I’m happy to say that I am no longer working a bazillion hours a week, I am only teaching one night a week, and have been enjoying my evenings for the first time in a few years.  I think I was going crazy - I was working 7am to 9 pm on most days… with the daycare, and the teaching music… then it went from 8am - 9pm, with the job at the museum and the teaching… and now I’m only working from 8am to 4pm.  Hurray for no more 13 to 14 hour work days!!!

The kids are doing fantastically, and I’ve found that they’ve grown up so much this past year… Zach’s a pro at reading now, he has taken on the task of reading to his sisters, and is actually helping Emilie sound out some simple words, it’s too cute.  He’s going into grade 1… grade 1!!!  I’m incredibly sad about that… but at the same time, I’m thrilled that he’s getting more and more independant. He will be 6 years old in 2 WEEKS! Crap. I guess I need to go shopping… you have no idea how much I loathe shopping when I actually need to get something. I like browsing. lol

Emilie’s hair is finally long enough to do something with it - for the longest time, it seemed stuck at the same length… barely long enough to do anything but pigtails… the sides and front seemed to have stayed short, not letting the hair be put into a ponytail, or braids, etc.. She’s gotten taller, too, leaner. She’s still my brat - but has calmed down quite a bit, and the worst she does is color on stuff. Naturally I’ve taken away all crayons, pencils, pens, markers etc… she’s only allowed to use them with strict supervision… and so problem solved.

Naomie is picking up on the spanish language a lot quicker than the other two - she’s my little language monkey!  She’s beginning to write letters, of all things to be doing with a pencil… she much prefers following lines in the workbooks than she does drawing or coloring. I wonder how long that will last… lol

I’m doing well, I think. I can’t complain, anyway.

I’ve decided to put my house up for sale - the ”deadline” is January 2010.  The work that needs to be done includes:

-cabinetry in kitchen updated

-cabinetry in main floor bathroom / laundry room updated

-hardwood floors on main level and 2nd level redone

-carpet in basement changed, or laminate flooring put in

-Basement walls taken out (it’s pannelling… ewwwww.), better insulation put in, and drywalled. Electrical work to be done so that I no longer blow a fuse if the tv in the basement is on and I turn the heater on in the sunroom…lol and the ceiling to be finished.

-Bar in basement to be refinished and shelving unit to be updated

-ceramic tile in the kitchen / main level bathroom - something needs to be done about it. It’s in great condition, just oooogly.

-lanscaping… I have plants and flowers and vegetables growing all around my yard… but I’m going to be putting in a small pond, fountain, stepping stones, and wayyyyy more garden stuff.  I have an 8 x 8 foot planters box that my zucchinis and tomatoes sit in… but for next year I’d like to have 2 more of those, for cucumbers and salads.

I’m doing some of the home renovations now… currently my project is my kitchen. So far, I’ve stained most of my kitchen cabinets from an aged dull golden oak to a gorgeous shiny mahogany… I’m still not yet done, but they really look wonderful.  I’m going to put a coat or two of varnish over them, once I’m finished with staining.

I have really icky bathroom tile in the bathroom upstairs… they’re about 1″ x 1″, and vary between pinks, beiges and dark brown.  Not very nice… but, on the upside, it does go with the tub, toilet and sink, which are so old that they are the original antique rose porcelain that was put in originally.  (yark!!)  Anyway, the tiles are all coming out, as my Naomie would say, “the floor’s broken!”.  When I’m done with the kitchen cabinets, I’m going to chip out the floor and lay down some nice ceramic tile.. but I HAVE to have the warming wires underneath. No cold floor for me!

