Crunchy Noodles

I bribe my children to make healthy choices.  I am not ashamed and think the system works quite well actually.  If they eat all their lunch/dinner, they get a treat.  That means I never have to coddle, coax, or beg them to eat veggies or fruit.  (Fruits are a way harder sell in our house by the way. Weird, I know.)  When they complain, we say, "That's ok.  Don't eat it."  But they know the realities, "But I won't get my treat?" And we are firm.  The treat system started last November when we had a major surplus of candy in the house.  Even with our reward system and two snitching parents, we had Halloween candy all the way into June!  Of course that said, the candy bowl was replenished with candy from other holidays often and the kids got creative with other treat choices as well.  They like to choose chips, crackers, hot chocolate, even plain old bread and butter.  But the treat choice that cracks me up the most, is "crunchy noodles."  Marielle discovered this treat, but Jenna loves it best and asks for it often. 

What are crunchy noodles?

Dry Ramen.

One day I was tossing some crushed Ramen bits into an asian salad I was making, and Marielle causually asked, "Can I have some of those?" 

"Sure."  I replied, "Go for it."

I vaguely remembered eating dry Ramen my last night in the freshman dorms and somewhat liking it. It was pure love from Marielle.  She wanted more, but I told her she could only have more for her treat. She was jazzed about her new found treat discovery, and requested the same at every chance she got. The next day Jenna dared to try and also fell in love.  Jenna also came up with the name and recently I heard her enthusiastically telling her friend Amelia, "Dese are cwunchy noodles! Dey taste like chips!"

Ryan thinks this Halloween we should give out Ramen packets instead of candy.  If you buy in bulk, each pack is only $.10, so it would be cheaper than buying candy.  Would you come trick or treating to our house? We figure it could at least solve the problem of the "take one" bowl we usually leave out.  Seriously, what young tween would ever dump an entire bowl of Ramen in his pillowcase?  Mmm, hmm. I think not.

Liken the Scriptures

Sunday night after we clean up dinner I let the kids watch a church movie.  Recently we found that youtube has a bunch of animated scripture stories.  One night Marielle and Jenna watched the story of Elijah and the Priests of Baal.  When the show was over I found myself in a quiet house since Ryan was at a meeting, Rex was already in bed, Jenna fell asleep while watching the show, and Marielle was busy playing with blocks.  I relished the rare moment of quiet and when Marielle called me over to see her masterpiece,  I had a good laugh.
 
Here's her explanation of the scene she recreated (with a few notes from me): 


























Who knows?  Maybe this story could be the next Disney feature. What do you think? 

Ryan's Been Looking a Little Skinny...

How do you feel around skeletons?
Me, I'm totally fine with them.

Marielle, eh, she doesn't get too worked up.

But Jenna, she gets a little nervous. She's gonna a keep a close eye on dat guy.

The Hands of Time

You might have thought I was kidding, but...

...here we are nearly one year later on the "wheel of time" at ChuckECheese. Even though the ride failed to thrill her last year, she still ran for this guy first thing. 

We didn't manage to get pictures of all our kids on the wheel of time, but after looking through my files of pictures from both years, it seems I like to take pictures of mostly the same things...

See ya next October ChuckE!

For our Grad School Friends...

This morning Marielle was looking through the Children's Friend and asked, "Mom, how do kids get published?"


Guess what we talk a lot about in our house...

We'll let you know who gets published first, Ryan or Marielle.