Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

This week has been extremely busy.  The rain today made me pause on the scheduled activities and adjust my plan.  All of my activities planned for these last two days of the week were to be outdoors.  Now, they are all tomorrow.  So, I caught up on tax odds and ends and I went to the store. On my way home, I decided to check out our newest Ollie's store.  I picked up the Taste of Home One Pot Recipes book to look at because I LOVE one pot recipes.  The second page that I turned to had this: I knew that it was selected for the magazine about 8-10 years ago. I entered my recipe on a whim because it was on my for fun bucket list.  But I didn't know it was in a book like this.  Jesse thought that I should autograph all of the books there. Ha!😂 Maybe I'll go back and buy a few copies, autograph them, and give them as Christmas gifts.  I definitely chuckled at the possibilities.  You should try it at the end of the summer.  It is delicio...

Isn't this funny? The bear sees a broom at Dad's camp. He rips it off of the wall. And then he steals it!

In January, we consumed 12 1/2 gallons of milk.  Imagine if the kids consumed more!  That equals about 14% of our grocery budget.  I can't imagine if I would include cheese and yogurt in this statistic.  I would bet we spend more on milk every month than we do on meat. We have now been married just over 9 years -- 4 1/2 years with kids and 4 1/2 years without kids. Jesse has lived in 7 states (Washington twice, Idaho twice, Virginia, Missouri, Colorado twice, Pennsylvania, Illinois).  Lindsay has only lived in 3 states (temporarily in Colorado) and two countries (a semester in England). Lindsay has lived in 5 HOUSES, not counting all of the temporary college living locations.  Jesse moved 17 times before graduating from high school. The longest Jesse has ever lived in one house was 4 3/4 years-- which was our house in Port Orchard.  Give him less than two more years in this house and he will surpass that time span. Lindsay detests Peanut Butt...

I went the Giant grocery store today with Natalee and Brady. I chose this store because Natalee could drive the little car that is attached to the front of the grocery cart and Brady's car seat could sit on the front of the cart. This is the only grocery store around that has a cart capable of safely containing both children in the same cart (and still have room for groceries). Things were going very well, even though I had to stop a few times to tell Natalee to keep her hands in the car. I had nearly all of my groceries. Then, Brady started to cry. No, I mean SCREAM. He was mad. I tried to entertain him to the best of my ability. I think everyone in the store felt bad for me. I got those looks of pity. I also got those looks that said, "She's crazy for bringing two young kids here by herself!" I grabbed the last few items and headed for the check out as quickly as I could. I decided to have a person check me out instead of using the self checkout line so ...

Lately, Natalee's favorite saying is, "That should be fun" or "That is fun". This is how our conversation went this morning. Me: "Natalee do you need to use the potty?" Natalee: "No, Mom, I went in my diaper." Me: "You know, we are going to start using big girl panties. When you have big girl panties on, you have to use the big girl potty." Natalee: "That should be fun!" Me: (grumble, grumble, grumble -- you should be going there already) RIGHT....

Tonight, Natalee had another humorous moment (we get a lot of these moments lately). I love how it makes me laugh! Natalee: "Diaper fall off" FYI-- her diaper tab broke off of the diaper again So, we went back to the "big girl bed" to change it. She ripped the broken tab off and put in on DOG (her stuffed animal companion). Natalee: "Band-Aid. Dog have boo-boo like Mom." Natalee (while laughing to herself): "Looks pretty funny!" I thought it was really funny that she came to the deduction that DOG having a diaper tab Band-Aid looked funny!

I am constantly amazed as I experience the language development of a child. It is fascinating! This evening, this is how the conversation went: Natalee: "fnfffffff" Natalee: "fnfffffff" Us: "What?" Natalee: "fnfffffff" Me: "I'm sorry Natalee, we don't understand. You will have to show Dad." Natalee runs back to her room. Natalee: "fnffffff, fnffffff, fnfffff!" Jesse: Fan off! Oh! Natalee: "There you go Dad!" Another funny moment As a preface, Natalee is constantly pointing out peoples moles (especially mine). Two Fridays ago, Jesse and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 6 1/2 anniversary. Mom and Dad came up to eat dinner with Natalee and Brady. For dessert, Natalee ate a chocolate chip cookie. She put her finger in the chocolate and dabbed it onto her face. Then, she announced, "mole!"

This morning Mom and I took Natalee over to Greenwood Furnace. We were supposed to go with cousin Lily, but unfortunately, she couldn't make it after all. While we were there, we saw an odd, funny scene. Not only were these Amish kids having their pictures taken (it's against their religious beliefs) but, they were posing for the pictures. And, the mother was helping them pose. The photographer definitely had a New York/New Jersey accent. Were they being paid handsomely by the photographer or something??? The kids did not look to be having much fun, and the photographer lady was quite bossy with all of the rest of us. She took over this area of the beach (the best spot for little kids) and did not let anyone else around. Another odd thing was that the photographer put fairy/butterfly wings (like a costume accessory) on some of the little girls. It just didn't feel right to even see this going on. Weird.... Anyway. Natalee had fun regardless! It is always very di...

I don't know who this kid was, but he did have a minor issue here!

Natalee and Brady received some gifts this morning from my aunts. Natalee decided to stylishly sport quite a few of the gifts. The yellow barrette (of course, the yellow one!), Brady's new hat, big girl panties--again yellow (over top pants), and cowgirl boots (which she put on the wrong feet). Yellow is the color lately, perhaps because she likes to say it?? Thankfully, we did not need to make a Walmart trip this morning!!!

What super hero is this?

Mum and I were walking today around the track in Belleville. As we were completing our second lap around, we walked near a tree. As we walked by, a bird flew out. Now, I lived around all of those seagulls for more than 5 years, and I never got pooped on. But, I got pooped on today! In fact, he got both of us at the same time! I put pink arrows to point out our misfortunes. As we were having fun taking the above picture and laughing about it, Natalee was getting into trouble. What did she find? Dirt! I couldn't get it out of her mouth. All I could do was give her some juice-water to wash it down--YUCK!

We took this video of Natalee last night after dinner because we thought it was funny. She is not good at doing two things at one time. She LOVES playing with her keys (thanks Jen, Jimmy, and Lilly!). She figured out a while ago that if she moves them, they make a noise -- and don't get in her way when she plays with them! She gets kind of wild. Meg got a special beef bone treat last night courtesy of my mom (and the freezer). Her tongue was really going!

I found a website that will take any picture of you and make you into a Simpson like cartoon character. www. simpsonizeme.com You need a nice straight on head shot and about 10 minutes of free time.

Natalee had her first visit to the doctor today. Yesterday, we were a little concerned. She only pooped once the day before and yesterday she didn't poo at all. Plus, she has been having terrible gas pains. We stripped her down to a diaper to get her weighed on the scale. Once up on the scale, the nurse had me take off her diaper. "Yeah, she pooped!" "Oh, no, she is still pooping!" "Peeing all over everything, too!" "ooh, there's more poo" We cleaned off her bottom "Here comes more poo!" We cleaned her off again "Ugh, now she's peeing!" "Poop again!" "How much is she going to poop?" We cleaned her off again. Yep, you guessed it -- more poo. And, more poo. After cleaning her off about 5 times, I finally had a diaper on her -- and she immediately filled it with more poo! She seriously had at least 6 diapers full of poo by the time she was finished. Had it not been in this certain situatio...

We saw this commercial for Stanley Steamer on TV last night and thought it was really funny. Probably because we have a yellow dog that does the same thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOtqw_IEGh0