Moldy Belly Button

Have you ever had a moment that really only lasted a few seconds, but felt like a few minutes? I had that sort of experience today.

So i get Kaylee up from her afternoon nap today and lay her down to change her diaper. I take off her pants, unbutton her onesie, start to take off her diaper when i see what looks like mold in her belly button. For about 2 seconds i was freaking out. In those 2 seconds i managed to think: i gave her a bath last night, I have seen her belly button at least 5 times already today while sitting on the potty, and WHAT ON EARTH COULD THAT BE?

Those 2 seconds felt like they lasted at least two minutes!

So before even looking to see what the green mold could be, i grabbed it with my fingers and quickly realized that it was a green bean. I had given her green beans to eat by herself for lunch and one of them obviously made its way inside and down her shirt and found its home inside her belly button, where it stayed for all of naptime. All I could do was laugh!

Some kids sleep with a lovie, some kids sleep with a blanket. Not my child, she sleeps with a green bean!

She told me (in her own little way) that she was saving that one for later.

Just call me "Martha Stewart"

Our Easter Socks!

Marcus, Kaylee, and I hosted Easter at our house this year. We had my entire family (mom, dad, Joe, Mary, and John), John's girlfriend, Marcus' mom, and Audrey (family friend). So needless to say we had a full house. Oh and we had to send 'to-go' food home for Marcus' sister who miss the event due to work.

dad brought the DELICIOUS ham, NO ONE else can cook a ham that tastes so good! Mom and John brought the Jell-O eggs, and ALL the candy! Oh My Gosh could there BE any more candy?!? Oh yeah mom brought the walnuts too. You might ask, how many times can 1 person burn the walnuts when attempting to toast them? I managed to burn 2 batches before successfully toasting the 3rd, I guess the saying is right, "3rd time is a charm." Thanks mom for bringing 2 EXTRA bags of walnuts, instead of the 1 i requested. Rita brought the bread (me being the GF person I am never thinks of bread). And I made the rest: creamy mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, green beans, strawberry kiwi spinach salad with toasted walnuts and raspberry vinagerette, and chocolate/ white chocolate covered strawberries. we sat down to a lovely meal while enjoying the Tigers game. GO TIGERS GO!

we had such a nice time just visiting and hanging out, I totally forgot to take pictures. So as Kaylee was about to go to bed I remembered that i wanted a picture of our Easter socks, which is the picture above.

Last week, as i shopped for our Easter dinner, I was tempted to buy some fresh flowers for the table decorations. I reluctantly stopped myself and thought of other 'unique' table decorations. That was when i decided i would dip strawberries and make minature edible bouquets for the table. (i did not get any pictures of them) Today I realized that i didn't get any pictures of my "special" creation either. I decided to go alittle Martha Stewart crazy yesterday when preparing for the arrival of our guests. As you know i have started to "go green" so there are no more paper napkins here. (Well we still have some but i try not to use them very often.) I decided we were going to use my newly purchased cloth napkins for Easter. I placed them ever so neatly in the only napkin rings I own, and then had a revelation.... i could fold the napkins into some sort of "Eastery theme." I got on Google and searched for Easter napkin folds and came up with the idea of Bunny Easter napkins. Martha Stewart herself showed me how to transform a plain ole ordinary white napkin into a beautiful Easter bunny. I will have to admit at first I had NO IDEA what was the front of the bunny and what was the tail. I couldnt make mine quite like her, and i needed a little help from some other websites, but i finally managed to fold them correctly. i didnt put the nose or the wiskers on like some of the pictures showed, so you might have to use your imagination a little bit. Here is what I came up with...

and here is what they were supposed to look like....

Yummy Beef and Broccoli

In my endless attempt to find and try new recipes, so that we arent always eating the same thing, I decided to buy some beef stew meat, and then figure out what i was going to make with it. This was the first time i have tried organic meat too. I was really excited about trying a new recipe with my new kind of meat. (I guess simple minds ARE easily amused) I got online at home after buying the meat and searched for possible recipes, I get most of my recipes online, I love the convenience of it. While searching one of my favorite recipe sites, www.epicurious.com i came across a beef and broccoli recipe that caught my eye so i decided to try it. I made a few minor adjustments to it and it turned out FABULOUS!

