Updates...

Wow!  Has it really been almost three months since I've posted?!  I guess life got in the way like it always does!  Since I've last posted....

• I graduated and recieved my certificate in phlebotomy (blood drawing) -yay me!
• LKS graduated from her program and recieved her degree - yay LKS!
•  We've had 4 visits from family
• My house got really messy (okay, it's always been messy, lol)



Lots more has happened, but I can't think of it all right now.  The kids and I just returned from a LONG, fun, LONG, exciting, did I mention LONG, weekend in Pennsylvania at Blue Knob State Park on Monday.  Me and my kids; Leah, Gene and Sarah; Matthew, Taya, and their kids; Dad and Kay; Gramma Baldwin; and Mom and Tim all went camping together.  Yup, two sets of divorced and remarried parents who hadn't seen eachother in oh.....eight years or so, and my Dad and Kay, and Gramma, had NEVER met Tim.  Considering that fact (yikes!), it was a really fun time and I'm so glad we went.  The kids all got a chance to hang out together, and mommy had a chance to relax and not worry about both boys 24-7.  Yes, there were many awkward moments, but isn't life all about those awkward moments? 

No??  Oh. 

Oh, well....lol!

So now that I have mountains and MOUNTAINS (there literally is a mountain of clothes right now in my laundry room!) of laundry to do, what did I decide to do instead?  fart around on the computer, yeah!  That's a good idea.  Maybe not.  I hear the laundry calling my name.  I think it's actually starting to creep out of the laundry room, slowly so I won't notice of course, and wind itself around my legs.  Ok, laundry, OK!  I'm COMING!  Sheesh, that laundry is impatient.  Alright, blogging can wait, back to real life. 

No fun.  But here's some fun pictures!  And oh yeah, I turned 29 again-hah!

Update: Cookies....yummers!

OK, so remember the cookie recipe using beans I posted about the other day?

Yup. They were good. So good, in fact, that they were gone the same day. I made two and a half dozen. And I didn't even eat most of them! That means they MUST be good, because normally, Anthony won't eat anything with chocolate in it. But HE ate most of these cookies! They were like a fluffy pillowy cloud of chocolate chip yumminess.



Even the dog wanted some! OK, so that's not surprising, he eats cat poop (I know, ew!)

And just because, I'm going to share with you my most favoritest (is that even a word?! aww, who cares!) curtains. I found them at KMart back when we lived in Biloxi, on sale, and I bought three of them. I love finding things on sale! Don't you just love them?! They make me happy every time I look at them.



Oh, and just in case you were wondering, yes, cake does fix everything.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

So I found this neat service called www.hireahelper.com. Pretty cool! You can search for someone in your area to help you move your stuff, clean your house, mow your lawn, wax your back hairs......ok, maybe not the waxing part, just making sure you're awake! But then again, you never know, it IS the internet.....lol. Anyway, you can either search for someone to help you, or you can sign up to be a "helper". I signed up to be a cleaner and a seamstress, and I even made a shiny new button for my blog! Check it out, it's pretty cool-------->

I know, I rawk. And I'm very po. Speaking of which, that's who Ayden is for halloween! Here's a preview, sorry it's so cruddy, my camera phone sucks.



Silly mama realized as we were leaving for his fall festival, that I THOUGHT was this morning at ten am, that in fact it was TOMORROW morning at ten am. Sigh. So, we just had to go around town in his costume, cause he didn't get all cutied up for nothing!
Well, it's off to bed for me, another Wacky Wednesday down!

Yummy cookies!

The boys and I went to Airman's Attic yesterday looking for pants for Anthony, all of his long pants now fit perfectly in the waist, but are about 2 inches too short. For those of you not familiar with Airman's Attic, it is a program run by volunteers through the AF that's available to E6 and below. Families donate things they no longer use or need, and you come in and you look for what you need. I only found one pair of pants, but I found this really cool game there:



We brought it home and tried it out, and to my surprise, both boys actually paid enough attention to finish a full game! Then as I was looking through the recipe booklet that comes with the game, I noticed a recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.....mmmmm...... Well, we didn't have chocolate chips, but we DID have a big bag of M & Ms from Ayden's candy bank.....heh heh heh. So, here's the recipe (I would post a picture of the finished cookies, but I can't find the camera):

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, SOFTENED (I used tub margarine)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup crunchy peanut butter (I used creamy)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips (I used M & Ms)

(Adults) Preheat oven to 350, then cream butter, sugar, salt and peanut butter. Beat in eggs and vanilla. (Kids can do the next steps) In a small bowl, mix the flour and the baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix. Pour in chocolate chips (or M & Ms!) and mix. Roll dough into 1 1/2 inch balls on a greased cookie sheet, or an ungreased parchment lined cookie sheet. Place balls 2 inches apart, then take a fork and gently press down to slightly flatten the tops. (Adults) Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, I have no suggestions as to time, I never pay attention to time, I just go by what the cookies look like, lol. Cool on wire racks. Consume immediately!! Makes about 4 dozen.

