Blogger tag

Well, I guess I've been tagged. I had no idea that there even was such a thing as blogger tag. And now I'm feeling the same sort of awkward pressure that I felt in the seventh grade during real tag or worse--dodge ball. For those of you as ignorant as I am, I will copy the rules from Jenna's blog (the wonderful gal who tagged me):

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. You may need to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged and to read your blog.

Okay, just to ease the suspense, if I know you and you have a blog and I know that you have a blog, then you can be fairly certain that by the end of this you will be named. Yes, I am fairly boring and don't know too many at this point in my life that have blogs. And I'm also assuming that tag backs are not allowed. Actually, I think I will add that rule: NO TAG BACKS ALLOWED. So all of you can relax now and read my random facts/habits about myself:

1. Spaghetti is my favorite food.
2. I watch American Idol. Some (like my husband) would say I'm a huge fan, but that may be stretching it a little. I didn't vote after every show last season!
3. I used to stub my big toe all the time when I was a kid.
4. I LOVE taking naps.
5. I would LOVE for Joe to own a motorcycle.
6. I think cookie dough tastes better than the cookies. (And I've never gotten salmonella poisoning!)
7. I have a habit of putting dishes in the dishwasher before people are done with them. Not sure how many times my husband has asked me where his coffee cup went.
8. I went up in a hot air balloon when I was in the 5th grade and it California (I think, not exactly sure how old I was. I'm doing good if I know how old I am now--34 BTW). It was very, very cool.

Okay, so I tag:

Kim R.

Tanna R.

Joe H. (okay, I know you don't have one yet, but when you start it, you are it!)

And those are the only people that I know to tag that haven't already been mentioned in this game of tag (I think you can only be tagged by only one person, but then again, who makes up these rules?). If you are reading this and have a blog and I didn't tag you, then you need to 'fess up so I can tag you. If you don't 'fess up, I will find out later anyway and you will still get tagged. So anyway, you're it.

Pancakes --- Part 2

I made Bisquick pancackes yesterday morning. Funny thing--I was out of flour this time, but had eggs and milk. I guess that is why they make Bisquick. :) So I decided to try the Bisquick. I did this with a little trepidation. What if my kids liked Bisquick pancakes better than my homemade pancakes? It would definitely be a blow to my ego--I'm pretty proud of my pancakes. (I'm sure you hadn't noticed.) So I decided we should have an official taste test--kind of like they used to have with Coke and Pepsi. Only I decided to do it without the blind folds and I wasn't going to make both kinds that they could try at the same time. My kids have a pretty good memory, so I just decided to go with their memory of my homemade pancakes. They ventured downstairs about 7am and their pancakes were on the table. I didn't tell them they were different, but I was confident that they would notice. So I stood in the kitchen and waited. And waited and waited and waited... They were just eating--absolutely no comments were being made. I, frankly, was getting very nervous and my confidence concerning my homemade pancakes was quickly fading. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore and was about to ask if they had noticed anything different, my wonderful Ashley spoke up "Um, are these pancakes different Mommy?" "Well, what do you think? Do they taste different?" (I didn't want to bias the experiment.) Sara: "Yes, they are definitely different." and then, what I had been waiting for, Ashley: "I don't like them, Mommy." YEAH!!!!! I'm not sure I'd ever been excited that my child didn't like food set before her. I decided it was safe at this point to poll the rest of the children. John and Sara both concurred with Ashley that they didn't like them nearly as well as my regular pancakes. Since Nathan can't talk, I went on how much he ate. He didn't eat nearly as many as he usually does so I conclude that he doesn't like them either. (Now he did have the stomach flu, but since the results are favorable for me that doesn't mean I have to throw his results out, does it?) And so my pancakes win even up against the number one pancake mix in the country.

The children learn about elk

I haven't seen much of my kids this week. It's VBS at our church. So we are there all morning, have naps in the afternoon and then I get to hang out with them for just a few hours each night. Although last night they all went and played in the girls room so I didn't even get to hang out with them (wow, that starts early!). So, anyway, since I haven't seen them, I don't have very many stories on them. I do have some stories on the 3rd graders that I've been hanging out with at VBS (like the time one of the girls wrote her name on her arm with a sharpie when I wasn't looking; then I told her it was permanent and wouldn't come off so during the scripture memory time she licked her arm to prove to me that it would come off. Then her teeth and mouth were all red with sharpie marker), but I didn't think their parents would appreciate me telling stories on all of them. Since we haven't seen much of each other, we went for a drive on Wednesday night. We went to a different park in the area and as soon as we drove in we noticed that they had "wild" animals or at least that is what the sign on the fence said. It was near the entrance and we didn't see any animals at all, so we continued our drive. Sometime while we were touring the rest of the park, the "wild" animals emerged so as we were leaving we saw them. It was an elk and a deer. (Yep--those were the "wild" animals.) So that explained the huge fence and large warning signs. (Joe & I were convinced that there had to be some other animals in there, but all we found were some squirrels and a few baby bunnies.) We eventually did see some female elk as well. So our children got to learn about elk on Wednesday night. Here were some of the questions we had to field:

