Waffles And Apples And Pears OH MY!

I've expressed my feelings about the food program I participate in before. They're obnoxious. They drop by unexpectedly to watch me serve a meal, write down the specifics of what is served, and compare/contrast my attendance sheets with what I recorded online to make sure I'm not cheating and claiming more kids are here than are actually here.

It's fine. They're following the rules and they want to make sure I'm following the rules.

I get it.

Yesterday she dropped by and the first thing she says is that the last meal she observed had been disallowed because I recorded online that the children had eaten Pancakes and Apples when in fact she saw them eat Waffles and Pears when she was here.

I looked and her and said, "waffles and pancakes are on the same line...they're interchangeable."

(It looks like this when I make my claim: pancakes/waffles (062))

And she was all..."oh hmm, I'm not sure about that, but even so...the fruit claimed was incorrect."

And then I was all, "siggggggh...you have to understand how frustrating this is for me. You SAW the kids eat fruit. For whatever reason, if I claimed pears than I guess I claimed pears, but the kids ate a healthy breakfast with fruit. You watched them. Pears, apples, apples, pears....what difference does it make? You sat here and witnessed them eating a fruit."

You have to understand I'm ALWAYS doing something wrong. It's why she comes back so often. I'm supposed to record the attendance and meals at the end of everyday and I never do it. I've given hot dogs and turkey sandwiches twice in one week for lunch. GASP! I've served cookies AND granola bars twice in one week for snack. GASP! I've forgotten to sign in my OWN CHILDREN on the attendance sheet. GASP! I've served mini rice cakes for a snack instead of whole rice cakes. GASP!

The list goes on...I'm always messing up. I just cannot get my act together. Something always gets overlooked and I've briefly considered just telling them to screw it and kick me off the program alerady. What a relief to not have to worry about them anymore!

Problem is they give me a check every month that I don't want to let go of. I have no choice but to buck up and try to comply with every nit picky requirement.

What I won't do for a few extra bucks...

Booooo food people.

Writer's Workshop: Why Did He Use Me? Why Did He Lie?

Share a diary entry from when you were 13...feel free to make one up!

I don't need to make one up.

I actually did keep a diary of sorts when I was thirteen...it's super boring, but I would love to share with you one of the more interesting entries and expose the inner most thoughts of my vulnerable thirteen year old mind. And I have to admit that 17 years later I still find this slightly embarrassing:

***

Nov. 18, 1992

I used to hate Rob.

He would tell me how much he loved me and that he thought I was fine and that he only wanted to talk to me because he didn't want to talk to any other girls.

He asked me out on a Friday and after hearing all of that I really did think he cared. Well one Monday when I went to school their is this girl named Nicole. I didn't know her, but she knew my friend. When I was with my friend, Nicole came up and said, "guess what, I'm going out with ROB!"

I didn't say anything until later and she talked to Rob about it. He said it was a joke, that he said "sike" when he was talking to me. BULL SHIT! Our talk definitely did not sound like a joke!!

Well I didn't talk to him for at least a week, until one day in shop he tried again. It worked. I forgave him and now we're friends. I doubt he'll do it again. I should hope he learned his lesson. After all, love sees no evil. Here is a poem I wrote while I was mad at him:

Why did he use me?
Why did he lie?
Why did he leave me and never say goodbye?

Why does he do these things when he knows it's gonna hurt?
Does he know that when he's through, I always feel like dirt?

I know as time passes day by day,
he'll get sorrier in every way.
He had me and he let me go,
What he did was really low.

He thinks sorry will always cut, but I hate to say he's wrong.
Let's just say we're singin' to a different song.

Maybe someday he'll figure out with reason,
That you don't change the one you love with the time of season.

***

And so began the teenage angst.

I'm just glad I made it clear that I was not a girl to be messed with, you know!?! That if you make me think you like me, ask me to be your girlfriend, tell me I'm FINE, and then humiliate me by telling everyone at school it was a joke...I'll ignore your ass for a good SOLID week...at LEAST, before I forgive you. Darn right you'll learn your lesson...won't be doing THAT again now WILL YOU ROB!?!

Now it's your turn!

