Pizza. It's what's for dinner...every single night until we die!!!

If it were up to my kids, they would seriously eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They love anything pizza related too, pizza rolls, pizza pockets, pizza wheels, those pizza on a bagel thingies, etc. I'm just waiting for a cereal company to finally make their dreams come true and release a pizza flavored cereal, because I have no doubt my kids would eat that too.  I know exactly where they get their undying love and adoration for pizza from too....their dear old dad.

When I first started dating my husband, he was a bachelor living in his own man cave, otherwise known as a one bedroom apartment. The inside of his refrigerator was completely barren minus some ketchup and soy sauce packets from various fast food places and a twelve pack of Mountain Dew. He ordered pepperoni pizza for dinner pretty much every single night of the week. In fact the place he ordered it from, immediately recognized his number on the caller ID, so they knew his order before he even had to say hello.

I like pizza too, but I don't wish to eat it for every single meal, especially as I get older. I swear if I even look twice at a slice of veggie or cheese pizza (really the only two kinds of pizza I can consume since I'm a vegetarian), I gain about ten pounds, pretty much all around my waistline. It may be warm, cheesy, saucy and delicious, but it's best when eaten once a week (twice tops). However, tell that to my dear, sweet, children, as they literally don't want to eat anything else.

Last night I attempted to cook some spinach and cheese ravioli from Costco. You would've thought those little pockets of pasta were stuffed full of rat poison judging from their expressions. They ate one or two little bites of pasta (they literally chewed the outside ring of the ravioli so they didn't have to touch any filling) and then ate a thousand pieces of french bread with butter.

I try very hard to cook them a variety of meals.  For example, I can cook a mean vegetarian crock pot chili but that has *gasp* beans in it so they carefully lick the sauce off the spoon so that they don't accidentally swallow a bean because that would be apparently equal their sudden and immediate demise and then they eat all of the cheese off the top of the chili. Then of course after they get told "No you can't add more cheese on top of your chili until you actually eat some of the chili" they dump their bowls into the sink and then complain about being hungry. This is precisely why I don't kill myself cooking complicated meals because I'm probably the only one who would eat them, along with our dog Olive, who eats absolutely everything with Seanie Mac's poopy diapers being her all time favorite meal.

Our typical meal rotation consists of things like vegetarian hot dogs, veggie burgers, spaghetti, teriyaki ChikN and rice (notice I said ChikN not chicken as it's not really chicken because we don't eat meat...which by the way, things were absolutely no different back when we did eat meat. They still hated everything I cooked), baked macaroni and cheese, tacos, loaded baked potatoes, etc. These are things that I can at least get them to partially eat, but they still would much rather have pizza if given a choice. I on the other hand am sick to death of all of these things. I've tried cooking other meals in the past like lasagna, enchiladas, tofu stir fry, curry and rice, various homemade soups, casseroles, etc, and the majority of the meals ended up going to waste. It's frustrating because people always say, "They will eventually get hungry and eat what's on their plate if you don't give them a choice" but these people obviously haven't met my stubborn little angels. Getting them to do something they don't want is like trying to catch a cat in a carrier to take to a veterinary appointment. Think of the little girl in the Mommy Dearest movie who refused to eat her bloody raw steak (okay so I can't say that I really blame her on that one), but it's pretty much an FBI style standoff every single time, especially with Peanut. This kid could seriously sit at the table for two solid days to avoid eating something that he views as yucky or disgusting (which again is pretty much anything besides pizza or peanut butter and jelly). 

All I can hope is that their palates mature and their minds open up a little as they get older, and that maybe eventually, someday I'll actually be able to feed them a vegetable without them barfing it back up on their plates (yes, this actually happened once with our oldest). I'm not holding my breath though, as I really don't foresee this happening anytime soon. As for what we're eating for dinner tonight? Yep, you guessed it. Pizza.

The most amazing tofu tacos you've probably never had

I know what you're thinking...tofu? BARF!!! Is this chick for real? But before you click out of this post and take me off of your blogroll forever, please just hear me out. These tofu tacos are so ridiculously good you'll want to slap your husband (okay, so you'll want to slap him anyways, for reasons other than tofu tacos, but this gives you a valid reason).

