FAILED

do you ever have that morning?

the morning were nothing goes right...
everything is wrong...
your coffee hasn't even brewed yet and you know it's going to be bad...
the morning were everyone else is wrong but you....

and then you realize that it's not them...but it's you....
or at least you are some-what to blame...

I had a big fat FAIL today...
or maybe this week...
this is the week that I'm so glad that I don't get report cards or yearly reviews from my supervisor...

I started the week (Monday) trying to be 'fun mom' and get everything done...
I got the kids to school on time and looking good...check
Got to the gym biked and ran...double check
showered and to church to get some work done...half check
...and then I started doing work for other people because I didn't want to let them down...
and I ended up leaving too late to go to lunch with My Beau....
...and pounding a granola bar for my lunch on the way to pick the kids up late from school...
...and running home and yelling at the kids to change into their suits because I booked a swimming play-date today...
...and now very frustrated because I have gotten the first good glimpse at my house in the daylight and it is TRASHED!...and now I am more frustrated at my kids (for being kids and having stuff and needing me to help them when I REALLY need to find a hazmat suit and go back into my house and spray it with some sort of magical chemical that will keep it clean with just the right amount of "lived in" look...not "could there be a dead animal in there" look)...
and then I take them to their swimming play-date
...only for the girl child to swim for all of 2 minutes and disappear inside the house to play and the boy child now left as the only child swimming and whining because he wants mom to swim,
....but I can't swim because my freshly red hair
          (yep I went RED, not red hair red, but Crayola Crayon Red)
     will stain my suit....
...and now the swim play date is over and both kids are complaining that they didn't get to swim...
     .....and some how this is my fault....
...and now we are back home, and kids have homework...
...but still wanting to be 'fun mom' I say 'yes' to eating dinner at a friends house
          both kids begged me to, when I said out loud,
         'well, we probably shouldn't'
and because I'm crazy and I also wanted to go...
so now homework gets half done, and we race out the door for dinner fun...
...and then race back home so the kids can be to bed on time...

now it's Tuesday morning the third week of school
 and I wake up to start my day like I did every morning during the summer...
...ME TIME...
I sit down at the computer and read some blogs, check out facebook...
look at the clock and realize that I need to wake the kids up,
...call out to them from my cozy seat in front of the computer, "Wake up kids!"
...read another blog or two, look at the clock again...wow the kids still aren't up...
"KIDS, GET OUT OF BED!"  shouted, lovingly said from my cozy seat at the computer...
another glance at facebook....seriously what is wrong with those kids?!?!
sheesh!
Do have have to be their mother and go get them out of bed...
....
oh...YES....
girl child upset that she didn't finish her homework...
boy child upset because mom forgot we had no milk...
mom child upset because she still hasn't brewed her coffee...
girl child decides to do homework rather than get ready for school...
boy child still pouting about milk...
girl child pulls out last weeks spelling test that she got a D on and is really upset....
boy child upset because mom didn't read to him the night before and the teacher says that his homework is mom reading to him...so now his homework isn't done either....
mom child frustrated with herself for not helping the girl child the day before with homework...
     frustrated that she struggled with spelling
          and now her poor daughter is cursed with her poor spelling skills...
    frustrated that she didn't read to her son the night before...
frustrated because she can't remember if she even hugged her kids the day before let alone read to them...
frustrated for forgetting the milk, and for not setting the coffee the night before...
...frustrated mom child gets more frustrated with children that move too slow in the morning...
yelling...yelling...and more yelling...
because that's helping the situation somehow?...
HOW do I not see that my growing level of frustration and yelling helps NO ONE and gets nothing accomplished EXCEPT making everyone feel little and helpless...
...
I want my restart button...
I want to crawl in bed and restart this week, because this week I get a FAIL

but Hey...I did go get milk....
so maybe I get a D today and not an F...

So Good it Might Not be Real

Made this cookies 2 weeks ago when I was in need of some chocolate...
my kids started calling them the Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies...pretty much sums them up.
BLOG WARNING
if you make these you may eat the entire batch all by yourself and then feel slightly nauseous!
not that I would have done that, I totally have will power...


Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies
1 package chocolate cake mix
3/4 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
2 eggs
2 Tbs milk
1 cup mix ins (choose one or a mixture of any of theses, semi sweet chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, Reese's peanut butter pieces, peanut butter chips, chopped peanuts)

Preheat over to 350, grease cookie sheet.
Combine cake mix, peanut butter, eggs, & milk in large mixing bowl, beat on low until blended, stir in mix ins.
Drop  by rounded spoonful onto baking sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes.
Serve with milk...

so, um, I have no picture of these cookies because we ate them all REALLY fast!..
I made mine with Devil's Food Cake mix, dark chocolate chips as the mix in and creamy peanut butter....