My Changes:
-I used beef stew meat instead of sirloin tips, I am going to consider using a different type of meat next time
-I used sesame oil and olive oil, instead of vegetable oil. I just love the flavor of sesame oil, and think that it makes Asian dishes much more tasty
-I made WAY more sauce using chicken broth (it was the only kind i had on hand), soy sauce, and corn starch. In my opinion, the more sauce the better, and this recipe did not make much sauce at all
-i used fresh broccoli instead of frozen
-Apparently i didnt even use the water that the recipe called for either, in my rush to prepare the meal i must have skipped that ingredient. I just now saw that when i was going over the recipe again. hahaha, i am such an idiot!
-next time i will be sure to add fresh ginger too, i think that will really taste nice!

I guess i made more changes than i thought, but it was a really quick meal to prepare. i served it over a bed of freshly steamed brown rice. We all munched it up, especially Kaylee, she LOVED it!

I think the best part about it was that it was gluten free without making any adjustments. That is thrilling in itself! Gluten free that tastes good and is easy to make, I'm sold!

try it for yourself sometime and tell me what you think

Fish Lips Picture

Here is a "not so good" picture that I promised you! I will keep trying for a better one

Not so dumb blonde

i just had to tell this little story that happened to me the other day, i hope you like it as much as i did.

i was pumping gas when these 3 biker dudes pulled up and parked behind me. they were waiting for me to finish pumping so they could use the pump. My car was about half way full with gas, when i notice out of the corner of my eye one of the guys hurling himself over one of the bikes. he runs up to me and stops to say "is that a diesel car?" i responded the way i have never been able to respond before, i can never think of what i want to say when i need to say it, then the situation passes and i think of what i wanted to say, but it is too late, so i said to him "NO, why?" (with the straightest face possible) He said "you are putting diesel in your car. " To which i replied "I am??" Then as he is about to grab the pump to stop me i said "no i am just joking. YES! this is a diesel car" and i pointed to the TDI (turbo diesel injection) that was on the back of my car and then I turned and said "what did you think that becuase i am a woman i dont know what kind of gas to put in my car? Or is it because you think i am a dumb blonde?" The man was so shocked! All i could think at that moment was i finally said what i wanted to say at the exact moment i wanted to say it, but then i did not know what to do. I kinda felt bad. i thought "man that guy was just looking out for me." But i was laughing inside. Then i guess to kind of break the ice he said "you must get really good gas milage." And we talked a bit about that then i finished up and showed him the sticker inside my gas door that says "DIESEL FUEL ONLY." And got in my little Jetta and drove away.

This is, i think, the 6th time that a guy has questioned me when i am putting diesel in my little car. and finally i was able to make a little joke about it. anyways, it doesnt sound as funny as it was but that is my little story. it makes me think about what guys think of women when they do certain things, like i bet he would not have questioned marcus putting diesel in the Jetta, because he is a man.

Does anyone know where i can get a bumper sticker that says "I'm not an idiot, this is a diesel car" or one that says "I might be an idiot, but i know what kind of gas to put in my car"

Spring is in the air!!!

I know it is not OFFICIALLY spring yet, but man, I sure am enjoying this weather! How awesome is this, we get snow on Friday and 5 days later it is 70° outside? You cant ask for anything more! I told Marcus the other day that I want to move to a place where it is around 70°-80° year round. That would be my ideal weather. But I guess while I am dreaming of that I will have to settle for the few weeks we get 70°, before we get blown away by the heat this summer!

