Halloween

Pumpkins-O-Plenty

We finally got around to carving our pumpkins tonight. We invited my parents and Lacey to join us. Ronnie picked up some pumpkins on the way home from work and he said that the pickings were slim. I didn’t think the pumpkins he picked out were all that bad, then my dad and Lacey walked in with their warty looking pumpkin and I had to laugh. It would have made a perfect witch pumpkin but we could not find an easy witch pattern so it turned into a warty alien. Kyle made his own design using a CD I got on clearance last Halloween. He did a really good job on his pumpkin. He was able to do most of it by himself. Lana’s pumpkin was kind of like a light bright. It had clear pegs you hammer into the pumpkin and then it came with a color changing light. She really got into pounding the pegs in, but the fun wore off after about 5 pegs. Ronnie picked up the slack and finished it off. All in all the pumpkin carving went really fast this year. Everyone got right down to business and the pumpkins were finished in no time at all. Too bad we waited so long to carve them, oh well I guess they will look really fresh for the tick or treaters tomorrow night.

Thankful Thursday

Today I’m thankful for:

Woot Offs (woot.com)

Excedrin Migraine

$5.99 Pies

Beautiful sunny day

No school tomorrow

Wicked Wednesday

My day started off with quite a bang today. I rolled out of bed around 6:30 not because I wanted to but because my throat was in such pain I couldn't sleep. Nice I thought to myself, I ‘m getting sick and then I’ll pass it along to my kids just in time for Halloween. While I was up trying everything in my might to counter act my sore throat (drinking a big glass of OJ, and taking a horse pill they call a vitamin) I thought I would take care of a few bills online. So I log onto our bank account and discover I have like $60.00 in our account. I tried to think, with my early morning brain not quite functioning at full capacity, is that right? Did we really only have $60.00 in our checking account? Then my brain kicked into gear and I scrolled through the charges and came across 5 transactions that were quite large and I know I didn’t make. So before I get into total freak out mode I run to the bedroom and wake Ronnie up and tell him our checking account has been high jacked! He gets on the phone with the bank who then tells us basically we have to go to a branch in order to get it resolved. We still had over an hour before the bank opened and I was not happy about that because I wanted justice right then and there.

Today was Ronnie’s day off from work and I had scheduled Stanley Steamer to come over and try their darndest to clean my furniture. I am so disgusted with my couch and loveseat I’m about ready to do what my neighbor did and sell it for $50, but then I wouldn’t have any new furniture for about a year because I can’t bring myself to buy some more until Lana Lou is no longer a walking mess. My Stanley Steamer appointment was between 9:00 – 12:00, which was perfect because I was supposed to go to the park with my neighbor at 9:00 and Ronnie could deal with the cleaners. Well this was no longer the plan, Ronnie was on his way to the bank and I was sitting at home waiting on the cleaners. I have an aversion to having people come into my home to do work with Little Lou and myself all alone. I think this aversion comes from living in apartments that had creepy maintenance guys. Anyway, the cleaner guys were very nice and I got over my fear. While they were cleaning I was trying my hardest to sew Kyle’s Halloween costume.

Kyle wants to be Link from Zelda for Halloween and there are no Link costumes in stores that I can find. For some reason I had it in my head that Kyle had to have his costume for Thursday, but I was wrong he doesn’t need it until Saturday. Of course that didn’t dawn on me until later in the day. I didn’t even have a pattern I just drew on the fabric with a sharpie and cut it out and tried sewing it together. Let’s just say that maybe I should make a sign for Kyle to wear with his costume so people will know what it is supposed to be.

Ronnie comes home with a new checking account and some papers from the police department and starts looking at our credit reports to see if whoever high jacked our bank account did the same thing to our credit accounts. I think so far we are lucky, but I’m not happy at all about the new checking account. I had our old one all set up with automatic payments and transfers to savings and so forth and I really enjoyed not having to think about anything when it comes to mortgage payments and car payments. Then we started thinking, we just ordered new checks and now that account is not even open. And all the things that come out of our account like Netflix and Sirius and Kyle’s tuition and we don’t even have a debit card yet to go online and switch them over to our new cards. This is such a big inconvenience!

The cleaner guys finish up and tell me that they can’t get all the stains out, which I knew there was no way they could but they did try. They complemented me on the costume and tried to convince Ronnie that while they were there they should clean our computer room carpet. It could defiantly use a cleaning but we think we are going to replace it before too long so there is really no need to clean it now.

