These are the Moments

They Ain't Pretty

2012-01-27T07:46:00.000-06:00

My friend Jenn said the other day that crescent rolls are the bacon of refrigerated breads. Has there EVER been a more truthful statement?

Crescent rolls. They're where it's AT, y'all.

I had some crescent rolls on hand and decided to throw together something that we'll call jalapeno chicken packets the other night. I came up with these ALL BY MYSELF. Which probably means that everyone else is already making them and I just haven't happened to stumble across them on the internet (and by "the internet" I mean Pinterest) yet. Like the chicken taco soup that I always claimed to be "my" recipe. Now that we have Pinterest in our lives I know that EVERYONE makes chicken taco soup just exactly like I make it. It's not "my" recipe. It's the entire western world's recipe.
These jalapeno chicken packets . . . they are ugly. And I don't have a fancy camera to try to make them look pretty. But they were also absolutely delish. Like, so good that I had to log on to one of my Facebook groups approxomately 2.6 seconds after I'd taken the last bite and tell everyone just how good they were.

See?
They Ain't Pretty!

Here is what you need:
Crescent rolls (I used the reduced fat ones and guess what? The calorie count is the same as the full fat ones. Explain please).
Weight Watchers pepperjack cheese spread
Chicken, seasoned to your preference, grilled, and cubed (or you could just "pull a Brandi" and buy these)
Jalapenos
Shredded Cheese (I used low fat cheddar but I think any kind will work -- and I wish I had some Mexican blend on hand)
Roll out crescent rolls. Spread half a wedge of the pepperjack on each one. Top with chicken (I used 1.5 ounces per two crescent rolls), jalapenos, and one tablespoon of shredded cheese. Roll up and shape into a packet. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes or until crescents are golden.

So simple . . . so ugly . . . so delicious.

I served them with black beans and apple slices. The entire meal (two crescent rolls - using a total of 1.5 ounces chicken, half a cup of black beans, half an apple) was only 485 calories. The packets themselves are 165 calories each.

Next time I make them I'll shake things up and ADD SOME BACON.

I leave you with this:

Chocolate icecream with whipped cream vodka

You should make one of these. TODAY.

Thursday Things

2012-01-26T07:55:00.000-06:00

1) I weighed in today, a day early, because one of my Favorite People is in town and I want Buffalo Wild Wings and wine tonight. And possibly ice cream. Chocolate ice cream with Pinnacle Whipped. Thoughts? Anyway. I'm down 1.8 pounds which brings my grand total to 7.8 pounds since January 1st. All my holiday weight is GONE!

2) At dinner the other night I asked the boys what they wanted to be when they grew up. Jaidan told me he wanted to be a firefighter. No big surprise there. I'm pretty sure every single five-year-old boy in the history of ever has aspired to be either a firefighter or a policeman. When I asked him why he said, "to have one of those fire dogs with the spots, to be able to slide down a pole, and to help people." Love those priorities, son.

Kyan also wants to help people (his words) but he wants to do it as . . . a knight.

Both boys weighed in on what Karis is going to be when she grows up. Jaidan said a ballerina and Kyan said a princess. Then a fight ensured over which was prettier.

3) Another reason I'll be glad January when is over? Weight loss commercials. I'm so tired of seeing Jennifer, Janet, and Mariah.

4) I've realized that my lazyness this January is not a result of the weather. For the most part, the weather has been almost . . . well . . . perfect. For January, anyway. We have a really cold day here and there but mostly it's been pretty mild with most days in the 60's and even some 70's. We were even able to spend the entire afternoon outside the other day! I read somewhere that we're having this nice, mild January because it's a La Nina year. Last year's craptastic weather was a result of El Nino. So, in other words the boy causes everyone to feel miserable and disgusting. ANYway. The weather hasn't given me a case of the lazies . . . I just have vacationitis. I have two weeks until I leave and I don't want to do anything but think about New Orleans and Nola related things and Nola food and Nola drinks. Nola brain.

The other day I had a long list of things I planned on getting done. Instead, I spent the day texting my friend Courtney with reasons she needs to go with us.

Did it work? We'll see.

5) We've been able to walk several days a week. On my Android phone, I had the CardioTrainer app. I LOVED it. I was able to turn it on when I set off on a walk and it would tell me how far I walked, how many calories I burned, that sort of thing. I can't download it on my iPhone but I found a pedometer app that's okay. I've been using it to monitor the number of calories I burn on a walk.

6) The boys got a little room re-do last week! We didn't do much -- just hung pictures on the wall. I know the days are limited - very, very limited - where Jaidan will be content with anything Disney Pixar being used to decorate his room. So I wasn't ready to put a lot of time/ money into their room. When he's ready for an "upgrade" Kyan is going to want it too since he wants anything Jaidan wants. So, for now, their room looks like this:

Sidenote: I am so, so, so, so, SO incredibly sad that Picnik is going away. What am I going to use for my collages?

7) I don't keep up with country radio. I'm the only one in my house who appreciates country (unfortunately). The boys like Zac Brown Band and Kyan still wants to rock out to Blake Shelton's Honey Bee (and by "rock out" I mean dance around the kitchen with me which, HELLO, I love). The only time I really listen to country is on Pandora and that's not all the time. So I realize this song may have been out for a while but I only discovered it a few weeks ago. LOVE.

The first few times I heard it, I was very "wtf." Ludacris on a country record? LUDACRIS? And Jason Aldean attempting something that's kind of like rapping? But it's grown on me. I like it. I like it a lot.

8) Karis is in the stage where she picks 329849823 toys to take to bed with her. The other night she took a water gun and a toy chainsaw. Totally LOL'able.

9) I don't think there's anyway possible that I could be LESS excited about this year's Super Bowl. Oh yay. Tom Brady and the Patriots are going again. Woo Hoo. :/ At least there's a Manning in it. Us SEC girls love our Mannings.

10) My current favorite ecard making the rounds on Pinterest:

Current favorite because HELLO. MOST TRUE THING EVER.

(Un)Motivation

2012-01-25T09:04:00.000-06:00

To say that I've been unmotivated - to do anything - the past few days would pretty much be the understatement of the century. I have a bad case of vacationitis and honestly prefer not to do anything other than lay around daydreaming about things like crawfish bisque. I tried to blame yesterday's lack of motivation on the fact that it was an incredibly beautiful day and wanted to just stay outside with my kids all.day.long (which we pretty much did). But today it's pouring down rain and just plain nasty and I still have zero motivation. Vacationitis.

I feel as though I can't go THREE WHOLE DAYS without blogging so I'll pass on a few Instagrams from the past few days. Aren't you, like, SO EXCITED?

Dude. I was SO in love with yesterday. The weather was just THAT wonderful.

The boys think Hide and Seek is the Best Game Ever. Kyan always - always - hides under some sort of blanket. I sincerely hope the child never has to join the Witness Protection Program. "They can't see me cause I can't see them!"

Yesterday's breakfast.

My husband is Captain Sabotage when it comes to me and weight loss.

Karis slept 12.5 hours the other night. Which made her a Very Happy Girl.
This morning she was up before 7:00 and the first thing she said was, "I want you to feed me."
Sigh.

We had tornados bouncing all around us Sunday night (and everyone was freaking out and all "TORNADOS in JANUARY? THE WORLD IS GOING TO END SOON." The reaction to severe weaather is so much worse than the actual weather. Also, we had tornado warnings in February last year -- I remember because my girls and I had to go hide out in the back room of Target -- and the world didn't end. Soooo . . . ) Anyway. Jaidan thought he had to get in bed with me because he was "sooooo scared." Doesn't he look just freakin' TERRIFIED?

Lunch the other day was quesadillas -- football, puppy dog, and airplane quesadillas.
Kyan's airplanes were flying to Vegas.

I was making chili for dinner the other day. Karis kept pulling stuff out of the pantry for me to add to it -- Spongebob Chicken Noodle, cranberry sauce, and cream of chicken soup? Ewww.

Speaking of chili - I made Pioneer Woman's recipe a few months ago. We liked it but I've tweaked it here and there until I feel like I have a super yummy chili recipe. I half the ground chuck, double the beans, tomato sauce, and cumin. Triple (sometimes more!) the chili powder. I leave out the masa. And I add onions. What kind of chili recipe doesn't have onions? This last time I made it, I diced up some jalapenos to put in my bowl. OH EM GEE. It was soooo good. I had heartburn later (effin' A, haven't had heartburn in aaaaaages) but it was totally worth it. Totally worth it.

It Happened This Week

2012-01-22T08:07:00.000-06:00

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first, shall we?

I lost 2.6 pounds this week. We'll pretend last week's little rant on metabolism never happened, mmkay? I'm down a total of six pounds and I only have one to go to be back where I was in October. Which is definitely do-able by the time I leave for New Orleans. And I hope that pound is gone before February 5th so I can pig out during the Super Bowl. Which I'll be watching at home. With my kids. I don't care though -- I'm all about celebrating when Tim Tebow is not a part of it.
I attribute this 2.6 pound loss, in part, to being able to GO OUTSIDE and burn calories. We were able to get out and walk, um, four days this week. (Oh and Mother Nature decided to be a HUGE B-word to us yesterday and temps didn't get out of the 30's - after it was close to 70 on Friday - which meant I had a baby girl who sat by the back door and whimpered to go "ou-shide" constantly).
We worked this week on Jaidan learning his address and phone number. He has the address down. The phone number . . . notsomuch. I only know one phone number from memory and that's my own -- I'm not exactly setting the best example of what to do in an emergency when your iPhone is dead. #parentingfail
I started tweeting again this week! I actually went over to Twitter to be an asshole to someone and got sucked in. Freakin' Twitter.
I said I wasn't going to drink any alcohol again until Nola but I had two glasses of Moscato the other night. I blame it on my children.

Pictures of our week:

Sunday 1/15:

Monday 1/16:

Doooood. She looks like her Daddy in this picture!

Tuesday 1/17:

Wednesday 1/18:

Thursday 1/19:

Friday 1/20:

This little turd. She hasn't taken a nap this week unless I take her for a walk "a wawwwk! A wawwwk!" and she falls asleep in the stroller. Oh, and if she DOES happen to take a nap that's longer than, like, 45 mintutes? She won't go to sleep at night. She is SO MUCH like Jaidan was at that age.

Saturday 1/21:

So Very Pinteresting

2012-01-21T08:24:00.001-06:00

So you can now link up Pinterest and your Facebook account so that EVERYTHING you do on Pinterest shows up in your Facebook feed. I allowed Pinterest to do this because I wasn't paying attention and just clicked the "try it now!" button because they didn't have a "yeah, yeah, whatever" button. Turns out, when you have this feature, your Facebook friends can see all your Pinterest activity. So if you pin something with the f-word in it and your grandma is on Facebook then *gasp* she will know you pinned something with the f-word in it. It also means that you can see someone left a comment on the comment you left on someone else's pin of Pinnacle whipped vodka. And if you've had a glass or two of Moscato (even though you swore you weren't drinking again until you went to New Orleans) it might confuse you a little bit. Not that I speak from experience or anything.

I saw this on Pinterest this week (I didn't repin it because I don't like to pin things that make me feel old):

{via}

Holy MEMORIES, Batman! I had that one in the peach dress (was she peach blossom Barbie or something?), the one in the white, and most definitely the one in the blue thing. I remember that blue thing pretty vividly and somewhere in the recesses of my mind is a memory of her in a red Barbie car under the tree on Christmas morning. Good times . . .

Part of me can't wait for my daughter to be into Barbies -- I'm not one of those "NO BARBIE EVER" moms. Barbie was my favorite toy growing up. I cut her hair and lost her shoes and, since I only had a brother, played lots of "Barbie Meets GI Joe." Sure, she's disporportionate and blah blah blah but why would I deny my daughter the joy of playing with them?

The part of me that can wait for her to get into them is the part that purchased some for our angel tree child this past Christmas and realized how much Barbie costs these days. HO-LY CRAP.

Anyway. Onto pins I actually tried this week. I've been good on keeping it lazy in 2012 but I do have a few to share.

Recipes:

Skinny Baked Potato Soup - This.Is.Good. Really, really good. You can't taste the cauliflour and it has a nice, rich flavor to it. Kyan even ate it! That is HUGE. Jaidan and Zhariah both went back for seconds. Plus, it was filling enough that one cup of soup was plenty for me. This is one soup recipe that is most definitely a keeper!

Secretly Healthy Chocolate Cake - If you're getting ready to pop a cake into the oven and start to question whether you should add some white sugar . . . that's probably not a good sign. This cake was . . . not good. We piled Cool Whip on top and it still was not even edible. I ended up throwing it out.

Lasagna Rolls - People, this is a look at my dinner the night I fixed these:

That entire plate was just 365 calories!

365!

The lasagna rolls are sooooo good. I did deviate from the actual recipe -- I broke my noodles in half before boiling them (so while I had two rolls, I only had one noodle). I made mine meatless and I measured the cheeses and sauce exactly to keep the calories down. The lasagna rolls were fantastic. Eddie declared them a keeper and both Karis and Zhariah threw down on them. They will definitely be added to the dinner rotation.

As far as non-recipe related things:

I tried this to make my house smell heavenly. Ummm. It made the two foot circumference surrounding my stove smell okay but, yeah, other than that? No.

Kid Stuff:

The boys made penguins and polar bears. Here's to hoping my January Fog lifts next week and we DO a little more!

Thursday Things

2012-01-19T07:49:00.000-06:00

1) Eddie and I love - love - Texas de Brazil. All you can eat meat with a "salad" bar that's out of this world -- what's not to love? I got an email a couple weeks ago that they were doing a special MLK Day lunch. Eddie and I talked about it and decided to go and pass along the our love to the kids. Diet? What diet? I called to make a reservation and they were completely booked. Boo. I figured that was God's, the universe's, or TDB's way of telling me lay off the steak, fatty. THEN the lady on the phone told me they were extending the offer for Wednesday and Thursday. So I figured that was God's, the universe's, or TBD's way of telling me go for it, fatty.

Kyan, who is my resident Very Picky Eater, threw down. The boy ate two plates of rice, three pieces of chicken wrapped in bacon (my favorite too!), two pieces of steak, a piece of Brazillian sausage, a slice of lamb, and I don't know how much bacon. He even told us he wants to go back there for his birthday!

Obviously, this little trip to TdB wasn't on my diet. I might be griping - and threatening to hurl my scale at the wall - come Friday morning but, for today, it was worth it!

I Keep it Real

2) One of my favorite things about the My Fitness Pal app is that after you are done logging in for the day, it will give you an idea of how much you could possibly weigh in five weeks if you ate the same way every single day. I later changed the 10,000 calories to a more reasonable guesstimate but before I did that I just had to have a look at what it would be if I ate 10,000+ calories every day for the next five weeks:

In FIVE WEEKS??? That's a very big weight gain. Holy crap!

3) Apparently there is a reality show being shopped around to networks called Heavy Housewives of Memphis. I'm a little irritated about this. Partly because they put "heavy" in the title. Partly because I dropped the whole "housewives of Memphis" thing in a blog title TWO YEARS AGO and did anyone bother to ask ME to be on it? Noooo. Apparently reality networks are (still) not too interested in watching me yell at my kids and browse Pinterest for projects that are never going to get done.

By the way -- "Real Housewives of Memphis" is the number one search phrase people Google to find my blog.

4) I picked up a prescription at Target on Friday. After the pharmacist gave me the spill on the prescript he told me, "Call if you have any questions. I mean it. Call me." Okay. I was back in Target on Monday and the same pharmacist walked past me in the soap aisle. He spoke and even called me by name. This was in Target -- not some neighborhood, mom & pop type of pharmacy. I think he mighta wanted him a little bit of Brandi!

5) Has anyone watched the new show Are You There, Chelsea? I love Chelsea Handler but this show sucks. Also, Laura Prepon will always be Donna Pinciotti. Always.

6) You'd think that by the time your third child reaches the Terrible Two's stage you'd be all "yeah, yeah, whatever. Been thurrr, done that." You'd be wrong. And what makes it even worse is that by the time you're on your third child then you KNOW. You know that the Terrible Two's start at just-before-they-turn-two and last until age five.

Karis never ceases to amaze me. She climbs on everything. I moved the kitchen chairs where she can't get to them and . . . she still manages to get to them. She is also in the Nakey Toddler Stage. Every time I turn around, she's shucking her diaper. I've even tried duct tapinig it on (relax, no tape on her skin) and guess what? Houdini Baby GOT IT OFF ANYWAY.

7) I will be in New Orleans three weeks from tomorrow. Three weeks! I have a list of everything I need to do before I leave. It looks like this:

Go to a parade
Eat beignets
Eat crawfish bisque from the French Market
Eat a po' boy
Eat my weight in pralines
Eat alligator. Lots and lots of alligator
Eat crab stuffed mushrooms (my favorite from last year!)
Eat a muffaletta
Eat at Mother's

75% of my budget is reserved for food.

8) A friend posted this on Facebook yesterday. I seriously LOL'd. http://pregnantchicken.squarespace.com/pregnant-chicken-blog/2012/1/17/porn-for-pregnant-ladies.html If you've ever been pregnant then oh you sooooo get it.

9) My idol. She has diabetes.

I KNOW. I am SHOCKED.

Also, errbody needs to go on ahead and BACK OFF my Paula. Yes, her food gives you di-a-beet-us. But she ain't forcin' you to eat it, hon!

10) Did I mention I'll be in New Orleans THREE WEEKS from tomorrow? Oh, baby.

Home Decorating 101

2012-01-17T08:10:00.000-06:00

I might have mentioned - just a time or two - that I'm in the process of decorating my house.

Not redecorating, mind you. Just plain old decorating. The house I've lived in for going on TWO AND A HALF YEARS.

We're all about the procrastination up in here.

I don't have a good "before" picture of it (and right now there is [still] a huge ass basketball goal in there) but it looks something like this:

Nothing on the walls. Nothing actually IN the entryway, exception being that it ocassionally becomes a catch-all for shoes. Fun.

But I have big plans.

I'm looking for a table to sit against the wall -- I don't want to buy anything brand new so I'm checking out Goodwill and resale shops and when yard sale season rolls around again, I'll be on the look out there too. I'll put framed pictures on top of the table. Perhaps different little seasonal decorations.

The wall is going to be my canvas wall.

I took this picture right here:

Cropped the food out of it (ohmygawwwsh, those crab nachos were the bomb(dot)com) and created this:

It's a canvas from Canvas People (you can get a free 8x10 canvas -- just pay shipping -- I bought my mom a canvas for Christmas and I really wish I'd found this deal then! Maybe she could've got two or three!). My plan is to end up with five canvases - this one of me and Eddie and then one of each of the kids. They'll be hung in the front entry way. I have a canvas sign with our last name and some sort of cutesy quote that'll go on top of the pictures. I can't wait to get the other canvases ordered. I think it's going to turn out so cute!

Now if only I could figure out exactly how I want to decorate the REST of the house . . .

Grief and Perspective

2012-01-16T08:40:00.000-06:00

If you had told me Thursday night that I would walk out from Jaidan's kindergarten check up the next morning on the verge of tears, I would have thought you were crazy. But when I walked out of that appointment around noon on Friday I was on the verge of being a complete mess.

Jaidan completely failed his hearing test. They gave it to him three different times -- the third time I actually left the room as I was afraid I was being a distraction. That time he heard the first tone on each ear; he heard none of the others though. Add to that the fact that we got some news that he has another issue that could eventually lead to surgery and you have a mom who walked out of the doctor's office struggling to hold back tears.

It's been a few days and I've calmed down. I realize any number of things could've caused him to fail the hearing test. He could have been excited because the word "kindergarten" was being tossed around. He could have fluid on his ears or wax build up. Or he could've just been being a little turd. All weekend long I've been reminding myself that he never asks us to repeat ourselves, he doesn't turn the TV up super loud, and he just doesn't seem to have any problems hearing. We're getting a referral to an ENT and whatever the problem is - if there is any problem at all - we'll take care of it. He will be okay.

