Chickpeas, Crockpots & Children

First of all, I just have to share two quick stories about myself when we were first married. I was at JenIG's site over on Homeschoolblogger.com yesterday and she was asking about what garbanzo beans are & I was reminded of a time when I had a "blonde moment". I think it's a good quality when one is able to post a funny story at their own expense! Anyway, here it goes...

When Dan & I were first married, I went to the grocery store to purchase some chickpeas to make some hummus. I found them in the canned beans aisle, chucked them into my cart and went on my merry way. After I got home and went to put the groceries away I was a little freaked out...(I guess the cans rolled around in the car a little bit)...and when I picked up the can of chickpeas I looked at the label and it said garbanzo beans! Now I KNOW that I purchased cans that said chickpeas on them! I called Danny into the kitchen to share my story & he started cracking up at me! Then he picked up the mysterious can of garbanzo beans and turned the can around to show me the label - It said chickpeas! That was the day when I discovered that chickpeas and garbanzo beans are the same thing!

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Around the same time in my life (when we were newlyweds & I was just starting to learn how to cook ~ you know, things other than pasta) I decided to bust out the ol' crockpot we received for our wedding shower. Well, I had never used one of these in my entire life! I don't ever recall my mom using one either, so I had no clue how it worked or how to use it, etc...SO being the directions/recipe person that I am, I busted out the directions, got it all set up & was ready to put in the ingredients for my first crockpot meal! BUT there was only one problem - The crockpot recipe said "Now put the ingredients into a 3.5 qt. crockpot" and sitting in front of me on the counter was a beautiful AND large 5 qt. crockpot!! Horrors!! So what did Sue do? I packed that sucker right up, went to Wal*Mart & returned it for a much smaller 3.5 qt. model. I was so proud of myself! Well, Dan comes home from work, sees the new crockpot on the counter & was like "Where is our crockpot?" So I told him the story, then he proceeded to tell me that it wouldn't have blown up the house or caused a fire to put my little recipe into the larger crockpot as I had thought would have occurred. (Incidently, a few years and two kids later, I found out why someone would want a giant 5 qt. crockpot!) and we now have the 3.5 crockpot & a new 5 qt. crockpot (Thanks to Dan's mom & a fun game of Yankee Swap at their family Christmas Party, but that's another whole post in itself!)

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Okay, enough of poking fun at myself!! As far as the children go...Things have been going great - School is going very well...Matthew is happily learning all of the things a pre-schooler should know, his ABC's, numbers, colors, mastering skills such as writing his name, cutting, gluing, painting, etc. He also is learning things just from sitting at the same table when Becky is having her lessons...Example: Math lesson the other day: Matthew is cutting out a bunch of cookies of diffferent shapes to glue onto another sheet that has a basket on it - and at the other end of the table, Becky is learning about horizontal, vertical and oblique lines in math. For part of the lesson I asked Becky to look around the room and name objects that have a horizontal line - As she is doing this - Matthew chimes in by showing me the gingerbread man cookie he just cut out & how there is a white line of icing in the middle of the cookie & he says - Look Mommy, horizontal!" Ah, the joys of homeschooling! Jake is not totally walking on his own yet although he power crawls & also has also started this new thing this week - I call it a half-walk - He gets up on one knee (like he's going to propose to someone) and then kind of steps/drags his body (including the other knee that is planted on the ground) along behind him - It's very hard to explain this phenomenon and even harder to duplicate it - Go ahead, try it!! He must have some powerful quads!! But anyway, I'll try to take a picture today to show it to you ~ it is totally cute! We are excited for his first birthday next Tuesday the 24th! We are celebrating with a small party at our house the following Saturday - The kids have decided that we are having a "Candy Land" theme - I guess this is sort of a tradition with our little family, the planning of the birthday party theme. We usually start planning the parties way in advance - Sometimes it's the day after their birthday & they are already trying to decide what next year's theme will be! I still can't decide if that's a good thing or not!?! Anyway, I have to go & get back to my creating & painting of giant cardboard candy canes & gingerbread people!!