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Monday, October 30, 2017

2017 School Photos

The kiddos' school photos are in! 

While they are always adorable, of course, because naturally I think my children are, this year's photos are not my most favorite. After spending $30 a picture package per child, I'm allowed to complain a little bit, haha! But I suppose this being the first year I'm not 100% happy with the school photos, I can let it slide and laugh a little. Picture retakes aren't worth the time. 

Anthony received a very short haircut right before his photos that I was not too pleased about. His regular barber was out, so I was forced to take him elsewhere. Before I knew it, this lady was buzzing it all off. Eekkk!! We will not be going back there again. He told me the picture lady had him sit weird, which made his shoulders hunch forward in the photos. Yeah...totally. 


Molly was annoyed because her hair kept flopping in her face (she refused a pretty hair clip from me this year) and no one would help her tidy her hair during photos. So she has an "I have to smile, but I'm really annoyed" crooked mouth smile with hair haphazardly thrown across her shoulders. 


Timothy also received a shotty hair cut, from the same lady (grrrr!!), that Papa had to try and fix.  And why is his background BRIGHT blue when I marked the same one for both him and Molly and they got their photos taken on the same day by the same person? As a matter of fact, I marked the same background for all the kids, and each one is different. The only one who got the background right was Anthony! HAHA Come on, people. You're messing up the feng shui on my living room wall with these miss-matching backgrounds. 


Anyway, not my favorites, but still cute. 

With love,
Mama Hauck

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Carrots and Pumpkins and Autumn, Oh My!

Gardening season has come to an end for us! It's a bit sad to see the garden empty, the last of the green leaves withering and fallen leaves scattered all around. But we had a super great harvest and I loooooove Autumn, so we will enjoy the gardening break until next year!


Our second harvest of carrots yielded just enough for two gallon size bags. Not much. We didn't have as successful of a harvest as last year, carrot wise, but I think that's due to the type of carrots we planted this year. Some of them were tiny, even at the end of their growing period, and some never came in at all. I think we'll stick to our denver half-longs....they taste delicious and every seed came in and produced a nice size carrot. 


We picked the pumpkins from our pumpkin patch a couple weeks back! We were disappointed that we only got one jack-o-lantern size pumpkin, which is confusing as we planted a fair amount of those seeds......but we sure did get a whole bunch of mini pumpkins, as well as small size pumpkins! And even though our "giant world record" pumpkins didn't get giant, the kids were excited to have four of them. Next year Sam plans to expand the pumpkin patch and we will plant earlier! 


I didn't really get into decorating for Halloween this year, much to the kids' disappointment, but I did bring in some of our mini and little pumpkins and used those as decoration around the house. The house is decorated more "Autumn" like, rather than for "Halloween." I'm good with that this year. I'm loving all our little pumpkins inside!


As for outside, at first we had all of the pumpkins on the front porch steps and the steps looked beautiful (I didn't get a photo though, ugh!)! But over the course of two days, the deer devoured a handful of them and it totally ticked me off! With all the time and love we put into growing them, I sure as hell wasn't going to feed them to the deer! So all the pumpkins had to be moved on to the inside of the porch. 

 (See the little dead mouse on the bottom left hand corner? Yeah....gift from the cat. I left it as I feel it adds a certain Halloween creepy factor to my non-Halloween decorations this year. HA!) 

Can you believe October is almost over? I've hardly gotten to enjoy my favorite month! I feel so melancholy and non-octoberish! With all the kiddos in school now, I'm suppose to have all this free time to do what I want, relax, and enjoy myself. Instead I've been go-go-go and my to-do list I feel only gets longer by the day. Where's my Autumn drinks? Basking in the October sun? Sunset hot tub soaks? Enjoying a book on the porch? I really need to learn to prioritize and manage my time better. I wish I could rewind the clock and have October back! Boo. 

