Me Oh My, I Love Fried Pie

Blueberry Fried Pies - they were so very good.

Served warm, sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon, ice cream if you please. Thank you, Homesick Texan, for a fabulously easy recipe

for some dang deelicious little pies.

A boring day

Had a couple of orders to fill plus one birthday present to complete, so I spent much of today sewing away. This is what my sweet boy calls, "a boring day." So that he didn't lose out completely, I made this for him (cut a T-Rex out of some old camo fabric and stitched to a t-shirt). Apologies for my crummy photos, I'm still without a camera and have to resort to the cell phone and camcorder for taking pictures.A friend ordered a couple of mess kits from me (burp pad and reversible bib), these came out cute:

This tooth fairy pillow is a birthday present (and also one of my best sellers) for the daughter of this creative mom:

Heavenly Healthy Banana Bread

Made this today - it totally lives up to it's name. Not only was this banana bread good (and good for you), it also made my house smell so warm and delicious. I love the slices that have the not-completely-cooked part at the top. Add a little butter and I'm in heaven... (doesn't take much for me these days)




tip: when your bananas get too ripe to eat, don't throw them away. Toss them in the freezer; they will keep for a couple of months. When you're ready to bake, just pull them out, let them thaw out in the peel and add them to your recipe.

Chuck E. Cheese - Where a kid can be a kid and a mom can make an a** of herself

Today we went to a birthday party at the big cheesy mouse house - one of my least favorite places on the planet. The pizza is bad, the place is crowded, noisy, full of germs and unsupervised kids, and I get a little crazy playing skeeball.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I am NOT an arcade type person. I get my kicks by gardening, sewing, cooking, baking--basically anything that lets me create. This is why I cannot explain how I acted today.

When we arrived, child o'mine headed straight for the games. I followed him around, let him choose what he'd like to play, helped if needed and cheered him on. About 20 kiddie games and a whopping 3 tickets later, he is hungry and heads over to the party crowd for pizza. I decide I'll sneak off and try my hand at skeeball; just play long enough to get some tickets so my child can get a prize before we leave. Next thing I know I'm hogging two lanes, hootin' and hollering every time I hit anything above 10 and wont let my 4 YEAR OLD throw one of my balls (I think I even told him, "Not now honey, Mama needs a new pair of shoes!") . The kid standing next to me is saying, "Wow, she's really good!" and I'm all, "Yeah, I played a lot of skeeball when I was a kid." I was totally embarrassing myself but too caught up in the skeeball rush to realize it.

As soon as we left and re-entered the real world, I suddenly became aware of my actions at the skeeball lanes and was a bit disgusted. I felt like I needed a hot shower, but since we were so far from home I did the next best thing. I strapped my sweet boy in his car seat, drove through the parking lot to the big giant book store and went inside to regain my dignity read books with my son. After a few chapters of Frog and Toad are Friends and Little Bear, all was right with the world. I think we will be out of town for the next birthday party at the big cheesy mouse house...

Potty Talk

I read a hysterical post on a blog I love this morning, which prompted me to share my recent experience with the same scenario.

Child o'mine and I made a trip to Target yesterday and this is the conversation that took place in the bathroom:

(child) "Mommy, why do you have to sit down while you pee?"
(me, whispering) "I'll tell you later, honey."
(child) "Oh, I know. You have to sit down while you pee because your penis is inside you."
(me, I got nothing for that one)
(child) "Wow, Mommy. You sure are peeing a lot!"
(me, in my head) we are NEVER going to this Target again!

Let Freedom Ring (while you're eating an icky pie)

I love the 4th of July and everything it represents. I am always proud to be an American and thankful to live in this free country, but the 4th allows me to force ask my family to wear matching red/white/blue flag adorned clothing, bake apple pie, load up on fireworks and not look too much like a nerd. (Thank you to Jimmy Buffet's Sirius channel for reminding our house throughout the day to take a moment and think of our troops who put their lives on the line for our freedom - they deserve our thanks, thoughts, and prayers.)

This year we were invited to a friend's house for a BBQ and swimming - a great time was had by all. I baked two pies to bring - one was a triumph old fashioned apple from one of my favorite cookbooks and the other was a hugely disgusting not so good cherry pie that I will never bake again (here's a tip: don't make a recipe for the first time that you're serving to guests). I think it was a combo of too much sugar and vanilla extract that made this pie awful. Plus, I used arrowroot starch for the first time as the thickener. Could that have altered the taste? The pie certainly looked lovely (looks can be so deceiving); I made the top crust using different sized star cutouts and placed them in a lattice fashion. It baked up beautifully but I noticed it never quite had that cherry pie smell.

When we were cutting it, I sneaked a bite and then I knew - this pie had to be the worst cherry pie I've ever eaten. So while the fireworks were taking place and kids were running around with sparklers, apple pie was served to all and the cherry pie got pushed aside. I was not about to ruin such a great day with such an icky pie (that's my freedom of choice, right?)

Oh where oh where has my marital bed gone

Great White Hunter and I share a pretty comfy king size bed, but lately the whole marital bed thing has gone to pot. We have a 75 lb. chocolate lab "puppy" who has outgrown her crate, decided her lovely doggie bed just ain't cutting it, and some how ends up on our bed each night. Just after we've crawled into bed, she jumps up and is all, "OK Mom and Dad, good night!" but we quickly shoo her off and she obeys. She acts all cute curled up on her bed until we've drifted off into dream land, then makes her way back on to our bed (very quietly I might add, because she never wakes us up in doing so, which isn't easy for a 75 lb dog). So every morning I awake feeling more like a pretzel scrunched between a snoring husband and a snoozing dog. What's wrong with this picture?

King size bed good, not good with dog and husband. No room for wife to stretch out. Wife not happy.

About two nights ago, my sweet child decided he's scared of his room and doesn't want to sleep in his bed anymore; wants to sleep with Mommy and Daddy (and the flippin dog, too). This really came out of nowhere - kind of blind sided me because I thought I was going to escape this phase. The bedtime ritual has gone from teeth brushing and story reading to checking under the bed and in the closet, spraying the windows with ghost and monster repellent and calling on the angels to guard and protect (child o'mine thinks this only works if I chant and do funky wiping motions while "applying the repellent").
Despite my best efforts to create a ghost and monster-free room, the child still wants to sleep with us. Great White Hunter, God love him, gives in every time. Now our comfy king size bed for TWO seems more like that bed in The Napping House story, except Mommy ain't sleeping.
Good grief.