4 Good Things

At the risk of sounding like Martha, here are 4 things that have made life a little bit better, easier, and/or happier around these parts lately:

• My new Halloween spatula, purchased today and waiting to go into my clean DONE kitchen tomorrow.

• Ice peas: what Ethan calls frozen peas, right out of the bag. My two older kids love them and I love a no-cook vegetable they'll actually eat. Tonight Ethan had 3 helpings (i.e. shakes of the bag into his plate). This is my kind of veggie. Here is my top secret recipe:

Remove bag of frozen peas from freezer. Dump on plate.

Gross? Sure (although I can usually stomach a few myself). Nutritious, absolutely!

• The gum ball jar. I brazenly stole this idea from Julia's brilliant teacher. She has a picture of a gum ball machine taped to the board and when the kids behave well, she sticks some colorful circle stickers on it. When the gum ball machine is "full," they get a pizza party. Well, we're planning on going to Disneyland in the next month or so. We decided to tie the trip to our own gum ball jar. The idea has worked wonders. I've caught Ethan being nicer to his brother, both kids are being more helpful and Julia, in particular, is being more responsible. Woo hoo! This is a no-brainer of an idea.
  

• The secret dot. After about the 14 millionth time of having Ethan ask if his shoes were on the right feet, I remembered an idea I read in a magazine once. With a permanent marker, I put a dot on the inside of each shoe and told him the dots need to kiss. Easy peasie lemon squeezie! This is one thing out of 11 million I no longer have to do every day and Ethan feels so smart and empowered.
  

Power to the Mommies!