Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Hi!

Just wanted to say a quick Hello before going to bed. It has been a busy few days in the kitchen making cookies galore, they are now finally DONE. Tomorrow I have to package and deliver...and clean my kitchen!

Miss Bree has been a challenge the last few days while I've been busy. She's had to keep herself busy, and well...she has, by doing stuff she shouldn't!
*She was in the bathroom, I went to check on her, noticed her hands were wet. I asked her what she was doing...her reply, "I was cleaning the mirror with toilet water!" and she was...there was a wad of wet TP stuck to the mirror.
*She emptied all the cat treats out of the bag.
*She made concoctions that she called 'fruit salad' from her lunch and other things...it wasn't pretty...
*She keeps trying to carry one of the cats, the bigger one...that's not going well, and she is driving Tigger nuts.
That is just a few of the things she's done. I think she is rebelling that mom has been busy LOL.

Tomorrow I hope to have time to do a real post. Until then...

TOODLES!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Kelsey's Homecoming

Kelsey took her friend to homecoming on Saturday. The afternoon didn't go well. It rained. Kelsey's hair was uncooperative, she had make up troubles, and was kinda cranky! I spent over an hour putting ringlets into her hair, by the time I got done with the one side and got to the other, the side I started on had already started to flatten big time. We couldn't do much to it after that because of all the hair spray in it, so we had to rewash her hair. Then I came up with the idea to put a bunch of braids in her hair so it would look crimped. So Kelsey's friend Caitlyn and I got busy doing braids really fast! She then dried them with the hair dryer, then did her make up, and got dressed and we took the braids out. Thank God it worked and looked good.

I took the girls out front for some pictures. We had planned to go to the lake for pics, but it was rainy/sprinkly, so we went out front under our tree. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy. :)

homecoming 1

goofy Kels

huge boobs

Sorry about the caption on the last one...it just looks like that is what she is saying LOL.

The girls had a great time. I was glad when it was done :) Next big dance will be PROM. Yikes. She already has a dress for that, so we are one step ahead.

I went to bed last night, but couldn't sleep right away. I had the TV on and was flipping channels. During that time, I saw a commercial and it made me laugh out loud. I thought, "wow, is this for real?!" its pretty funny. See for yourself. Maybe its just me, I have a sick sense of humor. :)



Did you laugh?

QOTD: Pancakes or french toast?

Toodles!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Yucky start to the day...TGIF?

After showering this morning I came out to my desk to enjoy my coffee as the girls were getting ready for school.

I sat here for a bit, then got up to check on the girls, make sure they were actually getting ready.

I put my hand on the back of my desk chair, and felt something crusty...Upon taking a closer look, I discovered it was something from the cat. Not sure if it was once runny poop, or if it was cat puke...but it had already got hard and crusty. Disgusting.

Then, I happened to look at the floor, near my desk...to discover some more recent cat stuff...again, not sure which end of the cat it came out of, but it was brown, and yucky...and all over the damn carpet. Gross.

As I was gagging, looking for something to clean up the cat stuff, I happened to glance at my desk. Guess what I saw? Yep, cat stuff, on my desk. It was on the edge of my mouse pad, and a little spot on the desk and on my pen. YUCK. I'm so glad I didn't stick my arm in it when I was on the computer earlier.

Before taking the girls to school, I had the pleasure of cleaning up all that cat stuff. Not fun.

So, finally, running a few minutes late...we get out the door. Drop off Jackie, head to Jilly's school...Drop off Jilly...head to Kelsey's school...Just as we are in the turn lane to go into Kelsey's school parking lot, Bree coughed a second and BARFED, all over herself, and a bit on her car seat. Grrrrreatttttt...

Bree's freaking out. The van smells like puke. Kels is glad to exit the van in the parking lot quickly. Bree gets pissed because Kels doesn't want a hug from her (didn't want to get puke on her), so Bree starts crying...Kels came back and carefully hugged her.

I got out of the van, and tried to make an effort to clean Bree up the best I could. I tried talking her into letting me take her dress off, and her wearing a sweatshirt and her panties, and be covered in a blanket until we got home, but she wouldn't go for that...so she wore her puke covered dress until we got home. I went into the van door closest to Bree, but wow, the wind was whipping around like crazy, and it was COLD, so I went to the other side to try to clean up stuff before we ventured home.

