Lydia Ruth, Picture #1597

Here's my baby again. I obviously can't get enough of her. My camera is simply most attracted to her right now. Don't even start . . . I know what you're thinking. . . 'What about your other 3 kids?' . . . 'How come we don't see pictures of them posted every week?' Trust me, they all had their days in the spotlight. If you'd like to come over sometime and see their baby albums, you can. Well, not actually right now because I'm not in my own house and all their albums are in storage. But when I get them out, I might just scan in some scrapbook pages so you can see that you don't have to be worried about their little developing psyches.

So for now you get to rest your eyes on my littlest beauty. Her nickname is Pretty Pretty these days. It was a bit of a digression to get there. Started out as Lydia, then Liddy Bitty, then Liddy Bitty Pretty Pretty (You don't know me as well as you thought you did, if you didn't know that I try to spend as much of my life as possible rhyming words) Then the name got shortened to Pretty Pretty. Seems like its going to stick there for a while. I'll keep you posted. (I didn't notice my pun until the proofread!)

Cookin' with Kids: Jody's Decadent Lemon Bars

Something I discovered over the weekend. . . . it's fun to cook with kids if you're a photographer at heart and you take pictures of them doing all the work. Here's how it went down.

The Goal: smittenkitchen's Lemon Bars.

(Which she adapted from Ina Garten and then I adapted because all my family adds sugar to everything. Thus I've decided they are now called Jody's Decadent Lemon Bars, because I did change 2 of the quantites in the recipe!)

Disclaimer #1: For those of you who are actually good cooks and know the proper names of things and how tools should be used, you might want to stop reading now. This is just for fun. I'm not trying to teach anybody anything. Don't follow this recipe based upon this blog. I will not be held responsible.

Disclaimer #2: This recipe would normally take 15 minutes to whip up. With all of my helpers it took well over an hour. Only do this when you're in a good mood.

So here goes. Because I believe in doing a recipe to the T we started by grating lemons on the finest setting of the box grater to gather lots of zest.

Claire grating for zest.

Cutting lemons.

(We started without the cutting board, but then I remembered you're always supposed to use a cutting board so I took a second picture with board in place. Because it's all about the fun taking pictures while baking)

Juicing lemons.Now it's a real good thing Claire's learned how to measure one cup through our ever-diligent homeschooling. She knew right when to stop juicing.

When you live in close proximity to all 50 of your closest blood relatives, the nice thing is someone else is always close by.

Enter cousin, Micah.

He gets in on the pleasures of lemon zesting and juicing.

The next step is pouring the juice into the bowl. This is rocket-science, people. Watch and learn.
Of course, I did make her pour it really slowly and only half at a time because I didn't know how I wanted to set my shutter speed.

Sugar.

Claire, again, shows off her life of learning in using the one cup measure for the sugar. This is one part where I changed the recipe. We used 3 cups of white, over processed, really bad for you, destroyer of natural immune systems, historical proponent of child-slavery, primary staple in my home of origin--sugar.

Enter 3 more curious, energetic kids who "want to help".

Now, because sugar is so bad for you, next we add something that's really good for you.

Lemon zest.

Okay, actually I don't know that it is good for you. But it tastes SO BAD in its natural form, it's gotta be good for a person.

Whisking.

I did not say whiskey, I said whisking. There's a really big difference. Don't get this part mixed up. Whisking: really fun for kids. Whiskey: Not good for kids. Whisking: large utensil moving in circular motion. Whiskey: liquid moving up and down inside a glass. (I do not have ANY personal experience with whiskey, this is simply observation). So here we go whisking.

My firstborn twin.

My 1 minute later born twin.

The assistant helper, Micah.

Micah's older sister, Chloe, who looks 27 with her adorable new haircut, but really she's only 5. The girls were putting on make-up before cooking, hence her lips that perfectly match her shirt.

Now, for those of you wondering about the effectiveness of whisking when performed by 4 children under the age of eight, it truly is ineffective. It does nothing. No lumps are removed. You have to do it all over again yourself when you send them to get candy.


The second to last step -- though don't worry, not the second to last picture-- is to pour the yummy lemony mixture over the crust. No, you did not see me make the crust. I didn't have the idea to involve the kids until after the crust was made. Hence, no pictures of crust-making. Live with it. Or live without it, as the case may be.

Mommy pouring, baby fussing.

Didn't my sister-in-law, Becca, do a great job taking these pictures?

"Are we done yet?"

Poor baby just wants to be fed. Won't somebody please feed the baby? Oh, yeah, that would be me. Better get these in the oven fast!

Here's what they look like when they come out.

Not very pretty until you put the powdered sugar on top. But of course, the kids weren't around again and I forgot to take pictures of that part. Oops. Good thing I don't make money off this food blog thing.

