P.S.

I've already expressed my lack of enthusiasm for big holiday preparations. I love to see the kids excited, but they get just as excited to go to the zoo as to dress up for Halloween (and the first requires a lot less on my part). As such, the kids think Halloween was last Friday (the night we had our Trunk-or-Treat at church). The person who spoils this for me will...I don't know what a suitable punishment is. Just don't tell them, ok?

And on a completely contradictory note, I usually make the kids' costumes. Maybe this is why I'm filled with such stress each Halloween? Jonah takes such delight in planning his costume (this year, he had a whole family of super hero costumes drawn out in great detail before changing his mind a week before), and he does have a mom that knows how to sew (albeit too lazy to change the thread color), so there you have it. And since I'm sure there are a few curious people (Hi, grandmas!), I actually took three pictures of the costumes this time. That might be an all-time record.

Jedi Jonah using Force Lightning. I tried telling him only Sith do that, but he says Force Lightning is his favorite thing, so who am I to argue?

There was another Ewok at the Trunk-or-Treat, but I think Caroline was cuter.

Nice pink pumpkin, you say? You don't even want to know.

Happy Halloween! And seriously, don't tell my children they're supposed to get more candy tonight.

birthday week help needed

If you've been a semi-regular reader of this blog, you know that we take birthdays seriously around here. Considering I just lamented to my sister that I really don't love the prep and hullaballoo of holidays (except Thanksgiving, more on that later), this might seem like a contradiction. Just the opposite, however. The conversation ended with me saying, "Except for the food, of course. I love planning holiday food." This must be why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Cooking for three days does not stress me out in the slightest. And thus, the week of birthday meals is not at all difficult for me to enjoy.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, my birthday is a week from tomorrow. That means that sometime in the next seven days (I'm thinking we may start Wednesday or Thursday) my birthday week will begin. Unfortunately, I only have three things on my list!! I need some help! Since I pick the meals every week, my birthday week tends to be a little more normal than the other family members' (Josh chooses seafood almost exclusively). That said, I still love the chance to spend more time and money on dinner than I might normally or to choose things that not everyone in the family loves. So far, I have:

Potato soup (Mom's recipe, of course)
Pot roast (For some reason, the family doesn't love it. They eat it, but I never have to fight anyone for the leftovers, which is crazy to me because left over pot roast is soooo good!)
Little Sombrero's (only my very favorite restaurant in the entire world, other than maybe Flip, which is in Birmingham, so that won't be happening this year) or Cheesecake Factory (because who doesn't want a few different slices of cheesecake for her birthday?)

That's it! I have 4 more meals to come up with and I am seriously drawing a blank. I know I want to make Italian cream sodas one night, but that's hardly dinner. Ideas, anyone?

the sad state of refried beans around here

Perfecting a recipe for me is a bit of a challenge. First off, I don't love experimenting with recipes. If it's not great the first time, it's hard to want to go through the work and ingredients to make it again. Secondly, attention to detail is not my strong suit. Making something the same way 2 times in a row (let alone every time) is nigh near impossible. That said, I have slowly been working my way through things to where I have a few foods I don't even bother looking for new recipes.

Chocolate chip cookies, for example, are only ever made from a combination of Alton Brown's thin and chewy recipes. While they're not exactly the same every time, they are close to the same at least 85% of the time, and I'd rather make something else than try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe (mostly because I'd rather eat these cookies than the product of any other recipe most of the time). Pancakes are usually these (though I have been known to branch out every so often). Other that I have narrowed down are banana bread, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, and potato soup (Mom's, always). I have three or four bread recipes I like, but I pretty much only make those (but I do alternate because I get bored). I even figured out how to sort of make biscuits, which was a trick, let me tell you. They're not amazing, but they're good enough for us (and way better than my first attempts). The last few weeks have been spent on fry bread (which is more technique than recipe, but definitely nothing with yeast in it), courtesy of a trip through Sacaton and a chapter book (The Cats of Tanglewood Forest) that mentions it every few chapters and encourages Jonah to ask for some more.

I have a long list of things I still need the perfect recipe for: curry (one of each color and major ethnic variety), tomato soup (Josh and Kaitlyn got tired of trying my attempts. Jonah specifically asked for canned tomato soup this week. That should tell you how well the recipes were received.), and sugar cookies, to name a few. The thing I'd like to master next, though, is refried beans.

Most of the time, they're okay. Tonight they were undercooked, but that's only because I'm out of jarred beans and I decided I wanted beans after Caroline's nap. But even when they're nice and soft, they're just not as amazing as the restaurant variety. I am of the opinion that anything at home can be as good as (and usually better than) store bought (except Oreos). I've tried extra grease, but they just tasted greasy. I've tried different varieties of beans, but that's not what's missing. Whatever it is, I'm on a quest. All I want is a nice bowl of yummy beans and a tortilla. Is that too much to ask? (Oh, and I'd like to make better tortillas, but I can deal with the Costco kind for now).