I thought I would take advantage of this beautiful day and use my brand new clothesline. I bought a clothesline so that I could start hanging some of our clothes out to dry. I got this idea a few weeks ago when I learned how the sun can get stains out of clothes. Last week (before it got cold) I put a shirt outside that a stain on it. I had already put gobs of chemicals on and it, but the stain was still there. After about 45 minutes of being in the sunshine the stain was magically gone. I was shocked! Since then I have been experimenting on all kinds of stains in our clothes, so far the sun has effectively removed them ALL! I am hooked, I decided that hanging our clothes outside would not only save electricity, but we can have stain free clothes with out chemicals. I knew that I did not want a clothesline permanently in the back yard so I found retractable ones that were the perfect solution to my problem.

Disclaimer: I would like to say that where I hung the line is just its temporary location. I am waiting until we get our swing in the back before I can move it to its permanent home; where it is now I could only hang her little bitty clothes on it.

Kaylee and I got to enjoy a little bit of sunshine this morning while hanging up the clothes. She was being my “little helper.” Well I guess you can’t quite call her my little helper yet. I gave her some clothes pins to hold so that she could give them to me when I was ready, but I don’t think she was quite up to the task yet. Hopefully after a few more trys she will be more interested in helping me than playing with Tahoe.

Yes, she is still in her PJ's! I am sorry to say that if we dont have to get dressed most days we don't.

Snow baby!

I guess by now all of you know how Memphis got the most snow we have had in years! I have been wishing for snow now for the past couple of months so that I could see Kaylee play in it. Now I am thinking next time i wish for something I better be prepared! 2 reasons: 1st - As you can see by the pictures Kaylee is wearing a pair of my SOCKS on her hands. She only has cotton mittens, which got soaked when she fell down in the snow, so they were pointless. I could not think of anything better to keep her hands warm. Thankfully she didn't mind. 2nd - She has NO "snow clothes." I should have gotten a picture of all the clothes I put her in to go outside (no wonder she could hardly walk), she had on a pair of cotton tights, thick socks, a pair of pants, jeans, long sleeved onesie, thermal long sleeve shirt, thick sweater, vest jacket, hat, and shoes. I am sure if I had more appropriate clothes she would have actually enjoyed "playing" in the snow. HaHaha but it was so funny to watch her.

Her 1st snow experience included:
Aunt Mary helping her make her very own snow angel
throwing snow balls at Tahoe
watching mommy and daddy have a snow ball fight (mommy won, obviously!)

she is looking forward to her next snow

Fish Lips

I have no idea how or where she learned it, but Kaylee can suck her cheeks in to look like what my mom used to call “Fish Lips.” It is absolutely hilarious! I think that she watches us pucker our lips when we kiss her. She must be tired of the open mouth, sloppy kiss, and decided to try and kiss like we do. I personally don’t care how she kisses; it is just sweet when she leans in to give you one. I especially love it when right before bedtime, when we are rocking in the chair, she reaches up, puts both hands on my cheeks and then plants a BIG ONE right on my lips. As if to say “night-night mommy” just one last time! Oh I just love her so much!

I tried ALL morning to get a picture of her doing it, but was unsuccessful. I will keep trying and post the picture when i get one

GREEN DIMES

There is something else that I saw for the first time on Oprah last spring. It was on the same show that I got the inspiration to “Go Green” in the first place. It is called GREEN DIMES. It is a company that is saving trees one piece of paper at a time. Have you ever thought about how much paper it wasted with all the junk mail you receive? Well here at our house, we get TONS of junk in the mail everyday. I have begun recycling what I can, but if I don’t even look at it what is the point of getting it in the first place.

Like I said I learned about Green Dimes about a year ago, and I have put it off until just yesterday. I finally decided to join. It is really simple you sign up for $20/ year and they will monitor your account every month. They will act on your behalf to remove your name from direct marketing lists. But the best part about it is that they will plant a tree for each catalog you opt-out of receiving. It is just a good and EASY way to save trees.

Facts on paper:

Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.

Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.

The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail.

Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!

The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

The construction costs of a paper mill designed to use waste paper is 50 to 80% less than the cost of a mill using new pulp.

Cleaning GREEN!