It's extremely unusual for me to post recipes on my blog because as you all know, I suck at all things domestic, but on the rare occasion when I do actually hit one out of the park, I figure it's only fair that I share my success and wisdom with others. Sure, there may be some of you out there who've achieved successful careers, nice homes, fancy cars, vacation condos on tropical islands that I can't even pronounce, but I can cook tofu. We all have our special talents and do the best with what we are given. 

I'll admit that a block of tofu straight out of the package looks pretty unappetizing (AKA pretty damn gross). It kinda reminds me of a giant Magic Clear Eraser but it's wet, slimy and crumbles like blue cheese when you touch it. I haven't had a chance to clean my tub with it yet to see if it has the same cleaning capabilities as a MCE, but I'll get back to you on that one later. 

My husband and I discovered the awesomeness that is tofu tacos at this amazing, trendy restaurant in Bend (which will remain nameless because I would die of embarrassment if they saw my photos which are pitiful compared to their artistic culinary masterpieces). We loved these silly little tofu tacos so much that we were going daily for awhile. Not only did we start to feel a little stalkerish about going to the same restaurant and ordering the same food item every single day, but dining out really starts to add up. We needed to figure out a way to make them ourselves so we could save some money and completely pig out on them without judgment (e.g. someone taking secret cell phone photos of us stuffing our pie holes with tacos) in the privacy of our own home. 

Although we have no idea what the recipe or ingredients are in the tofu tacos at our favorite restaurant (my husband first suggested that we should ask them for their recipe but I was like, "Um, babe, we eat here everyday. Do you really think they're going to just hand us their super top secret recipe so we can copy it and stop spending money at their restaurant? Probably not!"), so we decided to try our own knock off tofu tacos.  Although they don't look anywhere near as pretty as their tacos, the knock offs turned out incredible and now my husband and I are literally gorging ourselves right into the next pant size.

Ingredients you will need for the tacos:
white corn tortillas
olive oil 
tofu (I bought two firm blocks because I wanted leftovers)
cajun seasoning (I use Weber N'Orleans Cajun Seasoning)
lime juice
Salad/spinach greens or cabbage or both for the topping (I like both but my hubby hates cabbage so I leave it off)
cilantro for the topping
jalapeno peppers for the topping (optional)

Ingredients you will need for the spicy chipotle sauce: 
1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce  (you wont use an entire can unless you want to set your mouth on fire, which I did the first time I made this sauce....lesson learned)
3/4 to 1 cup of mayo (didn't measure out very accurately..told ya I sucked at cooking)
1/2 cup of sour cream (feel free add more if you want)
1/4 tsp of minced garlic (I may have added a couple of these as I love garlic)
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste

Directions for the tofu tacos:
*Drain the tofu, blot well with paper towels, cut blocks in half width wise into two equal pieces and then cut into smaller cubes
*Add cajun seasoning into a plastic bag or container. Squirt tofu squares with some lime juice. Shake cajun seasoning onto tofu until it's well coated
*Cook tofu on a skillet over medium heat with a little olive oil until it starts to turn slightly crispy
*Warm corn tortillas on a frying pan with a small amount of oil and heat on both sides
*Cut up cilantro, salad greens/spinach, cabbage, and jalapenos and set aside

Directions for the spicy chipotle sauce:
Add mayo, sour cream, minced garlic, 1/2 can of adobo peppers, and a few squirts of lemon and lime juice. Blend in blender (I use my NutriBullet) until smooth. I will admit, I adjusted amounts until it tasted good to me (adding more lemon or lime for example) so there is no right or wrong way to make this sauce. I know, I'm super duper helpful.

Once you warm the corn tortillas on the skillet (a couple of min on each side usually) with a little oil, it's time to arrange your tacos. There is no exact science to this process. I put about 4-5 cubes of tofu in each taco, add some salad greens, cilantro and the spicy chipotle sauce on top. My final step is to squirt some additional lime juice on top (I love lime juice if you haven't noticed). You can also add some freshly sliced up jalapenos on top, but I find these tacos are spicy and hot enough without them so do what you wish but definitely have some water nearby because these tacos have quite the kick.

