The Pangs of Sharing a Room

Riley and Tanner are now sharing a room. Riley sleeps on the top bunk while Tanner gets the bottom. They did fantastic for the first two nights...and then last night rolled along. They were screaming at each other for over an hour! Todd and I were getting so fed up. It was completely ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact that I started laughing and pulled out the video camera to get some footage. :)



The video is completely dark, so don't expect any visual action going on. It is purely for your auditory enjoyment.

The Latest Installment in the Tanner Saga

So, I'm having piano lessons at my house when Tanner, the exhibitionist, comes streaking through the house. After putting his clothes back on, for like the 20th time in one day, he takes them off again and pees on the floor...right in front of everybody. It was fantastic (that last comment is dripping in sarcasm!)

He has however taken to peeing on the potty...or next to the potty if he is getting careless. He has also gone poo-poo on the potty (TMI?) so we are coming along, just VERY slowly.

Flashback Friday 1985

Me and two of my favorite people on earth, my sisters. But don't let these cute, angelic faces fool ya...we were trouble! (just ask anybody who tried to babysit us!) Part of that may have been because there is only 3 years between me and my youngest sister, Jenny. Yikes?!?! Now that I am a mom, that just sounds totally ludicrous to me.

I think we were always friends, but we sure fought a lot! When my mom came to help when Ava was born, my boys were just constantly at each other's throats. I started telling my mom how that just drives me crazy when the look on her face cut me off short. We both just busted up laughing because we both know how it was when my sisters and I were growing up. :)

One of my favorite memories is of teasing Jenny. James Taylor did a cameo appearance on Sesame Street and sang a song called "Jenny-Bon-Bon"...or something like that. Well, Emily and I had the tremendously funny idea of turning that song into "Jenny Bum-Bum" and would sing it constantly. Jenny HATED it...which made us sing it even more! We still call her Jenny Bum-Bum, only now she doesn't get mad.

Another thing that used to get us all riled up was when we called each other...and get ready for this one..."supersonic-idiotic-disconnected-brain infected-mentally retarded-doh doh head". Oh yeah, we were bad.

Tanner Strikes...Again!

Are you as tired of hearing me say this as I am of saying it? Yesterday I was SICK and apparently wasn't paying as close attention to Tanner as I should have been. It was evening and I wasy laying down on the couch, writhing. All of a sudden I open my eyes to Tanner saying "Oh no! The glasses broken." Here is the conversation that ensued:

"Oh Tanner...you broke mommy's glasses. That was very naughty."
"Oh sorry mom. Don't worry, I help fix glasses. It's okay mom."

So, I pulled out my pair of glasses from my 72-hour kit to tide me over until I can get into the optomotrist.

To add to the story, today I was feeding Ava a bottle when the little trouble maker had his way with my second pair of glasses. Am I doing something wrong here? Obviously I'm not doing a very good job of keeping breakable things out of this little guy's reach. Sheesh!

Menu Planning Monday

I have this problem...I am forgetful. I write things down ALL the time, but I often lose the paper that I wrote down the things I need to remember. My weekly menus are one of these things I always lose! If I don't menu plan, then you can just forget about dinners. By the time dinner rolls around, I have gone completely nuts and can only think of cereal to put on the table. So, to save my poor husband from a life full of Cheerios, I menu plan...and to save my forgetful self the pangs of losing my carefully planned menus, I am going to put them on the blog where I CAN'T lose them. So now I have Flashback Fridays and Menu Planning Mondays, all I need is Wacky Wednesdays, Sinful Saturdays, and Serene Sundays :)

Menu

• Baked Potato Soup
• Quesadillas (My own recipe and the BEST quesadillas you will ever have!)
• French Dip Sandwiches
• Pizza (the frozen variety) and Salad with Poppyseed Dressing
• Buttermilk Pancakes and Bacon
• Calzones (this is the dough I use, and I use pizza sauce and pizza toppings for the inside) topped with Garlic Seasoning (can you say DELISH!!!)
• Southwestern Beef Wraps (new recipe I haven't tried before...but it's crockpot which works great when I teach piano lessons!)

A Must Have!

Why I can't live without my Magic Eraser! No matter how well I think I've hidden the crayons, Tanner always seems to find one that I missed.

