Outside! I've got plans!

Miles loves being outside. He asks to go outside several times a day by pointing, leaning, and grunting at the front door. Usually he's content to just play on the grass, but not yesterday. Last night I took him out and he started out on his mission. As soon as we got outside he heard one of our neighbors using a weed whacker so he toddled two door down to watch. While watching and talking to the weed whacker, he noticed that our neighbor's tree has balls on it. Yes, in his eyes he was right. It had these round seed-things that looked like small balls hanging down from the tree. Then Miles decided that that he wanted to cross the street and visit the house that has a flag. I carried him across the street then we walked to the next house to see the flag. After visiting the flag, he went and checked out some flower beds. Then he decided it was time to visit the fish. A few houses further down has a Koi pond that Miles loves. He watched the fish for a few minutes then decided to keep exploring and started to go up into a cul-de-sac. I decided it was time to go home. It took some convincing, but Miles finally agreed, but only on his terms... he was walking home! Getting home took forever because he found lots of "balls" to play with. The oak trees have started dropping their acorns and they are everywhere! Miles could carry four at a time. He'd throw them, then walk over and pick them up, and repeat. At one point he picked up replacement acorn... it wasn't an acorn. It was a dried ball of dog poo. Yuck! While playing his acorn game, Dan showed up on his bike. Miles showed him his treasures. After a few minutes, Dan rode off and at that point, Miles agreed to be carried home.

His adventure impressed me in a couple of ways. First, Miles can walk pretty far! According to Google maps, he walked .2 miles one way (and probably about .3 miles in all since I carried him home part of the way) Second, he has an impressive sense of direction and an (to me) amazing memory to be able to know where he want to go and what he wanted to see. Yes, he sees all these things when he walks with Dan to church, but to find them on his own at 11 months old is impressive to me!

Christmas Already?

Yesterday I was in a grocery store and I was walking down the "holiday/promotional" aisle. There was all the Halloween stuff out, a bunch of canning supplies, and I could not believe it, they were putting out Christmas stuff! Ugh! Today is the first day of autumn and the store was putting out Christmas stuff on the last day of summer. Now, I like Christmas, but not in September! I like to celebrate Halloween, fall, and Thanksgiving before dealing with Christmas (except for the shopping part... I'm almost done with that!) Pretty soon the phrase "Christmas in July" will be a reality, or maybe we'll have Christmas all year 'round and never have to take down our trees. Another thought I just had... the economy is stinky right now... are they trying to add holiday stress to people's lives already by causing "must buy this, must buy that" syndrome while consumers are trying to manage the tight finances they already have? Next year, maybe they'll ask me when the "appropriate" time to start the holiday season is (oh, and by the way, one radio station began playing Christmas music on SEPTEMBER FIRST... whatever, I don't have to listen to that station!).

Miles and Dan and the Mower

Watching Daddy mow the lawn is hard work.
Later on in the week, Dan came home from work and set his backpack on the floor. Miles toddled over to it to check it out. He studied it, the went to Dan and told him "baa-paa", which translates to "backpack" in English, then he walked over to the door to the garage, pointed at it and said "baa-paa" again. Dan took Miles out into the garage and Miles pointed at his backpack hanging on the wall. Dan got it down; Miles tried to climb in it. Dan put Miles in the backpack then Miles made his "mower growl" telling Dan that he wanted to go for a backpack ride while Dan mowed the lawn. The lawn didn't need to be mowed, but Dan satisfied his little boy's request by taking him for a weed-whacker backpack ride (and I got the lawn edged in the process)!

Cat at Play

Sometimes she is just fun to watch!

How I Trick My Boys into Helping!

I will admit that, once again, I got behind on folding the laundry. I'm good at washing and drying it, but really bad at folding it. There were 6 heaping baskets of laundry that needed to be folded. My boys love the TV show "I Survived a Japanese Game Show". On this lame show, a bunch of game show contestants from the US take part on a Japanese game show where they wear silly costumes and do messy stunts. I decided something had to be done about the laundry so I told them that for family night we were going to play "I Survived a Japanese Game Show". They were intrigued but suspicious.

