Archives for 2006

…my Hubby gave to me:

a five ounce bag of beef jerky

I know – it seems like these are mostly food gifts – you would think (and you wouldn’t be wrong) that all I do is eat! He handed me the beef jerky this morning, and The Princess looked at it, paused, and said: “Ewwwwwwwwwww.”

Well – more for me, then.

… Hubby gave to me:

Six packs of Ritz Snack mix…

Actually – it was one box of Ritz Snack Mix 100 Calorie Packs – but there’s six packets in there. I love those things. Have to hide them from The Princess so I will actually get to eat them and not have to share.

I have spent the better part of the past few weeks (years?) cleaning up after kids and to be honest, I’m getting to my breaking point. Hubby wrenched his back this morning, walking through The Princess’s room because it is such a mess. And it is – she has three dollhouses and various other toy goodies scattered around her floor.

Not only is her room infested with toys, we have a toy box in the living room as well. By day end, I think I’ve put away every toy the girls own at least two times.

The mess is making me crazy.

One of the biggest advantages of this construction project we’re currently undergoing is that once our new master bedroom suite is completed, our current bedroom will become a playroom for the girls. I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled I am that all of their toys from all of the rooms will have a home (a pretty good sized one, at that), and I might be able to reclaim the rest of my house.

While I’ve never been a complete neatnik, I have to admit one of the hardest things about raising children and a husband is the mess. Hubby thinks nothing of leaving his breakfast dish on the counter rather than walking two feet to put it in the dishwasher. The Princess and Pumpkin currently think it’s a great deal of fun to take all of their cups, plates and bowls (all plastic, of course) and put them in the middle of the living room and pretend to eat and drink. Yup. Rip-roaring great time for ME. I stepped on a plastic cup this morning, and it cracked, and I thought The Princess was going to cry.

And in less than a week, my kids are going to get showered with toys… and it’s all going to get … worse.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

…my Hubby gave to me:

Seven cans of tomato soup

(Deja vu from last year – y’all remember, he gave me soup then too? I love tomato soup – The Princess and I make a can of soup, have a huge bowl of it with about a sleeve of saltines smashed into it. Yum).

In the butt-kissing award of the week, The Princess was the hands down favorite after this exchange in the car today. We were en route to the store to buy her some clothes (my in-laws, rather than try to find gifts for the kids, gave Hubby and I cash to buy their gifts), and I told her, “Let’s try to find pants. You need pants more than anything else.”

Her response?

“Oh no, Mommy. What I need more than anything else, is you.”

Just in case You didn’t know. Time magazine chose You to be its Person of the Year. Way to go, You. As a blogger, and a blog-reader, I suppose I should feel included and all excited to be part of this group – but to me? This seems like such a cop-out choice. Was 2006 really THAT boring?

…my Hubby gave to me:

Eight scratch-off lottery tickets.

I won three bucks, so I’m super excited! Then, we went to Target today and wrapped up our holiday shopping, and I used my gift card to buy a Jodi Piccoult book I hadn’t yet read (if any of you are readers – I really love her books – she’s amazing).

Whatta day, whatta day.

…my Hubby gave to me:

Nine peanuts in shells

A hilarious side note – first – peanuts is one of my favorite things to munch on. Great for protein and it’s “natural” (no high fructose corn syrup in ’em)… so getting peanuts was a cool treat. Funny thing is, Hubby ONLY got nine. When he’s done this in the past, he would buy a whole bag, set aside the number for the countdown, but we’d still have a huge bag of peanuts. Not this year. He really cracks me up – he went to the bulk food section at the store, put nine peanuts in the bag, and when he went to check out, the bag was so light, it didn’t even register on the scale. The cashier ended up giving him the peanuts for free – but only after Hubby explained to the cashier why he only wanted nine of them.

Today was our first ever cookie decorating party. I’m not sure if it’s an experience I’ll repeat in the future. Ask me again in a few days. Right now, I’m so hopped up on sugar, that even the smell of these cookies is likely to just set me over the edge.

The Princess and I started our day early, baking what amounted to roughly eight dozen cookies – both sugar and gingerbread. We had invited about six of her friends to come over to decorate the cookies, and then take them home with them. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. I have always been a baking fiend – and when I was a kid, my mom’s friend used to invite me over to bake Christmas cookies (because my mom hates baking and just didn’t get into that sort of thing). I guess part of me was feeling nostalgic for those days – and part of me wanted to do something memorable for The Princess.

Planning any event at this time of year is nuts. People’s schedules fill up early and completely – and I picked the date around one little boy’s preschool schedule. He’s The Princess’s best buddy – aside from our neighbor J, who was conveniently sitting in her first grade classroom at the chosen time (Yes, I did that intentionally – shhhhh, don’t tell my daughter). Unfortunately, the turn out was small (two neighborhood friends and their moms) – but it was actually a great deal of fun.

One mom completely saved the day by realizing that popsicle craft sticks would be much easier to use for the spreading of frosting. She then quickly dashed home to get some.

The kids had fun – we had three tubs of fresh frosting – white, red and green. Our topic choices were many: colored sugars, sprinkles, M&Ms, confetti, gumdrops, mini jawbreakers and frosting pens for writing. While we decorated, we munched on a bowl of scrap cookies (the broken ones that didn’t survive baking and removal from cookie sheet to the cooling rack), and laughed quite a bit. The kids enjoyed munching the goodies they dropped on the table I had wrapped in plastic (that icing is a pain to clean once it hardens!).

After about 90 minutes, we had all grown tired, and we wrapped up the cookies and our friends left. We still have about 3 dozen cookies to decorate, and The Princess and Stepson will start fresh in the morning. Fortunately, our builders are taking advantage of unseasonably warm weather to work on our house tomorrow – so we’ll be sure to send them with a huge bag of treats.

As for me, after 45 minutes on the treadmill tonight, I might have worked off a fraction of the scraps that I was shoving in my mouth all day. The kitchen has an overwhelming cookie aroma. And for now, the sight of frosting could set me over the edge. But… I haven’t ruled out next year yet.