I Agree!

Yes, Shane. I agree with you totally.



You absolutely do rock!*













*This picture taken in Pittsburg in August 2006.

Powder of Tartar...Err...Or My Most Recent Blond Moment

Who knew that this:



didn't equal this:



Apparently everyone else but me.

Sadly enough, even Ken knew it.

So in a truly blond moment, I bought tartar sauce for Ken to make his butterscotch meringue pie thinking that it was cream of tartar.

Stop laughing. Because I know you are.

I should interject here that I've never made a meringue pie (and I don't eat them really either) so I have no clue what the ingredients should go into them.

And in my defense, I've never even used cream of tartar. Ever. In any recipe or with any food.

So when I went scouring the isles at the grocery store, dizzy from the crowds of Thanksgiving shoppers, I was looking for Cream of Tartar. As soon as I saw the Tartar Sauce, I figured that was what I was looking for, patted myself on the back for finding it and got the heck out of there. (It was creamy!)

Afterall, I was looking for Cream of Tartar NOT Powder of Tartar.

As soon as Ken saw it, he started laughing and googled what I was suppose to buy to show me what Cream of Tartar was.

And when I returned the Cream of Tartar to the store, the manager got a good laugh too. (Ken also got a good laugh that I would actually return the Cream of Tartarm instead of just keeping it to ward off further embarrassment.)

And when my mom got into town, Ken made sure he told her also.

And then she got a good laugh too.

And now you, my dear two readers, can also get a good laugh at my most recent blond moment.

But, I really think that we should start a petition to have the name Cream of Tartar changed to Powder of Tartar.

Although, if it were named Powder of Tartar, we wouldn't have this awesome story to remind us of Thanksgiving 2008 and how I am truly meant to be a blond!

The Apple Don't Fall Far From The Tree

Apparently, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as I'm finding out. I was cleaning out some things this weekend and ran across this comic strip. It got me to giggling and thinking that there are two things going on in this old Nancy comic strip from 1991 that make me giggle.

1. My mother cut it out for me. I guess now we know where I get my love of comic strips and cutting them out comes from.

2. I am getting the ultimate payback because I have three messy boys that I live with. Yes. I said three. Because Ken definitely counts as one of them!



I guess that this post is for my mom really. Because now she can kick back and laugh as my kids put me through what she went through. And, it's all thanks to a little comic strip that she cut out so many years ago and gave to me.

She obviously saw something in it that reminded her of me. ;)

Testing Their Instincts

Today was like most Sundays. I was busy doing chores dealing with the kids. Ken was preparing for football madness and also helping with the chores and kids. Owen was being...well, Owen. And Shane was outside playing with Rachel. Never mind that it was 45 degrees.

I got a call from Scott (Rachel's dad) warning me that there was a sales person walking around the neighborhood. Score one for good neighbors!

Scott was leaving (with his older daughter in charge of Rachel) but he also wanted to warn me to keep a good eye out on the kids because they were in the cul-de-sac and the sales people were giving him bad vibes. So, I kept an eye on them (peeping through the curtains of course because I didn't want to deal with sales people either).

About three minutes later, Shane and Rachel came inside saying that they were getting weird vibes from the sales people and they wanted to get away from the situation.

That makes me really happy because they recognized a potentially bad situation and exited out of it. You always hope that you give your kids the tools that they need to survive and listening to your instincts is definitely one of those skills.

And those two passed this test with flying colors.

The Sneaky Mom Rides Again

As a mom of two school age children, it is a constant battle (and I do mean constant!) to get them to eat healthy. Okay, I battle with their dad too but he's pretty much a lost cause.

So I have been at war for quite a while now but I haven't been blogging about it much because I don't want to tip off their dad because 1) he's also a target and 2) he'll rat me out to the kids.

But, this time is different. This cake recipe that I made is just so good that I have to share it with you all. This has a seal of approval from my mom, my dad (who thinks that a vegetable is french fries), my kids and, yes, even Ken.

It is a modified version of a cake that my sister made with the bad, but oh-so-yummy white flour. I changed some of the other ingredients too.

Mom's (that's me) Sneaky Cake

2 cups of sugar
2 cups of whole wheat flour (I use King Arthurs 100% Whole Wheat Flour)
1 tbl. baking powder
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
3 eggs
1 (individual) cup of unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
2 small jars of apple/blueberry babyfood

topping:
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 tbl. lemon juice
milk to thin out the frosting

Mix all of the cake ingredients together and pour into a (sprayed) bundt pan and bake it at 325 for about an hour.

I suppose that you could mix the dry ingredients first, add the blah, blah, blah, but that's not how I roll. Just throw it all into a bowl and mix, high fiving yourself the whole time because you know that they are going to happily eat something healthy without the battle!

For the frosting, add the lemon juice to the powdered sugar. If it's not thin enough, add a tiny amount of milk. Just use your spoon to drizzle it over the cake after you take it out the oven.

Note that you could use 1 cup of oil in place of the applesauce and I'm not sure that the baking soda actually does anything. You could also probably get away with more flax seed than the 1/4 that I used. I'll be gradually adding more in until I get in as much as I can get away with. Because I'm sneaky like that. ;)

Note the cake is on my fine china cake platter. Yes. It's that good!



So, there you go. If you make it, let me know how it turns out. Most of all, enjoy it battle free!