Party Potatoes, AKA Heart Attack Casserole

I called my Grandma Lu in Kansas today and asked her for her famous party potatoes recipe. She makes it so often she just started firing off the ingredients while I scrambled for a pen.
For New Year's Eve dinner here at my Mom's, we have prepared a ham, black-eyed peas ( I have to have these; it's good luck), pasta salad, broccoli slaw, and angel food cake with fresh strawberries. It could be better healthwise, I guess, but it could be a lot worse.
But then there's the party potatoes. I tried to double the recipe, but could not quite deal with the results (I could not bring myself to add 4 cups of sour cream, 4 cups of cheese, 2 sticks of butter...) so I just doubled the potatoes and added slightly more of the other ingredients.

1 large package frozen hashbrowns (32 ounce size or 2 lb bag)
1/2 cup minced onion
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 16 oz container of sour cream
1 stick melted butter

Mix together, bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

Let the New Year's weight loss resolution start tomorrow!

Magic Goats

Last year we started a new Christmas Eve tradition at our house. We sprinkle "magic oats" on the front yard so the reindeer will be able to see our house (the glitter) and so that they will have something to munch on (the oats) while waiting for Santa. We also put carrots out for them on Santa's cookie plate.
The kids never eat oatmeal, and they have no idea what oats are, so when I kept telling them that it was time to sprinkle the bags of magic oats, the closest word in their vocabulary was "goats." I handed Anna the bag and she looked perplexed for a second and then said, oh, goats. Jonathan also called them magic goats and did not seem upset at all at the idea of Mama grinding up goats to put in little Ziploc snack bags. Whatever gets those presents under the tree, I guess!

Anna Banana's Happy # 2!

Today was Anna Banana's happy birthday! She had a great birthday. I made her a two layer banana cake with cream cheese frosting (all from scratch! I am very proud of myself!). It had two layers and I tinted the frosting soft pink and then decorated it with purple and pink icing. Anna had been requesting a "cat" cake since Jonathan's birthday in October, so I bought some Hello Kitty stuff to put on top. It was really very yummy! And very suitable for our Princess Banana. For her birthday lunch, I made chicken enchiladas. Last year, Aunt Erin's Mom and Dad spent Christmas with our family and her mom made these fabulous enchiladas. So, I thought I would make it a tradition. Gosh, I guess I am really focused on food right now, huh? Anna had her cousins and her brother there, and Poppa Ed did lots of balloons for her birthday. Justine decorated, as she always does. We just had a very relaxing and laid back time.
Anna was so adorable while opening gifts, but she did have a case of the Mines! Justine tried to look at one of Anna's presents and I thought Anna was going to slug her one! She got everything she wanted, including a Disney princess cash register from Justine and Trystan, which she had just been begging for at Target this week! She got a really special baby doll from Papa Larry and Nana Jo, which she has been alternately nurturing and beating on the floor since we got home tonight. She stole Jonathan's "boo (pacifier)" and gave it to the baby.

While at the party, Anna went in my Mom's purse, pulled out a twenty, and stuffed it down her shirt, into her "bra." Those of you that know my Mom will understand where she got this behavior from!!!! Sometimes my Mom keeps an entire cell phone in there.
I can't believe it's been two years... it seems like she was just born. I remember how beautiful she was as a newborn. She had the softest hair ever. Dave said it felt like feathers and he was exactly right. And I remember her first birthday party like it was, well, yesterday. Being Anna's mother has been such a sweet, sweet time in my life. I love having a daughter so much. And not for the reasons that people usually name, like wanting to buy and dress them in fancy clothes, or wanting to do their hair. Anna is not having any of that! She has a certain sense of fashion. She likes to dress a certain way and I have given up for now with doing her hair. It is so pretty just hanging all around her face. Maybe I am just smitten with her, but as far as I am concerned the child needs no embellishment!
She reminds me so much of myself, and of my niece Justine, and even of my Mom's baby pictures at this age. She's a little like me, only better. She's fiesty and fearless and bold and brave and I hope she stays this way. I have so much hope for her and so much confidence in her future. Happy Birthday, Sweetest Girl!
PS.
She is so smart, too! She can recognize and name the letters, A, B, J, P, M, N, O, T and D! Now, I think that is pretty friggin' spectacular!

