Leave the Poop! Play with the baby!

How does a baby poop on the carpet, while still wearing a diaper?  I don't really know.  My 8 month old son will now come crawl to me to basically let me know he's poopy.  Which is really nice if I figure it out.  So in crawls the Munchkin while I was cleaning up the bathroom.  I picked him up and smelled it.  So I went to the living room to change his diaper.  I took off his diaper and thought..."Hey...that's weird...the poop is only on one side of the diaper and there's not much of it."  Then I look over to my left!  There a nice brown poop smear on the carpet by his basket of toys.  Then I look to my right and see yet another smear near the chair he likes to pull up on.  So I start yelling,
"YOU POOPED ON THE FLOOR." 
To which he thought this was just hilarious.  So instead of cleaning up the poop right away I continued to yell at him and he continued to giggle a sweet, happy big giggle I've never heard before.

I will happily clean up the poop later for that kind of giggle.  Once that was over I figured out what happened.

         As you can see, on the left is a normal diaper on a baby.  On the Right is what I came across this evening.  Notice the diaper had gotten squished over to the side somehow, allowing part of his crack to hang out.  This also caused him to get poop smears all over himself.  Not to mention the poop smears that were on the carpet.  I'm starting to wonder if I missed anymore smears.  We will find out later now won't we.  When we step in it unknowingly and keep wondering how it's possible for our foot to smell like poop!

Leave me alone

For some reason, strange women have decided to comment on the size of my son.  I was in the grocery store the other day and some weirdo woman right when I walked in said,
"Oh...how old is he?"
"8 months old."
"REALLY?!?!?!  He's so SMALL!  He's small isn't he?"  In a very suprised tone.
"Uh.....well...."  What was she talking about?  My kid isn't tiny...he's actually average.  Ya know...right in the middle for size.
"My kids were big.  He's just so small.  He's doing really well isn't he?"  Looking flabbergasted that my miniscule baby can hold his head up, let alone sit up in the shopping cart and play.
"Yea, he's doing well.  What the hell is your problem?  You think he's an idiot or something?"  I didn't say that last part but I wanted to.


Ok...so whatever, people say weird things all the time.  I walked off to continue my shopping, with my apparently highly developed yet tiny son.


Then yesterday, my husband and I are out on a walk in the evening in our neighborhood, minding our own business.  Here come this woman, running on the other side of the street.  Wrong side for pedestrians mind you, just so you know who we're working with.
"OH HI GUYS!"
"Uh....Hey?" Who is this stinky sweaty woman who seems to know us well enough to stop her run and come across the street.
"How's the baby doing?  How's the puppy doing?"  Then it hit us.  No pun intended.  This is the woman who hit our dog with her car and ran over him.  Yanked his hip out of socket and whatnot.  He made a full recovery to the suprise of the vet.  Anyways....
"He's good.  He's good."  They're both he's, my son and dog.
"Oh....he's cute!  He's small isn't he?  Is he small for his age?  I don't know, we didn't have any kids.  He just looks small."
"No...he's right in the middle.  Average size."
"Oh well he just seemed small.  Well if you ever want me to watch him just give me a call.  We're right down the street..."  Um...don't have your phone number you crazy, dog running over lady.  Nor would I let you watch my son because I have NO CLUE who you are.  For all I know you are going to kidnap my son and send him off to be a carney.
"Well, have a good run." 


So now there are two crazy women who think my son is small and apparently had to tell me about it because I guess we didn't notice the size of our tiny son.  Although, he's not actually tiny.  So I'm confused now.

Brownie Frosting

My husband wanted cookies tonight.  But we were out of store bought kind.  I offered to make cookies, because I'm just that kind of wife. : D  Then I decided I would make brownies because how can you really go wrong with brownies!  I like to make my brownies from scratch.  They're super simple, and actually really soothing to make.  You melt the butter in a saucepan, then mix in all the ingredients and then just pour it in a pan.  Seriously, that's all there is to homemade brownies.  However, a few years ago I decided, I just don't like brownies without frosting.  Some may say I'm crazy.  Brownies are perfect without frosting.  But I beg to differ.  I found this recipe for brownie frosting one night about a year ago on Allrecipes.com.  It reminded me of Little Debbie brownies.  The frosting they have on Little Debbie brownies is a thick fudge like pile of goo that I would eat off first before I ate the rest of the brownie that was in my lunch box.  So stinking good.  And now, I have become Little Debbie on "De Island."  I can make my own brownies with the thick fudge like pile of goo on top.