I’m not cooking nearly as much as I used to - I only cook once a week. Although I do make several meals and snacks… I’ll post a few zucchini and/or tomato recipes soon, since I’ve been overwhelmed by them. I only have the 2 plants for each… but man oh man… to give you an idea of how much zucchini I get - Well - I’ve processed about 26 pounds of it for winter use… and that’s not counting all the zucchini we’ve been eating in stirfrys, in bread, muffins… :-s 

I’ve been freezing green tomatoes, too. I’d never had fried green tomatoes before last year.. and they were absolutely delicious! So.. I’ve been picking some of the tomatoes while they’re still firm and green, cutting them into small slices, and freezing them. I have about 3 freezer bags full as of yet.  I process about half of the ripe ones for use in sauces and whatever.. I’ve been canning them. But the pot I was using kind of busted.. it was an aluminum waterbath stockpot - and the top split in two places. It’s still useable, but I need a new canner.

 The green beans that I planted along the side of my house are flourishing - beatifully lush and climbing all along my fence, beautiful red flowers everywhere… but no beans. I think the neighbour’s been getting free food. lol!!

The strawberry plants I have have also been producing like crazy… but there’s a few rabbits in my area, so they’ve been dissapearing as fast as they’ve been growing. Rabbit stew, anyone?

I’ve started a new job, working in an office, in a museum. Very interesting work, for shizzle.

The kids are growing a lot for some reason. Zach has grown an inch and a half in the past month, believe it or not.

Anyways - I got fixed yesterday…and woooo let me tell you, this hydromorphone rocks.

 I haven’t been doing daycare since October… and dh and I always have the kids do things on the weekend to keep them entertained… Silly me thought it would be nice to just chill this week with the kids.  Silly me thought we’d have a good week, just cuddling and relaxing.

 So far, I can’t wait for the kids to go back to school…………… lol

We are only Wednesday, they’re driving me batty. Naomie, little miss independant, has figured out that I keep a stash of muffins in the freezer in the kitchen… well she figured out that she can take a step stool, bring it to the freezer, open the lid, and grab muffins. I make them by the tons, so there’s 4 freezer bags full of them… she opened each one, and took a bite out of a few muffins here and there. Little fart.

Emilie hasn’t been as much of a pain in the butt as I was expecting her to be… she’s actually been very helpful. She cleaned her room, after trashing it on Monday… I walked in, and it was spotless. That is, so were her shelves and dresser… she’d stashed everything in her closet.  Ever so helpful.  Oh - her bed broke…. I’d thought it would be neat to have one piece of each bunk bed for each girls room - so they have the high part at the head of the bed, and the low part at the foot…and I had soem fabric draped over it, it looks pretty good actually, I was impressed. Was. Yes, WAS. Emilie decided it would be great fun to climb on the headboard.. well of course she bent the bolts… and I caught her on it…. I straightened it… and I guess that movement actually broke the bolt… because next thing I know I’m on the floor. The darn thing crashed on my head. I’m glad it was MY head and not hers… I have a huge bump.. I can just imagine what it would have done to her. So, for the time being, her mattress is on the floor.

A friend gave me a small pair of sunglasses last night with the Transformers logo etched into the panes… very cool. i gave the to zach this morning… he was soooo thrilled! He’s very much into superheroes nowadays… transformers being part of the gang. Today, he asked me if he could watch Superman Returns… and so he was wearing his Spiderman costume, watching Superman, and wearing his Transformers sunglasses… *I wear my sunglasses at night so I can so I can…..*

My stupid dog ate more of my couch. She is going to be so sick one of these days…. foam can’t be good for a dog.

St-Patricks party on Saturday… and we don’t have a sitter. It’s ok - I told dh he could go and I’d stay home, since I’ve been out a few times in the past 2 weeks. But that’s a whole other blog…

DH left at 7am… he let me sleep in until then, hurray…. but he didn’t wake me up 100% before leaving… and the kids snuck down and ate an entire chocolate cake.

This past week has just been torture. The stupid tree must have been shaking… because the sheer number of ignorants I’ve talked to this week has made me realize I’m thankful I don’t have to deal with their kind every day.

To top it off, I applied for a couple part time jobs - and while I have an interview on Thursday morning for another job, the guy hiring for the one I really wanted, which was a mindless receptionist job, told me I was over qualified for the position.  Duuuuuuuuhhhh…. I realize that - I don’t WANT to be working crazy like I used to…I WANT a mindless drone job.  I want to be doing nothing but answering phones, taking messages, and typing. 

