22 days and counting

I have been focusing on how old Kaitlyn is and how big she is and how much she can do and how in just a few months she will be starting full day kindergarten. I will admit that on occasion i have even pouted about this.
I have wondered why I have been focused on this so much. Why I have pouted and moped about the "march of time" concerning my oldest.
Well today i think i have come to the root of the problem.
I have been avoiding the fact that my youngest will be turning 4 in 22 days. That she is already the size of a 5 year old. And that any of the last remnants of baby and toddler hood have left long ago. She has been a full fledged preschooler since her third birthday and maybe a little before it.
I do believe that i have been focused on the lesser of the two issues in my "mommy no longer has any babies" issue. I enjoy these now older children and relish in the freedom that them being older brings and yet some part of me revolts at the very idea that i have no babies. My girls are definitely not babies. My girls are not toddlers. My girls are on the very top end of preschooler. Geesh if Kaitlyn's birthday had been 6 weeks sooner she would be almost done with Kindergarten. They are smart, capable, independent, with very strong senses of self young ladies. They make me proud every day.
Oh, i admit I'm selfish. It's me that's not ready to share their wonderfulness with the world. They are poised and ready to skip, hop, and jump into the next stage in life. The stage where you get a best friend and are attached at the hip till at least the 4th grade. It's when I get pushed to the back seat instead of the passenger seat. I didn't like being kicked out of the drivers seat either. Darling Husband keeps telling me I'm still in the car. I know he's trying to cheer me up, but that just reminds me that one day I won't be in the car at all. One day far sooner than I'll want I'll have to get out of the car and yes I'll blubber like a big baby when I do.

Valentine's Chocolates

This was the end result of my chocolate making fun. There were two of these darling little boxes for my two darling little girls on valentines day. I only have the one picture due to battery failure on the camera and the speed that little girls can eat chocolates. The finished boxes were two layers with the rose lollipop on top with one additional marshmallow lip. The bottom layer that you can see here had two lips filled with marshmallows, three cherry filled hearts, two blueberry roses, and two almond butter balls. It was so wonderful to see my girls carefully pick which chocolate to eat next and to see the joy on their faces from having an entire box of different chocolate candies. I am already thinking big for Easter. I am hoping that this year they will get their first chocolate bunnies.

week 23 already

My girls are working on their weekly math work sheets as i finish up the sewing on the critters they will be stuffing very soon. I am multi-tasking as usual, stitch stitch instruct, stitch stitch instruct. As I read the instructions on comparing tall and short, Samantha shouts out "this stop sign is tallest, mom momma stop is an s s s "S" word." Kaitlyn not to be out done by her little sister quickly points out that sign is also an "S" word. I am thrilled that they love learning and poke myself with the needle, as my brain takes a moment to bask in momma pride. The phrase "multi-tasking can be dangerous" floats through my head as a suck on my now bleeding finger.
Band-aid in place the girls have moved on to a cut and paste project. An astronaut who is catching stars. Although this page has very little coloring the cutting of 10 tiny starts will keep them busy for awhile.
It's some where between the spontaneous rhyming game, the speed and the quality of the cutting, the guessing of tomorrows possible science lesson and project, and brainstorming of possible "S" food to cook when it hits me like a ton of bricks. Oh My Goodness We are on S Week! The school year is more than 1/2 over. We are on week 23 of a 38 week program. And my little experiment into home schooling has been wonderful, fun and very successful.
I am writing this as both girls happily stuff their stuffed animals chatting away and continuing to discuss possibilities of their "S" themed science lesson. We are making Snow from a kit i picked up, it's a surprise though. Surprises are a part of "S" week fun.

update update, chocolate & preschool

on the chocolate front...
I have mastered the nut butter to chocolate ratio in a nut butter cup. they how ever do not look very pretty. to be honest they look like lumps of poo. Kaitlyn has however given them the official thumbs up and requested several more.
I however still have not made any caramel. i need to make sweetened condensed milk from soy milk and buy some arrowroot. The condensed milk looks easy enough to make but haven't bothered to yet since i have forgotten to buy arrowroot for 3 trips to the store.
If i can make a decent caramel, twix bars are in the future. mounds bars are also on the to-do list. Of the chocolates that i have made so far the fruit filled hearts are my favorite with marshmallow lips coming in second. The almond butter cups are good but almond butter is NOT peanut butter and well peanut butter is better. Although i am tempted to make peanut butter cups, with Kaitlyn the risk is not worth it.
in the preschool universe....
"P" week was sooooo much fun. We painted. We made Puppets. We did Pattern blocks. We made Play dough. We ate pizza and made pirogies. Anyway P week was a blast. I was worried that "Q" week would be dull. What fun things to do start with Q? Well i found i science lesson on Quick sand, it was so much fun. In fact we will be making quicksand again for S week so we can compare and contrast sand and quicksand. Super neat stuff quicksand. We also made quilt blocks. They were fun but not as cool as quicksand. Today we have started "R" week. In my web browsing for spring planting and then fun R things to do, I am sure i am now on the the FBI's watch list. i started the day with fertilizer, poly tunnels and polyurethane coverings, composting mixes, how to hide fertilizer or compost bins, gardening in plane site, home made rockets, rocket fuel, fuel for the home made rocket. well you can see how maybe those searches might have put up a red flag some where. If i can't come up with a preschool level rocket experiment, we will stick to recycling, rescue responders and (if i can locate a prism) rainbows. Not that rainbows aren't cool, it's just not a rocket.
Well I had better go. Laundry is calling and i really need to get some sewing done.

chocolate candies

I have been making chocolates today.
I was good and didn't sample my creations as i was making them. Once they were made is a different story. Here at almost 1 in the morning I have eaten far far to many.
They turned out very pretty. Little chocolate hearts and chocolate lips filled with fruit or marshmallows. Oh and they taste even better than they look. Yummy!
Well maybe they don't taste very good. My point of reference is a little skewed. Finding dairy free chocolate candy is very hard to do. And generally if you do find some, the chocolate tastes so bad you wish you hadn't found any at all. So they taste really really really good to me. Husband keeps sneaking them out of the kitchen so they can't be to bad.
With some effort i have made good tasting peanut butter cup filling out of almond butter. So tomorrow I will be making almond butter cups. If you thought finding dairy free chocolate candy was hard..... finding peanut & dairy free chocolate candy is almost impossible.
So I have given up looking!
I want my kids to eat candy like every other kid out there!
So I am making it my-self!
I have found a caramel recipe with favorable reviews. If the almond butter cups go well caramel hearts are next. Then maybe twix bars. Who knows I just might figure out how to make nougat after that.