Well, I puttered out on Problogger, day 25 was when I maxed out. Burned out. Ppptttt…tired. And both kiddos are home now so it seems even harder to get on the computer to try to be professional. We’ll see what I can get done over the next few weeks before they go back to school

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Welcome!

Here’s what I’ve been writing about lately:

The Veggie Hut: Where I explore our weekly vegetable share and am on the mission to use and eat my veggies before they rot.

Diapering My Kid: I’ve recently tried a new brand of diapers out to try to save a few bucks. It’s been an interesting experiment so far.

Problogger Challenge: I’ve been doing the Problogger Challenge for 26 days!!! It’s has been quite the growing experience to develop a pitch, write a list, write an opinion, and find lots of cool blogs along the way.

It’s been a busy summer.

Happy Friday!

I decided recently to give Target diapers a trial for the tot. I’ve been a Pampers buyer since the first kiddo. I wanted to give Target diapers a chance because they are considerably cheaper.

This past week with Target diapers I have noticed that are slightly bulkier and occasionally leak at night. Pampers leaked every now and then too, so I don’t hold this against the diapers.

One other thing that was strange this week is that Baby E keeps saying “poo-poo.” We check, nothing’s shaking in the diaper. And he continues to have this similar conversation a few minutes later.

Five days later, I put it all together when he woke up one morning with a full diaper, started walking, and said “poo-poo.” The thicker Target diaper is confusing the guy, making him believe he has done the number 2 tango. Ahhhh! Slow mommy.

Instead of trying to figure out how many diaper brands there are and going through more trial and error than I would like, I thought I’d ask others about their diaper preferences for kiddos (plus Day 25 of the Problogger Challenge is to ask a question. I’m doing my homework too. : ) ) Plus the best advice I usually get is from other parents.

What are your favorite diapers for your kids?

p.s. No one is paying me to do this. I am just a consumer interested in seeking quality products while saving money.

I want them to see:

• Good veggies
• Colorful veggies
• New, different, exotic veggies
• Fresh veggies
• Cooked veggies
• Raw Veggies
• Tasty Veggies

In order to eat more veggies, we joined an organic veggie co-op. Each week a new “share” of veggies is offered. We have a general idea what might be there, but it is something like opening the baskets on Chopped, some times I’m not sure what we’ll be getting. The co-op offers different share sizes from small to large. We are currently a small share family.

I get these fresh, organic veggies weekly and lately, I’ve been stumped on what to do with them. I now have four purple onions that I’m not sure how to use. So, to increase my veggie accountability in using these veggies and to create a personal collection of veggie recipes I can easily refer to, I will be exploring what I do with my weekly share.

I’m tired of the sad, forgotten organic lettuce in the fridge, wilted, slimey, and useless. I need to start using these veggies in the NOW! It’s what I want for our family.

This week’s share:

• Head of lettuce
• Spinach bunch
• 1 potato
• 1 tomato
• 1 purple onion (gah! another onion!)
• 2 avacados
• 1 bag of baby carrots
• 1 orange

Time to go figure out what to do with the veggies this week. I’ll keep you posted on the developments at our Veggie Hut.

But could I get a little help please?

What the heck do I do with all these onions?!?

Does anyone have an purple onion recipes they’d like to send my way?

p.s. I don’t like raw onions.

Check out Becky Higgins site if you would like to learn more about Project Life.

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Image by Bob Fornal.

Day 22 of the Problogger Challenge is to highlight my readers. Yes, I have readers! Thanks to SITS and the Problogger Challenge I am learning so much about this virtual community business.

In my first edition of reader lovin’, I’d like to look at some comments I received in response to my bashing cooking shows post (only mildly, I’m still too nervous about writing opinion posts).

Multiple Mama

The Multiple Mama made a good suggestion when she stated:
“Oh I know how you feel. I have to plan days in advance to have anything in the house. But my husband has  caught on and calls almost every night before he leaves work to see if I need anything. And at least once a week I say yes you need to handle dinner tonight!

But one trick I have done lately is feed the kids their dinner while I’m cooking the grown up food. And then they get popsicles or ice cream while we eat. Even frozen blue berries work with my two year olds.”

I am considering trying the fix their dinner first approach. It would ease some of the chaos. When they are eating, it gets pretty quite around here. I can accept that we will eventually eat as a family some day. That is the goal, right now, it’s just hard to do. I need to choose my battles.

Go check out Multiple Mama’s site, a recent post tackles the term “domestically challenged.” It was a very interesting read and made me consider how easy it is to attach labels to ourselves, even one’s that don’t fit.

Serene at the The Mom Food Project stated:
“I sometimes feel like this, but I know myself: I wouldn’t watch a show that showed someone cooking in a messy kitchen like mine, with the teenager whining in the background. I get enough of that at home”

Haha! Great point Serene! Why would I want to relive the train wreck I experience almost everyday at dinner time? Still, I do love train wrecks and hot messes. I’d probably watch.

Serene has a wonderful food blog and one of her current post is a Bayless inspired enchilada recipe. Hot dog do those look delicious! I was lucky enough to eat at The Frontera Grill in Chicago. It was so good!

My Saggy Butt

Kathryn at My Saggy Butt wrote:
“Oh and don’t forget the dog under foot and the husband suffering from another bout of refrigerator blindness! I love cooking shows too but I don’t have anyone to put the perfectly measured salt and baking powder in little clear glass bowls for me. And you’ll go broke buying pre-chopped veggies. I think you would be a great host for a ‘Reality Cooking Show’…”

Thanks for your vote of confidence in my abilities Kathryn, but I think that would be a BAD idea! Then again, if they prepped everything, then my kids could just show up and destroy it. Maybe you are on to something.

