you’ve still got time!

I’m feeling really overwhelmed with everything, but there have been a lot of wonderful things this week, and I am aiming for optimistic. My girls are definitely surrounded by love, and that’s a Good Thing!