Creative Kids

Here's some more art from my sweet kiddos. I was really impressed with Ellie's drawing of a mermaid. She has just recently started drawing things that are even slightly recognizable, and then yesterday she was drawing at the table and said here mom, a mermaid. I was amazed.

Logan drew the scarecrow yesterday after school. I just thought he did a really good job and I wanted to share it. Enjoy! (I realize the 2 in 2007 is backwards, but nobody's perfect) And Logan says the thg in the orange circle stands for Thanksgiving.

Meet the rest of the Pfreaks

These are the other members of our Pfamily. This is our basset hound Frank (or should I say Pfrank?). His full name is Blaine Franklin. (yeah, we're dorks) Most of you have met him already. He's huge for a basset. The books say males average 50-65 lbs. He weighs 80. He's not just fat either. He's just a bigger dog. He's a pure bred bassie too. They say life expectancy is 10-12 years. He just turned 10 in October. Poor old dog is feeling his age too. He has a harder time getting around. Good thing we don't have stairs because he really can't go up them anymore. He's also got a yeast problem for which he is on special food and a lot of "herbal remedies". He's become one of those high maintenance pets. He was our "baby" before we had any. You could definitely say there was a rapid demotion after Logan was born. But the kids love him. Although, now they think all dogs are stinky and slobbery. Ellie has even pointed out before how another dog "isn't all slobbery like Frank." I'm sure as much as we complain about him, we'll miss him once he's gone. Not enough to get another dog, mind you, but I'm sure there will be a void there.

The cat is Jack. He's huge too. And really beautiful. He has a checkered past. My sister Susan found him abandoned on an apartment balcony in Houston. She had him for a few months, but he didn't get along too well with her other cats, so my sister Erica took him. He lived with her in Dallas for a couple of years. Then when she moved to Austin her then boyfriend didn't want him to live in his house, so he came to live with us. We've had him about 7 years now. He's around 10 years old too. He's a pretty cool cat. He is a freak for fresh water from the fridge and demands it several times a day. He is supposed to use the litter box in the garage. We have a "kitty door" that goes into the garage for him to use. The problem is that he's almost too big for it and has to wiggle himself through. It's pretty funny to watch, but I guess he doesn't really like doing it because he always stands by the door and cries for someone to open up and let him in the garage so he doesn't have to do it himself. He also is a stickler for a really clean litter box and if he doesn't approve of it, he'll just go on the garage floor. Needless to say our garage stinks. But what are you going to do? He doesn't have claws so he can't be an outside cat, although he does go outside sometimes. Everyone loves him when they see him and I always offer for them to take him home, but no one's taken me up on it yet. Also, Ellie would be devastated. She adores him. I always say they have a love/hate relationship. You see Jack is an attention junkie. He loves to be petted, on the head only, and will seek out anyone he thinks will do it. He's not subtle about it either. He'll come over and "bulldoze" into you and try to lift up your hand with his head and "pet himself". Ellie sometimes "loves" him a little too hard. Jack's pretty tolerant of her, but she does get bitten now and then. I don't feel sorry for her either because she always pushes him too far. I tell her to stop or he'll bite you. She just can't help herself.

Our other pet is a gerbil named Daisy. She's our 3rd gerbil. The first 2 were named Ribbon and Rose. Logan got them for his 5th birthday and only learned recently that they weren't hamsters. Originally, he wanted hamsters but after researching the subject I decided that gerbils were better because they aren't nocturnal like hamsters and they are desert animals so they don't drink as much and therefore don't pee as much, so their bedding doesn't get stinky as fast. Don't even get me started on how many times one of them has escaped from their cage and I have had the displeasure of "catching" them with my bare hands. They are small and quick and have been known to bite hard when being caught since they're totally freaked from being chased around. Keep this in mind when/if one of your kids asks for one of these lovely creatures. We had Ribbon and Rose for about a year before the first "mishap". The night before our vacation Rose escaped from the cage and was "murdered" by Jack on our bedroom floor. I think Jack thinks they're toys though, not food. He wasn't trying to eat her, nor was their any blood, he was just licking her limp dead little body. Logan was very upset when we told him. We waited until after we got back from vacation. We decided to get another so Ribbon wouldn't be lonely. They're supposed to be social creatures and don't like to be alone. So we bought another gerbil named Tiger Lily. We only had her about a week and decided to return her because she was a biter. It really hurts when they bite you. So that's when we got Daisy. She was really cute when we got her. Really tiny compared to Ribbon. Then a few months later we went on another trip and when we got back Ellie walked in the house and said, "Mom what's that on the floor?" I looked down and it was a dead little Ribbon. She looked as if Jack had been licking her fur for a few days. Yuck. Anyway, now we have 1. We haven't gotten another one because the kids don't have much to do with them anymore and it's just one more thing for me to take care of.

