To participate in this blog party, pledge to do is something holiday related everyday the month of October and blog about it. You do not have to blog everyday, just chronicle what you’ve been doing on each day when time permits. Deadline to join is October 1st.
October 4th
Todays craft is brought to you by Value Village. My 10 year old son is SERIOUSLY into Harry Potter. In fact, the only things he needs to complete his trunk to head off to Hogwarts are some potions bottles and a Nimbus 2000 as well as a trunk to put them in. He’s already borrowed my cauldron that’s from the 1800’s and made in Scotland, and my cloak (it’s even waterproof on the outside!) So when I saw this particular craft for making Beware Bottles, (near the bottom of the page) I immediately thought of Ian and his particular obsession. Especially as I have probably 20 vintage spice bottles which will be perfect for the craft!
I’ve also got 2 extra boys today, my BFF’s sons and good friends to my sons, they’ve been staying over this weekend. So we are going to be doing this altogether, and then probably making snacks to go with em!
Remember these guys?
That’d be 3 of the boys and my step-daughter! Muddy little hobbits!
My baby is 2 today. At 4:15 in the morning 2 years ago my water broke (a first for me after 3 other children) and we embarked on this new adventure after only a couple of hours in the hospital. Kaia shot out of me so fast, with only 1 push, the midwife barely had a chance to catch her. Kaia’s daddy flinched watching Kaia slide towards the floor. Then she stopped slipping, yelled and yelled and yelled while they weighed her, checked her signs. Then they handed her to me to nurse and she ate with gusto for 45 min. Little piggy.
Kaia is so different from my other children in a lot of ways. She says Who-wee instead of horse and chocklitt in a deep growly voice like her big sister did as a toddler. Her penchant for getting up between 5:30 and 6:15 is definitely like her big brother Owyn. He’s often found getting her a bowl of cereal, and then getting me while she’s happily munching. Just because the two of them awake at about the same time.
Otherwise, she’s daring, climbing trees, ladders, shelves, tables, you name it, with ease. I think she’s fallen maybe a couple of times. No serious bruises or bumps. My other kids have been covered in both to the point where I was scared to take them out publicly for fear people would think we were abusive! She KNOWS how very cute she is, and utilizes that with every breath, batting her eyelashes, fluffing her hair, the perfectly turned smile, with just the right amount of dimple. She loves wearing beautiful clothes, but has no problems with putting on a gorgeous dress, then going outside and helping me dig holes, or climb trees, or dump dirt into her water table to make mud pies.
She’s a dancer. I really believe that this little girl has got talent, serious talent. We are going to have to find the money somewhere to get her dance lessons, because talent like this shouldn’t be squandered. I danced as a child, and did ballet, until I was old enough to be on toe shoes (before my teachers daughter, who was the same age, because I was that good), but we moved, and we were poor. And I’m not built like a dancer. Never have been. Maybe a dancer for rap video’s when I was thin. But Kaia doesn’t have my body. She’s got her daddy’s body. And he’s tall, thin, and with long long legs and muscles that would be perfect for dancing (if only he had rhythm LOL).
Kaia’s almost completely potty trained now, and she did it herself honestly. She still wears diapers to bed and if we are going to be out of the house for more than 30 min. But I guess it’s time to sell off my diaper stash. I’m going to be sad to see it go. Seriously. However, and here is where birthday comes in LOL. We don’t have money for presents, and we don’t have money for decorations. But I do sew, and I do have a cretive mind.
What does Kaia need? Well she needs panties to be honest! She’s wearing her 7 yo sisters right now, and while Ingrid is very very thin, so they kind of fit, they are very saggy, and they aren’t Kaia’s. So after I’m done typing this out, I’m going to finish sewing Kaia some panties out of one of her daddy’s old t-shirts and appliqueing some decorations on them. She’s going to squeal with delight I know it LOL! Kaia also needs more nightgowns, I got so sucked into depression with my 3 oldest children gone to their fathers for the summer that I just wasn’t capable of anything but doing normal household chores. My brain isn’t wired to be creative and to create when I’m that sad.