Before family night began I sorted the laundry in to piles determined by whose clothes they were. I told everyone the name of the first games was "Where are my clothes?" Each person had to race down the hall (Miles included), find his basket of laundry, bring it back to the living room, fold it, then race to his room and put it away. It was amazing that they didn't complain about my "game" at all and how fast they could fold and put the laundry away! Jonathan was the winner! His reward was getting to have first pick at the next game, "When We're Helping We're Happy"! This game was thrilling as it was dividing up the chore list for the coming week. Jonathan got first pick of which chore he wanted. Yippee! After that "game" the final game of the night was called "Eat a Frozen Treat"! I figured that we could wrap up the night by having a Klondike bar and that would be that... but, no, the boys made their own plan. They turned the treat into a real game... who could eat the treat the fastest without using hands. It was entertaining to watch!

Barney Is a Dinosaur

We don't let Miles watch TV, not because we're necessarily against it, but because Miles doesn't care about TV. He does, however, love certain clips on You Tube! One of his favorites is the Barney Theme Song. He get so excited when watching it. Check him out!



As the clip finishes, he'll let you know that he wants "more Barney" by signing "more"!

New Favorite Cookie

I'm not a recipe poster, but these cookies are to die for! Yes, they are a little time consuming to make but they are so worth it! They are a chocolate peanut butter cookie with a peanut butter center.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Cookie Dough
Cream: 1/2 C Butter, 1/4 C Peanut Butter, 1/2 C Sugar, 1/2 C Brown Sugar
Add: 1 Egg, 1 tsp Vanilla, 1 Tbsp Milk
Add: 1/2 tsp Baking Soda, 1/4 tsp Salt
Add: 1/2 C Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (I use Hershey's Dark Cocoa), 1 1/2 C Flour
Shape into 32 balls and set aside.

Peanut Butter Filling
Combine: 3/4 C powdered Sugar with 1/2 C Peanut Butter
Mix together, adding sugar or peanut butter, until mixture is cohesive.
Shape filling into a cube. Cut into quarters. Cut each quarter into eighths.

Take a cookie ball, make a deep thumbprint in the center, place filling in thumbprint, fold dough around filling. Repeat 31 more times!
Bake at 350 for 9 minutes. Cool on pan for 1 minute before transferring to cooling rack.
Eat lots!

Just His Size

Right now Miles is all about finding places that are just his size. He plays behind a chair in the family room. He sits inside ladder rungs (when the ladder in laying down). He sits inside boxes (just like the cat). One of his favorite "just his size" places is in the computer room inside the "cubby hole" for a tower PC on the "homework station" desk.

Halloween Preview

Last night I couldn't find any clean pajamas for Miles to wear so I let him sleep in his Halloween costume. "Skellington" is going to be a skeleton!

75? 66? What's the Difference

The difference is huge... it's the difference between being safe on a ladder and falling 9 feet onto your face. I learned the hard way. I got up early to day with great ambitions! I was going to paint the dining room with it's very tall walls. I taped off everywhere I could reach... chair rail, and part way around windows and door frames. Then I went and got the ladder. We have a telescoping ladder. I set it up and off I went on my taping mission. I got all the way across the ceiling and around the two windows on the first wall. I moved onto wall #2. I got about 1/3 of the ceiling taped off. I moved the ladder and climbed up. Next thing I knew, I felt the ladder sliding out from under me and I was thinking "this is not good", then the ladder slammed onto the floor. I landed on top of the ladder. I hurt. Dan was outside at the back of the house under the deck. I was in the front part of the house. He heard the slamming sound and some sound from me. At first he thought I'd banged into a stool, but thenthe thought that the sound shouldn't have sounded so loud to him from outside. He came in and found me next to the ladder (I did manage to roll off the ladder and onto the floor). He asked me if I was okay... I said "I don't know". That was 6 hours ago... I'm not fine, but I am "fine", meaning no real damage, I think. My left knee immediately started to bruise and it should be pretty ugly looking in the coming days. My right shoulder is bothering me the most right now. It took the brunt of the impact. I have a limited range of motion and have occasional stabbing pains that run from my shoulder and into my elbow. Lucky me. So after Dan determined that I wasn't dying or really hurt, he noticed that the ladder was supposed to be placed at a 75 degree angle to the wall. Based on the scrape-mark height left from the ladder sliding down the wall, he set the ladder back up using those marks as the position of where I had the top of the ladder. Then Dan calculated that I had the ladder at a 66 degree angle relative to the wall and that is why the ladder slid. I love being married to an engineer!