Once we got home, I had her jump into the shower to get cleaned up. Then I started laundry. Then went to clean the mess up in the van. Not fun.

I'm hoping that is all the bodily explosives that I have to clean up for today. I've had enough, I've reached my quota. I don't have time for yucky stuff. Today was going to be a partly relaxing day for me, so much for that...

This afternoon Kelsey gets out of school early. Then once Jilly is done, we have to go deliver the cake/cupcake order I made and showed you in the previous post. So, I really & truly hope Bree is not going to puke anymore...could make for a long ride if she did, its already long.. 30 min each way.

Tonight Kelsey is going to her homecoming football game, her dad is going with her, she'll enjoy that time with her dad. She doesn't get enough of that kind of time, and really craves it. If she didn't have a wicked step mom in the picture she'd get more fun times with her father.

Jilly & I need to have a little talk tonight about some things. Hopefully she'll get what I'm trying to tell her, and work on things a bit.

Tomorrow will be busy too. Gotta pick up Kelsey's friend at some point. The girls will be getting all glamour-fied, and going to the homecoming dance. Lucky me has to pick them up at 11:00 p.m...which means I'll have to wake up Bree to do it, can't leave her home alone sleeping obviously...which means she'll probably not go back to sleep for many hours...which means I'm going to be tired, mad, and cranky. Beware.

So yeah...TGIF. Bullshit. LOL.

Toodles!

Red, Green & Blue

Red, Green & Blue, those are the colors of my latest cake/cupcake order. Its for a friends son's birthday, he is turning 2, and he loves Elmo, and Sesame Street. These were pretty easy to make, thankfully :) I've been spending way to much time in the kitchen LOL, but I like it, just wish I had someone to clean up the mess after I make my creations!

Take a look...

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Sorry that I didn't get creative with the pictures. I was tired, so I boxed them up and took a quick pic before heading out of the kitchen.

QOTD: Did you see the Katy Perry song with Elmo that was going to go on Sesame Street? Do you think she is showing to much cleavage for Sesame Street? I've seen a lot of news stories about it...video is on Peoplemagazine.com, and a few other places too, in case you haven't seen it yet.

Toodles!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Sucker

My daughter kinda suckered me into making a birthday cake for her friends birthday. Then she told her friend I'd make her a 2 tier cake... I wasn't a happy camper. Yeah, its one thing to make a regular birthday cake, another to make a freakin' 2 tier cake! So, I made it yesterday, she picked it up today...actually she picked up Kelsey with the cake, they went bowling for birthday fun. I brought the cake to the car for her, didn't even hear a thank you... I better get one later damn it. I put a lot of time into that stupid cake.

The friend wanted the bottom layer to be under the sea stuff. So it has whales, fish, seaweed, shells, jelly fish, octopus...and I even added a Spongebob as a joke :) The upper layer has what is supposed to look like a dolphin jumping back into the water, sun, birds, and on the very top border clouds. Kinda a weird cake choice for a high school senior, but whatever...

Here is the cake:

Autumn's cake
The pics are kinda dark, because I had no natural light by the time I finished it, had to use the yucky kitchen lights.

Now, I need to get busy and make my next order...while I watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice! I'm so excited for the new season!

QOTD: What shows will you be watching regularly this season?

Toodles!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Remember me?

I hope you didn't forget about me! I know, I suck. I haven't blogged since Tuesday. Things have just been busy, and will be for another week I think. It is a good busy though mostly. :)

I've been trying to get the house a little cleaner and organized. I'd like to try to make room for a larger Christmas tree in our living room this year. We've resorted to a table top one the last few years because we've had so many toy's and baby items around there just wasn't room...this year I hope its different. Bree will be so excited to see a big tree I think, and so will I, Christmas is my favorite time of year....until I have go to shopping for it anyways...then I get sad!

I've also been busy making cakes & cupcakes, and this week I'll be doing more cakes & cupcakes and even some cookies by the weekend. I've been blessed with some paying orders, which is nice :) I'll post some pics of what I worked on last week in a minute. This weeks cake orders are a 2 tier water/sky scene (not a paid order, for Kelsey's friend, Kels is buying the supplies, I'm making it, it is her gift to her friend...she kinda suckered me into it...) and a Elmo cake with some Sesame Street cupcakes to go with it. The cookie order is for 3 dozen, for 2 girls ages 16 & 19 (Thanks for the referral Cindy!). I'm excited to do it all, nervous too...I want it to all turn out awesome, and it never seems to meet my expectations, I get frustrated. I got my supplies bought today for it all, I hope I got everything I need. I'm also going to make some extra cookies, small ones, and platter them up. I'm hoping to get Bill to take some to his jobs for people to see & try, maybe have the girls take some to school for the teachers etc. to sample...maybe leave a few business cards with it (I better hurry and make some!). Maybe it will bring in some orders for me. Christmas is coming up, maybe someone would want some holiday cookies or cake for parties.