I’m also finishing up the birthday banner I started, and Kaia also saw this dress on a blog I was reading:
and is now DEMANDING a dress like this. Yes, she’s only 2. You’d think she’s 4 with how she picks up on the fact that ‘mommy can make this for me’
So today, it’s underwear with hearts and starting a rainbow dress for Kaia. Then finishing a banner (it’s only bias tape, I don’t know why I’m resisting *sigh*) Then MAYBE another nightgown. At least I’m helping to get rid of more of my fabric stash right?
I’m also making my ‘famous among friends’ crockpot spaghetti sauce, and the kids are already saying ‘It smells so gooooood’ and ‘It’s making me huuuuungry’ LOL, plus a chocolate brownie cake (GF) with chocolate icing. Because Kaia IS a girl (and is related to me LOL)
On loosing weight:
Somehow, I looked in the mirror and I’d gotten quite chubby for me. I’m normally overweight. Heck at my VERY thinnest – when my friends asked if I was on drugs I wavered between 125-132. I’m not only big boned, but have very heavy bones (I’ve never broken one!) and I’m quite muscular, partly from my good Pomeranian blood (yes, you heard me right, it used to be a country) and partly from years of ballet, gymnastics, basketball and football.
So I’m used to being a size 12-14 and I’m ok with that. I’ve got a little waist, a big butt, and a chest that’s large enough to balance the butt out mostly. I sag in places (hello! four babies, and 9 pregnancies!), but I never had much in the way of cellulite and I had a pleasant shape.
Not so much anymore. I look in the mirror and think *ick!*
Then I saw a blog-y friend posting about using sparkpeople. So I went and checked it out, it’s got a little thingy that I can use to input my food, if it’s not in the database, I can put it in. I can also use my fitness checker to input how much I’m excersising. It’s not just asking for push ups, jogging, walking, gym workouts and the like. I can put in pulling weeds (gardening) and how long, and it’ll calculate how many calories I’ve burned. Or the other day I painted the kitchen more, and it calculated how many calories I’d burned. So it’s pretty awesome for something FREE in my book!
On Kaia, my baby,
she’s almost 2, It’ll be July 22nd at four something in the morning that my water broke (for the first time after four kids!) She’s almost fully potty trained now amazingly enough. The first out of all my kids that not only did it before her 2nd birthday, but also basically just did it herself. She didn’t like the little toilet, and insisted upon the big toilet, and that was that! We’re still working on pulling down pants, and pulling them back up. But it’s a work in progress. I’m going to be sad to see all her old cloth diapers go onto a new home. We’ve evolved over the last 2 years into almost exclusively pockets, and I do love them. I wish I’d had them with my first!
She’s also picked up SO many words, it’s like a new word an hour! The worst of them all though is Fuck. It’s supposed to be truck.. Only…..( So amusing but embarrassing at the same time) in the grocery store parking lot, she sees a delivery truck and yells ‘I Keem Fuck!’ (Ice Cream Truck) and the whole parking lot turns to look!! My honey says ‘No darling, it’s a Chip Truck’ and Kaia goes ‘ooooooooh, Shit Fuck!’ (queu smacking of head and turning bright red).
I’m getting on sewing her all sorts of stuff for her birthday and her cake is inspired by this: and this
Frogs (her favorite, she screams that word all the time and we investigate the tadpoles in the backyard every day) princess crowns, sparkles, flowers and wands. Oh yeah.
She’s almost swimming, she loves being in the pool at my friend Skyla’s house for hours at a time, with or without water wings. She’ll float a bit, and put her face in the water and blow bubbles. Plus spinning and bouncing about LOL. Today, while ‘helping’ me water the garden. She snuck off and got into the bell peppers (we’d found two almost ripe ones yesterday). I turned back around and she was halfway through a pepper. Held it up upon seeing me, looked REALLY cute (to get out of trouble) and said PEPPER! heheheh. Yes, I got pictures!
