randomness

We're still having a great visit with my family. I am anxious to see my husband, and I am sure the kids miss him too, but otherwise it's been a really nice trip. Today we drove to the coast to my sister's house. My dad had a job interview there, with a company that is actually based in the Detroit area. They are looking for a rep here, which my mom hates because it means my dad will be back on the road. But it makes him happy, so it's tough. Anyway, I think it would be nice if he's working for a Detroit-based company, just because he'd likely have to come up occasionally for meetings & stuff. We had a great visit with sis & nephew, did a little shopping...I swear I could totally buy out the Bailey Boys store! Ok, well maybe I couldn't literally, since I can't afford to, but I love all of their stuff! I bought Scarlett 2 outfits and Matthew 1, and my mom bought all of the small grandkids matching Christmas outfits. Goody!

Last night & now tonight I've spent a lot of the evening typing up some of my favorite recipes from mom's recipe box. I am taking it one section at a time, going through the section & separating out the ones I want to copy. When I got married one of her gifts to me (and David I guess!) was a recipe box with copied & laminated recipes. It had many family favorites, and some that I don't ever remember eating. But somehow, her box has many many more recipes than mine, and a lot of them aren't at all new. So now I'm trying to catch up & get all those recipes so I can expand our menu. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

i'm a pretty bad aunt

I can't believe I didn't even mention Jonah in my last post! My little sister brought him to visit Monday. They spent the day with us and will be back today for the weekend. He is beautiful, precious, perfect! Absolutely perfect! I sat and held him for the longest time. Matthew was very gentle and sweet with him, rubbing him on the head and saying "i love baby jonah." Scarlett was pretty pleased to meet him too, as long as he was in his mommy's arms. She smiled and grinned and kept going over to check him out. Later I had him and she was NOT happy! She pretty much wrapped herself around my legs and screeched. She's a little rotten.

So yeah, the new nephew is perfect. And I think I'm doing a good job avoiding getting baby fever right now. We'll see how it is after a weekend with them.

good times

We're having a great week so far. We had a nice drive down, took the kiddos to the huge park we used to live near in Atlanta, they had a great time there! We met our tenant (he's lived there 2 years & we just met!) and signed a new lease since he is getting a new roommate, then we went through the condo to see what needs doing. David thinks we'll spend 2-3 hours working on it next week. Hopefully it won't be too long! We dropped David off at the airport and drove to my parents' house. The kids & I were so tired when we got here and they were nice & slept until 8am Monday!

They've been having a blast so far - Matthew is LOVING the pool - it's so nice to be where the water is warm enough to really enjoy having a pool. He started off sliding down the slide into the water and yesterday was jumping off the diving board over & over. This from a kid who just a couple of weeks ago hated having his head under! I think seeing Belle swim is good for him - she's all over the pool without floaties! (I also think seeing her potty is good for him! He's been asking to go a decent bit, I definitely need to encourage him more when we get home!)

Matthew & Belle play great together - the other day they were playing & I heard her scream "I love you Matthew" and he replied with a scream, "I love you too Belle". Precious. Belle thinks Scarlett is a baby and Scarlett thinks she's as big as Belle! It's pretty funny to watch them interact.

I weighed in today, but on a different scale than normal. According to it I've lost 6 lbs this week. Um, I don't think so! I think the scales are definitely different. So I'm not updating my ticker until I get home & can weigh there. I'd like to think this scale is accurate, and it possibly is, but I don't feel right basing it on a number I don't think is right...make sense? I really don't think our scale is right, but I don't mind - I'm not looking at it as just a single number, it's the change that matters to me! But ya, I'd be thrilled if I really lost 6 lbs!

Scarlett is such a honey - last weekend at the party she was in the beer tub constantly grabbing bottles. Yeah, putting bottles in ice in a tub is a GREAT idea, unless there's a toddler around! But she went for bottle after bottle, and then climbed up on the table & danced! One of the women commented that "the boys are going to love her when they're older" - um ya, not looking forward to those days. I guess I can hope she got the beer drinking table dancing days out of her system young?

