Tub Time

She loves baths. The water, the toys, the splashing, the shrieking after dousing some unsuspecting adult.

It's a great time.

Unless you have an irrational fear of water.

Her Daddy taught her how to crash Elmo in his car.

Elmo has had several life threatening experiences in the tub with her.

In fact, we all have.

We can't even coax her out when all the water has drained away.

She just pulls at the plug, demanding it give her back the water it stole.

And she will gladly tell you why she wears a washrag on her head the whole time.

"It's a hat!!!"

That's what she tells us anyway.

Pretty (Salty) Bird

"I AM THE QUEEN OF THANKSGIVING, AND TURKEY, AND TURKEY GRAVY, AND SIDE DISHES, AND BRINING!!!!"

"Now, please pass me a gallon of water so I can wash down this salty turkey."

*frown*

Thanksgiving is a time of thankfulness(obviously), and family and overeating, and if you are us, a time of running around carting food, toddler and toddler accessories around town.

This year I decided to cook a turkey dinner just for us a week before the holiday so we could eat and relax. It was my first turkey ever.
I tell you this so you can fully embrace the knowledge that I was flying in the blind, relying only on Internet research and my own culinary skill...note that I did not say culinary common sense.

I decided to brine an 11 pound bird, using ingredients and timing for a 20 pound bird.

Already you may see the flaw in my preparation. It was the standard 5 day event one would expect of preparing Thanksgiving dinner, complete with thawing, making brine, placing the turkey in said brine and of course, slaving away in the kitchen beginning at the crack of dawn.

I made the whole spread: stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn(at husband's request), turkey gravy, and turkey. Oh, and I spooned jellied cranberry sauce right out of the can. By the time the rest of the food hit the table I was way too tired to put those cranberries in a bowl.

Little did I know what this gravy would taste like after all my thorough whisking.

I even made roux.
And here she is in all her glory!!!


Turned out lovely, and truth be told it was only the first inch of the turkey that was too salty for me to ingest. The rest was what the brine jar touted: succulent, moist and flavorful. But that gravy........pure brine, baby. It made the lining of your mouth pucker.




This fellow here, he loved it. I mean, he was beside himself.
I tease him that he salts his salt. He was in salty hog heaven.



The whole thing was actually very nice, except for the being in the kitchen all day.
Afterwards I called my Mom to tell her she needed to delegate more for holidays. She usually does the whole thing herself. That is crazy I tell you. Not for mere mortals.
But I'll do it again next year.
For them. And so I can see this again:

She never said a bad word about my 1st turkey.
But it turns out she likes cranberry sauce the best. Even if it was spooned right out of the can.

Help Me!!!

Violet is teething.

She is cutting molars and she is not happy.

I give her Orajel rubs before naps and no matter how fast I am, she manages to get me with her two front teeth.

All I want for Christmas is to not have another run in with these particular two front teeth.

I am reluctant to use a Q-Tip since I know she'll just chew the cotton off and then I'll have to dig that out of her mouth.

Anyone?!?!?!

I'm still a novice Mom. And that picture was taken about ten minutes after she got me.

Please send help. Or plan to be over around 2:00 to do this task for me.

Several Moral Dilemmas

This is the playground Tim built Violet for her birthday. She loves it. He put in lots of sweat hours in July putting this together, and then my parents and older brother outfitted it with the play things. Every warm day I get her out here to play, but there is a problem.

To the neighborhood cats running loose, this is a huge restroom.

The first time I made this discovery I cleaned it all up, put it in a bucket, walked it to my neighbors house, and dumped it all in their yard. While they were home. And the blinds were open. I was mad, I internally dared them to come out and say something to me. After all, I had seen their cat in my back yard, and in the street, and everywhere else.

There are 2 moral dilemmas at work here:

I have come to realize that there are 2 cats frequenting my yard, both the same very obvious breed, but one is much fuzzier, and runs a different direction when I catch him or her.

I feel bad for my emotional/motherly/hormonal rampage that resulted in polluting my neighbors yard with what may or may not have come from their cat.

Should I go apologize? Bring cookies? Tell them that not only are they to blame, but so is another mystery cat owner?

I am also at a loss about what to do with these cats.

I went online to read about ideas to keep cats away:

keep the soil(gravel) moist, put down chicken wire, lemon oil......

I have done these things in succession with no luck.

I am currently yelling at them or firing a BB gun in their general direction. Not at them.

I am ready to trap them and take them to the Humane Society. But is that too extreme?

On to the next issue:

This is one of the twins. He is one of my 4 squirrels this season who daily receives my cast offs from the kitchen. He is a baby. I love him. As I said, he is also a twin. Their Momma brings them to eat, but much of the time the 4th guy, who I call "Fat Daddy", runs them off. He's a pig and taps on my slider.