It seems like you could customize this just about any way you want. They turn out good, not puffy soft cookies, more like thin chewy ones. Normally I'm a puffy soft cookie lover, but last night I was a thin chewy one, lol! And it was so fun to make them with Anthony! Ayden could have cared less, he wandered out into the living room after about 5 minutes ands started watching Diego, but he's probably just not at the age to enjoy baking yet.

Anyway, I was really happy to have found a game that both kids can play and be interested in. And it definitely sweetened the pot that it was free! I may check out the whole line of games, they're called Cranium Bloom games, and I believe they're made especially for preschoolers. I've seen them at Target before. Once I wake up and get my arse in the shower, I think we'll go check them out, I love having a Target nearby! I'll post if I find any good deals!

And What Are Your Qualifications for the Job?

Have you ever felt totally unqualified for your job? That is me today, totally unqualified to be a housewife. I have absolutely no motivation to clean the house, do dishes, or laundry. Instead, I just set up 2 big long racetracks in the kids room and we're racing matchbox and hot wheels cars. I mean really, dishes? Laundry? Who wants to do those when your two cute little boys are sitting there making screeching noises and (for the most part) getting along so well?

Oh and by the way, guess what I'm blogging on.....duh duh duh duh......this!



Adam FINALLY got us a laptop, only after YEARS of begging, lol. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.....

What are the qualifications of a housewife? Are there any, or is it just make it up as you go along? Cause that's pretty much what I do! If there are any qualifiactions, someone please let me know. I need to get qualified. Or at least motivated.

Updated Shrinky Dinks, and Other Random Stuff

Well, I actually had a request for pictures of my project! Yay! It's exciting to me that someone else (who isn't family, lol) has read my blog! Woo hoo I'm famous!!! Lol. OK. Enough of that.

So here is the keychain I made. I wish I had fancy handwriting or something, but....we all have to work with what God gave us, lol.



I couldn't find my regular hole punch, so I used a heart one. This thing is indestructible! I can't believe how thick the plastic gets when you bake it, it's awesome.

And here's the little plaque I made for the boys. I love this book, my step mom gave it to them (I think for Christmas?) and we read it all the time.

Again, fancy (or even straight, see the lines, lol) handwriting is still wishful thinking, but I love it. The funny thing is, the finished plaque is about 2 inches wide. I started with a piece of plastic that was about 6-7 inches wide-this stuff is called "shrink"y dink for a reason. I'm just amazed by cool stuff like this-we never had shrinky dinks growing up, we were too poor. Ew....I just noticed how dirty that window is.....disregard please!

I've been making the yummiest bread...now get ready, you're going to drool.....

Mmmm, I'm hungry for it just looking at it. It is the best bread, and it is SO easy. My kind of recipe! It's from this site, which I mentioned in a previous post. I love the recipes on that site, they are great. Now I just need a wheat grinder for my 500 pounds of wheat (well, not that much...but pretty close!). For the bread, I made it in this tiny pan a couple of times, then after it was scarfed down in a day or less, I started using my big bread pan. Yes, I'm going crazy with the linking, I know. But I'm too lazy to just write the whole link out, lol.

I decided last night that I want to redo the boys' room. It is really mismatched, and kind of.....I don't know....childish maybe? They're both getting older, so I think it needs to be more mature. I want to get rid of their HUGE train table, which is really just hiding a whole buch of toys under it, and get them a nice, solid wood table and 2 chairs. Now what I really want is for Adam to make it, but he's so busy I doubt it will happen. The one I came up with that I really like looks like this:

I'm hoping I can find one at the thrift store, or Airman's Attic, or even better, the side of the road (yes, I'm a garbagepicker!).

Well, I need to clean up the house a little bit, Adam's mom is coming down for the weekend, and as it is.....well, let's just say my house looks bad. We'll put it at that. No more info needed, lol.

Pretty Day

It is so pretty outside today! I took some bricks from the vacant house across the street and am starting to put them around our garden out front. It looks pretty good, I'm about halfway done. I also took some of those spiky plants from another vacant house and replanted them around the bottom of the little tree in our front yard. I really should take another shower because I got SO muddy and dirty, but....I don't feel like it. I'll be dirty for a day, lol. It's not that bad.

So I just read that they are opening the crown on the Statue of Liberty back up so you can go on it. That is so wierd, the other day Anthony was saying how he wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. I had no idea he even knew what it was! I thought that was really cool.

So I've got lots to update on, but only a few minutes on the computer before I have to go pick Anthony up from school, so I'll do that later today. Until then!

Thinking

It seems like I'm always thinking. Thinking about my marriage, thinking about family, thinking about the kids, thinking about sewing, thinking about what to do next in the house, thinking about college. I like to think, because it expands my mind. But I also realize, I need to do more "doing". It's one thing to have a great idea. It's another thing to use it. So that's my goal for the month of April - to not just think about things, but to do them as well.

