Not quite heavenly...

The house smells like perfume.

I don't know if Joseph thought that the house stunk tonight...
it wouldn't be beyond possibility.

Maybe he thought I stunk.....
I hadn't had my shower yet.

Maybe he wanted to smell all womanly....
his father would love that.

But whatever the reason, while I was fixing his pre-bedtime snack, Joseph snatched up a bottle of perfume and started squirting. I started smelling something that smelled nice at first...then I realized what it was and ran to grab my bottle of Victoria's Secret Heavenly from Joseph and took him to the sink to rinse him off. To add insult to injury, he has JUST gotten out of the bath. How he got the perfume, I don't know. He's a little Houdini when it comes to stuff like that....he seems to make it materialize. But let's just say, it doesn't smell so Heavenly....

This child is a mess a minute. Earlier he had a piece of sidewalk chalk (his art instrument of choice) and decided to try it out on the wall...for one, it's just chalk, and for two, it's about the same color as the wall, so I didn't freak out. But I didn't want him to try out eyeliner or something on the wall, so I told him "No, not on the wall." So he went to another wall and made a little mark and looked at me. Again, "No, not on the wall." He went to another section of wall and looked at me...."No, not on the wall." On and on...Then he tried to color the dog with it. I told him if he could work with a moving canvas, more power to him. I asked him if he wanted paper. He said, "no." Thankfully chalk is easy to get off of pretty much everything. I was talking to another mom at gymnastics today and her daughter has just started coloring on the walls and I was helping her out with cleaning solutions. She was having trouble with eyeliner. Been there....that's one of J's weapons...err art supplies...of choice. Baby oil will take that off pretty much any hard surface. I am quickly becoming a cleaning expert.

Well, I've got a movie to watch and laundry to fold. Later!

Yes, I've been AWOL....

"You've got to pucker your lips, like this...."
 

It's been a while, I know. I haven't been in much of an internet mood lately. Aside from checking facebook occasionally and reading the blogs that I follow, I just haven't done much on the computer. I've been reading a lot of books, watching a lot of movies, and doing a lot of yoga....and getting behind on lots of housework.  But I'm back now.....and I have lots of interesting and delicious posts in the works.....starting probably tomorrow. Unless something weird happens.....which is not beyond the realm of possibility.

My MOPS group went to Monkey Joe's on Tuesday. It's kinda like Chuckie Cheese except with more bouncy houses and less games. Joseph loved it.

Riding the merry go round is very serious stuff...

So, I'm glad those of you reading this have stuck with me. I will try my best to do better. But for now, it's getting late and we've got a big morning of gymnastics tomorrow. There are 5 kids in the class this session....which means Joseph has to take turns....something he is not used to and he doesn't like it AT ALL! It can make for a LONG 30 minutes. Check back soon!

Happy New Year

It was a wild and crazy year for my family. We started off 2011 with one of the worst cold/flu/sickness seasons that I can remember. I think it had something to do with having a germ incubator living with me. We survived that, luckily. We also survived the worry that came with Joseph not growing.

Joseph turned one and started walking then running (seemingly the day after he started walking!). He can almost sit on a horse without assistance and ride around the arena which amazes me. He loves to ride just about anything and has developed an obsession with all things tractor and horse. It seems that every day he learns a new word. He learned to give kisses and say "bye" and "HEY!" He knows the name of just about every animal and what they say, but still not so hot at ABCs.  We went on a roller coaster with naps and night sleep. Finally got everything straightened out just to have him climb out of his crib. Now he prefers to sleep in the glider. I can go in and move him back to his bed but it's not long before I hear the pitter patter of little feet heading toward the chair.

As far as I go, I ran some races....not as many as I had hoped. I did some riding...not as much as I had hoped. And I lost some weight....but not as much as I had hoped. I see a trend here.... I did a lot of cooking (probably has something to do with not losing as much weight as I had hoped). I did quite a bit of crafting. We adopted a dog. I discovered that "How I Met Your Mother" is a fantastic show and I can't believe it's taken me so long to watch it. The funny thing is that I started watching it last year during a New Year's Eve marathon. This year I discovered a new (old) show right around the end of 2011 (it was actually Dec 29th)..Big Bang Theory. Where have you been??? A show about a bunch of science geeks? As a closet science geek, myself, I was in love. There was an episode where Sheldon was making scrambled eggs and his roommate asked if he was cooking breakfast and he said it wasn't cooking...it was an experiment. I was hooked. You can see how geeky I am by the type of pajamas I put my kid in. You have no idea how excited I was to find those at Oldnavy.com. Then a friend of mine pointed me toward iheartguts.com and now all I want are plush organs. I just wish they had a ruminant division because I would love a lifesize plush rumen (cow stomach). Now that's a pillow pet!!! In case you needed any other proof, here's a tshirt I made a few years ago when we had an "I heart tshirt party":

 

Ahh...those were the days...back when I had friends. But we won't go there tonight...that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

So, anyway, I don't have any plans for 2012. I plan to be the best mom that I can be and enjoy every moment that I have with my family. I hope you all have had a great Holiday season and are ready to get back to the non-holiday season which is Jan 2- Nov. I will be recharging and getting lots of tasty food blogs ready for your enjoyment!!