Whenever the kids ask for a new pet of some kind my answer is always, "No, I can't take care of any more living creatures." I'm maxed out. For a while we had some snails and a hermit crab. I was really maxed out then. But we set the snails free and the hermit crab died. So now I'm kind of waiting for something else to die. Wow, that's morbid. But it's pretty much how I feel. Is that wrong? I don't dislike them, at least not all the time. I'm just tired. I'm tired of taking care of things. And right now one less thing sounds pretty good to me. Anyway, this completes our family for now and probably for a while. At least if I have anything to say about it.

Logan's latest works

I know I already did a blog about his art work, but I just wanted to put up these pictures he drew. The first is one of our family that he drew last night. The 2nd is a Halloween picture he did this morning before school. I guess I'm just a proud Mama who wants to show off her kids stuff. I thought they were pretty cute though.

It's deceptive, but is it delicious?

Yes, so far I've been extremely pleased with the recipes I've tried from my Deceptively Delicious cookbook. Let me start by saying that my oldest child, Logan, is the poster-child for picky eaters. So I knew that if I could fool him and he'd eat it, it was definitely a winner. On Monday I made the pancakes with sweet potato puree. They were delicious. Ellie (who already likes pancakes) ate 2. Logan doesn't like them to begin with and therefore wouldn't try them. I didn't expect that he would try them anyway. Stuart liked them most of all and eats them by themselves with no butter or syrup. He says they remind him of some bread they have in India. Anyway, I considered it a great success. By the way, I used canned sweet potato. You can buy just plain mashed sweet potato with nothing else added. Kind of like pumpkin. Monday night I made the chicken nuggets with broccoli puree and the macaroni and cheese with cauliflower. Let me preface this by saying that I didn't have a food processor at the time, so I used my blender. It didn't work as well as I would have liked. The broccoli puree was a little too thick I think. Here's a tip I've found in my whole 3 days of puree making- You need to add quite a bit of water to get the right consistency. So after I cooked the nuggets you could see some green under the breading. I knew this wouldn't fly, so I made a few without the broccoli. They're still healthier that way because the breading has flax seed meal in it. Logan of course wouldn't eat the green ones, but he really liked the plain ones. I'm going to try them again with a different puree, maybe butternut squash- that way it'll be easier to camouflage. The mac and cheese with cauliflower was a HUGE success though. Logan LOVED it! He had some again last night. I want to try that one with the butternut squash too.
Last night I made a recipe from my Kraft cookbook (Quick-fix Beef Burrito Skillet) but decided to add some carrot puree to it as well. It was great. You couldn't taste it at all. The only problem was, you could see it a little bit. I was very unhappy with my blender purees. So today I went to Wal-Mart and bought a new food processor. It's basically a knock-off of the Magic Bullet, but I love it. I made butternut squash and broccoli purees today and it was awesome. It's a Sunbeam Heritage Series and was only $30, vs. $55 for the Magic Bullet. One other hint for moms- Most of your kids are littler, but don't let them see you put the purees in. Logan saw me put the carrots in last night and instantly decided he wasn't going to like it. Maybe by the time your kids are as big as Logan they'll be used to it and won't freak, but just in case you may want to keep it on the DL.
I can't wait to try some of the desserts. I think I'm going to try and make the brownies next. I'm excited about this. Not only for the kids, but for us too. I eat lots of fruits and veggies already, but there's nothing wrong with adding a few more here and there. Here's to healthier eating and less whining!

