Making Mommy Laugh

Bear: "Uh oh...spaw-geh-ee-oh!"

I wonder where he learned that expression from?

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We were headed off to school the other morning.

Prin: "Mommy? What is your car called?"

Me: "What do you mean honey?"

Prin: "Tia's car is called a Pathfinder."

Me: "Oh. Mine is a Freestyle. That's the name of the model of the car. The manufacturer of Mommy's car is Ford. That's the name on the little oval thing in front of car."

Prin: "Oh yeah. There's a lot of cars made by that manu..."

Me: "Manufacturer."

Prin: "Manufacturer. So what's Daddy's cars manufacturer?"

Me: "Daddy's truck is manufactuered by Dodge. So is his other car."

Prin: "Really?"

Me: "Just like your Tio's car. His is a Dodge too. A Dodge Durango."

Prin: "Hmmm...Durango. Durango and mango rhyme."

That's how our conversation ended. I was too busy chuckling in my head. I mean. She didn't skip a beat when she said that.

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Bear: "OH NOoooo!

silence...silence...silence...

Bear: "Hewp!"

I run over and there he is. Standing with both legs through one hole of his knit shorts. He's pulled them and can't understand why it's SO TIGHT around his legs.

Me: "Bear. You have got both legs in the same hole in your shorts."

He looks at me and smiles.

Bear: "Hewp. Peas. Mommy?"

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My daughter LOVES doing assignments.

To keep her occupied the other day, I tore out pages from a Kindergarten activity book. I then pretended to be her teacher. I assigned her some pages to do.

She went off to her table and finished up the work.

She handed in her work. Got graded. And put the pages away in a folder.

I've gotta buy MORE of those activity books!

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"Soup-man!"

"Baa-man!"

You guys got it? That's SUPERMAN and BATMAN.

Thoughts on our Thanksgiving

Yes, I'm WAY late with this but here it is:


I have got to hand it to people who oven cook their raw turkeys. I definitely don't have the talent or the patience for it. As we have done before, we purchased our Thanksgiving dinner from our local grocery store. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Cranberry sauce (I made my own though). Pumpkin pie. Stuffing (I made my own). But the real essence is the precooked turkey. All we had to do was warm up the bird for 2 to 2 1/2 hours! No cleaning out the guts. No basting. No fuss. No muss. All we did was get a salad together, get some corn and some green beans,fresh cranberry sauce, real stuffing and some yams with marshmallows.

Everyone enjoyed the food. And there was a LOT less work involved going this route. Now that they know our secret, they might try it next year!


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"Wait a second."

That's the thought that crossed my mind.

The Hubs had just announced that the food was ready. The Hubby's cousin's wife (HCW) and I were standing facing the food on the kitchen counters deciding what to put on our kidlings plates.

MIL: "Let's say a prayer."

BIL: "Rub a dub dub. Thanks for the grub."

Then my MIL goes into a half-hearted prayer. I couldn't even tell she was praying. It was more like she was telling us something.

HCW and I stood there next to the food. Frozen. We didn't know what to do. We both hesitated. Then the pseudo-prayer was over. It was like 30 seconds.

It was weird. She could have at least announced that we were going to take a moment to pray. Given us all a second to gather around and THEN begin the prayer.

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My kidlings and their second cousins ADORE each other.I love it when we all get together.

My son followed the girls around like a little puppy.

The girls treated my son like a little baby boy.

The girls treated my daughter like their sister.

FANTASTIC!


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HCW discovered that her first daughter actually ate some new foods at our house. HCW and I sat at the bar next to each other. We wanted a clear view of the kidlings at their kids' picnic table. HCW looked over at one point and noticed something GREEN entering her daughter's mouth.

HCW (oh so casually): "Hey honey, what's that?"

Daughter: "Green beans."

HCW: "Are they good?"

Daughter: "yeah."

HCW: (whispering to me): "What kind are those?"

Me (whispering back): "French cut green beans from a can."

HWC: "I've got to buy some of that!"

