Slow Cooker Success

Just incase you want to know how many individually wrapped treat packs of candy corn I have had this morning... the answer is 6.



Oh, but you REALLY wanted to know about dinner. Yes, dinner was awesome... of course!!! I did not smell burnt chicken when I walked into the house. Yippee!

After I verified that our dinner was not burnt, I loaded our counter top with lots of other goodies from the kitchen:
tortilla wraps
tortilla chips
shredded cheese
sour cream (or "our keem" as Bro likes to call it)
corn
spanish rice
lettuce

... and we all made individual chicken tacos for ourselves. Voila!!!!!

Easy Peasy!

Where did I find this great recipe? (Frozen chicken breasts + 1 jar of salsa + cook on low all day long) I have to credit according to Kelly for the recipe idea. Thanks Kelly... even though you have no idea who I am.



Secondly, Yummy Mummy has these great and fun printables on her blog. I printed out the lunch survey and put it in Lulu's lunchbox today. I rolled it up and tied with a cute yellow ribbon and attached a pencil. It is either going to be a big hit... or really embarrassing. Lulu has no idea that it is in there. I can't wait to see what type of reaction I get.



Thirdly, I don't know how to put my e-mail address on this blog... some sort of widget or something... looked at my settings... can't find it... tried to google it... whatever... I am going to create a little something for my sidebar. In the meantime, you can always reach me at makingmelaugh@gmail.com.

Slow Cooker - Take 2

I'm trying another slow cooker recipe. I've decided that I have slow cooker troubles because my slow cooker is oval shaped and everyone else has a round one. I borrowed a round one from Fairy Grandmother, over the weekend. I am currently slow cookin' some "chicken tacos" and the recipe is quite simple. Add 4 frozen chicken breasts. Dump in one jar of salsa. Cook on low "ALL DAY LONG." Serve with your favorite guacamole and sour cream.

I followed the directions exactly, this morning. The recipe came from a fellow blogger (who will be credited later, but I can't remember who it was) who PROMISES that this is the easiest and tastiest dish EVER. We'll see about that!

Confession

It is 8:49 p.m. and I am listening to my husband play the guitar while I contemplate this post.

The confession is... that... for the first time since Kindergarten... Lulu is NOT currently enrolled in any extracurricular activities. At this time every year we are juggling sports, scouts (cookie sales are coming), theater, and homework... with homework often taking a backseat to the other activities (sorry). It is just a mad house around here in Spetember.

Add baby Bro to this and it gets worse.

Add in the fact that Dear Husband is a real estate agent and things get even worse. Let's face it... people can't meet during the day. Real Estate agents work NIGHT and WEEKENDS. Thus, leaving me as a single mom, from time to time.

I dread back-to-school. I dread it.

This year is sooooooooooo different. I thought that Lulu needed to start out slow and take some time getting used to middle school. Thus, she is going to theater as part of an after-school activity (means no chauffering her back and forth) and she'll cheer this winter. Admittedly, scouts will start soon - Friday, to be exact.

Anyways... the point is... things aren't crazy... they are peaceful... I like peaceful...

It is now 8:56 p.m. and I'm going to get ready for bed.

How about you? Do you just feel like back-to-school is just crazy???

Or is it just me???

I'm So Competitive

We had a great time at trivia last night. The grab bag categories (a small sampling of questions in each round will be from these categories) were Great Expectations (classic book) and the Breakfast Club (80s movie).

Unfortunately, I was confused so I studied Grapes of Wrath instead of Great Expectations. How well do you remember Great Expectations?

1. What was the name of Miss Havisham’s estate?
2. What was the name of the convict who befriended Pip?
3. What was the job that Pip was projected to have when he grew up?
4. Parts of Great Expectations were published in two editions of a periodical in 1860. What was that periodical?
5. I forgot what this question was.

So, you see, obviously these were hard questions (for someone who hasn't read the book in 20 years) and obviously I needed to study. Oh well.

Other questions that I remember are:

1. In what part of your body is the labyrinth found? (I knew this one actually - lucky guess.)
2. What animal lives in a formicarium?
3. Who was the only bachelor American President? (Ben Franklin was our guess.)

It was fun to go and it makes for a cheap date night. We eat dinner ahead of time (grilled cheese and vegetable soup last night - napmom was really in the cooking mood) and just sit for drinks at the restaurant. I think that we are going to try to go the first Monday of every month. That sounds reasonable, right???

Answers

Great Expectations Answers:
1. Satis House
2. Magwitch
3. Blacksmith
4. All the Year Round

Other Answers:

1. Ear
2. Ant
3. James Buchanan (Apparently, Ben Franklin had a common law marriage with Deborah Read AND -drum roll please- he was never a President. Hello??? Maybe I had too many drinks at this point. No, wait - I wasn't drinking.)

Ask and you shall receive...

Here is the (vintage) picture of my crayfish incident (as mentioned in the 'Nostalgia' post). Thanks Grand Matriarch!

Under normal circumstances, I never would have touched this little guy... but there were a few things in play here...

1. I needed to grab the crayfish to win the scavenger hunt for my team (win, win, win)... and

2. everyone was watching... I was the center of attention... I couldn't let my fans down...

I look at this picture NOW and just shake my head... what was I thinking?

Julie and Julia - a book review

I finished... kinda... the Julie and Julia book. You know, the one about the girl who decides to make Julia Child recipes for a year and blog about it... Why didn't I think of that??? Julie's blog still exists and you can read it, in its entirety (including blog comments) here.