I know, I know, you're super jealous of my mad food photography skills, along with my fancy puke green fine china--courtesy of Walmart

I promise you that these babies taste so much better than they look. And I should probably mention that I added WAY more spicy chipotle sauce than a normal person would (hence the reason why my mouth was on fire). You probably wont want to start with this much sauce and had I not dumped a crapton of sauce all over the tacos, you actually would've been able to see what they looked like underneath (sorry). I told you there's a very good reason why I don't blog about cooking. I promise these tacos are good, and before you know it, you'll be buying the large boxes of tofu at Costco.

I took my four kids to the museum alone and lived to tell about it

Monday was a school holiday (President's Day) and my kids were bugging me bright and early to "take them somewhere fun".  Of course they typically choose crazy stuff that's not really possible for me to do on my own with three kids and an infant, like some type of skating, the local water park (the younger kids don't swim that great yet and I'll be damned if I'm going to squeeze my glazed donut filled hiney into a swimsuit in February), glacier luging, etc, you get the idea. I'm not a big fan of venturing out with all four kids alone, so I don't do it very often. It's tiring, stressful, and anxiety provoking (just the mere thought of it makes me bust out in the flop sweats with puffy hives).

For Christmas this year my dad bought our family a year long membership to the High Desert Museum, at my request since the thought of more toys coming into this tiny, overcrowded, cluttered rental house briefly turned me into the robot that goes haywire on RoboCop. Unfortunately Bend doesn't have a children's museum, or OMSI like we had in Portland, but the HDM is still packed full of fun, and the perfect place to spend an afternoon.  Plus, I was feeling a little guilty that I had only used our family membership once since Christmas, since we've been buried under 10,000 feet of snow and haven't ventured out much these past couple of months. So I told the kids we were going to the museum, and that was final.

It took me about two hours to get all four kids ready to go. Not even joking. Two freaking hours. By the time I got everyone locked and loaded into the car, I was already completely wiped out and dying for a nap. I was spoiled with having older, independent children before Seanie Mac was born. I thought my infant/toddler days were long gone and all I really had to worry about before we left the house was that the kids had brushed their teeth, were all wearing pants, and went to the bathroom so we didn't have to pull over to pee a million times along the way.

Now that Seanie Mac is here we had to wait for his morning nap to end (because taking a cranky, non rested baby on an outing on purpose is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, you know it isn't going to end well), feed him, clean him up, change his diaper, then change his diaper again because he took a dump as soon as I put a fresh diaper on him, etc. It seriously never ends with this kid. This is the same baby who almost always dumps the dog's water dish all over himself just seconds before we're ready to leave (or toilet water...he doesn't discriminate; he loves both).

I was really nervous that the kids were going to conspire against me and all hell was going to break loose and I'd have to use my one phone call from jail to call my husband at work to come bail me out, but to my surprise, the kids were all super duper well behaved, and no, I promise, I didn't drug them before we left.

We walked around the museum, checked out the exhibits (even though they really hadn't changed much since the last time we visited), the kids played in the kiddie area, and we even walked through the gift shop without anyone throwing a tantrum or breaking something, although my oldest started to get a little squirrely over an overpriced stuffed horse, but I held strong because if I bought her the horse, I'd have to say yes to the stuffed rodents that my boys were holding up and waving just inches from my face. Besides, I'm pretty sure we already have some rodents living behind our kitchen stove.

A shot of all four of them looking at the camera and I didn't even have to bribe them

 

Seanie was irritated that the stroller suddenly stopped moving 

 

A pathetic attempt at a selfie...we really could've used a selfie stick! 

 

Peanut loved this volunteer dude...he talked his ear off 

 

How I eat during PMS week

 

Seanie the rock climber. 

What do you mean your ten month old can't rock climb yet?

Kidding, he's still on the ground

 

I'm really happy I decided to take them out of the house and let them burn off some steam instead of yelling at them from the couch to be quiet while they ignore me and act like wild dingos at a rave.  Plus this gave me some confidence to know that not only could I do it, but that maybe I should be doing this kind of stuff more often. Of course you know what this means!! The next time I take them to the museum alone, I'll turn my back for one second and Peanut and Mahlon will end up falling into the snake pit. But at least I can always look back and say, "Remember that one time, when I took them to the museum and it was a total success?"  Yeah, I'll always have that.