Ah well - c’est la vie.

I’m happy I finally sold a few things on Etsy… I was getting worried. The last time I had an account there… and this was maybe 2 years ago… I sold everything within about 3 days.  Here’s the link…if anyone cares to see what I make in my spare time. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5578163

I’m going to go bake now… because baking makes me feel better. Today’s venture is a cinnamon oatmeal cake. Tastes a little like a cross between sugar pie and carrot cake… not as coarse, it’s smoother, lighter… and just sooo good.

Amongst the other seeds we’d planted, we have 6 cherry tomato plants, about a dozen onion plants, about a dozen Nasturtium plants (wayyyyy better than garlic chives, if you ask me… their flavor is unbeatable. ), some oregano, and 5 pepper plants. All are doing well, except the pepper plants. They’re… slow.

I finally came up with the schematic I’m going to use for the garden in the back… I just don’t know how much of everything I want to plant, because this is the first year where we have the room to grow everything I want to. I know I’m going to plant a lot of tomatoes, zucchini and cucumber.. and I’ve already talked to a few people I know about giving them a basket now and then with extras so that they don’t spoil.. I don’t know what it is about people refusing free veggies. My mom was almost offended when I told her I’d drop off a basket of tomatoes and cucumbers now and then… she went off about how she’s not broke and doesn’t need me to feed her… it’s not about that. It’s about I have them, and they’re going to spoil if I can’t deal with them all when I need to, and so I want to share. Jeeez!! Relaaaax! Can’t she just accept a gift? O.o

Emilie is becoming quite the young lady… she found, hidden on the top shelf of her closet, a box of nail polish I’d put away, since she oh so loves putting nail polish on the wall, on her sheets, on her siblings, on her stuffed animals…on the dog… and for once, only did her own nails! I’m so proud.

I took Zach with me on the city bus on Friday - I only have one student to teach on Fridays… and while I teach that student, Zach has his guitar lesson. It works out… because dh picks us up then we go out for dinner. He’s getting really good at remembering the names of the strings, and the names of the notes… I’d have taught him myself, since I also teach guitar to a few students… however he doesn’t listen to me half as well as he does an “official” teacher. He’s silly that way… but I suppose that’s typical of kids.

Naomie was tooo cute in the truck… we’d put on a dvd for them to watch, since we had a few errands to run and rather than trek out all of us from store to store, we just parked and one of us (me or dh) would go in the store to get whatever it was we needed to get. Anyways, Emilie, in her normal won’t-shut-up fashion, was blabbing away about something completely unrelated to the movie… and Naomie pipes up : “be quiet, I want to nap”.  Emilie, of course, doesn’t listen and continues to chirp away… and Naomie smacks her thigh and tells her again to be quiet, she’s sleeeeeeping. Dh and I are cracking up in the front… but we let them be… because we’re big on them settling their own problems… and so Emilie finally settles down for a few minutes… just long enough for Naomie to settle in her carseat..close her eyes… and fall asleep. So sweet. <3

Speaking of sweet… she totally melted my heart this weekend. When it came to be nap time, I told the kids it was time for quiet time… and the older two went up, kind of grumbling under their breath and settled quietly in their rooms… and I went to help Naomie up the stairs, but she told me to “stay down, mommy”… and she went up to her bed all on her own. i gave her abuot 5 minutes, then went to check… the brat was in her bed, sleeping already. I miss my needy baby….

On the other hand, I hope she keeps it up.

We had spaghetti last night.. but I didn’t make any garlic bread, because I surprised the kids and made some caramel dumplings… served it with some ice cream… it’s soooo good… but very sweet… and you always take way more than you can stomach… and end up leaving half because it’s just SOOOO SWEET! lol Even the kids couldn’t finish their portions!! ha!

I’m so excited for my show tonight… we’re going to have it recorded because a lot of our SO’s can’t go… and so we can make a dvd of it too… lol

It’s going to be AWESOME! Rock OUT!

