Very Unfourtunate

Do you ever have those kind of days. You know what I am talking about. The kind of day where you are ready to snap. It probably won't take much more than dropping a napkin on the floor to set you on a crazy spree.
The kind of day that starts out okay, but then you get home from taking your kids to preschool and find that the dog you have no patience for has chewed the antenna balls off the lady bugs you just made and placed in the garden. Then you realize that your entire garden has been trampled over the winter and there is absolutely no reason to worry about it this spring, since it will just just trashed. And then more things get piled on you from there and the deep buried crazy side begins to creep closer and closer to the surface.
I had my little break down that evening. I got it out, I buried my crazy side back down where it belongs. Which is good. Because if what happened to dinner the next night had happened that night, the crazy would have come out in full force. I bet you are thinking, you burned it? No. You left out an important ingredient? No, I do that a lot, in fact I do it a lot at cooking shows!
The girls had been playing outside all day. Dirty would be an understatement. Hubby wasn't coming home for dinner, he was taking some big wig guys to dinner. So I brought the girls in to bathe and started dinner at the same time. I had water beginning to boil while they played in the tub. When the water started to boil, I put in the noodles, grabbed the timer and went to the bathroom with 8 minutes to clean the girls. Success. With a minute to spare.
I opened the cans I needed for tuna noodle casserole. I mixed them in the corning ware, I added the noodles. I had even remembered to preheat the oven! So as the girls run around naked, I walk to the oven to put in dinner and....

It never made it. I broke dinner. I cleaned up, still with naked children running around, but told to stay out of the kitchen, since I broke dinner. I cleaned it up. I dressed the girls, we went to Qdoba. It is a very good thing this did not happen the day before. But, it still happened. At least I wasn't using one of my stones. It would have made it that much worse. But really, it still sucked.

Lady Bug Art

There is this new Internet craze called pinterest. If you haven't heard of it, then I might consider you lucky. It means you probably can get online, check your email and get off. I tried my best to avoid it, but I only resisted for a few months.
I signed up just after the first of the year, and have drooled over all the gardening ideas. I am ready to go play in the dirt. I like to consider it my dirt therapy. I can both gain my sanity and get the girls out of the house, and for an extra bonus, we get veggies! There are many great ideas on pinterest, both things to buy and things you can make. There are silly ideas, like how to make your laundry room awesome however you have to use your entire house and loose bedrooms to make it that great. There are ideas that make you go, well duh, how come I never thought of that!? And then there are ideas that you look and and think, when would I come across a bowling ball to do that craft with.
And then it happens. Your husband has the idea of taking the kids bowling this weekend. He gets up in the attic to pull down his bowling ball bag, and discovers his $300 ball has cracked into 3 huge pieces. I walked into the garage around the time of this discovery and asked what he was doing. He pointed at the ball, and I immediately said, "oh, I saw something on pinterest that I could do with that... it was a lady bug! Oh don't throw that away, I can use it! Oh, sorry about your ball."
After finding that pin, and saving it to my board, I read up on how to make it. I started in on painting it the next weekend, and it was very easy. I hadn't a chance to find something for the antennae, so it sat for a couple weeks.
In the next few weeks, my husband found another bowling ball to give me. Apparently he thought the little guy was cute. And then next day, my mom found one to give me. However, she wanted it back once it looked like a lady bug!
This past weekend, we went to the used building supply store looking for something very specific. Or my husband was looking for something specific, I was looking for things I had seen on pinterest that I wanted to try. I lucked out, only found electrical conduit, for the antenna!

 So much fun! I can't wait to find their home in the garden. I will dig them down half way, so the cracks on the one won't show, but more importantly, I saw one picture on pinterest where they didn't do that, and it looked silly.
Next pintering project: Toadstools with old wooden salad bowls. I hope to get working on those over the next week or so.
I will have to pace myself, since I do have a bit of work to do with Big Girl J turning 5 in just a few weeks!