At least I got to get out and take some photos of the yard one morning when it was just absolutely gorgeous out. AND we do still have pumpkin carving and trunk-or-treat coming up!  Hopefully Sam and I can fit a scary movie in there somewhere too! 


With love,
Mama Hauck

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Soccer Photos!

Molly and Timothy received their soccer photos! Such cutie pies! 



We are so proud of the kiddos! 

Timothy is really, really diggin' it! He loves making goals, and, no lie, makes an average of 8-10 per game, haha....(they don't have goalies yet at this age) ;) He is all up and down that field, just really having a great time! 

Molly was super excited to make two goals in one game one time! Her team work is superb, and after every game she tells me, "That was fun! Did you see me!?" Totally saw you, Molly, great job!! 

We have one more game left, and then we're all done for the year! 

With love,
Mama Hauck

Friday, October 13, 2017

Voice Lessons! (And Saxophone!)

After taking most of the summer off from voice lessons due to both our family, as well as Molly's voice coach, James, having a super busy summer, we are back into the swing of things! 

Molly continues to love going to voice lessons, and I continue to love listening to her! She makes progress every week, and I love that James varies up what she works on. By now she's worked on about 12 different songs. Some she's completely nailed and loved, others not so much. But that's ok, it's all about practicing different genres and techniques. She's also starting to learn about runs, harmony and scales. Fun! 

One of these days I'm going to ask her to perform some songs with me in the room so I can record them better! It's hard to hear and get a good quality recording from out in the hall....where she banishes me to! Haha 

Great work, little lady!


Three Little Birds



I Believe I Can Fly


We Are Going to be Friends


Home on the Range


Oh Shenandoah (Across the Wide Missouri)


An example of working with James on harmony and scales.



Anthony has also started lessons! Saxophone lessons! In middle school, you have to either take band or chorus. Anthony chose band, and more specifically, the saxophone. James, Molly's voice coach, is also a superb saxophone player. It totally made sense to have Anthony start taking saxophone lessons from James right after Molly takes her voice lessons! Everyone was pleased with this arrangement and he had his first lesson yesterday! 

Now, he is truly a beginner. Just started playing a month back, and only learning in band class. We are super excited to watch his growth! James is excited to teach him, and Anthony is very eager to learn and optimistic! He just started working on "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes. 

Keep it up, Anth!! 


Money well spent! 

With love,
Mama Hauck

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Homemade Triple Berry Oatmeal Bars

These homemade triple berry oatmeal bars are a staple in our home. They are that good. I've made them so many times now, I could make them in my sleep. We eat them as a quick snack, added to the kids' lunches, or as an after dinner treat. You can make them with any variation of berries (as I have), but my favorite tends to be raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries....heavy on the raspberries! :) My latest batch had blackberries added into the mix, as well as two cut up plums. Yummy. 

You can use fresh or frozen berries (or a combination of both), making this a great way to use up berries that are past their prime, or fruit you have sitting around in the back of the freezer that you've forgotten about. 

These are also freezer friendly! I usually leave a few out for us to eat that day, then bag the rest up for the freezer. They are delicious fresh, thawed on the counter, zapped in the micro for a 20 seconds, or dare I say, still frozen and gnawed on! 


Triple Berry Oatmeal Bars

Ingredients: 

2 1/4 cups quick oats
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups fresh, frozen (or mix of both) berries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp corn starch


Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350*, spray a 9x13 pan with non-stick spray.

1. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. 
2. Melt butter and pour over dry ingredients. Stir until all ingredients are thoroughly combined with the butter. Mixture will look crumbly. 
3. Pour 2/3 of the oatmeal mixture into your pan (reserving the final 1/3). Firmly press into the pan (Seriously....the better pressed, the better the bar!). Set aside. 
4. Mix berries with sugar and cornstarch. Toss until coated. Pour berries into pan. 
5. Evenly sprinkle remainder of oatmeal mixture on top of berries (I go ahead and press more, just because.)
6. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes (I go 30-35) or until golden brown (I like to go until I just start to see/hear bubbles). 
7. Let completely cool. Cut into desired size bars. Freeze in an air tight container or a ziplock bag (I place on cookie sheet to freeze for an hour, then transfer them to ziplock bag). 


