Delirium

That is the state in which I will live today.
Riley was up at least twice last night(that's how many times I got up with him). He decided to get on out of his room and ride around on his scooter at 5:45. Brock got up at 6:15. I think because of all the noise Riley was making.
I'm considering a donut run. Don't I deserve donuts? I'm going to need the sugar if I am going to be, in any way, a decent person today.
Sugar, the best mood lifter.
Until you crash.
Should be an interesting day.

Nummy NA

All foods are NA to Riley. Even when he knows the name for it. Like cheese. Once he starts eating it, it becomes NA. Jars of baby food are Baby NA. Anything I'm eating = Mama NA. Unless it's cookies. Then it's Baby or Mama and WhyEE cookies. He is definitely my child.
He got leftover spaghetti tonight for dinner. With lots of cheese on top. He kept asking for more when he couldn't see the white specks of fake parmesan anymore. He kept telling Brock, the dogs, and me that it was nummy NA. Cuteness. Messy cuteness.



Look at those eyelashes!

Dinner tonight

I tried a new baked pork chop recipe. The man that lives here asked for pork chops this week and I wanted to find something super easy. Something I could make really quick and then forget about for a while.
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients--
1 teaspoon prepared mustard(I used spicy brown)
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 cup ketchup
1 cup water
Bone in pork chops-thick
Mix together mustard, flour, sugar, and salt. Add in vinegar, sauce, ketchup, and water and mix thoroughly.
Put chops in large baking dish and cover with sauce. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Since my pork chops weren't all that thick, 1 1/2 hours was plenty.

They're nice and tender and have a great taste to them. We were supposed to have peas along with the corn and sourdough baguette but, um, they were nasty so we didn't. That's the last time I'll be getting one of the microwave bags of veggies from Kroger. I did mac 'n cheese instead.

The frog

I was in the living room when I heard a strange noise. I look toward the front door to see Trouble swatting at the glass. I walk over to see this frog.


Trouble was tormented by this amphibian for the whole day.


He took a few breaks. (messed up runner brought to you by Riley pushing Brock's walker into anything and everything)


The frog stayed there all day. Our door is hit by the sun for a good portion of the day. I thought for sure he'd been fried. But, nope, he hung out until dusk when he went on his merry way.

Chillin'

He wants to be in/on everything that Brock gets to be in/on. I'm waiting for something to break.

The comb over

I was brushing Riley's hair straight back after bath the other night and noticed that some of his hair tended toward one side of his head. The child has no less than 4 cowlicks so he's going to have a rough go of it but here's a picture of his first comb over.

It wasn't pretty

Yesterday was an ugly day on Mars. Mama was tired and cranky. Brock didn't take good naps. Riley was a 2 year old.
We're off to a rough start today as well. Riley woke up and decided to bust out of his prison and showed up at our door at 6am. He was placated with "CooCoo"(Curious George/Monkey) for all of 15 minutes before he declared, "NO" and got off the bed.

My squash casserole was a yummy success. I took 4 yellow squash and peeled and cut them up.

Boiled them until they were tender(15-20 minutes) and mashed them up a bit. Then I cooked a little box of yellow cornbread. I crumbled it up, combined with the squash and added a can of cream 'o something soup. I think I used celery but mushroom or chicken would have worked well, too. I added to that about a cup of freshly shredded cheddar cheese. Put it in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes and this is what came out--

ummm....after I took a few test tastes.
Very good!

Sucked in

I was so gung-ho for the first 2-3 days of this and then I got sucked into the Pioneer Woman's love story.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/category/black_heelstractor_wheels/the_night_i_met_marlboro_man It is goooood. I will be back later with the success of my first ever squash casserole.

In the meantime-----

Doesn't he look precious looking out at the big world outside the window?

inclination

So much to do.
Plenty of time to do it all.
So little inclination to get it all done.

A little kick in the butt, please?

Sentry

Bronco is Riley's protector. He keeps watch while Riley sleeps. What is a good age to let Bronco sleep with Riley?

