the water slide effect

Hello all!  Easter was awesome...little man had a ball at his granny's house!  They have a giant inflated water slide with a little pool at the bottom and water sprayers everywhere and it was all I could do to get the little guy in his swim trunks before he hopped on in!  Really funny considering not two hours before he had given me trouble washing his hair during his bath, but that's my son for ya...he likes water on his terms.  I think it helped that all the big boys there were playing and splashing around in there too, so of course he felt he had to keep up with them.  Baby girl had a good time too, watching the boys playing in the pool and the wind blowing through the trees and generally getting passed around like the collection plate on Sunday morning...she loves to be held, but she wants to be facing out so she can see everything going on around her (her brother was just the opposite...when he decided he wanted to be held, he wanted to be facing the person doing the holding).  I had made her an Easter dress to wear, and it turned out wonderfully...especially considering I only started making it on Wednesday after the kiddos were in bed.  For some reason, I got a wild hair last Sunday and decided that I wanted to make her something last minute...luckily, I had some fabric at my mom's house that I knew would be perfect, so I only had to buy buttons and some ribbon to finish the project.  One of the times my cratfaholism procrastination worked out in my favor...to put this in perspective, I had purchased the fabric originaly to make some spring dresses for my neice when she was about 4 or 5...she's 13 now.  Well, that's about all for now...until next time!

the colored-egg endevor

Hello all!  We've been having a bit of spring-time fun around our house...my son and I dyed eggs yesterday after he got up from his nap (he actually slept!!), and they actually turned out pretty good.  It was his first time coloring eggs and he thorougly enjoyed it...I think his favorite part was going in after the eggs with just his hand lol.  Luckily, it was just food coloring in water with some vinegar, so nothing toxic to worry about...but it was heck getting that off his hands later.  We did it yesterday cause I knew they were going to be coloring eggs at school this week (why else would they send a note home saying to bring 6 hard boiled eggs?) and since he hadn't ever done it, I wanted to be the first one to dye eggs with him.  Found out today when I dropped him off that they're actually not coloring them till tomorrow, but it was still a super fun (and super cheap since I already had all the supplies) project, and since he's done it before it might not seem strange to him when they do it at school.  I think my favorite part about it was after we had taken several eggs out of their dye-bath to dry, he picked up the eggs and dunked them in another color...it was just too adorable!  So needless to say, they didn't turn out "perfect", but we both had a blast...and like I said, he got a little creative with the colors, so they were perfect in their own way.  I know when I was a kid, dying eggs was my favorite thing about spring...I think I liked it even more than the yearly visit from the bunny.  I can only hope that it'll be one of his favorite things too...and one of baby girl's, when she's old enough to participate too.  And this afternoon, I made a really tasty egg salad out of them, so they had another purpose besides just being fun. 

It's my favorite time of the month...magazine time!!  I really love how around this time all the magazines I have subscriptions to start flowing into the mailbox like clockwork...got two in today's mail alone!  That always makes for a good day!  Well, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

the big-bang juxtaposition

Hello all!  So I don't know if any of yall out there watch the TV show The Big Bang Theory, but if you haven't, you should really check it out!  Hubby and I absolutely love the show...we record it every week so we can watch it after the kids are asleep.  Not that the show isn't kid friendly or anything, (it comes on network prime-time) it's just easier to actually pay attention to it when there aren't kids crying or standing right in the middle of the screen (have you noticed this?  it seems like it doesn't matter what is actually on the screen, young kids just have to stand right in the middle of it).  The show is about 3 physicists and an engineer who work at a university and a hot chick who lives across the hall from 2 of them.  They become friends with the hottie and needless to say, hilarity ensues.  It's a very smart comedy, hence needing to pay attention to it.  The reason I bring it up, other than it being particularly awesome, is that I've noticed some of my blog titles sound a little like some of their episode titles.  Examples: The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis; The Hamburger Postulate; The Bad Fish Paradigm; The Friendship Algorithm.  I didn't really notice this until recently when I was looking through my blog archives, but I kinda dig it.  They're about to wrap up their 4th season, and I can't wait for season 5!

In other news, we recently found out that baby girl has allergies.  We don't know what all to yet, but so far it's looking pretty definite for pollen and cats.  The cat allergy doesn't really surprise me that much...hubby and my dad are both allergic to them also, but as far as I know no one else in the family is allergic to pollen.  Then again, genetics are a funny thing.  We think our son is allergic to pollen as well, though not to quite the same extent as his sister...the only thing he's shown a severe reaction to is wheat (which is in practically everything).  While there is a lot of pollen in our area come spring and summer, the upside is that we don't have any pets, so I think as long as I keep the house dusted and vacuumed on a regular basis to try and keep the dust and pollen as low as I can, we should be ok for now.  I'm sure eventually we'll need to get some air purifiers, at least for the kid's rooms, but for the moment I think this'll work.  I am, however, looking for a new vacuum with a HEPA filter so less dust gets thrown back into the air.  I've only checked the local big-box stores (to get an idea of price range), but I'm gonna check out a local vacuum dealer when I finally get some time.

