Accepting Donations

After water aerobics on Saturday morning we will be headed to my grandparents house to work on the list of chores that need to be done for the family reunion on the 4th. I really don't mind helping, it's more the stress of having to distract Grandmother so you can get the chores done, while also chasing an 18 month old up and down the stairs. This weekend though I would much rather be here or here. Maybe we can convince Dad that he wants to go to the movies too.

I heart Mac

While Susie is dreaming of her MacBook Pro, I'm dreaming of this! It makes me want to drool like Homer Simpson.

Excuse me while I whine

Our stake scheduled both Scout camp and girls camp for this week. Normally it wouldn't be a problem to lose ALL of the ward's babysitters for a whole week, but tomorrow I have to go to a funeral and am in desperate need of someone to watch the little man during his naptime. I'm am at a complete loss right now and down to my last option... having Wil come home early. Not to mention the fact that I hate having to explain over and over again why I so desperately need a sitter. ARGH!

All hands on deck

A friend from church called at 9:30 last night when he realized that his wife was out of town and his parents had missed a return flight from their vacation, leaving him without anyone to watch the kids today. I immediately said that I could, they have come to our rescue more times than I can count. So today I had 5 kids! We had frozen cinnamon rolls for breakfast, played at the park, had lunch at McDonald's (cause my mom offered to treat and I could use it as a reward for good behavior), and they even got ice cream. By the time we got back to the house Nana and Papa were home. They invited Adam and I to stay and swim and I negotiated a trade - dinner for more time in the pool. Nana doesn't cook so I knew it wouldn't be too hard to convince her. All in all it was a really good day - and I am completely exhausted.

Can someone make the pounding stop?

I'm so torn right now and need a good helping of PATIENCE. I want the new apartment to be done really bad AND I want Adam to nap. Those two things may not seem at all connected, but I work at my parent's house in the afternoons while Adam is napping. So on days when they are working on (insert project here - today it is the new front porch) and the pounding doesn't stop for hours, I just want to pull my hair out.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

About a month ago my new doctor took me off of dairy - milk, yogurt, ICE CREAM, etc. It wasn't too bad until the last week or so. On Saturday we went to Friendly's for lunch with my Grandparents. Friendly's is big on the east coast and has been a staple in our family for years. Grandad only buys Friendly's brand ice cream. When we were little, they would bring us take home sundaes that were FABULOUS. Now we LOVE the Wattamelon Rolls in the summer (lime and raspberry sherbet layered to look like a watermelon with chocolate chip "seeds"). The food is great too. I was good on Saturday and didn't order dessert. But now I'm dying for a nice big bowl of ice cream or a big slice of Wattamelon Roll.

the 18 hour bra

it's still playtex, but the other division...sippy cups. We have been trying to slowly build up our supply of sippy cups, but haven't been able to find 2-packs that don't have a pink cup in them. So when we hit the jackpot at Target a couple weeks ago, I stocked up. When we got home, I treated our newly acquired sippy cups as I would a bottle and promptly boiled the lids to sterilize them. (We don't have a dishwasher right now.) Apparently you can't do that with playtex sippy cups - the lids warp. Which is precisely what happened. SIX brand new cups and NO lids. So after scouring the packaging to see where it said "do not boil" I called the company, explained my dilemma and asked what my options were. It turns out that if I want the colors to be exact, I could buy new lids (which they sell at the 1-800 number) OR they would be happy to send new ones, but they can't guarantee color choice. We now have 3 new ones with a prepaid return label. Once they have the 6 warped ones back, we will get 3 more in the mail. We heart Playtex! I'm so happy to have more than two sippy cups in the house again. We lucked out this time with mint green, lime green and yellow, but you may just see my son running around with a pink lid on his blue sippy cup.

The Queen's Burger

I promised last week that I would fill you in on my attempt at RR's Chicken Saltimbocca Burgers. But who knew that sage was a very important ingredient in Saltimbocca... not me. So with all the ingredients I had handy, we had the following burgers for dinner:

1 lb. ground turkey
1 big handful of grated parmesan cheese
1 palmful of italian seasoning
pinch or so of sweet basil
1/2 palmful of montreal steak seasoning
1/4 of an sweet yellow onion - grated

Fry in skillet with olive oil about 6 minutes on each side. Top with one slice of deli ham and one slice of provolone cheese. Serve on top of cheesy garlic toast with a side salad (we used a bag of ceasar). (Makes 4 good sized burgers)

Huge success!

My Birthday Wishlist

My birthday is coming up soon and since my grandmother has ingrained in us for years the necessity of a list, here it is:

1. Kohl's giftcards so I can get these pots & pans. I'm ready to be done using my mom's old pans.

2. A haircut at Michaelangelo's (a real salon!).

3. A pedicure

4. An olive green shirt and leggings to wear under my new babydoll dress. Maybe some cute ballet flats to go with it.

Blog News!!!

My friend Amy has a blog!

AWOL

You may wonder where I have been hiding this weekend. Unfortunately, it's been at home with a yucky summer cold and a cough that just won't go away. There are a few things of note that happened while I was wanting so badly to rest....

PEANUT THE DESTROYER
The bugs are back. While trying to get at least one healthy meal in my family this weekend I discovered that our food cupboard was infested with little tiny ants. I found them when I opened not just one corn bread mix that was FULL of the little suckers, but 3 of them. That was when I got to clean out all of our food cupboards, hit them with ant spray and then with lysol wipes. Once that was done and I was sitting in the big chair ready to pass out, I realized that little man's car rug was moving on it's own. There were more ants! Bigger than the tiny ones in the cupboard and black. So much for resting... out came the vacuum, mop and bug spray. TWO HOURS from when I started making dinner, I was done. It makes me tired again just thinking about it.