Jonah is not wasting any time

This morning, Jonah asked me if mice are real. This afternoon, we saw a field mouse while on a walk. Tonight, Jonah declared he'd like to get a pet mouse. "We'll need lots of cheese. And bugs. And maybe grass and plants."

Josh's mini me

During an Alabama football game, Josh went to eat lunch on the couch. Jonah informed him that we don't eat on the couch, and when Daddy does it, it's confusing for the kids. So Josh set up his lunch on his lap. It wasn't more than a minute before Caroline put her food down, got off her chair, scooted her chair across the kitchen, went back for her plate, and then struggled to find a way to climb on the chair while holding a big plate of food.

We just love doing what Daddy does. (Sorry, Josh, about the picture of you chewing. It was just too cute not to put in here. Parenthood is nothing but sacrifice, or something like that.)

does this ad apply to you?

Am I the only person out there that seriously contemplates that question each time Hulu asks it of me? I get irritated with Josh when he says "yes" to something that clearly does not interest us. He thinks it's hilarious.* Well, let me tell you what. I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not when Hulu wondered if a Listerine commercial applied to me. Were they asking me if I have teeth? I most certainly do! Yes, this applies to me! Or was the question if I care about oral hygiene? Again, yes! But then I had the thought that the question might be if I have bad breath. No, not usually. No, this does not apply to me. Is Hulu insinuating that I have bad breath that no one has told me about? Well now I'm just offended.

Alas, before I could figure out which premise of the ad did or did not apply to me, the ad was over and had moved on to a commercial for some prescription sleep aid. And with that, it was obviously past time for bed.



*This is indicative of our respective roles in our relationship. I have been known to get disproportionately passionate about things of little to no importance (ask him about the bee on the windshield sometime if you want to have a good chuckle at my insanity), and he has been known to regularly test the boundary between charming and annoying. The kids are really lucky they have us both to balance each other out.

diy ant killer

I have a lot of things to say that I haven't had the time or interest to blog about yet. For starters, the library changed their book filing system. That is a two-part rant at the very least. Plus, Caroline says a few more words and there's Halloween preparation coming up and I have a few new recipes. None of those things filled me with enough passion to write a blog post now that the weather is finally cooling off. (There's enough passion about the library thing, I just haven't had the time to do it justice. The weather is cooling off, remember? That means lots of trips to the park and open windows and cooking.) But this? This ant killer? This I will shout about from the rooftops.

Let me start by explaining that the people who lived here before us left a pretty big mess. The rental company had the house cleaned, but either the cleaning company forgot about the top shelves in the kitchen or they saw the mess and were scared away. Every single top shelf in the kitchen had a random assortment of trash (a used hair dye kit and some plastic forks were above the stove, for example), but the bottom of the shelf was covered in what I can only describe as honey covered in graham cracker crumbs. I don't think that's what it really was, but maybe. I haven't thought too hard about what the substance actually is. What wasn't cleaned up by the ammonia is now covered by shelf liner.

Now, to the main point of this whole thing. There were a smattering of what I think were sugar ants in the pantry when we moved in. Every once and a while we'd see one in the bathroom or on the kitchen counter, but they kept to the pantry for the most part. They really liked our bottle of maple syrup, but since I never found any under the lid, I was fine to let a few ants nibble on residual syrup on the outside. Judge me if you will, but I've never been hyper vigilant about cleaning the outside of my syrup.

A month or so after the move, though, we noticed the ants getting worse. There would be more than one or two on the counter or a small pile of them munching on something I'd spilled while cooking dinner. Reading this, I'm sounding like a slob. But really, I wipe down the counters a few times a day, but I'd inevitably miss something. The ants bothered Josh a lot more than they bothered me, so I just ignored them. That is until I saw a whole line of them coming in through the window and across the counter. A line of ants was too much for me. I tried a few remedies I read about online (wiping the area with vinegar, wiping the area with alcohol, sprinkling baby powder on the window sill where they were coming in) and nothing worked. I even tried Borax dry. I'd heard it killed ants, but we never had much success with it on the fire ants in Alabama. Then, I tried this.

Amazing. I put a half batch or so on a folded up piece of aluminum foil and left it out overnight. By morning, the whole thing was covered in ants. I was worried that they were drowning in it, but I saw a few slowly moving away, so I decided to just wait and see. To my surprise, it was completely empty a few hours later. When no ants came back the rest of the day, I moved my foil plate to the pantry. Why not, right? The pantry ants followed the same pattern: a few hours in, the thing was covered in ants. A few hours after that, they were all gone. It has now been almost two weeks and we haven't seen a single ant in the house. I kind of wish they'd come back so I could try again.

And there you have it. Apparently killing ants is more exciting to me than documenting just about anything else. But seriously, you should try it. It was cool.