Choose a prompt, post it on your blog, and come back and sign Mr. Linky. Be sure to sign up with the actual post URL and not just your basic blog URL (click on the title of your post for that URL). For good comment karma try to comment on the three blogs above your name!!

The Prompts:

1.) A Thanksgiving to be remembered...

2.)Describe the most destructive thing your pet has done.

3.) Describe in 1000 words or less a time when something happened and you knew that life would never be the same.

4.)Share a diary entry from when you were 13...feel free to make one up!

5.)Describe a moment you felt embarrassed by your parents.

In The Mind Of A Four Year Old

My little sister Baby has always been my biggest blog supporter as far as the family goes. She'll email first thing in the morning to let me know when a post has not published or to quickly correct a couple grammatical errors. She's the one, in the very beginning, who was all "I see a lot of pictures and captions when I what I want is some story telling...think up something funny and call me when it's posted."

And then I would post it and she'd be all "Yes! That's the ticket!!! More like that, keep'em comin."

When I had the string of Harry posts up (not a big animal fan) she was all "how long are we going to be talking about that dog??" and when I had some Maile posts up she was all "LOVING the Maile posts. Dang she's cute...but we need some Kainoa and Laina love."

Isn't she great!?!

I mean aside from the dog bashing, she really is quite helpful. Like a built in editor for me. When she mentioned Laina and Kainoa I started whining...I was all "it's just that I'm trying to keep the negative posts to minimum and all Kainoa does is yell at me right now and Laina I swear is looped up on caffeine 24 hours a day. The kid is driving me crazy!"

And Baby was all "you know sometimes you just gotta give it to us raw. We want to know what the kids are doing that's driving you to ostracize them from The Blog"

Laina and I have been butting heads lately. Might I recommend you NOT show your kids that you can print coloring pictures from your computer? It's all fun and games the first two times they ask, but then it becomes all they think about...and they want five or six pictures at a time...and they beg and whine and plead for more the minute each picture has been colored. And by "colored" I mean the hands and feet have been filled in on each of the pages.

My daily fights with Laina stem from:

a.) Me refusing to waste more paper for her.

b.) Her wanting to snack all. day. long. on fruit snacks.

c.) Her screaming about not wanting to wear a coat to school in the middle of Fall Wind Storm Winter Watch 2009.

and

d.) Her ridiculous need to be awake at all times.

She continues to be the one child of mine who manages to keep her eyes open until after 10pm, crawls into my bed multiple times throughout the night, is the first one up at or before 7am each morning, and take measly one hour naps in the afternoon. The lack of sleep is making her whiny and emotional and she's driving me bonkers.

So I decided to get to the bottom of our issues and really talk it out:

me: why don't you sleep at night
laina: cause i keep having bad dreams. i only have nice dreams at nap time, it's not nap time, it is really dark.

me: what do you have bad dreams about?
laina: bout wolfs, alligators, kitties, dogs, hyenas, reindeers and that's all and wolves and crocodiles and that's all.

me: why do you always ask for more pictures?
laina: I like you to cause I like the pictures an I like ta color dem.

me: why won't you wear your coat?
laina: cause I don't like it

me: Then why did you choose it?
laina: cause I sink it's really pretty but i choosed my mind I don't like it I just like my purple coat. My heart one.

me: But that coat is not warm!
laina: Yeah it issssss...cause I always don't want teacher to see...she will sink it's ickyyyyy.

me: why don't you take long naps?
laina: I tell you to print me out pictures.

me: What can I do to make sure we have smoother days, and you are not whining and I am not irritated?
laina: ummm...you can buy me sings like a dog an print me pictures and special sings.

I'd love to wrap up this post with an insightful conclusion about the phases kids go through and how we're better parents for choosing to hang in there and see them through it and that continuing to nurture and support them is the surest way to get the results we crave....but I can't.

...off to Target to buy some special sings! Tomorrow is going to be a GREAT day!!

You're Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept

Directions:
For you newbies it's never to late to jump in!! Here is what you must do. Choose a prompt that inspires you most. Write. Come back this Thursday and paste the URL to your actual post (do this by clicking the title of your post after you hit publish, an extended URL will come up in the address bar. That's the URL you want to use) into the Mister Linky that will be up...this way anyone can click on your name and head over to your place to see what you wrote.