Valentine Schmalentines

I apologize for not posting every day like I promised. I haven't been in a very good place lately. I don't know if it's winter depression, or maybe some leftover, residual post partum depression or what, but I've been down and out and just blah about everything. The motivation has been sucked out of me like a vacuum and all I really want to do is pull the covers over my head and sleep (which can't and wont happen because I have a hyperactive ten month old who is now taking steps on his own).

So, it wasn't really any big surprise that I would be blah about this year's Valentines Day as well.  Not that I was ever really all that excited over it. I'll admit, I'm not very romantic. In fact I'm pretty dude-like in many aspects. If you absolutely must have an example, I just finished clipping my toenails on the couch and then I stuffed my face with nachos (after going on a taco binge earlier today). The sexiness is just radiating out of me today so ladies hide yo men!

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for those of you who have cheesy, romantic, flower filled, gushy Hallmark card holidays. Everyone should feel loved and appreciated, and just because I'm having a woe is me, poopy flavored lollipop of a year, doesn't mean that everyone should suffer (although I hope you all choke on your chocolates....KIDDING.....I choked on a Mexican pizza many years ago at Los Dos Amigos and it was pretty damn terrifying). 

My husband isn't much better. If it were up to him holidays wouldn't even exist at all.  Yes, it's true, he was super duper romantic on our first Valentine's Day, but let's just say that over the years it's just sort of become another day for us on the calendar.  Last night we had to run to Safeway so while we were out we grabbed a box of chocolates that were on clearance and then upgraded our coffee purchases to include travel mugs (they were offering them for half off).

Happy Valentine's Day honey, here's some discounted chocolates and a plastic coffee cup

I may sound bitter, but I swear, I'm really not at all. I'm terrible with flowers. TERRIBLE! I'm like the Black Dahlia of the gardening world where all living plants come to die a slow, torturous death (luckily I'm better with children, right?) And I don't wear jewelry, other than my wedding ring and my plain silver hoop earrings that I bought at Target for five bucks many (many) years ago. Romantic trips are out too because, well, do I even need to say it? We have four young kids still living at home.  

There is one teeny tiny little thing that I wish my husband would do that doesn't even cost any money, and I've hinted at it so many times that I've honestly just given up at this point. And that's okay. I know there are several things on his list that I've neglected, despite him nagging at me, so we're even, and that my friends is marriage. It's a compromise, and there are lots of good days and bad days, and many in between, just okay days. He shows his love in many other ways, as he's an amazing father and provider (hello, the poor man works his tail off so his wife can stay home with their 10,000 kids) and he does lots of little things for me that I probably take for granted and don't even recognize half the time. For example, sometimes he'll pick up little items for me on his lunch break, like a new pair of shoes, a pair of pj's, a dessert he knows I like, etc. He grabs our favorite vegan chicken strips at Trader Joes which we consume late at night after the kids are in bed, sometimes even with wine! Bonus! 

I don't need a dozen roses or a fancy box of chocolates to know that he loves me and is committed to our family. In fact, tonight we're actually celebrating V-Day as a family, which we've also done in previous years, and those are always my favorite Valentine memories to be perfectly honest. The kids will only be with us for so many years and once they're gone we'll have many years of intimate dinners and weekend getaways.  So for now it's quick trips to Safeway for discounted chocolates and plastic coffee cups. But hey, for dinner we're having cheese fondue (I make the best cheese fondue by the way), along with some chocolate fondue for dessert.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful, amazing, love filled Valentine's Day.  And if you're not having a wonderful, magical V-Day, let me leave you with this little fun filled image.....once I finish posting this, I will be heading back to my bathroom to continue scraping the stuck on, sticky icky Amoxicillin which spilled out all over my drawer, ruining what little make up I owned (it's a sign that I should never wear make up), with a butter knife. 

You're welcome.