Check out My Saggy Butt, well not mine, but hers. I enjoyed reading her post on Letters To Juliet.

Thanks to all who have left comments! I love reading your thoughts and reactions!

I wanted to participate in The Red Dress Club’s writing topic Friday post, but I was overwhelmed by my opinion post for the Problogger Challenge and didn’t participate. I finally felt calm enough to think about the topic as I started to think about the dynamics between our two sons. This week’s topic was to write about family dynamics. Sibling dynamics are fascinating to me.

Brothers

Now he worships the ground you walk on.
He likes to copy you, scream with, seeks to cuddle in your rough edges.
He wants so much for you to show him kindness, love, and fun.

You don’t always treat him nice.
You can be mean far too often and I wish you could see the friend you could be if you’d stop with the tackling, the pushing, the roughness, the distancing.

Someday he will see.
Someday he will understand.
Someday he might not take it all so lightly.

We will continue to teach, to model, to encourage love.
In the hopes that you will see your brother is here to stay and
Will become a person who we hope chooses to be not only your brother but
Your friend.

Because it should be more than a blood.
More than genetics.
It should be something, somebody – you work with and keep.
For life.

I love cooking shows. What I don’t love is that they don’t reflect reality very well. Giada De Laurentiis’s perfect house, with her child who sits patiently in a high chair. That’s not my house.

No, in the future I think someone should do a cooking show while they are trying to tend to their two children.  Let’s make it as real as possible. I want to see the child flinging refrigerator doors open yelling for popsicles while your hands are covered in chicken guts, Ms. Ray. I want to see teeny hands inching their way on to your cutting board while your sharp knife looms dangerously close because you’re trying to read the recipe.

Don’t get me started on how those 30 minute meals are so conventiently prepped for you, while I can’t find a damn thing my amongst my rotting vegetables. In order to do your thirty minute meals, sometimes I need to start around noon with the hopes that everything will be ready by 6.

Breathe. Deep Breathes.

I do love cooking shows. But please can I see one cooking show that reflects the challenges I encounter regularly when trying to get a meal on the table? I’m not you Ms. Ray.

Well, that’s obvious.

I’m not angry with you Ms. Ray and Ms. De Laurentiis. But maybe, just maybe, once we could see  some cooking with children in tow, screaming, crying, messing with your oven knobs, spilling crap all over the floor.

I’m trying my best to cook meals at home. But I need to know that the chaos that goes on in my home at dinnertime isn’t mind to fend alone. I need support. I need to know there is light at the end of this what-I-thought-was-an-easy-recipe.

Oh well, I’ll still keep buying your celebrity chef stuff. I’m just saying.

What’s your dinnertime like? Any techniques to make it run smoothly and keep the kids O.C.C.U.P.I.E.D?

I’m participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop because its about darn tootin’ time I did. And I want to work on my writing. So I’ll be answering the prompt:

2.) If you were put in “time out”, where would you want to be placed and why?

I don’t want what he’s having for time out.

I’m envisioning this is my ideal time out. And that Kyle would be willing to foot the bill to fly me where I needed to go, because I’m being “punished.”

Put me in time out in Jamaica. On the beach. With my time out Vitamin R (ahem – rum).

Because in Jamaica there is a calm and quite that I have a hard time finding in the city. It made me giddy when we first arrived, I was on edge because it was eerily quite. I was skittish at the slightest sound, and everyone was so darn friendly.

I need that kind of timeout. One where I can think, where the ocean sets a steady beat, where the weather is perfect, and the entire environment allows me to understand why I need a break.

Please someone, put me in timeout.

Another full week to be thankful for! If you’d like to link up you Project Life pictures check out The Mom Creative.

Monday
Sid the Science Kid has been very influential in our lives recently. Because Sid mushed banana, Noah just had to mush bananas. So we made chocolate chip banana muffins (we adapted a recipe from The Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen). Thanks Sid for the inspiration, I will not, however, venture into your more nauseating topics such as decay.

Tuesday
Eli and I had a Chic-Fil-A playdate. I learned that you can turn in the kids meal prize and get an ice cream cone instead. Who knew? I will probably be using that trick in the future.

Wednesday
Vegetable co-op day! We get a share of organic fruits and veggies once a week. It is fun to see what surprises await us in the weekly share. Eli calls all the fruits “apples” and usually end up with some sort of fruit, and then wants to go back and get more and more. He’s cut off after one “apple”.

Thursday
Fish Gallery Story Time! I think we are done with this though, we went five times and the boys received their prizes. They each got a bucket of chalk which they promptly began throwing around once we got home. Sigh. Maybe we’ll go back, they do have free snacks.

Friday
Astros Game! Kyle was able to procure some tickets from work. It was a nice birthday treat Kyle got for himself. The game was really good, lots of home runs. Perhaps the silliest thing were the life size Taco Bell sauce packets racing. Little bit strange, I think medium might have one. Another Chic-Fil-A realization: The foul lines are marked “Eat Mor Fowl.” If they players hit the sign when making a home run, the whole audience gets a free Chic Fil A sandwich with their tickets. I have yet to see if this will work.

Saturday
Grocery shopping for party, tennis class for Noah, more grocery shopping for party, bookclub, baby wearing big brother’s galoshes, big brother makes a snack with raw veggies, leftovers for dinner, night night: yup, that’s pretty much how Saturday went.

Sunday
Pool party day for daddy-o. It was party prep all morning, the party guests, yummy sandwiches (need to add that to the recipe collection), swimming, more guests, cake, hanging out with friends. A definite party success! Sure, there are things we can improve on, and we’ll make sure to that stuff next time.