Trick or Treat!

We took the boys trick or treating in our neighborhood tonight. They were so excited. However, they only lasted one hour. After one hour their pumpkins were so heavy they were tired of carrying them. My back was aching because I was carrying Timmy in the Smugli. He totally fell asleep while we were walking around. It was cute to hear him snore. We brought the Yoda hood out of retirement (I made it for Thomas' first Halloween) and we thought it appropriate for a Jedi to carry Yoda. Only one person really saw our costume for what it was. Oh well. Most people commented on the boys.

Here's Timmy's Jedi robe. It was a little large. Sorry on the second picture. I think the camera jiggled.

We had the boys wear their Jedi robes to the Church Halloween party last week, but I told them they could wear whatever they wanted when we went Trick or Treating. Thomas found a soldier costume on sale and Matt dug out the Incredible Hulk from our costume box. Both boys allowed me to put makeup on their faces.As we went around Thomas started telling people that he was allergic to peanuts. So at least he's aware. We told him he didn't have to tell everyone and that we would make sure that he was safe. So after the boys went to bed, Doug and I went through their candy and confiscated all the chocolate. I did save some of the plain chocolate for Matt's lunches. But it's just not safe for Thomas. So Doug will get to take a haul to work with him. All in all it was a pretty good Halloween this year.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! This is my favorite holiday. Not only is it during the fall when it cools off and all the trees are so pretty, but it's also a time when you can dress up and be anything you want and you get free candy. What's better than that? I think I have dressed up for every Halloween of my life except for in 5th grade when I was sick. I even did in college and on my mission (I helped organize a Halloween party for the members and investigators -even tho they don't really celebrate Halloween in France). So now that I'm older I still dress up, but I have discovered Halloween through food. I'm a sucker for those little cookbooks at the checkout counters and every year I add to my Halloween cookbook collection. We had our Halloween feast last Sunday and invited some friends. Here's what was on the menu:

Like the hand sticking out of the chili? I experimented by making chili with shredded beef instead of hamburger. It was pretty good. It was a bit on the thick side. Next time I'll add more liquid. I did however enter the Chili contest at Doug's work last week. I tied for 1st, even after I accidentally used lots of red pepper instead of chili powder. Oh well. It was nice and spicy. Also take note of the orange/peach smoothie. We painted faces on the cups with melted chocolate and put the cups in the fridge to solidify before adding the smoothie. Cute idea!

Vegies anyone? I made this last year as well. Who can resist a hand sticking out of your vegetable dip?

Spiders and dip. These are esentially pigs in a blanket with chow mein noodles sticking out of them. Like the Web dip? The kids really liked it. I also made Pumpkin and Bat Jello Jigglers, which were also a big hit with the kids. Didn't get a picture of that.

I actually made this pumpkin cheesecake last year. I'm going to make another one today, but I thought I'd share this picture anyway.

I look forward every Halloween to playing around with different foods. I guess I'll start planning Halloween 2009 sometime next July!

Halloween pictures

Happy Halloween! I have some pictures to put up here, but for some reason it's not uploading them. I did manage to get this one picture up before it went kaput on me. So enjoy this one for the time being. I'll fix it tomorrow.

3 months old!

Timmy is now 3 months old. We celebrated by putting him in his very own Jedi robe (pictures later) and going to our church's "Trunk or treat". We actually got a few comments that he looked like a little Yoda (apparently people think Timmy's ears stick out a little). He is laughing and smiling all the time. He likes to have "conversations" with us. He is quite vocal. He is starting to enjoy his toy mat on the floor with rattles hanging above his head. He actually stayed on the mat for over an hour today reaching for the toys. Here are a few recent pictures.

Dinner is served

Last night I found something that makes dinner way too easy. We decided to get pizza. So I went to the Domino's Pizza site, clicked on what kind of pizza I wanted, entered in the coupon code, and picked it up in 20 minutes. I was so much nicer than trying to explain my choice of toppings and specific instructions to someone who doesn't even speak English as a first language. When I was 8-9 months pregnant I wanted a ham and pineapple pizza and they even messed that one up. (We got ham and pepperoni instead. Doug didn't want to take it back. I was ready to get my pregnant self back in the car and return it, except for the fact that I was so hungry. So I picked off the pepperoni and added my own pineapple. ). So this time around I picked my toppings, put some things on one half and different things on the other half, and it all came out correct. It would have been harder to explain to someone "no onions on one half and light on the onions on the other half" and have them get it right. And on Tuesdays it is buy a large pizza get one free. This may be a monthly occurrence!

Tag, Smag

So I was tagged by my friend to answer these questions. I enjoy reading other people's tags and I enjoy getting to know them better. I just wonder if I have anything interesting to share. Oh well. Here goes:

Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to seven others.The questions are as follows:
1. Where is your cell phone? Counter
2. Where is your significant other? Work
3. Your hair color? Auburn
4. Your mother? Frugal
5. Your father? Handy
6. Your favorite thing? Naps
7. Your dream last night? random
8. Your dream/goal? organization
9. The room you're in? Living
10. Your hobby? Cooking
11. Your fear? snakes
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Europe
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. What you're not? patient
15. One of your wish-list items? vacation
16. Where you grew up?Illinois
17. The last thing you did? sneeze
18. What are you wearing? sweats
19. Your TV? Big
20. Your pet? none
21. Your computer? homemade
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? Nae
24. Your car? two
25. Something you're not wearing? Contacts
26. Favorite store? Target
27. Your summer? crazy
28. Love someone? Kids
29. Your favorite color? varies
30. When is the last time you laughed? Wednesday
31. Last time you cried? forgot

Supposedly I'm supposed to pass this on. Well, that's kind of like a chain letter and junk email. So I think I'll pass. Besides, I have a cold and a crying baby. Gotta go.