For my followers: J, it was so good finally getting to hang out!  We should get together again soon!  R, glad to hear yall are going green too!  The Meatless Monday website has some awesome recipes that you should check out if you're interested in doing it (no pressure lol), and I think yall are a bit more open-minded culinary wise than my family, so you should be able to find plenty to experiment with there.  Also, do you know if Target only recycles their own plastic bags, or will they take bags from anywhere?  We've got quite the collection going here and I do try to re-use them for things like trash-can liners and when I need to bring things with me when we go visiting, but I've got far too many for just those purposes.  Anyway, I guess that's all for now.  Until next time!

the grape experiment

Hello all!  So, I tried dying my hair with kool-aid last night.  I followed the instructions I found online to the t, mixing the powdered drink mix with a little water and some hair conditioner to make a paste.  Though I think I added a little too much water...mine was a rather soupy paste.  I had an old craft brush hanging around the house, so I used that to apply the mixture to my bangs, which had previously been bleached slightly and colored purple with a commercial product.  I thought the purple from the commercial dye was a bit too subtle for what I was going for, hence the kool-aid.  Anyway, back to what happened.  I applied the mix to my bangs and wrapped them up very well in plastic wrap, then I decided to let the rest of my hair know that I love it too, so I applied a creamy deep conditioner to it and wrapped everything up in a couple more layers of plastic wrap then put a terry wrap on, just in case, and went to bed (from everything I read on the internet, they said to do that for the best results).  The mix itself looked a little bit (ok, a lot) black, but I was hoping for the best (you know, like it was just so purple it looked black).  So I woke up this morning to wash the stuff out of my hair, still hoping for the best...well, the water from the colored parts looked blue!  Not exactly what I was going for, but I really like blue so I thought that'd be pretty cool too.  Dried my hair with a towel and couldn't wait for it to dry naturaly like I normally do, so I busted out the blowdryer and got after it.  Well, I can't say as it turned out either purple or blue...it's mostly kinda blue, but there's a couple places that look kinda purple, all with a sort of gray-ish cast to it.  I think it's actually more subtle than the color that was there before...next time I'm totally gonna mix blue raspberry and tropical punch to get a good purple color instead of using grape.  On the upside, it doesn't look horrible plus my hair smells like grape!  It'll wash out soon enough anyway, so I'll try mixing the purple next time instead of trying the easy way.

In other news, we're still doing Meatless Mondays at our house, and it's going fairly well...last night we had cheese enchilads with rice and beans.  I cheated a little and didn't make these from scratch (it was a frozen meal), but they were pretty good none the less.  My friend J made rice and beans last night and I have to say, the pic I saw looked yummier than what we had.  Don't get me wrong, the enchiladas were good, but her dish was homemade and it just looked like it tasted better.  I really should have made our supper from scratch too, but it had been a long day and I just didn't feel up to it...but the frozen meal was still cheaper to feed everyone than take-out (I'm feeding 6-8 people every night here).  Last night it was only for 5 of us though, my cousin is still visiting her mom and hubby was out of town, so there was actually leftovers (usually I make enough so hubby can get 2 meals out of it...one to eat when he gets home and the other to take for his lunch at work the next day, so that doesn't really count as leftovers).  I'm trying to decide if I wanna eat that for lunch or make myself some fish sticks.  I may give my son the enchiladas, since he can eat those but not the fish sticks.  I got some baby food for baby girl the other day, so I'm excited to have her try it...she's only had cereal, so I think I might mix some of the baby food with her cereal so it's not a huge change for her.  I'm gonna do the same thing with her that I did with my son...start her out with the meats and veggies before giving her fruit.  Their doctor told me when my oldest was this age that it's better to start out with the savory foods first instead of the sweeter fruits so that they don't think all food needs to be sweet.  It works though...my son doesn't eat sweets very often, and he doesn't really ask for them either.  That's why on the rare occasions he does ask for candy or something sweet I usually give it to him, and even that's maybe once a week or two.  Sometimes I'll buy him a small piece of candy at the store if he's been super good, but even that's kinda rare (me buying him candy, not him being good at the store...that happens a lot).

The barmops are working out famously as an alternative to paper towels at our house!  My mom is still coming around to the whole thing...she keeps trying to buy paper towels when we're at the store and I keep telling her we don't really need them.  We have a good stash of barmops and larger dish towels now and they're conveniently located, so we can just grap one for a clean-up job and then toss it in the wash pile.  I do let her keep something like one or two rolls of paper towels on hand cause there are some things she just won't use cloth for...but I'm working on it. For instance, she thinks that you have to cover a plate of food in the microwave with a paper towel, but just yesterday I showed her that you totally can use a barmop for that.  I don't know if it sunk in, but I'm really trying.  Next up is converting her to cloth napkins instead of paper towels at meal times...we'll see how that goes.  I'm actually quite proud of myself as far as the whole conversion from paper to cloth is concerned...it's just second nature now for me to reach for a barmop or dish cloth instead of a paper towel.  In all honesty, I'd love to convert to cloth diapers too instead of disposables, but every time I mention it everyone just looks at me like I'm totally nuts.  Plus, they're pretty expensive.  I'd make them myself, but even the materials are kinda pricey...I know it's a little cheaper in the long run (especially if you have the multi-size ones), but I just can't put out that much of an initial investment right now.  Maybe material prices will come down soon and I can get the supplies to make my own...a girl can dream, can't she?  Wow, I really need to get out more lol.  Well, that's all for now...Until next time!