Oh yeah! I'm packing up like a squirrel for this winter! Greenbeans, corn, tomato sauce, peaches, applesauce and hopefully some pumpkin! I also have peach and strawberry preserves! Yum!

Do you stock pile food? Preserve? Can? Freeze? How do you organize it?

I have no real pantry and my kitchen is the size of a walk-in closet. I need some storage ideas and tips. I dread having to go to the basement everytime I need something but that looks like the only solution. The built-out cabinet I'm using now needs to be torn out and rebuilt in the spring so I'm hopeful someone will share some wonderful ideas with me!

School Buses On The Road

Hip-hip HOORAY!

The hubs is back at school and the money is soon to be rolling in! I love back to school, that means that fall is soon to be here. Crisp days, pretty colors and good food! I would love to totally quit my job for the fall so we could spend our weekend doing "family things" outdoors. I think that is the only downfall to my current working/watching situation. The bossman doesn't want me to be limited, or resign for that matter, so I have to work the weekends-every weekend! As happy as I am to get DH out of the house out of my hair back to work, I do miss family time and being out and about. Plus he is a great help, do you have any idea how much diapers stink in the summer?! We also can on the weekends and canning is an all day event. I felt terrible showing up late after work yesterday to find everything finished and cleaned up. I certainly can't go a year without peaches, applesauce, greenbeans, tomato sauce, pumpkin....

How do you spend your weekends?

I'm so torn over the work issue. Having an actual employer makes me feel like I am contributing to the house. Then I find myself feeling guilty over missing family time to work. I always tell myself that I am working to pay off my car, which DH drives since he bought me a new one, and that will be paid off at the end of the year. In theory I could just quit then, but then I would lose all this spending money I would have! Hello! Mama likes to shop!

When is it reasonable to put your family first?

With that being asked/said and out of the way, I am happy to announce my kids are totally normal! They had their first FIGHT today!

Joy.

It was serious business too. The knocked each other down, pulled shirts, grabbed at one another, Claire was smacking the top of Emma's head-it was hilarious! I'm such a bad mom! I couldn't pull myself away from the entertainment to intervene. I just sat back and watched till they settled it themselves and came crawling over. Two hot messes full of tears and wailing! I could do nothing but laugh at them! Emma even managed to pull Claire's shirt half way over her head so when all was over Claire had her arm coming out of the neck hole in her shirt! It was too much!

So what do you do for such behavior in 13 month olds? They don't exactly listen, aren't ready for/don't understand time out and I don't think it warrants corporal punishment. When can we start discipline with them?

After Two Days

I'm still alive! HOORAY!

Monday I started watching Ham. Ham is my cousin's daughter, not sure what that makes her to me or the girls but we're sticking with cousin to avoid any confusion. So much easier to say niece that 27th cousin three times removed on my mother's side-whatever that is! Ham is 2.5 months old. Together, I have a nearly 28th month old-cake walk! Even when they surprise you by learning stairs, in the blink of an eye! First try and she was half way up before I noticed! She was so proud of herself too!

So having to deal with a newborn, brought back some memories. Like dear God how did I survive all this bending and lifting? I feel like my back is going to break! How do I lift 40 lbs of baby with no problem but this little 10lb bag of sugar is made of solid steel! Ham is very easy going, but I am super over protective because a.) not my kid and b.) my kids like to tear things into little pieces!

Are you super careful with other people's kids?

I mean I make sure my kids don't maul each other or are left dismembered or dead, I'm not totally neglecting them. But they are kids, the move, they get hurt. If I hurt someone else's kid I would feel terrible! Ham has this fancy monitor in her room. I wasn't big on monitors because my house is a shoe box and I hear EVERYTHING! So the monitor starts going off, it's alerting me of something who knows what, so I pick it up and stare at it! WTF? I didn't go to the kid, just the monitor, it will tell me what to do! Crazy!

So I survived, it's weird to have a baby around again. Emma is in love with her, Claire will politely smile and go about her business. She had some serious jealousy going on yesterday. They are coping well with getting up early, but nap time is an issue. I didn't want to go back to pnp's so I take their blankets and lovies and we sleep on the mat. Kinda like daycare. I clean up their toys and throw down the naptime stuff and say sleep. But it doesn't work, imagine that! How do you tell them it's nap time without a crib? Anyone? HELP!