But this is what they look like when they're done.

Yummmmmmy and Lemmmmmony

And everyone loves them!

So there you have it! My longest blog post yet. My debut into food blogging. My attempt to quench your thirst for Robinson Moments after our no-internet induced hiatus last week. Enjoy!

Dear Mr. Cable Internet Guy

Dear Mr. Cable Internet Guy,
Please fix the internet connection at my house. Now that you've come 3 times we've become good friends. However, this does not mean you can shirk your responsibilities to actually FIX the problem the next time you come.

Please fix the internet connection. I'm losing touch with the rest of the world.

Please fix the internet connection. I can't remember my google password because it's been so long since I used it.

Please fix the internet connection. By Blogging audience is anxiously waiting with bated breath for my next Redneck Reality. (This may end up being a Redneck Reality if this goes on much longer!)

Please fix the internet connection. Ginger is having a contest, and I have to see if I won.

Please fix the internet connection. The recipe I need to make Lemon bars is at www.smittenkitchen.com Easter won't be the same without it!

Please fix the internet connection. I've got people over at Craig's List waiting to hear back from me. How long will they wait before they sell my precious good deals to someone else?!

Please fix the internet connection. I download my bank statements almost daily. I can't even remember where I put my checkbook register. If I become overdrawn it's going to be all your fault.

Please fix the internet connection. Please. Please, please, please. Please.

Remember?

Remember this house? The one we were going to buy? The beautiful 100 year old Victorian with wrap-around porch, original woodwork and gigantic oak tree in the back yard?

Really cool house, huh?

Well . . . it had a problem. A really big problem. The house was empty when we put our offer on it. It had been empty all fall and winter. Well . . . the problem with an empty old house in Illinois is it means the electricity, gas and water were not turned on. What, you say, does it matter if utilities are turned on in an empty house? No one's there to cook. No one needs to stay warm. No one takes a bath or washes dishes. No one leaves lights on or forgets to turn off the iron. No one sees if the pipes burst from freezing inside the walls and under the floors. Oh. That one could be a problem. A really big problem.

Really cool house + really big problem.

But you know us Robinsons. We root for the underdog. We love ugly ducklings! We cheer for the losers. We beat a dead horse until it lives again. (I may have made that one up.) So, in the spirit of all that is good and right with the world we took our contract on this comfy Victorian house and threw it out the window.

Now we're buying this house:

Really cool house + really big problem + good plumber - $9000 = The Robinson's new house. (again)


More pictures to come of the renovations. New closing date April 10.

Peek a Boo

eyes bright

clean toes
what a sight
wrapped in love and a bunny robe

Redneck Reality: Dollar General

Once I had a friend who desperately, truly needed to know if she was pregnant. It had only been 3 months since her most recent baby was born and if indeed she was pregnant that would be a total of 5 bundles of blessings in 7 years. This friend loves children and is not opposed to more, but sometimes a person just has to know, you know?!

Because of the particular level of desperation she decided not to drive the 15 miles to a town where perhaps she could have a tad more anonymousness, but decided she would just run up real quick to the Dollar General in Nowheresville, IL.

So with rapidly beating pulse she enters the Dollar General and nonchalantly tries to locate the pregnancy tests. In a normal store, they're always near the feminine care products and non-female people never go in that aisle unless they're being forced to with clenched teeth. And honestly, even females try to leave the aisle as quickly as possible. For some reason no one ever hangs out in that aisle. You might see a friend and chit chat in the dog food aisle or even the lingerie department, but basically no one stops to talk to anyone, ever in the feminine care aisle. Ever. No one chit chats there. It's sort of a lonely, forsaken aisle and most of us like it that way.

However, at the Dollar General these products are squeezed between the toothbrushes and the aluminum foil. Or at least they were that fateful day when a person was trying to anonymously purchase a pregnancy test. After checking both right and left to make sure no one was around my friend reaches for a test thinking she can quickly stuff it in her basket, check out, and exit stage right.

For the first time in my friend's life she understands why a person would want to shoplift. She's not condoning the idea, nor is she ever going to do it. But she understands the type of circumstances that could push a person that far.

But oh no. Not that easy. When her fingers reach for a test, they bounce off. My friend, being a little dense, reaches again. Again her fingers bounce off.

Though there is a placard made to appear like a stack of pregnancy tests, they are not the real tests. And printed on said placard is a note saying "Ask for this product at the register."
No. No, no, no, no, no! What is wrong with the world?!

