Tag Archives: family

List of lists 

Posted in Family Fun, Travel by

Michael, Andrew, and I will be embarking on a trip from our home in Illinois to Flagstaff, Arizona Labor Day weekend. Of course, this means I have been in planning mode for the last few weeks.

I have started my lists. Also, means I found a good use for the fluorescent graph paper I picked up while buying school supplies for Andrew. (Told you I would need this paper for something, Zakary!)

Lists that are currently in play:

  • Master list
  • Travel timeline
  • Travel binder – me/Michael
  •  Road trip binder – Andrew
  • Packing lists
    • main luggage – will be shared
    • car bag – Andrew
    • pit stop bag
  • Snacks
  • Shopping list
  • What to see on the road
  • blog/social media posts

One of the questions I often get asked about my lists: “does this help?”

Answer: “It helps me.”

I can’t vouch for everyone. I know that the thought of putting this much time and effort into all of this would drive some people crazy.

Lists help me attempt to control the chaos. Yes, I said it. I can be a little bit of a control freak.

But lists also help me when I am not surprised when something goes wrong. For example, I know that I need to pack a “puke bucket” in the car, because 3.78% of the time we have taken a road trip, Andrew has gotten sick. Not even close to every time, BUT if I don’t pack it, he’ll need it. (also the container of Dramamine with all the pills split in half is already in a pouch for a car bag.)

 

Wizard World Chicago – Follow Up

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I’ve been asked by a few people for a follow up post re: Wizard World. We had a good time. We could have had a fantastic time, but I didn’t take into account that my little Batman would be so terrified of some of “his” villains in costume.

He's Batman

Brotherly Love

Walking in the doors, we had the first challenge. Harley Quinn. Her cosplay was amazing. She walked right up to us and sweet as can be asked if she could have a picture with our little Batman. Andrew immediately hid behind my giant tutu. I told him it was ok. She was nice, all he needed to do was stand next to her. I moved so he couldn’t hide behind me. Andrew immediately dropped to the floor on the fetal position. The Harley Quinn cosplayer started apologizing. I told her not to worry about it. It’s his first con. Some people started to walk by and I said, “wow bet you didn’t know it was this easy to beat Batman!” I scooped Andrew off the floor, and we went in.

The next cosplayer we encountered was a brilliant Joker. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was Heath Ledger. His mannerisms were spot on. His voice was straight from the big screen. He approached us, leaned down to Andrew, and said “wanna play?” Andrew again retreated behind my skirt, and the Joker completely broke character, apologizing profusely. I told him not to worry about it, “it’s his first con.”

At this point, I realized that a Batman costume for his first con was not the wisest choice.

Oops

 

After the Joker incident, I thought we should walk through the autograph signing area.  I thought this would be a little safer due to the huge NO PHOTOS IN THIS AREA signs.  Nope! A group walked past: Poison Ivy, Bane, Joker, the Riddler, and Two Face. They saw Andrew and started to walk over.  Evidently my protective Mama Bear face was clear enough that their path deviated away from my little Batman.

Now that is poofy

Obviously this Mama Bear is FRIGHTENING

Walking through the con and ended up having a good time. Below are the shirts from the Blue Box Tees

Mauh!

My Wizard Con Shirt

 

No barrels?

Zakary’s Con Shirt

 

BFFs forever

Andrew LOVES this shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wizard Con Chicago – Cosplay Prep

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Last year, Zakary and I went to Wizard World Chicago dressed as Muggles to blend in with the “normal” people. Very quickly we decided it would be much better in costumes.

Zakary’s costume is the same costume as every year: Harry Potter. He has been told he looks like the young wizard since he started wearing glasses in the third grade and now even more so with his unmanageable mop of hair. His costume involves a Quidditch shirt I bought him for his birthday, the wand he bought in Orlando over Spring Break, and a lightning bolt drawn on his forehead with a Sharpie. Last minute additions to the costume: Andrew’s Pygmypuff called Norbert, a tiny owl clipped on his Attack on Titan backpack, Andrew’s Gryffindor house tie lanyard from Orlando, and the sword of Gryffindor!

Andrew was much easier than I thought he would be. He wanted to be Batman, but who doesn’t was to be Batman? I was able find a pair of pajamas at Meijer that looks like Batman’s suit, so that part of done. He also already had a Batman cape. Unfortunately, it’s a reversible cape with Spider-Man on the other side (don’t get mad at me I didn’t make the cape. I know Spidey doesn’t wear a cape.) I was going to fashion a mask for him (thanks Pinterest!), but while shopping for a part of my costume, we came across the perfect mask/cape combo! Last night he convinced me that he needed Batman sunglasses, even though “Batman’s a night person so he doesn’t need sunglasses.” The good thing about Andrew’s costume is that it is all very thin material. It’s already going to be hot, and having him complain about being hot would make it even more miserable!