• So, if they live in the mountains, how did they get here?
• How do they stay warm in the mountains?
• Where are they? I can't see them!
• Is that a baby elk? (No that is a buck deer.)
• Will they eat me?
• What's that little brown thing? (that would be the buck deer)
• Why are their necks so big?
• That looks like one of their babies. (you would think they'd never seen a deer before!)
• Are the antlers heavy?
• So they call them cows and bulls?
• Why don't they have horns? (speaking of the cows--not the moo variety--girl elk)

As we were leaving, Ashley launched into a dissertation about how God made us with little necks because we don't have "horns" that we carry around. As she said, "that was very smart because we would look funny with big necks and antlers!"

Pancakes

I was going to make pancakes this morning. Pancakes were one of the first things I learned how to make as a kid, so they are kind of my "thing". If you've ever eaten breakfast at my house, then you've probably had my pancakes. We have them on a regular basis--usually once or twice a week. And I ALWAYS make them from scratch. That is how I learned to make them, so why change--especially if everyone likes them. So I thought I would make them this morning. A minor problem occurred though; I had no eggs and we were running low on milk. (FYI, both are common, necessary ingredients for pancakes.) Then I had an idea. A few weeks ago I was trying out a new recipe in my new birthday cookbook--Southern Living Ultimate and Easy Cookbook (Southern Living cookbooks are my absolute favorite). Anyway I can't even remember what the recipe was now, but it called for Bisquick. So I happened to have Bisquick in my cupboard this morning. I decided that I would be adventuresome and make box pancakes. So I pulled the box out and checked out the directions. I had my measuring cup in hand and was ready to add water and stir. If you make Bisquick pancakes (and I'm sure they are very good) you already know that you don't just add water and stir. You have to add: eggs & milk! This got me very curious, so I checked out the ingredients to Bisquick. Basically it is just flour, baking powder & sugar. These are the dry ingredients to pancakes. So now I am baffled as to what the benefit to having Bisquick is. I had always thought that Bisquick worked something like instant potatoes--just add water, stir, and cook. And so we didn't get to have pancakes for breakfast this morning. Everyone sat at the table eating their Cheerios listening to me babble as I tried to figure out why the world needs Bisquick.

Things you never thought you'd say

We thought we'd solved a problem at our house. Obviously we hadn't since I uttered the words this morning "I think you're clean enough now for me to put you in the bathtub." I definitely should've had that second cup of coffee before I ventured upstairs. There are some things that just aren't meant to be seen on just one cup flowing through your blood.

My husband's day off

My husband hung the last piece of trim in our attic yesterday. I'm currently humming the doxology. Now we just need to finish painting the stair rail and staining the stairs and our two year project will be complete. It looks so awesome!!! But that's not all he did yesterday --he hung trim in our basement, he mowed the grass, he put away all the tools that were in our attic, he had lunch ready for us when we all came home from VBS, he sanded the drywall on the ceiling in the staircase, he then cleaned up all the drywall dust, he folded some laundry, he did dishes, he made lunch for today and has it in the refrigerator ready to go, he went to Menards, he put the kids to bed, he made me his special butter popcorn (better than the movie theater kind!), he calmed me down when I had a major freak out moment and somewhere in there he had time to go to the dentist and get his teeth cleaned. And Mondays are technically his "day off". If I told you what I did yesterday, it would make me look extremely lame. I really think I'm married to the greatest man in the world.

Does the perfect suit exist?

We went to the swimming pool this evening. Sunday night is family night at our local pool and they make it fairly affordable for our family of six. I was prepared (or at least thought I was). Over the last couple of weeks I have been diligently seeking out the perfect swimsuit. Now you have to remember that I'm a 34 year old mother of four and my oldest is 6. Let's just say my body hasn't fully recovered. I once heard a statistic that it takes a woman's body seven years to recover from childbirth. So since I have four children, do those years accumulate? Am I looking at 21 years to recover?? Anyway, I've digressed. I found a suit last week and played outside in our new pool in our backyard this past weekend. So I very confidently went to the public pool in it. However, while chasing (running after I should say) my 1 1/2 year old on the deck of the pool I realized that there was probably no swimsuit made that could make me look even the slightest bit attractive while doing that. Maybe that is why I ran over the following warning painted on the deck: "Absolutely no running for any reason".