Thinking there must be another way around this little glitch in the plan my friend locates a female clerk who had just started stocking chips directly across the aisle. (See another thing normal stores don't do--stock food and feminine care across the aisle from each other!!!) So my friend quietly asks the clerk if she could please get her a pregnancy test. The clerk replies, "No, you have to ask for them at the counter. We cain't keep 'em on the shelf anymore cuz people just walk off with 'em." (See 3 paragraphs above)

It is now 5 after 5 pm and wouldn't you know Dollar General is becoming Grand Central Station. It is the only place to buy something for a 15 mile radius and let me tell you the place is hoppin'! Those of you who live in a city and live life with a certain level of anonymousness with the rest of the world simply cannot understand the dread this sinks into the soul of one person trying to buy a pregnancy test without the whole town knowing about it! Why should she care if the whole town knows? I don't know why it matters, but it does matter!!!

So she waits. She lingers, loiters, looks at magazines and waits for the masses to clear from the register area. But evidently she was lingering too close, because the previously mentioned clerk walks up, opens a new register, looks right at my friend and says, "I c'n help ya here."
The original line has dwindled to about four groups of people and my friend breaths a sigh of relief and says a quick thank you to God that it's the same clerk she spoke to earlier, so she won't have to tell anyone else what she's buying.

Once she's put her $25 worth of things that she didn't need but was buying to cover up the pregnancy test up on the counter she says meekly, "And I'll take that test, too."

"What?" the clerk who is suddenly hard of hearing says.

So she said again, "I'll like to buy a pregnancy test, too."

"Do you want the $4 kind or the $1 dollar kind?"

Now this is the part that even I don't have any sympathy for my friend about. Who knows what she was thinking?! Why does it matter? Why didn't she just leave and go to another store, another day?

She asks, "Well, what's the difference?"

The clerk says, "I don't know, let me ask . . "

And before she can even finish her sentence the clerk from the other lane, the one standing with her back turned, stops her responsibilities of checking people out and says, "Most people 'round here buy 2 of the $1 pregnancy tests instead of buyin' a $4 pregnancy test. That way if they don't like the results from the first one, they just take it again."

And all the people in line, and all those walking in and out of the store at the moment, and all those in the front half of the store turn to see who she's talking to.

This is the true account of one trip to the Dollar General store. Some names may have been changed to protect the innocent and those who are not pregnant with either 2 of the $1 tests or with the $4 test.

LifeSavers: Health

You know once you've been sick, you start being thankful for health again. But it seems as though the healthy always take health for granted. I'm gonna work on that! I'm sooooooo grateful, thankful, relieved to have health restored to our home again.

Fevers have broken. Now all the congestion is slowly leaking out of every crevice on my kids' bodies. Eyes, ears, noses-- everything is a little gooey around here. But this too, is a sign of health.

My baby girl is having a harder time with the congestion breaking up. So you can still pray for her.

Be thankful today for your health. I mean REALLY thankful. Thank God you're alive. Thank him you can see. Thank him you don't have 105 fever. Thank him for life. Contrary to popular opinion, we don't deserve it. Life and health are gifts given and sustained by God. Not because we deserve it. Because He is good. Not that we deserve for Him to be good. He is because of who He is, not because of who we are.

Okay, now that life is starting to resemble normal . . . more quacky, "Jody, just as she really is . . . " posts to come.

LifeSavers: Pray for Health

Here's one of those not very fun but I have to get it out posts. Brace yourself.

As you already know my 3 bigger kids have been sick since Sat. Well, after a Dr. appt yesterday we're guessing it's Influenza. You know, flu. Then last night my sweet Litty Bitty, Lydia also started running fever and has a little runny nose.

I discovered that my normally calm, laid-back approach to illness was suddenly completely forgotten and I basically freaked out that my 3 month old had fever of 100. After a call to the Ped. she said to give her Tylenol and if it got above 102 and we couldn't get it down to bring her in.

Personally, I felt like a failure. I couldn't prevent my most vulnerable child from illness. I guess, I thought if wash my hands enough and use enough anti-bacterial hand cleanser she would be safe. All we had to do was be really diligent about keeping germs away and all would be well. When my very ego-centric world view on illness came crashing down at 3:13 a.m. it was not a pretty sight to see.

Today, I've had a little time to reflect and have realized a few things.

1. I tried. I really tried my best to help her not catch the bug. And I really tried to make my other kids comfortable as their bodies fight this bug. I really tried to not complain about my personal exhaustion. I really tried to increase everybody's fluid levels. I really tried to quarantine my children from the rest of the extended family. I really tried.

2. It's not enough. I can never do enough to protect, nurse, help my family from a bad deal. Sometimes they happen.

3. My protector is God, Himself. My physician is God, Himself. My strength is God, Himself. My helper is God, Himself. Are you seeing the pattern here? We are not good enough, strong enough, wise enough, caring enough. We need someone who is. I'm so grateful, today, that God has renewed my mind once again. That I do have a Protector, a Physician, a Refuge, a Helper at my side. I'm grateful for Jesus and the power of his resurrection. It is that same life-altering power that heals my children, that changes my attitude, that comforts me and that holds together this brief time on earth I call my life.