When I say that I "finished" the book I mean that I really skimmed the topic sentence on every paragraph for the second half of the book and, therefore, I know what happens AND how it ended.



Yuck. It gets... something like... 2 stars from me. And, that's being generous. Really it gets 1 star and then 1 more star for being a book about a blogger.



I was starting to worry - you remember that I didn't like the very popular The Shack either.



Turns out that I'm NOT alone. Most of the customer reviews on Amazon weren't that great either.

However, I heard that the movie version of the book is awesome and worth seeing a second or third time.

Nostalgia

The challenge at I ♥ Faces this week is to post a photo that would bring a nostalgic feeling back to us (and it had to have a face in it of course!)

nostalgia: noun. A longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.

Without a doubt, my fondest childhood memories took place on this mountain. From ages 8-13, I spent one week every summer with new friends at the best summer camp ever. We laughed, we played, we sang songs, we visited with nature... there's even a picture of me "eating" a live crayfish somewhere...


The moment that Em was old enough to go to this camp, we packed up our bags and took the 9-hour trip to Grandfather Mountain. I was a counselor and she was a camper. I had hoped and hoped and hoped that she would love camp as much as I did. She did love camp and the next year we went back and took a friend with us.


Here is a view from the mountain. Keep in mind, when I took this picture it had been 20 YEARS since I had been to this very location. For me, this picture, and all of the pictures from this trip are just breathtaking.

Today, one of the other best things about camp is that Grand Matriarch is a counselor at camp with us. It is really, really, really super cool to spend a week... at my favorite place in the whole world... with my little Lulu and my cherished Grand Matriarch. (Which, is why I threw SUCH A HISSY FIT when the timing did not work out for me to go this year. I'm def gonna be there next year. Apologies to all who witnessed my tantrum.)

Isn't She Lovely...

I'm just feeling kinda sad today...

I feel the exact same sadness that I felt when I was pregnant with Bro... and was going through all of Lulu's baby clothes... knowing that I needed to get rid of them... to make space in our home for a baby brother...

I called my mom and dad and I was sobbing... I mean really sobbing... all I could think was that "I'll never be able to send her to college... I just won't be able to do it"...

My dad, who had been harassing me for years to come over and clean out stuff that I had jammed in their attic, told me to stop crying and said that I should just pack up all of her clothes (enough to fill a small room) and bring them to their house... that he would store them for me... for as long as I wanted to... seriously guys... that was exactly what I needed to hear...

Mom (a.k.a. Fairy Grandmother) kindly asked if there was a way that I could get rid of some of the clothes... I could keep my favorites... but I could get rid of some of the clothes... yes... I dried my eyes... I could let go of some of the clothes... but it would be okay to keep my favorites... forever... if need be...

I don't know why middle school makes me sad. She's just growing up. I just want to hug her and hold her and keep her all to myself... keep her happy and safe... forever...

Well, the good news is that several kids were at the bus stop with lunch totes in their hands. Also, all of the 6th graders admitted that none of them knew how to open a locker combination lock... so Lulu won't be the only one... which was OUR main worry as we were trying to go to sleep last night.

I'm courting down the minutes 'til I pick her up from school.

Twas the Night Before 6th Grade...

Tis the night before 6th grade and all through the house,

everyone is awake, (probably) even the mouse.

The bookbag and Converse shoes are both near...

because tomorrow morning... middle school will be here.

THE BUS COMES AT 7:40 IN THE MORNING... BOO!

The big debate is whether to pack a brown bag lunch (as I was told ALL the middle-school kids do) or pack a lunch in her lunch tote. She told me that she is going to pack a lunch tote tomorrow because, in her own words, "You can bet that SO-AND-SO and SO-AND-SO are going to have their Very Bradley lunch bags tomorrow... I just know it."

She can't sleep. It's 10:15 already and she is reading... because she says that she is too excited to go to sleep. Luckily, the 6th graders have the school to themselves tomorrow; the older kids start on Tuesday.

The cinnamon bread just came out of the oven, which means that I am going to try to coerce Lulu into going to bed so that I can get some sleep too.

Great Day for Up!

Way back before we had baby Bro... Dear Husband and I would often sometimes take advantage of a gorgeous afternoon and meet at the harbor for Happy Hour.

A recent afternoon was just to gorgeous to spend in the confines of our suburban home... so we took the little man to hang out with us in one of our favorite towns.

I discovered a new Crepe restaurant (Sofi's Crepes) and we ate there as a family. This restaurant was rated the at the "top of the list" for affordable fare in the area (meaning, you get lots of bang for your buck here).

Bro and I shared the B.A.T.S. (bacon, avocado, tomato, and sour cream) while Dear Husband had the Mozz (tomato, mozzarella, and basil). It was so yummy! They have dessert crepes too!

I'm so upset at all of the cute baby pictures that my friends capture (ahem - Bird's Nest... and a whole slew of facebook friends). How cute would this have been... if only he would smile. THIS is the typical response that I get when I try to take his picture. I couldn't resist. I cannot WAIT to show this to his future wife.

I thought that letting him stand on the bench would get a smile out of him... right????? NO.

I swear... if I did NOT have the camera out he would have been all smiles. Infuriating.

He calmed down when he thought that mommy put the camera away.

And then Bro and Daddy contemplated the meaning of life.

Then, we went to the park where he was WAY TOO BUSY to smile for mommy... too busy playing with dirt...

... too busy climbing on rocks...

... too busy flirting with the ladies...

... but I was persistent and got a good picture anyway! (Look at him, I'm standing RIGHT THERE and he refuses to look at me... maddening!)