Flashback Friday

Grandma, this is for you. :) Today we are traveling back to 2006. I had my "big" solo debut with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Choral Society. I was terribly nervous...and who wouldn't be with a whopping THREE people in attendance? :) You may need to turn up your volume as I have a soft voice.

Great Website!

I recently went to an enrichment group meeting where a lady named Angela Coffman came to speak to us about how to make our families financially free. She has a great website, The Grocery Shrink, that has a lot of great ideas on it for how to get out of debt and save money. She has quite the remarkable story of being in debt almost $100, 000 and getting out of it with $40,000 in savings in about 1-year. At the time, her husband was only making $40,000 a year...quite the feat.

To get out of debt, Angela and her husband used the ideas given by Dave Ramsey. Two summers ago I was out yard saleing and a guy was giving away free signed copies of Dave Ramsey's book. Todd and I read it from cover to cover and learned a lot! (I highly recommend checking that book out at the library!)

Anyway, one cool website that Angela talked about was called Be Centsable. It has all the states listed and what coupons go with what grocery add for each state. It is awesome! I have had quite the rough past 12-months, but I am finally feeling better and am getting back into coupons, building up my food storage, cooking, saving money, etc... and this website will be a huge resource for me! No more coupon clipping and organizing. Hooray!!! All I'm going to do is write the date on the top of the coupon booklet and then put them in a file. Easy Breezy!

Another website that I use a lot is called Coupons by Dede. I used to go and buy several Sunday papers just to get the coupons, but then our dollar store stopped selling them so I was out of luck...until I found this website. She clips all the coupons and sells them to you at a very small price. I figure, I was spending quite a bit of money on the papers each week and her coupons are WAY cheaper than that PLUS I get only the coupons I want. So, on Wednesday morning when the new grocery adds come out, I look and see what is on sale and then I go to see if Dede has any coupons to go with it. I order them Wednesday and they get to my house by Saturday or Monday so I can use them before the sales end. It works out great!

It is a brand new year where anything is possible and I thought I'd share with you a bit about what I am going to do this year. Stay tuned for ideas on 72-hour kits and other ideas on being prepared. You're excited right...Right? :)

Flashback Friday

A friend from PA, Stacy, had this really great idea on her blog...and I am totally stealing it! (Thanks for the great idea Stacy!) Every Friday, or most Friday's anyway, I am going to post some flashes of the past. It will be a great way to scan and preserve some old photos...and since Todd and I were born in the 70's and grew up in the 80's, it will provide endless amounts of comic releif as well.

This is a picture of me, (bottom row second in from the right), in Challenger School. The year was 1983. The little boy in the dark sweater sitting next to me is my cousin Buzzy. Also in this picture is my cousin Elissa who was my very best friend all growin up. She is in the second row from the top, third child in from the left.

I have fond memories of Challenger School. One in particular is of me coloring red balls onto a girl's picture of a Christmas tree, against her wishes I might add, because ALL Christmas trees absolutely HAD to have ornaments. I got in trouble for that one, which is probably why I remember it so well.

"Today is a beautiful day, and I am going away.
Not to the circus, not to the pool.
I am going to Challenger School!"

(Don't ask me how I remember this, but this was our preschool theme song.
Jenn and Em, I know you're singing it in your head right now as you are reading this!!!)

We Love The Excersaucer

We are big into the excersaucer at our house. Ava is just getting the hang of it too. She is doing great with keeping her little head up and spinning her seat around and around. She also does a fair amount of sucking on the front of the seat, but hey, she's only 3-months old, cut her some slack. :)

And yes, she is wearing a bib that says "Thank Heaven for Little Boys"...but she's got two older brothers for crying out loud. Occasionally she is going to be wearing some hand-me-down that is blue.

Holy Cuteness!

This little outfit was my "retail therapy" purchase while Todd was in Taiwan. Isn't is so cute! Can I just say how much fun I am having dressing a little girl!!! And the bows, oh the bows. It makes my heart beat just a bit faster to think of seeing Ava dressed in a cute outfit topped off with a big bow. Ahhh.... :)

Keep Out!

