Patch Problem

I never got around to taking all 3 of my kids to the pumpkin patch. I picked up our pumpkin at Trader Joes the day Baby Girl cried hard in the store and I thought she was having an allergic reaction to her one-year shots (she wanted my coffee). The days fly by and the weekends have been full of other activities (baseball and the never ending birthday parties). There is about 25 minutes in the morning that I have to kill with The Little Guy after the Big Guy is dropped off at school. On this day I brought along my camera and thought I would get some shots of him in the Pumpkin Patch. Keep in mind this was about a week before Halloween and there were less than 20 pumpkins left. It was sad. It was also sad how The Little Guy agreed to getting 2 pictures made and then suddenly changed his mind. No go. He wouldn't look at the camera and wouldn't cooperate for anything. No bribe worked and I was mad. Now, I don't approve of getting mad at your kids for not looking at the camera, however, I am human. I don't ever get mad at other kids for not looking at my camera. This kid is difficult, though! He is difficult just for the sake of being difficult. I'm going to use one of these pictures when Webster calls me to add one to "Stubborn" in the dictionary.

I just won't get into the whole thing. But, did I mention that he snuck out of "quiet time" a week and a half ago and stole my big fat black Sharpie? If you are a mother, I'm sure terror filled your heart as you read that. It is just as bad as you are imagining. It has been years in my house (6 to be exact) since scissors have been kept lower than 6 feet. Play-Do and markers are not accessible - not even the Magic Wonder invisible variety (I am not taking any chances). I didn't even have my bathrooms unlocked for children to enter on their own until my oldest was completely potty trained and I had to. My husband and I used to walk around with the little pick locks to go to the potty. I learned my lessons the hard way too many times. I'm just saying that I don't leave Sharpies hanging out around the house. I do have one, though. Who doesn't need a Sharpie? I label lunches, clothes and all kinds of school related things not to mention sippy cups, bibs, etc. It is essential to my kitchen. Unfortunately, The Little guy stealthily (is that a word?) came down a flight of stairs to get said Sharpie and took it back to his room where he "accented" a table and chairs (that I had hand painted). He had to go to the bathroom so he took his new Sharpie along for the ride. White bathroom...black Sharpie. Not good. He colored the white door, door knob, bathtub, toilet, toilet seat, floor tile, grout, shirt, be-hind, thighs, face (stray marks) and his very important private part (no jokes here). On top of it all he wet his pants. He managed to get the poop in the potty and a very small part of me was so happy about not having to clean the carpet (again) that I didn't go insane over the other stuff. I think I probably grunted and huffed and puffed a lot when I found this disaster. I don't think I could process most of it and certainly couldn't verbalize what I was thinking. As usual, I asked him "why did you do this" and he insists "I don't know"! That makes me want to pull my hair out. I also wanted to pull my hair out the next morning when I found him at the kitchen table coloring in a book with that same Sharpie and he had a big black mark going across his face. He must be the next Houdini. And all I have to say is he better be rich one day to buy me a new house.

Difficult.


Thank you to all the Moms that sent Magic Erasers my way. Just so you know, all his body parts are back to the normal color now.

When pumpkins drink too much

Happy Halloween
(not my house)

Happy Halloween, Valentine.

Yes, those are lights wrapped around the post in front of our house. Candy Corn Halloween lights. It is only because of my 6 year old that I am being forced into acting like Truvy in Steel Magnolias with the endless holiday decorations. Christmas I can get behind. Halloween is a stretch. I refuse to decorate for Valentine's day (unless you count the trail of chocolate wrappers through my house).

Speaking of V-day. I would like to share a picture of the Valentine flowers my friend got from her husband last Valentine's Day.What do you think of that? They could have been for Halloween, right? I wonder if he went to a lot of trouble to find blue roses?

Baby Gap

And I'm not talkin' about her clothes because they are Gymboree thanks to my consignment sale. It had never occurred to me what a cross between David Letterman and myself would look like. Now I know. I think she might have his sense of humor.

Fall Leaf Wordless Wednesday

AND then she cried because she got dirt on her feet.

Here I Go Again on My Own...

I had to bump those Yearbook pictures. Hideous.

A little more hideous for you before I go, though.

Kristin dared me to post my High School pictures and then Bonnie did. So, here they are. I tried to make them small because I can not stand to look at them. Get a load of the fingernails in the "blue" picture. They are real and my family used to like to talk a lot about how I had them because I never did any real work.

It was 1988 and my hair could have been much MUCH bigger, but even in the 80s I was trying to have flat hair.

The sweater was Esprit.

Yearbook Glam

Yearbookyourself.com is a fun way to waste some of your valuable time. It doesn't take too long and wouldn't you love to see yourself in a groovy new hair-do?

I don't think I was able to obtain this awesome "do" in 1988. I would have been Prom Queen if I had. Or, a Bon Jovi groupie. Either would have been better than a Cracker Barrel waitress.