When we left the doctor on Friday, none of the other possibillities were on my mind. All I could think about were hearing aids. My baby needing something, something that everyone could see and possibly make fun of him for, to help him hear. I think most of us, as parents, can agree that when it comes to the formitive years all we really want for our children is the blessing of being average. We want them to blend in and have nothing about them that automatically makes them a target for (more) teasing and ridicule.

For the five plus years I've been a parent, my children have been ridiculously healthy. Sure, we've passed around snotty noses and there's been a stomach virus or two make the rounds in our home. But we have only ever made one - one! - sick child visit to the doctor. It's a blessing and while I realize this I also can't help but wonder if I've perhaps taken it for granted. Because I was most definitely thrown for a loop when my kid failed his hearing test. Three times. And if I learned anything on Friday it's this: there's no such thing as minor when it's your own child. I used to see people freak out about their child having their tonsils removed. I would roll my eyes and scoff and think about all the people with children who have faced truly major surgeries. I'll never do that again. It doesn't matter if it's having tonsils removed or having something more important operated on . . . when it's your kid, it just seems major.

I learned some news Saturday evening - news about a child that I don't even know personally - that left me heartbroken. Anytime a mother has to say goodbye to her child, anytime a mother is left with empty arms it breaks my heart a little. It's my greatest fear. And while I was essentially freaking out (for lack of a better term) over something that could be nothing, another mother out there was making burial arrangements for her child.

It's not fair and I instantly felt guitly. Friday after our doctor's appointment, I put on a happy face and took my kids to Chik Fil La but I was blinking back tears the whole time and my mind was spinning with the "what ifs." I was in tears over a problem-that-might-not-be-a-problem. But . . . I wasn't faced with truly devastating news. I wasn't given a fatal prognosis for my child. I wasn't faced with having to plan a funeral. I feel guilty now, writing this, for even gaining a little perspective over someone else's pain.

It seems like every time we hear of a tragedy involving a child those of us who are parents are slower to anger, hug our babies a little tighter, are reminded of the little things we tend to take for granted. And each time something like this happens I can't help but wonder how the mother of that child feels. How does it make a mother feel when she's lost her child and that reminds other people to hug their babies a little tighter, to not take them so much for granted? I can't help but feel guilty . . . guilty that I do take my little people and minor health concerns for granted. And guilty that another parent's pain and grief gives me perspective.

It Happened This Week

2012-01-15T07:44:00.001-06:00

You know how in, like, July you'll write down the date one day and be all, "Is it seriously ALREADY July 15th? We're already halfway through the month!" You never do that in January. It's always, "Is it really ONLY the 15th? Is this month EVER going to be over?"

I hate January. And it's a deep and burning hatred.

I really love outdoor exercise. And by "exercise" I mean pushing my double stroller through the neighborhood. No running or hiking or any of that mess. I like to get out, take a walk, and get some fresh air while spying on my neighbors. Yesterday it warmed up to a balmy 52 degrees -- which felt like we were residing in the tropics after the past few days. So I put jackets on Kyan and Karis and the three of us headed out for a stroll around the neighborhood. Real talk: it is absolutely amazing what a little (windy) fresh air can do for your mood.

Here's a look at our week:

Sunday 1/8:

Monday 1/9:

Holy crap, I love this kid.

The doctor asked him, "How old are you man?"

Kyan - "I'm three! And my Mommy is 31!"

Thanks, Dude.

Tuesday 1/10:

Wednesday 1/11:

Thursday 1/12:

Friday 1/13:

Another Kyan-ism:

The boys were playing in the play are at CFA with two or three other boys. I heard Jaidan, "Let's play a game! It's called No Girls Allowed!" They played a little longer and I walked over to check on Karis who was playing close to them. A little boy said, "It's a girl!" Kyan said, "That's not a girl. That's just my Mommy."

Saturday 1/14:

So Very Pinteresting

2012-01-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't done a Pinterest round up in awhile. This one is mainly recipes because . . . well, because it's January. Enough said. I could never homeschool because of the month of January (and also because I'd probably end up in a pretty white room with nice padding on the walls). We'd never do anything that month. Forget summer vacation -- we'd have to take January and February off. Therefore I will ship these children off to public school when the time comes so that someone else, hopefully someone less lazy in the winter months, can train them up just right.

Yummies:

Ranch Roasted Potatoes - You know something? I didn't even like ranch dressing until I got pregnant with Karis and wanted it on everything. (Seriously, my monthly visit-ah wasn't even late yet but I knew something was going on when I poured ranch on my SCRAMBLED EGGS. No lie). But, mmmm, I love me some ranch now! And, even better, is the dry ranch dressing mix. Oh, sweet mystery of life. That stuff is proof there is a God and He does love me. I made these for dinner two Thursday nights in a row (I guess Thursday just feels right for ranch potatoes . . . ) I used the regular ranch seasoning the first time and they were soooooo good. Jaidan ate SO MANY of them. The second time I used the fiesta ranch. They were still really good but Jaybird and I both preferred the ones with the regular mix. Z said the fiesta ranch ones tasted like fries from a restaurant. Suffice to say, we love this recipe and it'll probably be a weekly staple on our menu.

Christmas Crack - I obviously made this at Christmas. Saltine toffee seemed to be all the rage this year and I decided to try this particular recipe. It was the easiest one out there. Here's the deal-io: if it seems almost too easy then it probably is. It never did set and it just . . . it wasn't that good. I'll be trying Christmas Crack again next year but it'll be with a different recipe.

Cheeseburger Ring - Made these for dinner for the kiddos the other night. Jaidan LOVED them. Like, begged me to make them for lunch the next day type of loved them. Kyan and Karis ate the meat out of them (what kind of weird ass kids don't eat crescent rolls?). When I make them again, I'm going to add in some onion. Oh! And I omitted the pickles because I knew my picky 3-year-old wouldn't touch them if he saw pickles in them!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal - Mmmm. No bake cookies are just about the best.thing.ever. As soon as I stumbled across this recipe I wondered why *I* had never thought to make a no bake cookie type of oatmeal. This oatmeal was . . . okay. It took a lot of sweetener, though, and I really prefer the usual way I make it -- with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Mini Deep Dish Pizzas - I originally pinned these as "kid food" but decided to eat some myself for dinner one night. They.are.so.good. I never thought about using a muffin tin to make a deep dish pizza! Each little pizza was all sauce-y and flavor-y and just nom, nom, nom.

Apple Sandwiches - These were lunch for the boys one day -- I left out the raisins and granola; just apples as bread with peanut butter spread between the slices. They thought they were really neat and requested to have them again the next day. Which means this recipe = success.

As far as non-food related things -- we also did this The Snowy Day printable pack, made these for our New Years resolutions, and decoded site words with a little watercolor fun. None of which I have pictures of because it's January and I'm lazy.

And that's pretty much it for the past few weeks. Happy Saturday! Go take a shot every time you see the "Tebow" in your Facebook feed and you'll be white girl wasted in no time -- that always makes your average winter Saturday better.

Stupid Metabolism

2012-01-13T06:55:00.001-06:00

I heard on the radio once that a woman's beauty peaks at the age of 32. I actually believe this. You might not be as firm as in your 20's but, by that time, most women have developed their "honey badger don't give a shit" attitude. Where the firm thighs leave off, the confidence picks up. Confidence is attractive.

I turn 32 in May. Which means I should be smoking hot come May 19th -- and for the 365 days that follow -- but then it's all downhill from there. Yeah, that doesn't suck or anything.

Want to know something else that happens in your 30's? Your metabolism slows down. This possibly sucks even more than realizing you're only going to get uglier.

You know how most college students pack on the "freshman 15" during their first semester of school thanks to lots of delivered pizza and beer at frat parties? Ever the overacheiver, I gained my freshman 15 during my senior year of high school. I started college at my highest weight ever and spent my first semester eating daily doses of Whataburger (what? I was living in Texas for the first time in my life. I was going to enjoy the Whataburger!) and packing on more and more pounds. My second semester of school, I was all "nuh-uh, oh no, no more." I have no idea how much weight I lost -- I'm not even sure I ever stepped on a scale -- but I began the semester busting out of size 14's and refusing to buy size 16's (and I was in a land of size 0's and 2's - ouch). I ended a size 8/10. I lost a lot of weight. And in less than a semester. And all I did was start working out daily and substituted Subway for Whataburger and ate a lot of Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice.

I would never, ever in my life want to be 18 again. But I would love to have that metabolism back.

I can't lie: when I started this diet (less than two weeks ago!) I really expected to lose 4-5 pounds in the first week. That's how things have gone for me in the past. Sure, it's all water weight. But who cares? Pounds off the scale! Well, I only lost two pounds in the first week. I was okay with that - not ecstatic, but okay - because I was thinking I could keep that up and my seven pounds would be gone before the end of January.

I lost 1.4 pounds this week.

Stupid metabolism.

Yeah, yeah. A loss is still a loss! At least it's not a gain! Slow and steady. Yadda, yadda. I get it. But I'm still irritated. WHY CAN I NOT HAVE THE METABOLSIM OF MY 20'S AGAIN? WHY DID I NOT APPRECIATE THAT METABOLISM WHEN I HAD IT? Why, in the past, would I complain about only losing two pounds in a week? (Yes, I realize the difference in 2 lbs and 1.4 lbs is not that substantial but I'm not being rational right now -- it's 27 degrees outside this morning, my 3-year-old woke me up at 5:45 this morning, and Jay-Z's "Glory" is on a Yahoo poll for best lullaby along with Beautiful Boy and Isn't She Lovely and I'm wondering if people really - REALLY - believe his stupidity belongs on the same level with John Lennon and Stevie Wonder).

Stupid metabolism.

Thursday Things

2012-01-12T08:10:00.000-06:00

1) So on Friday I was talking about how I'd rather eat like an asshole for the three months that, in my mind, constitute the holidays then work my ass off in January to lose it. In theory, I know I really do believe that. I do. But I've also discovered that part of the reason I hate January so much is that I spend the first part of it eating 1,200 calories a day and working out twice what I normally do. It's been a little warmer than usual this January (until today! Snow flurries in the forecast!) and I'm still . . . feeling the January Dooldrums. That's what happens when you go from eating all the peppermint bark and fudge every day to eating turkey sausage and egg whites.

2) Jaidan has his physical for kindergarten on Friday. Kindergarten! Not only that, but last night he opened his mouth and I noticed one of his molars looked a little funny. I freaked out a little bit -- it almost looked like part of the tooth was gone. Then I took a closer look and realized he's cutting his permanent molars. I know you're probably all like "BIG DEAL, permanent teeth" but YALL. That is my BABY. Babies do not have permanent teeth.

Also. He's taking on a few more chores. He helped cook his own scrambled eggs the other morning and he's also learning how to wash dishes:

I'm not so bummed about THAT part of growing up.

3) Speaking of babies . . . my littlest one is full of piss and vinegar. This is what my dining area currently looks like:

All the chairs are pushed BEHIND the table. Wanna know why?

After spending two days constantly pulling her down from the counters -- that she reached by scooting and climbing on dining room chairs, I finally wised up and moved the chairs behind the table. So she spent all day yesterday shucking her pants and diaper and running through the house full on nakey. Fun.

4) So about those resolutions . . .

Decorating the house -- I've hung up precisely one picture and have my mantle halfway completed. Overacheiver here.

Organizing the house -- I cleaned out my junk drawer! This is HUGE. I also reorganized/ straightened all but one of my kitchen cabinets. I've started (slowly but surely) working on my closet. The closet is the hardest part. I still have some shirts from high school! I form an emotional attachment to clothes. And I always wonder "But what if these come back in style?" I mean, one of these days those green cordurory overalls I wore in 1997 MIGHT come back in style and what if my daughter wants a pair and I COULD HAVE just passed mine down to her only I got rid of them in a closet clean out one January?

Losing the holiday poundage -- I'll know this week's weight loss tomorrow but I'll tell you this, I haven't had more than 1,500 calories in nearly two weeks now. I'm LOVELY to be around, lemme tell ya.

5) My life is really boring right now. However. Four weeks from today, three of my girlfriends will be in town. And four weeks from tomorrow, we'll get up extra early and be on the road to Nola! I see po' boys and Hurricanes and beignets and Bourbon Street in my future.

6) So Monday night, after the National Championship game, I texted my husband to let him know the score. He responds with, "Sad" and a FROWNY FACE. I wanted to write back with, "What are you -- a woman?" He was only cheering for LSU because I was cheering for Alabama (Roll Tide) yet found it "sad" that they didn't even score one single teeny tiny point. There really was no reason behind me telling you that story other than I wanted to rehash, once again, that LSU DID NOT SCORE ONE SINGLE TEENY TINY POINT. (Sorry Jess). I suppose I could find it in my Woo Pig Soiee heart to feel sorry for them if they were not coached by Les Miles.

7) I made these honey roasted chickpeas the other day. Jaidan and Karis LOVED them. Kyan, of course, would not touch them. But the other two kids - good grief. I kept them in this little container and Karis FINALLY managed to pull it down and get the lid off and get her grub on:

8) Speaking of Kyan and things he won't eat -- the doctor told him that since he's three he needs to eat at least three bites of the vegetables I serve him. For lunch the other day I cut up three bites of celery, put peanut butter on them, and told him for everyone he ate I would give him an M&M. His response? "I don't want any M&M's." Little turd.

9) Have I mentioned that I leave for New Orleans four weeks from tomorrow?

10)

Happy Thursday!

99 Problems and Now Bitch is One

2012-01-11T08:11:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure there's a word in the English language to adequately describe just how much I do not care about Jay-Z, Beyonce, their ill-named spawn, their (alleged) Satanic worship, or the fact that they dropped a million dollars to "secure" a hospital floor when what they really should've done was flown their medical team to some small town in Iowa where no one would've known - or cared - who they were. I could care less if she was actually pregnant or used a surrogate and you won't find me leading the charge to burn her at the stake for *gasp* having a c-section.

But you know what I do kind of care about?

That it takes the birth of his daughter for a 42-year-old man to realize that maybe - maybe - it's not such a great idea to refer to women as 'bitches' based soley on their gender. Really, now, Mr. Carter? Really? You're middle aged. You were brought into this world by a woman. You are married (to a woman). And it takes the birth of your daughter to understand misogyny? Wow. Bet your mom and wife are so proud.

Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich,

I didn’t think hard about using the word B—-.

I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it

now with my daughter in this world

I curse those that give it.

I never realized while on the fast track

that I’d give riddance to the word bitch, to leave her innocence in tact.

No man will degrade her, or call her out her name

the women won’t despise her and call her the same.

I know it’s gonna miss me

cuz we been together like Nike Airs and crisp tees

when we all used to hang out front

singing 99 problems but a lady ain’t one.

{Source}

I'll be honest and tell you all that I know way more about the Beyonce-Jay-Z-Baby Blue saga than I would ever in a MILLION YEARS wish to know. And if I've learned anything in the past few days it's that they're both graduates of the Kanye West/ Chris Brown School of There's No Such Thing as Bad Publicity. They've just been stupid . . . from thinking they are important enough to request security cameras be covered to his releasing a song that included the "n" word and the line "I had a child with the child from Destiny's Child." Just . . . stupid.

But his latest idiocy really just takes the cake. I want to smack him with one of Tim Tebow's cleats while shouting, "you are FORTY TWO years old. FOR.TY.TWO." Most kindergarteners know better than to use the B-word. If it takes you until middle age then perhaps you shouldn't be breeding in the first place.

Look, Mr. Carter, we all know this is another publicity stunt and we also know it's not going to hold up (and, fyi, using "ho" to describe all women is just offensive). Can you please just go hide in your multi-million dollar penthouse, enjoy your daughter, buy her more gold plated horses from Japan, and SHUT UP for a few minutes? Kthanks.

It Happened This Week

2012-01-08T08:49:00.000-06:00

First week of 2012 is over and done with and so far so good. Hogs won the Cotton Bowl, I lost two pounds, and . . . well . . . nothing shitty has happened. Score!

I can't believe that I've done two years of Project 365! It's so neat to be able to go back and look at pictures taken on a random day in 2010 or 2011. I love it. This year I'm adding a new element to the project:

Every day I'm jotting down a few sentences on a note card about what we did. (Thus far it's pretty much been a whole lotta nada). I'm going to put them in a box with the pictures, ordered by date. I think it'll be a fun thing to look back on.

Something that has nothing to do with this post: after exclaiming in my post on Friday about how much I hate Zumba, I decided to give it a go again yesterday. On the Kinect, in the privacy of my own living room. NOT in a class at a gym in front of, you know, other people (the horror!). I decided to give it a try again for a variety of reasons but mainly because you can burn up to 1000 calories in an hour. I lasted 35 minutes, almost 300 calories, and today? My BACK hurts. Of all things. Not my legs. One of my arms is a tiny bit sore. But my back hurts. As my Kykers would say . . . what in the what what?

Here are the very first pictures from 2012's Project 366:

Sunday 1/1:

Monday 1/2:

Tuesday 1/3:

Wednesday 1/4:

Thursday 1/5:

Friday 1/6:

Saturday 1/7:

I'm not sure you can tell but that's an open faced taco (tostada?) with lettuce hair, tomato eyes, a sweet pepper nose, and a mouth made out of cheese.

The Chubby

2012-01-06T10:10:00.000-06:00

** This will be a boring post if you're not chubby, have never been chubby, and/ or don't care how chubby people try to change their chubby**

I decided something at the end of 2010. I would rather really enjoy the holiday season (and in my mind the "holiday season" encompasses Jaidan's birthday on October 10th right up through New Year's Day) and eat whatever I want, gain weight in the process, and then turn around and work really hard in January and February to take it off. Life is too short to spend the best [food] time of the year eating "just two bites" of your favorite casserole or only having one chocolate covered cherry. Gimmee the whole damn box. I'll Jillian Michaels it off come January. I did it last year; I'll do it again this year.

So, cliche as it is, I am trying to lose weight this January. Again. I was determined not to even step on the scale at all until today (after a full five days of not eating like an asshole and an extra work out added to my daily routine) but I decided to hop up on there Sunday and see what it said. I was up seven pounds from mid-October. Okay. Not too bad.

Five days later and . . . I'm down two pounds. Not too bad!

So what do I do to get the weight back under control, out of the danger zone? This is the same thing I post pretty much every year, just tweaked slightly. (And, ha!, funny enough. I went searching through my archives and found that I posted this on January 6th two years ago as well!)

1) I cut calories. (In the past I've also used Weight Watchers. I think their point system is AWESOME and I LOVE IT. It helped me lose almost 75 pounds after I had Kyan). I try to keep my daily calory intake between 1200- 1500. Definitely no less than 1200. How do I cut the calories? Just making better choices. Here is what I had for my three squares yesterday:

Breakfast was two slices of turkey bacon (each one cut in half so I *felt* like I was having more), scrambled egg whites with salsa, two pieces of wheat toast (with 0 calorie butter-like-substance), and a clementine. Total calories = 280
Lunch was a bowl of chicken taco soup with a tiny bit of cheese and some homemade tortilla strips. I had half a frozen banana as my "dessert" Total calories = 309
Dinner was ham, ranch potatoes, and green beans. Total calories = 270. (And, yes, I totally rocked my dinner on a paper plate. Sue me).
The rest of my calories came from snacks -- banana chips (I'm a sucker for dried fruit), hummus with pita chips, sweet peppers, and apple slices. Oh! And one Hershey's Kiss after dinner. Mama's gotta have her chocolate.

2) EXERCISE. I already exercise daily so I added in one more work out to my routine. I heard from a reliable source that the best way to lose weight is to do 45 minutes of cardio twice a day. So I get up at 6:00 and get one work out in before the kids are up and then do another one in the evenings after they go to sleep. I think it's seriously so important to find a work out that you enjoy. If you dread working out, you're just not going to do it. I have an exercise bike and I love it. I've tried to be a runner in the past and it doesn't work for me. But riding my bike does. I also (ocassionally) get in a work out with Just Dance or The Biggest Loser on the kinect. (I have Zumba too but I have no rhythm and just hate, hate, hate Zumba. I'm probably the only person in America that feels that way but really. Hate it).