Here Fishy Fishy

Little Miss O goes to preschool one day a week for 2 1/2 hours. Tuesday they learned about Dr. Suess. Their art project was gluing the colorful cracker snack 'goldfish' to a fish bowl shaped paper. The book they read with this was 1 fish, 2 fish, red fish, blue fish. She told me all about it, and how they aren't for eating, they are for art. This statement must have been repeated many times during art! She was so proud of her art, she carried it around with her almost all day. She even brought it to the dinner table!
At story time, I asked her to set the fish bowl on the table in the living room, so we could focus on the books. And she did. And it stayed there.
The next morning, I was heading towards the shower as she came out of her room. So I picked her up and kissed her good morning.
She said, "My goldfish are gone, I ate them."
I looked at her confused, she didn't take them to bed, so I looked to my left to see the piece of paper shaped goldfish bowl with just crumbs glued to it! I tried not to laugh to hard, but I couldn't help but giggle about it for a while. My silly girl snuck out of bed, I am not sure if it was just after she was put to bed, or if this was a midnight snack, and ate every single fish! I think this might mean we need to hold out on getting the girls a pet goldfish!

Slow Cooked

One of my favorite meals is one that can in turn be made into many meals. It just seems to make life easier. There are some delicious Pampered Chef recipes using chicken and ground beef that you divide, place in freezer bags, add a few ingredients and freeze. I like to make 3-5 of these for friends who just had a loved on pass away. I also like to make dinner for friends who had babies. It is kind of the only thing I feel like I can offer, I have kids of my own. Going to see someone who just had a baby with little germ covered preschoolers isn't always a great option. But dropping off dinner seems to be appriciated.
I have a good freind who is due next week and had placed a request for a 'trifecta' cornbread I made at the last BBQ she attended. At the time of the request I had a 10 pound pork butt in the slow cooker that had just come out of  a salt water/ molasses brine. So I offered pulled pork sandwiches and cornbread, and she got excited!
I fed the family this delicious pulled pork last night. Big Girl J enjoyed it so much, she asked me if she could have more of the slimey chicken. As much as I was enjoying the pulled pork, I instantly became full. I just couldn't do it any more. I know it seems ridiculous, but to be fair, my plate was almost empty. I was not going to get seconds.
After dinner, I stood in the kitchen for a little bit, with two forks, shredding the left overs. I finished with about five, one pound baggies of pulled pork. Two of them got a health dose of BBQ sauce poured over top and three stayed plain. This makes a quick weekend meal of pulled pork sandwiches for us and the other bag for my friend. I will also be able to make pulled pork enchilladas, and other favorites! But I will not be cruel with all this food talk and not leave you with the trifecta corn bread recipe:
1 box of corn bread mix
1 can cream corn
1 can whole kernal corn
16 oz sour cream
1 small can green chilies
2 eggs
Mix, cook, enjoy!

The Cake that Went Bad

My followers, all two of you, probably remember the cake competition I attempted last year. I thought my cake was ok, not awesome, but I wasn't unhappy with how it turned out. I didn't win, but the main thing for me to remember is that what I saw in my head came out, and close resembled what I thought it should. Exclude the people on top opening presents.
Last night I turned in a cake to the same competition. I thought I should just use this opportunity to practice the idea I have for Big Girl J's 5th birthday (yeah, I know 5 year old!) Her theme is Superhero Training Camp, and the title of the my cake is 'the Superheros Save the Cake.' It think it may look more like the mud people working out to the oldies are dancing around the cake. Before I get to that....
I am glad I tried this cake now, before I am 8 months pregnant and getting flustered that it isn't going the way I want it to. And well, guess what, at 6 month pregnant, it didn't go the way I wanted it to! I just need to give up on trying to make people. It is something I am not good at, I am not an artist. I can cover a cake and decorate it with fondant cut outs, but to free hand?! No, not me.
I tried to start with rice crispy treats molded into human form. That didn't work out. I got some wire from the garage and bent it into human form, and those, I felt, were a great base. I made three in action superheros and one bad guy (who should be getting tossed into the cake.) Then I went back to the crispy treats, that still didn't work. Next, I tried to wrap the wire with fondant, it wouldn't stay and I started to get flustered, so I gave up on that idea. Last resort, I made modeling chocolate, my first time playing with the stuff, and dipped the wire people into the still liquidity chocolate.