Feel free to write on more than one prompt if you so desire. I do it all the time, but it's my game...and I don't know how to shut-up...so it should be expected. And remember the more comment love you give, the more comment love you get so comment comment away.

The Prompts:

1.) A Thanksgiving to be remembered...
(inspired via Twitter by @knitmyrhino from Crafting With Rhinos)

2.)Describe the most destructive thing your pet has done.
(inspired via Twitter by @alisha41481 from A Day In The Life Of Okie Rednecks)

3.) Describe in 1000 words or less a time when something happened and you knew that life would never be the same.
(inspired via Twitter by @lesleehorner from Waiting For The Click. Entries can also be emailed to Leslee at clickstories@gmail.com)

4.)Share a diary entry from when you were 13...feel free to make one up!
(inspired via twitter by @EricaVoll from I'm Still Fabulous)

5.)Describe a moment you felt embarrassed by your parents.
(inspired via Twitter by @MamaOtwins1 from 3 Boys + 1 Hubby = What Next?

Which one will YOU choose??

...pop over and say hi to the inspiration behind the prompt you're going to choose! I love using your posts as inspiration...without them we'd just be blogging about our top ten complaints each week. I'm really good at that.

I Hunger For You

I'll tell you why I love blog land.

I've met people.

I've met people that there is no way I EVER would have met had I not picked up this computer and jumped head first into the land of blogging. All different kinds of people. I'm lucky to be married to a man who actually tries to keep names straight....and I drop some weird ass names...because it's never just the first name...it's the first name, followed by the blog name, and accompanied with a brief description of their blog.

If I say "Angie, from Seven Clown Circus with the red hair and twins" left a funny comment, Pat will be all "is that the crackwhore??" and I'll be all, "no that's Heather from Mindless Junque with the short funky hair, but also with twins."

I think he's starting to get it.

The best part of it all is that you all are SO nice to me. I love that the only way I can really disappoint you is if I forget to email you back. You're not gonna get mad at me for bailing on dinner plans because I want to stay home in my sweats (which by the way should never be paired with blazers or sweater sets FYI).

You're not going to get annoyed with me when I turn around and buy the hoodie you're wearing because I think it's super cute. You're not going to roll your eyes every time I show up at your house wearing the same hoodie as you and then look at you like, "what???". You don't care if I flip the channels a bunch and watch nothing but scripted reality shows. You're not interested in how clean my house is. And you don't yell at me when I slip and tell everyone your big secret. Again.

You don't care about ANY of that stuff because you're all in THERE *knock knock*...inside my computer.

Helllooooooo!?!?

I love it.

I get all of my emotional charges from you now. I'm currently convincing myself that I don't actually EVER have to leave my house as long as I have a computer and internet access...and a camera...okay and a phone (for emergencies)...and maybe a pizza, or three.

So where is all this coming from? I'll tell you where.

The Hunger Games.

I'm hooked.

It's not the kind of book I normally read. In fact, I was not super excited about getting into this one because I read Twilight and I was not in love. I was hoping to become yet another grown ass woman swooning over fictitious vampires, but finished it feeling a little less than turned on.

Edward?

Eh.

Yeah I said it.

However, Lula refused to give up on me. I expressed a sliver of interest in reading The Hunger Games on Twitter and faster than you can say Edward Can Suck It, Lula (being the nice, caring blog friend she is) was emailing me for my address.

I felt kind of bad accepting the book from her, #1 because I wasn't sure I'd like it...and #2 well really just the one reason.

But I've met Lula...

...and I've conversed with her enough times to know that she's not the kind of girl that's going to take no for an answer. So I gave her my address. And guess what showed up on my doorstep LESS THAN TWO DAYS LATER.

The Hunger Games.

AND it's sequel...Catching Fire.

Hardcover.

It takes place in a post apocalypse America when everyone is struggling to survive and there are all kinds of rules and regulations to keep people people subdued and discourage any kind of uprising. Basically two people from twelve different territories are selected to fight to the death on some kind of reality television show. The main character is horrified when her little sister's name is called and she sacrifices herself to go in her little sister's place instead!