They've also started acting out-FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC! Since DH works just down the street we all drive up and back together, and when he comes in from work the girls break down. They sob and reach out for the Daddy. They demand to be held. It's ridiculous! They were fine moments before he walked in! What is up with that? Guess I'm chopped liver now! See if you get peanut butter chips with lunch again!

Waaaaait A Minute!

Sooooo not what I was expecting to find! When did she learn to climb stairs? Why doesn't anyone keep me informed???

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Baby Clothes

Bright and colorful, but not baby clothes!

Droopy Drawers

Little baby, large diaper cover.
Sometimes I'm just too lazy to run two flights of stairs for diaper supplies, so I use what's available. Droopy drawers Emma is fashioning a wonderful thirsties diaper cover in large which I found at a consignment sale, NEW w/ tags, for a dollar and they didn't even ring it up! FREE!

Pointless post as I entertain myself waiting for children to wear themselves out, sorry to waste your time. Do you ever have those days where everything gets off schedule and you end up with a late nap? We went to the beach today and the slept the whole way home! We got home a little after 6, and bedtime is usually 8. It's pushing 8:30 and these ladies are still chugging along strong!

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iPad

No I don't have one. No I don't really want one, although I think it would be the perfect accessory for the bathroom. I am totally a mac girl, through and through. I love technology. My mother however, does not. She is currently using a computer that my parents bought used from my father's company roughly TEN YEARS AGO! It's running Windows 95! When is the last time you saw Windows 95? Grass grows faster than this computer runs. My mother knows bits and pieces, and will only learn what she needs to get by. Mother uses her computer once every 4-6 weeks. Just enough to log on and clear out hundreds of junk mails.

Ten years ago we still had AOL. Guess what mother still has, and uses? She also pays for, on top of the AOL fee, an additional phone line, and DSL though the phone company! My sister uses the DSL upstairs, and mother the dial-up downstairs. Mother didn't know she could use the DSL. I've explained to mother on several occasions that she could cancel various services but she wasn't interested in listening to my advice.

Well all of this craziness was brought up at the family reunion when my dear Aunt Debbie asked why mother was never online. Everyone else is online, and we chat and keep it touch. We FB like the rest of the world (Love that FB is now a verb). Aunt Debbie is appalled and says she'll send mother one of her old desk tops so she can stay in touch. Nice gesture, right? What is posted on my FB wall yesterday??

Aunt Debbie sent your mom an iPad can u help her with it

Really? That was followed up with my mother's twin, and cousin, and myself all inquiring when to expect ours! That's right, my computer illiterate mother is getting a superior piece of technology that will most likely sit in the office, untouched, for weeks on end. WTF? It not that I am jealolus, although if anyone wants to send me a new macbook pro I'll gladly send you my addy and pay for shipping! I don't really want an iPad because it's just a glorified iPhone. I am just amazed that of all the people in the world, my computer hating mother is getting one. In fact it is here and I am going to show her it's wonderfulness tomorrow and she won't flinch. I asked her to simply unpack it and plug it in tonight, her response, "I'll try."

She knew yesterday that she was getting this piece of heaven, and she was unfazed. In fact she called me to come help her install a printer. I thought it was for my sister and I show up to help. She wanted me to install this new printer (which she got last christmas but waited for the ink to run out in her current printer which is also roughly ten years old) on her antique computer! I ask why and in her motherly condescending tone she says "Well Miranda, I will have to print things" She had no idea that what she is getting was a computer. That she could print from it. She admitted having no idea what an iPad was but that she thought it was a laptop for the internet. Yeah, that's my mom. She was is shock when I explained it's size, thickness, and that it "was just a screen".

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update in Mother v. iPad!

Pool Time!

Family relaxation time! Which was really Mommy is uber hot from mowing all this grass and needs to cool down A.S.A.P! This summer has been so hot and humid that I avoid cutting the grass. It has also been rainy making the grass grow more quickly. Fantastic! It's raining today, but not heavy enought to wash away the last of the grass clippings on the sidewalk. Lame. Please disregard the neighbor's ugly garage. I'm really hoping it falls down soon and takes all the ivy with it!