Right about now, I started thinking I should change the idea of my cake to 'attack of the mud people.' But no, I kept on trying my original idea. I molded the people, added some more chocolate in places. Then I thought, "With a cape, they will look cute." Or I tried to talk myself into believing that. 

That is when they started looking like people working out to the oldies. By the way, that is NOT a headband, it is an eye mask, there are holes!
So, it is time to turn in the cake, and I obviously don't give half a rat's anything at this point. My cake has not gone the way I wanted it to. I took it to Denver and started to assemble the pieces, that is when I realized I left the birthday candle at home that one of the superheros were supposed to be saving from falling off the cake. So now the guy on top, just looks like he is trying to do the worm or break dance on the cake. I wonder if I changed the title to 'mud people dancing on the cake' if there would be a chance of winning. But, there is not, the cakes I go up against, definitely are a step ahead. Is it sad, that I wish I could turn my cake into the high school age division so I would have a chance?

Yes, this picture is horrible. But trust me, it makes the cake look good. Maybe when we go down tomorrow for the award ceremony, I will try to snap a better picture. But I am about certain this is the best I can make this cake look.
Since my goal here was to practice my idea for Big Girl J's birthday, I must find what I learned from this. I learned, not to do this cake again. Find something else, something that doesn't require me to prove that I can't make people for cakes!

It is Official!

The habit has been kicked!!! Yeah, no more pacifier!!! I really started to feel like we would have to do it soon. If Baby K comes in May and is a pacifier baby and we tried to kick the habit too close to her arrival we might have a relapse. I think with her anticipated arrival being four months out, we are safe!
Big Girl J has been slightly obsessing about her birthday. It is three months away, well more like two and a half now. However, that doesn't stop her from asking daily how many more months till her birthday!
I had a  theme idea back in the fall, possibly before Thanksgiving, and told her about it. She was so excited, and that excitement has not faded at all! I think that means I have picked a good theme. One that really fits her. We are going with a 'super hero' theme! I suggested to her that we could make capes for all of her friends. This was suggested before I realized that my sewing machine had been packed up and stored in the in-laws basement! This should be some very easy, simple stitching, however getting to the foot pedal and accessories will probably be the difficult part.
I will go into more details about the party plans as we get closer, but I am getting a bit excited myself!
As a rewind, side note, our house is currently on the market. We put it on the market just over three months ago, so the reference to 'packed up' was the de-cluttering of the house. I made multiple comments of how we needed to make sure certain things stayed reachable, but when multiple trips had been made, boxes that were once reachable, are no longer. I have already had to go digging three times, and now to get my sewing machine, four. Oh well, I guess we can consider this a lesson learned.

The Bunny Diaries Day 2

I feel like the worst is yet to come. Could it seriously be going this smooth?!? I know she is old enough in comparison to others who have kicked the habit, but she is also only 2 1/2. She is still my baby!
Last night I didn't hear a peep from them, after they finally fell asleep, of course. But there was no crying, no whining, no temper tantrum. Just me at 3am, finding it difficult to fall back asleep after the dogs woke me up. Maybe I had just overly prepared myself for a rough night. And of course, when it feels like I finally fell asleep, Wonderful Husband's alarm goes off. I am sure I got more than a half hour of sleep, but it certainly felt that way.
Little Miss O even slept in. Came out of her room carrying the Bunny, but never mentioned the missing piece. Even for nap, she went to her room, without mention of the missing pacifier. After nap she did bring out Bunny and mentioned a few times that something had been cut off.
As the 'avoid the subject' type of person, when she lifted her Bunny and said something to me along with the scissor hand motion, I looked at her and said, "Is Bunny dirty, do we need to wash him?"
She would scowl at me then hold Bunny close and would mention something cut off the Bunny for at least a half hour.
Now we are on night 2. And I must say, WE ARE ROCKING THIS!
Of course I may have jinxed myself, but I think I am far enough in to this that I am not afraid. Yesterday I was afraid, today, I feel invincible. Well not really invincible, but I am loving that the Bunny theory that I had from the beginning worked.
Who has two thumbs and is happy? This momma!