When I was a little girl (in the 70s) I always envisioned myself looking like this as a grown up (minus the double chin thing and the Sarah Palin bangs that are peeking out from my original picture):
I always thought long Crystal Gayle hair was the ideal. Unfortunately my hair turned curly when I was 12 and they didn't invent those super-duper flat irons until MUCH later.

You can have S'mores inside the house too

Getting close to nature.


Minutes before...her usual freak-out when you sit her on grass. You can see the cheese that fell out of her mouth on the ground when she started screaming.

I think she will be staying home with me in the future when the rest of our household goes camping. Only time will tell if she will learn to love sleeping on the ground outside. The boys went without us two girls this past weekend. It was nice to be home alone with Baby Girl where I could sleep until 8 and not have to rush around to baseball games all weekend. We cleaned out closets and made the house even more of a wreck than it already was. I think I was productive...you just can't tell.

Wordless Wednesday

VP Fun

Visit foldUScandidate.com to download your favorite candidate(s). They just added the VPs so you can have your whole cast of characters if you wish.

You know I won't. My husband would steal them and start making them talk and do bad impressions. I couldn't take it. If I had any sort of teacher-gene in me, I would use them as a visual aide to torture teach my children about the election process. They would make them talk and smash them and I would hate it. So, I'm glad I don't have that gene.

You would make this face too

If you had to ride in the car for an hour and a half to get both of your brothers to school.

If you had to go to the Dr. only to see a nurse and get 4 shots in your legs.

If your Mama made you go to Trader Joes and wouldn't give you any of her coffee (I showed her and cried my eyes out until my whole head was beet red. It was funny the way she thought I was having a reaction to my shots and panicked.)

If your big chunky legs were sore all day long.

You had a pimple on your cheek when you aren't even sixteen.

Your Mama takes pictures of you in the bathtub when you aren't looking your best.

Your hair hung in your eyes and you don't like bows to hold it back.

If you were just trying to say "Hi" to the big yellow duck on the bathtub faucet, fell and went underwater twice.

Most importantly: If there is a rubber duckie on your head, you would make this face too.

Cake and the Only Child (plus other random stuff)

I may have to change the name of my blog to Two Boys, Baby Girl and Cake.


This is the cake I made for the Big Guy when he turned two (I changed his name in Photoshop in case you were thinking I really had some skill or that was his real name). He was still an only child even though I was pregnant. I thought a homemade cake by your Mom was so meaningful and special. I have since learned they really like the store-bought cakes with cheesy toys on top.

Poor Little Guy - his first birthday was interrupted by a funeral. He still got a nice cake that was homemade by someone other than Mom (so it doesn't count). When he was two I slapped together another bear cake that we had to eat fast before he fell over to his death (the bear not the boy). Whew, at least he can't ever say I didn't make him one. Now I will be obligated to make one for Baby Girl but I think I can wait until she is at least three and perhaps she will be old enough to even be impressed? Oh never mind. What three year old has ever appreciative of anything? Also, now that I have a girl I can make one of those birthday cakes that is the dress for the Barbie doll. Cool.

Big Guy will be eight next year and my head is already spinning thinking about the "8" cake my Mom made me (two circle cakes put together side by side with the centers cut out so it looks like an 8). If I am not mistaken, there was a Snoopy on a skateboard in the middle.

I know I don't want to make another Darth Vader Cake.

And before I go, I want to make sure you have access to adequate sweets for your upcoming election party:

And finally,

If you need a reason to buy some Little Debbies, you can pretend you are going to make these spiders by Not Martha for Halloween:

Happy baking eating!

Let Me Eat Cake

Check out some of Laura's birthday cakes here.

This is my grocery store-bought beauty:

First let me say that I save all those plastic trinkets on top of the cake and last month was so pleased when it paid off and a friend could use the ones from our Curious George cake (because it was discontinued). Hoarding crap finally paid off.

Kristin said she didn't like Cake. What? I will say that I enjoy ice cream a lot more - most of the time. That was before I met this Go Diego Go Birthday Cake from Publix. It was heavenly (or maybe from hell). I am assuming our party guests had cake so I am guessing that I ate about 3/4 of this cake all by myself. I didn't do it all in one sitting, but spread out over 2-3 days. This was back in January so it is no wonder that I needed to join The Biggest Loser contest at the gym in the Spring. I froze a big chunk of this cake and found it in the back of my freezer last month. I thought I could let the kids eat it after dinner, but I ended up eating it all by myself before it even came to room temperature. I always have to freeze cake because

1. I can save me from myself
2. I can't stand that big floppy box on my counter with all the dried icing crumbs
3. When my hubby comes home and says "where is all that cake?!" I can say "Oh, I froze it..." It won't hurt him to assume I froze a lot more of it than I actually did.

This one was chocolate cake with the white icing. You know the pure Crisco and sugar icing? You might know it better as "Buttercream". That sounds nicer. Whenever I make it myself I can hardly bring myself to eat it. When it comes from Publix it becomes my main course. This is Baby Girl and her smash cake. Both cakes had a polka dot theme. My Aunt got them at a nice bakery for me and they were also chocolate. Funny, I don't remember standing over it and eating it for days. I must have done it in only one day and didn't even have to freeze anything. I hope I didn't have a icing-induced-blackout.