Tomorrow, I’m going to be posting pictures of all sorts of things I did. I’m getting good I think! However, my oldest daughter is wandering about outside with the camera at this time, so I think I’ll let her do her thing.
Oh, also tomorrow… My GF flour mix in a taste test with Pamela’s GF Bread Mix, the best bread mix for GF I’ve found so far. Who are the testers? My honey, my oldest daughter, and possibly some friends…. Tune in tomorrow LOL!!
the 90 degree 64% humidity and a cranky baby who won’t nap.
I’m sitting here at the computer listening to my youngest wail ‘Moooommmmyyyyyy!’ and ‘Pweeeeeeeese!’ So every few minutes I have to go in and tell her to lay down and go to sleep as she’s kicking the wall, or playing with her lego’s, or talking to and rocking her babies.
So I’m window shopping again.
My honey and I have had this ongoing ‘discussion’ (that means it’s not an arguement, but it’s definitely a disagreement) about the future of our bathroom. He liked my ex-husbands all black look LOL. But I’d like some style, some color, a sense of restfulness and peace. I’d like to be able to lay and relax in the bathtub and feel like vampires aren’t going to come join me in the goth club you know? Plus since the bathroom is an extension of our bedroom, I’d really like for the colors to go together. My bedroom is various colors of brown from chocolate to amber, and various colors of blue from periwinkle to cobalt. (I really like browns and blues LOL) So I’ve just been vaguely looking all over the place for things I’d like. Well, I really think I’ve found it! I’ll have to either find rugs that work, or do what I was thinking and make a bathroom rug, something like this fluffy one (neato huH?) but probably this one, I have some brown and blue scraps I’ve been savign for almost 16 years, and it’d be nice to have a place to use them where they are seen a lot.
Anyways, onto the pictures of my discoveries today. I’m really psyched about these, I do believe I will be slowly buying these pieces as money allows.
I’ve been having a really hard time getting my squash in. I’ve got about 20 pumpkin plants in, maybe more, but it’s hard to tell (my daughter left her pumpkin on the porch after halloween and it slimed down to the flower bed LOL and I dug them up)
Now remember, I’m in Southern Georgia, some of my friends are already harvesting cucumber, zuccini and summer squash.
However, the cantalope, cucumbers, watermelon, yellow squash, spaghetti squash, loofah gourds and various exotics aren’t in the ground yet. I’ve got one watermelon in, 4 zucchini, 6 spaghetti squash.
I’ve probably got about 24 more plants to plant and it’s HARD going. Our dirt is pure sand honestly. So I have to modify the dirt as I go along. Our compost is extremely nitrogen rich. I didn’t know that my honey had added our whole stash of goat poo to the compost tumbler, so I need to cut each handful of compost with sand otherwise it burns the plants (much to my dismay upon first finding this out) Plus the sand is extrememly compacted, there are some leftover weeds, and it is HOT HOT HOT outside. I’m dripping sweat and soaked to the skin after barely an hour (and all before 10am)
So everyday I try to get 4-6 in depending upon what my energy level is like. It’s slow going and makes me very frustrated that I’m not getting enough done.
I try to be easy on myself, but some days it’s hard when I look at where I am in reality, and where my brain says I should be.
Also disappointing today was the girls handling of their responsibilities. Normally the boys take care of feeding and watering the chickens, but the girls will be doing it for the summer. Today is the 3rd time that I’ve gone out there and found at least one of the chicken tractors without water. My honey is maintaining it was an accident. But I’m adding stuff up in my head and it all adds up to an accident with uncaring neglect. Not just careless – but uncaring. They are my step-daughters, and I love them dearly, but they aren’t being raised full-time by us, and their mother, well, their mother doesn’t have the same sort of values we do. And it’s hard.