On another note, if you don't use graham crackers on a regular basis, and you're making a recipe that uses them, TASTE them first! My chocolate eclair cake was pretty ruined the other day - I think the crackers were bad. Stale I guess, but it just did not turn out! I was so embarrassed when I tasted it - I've earned a reputation among David's coworkers as being a good cook, and this was an easy recipe that was ruined! Seriously, I don't think they were very old, but they tasted horrible in the recipe!

and we're off

I am finishing up our packing & we're heading to a party this afternoon. Then while most of you are sleeping, we'll be heading down the Atlanta highway. Looking for the love getaway...oh WAIT! That's all wrong. Well we will be heading to Atlanta, but I'll be leaving David at the airport so he can come back here. Then I'll head to my parents' house with the kids. So not exactly a love getaway.

We'll be visiting my new nephew and the rest of the family. Then David flies back down & we'll go to Georgia Tech's football season opener. Can't wait to see how we look - we have a new head coach & I'm really excited about him. Then we'll spend Labor Day weekend with the family before driving home.

I know it seems convoluted that David is driving down & flying back, only to turn around in a couple of weeks and fly down & driving back, but he won't "let" me drive down with the kiddos by myself. Now it is a 900 mile trip to my parents' house, but I have travelled enough with & without the kiddos that I'd feel totally comfortable doing it. But I'll humor him. So, if I'm not around much for a couple of weeks, you'll know it's because I'm having fun with the folks. I'll be back.

Recipe Friday - Chocolate Eclair Cake

I haven't shared a recipe lately and I'm about to make this, so figured I'd post it. I'm taking this and some macaroni & cheese to a cookout tomorrow. This is one of my favorite easy desserts. David took it to work once (many years ago) for a dessert contest and won first place!

Chocolate Eclair Cake

"cake":
1 box graham crackers
2 small boxes instant French Vanilla pudding
3-1/2 cups milk
8 oz cool whip

1. Mix pudding and milk.
2. Fold in Cool Whip.
3. Cover bottom of 9x13 pan with graham crackers (in a single layer).
4. Pour 1/2 of pudding mixture over crackers.
5. Top with another layer of graham crackers.
6. Add rest of pudding mixture.
7. Top with another layer of crackers.

Topping:
1/4 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons white karo syrup
3 tablespoons margarine, softened
3 tablespoons milk
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Mix together and spread over cake.
2. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

gotta love shipping companies

Most things we order ship via UPS. I generally ship with UPS if I don't use USPS. But the UPS guy that usually delivers here refuses to ring my doorbell! Don't know why - my car can be sitting right in the driveway, where he has to walk around it to get to the door so he has to know someone's home, right? And I *get* that they have a lot of packages to deliver and want to move on to the next house as quickly as possible, but ring my freaking doorbell & leave the package on the stoop. Not too hard. He can head back to the truck as soon as he rings the bell for all I care. But no, they leave the packages by our SIDE door, where sometimes a package can sit for a few days before I notice it. ARGH! (Our other "UPS guy" rings the doorbell. I like him a lot better!)

And today, we got a delivery via FedEx. They seem to always ring the doorbell. What was funny about today's package is that rain is in the forecast, so he put the box in a plastic bag. He filled out the "we left your package" tag, and you'd think he would have put that on my front door, right? Oh no, he stuck it ON THE BOX, INSIDE the plastic bag! So, the tag telling me where he left my package, was stuck to said package. How crazy is that??? Thanks FedEx guy, for letting me know where you left my stuff! :)

woohoo

I did much better on the weight loss train this week. I lost another 2 lbs, which means I'm down a little from where I was 2 weeks ago. I'm still kicking myself about last week's gain, but at least I'm back on track now. So, over the last 2 weeks I've lost 0.5 lbs...not as much as in normal weeks, but a loss is a loss.

I lost another point this week, which actually I lost and gained back last week. I am really struggling to stay under my points target now, and I'm kinda freaking out about staying under it when I stop nursing Scarlett. I'll lose another 6 points in the process of weaning her. So, anyone who has done WW before, what are your favorite zero or low point snacks? Low point meals? How do you find TIME to boost your activity?