It’s a Boy!

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Pictures and fun story to come, but today I must wash 12 loads of laundry and do my dishes, go to piano lessons, sew a Christmas costume, and go to a birthday party.

 Here’s a photo of the proud papa in the waiting room before the sonogram.  Just the thought of getting to see his precious baby put him into front flips and handstands. 

My middle son (age 5) said while looking at the sonogram screen, “Well, if we take this baby, there’ll be 6 of us!”  As if we had a choice. 

And my husband said, “Sorry girls, no baby sister this time.”  As if we can always hope again for the future, which warmed my heart.  I’d love to think there may be another some day.

Letting Children Help

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My younger children love to help with chores, but when it is time to let them, an inward struggle takes place with me.  It’s not that I mind them helping, but when it’s time to stop, they throw a trantrum.  I finally discovered a secret to smooth transitions and am excited to use it again!

First, I made my chore supplies child friendly.  My window spray is 3 drops of joy dish soap in 4 cups of water with a little blue food coloring to make it look store bought.  The kids can use it on windows, counters, cabinets…pretty much anywhere.  And it won’t hurt them either.  I hand them a dry blue huck towel to clean with. 

Here’s the trick:  Se the timer!  Let them know that chore time is only until the timer dings.  Then have a fun activity planned for after chores, such as playdough, a paint with water book, or a snack.  Let them go for it with their cleaning rags and when the timer goes off, it’s time to hand over the spray bottle quietly (and no one will get hurt :).  When the tots are happily engaged in the new activity, sneak off to check their work and wipe off any smears or drips they left behind. 

The goal is to nurture the enthusiasm of the chidren to help, by keeping the work sessions short, removing criticism or need for discipline, and rewarding a job finished with a fun activity.  I wish I had thought of that when my first 2 were little.

Reduced Fat Molasses Cake–Betcha can’t tell

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Happy December! Tomorrow we go for our sonogram and hope to find out whether baby Coffman #6 is a boy or a girl.  I can’t tell who is more excited, the kids or me!  We’ve haven’t even cracked the baby name book.  We’ve used a lot of our favorites already, so are hoping a more focused direction will help us generate ideas.

Last night for supper we had homemade vegetable beef soup from scratch made with soup bones. We ate it with pumpkin dinner rolls and warm Molasses cake with whipped cream.  Yum!  It’s a blustery 26 degrees around here, very unseasonably cold and warm liquids are welcome. 

I had 1.25 gallons of soup left and since it was a little bland I dumped a bunch more garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and parsely in it.  Kind of a spray and pray method and poured it into glass canning jars for the freezer. Now we have 5 jars waiting for desperate lunches.  When I remove the 2 piece lid I can quickly thaw the whole thing in the microwave.  If you try this method, leave plenty of head space or your jar will break in the freezer from the pressure of the expanding soup.

Here’s our Molasses Cake Recipe.  It is modified from my newest e-book:  How to Have a Grocery Shrink Christmas.  I used black-strap molasses for the vitamins and the cake turned out looking like dark chocolate.  The recipe only has 2 Tablespoons of sugar in the entire cake!  The rest of the sweetening comes from Molasses, which gives a good dose of vitamins.

Molasses Cake

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup softened butter

1 egg

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 cup molasses

1 cup hot water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 1/2 cups pastry flour (or all-purpose flour)

Cream the butter, pumpkin, egg and sugar.  Add the molasses and water.  Blend the rest of the engredients and mix into the molasses mixture.  Pour into a greased 9 x 9 square pan, or 9″ round cake pan.  Bake at 325 for 45-50 minutes.  Eat warm with ice cream or whipped cream.  Yum!