An Update to "He Pinched Me and Fixed My Boo-boos

Jonathan has been going to get adjustments for about a month now. I was very skeptical at first but I am very pleased with the results so far. He has much better energy now. Last week he rode his bike for a total of two and a half hours in just one day, and he never complained the next morning about his legs hurting. He wakes up in the morning and just walks normally, no more limping and holding onto the wall. He is much less stiff. I have not had to give him any Motrin for his leg pains. He has not been laid up on the couch after a trip to the park. I have seen an incredible difference in his activity level. He is much more active, and seems to be in far less discomfort. He still turns his left foot out when he walks but I don't mind that as long as he is energetic and pain-free.

Jonathan Quotes

One day Jonathan saw Anna put a small part from her My Little Pony in her mouth. He raced over and grabbed it from her, and said, "No, no, Anna! Don't put stuff in your mouth. I don't want you to choke cuz your my girl!"

I saw Jonathan on the couch a couple of weeks ago smelling his feet. We have a longstanding joke in our family. We smell each other's feet and name foods that they smell like. The most popular toe scent is chicken nuggets, and then invariably, the other foot smells like french fries.
I asked him what his feet smelled like. I was expecting him to make a joke, like they smell like hot dogs or something. He said very seriously: My feet smell like roast beef.

Yesterday I was in the car driving down Wickham. The left lane was blocked and I needed to get over, but I couldn't see out the rear window because it was all foggy. I was talking to Dave om the phone, and I said, "Oh, I can't see!"Jonathan immediately said in this kind of weary tone, "Then take off your glasses, Mama."
I wear these really big and really dark sunglasses. I took them off and it did help. Sometimes I can't get over how wise Jonathan can be. I think he was just sitting in the backseat, thinking, well of course you can't see with those black lenses on!

On Sunday morning before church, the kids and I were saying goodbye to Grandma Jane, who had been here for the week. He asked if she was leaving, and she said, "No, I am going to take a shower first and then I am going to leave." I prompted Jonathan to give her a hug, and he looked at her and then said, "I'll give her a hug after she takes a shower."


This morning Jonathan was trying to transform one of his Transformers from vehicle mode to robot mode. He was talking to himself out loud, and he said, "Oh, how do I robot this one? I can't remember how to robot this one." I love it when he turns a noun into a verb like this.

Our Christmas Photo

I was determined to get our Christmas card photo cards ordered this past weekend. I normally just send out one of the kids but I thought it would be nice to have the whole family this year. We had lots of opportunity this weekend for other people to snap a picture of all four of us, but either we kept forgetting or the pictures were just awful. I am not being fussy. My only requirement was that all four of our faces be visible and somewhat forward facing for our Christmas card photo. I know better than to ask for simultaneous smiles at this point.
But here it was Sunday evening, almost sunset time, and we had not even one decent photo. So we got the kids dressed in a combination of their Sunday best and their beloved red Mickey Crocs and dragged the wagon out under the orange tree. I sort of like that taunting element, like ha! we live in Florida! it's hot and green out and we have oranges! (like I ever really eat any of them). Anna insisted on wearing her red Christmas dress and not her green one that matched her Bubba's sweater, and she also demanded that she be able to hold a dirty beach bucket as a prop. Jonathan's hair is crazier than ever and I just don't have the energy to fight it down very much anymore. I had just woken up from a nap (A NAP!!!!) and I had no makeup, no bra, and my hair was all slapped and pinned back and up. I was not wearing my green sweater that matched Jon's (and would have matched Anna's dress perfectly). I was NOT camera ready! But Dave suggested he could prop the camera up on the hood of the Taurus and set the timer. And we wound up getting some good pictures of the kids because our cat Sabrina jumped up and sat right by the camera. So they got the giggles, saying that the cat was actually taking the picture. For the last and best picture, Dave swapped the dirty beach bucket for the cat and we pretended that the bucket was taking the picture. The cat made Anna happy, the timer went off, and there you go! One picture of the Dooligans 4 looking slightly undone and not very color coordinated. But we all look happy, and we are together, and I got to take advantage of Winkflash's awesome special. 100 cards, with envelopes, plus the cost of shipping them to us, for only 30 bucks! And that actually makes me happier than if I had been photographed with makeup, a bra, a matching green sweater and a nicer hairdo.
Jamie