Yesterday, she was such a pain in the you know what… I should have known the type of day I was going to have when she first woke up and absolutely refused to get out of her bed on her own. She whined until dh went to get her… she whined about the breakfast, she didn’t want rice krispies, she wanted raisin bran.. she didn’t want the princess bowl, she wanted the pink bowl… she didn’t want the red cup, she wanted the blue cup… then she wanted help. To eat. Now… if you know me well..this is where I draw the line.  She’s perfectly capable of feeding herself, she’s even starting to use a knife properly. I get that she wants to be little again sometimes…especially now that she visits with a 20 month old daily, between when I leave for work and dh gets home…  but come on.  I don’t want to take the time to sit down and feed her. Not when she can do it on her own. Arg. Pick your battles….and today I didn’t feel like fighting it.

As I’m feeding her, the darn puppy got into the garbage. I hear a rustle in the kitchen… and think… is there anything on the floor that I might not have put away… no… oh crap, the garbage!!!!! I rush in, and sure enough, the little brat was munching away on leftover dinner from last night. Ewwww…. I stuck her outside and cleaned up. Meanwhile Naomie’s still whining because she’s ready!!!! for another bite.

Half an hour later… finally settled in… and I set up Naomie with a Dora video while I clean up from the morning’s preparation.  15 minutes of quiet… hurray!

After the video, she really got upset because I wouldn’t let her watch it again… I tried distracting her with other stuff, she wasn’t having it AT ALL.  She’s not one to pitch fits… but she was on the ground, kicking and screaming… thrashing… Ugh. Emilie hasn’t done this in sooooo long, so she probably picked it up at the sitter’s. Booooo. Oh well… it could be worse.

I leave for work… and stop at a department store on the way, to pick up some ties for my “band”… we agreed that we’d all dress in black, with different colored ties. Loser-ish? Perhaps… but it’s all in fun so who cares! So I pick up 9 ties, for everyone, with an extra. They’re all differently colored mostly solid ties… I didn’t realize that ties were so darn expensive. I don’t know why, but I was expecting them to be 10 - 15$… ya know.. but no, the cheapest I found was 17$!!! After reduction!!!  Anyways, for the 9 ties, I dropped 192.20$. Had they not been reduced… I’d have paid over 250$ for them all…. gross. Thankfully, I will be reimbursed by the others, minus the cost of my own. We’re just going to split the cost between those of us who use one, and the others will be returned.

So I get to work… and as I teach music, it’s not very quiet there…. and I have some voice students who are absolutely horrible. And when I say horrible, I mean, I would rather be having to muck stalls than be in that room. I would rather watch my toenails grow. I would rather watch the wall paint fade… anyways. Horrible. And they think they’re pretty good, too! So… I try to break it to them gently that they still have a lot of work to do to perfect their interpretation… blah blah… and thinking about the words to say just hurts my poor little head.

I’m still whiny today from yesterday… I have to bake something. I’m so anxious about our gig on Monday night… and baking is my relaxation. Wierd, huh?  No wonder dh has a gut…. lol

At this point in time, both Zacharie and Emilie were in their beds, although not sleeping. Naomie had taken a late nap, so she was watching a Dora video in the living room. The dog was outside. It’s 6:45. I told her that Naomie must be in bed by 7:30, and that’s the time where we start paying her 6$ an hour, and that she can let the dog in at that time… if she doesn’t want the dog to be roaming the house, I told her she could put her in her cage, showed her where it was… and said she could give the dog a cookie to lure her in her cage.