Miss Ellie

What can I say about my sweet girl? She's a girly girl and I love that. I was a girly girl and I'm so glad she is too. I don't know what I would have done if she'd have been a tomboy. She's definitely not. From the time she was about 6-8 months old she started trying to hoist a purse up on her shoulder just like her mom. And from even before she talked much, she loved shoes! She would go over to ladies with pretty shoes on and try to take them off so she could wear them. Ask Sammy, she experienced this firsthand. And for the last 2 years or so, (She's almost 3 1/2) just walking by the shoe dept. is a major ordeal. I could go up and down the toy aisle with her and not hear too much of I want this or that, but if I go near the shoes I never hear the end of it. She loves dresses and skirts too, but will wear pants if I need her to. She's not quite as bad as her cousin Grace, who dresses like a princess- literally, with veils, tiaras, long white gloves, etc. most everyday and everywhere. She loves princesses like Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, etc. She loves dressing up her polly pockets and Barbies. You know I counted like 15 Barbies in her room the other day. I had no idea she had that many. She loves them. She likes baby dolls and plays with them too, but given the choice she'll take a Barbie with a beautiful dress any day.
She's always been a happy child. She's a good eater and sleeper (most of the time). This whole potty training thing has been a challenge for us though. Gosh it seems like we've been "training" forever. Don't let anyone tell you, "girls potty train earlier" or "first borns walk later than second children". It's all a crap shoot, literally sometimes, as in the case of potty training. First, second, boy, girl- you just never know. As Forrest Gump would say "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." And so are children. I try to remember that and I try not to compare them. It's easier not to compare when you have a boy and a girl I think, than two of the same because boys and girls are inherently different. Things have gotten much better on the potty training front, but we still have accidents. At least I'm not still buying diapers or pull-ups. Man, I hate to even speculate how much money we spent on diapers over the last 6 years. Yikes!! But, I digress... Back to Ellie.

I wonder what she'll be when she grows up. She says she wants to be a mommy. I hope she does. Maybe she'll do something with fashion. That seems to be her biggest interest in her whole 3 years and amost 4 months on this planet. I'm sure that she will change alot in the coming years though. I can't (nor do I want to) imagine what the teenage years are going to be like. Shoes, clothes, make up, aggghhhhh!! She already loves the mall too. The other day we asked the kids if they'd rather go to the zoo or the mall and she chose the mall. We're definitely in trouble. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Logan's Art

My little boy loves to draw. It's hard to describe, but sometimes I think there's all this creativity in him and he just has to get it out. It's like something's driving him. Before school when he's supposed to be getting ready I'll find him at the table drawing. After school he'll come in from playing and ask for some paper to draw. He's pretty good at it, not like amazingly gifted, but that doesn't matter because it's the pleasure he seems to get out of it that's important to me. He just seems to have this need to create. It's not unusual for him to draw 20-30 pictures a day. It's hard for me because I can't save them all. I can't even save most of them. There's just no room. So I have to sort out the best one's and those I do keep. I'm trying to figure out how to help him develop this skill so maybe he can use it to make his living. Isn't that everyone's dream in life to be able to make money doing what brings you joy? I'm not being pushy about it or unrealistic. He's 6. I know we can't start mapping out his life or anything. I just wish someone had helped me recognize my passions in life sooner. This summer I enrolled him in a drawing class called Young Rembrandts at the P'ville community center. It was just once a week for 45 minutes. He seemed to like it. We'll see. I just want to give him every opportunity and every chance for happiness and success. Isn't that what all parents want for their kids? I also had to add a cute pic of Logan in his "Gi". Other wise known as a Karate uniform.

Halloween Pfreak-style!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. Out here in P'ville we know how to do it up right! You have to say that with a horrible southern accent to get the full effect. Actually, we had a very nice, simple halloween. We got ready, (it always seems like we're rushing to do this) then went out and hit the streets to do some serious trick-or-treating. When we walked down the street my neighbor and one of the mom's of a kid I watch didn't even recognize me. She said I looked like I was 18! Cool, remind me to wear this costume more often!


Poor Logan woke up Halloween morning with a fever of 101.7. I took him to the doctor and they said he has a sinus infection. At least it's not contageous. He felt lousy most of the day, but of course found the strength to trick-or-treat. He had 103 last night, but is doing much better today, so hopefully will go to school tomorrow. Everyone please pray with me that Logan will go to school tomorrow!! Mommy needs some rest!!


Ellie was a princess last night (of course). She even let me put up her hair and curl it with a curling iron. She looked so pretty!! Like an angel princess! I can't wait to be able to do more fun stuff like that to her hair! After we got home she just had to try on my wig. So did Logan. Actually, he makes a pretty good looking girl.





Stu's not much for dressing up, however we did get him to put on a mask for about 5 minutes. It's the first time in 14 years I've seen him dress up. Hey, it's progress.
Have I mentioned how much I hate trying to figure out where to put these pictures. I need to take a class or something. I'll bet I've re-published this thing like 20 times and this is the best I got!!