Even "Hotter" Merchandise

The plot thickens... The other day I blogged about receiving a book that I purchased on eBay (it was eBay and not half.com) that I suspected was shoplifted from Walmart and shipped to me all at Walmart's expense. Today I noticed that there was a package on my porch. I was excited because I've been a little internet shopping happy lately and was curious to see what arrived. I retrieved the package and my heart sank. It was the exact same size as the previous mentioned package and also was from Walmart. I opened the package. Inside was another lovely gift wrapped book that was overnighted to me and the only info on the packing list was those magic words "A Gift for You." I opened the "present" and it was the exact same book that I received the other day. The only difference was that this time, there was a different person listed as the "ordered by" person. I went and checked my eBay email account to see if I could figure out what was going on. In my inbox was an email from eBay's fraud unit telling me that the item I purchased had been removed from eBay's system and not to complete the transaction. Too bad... I already paid for it (once) and received the item TWICE. The eBay email told me how to file a fraud claim to get my money back if I had already paid for the item but hadn't received it. Doesn't apply to me. So now, here's my question... What do I do? The "ordered by" people's names do not match the seller's name provided, which I'm sure is a fake anyway. I'm going head over to eBay's site and see if I can find a contact number for the fraud department. Any other suggestions?

Take Your Mark...

... Go!

Receiving "Hot" Merchandise

Last week I ordered a book from half.com. I buy from there all the time and have never had an issue with any of the sellers. Yesterday I got the book I ordered and I'm pretty sure that it was shoplifted... Here's why...

Pieter found a package on my porch yesterday. It had been delivered sometime yesterday by the UPS man. The return label indicated that it was to me from Walmart.com, but I haven't ordered anything from Walmart.com in over a year. I opened the package and inside was a gift wrapped item and the packing/invoice material. It showed no price, no shipping fee, and simply said "A Gift for you". It was a nicely wrapped present, complete with a bow! I opened the package and inside was the book I ordered. It is in perfect, brand new condition. The spine even creaked when I opened the book. It came overnight express too (and I paid for media mail shipping). My guess is that "Mr. Half.com seller" works for Walmart.com and that he lifted the book from walmart, had it giftwrapped, and shipped it to me all at Walmart's expense. That makes me mad. I have done nothing wrong. I ordered a book; I paid for a book; I received a book. However I feel outraged that my honest actions led to (what I think) someone's dishonest action and Walmart being victimized in the process (how ironic is that... Walmart, destroyer of the small businessman, is the victim... ). Grrrr... I like half.com, but I don't, unsuspectingly, like enabling a thief. At least the book is really good!

Construction Workers

Dan built shelves for the garage this week (so maybe soon we'll be able to park the cars in the garage!). He needed some help nailing down the shelves to the framework. Nolan was drafted to help. Dan drilled nail holes in the boards and Nolan nailed the shelves down... did I mention he was 8 feet up in the air? While he was reluctant to help and did not enjoy climbing up the ladder, he ended up having a pretty good time (but of course he can't admit that).

17 Cents

That's what I paid for 3 gallons of milk and 2 packages of Oreos!

September Savings

I started the month off right at the grocery store! Yesterday I went shopping and bought a trip worth of "treat" stuff- cheap fruit snacks, granola bars, etc. At the register I got $7 back good for "like cash" on my next shopping visit. Progresso soup is on sale (and Nolan, the soup snob, only eats Progresso). I found a coupon for $1.10 off 3 cans that was good on the variety of Progresso that Nolan likes (picky kid)and printed 2 of the coupons! Back to the store I went today. Smiths is running a $5 off your purchase when you buy 10 items off a really long list of products. I bought the Progresso (which accounted for 6 of the 10 items) and 4 bottles of Sobe LifeWater (yum!) to get to the magic "10 items" number. I went to check out. My pre-score total was I handed over my 2 $1.10 coupons, my Fresh Values Card, and my $7 "like cash" coupons. The checker handed me back my items (bagged of course) and $1.26! I love getting paid to feed my family! Of course this is not the way this transaction was supposed to go. The cashier should have told me that I needed to spend the total value of my $7 "like cash" and made me pay the sales tax. I asked her if I needed to buy more stuff and she said "no- just take the $1.26"; so I did.
I love this receipt! See how it shows my balance of -$1.26? Look at my total savings... $19.10 or 109%. Hope the checker doesn't lose her job over my transaction.