So around 9pm, I get a phone call on my cell, saying the dog won’t stop crying.  I ask where the dog was - she said the dog was right there with her… I asked if she had put her up in her cage, she said she did for a while, but she let her out.  So it being 9pm, a couple hours after the dog was last outside… I ask her if she’d let the dog out to pee? She said… no…. I said let her out to pee… and then give her a cookie. She said she’d already given the dog a couple treats, so I said ok well then skip the cookie, she’s had enough for the day..and we’ll let the dog in when we get home. (it wasn’t too cold out, the dog was fine. ;)  )

I must mention that when we first met our sitter, she had given us a slip of paper with her “fees”. 5$ an hour, for one child. 2$ for every additional child. Um… that’s 9$ for us.  I had told her, when I first talked to her, that it is more than what I am willing to pay, especially that most of the babysitting she will be doing for us is when the kids are sleeping or just about bedtime… and so I don’t see why I should pay 9$ for her to watch tv…especially that if the kids wake up, they won’t wake up more than 1 at a time…. so I told her that unless she was willing to negotiate, she was too expensive for me. Of COURSE, as expected, she’s all “Oh we can negotiate!!”.  Final price? 10$ while awake… 6$ while sleeping… and bedtime’s at 7pm… we give it to 7:30 at 10$ / hour.  She cost us 31$… whereas our old sitter would have cost us 40$. Big savings? no. But, this one has a curfew of 11:30 pm and so it keeps us honest and home by then….and so savings in spending at whatever location we happen to find ourselves after midnight. Eww.

So we go home, pay her, she walks home across the street while we “keep an eye on her to make sure she gets in ok”…… (LMAO) And we chill for a bit, and then go to bed. The next morning, I go to give the dog a treat. I can’t find the container in it’s place. I’m looking… looking… of course I’m looking for a clear container with dog treats in it… I didn’t notice the EMPTY clear container on the counter…

The little twit gave the dog, no joke, at least 60 treats in the course of TWO HOURS.  I couldn’t believe it!!!!!  So around noon, I give her a call, and ask how it went, since we didn’t really have a chance to talk when we got home and she left.. she said everythign went fine.. I asked her how many dog treats she gave the dog… she said “quite a few”… quite a few… no kidding, quite a few…  no kidding the dog was crying, probably had a belly ache, quite a few… anyways I mentionned that the next time, to not give the dog more than 3 treats in the course of the evening, because I didn’t want the dog to get sick, I told her that the treats were “like vitamins” and if she has too many, she can get sick. Band Camp Girl was ok with that… apologized, and said she’d only give her a few next time.   Ahhh…innocence.

Her, I definitely won’t be worried about a snuck in boyfriend. Oye…

******

Garlic Bread Sticks

-3 cups flour

-1 teaspoon salt

-1 teaspoon garlic powder ( I usually add 2, I really love garlic. :)  ) 

-1 tablespoon baking powder

-1 cup milk

-1/2 cup margarine

-1 more teaspoon garlic powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1) Dump your flour, salt, garlic powder and baking powder into it. Stir them up. Add the milk. Stir it up to make a ball. If not :sticky” enough.. add milk, one tablespoon at a time. Stir between.

2) If you add too much milk… dust the ball with a little flour. You’ll get it eventually. lol

3) Gently knead the ball of dough for about 30 seconds (5 or 6 times) 

4) Put the dough on the counter… roll it into an approximate rectangle shape the size of the pan you’ll be using (9×13).

5) in the meantime… melt your margarine in the pan, in the oven at 425. When it’s melted, take it out of the oven, sprinkle the 2nd tsp of garlic powder and salt in the bottom, and plop (carefully) your rectangle shaped dough into the pan.

 6) Cut the rectangle of dough into strips with a sharp knife…make sure you get all the way through. Strips should be about 4 inches long and about 1 inch wide.. whatever you want, really. I like them thin, to dip.  The margarine will start to come through…that’s GOOD.

7) Bake for 20 minutes at 425. They will be a little brown and crispy. They’re fantastic dipped in spaghetti sauce….

You can add a little parsley for decoration… or parmesan cheese… whatever really. Enjoy!

 Anyways, I had the darn white stuff with just some honey. I DID get the kids to help me make more granola though. So easy… and very tasty.  I make about 3 cups worth at a time… I’ve found that it’s a good amount for the 5 of us for a week. Usually. I guess dh used it as cereal. Oh well..