3) I drink one Coke Zero a day but the rest of the time it's water. Water, water, water. This is an actually an all the time thing for me. I've been drinking water for so long that it's just what comes natural now. I add a packet of the Hawaiian Punch lemonberry to each 1 liter bottle of water and end up drinking about 5-6 of those through out the day (yes, I constantly run to the bathroom). The lemonberry packet adds 10 calories for each one but that only adds up to an additional 50-60 per day. Worth it to get me drinking water.

4) I track my calories! I use the (free!) MyFitness app to keep up with what I eat and with my workouts. I had it on my Droid and now I have it on my iPhone.

Did you know you lose 50% more weight when you keep a food diary?? That's pretty good incentive, in my opinion. By the way, when I was losing all that weight after I had Kyan I wrote down everything I was going to eat the day before. I'm not that rigid now. But I do try to input lunch and dinner in the mornings. That way I know how many calories I have to play with when it comes to snacks.

(And, yes, I know those Boca burgers are terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad and should not be considered health food. BUT I LIKE THEM!)

5) No more alcohol until New Orleans.

Hold me.

6) I pay attention to serving sizes and measure everything. If it says a tablespoon then I measure out a tablespoon, I don't just try to eyeball it.

7) I don't eat after dinner. People. I love me a night time snack! Seriously, love to curl up in bed with . . . something. But I know late is the worst time to eat: the only way I'm going to work THOSE calories off is by sleeping. And I'm really, really good at sleeping -- but not enough to burn off a Hershey bar or chips and queso.

Tonight, though, since I had a loss today (and since I won't weigh again until next Friday) Imma reward myself. After the kids go to bed, I'll watch the Cotton Bowl with some potato skinnies and pita chips with hummus. (I do not wish it was chips and queso. I do not wish it was chips and queso. I do not wish it was chips and queso).

8) It's a diet, okay? It's not a lifestyle change. The lifestyle change is in October when I go from eating small portions or healthy snacks to devouring half a loaf of pumpkin bread all by myself. It's okay to call it a diet. Really. It is.

You can follow this link to see alllllll the posts I've made on weight loss since starting this blog (there are also lots of low calorie recipes following that link). Feel free to ask any questions you might have!

Thursday Things

2012-01-05T08:34:00.000-06:00

1) The winner of the MyMemories giveaway is *drumroll please* Jess! Congrats, girl! (Pssst. The rest of you can get the MyMemories Suite for $10 off by using this code: STMMMS29798).

2) It's January. It was 25 degrees outside the other morning. Z went back to school on Tuesday. The kiddos and I are trying to get back into some kind of schedule. We did great on Monday. The rest of the week so far has been kind of . . . well, I guess I'd give us a C.

3) Some pictures from New Years Eve:

We did not go anywhere. Hi, I have three children. I think it's probably easier to nail jello to a tree than to secure a babysitter for New Years Eve. We dressed up because . . . well . . . dressing up is fun.

I bought this dress on clearance about a year ago for $7. $7!! This was the first time to wear it (even though I have a red one just like it that I wore in Vegas in 2010). I like it. I don't like so much the way it accentuated the fact that I'm starting to develop one of those long, flat old lady butts.

Help!

Somebody tell me what to do to keep from developing one of those long, flat old lady butts! I'll do anything! Except run. And squats. And lunges. Never mind. Somebody just tell me where I can buy one of those Booty Pop things.

Aren't you glad I posted THIS one and not the crotch shot picture? Yeah. Thought so.

4) Karis will be two exactly three months from today. She's entered into her Terrible Twos a little early which is much expected. I'm not sure why they even call them Terrible Twos. Basically they should just call a child's entire existence from 20 months to 5 years exactly what it is: a nightmare for their parents.

Yesterday morning she tore the arm off of a (new) baby doll and was hitting me with it and yelling, "Hi-Yah! Hi-Yah!" I guess this is what happens to little girls who have older brothers? She also insists she can stand up to use the bathroom and made me put Toy Story underwear on her the other day. I cannot wait to remind her of these little moments when she gets older.

Oh! The kid got three - count them 1-2-3 - purses for Christmas. She wants nothing to do with any of them. However she found my Coach wristlet the other day. The only thing Coach I own, by the way. And THAT is the purse she loves and wants to carry around.

5) One of my resolutions for 2012 is to get my house organized. I thought I'd start out by following this plan. But the first week is kitchen sink and countertops and it tells you to determine the function of your kitchen. That sounded like way too much work for me so I just organized my pantry:

and called it a day. Week.

I feel the need to point out that those chips? My husband. (Seriously, the kids and I are on a zero junk food regimen).

Also, I know it might not look organized to you but that's because you didn't see it before. Believe me -- this is like WOAH.

I think next week I'm going to tackle the junk drawer in the kitchen (hold me) and the week after that it'll be the laundry room. I have to, have to, must get into my bedroom closet at some point. And I'd prefer to do it before I go to New Orleans so I can take clothes and shoes for my girlfriends to go through.

6) Wanna know the quickest way to lose me as a follower on your blog? Send me an email just because I happen to be a follower. Apparently, WordPress and Google Friend Connect are doing something funky and people are going to lose their followers and they're freaking out and filling up my inbox with "newsletters" that are not newsletters but rather pleas to keep following them. Two words: Bitch please.

7) Last night at dinner Kyan was telling us how the girl next door (12-13ish) was his girlfriend. Out of curiosity I asked the boys, "Do you know what a girlfriend is?" Jaidan: "Yes, it's a girl that somebody loves a lot." Okay. So I asked, "One of these days, when you have a girlfriend, are you going to kiss her?" Jaidan: "Ew! No! All I'm going to do is have dinner with her." Ha! Love that kid.

8) Am I the only one who had never heard of Rick Santorum prior to Tuesday? Also, you know when you Google something you just have to put in a few letters and it suggests things for you? If you google his name to make sure you're spelling it correctly, the second thing that comes up is "Rick Santorum scandal." Hmm.

9) Sometimes I think about getting really, really fat. This is generally only for the two hours every Tuesday that The Biggest Loser is on (yes, I still watch it!) and only because . . . mmm . . . Dolvett, he of the unforunate name, whipping me back into shape. He is totally the perfect remedy for the loss of Girl Crush Jillian.

Does anyone else watch? Maybe a teensy bit of sexual tension between him and the girl who used to be a body builder? Or do I just have an overactive imagination?

10) Cotton Bowl tomorrow.

{Via}

Go Hogs!

Lazy

2012-01-02T07:27:00.000-06:00

Eddie worked nights last week. When we first found out he'd be on nights, we decidede that we would be productive. We had a long list of things we'd get done. We were going to replace the blinds the children have destroyed. We were going to start cleaning out the garage. Eddie was going to set up a home network/ nerd thing he's all excited about. There was more. I don't remember what all. But there was a lot. Instead of doing any of these things, we were lazy. Isn't the week between Christmas and New Years pretty much made for being lazy? Thought so.

I also had in my head that I was going to scrap ALL of my 25 Days of Christmas pictures. I was going to finish everything! And maybe I'd even go ahead and order a book. Yeah. I got one page done:

And I did that page in about eight minutes. Ahhhh. Maybe I'll get our Christmas book done by . . . um . . . next Christmas.

Just a reminder: I'm doing a giveaway for the MyMemories scrapbooking software. Then you can create pages just like the one I made. ;) Just go here and leave a comment. There are only three comments so far (I think I did a giveaway at the wrong time of year! Everybody has been lazy with their blog reading) so your chances of winning are very good.

It Happened Last YEAR.

2012-01-01T10:29:00.000-06:00

It's over! So long '11!

Confession: I actually wrote this post Friday night (save for a couple of pictures) because I figured I would be too . . . tired . . . yes, that's it, tired . . . to write it all out this morning. I was right. Last night was crack dip and crack bread and beer weenies and cayenne pretzels and club pinwheels and wine and whipped cream vodka. Which means this morning is tired and tired and headache and bloated and tired and tired. Fun.

Here's a little look at the last two weeks of 2011:

Sunday 12/ 18:

You know what I want by this time next year? A big girl camera! One that doesn't blur or leave weird glares on pictures.

Monday 12/19:

Tuesday 12/20:

Wednesday 12/21:

Thursday 12/22:

Friday 12/23:

Saturday 12/24:

Sunday 12/25:

Monday 12/26:

Tuesday 12/27:

Wednesday 12/28:

Thursday 12/29:

Friday 12/30:

Saturday 12/31:

The End.

2011-12-31T08:11:00.000-06:00

Put on your party bras, girls, it's the very last day of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year! 2011 is just hours away from being Over with a capital O and I could not be more excited to see 2012 on the horizon.

Even though the world might end.

And even though both Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry have the prospect of being elected president before the year runs out.

And, oh snap, even though we have an entire eleven months worth of political ads to look forward to.

Poop. Maybe I'm not so excited to see 2012 on the horizon.

Since it's a new year and all that means it's time for *drum roll* resolutions and goals. Here are mine:

1) Lose the holiday pounds. Blah, blah. Same every year. I have been eating like an asshole for a week now and refuse - refuse! - to step on a scale until I have a week of Slimfast and rice cakes under my belt. So I'm not exactly sure how much I have to lose but I'm thinking more than five, less than ten. Except I may go ahead and lose another five beyond that since I go to New Orleans in SIX WEEKS and plan to eat my way through the French Quarter.

2) Decorate my house. I mean, I've only lived here since 2009. I've only been waiting on the walls to be painted since right around the time Karis - who was born in April of 2010 - was born. It's time to embrace the baby poop yellow of the walls and just decorate.

3) Organize. Blah, blah. I think the resolve to do this each year lasts until about January 4th. So we'll see.

4) I want 2012 to be the last year I buy diapers. Ever. I realize this depends more on Karis than me but I'm determined. Since she's no longer a newborn we go through a box of diapers about one every three weeks. This is 17 boxes in a year at a cost of $20 a pop. Which is almost $350 I could be spending on something else. Like a plane ticket to Vegas.

5) Make my husband clean out the garage. "The garage" has been a resolution since 2009. Yes, even before we actually moved to Memphis. We have a history with garages.

6) Do at least two craft projects a month.

7) Project 366. I've done it for the past two years. I can do it again. This year I'm also going to add this element to it. (Sorta).

Happy 2012! I'll leave you with my favorite P365 pics from the year:

New BFF

2011-12-30T08:34:00.000-06:00

So my husband cannot keep a secret for shit. He does this thing:

"You're going to LOVE your Christmas present. Wanna know what it is?"

Hi. You've been married to me for going on four years now. YOU KNOW I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS. I'm the girl who used to unwrap and then rewrap gifts. I could give seminars on snooping. And you're going to ask me if I want to know what you got me? Duh.

I found out Tuesday or Wednesday of last week that he got me . . .

*Drumroll Please*

HE GOT ME SIRI!

*Squeee*

It wasn't a complete surprise seeing as we'd discussed it a few weeks before. But it was.still.awesome.

Prior to Sunday morning, I had a Droid. I loved that phone but I'm not going to lie -- this iPhone totally kicks the Droids ass. Not only that, but he bought the LifeProof case for it. This takes the phone from merely bad ass to Chuck Norris. When he said those magical words, "waterproof" my first response was "I can text in the shower!" I was joking but turns out it is a possibillity -- at least according to Youtube videos -- but I'm still too chicken to get it too close to water.

Of course, the second app I downloaded (after Facebook) was Instagram. Do you know how hard it is to be a Droid user in an Instagram world? Well, I'll tell ya -- it sucks. So now that I have the power of Instagram I've been taking pictures of the most mudane things ever.

And, of course, tons of pictures of my little people.

If you Instagram and you're interested in pictures of my the mundane (or my children) feel free to follow me.

I've also been getting acquainted with my new girlfriend, Siri. I've told her I loved her, asked her to talk dirty to me, and inquired as to who her daddy is. We're getting along famously.

I'm still trying to learn this phone and navigate my way through it and find the best apps. But as of right now? Less than a week into our relationship? Crazy in love. This is the first Apple product I've ever owned (I've never even had an iPod!) and, yeah, I'm not going to turn into one of those "I will ONLY use a Mac" assholes but I really am loving this phone. And for all you iPhone devotees out there who are not tardy to the party and have had one for more than five minutes, can you share with me your favorite apps?

Thursday Things

2011-12-29T09:49:00.000-06:00

1) My blog is in the process of undergoing a makeover. I was tired of the old look and wanted something more clean and simple. Well, it's definitely simple right now! The header is temporary until I can come up with something I like. It works for now.

2) I was so tired from the weekend on Monday. And my house was a Disaster. So instead of hitting the after Christmas sales I decided to be lazy. Only being lazy turned into getting the house back in order (somewhat). In other words, I wasted a day where I could have been shopping and spent it cleaning. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? I went to Walmart and Hobby Lobby on Tuesday and everything was picked over. I did get some things like wrapping paper and gift boxes at Walmart. I found some cute decorations at Hobby Lobby -- only spent $26 since they had all their Christmas 66% off. Score! Just wish I'd gone on Monday when I could've gotten a lot, a lot more bang for the buck.

3) Eddie is back working nights sometimes. (He had been on a special assignment [which sounds a lot more cool and mysterious than it actually was] and had only worked two or three nights since July). Karis is NOT LIKING the fact that he's here during the day . . . sleeping and therefore not playing with her. It's become a full time job trying to keep her from busting in the bedroom and yelling, "Wake! Daddy! WAKE!"

4) What are your plans for New Years? I'll have a working husband and a house full of kids. Aren't you jealous? Storme is coming to town. We're going to wine to drown out their whines. Chuck the dueces to 2011 when midnight rolls around and celebrate the beginning of a year that has to be better than the previous. Also, there will be a lot of eating. And did I mention wine?

5) I ordered prints from Snapfish a couple weeks before Christmas. They were shipped on the 17th and when they still hadn't arrived as of Tuesday I sent an email to customer service. They gave me a full refund and are re-shipping the prints. SCORE! Gotta love that kind of customer service.

6) I had an idea during our Holiday Baking and Making Day last week. (Why does it feel like it was weeks and weeks ago and not just seven days?) I made up a batch of brownies (from scratch!) then mixed up some peppermint bark and spread it on top of them. It was pretty good! Jaidan absolutely loved them. I think he's the one who ate a majority of them.

Speaking of Baking and Making Day, here's a look at all the goodies we made:

We did sugar cookies, peppermint bark brownies, Christmas crack (that didn't turn out so great), Hello Dolly bars, two kinds of fudge, peppermint bark, chocolate covered Christmas crackers, cake balls . . . I don't remember what else. Yes, it was way overboard. Way.

7) Santa brought one big for all the kids. And by all the kids I mean even the one who's in his 40's . . .

By the way, it's no longer in the living room. Right now it is . . .wait for it . . . RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FRONT DOOR. We're waiting to move it upstairs to the toy room but in order for it to fit in there we have to take the couch out. Fun times. Maybe it'll be upstairs by, say, Labor Day . . .

8) I'm trying to have a more positive attitude about the month of January this year. It's not going to suck. It's not going to be bitterly cold. It will NOT snow. Think it'll work? We'll see. January is pretty much all that stands in the way of me and New Orleans. I leave six weeks from tomorrow! Oh, January, please speed it right on along.

9) Made these as part of dinner last night. I had made them before but honestly forgot just how delish they are. I use provolone instead of swiss cheese. But, mmmm, yumm-may.

10) Irony: after busting my ass for about six weeks at the first of 2011 and losing 10-15 pounds, I am once again RIGHT BACK WHERE I STARTED. I don't want to lose as much weight as I did but I do need/ want to knock off about five or so pounds before I go to New Orleans. So January 2nd it'll be back on the wagon. Boo.

Tradition

2011-12-28T08:09:00.000-06:00

For as long as I can remember, my family has had one very special Christmas tradition. After the presents were all opened and the living room was littered with wrapping paper, we took a package bow and stuck it to PawPaw's head.

PawPaw was not there to celebrate Christmas with us this year. I know that the bow was on all of our minds and I'm so thankful for my Uncle Tom thought of an amazing way for us to carry on our tradition. We went to the cemetary Christmas afternoon. And we took a bow with us.

PawPaw's stone is not in yet so we took the bow and placed it on his grave marker.

Then Storme made us all laugh. And we were sad but we knew PawPaw wouldn't want any tears or blubbering or carrying on.

It's sad that this has to be our tradition now, there's no doubt about that. But I'm glad we still have some sort of tradition with the bow. I like to think it made that Small Town Southern Man smile and I hope it's something we really do continue every year on out.

The Magic

2011-12-27T08:03:00.000-06:00

I was laying in bed Christmas night, all cuddled up with my laptop, some reheated potato casserole, and a Coke Zero, watching the same holiday episodes of Friends Nick at Nite had been showing for two weeks. And it hit me. The post-Christmas let down. All the planning and shopping, the cooking and baking, the anticipation. Gone. Over. 366 days to go.

I am full aware that we are in the thick of the best days when it comes to Christmas with our kids. We have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old (and, of course, the eleven-year-old but she ceases to count as much in the "magic" factor due to asking for only clothes and money when it came to making her Christmas list). Our children believe easily. Christmas is full of magic and wonder. I love it but I also know these days are fleeting. Jaidan will start kindergarten next August and there's a good chance some playground punk will spill the beans about Santa. This could be the last year all my children believe in Santa. That makes me want to cry!

It seems like just yesterday that I went to bed on Christmas Eve night after sitting out gifts for a two month old's very first visit from Santa. Now that two month old is five. And a big brother. Two times over. I'm sure this, the now - the magic and the believing - will go by just as fast. I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow as the mother of teenagers who demand gift cards or money because they claim there's no way I, in all my middle age-ness, can pick out jeans or boots or whatever that fit their tastes.

But this Christmas . . . this Christmas, we had our little people who believe easily and will scurry to bed at the very thought that Mom and Dad might see Rudolph's blinking red nose outside. This Christmas was magical and just about close to perfect. Even though I never did get to make it to end of Twas the Night Before Christmas because a certain husband had too much wine with Christmas Eve dinner and kept adding fifth grade level commedic relief to the story (think snoring during long winter's nap).

We celebrated with three separate gift orgies this year. Christmas Eve was Gigi's turn. We cooked dinner for at least thirty which was crazy seeing as there were all of eight of us there! Eddie fried a turkey and he's still talking about that damm bird. We go through this every single Christmas. I'll give him this one though -- that turkey was, for lack of a better phrase, the shit.

We did dinner and gifts. Cars, clothes, shopping carts, baby dolls. But, hands down, the most popular gift was the football uniforms the boys got. Karis kept putting one of the helmets on and whenever we tried to take it off she yelled at us. "Hey!" She may have been cuddling baby dolls but she was doing it with a football helmet on . . .

Gift Orgy #2 began Christmas morning. 6:30.

Confession: I couldn't sleep Christmas Eve night. It was after midnight before I was finally able to settle down and drift off. Then I was up by 4:30. I WAS SO EXCITED!

Santa did some spoiling this year. But we've kind of come to expect it -- the jolly guy has grown to be pretty predictable. Being three this Christmas, Kyan's expressions were absolutely precious and priceless. Everything he opened was greeted with a gasp of surprise and a squeal of joy. And his snuggie even earned an "I Gotta Snuggie" dance. Gawd. I love three year olds.

The "big" and final gift for the older three we made them all unwrap at the same time:

Tablets!

Holy excited kids!

We didn't have to be at my grandma's until 3:00 that afternoon so we were able to spend a good chunk of the morning just playing. Or doing things like this:

Every year before Christmas I daydream about spending the day in our pajamas just lounging around the house. Playing with new toys and eating leftovers and not caring that wrapping paper is strewn all over the house. But you know what? There's no way I would miss spending the day with my family at my grandmother's house. It's about 5-6 hours round trip and we only spend about three hours there. But? Worth it.

Especially since this year it was warm enough for the kids to run and play out in the fields.

The kids played with their cousins, Storme and I ate on the back porch like we did when we were kids, we took a trip to the cemetary to spend part of the holiday with PawPaw, and then it was Presents: Round I Lost Count.

