This morning Bubba decided to inspect his eggs. He was sniffing them! At the risk of him sucking them up his nose I asked him to do it again for the camera. He thinks he's pretty funny. I love that he's eating more solids now because it is so much fun watching him and his sister interact over breakfast. I'll let the videos explain the rest...


Oh and Adelaide and I got into a yes/no match half way through this video. This is her new favorite game...

The New Me: Shampoo FREE!!!

I read this book recently. Actually I heard about this book and promptly went and bought it at our local Border's. I spent the next week devouring all the tips in the book and promptly began my own "curly girl" story.

I've been shampoo free for a month now and I love it!! I must confess that I had a few moments of doubt and even used a pea sized amount of baby shampoo(the author's recommendation for my hair type) one day, but I'm completely reformed now. I do not need shampoo nor do I intend to ever use it again. My hair is clean, healthy (healthier!) and curlier than it was a month ago.

And the grease factor? I admit this is where I had my doubts, but after following her shampoo schedule I am, thankfully, grease-free! I thought shampoo was cleaning my hair. Nope. It was stripping my hair of all its moisture and natural oils. It was killing my hair, literally. Okay, okay, I know hair is actually not alive once it grows out of the skin, but you know what I mean.

I've been sharing this new-found freedom with all my curly-haired friends. It feels great to share the new love I have for curly hair. Now I just need to find someone to cut my hair, someone that is curl friendly. And I think that will mean a day of phone calls, so for now I'll just let my hair keep doing what it will.

Recall Alert!

Here I am again, popping back into the blog-world to bring joyful news. No, I'm not pregnant. I'm being sarcastic, I'm posting more recall info. I was alerted this past week of these recalls that I felt were important enough to pass on. Both come from major children's stores and I wanted to get the word out. PLEASE feel free to pass on this information via links, word of mouth, or whatever means necessary to keep our kids safe!!

Here is recall #1:


This Pottery Barn mattress, sold between July 1, 2006 and March 23, 2008, is too small and children can get stuck in the gap between the mattress and crib. Here are the names/styles of the mattresses affected by the recall:

Pottery Barn Kids by Simmons Kids Lullaby

Simmons Kids Slumber Time Evening Star Luxury Firm

Simmons Kids Baby Mattress Series 400

Simmons Kids Baby Mattress 234 Coil Count


And Recall #2:

This one comes from The Children's Place. I thought all I had to worry about was lead in my children's toys, now it seems I must be on the lookout for lead in their jammies!! These pajamas were sold from December 2006 to January 2008 for between $15 and $17. Here are pictures of the pajamas affected:So what's a parent to do? Well, if you own either of these items you can return them to the store for either a new mattress or, in the case of the pj's, a full refund.

To read these or other recalls visit the CPSC website or to read the full version of each of these recalls click here for the Pottery Barn recall or here for the Children's Place recall.

Play-dough Fun!

I decided to make play-dough for my little girl, just like my mom used to. It was easy except for the stirring part, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be!! I used some gel food coloring that I use for cake making and the colors turned out really good, they were so vibrant. I did use some "old fashioned" McCormick food coloring I had and, as I remember from childhood, they turned out to be more pastel colors. I tried making purple and that just turned out sick. It looked more like the color of my injured toe.

The orange, green and black are all from my gel food coloring. The yellow and blue are McCormick.

I love this shot. It definitely speaks the truth about my little girl. She never stops moving!! She is almost always blurry in any picture! (Action shots aren't my forté)

Her face is priceless as she dreams up what shape she should
contort these unsuspecting lumps into next.

Here you see her modeling a face of complete and utter concentration
as she rolls this ball into submission.

"Look mom! I made a lot of burritos!!"
She tried to feed one of her "burritos" to her brother, but I quickly intervened!

My Right Foot

Exactly one week ago today(Monday) I hurt my big toe. I know it doesn't sound like much of an injury, but let me assure you-its pretty bad. I will tell you now not to read this post if you're squeamish. The truth about my clumsiness must be recorded, but not at the expense of your stomach contents. So if you're a lightweight, do yourself a favor and check back tomorrow for a happier post.

