Quote of the Day

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes.--Frieda Norris

Mystery cookies

For my birthday last weekend, the kids decided to surprise me by baking some cookies. I knew something was up when they insisted that I go upstairs and kick up my feet for awhile. I heard lots of ruckus going on in the kitchen and figured they were trying to surprise me with something for my birthday. I resisted the urge to panic, or call 911, and just held my breath. About TWO hours later they called me downstairs by telling me they were having a problem they needed help with. Oh boy, I thought. When I rounded the corner they sang happy birthday and presented me with about 3 dozen cookies. They were grinning from ear to ear and I couldn't help beaming myself.
They did a really good job and the cookies were actually edible. I don't know exactly what kind of cookies they were...they were kind of a shortbread cookie with M&Ms and butterscotch chips thrown in. I took some pictures with my phone but can't figure out how to transfer them to the computer. (My real camera is in Switzerland right now). Anyway, there was one batch of cookies that looked like balls or raw dough. Apparently I have still forgotten to teach the kids about preheating the oven. They just put the first batch in and then turned it on. I also found out they turned the oven off in between batches. Oh well, no big deal. I told them maybe we shouldn't eat that first batch, though, because of the raw eggs. They told me not to worry because there were no eggs in these cookies! I didn't know you could make cookies without using eggs, but hey, what do I know!?

I just got finished putting together a cd of pictures for Sam's 5th grade "end of the school year" party. It's not 'til June but they want pictures of each kid for a slide show or something. (In our school, they have a HUGE party for the 5th graders who are now 'graduating' from elementary to middle school). Anyway, I included this picture because he's such an adorable 6 month old...sitting in a field of Texas blue bonnets that were growing wild on the side of the freeway.



To be honest, this is the picture I WANTED to include:




Isn't he just adorable?! This is one of my favorite-all-time pictures. Not just because he's wearing a fairy princess costume. It's because of how truly HAPPY he is to be wearing a fairy princess costume. Look at his smile, look at his eyes; you can just feel how happy he is! Alas, he wouldn't let me include it in the slide show. I decided to honor his wishes. Don't need him blaming me for THAT later in therapy.

Speaking of favorite-all-time-pictures. Here's another one of my favorites. It's Peter:

THE END.

Glop

I made chili for dinner last night. I use this chili mix that we all really like a lot. It is from Bear Creek soups and is called Darn Good Chili. All you have to do is add water and a can of tomatoes. I always add a pound of cooked ground beef, too. Anyway, as long as Peter can pick out the tomatoes, everyone is very happy. Sam usually has two bowls and is sad the next day if there are no leftovers.

WELL, yesterday I didn't have any ground beef to add and I could have picked some up at the store but I had a great idea! I've known lotsa people who substitute cooked wheat for ground beef in various recipes, including chili. I have LOTS of wheat stored up in my garage so I thought this would be a great idea. I could use up some of my delicious, nutritious whole wheat and not have to make an extra trip to the store!

So we sit down and start to dig in and the kids are excited because the love this stuff. Soon thereafter Sam made a comment...something like, "What is this stuff?"
"It's chili, of course!" I told him.
"It seems different. It doesn't taste the same," he said.
"Hmm, I dunno, it's the same chili I always make," I innocently say as I show him the empty package...just to prove that it's the SAME chili I always make.
After a few more minutes he finally exclaimed, "Where's the MEAT!?!"
"Huh, what?" I pretended I couldn't understand what he was talking about.
"There's no meat!"
"Oh, uh, yeah, I didn't have any so I put in wheat instead. It rhymes with meat, see, wheat--meat, get it? Wheat/meat?" I explained.
He groaned and it just went downhill from there. Peter and Caleb and I were able to eat it just fine but Sam was heartbroken. (I'll admit it DID taste very different but it wasn't gross or anything).

Finally he just refused to eat it and asked if he could have more crackers. I politely said sorry, the crackers are for people who are eating their chili. He groaned again and was completely exasperated by now. He yelled, "IT'S NOT CHILI!"
I tried to explain that yes, indeed, it was chili, it just didn't have beef in it.

Later I served some giant strawberries for dessert. Again, I said these are for those of us who have finished our chili. Poor kid, by now he had tears in his eyes. He yelled again, "It's not chili! If it was chili I would eat it!"
By now my patience had run out and I asked him in my Mr. Smarty-pants voice as my head bobbled side to side..."If it's not chili, then what exactly is it?"