Tips to Making Fantastic Cookies

 

My little man "baking." His accuracy is not so good.

My boss at UK always told me that he wouldn't hire a lab tech who couldn't cook. I remember being like. "What?" Of course it made perfect sense,,,, cooking is simply following instructions. A recipe is like a protocol. It's all about measuring, temperature, timing, and doing things in a certain order. Maybe that's why I like to cook so much now. It reminds me of all the lab work I used to do. Ha ha. No really, while I don't miss my job, I did really enjoy the lab experiments. There was something about going through all those steps and then finding out an answer to a question at the end. Of course there were also the times that I would follow about 500 steps for an analysis that would take 2 days to complete and it wouldn't work. Now that was maddening. But my lab has become a kitchen and my experiments have become cookies.

Really dang good cookies.

 I wouldn't say that my cookies are perfect but I've worked pretty hard over the past couple of years at making them pretty close to perfect. I've always been told that baking cookies is hard. I wouldn't say it's hard. Cookies can be a bit...well...kooky, but you just have to know how to work with them. I've compiled my tips to making your cookies be the best cookies they can be.

- Start with the best ingredients. It doesn't have the be the most expensive, but if you don't like the way store brand chocolate chips taste alone, nothing magical is going to happen in the oven to make them taste better. I personally have no problem with store brand chips, but I like the more expensive brands better and will use them if I'm making cookies for some sort of special occasion. Crappy ingredients in = crappy cookies out.

- Kind of along the same lines...invest in some good vanilla extract. I like Spice Islands.

- Get your ingredients to room temperature before beginning. Everything mixes better and your dough will be better.

-I can't say this enough when it comes to anything baked....measure, measure, measure. Don't just willy nilly scoop ingredients out and throw them in the bowl. Crappy measuring = crappy cookies. Use a knife to level off dry ingredients. If the recipe calls for packed brown sugar, be sure to pack it down into that measuring cup.

- Cream the heck out of the butter and sugar. It could take 5 minutes or more. You will get better results if your butter is room temperature. This is when it's handy to have a stand mixer. I usually get it creaming and then start mixing my dry ingredients.

- Even if the recipe doesn't state for you to do so, mix your dry ingredients separately. This would be your flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt. etc. I use a whisk to stir it. This both combines the ingredients and sifts at the same time.

- Don't overbeat your dough once the dry ingredients are added.

- OK, this one is a biggie. Get some parchment paper. I won't bake a cookie without it. Using parchment has made the most improvement in my cookies.

- Invest in a cookie scoop. It allows you to make uniform cookies and it also cuts down the time and mess.

- I always bake my cookies on the middle rack of the oven.

- Unless you are really familiar with a cookie recipe, do no walk away from the oven and leave the cookies at the mercy of a timer. Check cookies often...starting a couple of minutes before the recipe recommends. Once they look a little brown around the edges take them out. Leave them on the hot pan for a few minutes to cool and then put them on a wire rack. If the cookies are already brown all over, go ahead and get them off the pan to a rack. You will want to put some cooking spray on a metal spatula to do this.

I hope this helps ya'll make some awesome cookies. Now, you know I would rather eat the dough, but there is something so nice about a soft, thick cookie.

I have about 500 cookie recipes to post coming up. And I'm picking the worst time to get them ready.....after Christmas no one will be wanting any cookies. We will all be sick of them!

The Little Man is a Natural

I have a born equestrian on my hands. I know the picture is kinda crappy. We made lots of trips around the arena last night. He even did a few by himself with me leading and Michael on "balance" duty. But he hardly needed any help staying up there. Spice has a very animated walk so that's saying something. He already has the riding bug. Spice keeps trying to remind me that she is not a "kid horse" and would appreciate it if we would get him a pony ASAP.

I hope you all are ready for Christmas!! I am enjoying being pretty much done with everything. I made some oreo truffles today and Joseph and I spent the afternoon playing with play doh. This was the first he has shown any interest in it. I was so excited. It's been a good day.

Oh, I have a friend who has started a new blog showcasing failed pinterest projects. I think it's going to be pretty great. Check it out at Your Pin Broke.

What a week!!!

And it isn't even over yet!! But I have made it to Tennessee so I expect things to get immensely easier. We will be celebrating Christmas with my mom's family Saturday and then we will celebrate with my parents Sunday night before we head back to Frankfort on Monday. Getting here was no easy task. As you well know, I did mostly crafty gifts this year..and I got most of them done well in advance. That didn't mean they were wrapped in advance. So add that to the to do list for this week along with baking 5 different kinds of cookies...I don't even want to think about the amount of butter I've gone through. Luckily I did get a pretty strenuous workout in this week to offset some of that cookie dough.