The kids, once again, made out when it came to gifts. Kyan's Buzz Lightyear was easily the most popular toy. My favorites? A tie. I love Karis's little Razorback cheerleader outfit. But I'm also a huge fan - HUGE fan - of the little toy puppy dog MawMaw got her. It barks and walks and pants and even whines. BUT IT DOES NOT POOP OR HAVE TO BE FED. It's pretty much the perfect pet. And even if she's scared of it (great big WTF? moment as that kid loves dogs), I'm a fan.

And that was our Christmas. It was great and it was magical and I couldn't imagine it being anymore perfect!

Thursday Things

2011-12-22T08:05:00.000-06:00

1) It's Baking and Making Day! The kiddos and I are getting into the kitchen and making all manner of holiday goodies and treats. We're gifting a few of them to the neighbors. And the rest? We're going to inhale. Oh come to Mama.

Did you know Nestle, apparently, no longer makes the pre-cut sugar cookies? Bitches. Last night I mixed up a batch of sugar cookie dough. Now I'm just trying to decide if it's worth the head ache to let the kids roll them out, cut out shapes, and decorate them. Hold me.

2) I got my first Christmas gift in the mail on Monday!

My girlfriends and I did Secret Santa and this was my gift from my girl Michelle. She knows me all too well!

3) I understand that I'm probably supposed to be offended by this but I'm not. And I found it friggin' HILLARIOUS.

People! Pat Robertson! It's not making fun of Jesus. It's making fun of Tebow! And it's pretty darn funny. At about 2:12 is where I laughed the hardest. Oh, and the part about Tom Brady being God's nephew. And "Dad Bless Him." Ha! It's just a funny skit.

Oh, and on the Tebow vein: I just wanted to throw out that most of us who can't stand him? Those of who are SEC football fans and have had him shoved done our throats since he was Tebowing at Florida? His religion has nothing to do with why we don't like him! We don't like him because he has been shoved down our throats since he was Tebowing in Florida! Seriously, peeps. My friend Lesley said something a few weeks ago about making a drinking game out of taking a shot every time a sportscaster says "Tebow." You'd be drunk by the end of the first quarter! No matter if you were watching the Broncos or not!

Also, we pretty much can't stand him because of you bandwagon jumpers who've decided you big puffy heart him just because of his faith. Two things: 1) He's not the only Christian to play professional sports nor is he the only one to give thanks to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at the end of every game and 2) What're ya'll going to do when he's caught in the backseat of a car with a hooker and a straw up his nose?

4) My computer got a makeover the other day!

Eddie and I have the exact same laptop. His was black; mine was blue. Karis cracked the cover on his. I wanted a red cover so he took my blue one and put this red one on mine. Then I told him that my computer, phone, and camera were all "Razorback red" and he rolled his eyes.

He's no fun.

He also likes Tim Tebow. We may need to seek marital counseling.

5) This was on a cough drop wrapper from the other day:

Really? Halls is now giving out "a pep talk in every drop?"

6) This poor ornament is pretty much representative of my entire tree right now:

7) Storme has been in town the past couple of nights. She and I went to On the Border then did a little bit of shopping on Tuesday night.

OTB is quickly becoming our place. The margaritas are strong, the staff is friendly and, of course, the food is delish.

That was Tuesday night. Last night we had a Wrapping Party on my living room floor. We also invited our friends Smirnoff and Christmas Vacation. I think, when Storme originally decided to bring all our stuff to Memphis for help with the wrapping, she thought she'd be getting someone who could do perfect corners and not waste a single inch of paper. Ha! Shoulda gone to my mom's house for that. No. Half her presents look like a five-year-old wrapped them. Oh, who am I kidding? She can't wrap either -- ALL of her presents look like a five-year-old wrapped them.

8) My kids put together their gingerbread house yesterday.

When I say the kids did it, I mean the kids did it! It was completely kid constructed.

Then one kid tried to destruct it.

She had been coloring at the kitchen table. Or so I thought. I walked in and realized she'd pulled her baby stroller over to the counter and used it to climb up. She was shoveling frosting and candy in her mouth when I caught her.

9) Jaidan is so totally into Christmas this year. More than ever before. He is like a miniature Buddy the Elf. It's cute and I love it but, at the same time, I don't think I'm going to miss the "OHMYGOSHTHREEMOREDAYS!" gushing we have all day every day.

10) I'm giving away some digital scrapbooking software! Check it out here and leave a comment to enter the giveaway.

My Gift to You: A Giveaway

2011-12-21T08:31:00.001-06:00

This blog started out as a digital scrapbooking blog (which is why it's named These are the Moments -- after the chorus of the Edwin McCain song I Could Not Ask for More -- and not something like They Whine so I Wine or Instant Mom! Just Add Vodka!). But, yes, once upon a time it was a scrapbooking blog. Then Karis came along and my Kid Count went up to three (sometimes four) and my "me time" became non-existent and it seemed more important to shower than to sit down at the computer, pull up Photoshop and start preserving our memories.

I was recently given a copy of My Memories scrapbooking software to try out. And *gasp* I created a scrapbook page! For the first time in nearly two years!

Cute, huh?

The scrapbook software comes loaded with tons - tons - of premade templates. Even premade albums! These pages right here? They were made using the templates in a premade album. It was literally just click-and-add. So easy and pretty quick too! I did two pages while my kids were watching Super Why on Monday and two more while they watched on Tuesday:

{All above pages were created using the Connie Prince kit "North Pole Express"}

Here's what's cool about the MyMemories scrapbook software:

It is VERY easy to use. Very. Using one of the premade templates, even the most novice of scrapbookers could sit down and crank out a page in a very short amount of time. It's that easy!
The software comes preloaded with lots of kits, papers, elements, you name it.
You can create so much more than just scrapbook pages. Calendars, cards, videos! I love that the program has an option to add sounds and videos to what you make.
It's cheaper than Photoshop. And dude. We're all about the cheaper.

Here's what I didn't exactly love about the program:

It's not Photoshop. You can't go in expecting Photoshop. There are definitely some comparisons -- some great comparisons. But it has limitations. However. It's also much more user friendly than Photoshop.
Ummm . . . uhhhh . . . that's it!

All in all, I'm a fan of My Memories. Like I said, it's not Photoshop. I haven't been able to figure out a way to, like, make a ribbon wrap through words or anything like that because there's no eraser tool. But this program is perfect for simple and fast scrapbooking. I LOVE that it has so many premade templates. And I think it's possibly the best program for a beginning scrapbooker or someone who doesn't have a great deal of time to scrapbook.

Wanna win your very own My Memories software ($40 value)? You know you do! It's Christmas. We can think of it as my gift to you. Right?

Here's what I need you to do:

Visit the My Memories website and have a look around. Come back here and leave a comment telling me your favorite digital scrapbooking kit. They have some fabulous designers so that may not be as easy as it sounds! Also, make sure you're a follower of this blog! Please either leave your email address or make sure you're email is linked to your blogger profile so that I can contact if you win.

For extra entries you may:

Follow the My Memories blog
Like My Memories on Facebook (when I liked their page, I recieved a $5 off promo code to use in the store. WOO HOO).
Follow My Memories on Twitter

Please leave an additional comment for each of the extra entries. The giveaway ends at 9:00 p.m. central time January 2nd, 2012. Winner will be selected using random.org.

Annnnnd . . . if you don't want to wait until January 2nd and feel like you have to get your hands on this software rightthisminute, I have another little gift for you! Use the code STMMMS29798 and you'll get $10 off your purchase of the My Memories Suite software! Awesome!

Disclosure: I was gifted the My Memories Suite software in exchange for my opinion and this post. All opinions are mine and mine alone.

It Happened This Week

2011-12-18T08:31:00.000-06:00

So this morning I turned on Super Why to babysit my kids and then changed my Facebook profile to the new "timeline" feature.

Oh my gawww.

I love it. I realize that makes me sound super lame to talk about loving a social media feature. But, ya'll, I do! It was so neat to look back at, say, when I found out Karis was a girl back in late 2009 and read all the comments on my post. Totally got sucked in. My whole life, the past few years, is right THERE. On Facebook! Technology, ya'll . . .

Anyway. Last nigiht, we had plans to take the kids to Starry Nights. It's a big light show and, even though this is our third Christmas here, we've yet to view it. Last night I realized why. Cars were backed up for miles. Miles. Like, I have a feeling it would have taken a good two hours just to get into the park. Voluntarily sitting in a traffic jam just so we could pay $20 for our children to experience the magic of Christmas? No thanks.

Instead we headed over to check out a house that's been on the news a few times lately. I know these things -- lights set to music -- are becoming pretty popular. But it's still pretty magical, no? We even got the Big Grinch of the family to smile and think it was really cool. The kiddos were mesmerized (well two of them were -- one was sleeping and the big one is an eleven year old girl. 'Nuff said). It was awesome. And free!

It also reminded me of when I was a kid, in Arkansas, and a man named Jennings Osborne was sued by his neighbors because his display of one million Christmas lights caused traffic congestion in the neighborhood. He responded by, like, tripling the number of lights. It was eventually shut down (freaking Arkansas scrooges) and now the family funds a light display at Disney. Good for them.

Our week:

Sunday 12/11:

Monday 12/12:

Tuesday 12/13:

Wednesday 12/14:

Thursday 12/15:

Friday 12/16:

Saturday 12/17:

And, I don't have the pictures ready to go, but here's what we did for our 25 Days of Christmas activities this week:

Sunday we made reindeer hats and watched The Flight Before Christmas.

Monday we made paper plate/ handprint Santa Clauses

Tuesday we made Chocolate Covered Christmas Cookies
Wednesday we read Gingerbread Baby and made gingerbread men (cookies and construction paper)

Thursday we watched a video message from Santa and went to visit Santa

Friday we we talked about the true meaning of Christmas and made a Baby Jesus craft
Saturday we talked more about the true meaning of Christmas, made an angel craft, and looked at lights

So Very Pinteresting

2011-12-17T08:19:00.000-06:00

One week till Christmas Eve!

The kids are excited. I'm excited. And a little bummed. Because once it's over and once the after Christmas sales are over and New Years Eve has come and gone, we're onto the worst part of the whole entire year. I hate the month of January. I used to hate February more but now at least I have my trip to New Orleans to look forward to. But we're still two weeks away and I'm already dreading January.

Notsomuch dreading the fun of watching Eddie put together an arcade style basketball thingamajig on Christmas Eve night. Our brother-in-law told us it took him the better part of a day to put one together. So I'm assuming this could get pretty interesting. I'll have a bottle of wine on hand, all the left over food from previously in the day, and the camcorder on my phone ready to go . . .

Here's a look at some of the Pinterest activities we did this week.

Yummies:

Root Beer Pulled Pork - So the root beer in this works as a tenderizer. You drain it all out before adding your barbecue sauce. Honestly, it tasted just like any other pulled pork recipe. I didn't notice it as being any more or less tender. And since it cost less to buy a 20-liter of root beer, I have more than half a bottle left over. Because my kids are weird and don't like it and I've only had two (small) glasses because if I drink my calories then there better be some kind of alcohol involved . . .

Kid Food:

Pepperoni and Mozerella Crescent Rolls - Zhariah and I have a standing theory that anything rolled in a crescent roll tastes good. This is just a mozerella cheese stick and a few pepperonies rolled up in a crescent roll. They were really good! I only had a few bites but Zhariah absolutely loved them (true test) and the other kids liked them as well. I served with a side of marinara so they could dip.

Kiddie Christmas:

Handprint Santa that I can no longer find the pin for. I swear I pinned it though!

Santa's Stuck

(If Santa got stuck in my chimney I would . . .

Use a rope to lasso him out then make him go through the door)

Baby Jesus crafts

Zhariah also made these ornaments and today will be putting the finishing touches on these. (I don't have pictures of either though).

Let it be Christmas: Baking Edition

2011-12-16T07:56:00.000-06:00

First things first . . . obligatory Santa photos were taken last night.

Did you know Bass Pro Shop does free Santa photos? We've gone there three years now. The background is a little "Country Boy Can Survive" but it works for a FREE photo. And since we only do the photos for us and not to hand out to anyone (for some reason I don't think our family and friends are too much about a picture of our children with some fat, judgemental bastard [yeah, stole that one from something I found on Pinterest]) it just makes sense to head to BPS and save the roughly $92 you pay for one pic at the mall.

Nobody screamed or cried or freaked out in anyway. Which was cool but made me feel like I've been cheated out of That Moment in parenting. We've yet to have a major freak out involving Santa (just a small one the year Jaidan was two). So no hillarious Santa pics to pull out in years to come. Next year Karis will be going on three so we're probably over the freak out years. Just not going to happen for us. *Tear*

Now, on with the meat (or, uh, the cookie) of the post!

I'm a parent so, obviously, my favorite thing about Christmas is the joy and awe and blah blah of my children. But my second favorite thing about Christmas?

THE FOOD.

Show of hands on who's surprised. No one? Huh.

One day next week, all four kids and I are getting in the kitchen. We're going to roll up our sleeves, pull out all the ingredients, and get busy. I thought I'd share the recipes (or links to the recipes) for everything we'll be making and baking.

Chocolate Covered Christmas Crackers
Named by Jaidan
These are just chocolate coated peanut butter Ritz crackers. Make a peanut butter cracker. Dip it in chocolate and let it set. This has always been one of my favorites!

You can also let the kids attack them with sugar crystals but that's definitely up to you . . .
We also tried a Paula Deen by doing chocolate covered potato chips -- not a fan
The other little brown things are "reindeer poop" (aka chocolate covered marshmallows)

Peppermint Bark
Melt one package of white chocolate almond bark. Crush two boxes of candy canes. Mix candy canes with white chocolate. Pour onto cookie sheet and let set then break into pieces. So easy and so good!

Fudge
Courtesy of the back of my jar of marshmallow creme
You need:
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 can evaporated milk
1 1/2 pkgs Baker's chocolate, chopped (12 squares)
2 jars marshmallow creme (I lie. You only need one jar for the fudge. But it's good to have another jar around to stick your finger in. Mmmm).
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together sugar, butter, and milk over the stove. Bring to boil and allow to boil 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add chocolate, marshmallow creme, and vanilla. Stir until melted.. Pour into well greased pan (I usually line a pan with wax paper or aluminum foil). Allow to cool and set.

This is on the back of every jar of Kraft Jet Puff marshmallow creme. It's called Fantasy Fudge and, believe me, it is the stuff fantasies are made of. I.love.it. Best fudge ever.

Sugar Cookies
Disclaimer: Given (a) the age of my children and (b) my level of patience, we will be doing the PRE-CUT CHRISTMAS SUGAR COOKIES this year. You know, the kind that come with the tiniest packet of red icing that Kyan squeezes onto precisely three cookies? Yeah, those. But this is my favorite if-we-were-doing-them-from-scratch sugar cookie recipe.
Need:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup vegetable oil
* Yeah, these are SO TOTALLY healthy*
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour

Do:

Mix together sugars, butter, oil, and salt. Add in the eggs and dry ingredients. You can cook them now orrrrrr . . . you can chill the dough just a bit, then bust out some more flour, roll them out, and cut them into shapes. Fun. But make sure to add "tons of patience" to your ingredient list. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Cool and frost. Leave for Santa. (And, in our house, he request a Coke Zero with those cookies rather than a glass of milk. Lactose intolerance).

Andes Mint Brownie Sandwiches

Just too easy!

All you need for this is a brownie mix (or your favorite brownie recipe) and a package of Andies mints. Mix the brownies according to box directions. Spread VERY THIN onto a prepared cookie sheet and bake according to directions. (Since they're thin, they'll probably not take as long to bake so be sure to watch them closely!) Slice into rectangles roughly the size of Andes mints. Top half the brownies with a mint and them put the remaining half the brownies on top. Makes a little sandwich that is soooooOOOooo good.

We're also planning to make:

Peanut butter fudge - We made a batch of this last week. It's good stuff. It's also the first peanut butter fudge I've made ever that's actually set!

Christmas Crack
Ranch Oyster Crackers
Cake Balls

And just because it's the season of giving and I feel like being nice, I'll pass on a few more favorite holiday recipes that we've loved in the past.

Pecan Clusters - these are so good! But pecans are horribly expensive this year.
Tuxedo Cookies

Brownie Covered Oreos
Cayenne Pretzels
Paula Deen's gingerbread cookies - I cheated and bought a roll of gingerbread dough this year. But these are good!

Now. Eat all that and then join back with me on January 1st for a course in Diabetes 101!

Thursday Things

2011-12-15T08:29:00.000-06:00

1) Last Wednesday it snowed. This past Wednesday? It was nearly 75 degrees.

I hope it stays that way. You can keep your white Christmas. I much prefer a rather mild one.

2) Eddie and I had an actual date the other night. As in, we left the house without the children. Christmas miracle fo' real, ya'll. Would you like to know what we did? Well. We had dinner at Chili's (where we had a 20 minute wait even though it was a Tuesday night which was actually better than the wait at Buffalo Wild Wings because apparently people in southwest Tennessee are all about them some fitty cent wings) and then we . . . we . . . went to Walmart! I know, right? You're all seething with envy at the super hot date we had wherein we walked around Walmart and purchased stocking stuffers for our children. If I was writing this on Twitter, I'd tag it with #oldpeople.

3) That little shopping trip also finished up our purchases for the child we selected off the angel tree. We're not doing angel tree next year. Not because I have any issue with the program but because my husband sucks at it. Those items listed are not suggestions! Gahhhhh. A doll means a doll. Not a stuffed animal. We actually had a conversation centered around stuffed animals in the middle of Walmart. Eddie asked me, "Why do you have such a problem with stuffed animals?" Um, hi. Because I'm a MOM and because I know that kids generally tend to have 934092384092 stuffed animals. Of which TWO actually get played with.
4) Things that irritate me: when people either don't buy any gifts at all for babies or merely re-wrap toys they already have. I mean, it's one thing if you don't have money. It's another if you're just being an asshole because "they won't even remember." I'm not even sure why I care . . .

5) http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/40-things-that-will-make-you-feel-old --- That definitely made me feel old.

6) I got my boys snuggies for Christmas this year. JUDGE ME.

7) I have a cold/ sore throat type thingy. The last time I had a cold/ sore throat type thingy right before Christmas, I actually lost weight. I took a Zyrtec before bed last night. Not only did it not help but I had those weird dreams I have whenever I take any medication at night and I didn't even sleep it off. So, this morning, I feel just as icky as I did yesterday and I'm still tired from the medicine. Fun.

8) My computer has decided it would be fun just to move the cursor to random places in this entry. So if you see something like this "my computer has decided it would we put our Christmas tree" then blame it on my computer. I'm trying to keep up with the Great Jumping Cursor but I'm not sure how successful I've been. And I hate proof reading.

9) I bought little tiny size 2 panties the other day! I'm not crazy. I swear. (My daughter might be, but I am not). Monday morning Karis ran into my bathroom, shucked her pants and diaper, and stood at the toilet. AND RAISED THE SEAT! She thinks she's a boy! I pulled out our small training potty for her. She'll strip and sit on it but, so far, that's about it. She's only 20 months so I doubt she's really ready. But Imma be prepared if she is! Her oldest brother pretty much trained himself right when he turned two. But her other brother? Good Lard.

10) Every single year. Trying to find a gift for my husband:

WHY are men so hard to shop for?

It Happened This Week

2011-12-11T08:44:00.000-06:00

Last night I sat down on the living room floor with a piece or two (okay, okay five) of peanut butter fudge and a glass of wine, turned on Scrooged that I DVR'd a couple weeks ago, and got to wrapping. I did most of the girls' stuff the other night and now all the boys' stuff as well as a few other things are all wrapped. And it's still two weeks till Christmas. Yay me.

That was last night. (Oh! What else happened last night? Robert Griffin III took home the Heisman! The first Baylor player ever to be a finalist and he won! Way to go RG3). Here's a look at what we did the rest of the week:

Sunday 12/4:

Monday 12/5:

We got our gifts from my brother and his family on Monday. Ohmygawww. Jaidan would not STOP. "Can we open one? Just one? Please? I only want to open one." I finally relented and let them open one (then Karis took it upon herself to rip open Zhariah's). Guess what? "Can we open another one? Just one more? Please? I only want to open one more."