Not pictured-the 40 million blood sucking, welt leaving mosquitoes! I had 12 bites on my face! WTF! That is nonsense! I had to keep swatting them off the girls. They seem to be horrible this year and we are at least a mile from the water.

Happy Zooday!

This is a picture post. Follow along!

Where did you take us now? You do know I had an abbreviated nap right? As we're getting out of the car I survey the sea of mini-vans and strollers. We used to loathe these soccer moms totting the kids and all their crap in their mini-vans with their stylist hair and trendy strollers. Then I realize that in mere seconds we'd be unfolding our trendy stroller, and unloading all our kids crap. It was sobering. I'm one of them now! ACK! At least my kids don't whine-yet.

And what do people put in diaper bags? If you're diaper bag is tipping your stroller over, the kid should be walking or someone needs to stop preparing for EVERYTHING!

As soon as we pulled in this Chimp was quite curious about the babies. It sat there, on an upturned bowl, just watching the girls.

Every time Emma went to pet the goats she turned back into DH. Aren't the drool marks sexy on his shirt! They stop drooling at some point right?

Claire wasn't too keen on touching the animals. She would sit next to them, but there was no contact. She was polite and said hi.

Thinking about petting the goat.

Mommy and Emma, right before we went in this cave with nocturnal creatures. Only half the exhibits were closed for renovation, and it was dark and damp and hot, AND VERY CLOSE QUARTERS, and people weren't moving, and this mommy started panic. We made it to this opening and I couldn't see an exit and I ask DH (probably very loudly) if there was an exit as the sweat was pouring off of me. What panic attack, psh, I was totally in control there! After that we had a few minutes on a bench to suck in some fresh air and settle ourselves.

We had a great day at the zoo, even if the girls are a bit too young to enjoy it. It did make me sad to see the animals in pens instead of roaming free. I'm not a total hippy who is going to boycott the zoo though, animals are neat! Hopefully my few dollars can make their lives a little more bearable. Or hopefully spring for something to keep kids, AND ADULTS, from banging on exhibits. They're not trained monkeys, they're monkeys asshat. People don't knock on your living room windows for you to jump up and entertain them. Ugh!

Great day, not to hot, and free ice cream! And all for under $20! National Zoo is lined up for a visit in the spring! Today's interesting fact, the zoo is open year round! I am seriously thinking about going in the middle of the winter, there will be no one around!

Heading to the Zoo!

Most people enjoy their evenings sans children. Most people. Once the ladies were in bed DH worked out, go you! My fatness and I headed into the kitchen! I made and froze cookie dough. Six dozen balls of chocolate and walnut that will be baked to perfection and land safely in my tummy! Then I prepared some corn for freezing. I found out my crabs and shrimp were bad-boo. I made a shelf of trash in the fridge-a whole shelf. Saturday was my family reunion [post coming-late as usual] and there was way too much food. Of course I brought home crabs and sat them in the sink-and took a nap. So now I will throw all those delicious, FREE, meaty crabs away. No crab cakes, soup, stuffed salmon, drool..... I did get a lot of food for the girls and was able to freeze a lot of corn for winter which is nice. I love being suzie homemaker! I also received a huge can of beans, which will hopefully help my low-iron-having-refuses-to-eat-meat kid boost her levels and ditch the iron. How horrible is it that I am more worried about her teeth turning grey than her over all health? My iron is always low, and for years I've seen my doctors huff and puff over it, just as they do with my mother. We are just not iron people I guess. This further fuels my distrust of doctors knowing what's best. Anyhow...With the iron came the toothbrushes, and with the toothbrushes came upset babies! Emma loves her toothbrush, just not in her mouth. How do you get them to brush?

I made a picnic lunch for the family! Tomorrow we are taking the girls to the zoo! I'm so excited, I love seeing the animals up close. At the same time it makes me very sad to see them penned in. I would rather animals in zoo only be injured ones that were saved, but I'll step off my soap box. Maybe I can visit Marcia and go on a safari! With money being tight at the end of summer(guess who is counting down to the start of school!!!!), I decided to take advantage of Zoodays. Tuesdays through August admission is half price and everyone gets a free frozen treat! Since the girls get in free, that is $14 for admission for a family of four with a treat! Score!