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Those were made for the same customer, her daughter had a glamour type party where they put make up on the girls, did their nails & hair etc. .

After the cake order was picked up, I thought about blogging...but changed my mind, I decided to jump into reading the book I got at the library! My favorite author is Janet Evanovich, her newest Stephanie Plum series came out in June, I got on the waiting list at the library then...and just got it on Friday! Took long enough! I figured I should hurry and read it, since I knew I'd be busy with cakes, cupcakes and cookies this week. Hurry I did...started the book at 7 p.m. that night, was finished by 1 a.m. It was awesome, as all her books are. I can't wait for the 17th one to come out ... maybe I should put my name on the library waiting list for it NOW lol.

I'm so behind on blogging. I've missed 2 or 3 Show Me Saturday's now. Not so bad though, since its hard to come up with ideas for it! I've also been given a few blog awards that I need to post about too...someday I'll catch up. I hope!

QOTD: Have you been spending your days recently?

Toodles!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Please pass me....

Please pass me some:
Midol
Pamprin
valium
duct tape
chocolate
chips
and how about a padded cell too...

Why you ask? Well its not for me, well in a round about way it is... I swear to God Jilly is Pre-PMSing. She used to be a good kid, spunky at times but could behave and be fun to be around. Lately she has been a BEAR! She whines and complains about EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING. She picks fights with her sisters for no reason. She back talks to me and to Bill. She just isn't the pleasant Jilly that I know and love. I of course still love her, evil or not...I just miss the old Jilly.

The way she acts lately reminds me of when Kelsey or myself are PMSing. I got to wondering if she can like pre-PMS before she is even getting a period... did a little googling and sure enough it is a possibility, according to this article anyways. Maybe that's it, maybe it isn't...

Maybe she is just being a turd because this is her way of handling her dad being gone? Or maybe she is just being a bratty 10 yr old...Both are options I suppose.

I don't want any more mean looks, scowls, attitude...

NO

I want the old goofy, fun, nice Jilly back...please? :)

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Have a lovely Tuesday everyone. :)

QOTD: Do you suffer from PMS?

Toodles!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Hi ho hi ho, off to the orchard we go (or should I say went!)

Saturday afternoon, once the sun came out, we went to the apple orchard! We went to our favorite one, Honey Hill Orchard out in Waterman. We go there every year, usually a little bit later in the season though when they have more stuff. Bill was off work for the weekend so we figured we'd go then.

Jilly wasn't thrilled about going, she has been quite the turd lately. She did nothing but whine and complain all the way there.

Once we got there, the girls went to see the animals at the little petting zoo. We did their little hay stack maze, Bree loved running through that. Then we went into the barn to purchase some apples and cider. We bought a big bag of Cortland apples for me to make some home-made applesauce (YUM!), and a smaller bag of Gala apples for snacking. We got 2 gallons of cider and a dozen apple cider donuts. SO GOOD. We might have to make another trip back there for more in a month or so.

orchard

Want my applesauce recipe? Its an easy one...

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9 medium apples peeled, cored, quartered
1 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon (or not, if you don't want cinnamon applesauce)



Put it all into a large pan (sometimes called a dutch oven), bring it to a boil. Once it reaches boiling, simmer it, covered, for 8-10 minutes or until apples are tender.
Mash with a potato masher, or in a blender or food processor. I just used my slotted spoon and mashed it. It worked well. It was not totally smooth, a little chunky, but not to where you have to actually chew lol. It just wasn't baby food smooth.


Enjoy!

QOTD: What is your favorite thing to make with apples?

Toodles!

Sweet Home Alabama

Saturday morning my son Zach moved to Alabama. Zach moved there to live with his favorite cousin. He will be helping her by watching her boys so she can return to work or whatever, and he will hopefully get a part time job out there too. I hope the change of scenery does Zach good and that he does great out there.

