Thursday, May 29, 2008

Rule of the Day...

If it looks nasty, put cheese on it.

I warmed up some spinach that I had frozen awhile back, and ran it through the food processor. I mixed it with baby rice cereal because CP seems to eat anything if it's mixed with rice cereal.

It looked disgusting. I didn't even want to test it to make sure it wasn't too hot. So I melted some cheese into it. It actually tasted okay. Not something I'd seek out for lunch or anything, but better than mashed up green beans for sure. He ate several bites and enthusiastically signed for more. Then all of a sudden he must have realized I was trying to pull one over on him because he signed "all done" and wouldn't take another bite, not even when I flew the spoon at his mouth with appropriate motorcycle and/or airplane noises.

We'll try again at lunch tomorrow.

Raise your hand if you had soggy cereal this morning.

I think it must be a mom thing. As soon as I pour milk on my cereal, all of my children start needing something, and by the time I get back to my bowl of whatever cereal was on sale, it's nothing but a soggy mess. I either need to learn to eat cereal dry, or hide in a closet to eat.

Today, A wanted a snack (really, a snack? I haven't even had breakfast yet!) and I had of course, just poured the milk. I told him I'd help him after I ate my cereal. He suggested putting it in the fridge so it wouldn't get soggy. He wouldn't give up. Thankfully I had just shoved the last bit of food in my mouth when I saw him scooping yogurt into a bowl, and was able to "help" him before we had a yogurt table cloth.

I'm not sure speed eating beats soggy cereal. Maybe, but just barely.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Today's A-ism


Did you know that, "Mindiana Jones has a bendy whapper"?

A says so.

If you can't figure out what a bendy whapper is, just ask.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

My own About You non-email forward

You know how it goes... Copy and paste, then replace my answers with yours. You can thank me for not sending an email forward later (just kidding, I like getting those from friends!).

1. What does your spouse call you? Al

2. What do you bake/cook that you do better than anyone you know? I like most of the food I make, but especially my stir fry, and my cheesecake and orange rolls, and swedish pancakes, and butter mints (although I get the orange roll/cheesecake/butter mint talent/recipes from my mom (who got them from other family members).

3. What is the most important thing you do for yourself? I use to go running, but I've gotten a bit lazy about that. Now it's probably having time to myself to blog or read or play online scrabble.

4. What is your favorite thing to do with your kids? I love bedtime. I love how they smell after a bath, with clean damp hair while they sit with me and read a book. I also like to run around with them on the grass until we get so tired that we all fall down. I also love listening to them play together or by themselves and hearing the things they come up with.

5. What was the last date you went on with your spouse? I think we maybe went to Ikea? We usually get movies and have popcorn and smoothies at home. We are going to see two plays in June in Cedar City, which I am super excited about.

6. What made you smile recently? On tuesday night, I was at YW's, and my Mister was out in the yard. The kids were supposed to be in bed. My Mister had just mixed cement for the basketball stand when he heard A screaming. By the time he had the cement in place, and made it inside, A was in his bed asleep. He asked J why A was screaming, and J said that A went to the bathroom and needed help wiping. Since no parents were there to do the job, J helped him. I'm so proud of my boy! He does things like that fairly often, and it makes me think that he's growing up just fine, even if sometimes he doesn't listen as well as I think he should.

7. Where would you most like to be right now? Home with my family, during a power outage (as long as it was only a couple of hours before the power came back on).

8. What is your favorite job to do around the house? Vacuuming, maybe? I'm not so fond of doing jobs around the house, but I love how the house looks when it is clean, and there is something satisfying about having the lines from the vacuum all match up (OCD anyone?).

9. What is your least favorite job around the house? Folding laundry. I don't do it. (Thank you Mister)

10. What should you be doing right now, instead of answering my silly about you questions? Cleaning my house. :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Coffee Tables are not for the belly

A said to me, "My teacher said we shouldn't drink coffee".

I said, "That's right, we don't drink coffee".

He said, "Then why do we have a coffee table?".

He suggested we call it a water table, or a milk table, or an orange juice table.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Baby Vampire

Racing Dad



The boys like to ride their bikes to the park, it's especially fun racing dad on the way home! (J is in the stroller with the CP because losing his bike riding privilege is one of the more effective consequences to not obeying).

In the second picture A is about to crash, but he immediately hopped up and said, "I'm Okay".

Baby Fauxhawk

Thursday, May 15, 2008



CP is the puppy. He loves everyone and gives smiles to anyone who passes within his range of vision. LG is the kitty, who makes you work for his attention.

We had so much fun seeing LG (and his parents) during their break from school!

Story Time

We were late getting to bed tonight, so instead of reading a book to A, I told him a short story, and then he told one to me...

"Once there was a dinosaur, and his name was Bip-G and he was digging for treasure. He digged and he digged, and he found....nuffing! Then he digged another hole, and more and more and more and more holes, and then he found a mom dinosaur, and her name was Bip-D, and they looked for treasure and they found some...little teeth (said as he saw me smiling at him, because he was so adorable) and some little eyes, and HUGE dinosaur bones, and a house.

The End"

As I said goodnight, I told him to have some good dreams about his dinosaurs, and he said he'd dream about a huge dinosaur named Bip-A.