 So I get the kids to wash their hands and started them off with just mixing the plain oatmeal with a spoon while I got the margarine and honey ready… next thing I know, I hear giggles, and look next to me at the kids. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, they seem to just be giggling. More giggling. I look back, and there’s oats all over the counter.  They ahd gone a little nuts with the mixing and the stuff flew around, they thought it was funny. Arg.  Clean up on aisle 3!

Finally we get our act together, and I pour the honey and margarine into the oats.. and they mix mix mix. Zach asked if they could use their hands… bah..why not. So they dug in…was too cute to see them both fighting over who could get the squishiest handful.  I told Zach that Naomie won, because she had some in her hair when all was said and done. Heh heh..

So we put the stuff in a pan… they wanted our round one, not our rectangle one.

 We put the pan in the oven…

…and yummy!

They couldn’t wait to have some. I told them it had to cool down. They couldn’t wait. A little while later Zach grabbed a spatula when I wasn’t looking… and tried to get some out of the pan… poor little guy burnt his fingers trying to hold the pan still.  Duh.. I told him it was HOT.  Lesson learned… don’t touch the friggin pan dude!  Good thing it had had a chance to cool down a bit… his fingers aren’t even red. *phew*

So dh gets back with Emilie, 2 horus after they left… I asked him what the heck took so long… apparently they went to check on a new dishwasher.  We left our old one at the other place… and since we’re re-doing the kitchen cabinets this spring, we figured we’d just do them by hand until we can figure out what cabinets we’re getting, how they will be arranged, and where the dishwasher will fit…I guess he got tired of my nagging and decided to go out and buy a portable one. You know, those nasty ones with the hose that you have to wheel out to your sink? Ugh. It’s the thought that counts… it’s the thought that counts… thank goodness he didn’t find one in stainless. Hee!

He starts telling me about his few hours with Emilie.. the brat went and spilled juice all over herself while they were waiting for the car to have the oil change done. Turns out, he didn’t have it done after all, he waited 45 minutes and then told them he was leaving, it was taking too long..they gave him a coupon for a free oil change next time. I love freebies…and I take advantage of them as much as I possibly can.

Speaking of freebies… last night we ordered Chinese take out for dinner… and you know those chicken balls? The ones with hardly any chicken in them, they’re just a ball of thick batter? (gross!) Well..I don’t really like the sauce they usually come with… and we always ask for them sine the kids love em… and we ask for the sauce on the side. No problem. So we get our food, pay etc… and we start to unwrap it all… and hurray, ijits strike again, there’s sauce on the chicken balls. I call up the restaurant and complain, saying we specifically requested for the sauce to be on the side, not on the balls since nobody actually likes the sauce except for dh… and they apologize. Since I paid for it, and I’m all about getting what I pay for, I ask if they can bring us another container, in exchange. The girl at the other end hesitated for about a minute, and said that yes, it was a mistake on their part, she sees the request on my order.. they can bring us another one, but it would be about 40 minutes.  I tell her that that’s unreasonable, and that if they can’t deliver plain chicken balls sooner than that, could they at least refund us the value of the chicken balls, since they’re just going to go in the garbage anyways. (well no, we still ate them.. just grumped about it.. lol) She goes and talks to her boss… and comes back, saying that she can take off 10% of our bill and credit us the difference.  Yay! So, next time we order from there… we get 6$ off. *rolls eyes*

This afternoon I have a band practice. I can’t wait.. I bought myself a new electric silent violin.. a Fender. It’s sooo awesome.. I can’t wait!! I can’t WAIT to try it out on a decent amp as opposed to the crappy little one I have! Woot!!

What a difference with my old one…

I love it. Dh isn’t a fan of how much I paid for it, but I work too, and I have my own $$… I pay my share of the bills and I’m not broke. He can bite me. I do the budget around here…I handle the finances… we’ve both got our own $ as well as a combined account… and if HE doesn’t have loads of money in his account, not my problem… I can blow mine on a violin if I want to.

*****

Honey granola

-3 cups dry oatmeal

-1/2 cup margarine

-1/2 cup honey

-1/4 tsp salt

1) Measure out 3 cups of oats.. dump them in a big bowl.