I finally got something I've wanted for a while now:



Oh, yeah, I got me a sweeper! Adam likes to pick on me because I act like it's some new invention, and last night he said, "Wow! You discovered what they invented in 1973!", or something like that. But I'm still excited. I remember when I used to be in the nursery at church they would have one, and everyone would fight over getting to clean up after snack. But I bought this one because:

1) It has no motor, no battery, it's all hand powered, so it saves electricity

2) It's so much easier to do a quick clean up and not having to drag out the vacuum.

Laugh if you must, but when the power is out, don't come crying to me asking to use my sweeper when your floors are covered with hair and dust....although I guess that's what brooms are for, lol.
Wow, the boys decided they want to take a cold bath. That could be interesting. On the other hand, maybe that will make them want to snuggle up in their beds and get all warm and take a NIIIICE, LOOOONG nap.....ha! I can't even write that with a straight face, lol.
I made the most heavenliest (if that wasn't a word before, it is after these) cinnamon rolls yesterday. Seriously, these things were sooo yummy. If they weren't all gone, I'd have a nice yummy photo for you, but alas....lol!

Worm Juice

What a day. So far, I have managed to:
1) fend off a psycho squirrel that kept climbing up the window screen and trying to eat/terrify the cat and dog
2) clean up the psycho squirrel's poop that he left for me (isn't he nice??)
3) lock myself, and Ayden, out of the house while cleaning up the poop from the aforementioned squirrel
4) successfully break into my house
and 5) play with worms...for a VERY long time.
Why play with worms you ask? That's a great question! Didn't you know I have boys?! I wish I knew the real answer....but it was actually pretty fun. I was picking up some of the kids' toys outside, and under one of those big bouncy jumping balls I found a whole family of worms, 4 of them. So Ayden and I decided to sit there and watch them. I remember playing with worms when I was little (by the way - it was WAAAy funner back then!), and thought Ayden would like it too. First we picked them up, then we rolled them around. I got some "worm juice" on my hand, so I told Ayden we had to go wash our hands. Then he said, "No mom, I like worm juice! I'm going to drink worm juice lot of lot of times!" (Which in Ayden language means he's going to drink lots of worm juice.)
Another accomplishment this week....cinnamon raisin bagels!

Yummy yummy. They look kind of funky, but they are very good. I got the recipe from Allrecipes. It uses a bread machine, which makes the dough much easier, but I'm sure you could do it if you didn't have a bread machine.
And, my new obsession:

These things are *HEAVENLY*. I went to this big discount store called Ollie's last week, and Ayden and I were browsing around, and we stumbled upon the treat aisle (and by stumbled I mean made a beeline for, lol) and found all these treats, repackaged by a company called "Angel Treats". These were one of them. They also had Hershey's Kisses, Skittles, and every other kind of candy you could imagine. The great thing was, the bag was probably 3 or 4 pounds, and it was only $1.99! What I'd like to know is why I have never seen these Hershey's sticks in a store, because I would have started inhaling them MUCH sooner! Oh, well.

Gustav poo-stav

I cannot believe it is already September! Where the heck did summer go??? Anthony is back in preschool, it's starting (well, as much as it can), to get colder here, and I am really wishing we lived up north right now. Fall is my absolute favorite season. It's so pretty up in New York, when all the leaves change, and you can smell apples everywhere, it's just so.....romantic? Maybe? I don't know, but whatever it is, I miss it!

The kids and I got back on Tuesday from our hurricane Gustav journey. We ended up stopping Saturday night in Montgomery, then heading on to Columbus, GA to Fort Benning the next day. It was interesting....the kids drove me CRAZY the whole time. I'm sure it was partly because I was so distracted by watching the weather channel constantly while they wanted me to play with them. And who can blame them? They got to stay in fun hotel rooms for a few days. The room in Gavin Hall on Fort Benning was freakin awesome! It had just been renovated, I believe, and it was so nice. They had a little kitchen area, with a microwave, full size fridge and freezer, sink, an a little 2 burner stove. Then there was a living room area right next to that, and in the other room were 2 queen beds and the bathroom. I thought, "Yay! 2 beds! I'll have one all to myself!" HA! I should have known better. Both kids were curled up next to me by the next morning. I didn't mind, though, cause they're very snuggly when they're sleeping :)

I'll post more tomorrow.

Something to write.....

Yay! I have tonight off. And I got hubby away from WOW for a little while so I can have the computer. I should be sewing right now, I have a lady who is considering a very large order of crayon rolls and I need to send her pics. But I'm taking a break for a few minutes.

I finally got the dining room done! I am very proud of myself. Here it is in all its' glory, I had to take a picture fast while it's still clean, lol.



And here's my cutie pie making faces at the mirror after his bath tonight. I couldn't resist, he is just too cute!



B is such a trooper. He has two holes in his bottom lip, and it doesn't even slow him down! He still eats drinks, nurses, and acts crazy with his brother, and it doesn't even phase him. He is so funny. He is the total opposite of A, A was so quiet and shy and reserved....not this kid! He is just a big HUGE ball of energy. I think mostly he feeds off of A, but I also think he takes after hubby with his stubborness, lol.
Well, it's late, and I'm tired. Off to sew.....