I am having a little Halloween party this Friday and I have told myself that I need to get a family picture on the wall by then. I don’t know why this sticks out as something I have to do in order to have a party at my house. Maybe I was just looking for a deadline and this was one that came to mind. Anyway, I bought a picture frame that held an 11x14 picture which is not a problem because Sam’s makes big pictures in an hour. So we go to Sam’s and all their computers are not working at the moment. Ronnie goes behind the counter and tries to load it on their master machine while a lady resets all the computers that the customers use. It was taking forever for the master machine to download our pictures and so we tried one of the newly restarted machines and it worked. But then it wouldn’t let me select the size I wanted. The lady working said just select a 4x6 and she would convert it to 14x11. I have trust issues or something because I knew she would forget. So we leave Sam’s and go pick Kyle up from school and the photo lady called and said our pictures were ready. To my surprise she did remember and they came out great, except for some reason Ronnie’s head is really red, oh well he doesn’t care. We go home and we are ready to hang to picture and now we can’t find one picture hanger in our house. Ronnie goes to the store to get some and I start marking the places on the wall. Finally our pictures are hung and Lana is taking a nap and Kyle is doing homework and I think I’ll make it through the day.

Thankful Thursday

This will be a reoccurring weekly post that I hope you’ll look forward to each week along with the other stuff I post.

I'm thankful for...

A very kind and loving husband who doesn’t think of marriage as a 50/50 deal but gives me 100% of himself

Two active children who keep me on my toes

Get-togethers with friends

Preschool for giving me 6 hours a week to regroup

Roomba for taking care of my floors and inspiring me to do the rest

A mom who always picks up the lunch tab =)

Pie

Oh how I love this time of year. Most people enjoy it because of the weather, but not me I have my own reasons. For those of you that don’t know I LOVE PIE. This month at Marie Callender’s it’s their Semi-Annual Pie sale. That’s right you can get a pie for $5.99 + tin fee instead of the regular price of $14.95. So far in our house we have enjoyed German Chocolate, Lemon Cream Cheese, and Chocolate Satin pie. Cream Cheese pie is next on the list and yes we have a list. For Thanksgiving and Christmas we must have pies, and I also try to have a pie for Easter too. For my birthday, cake and ice cream is good but pie is BETTER. One of the things I want to do before I die is open a pie shop. I have a file tucked away on my computer so when I get a really good idea for a pie I jot it down, like the other day I thought wouldn’t a Mexican chocolate pie be really good. I have yet to come up with a recipe but the next time I make a French silk pie I am putting cinnamon in it and then I’ll go from there. When my cell phone rings it plays this song when my husband calls me.

as I walk along and stumble
trains rumble in my head
as I breeze along and grumble
think about you instead

and a piece of pecan pie
and you that’s all I want
just a piece of pecan pie
and all I want is you

sometimes I get so hungry
think about pie all day
just a little whipped cream
honey, I’m on my way

with a piece of pecan pie
and you that’s all I want
just a piece of pecan pie
and all I want is you

just a piece of pecan pie
and you that’s all I want
just a piece of pecan pie
and all I want is you

now, don’t you call me key lime
you are the apple of my eye
don’t you know I’ll be fine
whenever you’re by my side

with a piece of pecan pie
and you that’s all I want
just a piece of pecan pie
and all I want is you

all I want is you ...

Yeah, I’m a cornball but at least I know it. So you might think “wow all that pie in the month of October must make you gain a few pounds”. Yes it does, but this year I’m on top of that. I ordered a treadmill and it arrived today. I haven’t calculated how long I to have walk on it to counter act all the pie I have already consumed but at least it’s better than nothing right??

Muffin Mayhem

This week I started baking again since the temperatures have dropped and you can now turn the oven on without turning your house into a sauna. On Monday Lana and I dropped Kyle off at school and went shopping for ingredients to make some pumpkin muffins. I love the ability to shop with one child at a time; it just makes the trips so easy. I don’t have to referee and the kids don’t have to talk over one another trying to get my attention. Sure I might look like the crazy mom, because I have to stay in the 4 yr olds conversation or screaming will invoke, but you do what you have to. So if you see me in the store shooting bad guys as I turn down the aisle or doing a ballerina twirl just smile and know that yes I am being made a fool of by my 4 yr old and I’m ok with that.