Tuesday 12/6:

Wednesday 12/7:

Thursday 12/8:

Friday 12/9:

It's been COLD the past few days. Like temperatures in the 40's. And these boys have been insisting on playing outside. Gahhh! And poor Karis sits at the door and cries, "I 'on go ou-si!"

Saturday 12/10:

And, if you're interested, here's a look at our 25 Days of Christmas projects for the week:

On Sunday we made our Holiday To Do List. Monday we started reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (I absolutely love that book. Best Christmas book ever, hands down. But I think my kids are still a little young for it. Boo. Jerks). Tuesday we watched Charlie Brown Christmas and Wednesday we elfed ourselves. Thursday we did some handprint art, Friday we made reindeer brownies, and yesterday we made peanut butter fudge!

So Very Pinteresting

2011-12-10T08:43:00.001-06:00

So before any DIY or crafts or kid stuff or anything else I have to tell you the awesome deal I snagged last night. The awesome deal that meant Christmas shopping for my kids is DONE.

Unless, of course, I happen to wander into the Disney Store some time in the next two weeks and absolutely HAVE to buy something with Buzz or Woody or a Princess on it.

Anyway. Eddie went to Toys 'R Us Thursday evening and picked up the kids' "big" gifts." In doing so, he got a $30 gift card.

I took the $30 gift card last night and did a little bit of online shopping: bought two sets of bath toys for Karis (buy one, get one 50% off), a game for Zhariah (clearanced to 50% off), and NINE Crayola products for stocking stuffers. They have Crayola running on a buy one get TWO free. I was able to buy 24 packs of Crayola and get things like twist up colored pencils and dry erase crayons and bath crayons for free. My total for nine Crayola items (and only three of these were the 24 boxes of crayons) -- $4.23. That's more than what anything other than the crayons cost originally.

Also, all of this stuff? I STILL HAVE MONEY LEFT ON MY $30 GIFT CARD. That deserves all caps. Basically I got the kids at least two stocking stuffers each and finished up Christmas presents for FREE.

Um, yay.

Now, Pinterests!

Kid Stuff:

Paper Plate Christmas Tree - Ours turned out nothing - NOTHING - like this one. But Jaidan did most of it himself and I thought he did a pretty cute job!

Picture Under the Present Flap

Names on Lights
Handprint Tree - Jaidan's on bottom, Kyan's in the middle, Karis on top

I pinned this yesterday and decided to try it right away.

It's a block of ice, salt, and food coloring. People. Jaidan could have done this all day long! I told him I would buy more salt just for this project.

I discovered ScienceBob via Pinterest and tried two of his projects this week.

We did the milk trick:

And - super cool - used a little yeast and sugar to blow up a balloon:

Kid Food:

We made these cute little reindeer snacks:

That one on the bottom . . . he's special.

And also these cute little reindeer. It's been a reindeer type of week.

Christmas Stuff:

I made an ornament wreath! It's really, really cute -- except I should've sprung for something a little more expensive than a $2 bow. :/ It won't be hung until I get another bow.

Fun Idea:

I made this!

I love it!
I bought the frame at Walmart on Black Friday for about $6. The scrapbook paper probably totaled about $3. All in all, the project cost less than $10 to make.

In honor of today's Heisman trophy presentation (RG3!!!), I'll leave you with this. It encompasses way too many of my friends who consider themselves Red Sox/ Patriots/LSU/Ohio friggin' State fans:

I Don't Know What to Say. Except it's Christmas and We're All in Misery.

2011-12-09T09:28:00.000-06:00

Last night was Zhariah's first ever band concert. She's in the "beginner and novice band" which is a basically a bunch of sixth graders who had never picked up an instrument until four months ago. It was . . . interesting.

Here are my kids BEFORE the concert:

And here they are after:

I think Karis's face says it all

Kyan spent the entire concert either sleeping or with his hands covering his ears. Karis called the Hogs "Woooo Dig Oooey!," yelled out "ho ho ho" and "dance!" and tried to take her shirt off. It was interesting. I did find a potential future stepson-in-law in the boy who was playing guitar in the jazz band. I told Zhariah I don't care if he IS an eighth grader, snap.him.up now. They didn't make boys like that when I was in middle school. And that concludes the Dirty Old Woman portion of this entry.

Moving right along . . .

1. What is your favorite Christmas cookie?

You know, I really prefer candy to cookies. Give me fudge and peppermint bark any day. But I also LOVE tuxedo cookies. Oh, and sugar cookies with, like, four inches of frosting piled on top. And anything with mint chocolate chips in it. Or, just any kind of chocolate chips.
2. What's your favorite holiday movie & why?
"We're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby danced with Danny f*cking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's going to find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!"

That's my favorite holiday movie and that quote is why. I actually watched it last night while wrapping gifts.

Runners up: Home Alone 2 ("Get down on your knees and tell me you love me!") and Scrooged. Bill Murray rocks.

3. Is there a gift that you bought for your kids that you wish you hadn't after they opened it?
Of course. I can't pinpoint one off the top of my head but they have an entire toy room full of noisy crap they hardly play with is I know the correct answer to this one.

However, I can pinpoint one my brother bought that I regretted pretty much the minute Jaidan opened it. Silly putty. That stuff sucks. It was everywhere. And, this year? Oh wait for it, Josh. I'm still searching for the gift for your child that is the perfect mix of annoyingly noisy AND incredibly messy.
4. What is the messiest room in your house right at this moment?
Well, considering I bribed the kids with M&M's to get them to clean their toy room yesterday it's um . . . er . . . it's probably my husband's "man cave." It's the one room in the house that I refuse to clean and, apparently, it's the one room in the house that he also refuses to clean.

Oh wait. Does the garage count? Because if it does then damn. That one wins by a long shot.
5. What is the furthest you have driven for the holidays?
When I was in my late teens/ early 20's my family would drive from central Texas to central Arkansas (about an eight hour drive). These days, the furthest we go is to my grandparents in Arkansas. It's only about three hours from where we are now. Much, much better drive with three kids in tow!

Thursday Things

2011-12-08T08:53:00.000-06:00

1) Yesterday morning, my house:

I have come to the realization that I live in the worst place on Earth.

High crime, the people here (mostly) suck, and now the weather is trying to kill me. It is unfair to have 112* days in August and then snow four months later.

And, for the record, I would prefer the 112*.

2) We elfed ourselves yesterday!

3) Things that suck: the battery charger for my laptop bit the dust. Eddie and I have the same computer so I can easily use his charger. Except he takes his computer and charger to work with him. And he works 12 hours a day. The thing that sucks the most is that Jaidan likes to play games on my computer when I work out in the afternoons and now he whines and carries on and . . . blah.

4) We finished our Holiday To Do List yesterday:

Jaidan painted the little wooden stars and we put velcro on the back so that they'd stick to the felt.

The things on our list:

Make ornaments

Bake Christmas cookies
Watch Charlie Brown Christmas (done)
Watch Home Alone (recorded!)
Make reindeer food
Look at lights
Angel Tree (got the angel!)
Make fudge
Take pictures with Santa
Gingerbread house
Kiss under the mistletoe

5) I ordered my Christmas cards earlier in the week and they're supposed to be in by early next week. Maybe this year I can actually get them sent out before Christmas. It would be a true Christmas Miracle. Believe me.

Speaking of Christmas cards, it's December 8th and we've received exactly ONE. And it was from the guy who sold us our car! Is everyone procrastinating? Do people not send cards anymore? Or does no one like us?

6) Speaking of ordering . . . I love living in the 21st century when so much Christmas shopping can be done online. I ordered a few more gifts earlier this week. I need to get one or two more things for my stepdaughter and a couple giftcards then I.AM.DONE. Eddie is in charge of getting the kids' big gifts but I think he already has them picked out. So we're really, really close to being completely done! Now to wrap. Fun. :/

7) We put our tree up Friday afternoon. By we mean me and a grumpy 11-year-old, overexcited 5-year-old, bratty 3-year-old, and a 1-year-old who tried to play baseball with all the ornaments. Five minutes into it and I was ready for a full BOTTLE of wine. Luckily my cousin was in town and that night we went out for margaritas and Christmas shopping.

I feel old getting "hammerotic" (according to our bartender) at On the Border at 9:00 on a Friday night. I'm pretty sure this means I'm middle aged. Or close to it.

A kitchen guy, me, Bro-ski (the bartender)
Making friends when you go out is a sure way to get free drinks.

8) I do New Years Resolutions pretty much every year. I'd been trying to come up with something for 2012 and just couldn't. It's weird because for the first time in years - years! - I'm at a weight I'm happy at. And I've given up all hope of ever having firm thighs or a flat stomach so those are off the table. I eat healthy enough (*cough*) and the worst habit I have is Coke Zero. Which I'm NOT giving up.

So what to resolve?

I'm going to FINALLY get this house decorated! We've been here since October of 2009 and I have a picture hung in the kitchen and one over the fireplace and that.is.it. And it's not like I don't have the stuff. I do! I've just held off on hanging anything because I wanted to paint the walls first. But, two years later, the walls aren't painted. If they're going to be baby poop yellow then they can at least be baby poop yellow with stuff on them.

9) Football Talk: I hate the BCS. I hate that a team can end up #6 in the standings and not go to a BCS bowl but teams like Clemson and Virginia Tech can based on the conference they were in or the fact that their fans travel well. Oh well. We could do worse than the Cotton Bowl. At least it's not the Kotex Bowl (which, given some of these sponsorships, it won't be long).

Also -- RG3 for Heisman!

10)

Britney Spears is 30. I am not Okay with This.

2011-12-05T08:13:00.000-06:00

It was 1998. I was a freshman in college and working at the Waco Postal Credit Union. We kept the radio at the Credit Union turned on either Waco 100 (country) or 97.5 (Top 40) depending on our mood of the day. Or, well, depending on the mood of the Office Bitch. We knew two things were certain if we were listening to 97.5 --

1) If Cher's song "Do you beeeelieeeeve in life after lahve" came on, the manager would yell from her office, "Oh my GAWD. Turn that OFF."
and
2) We would hear Baby One More Time at least three times an hour. At least.

I was 18 when Britney came out so I was just a tiny bit over the age demographic that lost their shit over her. For the record, I was also neither a fan of N*SYNC (Justin Timberlake then? Oh, no. No, no, no. Justin Timberlake NOW? Come.To.Mama) or Backstreet Boys. Well, except for this song. I passed on Brit Brit and Christina and all the boy bands. Matchbox 20 for me please. And remember Savage Garden? I LOVED Savage Garden! Okay, I need to stop now. I could make post after post after post about Music of the 90's.

So, nope, I wasn't much of a Britney fan in those days. But I remember when she had her second baby and went crazy and shaved her head. I was like "oh, this poor Boo Boo needs HELP." I was all about being her champion. You know, one of those crazy internet people who would DEFEND her whenever anyone started to trash her. But she had too much too soon! She was over-sexualized by the record industry when she was just 17! Product of bad parenting! (Funny enough, I never felt the same way about Lindsey Lohan -- posterchild for Too Much Too Soon Meets Bad Parenting. Probably because she decided to butcher both The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. Unforgiveable).

Ya'll. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that Britney is 30 now! It has nothing to do with being a fan either. It has to do with . . . well . . . it just has to do with this:

THAT is supposed to be Britney. 17. Not *gasp* almost twice that.

I don't even care that Madonna is in her 50's. Madonna is 20 years older than me. She's always been older than me. But Britney? Britney is my generation, ya'll!

Britney is supposed to be 17. And I'm supposed to be 18 and a freshman at Baylor and working at the Waco Postal Credit Union where we rotate between playing Waco 100 and 97.5 and I have a boss who hates Cher.

I'm not going to go as far as saying that there's no amount of money you could give me to relive those days. I'm sure there is, but it's probably somewhere in Mark Zuckerberg territory. That's not the point though. The point is time has gone by too fast. It's nearly 2012. I have three kids and a mortgage and more responsibility than merely making it to Biology lab and maintaining a scholarship.

Britney is 30. And I'm not okay with it.
-------
On a completely, totally unrelated note -- did you WATCH The Virgin Diaries on TLC last night? This is so much more snark-worthy than Teen Mom ever thought about being. Please. PLEASE. For the love of all that's holy, set your DVR for next week.

It Happened This Week

2011-12-04T08:11:00.000-06:00

Threeeeee more weeeeeks till Christmas!

We made our first batch of peppermint bark yesterday and, true to form, I can't stay out of it. I feel like I'm doing better than last year because I'm actually working out every day but I still see a January full of dieting in my future! There are just too many yummy things this time of year. I'd rather live on apple slices and water for the first six weeks of 2012 and have my fudge and peppermint bark and frosted sugar cookies now. Ahhhh.

Here's a look at what we did the past couple weeks:

Sunday 11/20:

Monday 11/21:

Tuesday 11/22:

Getting all four kids to cooperate in a picture? Impossible.

Wednesday 11/23:

I hate when the only picture I get from a day is something blurry

Thursday 11/24:

Friday 11/25:

Saturday 11/26:

Sunday 11/27:

Monday 11/28:

You can't tell but it was dark in the bathroom. My kids LOVED this! They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

And, P.S., Baby Girl's face? We had chili for dinner!

Tuesday 11/29:

It started snowing Monday night. We had almost none left on Tuesday morning. But Jaidan HAD to go touch it.

Funny story: Eddie picked Zhariah up from her game Monday night. Whey they got back to the house, he told everyone that Z had hit him with a snowball. Jaidan was already mad at me because I wouldn't let him go play in it (I'm mean, it was nearly 8:00 at night, he'd already been bathed, and we are very unprepared clothes wise for winter precipitation). He crossed his arms, put on his pouty face, and said, "I wish I was Daddy!" Why? Because then Zhariah would have thrown a snowball at him. Goofy kid.

Wednesday 11/30:

Note: this is the only thing this contraption is ever used for. The Dining Room Pirate Ship.

Thursday 12/1:

Friday 12/2:

Few things:

1) By the time this decorating session was all over and done with, I WAS READY TO SHOOT MYSELF. I had all these ideas in my head of Christmas music and hot chocolate and holiday spirit. Well, it was too warm for hot chocolate and the kids were being assholes. I told them next year I'm just doing it BY MYSELF. I'm lying, of course, but jeez. I went out later that night and had a pitcher of margaritas because DAMN.

2) Kyan dressed himself.

3) Eddie and I bought our first Christmas tree together in 2008. We went to the store and saw one decorated in all silver and gold with a bow on top. Eddie wanted to replicate that for our tree. I wanted a huge, gaudy, Christmas threw up on this tree type of production. I went along with him because we were already sorely lacking in the ornament department and it just seemed easier to go with a theme other than "Christmas Tacky But WONDERFUL." Now it's the fourth year we've done this scheme and I'm kind of over it. Next year we're doing Christmas Tacky. But I'm taking all these silver ornaments for my Razorback tree!

Saturday 12/3:

And a little peek at what we've done so far for 25 Days of Christmas:

12/1: Made lists for Santa (note: not one of these boys is getting a SINGLE THING they put on their list)

12/2: Decorated the tree

12/3: Made peppermint bark

Six Years

2011-12-03T08:24:00.001-06:00

Six years ago today, Texas won the Big 12. Texas did not just win the game. They completely and totally owned Colorado with a final score of 70-3.

Six years ago today, my dad - a huge Texas Longhorns fan - was on his way home from work. Another car passed a school bus, returning home from a high school football playoff game, on a hill. That other car hit my dad. Six years ago today, he went home to Heaven.

I found this picture several months ago and I just love it. Because it IS my dad -- playing football in the yard of my Granny and Granddad's house with my cousins. My dad loved football. This pic is just so him!

A little over a month later, Texas won the national championship game. I watched the game and cried at the end. Not only because Texas beat USC (the team I hate more than any other team in the nation). I cried because it just felt so fitting. I cried because I could just see my dad, in Heaven, wearing his burnt orange. Maybe he was even sitting somewhere in the vicinity of Darrel K. Royal. I'm sure he quickly added Vince Young to his "People I Must Meet Up Here Some Day" list. (I'm pretty sure Robert E. Lee was the number one person on his list and the second person - after his PawPaw - that he shook hands with. My dad was one of those tried-and-true southerners who would tell you that the "War for States Rights" had nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with those yankee bastards trying to tell 'us' what to do).

It's a weird twist of fate that today, six years after my dad went Home, Texas is once again playing football. They aren't playing in the Big 12 championship. They're playing Baylor.

I went to Baylor.

My dad and I had a friendly rivarly concerning the Texas/ Baylor game. Prior to last year, Baylor hadn't won the game since 1997, when I was a senior in high school. Sorry, Dad, but Baylor is going to win it again this year. I hate to tell ya. "God made the sunset burnt orange, but he made Heaven GREEN and GOLD."

If Heaven wasn't so far away

I'd pack up the kids and go for the day

Introduce them to their grandpa

.......

If Heaven wasn't so far away

Stink, Stank, STUNK.

2011-12-02T08:06:00.000-06:00

We love The Grinch in our house.

It helps that one of us is married to him and the other four call him Daddy.

Seriously, not sure how it happened, but somehow I - me! The girl who loves Christmas! The girl who thinks July is none to early to start blasting "Jingle Bell Rock" and making peppermint bark and watching Home Alone 2 - ended up married to the Grinch. And I gave birth to Scrooge. Yesterday morning, at breakfast, I told Kyan "It's December! It's Christmas! Woooo Hoooo!" He informed me, "I do not like December. I do not like Christmas. I LIKE HALLOWEEN." Okay then. I tried again "It's Baby Jesus' birthday!" *Stare of Death* "It's not MY birthday."

When I saw this craft on Pinterest I knew we had to do it. Then since How the Grinch Stole Christmas came on earlier this week, we were able to have a Grinch-y week. Again, helps to live with the Grinch when you have a Grinchy week.

So we made this little Grinch.

Then this one.

Then we played a game of "How to Make the Grinch Grin" where the boys took turns being the Grinch while the other did silly things to make him laugh. We made green koolaid and called it Grinch Punch. Green Jello in clear plastic cups with Grinch faces drawn on them.

Then.

THEN. I had A Great Idea.

See, this Elf on the Shelf thing? I think it's a really neat thing. I do. I like the idea behind it. But that damn elf is freaky looking and I don't want it starting at me all December long! Really. He gives me the heebie jeebies.

So in our house we now have The Magic Grinch. He is sorta like th Elf on the Shelf. Sorta not.

Here he is:

Can ya tell which one is the Grinch?

He watches the kids all day long and, every night, he reports to Santa on their behavior. He is found somewhere different every morning (yesterday he was with a pile of toy ads and today in a box of ornaments) and always has a note. In the note, he reminds them to behave, mentions a few things they really shouldn't have done the previous day, and gives them their 25 Days of Christmas activity for the day.

So far (and by so far I mean "yesterday") the boys are pretty into it. If they start being jerk-ish I just say, "Man. It's too bad the Grinch is going to have to tell Santa Claus about that." Then they think over for a minute if being a jerk is worth only getting underwear from Santa (bad little boys only get tighty whities from the big guy).

On another note, I've been toying around with the idea of starting a blog solely devoted to stuff like this. You know, so the "kid stuff" doesn't interfere with my How to be an Asshole posts and all. And, I mean, it's not like there aren't already 8 BILLION blogs out there all about doing stuff with kids, right? Who knows. Still just an idea in my head right now.

Thursday Things

2011-12-01T08:21:00.001-06:00

1) Holy Mother! It's December, ya'll! How did THAT happen? The kids and I are continuing our 25 Days of Christmas tradition we started last year. We're doing something Christmas-y every day for the first 25 days of December. Today we're writing letters to Santa. Tomorrow we'll finallly put up our tree. The other day I told Jaidan, "I think we'll put out Christmas decorations this afternoon." He said, "Eh. Can we just skip all that and make sausage balls and peppermint bark and fudge instead?" That one. He is SO MY CHILD.

2) I love my new boots.

Both pairs of 'em.

Eddie calls them "Pocahantas boots." Men.