My costume started out as something complicated. The Queen of my Fandom. I figured very few people will like every single thing I like, so I appointed myself Queen. I wanted to get a crown or tiara (which is something I have been trying to find an excuse to procure for a while now), make a shirt with symbols or notable sayings from all my Fandoms, and a tutu. Ok…I know some of you might be thinking “a tutu? Seriously? You’re 34 years old!” To which I say, “get over it…I’m a queen.”

I think there will a be tutu tutorial on here soon, but I highly doubtful that it will have a YouTube component, because saying tutu tutorial is something I am having trouble saying without slurring the words and sounding drunk.

I had a vision for what I wanted the tutu to look like, and I failed in such an extraordinary way! But I love how it turned out after regrouping and making it my own. I think that was the best part about my costume: making it mine. It’s that super girly princessy side that I don’t embrace as often as I should. I had two brothers growing up and have four boys in the house on a regular basis plus Michael.

I opted to not make a shirt with my Fandoms because, well in complete honesty, I ran out of time. It’s like that saying, which I am paraphrasing, I might not have ended up where I wanted, but whatevs.

I’ll post pictures soon of our adventure.

Wizard Con Chicago – Getting Ready

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This will be the second year that Zakary and I have gone to Wizard World Con in Chicago, but Andrew’s first time at a con. As a very anxious 4.5 year old, he keeps asking when are we going to Chicago to see the Doctor (Matt Smith), and the Daleks, and the princesses, and … it’s been incessant! So…that means he gets a countdown chart!

Countdown to Wizard Con Chicago!

Countdown to Wizard Con Chicago!

 

Instead of stickers to mark off the days, Zakary and I drew some of the things Andrew is most excited about seeing on some small 2 in. x 2 in. white Post-it notes.

Nerds

Top Row: Doctor’s Fez and Deathly Hallows Symbol Middle Row: Bat Symbol and T.A.R.D.I.S.
Bottom Row: Cap’s Shield and Hulk Smash!

The countdown chart goes on his bedroom door.  Each night at bedtime, he gets to pick a Post-it and mark off the day. Then he counts how many “sleeps” until AWESOMENESS!

Countdown chart goes on the bedroom door

Countdown chart goes on the bedroom door

Four More!

Four sleeps to go!

 

 

 

 

 

Veteran’s Day

Posted in Family Tree, Food, Uncategorized by

I used to look cute in hats!

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US.

I come from a long line of military service members.  (Not unlike Lieutenant  Dan from Forrest Gump.) I’m not sure where that comment came from, but that’s the kind of day I have had.

Brief family tree lesson:

I was born in a Navy hospital in Virginia.  I participated in NJROTC in high school.

Both of my grandfathers served in WWII.

Both my mother’s brother and sister served in the Army.  My Uncle Dusty once told me that there was a secret door into Ft. Knox. I have a sneaky suspicion that he might have been joking around, but to this day I have never told another living soul the location of that hidden entrance.  My Aunt Sandy served in Alaska.  She unknowingly opened up my eyes to the amazing untouched vastness of the tundra, and a spirit of adventure that I never knew existed.

My bonus Papa is a retire Marine.

I can trace my paternal linage soldiers in the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Further into the past, I can trace my branches to warriors in England and the Crusades, Vikings and Romans.

Chipped Beef Gravy

So in honor of all of the brave men and women who have served this country, I decided that we would have the mess hall favorite S.O.S for dinner. (S.O.S. stands for S#!T on a Shingle)

Some people call S.O.S. chipped beef gravy.

It’s a quick and easy comfort food, that doesn’t photograph well…

Ingredients:

  • one two ounce package of shaved beef
  • 1/4 cup of butter
  • 1/4 cup of flour
  • 2 teaspoons Onion Onion Seasoning
  • 1/8 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper
  • 2 cups milk

Directions:

  1. Remove beef from package and rinse.  (Rinsing will remove some of the salt used in the processing.  This is a fantastic job for a rambunctious almost 4 year old, if you happen to have one hanging around.)
  2. Cut beef in ribbons and set aside.
  3. Melt butter in pan over medium heat.
  4. Add Onion Onion Seasoning.
  5. Whisk in flour and freshly ground pepper.
  6. Slowly add the milk, mixing constantly.
  7. Gravy will thicken as you stir. Add beef ribbons and let simmer about five minutes.
  8. Serve over toast, biscuits or rolls.

Happy Mushroom Day!