And it is the same God, the Creator of all things who made this: (You know I had to throw in another flower picture! )


His breeze, or perhaps His little bumblebee, sprinkled pollen on the petals of this hibiscus.

And though I don't honestly actually know what pollen has to do with regeneration or reproduction and I don't know how bees pollinate things or how they make honey. (You see, I didn't take Biology II in high school. I switched to Chemistry because there was this really cute guy named Mark in the class) Anyway, what I do know is that GOD designed it and takes care of what belongs to Him. And that He is keeping watch on my family. Anxiety be gone. Trust be present.



Matthew 6:28 See the flowers of the field, how they come up; they do no work, they make no thread

Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

We have a Winner!

Congrats annemarie! You won my little Name That Flower contest with the accurate guess of Geranium. You've won a $10 Home Depot gift card so you, too, can have geraniums this spring! That's where we bought all of our landscaping last year and were thrilled with everything.

Email me at jody@momentsbyjody.com to claim your prize.

At your (silent) request

The response for more photos of flowers has been down right deafening. . . . Even though ya'll are too shy to leave comments, I feel those unsent emails you send me begging for more photos of super-close-up flora.

This one I call Intricate. Isn't she lovely? The first person to guess what type of flower this is and leave the answer in the comment section will win a prize!! Yes, a real prize!!! However, the person who has this sitting on their porch and who watched me take pictures of it is excluded . . .you know who you are :)

I know it's kind of a shallow way to get people to leave comments, but I'm doing it anyway. :)



And I truly enjoy looking at this photo. I love it's beauty amidst dark setting. I can't have a contest for this one, because I don't actually know what kind of flower it is. So you can let me know in your comments, but you'll have to show accurate, scientific proof to get a prize.

Have fun!

My New Best Friends

Well, I know you've been anxiously waiting for a Robinson Blog Post, and I'm sorry we've been so delinquent. We arrived home from our PERFECT vacation to Florida, to be suddenly struck with a terrible, nasty flu virus. Thus I'd like to introduce you to my four new best friends. . . Lysol, Non-Asprin fever reducer, Ibuprofen fever reducer, and Infrared Temporal Thermometer.

I did have two other friends. But their names were also Non-aspirin fever reducer and Ibuprofen fever reducer. And when they ran dry, I ditched them as friends. Or at least I ditched them into the trash. (Seriously?! Who goes through 2 bottles of meds in a day?!?)

Now for those of you out there who don't believe in giving medicine for fever, you've NEVER seen fever like this. We're talking over 105!! With all the 3 bigger kids at the same time!!

A little vomit, a lot of coughing and really high fevers have been our entire lives day and night for 5 days. Today, no one's fever has yet to go over 102, so I showered, and put on lip gloss just for fun. Claire asked, "Can I go to the store with you?" I said I wasn't going to the store. She just gave me a crazy, "Don't you only shower when you're going to leave the house?" look. And I gave her a "I can shower daily if I want to" look.

Okay, back to my new friends. The last one I've really gotten close to. She'll be a family friend for a long time -- Infrared Temporal Thermometer. She takes a temperature in .04 seconds by touching the forehead and sliding to the temple. Where has she been all my motherhood?!? You've got to get you one of these. I've used her around the clock 3 times every 2 hours to check fevers since Sat. I even set my alarm to check fevers in the night. (I don't even set my alarm in the night to feed my newborn babies. You know I must have been freaked out.)

The good news, I think we're getting better. Like I said, no fever over 102 today. But I'm still categorizing this as a LifeSavers blog. Pray for us and the rest of the family we live with that we get and stay healthy. I am thanking God hourly that Lydia has not gotten sick. She has been a dream baby in the midst of all this. (Thank you, BabyWise!!!)

This is Our Florida

I know you've been patiently waiting to hear how our trip went in Florida. The wait is over. It was . . . . . . . PERFECT!!!! Here are just a few glimpses into our vacation.

In Florida this is how we roll . . .


how we dream. . .


how we home school . . .



how we play . . .




how we hang out . . .


And this is how I spend my free time . . .





If I weren't a child photographer, I'd be a macro-images-of-flowers photographer. . .

I took pictures for hours of these delicate beauties. Okay, that's not true. I quickly snapped photos as I was pushing my baby in the stroller on the way to the pool. But I could take pictures for hours of them if only I didn't have a zillion other things to do with my time. Let's just say I really like taking pictures of things like flowers, really close up,when I have a few seconds while pushing a stroller, or pulling a wagon, or hanging out on vacation.
If you want to see more of these magnified delicacies. Just ask. I've got oh, . . . about 40 of them in different colors, different angles, different lighting, different walks with the stroller.