Anyway...back to my toe. Last Monday, the 12th, I was performing my morning ritual of carrying both of my children downstairs to start our day. Understand, I do this almost everyday. Today was different. For starters, it was a bit chilly in the house so I decided to put on some slippers. I had Bubba on one hip and his sister hugged against my side, holding her just under her armpits, as I headed down the stairs. I was just turning the corner in the stairs when something went wrong. I lost my balance and recovered, or so I thought. The next thing I knew I was falling down the last 3 steps. Thankfully I had enough of my wits about me that I set Sissy down mid-fall, she ended up on the floor on her knees-unhurt. And I saved Bubba by sacrificing my big toe. I ended up on the floor, on my knees, still holding onto Bubba. As soon as I hit the floor my mind was running 1,000mph. I was going through all the thoughts of, "did I just fall?" "are my kids ok?" "is my leg broken?" "how did that happen?" "where does it hurt" and of course, "how much is this going to cost?" I soon realized that my foot was the only place I really hurt.

You know how these things always happen in slow-motion? Well, it did but somehow the details are still fuzzy. Later I pieced together some of the facts. The bottom of my slipper was ripped out and flappin' in the breeze, so that was how I got tripped up. And I must have hit the stair directly on my toes(think ballet toe-shoes) and rolled on over the top of it. Then I somehow slowed the rest of my decent with my left leg before hitting the floor with both knees. I had ice on that foot within 4 minutes. Two minutes after that I was calling my hubby to tell him what happened. Then I had to call my MIL to come help me. Its a bit humbling to call someone and say, "uh hi, yeah, I just...um...fell down the stairs, and, well, I think I hurt myself pretty bad..." Thankfully she wasn't too busy and dropped everything to come to my rescue!!

So here's the old foot:

This is 2 days post injury.

Side by side. You can tell I have some swelling going on.

Actually, this doesn't look so bad. As I'm writing this post I'm looking at my foot in "real life" and it looks much worse now.

My Hubby brought me these roses to help my foot feel better. It worked. The roses even make it look better!

This is my foot today, one week post injury.
These pictures still look better than the real thing.

And, live or Memorex, the side view is sick!
At least my toes look nice.

This is how Bubba spend most of his time during my blogging today. Nice. I love it when my kids nap at the same time!! (have I said that way too much yet?)

The most annoying part about my injured foot is that it is my right foot. I think I could live without using my left foot too much, but my right one? No way. I can't drive. I tried. It hurt like a, well...it hurt really bad. So I'm pretty much house-bound unless someone comes and gets me. Then they have to help with my kids and put up with my slow hobble. Thankfully a friend had a pair of crutches I could borrow and I'm able to keep up with the kids, most of the time. At home I hobble around on the side of my foot, praying I don't cause a stress fracture to the side of my foot.

Today some friends came over to visit and they helped me out so much! One helped me out by running around after my kids while the other folded my laundry and then gave my foot a massage. My foot feels so much better now! I still can't walk on it because bending the foot forward and pushing off with my toes causes extreme pain, but I am able to put a little more pressure on the big toe joint. Another friend, who is in sports medicine, took a look at it and said it most likely isn't broken and that I should be walking on it in about a week and completely healed in 3-4 weeks. Lets hope so!!

Car Seat Cover

I tend to have rather, um, large children. So when I was looking for a car seat for my son I wanted one that would last the duration of his car seat-bound years. I think its something like 30 years that they must be in a car seat. I know its for their safety, but come on! I used to ride without a seatbelt all the time! I was just telling my husband how my aunt would take me and my 2 sisters out in her two-seater 280ZX and my older sister and I would ride in the "way back" while my 3-year old baby sister sat in the front seat-without a car seat!! Yikes-it makes me shutter to think of it now.

Now, as a mom, I'm pretty fierce when it come to the car seats. I'm always the one to install them and I'm pretty particular about how securely they are installed. I'm always jumping on them and yanking on them to make sure they're belted in good and they don't budge. Its quite a sweaty affair that I won't go into...