3) So remember during the summer when I had the trojan virus and lost everything on my hard drive? Long story short, most of my stuff has been restored!!! That totally deserves three exclamation points. I'm currently in the process of uploading ALL of my shit to snapfish and copying files over to an external hard drive. This is the second time in a five year span that I've lost "everything" and been able to restore it (the first time was when my computer was hit my lightening and my husband - who was then just a boyfriend - was able to save the hard drive). I feel like I'm one lucky mofo . . .

Also, I took like 1400 pictures last December. O_o

4) I'm trying to make it a point to actually HANG or DISPLAY Christmas pictures this year. This one is now on our mantle:

*Dies* Look at Kyan! Hahahahahahahaha. I was pregnant with Karis in the pic but only about five months. My face was so fat! Please remind me of this picture anytime I start to make noise about cutting my hair. Ktahnks.
5) I am about 100 pages into To Kill a Mockingbird. I know some people absolutely love this book. I'm trying! I'm just having such a hard time getting into it! Maybe I'll love it in the end but, come ON Harper Lee! Can we speed it up a little?

6) I stumbled upon the perfect place to hide Christmas gifts! Well, honestly, we JUST took them out of the storage thingy on top of our car last night. (Sidenote: my husband is ridiculously proud of our storage thingy [what are those really called?]. Like, we'll be going down the road and see another one and he's all 'ours looks better than that.' Or 'I'm glad we didn't go with that one.' It's also still on top of our car even though we've been home since Saturday and don't have another trip where we'll need the thing planned until . . . like . . . next summer). ANYWAY. We took them out of the storage thingy last night. This is proof that my children are spoiled. That's a lot of stuff and I haven't bought everything yet!

So where to hide them? Well. We have an upstairs bathroom that no one uses. I can store the presents in there and lock the door! I realize this is bordering on being Hoarders(ish) -- especially since I already have an old baby gate, a pack and play, and a toy pirate ship that needs to be repaired 'stored' in there - but COME ON. The door will be locked! There's no way the kids can find their gifts. I'm a genius.

7) I hung the stockings by the chimney with care the other day. I took 30 seconds to run to the potty and check out what my daugther did:

8) We saw this car in Prescott, Arkansas last week:

9) Do you want to know one of the most excrutiating things on Earth? Listening to a 3-year-old tell knock knock jokes.

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Ummmm . . . Buzz Lightyear!
Buzz Lightyear who?
Buzz Lightyear stole Woody's hat! Hahahahahahahaha.

He even has Baby Sister in on it.

Knaw Knaw!
Who's there?
Ummmm . . . Durbersmack Daddy Ty Ty!

Shoot Me.

10) My favorite quote from my favorite Christmas movie:

Sounds of the Season

2011-11-30T08:55:00.000-06:00

If you grew up in the south in the 80's then you know the greatest Christmas album ever was not recorded by Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole. No. It came from Alabama (the group; not the state. Though it may have also come from the state. I don't know). It was titled Alabama Christmas and it was released by RCA in 1985. And there's no other way to put it. It's simply the best Christmas album of all time. Thistlehair the Christmas Bear, Christmas in Dixie, Candle in the Window, Tennessee Christmas. Please. Don't try to argue with me.

Alabama is obviously top on our list of this season's soundtrack.

Here are some others that we're listening to on "repeat:"

(Warning: Youtube Overload)

Kenny & Dolly come very close to Alabama. Very close.

Alabama and Kenny & Dolly and their Christmas albums will always remind me of my childhood. Always. Also Dolly's Hard Candy Christmas which was recorded for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. A fact that I did not know until I Youtubed the video and every other one was all "from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 1982."

My children do not appreciate Ray Stevens' Santa Claus is Watching You near as much as my brother and I did.

It's not all country, ya'll. It's not Christmas without some Mariah. Her entire album is every inch of amazing. Another amazing one? Vanessa Williams' Star Bright. It was the only good thing - other than Save the Best for Last - she recorded. Oh, oh, oh! To complete the Diva Trio: Whitney Houston. Preacher's Wife soundtrack.

And Jackson Five. My boys LOVE Michael Jackson. Or, you know, Mi-shell Jack Son. Kyan likes to watch this video on Youtube and argue with me that they're all girls. I think it's the voices.

Brenda Lee. We love some Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree!

Happy Christmas. John and Yoko.

We LOVE This Christmas. Chris Brown (look at me now) is a douchebag but I'll take his version please.

And this one, this one goes without saying. It's a classic, ya'll!

Back to country? Okay. Alan Jackson's I Only Want You for Christmas. Kenny Chesney with All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan and Angel at the Top of My Tree. Willie Nelson on Pretty Paper, Crystal Gayle Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and even though I'm not certain it's considered a Christmas song The Oak Ridge Boys with Thank God for Kids. I love the video when *I* was a kid because it featured Sesame Land. Now it makes me all emotional and ooey gooey. (Also it makes me realize that if my kids were ever in a play area and some ZZ Top looking mofo popped up and started smiling at them, I'd probably go beyond postal).

We'll also take [almost] any version of Silver Bells, I'll Be Home for Christmas, Jingle Bells, O Holy Night (my personal favorite religious Christmas song), Silent Night, Jingle Bell Rock, Rudolph. You know -- pretty much every "classic" Christmas song EVER recorded. And don't judge me! But I love Nick and Jessica's Baby It's Cold Outside. They were no Kenny and Dolly but they owned that song.

I know I'm missing some but that's the, um, short list.

What are YOU listening to this Christmas?

I Don't Wanna Talk About It

2011-11-29T08:17:00.000-06:00

Finding a couple to "date" is one of the hardest things for us married people. Or, well, for any people who are in a relationship and want another couple to hang out with from time to time. You both like the girl and your man gets along with her man but YOU think he's a douchebag. Or you like the couple but your hubby think's her laugh is the most annoying thing on earth. Seriously. Dating another couple is harder than just plain DATING.

This makes the fact that Eddie and I both get along with our friends Kira and Jon pretty extraordinary. We have no couple friends in Memphis. But when we go to Dallas - well, I like Kira and I like Jon. And Eddie likes Kira and he likes Jon. And the feeling seems to be mutual.

So, really, if we were going to be in Dallas last Friday for The Big Game there were no other people I'd rather have shared the experience with. And considering they have two bar areas in their house -- and a ton of liquor left over from their wedding -- hanging out with them at their place was the perfect choice. Especially for that particular game.

The Big Game. Arkansas played LSU. Arkansas ranked #3, our only loss of the season to #2 Alabama. LSU ranked #1. Some truly unbelievable things have happened in college football this season. Who could have predicted that a couple weeks ago three top five teams would all lose? Needless to say, I really thought Arkansas could pull off the victory. Two touchdown underdog? We'll take it and WE WILL RUB YOUR FACE IN IT, TIGERS. Not only did I think Arkansas could - and would - win the game but I thought Auburn could do us all a favor, knock off the Tide on Saturday, and Arkansas could go to the SEC championship game and then onto the national championship. I had big hopes.

Too big.

The game started off in our favor and after the first touchdown, I had the bright idea of taking a shot after every Arkansas TD.

We only took one more shot after this one.

And then half one when we scored a field goal.

WHAT??? You don't let YOUR four-year-old in on a the shot toast?

The final score of the game was 41-17 and not in our favor. I'm glad I had consumed a margarita or two. And half a bottle of Moscato. It made it much less painful.

And even though I don't wanna talk about that game, I still LOVE MY RAZORBACKS. They shouldn't have dropped to #8 in the standings and it makes me want to punch a BCS official in the babymaker that they are below Boise State. But they'll go to a decent bowl this year, they'll win, and next year WE WILL KICK SOME TIGER BUTT.

Woooo Pig Soieeee!

In the meantime, I'm going to hope for an SEC rematch in the national championship game and will be pulling out my houndstooth and getting my "ROLL TIDE ROLL" on.

P.S. Look what it did at my house last night:

We have light flurries falling again right now. Oh! And it was 75 degrees on Saturday. Welcome to the South!

Turkey and Sweet Potato Pie

2011-11-28T08:41:00.001-06:00

I don't know about you all, but I'm so thankful Thanksgiving is over and now Christmas Vacation will be on every night for the next month! Woo Hoo! It really IS the most wonderful time of the year.

Since we have a hard time staying home for any holiday and since Eddie was on vacation and we could be gone for a few days rather than a few hours, we decided to visit his family in Dallas for Thanksgiving this year. My sister-in-law hadn't originally planned on preparing turkey and all the fixings so we had a rather nontraditional Thanksgiving planned: dinner at Texas de Brazil then taking the kids to the Gaylord Texan so they could act a fool while I tried to take their pictures for our Christmas cards. (Two serious run on sentences in a row! Holy!) But, early in the week, Eddie's sister texted him to let us know she was planning on cooking dinner. So we went the traditional route.

And, maaaaaaayne. Did she EVER cook dinner! The stuffing was so good and the mac and cheese was to die for. She made greens which meant my husband was beyond happy. Karis - Karis! My one and a half year old! - ate three dinner rolls. It was just a dang good meal. Desert was sweet potato pie* and when I made the mistake of asking what the difference was in sweet potato and pumpkin, I was schooled in "black people food vs white people food."

** It was so strange only having two pies (and both of the same flavor!) and only one variety of potatoes on the Thanksgiving dinner table. When my family gets together, there is usually enough pie for each person to have their own. As in their own ENTIRE pie. And there are also no less than 18 different potato dishes. We know how to eat, ya'll.

So, that was Thanksgiving. Low key. Good food. Cowboys won. I ran to CVS so I could buy two snuggies for $10 in hopes that, when the boys open them on Christmas Day, Eddie and I can finally get ours back.

Later in the evening, I went to meet my friend Kira because, ya'll, we had something we had to do. It was time for BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING.

Black Friday is my favorite day of the whole entire year. I love the bargains. I love to shop. I love how people get all worked up and angry. I love how a bitch will claw you with her talons-for-fingernails to get the very last $5 Barbie. I love how you always have the chick wearing an ill-fitting sweatsuit, hair pulled in a scrunchie, who is telling Black Friday War Stories from years past.

I just love it.

If this tells you anything: I took three pictures of Thanksgiving dinner. Three. I took almost twenty when Kira and I were out ~~harrassing people~~ shopping.

We started out at 9:00 at Walmart. I stood by a pallet of Cars themed race car tracks that were, apparently, a very hot item. Because approxomately 10 seconds after a loud "WHOOOP!" (that, obvs, had nothing to do with the Texas/ Texas A&M game) went through the store, those race car tracks were GONE. Gone. I worked my way through the crowds (even with a cart!) and managed to get everything on my list save for a game of Operation (Sponge Bob Ants in the Pants took its place) and a damn $10 Baby Alive.

I'm still a little bitter over the Baby Alive.

After Walmart, it was Macy's. The only REAL reason we went to Macy's was because they were in the same mall as The Disney Store. My local Disney Store was opening at midnight; this one was not. It would've been a slight burnt run but Macy's had sweaters at buy one get one free (I got two CUTE ones for my stepdaughter for a total of $30) and Melissa and Doug toys were also buy one get one. Awesome.

A Jack in the Box (we don't have those in Memphis, by the way) run and we went back to Kira's house to veg until it was time to head out to Sears to scoop up some $20 peacoats. Oh, and by "to veg" I mean "to drink margaritas."

Let's just say the second half of our trip was much more interesting.

I crashed the bed these chicks were resting on. This was at Sears. Roughly 4:15 am.

Kira got in a "glamourizer" fight with this guy. Also at Sears.

Still at Sears. I think the sales clerk's face says it all.

We are [probably] never allowed back in that particular Sears. Ever.

We really did buy stuff at Sears. I managed to come out with three pairs of boots, a peacoat, and a pair of jeggings.

After Sears, it was on to the mall, to JC Penney. More shenanigans.

The ladies in the lingerie department were full of Razorback spirit and agreed to call the Hogs.

Good times. Good.Times. Ya'll.

We found a store in the mall selling accessories at a dollar a pop. I bought several stocking stuffers for Zhariah and - be still my heart - some Big Ass Bows for Karis. For $1!

After we left the mall, it was time for an [extremely tired] run to Target. It was 7:00 in the morning. They had been open for seven hours. And I STILL managed to get everything on my list. (A $12 Cabbage Patch -- my girl is getting her first ever Cabbage Patch! I think I'm more excited about this than anything else the kids are getting!, some jammie and slipper sets, undies, and scarves and gloves). Score!

In the end, I finished up about 85% of my Christmas shopping -- the boys are completely finished with the exception of their big gifts (and the hubs is in charge of getting those). Zhariah and Karis each need three more of their smaller gifts. All stocking stuffers are purchased. And I came in about $200 under my husband-induced Black Friday budget. I'm, like, a serious shopping ninja.

--- BTW: I wrote most of this last night. I woke up this morning to find out we are under a winter weather advisory. In November! In Memphis! There's a 70% chance of rain and snow this afternoon. Which seems like perfect weather to put away my fall decor and pull out the Christmas tree. Also, to start packing my bathing suits and flip flops and FLY SOUTH for the winter. Snow in November makes me think that February is going to be miserable!

Thanks for the Blessings

2011-11-23T07:02:00.000-06:00

I realize it's super cliche to make a list of all the things I'm thankful for today. I also realize it would be super cliche to list things like my husband and children, my extended family, our home, our health, my husband's job and the fact that he's a man who is not afraid of a little hard work, clothes on our backs, and food on the table. I'm thankful for all of that -- those are truly the biggest blessings in my life. But I'm thankful for so much more as well.

I'm thankful for the sound of a baby's laughter and the way Kyan tells his sister, "you're my best girl." I'm thankful for children who sleep through the night and that 2/3 of my little ones are potty trained. I'm thankful for social media that allows me to keep in touch with friends and family who live far away. I'm thankful for boys who love their Mama and are still little enough to ask, "Can't Daddy just sleep in my bed so I can sleep in your bed with you?" I'm thankful for Coke Zero and Diet Dr. Pepper.

I'm thankful for third row vehicles that aren't mini vans. I'm thankful for the city of New Orleans, all the wonderful food it contains, and that I'll be there in two and a half months. I'm thankful I was raised in a way so that I'm still close to my cousins even as we've gotten older. I'm thankful the Razorbacks are having a good season.

I'm thankful for Goodnight Moon and I'll Love You Forever. I'm thankful for my creativity and for TexMex food and for Disney Pixar. I'm thankful for the relationship I have with my stepdaughter, a relationship that is right now better than it's ever been before, and I'm thankful for how much she absolutely loves and adores her baby sister (and her little brothers too -- though sometimes that love and adoration doesn't show through as much!)

I'm thankful that my blog does not generate any income so I am, therefore, not faced with the decision of just how moral it is to pimp out my family for clicks. I'm thankful I was born in raised in the south, even if we don't have basements. I'm thankful to live in a country that affords us basic rights and I'm thankful for people like my husband who fought to preserve those rights.

I'm thankful for this picture from last Thanksgiving:

And I'm thankful for the memories of that day, for the last Thanksgiving we spent with our PawPaw. I'm thankful we had him for as long as we did and that our faith allows us to know he's in a better place.

And most of all I am thankful for these four goofy little people. Thankful they are in my life, that I can kiss them and hug them every single day, thankful that they're mine and that they make me want to be a better person.

Thursday . . . er . . . Tuesday Things

2011-11-22T07:46:00.000-06:00

1) I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner tonight for our (not so) little family. Eddie's work gave him a gift certificate for a free turkey (from Holiday Ham! So it's all pre-cooked and we don't have to do ANYthing. Awesome). I'm making a small ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes (I prefer potato casserole but the kids won this year), green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pecan pie. Zhariah worked for a long time Saturday making these cute little place cards:

Kyan was the hand model for the little turkeys -- and he wasn't too happy about it. They are all made out of fabric with ribbon for the legs and beaks and felt for the gobble gobble thing-a-ma-bobbers. The plan is for everyone to flip them over sometime before or after dinner and write on the back what they're thankful for. Then we're going to put them in our "Thanksgiving Time Capsule" so that we can pull them out every year and read what we were thankful for.

Zhariah got crafty again yesterday. She and Jaidan made this:

Way to go, Mom, on picking up the paint cards with the names in places that absolutely could not be cut off. Way to go.

It's an old peanutbutter jar and it's filled with "turkey toes" (candy corn). I told them they should give her a name. Jaidan suggested Allie. Zhariah suggested something I cannot even begin to attempt to spell that has me worried about what my future grandchildren may be named. In the end, I told them the name had to start with a T. Therefore, she is Terica Turkey.

2) The Hogs are #3 in the nation. This makes me happy.

We play LSU on Friday. We need to win. Then we need Alabama to lose on Saturday. Then all will be right in the world. Well, in my world.

3) I have not purchased one single solitary Christmas gift as of yet. Not one! But, due to some changes in our Thanksgiving schedule, I am going Black Friday shopping this year. Here's to getting at least half of the shopping done then! (Oh please oh please oh please oh please).

4) Speaking of Christmas gifts, I told Eddie that I would rather have a Big Girl Camera than an iPhone for Christmas. I'm not 100% sure he's on board with this idea seeing as he happens to know the history I have with cameras. I already told him that my Big Girl Camera would never, ever go on a Whore Trip with me. That I would only bring along my trusty little point and shoot. That the Big Girl Camera would be used for pics of the kids and to, hopefully, hone a hobby of mine. He made me promise to stop calling it a Big Girl Camera.

5) This is what I did on Sunday:

I got rid of some toys! I have a hard time actually throwing toys away -- my kids have so much and there are so many that have nothing, I just cannot trash a toy -- so I only threw away the things that were broken. I filled up the storage box with other stuff. Karis' little toy kitchen will be added to that after Christmas -- Santa is planning to bring her a new one but I don't want to do away with the old one just yet lest one of the boys realize what's going on.

6) I hit up the Goodwill and Once Upon a Child yesterday. $65 got seven pairs of jeans, two shirts, and two pairs of shoes. I saw this at OUAC:

As Kyan would say, "What in the WHAT WHAT?"

It was only $4.50. For the entire suit! I was tempted to buy it. Just because . . . well . . . I mean, really. THAT in a size 4T.

7) I've decided I need this book. I've also decided that I should have written that book. And I'm totally stealing the SEC Tailgate Tour idea!

8) My hubs is on vacation this week. Has been since around 7:00 Sunday night. It took all the way to 10:00 yesterday morning for me to feel the need to punch him in the throat.

I love my husband and I love spending time with him. But the kids and I get so set in our routine, you know? And when he comes along doing things like offering Snickers bars for breakfast then going and taking a nap it makes me want to punch him in the throat!

9) The boys are getting haircuts today. I think while they're having Man Bonding at the barber shop, my girl and I are going to head to the mall in search of boots. When I mentioned this to Eddie yesterday he told me wanted to be with me when I picked some out so I didn't get any "Pocahantas looking" ones. Heh?

10) I . . . I mean Zhariah . . . made a 110% on her Powerpoint project we . . . I mean I . . . did over the weekend. And it was for MATH. I feel like I should reward myself with something from Great American Cookie Company at the mall today . . .

On Books

2011-11-21T09:07:00.000-06:00

I love to read. I always have. When I was a kid, every other Saturday we went into "town" to buy groceries. Before the grocery shopping, though, was the lunch buffet at Pizza Inn and then a trip to the used book store. That used book store . . . that's the real reason I went every Saturday.

I love used book stores. I love when you find a forgotten treasure with a 99 cent sticker on it. I love the musty smell of old books. I love that, unlike Barnes & Noble or Borders, if you walk into a used book store every other person in there is really loves books.

Back on those grocery shopping Saturdays, I would gladly pick up used copies of Sweet Valley and Baby-sitters Club books. Or maybe something by Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary. (And, inevitibly, my dad would always get irritated with me because I'd have at least one of my new books finished by bedtime). I never was much of one for the classics. I even had someone else take my Accellerated Reader test for The Scarlett Letter in high school because I just couldn't make my way through all the old fashioned jargon. Especially when there was something shiny and pink-covered and, well, modern waiting for me to read.

I'm still like that today. Classics? Meh.

