Who's the coolest culinary celebrity?

Ooo, ooo, ooo!!!!! This is my favorite question so far! I am soooo addicted to food network that it is not even funny!!!!! I will watch anything and everything that is on... even if I hate what they are making -like anything weird with fish/seafood/lamb/veal/ you get the point... But I will watch it because it inspires me to cook and I love it!!!!

So... I REALLY used to like Rachel Ray. Years ago... I think before I even had Andy, I waited in line at Byerly's in Minnetonka to get her autograph in a cookbook. The line was INSANE! After waiting hours, and I got to be one of the next 20 or so in line, she had to leave because she had to catch a flight. What a fricking bummer. So she felt sooo truly bad, that she took everyone's name and address and signed book plate stickers and mailed them everyone who didnt get their book signed, so we could all stick the sticker in the cover instead. Nice gesture! I still REALLY like her... but now she is almost more of a brand - and everyone and their mother likes her (I know mine does!!! hehehe) So it makes me a little, I dont know, irritated to watch her. Its like she's having an affair. I liked her first damn it. (KIDDING... but if you dont get my sarcastic sense of humor, dont read ! hehehehe)

Then there is Giada De Laurentis or however her Italian name is spelled :) I used to like her ok... but now I absolutely can't have the volume on when her show is on... God forbid I actaully TURN THE CAHNNEL!!!! No way man. She is so stinking rude. She takes a big huge bite of food, and then talks with her mouth full and you can hear the food sticking to her tounge when she is talking...and it is sticking to the back of her throat and makes her voice sound weird. And to her...everything is CREAMY. Just a little too gross- She hit a major pet peeve of mine. I hate hearing people when they are eating. My small kids have better manners than that! Blech. :(

I dont really like Emeril....he sounds too much like a toddler when he talks. I know, I know...its just his very annoying accent. But I cant take it.

I LOVE Paula Dean :) She is the kind of person I would like to hang out with. She would give you a straight up honest to goodness opinion on anything. She is hilarious. I could watch her all day long. Probably my favorite of them all...

I also really like Alton Brown. He is awesome man. He taught me how to pick and cook an awesome steak.

What can I say... I love my food shows. MMMMmmmm.... I wish I had my own show in my kitchen. Magically your dishes would be gone and clean by the next take. Everything would be perfectly prepped before you start cooking and NO clean up. Thats what the pee-ons are for. How nice would that be... just to ONLY cook and not clean up afterwards. NICE!

Fly high, free bird... we love you and miss you like crazy

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
There's too many places I haven't seen
And if I stayed here with you, now
Things just wouldn't be the same
Well I'm as free as a bird now,
And a bird you can not change.
And a bird you can not change.
And a bird you can not change.
Lord knows I can't change

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
And though this feeling I can't change.
Please don't take it badly,
The Lord knows I'm to blame.
And, if I stayed here with you now
Things just wouldn't be the same.
For I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And the bird you can not change.
And the bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.

 

 

Danny for dads sign

The master of balance and flexibiltiy

Ryan would like to show everyone his newest tricks! He can sit up un assisted for a short little bit of time, and can fold himself completely in half to eat his toes while doing this! This is great multi-tasking ability for a 6 month old! Sitting up, but still able to pacify himself by chewing on his toes. Notice the concentration and determination on his face folks! He knows he will get those toes if he just tries hard enough. Now, if his mommy even tried to sit down on the floor and touch her toes with her hands, her leg muscles wold probably rip in half. The kid is like a Jedi, he will master this :)

 

 

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Even though it looks like he is laying on his tummy eating something white that was on the floor in front of him, he was actaully sitting up and bent over to eat his toes! OUCH

Soul Sista...

Ok...there are two (3 if you count Jake- but he's no sista!) people in this world who I can talk to about anything, and act as goofy or...whats a good word for it??... Um, carefree, uninhibited, silly, etc...(but you get the point) and have a crazy amount of fun and feel like they arent judging me at the end of the night... thinking "Ok, what was that???"  One is obviously my sister, Lynn! I can say anything to her, and we joke that when we get together, there is some chemical reaction between our brains that makes us get really silly. We can be off in our own little world laughing and talking about off the wall things, while everyone else is confused as...well, you know. I never feel dumb after we hang out...just really happy and relaxed and in a super good mood. I never leave bored or grumpy after being with my sister. I love her SO much and we just understand eachother on a level that no one else could touch.... except for my other sister... my soul sister :) Hehehe.

I cant even imagine having someone NOT related to me, understand me the way Tracy does. We live such parallel lives, its not even funny. Even during our "off" times, when we hadnt seen eachother for years, we were so alike it's scarey. We could hang out for weeks straight in high school and just sit in a room not talking, but having a great time. Its not like if there was silence, it was awkward and you had to TRY to think of something to say. We would talk when something came to mind, but just knew what the other one was thinking if we werent saying anything. We were both little lightweights in highschool, and we lost touch for a while and found out once we got in tough again, that we had both gained the same amount of weight since high school... we had picked out very similar wedding rings with the same sapphires in them, got our dresses at the same place. We had found eachother's dream dresses, but not our own-- I wanted the style she had with nice spaghetti straps, she said she was looking for something off the shoulder like mine. When we started hanging out again, there was never any awkward and uneasy times...we just jumped right back in where we left off. It is crazy. After I have a mommy's night out like last night (even though all the talk was about things we can do with the kids...like art projects) I feel so much more refreshed!  I could be talking about anything with her or Lynn and feel recharged afterwards! Ahhh.....