I have no idea where those names came from, but at least he has a theme going.

The Pain and the Joy (maybe that should be the Joy then the Pain?)!

The landscaping company finally came to grade our lot, which means we can start doing stuff in the yard. My Mr. had built three raised beds awhile back (back when we thought we could start on our yard stuff...) and the landscapers actually filled them with dirt* while they were grading, which was very nice, and saved us a lot of money and time.

Yesterday I planted Amish Paste tomatoes, a cherry tomato (I don't know how that one got in my cart, I didn't mean to buy it), a grape tomato, and one heirloom big slicing tomato that I can't remember the name of at the moment, and 6 beefsteak type tomatoes. I also planted 6 bell pepper plants and 6 anaheim peppers. We're planning on lots of salsa this fall.

Today I planted one long hill with several Kabocha squash seeds (I use to think my favorite squash was acorn, but I think kabocha's are edging them out), corn, beans, peas, two hills of zucchini, and pumpkins. I can hardly wait for things to start sprouting.

You'll notice (or not) that a chunk of the raised bed in the front of the picture isn't planted and doesn't have compost added to it (if you didn't notice, it's not planted and doesn't have compost added to it), you also may notice that the raised beds are HUGE, and way too wide to get at the center without stepping into the garden. It's not ideal, but it was necessary for the chicken coop to be able to fit inside the raised beds- no more dead grass (hopefully) surrounding the chicken coop, since the chickens won't be able (hopefully) to reach the grass from up in the bed. We'll also rotate the coop each year to spread the "fertilizer" around.

All the digging and bending has made my back REALLY sore, but it's a good pain.

*dirt, not soil, because the stuff we have out here is very heavy clay with little to no organic matter. It's going to take a lot of amending to turn it into soil.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Support Kyle

As anyone who reads my blog must already know, Kyle (My Mister) is running for the House of Representatives in district 20. He is doing it because he believes that it's time for more of us (you know us, regular citizens) to get involved in our state government. We have to remind the current legislators that they are not doing their job (representing us), and that we deserve and expect better.

Kyle supports public education, ethics reform, and affordable health care for all Utahns. For more information see his blog, and coming soon, his campaign website.

Please make a donation to support Kyle, also consider becoming a fund raiser, go to Act Blue to send emails to your friends and family.

Every dollar matters.

You can donate using the act blue donation box in the side bar of my blog.

Friday, May 09, 2008

BPA and Fear Mongering

I somehow missed the original hubub over BPA or Bisphenol A, and have continued as with my previous two children, to feed my baby with bottles that could cause cancer.

Part of me figures, my other kids drank from those bottles and they're fine, this is just fear mongering, trying to get consumers to toss all their plastic stuff and go shopping for "safer" products. The other part of me wonders if I should join in and go buy some glass baby bottles.

From the things I have read, it seems that putting boiling water in the bottles, microwaving them, and washing them in the dishwasher are what we should be most concerned about, although I can't find anything that says whether the plastic continues to leach the chemical after one washing/microwaving, or if it just leaches at a higher level while it is hot. If that is the case, it seems like it would be fine to just stop microwaving the formula in the bottle (which I know I'm not supposed to do anyway).

I found an interesting article called Truth and Rumors Muddy Plastics Debate and it says that in the rat research, the rats are injected with BPA, which our bodies would deal with very differently than the way we would absorb the chemical, which makes me think it's not a big deal for adults. The article also says that in infants and fetuses, because their bodies don't metabolize things the same was as an adult, it didn't make a difference if baby rats or rat fetuses were injected with BPA or if they swallowed it, it was equally harmful.

I guess the good news is that my baby just turned one, and really shouldn't be drinking from bottles anymore anyway, so I just have to make sure his cups are safe and we're good to go

Until the next scare.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

What do you get when you cross a Pear and a Carrot?

A Parrot!

A says they make good snacks, at least the pear part, since he didn't really want to eat carrots.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

A. A Wash Cloth, A Bandaid, A partially emptied Kit Kat Wrapper and the Camcorder charger cord

Q. Things CP tried to eat this morning, so far.

I saw him with the bandaid and wondered where he got it, until I saw the wash cloths all over the floor and the box of bandaids dumped out into the drawer. Just prior to that, I heard rustling sounds and peeked over at him and saw him trying to devour a mini kit kat wrapper, which for some strange reason had just a bit of kit kat left in it (Someone else must have eaten that kit kat, because I would never leave a partially eaten kit kat sitting around).

In other news, A told me recently that we needed to purchase two more humans.

Originally he wanted to buy a blue car, but I told him that we wouldn't all fit in a car, he then pointed out that we have two empty seats in the van. He's been trained well (maybe) that we shouldn't waste resources, so naturally he wanted to fill those empty spots right up. "We need to buy two humans mom".

Hmmm, good luck with that.

Finally, on Sunday I saw the most adorable little girl I think I have ever seen. Maybe not the most adorable, but there was something about her that caught my attention. Maybe she reminded me of me. Whatever it was, she made me really want a little girl. Almost bad enough to forget that I already have a baby, and that I've got my hands full at the moment (CP just tried to eat his daddy's glasses, and everything else left out on the night stand- I think our house needs to be more clutter-free).