I've noticed sometimes my bars will be gooey or more wet when cutting, even when left to cool completely. This happens moreso when I use my frozen blackberries. If yours are more gooey, it really is no big deal. Either just be more careful cutting and getting them out (though my rule is if I break a bar, I have to eat it - haha!), or toss the whole pan in the freezer for a bit before cutting. They are delicious no matter what fruit combination, no matter gooey or not gooey. Mmmm. 



With love,
Mama Hauck

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Kitties, 11 Weeks Old Already!

Eeek! The kittens are 11 weeks old now! How the heck did that happen!!! 

They are fun, and spunky, in to everything, and totally little shits.....as all kittens are! They are in your way and underfoot, they climb up and claw things, they bite your feet at the end of the bed through the blankets, and they make tons of noise in the night playing with each other and their toys. 

BUT....they are kittens. Cute and snuggly kittens. And we love them!! So their annoyances are dealt with, lol. 

Their eyes have all now completely changed from blue to a gorgeous green color. They are adorable. 


About 5 weeks back, we introduced them to wet cat food, made into a slurry with some kitten milk replacements (KMR). At first they were like wtf is that? But Mama kitty was all about it, and from watching her, they learned it was tasty. Soon there was no need for the KMR, they were good to go with the chunky wet cat food. We gave them some to putz around with 1-2x a day, just so they could experience something other than nursing. Shortly thereafter, we noticed them starting to drink from the water bowl and take a liking to the dry kitten food. Hooray! Progress! Now they are totally good to go on the dry kitten food, and we are working on mixing 1/2 kitten and 1/2 regular cat food so we can completely make the switch over to regular cat food soon. 

We've also worked on getting the food and water out of our bedroom and moved to a better place. That wasn't an issue at all. Kitties will follow the food! Following the theme of reclaiming our bedroom, the kitty litter just had to be moved as well. They were all litter trained by 5 weeks, so all we had to do was get it out of our bedroom. We ditched the huge cardboard box that housed the littler box, got a new litter box with a lid and flap door, and moved it into the bathroom closet. I thought all those changes might be an issue, but it wasn't. 2 accidents on the floor where the box use to be, and that was it. Cats wise up pretty quickly.  


They still nurse from Mama every now and again, but I'm assuming at 11 weeks, it's not out of necessity, just out of love and convenience.  

Mama kitty sure is something else. She has started to want the kittens to go outside with her. I'm not so certain that's a great idea yet. I don't want something to happen to them!! She is very persistent though, and they are getting curious....rushing the door when it's open and trying to get out. A few times now she has caught something....a bird...a mouse....and meowed excessively at the door, to the point of driving me mad. There was no way in hell I was letting her inside with a dead bird for the kittens! So I let the kittens out onto the porch, long enough to check out her dead catch, then put them all back in. Oreo is a good Mama, bringing her babies food and wanting to teach them about outside. I know I need to let them out and explore with her, but I don't trust nature to not kill my kittens, hahaha. *sigh* 


Sadly, we are nearing the time where we need to figure out what we are doing with them. We will be keeping two. But what two? We can't decide. I didn't realize it was going to be so hard!! I know who I want to keep, but it doesn't match up with who Sam and who the kids want to keep. UGH! So then I thought what the heck, keep them all, but that would mean they have to go outside now because I can not do four kittens in the house over the winter. Not to mention I hate doing kitty litter....and their little claws are an issueBut I don't want that either! It's getting cold out, and they are still so little, and we have always kept our kittens inside during winter, and let them out in Spring. Ooooo what to do, what to do.   

 Daphne

Ace

Chloe

Bear

We will think on it this upcoming week, and then really need to get on with things. Decision day is coming, little ones! 

With love, 
Mama Hauck