Does anyone else can/preserve/freeze food?
I have more peaches, tomatoes and sauce, applesauce, apples, and apple butter in my future! What else can I can?

Farewell Bottles

Emma was tooling around with the idea of using a sippy, Claire was flat against it, and last night I put my foot down! So today was our first full day with sippies, and it was great! I am so excited. There is something not disgusting about throwing a sippy in the fridge and retrieving it later. Claire did fuss and moan a bit yesterday but today was smooth sailing.

So when do I let them drink like us? As of now they still have sippy time like they had bottle feedings. They don't get sippies with meals because I actually want them to eat and not use the sippy to smash their meal. Which btw, they are GREAT at! I actually feel a little proud, and not the sad my-babies-are-growing-up feeling. Guess who is feeling that?? DH! Ha! I didn't think he would care too much, I was wrong. He was hoping for a more gradual transition, but I followed the advice of many and went the boot-camp route. Think he'll cry when we potty train and he doesn't have to wash diapers anymore??

Time to pack up the bottles and give myself some more counter space! I also finally moved my pump today, which was more upsetting than the bottles. I haven't pumped in a month! I'm not sure why I am so attached to that horrible little machine. I'm just trying to focus on the happiness that sippies have brought into my life. My goal was to have them on sippies before we started watching Ham and we made it just in the nick of time. Two more weeks and life will be much more interesting to say the least.

In other news, we had some fun family pool time today. I let my child fall face first into the pool without any sort of floatation device because I was trying to take a picture. [Both child and camera survived unscathed] I've misplaced the dog's nail clippers and we now have BIG GIRL CAR SEATS! I was super excited when the other arrived today. Yes, super cheap free shipping means you have to sign for one but not the other, so Saturday the fe.dex man left one on the porch and stuck a notice to my door. Really? They are exactly the same! Tard. I was so excited and wanted to clean the car of all it's milk drops and che.erios but once again it was a million degrees in Baltimore. I will have to do an exclusive post on the new carseats, I'm that excited about getting a millimeter of leg room back! Hope everyone is having a good week!

Birthday Paloooza

The first birthday, the big one, the one you can't mess up. The one that appears to be all about the kiddies but is really all about you surviving an entire year with little people being completely dependent upon you and NOT cracking! I nursed, pumped, held, changed, bathed, soothed, played, entertained, cried, loved, laughed, and lived! I survived! We survived! And so I treated myself, because if Mama don't feel good....

The before hair, yuktastic. Unkept, ponytail dwelling, limp, dead hair.

After a day out with my best friend!

It's good to treat yourself. My hair 'did', my toes prettied, and my brows tamed!

But this day wasn't for celebrating my survival from two beings nearly sucking the life from my body, it is about celebrating our children and all that jazz. So in comes mommy-homemaker to make a cupcake server to serve her homemade caterpillar cupcakes!

After a day of baking I was left with 37 36 caterpillar cupcakes, and two butterflies. Homemade butter-cream icing too! Remember that, it's important later.

I left early the day of the party to set up. It was hotter than Hates out, thank you Emma for deciding July was a better month to be born in, September is obviously too cool and gorgeous for you! It was also windy, so my best friend and I battled table clothes with duct tape and lost. We then gave up to battle the gorgeous homemade banner, pulled it across the pavilion and went to tie it when it broke in the middle. Kaput! At that point I gave up, set the food up and started to chug water. No one would remember the decor anyhow!

You'll notice I didn't include the top of the cupcake stand. Remember that wind?? Blew it clear off, cupcakes and all. See the cupcakes on what is now the new top? See the dribble? Homemade butter-cream MELTS in 100* weather folks! I didn't plan on the elements. Next year will definitely be indoors.

Then the ladies arrived with Daddy. We had tie-dye shirts for them to come home in and decided to relive the moment for their birthday. I pay some hippie in Oregon to make me shirts, he is the greatest!

There was a TON of food, and it was hot so people weren't eating as much as I had hoped. Most of the leftovers were chucked, it was too hot to trust them. All the fruit came home with me and the dogs enjoyed the leftover burgers and hot dogs! I froze the fruit with my ice cube trays chopped so I can thaw it for yogurt! Genius!

