Wordful Wednesday

Thanks Angie for hosting another Wordful Wednesday, even though you will be absent!!! Now THAT'S dedication!

I stole this off of someone's Facebook album. I thought this was HILARIOUS! This fine mascot can be found somewhere in Hawaii!

Follow the link above for more Wordful Wednesday!

Barf, Hurl, Upchuck, Puke, Ralph, And That's Not Even Delving into What's Gone On Down South.... You're Welcome.

I feel a little bit like Melissa in one of her "Something Bad's Going Down Over At The..." series that I love so much. Well, I love it when it's her story, not so much when it's mine.

Livvy spent the end of her birthday with her head in the toilet. George's whole family is getting it since his niece was hurling on Christmas Eve. I had a four hour wedding to get through yesterday for my coworker and had a few long discussions with the powers that be over the last couple of days, just striking bargains to either let me get it before the wedding, or hold me off until after. 

Well, on the way to the wedding, I started feeling it. Seriously. It was awful.

I did manage to get through the wedding with only one run to the bathroom. And then when I got home, watch out! I thankfully got it all out before going to bed, but still tossed and turned with a rolling stomach. I have spent nights curled up around the toilet bowl, and those are just NEVER fun. And I think I blew some blood vessels in my face. Seriously. Violent but quick!

So, that said, I will show you some wedding pictures from yesterday.  Sick and all, I think they actually turned out nicely. I really hope no one from work reads my blog before I get actual permission to post these.  Tee hee. 

Well...Crap!

I'm very sorry to say I got sucked in.

I have enjoyed, immensely, the chance to spend almost an entire weekend at home.

I have gotten laundry done.

I have taken down our Christmas stuff and converted our living room back into the only clean room in my house.

I have sorted and organized and cleaned.

And I have read.

Oh, have I read.

Twilight, people. I'm hooked.

And I'm almost finished New Moon.

It's a good thing that I know you will all forgive my temporary (insanity) absence.  I do have work and a wedding tomorrow, but will try my best to finish it so that I can post something that might be of interest to you all.

I hope you had a delightful weekend!

I've got a book calling my name....

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby!

Happy 5th Birthday Olivia!!!

Yes, you are seeing right. The girls were both in the room for Olivia's birth. I'm so glad that George took this picture, because, as you can see, I was looking at one very slimy little Olivia, and would have totally missed the excitement on these other faces!!!

The doctor thought they were a hoot, as, every chance they would get, they would scoot further to the foot of the bed. 

And when this mama was refusing to push anymore because it just hurt too damn much, and George was sidetracked with me, they saw just a little too much. But, they are not scarred, and while they will probably need therapy later on in life, it will not be because of this moment.

I just scanned these out of her scrapbook, thus the poor quality. 

We had the best nurse, who let the girls each have a turn combing out Liv's little tangles.

Asia, right after Liv was born started saying "Please, she has to be Little Livvy! Please name her Little Livvy!" And then she went flying out of the room into her Gramma's waiting arms and they fell to the floor crying.  

I can't even begin to describe to you how these two big sisters adored their very own living doll. It was an amazing bonding experience for them to watch their sister be born. I should have let them come in for the duration of the labour, in hopes of stopping any teenage ideation of early pregnancies!  lol  Thankfully, that is not an issue yet....

I'm afraid that for the very first time, I will cry my way through a little birthday.

My wee baby is 5!!

Happy birthday, my sweet girl!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Our Santa Adventure.....

I was very sad that our Santa had moved on. His health isn't well and he went to be with his family in Ontario. Yes. I'm selfish. Yes. I want our Santa back.

However, his helper, the replacement, was actually quite good also.  

So, after over an hour in line, this is what we got. (For $20, a very poor quality photo!)

And every year I take some with my own camera of Santa and Liv looking at each other, and another with him tickling her

and then a nice one.

 

AND, when we got home, look what was in my mailbox!

It's my cushion cover from Lilly's trip to Thailand!! Isn't it beautiful?? Thank you Lilly!!

And I'm happy to report that Flat Stanley arrived at Lilly's safe and sound and will be spending Christmas with her family in Australia!

I have a wonderful Christmas video for you all for tomorrow. It is a fun and meaningful little jingle that I hope you will all come back to see!

Go and see Angie over at 7 Clown Circus for more Wordful Wednesday!

My Early Christmas Present To You!

I know I'm giving it a couple days early, but this way, if you are so inclined, you have time to follow through.

My two recipes that are always sought after and truly NEVER fail. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have given out these recipes, because, well, when you do something well, you want people to think that it's because you are fabulous, not because you are just hoarding a very easy secret.  

Just please make sure we don't end up at the same potluck, okay?? lol

I really wish that I could post pictures for you also, but they never last long enough for a photo-op.  You're just going to have to trust me....

Let's start with the meatballs, shall we? I am seriously making a sextuple batch for our Christmas dinner at my mom's. 

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

Meatballs: 

lean ground beef 1 egg rice

Roll nice little meatballs and put in a casserole dish. You do not brown these meatballs unless you are doing them in the slow cooker, which I don't recommend.