Also on today’s list is my one of my best friends son’s b-day party. He’s turning 12, and is currently ensconced on my floor watching CSI with the girls. His mom wants him out of the house while they decorate, wrap and other b-day type stuff…
I’ve got a whole chicken in the crockpot. I’ve got one of those cool ones that has a pressure seal. So the bones get really soft and I can feed them to my cat and dog. The rest of the chicken is hopefully going to be made into chicken verde tamales. I have to run to the store to pick up some corn husks and hopefully tomorrow we will be having some yummy chicken verde tamales. I’ll post the recipe if they turn out well! Because you KNOW I can’t just follow a recipe, I HAVE to make it mine. (recipe’s huh!)
I’ll just go ahead and upload all the pictures from Morgan’s cake. Sadly, one picture turned out from Ian’s mandrake fondant sculptures. They turned out pretty neat looking, but more like pissed old men than whining babies LOL. However, they sunk into the ice cream, rather than hanging around on top. So the visual wasn’t quite the same, but the kids really loved them heh
I’ll go ahead and point you at Niel Cicierega if you are wondering WHY in the heck we did a cake like this. We are big fans at this house *grins*
Then on to Morgan’s cake:
Morgan's drawing used for the pattern
Morgan wanted a white cake with rainbow sprinkles
After dying the fondant with decent dye, I put them in bags, or on wax paper to roll out
After rolling them out. I put the pattern pieces on them and cut them out with a very sharp, small knife
Then I started putting them all together
Morgan, dressed as Harry Potter looks on in glee (that’s my daughter’s expression for glee) She’d probably kill me if she knew I included that picture
After putting most of it together, I cut the edge off the purple
Then added the ‘wrist’ for the puppet master
The whole thing together
Then my VERY FIRST time ever writing on a cake. So please don’t make fun of me LOL, it says ‘Voldemorts Nipple’
We are all worn out from grief today. The new puppy we got died in a pretty horrific way yesterday entirely by accident on the 2nd oldest girls part. She feels awful and guilty and while none of us blame her. It’s very hard looking at the spots where the puppy loved to lay. Finding ourselves watching our step for her when we don’t need to anymore. And watching our older dog Sammi, and Kaia, the baby looking and calling for the puppy. We spent a lot of time yesterday bawling, holding each other, and then trying to distract ourselves.
We had a funeral, and the kids have all drawn pictures that we are going to fold small and then place in the roots of the flowering plant we are going to plant today over her grave. We also included her favorite toy in the shoebox along with her.
Fraction was only in our lives for a very small time, and though she was a very small dog, she made a huge impression in our lives. We’d looked forward to years with her, and got only days instead. She is, and will be, missed.
The nightgowns part of my story started a couple of days ago. Kaia’s only got 4 onsies she uses for jammies. And no pj’s in her box of stuff to grow into. What’s a mom who is really poor in money to do?
Well, I’m defintely rich in fabric! The night before last, Kaia, all out of onsies, had nothing to sleep in. So I asked her if she was ready to come change her diaper and put on a pretty dress and she ran (she LOOOOOVES pretty dresses LOL). That’s when the idea hit. Pillowcase dresses!
So I’m going to sew her one a day for probably 6-7 days.
In Garden News
I found a bazillion pumpkin plants where Morgan had dumped her rotten pumpkin last year, so I planted them all yesterday. Seriously, about 45 plants! Almost all the amaranth is in. I found that they were doing well transplanted unless I waited for them to be a couple inches tall with at least 5 leaves. Some of my potatoes are dying down (got too hot, too soon) and I’ve dug them up (sooo cute with their teeny red and blue selves) they are about the size of the tip of my thumb and they are going in a bag in the fridge, which isn’t cold enough to hurt them. (and where I kept them last year). All the Cherokee Tomatoes are big enough and got transplanted yesterday, along with the bell pepper that overwintered (weird) and is flowered out already. A couple of hot pepper plants and the ONE Cal Wonder seed that I’ve had for 2 years that sprouted. Cherry tomatoes are going to go in in a couple of days. Black Turtle beans are up and doing fine.