"GLOP," he said.

I suppose it was my fault for asking. I should know better by now. You'll be happy to know that once he saw his brothers gobbling down the strawberries he was suddenly able to gag down every bite of his...glop.

Today is Thursday which is Eggo waffle night at our house so everyone should be happy about that...although I did buy a generic brand of Eggos this time...OOPS, could spell trouble.

Middle child

This morning as I was thinking in the shower (I get a lot of good thinking done in the shower) I realized that Jane, the girl who cut herself some new bangs at our house, is a middle child. And then I realized, HEY, MY middle child gave himself a haircut once, too! And he was about the same age as Jane is now. Here's some pictures of his escapade:

There was nothing left to do but practically shave him bald. He did NOT like that so that cured him of his scissor shennanigans...until we lived in Oklahoma and he once cut off all his eyelashes. That actually stressed me out more than his haircut because he has the most beautiful long, thick eyelashes. AND not to mention what was he doing with scissors right up next to his eyeballs?! Isn't anyone keeping an eye on these kids? At least the middle ones?!

Okie Dokie...

Okie dokie, I'm getting slothful with the blogging. I keep making mental notes of what I need/want to write about and then when I sit down to write, I can't remember any of them. So, I'm just gonna start typing and I'm sure they'll all come flooding back in no particular order. I won't win any prizes for the "flows the best" blog entry but I can live with that.
First of all, my day in the city last weekend was really fun. I enjoyed the Zumba class and learned some new moves. It's always fun to be a student now and then instead of the leader all the time.
Mamma Mia was spectacular! We had great seats and could see everything very well. The music was great, of course, and I knew all the words to all the songs so I could sing along in my head. The band/orchestra was perfect although they were situated under the stage so we never actually saw them...just the conductor. I can't imagine how much money those shows cost to put on but then again, every seat was full and most of those seats are over $100 each...and there were a LOT of seats!
While I was doing all this, Dave took the kids to Central Park and the Museum of Natural History. They were going to head home around lunch time but ended up staying 'til almost four o'clock so they must've been having fun!

Change of subject: yesterday Peter asked me how many inches there are between our floor and heaven. He was totally serious and so I said, Ummm, around 107...no WAIT--make that 108. He said that wasn't nearly enough and luckily wandered off to find Dave to ask.
Speaking of Peter, he had a friend over a couple of weeks ago...we'll call her Jane. Jane has been over once or twice before and although Peter loves her to death, she is a handful for me so unfortunately he only gets to invite her when I'm feeling ambitious and energetic. He has another friend, we'll call him Evan (tee hee, that's his REAL name!) who comes over at least once a week and they play so nicely and rarely get into trouble so it's no problem at all. Not so with Jane. I have to keep an eye on them all the time...not that they fight or anything, it's just that she is a busybody. She is into EVERYTHING. I'm surprised she hasn't been into my underwear drawer yet...seriously! Anyway, they had, what I thought was a very successful playdate this one day. No serious problems or interventions on my part. When it was time for Jane to go home, I was standing in the foyer making small talk with Jane's mom whom I don't know very well at all. Jane came bounding down the stairs with her cute brown hair and quirky crooked bangs.
Jane's mom said, "Jane! Did you cut your hair?!" My eyes bugged out as my head snapped to look at Jane's hair.
"Uhhhh, did she not already have bangs when she came here today?", I asked.
"...No" was her mom's reply.
Oh geez, I thought, can this really be happening? We did ascertain, at least, that Jane had cut her own hair and at least Peter hadn't cut it but still...her mom was very cool about it but I doubt she is going to let her come over again anytime soon. Which is actually fine with me; my nerves are frazzled.

Caleb was in the backyard looking under rocks (his favorite pastime) when he found this little fella.
It's either a salamander or a newt. He grabbed it by the tail thinking it was an earthworm and pulled it out from under the rock. Later he found a second one that was a little bit smaller. The one in the pic is named Louie and the second one was named Mike. I'm just glad it wasn't a snake.



And since we're looking at pictures of creepy things, here's a picture of my stovetop. This is AFTER I cleaned the heck out of it. You can even see scratch marks where my Mr. Clean magic eraser has previously scratched it up. I've tried EVERYTHING but steel wool because I'm sure that'll just scratch it worse. I had mild success with bleach at one point but even that is not working anymore. I'm posting it so maybe one of you can tell me how to clean it. It did not look like this when we moved in so it really bugs me. Any ideas?