I CAN FLY, I CAN FLY, I CAN FLY
Little man tried twice this weekend to prove that he could fly, both in less than 24 hours. Thursday night while I was folding clothes in the bedroom, he put a blanket over his head and walked off of the end of the bed, bounced off the trunk and landed on the floor. All of this before my brain even registered what he was doing.

Friday Wil had the day off and we were getting ready to take our little man to Grandma's house. Wil and I were on either side of the bed. Little man was with Wil on the far side of the bed when he decided that he wanted me instead. So he ran to the edge of the bed, stopped, and leaned forward for me to catch him. Unfortunately, I was fixing my hair and had my back to the bed. This time he landed head first on the industrial flooring (think hospital, public school, etc.). Grandma then ended up being on concussion watch that evening. And we were really lucky there wasn't anything more than a bump.

I thought flying didn't start until they were older...

Yum-O?

One thing I have learned from Rachael Ray is that just about any recipe can be turned into a burger. So when I saw her chicken saltimbocca burgers, I was very excited. Now I have all the stuff to make them, with my own cost-saving twists. I'll let you know next week how they turn out.

Whistle while you work

or maybe play some computer games. Little man woke up early again this morning and then we ran errands in Prince Frederick. Now my brain doesn't want to work anymore. It's pleading for a nap.

the Birds

I remember seeing this movie when I was young. Add to that the theory in the Jurassic Park movies that the creepy nasty dinosaurs that ate people were more like birds than reptiles, and too many run-ins with other winged creatures (also known as bats). What do you have? Well, that would be me FREAKING OUT yesterday when my dad decided to show off the new garage doors and a bird flew out from the unfinished frame work. Thank goodness Susie had the little man, because I think my reaction scared him more than the bird. And where was my mom during all of this? She was the one trying to use ME as a shield from the dive bombing bird. When will the winged ones learn to LEAVE ME ALONE!

Discontinued!

Old Navy has decided to discontinue the Women's plus size line. They will still be carrying it online, but not in the stores. Needless to say, I am NOT happy about this. There's something to be said about walking around the store filling your cart FULL and then spending an hour in the dressing room with your sissie trying on "mombutt" jeans (you know the ones where the waistline almost hits your chin). So that's what Susie and I did tonight. I'm not sure the poor girl who had to put back all the clothes we didn't buy was very happy with us, but we had a BLAST. The plus size stuff was marked down 75%! I spent too much, but found a shirt for $.99 and a fabulous wool sweater for $1.74, so that makes it ok, right?

Summertime

I'm working on a summer playlist, music that will provide a great soundtrack to our summer. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I like presents!

Especially presents that my sissie brings for us from England. Kinder chocolate, great books, gorgeous earrings, a bobby hat and cars for little man.... and something cool for Wil that he hasn't seen yet. We had fun today seeing all of the cool stuff she found in London and Paris. I'm glad she had so much fun and I'm REALLY happy to have her home again.

Lindsey's home!!!!

Need I say more....

my dilemma

Since becoming a Mommy, I have faced the dilemma of what the HEE HAW to do with my hair. Between the loss of time and income, I never know what to do. I feel guilty for spending the money on regular cuts, then rarely feel like I look nice... not even some semblance of looking put together like I used to. So in December I decided to try a perm. It hasn't been as scary as I thought it would be and has been really quick and easy. I can shower and be ready in 30 to 45 minutes, which is a fraction of what it used to be. For the most part I have been happy with it and even felt like it looked nice. But now it has been 6 months. I'm at the point where the perm has grown out just enough to be REALLY annoying and again I rarely feel like it looks good. So now I'm back to my original dilemma... do I cut my hair the way I like it, knowing that it will double the time it takes me to get ready in the morning? Do I keep pulling it back into barrettes or ponytails and feeling like I look like a train wreck? I know this is so inconsequential in the big scheme of things, but I just want to feel pretty again!


ps. this is the cut that I like:

I do not like them!

Since moving in to this basement apartment, we have had a variety of creepy crawly things down here. Most of them have been spiders and I just figured they would go away once we had been living here for a few weeks. Sadly, that is not the case. I'm still finding 2 or 3 a day and it creeps me out. Now, to make matters worse, BIG black wasps are now finding their way in. My landlady's response... flyswatters.

Huh?

I was driving down Route 4 today behind a car that had a homemade sign covering the back window. It said "Resist the American Empire". What the freak is that supposed to mean? And in Calvert County, where the biggest store is Wal-Mart, the county fair is considered a holiday and the flag still sports a picture of a tobacco leaf. Seriously?!?!?!?

Hotlanta

Wil just left on his first business trip and won't be back until Tuesday night. I don't know if I want to celebrate or cry. I do know that I'm jealous of a weekend with ABSOLUTELY NO responsibilities at a hotel with a pool.

Dr. Phil

My uncle, Phil, was visiting last night and wanted to watch the Republican debate. I haven't been nearly as involved in politics since leaving MMA, but hung out at my parents' house for the first hour. There were a few things that stood out to me...
The first was Huckabee's statement on evolution. The second was Romney's answer about his faith. The CNN articles sum up the comments, but don't do them justice. Most of all I was trying to figure out what was going on with Tommy Thompson's hair... is it a really bad dye job and style or is it a rug? Either way, it was bad.

Water Baby

Little man is turning out to be quite the water baby. He loves the pool and sitting under the tub faucet while it's running. Last night he was having a blast playing in the rain. So I wasn't at all surprised to find him playing in the toilet this morning, until I realized he was using a stacking cup to DRINK THE TOILET WATER. So gross.