Well, I didn't think we'd reach this stage for a while, yet here I sit, the mother of a "Keep Out sign" child. This, Riley informs me, is a sign for Tanner to know when he has been naughty and is no longer allowed in Riley's room. Why do I get the feeling that this sign will become a permanant fixture to Riley's door? Hmmm...

Ava's Stats

I took Ava to the doctor this week for her first set of immunizations. It was quite traumatic. Luckily, Todd and I have chunky kids, so I don't feel too bad when they get stuck in their cute little fat rolls. Here is the lowdown on baby Ava:

Length: 24-inches, 75%
Weight: 14 1/2 lbs, 93%
Head: 95%

The doctor checked her all out and told me that she was acting more like a 4-month old with her social interactions. She smiles all the time and is so close to laughing. She loves to watch her brothers...well, I don't know if "love" is the right word. More like, she has learned to watch her brothers so she can gear up for what they're going to do to her. All I can say is, she is a patient little soul.

Boo! Hiss!

It is FREEZING cold here!!! I thought we left behind these sub-zero temperatures when we moved from PA. I was wrong. We have had a truck-load of snow dumped on us. Snow even a Utahn would be impressed with. Todd has had to shovel more times in the past week than he had to shovel ALL last winter. What the heck people?!?! Tomorrow the high is suppose to be 2 degrees...TWO DEGREES...but with the wind chill factor it will feel like -24 degrees. School was cancelled today, and tomorrow as well, for fear the children eyelids will freeze shut. This is crazy! I need some hot chocolate.

Dancing to the Black Eyed Peas

After dinner last night, Todd and I turned on some "cleaning music" and this is what ensued. I got some pretty funny video of Todd dancing too...but he threatened divorce if I posted it :) One day Toddie, one day the world will see you dance.

My Favorite Lemon Cookies

Last night we decided to make my very favorite lemon sugar cookies. They are seriously delish...just ask my mom. We made them when Ava was born and ate the whole dang batch all by ourselves.

Riley likes to help when I make cookies. I think it may be because I let him lick the spatula when we're done. Tanner likes to help because...well, because he loves to make a mess. In this picture he has just dumped out the lemon juice that we had squeezed and was then dipping the whole lemons into the powdered sugar so he could lick the sugar off.



Lemon Sugar Cookies

2 c butter, softened

4 c powdered sugar

4 eggs

Cream butter and sugar together, then add eggs one at a time

3 Tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp lemon zest

3 Tbsp 1/2 and 1/2

Beat into butter mixture

6 1/2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Mix together and gradually add to butter mixture. Refrigerate for 2-hours or until easy to handle. Roll into 1/8 inch thick sheet and cut. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes (My cookies always take the full 10-minutes) After they cool, I spread with home made cream cheese frosting. I usually add a tsp or so of lemon juice to my cream cheese frosting for a little added lemon goodness.

Tanzilla Strikes Again!

Well, I think these pictures speak for themselves. All I can say is, I'm glad it was lipstick and not poop!

Um, Tanner, you got a little something on your teeth. :)

Taiwan Trip

I've been back for a few weeks now but I thought I'd post some pictures of my recent trip to Taiwan. It was great to finally get to meet so many of the Taiwanese engineers that I email every day. I enjoy seeing new places so I was excited to see the country also. I stayed over the weekend so a lot of these pictures were taken on my outings on Saturday and Sunday.

The food was incredible. This was a Japanese style barbeque where they bring you all the food raw and you cook it yourself. We had chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, squid and octopus (cow's tongue was a different night). It was a lot of fun even though the table was a little hot. Everyone was such a great host.



On Saturday we went to the National Palace Museum. They had a ton of stuff to see. A lot of it was from the mainland of China. The craftsmanship and precious materials were amazing.

This was the National Theater behind me. It's located on a huge square that's dominated by the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. He was like the George Washington of Taiwan. It was a beautiful day and we just enjoyed the fresh air and great architeture.

This was at the other end of the square.

I had a great time and saw a lot of really cool stuff. The plane ride was brutal though. 14 hrs (not to mention connecting flights) is a long time to sit in one chair. Luckily Garmin sprung for business class so I can't complain. It took me a while to readjust to Kansas time but I'd do it again if I had to. Sara might disagree :)