Disclaimer:  As with many of my posts, they are done late at night.  After I've had a long day of wrangling the Munchkin, I'm worn out.  I will happily admit that the pictures below are sub-par.  Heck, they're just plain crappy!  I mean seriously, a monkey could have taken better pictures.  Maybe sometime, when I'm not so worn out, I'll be able to take better pictures, but until then...work with me.

Brownie Frosting:

3T. butter softened

3T. cocoa powder

1T. honey

1t. vanilla

1c. powdered sugar

Mix all this together.  I used a stand mixer.  I only have a stand mixer.  The thing is the best present my husband has ever gotten me.  If you cook or bake at all I forbid you to continue reading this post and looking at these crappy pictures until you go and get a stand mixer.  You will love it!  LOVE IT!

 The frosting will be really really think.  You will look at it and think, "This woman is crazy.  I'm going to add some milk or something because this is like playdough."  DON"T....leave it.

 Pull your homemade brownies out of the oven.  I know you made homemade brownies because I just touted earlier that they were really simple and stuff.  I KNOW you didn't just open a package and add oil and eggs, thrown it in the oven and are going to pass it off as homemade brownies.

 Immediately after you pull the hot brownies out of the oven, dollop the frosting onto the brownies.  Yes, it looks like poop.  I know.  Moving on.

 Let the frosting sit for a couple minutes to get warm and soft on the brownies.  Then spread the goo all over the brownies very gently until it's all covered.  See I told you these were crappy pictures.  But pictures aside, this is so stinking good!  We ate half the pan in about 20 minutes.  They're really good when they cool off too because it gets this and fudge like on top.  Oh man, I'm drooling right now.  So go now, make some brownies with this frosting.  I promise soon you will forget the pictures and only want to think about the deliciousness you are eating!

Dumpster Diving

Who doesn't like dumpster diving? Or what I did, curbside trash shopping!  I'm out on a walk this evening with Munchkin to get out of the house for a little bit.  I go down a road I wasn't really planning on going down, but I was following this loose dog to try and grab it and see who's it was.  It had tags so I was going to attempt to bring back some lonely old lady's dog.  It never came to me and just ran off but anyways.  I'm walking down the road and I see a pile of garbage in the distance.  Didn't look like your regular black garbage bags so I continued on to see what it was.  It was on the other side of the road, and to not look suspicious I continued on until the turn around/cul-de-sac and walked by it.  There was a dresser, ladder, and some other junk.  I was thrilled!  I've been looking for a small dresser and lo and behold, I found one!!  And I was even going to pay for one!  YIKES!  As I gandered over this stuff I hurried my pace to round up the hubs to make him go back with our truck and get the free prizes.  I even made him go out before the Cowboys game was over.  And he missed the winning field goal.  He's such a great guy!  Here's what we got:

A propane flamey thingy.  Not 100% sure what exactly these are called but I refer to them as turkey deep fryers.  My husband was thrilled.  Already making plans to fry our house...I mean a turkey.

Here is the 8 foot wooden ladder.  We don't have a ladder at all.  We went and priced them when we had a little extra spending money (that RARELY happens) and they were quite expensive (metal ones).  Let me tell you why this is such a huge find for us.  We love Christmas.  And what I mean by that is we prefer to turn our Christmas into the Griswolds and if our neighbors don't make a comment about our Christmas lights, we obviously didn't put up enough and we go out and buy more until they comment.  We have giant Rubbermaid tubs FULL of lights.  Two of them.  Last year, we parked our truck close to the house under the eave of the house and my husband climbed the truck to get up to the roof to apply our Christmas lights.  I wish I had taken a picture because the caption would have been "White Trash does Christmas."  Anyways,  we're excited because now he has a normal way to get to the roof.  

Here he is showing off his fantastic find.

This was the first thing I saw.  The 2nd drawer actually isn't really like that...we just pulled it out to look at it and didn't put it back in correctly.  It may be ugly now.  Nothing a little sanding, painting, and new pulls won't fix.  We did it for Munchkins dresser!

Last but not least, a pretty cool garden tool that I didn't even see.  I'm hoping to have a raised garden next year.  Raised because unless I want to grow sticker burrs and sand castles, ain't nothing good gonna grow in our backyard sand trap.

