No Mess Painting

We like to try new things. We also like to be creative. The most ideal situation is to do these things with as little mess as possible. With a brood of very young children this can be a challenge! But we've been finding some good ones and want to share them. Maybe you have a favorite 'little activity' and would like to share. If so contact me! megrussell@gmail.com

My little ones love to paint. Who doesn't? Me! Ha! Well, I love to paint too, but the clean up can be a nightmare and ruin the fun stressing about it during the process. Thankfully we've found some middle ground! And it's so simple. We had some children's paint that was too translucent to make fun prints with so we taped a large Ziploc bag to the table with a white piece of paper behind it, squirted two colors in and zipped it shut.

This led to hours of fun, not only for the 2 and 3 year old, but the 13 year old and myself and my husband. Even my mom had some fun with it! It was hard not to! We left it on the table for a few days even.

Since it's not technically painting, and you don't get to keep your beautiful ever transforming creations (unless you take photos) we gave it a new name. Squishing. It was super fun to do and to watch as the two colors slowly blended together. Which was another great lesson in color mixing! We wrote letters and shapes and drew pictures and just went wild. Win win. It was great to have at the table to distract and entertain while I cooked too. And easy to wipe off after eating on this fancy interactive place mat. When the bags wore down too much we just pulled it up in once piece and threw it away. 

One thing I'd do differently next time though is to buy better bags. I used some cheap ones I had on hand already and they were quite flimsy and didn't hold up too long to scratching (see above), which as you can see, started immediately. :) Perhaps even putting the clear tape over the bag completely would help? 

So there you have it. A fun quick, easy, no mess activity for children of all ages! Ever done this? Let me know! I'd love to hear about it!

Birth Story #3

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:4-6

What an amazing thing to experience three pregnancies and them all be so different. And the children are different. And the births are different. I've been so blessed to have had such easy quick births. You can read about Zeke's birth here and Haddie's birth here.

This whole pregnancy I anticipated (as well as let people know) having a baby by 42 weeks. I go ahead and add the extra gestation time because Zeke was almost 43 weeks and Haddie almost 42. I figured it was safe. Plus right at the 42 week marker was Thanksgiving. So it was easy to just say, "we should have a baby by Thanksgiving!" A great thing to look forward to also. As the time got closer to that holiday we had friends and family visit. Yet, no baby. And Thanksgiving came and went, as did our guests. I was not glowing anymore. Going one day over the estimated time of arrival is tough! Much less two whole weeks over! And despite my efforts to ignore it, the delay affected me. The next day I called my wonderful midwife who I can always count on to lift me up in times like these. It's funny too because you would think I would know better. On the phone I cried, "I'm not having this baby and I'm going to stay pregnant forever!" Which makes me laugh now. She knew better and said that maybe it was a boy and that would be a pattern for me to grow baby boys a little longer. Really? Neat. The human body never ceases to amaze me. (By the way, we didn't find out the gender of this one so it was fun having a surprise.) just having that reassurance helped me settle those emotions and recenter myself so i could relax and wait till this little apple was nice and ripe enough to fall off the tree on its own. That very night... my water broke. I hadn't experienced that with the other two, so it was kinda exciting. It happened while I was sleeping even! 1:30 am I got Darryl up and called the midwife. Her recommendation? Go back to sleep. Are you kidding me? But I tried. The baby however, was ready to come on out. So contractions started shortly thereafter. The two midwives come, mom comes,sister-in-law comes. We set up camp and get everything prepared and sit around and had a pajama party. Except I was experiencing contractions (Which for me, aren't that bad. Nothing at all like after pains, ouch!). After a couple of hours it wasn't going fast enough for me and so I walked around the room while we chatted. Not a big fan of labor contractions while standing. It wasn't long either and I could tell it was intensifying. So into the pool I went! Jordanwoke up. Zeke and Haddie woke up. I didn't mind the activity in the house at all this time because I actually wanted everyone to be there. After a little while I started crowning. We let it progress until the head was almost out and called everyone in. Sister-in-law was filming... and crying (so sweet!). For me i have found the best thing to do is just let my body do the work and let the baby come out on its own. I do mostly controlled breathing and very little, if at any at all, pushing. Just a minute after everyone came to see,our newest little boy came out to meet everyone too. Zeke cried out, "BABY!"as Haddie just looked on in wonder (or shock!). Zeke jumped in the pool with us for a few moments and Jordan cut the cord. It was a very special event for all of us. And just in time for breakfast! 6 hours total labor. I wish I had written this sooner. Four months is long enough to lose a lot of detail. What is it like having three under three? I'll blog about that often. 

Pallu (Pah-Loo) Gideon Russell

9lbs 2oz 20in

Soft Boiled Eggs + easy peeling tip

Eggs! Well, not just eggs. But it has steadily become a staple around here especially in the wake of three back to back pregnancies. "Take two eggs and call me in the morning," my midwife would say. I got so used to eating two every day, that we all have come to start our day off with the wonderful little self packaged food. It used to be a weekend ritual to have Pancake Saturday and Big Breakfast Sunday. I'll talk about those another day. But since living in the deep south with my very southern husband, I've been learning to cook some of his favorite foods. Southern. I didn't eat a typical southern meal much when I was growing up (i.e. fried chicken, biscuits, grits, etc.) so a lot of this is new to me, even having worked at a southern diner. One of the things that has replaced pancakes lately is biscuits. And what do you put on biscuits? We put eggs!

There are so many things you can do with and egg. I was frying and scrambling them on the regular for a while until I had so many littles and decided boiling them was much easier and much less clean up. One day Darryl mentioned liking soft boiled eggs better than hard boiled. He said it was like getting the fried egg taste with the boiled egg convenience. Well that's something worth trying! After a few hits and misses I've determined the right size pan, water level, temperature, and duration to cook a half dozen of the perfect soft boiled egg (yes it all matters, but it's easier than it sounds). Something I'm doing almost daily now. Eight minutes seems to be the perfect number. Oh and if that pesky shell is keeping you from eating many boiled eggs, try this trick: put a teaspoon of baking soda in the water while you cook the eggs. The shells come off ridiculously easy. Even the littles can help me shell eggs, which they love to do!

Aside from eggs we have a few other things regularly and I'll share those in the future. Until then, try a soft boiled egg and tell me what you think!

Luke 11:11-13
New International Version (NIV)
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[a] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”