Man, I love cookie dough....

Luckily, Joseph, who has been rather clingy and moody lately, decided to be a big boy and entertain himself (at the expense of Smokey) most of the time. He did help do some stirring, and his new thing is putting salt in stuff. He's really gotten interested in cooking...which is good. So, although baking took way longer than usual, it got done without a crying child and/or..well, let's just be real....a crying me. I started making dough on Monday which helped a lot and then baked everything on Wednesday. If you are wondering why, it's that I am giving away cookie baskets. Surprise to those of you reading this that will be in Savannah! Hope you like cookies!!

So, cookies are done.....gifts are made and wrapped..I'm good, right? WRONG. I completely forgot about one person...and they are not the kind of person you can craft for...so Joseph and I were off to shop. Oh and did I mention that Joseph and I had been out running errands both morning and evening for the past few days since Michael has been out of town...what? I didn't mention that I was all alone? I don't see how single moms do it. Those of you with toddlers know that running errands takes about 2 to 3 times as long when you have the kid in tow.

Shelby was out of dog food on Tuesday so we went to get it. He eats special food for dogs with allergies, but I didn't want to go to Petco to get it because then we would be there for a long time while Joseph was hanging with all his animal friends. Luckily, I found some at Tractor Supply. SCORE! I had needed to get Spice a mineral block and some treats anyway.

I finally get home and realize that I don't feed Shelby that kind of dog food anymore (I swear, baby brain never goes away)...I switched him to IAMS....which they don't have at Tractor Supply. So, off to Petco we went right at bedtime (and this was our 3rd trip out in one day). We were there for probably a good half hour, but Joseph was pretty good about telling all the animals "bye" one at a time and then leaving with no fuss. I don't guess I've mentioned how good Joseph has been during all this running around.

So last night at about midnight, I gave up and went to bed. The house was not as clean as I had wanted it to be and I wasn't as packed as I would have liked to have been, but I was walking death at that point. I don't think I had sat down for more than 10 minutes in the past 3 days (except to sleep of course).

This morning, I realized we had no kitty litter. UGH. Do you know how many places I've been in the past week that sell kitty litter?! So I got the house pretty well tidied up, the car loaded (so glad Michael was meeting me at my parents bc there was no room in the car), threw J in the back...didn't even buckle him in...I kid I kid...of course, he was strapped in...and headed to buy some kitty litter...and some blueberries (not related, Joseph just wanted them and then proceeded to eat the entire pint!!). We got home, I threw the litter in the litter box, threw the dogs in the car and said sionara to chaos!!!!

What am I talking about? I am traveling with a toddler...and that toddler is Joseph...chaos is a part of my life now. But he's a pretty cool chaos...and he bought himself a lot of lenience this week since he was so good while I was being a single mom this week. Now I'm just happy to be with family and excited to see even more family and friends during this whirl wind trip.

I hope you are all having a nice calm holiday season...although I know you aren't. I'm going to have one starting now....and if I haven't bought you a gift by now, you aren't getting one...because I am DONE! :)

Oh and get ready for a lot of cookie posts....I'm going to be doing a cookie week hopefully starting Monday!!

Bacon Cheddar Ranch Pull Bread

This is a horrible picture, I know. The bread was much prettier before it was mostly eaten. I made it for MOPS this week and it was a hit....at least from what the ladies at my table said and from the looks of what I brought home. It's super easy and would be great to take as an appetizer to a holiday party. I found it on Pinterest (imagine that) and you can find the recipe here.

Also, if you want to follow me on Pinterest, feel free. I don't mind. I would also love to have more people to follow back. If you aren't on Pinterest yet, don't go there....it is a true time suck. No really, it's pretty awesome and there are some great ideas floating around out there, but seriously...it will suck you in and you will be pinning for hours upon hours...or minutes upon minutes depending on how busy you usually are.

After feeling pretty crappy the past couple of days, today has been pretty great. I took Joseph and the dogs out to the barn this morning to hang out with Spice. The dogs (and Joseph) came home incredibly muddy and went straight to the bath (one at a time otherwise it would be a very full bathtub!). Joseph even put himself to sleep for his nap which he has not done since he moved to a toddler bed. I've had to rock him to sleep which is much like wrestling a 20 lb bag of snakes for 20 minutes. I've tried to get him to go to sleep on his own but he just sits in there and plays and parties and I end up going back in after a while and rocking him. Today I put him in his bed and told him it was time for a nap and left. He played for a few minutes but he's asleep now....in the glider, not the bed, but whatever. So I have 2 clean sleeping dogs and 1 clean sleeping child. And I'm making another pair of glitter shoes. My productivity is way up from yesterday!!!