"The eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight..."

Here's Doug's eye tonight. Lovely isn't it? Do you think he will learn from this and not play basketball again? No, of course not. Oh well.

Picture Day

Matt has his school pictures today. Hopefully they turn out nice. I'm so used to picking out my favorite pose when the boys get their pictures done. I hope his picture doesn't turn out like Calvin's. I love Calvin and Hobbes.

Taxi cab

I'm not supposed to be a taxi service yet. We haven't even started with after school sports and other things that would require a taxi service. Here's my day so far and it's only 4:00 PM. Let's start with the 5 AM feeding.

5:00 AM get up feed Timmy
5:30 go back to bed
6:30 I hear the boys yelling at each other and go tell them to go back to bed until the alarm goes off.
7:20 Alarm goes off, and I help get Matt ready for school
7:45 call the Dr to get Doug in to see him about his eye
8:00 drop off Matt for school
8:15 take Doug to Dr where I wait in the car with Thomas and feed Timmy (I went along just incase they did something to Doug where he couldn't drive back.) We found out though that if you think you need stitches that you need to take care of it within 6 hours of the incident. The doc said that he should have gotten stitches last night, but this morning was too late. He did get a tetnus shot though.
9:00 Drop off Doug at Metro
9:15 Drop off Thomas at Preschool
Come back and take a shower.
10:30 go to bank and then Borders
11:45 go back to get Thomas
12:15 Come home to eat lunch and get ready to go to store. (This morning I discovered that our milk, which does not expire until next week, was already bad. I made powdered milk for the boys cereal. That stuff is discusting!)
12:45 Sit down to feed Timmy, and realize that I'm tired.
1:30 Talk to Doug and he said that his eye was hurting and he was coming home early. So I get the boys into the car to go pick him up.
2:00 Pick up Doug at work
2:15 Race to the store to get milk and get back before Matt gets out of school
2:56 Pull up to get Matt just in time.

Now I'm resting a bit. Later tonight I'll go out for girl's night. I'm going to Book Club with some girls from church where we're talking about Breaking Dawn. I'm looking forward to getting more input about the book from others and having a time to socialize.

I think I'll put my feet up for a couple hours and hang up my keys. Unless of course I head out to go get pizza.

Church ball

The baby has been asleep for nearly 2 hours, the boys are also quietly sleeping and I'm very tired. So why don't I go to sleep you ask? Well, my husband is playing church ball (basketball at the church with a bunch of guys for those who don't know). I wait up every week, even though I should go to bed, because I know that someday I will get the dreaded phone call that he is seriously injured. So tonite when the phone rang earlier than usual, my first question was, "Are you injured?" This is why I wait up for him every week. When he got home he first went to the fridge for a cold water bottle, and proceded to tell me about the injury. I had to stop him short to tell him to wipe away the blood before it dripped into his eyeball.

Of course he'll go back for a beating next week. Boys will be boys. Is this what I have to look forward to with 3 more boys?! I need a vacation.

My job

Thomas was telling me all about our different jobs during our breakfast conversation. Here are our individual jobs according to Thomas.

"Matt's job is to go to school. My (Thomas') job is to go to preschool. Daddy's job is to go to work. Your (Jen's) job is to go to Girl's Night. Timmy doesn't have a job. No, Wait. Timmy's job is to eat."

Sounds like Timmy and I have pretty nice jobs. Now if I could only figure out a way to get paid.

Pancakes and chocolate cake

Every once in a while I am not in the mood to cook dinner or I have no idea what to make. On nights like these we have two options: 1. Go out. 2. Doug cooks.

Doug has a few specialties. Namely breakfast foods (pancakes, waffles, and eggs) and Mac & Cheese (boxed). I usually don't care to eat any of the above for dinner, but tonight was another exception. So they made pancakes, and Doug "kicked it up a notch". This is what we had for dinner.

Why, yes, that is a pancake with melted chocolate chips and colored marshmallows on top.

And I wonder why my kids don't like to eat vegetables. The boys, of course, were singing praises to Doug for his culinary delight. They love it when he cooks.

Kind of like when Bill Cosby gave his kids chocolate cake for breakfast.
Bill Cosby Himself - Chocolate Cake

Everyone does it

Potty training. Ah the joys. We fought with Matt about it and when he turned 4 he decided that 4 year olds use the toilet, and has been fine ever since. Well, mostly fine. Accidents do happen.

That's what I learned from "Elmo's Potty Time" today. Thomas and I just got done watching it. Thomas is actually doing quite well with using the toilet. He's been wearing underwear and has been dry for 4 days now. Quite the accomplishment. So I got out this DVD because he hasn't seen it.

It's a cute video about how to use the toilet. They go through all the steps, how to wash your hands, and how to recognize what your body is trying to tell you. There are all sorts of songs that the muppets sing. They sing about how hard it is to try something, and this song about how everyone does it (uses the toilet). "Mom and Dad do it. Even Kings and Queens do it. They use the potty."

There is this song that Elmo's dad sings with him about using the toilet. I found it on U-Tube and it's pretty funny.

Thomas was entranced with the video. I remember that all the Matt got out of the video was that "accidents happen", which he repeated to me every time it happened and that accidents are OK. Yeah, only sometime accidents.

Anyway, we're all very proud of Thomas. He saw a train in the toy store recently and I told him he could get it when he uses the toilet all the time. So I think he'll probably earn it next week. Maybe we'll even get him some new underwear and let him choose it all by himself. Of course he already has "Cars" and "Thomas the Tank Engine" underwear. I'm very happy to be able to stop buying the pull ups. 2 boys down, 1 to go.