Now, I realize keeping several squirrels around is not going to help with the aforementioned feline situation.

Should I stop feeding them? Is it wrong to feed wildlife in general?

I'm just so unsure of my place in this world these days.
Next issue:

I think my daughter is ready for a cell phone.

Just kidding.

She can't have one until she pays for it, or I win the Lottery, or she goes to kindergarten. We'll see how it goes.

She thinks everything is a cell phone and babbles away. This here is a baby monitor.

But here is the problem with this cuteness, and the fact that I was taking pictures of it:

She was sitting on the end table while she was doing it.

At the time I didn't even know she could get on the couch by herself, let alone the table.

Do you photograph your kids when they are doing something not only naughty, but unsafe?

I do. Way more that I should.
Moving on.....

The last issue is TV.

Or "TTTEEEE!!!" as Violet calls it.

How much TV do your kids watch? Do they insist on being in your bed to do it?

This only happens on busy or sicky days, but I can see now my child wants to try and make this a daily occurrence. And so begins our battle of wills.

Help me. I feel so lost without you.

I'll be watching TV while I wait for your guidance.

Eyes...Take Two

Toenail polish. Hours of entertainment.

First of all, let me say this.

My daughter is growing up WAY too fast. She loves to wear these beads, every day, with every outfit, and even in the tub. She has become obsessed with all things pretty, such as my earrings and painted toenails. I put my earrings over top of her ears, and she runs around swinging her head back and forth exclaiming: "Pid-dee!!"

When I painted her toenails a sparkly lilac color for the first time, she couldn't take more than three steps without having to crouch down and examine them with glee.

I had to get a pair of socks so she could eat her lunch.

But back too those eyes.

When I asked for opinions on the mysterious color of my child's eyes, I received 5 different answers. This led me to Internet research, which by the way, is how I seem to conduct my entire life these days. But I digress.

I learned that there are actually more recognized colors of eyes than the standard brown, blue, hazel, and green. There is now also, gray, red, violet and amber. Amber itself as a color has two different "flavors", those that are yellow/golden and those that are russet/coppery.

Moreover, pupils now come in two varieties, black and brown.
So there is your 30 second tutorial on eyes.

In the end, ironically, it was Tim's cousin Amber who had the closest description:

"Golden brown is my vote."
I have determined that Violet's eyes are amber, the golden variety.

And ever since I found this out, not a single soul has inquired about her eyes.

Go figure.

Halloween-Edited Version

This is the Haunted Mansion of Josh and Kimmy the Magnificently Ghoulish.

We turned our friends and loved ones loose in this place for fun, frolicking and fear.

Fear of being the first one to spill on the floor.

It was a festival for the senses. Music, spooky lighting and things that go bump in the night, or into a wall, or down the stairs......

These two flew in from NeverLand.

This one came up from a fiery chasm.

These two traveled down from Olympus.

These two flew in from flight training with their instructor.

I have no explanation for this.

Sometimes people get hurt on Halloween. I'm just sayin'.

And that's all I'm sayin' about this shin-dig. Anything else is not suitable for a family friendly site, such as this, and same goes for the rest of the pictures.

So let's move on to the lighter side of our Halloween.

She is super cute and she charmed candy from a great many.

Me-yow!

Don't Tell Martha

This is my Grandma Shirley.

She is loving, kind, a great cook, and very artistic.

She has made myself and all her other grandchildren(and great-grandchildren) afghans, quilts, hand painted knick-knacks and ornaments, and various other lovely and thoughtful things.

She also crochets.

This is an entirely different announcement about her creativity because when she was a little girl she put her index finger into a meat grinder and lost the end of it.

People told her she would never be able to crochet without the end of her finger.

Not that I personally would know anything about being strong willed in the face of adversity, but just to make her point that she could, she mastered crochet.

She has tried to teach me, but I have some sort of mental block about it.

Anyhow.....

In case your wondering which branch of my family tree she sits on, she birthed this man.

I call him Father, or Dad-Ums, or Old Guy.

He too is artistic, but in an analytical, symmetrical, mathematical way.

That is something I have a major mental block about.

But back to crochet...

Grandma Shirley has taken to crocheting these. Yes, by hand, without a pattern, or supervision, shocking, I know.
I then take them, starch and iron them into submission, and pin them in shadow boxes that I decorate to match the decor of the room they are in.

Very girlie, no?



Here is the "family" one. Made to go in our front room that houses our black piano.
Isn't it amazing that she whips these puppies out?
So don't go telling Martha about us, or she'll want to put us on the show, elevate us to extreme celebrity status, and market us as a household name.
We just don't have time for that.