Sauce:

1/3 cup brown sugar  

1 tbsp cornstarch  

2 tbsp vinegar

1 cup pineapple tidbits and juice 

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 small green pepper (optional)

Mix up some sauce (personally I double this for 1 lb hamburger and quadruple it for a double batch of meatballs, especially if serving with rice). Pour it all over the meatballs.

Bake in the oven at 350º for the first hour, then drop to 250º for another two or so hours.

Add the green pepper rings near the end, or use some pineapple rings for decoration near the end of the cooking time.

And now for the cookies:

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

(If you google this one for a picture, just be careful, not everyone does it right!)

1/2 cup margarine  

1/2 cup peanut butter  

1/2 cup white sugar 

1/2 cup packed brown sugar 

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup flour  

3/4 tsp baking soda  

1/4 tsp salt

1-2 packages of mini peanut butter cups. (Usually sold in bags, can be found in Walmart candy section)

1. Beat butter, sugars and peanut butter until smooth

2. Mix in egg and vanilla

3. Add in dry ingredients

4. Roll dough into small balls and place in the centre of mini cupcake tins.

5. Bake for 8 minutes at 350º. Note, the cookies will not LOOK done, but they still spend some time in the pan and continue to brown after they are out. Do not over cook!

6. Immediately out of the oven, gently press into the centre of each cookie one mini peanut butter cup. Don't press through the bottom of the cookie.

Tip: At this point I put the muffin tin in the freezer, and usually have two going. Don't tip them upside down to get the cookie out. Once the are cold, you can either twist the top of the cookie and then carefully pull it out, or use a knife and just gently pry it out of the tin. This process takes a while if you rely on them to cool on the counter.

Another tip: One batch won't be enough.

Enjoy!

And Merry Christmas!

Tis The Season

I stumbled upon a very sad blog the other day. 

It left me feeling very troubled.

And I went home and looked at my beautiful little four, soon to be five, year old, and wondered how a person can hurt one so small. Who looks at you with all the unconditional love in the world.

How can a parent look at their own flesh and blood with anything but adoration?

How can they blame their life's troubles on this wee soul?

How awful is it that a little person can feel the weight of abuse and neglect on their narrow, slight little shoulders?

And feel it deep into their bones.

And have a heavy little heart.

And it brings home to me, someone who was so fortunate in the parents department, that there are children out there suffering. Suffering at the hands of the very people who are supposed to love them and adore them.

Abuse toward those who cannot protect themselves makes me sick to my stomach. 

A man was sentenced to 30 days for dragging the family pet behind the car and killing her. His story? Euthanasia gone wrong. Huh? Seriously, you idiot? 

The stories recently of a child's remains being found. Another who has "disappeared", but her blood was found in the mother's vehicle.

Nursing homes neglecting, stealing from, and roughing up the the seniors, with thin skin and brittle, fragile bones, whose children have put them there in good faith that they will be cared for.

Shouldn't human and humanity go hand in hand?

Take some time to remember those who are suffering this Christmas. 

Reach out where you can. 

Don't look away and pretend it's not happening.

Because, oh so sadly, it is.

And Merry Christmas To Me!

My year started out really crappy.  Nothing seemed to go right. Ever.

It got to a point where I thought I might be better off impaled by the grill of a Mac truck.

But suddenly in about early November, things really turned around.

I accepted me, as gushy and jiggly as I am.

The jerk's insurance company paid for the ambulance bill that I was fighting. And losing.

Financially, things weren't quite so tight.

We had a wonderful Cancun vacation.

And I started winning some stuff.

Yesterday I got the tea set I won from Angie at 7 Clown Circus when she was doing her million days/million winners (or something like that) contest with some of her blogging friends.

And then on the way to soccer, George gave me the other thing that had come in the very same day! I got the brand new, not even on the market yet, popping chocolate bars from Veggie Mom's Pay It Forward contest and their Pop'rs company.

And the week before that I received the other package I had won through Veggie Mom.  Two Pop'rs flavours! And they are SO COOL! I've actually just been eating them right off my hand, although I know they are supposed to be sprinkled onto your food.

And yes, the chocolate bar is half eaten. And since this picture was taken, it is missing even more of itself.  I cut up a couple of little pieces to hand over to my family to try and they have since been looking for them to have more.

But my generosity only goes so far.

So I'm off to drink my ginger tea from Angie, in hopes that it will ease my hangover, and to finish that chocolate bar, which is incredibly delicious. And it dances on my tongue.

I'll bet it's not every day you hear that.

Oh, and I handed out one of my own Pay It Forward gifts yesterday to Why-not: One very dead poinsetta (One would think that a Christmas plant could endure a couple of hours in my vehicle, but alas...) and some home-made cookies that made it over there INTACT. 

Betty & Ronda are still patiently waiting for those. And I haven't forgotten!

I Really Wanted A Penis Today....

Seriously.

But not for reasons you might think.

Not because I'm a horny devil. And George will confirm that, if need be.

Not during any of my labours while I shook and cried.

Not so I can pee standing up. Or for that matter, not have to strip down to my practically nothings and stick my ass in the snow to squat and pee.

Not even when I see a man's pay cheque for working almost as hard as me.

Nope.

