Emilia's One and Only Shot

So it is sideways, but here is a video of Emilia's one and only shot when she was playing basketball earlier this year. They actually lowered the goal to 6 feet instead of the usual 8 feet for one quarter especially for her. She was great at playing defense, you sic her on a kid and that ball was as good as hers. The offense part was much harder she just didn't have the muscles to launch that ball up to the 8 foot mark.

I think she would do much better at soccer, we are patiently waiting for that season to start.

btw: that little wiggle at the end would be me jumping for joy and shouting YES! I am especially proud of her for making it on the first try.

Gift Wish List

Okay come up with 5 things that would be on your gift wish list. It has to be something totally fun and possibly frivolous. There is no cost limit, but be realistic.

Here are my five thing:
1. Cricut machine for scrapbooking
2. Gift Certificates for Digital Scrapbooking items
3. A day at the spa
4. Nintendo DS (they have a beautiful new crimson model, well at least I haven't seen it before)
5. A romantic weekend away with the hubs.

disclaimer: this is just a muse.....so Steve (my husband who reads this blog) I don't want you running out to get anything.....this is NOT A HINT!

I am going to tag three people. Suzanne, Lauren, My Mom, Kim and Mrs. Mordecai.

Money's Worth on Kitchen Appliances.......

Right now we are considering buying a deep fryer. Not that we plan on frying alot of food for health reasons. However I love fried fish and the kind you get at the restaurants are usually very greasy. I recently fried up some catfish fingers at the house and loved how they turned out. So for an occasional fish fry is it worth getting a fryer? And then what kind of fryer? The cheap one or one that we can invite friends over and have a party? How do you balance weather or not you get your money back on an appliance?

Here is the cheap-o one. It is $19.99.

Here is the nicer, two basket fryer. It is $64.88

So which one would you get?

Staying Calm

My friend was in a fender bender the other night. She commented that only after she had gotten home and the kids into bed that she finally broke down. To me that is just the result of being a mom. If she had freaked out at the scene no doubt her kids would have freaked. I think when we become mother's we create an internal mechanism to keep ourselves calm in bad situations.

It reminded me of last summer when we took the kid to an water park called Cedar Point. The have the regular amusement park and a water park called Soak City. We decided that it would be fun to go to the water park side and overall we did have a really fun time.

They have this ride that the whole family could go on called the Zoom Flume. It looked like a lot of fun. What I didn't realize is that this ride starts out about four stories into the air. I looked, but could not find a pic of the tower online (probably why I didn't know it was so high) Since becoming a mother I have developed a fear of heights....well to be more accurate of my children plunging to their deaths from heights. (The summer before I basically had a panic attack at the top of a light house, but that is another story.)

So we get to the park and spend some time in the kid's area then we started to venture out and go on rides. We finally ended up at the Zoom Flume and climbed the tower to get in line. Over the next 20-30 minutes of waiting in line and looking out and down I had plenty of time to build up to a climatic panic attack. The kids were unaware that I was having an issue and Steve was so kind and worried about me he offered to go down with the kids by himself and I could just go back down the steps. However my active imagination had kicked in and I was TRULY worried that my two skinny, lightweight kids would go flying out of the raft and plunge to their deaths so I reluctantly decided that I would be going down this ride. See pictures for visualization.

It is literally this half tube that winds around itself out in the middle of no-where. Now logically I know that if there was any danger that this ride would not be in existence and if my kids did not weigh enough someone would have said so....but still. So we get on the ride and I have Nicholas huddle up Next to Steve. Emilia is right next to me on the opposite side of them. (So in case anyone were to go flying we could catch them...great thinking no?) The person at the top sees me panicking and makes sure that I am okay. I plaster on the biggest fake smile and say sure! Well then she gives us a big ole shove and off we go. Going up from one side of the slide to the other. Not 5 seconds after she set us off, then this primeval scream emanates from my body. This only serves to panic Emilia and she starts to cry. Nothing will change a mother's heart faster then seeing that she is scaring her child. So I tell her it's okay, and keep telling her not to worry for the rest of the ride. (over and over and over....I think that was a way for me to cope with not screaming) so we finally get to the bottom all limbs attached.

And Emilia says "that was fun, let's do it again". Needless to say we did not go on that ride again. I am sure we will be headed out that way sometime in the next few years. It is only a short distance from where Steve's dad lives and it is a lot of fun. But the kids will have to be old enough to go on their own the next time around, ........if I let them. Steve would probably go with them but I will definitely pass.

Well it is a long post, but a funny story. Hope you enjoyed.