Working on the squash bed, is hot dry, painful work. Really, I need a rototiller, but by the time the rototiller gets picked up, dropped off, and I induce my honey to use it (he can’t be in the sun much or he burns in about 15 min even with sunscreen right now) I’ve already gotten the garden dug by hand. Plus I’m getting fatter, so the exercise is greatly needed. My hands are killing me though. I think I’m going to make the kids start pulling weeds. Problem is, the bed is in a spot with the centipede grass which you’ve REALLY got to work to get out.
In Kaia News
Miss Kaia has figured out the difference between dvd’s and videos. This didn’t occur to me until I was diggin in the garden this morning. We have a dvd/video player in our room, and dvd only in the living room. Kaia ONLY asks for dvd’s in the living room. If she grabs a video, she drags it to our bedroom.
She also said her first 3 word phrase the other day (probably about 2 weeks ago) she was nursing a bit and popped off and said “I got milk!”.
She’s figured out the difference between I, you, me, and us.
Honey is teaching her Norwegian now along with the signs. He’s using the signs to integrate the learning of the new language so it’s easier for her to understand that *sign* ~thanks~, word thanks and word takka are all the same. Honey is working on learning Norwegian in the words that Kaia uses most (like eat, cookie, dog, outside, up, down, bye, cup, milk, bath, you know, typical everyday kid words)
Kaia is FINALLY letting me do her hair and KEEPS it. Instead of dragging out the rubberbands within minutes of putting it up. This is good because her hair is getting pretty long. She’s also learned the joys of swimming. One of our friends has a pool that is only about a foot and a half deep. Up to Kaia’s armpits. She’s totally fearless, putting her face in the water. Jumping up and down, spinning in circles. The awesome part about all of this, is being in the water must make her feel weird to pee in it or something, because starting last Saturday, she started insisting she be taken OUT, to one of ‘her’ kids. Brian took her out, she ran a few feet away, squatted and then pee’d on the ground! She did this 3 times in a two hour period of swimming. So we’ve been putting her in training pants during the day with her toilet in the living room for fast access and she’s pee’ing in it several times a day. Accidents are happening yes. But considering she’s only 21 months old. I’m pretty excited and awed by how smart she is!
In Me News
I have an appt to get foodstamps today. We really really really need them. I’m not a big one to let the government all up in my business. But feeding my kids comes before my paranoia LOL. Morgan and I also need medical insurance. Morgan had a seziure a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure it’s not epilepsy. But something brought on because she’d fallen, was bleeding, had hurt her ribs and was embarrassed. She’s been getting very very emotional lately and has agreed that since she’s showing all the same symptoms I did at her age, she’s going to try to go gluten free as soon as schools out.
I’ve been having a lot of lower stomach pain. Before my divorce was final I have a lot of problems with my paps always coming back badly and having to go in every 4 months for a biopsy. I’m supposed to be getting paps every 3 months until they come clear because I’ve got the hpv that can lead to cervical cancer. So lower stomach pain when I’ve got no insurance and there really aren’t any options around here is worrying. I also have a history of ovarian cysts, and it feels like I’ve got one again and it’s getting ready to rupture (this will be the 3rd time I’ve gone through a rupture, so I’m familiar with the pain it’ll incapcitate me for probably a day)
In Chicken News
The 5 black and white chickens (Dominiques, called Dominekkers around here), well 4 of them turned out to be roosters. Of COURSE the only one with a male name (hahahah Voldemort) is the hen. So we sold 3 of the roosters, got 15 bucks for them, and then went and got 3 hens from a local lady (well 30 min away) we picked out the prettiest ones, they lay white eggs, and all of ours lay or will lay brown or blue/green. We get home. I open the crate and the black/white one rakes my face and arms and flies out of the crate. Damn. I’m ok, not cut or anything. But damn. So Honey and the boys go off to chase the bird. This is bad because of the tangle of forest. Lots of vicious vines with thorns. LOTS. Then Skyla and her son Brian(one of Kaia’s boyfriends LOL) show up. Brian lopes off to help with the escapee, and Skyla keeps an eye on Kaia while I pull out hen number two. Only to have it do the SAME EXACT thing to me! AAAAAH! two escapees now!