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Ah glorious Thanksgiving.  A day of food, family, football and tofu? Yeah, you guessed it. We're vegetarians, and let me tell you, nothing makes a person more uncomfortable than a vegetarian on Thanksgiving.  Some assume we don't celebrate the holiday at all, as if we're some strange hippie cult that hide out in our VW vans, eating tofu straight off the block, or we're holding signs of slaughtered turkeys and protesting in front of Foster Farms or something.  Well, never fear, I'm here to break those stereotypes and set the record straight.  Our holiday experiences are much like yours, they just happen to be meat free.

I still have to make a massive trip to the store and spend a small fortune on a meal that I will slave over for hours, while my family devours in two minutes and then begins to whine over wanting pumpkin pie.  Our Thanksgiving meal is pretty traditional and consists of mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, Hawaiian rolls, stuffing (homemade so I can use vegetable broth), deviled eggs and our vegetarian roast.  In some ways we actually have it worse than non vegetarians because turkey substitutes cost a lot of money and they are teeny tiny. Apparently the people who make these substitutes assume we have the appetite of a toddler because I had to buy two separate roasts this year for a whopping $30 at Whole Foods. Most grocery stores offer deep discounts on turkeys or hams during the holiday, some even offering them for free if you spend a certain amount. Not only do I spend the same amount as non vegetarians, but there are rarely ever any deals for vegetarian roasts, and the only way you're getting a free roast is if you're hauling one out of the store in your coat pocket and I do not recommend that as Thanksgiving in jail would not be much fun (or maybe it would be depending on your family....who am I to judge?)

Our turkey replacements...not too scary, right?

 

The holiday roast before it went in the oven...

this one is my favorite

Every other year we host Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's sister's family, but this year it was just us so that meant I could relax and breathe a little easier as I didn't have to worry about getting dinner out by a certain time, blowing up air mattresses or cleaning toilets for company. Instead I woke up, drank my coffee (thank you Starbucks for being open), watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with the kids and then got the distinct pleasure of listening to my husband scream at the television while his favorite football team lost. Thank you Redskins for ruining my holiday experience, you bastards! Of course I had to make an impromptu trip to the store because I was unaware that my kids ate all of the eggs last week and my twelve year old started pitching a fit over Thanksgiving being ruined if we didn't have deviled eggs, which is totally ironic since she scoops the tops off of them anyways and only eats the egg whites.  Nothing says Happy Thanksgiving like standing in an express line with nine hundred thousand other people who also forgot something.

The boys watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year 

because they wanted to see the Diary of a Wimpy Kid float

 My husband watching the Redskins...

or more like yelling at the Redskins

 

Safeway selfie...

one simply cannot go holiday shopping and not forget something

The best part of my Thanksgiving was cooking the entire meal by myself. Yes, I could've made my kids help, and I probably should have, but that would've included blood, sweat and tears and the kids wouldn't of been very well behaved either.  I wasn't exactly up for my kids arguing over who got to dump the milk into the mashed potatoes. Instead I kicked everyone out of my kitchen and got to work, threatening anyone who dared to cross into my threshold. The only one who got a free pass was our eight month old, Seanie Mac, because every so often he'd wander in on his baby walker and run over my foot, but he's a baby so I didn't mind so much. The other kids, along with my husband got the "If you come into my kitchen one more time, I'm sneezing on the pies."

By the time I got everything out onto the table, dished up the kids' plates and sat down, I realized that I wasn't hungry at all because I had already eaten an entire meal while cooking.  Of course that didn't stop me from stuffing my face like the little piggy that could and then waddling back to my bedroom while I held my muffin top and moaned in agony.  I had just enough time to pop some Tums before the kids started coming into my bedroom one by one while they whined, "Mooooom, when are we going to eat the pies?"

 Me trying to get a good pic of the kids before dessert...

 this is exactly why we don't do professional pics!!

Despite having a good day with my loving family, I have to say my favorite part of Thanksgiving would be breaking out the wine after the kids finally passed out from their imitation turkey comas.  After all, wine is made from grapes and grapes are fruit, therefore wine is totally vegetarian you know.