And now I can't put it down. Will the main character (a 16 year old girl) kill off 23 other people and win the hunger games? How could she possibly? But she must, right?? I mean how else can the book end? She can't just die. I must find out.

And I actually have no idea now how it is I started a post by talking about how much I love you guys and am now ending it by telling you I'm hooked on The Hunger Games.

What happened here?

The beauty of it all is that you don't care...you'll love me through my poorly written posts. And you'll love me even though I'm not thoughtful (or rich) enough to send you all a copy of The Hunger Games.

Sorry folks. You gotta go to Lulaville for that one!

And Lula?? My diamond collection is looking a little sparse.

And by "sparse" I mean "non existent".

Just sayin.

It's What's For Dinner: Snowball Cake

Normally at this point I'd introduce you to one or two super cute little chefs. But you know, sometimes you just need to cut the crap and do it yourself...especially when the recipe calls for lots of goopy chocolate and frosting.

So I'll be your chef today...and I'm warning you...this cake is really easy to make and it's REALLY good. Even Pat, who is not a huge fan of baked goods and is certainly not a fan of shredded coconut...the man RAVED about this cake. Raved. That's huge.

And yes the pictures have been heavily airbrushed...thank you Picnik for your "teeth whitening" and "eye brightening" and "wrinkle wand" and...and...and...just thank you.

Let's get started.

First thing you'll do is mix together a package of devil's food cake mix in an oven proof bowl.

Next beat cream cheese, an egg, and sugar until well blended; spoon into center of batter in bowl.

Now it's ready for the oven. Stick that bad boy in a 350 degree oven for an hour and five minutes. Ish.

And then wa la.

While the cake was cooking we were supposed to make the frosting by combining vanilla pudding mix, powdered sugar, milk, and cool whip and then let it set in the fridge for the duration of the cook time.

I waited...and the frosting was a smidge drippy...but tastey nonetheless. So dumpy your cake onto a plate, you want the round side facing up, and then smear the frosting all over it.

Sprinkle with shredded coconut.

And wa la again.

SO good!

Click here for the recipe at Kraft.



Other recipes you'll enjoy:

Cajun Seafood Pasta
Ravioli Lasagna
Thai Chicken
Parmesan Baked Salmon
Chicken Cesar Lasagna
Taco Salad
Kalua Pork And Cabbage
Seafood Stuffed Pasta Shells
Stephen's Broiled Salmon
Slow Cooker Tex Mex
Chicken Cacciatore
Chicken Enchiladas
Southwest Stuffed Burgers
Fiesta Chicken Dinner
Slow Cookin' Balls
Grandma's Cinnamon Rolls
Smoked Salmon Pesto Pasta
Pumpkin Bread
Baked Cavatelli
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cheesy Manicotti
Tuna Marinara With Ravioli

Disney On Ice

We went to Disney On Ice Friday night and it was SO fun!! In my professional opinion it's probably best for kids age 3 and up...but I might be tempted to take Kainoa in the future.

The lights, the characters, the seats...everything was great. I took a quick snippit of video, but it doesn't do it justice...you do get to see me singing Hakuna Matata though, or however it's spelled.



The night was ever so much lovelier because one of my favorite ex assistants came along for the ride. She's beautiful. And I love her. I basically told her I would marry her even though I'm 11 years older than her....because Pat is eleven years older than me so I know it could work. Only it turns out I'm married with kids...and I'm not a lesbian. But one for four is not so bad.

Get ready to be flooded with pictures.

Oh and the best part of the whole night was when I was all, "excuse me! How much is that shaved ice that comes in those adorable tinkerbell mugs??" (thinking I could buy one each for Maile and Laina and their two friends). The answer?? Ohhhh a mere TWELVE dollars for shaved ice. TWELVE dollars for colorful ice and...wait for it...

FOURTEEN if you wanted it WITH a spoon!!

I just stared. No response. Just staring.

Cotton candy was 12.

Fancy swinging lights were 20.

Programs were 15.

I mean really the prices were crazy. Thank God I packed capri suns and goody bags for the kids. Otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd be sleeping in cardboard boxes tonight.