Presents, there were lots. Of course the girls were only concerned with the tissue paper and gift wrap. They also loved the cards. A few toys caught their eye, but nothing to divert them from the crunchy paper! It seemed to have taken forever to go through all of their presents, there were bags upon bags. Luckily this means that I have nothing to buy for their fall/winter wardrobe. NOTHING! 14 outfit sets, 8 pants, 12 shirts, a few sweaters, 4 dress outfits, and a trash can sized bag of clothes from Blind Nana(my mother). We went out shopping and she couldn't resist clearance racks! They received a ton of toys which I am trying to accept and move past, are owed a wagon whenever I get my butt in gear and tons more. Spoiled much? I finally ordered car seats too!

Then the much anticipated cake. After they were settled in their seats I became almost panicked! These cakes had food dye! My children were going to be tie-dyed! Luckily I was wrong and it wiped off!

It took Emma a while to realize it was food, but once she did she devoured half of her cake!

Claire loved the icing, but never really dug into my delicious applesauce cake!

In the end Emma won the cake battle, but both were clearly on a sugar high. My mother thought I wanted to save these. As if my freezer has room to hang on to birthday cakes, what is the point in that? Everyone loved seeing them tear the cakes apart and cheered them on. At the end my BIL was teasing them and making faces and Emma threw a chunk of cake at him. I nearly peed myself!

Then the party was over. Everyone left. We cleaned up. Got the cars. Then came Barney Fife! Dear Mr. Park Staffer in his suped up gator was having a tantrum because we brought a car up to the pavilion to get my MIL out. He was totally unwilling to discuss the matter with anyone, and wouldn't even talk to me, the one who is registered to use the pavilion. He went so far as to tell us he was calling the police to give us a citation. I'm sure the police would have cited us for easing the trip of a 70 year old woman in a wheel chair and her 81 year old husband on a 100*+ day! What an asshat. I really should write a letter.

After that, my father insisted on instigating and brought his truck up to the pavilion to load up, yelling at Mr. Park Staffer all the while. It was going so smoothly till that grumpy old man showed up!

We found out that my BIL lost his phone, then it was found, but we had left and had to go back and retrieve it for him. All this happened during a horrible storm, that broke the heat just after the party-go figure!

Then I had to sort.

This was our toy storage before the party.

Yes, my children were toy deprived. But these toys have not really been touched since the new toys arrived so I'm guessing I can donate these, right?

Cause who has room for all this?

Great birthday, great kids.

Another Day, Another Beach

Well, the same beach. We're not coast jumpers, flying off to exotic locales for day trips folks! I find myself getting aggravated that we just can't move! Buying a new house is not the issue, I need to find some schlub to buy this house! Then hope that someone vacates a nice high school band director position for DH to fill!

Today was wonderful, and we stayed for almost 4 hours! This was our longest stay on the beach so far this season, it wasn't too hot and there was a gentle breeze. The girls were in and out of their sun shelter. They have gotten very comfortable with the beach and sand, but they are still very leery of the crashing waves. Everything in time!

DH came home in his star role of Lobster Man. Lobster Man is known in this house for his special oh-my-gawd-why-didn't-I-wear-sunscreen-I'm-burnt-to-a-crisp dance. I should have re-applied but I can tolerate my slight crisp. We also have a red head! Not red as in hair, but red as in sunburned scalp! Mother of the year here sunscreened faces and arms, but not her very fair daughter's scalp. Emma's hair is virtually clear it is so blonde.

This picture isn't so great, but you can see the outline from the sunscreen. I hope she doesn't have some horrible tan line around her hairline. Claire has a decent amount of hair so her head doesn't have much of a burn at all.

This is Claire and I, in typical cellphone self portrait fashion. Claire in her turtle rash guard and I in my ill-fitting, very old, favorite pre-baby bikini. Best part of this picture-no belly! Boobs to knees! Next year someone really needs to force me to go bathing suit shopping. The bottoms no longer have elastic and although it is a string bikini (which is definitely not mom-wear) the elastic would have helped to keep my asset covered. I'm sure the people watching me in the water today think I have some issue with touching my ass!

Hope everyone else had a great Monday! As soon as I upload the last of the pictures I'll finish my birthday party post. As for the rest of my night, I'm off to order some car seats!!

Canning Fun!

Having fun canning at Bum-Bum's!

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