Now Skyla and I decide that we will carry the stupid crate over to the chicken coop, open the door and let #3 run into her new home. Only to have her try to escape out a spot where ONE wire has busted off. She’s got everything but her legs and tail out. So we drop the crate, only to have her quickly pull her body back in the crate, and jump out the bottom of the crate (which has bigger holes, mostly covered with tin roofing).
Now we have THREE chickens running loose in our jungle. Not good.
After about an hour and a half of everyone but Owyn and Kaia trying to capture the chickens (and that’s because we made them go inside) we’d caught two and after Skyla tried to baseball bat the 3rd one, we said fo’gettit and gave up.
It stuck around however, and the next morning, the boys caught it after about an hour of chasing.
So now all 3 are in the small tractor. No eggs so far, but we are on day 2 of them having a full day in the coop with no truck ride and no strange people attacking them and separating them from their chicken brethren. Maybe we’ll start getting eggs from them.
In other Weird News
Yesterday while I was out at the parkday for homeschoolers. Very succesful, we met a new family who’d just moved here from Germany and they were way cool, the kids liked each other and us mom’s got along, though I don’t think we’ll ever be bosom buds, it’s possible. Yay!
Anyways, Honey came outside to the garage to put some laundry in the wash, and heard puppy whimpering. He looked around and could find NO puppy, however, the whimpering was getting closer. He started making soothing noises and right next to the laundry room, from a dirty sleeping bag, crawls this little teeny puppy. So Honey gives it some water and food, puts it in a contained area, since it has pimples all over it’s belly, he wanted me to check it out. We get home, he shows me the puppy, and I’m all awwwwwwwwwwww, and the boys are all awwwwwwwwwww, and Kaia’s all DOGDOG! DOGDOG! and squeeing. (dear gogs, the squeeing). It looks to me like the puppy has puppy pimples from a reaction to fleas or maybe something that it’s been laying on. I look it up. Dr. Google agrees with me and even shows pictures that agree with me. The shampoo recc’d for it is even something I have in the house. Awesome. So pup gets a wash, and then fits in. Wanna see pictures?
I’m pretty sure the puppy belongs to the cop down the road, they let their female dog run all over the place, bark and chase kids, pedestrians, cars, bike riders, you name it. Their daughter is a known pill popping hoochie (she propositioned Wulf while he was driving down the road and got caught taking loratabs at school) who is 14/15. So they can just suck it up. They don’t take care of their dogs anyways. A dog left in the yard and tied up in the heat is just not good ownership to me a dog tied up in the yard while she’s in heat is even worse! Dogs are pack animals and NEED their pack. They also need to have rules and have them enforced, just like little kids or they make bad decisions and do stupid stuff like chase cars. So if they come door to door looking for their dog. Well, I’ll be honest and give the dog back. I’m that kind of person. But if they are too lazy to even look for a puppy that is so tiny it’s the size of my hand and it can’t survive on its own. Then they don’t deserve it.
See! Smaller than my hand. I think the dogs down the road are chihuahua/jack russel mix. I’m not sure how a dog of that breed with fit in here, but we will see!
tells you weekly what all the Buy One Get One sales are. Mine are normally at Publix, with only a couple on Wednesdays at Harveys. However, BOGOfetcher doesn’t send the emails out until Thursday. So, if your local store like mine, does theirs on a specific day. I’d check their website. For instance, this Wed. My Harvey’s had a BOGO on red potatoes, 3.99. Of course they all went into mashed potatoes and then the next day into potato salad, so they were gone in 2 days LOL, but they were awesome while they lasted.