We drink our wine in martini glasses because we're classy like that....or more like all of our wine glasses got broken and you gotta do what you gotta do (classier than drinking them out of Spongebob mugs...no we've never done that...okay yes we have)

On a serious note, I did want to thank everyone again for all of the love and support you've given our family. We are still sorting through mail (I think we're almost done), and we will be putting a video/slideshow together as a way to show our appreciation.  The outpouring of support still humbles me and brings me to tears. I'm not just saying that either. I literally tear up every single time I help Mahlon open and read his birthday cards.

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts! I seriously wish we could send an individual thank you to each and every one of you, but we had absolutely no idea we were going to receive the amount of mail and packages we did. We literally received tens of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world! Mahlon will be keeping some of the gifts, but the rest will be going to a local charity (we will be including this in our video footage), as there is no possible way we can keep it all. Plus, part of what makes Mahlon so special is his kind and generous heart and he really wants to spread the love so I hope that those who sent gifts will feel comfort in knowing their generous gifts are going to make a child happy this Christmas (ack, and I'm crying again). He is opening every single letter, card, and package, so even those items he isn't keeping, he has been so excited to get to open up the boxes and envelopes to see what's inside, so we deeply appreciate every single thing that has been received.

Six Months

In just six short little months, our lives have become almost unrecognizable. As you already know, we had a beautiful, chubby, baby boy in March.  In July we packed up and moved the fam from Portland to our dream location.  My husband found an amazing new job in his field, and we were extremely fortunate to find a rental house right away. I should mention that finding a rental or even a house to buy in this very desirable tourist town is like an episode of Survivor. People will straight up cut you to be the first one in line at an open house!  Unfortunately our two oldest kids (who are technically grown now but they'll always be kids to me), decided to stay back in Portland, so we're now a teeny tiny little family of six. You're probably thinking that means we're going to have more kids, but I can assure you that there will definitely be no more kids in the Peanut Layne household. My husband finally got fixed a few months ago (I know, I know, took him long enough, right?) but that will be in a separate post called, "Bringing four kids to my husband's vasectomy" so keep an eye out for that one.
 

Goodbye Concrete Jungle

Hello Beautiful Desert!

My boys are no longer home-schooled. That's right ya'll! I retired my role as a teacher and sent my boys off to public school in September.

First Day of School

 

 And you know what? They absolutely love it! I had so many fears, panic attacks leading up to the first day of school such as:

Will my youngest be able to wipe his own butt?
Will they get lost heading from the bus to classroom?
Will they say something off the wall and crazy that only home-schooled kids would say?

Okay who am I kidding?

Will they repeat things that they heard their dear old mom say?

But so far they adore their new school and are already making friends. And I adore the fact that from 8:30-3:30 pm, my house is strangely quiet and i'm getting lots of one on one time with Seanie Mac. Speaking of Seanie Mac, he recently cut two new baby teeth, is recovering from his first cold, is eating baby food twice a day, and weighs more than a baby elephant. No, seriously, this kid is HUGE! He's 21 pounds and about 28 inches long, wearing a size 5 diaper and 12-18-24 month clothes. And my arms totally look like Popeye arms from carrying him around the house, but muscles are in so that's good, right?

My Big Bald Cutie Patootie 

 It's funny but I never realized just how unhappy I was until we moved and I was forced to make some major changes in my life.  Before we moved I was in a rut. I was lonely, bored, and miserable, but after nearly seven years in the city, I began to think that my life was as good as it was going to get.  But, I was so very wrong.

It's incredible how a simple change in scenery, putting the boys in school, forcing myself to get out of the house and make some friends, and finally returning to my blog and writing again, is helping me slowly find my way back to myself.  

And boy oh boy, do we have some amazing scenery here! It really does take some effort to be unhappy here.  People are so ridiculously friendly and one simply cannot go anywhere without having a conversation with someone. The cashier will definitely ask you questions about your day, and then proceed to give you a brief synopsis of their entire life story (sometimes complete with medical history).  I found this a little odd at first as I was rarely spoken to in Portland except a quick and forced, "Hi, did you find everything okay?" My big city attitude is slowly disappearing, along with the heavy traffic anxiety induced road rage. I think i've only flipped the bird once in the three months that we've lived here (okay twice) and that's a big improvement from my previous finger flipping numbers.