So...when I was looking for a car seat for my big boy I knew I wanted a Britax because they are the safest. But they are also the priciest! I scoured the internet to find the best deal possible. I wanted to get the Britax Marathon because it goes all the way from 5 pounds to 65 pounds, and I'd never need to buy a bigger seat or a booster. Well I found a great deal online. Only one problem, the seat was pink. Not salmon or any other pinkish color that could slide by...it was P-I-N-K. So I thought, no problem I'll just make a new cover that is unmistakably masculine. So I bought this lovely seat:

Now I would never, ever dress my son in any outfit that looked as girlie as this seat, but like I said, I was going to make a new cover before his butt ever sat in this pink monstrosity. Right? Wrong. If you have kids you'll understand, and if you have more than one kid you'll understand even more. Things just take longer with kids. Getting in the car, eating a meal, taking a shower, getting dressed, finding your keys they were just playing with, you name it...it takes longer with kids. So this quick and easy project soon became a marathon sewing expedition. So my poor son had to ride in a girl's car seat for a teensie, weensie little bit. Okay, okay, it was something like 6 months. Poor kid. I hope he survives. In the interest of saving hes future dignity I never took any pictures of him in the actual car seat. So I'm covered, I hope.

So my story of the car seat cover starts off with my new shears. I finally broke down and bought a real pair of fabric shears. And let me tell you, they make SUCH a difference!! I'm in heaven with these new shiny sharps.

Beautiful, shiny, sharp. Ah, it just feels good knowing I can use these anytime
I want because they're MINE.

Here's a shot of the materials I picked for Bubba's new seat.
Very manly, if I do say so myself.

Cast of characters.

The first cut was like a dream, a conversion.

I will never go back to any other scissor, for sewing anyway.

Here are all the pieces after I'd spray-basted them to the batting and then cut them out(by the way, that spray-basting stuff is awesome!!) Figuring out the pattern using the existing seat cover was probably the hardest part. But now that I've done it once and have my pattern I could make a new seat cover for every season...if only I had the time!!

Here's the finished product.

I had fun creating this cover and look forward to making the next one. I've actually thought about making them to sell, but there's that silly time thing working against me.

Pummelin'

After all the pickin', and pluckin' there's yet another step in this jelly making extravaganza. We had to smash the heck out of those grapes to extract all that yummy juice, oh and we decided to separate out all the seeds as well, you know, for the picky types.

Here are all the tools we used in our pummeling exercises. (Not to be confused with pommeling exercises).

Here I am smashing away. Once again I am making a point to contort my face in some grotesque manner.

This step was repeated some 30 times, maybe even more!
We had a LOT of grapes.

Pulp, what you do NOT want in your jelly.
Brings a whole new visual to "blood pulp."


After I'd smashed for a while I had to dump the juice into jars to await a second and then third straining. Really, this was a strain-uous procedure...okay, sorry, I couldn't help myself. I have to much of my Papa 'K' in me to pass up a pun(good or bad).


Same shot, different angle.
Or if you grew up singing "Silly Songs" like I did: "Same song, second verse,
a little bit louder and a little bit worse."


This is step 3 in the straining process. Somehow I didn't get a picture of step 2 where we poured the juice through a metal mesh strainer. You would think that white cloth would end up being dyed a lovely shade of purple, right? Wrong. It turned out, after washing, to be this sick grey color. Bummer.
The mashing mallet that we used did, however, turn a lovely shade of burgundy!

Here's a rare shot. It was hard during all this to get a shot of me with my MIL. Seems that one of us was always holding a baby while the other worked. Strange how that happens...

Here's what we ended up with.

Beautiful. It feels so good, at the end of the day, to sit back and survey one's handy work.
And then take a picture of one's labors.

And then re-arrange the shot and take another picture.

And then one more shot for good measure.

After hours of toiling in the sun to gather grapes and pluck them, slaving over a hot stove and then straining all the juice we made, the unthinkable happened. Due to a busy life as a wife and mother my grape juice turned to...dun, dun, dun...vinegar. I was heart broken!! Two gallons of grape juice wasted. To keep from crying I documented the disposal of the afformentioned vinegar with the, somewhat comforting, thought that "this will make a good blog." It also made for a great learning experience. When you let 2 gallons of grape juice turn to vinegar- you have a lot of vinegar. Okay, really I learned that I should freeze the juice, and that's exactly what I did 2 weeks later when I had to repeat the entire process over again!!

*Warning* If you suffer from a weak heart, the next picture may be the last one you ever view.