A little later on, HWC notice more green stuff entering her daughter's mouth.

HCW (again in a casual tone): "Hey honey, is that good?"

Daughter: "Uh-huh."

HCW: "More beans?"

Daughter: "No. Salad."

HCW: "What kind of salad leaves are those?"

Me: "Spinach."

HCW: "She ate spinach?"

Me: "Yeah. I guess she did!"

HCW: "We've got to come for dinner at your house more often!"

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After we'd had our fill of food. I let everyone relax for at least 20 minutes. I then started some coffee and warmed the pie.

Me: "Anyone want dessert?"

"Whatcha got?"

Me: "Pie. Pie with vanilla ice cream. Pie with whipped cream. Chocolate chip cookies. Chocoloate chip cookies with ice cream. Chocolate chip ice cream with ice cream and chocolate syrup. Brownies. Brownies with ice cream. Brownies with ice cream and chocolate syrup. Take your pick!"

"Oh...no!"

The kidlings? They chose the brownies with ice cream and a little whipped cream on top. Kind of like what you get over at DQ.

My FIL, MIL, HCW, and I all had a large cup of coffee along with something sweet.

FIL: "What kind of coffee do you use?"

Me: "Just this regular Folgers"

FIL:"It's good. It's strong."

Me: "Thank you. I like strong coffee."

FIL: "Me too. But (pointing towards my MIL) she doesn't."

HCW: "I like strong coffee too."

Me: "Yeah. I just use about 3 TSP for 4 cups of water (I have a 4-cup coffee maker)."

FIL: "Wow. Really? Maybe I should try that."

HCW: "That's a good idea. It's not like you can make a weak cup of coffee stronger! She can let you have some strong coffee and dilute hers (pointing to my MIL)."

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The kidlings played in the backyard after dessert. They had to run off all the food and the sugar they'd consumed. They kicked the balls around. They hit the t-ball. It was enjoyable letting them run and laugh while we (HCW and I) sat on the patio chairs drinking another cup of coffee.

What was pathetic was that I had so much electric static on me that whenever I touched the patio chair, I would get shocked. I mean, HCW even heard it!


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My ILs house still hasn't gotten any offers on it.

There are a bunch of homes that are for sale in their area. They've even lowered the price since I last mentioned it. Still nothing. Definitely a buyer's market where they are located.

The only sucky part of the situation is that once they sell their house they're going to buy my BILs house. So the delay in selling their house is delaying my BIL & his fiancee moving.


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Now you might wonder why I only talked about the kids and HCW. It's because the rest of them sat on the couch facing the tv. Watching football! So HCW and I spent quality time together with the kidlings. Now THAT is the kind of family gathering I enjoy. Just like if I was with my sisters and parents.Sitting around together. Talking. Not sitting in front of the tv. Oy!

It's feeling like the holidays

It's FREEZING people!

Yesterday the high was only 58 degrees. The low last night was 31.

I know. People are dealing with snow. Sleet. Yes. Nipply cold weather.

But it was in the low 80's just before Thanksgiving. That was only like 5 days ago.

This morning when I dropped off the Princess at school. All the kindergarten kids had pants on. I mention this because last Monday one of the girls had a pair of shorts on. 99% had jackets (one crazy boy only wore a short-sleeve t-shirt)). 25% of them had hats on. A couple even had mittens on!

Last night, our heater finally kicked on for the first time this season. Yes. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....La-la-la-la-la....

I'd say cut the loss

There are black sheep in every family. No one seems exempt for this fact.

We happened to hear about a horrible situation that was uncovered by a friend.

Our friend (GZ) is a retired gentleman. GZ recently received a couple collection notices recently. He looked at the paperwork only to question them all. He didn’t know anything about these two accounts. He hadn’t incurred those costs, which were about $10k.

GZ made some calls. It turns out that his youngest son (BZ) was behind it. BZ admitted to creating those two accounts and running up those credit charges. Can you believe it? He stole his father’s social security number! BZ said he’d pay back his father back. With what? He created those accounts because he didn’t have money. Oy!