2) Nuke the margarine in the microwave. I guess you could use a saucepan…but why bother…I have glass measuring cups.. so I just put margarine to half a cup…nuke that… then dump honey in the melted amrgarine until it hits the 1 cup mark… nuke it again so it’s all liquidy..

3) add salt to oats, and dump the margarine / honey into the oatmeal… mix it all up until it’s pretty much all “wet”

4) dump the mix onto a cookie sheet.. or other pan.. or really, anything flat that you can shove in the oven Spread it out as much as you can… if you clump it all together, the sides will get crunchy but the middle will not.

5) Bake it at 375 for about 10 mintues. It will get toasty brown. 

6) Let it cool down in the pan.. it will get crispy there. After it’s cooled, break it up, put it in an airtight canister. you can add about 1/2 a cup of nuts, and/or 1/2 cup dried fruit, too. Yum! You can eat it like you would eat cereal, or just add it to regular cereal, sprinkle it on top of yogurt.. whatever really. You can even use it to make granola bars. I do sometimes, but more during the summer, since the bars I make have peanut butter in them, and I don’t want to confuse these with others and send them to school accidentally. ^-^

Do you have a child that goes to school full time? Perhaps two? Yeah? No doubt you then know what I’m talking about when I say that although I love my children… I hate PD Days. No kids in school yet… well you get this “fun” anyways, but they don’t usually argue as much. 

I have this big yard..it’s fenced in, completely fenced in.. I let the dog out to play…and she’s fine… why can’t I let the kids out and just wait til they scratch at the door or bark to be let in?  

So.. we spend 20 minutes getting everyone dressed and ready to go… and the oldest decides he needs to go for a whiz… so he gets all undressed and runs to the bathroom, does his business, and starts getting dressed again. We step out into the cold cold bloody cold air… and I toss the kids in a snowbank and trek out to sit on the garage’s back entrance steps. Well, I didn’t toss them toss them… but you know what I mean I’m sure. I no sooner sit my tush on the freezing cement that my middle angel decides it’s a fantastic time to give her little sister a facewash. Of course I leap up to save my little one from her Medusa sister… and both girls are now wailing, one for being told to sit in a time out on the back steps and the other cuz her poor little face, hat and scarf are all soaking wet from the snow her sibling just shoved her face into. Hurray, snow.

After a minute or so, Cassie (the pup) takes a humongous…well, you know… and Zach, the ever so careful little wimp, accidentally steps in it as he’s doing his little dance of avoidance AROUND the pile of dung. That kid has THE loudest whine in the world.

“Indoors, the bunch of you. Not YOU, you’re all wet. ”

“but why is Naomie going inside? she’s all wet too!!”

“I was talking to the dog. *sigh*”

 An agonizing 15 minutes later, the brats are all snuggled on the living room couch, and have the nerve to ask me if I can make them some hot cocoa. Being the oh so impressed mommy this morning… (it’s only about 9am, by now, by the way….) I tell them yeah, sure! (Anything to hide the baileys in mine, huh? ;)   ) I set up shop in the kitchen and get going on their treat.

Remind me…why did I give the kids hot cocoa at 9 in the morning? Can you guess how the next few hours went?!

Lesson learned…

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Hot cocoa for kids

-12 ounce can evaporated milk

-1-1/2 cups hot tap water

-1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar

-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa or carob powder

-Dash Salt

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1) Put the water into a saucepan. Add the sugar, cocoa and salt. Heat the water on medium. Stir well. 

2) Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a fast simmer for about 5 minutes. (This will stop the cocoa and sugar from sinking to the bottom of the cup when you serve it.)

3) Finally add the evaporated milk and stir to blend. Turn the heat up a little, but don’t boil it. 

4) Pour into cups…marshmallows optional! 

makes about 24 ounces… enugh for mommy and a couple of kids. Doubles well. It’s very rich… so if you don’t like rich treats, this isn’t for you.

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Mommy’s version

-add Bailey’s! ;)