A Simple Kindness

I woke up late for an appointment and we just did not have time to eat breakfast. I found an apple in the car (a known apple that I had left in there just a few days prior). I gave it to Jon because Anna can't eat an apple with the peel on it. Twenty minutes later, I heard him pass it to Anna and say, "Here you go!" I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Anna take the apple from Jon.
"Here you go Anna. I got it all peeled for you. I got it all peeled with my teeth. I couldn't peel it with my fingernails."
He hadn't eaten any of the apple but had spent all of that time chiseling away at the peel with his teeth. He is such a sweet big brother to do something so unselfish without anyone asking him to. And I am sure that was very tedious work! It was a really large apple.

Tori Amos Concert

Dave and I went to a Tori Amos concert with my brother and sister-in-law. We had a really rough weekend and I did not even want to go but it seemed like a good distraction. Dave had never really listened to any of her music and I have not in years. Little Earthquakes was my favorite CD for some time as a teen, and it was my favorite thing to listen to as I shredded Kleenex wet with tears and snot. I think I cried more in one year as a teenager than I have in the past ten. So needless to say, I am not really in That Place anymore emotionally. But I still think she has a really beautiful voice and I had heard her concerts were entertaining.
Little did I know that I would spend most of it laughing hysterically. I honestly thought I was going to pee myself. By the end of the night, my whole throat and head hurt from trying so hard to laugh silently. What was so funny?
Tori Amos kept doing this ridiculous dances. She would stand up before a song and turn her back to the audience in these wierd Spacesuit jumper outfits and start shaking her booty. Only thing, is that she could not shake her booty properly and the result was just sad. Then she would do this wierd bees are attacking me and I must karate chop them away dance. And every couple of seconds she would jerk her head towards the audience for exactly a second with this wierd grin on her face and then she would just throw her head back the other way. I can't really describe it. I am not sure if she was trying to be artsy or absurd or if she really was aiming for sexy and just falling miserably short. I felt sort of embarassed for her. She plays one grand piano and one keyboard at the same time, but she places them opposite each other so she is forced to straddle this stool and keep her legs spread wide open. It is just the most ridiculous and slutty piano playing ever. It is the only concert I have ever been to where I enjoyed the opening act more than the main performance, and where I was super irritated when the audience cheered for an encore. It was like, enough already! Oh, and then there was the ridiculous light show: there were these crazy strobing spotlights that were shone relentlessly in our eyes. I finally just had to shut my eyes because I could not see anything at all. I think they were meant to distract us from the terrible performance. The music was very good, but I think I would have prefered to just hear it and not see anything on the stage. Which is sort of like just staying home and listening to a CD.
Another thing that made us laugh so hard was the strange assortment of people in the audience. There were some ancient and feeble elderly there. I am thinking maybe they are season ticket holders that just show up everytime the doors open? I bet they did not know what they were getting into. I certainly did not.
Then there was the couple in front of us. This man had an absolute OBSESSION with his date's hair. For three hours he twisted it, pulled it, gathered it into buns, ran it through his hands like a rope, petted it.... Now we were in very close quarters so doing this meant he had to have his elbows slung over the back of his chair and pretty much in Dave's lap. His date just stared straight ahead at the stage. But he, he just focused, with his head completely turned and stared right at her face. Like so much that his face was practically blocking her view. Every five minutes or so he would suddenly jerk his head and look over his shoulder at the monitor, which was behind him and meant that he would have to throw his head back in Dave's lap. Not once, not one time, did his date recipricate and show him affection back. I mean, buddy, if you have to try THAT hard, maybe she's just not feeling it....
Would I go again? Absolutely not. But I think it provided some odd but much needed comic relief. It was sort of that inappropriate funeral laughter. It's not really funny at all, but this just makes you laugh more...