GZ dug around for more information. Turns out there were 6 accounts in total that didn’t actually belong to him. SIX! The total tally on the charges was somewhere around $60k. And BZ only admitted to those two accounts. Talk about being disappointed in your own child.

Now GZ is contemplating with the notion of selling his current home and moving himself and his wife across the country. Moving away from the drama that goes along with the family that lives in the same city he does. Moving away from the people who have been causing him to have problems in his retirement years.

Now what do you think about it? Can you believe that GZ’s son did that to him?

It's like watching paint dry

I'm listening in on a conference call.

It's funny. Yet it's painful.

I'm listening to people not owning up to their responsibilities.

I'm listening to people blame others for their lack of being on the ball.

I'm listening to people NOT LISTENING to other people.

I can hear the 'what do you mean I didn't do it right' in people's voices even if they aren't saying those words.

Amazing how people who are working towards the same goal....don't really work WITH each other.

So sad...the loss...

Did anyone else watch Grey's Anatomy last night?

[sniffle-sniffle]

I only watched the last half of it. It was so sad about that man. A coma? For that long? I can't believe the kid just LEFT him laying there like that.

"I'll be back later."

Why would he leave like that?

"Dr. Grey? Do you think he'll come back?" as a tear goes down one cheek.

"I hope so."

"They've moved on. I've got to move on...."

Then he went and decided to have the surgery. Then he dies in surgery. Then the kid comes back.

Broke my heart to watch. It's about seizing the moment. Staying true to your heart. Telling people you care.

I LOVE THIS SHOW!

It's early but whatever!

Our TREE isUP!

I know. I know. It's early. It's before Thanksgiving.

But people. We are HOSTING Thanksgiving. We want the house to look festive. We want it to be a memorable FIRST Thanksgivng and Christmas in our new home.

So...the tree is up. Mostly. The kids helped with the decorations. I put up three. The three that are up high. The ornaments the kids put up? On the lower half of the tree. So our tree is askew. Half decorated. Fabulously deocrated on the bottom. Not so festive up top. I'm going to move some of the low-hanging fruit up to the top section. We're having the kids put up more decorations the rest of the week. So my moving things up will give them more space to hang more ornaments.

We have the BIG tree in the livingroom. It's nice to have a big tree again. Having it in storage for almost two years? We've missed it. We have the tiny tree that we bought when we were in our temporary townhouse (is a year considered temporary?) on our kitchen bar area. So we've got two trees! The kiddos helped decorate the little one too. It's got those miniature round ornaments on it. Cute as can be!

Then I put up garland and lights on our staircase and loft banister. I just picked up the garland and lights at Tarjay this morning. Instead of fooling with the if-fy strands that we'd had in storage, I went ahead and bought 6 new strands (100 lights each). I used two new strands on the BIG tree and two new strands for the banister. So I've got two left! Ay-yay-yay!

Next year we won't decorate until Thanksgiving weekend. That's when we'd normally get everything out. But since I'm working like a maniac and since we're hosting this year. We did it today.

What about you? When are YOU breaking out the decorations?

For the morning brew

I know that many of us indulge in the getting 'designer' coffee during the week. But what do you do on the weekends? Do you make a special trip to 'Coffee Bea*' or 'St*rbucks' to get that yummy coffee or tea taste?

I have found an alternative for my Chai Lattees. It's made by Oregon Chair & called "The Original Chai Tea Latte Mix". All you do it shake it up. Pour it into a glass. Add ice. Add some milk. Then you are GOOD to go! Seriously. That easy. And it's yummy too.

For my seasonal coffee tastes, I found that Coffeemate is making special creamers for the holidays. The flavors they're touting are Pumpkin Spice, Gingerbread, Eggnog & Peppermint Mocha. I bought some Pumpkin Spice yesterday and will be trying it out this next week. Hopefully it'll give me a bit of the taste that I'd get with at 'designer' coffee stop.