It's Easy to Love Where You Live
When You Live Here

 

And before you roll your eyes and think i'm living a Pinterest perfect life or something, i'm still not, nor will I ever be. This morning I woke up to my middle son screaming, "MOM, HELP" at the top of his lungs. As I dashed out of bed, nearly breaking a toe on the door frame in the process, I entered the bathroom just in time to see the clogged, poopy filled toilet, cascade out of the toilet bowl and all over my used to be clean floor.  So yeah, you're very welcome for that mental picture (I apologize if you were eating a sandwich or something). Instead of getting my boys picture ready for picture day (insert groan here), I was lecturing them on their excessive use of toilet paper, throwing towels down all over the floor to absorb the poop water, and Febreezing my bathroom.  Yes, some things will never change my friends.

I'm back. Lucky you.

You may have been wondering where I went this past month or two?  Or maybe you're not. Either way, i'm going to tell you. I took the holidays off from blogging and showering (kidding. Sort of).  Why? Because I was so busy baking cookies and spreading holiday joy that I didn't have time to write.  Are you buying this?  Me either.  The real reason is, I simply didn't have anything blog worthy to write about.  Well, that and I have a slight Amazon addiction during the holidays so I was pretty much glued to my laptop ordering more toys for kids who don't need anymore toys.  I made a vow to the husband this year that I wouldn't buy anything with small pieces.  You should've seen his face when our daughter opened up her giant Monster High High School Playset and he looked at me with that "What in the hell is that monstrosity?" look.  I refused to make eye contact with him when the boys started tearing open the Playmobil stuff. I promised after the last couple of Christmases that I would never purchase another Playmobil item again. At least not for our own kids.  Our grandkids will be getting loads of it every single year, along with toys that make noise, stain your furniture and smell bad.  You're welcome kids!

So yeah, I suppose I could've babbled on and on and on about stupid things, but when I babble, I tend to give out way too much personal info and before you know it i'm describing my hemorrhoids to perfect strangers. And I don't even have hemorrhoids so then i'd be blogging without integrity. Slap me. Please.

This morning was the first day back to school.  I couldn't sleep so I was wide awake until 5 am. The alarm went off at 7:30 but I ignored it.  Then a few minutes later I heard a little voice calling out "Mom, come wipe my butt". I tried to ignore it but it didn't go away. It never does.  So I got up. In case you didn't know, unconditional love is crawling out of your warm, comfy bed to wipe a child's butt.  I wish I could say that I wake up every morning and seize the day and stuff, but I don't.  It's more like I stumble into the kitchen in a zombie like state and stuff a handful of Captain Crunch Berries into my mouth.

I was so tired this morning that I actually let my dog chew the legs off our ottoman and bark at leaves blowing by the front window. I will pretend to have no idea how or when it happened when the hubby comes home from work and asks why our black shag rug is covered in wood chips.

I'm pretty sure this long holiday break has caused me to slowly lose my mind.  I loved the Facebook posts over the holiday break saying, "Yay! Now I can sleep in".  Sleep in?  What's that? Seriously those two words may as well be "size zero" in my world. Never going to happen.  Last night I ordered a diaper bag. My youngest child is four and we're not having anymore kids (nor do I want anymore).  Just try and explain that one...I double dog dare ya!

I started a new diet plan before the holidays and actually started to lose some weight.  Then I gained most of it back over Christmas.  We had a glazed ham on Christmas Eve. I have no self control when it comes to pork products.  I will stalk the fridge like a dog (i'm actually worse than our dog) and eat cold ham straight out of the container until i'm so swollen and puffy all over my body from the sodium, that I have to use Crisco to get my wedding ring off. I'm re-starting my diet plan today and i'm pretty sure i'll want to stab my husband in the eye while we're sitting in the Costco food court tonight and he's eating a slice of pepperoni pizza in front of me.  I'm not a happy dieter.  In fairness, i'm not really much of a happy anything in case you haven't noticed.

Now that you've read this, i'm sure you're feeling smarter and wiser (I just misspelled smarter. Thank you autocorrect).  I give up.  Until next time.....