So moral of the story, keep your eyes out for your neighbors trash.  There's no shame in dumpster diving/curbside trashpile shopping.  And if there is...go at night.

Seventy Five Cents

I paid $0.25 for this stuff.  TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PEOPLE!

Yea..that's 3 packages of fancy pants diapers, 3 Hershey's Air Delights (which really are delighful!) and candy pumpkins which I always have to get a bag every fall!

Chrorizo and Brown Rice Stuffed Peppers

1 lb. Chorizo (uncooked)
2c. cooked brown rice (although I think next time I will try uncooked, there was a lot of liquid)
2 cans tomatos with green chilies (like Rotel, but I used RedGold)
1/2 onion, chopped (I just had this sitting around in the fridge needing to be used.
1t. worchestershire sauce (I think I'll add a little more next time)
1T. ketchup (I saw this ingredient in another recipe...I probably should have used tomato paste)
pepper and salt (I didn't add any salt because I figured there was enough in the tomatos and chorizo...WRONG!)
1/3 c. veggie juice, or water

Clean out your peppers....save your tops.  They're pretty when you put them back on.  

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. 

Stuff your peppers.

Put all your peppers in your crock pot.  I used 6 because I have a large crock pot.  It's better to fill up your crock pot.  I might have even been able to put another small one in here.  I just dumped the rest of the filling in the bottom of the pot.  Then I added the veggie juice to the bottom.  This recipe produced enough liquid I probably didn't need to do this step. Put the lid on, turn the pot on low and let-her rip for 8 hours.

 Here is the finished product.  

These were ok.  I'm not a huge fan of bell peppers either.  They cooked alright.  I just don't think I liked the filling.  It ended up being way too soggy.  I still think I'll try uncooked brown rice next time.

The thing I love the most about this recipe was that it took me about 5 minutes to mix everything, clean and stuff the peppers and get it in the crock pot.  That's my kind of dinner!  Maybe I'll play with it and try it again.  This time with hamburger and uncooked brown rice.  Maybe some sort of different pepper like poblanos.

Mischiveous Boy

This is our cable.  It runs from across this threshold because on the left we have our desk with the computer and on the right is our tv.  Don't even ask why it's like this (we rent f.y.i.).  I have it taped down to the ground so we won't trip over it.  Although lately I've been hearing tape being ripped off the floor.  And when I hear that, this is what I see:

Ah...my sweet little munchkin.  Ripping up our cable.  Let me tell you, I used heavy duty packing tape.  Like name brand stuff too. 

Here he is ripping up the next section I have taped down.  

This is what he likes to do with the cable.  I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you can get shocked from a cable wire.  Of course...not a good thing to have him chewing on wires anyways.  Just today I found him chewing on an extension cord we had in our bedroom that connected the VCR (yes we still have a VCR) to the plug.  Luckily it was unplugged (because the VCR isn't working for some reason [probably because NO VCR should be working in 2011]).  Anyways:

So by this time, I thought it was hilarious because this is probably the 3rd time he has ripped up our cable wire after I taped it better and better.  So I told him to turn around and smile at me.  

Once he was done ripping up the cable, he scurried away and this is what I was left with.  I have yet to tape it back.

Desperation

Sometimes you just need junk food.  It sounds silly, but seriously.  We are out of groceries and I can't go to the grocery store till Thursday.  And all we really have around the house is healthy food like fruit and veggies, tabbouleh, whole wheat spaghetti, etc.  And SOMETIMES, that kind of food just ain't gonna cut it.  I want something that's totally terrible for me, and I was desperate.  Celery sticks and applesauce weren't going to work this time.  So I got creative.  

Yea...that queso.  And we ate it with croutons and carrots.  I told you I need to go to the grocery store!

Potato Salad

I've been looking for ways to save money lately.  Magically, I did two of them today without too much effort.  The first was line drying our clothes.  It's usually WAY too humid to line dry our clothes around here because we live on an island.  However lately it's been pretty dry.  It worked like a charm.  I hung them out to dry and then tossed them into the dryer for about 5 minutes to fluff them up.

You can see the tarp in the background (that I mentioned in a past post) as well hanging from our house to shade the windows of our house.  It works so well too.  You can quickly tell a different in temperature in the living room when we have that thing hung up.  Ugly yes, saves us money, YES!