Not Your Grandma's 3 Bean Salad

So I stumbled upon the classic 3 bean salad recipe this summer and it was so good and yummy that I've made it a ton and kept it in our fridge, such a nice cool side dish during the summer months...

only my kids ratted me out...
I don't just use 3 beans...
after about 2 weeks of calling it the "3 Bean Salad" the boy child said,
"Why do you call it 3 bean when it has 4 and sometimes 5 beans in it?"...

"umm, cuz...."  was my brilliant answer!

and then this past Sunday I needed to bring a side dish to the annual church summer bbq/baptism...
and since I forgot until like Saturday night about 10 pm and wasn't going to make a trip to the store after church on Sunday to get anything I had to throw together something with what I had on hand...

and just fyi, there are ALWAYS beans in my pantry...it drives my husband CRAZY that I buy beans every time I grocery shop whether I need them for something on the menu or not, and I never check to see if I need to replenish my supply, I just always have to buy beans...
black beans,
pinto beans,
kidney beans,
green beans,
white beans,
...I have a thing for beans!

so I knew I'd be able to throw together the "3 bean salad" as my side dish....
only guess what I get home from church on Sunday and start to assemble my salad...and I wanted to make a double batch...and I didn't have enough beans...I wanted 2 cans of each "flavor" and I was out...I had like 5 cans of black beans, but only 1 can of kidney, green, and white...so what else do I add to my 3 bean salad now that I've mixed up double the amount of dressing but only have 1/2 the amount of beans that I needed...

so here is my
Not Your Grandma's 3 Bean Salad recipe that I came up with...and we LOVE it...
2 cans of black beans
1 can of kidney beans
1 can of green beans
1 can of white kidney or wax or garbanzo or whatever bean you want...
....or a mixture of at least 5 cans of beans...
1 cup sweet pepper chopped*, optional
1/2 cup chopped red onion (optional)
3 cups broccoli slaw**
1/2 cup vinegar
4 Tbs sugar
4 Tbs oil
1/2 tea celery salt (optional)

1.  Drain and rinse all the beans and place in large bowl.  Toss in veggies and slaw.  Mix vinegar, sugar, oil and celery salt together in small bowl until sugar is dissolved (or shake in a dressing container)
2.  Coat beans with dressing and refrigerate...serve cold, this salad gets better the longer it marinates, and it lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

I choose the color of pepper depending on the color of beans I've used, if I need more green in the salad I use green peppers, more yellows/oranges or more red...it's all about presentation!

*I've been getting bags of small sweet peppers, red, orange, yellow and green, this bag had no green... all summer, so yummy

**my husband just, like within the past 2 weeks, decided that he likes broccoli...so I am so excited to start adding it to more dishes...you can buy the broccoli slaw in the veggie section at your grocery store, that makes me so happy!

do you have a twist on a "classic" like this?

oh...kids...gotta love em!

do you ever have those moments...
those moments that you stand there trying to punish/lecture your children
the whole time remembering doing the SAME thing as a child...
and now as an adult you STILL find the humor in it....

my morning...

I'm sitting quietly at the computer having a cup of coffee and enjoying the peace in the house...
...
I hear screaming from the kids bedroom...and more screaming...and some evil laughter...

UGH...."Kids come here!"

me-"What's going on?"
kids-"he/she started it!"
me-"Wilson, what happened?"
Wilson-"She was punching me"
me-"Madison?"
Madison-"I was sleeping when he crawled up on me and held my nose till I woke up!"
Wilson-"And then she stared punching me!"
me-trying to keep my composure, "Wilson, that was NOT okay!", "Madison you're allowed to defend yourself  IF you're getting hurt...was Wilson hurting you or annoying you?"
Wilson-"But I just wanted someone to play with me..."
Madison-"more annoying than anything."
me-"Wilson, you are NOT ALLOWED to stop someones airflow JUST to get them to play with you!...Madison, I understand that he's annoying, but physical violence is not okay for annoying little brothers, the next one of you that touches the other WILL get one hour on their bed!"

5 min later...overheard from their bedroom
Wilson singing some repetitive, annoying, rhyming song that he's making up as he goes along....
Madison-"Wilson can you please stop that?"
Wilson-"Wilson can you please stop that?" said in his annoying sing-song-y voice
Madison-"Wilson, I'd really like it if you would stop being annoying"
Wilson-"Wilson, I'd really like it if you would stop being annoying"..again in his annoying little brother sing-song-y voice
Madison-"I'm going to ignore you and then you'll just stop"
Wilson-"I'm going to ignore you and then you'll just stop"
Wilson-"OUCH"
yep...she hauled off and punched him!  what any self respecting older sister HAS to do...but I did have to put her in time out...but only for half an hour because he SO deserve that punch!

The Bedroom-Redo

I don't have time for a long blog, but I wanted to post pictures of the kids bedroom that we remodeled while their were at the grandparents for a week!

did you catch that...

yeah...a WEEK...one whole glorious week...

I will say that I started missing them around day 3 1/2...

oops...wow, I was still remember that glorious kid-free week...

anyways, what do I do with my Beau when the kids are gone for a week...

a fancy dinner...

a nice hotel...

walks on the beach...

....

NO...

