Before and After

My daughter, Rachel wrote a post on her blog entitled BEFORE and AFTER. It was cute and had a fun recipe on it. She didn't really give the recipe a name but called it a "yummy breakfast".

This is her before picture..... This is her after picture.....
I really thought it was clever and we needed something quick for our breakfast this morning so I decided to make it. I mean, how hard could it be? Stuff a piece of bread in a muffin tin...
....drop in an egg ...

add cheese to the top... Um, mine was a total disaster. I have to confess that I didn't have her pictures in front of me when I was creating my "yummy breakfast". I forgot that she trimmed the crust off. She also used white bread, not wheat. Wheat isn't flexible and won't squish into the holes right.

I also read later that she bakes hers for 15 minutes at 350 deg. I broiled mine. By the way, this is NOT gluten-free. Mine wasn't even edible. The bread was burned and the egg was raw.

...VOILA!!!
The kids ate yogurt for their "yummy breakfast" and raced out of the house.

Open Wide and Say Ahhhhhh!

Last night before bed, I went downstairs to Megan & Heather's room to tuck them in. I gleefully thought, "Ah, Meggie's already asleep. What a sweet little dolly." Then, as I bent over and kissed her little forehead, my lips caught fire! She had a high fever.

I scooped her up and brought her upstairs to sleep near me. Her temp was 102.4. It's amazing how hot that feels to the touch. I have a tip for young mothers. Kids will throwup when they have a fever, even if they don't have an intestinal bug. Get their fever down and they may not puke on your bathrobe!

I bathed her head, arms and chest with a cold, wet washcloth and gave her Motrin Junior. She was wrapped in her "Eee", her name for her lavender blanket.......... and had "Possy" cuddled up with her. (Possy is a Popple.) Cuddling with Eee and Possy is very necessary when you are 7 and feel gross.

This morning she woke up and was just as hot. She moved to the rocking chair in the livingroom. Eee and Possy are with her, she is in her bathrobe, watching a plethera of movies. She has applesauce, water and a muffin to nibble on. Her temp a couple hours later is 99.9.

In Honor of the In-Ogg-ur-ation

I couldn't help noticing today, while NOT watching the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, how old our Past-President George W. Bush was looking after 8 years in the White House serving our nation. It must be quite the stressful job as it takes quite a toll on our Presidents. Here is my honorial gallery of Presidential pictures.

President Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.)

July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006.

Served August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977.

BEFORE ....

AFTER ....

President James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr.

Born October 1, 1924 - still living.

January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981.

BEFORE ....

AFTER ....
President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004.

Served January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989.

BEFORE ....
AFTER ....

President George Herbert Walker Bush

Born June 12, 1924 - still living.

Served January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993.

BEFORE ....

AFTER ....

President William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III)

August 19, 1946-still living.

Served January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001.

BEFORE ....

AFTER ....
President George Walker Bush

July 6, 1946 - still living.

Served January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009.

BEFORE ....

AFTER ....
President Barack Hussein Obama II

Born August 4, 1961 - still living.

Served January 20, 2009 -

BEFORE .... AFTER ....

Some of Fred Sanford's quotes:
"You big dummy!"
"Ohhh...this is the big one. You hear that Elizabeth? I'm comin' to join you honey!"
"Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."

Finger Cots

Definition of Blanket: Large, warm, covering for sleeping, that pee, barf or popsicles may end up on and can be trashed by children.

Definition of Quilt: Large, warm, covering for sleeping that is intricate in it's design, took hours/years to make, may be an heirloom. It has a decorative top, fluffy batting for the middle and generally has a simple fabric on the back. The three layers are kept together by a series of stitches called quilting.

In my very narrow opinion, machine quilting is beautiful in a quilted wall hanging or handbag, but doesn't belong in traditional quilts. Chinese factories put out millions of these machine quilted knock-offs and they get peddled through big-box stores all over the world.

Click on this fabulous site that describes The History of Quilts. I love to make quilts by hand. It is truly a dying art. I went to a quilt store today. The word "quilt" is actually in the store's name. This store contains lovely fabrics; juvenile children prints, 1930's/civil war/revolutionary war era reproduction fabrics, batiques, etc...

I need supplies so I can hand quilt. This shop carried no hand quilting supplies such as a thimble or.....

..... finger cots! I think they were named that because they look like little pieces of dried apricots. Apri-cots, get it?

Anyway, yes, they also look like miniature condoms. I wear them on my index finger and they help me to grip my needle and pull it through the fabric as I push it through on the other end with my thimble. Incidentally this cute shop didn't carry basic thimbles, either.

Most modern quilters aren't looking for warm bedding to keep their families warm in their little house on the prairie. They are trying to make art with fabric. They love the traditional blocks and geometric shapes, but are unwilling to take the time (hours/years) it takes to produce a REAL quilt. A machine-quilted quilt can take only a weekend to make! Ah, could this be a description of the lives we live? It takes time to make a masterpiece and we live in a food-served-in-styrofoam, where's-the-remote, type of a world.

Where did our desire for tradition go?

Chubby Bunnies

Boys are dorks. I know this sounds awful coming from a loving mother, but shees! The first video is of our 15 year old son, Clint and two of his friends. Clint is in the middle. They are playing the popular teen-waste-of-time-and-resources game called "Chubby Bunny". The rules of the game are simple. You must cram as many marshmallows in your mouth as you can. After the insertion of each marshy you say "chubby bunny", which keeps you in the game. The person who can hold the most without spitting out/vomitting/choking & dying WINS. Hurrah!!