We will miss Zach. Bree is ticked that Zach didn't kiss her goodbye, although he did, she was just sleeping at the time. Both Jilly & Bree have started wearing stocking caps, maybe trying to be like Zach? LOL Bree is going to miss having pillow fights with Zach.

What I won't miss though is the horrible mess left in the basement. The constant meanness towards his sister Kelsey. Nor the constant complaining about the girls being loud, the house not being spotless, someone taking to long in the bathroom...stuff like that!

Good luck in Alabama Zach! We hope to see you at Christmas time. Love ya.

Sweet? Innocent? Goofy?!

My little Aubrey aka Bree is so cute. Every day she makes me laugh and smile...and some days she makes me pull my hair out!

She looks so sweet and innocent...especially when she is sleeping...

sleepy Bree
Looks can be deceiving. :)

Friday I was trying to get some cleaning done around the house. I cleaned the kitchen, washed the floor. I scrubbed the bathtub and surrounding area, all that fun stuff.. As I was scrubbing out the tub area, Bree decided to have a little fun. She took off her clothes, put on her swim suit, then climbed up onto the bathroom counter and into the sink. When I saw and asked her "What the heck are you doing?!" She calmly responded with a smile on her face, "Mom, I'm going swimming! duh!" LOL I couldn't help but laugh. She really enjoyed her sink pool time as I cleaned. Then I had to re-clean up the counter & sink, for someone got water everywhere...

sink swimming
(yes, I know, gold sink...UGLY)

When I was doing the kitchen cleaning Bree was supposed to be out in the living room playing and watching TV. But she was really doing something else...She was doing this:

cooler dipping
Yes, she was purposely dipping her head into the cooler that had ice/water and pop in it from the day before (I was to tired to empty it the night before when we got home from our outing), and she was LIKING IT. Crazy girl! She also made her baby go into the ice water. I had a picture of Bree as she came out of the water, but it didn't turn out well, so I'm not posting that one.

Next she decided to annoy her brother Zach, who was in the bathroom trying to do his duty...She wanted to go in there too. She banged on the door a few times. When that didn't work she said she was going to unlock the door and get it. I asked her how she'd do that, since she can't reach the key. She came up with a plan...She tried to carry the cooler over to where the key was, but it was to heavy, so she pushed it over :) To bad she couldn't reach the key still. She was rather ticked off about that.

Lunch time came around, so I made her a grilled cheese (her favorite) and a couple chips. She also said she wanted ice, and was trying to eat the ice in the cooler, so I got some crushed ice from the freezer and gave her that. I stepped out of the room for a few minutes to do some more cleaning, and came back to see a lovely mess. She took her grilled cheese sections, crammed it into the little bowl that had the ice in it, she broke up her chips and sprinkled them on top, then she took a stem of fake flowers she likes to play with, and took the flowers off the stem and added it to the bowl of everything else. She took the bare stem and stuck that in too. She announced to me that she made 'strawberry shortcake' and asked me if I wanted a bite. Oy.

Such a imaginative mischievous, goofy, spunky girl I have.

QOTD: Do you remember doing anything mischievous as a child?

Toodles!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Fair Day!

Yesterday we had a family day at the fair. We were naughty, and let the girls skip school, so we could have a day there. We figured it was going to cost an arm & a leg, so why not go early and get the most out of our money...

The weather was perfect in my opinion. It was a bit chilly in the morning for the girls, but it turned out quite nice. Thankfully no rain, even though for a bit it looked like it was a possibility.

Things started out rather rocky, for Jilly was in a mood...sometimes I swear she is PMSing already... She whined about EVERYTHING. Thankfully the whining eased up mid day. The girls all got wrist bands to ride whatever they wanted as often as they wanted. Kels went on a few of the big kid rides. Jilly had a few of her favorites too. Kels talked Jilly into the riding the Spider with her...that didn't go well LOL. We got Bree to ride a few things, mainly the carousel, and the giant slide. She went on the slide a few times with Kelsey, then Kels went off to do her thing...so Bill got a wrist band too and did the slide with Bree, over and over and over and over again! I swear she rode it about 10 times with Kelsey and about 20 with Bill. She rode it once with Jilly, but that didn't go well...you'll see in the pics I'm going to post below. It was so cute watching her ride with Bill. She'd squeal all the way down with a big smile on her face. At the bottom she'd jump off the mat, and go out the exit gate and get back in line before Bill even got up LOL. Poor Bill got his exercise in yesterday going up all those steps.

