Mullins Update

I just finished up a week of bulk cooking and it was exhausting. I worked for about eight hours a day for three days and six hours the other two. I dealt with insane amounts of ingredients and washed my pots and bowls so much I kind of wished I had twice as many pots and a second stove. I almost went to my mom's house to borrow hers and next time I just might. lol

This time it's a little different than the last time. I was making food for other people. Who were PAYING me. That's awesome. The only issue with that was I used my two year old pricing information so undercharged them...but that's ok. lol Both overpaid me. :-)

The kids all felt the lack of attention for the week, which is a bit of a bummer for them. Asher and Elijah bounced between Netflix and trains and books and Minecraft and Eden spent a lot of time alternately in the pack-n-play set up in the kitchen so she could see me and in her bed napping. I listened to Anna Karenina, which is something like 34 hours long. We would have eaten out every night if I hadn't had freezer meals from the last time I did this. And they were the LAST freezer meals we had. I waited a bit longer than I usually do. lol

I didn't take any pictures but both refrigerator freezers and the standalone freezer are PACKED. I debated taking some stuff to my mom's but with a bit of repacking and shifting, I got it all in. And now that the orders of meals have been picked up, there's that much more space in my freezers. I just need to do an inventory now so I know what exactly I have. Or maybe we could not and just have a potluck every once in a while.

The kids are doing great. Asher just turned 5 and likes to remind us that "Well, now I'm 5 so..." or "I did that when I was 4." Because 4 was SO long ago. Incidentally, when he can't/doesn't want to do something, he'll say "I'm not 5, I'm only 4!" as if being 4 gets him out of having to be a contributing member of our family. On the flipside of that, we've told him that now that he's 5, he can do some simple chores and we'll pay him. So he gets excited about setting and clearing the table and running around and checking the playroom and their room to see if they need to be picked up.

Elijah is alternately angelic and devilish. He still has these crazy raging fits that just come out of nowhere but then ten seconds later he's the sweetest boy you've ever met. I just don't get it. I'm hoping it's the hole "half" thing I read about once that said kids kind of have a six month cycle where they're alternately problematic and angelic. He's been having a rough time the last couple of weeks. It's not like it was last year, and I really think it's just frustration with life in general and his frustration at his inability to communicate as well as he'd like. He also feels powerless a lot of the time because Asher is older and thus more in control...which is weird because frequently Elijah bests Asher in fights. I'm hoping this is a temporary thing and he'll grow out of it. He's just a kid and very much 3.

Eden is wonderful, as usual. She's growing and learning. Her most recent trick is standing up and she's not a huge fan of it. Well, standing's not so bad. It's sitting back down that's problematic. She's been on regular milk for most of the month of January and seems ok with it. We ran out of formula so one day I just put milk in with the little bit of breast milk she's still getting and handed her the bottle. She was hungry enough that she didn't even seem to notice and just gulped it all down in one go. Before, she was getting 24 calories per ounce and taking 24 ounces a day, so about 576 calories from bottles. Now she's taking 32 ounces a day that are about 20 calories an ounce, so around 640 calories from bottles, plus she'll eat a handful of cereal for breakfast and as much of our dinner food as we'll give her. And if I put her on the floor in the kitchen, she'll clean up whatever got dropped. She's got nice chunky thighs and a round little body...but still only the two teeth. It's amazing some of the stuff she eats with just two teeth.

Anyway, the kids are good, my freezer is full, the weather is thinking about warming up a little in the future, those are all things that make me happy. Check in next week for a special post about Eden on her birthday.