So we gathered all our shopping bags and headed home where we found quite a few messages on the answering machine. The most important message being from Lana’s friend down the street who wanted her to come over and play. I was really excited for the opportunity to bake by myself. I know it’s great to bake with kids and it teaches them a lot, but every now and then I like the satisfaction of breaking the egg and knowing there will be no eggshell in the batter. I whisked Lana away to her friend’s house and started mixing all the ingredients. I was having a great time and was able to clean as I went. Then I got to the part where you fill the muffin tins which went smoothly…until I went to put them in the oven. These muffins were really hardy and weighted the muffin tin down quite a bit which I was not expecting when I placed them in the oven. PLOP went the muffins upside down on the oven door, which was preheated of course so they sizzled on the door as they dripped down the crack in the bottom of the door and into the drawer below the oven. The muffin tin was very well greased as there were hardly any remnants of batter as I picked the tin up. Cleaning a hot oven was not fun at all, but it had to be done unless I wanted the smell of burnt muffins to fill the air. Then I started cleaning all the sheet pans that got glopped on that were in the oven drawer. Then finally I started cleaning the oven drawer, which I don’t think I have ever done before and I really should have because it was very dusty. Well after cleaning I filled the tins again with what batter I had left over and deposited them into the oven very carefully. Then I continued to clean up the muffin mess off the floor and kitchen rug. Soon enough I smelled the pumkiny muffins emanating from the oven and I knew it was time for a taste test. They passed, I don’t know if they were worth all the trouble they caused, but they were very good.

Yesterday I got the baking bug again, this time my goal was to make a healthy muffin the kids could eat for breakfast in the mornings. It dawned on me one day that maybe my kid’s activity level is due to breakfasts full of sugar such as: eggos, toaster strudels, and the many different kid cereals in the cabinets. So I found a recipe for blueberry bran muffins that seemed to fit the bill. Making and baking them was much less dramatic then the pumpkin ones, the drama came after they were baked. All day I had a headache and none of my usual tricks made it go away. After the muffins came out of the oven everyone grabbed one and ate it. It was pretty good for a healthy muffin, not as tasty as the pumpkin ones but that’s to be expected. After I baked the last batch I went to lie down to see if I could get rid of my headache. A few minutes later I’m in the bathroom vomiting. How nice, I’m throwing up my own baking, that should say a lot about my baking huh. Well, it was the headache that actually caused the vomiting, it’s not the first time it has happened, but I can’t bring myself to eat another blueberry bran muffin. Luckily Kyle and Ronnie are eating them, because I’m getting tired of seeing them. Lana is doing her part to dispose of them too by crumbling them up and sprinkling them on the area rug in the living room. Don’t ask me why, I have no clue.

Family Photos

My brother and his wife came down from Logan for a visit and my mom says, “What a perfect time to get some family photos”. She was right we were in need of new family photos. Ronnie and I had not had new family photos since Lana was born. And the most current family photo my mom had of everyone had an ex wife in it. Needless to say there are no family photos hanging on the walls anywhere. After dinner one night we went to Sears to set up an appointment. The last family picture everyone had on white shirts, but this time we all wanted something different. While we were at Sears we thought we should find coordinating shirts for everyone. So each family chose a different color and we all made sure the colors went together. My parents picked theirs first. Then I let Jason (my bother) pick next, I thought it might be hard to find a men’s shirt and a maternity shirt that matched. Ronnie found a shirt he liked and I found one that matched, but I couldn’t find a shirt for the kids there that matched. Then next day I went to Target and found the kids some matching shirts and that evening was our appointment. We did the big group shot first. It took so long to get a good one and by good I mean everyone’s eyes open and not talking. It didn’t even matter if everyone was smiling just as long as they were looking at the camera and their mouths were not open in mid sentence. Then everyone let my family go first since the kids were getting tired of taking pictures. All was going well until Lana and Kyle were to take a picture together. For some reason Lana would hit Kyle every time he touched her, even if the photographer asked him to put his arm around her. Finally we decided for Kyle’s safety that they should pose back to back. At this point there was no posing Lana, so we ended up with a not so great picture of the two of them. After my family was finished the rest of the groups went by fast. I was really surprised by the results; the pictures came out so good!