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Tonight I had every intention of posting a step-by-step on how I make stroganoff. But of course, I started cooking before I took photos. And then I had a my youngest telling me, in a very loud voice because obviously I hadn’t heard him the 400 times he had told me, that he wanted cereals for dinner. And no that isn’t a typo, cereals is plural because he wants a whole bowl. Try arguing with that logic…

So I resigned myself to posting a recipe without the tutorial, but with the finished dinner plate instead.

And then we ate…without the photo of the stroganoff, noodles and bright tricolor medley of corn, carrots, and green beans. And of course I didn’t think about it until after I had “lunched up*” the leftovers.

* lunched up is a verb meaning to place leftovers from dinner in containers for lunch.

Feeling a bit morose, I decided to slice up the cake I had baked, only to realize that I had forgotten to take photos of the cake too!

After thinking that I have the be the worst blogger ever, I told the guys that I will have to make everything another time so that everything can be photographed.

Everyone smiled as they ate their cake. How could I torture them with all this delicious food again!!

Tonight’s blog post might not have turned out the way I had planned, but so it goes. My family is fed. All is well.

Can’t Hit It Out Of The Park Every Time

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Oh Pinterest…I love how you jump start my mind, get those creative juices flowing and leave me with 15 open tabs in my browser that completely overwhelm me.  Ok that last part isn’t something I love about Pinterest, but it never fails that when I am on the computer looking for something on Pinterest, I get sucked into this downward spiral of food and crafts and weddings… OH MY!

I have tried quite of few things that I have discovered on Pinterest.  I usually get drawn into a pin by a stunning photograph of something yummy, then think that I have to make this amazing thing for my family.  Most of the time, things have gone swimmingly and there have been no complaints.  Last night, however…

It all started with this pin:

You know you wanna lick the screen....

See what I mean about yummy photography!

Clicking on the photo in the pin, I get to the website ohbiteit.com.

I read through the ingredients…awesome I have all that stuff!

I read through the instructions…seems simple enough!

So off I go on another culinary adventure!  Popping open the can of biscuits they looked, well, …weird.  They seemed a bit puffier than usual, but I REALLY wanted to make these dumplings!

In a big pot, the syrup was boiling.  In I dropped the quarter biscuits.  I started to get very excited as they started to puff up.  I let them cook according to the directions, pushing them into the syrup then covering.  I mixed together the sugar and spices…ohhhh this is going to be good!

I took the dumplings out and sprinkled them with the sugar mixture, then put them in dishes to serve, finished them off with a spoon of delicious smelling thick syrup….

Yummy goodness

Looks so good!

I put the bowls on the table with a couple of pieces of sausage.  I waited with baited breath for the chorus of “mmmmmms” and “yuuuuumm”…but that didn’t happen.  I felt crushed.  I messed up something that was supposed to be AMAZING!

In all fairness to the quiet chorus, it wasn’t that great.  I used weird buttermilk biscuits instead of flaky layer biscuits.

The syrup was amazing though.  Thick and so maple-y…..mmmmmmm

I might not have hit that recipe out of the park this time, but that isn’t going to keep me from tweeking and trying again!

Oh…and Pinterest….I might have failed this time, but I’ll be back!

A Sweet Mistake

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Life can be filled with sweet mistakes.

In my family we tend to wear a lot of hats, figuratively, wearing a hat literally just looks odd on me. My oldest is a student, an artist, a big brother, and occasional babysitter. The youngest…well he’s testing out the Terrible Two’s…so he is less than helpful sometimes! (but adorable in hats!) My Sweetums is my partner. We are a fantastic team. We might not be as well oiled as possible, but we are patient with each other (most of the time), very understanding of each others schedule and willing to pick up each others slack, because we know that the other would reciprocate.

Last year, I had a job where I worked a lot of night shifts. I would try to have dinner at least started for my guys with instructions on how to best finish it up. One night I had put a pot roast in the slow cooker with instructions on how to make a gravy using the “drippings” in the cooker. I said to add some flour and milk. Well evidently not everyone in the house knows that the flour is in the biggest plastic container and the powdered sugar is in the smallest.

The oldest loved the sweet gravy. He has asked for it numerous times since.

My Girly Moment

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I could never be accused of being a girly girl.  I am not a frilly, hearts and glitter kind of girl.  I hate shopping.  I don’t like pink, and I think unicorns are early genomic experiments (or creatures brought here by the aliens….)  But I digress…

I grew up with two little brothers, and I have two sons.  I have been surrounded by boys close to all of my life.  But saying all of that I do have moments of girly-ness…I love butterflies.  For one, they are pretty. 🙂 And secondly, from a scientific standpoint, metamorphosis is fascinating.  And from the life lessons file, how wonderful it is to know that even if you start out as a weird caterpillar, some day you can be a fantastically beautiful butterfly!