Also, this afternoon, I made potato salad.  I know, not super exciting.  But I haven't made potato salad in probably 2 years.  Oddly enough, I happened to have everything I needed to make an awesome batch today.  it was so so good.  I ate WAY too much of it.  I then realized how cheap it is to make potato salad and just how much it makes.  I think it's on my list of go to cheapo things to make.

I heart CVS

$4.76 Out of Pocket
$8.79 back in Extra Care Bucks
$26.57 Retail

I LOVE COUPONING!

One is silver and the other gold

(Literally.  On my old shoes there was gold.  And my new shoes are silver.)

A letter to my old shoes:

Dear Old Shoes,

I will miss you.  You have been good to my feet for many years.  We have ran many miles together.  From the Red Dirt of Oklahoma to the beaches of "de island."  You have watched me fall a few times while we were together (gracefully I might add.)  You have carried me away from creepy old men in cadillacs and we have ran away from coyotes (that weren't chasing us.)  There are holes in you now, from my bunions.  I know, I know.  A woman my age shouldn't have bunions.  You though, my friend, accomadated for my deformity by wearing a hole in yourself.  But don't be sad.  I will keep you around.  Alas, therein lies the sad news.  No longer will you carry me to thinness and endurance.  You will now be my go to pair for dog doo doo raking and cleaning the garage.  I know, not a very prestigious retirement.  But always remember, you are gold.

Sincerely,

Me (and my feet)

Opposites do attract

This is my laundry pile that greeted me this morning with a sinister laugh.

As you can see it's about 27 inches tall, by the yard stick I inserted into the pile.  I didn't measure how wide.  It would just be too much for me.

These are the folded piles sitting on the living room floor:

Here is the pile of stuff to hang (it needs to be ironed but that would be like me learning to speak Farsi in about a day...ain't gonna happen).  Also in there are sheets that need to be put back on the guest bed all flung over the recliner.

Here in lies the problem.  I don't mind washing or drying clothes.  I actually like it because since I got a lot of Gain cheap through my couponing, which I LOVE the smell, it's fun to see fluffy clean clothes come out.  I really don't mind folding either.  It's calming.  I HATE putting clothes away.  I hate picking up the  piles and walking them to the rooms they go in.  I hate putting them in the correct drawers.  I hate hanging stuff up.  I hate putting sheets on.  I hate putting the clothes away.  Period.  There have been times where I leave the piles sitting on the floor for so long, and they got trampled on so much by us, the dogs, or Munchkin that I've had to refold them.  

Luckily, I have the solution.  My husband.  He puts the clothes away.  I don't even have to ask.  Not sure how that happened, or why, but I'm not going to ask questions.  He just comes home, and puts them away.  Maybe it's because he realizes that it would take an act of Congress to get me to do it.  Maybe it's because he would like to actually go to his dresser and find clothes there instead of on the living room floor. Maybe it's because he would like to actually have a living room floor to walk on and a recliner to sit on instead of a giant laundry pile.  Maybe because he doesn't mind doing it where as I hate it.  No matter the answer, I love him for the fact that he puts the laundry away.  

My hero!

I'm back baby

Recently I have been laying off the couponing thing.  For many reasons really.  But I got back into it this weekend and tore it up yet again!

$2.98 out of pocket
$3.99 back in extra care bucks
$25.92 Retail

...and the award goes to..........

This is a gutter.

This is not the actual gutter....but for the sake of the story.

This is my running stroller.  I love this thing.  Munchkin loves this thing.  We go out running often.  But today was "Mother of the Year" award day.  AND I WON!!!

We're running.  Well, I'm running, he's chillin' in the stroller messing with his toys, sucking his fingers, etc.  We're running in the bike lane on the side of the road.  All of a sudden I run over something with the stroller...

Mr. Musical Octopus.  He got pitched out of the stroller and I ran over him.  So what else would you do when you're running and a toy gets pitched out?  Stop!  And stop I did.  And I stopped so quickly I flung Munchkin out into the gutter...

(again...not said gutter)

Munchkin has taken to rolling over on his stomach in his stroller and dangling his legs off the edge.  I didn't see him doing this because of the sun shade.  Gotta protect my little pale skinned baby from the mean ol' sun.  (Yes, I know what you're asking.  "Why wasn't he strapped in? They have seat belts/straps for a reason you moron!"  Well quite frankly, nothing like this has ever happened before so in my professional opinion, they were just something uncomfortable he had to lay on.)

This is a picture of the unused but in the future will be used straps.  5 points baby!