Another place to get ideas: A blog called 5DollarDinners. This is kind of self explanatory. heh. She talks about how she’s bought the sales, often with coupons as well, and what she makes out of them very cheaply. She’s only got 4 in her family versus my 6-9 depending on whether all the kids are here or not (We’ve added a Katy to the family) So a 5 dollar dinner that would feed all of us is truly an accomplishment. Usually they are around 8 to 10 dollars.
DealSeekingMom – another blog that is also self explanatory. She and a hoard of other deal seekers post their local prices, coupons etc. For instance, today I was alerted that KFC is unveiling their new grilled chicken and for today only they are giving away a piece FREE to any ol’ person who walks in! Hey, free bit o’ lunch if I’ve got to drive to town today!
So onto the menu. We were going to have Thai Chicken Soup today for dinner, Only I totally spaced putting it AWAY after I made it (my kids came back from Florida so I was distracted) and I woke up this morning to find it on the stove *sigh*
Luckily it was just 1/4 of a bag of garbonzo beans (about 20 cents) Left over chicken bones, skin and drippings, simmered into soup, frozen, so really, I’d already used the chicken, so we’ll call it free. One head of cabbage – 38 cents and half a bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce (1.50) So all in all, it was a mistake that cost me a little over 2 bucks and a couple of hours in time. But I haven’t been feeling all that well lately and weirdly enough, that sweet chili sauce has been settling my stomach… Plus I just HATE wasting food.
So anyways. Now I have to come up with other things to eat…
Some of the things on sale this week include pork picnic roast at 99 cents a lb, I’ve already mentioned the BOGO potatoes, plus frozen broccoli, sausage and BOGO salad.
I’m seeing…
1. Bangers and Mash (mashed potatoes with sausages and gravy – comfort food from my childhood and Welsh Grams) I’ll post that recipe Tuesday, since my grandmothers seems to be ‘not normal’ LOL
2. Grilled Smoked Sausage plus grilled squash, and baked potatoes
3. Chicken soup with Rice (whole fryers are on sale) (all 9 of us will be here for this dinner and the other 2 are PICKY)
4. Salad with bacon vinagrette (since the salad’s that are on sale also include various other veggies) I’ll probably add some kidney beans from my pantry for extra protein.
5. Taquitos (baked, not fried) mexican rice (with pollo y tomate and cumin) and refried beans (from the freezer, homemade)
6. It’s Ian’s birthday and he’s requested Shepards Pie (basically a thick beef stew with a crust) and ‘pumpkin juice’ (it’s my honeys’ birthday as well and he says he looooves my Shepards Pie, so that will do)
7. Oldest Daughters birthday, she’s at school, so I’ll ask later today.
Looking at all this, besides the two birthday dinners, for which we have a ‘free rein’ type thing. Most dinners are going to cost about 8 dollars for all of us. Not bad huh?
Oh and I’ve got to recreate these two cakes for my children’s birthdays. LOL
mandrake cake
We are figuring, mini terra cotta pots, ice cream innards, oreo toppings, and some sort of gooey candy for the mandrakes, maybe tootsie rolls, maybe that stuff that I can’t remember the name of now, or maybe some fondant to sculpt..
The 2nd cake is for my 14 yo.
Potter Puppet Pals Cake
Puppet Pals were invented by Neil Cicierega, see here
(so of course, I’m putting Wizard Swears on the Cake LOL her favorite is Voldemorts Nipples)
Of course, as a mother, I think they are REALLY dumb. However, he also does stuff like this next one, which I think is hilarious and very catchy (just see me grocery shopping when I run across Hamburger Helper)
Then, there is the teenage answer to this video that my birthday girl made with a Katy and a Noelle
Ok, on that note, it’s time to head to the grocery store!