Everyone knows how a new little baby can change a parent’s life FOREVER. I know when Kaylee was born all I could think about was being the best mom I could be, and that also meant keeping her as safe as possible. When I learned about all the chemicals in the cleaners that we use around our house, I made the decision to change the way we clean our house and especially the products we buy. I couldn’t stand the thought of her crawling around on a floor that was just so-called "cleaned” with TOXIC chemicals. And the thought of her putting things into her mouth that had chemicals on them made me sick to my stomach. Yes, I have to admit that the reason why this all started was because I saw the show on Oprah about going green. So now every time I want to do something that would make our life a little “greener” Marcus blames Oprah.

It all started by me purchasing Shaklee products. I got their starter kit, and was very skeptical at first; I told myself that if they did not work well or if I did not like them I would not use them. But in the end I was VERY pleased with the performance of our new “safe for the environment and safe for my child” cleaners. I actually think that they clean BETTER than the old cleaners we were using. And I can rest assured that Kaylee is walking around a house that is not only clean, but safe for her.

It has been almost a year, since I purchased my first “green” cleaners. I have been on a mission to do what is best for our family. It is still a struggle to convince Marcus that the chemicals we used to use are VERY harmful to us and Kaylee. But I hope that the day will come soon when I can proudly say that there are NO MORE CHEMICALS in our house.

Lately I was introduced well reintroduced, to a different cleaning method. It is not new by any means, it is probably what my grandmothers used to clean with….plain ol’ VINEGAR and water! Yes, I have been experimenting with it lately, and as Marcus says “It stinks.” But I think once we gets past the smell of it, I am going to like it much more than the other products I have tried. I am still going to use up all the Shaklee products that I have, but then I am going to stick with Mr. Ol’ Fashion Vinegar. Here is a link to some tips when using vinegar; it’s amazing what just 1 cleaner can do. I think it is the most versatile cleaner I have ever used. And the best benefit to using vinegar besides that it is safe for you, safe for the environment, cleans and disinfects just about everything, is that it is cheap! All the other cleaners that I have looked into don’t even compare in price. There are still some things that I will be buying from Shaklee, but vinegar will replace most of them. So try it yourself I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Bahama Breeze

I already know before I write this post that what I am about to say will not be as funny as it was in person. I guess that it is one of those "guess you had to be there moments." But I thought that I would go ahead and write about it anyways.

Marcus, Kaylee, and I were out running errands (and picking up my new sewing machine, I’ll tell you more about that in another post) on Saturday; we had a couple of Bahama Breeze gift cards burning a hole in our pocket, so we decided to eat dinner out. As you can imagine, it was packed! We got our little pager thingy and waited for the next available table; we were told the wait would be about 45 minutes. It was already 45 minutes past Kaylee’s dinner time and the grapes I had packed for her just weren’t cutting it anymore. So we walked outside, where a man was singing and playing the guitar and steel drums. I thought, if nothing else, at least he might entertain Kaylee for a little bit to distract her from her growing hunger pains. Then we saw an opening. Someone had finished their meal and left, I quickly asked a waitress if we could order off the full menu outside (because you used to be limited to appetizers when sitting outside). She said it was first come first serve and you can order whatever you want. So we raced over to the table to sit down. We ordered our meal, the usual Lobster and Shrimp pasta for Marcus (YUCK!) and Wood Breeze Grill Chicken (full portion) and a side of plantains for Kaylee and myself. When the food arrived I frantically cut up pieces for my ravenous, malnourished daughter. I could not cut the food fast enough. And forget trying to take a bite for myself, are you kidding me! As the food on my plate slowly disappeared into Kaylee’s vast abyss, AKA her stomach, I decided to try giving her some of my plantains. She has had a few small reactions to bananas but I decided to try them again. So I cut up 3 pieces and put them on her plate along with everything else that she was eating faster than anyone could ever imagine. Side note: she has become MUCH more aware of what she wants to eat, and very selective about what she eats and when she eats.
She notices the new additions to her plate and decides to try 1 of them. She picks it up, touches it to her lip while she licks it a little bit, makes a funny face (like it was the most disgusting thing she has ever tried), and then calmly places the piece of plantain on the table NEXT TO her plate. Marcus and I noticed this, we were watching her every little picky move. Then she immediately turns back to her plate and goes straight for the 2nd piece of plantain. She does the EXACT same thing. By this point Marcus and I were dying laughing, but trying not to let her know we were laughing because we did not want to draw any attention to what she was doing. Then she notices the 3rd, and last, piece of plantain on her plate. This time the piece actually made it into her mouth, but not for long. She quickly pulled it out and placed it ever so gently next to the other 2 pieces of plantains on the table. After she removed all the pieces of plantains from her plate she went about eating everything else, stopping right on cue to clap for the live entertainment whenever a song was complete. We even tried to sneak the pieces back onto her plate, but somehow they made their way back off the plate and onto the table. Then when almost all of her food was gone, she decided “well I am still hungry, might as well eat those nasty things.” So she just picked them right up and ate all three of them. We couldn’t quite decide if she was just saving them for the end of her meal, or if she ate them out of sheer desperation. Either way, it was so hilarious!
I am scared to say that we are entering the new realm of Kaylee actually having an opinion and actually voicing that opinion. Please help me!