So when I stopped short to get Mr. Musical Octopus that was pitched out of the stroller, Munchkin went feet first and rolled into the gutter.  I just looked at him lying face up in the gutter and was in shock.  As was he.  I picked up the poor thing (the baby not the octopus) and snuggled with him until he stopped crying.  He wasn't even hurt, not even a bump or red spot on his head.  He was more scared than anything.  Then I started crying because I couldn't believe that I just flung my baby out into the gutter.  My sister thought it was funny.  She even said "well the gutter was clean wasn't it?"  Yea...it was really clean.  No water or gunk.  She said that every mother has to have some story of "dropping the baby" for each of their kids.  Then we recalled our own childhood stories of our mother winning the "Mother of the Year award."  They're funny now.  And I'm sure the Munchkin and I will laugh about this later.    But until then, I walked back home, put my pajamas back on, and I'm going to start the day over...or I may just stay in my pajamas and call it a day.  

It's tough being Mother of the Year!

Smoked a brisket this weekend.  SO FRIGGIN GOOD!

Pancakes

You ever get tired of cooking pancakes so you just make a giant one?

Thanks for Nothing

Pinterest is the bane of my existence.  (Maybe that's extreme but go with it)  I have found so many awesome things I want to cook, create, do, try, whatever.  Unfortunately, LIFE doesn't let that happen.  I mean seriously, WHO has time for this crap?

I started this wreath, then I learned that it takes about 5 minutes to make EACH swirly thingy.  I got 1/8th of the way through my wreath and gave up.

Here is my attempt.  It has been banished to the pile of crap (one of many) in our guest bedroom/pile o' crap room

 

This is a totally awesome idea.  I can sew too.  But I don't have the time or money to buy the fabric and make it.

 Now this I want to try...just need to drink more wine! No actual problem there.  : )

 These are SO adorable.  But who has time in the morning to make the biscuits? Or whatever they are?

 Doesn't this just look like a DELICIOUS heart attack waiting to happen?

 I thought this was just hilarious.  Those of you who haven't had babies...this is a pretty good rendition...only you feel like this for WEEKS....MONTHS!

 We LOVE Scrabble.  I mean...we will turn off our favorite TV show, put the baby to bed (when he actually will sleep) or just ignore him and play Scrabble.  Unfortunately, I need tools, time, paint, and a non-sand ridden, dog poopy yard that I don't have to do this.

 THIS.....is a small section of our lovely backyard.  I was too embarrassed to take a picture of the whole thing.  As you can see we have 4 foot tall weeds, a moat dug out by the dogs, fencing with rope and bungee cords tied to it.  (The rope is attached to a big blue tarp that is hanging from the over hang of the room.  It shades the back of our house from the pungent sun and keeps it from turning our house into a sauna.  The fencing was originally there to keep the dogs out of a portion of our yard.  They landscaped that area too.)

 I actually did this one because it took me about an hour.  The colors weren't nearly as pretty (I think they photo shopped this stuff) and they got further bleached by the sun because I live on AN ISLAND.

 As you can see.

 I have one of these which causes me to NOT be able to so anything else.  But I love him beyond measures.

 By the way...they are not gay.  Sesame Street issued a statement recently.

 I would LOVE to paint our desk this color.  But that means moving all the junk out and off of the desk, finding a pseudo home for it.  Sanding, HEAT, money, priming, HEAT, sweat, money, painting, HEAT, sweat, painting again, HEAT, moving all things back.  We're talking months here people...unless its those magical few days it cools and DE-humidifys here.  Like were talking 2 days out of the year. 

 I actually DO do this.  Did you know you can chop and freeze green onions??  I occasionally buy them for a recipe and they always go bad before I can even use them.  I don't store them in a stupid water bottle (Glad baggie for me), but it totally works!!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pumpkins.  It's weird.  It's almost a fetish.  I love fall or autumn time.  I love the cooler weather (not really here but in Oklahoma and where I was originally from), the changing of the leaves (yet again, the palm trees don't change color), and the pumpkins.  This is a dryer duct vent thingy painted orange.  Don't make fun, but I seriously asked for the items to make this for my anniversary which is tomorrow.  HOPE I GET IT, HONEY!!!!! ;)

This of course is not all the cool, adorable, awesome things I want to try.  But many times checking out Pinterest leads to depression and a lack of a sense of accomplishment.  But then I look at my son and it's cured.  (and my diploma on the wall from the greatest University on the planet.)