The next video is of my 11 year old son, Matthew and his 3 little buddies, playing the same game only they didn't use a $1.49 bag of marshmallows. Oh no! They went through about 24 packages of mozzerella string cheese at a whopping cost of $12.00. I am amazed that they aren't all lying in the morgue with white ooze dribbling down their chins. Just FYI, all these boys are A students and good kids! That doesn't mean they aren't dorks!

I found a mysterious mass of white slime in the boy's bathroom garbage. The mystery was solved when I downloaded pictures from my camera and found their documentation of their crime in video. My proudest (?) moment was seeing my own son win the Chubby Bunny Competition. It's a 5 minute video and if you want to get to Matthew's part slide more toward the middle of the video. (I'm slinking away now)

Pilfered Pillows

Today when I was scrubbing up muddy paw prints on the floors, I received a call from Victor who was at work. He was grumbling because the hotel we stayed in, after Christmas with the kids in the metropolis-over-the-pass, had billed our credit card an extra $75.00. They were charging us for 3 pillows supposedly removed from room #137.

"Well, that's preposterous", I exclaimed! "Our family didn't take any pillows out of those hotel rooms!" For one thing, with 9 kids in tow, we could never have stuffed another thing in that Suburban! Anyway, I told Victor that I would call the hotel back and get it cleared up.

So, I called the hotel desk in metropolis-over-the-pass and told them of their error. I suggested that if room #137 (the room our boys stayed in) was missing 3 pillows, perhaps room #135 (the room the girls stayed in) was 3 pillows in the good since the rooms are adjoining. The clerk said she would check on it and would call back.

Two loads of laundry later, the clerk called back and informed me that "no, there were no extra pillows in room #135" but they would credit back the $75 to our account anyway, and she hoped I would have a good day.

"Hmfpt", I thought to myself, "those cleaning ladies, can't they count?" By-the-way, my little sister works at that same hotel as a part-time cleaning lady. It even crossed my mind that she was playing a joke on us.

While taking the folded laundry to the bedrooms, I found to my absolute horror.... PILLOWS!! Three sparkling white (I knew they couldn't be ours and they positively glowed in that room), fluffy pillows in a bedroom inhabited by smelly teenage creatures!

I just lied through my teeth to that metropolis hotel clerk!! Is it a lie if you don't know you're lying? I was just stunned. Why would MY precious teens STEAL pillows? I got a confession out of the two accused, of course they each blamed the other. They also claimed that they believed it was not stealing as hotels will just charge the room for what's taken. The room? The room is the father!

Well, anyway, we get to take the pillow thieves back to metropolis so they can personally return the pilfered pillows with a practiced apology.

All Alone!

It's Monday morning. Victor is at work. He actually went in an hour early because he took a whole week vacation last week. He knew there would be tons on his desk so he got an early start on it.

The kids are all in school. They had 2 weeks off and now are back on their regular schedule. I wasn't called into work, so I am wandering around this very quiet house, finding things to do. An odd change in my life. I have NEVER been alone until now. With all the kids in school, it's just odd to have time to myself.

There's lots to do, however. I don't want to give the impression I am sitting around eating bon-bons, watching the soaps or blogging. I have bathrooms to clean and will until the day I die!

Ok, the dogs are here with me, but they're not much for conversation. Want to see our driveway now? We can get into our garage now. Very nice.

A Dunking We Will Go

Victor and I decided that a nice gift to the kids from us would be to go to the nearby larger town and stay in a hotel and let the kids spend time together. We had reservations for three nights, two of which we missed because we were snowed-in. On Monday night we finally escaped our drifted-prison and took the kids to play in the nearby metropolitan city. (chuckling) We brought one of the dogs with us, because he needed to be dog-sat by my sister, 'cuz he is old and can't withstand the cold in the garage.

It may look like we are a bit packed in like sardines. We drove Nathan and Clint to meet Kayleigh who took them to the hotel, so we didn't have 10 kids in the Suburban. The girl sitting in the back seat next to Brooke is her friend.

The kids went to the mall and WalFart so Matthew could spend his gift card on a fishbowl and goldfish. We all took the kids to Old Chicago for 3 platters of Nachos Grande. Mmmmm! The Matthew named the fish Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Santa's Little Helper. :-) Anyway, when we were at the hotel, the kids had a blast. The hotel was sponsoring a local college basketball champtionship for which there were 3 basketball teams staying at the hotel. We're lucky we found rooms! Anyway, the kids swam...

.... and swam .....

.... and swam ....

............. and dunked each other ...............

Christmas 2008

Christmas was wonderful this year as we had all 9 of the kids to celebrate with. Christmas Eve the kids opened their jammies and we made homemade pizza. The kids played games together and watched movies. After they went to bed, "Santa" and his elf (tee hee) brought the gifts to the tree and filled the stockings.

This is Clint with a body pillow. Below is Heather, Megan and Matthew. Matthew's new bike is in the background. Christmas morning the kids straggled out of their bedrooms and checked out their stockings. Then we all gathered in the livingroom and Victor passed each child a gift to open. Here is Brooke and our dog, Bo, watching as she opened a gift. Below is Kayleigh snuggling up in a blanket as she waits her turn. My sister, Shawnae and her son Justin, came over in the afternoon and stayed for a couple of days. We had a large dinner with turkey, glazed ham, stuffing, jello salad, cranberry-celery salad, rolls, and more. We had 13 at the two tables and had so much fun together. Nathan and Heather are waiting for the opening of gifts to begin. Below is Stacey glaring at me for taking her picture! Ha Ha, I got it.Below is Megan with her new bicycle. She is very excited and wishes she could ride it now. If you have read my previous posts, you'll know that she won't be riding till the snow melts.... in the spring.

We had a very Merry Christmas and we hope YOU did, too!