Be Green!!! RECYCLE

Last spring i decided that just because it might not be "convenient" for us to recycle we still needed to figure out a way to recycle as many things as possible.
When we got our new kitchen cabinets all of them came in cardboard boxes, and it pained me to think that all those boxes (and there were A LOT of them) would just go into the trash. I thought if Kaylee were old enough we could make a play house or color on them or something. I had recently watched an Oprah about recycling and thought i would try to find a recycling center near us that we could take the boxes. She mentioned a wesite on her show, so I went to the awesome webite http://www.earth911.org/. On that site i was able to search for the various types of recycling centers in our area. I quickly found that there were not any close to us. But decided that i was still worth it, despite the "inconvenience." I loaded up all of the boxes into the bed of the truck and off we went. It felt so good to think that all those boxes were not just wasted.
In the meantime we started saving our glass bottles, cans, and plastic containers. We would take them to either of our parents house to put in their recycle bins, because they live in a town were all they have to do is put the recycling out on trash day and they come and pick it up, how nice is that? After a few months we realized that we were overflowing their bins. And thought that it would be best if we just saved them until there were enough to make the trip to the recycling center. We keep everything that we want to recycle in one place in the garage and then when it gets to be too much, we make the trip. So now we recycle cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, cans, and we just learned that our recycling center takes tin cans too so we are going to start that too. I think that it will be a wonderful lesson for Kaylee once she is able to understand the benefits of recycling.

Did you know:
Recycling 1 aluminum can saves enough electricity to run a TV for 3 hours!

We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year!

To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down!

Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!

Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.

About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging material.

The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.

More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of aluminum foil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.

Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute!

A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

For more recycling facts visit http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html

My point is, no matter how much you are able to recycle, EVERY little bit helps. Also, you can begin thinking about the products you buy and how much packaging comes with them. Start looking for products with less packaging or packaging that can be recycled. Think of ways to reuse products before recycling them, sorta like recycling in your own house.

Besides the good feeling you get from knowing that you are doing something to help our earth, we also noticed a DRAMATIC decrease in our trash each week. We were filling up all three of our garbage cans and then some. Now if we forget to take the trash out one week we still only use one can.

So my challenge to all of you is find a way to start recycling! It is the easiest thing you can do to BE GREEN, it doesn't cost you ANYTHING!

And the WINNERS is . . .

Your voice was heard! The public has spoken!

Marcus WINS!!!

So I guess you all just confirmed what i already knew, but now i have to accept, Kaylee looks more like Marcus than myself. I know i said "no hard feelings" but i am still sad at the fact that my little girl looks more like her father. Thank you all for voting and visiting our site. Please remember to leave me comments so that i know you are out there. And stay tuned as i am going to be posting more about our new quest.....GOING GREEN!!!