I talk him into remodeling the kids bedroom...

that proves that he really truly loves me!...

next kid free week is all his...

and I promise I will play video games with him all week long...

(not that I have to because he probably will never read this blog and will never know that I promised him that!)...

sorry...for that tangent...

so anyways...here is the before and afters of the room....

Before 'closet'

random-unusable 'closet' in the kids room...

this closet at one time was about 3 feet deep and some previous homeowner took all that depth and created stairway in the hallway up to the loft/playroom...

which is great because we need a stairway to the playroom, but now this closet is useless!!!  

it's only 1 foot deep and they nailed in nails to hang stuff on...um...thanks...

I'm pretty sure the only reason this 'closet' was kept was so that they could claim this room as a bedroom for resale/tax purposes!...

well, we built an actual closet in this room, 

so this um, 'closet' was no longer necessary for the resale/tax purpose...

and the only question remaining was, 

"what to do with this randomly small unusable closet?"...

I've been dreaming and planning on turning this into a built in bookcase from day one...

YEP, day one...

not the day we moved in...

but the day we looked at the house 5 1/2 years ago!

my dream becoming a reality!

the 'closet was actually wider than the door and went back/length ways another 1 1/2 feet...

After ...built-in bookcase

I am SO VERY happy with the after...this is what I have been dreaming of for 5 years!

Before...nice huh...

the electrician made some really nice holes in the paneling 5 years ago when he was re-wiring this room and we had run out of $ to have the dry wall guys at the time fix it...

so we did what most "fixer-upers" do...

we've ignored it for 5 years...

and tried to hide it 

using pieces of paneling from other projects....

and random wooden ships...

oh, and let the spiders take over...

my hope was that their webs would start to look like fabric drapes and end up hiding the whole mess...

anyways, 

using scraps of drywall from the closet we built and then left over wood pieces and trim from other projects we covered up all the holes and textured the fake paneling that was up there to make it look like drywall...

note...bunk beds can me used as scaffolding...

note...bunk beds built for children and purchased from WalMart might not be the safest scaffolding

note...I took this picture of Beau painting using the bunk bed as scaffolding turned and set the camera down only to hear a loud crash, I had missed him falling thru our makeshift scaffolding by mere seconds!

After...

love that we turned an eyesore into something that looks like it was meant to be...all that white trim is just covering up nasty paneling with holes hacked into it!

maybe one of my favorite parts of this remodel is that it was free...

how was it free

1.  we sold stuff we no longer needed on craigslist (the kids bookshelves that they didn't need now that they have a built in book case, and 2 dressers that they no longer need now that they  have a closet)...

2.  we are so very cheap GREEN that we up-cycled and reused material from previous projects so we had less material to purchase...

oh...and the biggest expense was the wood for the bookcase shelves, and the reason that was so expensive was because I did the classic, measure once and have Home Depot guy cut all the shelves the WRONG size, 6 inches TOO short!!! so we had to buy more wood and after measuring 3 x's I had the Home Depot guy cut it the right length this time...

and just because I love you guys...

and I know how hard it is to get a good green, not too minty or too lime'y...

I will share the color...it's "Restful" by Behr @ Home Depot...

and the white is "Pot of Cream" also by Behr @ Home Depot... (this is our white, we use it on EVERYTHING white in our house, the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, the trim, molding and windowsills, bookcases,...etc...and it's great to keep a gallon around for when you need to touch something up!)

and a side note, I like to pick colors based on their names, for two reasons, 

1.  I'm silly

2.  It helps me remember the color years down the road...

I still remember the name of our kitchen color & our living room that we painted 5 years ago because I also LOVED the name of the colors...can't remember the name of our bedroom color or bathroom color for the life of me because I was so sad that the names were stupid!

hello...hello...anyone there...oh, wait, I'm the one MIA

Okay, 

So...I'm a HUGE...HUGE...HUGE

slacker....

I think I might have blogged a total of 4 times in the month of July...and now the first week of August has come and gone with not even a peep out of me...

so sorry...

so a quick little picture blog....

of my crazy July...

cute little boy after watching 'Sandlot' for the first time...slept with his baseball gear for a few days..

Madison and her BFF, Taylor...with their matching cornrows

We got to have Taylor spend 5 days with us at the beginning of July...the girls had a blast...

climbing trees...swimming....reading...playing...playing...and more playing

Wilson @ swim lessons...he was not too fond of the pool/swimming until Mr. Steve...now he LOVES the water!

Madison and her friend Hailey at Madison's 1st ever swim meet...

Vacation Bible School...this little boy and I had lots of one-on-one/heart-to-heart moments...yeah this is how I looked about 50% of the time...usually those moments were about how "since he wasn't using his hands nicely he just had to keep them to himself"...but he was such a sweetie!

my little boy turned 5 and we had a Pokemon party!...WHAT...I need to put together the whole..."my little boy is 5" blog...look for that later this week....and then hopefully not too long after that I will post the "How to throw an awesome Pokemon Party!" blog...