Not when the lining of my uterus tears away every month causing severe agony and a 7 pound weight gain.

Nor when all the junior high girl shit was happening and boys were basically immune from it.

Not even then, surprisingly enough.

But tonight, I did.

I desperately wanted to be able to do the humane, kind thing, which, in this situation required outdoor plumbing.

I wanted to haul someone's cold, sorry ass off the road as he ran for the bus he was clearly going to miss, put him in my always freezing, but at least out of the wind van, and drive him where he needed to go.

But smart, normal women just CAN'T! No matter how desperately you want to help this poor soul, you really just never know. And I still had control of the steering wheel, and could very easily drive into something in a pinch if I had to, I just can't pick up a man when I'm all by myself.

If George was with me, I would have been all over stopping the van and letting this poor guy in. I mean, really, it's minus 32 with the wind chill, and that was this afternoon. It has cooled off considerably since then.

That just sucks that I couldn't help this guy, you know?

And I've got some alcohol induced feistiness going on right now. 'Nuff said.

Phriday Photo Phiesta!

I did the (almost) unforgivable. I signed up on Mr. Linky before I had my post done.

I know. I know.

But I don't usually. I had really good intentions. But then one distraction led to another, which is about to lead into CSI. So I'd better hurry before I make this even worse on myself.

Oops. She's too far from the tree.  I guess we need to move her closer...

Or maybe not....

Okay, now we had to get serious!

Yeah. It didn't work out so well that first year.

Oh, and just because I know some of you live in sunny places and don't know what an Alberta winter looks like.

Well, here it is....

Now go on back to Carrie for more!

Thursday's Homework Assignment

Thursday's Workshop with Mama's Losin It!The Prompts:
1.) Write or share a letter to Santa.
2.) Describe a favorite Winter memory.
3.) Last night it snowed buckets and you are forced to spend the entire day at home with your family...what's the plan!?!
4.) What's the best gift you've ever gotten/given.
5.) Describe a Christmas tradition that you have started with your own family?

I've found one that is just perfect for today, but I'm going to morph it a bit to fit my own needs. It's about a winter memory, albeit not a fabulous one. And what makes my winter memory a perfect post for today? Well, Olivia did it herself today. And it ain't pretty.

Let me begin with me.

It was a very cold day. When I got home from school no one was there yet and it was one of those rare times when our door was locked.

I hunkered down to wait for someone to come home. And then I noticed a very enticing pile of snow on our railing. It was huge! More than a mouthful. Light and fluffy and white. It. Looked. Delicious!

You know where this is going, don't you? Yes sir-reee. My blogging friends are smarter than a dozen raw carrots ANY DAY!

So there I am. And there it is. 

And then tongue met railing.

And held.

I'm talking a real lick.  None of this tip of the tongue stuff. It was a full tongue lick on that railing. The whole top of my tongue.

And stood there for a brief time trying to figure out what to do.

Do you remember in other posts, I would tell you about how I was shy? How I would NOT cop to anything that might make me look like a fool? This is one of those times.

I tore my tongue off the railing, because God knows I wouldn't want anyone seeing me like this.

And then I stood on our front step, which faced the school field, and screamed and cried for all I was worth.

One of my brother's friends came along and took me back to the school, where I bled all over the floor. They mopped me up the best they could, and proceeded to ask me what happened.

"Did you put your tongue on anything metal?"

"Uh-uh." I responded.

I think they knew I was lying.

So now fast forward to today.  George was snow-blowing and Liv was playing in the front yard. He came around the front to see her standing there bleeding all over the place.

She did it. Like mother, like daughter, right?

She told me that she pulled and pulled and it wouldn't come off, and her dad couldn't hear her over the snow-blower.  So she scraped her tongue off the railing with her teeth.  

Yup. You heard right. 

She scraped it with her teeth.

And it's still there to prove it.  Seriously! A layer of tongue and gobs of frozen blood. (That I couldn't resist bringing in to show her!  lol)

Take a look:

So, thankfully it was only the tip of her tongue on the fence...

However, she ripped the little flappy thingamajig trying to pull her tongue off.

(And clearly we gave her some spiked eggnog for the pain.... Well, okay. It was whiskey. Straight up.)

Put this on your list of things NEVER to do.

Thanks for playing! Click on Kat's picture above to go and see my classmates!

Wordful Wednesday

I don't think this picture needs many words, which is great, because I'm usually too busy laughing at it anyway!

This is the first kindergarten skating lesson.

As usual, mine is the one in the pink, following the boys.

Take note how ALL of them are either falling, already down, or trying to get back up!

Oh, I so love this picture!

George gets photo credit on this one too. I may have to hire him as an assistant before long....

For much, much more, go and see 7 Clown Circus!

Christmas Concerts

Not many words in today's post. I suppose I could keep some for Wordful Wednesday, but, well, I'm just not real bright. lol

It's a bit of a jumbled mess.  First is Asia's band concert. Second is Liv's skating lessons with her kindergarten class (photo credit to George). And third is Liv & Cassie's Christmas Concert for school. (George gets some photo credit there too, or else I'm in deep sh*t...)

Thanks for stopping by! 

Have a great day!