What happens when Mommy keeps the Sabbath...

After the sermon this Sunday on finding balance in your life, I went home determined to take Pastor's Bruce's advice: Whatever work you usually do, don't do it on Sunday. If you are a housewife, don't do any housework on Sunday (he said a lot more than just this and I am just paraphrasing, of course). I normally work harder on Sunday than any other day, just trying to get life in order for the next week. So other than taking care of the kids, giving them baths, and cooking supper, I did not lift a finger. David, however, did: he picked up the living room twice at some point during this day.

I woke up on Monday morning to my house looking like no one had done anything for a week. It kind of makes me wonder what it would look like if I did go on strike for a week. No, in writing this I am not looking for appreciation from Dave. He is VERY helpful and very appreciative of everything I do. I just thought it was interesting! Like would you be able to walk without tripping? Would you have to do the Toy Shuffle?

I sort of have a theory that Anna would just start picking it all up by herself. She is very neat and tidy and has an incredible amount of focus for a toddler when it comes to putting stuff away and organizing toys.

My conclusion to all this is that I think I want to start eliminating some of the stuff I do on Sundays. Like no more grocery shopping, no more detailed cleaning. But I don't think I will ever do this again! It made my Monday SO unpleasant! PS Did you note the roll of toilet paper on the end table? Lovely!

We can live with it, Daddy!

Last week, Dave broke our TV by dropping it face first on the new wood floor! Honestly, my first concern was the floor. The screen did not break, so we thought it was okay. After I finished painting, we went to move it back and plug it back in, and realized that now there are green and purple splotches in the top two corners of any shows we watch. Dave is pretty upset about it, probably because he was the one who dropped it, but I just did not see what the big deal was. I mean, don't we all pretty much focus on the center of the screen?
While I was at church today (Dave and the kids stayed home sick!), Dave was checking out some TVs on Ebay when Jonathan walked in. J:Whatcha doin' Daddy? D:Looking at new TVs, buddy. J:Why? D:Because our TV's broken. J:But we can live with it, Daddy!
I guess he must have overheard me reassuring Dave that we can live with it being broken.

Spaghetti

Jonathan and Anna love spaghetti just like their daddy. They always call it pasta. They both love showing off their new toys, even at dinner. They also made me banana bread that day. Luckily for me, my wife had done all of the measuring, but the kids did all of the mixing.