We walked around for like 8 hrs yesterday. I was so tired and my feet hurt so bad that I totally forgot to get my funnel cake before leaving :( Sucks for me. Probably a good thing for my ass though... :) I'll just have to make my own sometime in the near future, but they sure don't taste as good as the fair ones.

Anyways...on to the pictures...

fair collage

fun slide

wipeout collage

Merry go round collage

cliff hanger collage

Spider collage

ferris wheel collage

fair

I have one very quick video to share too, of Bree going down the slide...

Bree with Bill on giant slide from Renee Kofoid on Vimeo.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! It was a good day. Sad to see all that money go lol, but a good day...

QOTD: What is your favorite fair ride? What is your favorite fair food?

Toodles!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Long Time No Blog.

I have not dropped off the face of the earth, although sometimes I wish I could! Just kidding, sorta.

Things have been really busy here.

We had the local crappy fair to visit. I was shocked that it was even worse then last years crappy fair. Bree liked seeing the few animals at the petting zoo. The rest was pretty boring. This fair has NOTHING compared to the Sandwich Fair (which we are going to tomorrow).

Bill has had a few days off, of both jobs. Sat., Sun., Mon., and Tues. so we were busy. Miss Bree loved having him around, and she became quite his little buddy. Bill is off his night job for 2 wks vacation, so I've been at the computer a little less in the evenings because of that.

I've been doing some major basement cleaning. Saturday I did some at my moms. Got a lot of the stuff I had stored there forever out. The kids & I spent a lot of time that evening going through old pics and baby books. I'm so sad that Zach's baby books were pretty much ruined do to a basement flood years ago. Sunday I worked on a section of MY basement. Got several bags of trash, and a pick up truck full of stuff for a garage sale mom & I are going to have in the semi-near future. I only got a section done, still have tons more to do in my basement. Wait, maybe it was Sunday & Monday I did the basements, hell the holiday and Bill being off totally messed me up. I think it was Sun. & Mon... Hmm now what did I do on Sat.? I don't remember lol.

Tuesday Bill, Bree & I took stuff to my moms that I got from the basement. Bree got to ride in daddy's truck, something she hasn't done since we got our van pretty much. She LOVED it. Now she wants to ride in daddy's truck all the time.

Today my mom went in the hospital for knee replacement surgery. Everything went ok I've been told. I talked to her a few times today, she said she was in pain, but trying to rest. I spent the day in the van. Had to take the girls to school. Came home for breakfast. Then Bree & I had to go to my mom's house to let her dogs out to pee (30 min drive to moms house). We had to take one of her dogs to the vet (another 30 min away), for she was going to be boarded there until mom gets home because she is on meds for seizures and without mom home to give her meds it could get bad. Then it was Target time. Then Aldis, then lunch, then back to moms for another pee trip for the other 2 dogs, then home...but only for an hour, then it was time to go get the girls at school.

Tomorrow we will be gone most of the day for a family thing ;) I hope by Friday I'll be awake enough and not busy long enough to post something good here, with pictures, instead of boring stuff like now. I hope all you blog world friends stick around, and forgive me for my lack of posting lately.

QOTD: Have you been to a fair/carnival lately?

Toodles!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Green...with envy

I read a lot of blogs, some more than others obviously.. I have a problem though. I have blogger jealousy! So many 'popular' bloggers get to try new products, and do cool things, and get to review products. One blog I read, the lady gets to test drive a brand spanking new car for a month! How come all the 'popular' people get all the good stuff? Feels like high school all over again LOL. Why can't the underdogs, the less fortunate get some cool new things to try and review? I can review an item just as good as those folks, even though I'm poor and have a smaller blog. I know how to spread the word about good stuff via here, twitter & facebook. Let me have a shot at something fun, new and exciting...please? :)

I have a product that I use every day, have used the same exact one for about 9 or 10 years now! It's Cover Girl Outlast lipstick, #549 Always Rosy. I got a sample of it in the mail ages ago, and got hooked. It is the ONLY lipstick I use, the only color. Just thought I'd let you know. :) And no, I've not been paid to say that, nor have I gotten any free product...but if they wanted to send some I'd certainly not turn it down hehe.

QOTD: Do you have a favorite product that you are loyal to?

Toodles!