I read a list a week or so ago - I think it was on CafeMom's The Stir blog - about books everyone should read before they finish high school. I think I had read three. And two of those were Mark Twain novels. They were mostly things of the Wurthering Heights nature. No thanks. No thankyouverymuch.

(Sidenote: I also took issue with the author of this particular list when she stated that she had all her old teen books to hand down to her daughter -- and said books were in mint condition. THAT IS NOT A LOVED BOOK! A loved book is never in mint condition! A loved book is worn and tattered and has been read so many times that pages are beginning to fall out because the spine is so worn. My copy of Judy Blume's Summer Sisters (read at least twice a year)? The prologue is no longer in the book. The front cover is barely hanging on. Why? Because it's been read - AND LOVED - so many times).

My personal list of things every child should read before they graduate from high school is much less The Great Gatsby and much more Where the Red Fern Grows. And Tuck Everlasting. The Outsiders. Summer of my German Solider and Number the Stars and Black Boy. And I firmly - FIRMLY - believe that every girl should read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret sometime during her fourth grade year.

There is one classic - a classic that is considered a classic by people who go around classifying the classics (over use of the term 'classic' totes intended, FYI) - that I've wanted to read for a while. One that I never read in high school or college and recently ordered from Amazon.* It came in the mail the other day:

I'm a few chapters in and so far it's pretty decent.

It was also on my list of ~~ten~~ nine things to do before I turn 40. Which means that as of 31.5 my list look something like this:

1) Do something charitable (more than just donating money)
2) See the Yankees play in the Bronx
3) Join a gym and take a class
4) Learn to sew
5) Take my kids to Disney
6) Take a photography class
7) ~~Read~~ To Kill a Mockingbird
8) Eat lobster
9) Renew my wedding vows

Nine things. I'll definitely knock out Mockingbird in my 31st year. That'll leave me a year each to get the other eight done. We'll see . . .

* After I purchased the book, Amazon sent me an email of recommendations based on my "recent purchase." Among the titles were "Big White Panties" and "Douchebag Roulette." I'm really hoping they were basing these recommendations on this summer's purchase of Chelsey Handler's My Horizontal Life. Really, REALLY hoping.

It Happened This Week

2011-11-20T07:48:00.001-06:00

A couple weeks ago, after we beat a then #9 South Carolina and LSU came out on top of Alabama, I declared it to be the best day ever in college football. If that was the best day ever then the past couple days have been the best weekend ever in college football. If you're not a football fan, you are probably rolling your eyes. If you are a football fan then you'll wanna punch the BCS in the babymaker (for merely existing and not giving us a REAL playoff system). Here's the deal. Before games started being played for the week, these were the standings:

1) LSU
2) Oklahoma State
3) Alabama
4) Oregon
5) Oklahoma
6) Arkansas

Well.

Friday night Oklahoma State lost. Last night Oregon was knocked off by USC. I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HATE USC. This was the one - and only - time I was actually cheering for them. Of course, in the final seconds of the game when Oregon had the ball on the 23-yard-line and was preparing to kick a field goal to tie the game and sent it to overtime I was yelling to my husband, "SEE? I TOLD YOU! USC IS COMPLETELY USELESS. COMPLETELY. USELESS." However, the Most Hated Person in Oregon Right Now (that kicker) missed the field goal and USC won by three. Thank you, Trojans, and bless your hearts.

So, Oklahoma State was handed a loss. Oregon lost their second game of the season.

Then. Oh, then. BAYLOR BEAT OKLAHOMA. For the first time in school history! I went to Baylor, ya'll!! <=== I just had to say that, even though the football team won, like, a combined total of two games the entire time I was enrolled as a student there.

So Oklahoma State, Oregon, and Oklahoma all lost. Which means . . . if (and this is a BIG IF) Arkansas finally gets the respect they deserve, my HOGS should be at #3 when the rankings come out this evening. Eddie doesn't think they'll jump Oklahoma State but I think it's just not fair if they don't. Arkansas only has one loss and it's to Alabama. OK State's loss is to unranked Iowa State. Arkansas should be #3!

Okay, I'm done with football talk. Really, I am. I promise.

This next week is shaping up to be a crazy busy one. I thought I'd just lay around today and do nothing - you know, to prepare and all for the upcoming onslaught of insanity. But there are kitchen floors to be mopped, dishes to be washed, children to be entertained. There's no such thinig as a mental health day in da motherhood.

Here's a look at our week:

Sunday 11/13:

This is on Pinterest as something slightly different. Jaidan saw it the other day and told me he wanted to make it. When I tried doing it the way it was done in the pin, he told me I was doing it wrong. He really just wanted to use it as a "maze" for his cars so we taped old aluminum foil boxes to the top of a big box and - voila! - he was occupied for a long ass time.

Monday 11/14:

Tuesday 11/14:

Zhariah had a math project that involved cooking. So she made dinner Tuesday night. And yesterday I made her Powerpoint for her project. Here's hoping "she" gets a good grade on that project!

Wednesday 11/16:

Thursday 11/17:

Friday 11/18:

I also like to title this one: That's my girl!

Saturday 11/19:

So Very Pinteresting

2011-11-19T08:41:00.000-06:00

You know the poem Babies Don't Keep by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton?

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and baies don't keep.

That's my motto.

When it comes to cleaning my house anyway.

My house is pretty much always clean - on the surface. There are toys strewn around because I have small children but it's nothing that a five minute sweep through can't take care of. Yes, we keep it pretty surface clean. But please don't look any further than the surface. You'll probably find a cobweb or two. And dust - oh, lots of dust (my house breeds it). But I would rather do a craft project with my boys or snuggle with my baby girl than scrub my baseboards or organize a closet.

I've been pinning various household hints and never tried a single one of them. Until this week. I'm pretty proud of myself for finally trying some of them out.

Household Tips:

Cleaning a Glass Top Stove - Ya'll. I'm not going to lie. My stove was NAS-TAY. Those little glass top stoves are nice and all but they are boogers to keep clean. So I decided to try this. It worked pretty decent. The baking soda did leave a weird film on my stove but it wiped off just fine with a damp rag.

Cleaning a Ceiling Fan with a Pillowcase - Funny Story. We took the kids to Buffalo Wild Wings Sunday night. They were given balloons -- the strings were pretty short. One of the kids let go of a balloon in our room. We couldn't reach it and didn't think anything about it. Until about 1:00 in the morning when it got caught in the ceiling fan and we thought someone was opening up machine gun fire on us! Bam, bam, bam, bam, POP! The next morning, I observed the carnage and realized that the balloon had caused quite a bit of dust to fall off the fan. The fan was even NAS-TAY-ER than my stove! So I decided to give this little trick a try. Nice that all the dust went into the pillow case instread of flying all over the room. Will definitely keep this one.

Vanilla Extract to Clean the Microwave - One of the first fights Eddie and I ever got into was over the microwave! I wish I could think to just wipe it down everytime after I use it. Of course, I don't and there's caked up crap all over it. So I gave this little trick a try. Ummm . . . no. Didn't work. I guess I was expecting everything just to wipe right off but I had to, you know, use some elbow grease and, like, scrub. I'm much to delicate to scrub.

Recipes:

Easy S'more Bars - Best recipe I've made from Pinterest thus far. These were SO easy and SO good. They were still good when they cooled but not as good. I would definitely eat them warm. This is how my girl acted when she finished hers and I wouldn't give her another:

Cheddar Ritz Chicken - If I were to grade this dish, I'd give it a solid C. It was okay with a side of meh. It was hard to get the cheese to stick to the chicken. The sauce was basically just trumped up cream of chicken soup. It was just . . . okay. Probably will not make this one again but, if I do, I'll make a cheese sauce to top it with.

Baked Club Pinwheels - This is a Plain Chicken recipe so you know it's good. Simple as that. Little story about the night I made these: I fixed them to go with potato soup. My husband will not eat a meal that doesn't contain meat. EVERY MEAL MUST HAVE MEAT. I discovered this early in our relationship when I fixed cheese tortellini for dinner one night and he added SAUSAGE to it. And not like Italian sausage. *Harf* So, I have the soup in the crockpot the other night. He comes in and gives it a stir and says, "So we're not having any meat with dinner tonight." I told him I was making club sandwiches. Well, ya'll, apparently turkey, ham, roast beef, and BACON don't count as meat. *Rolls eyes* He bitched. He complained. He told me he was going to the store to buy some canned chicken to ruin my soup with. Then I pulled the sandwiches out of the oven and the angels started singing. They were sooo good. Eddie thought they would be better for breakfast but he also thought that they - combined with the soup (which he thought was the best potato soup ever) - were plenty filling that he didn't need any "real" meat.

Bakin' Bacon - I made bacon in the oven! And it was delicious. I went with the 375 for 20 minutes way. It was delicious and just the right crispiness. Will definitely - definitely - be doing this again.

Kid Food:
I made peanutbutter banana burritos for the boys for lunch one day:

I promise there's a banana in there!

They were a hit! Kyan can be very, very weird about food but even HE ate the whole thing. He pulled the banana out and ate it first. Then licked all the peanutbutter off the tortilla. Then ate the tortilla. Silly kid.

Yesterday for lunch we had these turkey sandwiches. Now, the original pin looks MUCH cuter but I liked the way mine turned out too:

They ate them with pretzels (and that pretzel marshmallow thing is supposed to be the Mayflower) and turkey toes.

Artsy Craftsy:

Maybe it was the weather turning [much] cooler the end of the week, but I got in full on scarf making mode! I made a t-shirt scarf for Karis (it was a tester -- I'm going to make red and white ones for both me and her):

If you can't tell, my model wasn't exactly feeling the whole photo session thing!

And I made myself an infinity scarf. I think it's cute -- and it was the easiest thing EVER to make. It could have turned out longer (I used an old size L spaghetti strap tank to make it -- next time I will get a man's XL or XXL to make a longer one). I'm just not sure I'm a scarf person! I want to be but I am . . . fashion challanged.

Kid Stuff:

The boys made paper plate pilgrims and turkeys out of toilet paper rolls; pilgrim hats and Native American head dresses.

Apparently I forgot to take a pic of the turkeys and I'm too lazy to do so now!

I'll end with this one:

Oh, they do.

And THIS Arkansas Girl is really hoping her Razorbacks aren't looking forward to next week and get tripped up by Mississippi State today. OSU lost last night so if we make it past MSU (and we SHOULD) then we're in the Top Five! Woo Pig!

The First Thanksgiving

2011-11-18T08:33:00.000-06:00

As told by a five-year-old and illustrated (in part) by his three-year-old brother.

The First Thanksgiving:

The pilgrims came to the New World on a Mayflower.

They came to eat food.

The pilgrims talked to a turkey and then they ate the turkey.

They ate turkey with the Indians.

Another word for Indians is Native of Americans.

They also ate corn and made farms.

Notes from Mom:

1) I swear I told him they came to the New World for religious freedom. It figures that it would be my kid who goes straight to the "food" part of the holiday.

2) I wasn't sure how politically correct to be with this story. Therefore we used the terms Indian and Native American. Are Native Americans offended by the term "Indian?" I'm asking with sincerity.

3) Political correctness aside, I obviously gave the watered down preK version of the story with no, you know, slaughter and all that business. Let's let the history teachers handle that in fifth or sixth grade, uhkay now?

4) Who wants to come and scrub my chair rail?

Thursday Things

2011-11-17T08:24:00.000-06:00

1) Kyan loves to play xbox. I hate for him to play xbox. Why? Because when he loses IT IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD EVER. There are tears, there is a fit, there is a three-year-old boy flinging his controller to the floor, falling to his knees, and screaming, "WHY, WHY, WHY?"

I was I was exaggerating. I assure you, I am not.

Eddie was home Sunday to witness one of these fits. He said to him, "Why are you acting like that? You're not a baby!"

Kyan's response: "I'm my Mommy's baby!"

Love.That.Kid. Screaming, Dramasaurus Rex fits and all. Love him.

2) We are having a fairly unconventional Thanksgiving this year. Part of me is excited. Part of me wishes for turkey and dressing and the Cowboys and little kids playing football in a front yard.

3) Last night, I was watching something. I don't remember if it was X Factor with the kids or recorded episodes of Up All Night. But they showed a commercial about a female soldier coming home. And, oh man, tears. Tears, ya'll. Tears.

4) Anyone else excited that Fear Factor is coming back in a couple weeks? I can't wait to introduce my boys to this show!

5) My "Mommy's Baby" reading to his sister last night:

We read Goodnight Moon every night and now he basically knows it by heart. "Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush, goodnight to the old lady whispering 'hush.'" He was reading it to her last night, I looked over and caught them, and it was one of those moments where I just wanted to freeze time. Take that little moment and put it in a box to keep forever and ever.

6) My boys made these little Native Americans the other day:

I think they look like acorns.

7) It's sunny this morning but the last few days have been extremely gloomy (and the weekend was sooooo wiiiiiiindy). We had those days where you just want to lay in bed and do NOTHING. Evidenced by the fact that Karis woke up from her nap one day (yes, she's napping again, YAY) and went right to my bedroom. She grabbed the remote off the dresser, climbed in the bed, and commanded I turn the TV on. She's SUCH a female. If only she had some chocolate on hand and had insisted I put the TV on Lifetime.

8) I can't WAIT for all the holiday TV in the next few weeks! What's your favorite Christmas movie? I'm torn between Christmas Vacation and Home Alone 2. Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO have the maturity level of a 14-year-old boy.

9) McDonald's now has peppermint hot chocolate! Regardless of anything else about McD's, they really do have the best fast food hot chocolate I've tasted. I'd even venture to say theirs is better than Starbucks. So I can't way to try the peppermint stuff! With a shot of whipped cream vodka, of course. Duh.

10)

How many times do you scroll through your Facebook feed saying, "it's YOU'RE, you moron?" Yeah, me neither. I never correct grammar on social media sites . . .

Social Conscious

2011-11-16T08:54:00.000-06:00

My husband and I are both sort of obssessed with the Penn State scandal. I'm not sure if obssessed is the right word. But we both feel like we have to watch every news report or interview related to the scandal. We read every article. We Googled Jerry Sandusky the other night to find out if he's married (yes with six (adopted) children, fostered many children over the years, and lives in the neighborhood of an elementary school. Your basic Resume of a Pedophile). Every evening, Eddie comes home and tells me the latest people are saying at work about the whole disgusting mess. So, yeah, maybe we're a little obssessed.

I think our obssession is based on two things:

1) I'm a college football fan. A HUGE college football fan. Eddie would rather watch NFL or - much preferable to him - basketball. But I'm a fan and therefore he is a college football fan by default. I grew up with a dad who hated Penn State so I guess some of that probably trickled down to me. Not that I necessarily hate the football program but the "Penn State Hate" was ingrained in me enough that I instantly scrunch my nose when I see them in the Top 25.

2) Most importantly, we are parents. We are parents to two little boys. And we are horrified by this. We are horrified that it happened. We are horrified that it was covered up for so long. We are horrified at the thought of how many more little boys were victimized because of the cover up. We are horrified that we actually agree with Sarah Palin on something. And we are horrified that so many people actually defended Joe Paterno and his actions concerning the cover up.

We watched the Sandusky interview with Bob Costas on Monday night. (Side note: I'm pretty sure it's a sign you're getting old when you're excited that a new news magazine show is coming on. And on Monday night -- when there's nothing else you want to watch on the tube! I love Dateline and 48 Hours and 20/20 and now NBC has gone and blessed me with Rock Center and thrown in a little bit of Brian Williams [hey there eye candy! Wait, What?])

I digress. We watched the interview Monday night and I don't know how anyone could have watched it and NOT come out with the conclusion that he is guilty as hell.

When Bob Costas asked "are you sexually attracted to young boys, to underage boys?" this was his answer:

::Pause::
Am I sexually attracted to underage boys? Sexually attracted, you know, I enjoy young people. I love to be around them. But, no, I am not sexually attracted to young boys.

(If you want to read the full interview with Sandusky and his slimeball lawyer, you can read it here. Also, the snarky side of me wants to point out that Sandusky did not know the meaning of culpable. That's a Penn State grad for ya . . . )

As soon as he said, "I enjoy young people" in that interview I wanted to throw up. I literally felt sick at my stomach. His answer seemed like total pedophile speak and it made me want to throw up. And to punch Sandusky, Paterno, and three Penn State sorority girls in the face. I cannot believe this man was caught preying on young boys and allowed to continue to do so. If he committed crimes in a place so open as the locker room showers, then what went on behind closed doors?

What bothers me the most, hands down, is the little boys who had their innocence stolen. It bothers me that this man thinks he can get away with saying "oh, it was just a shower and I wish I hadn't done it" or "oh, it was just naked horseplay and I promise I'll never do it again." You do not shower with children. My boys are 3.5 and 5 and that, in my opinion, is too old for me to continue to shower with them. And I'm their mother! And, please, don't get me started on the "it was just horseplay." Horseshit.

Believe me, all of that bothers me. Greatly. I'm heartbroken for those little boys and I'm heartbroken or their parents.

But it also bothers the parent in ME. It bothers me for my own children. It bothers me to know that society as a whole has developed an "I'm not going to get involved" attitude to the point that we would allow children to be victimized. Let's be real. Sandusky was forced to retire in 1999. He was caught, received a hand slap, and sent on his way. Anyone with half a brain can put two and two together and realize that. He obviously victimized another little boy in 2002. And, I'm sure, countless others after that. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being a parent to one of those boys who was raped after 1999? 2002? Can you imagine knowing that an entire football program KNEW about it and basically did nothing to stop it?

It's just scary! Every parent out there knows that no one cares about our children and their safety as much as we do. But we also like to think that based on the simple fact that they are children that other people can be trusted to step in and do the right thing when something is amiss. We like to think that people will meet their moral obligations and protect our children. And this case proves, if nothing else, that won't always happen. It proves that we live in a society where the reputation of a football program is more important than protecting the innocence of our children. This case -- and Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier and everyone else who knew what was going on and never went to the police - has shown that we are the only ones who are looking out for our own children. And that's just sad and disgusting and heart breaking.

Hi. My Name is Brandi. And I'm a Hypocrite.

2011-11-14T07:59:00.000-06:00

So, last year, Eddie decided he was going to get Zhariah an iPod Touch for her birthday. She was turning ten. I put on my "WTF" face and was all, "oh no, nuh-uh, not even." I could not wrap my head around the thought of a kid THAT age owning such a pricey piece of technology. She'll lose it, she'll break it. She got one anyway. She hasn't broken it. I haven't seen it at our house in a while so I can't comment on the lost thing. That's not really the point. The point is: I was against the iPod because I tought she was too young for it.

Fast forward to now.

I am planning on getting my three year old and my five year old a pair of Driod tablets (or possibly one tablet to share) for Christmas. Yes. I threw a hissy fit over getting a ten year old an iTouch and now I'm getting tablets for my preschoolers.

I'm a hypocrite. And I'm okay with that. Especially if it means I will get to use *my* tablet every once in a while. Cause the way things are going now I only get to touch it if someone needs my help finding Will I Am sing "What am I" with the Sesame Street characters on Youtube.
The hypocricy doesn't stop there though. Oh no.

I've been rather, ah, vocal about my disdain for Apple. It's just not fair! They only offered that little piece of technological gold known as the iPhone to AT&T customers for the longest. SOME of us have husbands who refused to switch cell carriers just to get an iPhone. And SOME of us ended up turning to Andriod.

I love my Droid phone.

I love it, love it, love it. It does pretty much everything an iPhone does (with the exception of Instagram which makes me all pouty and stabby. I WANT TO INSTAGRAM TOO).

But now Apple has come out with the 4S. And it does things my Droid just can't do (Siri, anyone?) AND it's finally - finally - available on Sprint!

So, do I?

Do I iPhone? DO I GO AGAINST EVERYTHING I BELIEVE IN AND PURCHASE AN APPLE PHONE? All I really have to do is say the word and it's my Christmas present.

Please advise. Am I really ready to go to that level of hypocricy?

It Happened This Week

2011-11-13T08:44:00.000-06:00

Man. It's been a week and we really didn't even DO anything!