Menu Update

Well we haven't done so great on following our menus for the past couple of week. I have been making up the menu, purchasing the groceries and then we end up either going out or making something else. The menu I did from two weeks ago, we made 3 out of 5 items. We made the pizza calzones, beef stroganoff and the fried fish. This is my review of each of the items.

Pizza Calzones - they were a little frustrating to make to me only because I was making the crust from scratch and I was having a hard time making the dough after a long day at work. I finally found a recipe that said I could stick it into the fridge over night. The crust was pretty good. Not spectacular, but good. When rolling it out it did not seem like a lot of dough so I went a little skimpy on the fillings....well they puffed and baked up pretty well. So, next time I will double the batch, if not triple and then roll it out super flat and fill it to the gills.

Beef Stroganoff - It was an okay recipe, we used beef stew chunks and I don't think I would do that again or I would put in into the crock pot to sit overnight to get tender. The sauce was very different from the usual flavor and I personally did not care for it. It did not make alot of sauce either. I would not make this recipe again.

Fried Fish - This was an intimidating dish to make, not because of complexity but because I am definately not a seafood person. I could probably count on one hand they kinds and ways I eat seafood. (Hmm -- fried catfish, fried shrimp, grilled shrimp, two other kinds of fried white fish, whiting and brim I think they are called....can't think of anything else) It has only been since I have moved to the south that I am even this open. Before, my seafood was square on a bun from McDonalds - sad, but true. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I have to say that this will become a regular in my house. It was super easy to make and it was not greasy like the kind from the restaurants. My camera wasn't working, but I promise to make it again and take pics to show everyone. (I also loved the hush puppy mix that I made to go with it, YUM!)

On Sunday afternoon when I was trying to find all the ingredients to do the fish I got so frustrated because I couldn't find in in our pantry. So I cleared it out and organized it. We had four boxes of spaghetti, yikes! We also had countless packets of taco seasoning. We are going to try to shop in our pantry first and use up what we have. Our over the fridge freezer and our chest frezzer are slam packed....Guess we better use what we got. We are also trying to organize our laundry/pantry room. Will talk pics to show. Wish us luck.

Parents are coming to town

Well we are all getting very excited around my house. My parents will be here in just a few weeks. Not only that but my little brother Kenneth is flying down for a visit and most likely my oldest brother Roger will also be coming out for a while. The only thing we have planned so far is that all the girls are going to a "My Little Pony Tea Party" show. We are trying to find a cool-girly place to take the kids to for a luncheon before the show. It is going to be in Atlanta. I don't know what the guys are going to do while we are gone, but I plan to have fun.

They fly out on Thursday and leave Sunday night to catch their Monday a.m. flight. My parents and my little brother are all flying on Skybus with their cheap flights. I think my brother was able to pick up his tickets for $35 each way, plus tax. How cool is that? I am trying to think of other non-expensive things to do, probably play games and hang out...that seems the the best thing, plus we will get to visit so much instead of trying to run around doing activities.

Then in June we fly out for two weeks in June to visit them and all my other family in California. Summer is just around the corner.

New Blog Site

I have launched a new blog site, specifically for my creative side. Please check in from time to time.
Butcher, Baker and Candlestick Maker

Love ya'll

Menu Plan Monday

For more menu plan monday ideas visit orgjunkie.com.

I am not sure on who's blog I was on at the time, but they had a link to a wonderful site called menus4mom.com. They have weekly menus, with recipes and a shopping list already prepared for you. It does have some foods that I personally would never think of preparing, but I am looking at that as a good thing. I am hoping that I can be brave enough to try a few new things each month. For those things I don't like I can substitute the next time around. It provides a pretty balanced diet for the week.

This site gives you tips for all sorts of wonderful things. It also helps you think ahead by cooking a little extra and serving it later in the week. I think it is worth a look.

This weeks menu is:

• Monday
  Italian Pizza Calzones
  Salad
  


• Tuesday
  Baked Honey Pecan Chicken
  Peas
  Fruit Salad
  Dinner Rolls
  


• Wednesday
  Chicken Pesto
  Salad
  Apple Slices
  


• Thursday
  Beef Stroganoff
  Buttered Egg Noodles
  Sugar Snap Peas
  


• Friday
  Fried Catfish
  Sauteed Okra
  Coleslaw

You can find the recipes here. And the shopping list here. This menu cost around $68, but you may have things in your cupboards that are on the list or you can make substitutions as needed.

Funky Font

My friend Suzanne asked me how I got that funky font for my header. Well actually in power point on my computer I created the border using scrapbooking items and wrote the text with font from the power point program. I then saved the slide as a jpeg and loaded it into the layout. I have quite a collection of digital scrapbooking elements that I am eager to play around with and utilize.