Dave

Our Annual Garage Sale

Every year, on the first November of the month, we hold a garage sale. Several families pool their junk at my Mom's house. It always winds up landing on Dave and I's wedding anniversary weekend(it is actually today!).
Every year, at the end of the day, my stepdad Ed and I have had the same conversation. I walk in, say thanks a lot for letting us have it here! And he says, was it worth it? And I say, no, of course not, remind me next year never to do this again. And then he says, to my Mom, next year, if you say you're going to have another garage sale, I'll shoot you.
But every year, I fall back into the same old trap! I seem to forget how much WORK it all is and how much DIRT it involves and how I actually have two small children, and it is LUNACY to expect them to make it from seven until four with no one actually being available to watch them. (the first year, Jonathan was literally days old. what was I thinking?)
My husband, who is unfailingly cheerful, said as we were leaving, well, I think that was a success! We brought three carloads over and are only leaving with one.
One thing I will never understand about garage sales is people who do the drive-by: they cruise by at 30 miles an hour and sort of gawk at your stuff, and somehow determine whether or not they want to stop. I always wonder, what is it they are looking for? What criteria do they have to decide whether to spend five minutes pawing through our junk versus, say the neighbor down the street?
Also, you have to understand the garage sale customer. I am talking about the out every Saturday morning-cut you off while driving-speedwalk up to the driveway-elbow you out of the way-fanny pack wearing type of person. If you put a bucket of items out marked FREE!, you would probably not get rid of that stuff. If you put fifty cents on something, you are telling them, hey, this really is not worth anything to me, so why should you want to take it home? No matter how low you price your items, they will always ask you to come down. The secret is to always slightly overprice everything, so that when they ask you to come down from a quarter to a dime, they walk away feeling like they have won somehow. But the real winner is me, because this is just one less piece of crap that I have to dust or trip over! The other interesting thing is that the items that you think will sell are normally the ones you wind up toting to Goodwill at the end of the day. But that bag of bleach stained bathtowels, you can bet someone will be willing to give two bucks for those! The brand new chino pants or polo shirt? No! Those used baby washcloths and burp pads? Yes!
The biggest problem this year for me, other than the fact that my entire family has bad colds, was that I made a pact (with myself) on November 1st that I was not going to make any unnecessary purchases for myself this month. No lipgloss, no shampoo, no hair products, no clothes, nothing! So when I spotted a Vera Bradley handbag in the Java Blue pattern (which I have been wanting!!!) I was presented with a dilemma. I mean, it was brand spankin' new, and these are very expensive(in my opinion!) little bags. Luckily, I was able to barter with the seller of this bag! I gave her one hour of tutoring her son in exchange for her bag. Phew!
PS Jessica if you read this I have a really cute baby Gap sweater vest for Thatcher! He looks so cute in sweater vests!

Happy Halloween, Sort of...

Halloween 07 was just okay. Both of the kids have colds and I have not been feeling too well myself. We got in the car to go to the Pumpkin Patch today, and even though we checked the website, it was closed when we got there! It is really hard to explain to kids why you can't do something after getting them all revved up to go! And of course this is the very last day we can go!
Then, my darling son Jonathan REFUSED to wear his (FORTY FRIGGIn' DOLLARS!) Optimus Prime costume, which I special ordered off the Internet over a month ago, and he begged for, and kept wanting to put on all the days up to Halloween. But, no, never mind, today it made him "all scratchy." Somehow, after that, it was all sort of downhill from there, like Dave and I were both having to beg and cajole our children into going trick or treating, getting candy, wearing their costumes, getting some pictures taken beforehand! Seriously this is how it went:
Just one more house, okay, buddy, don't you want more candy?
No! I want to go home! I already have enough candy!
Jonathan! We only go trick or treating once a year! Don't you want to fill up your treat bag?
NOOOOOO! I am tired of walking (as he was being transported around in the double stroller!). I want to go home!
And so it went....
The up side of all this is that we don't have too much candy sitting around for Mommy and Daddy to nosh on. And the very best thing... Dave wore the other half of Jonathan's costume (we could only beg and threaten him into the bodysuit part) and I wore the princess crown, earrings and wand from Anna's costume. Which means, we have some awesome pictures of the two of us looking pretty ridiculous!

Happy Anniversary to Us! Taken on the balcony of our oceanfront suite. Do we look happy or what? We spent a night away from the kids and it was fantastic! I really can't go into any details, because it was a very naughty (oh, my!) time. But let it be known that we have had a wonderful first six years of life together and we look forward to so many more...

Zoo October 2007

We had not been to the zoo all summer, and it is finally not SOOOO hot, so we went back. Anna was a little uncertain of everything, but she was happy to feed the "neigh-neigh" (she thinks giraffes and horses are one and the same) a snack cracker. She sort of threw it at the giraffe and snatched her hand back. When Dave snapped this shot, the giraffe had just licked my hand!

Dave and Jonathan at the giraffe exhibit. Jonathan and Anna loved seeing the otters playing underwater. Jonathan says the wolves were "his favorite thing in the whole world. Wait, are wolves mean or good?" Everything boils down to whether something is an Autobot or a Decepticon right now (Transformers, more than meets the eye....)