Before I get on it with the pictures, let me tell you what happened yesterday. I was getting the kids ready to get in the bath and Jaidan was nowhere to be found. No big deal -- figured he was watching TV in Zhariah's room or playing in the toy room. I called for him a few times. No Jaybird. Yelled louder. No Jaidan.

I went upstairs to look for him. He wasn't in any of those rooms. I came down to do the same. Still no Jaidan. By this point I was getting close to The Panic Stage. Where was my kid? I started looking in closets and under beds, calling his name, and wondering at what point I needed to start talking to other people. I was pretty sure he wouldn't go outside without telling me and I was even more sure he wouldn't leave our yard if he DID go out. I went outside and he wasn't there. Did he go out without telling me and did someone scoop him up? Why do we always think the absolute worst when it comes to situations like this?

Finally, I went into the house and yelled, "JAIDAN! WHERE ARE YOU COME? COME OUT RIGHT NOW AND I'LL GIVE YOU SOME CANDY!"

The little turd was hiding in a bathroom cabinet. He was hiding from me. I was so mad at him but so glad to see him all at the same time. He's done something kinda like this before -- hid under his bed at bedtime -- but I was able to find him within just a few minutes. In this case he was "missing" for what seemed like an eternity!

I threatened him to never, ever, ever do that again and it also led to a nice little talk about strangers and what not to let other people touch on you.

Anyway. My drama for the weekend. Now our week in pictures:

Sunday 11/6:

Monday 11/7:

Zhariah is the highest one, in the back stunt group

I asked for a Big Girl Camera for Christmas. I'm pretty sure I won't get one (especially since Eddie has already told me what he's thinking about getting me) but it would be so nice to have for moments like this one. My point and shoot just wasn't cutting it.

Tuesday 11/8:

Wednesday 11/9:

The Magic Ketchup Experiment
Jaidan was seriously so amazed by this!

Thursday 11/10:

Friday 11/11:

Saturday 11/12:

WPS!
We spanked Tennessee last night. Boise State and Stanford (ov-er-rate-ed) both lost so we are MOVIN' ON UP in the pools. Should be a solid #6.

So Very Pinteresting

2011-11-12T08:24:00.001-06:00

Before I get to all the pinteresting things we did this week, I want to share this little video of my Baby Girl. She has a favorite song! For the longest it was Trey Songz Bottoms Up (yeah, I KNOW). But now she likes that Party on Top of the World song. Yesterday, at lunch, she started asking for "Night!" I found it on YouTube and she treated us to a little performance:

(We had bacon, egg, and cheese burritos for lunch because we can no longer have breakfast food for dinner since Eddie is off shift work and not working nights. I love breakfast for dinner but I married a weirdo. So the ocassional breakfast for lunch has to suffice).

Now, our Pinterestings!

Food:

Crockpot Ranch Potatoes - This was the biggest recipe FLOP I've had in a long time. We eat dinner around 6:00. I put them on about 10:00 in the morning to ensure they'd have plenty of time to cook (the recipe says to cook for 6 hours on low). At 4:00, the potatoes were still hard. I flipped the crockpot up to high and an hour and a half later, they were STILL not soft enough to eat. The flavor was a little weird too. I ended up feeding them to my garbage disposal and making a pot of mac and cheese instead.

Potato Slabs - I washed too many potatoes the day I made the crockpot ranch potatoes so I decided to fix these for an afternoon snack. They're sooooo good. I knew they would be -- I mean, it's basically "meatier" potato skins or bacon cheese fries. Good stuff. The kids loved them.

Secret Ingredient Cheesy Garlic Bread - These were alright but I could totally taste the honey (that's the secret ingredient) and I only used about 3/4 teaspoon. In fact, Eddie took one bite and said, "Why are they sweet?" I knew he'd freak if I told him they had honey on them. He brought home a bottle of Moscato that night so I just told him it was probably the wine! Ha! The kids really loved them though and I thought they tasted better the second day. I'll probably make them again but I think I'll just use the basic recipe and no secret ingredient!

Kid/ Thanksgiving Stuff:

We had a really tough week with the time change. My Jaybird is not an earlier riser. He's also a night owl and it's practically impossible to get him to go to sleep before 10:00 or 10:30 at night. I have no idea what we're going to do when he starts kindergarten . . .

Anyhow, Jaidan had been waking up every day when Kyan got up (always before 6:30!). It made for a really grumpy Jaybird and very long days! We didn't get near as much accomplished as I'd hoped we would this week. I've been letting Jaidan sleep in Zhariah's room the past few nights (and he's sleeping in!!) so maybe we'll get him on a normal-for-him sleeping schedule and have a better week next week. *Crosses fingers*

Here's what we did get done:

We did almost this entire preschool pack from Homeschool Creations. I love the stuff Homeschool Creations puts out! They have kindergarten and preschool levels and the stuff is just . . . well, it's just better than anything else (free) I've found out there. I even got Kyan to do some of these activities! That one deserves a round of these: !!!!!! And my boys absolutely loved the "Top the Pie" activity in this one. I put the cotton balls in a Cool Whip tub (as suggested on this pin) and they think it's a game. They love it!

We worked through some of these worksheets. This pack includes about 9 or so pages of basic addition. Jaidan LOVED doing those. Also, these are all in black and white so they're easier on the printer! (Or, rather, the ink consumption which is easier on the wallet!)

This preschool pack includes a game idea (alphabet printed out on little turkeys, a few other turkeys with the word "Gobble" on them, kids draw one out if they correctly identify the letter then they keep the turkey, if they get a "Gobble" card they get up and act like a turkey [easy enough for MY children to do]). We played it mainly because I wanted a better idea on where Kyan is with his letter recognition (turns out, I didn't need to worry). Cute little game idea but a little beneath my boys' levels. They also got MAD when they pulled a Gobble card because they wanted to be the one with the most turkeys at the end of the game. *Sigh*

If there is anything I haven't been vigilant about when it comes to preparing the Birds for kindergarten, it's scissor practice. We have ONE pair of kid scissors and he's only been allowed to use them in the past couple months or so. I just . . . I dunno . . . I like my kids' hair. You know? So we haven't been all about the scissors in this house. But I did print out these cutting pages for him to try out. And, well, he still needs a lot of work. :/

We tried to make these little pinecone turkeys. We even went and, uhhhh, "borrowed" pinecones on our walk one morning. But pinecones are really hard for little hands to work with. And the're not exactly the easiest things to glue stuff on. Craft fail. We abandonded this one really quickly.

We did make this thankful turkey though:

We didn't use a TP roll for the body or give him a hat, but he still turned out pretty cute! Notice that Jaidan actually said he's thankful for his brother! Miracles!

I'll leave you with this little gem I pinned this week:

Thursday Things

2011-11-10T07:48:00.003-06:00

1) Have you seen the new Verizon Walking in a 4G Wonderland commercial? If you happen to, I dunno, be yelling at a few kids and trying to pick up toys when it's on the boob tube then there's a chance you COULD look up in shock thinking they're actually singing "walking in an orgy wonderland." Not that I know from experience or anything.

2) Thanks to last week's Spooky Halloween lunch, my kids are now demanding "fun" lunches. See what happens when you go above and beyond in the world of parenting? Sheesh. So a few days ago I made these sammiches. Know what they are?

They are Mater Mouth sandwhiches!

They began as monster mouths but Jaidan thought they looked like Mater.

Mater Mouth sammiches for the win!

3) The current favorite song in my house:

My kids love them some Michael Jackson! (Though Kyan argues with me that Mish-ell Jack Son is a girl). When I was their age, I did too. So I guess it runs in the blood.

Speaking of music, though, I'm trying to turn them onto who I consider to be one of the greatest singers of all time. James Taylor. Fire and Rain, How Sweet it is, Sweet Baby James . . . so far, they're giving me their "wtf" faces whenever I play his music but I know it won't take long and I'll convert them.

4) I swear if I hear the words "Can we get that Mommy?" one more time I AM GOING TO SCREAM. Already over that part of the holidays.

5) It's a little later in the year than normal, but our leaves are finally changing in the mid-south! I'm sure it's nowhere near as pretty as our neighbors to the east but it's still so lovely to see this time of year. I took some pictures while we were on our walk the other morning. They were taken with my phone so, of course, nowhere near as pretty as the leaves actually are.

6) My three-year-old starts every sentence with "Actually." It cracks me up. "Actually, Mommy, I want eggs for breakfast." "Actually, I want to take a bath." "Actually, Jaidan just hit me."

7) I took all three kids - by myself - to a basketball game Z was cheering at on Monday. I will never do that again. All three kids plus me. I had to schlepp all of them to the bathroom no less than four times. I took my tablet to keep the boys occupied (one had the tablet; the other had my phone) but I had to keep plying Karis with Halloween candy during the second half of the second game. I'm such a great mom.

8) This stuff:

is the shit.

I realize it's margarine and you butter snobs may be tempted to thumb your nose at it. Do not make that mistake. It is 98 cents worth of pure pumpkin love.

I used it yesterday morning to make "pumpkin pie oatmeal." Added brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice and oh larrrrdy. Such good stuff.

9) I seriously want to PUNCH IN THE FACE anyone who defends Joe Paterno. Seriously. I love football just as much as the next person. You all know that. But the legacy of a football team basically means shit when compared to the innocence of a child. I don't wish Joe Paterno the best. I wish he would be indicted.

10) Daylight Savings Time STILL has my kids messed up. At least one of them (*ahem* we call him Rooster for a reason) has been up by 6:30 every morning since Sunday. 6:30. At the latest. And considering I keep putting them to bed at their pre-DST time and they're waking up about an hour and a half early . . . well, my days mostly suck.

The Ignorance

2011-11-09T08:37:00.000-06:00

I realize that the citizens Mississippi and Tennessee are stereotyped as not being the smartest of folks, the brightest of people. But sometimes the level of ignorance of people in my geographical region is just . . . no words. What is it about the abortion debate that turns people into ignorant, poo-flinging bafoons?

Yesterday was Election Day in Mississippi. On the ballot, was this little thing called the Personhood Ammendment. Basically, it was an ammendment aimed at getting around Roe vs. Wade. But, in doing so, it determined that life began at fertilization.

Fertilization. Sperm meets egg. Here's the deal: half - half! - of fertilized eggs never implant in a woman's uterus. Sometimes the fertilized egg is flushed out in a heavier-than-normal period. Most of the time women never even knew they were carrying a potential pregnancy.

And the state of Mississippi wanted to define the fertilized egg as a person with the same rights as me and you. The language in the bill was amiguous to the point that it could have outlawed hormonal birth control, IUD's, IVF, and even the right for a pregnant cancer pateint to receive treatment. It would have made it so that a woman with an ectopic pregnancy would have had to remove the entire tube (rendering her infertile) in order to terminate the pregnancy. It would've outlawed certain ablations that are necessary for female health. All I can really say about that is this: !!!!!!!!!!

In the interest of full dislosure, I will tell you that I consider myself to be pro-choice. This does not mean I'm pro-abortion. I don't believe in abortion as means of birth control. And people on all sides of the debate confuse me. I've seen a 7-week fetus on an ultrasound screen with a beating heart. You cannot tell me that's simply a mass of cells. At the same time, I don't believe a woman who is raped should be forced to face the psychological ramifications of carrying her rapists baby and then either raising a child who is half the man who attacked her or giving away a child who is half her. I also don't understand why so many ardent pro-lifers only seem to care about a pregnancy before it is actually born and takes it's first breath. Have you noticed that? It seems as though so many people who identify with pro-life also don't believe in social services . . . in free or subsidized healthcare of even programs like WIC. It's such a contradiction to me.

Since I live in Memphis, I'm right on the Mississippi state line. Which means we heard a lot - a lot - about the Personhood Ammendment. It also means my local news station's Facebook page became a breeding ground for every halfway literate idiot in the tri-state area.

I don't understand WHY people couldn't understand this ammendment was a horrible thing.

I get that the Yes on 26 people marketed it as an anti-abortion bill to a very conservative state. But all it took was a little bit of research to understand that the bill was so much more than that -- that it took away so many rights! I wonder, if the state of Mississippi decided to take it one step further and outlaw male masturbation (after all, all those little spermies are potential babies, no?) . . . people would have been outraged, right? But since it was made to be about women and the a-word was thrown into the debate over and over and over again, it was okay to remove certain rights. It was okay to remove the right to seek hormonal birth control. It was okay to remove the right of a cancer patient to seek treatment because the life of the fetus she was carrying was more important than HER life. It was okay to remove all those rights. In the name of attempting to get around Roe v. Wade.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

The Personhood Ammendment was, thankfully, shot down by Mississippi voters. But something like 30% of people STILL voted for it.

The News Facebook page blew up last night. Here are just a few gems:

this a sad day in ms. God will take care of all those that voted no everyone as a choice but god gave his only son for us and we cant as astate give him this..sad very sad

All the people that voted no. When God ask you what you voted on 26 what will you tell him

Everyone will stand on their judgement day. Murder is murder and it's wrong in gods eyes so it Shuld be wrong in ours

The woman who got pregnant had the chance to keep her pants up maybe he should think about that next time u wanna go out and do it with your boyfriend who u know that won't stay if u get pregnant!!!! and I'm from Mississippi I vote yes!!!!

Do you think god approves of abortion?

Everything happens for a reason I may only be a teenager but I have done my research. Abortion is MURDER, MURDER IS A CRIME!
What did the baby do to you?
There is other options! Adoption is one of the safe ones!
So you need to think would God approve of this!

(These are just a very, very few. I could make four whole posts of all the "WTF" statements).

And here was me, in bed last night, reading these comments from my phone: "IT WAS NOT ABOUT ABORTION, YOU DUMBASS!"

It's so scary to think that because abortion is such a hot topic, something that people are so passionate about it, that there are people who will completely skirt the other issues. People were willing to take away so many other rights just to get around the Roe V. Wade decision! That is scary, ya'll!

Accomplishments

2011-11-08T10:48:00.001-06:00

At the risk of sounding like a huge spoiled brat, I'm just going to come right out and say this: my house is too small for four children. And me. And their father.

I grew up in a (much) smaller house than the one I live in now. I never, prior to moving in here, would have thought to describe it as too small. We have four bedrooms. We have a separate dining area/ den/ man cave/ whataeveryouwannaturnthatroominto. We have three bathrooms. We have a garage and we have a storage shed in the backyard.

However.

We also have those previously mentioned four children.

Eddie and I have, of course, the master bedroom. We use one room - a very awkwardly shaped room - as the toy room. We moved the boys into a bedroom together around the time Karis was born. It works . . . for the most part. A few months ago, we decided we'd combine the remaining room into a bedroom for Zhariah and Karis and a guest room for whenever anyone sleeps over. Have you ever tried having an 11-year-old and a one-year-old share a room. Little hint: It does not work.

Zhariah couldn't stay up late for fear of waking the baby. The baby would wake Z up early . . . yadda, yadda. It just didn't work so we moved Karis into the toy room and she's been there since. And, thanks to the awkward shape of the room, her bed had to sit in the middle of the floor. Not against a wall or any kind of cute placement. Just plopped down in the middle of the floor. Fun.

She's moved to a toddler bed though and, thankfully, it will fit under the sloping ceiling. I decided to clean up the room today and got the genius idea to move some things around. Since it's a long room, I thought I could give it the illusion of being two different rooms - a toy room AND a bedroom.

I should've taken before pictures but, to be honest, I'm not sure I'd want anyone to see just how messy my little Messmakers can be.

But.

This is what it looks like now:

One side of Karis's room:

A couple things:

1) She's using one of the boys' old toddler beds. We didn't spend a ton of money on toddler beds because, well, we didn't. So now we don't have those nice, sturdy oak ones that work with any color bedding. We're left with the primary colors that totally do nothing for the pink "bedding."

2) She has no baby girl bedding so she's making do with a gorgeous afghan my Aunt Karen (Aint Kern as my country boy Jaidan calls her) had made before she was born. Under the afghan is a Chicago Cubs blanket my friend Mo bought us. My apologies to my Cards-fans family.

3) Isn't that ginormous Dora the scariest thing EVER? It even has a little patch of belly showing where here shirt doesn't meet her shorts.

4) I tried to strategically place toys and the bed so that stains on the carpet don't show. MY CHILDREN ARE DISGUSTING. Oh my gawwww. I could not believe all the "ick" on the carpet.

5) The ceiling is that disgusting "popcorn" stuff. My boys enjoy using my vacuum attachments as microphones so when I was vacuuming earlier, I couldn't find them. So there's still popcorn pieces all over the floor. Fun.

I moved the sectional couch around to split the room into two areas. Here's what the toy room side looks like:

We don't have "real" toy boxes because, HOLY CRAP, have ya'll ever priced toy boxes? Also, the blinds are ripped to shreds because, apparently, having a child is just like having a hyper active little puppy dog.

Anyway, they play area isn't huge. Honestly, I would prefer if the toy room could be on the bedroom side and vice versa but it was easier for me to move the couch (to be completely honest, though, I would rather just torch that couch) in the direction I moved it in, splitting it the way it is. Also, I wanted Karis to be away from the window.

I'm not even 100% sure why I'm making a blog post about all this. I just feel so accomplished! Sure, we haven't done any of our normal learning activities for today. And, sure, I parked Kyan and Karis in front of Team Oomi Zoomi for a while so I could move furniture around. But, gosh darnit, Karis now (sorta) has her own room and both it and the toy room are CLEAN. Accomplished, ya'll.

Plus this is a whole lot better than my other idea of making a list of everything irritating me right now (the 20th Duggar baby, the Personhood ammendment in Mississippi, my middle child, my oldest child, 90% of the people in Memphis, my husbands ex-wife, my stepdaughter's school, and trying to figure out where to spend Thanksgiving/ Christmas . . . just to name a few).

It Happened This Week

2011-11-06T08:09:00.000-06:00

Daylight Savings Time. I'm shaking my first at you. And muttering things about you under my breath.

Even though I knew better, I kept the kids up an hour later last night. Well, 40 minutes later because they were getting on my nerves and I knew that final 20 minutes could mean the difference in my head exploding. They usually wake up around 8:00. OF COURSE the boys were up at 6:00 this morning. Karis was up a little after 7:00. So even with going to bed (almost) an hour later, no one got an extra hour of sleep.

I say it every year. I will say it again. I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME.

I don't understand why time even has to change at all. Why can't we just stay at one time - the time where it doesn't get dark at 5:00 in the afternoon - all year long?

Sunday is going to be interesting. I see naps in the future. Whether these little turds want 'em or not.

Now, on with our week!

Sunday 10/30:

Monday 10/31:

I really hate this is the only picture I got of all four of them on Halloween. KY-AN! Grrr.

Tuesday 11/1:

Wednesday 11/2:

Thursday 11/3:

Yes, my friends, we are at the toddler bed stage.

You know how other people have, like, three year olds still sleeping in cribs? Yeah, no. Everyone of my kids were moved to a toddler bed before age two because they are little monkeys who climb, climb, climb. Last Thursday, on a whim, I decided to put Karis in the toddler bed in her room at nap time. It was the first - and only! - nap she took all week. So I put her in again that night. Then the next night. And the night. She has had NO issues with the transition (at night anyway - naptime is a different story but that's just because she's flat out refusing to nap). I put her down at night, she doesn't get out of bed (probably because she's so exhausted from not napping). I go to check on her a little while later and she's sprawled out like a drunk chick with one foot on the floor and her shirt halfway off.

Friday 11/4:

Saturday 11/5:

Zhariah was supposed to cheer at a basketball jamboree yesterday. I was saving my pic of the day for that special moment. We got to the jamboree a little while before her first game was supposed to start and the security guard (note: we did not have security guards at middle school basketball games when I was in middle school. Times. They are a changin') informed us that there was only two minutes left. In the entire tournament. Apparently they ran ahead of schedule, nobody called to let us know that Z would be cheering earlier, and we missed her debut performance! I was glad, though, that I had snapped this picture in the wee hours of Saturday morning when I went to check on the boys and found them both snuggled up in Kyan's bed.

That was our week!

On a final note -- How 'bout them Hogs?? And, more importantly, thank you Alabama for missing that field goal and keeping our Razorback BCS dreams alive. Much appreciated. ;)