Just a month and a half before out next Indiana Jones cake for the Big Guy. Wish me luck.

My Own Personal Cake Wrecks

Two of you mentioned Cake Wrecks below so I thought I would go ahead and add it here (because I can't get all of my pictures to load anyway).


If I ever have to go to prison and you make me a cake when I get out, please just put "Welcome Back!" I think that will be enough.

I had a Cake Wreck of my own when I first tried to make a Bear Cake for the Big Guy's first birthday. It melted:It later worked. Here I am decorating it. I had some bangs back then. I may get them again soon so I can be Sarah Palin on Halloween.
I also had a Cake Wreck when I made a Wedding Cake for someone (oh, yes I did) and spelled Congratulations wrong. Luckily I caught the mistake before I turned it over so I could fix it. It was still hideous.

Classic Portraits

You can find bad Olan Mills Portraits at this Blog.

It is one of those things that I enjoy way too much. Probably more than the average person. I wanted to post a favorite here and it was REALLY hard to pick. I had to go with these three:

What I envision Hubby and I as empty-nesters when we rekindle our love through our new motorcycle leather jackets:


I had to post the other two boys and baby girls out there. You know, the ones living in Hawaii:


And the scary people next door:

My Downfall

There are only 3 left. There was some pie to slow me down.

Do you know what pie has cream cheese, condensed milk, mandarin oranges and Cool Whip with a Graham Cracker crust? That is what is was and I don't know if there is an official name for it. My Mom showed me how to make it so it is entirely possible that she made it up or left out 5 ingredients. I tried to Google it and only found a lot of other stuff I want to eat. We started making this pie about 10 years ago and have not had it in a year or two. It was richer than I remembered. Can condensed milk in a can go bad? Hmmmm. It has fruit in it so as far as I am concerned it is a good for you. BTW, I am not someone who eats stuff and thinks it is too "rich" to eat much of it. I just want more. I need to add that to my Blogger profile. I think it might be important. My husband says stuff like "it makes my cheeks tingle it is so rich" and can't eat much of it. I don't understand him.

Barney Frank, M&Ms & Magnets (not in that order)

You should consider making some of these fabric covered magnets detailed at Angry Chicken's Blog. I just like the name Angry Chicken and I doubt I will ever get around to making them myself. I can't wait to see what someone else might do with this crafty little project.

Yes, I have resorted to pointing you to other Blogs instead of coming up with something myself.

What I have (almost) done in 3 days is eat a whole bag of M&Ms. I bought some for Baby Girl's party and forgot to put them out. So, I put them in a candy dish and live off of them all day long. The really bad news about this is it was a buy one get one free so I have another bag waiting for me.

I would also like to add that my husband says EVERY day that "Barney Frank is going to end up in jail." That is what he says. Every day. Like, just now.

Sorry this is so short and random. I am lucky to be blogging anything at all after Baby Girl pulled the letters B, M & K off my keyboard and tried to eat them.

99 Balloons

Watch this video if you need a good cry. I thought I would make it through and then my nose started running at the end. My mother sent this to me and I usually don't watch anything she sends because it is almost always a tear-jerker. However, by the name I thought it was something else and I claim that I was tricked! I'm actually glad I saw it (I think).

10/31/08: This family had a healthy baby girl 2 weeks ago!

Two Girls and a Baby Boy

Her face cracks me up. I took pictures of this family and when the baby started crying, the look on her face says it all. She is looking at her sister and probably thinking "what have we gotten ourselves into!"

One Year Old

One year ago right now I was hanging out in a hospital room with my brand new baby girl. I was so happy the long journey of pregnancy was over and she was perfectly fine. I was debating on whether I should give her a middle name after Elvis or a Cannonball as my son suggested. I vaguely remember lots of TV news about Britney losing her kids or something along those lines.

What a blur the last year has been. She is turning into a toddler before my very eyes and I am already missing that sweet little baby that could only stare at me. "Bye-Bye" bottles, mini-tantrums and moving all over the place is what she is doing. After a birthday party on Sunday, there are many many "babies" (baby dolls) at our house. It is an odd addition to our world of trucks and expanding train tracks. She smiles at them and tries to eat the face of each one. I can only hope that she is trying to kiss.

The big news is that my in-laws are gone after a very long weekend stay. I could write days about the visit and maybe you would howl like one of my friends did today. It is only funny to other people. I have a few new wrinkles after the last visit. I'll have to think about what I should say here. It is doubtful they would ever come across my blog, but you never know. That would certainly put the nail in the coffin.

After a busy couple of weeks with little picture-taking, I made up for it in 4 days. I have lots of Baby Girl as well as some other people. I hope to get them all downloaded so I can add a little more frequent dribble on my neglected blog.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! XOXOXOXO