Public Opinion Poll

Josh and I had a huge fight yesterday morning over Captain Crunch Berry Cereal. So I am asking any one who reads this blog to please answer these two Questions. 1)Where does Captain crunch rate on the Junk Food/Health Food scale? and 2) How often is it OK to feed your kids cereal for breakfast?

Thanks for your help!

Hide your Thin Mints and your Tagalongs!

So, my kids have officially taken away everything that I once considered "mine". Let me back up a couple of days...on Sunday, we got our Girl Scout cookies from Grace, and we have been snacking on them all week. This afternoon, Nate asked for some Girl Scout cookies, and I told him to help himself while I finished unloading the car. I have been rationing out the Trefoils 3 or 4 at a time to them when they've asked for cookies, so I figured that's what he would go for. I came back into the kitchen and found both of the little cookie monsters sitting at the table with a nearly empty box of Samoas! They ate all but 2 of my Samoas!

Now, I know that there are not very many in the box (and I won't even mention the box I put in the freezer), but I had always considered the Samoas to be "mine". After all, Jeff hates coconut, so he would never touch them. Oh well, I guess I didn't need the calories anyway. But I might just sneak the frozen stash out when they aren't looking!

Flat Brandon

We got a package in the mail last week with a note and paper cut-out of a boy named Flat Brandon. It was from Brandon for a school project based around the book Flat Stanley. We were supposed to take him around town and mail him back this week. Just in case Flat Brandon doesn't make it back to Ft. Myers by Friday, here are the pictures we took of him in LR:

At the capitol

At the LR Zoo

Rock climbing at Lewis and Clark

Nathan now wants to make a Flat Nathan. So be on the lookout for Flat Nathan in a mailbox near you!

That's got to be a fire hazard!

Can you believe that mom still has my Easy Bake Oven? I knew that she had one, but I didn't realize it was my old one circa 1980s. I realize that light bulb-operated design is rather low-tech, but I was surprised that it still worked. Nathan (in pirate costume) baked us a cake in it Friday night.

Just 20 minutes later, here's the finished product...a 4" chewy, yellow cake. Yum!

Girls Night Out

Nathan spent the night with Fisch and Papa on Thursday, so Ashley and I had a girls night out. She told me that she wanted a piggy bank for her birthday, so I took her to a paint-your-own-pottery place where we painted a piggy and a plate. She had a great time, and she was so good! She's usually very good when she gets some one-on-one time. I think that's what the second child misses out on the most. Afterward, we met up with Jeff at Pei Wei. Ashley loves rice, so she had chicken fried rice for dinner and took her leftovers to school the next day.

Fine lines and wrinkles

Jeff hates it when I blog about him, but I'm going to do it anyway. My husband is well known as a great (if extravagant) gift-giver. Really, he puts his other husband friends to shame on a regular basis. That being said, I thought I would share what I got for Valentine's Day.

First, he sent me flowers at work on Friday (red tulips in a really cute vase). Then on Saturday morning, he gave me a card, candy, some new underwear and makeup. Here's the weird part. My makeup including not only the little Clinique bonus bag, but also the large bonus tote. I'm thinking, "How much make-up did he buy? I only told him one thing I wanted." Well, it was just 2 things - the powder that I was nearly out of and some high dollar wrinkle cream. Okay, so it wasn't called wrinkle cream, but it was.

Don't get me wrong, I was very happy to get it. I've never bought anything like that for myself, even though I have been noticing a few "fine lines" in the last year or so. I just can't believe that the salesperson would convince a husband to buy wrinkle cream for his wife for Valentine's Day. That could be a very touchy subject.

So if you see me in 7 to 14 days, I should be looking much more youthful and radiant. Now I'm wondering what to expect for my birthday. Botox? Liposuction? We'll see!

The Manners Pig #2

I was thrilled to see the manners pigs cousin on the blog and had to show off the Stacy family version. A few years back I found this metal pig at Marva's (the best-and by best I mean cheapest- resale shop in the world) for a quarter! I immediately thought of the manners pig and so I had to have it (after all, it was only a quarter).

When I brought it home and told the kids about it they loved the idea so we put it on the table. The kids thought it was great fun to cause the manners pig to face them and so instead of encouraging good manners it was having the opposite effect. I decided to put the manners pig away and although we would pull it out every once it awhile it never really became a permanent fixture on our table. Fast forward to June 2008.

We were packing to move 1160 miles away and we planed to take only what would fit on a 6x10 foot trailer. We got rid of stuff most people would think of a essentials (the couch, table, washer/dryer). We moved with pretty much NO furniture and my theory when it came to smaller items (kitchen utensils, shower caddies, bath toys) was if we can replace it at Dollar Tree then it does not go on the trailer. I was pretty ruthless but some how I could not seem to part with the manners pig that we never used.

But wouldn't you know that when we unpacked in SW FL one of the kids put the manners pig on the plastic folding table we were using and we have pretty much used him every day. Also since the kids are older now they think it is much more fun to catch whoever is across the table from their sibling using bad manners so that his butt is facing his/her brother or sister! Also whoever the manners pig is facing at the end of the meal has to clear the table. So their manners are actually getting a little better.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I dropped by Nathan's class for the Valentine's Day party this afternoon. I know that I was not created to be a teacher. The sheer volume of 20 kids talking all at once would be enough to put me over the edge if I had to hear it all the time.

Nathan doesn't claim to have any girlfriends, but they all want to talk to him, sit by him, and in this case, have their pictures made with him. He's quite the ladies man!

Random Things On My Table

The first random thing on my table that I took a picture of is this adorable little pig that Jennifer gave me for Christmas. (No, it's not the Manners Pig.) I named him Pigby and have already used him to make my semi-famous spinach artichoke dip a couple of times and this casserole.

While I'm on the subject, I guess I should explain what I mean by "Manners Pig". We had a wooden pig on our table growing up called the Manners Pig. If you used bad manners at the table, the MP would be turned toward you. In theory, whoever ended up with the MP facing them would have to wash the dishes. While I definitely think that my family could use a MP, I don't think a blazing hot piece of stoneware would make a good choice!

Random thing #2 that you might find on my table: Nestle Pure Life bottled water labels...lots of them! They are collecting them at Nate's school, and we have already turned in over 300! We drink some bottle water around here, and Jeff's cousin Cindy has sent us a few dozen, but the real jackpot has been from Jeff's students. He mentioned to them that he was collecting, and they just keep turing them in. (I guess that's one way to suck up to your instructor.)

6 More Weeks of Winter?

The groundhog might have been wrong about the 6 more weeks of winter. The weather has been absolutely perfect here this weekend! I don't know how many degrees it got up to, but I would estimate high 60s, maybe 70. For me, that is the ideal temperature for February. We (along with half the other people in central Arkansas) decided to hike Pinnacle Mountain yesterday. Ashley and I only made it about halfway up, but Jeff took Nathan to the top for the first time. He loved it and is already asking when we can go back.