So of course, as I walked down the pasta aisle at the grocery store, my eyes were drawn to the farfalle pasta.  You know the ones…the bow-tie pasta…but then I saw the farfalline…baby butterflies!  (ok as I just pointed out “baby” butterflies are catapillers, which look more like ziti, but I don’t have to be that critical ALL the time!)

I grabbed the box of pasta excitedly.  The wheels in the creative side of my brain started turning!  I had to find the perfect way to use these tiny butterfly noodles!

The days are much shorter now.  Fall is definitely arriving.  The days are tending to be more gray and wet.  As much as I want to hold on to summer, I am looking forward to autumn.  BUT butterflies are a spring/summer kinda thing…some how I need to find a way to make an autumn-y dish more summer-y.

This is how I created Butterfly Garden Soup

Butterfly Garden Soup

No butterflies were harmed in the making of this soup!

This soup is far from complicated.  Some of the best meals are ones that are just thrown together.  I browned a pound of ground beef with a bit of Onion Onion and Garlic Garlic. While that was cooking away, I filled a pot with a bag of frozen vegetables.  My favorite would have to be vegetables for soup:  stewed tomatoes, corn, potatoes, green beans, onions, carrots, celery and okra. Cover the vegetables with water and put on medium heat.  I drained the grease from the ground beef, and slid it into the pot with the vegetables.  I used three beef bouillon cubes and two cans of condensed tomato soup.  Season with salt and pepper after the bouillon has dissolved.  If you season before, you could end up with too much salt.  Lastly I added two handfuls of little butterflies.  Honestly I did toss the butterflies in…so that they could fly into the soup…hey I never said I wasn’t easily amused!

Like most soups or stews, the next-day left-overs are much better than day of soups…not that I would know with this soup, I didn’t get any left-overs! 🙂

Experimenting with Breakfast

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My oldest son is not a breakfast person.  Don’t get me wrong he LOVES breakfast foods, just not in the morning.  He would rather sleep later into the day than get up early for breakfast.  Unless there is bacon involved…

One of his favorite breakfasts would have to be cinnamon rolls.  Usually I do the quick and easy thing and buy the refrigerated tube, pop it open and bake.  The other night I decided I wanted to make some kind of muffin with Tastefully Simple‘s Bountiful Beer Bread.  After a quick search, I decided to just “wing it” and try to create something cinnamon roll-ish.  Another appeal of the cinnamon roll would have to being able to say the word cinnamon, which happens to be a word that will almost instantly put a smile on my toddler’s face, and usually warrants a giggle also!  PLUS tigers hate cinnamon, so it will keep the tigers away.

One of the things I absolutely LOVE is the versatility of the Bountiful Beer Bread.  I have yet to actually prepare the bread according to the recipe on the box.

There is something that is fundamentally appealing to me about baking.  The science of the reactions needed to get the perfect rise.  The caramelization of the sugars to get that exceptional crunch.  I love the fact that I can add something fizzy to the mix and get the bread to rise.  I adore the fact that I can change up the fizzy ingredient, and get a fantastic new flavor!  The possibilities of this single product…virtually endless.  This is where experimentation in the kitchen fascinates me.  (AND this is where my family loves me to be… They will be my guinea pigs anytime I try a new recipe!)

Not a bad way to start the morning!

I decided to use cream soda as my fizzy ingredient for the cinnamon roll muffins.  Cream soda gives a sweet, but not overpowering, base for the bread.

I poured my Bountiful Beer Bread mix into a mixing bowl, then added a tablespoon of cinnamon and two tablespoons of firmly packed brown sugar.  I stirred those ingredients together while three tablespoons of butter melted in the microwave.

I added a cup and a half of cream soda to the dry ingredients, and mixed only enough to get the dry stuff wet.  Don’t over mix!

I then poured the batter into the wells of my greased muffin tin.  I poured the melted butter over the muffins, then sprinkled each with a bit of cinnamon/brown sugar mixture.  I baked them for about 15-20 minutes.

I used a suggestion I found online for the icing.  I melted a bit of vanilla frosting (from a can) and poured it over the warm muffins.

What I would do differently next time:

  • LOVED the brown sugar flavor, will add more sugar next time.
  • I didn’t like the melted vanilla frosting.  Next time, I will just use powdered sugar and milk.
  • I liked the muffin idea, BUT next time I want to make a loaf of cinnamon roll bread.  I will then slice the bread and drizzle with the icing.
  • One of the comments from the morning’s experiment was that the muffins weren’t fluffy.  That I didn’t have control over.  The Bountiful Beer Bread will make a more dense muffin, but I liked it!