Sunday Confessions/Hi, My name is Michelle...

And I am a shopaholic. No, I wouldn't say that exactly. I would say I have a disorder that I diagnosed and named myself. It's called split shopping personality disorder. Some days, I have this overwhelming URGE to spend money. Usually I end up going on line and buying something for either me or the kids. It's usually the kids. Still, whether it's for me or not, I get a certain buzz from it. I have to get my fix every now and then. I often find myself spending impulsively. I was thinking the other day that half the time things are delivered and I don't remember ordering anything. Then I open it and go, "Oh yea. I remember now." Then there is the other part of me that knows we need certain things. So I will think about it decide exactly what I'm going to get, research, compare prices and finally find the cheapest place to get it from, but when I go to click the "place order" button I just can't bring myself to do it. I have been known do take 3 or 4 days to finally place my order. And when I do actually do it I sit there and feel guilty for spending money. I think that's the part of me that's used to being poor. I wish I could find a happy medium. I wonder if there is a medication for that. Oh wait. There is. It's called chocolate!

Sunday Confessions/Starring Chef Michelle

Confession: When I cook I often find myself pretending I'm on a cooking show in my head. "...and now for the cheese. I'm using a stronger, extra sharp, great value brand, cheddar cheese. Compliments of Walmart. We're just going to sprinkle it over the top like so. Go ahead, pile it on." I also love to watch cooking shows on TV. The food network is one of my favorite channels. (HGTV is my other favorite.)

Kind of ironic considering I typically don't like to cook. In fact, unless I'm really in the mood, I LOATH it. It's one of those duties you do for survival and some days you just can't bring yourself to do it so you grab a frozen pizza from the freezer and throw it in the oven. It's not that I'm bad at it, in fact I've gotten pretty good at it over the last few years and can make some pretty good stuff, but it's just not fun for me. I'm also good at folding laundry, but I hate doing that too. I can't wait to teach my kids to cook so I can hand the responsibility off to them occasionally. Hey, then I will have a REAL audience and not have to pretend in my head any more.

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What's Done is Done

Background. For some reason Jacob has major anxiety about pooping in the potty. So rather than dealing with cleaning poopy underwear I let him poop in a diaper. He usually tries to get away with staying in the diaper for as long as possible because he doesn't like stopping what he's doing to go to the bathroom. Today he slipped up though.

Jacob: Mom, I pooped!!!!
Me: Good. That means you can go back into undies.
Jacob: *head down, sigh* Mama, I can't change my past.

I think he watches to many Disney movies.

My Little Budding Chef

This kid LOVES to help me in the kitchen. Yesterday I made soup. He helped me chop the veggies with my little chopper thingy. Then he added the noodles to the water and made sure to stir them every 5 seconds. I let him add most of the ingredients.

Stirring the noodles.

A little pepper

A LOT of Tabasco.

Stir some more.

Voiole'! (think Little Mermaid) You've got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of soup that humans go NUTS over.

And because HE made it, I told him he had to try it to make sure it was good and he ate a whole bowl of it. Hmmm...maybe that is the secret to getting him to eat dinner.

Kickin' Back in the Kiddy Pool

Best $5 I ever spent. I think Jacob had the right idea with the chairs. Smart kid. Too bad I forgot to put sunscreen on Lizzie. She's got some nice pink shoulders today.

I have never seen our lawn look so green. The rain has really done it some good! In fact, this year grass is even starting to grow in the corner of the yard that has been just dirt and weeds since we moved in. Yay for soft green grass. :)

Blessing Day

Today was Jimmy's blessing day. We were running late for church and I didn't have much time to get pictures (basically, I threw them all kicking and screaming in the chair and snapped a picture), so this is what ya get. haha. I have a really cute picture of him on my phone that I snapped at church. I just can't remember how to get the picture off my phone. :-S Steph gave him this cute, cute blessing outfit. I love it. The pants were a little long, but the rest of it fit perfectly.

Mike gave him a beautiful blessing. I wish I could remember to bring my journal to jot down notes from the blessing so I could show them to the kids when they get older. It's always an after thought and by the time I get home I can't remember most of the details. doh.

Mike said he was smiling and cooing through the whole blessing almost to the point of giggling. I wish I could have seen. :)

"You HAVE to blog about this."

"And the title should be, 'kids are disgusting'."

This is what Mike just said to me as he was giving Lizzie a bath after the most recent poop mess she made. It's been a while since she pooped on the floor last. She was doing so good. But I can't really blame her this time. In her defence, her diaper was falling off because it was pretty soggy and I was feeding the baby and couldn't change it right away and Mike was outside slaughtering ants, so I had her take it off and throw it in the garbage. I figured she'd be fine until I finished and I'd put a new diaper on her then. But, then of course, I got side tracked. She came to me a while later asking for a diaper and I told her I would do it in "just a minute". A few minutes later I hear Mike in the other room. "AAAAAAAAAH, MICHELLE WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!!" I knew right away what it was. He was totally freaking out, but I was thinking it was the the smallest poop mess she'd ever made. There were a few smudges on the carpet and on a bean bag chair, but according to Mike it was ALL over the living room. (He never saw her previous messes that really were all over the living room.) haahaha. The part he found most disgusting though, and I happen to agree with him on this one, was that she had it on her face and around her mouth. I don't think she ate it, but she had it on her hands and probably just ended up wiping it on her face. He had the task of cleaned her up, which was the worst part. It's not easy to clean that girl up while she's squirming and trying to put her hands in it and smear it around even more. I had the easy part of cleaning up the mess in the living room. I'm glad he was here today to experience it first hand instead of just hearing me rant about it when he got home. And he's probably now regretting telling me, "You HAVE to blog about this".

Shots All Around

There were several babies born right round the time Jimmy was born and they are all at that point where it's time to start immunizations. So I've seen a lot of posts on fb about sad sad babies. Jimmy was no exception. I hate shots. Jacob is just now over the trauma of shots and will actually happily go into the dr. office without freaking out that he's gonna get stuck. Good thing he doesn't have any more shots until he starts kindergarten. I hate taking my kids in there to get stuck. They always look at you like you've betrayed them. But at least the older ones recover quicker, since they move around a lot, it works the pain out quicker. lol. But I HATE that very first round of shots when they are babies. They are totally unsuspecting. In fact, Jimmy was smiling and cooing as they were giving him his oral immunization. Then they stuck him. I hate that look in their eyes as they are looking at you after that first stick that says, "what the heck!! That hurt!" Then the second stick comes and they start crying and looking at you like, "what is going ON?!? Why are you hurting me?" Then by the third one they are just ticked off and screaming. lol. But it doesn't end there. Then their little legs hurt for the rest of the day and they cry and sometimes get a fever and feel icky. It's so sad. My kids always take the first round the worst. The second round is still sad but they usually handle it better. The whole first year of dr. visits sucks because most of them involve shots. I do get excited to see their stats though. Speaking of stats, Jimmy is over 13 lbs now. He is a chunky little monkey. I love it.