This morning I got up, I made coffee and cocos, watched the kids start a show, and saw Matt off to work.  It’s the same thing I’ve done for years.  But this morning a few things were different.  The coffee I made for me with all coffee, no milk, a little sugar and creamer wasn’t the only one.  MyOldest has begun to take his coffee like mine.  MyMiddlest still prefers his with half milk, half coffee and sugar.  But that means I’m filling 2 less cups with chocolate milk mix.  That seems trivial but I remember when they were all in sippy cups and I was having more babies and I thought the powdered chocolate consumption would expand as exponentially as the work seemed to be.  But it hasn’t.

They grow up.

This morning I woke up to a 2 year old who wore underwear to sleep in instead of his diaper.  We are just shy of 2 weeks into potty training MyLittleBuddy with only 2 accidents in that long.  Last night we stepped up to no diapers and this morning when we were dry I sighed a sigh of relief.  This means the Parkers are completely diaper free for the first time in well over 10 years.

They grow up.

I know I have another sweet little starting over baby coming in a few months.  And I rejoice in that fact.  I rejoice in the mercy of the Lord to get to do it all again.  Because this time around it’s more apparent than ever before.

They grow up.

It’s a GIRL!!!

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and usual I was nervous before I went.  I’ve had lots of  “really, you’re already 20 weeks, you sure don’t look like it” and I agree, I’m much smaller (my belly anyway, the rest of me has put on plenty of weight!) than in past pregnancies.  That combined with my last prenatal showed my measurements as a tad smaller than the age the baby was measuring had me worried that maybe something was wrong.  But it appears that I’m carrying her much like I carried my first sweet girl.  I looked and felt completely different throughout her pregnancy and maybe that will hold true this time as well.  Also, I just worry.  This was the “check everything out” ultrasound.  And I always worry that there will be problems.  One of the encouraging things that I kept reminding myself was that I’m feeling her so much more often and stronger now.  I love her movement, so reassuring and bonding.

But she looked great, measurements were good, and everything’s just fine.  It was so good to see her moving and stretching and opening her tiny little mouth.

The kids loved watching her.  She settled part way through the ultrasound when we were trying to get this profile picture and the tech had my girl push gently on one side of my belly to wake her.  They loved being a part of it!  She asked at one point, “If you had a lot of caff-a-nene would she wake up?”  We all giggled.  My 2 youngest in the room were so excited that they couldn’t stand still, talking about her, getting to use her name and wiggling everywhere.  The tech smiled and said, “How do you keep up?”  My enlightened answer was,”A trampoline, we have a trampoline and it helps.”  Good grief.

The older 2 boys stood mostly quietly in the back but I could hear oohs and ahs when she would kick or move or when the tech showed us her tiny toes and counted them for us.  So very sweet.

She’s well, I’m well, and now garage sale-ing we will go!

MyMiddlest turned 9 a couple of weeks ago and I just can’t believe it.  How in the world did he get to be 9?!

He has turned into my skater, gamer, Lego Ninjago lover, mohawk sporter, and picker/teaser like his father before him.

I love this sweet boy more than he could possibly know!

Today though I’m going to address what we do with all those leftovers when everyone has had their second bowl of chili in as many days and are tired of it.

Ingredients

Leftover chili

Shredded cheese (whatever kind you have on hand, today we had cheddar)

Flour tortillas

Sour Cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Warm your leftover chili in the microwave so that the middle of your wrap ups aren’t cold.  I also warm my tortillas outside of their package for about 30 seconds in the microwave.  Then scoop about a tablespoon or two of chili in a line down the center of the flour tortilla.  I make my chili pretty saucy/runny so I try to drain some of the chili juice off so that the chili wrap ups are less runny, more firm.  Sprinkle some cheese down the center, then carefully roll up the tortilla (much like your enchiladas) and place them seam side down in a 9 x 13 pan.  I place them touching  – it helps hold them together.  Now here you could top them with some of the leftover chili sauce before placing in the oven, but I like my rollups a bit crunchy around the edges.  Place the casserole dish uncovered in the oven for about 15 minutes until edges are just crisp.  Scoop carefully onto a plate and top with sour cream.  We have to eat ours with a fork instead of picking them up like burritos because they’re a tad messy, but oh so yummy and quick to serve up for lunch!

As I mentioned the other day we went to the beach last week.  It was the first time any of our kids had seen the beach.  It all started because Matt had a business conference scheduled for the beach and because he’s an awesome husband and daddy he took off extra days and turned it into a family vacation.  I kinda like him.  Have I mentioned that?

We did all the things you’re supposed to do at the beach.  We took a walk down a pier where we saw 3 sting rays and lots of fishermen with their catches.

We found sand crabs and caught them in nets and looked at them closely and let them go.  We also wrote our farewells to them in the sand in perfectly scrawled phonetic spellings of “bi”.

We fed the seagulls.

We shopped at souvenir shops and spent way too much money for trinkets.

We ate seafood galore.  Okay, Matt and I ate seafood galore.  The kids wouldn’t touch it (which was wonderful, I didn’t have to fight anybody off my food).

We scoured the beach day and night for seashells.  Seeing the sun set while listening to the waves lap.

We sorted our treasures.

We sat early in the mornings and watched the sunrise on our back porch.

We (as in me) took our pregnant bodies to the beach and got a little too sunburned.

We sat more relaxed than I ever thought we would be with that many small children on the beach and just watched them play.

We found crazy sea life washed ashore.

We said goodbye and thought it was better than we ever could have imagined.