Tigers

Sudie, don't hate.

Here are my boys in their "Future Auburn Tigers" outfits. Who do you think wore it better?

Riley


or Brock?

Jumpee video

I am not blog-literate enough to figure out how to title and write something about the below video in that same post. ARGH

So I'll do it here.
Notice how sweet Riley is opening the door near his brother. So careful.
And how he tells Denver, go, (supposed to be dog), go. Love it.

I don't love that, instead of napping, Brock chose to scream. Booooooo

BABIES!!!!!!

I think the sweet potatoes were a bit thick for Brock but he's a ham and smiled for the camera anyway.


Riley loved them.


Here are some more from today....
He did not pull himself up. I put him there. He's trying, but he can't pull all the way up just yet.


JUMPEE!


Gotta love those cheeks.


Nom nom nom (look at those thighs)

Homemade

After two years of wanting to do it, I finally pulled it off. Homemade baby food! With proof.

Sweet potatoes were pretty easy.



Squash, not so much. There was way more work involved than I thought in preparing to cook a butternut squash. I made a big mess, not that that's unusual.


I used a bit of cinnamon in the sweet potatoes and some nutmeg with the squash. Hope Brock likes it.

In case you were wondering....

Using hawaiian roll buns for your sloppy joes is not as good as it sounds(or sounded to me).

Banana Bread

Cast of ingredients:


That's a stick of butter, 3/4-1 C of brown sugar(I use a full cup b/c I like my bread sweet), 2 eggs, 2+C mashed bananas, 2C all purpose flour, 1tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt.

Cream the butter and sugar together.



Add eggs. Stir. Add bananas.
These look pretty dang nasty all mashed up. I like my bits of banana chunky so that might have something to do with their icky appearance.


Stir. This is where you'd add a bit of vanilla if you like that sort of thing. I normally do.
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. I will leave this picture out since it's white stuff in a white bowl and is displeasing to thine eyes.
Instead I'll show you a picture of Chunk, who kept me company. Just hangin' around.


Add flour mixture to banana mixture and stir until just combined.


If you like it nutty, by all means, throw some in. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan. I normally do mini loaves but I killed my pan and threw it out just this morning.

Place in a 350 degree oven for about 60 minutes. Then do the toothpick test. Let rest 10-15 minutes and put on a wire rack for another 20-30 minutes.


Sooooo yummy.

I might have it for dinner.

Why, Chunk, why?

My youngest, the Chunk, has decided naps are to be abbreviated today. Nothing longer than 40 minutes. Even after we spent an hour at the pool and we all got super worn out. He was supposed to sleep for at least 2 hours after that and a big bottle. Grrrrrrrrrr. All I managed to achieve was to eat lunch and watch half of JK+8.

Bananas

I bought a bunch of bananas yesterday.




I wanted to make banana bread. I still do. I would need to make, like, 10 batches of banana bread to use up all these bananas! I need to come up with some other things to make. Banana pancakes? Bananas foster? (I do have some blue bell to eat with that) Is there a banana chicken recipe out there maybe?

And so it begins

I'm such a follower. I read a few blogs and I love them. I love their wit and pretty pictures and chronicling of the lives of children. I will most likely suck at this, but I'm going to give it a go.



Everyone in this house is sleeping but me. Blessed nap time for the boys. My husband has asked not to be talked about on this new-fangled world-wide diary so you won't hear much about him(but he's sleeping, too).



I took the munchkins to the grocery store this morning and spent way too much money. I got very little meat but still managed to spend almost 200 freaking dollars. How is that? It did include formula and baby food, but JEEZ. I got a bunch of squash. A friend made this delicious squash casserole for playgroup a while back and I want to try it. I'll post my progress when I finally make it this week. I also got one butternut squash and some pears to try my hand at my own baby food. HAHAHA yea. I have fabulous ideas. Just not so good with the follow through. But I'm gonna try, dang it!



I leave this first post with some pictures I took of the boys for a father's day gift.