Sisters Rock!

TAKE 2....and 3.....

Ok...the orange beast in the kitchen is GONE!!!! Yay! I couldnt take it, I just did not like the color. So, I got a little color scared after the ornage monster, so I picked out a nice creamy buttery yellow. It looked something like this:

 

 

Well, as I was painting, we both were thinking the same thing- but I was too afraid to say it out loud. Thankfully Jake wasnt! This nice buttery yellow, was almost white. It barely lookedany different than the antique white the builders used. In the darker, non-flash pictures the yellow tint shows up more- but in the light, it was barely noticeable. Well... ok, this was just an, um, ah, PRIMER! Yeah, thats it, this was the primer to cover the pumpkin guts all over the walls :) So, it is 7:00 at night and we quickly grab a swatch of the green paint we were going back and forth on earlier in the day. Jake ran to the store while I finished the  "primer".

When he got home, we jumped right in. Started painting the nice relaxing green on the walls and all that is going through my head is "The kids of today should defend themselves against the 70's" and what do I hear behind me?? Yep, Jake was singing the same darn song :) I had a good laugh and wondered why we couldnt seem to get a modern paint color in our house. Why did everything look like a picture of our parents houses when it was 1974? Oh great, do we need to paint it again? Then, as it dried and we got the switch covers back on and got things back in place, it looked good!  It is cool and relaxing when you walk into the kitchen. We actaully like it and it makes the orange look a little nicer above the fire place. The yellowish color we had in the kitchen would look really nice in the living room  to go with the orangy color on the fireplace...but we have to paint the living room and see that in real life before I can commit to that :) Now we have this :

 

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Now, I admit... it is not my favorite color, but I do like it! And once we get curtains to go over the blinds and also to cover the patio doors, it will be even better. Thankfully!!! Now atleast the next room we paint will NOT be the kitchen. Moving on....progress is good.... :) oh yeah, the pendants might need to be changed out though! hehehe

I Killed a pumpkin...

And it ended up all over our kitchen walls...

This is a paint color gone wrong- I want to puke everytime I see it.

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A view looking at the fridge...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking at the kitchen from the fridge...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking at the kitchen from the living room...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how I look at it, I cant like it. I tried and tried to like it so we didnt have to re-paint the beast. I hate it. The more I look at it, the more I want to run and hide!! The worst part is....

 

 

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We put it here (In the dining room as an accent under the cabinets)....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And here too.... above the fire place to balance the rooms out. The kitchen is in the middle of these two rooms, so we accented the two little places to tie them together. ICK...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried telling myself it would get better once we paint the living room and dining room something other than white, but I cant wait that long, and I really dont like it enought to try. It had potentail. It is called Ginger Jar. I though it would be more brownish...but all I see is the great pumpkin Charlie Brown. Maybe I could leave it up till Halloween is over... Then pain it red and green for Christmas...hmmm.... (kidding, kidding..) Anyone want to babysit so we can paint this weekend??? hahaha....

What is the best beer on planet Earth? 
Submitted by Remmy Van Hornie.

Since I dont really care for the taste of beer... I would have to say Rootbeer :)

QotD: Banned From the Karaoke List

What song do you wish would never show up on a karaoke list?

Any song. People who sing karaoke usually dont sound that great anyway. Just plug your ears and everything will be fine... 

Roly poly Ryan :)

 

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Ryan has been rolling over for about 2 months. But only from his back to his tummy. So today... he took a super duper 3 hour power nap. I got nervous because this little guy is the KING of cat naps...20 minutes here, 40 there.... just not a long napper. So, I kept getting nervous and checking on him and every time he was on his tummy (which is why I was so nervous to begin with!!!) So, FINALLY I hear him up there just talking and cooing to himself. I walked into his room expecting to see him still on his tummy and getting mad because he is still on his tummy. But this time, he was on his back :) Yay Ryan! Now if only he could have done it while Mommy was looking and had the camera in hand... Bummer....

 

Way to go little man!!!

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So many funny stories, sooo little time!!!

Funny story #1:

 

I ended up not having Rayna and Rachel yesterday, so Jake asked if we wanted to go up and have lunch with him at work. We were excited to get out of the house, so we started getting ready to go. I got Ryan dressed and Justin just needed to get his shoes on his feet. I took one shoe and slid it on his foot- it went on like always. Then I grab the other one and it slides on super easy and is clomping along when he walks. Thats when I realized that Andy had put on one of his own shoes, and one of Justin's. (They picked out identical shoes last week...just 3 sizes different) So I started thinking about Andy walking around school with his little foot smooshed into a size 10.5 when he is a 13! I had to run up to school to bring him his own shoe. I couldnt imagine how his poor little foot would have felt by the end of the day! So, I walk into the office at school, and intended to just drop it off there and that they would bring it down to the classroom when they got the chance. They told me just to sign in and I could bring it down there myself if I had the time. I said I would love to, as long as I wouldnt disrupt the class! So I walk in with Ryan in my arms and Justin by my side, say hi to the teacher and the Para, get Andy's shoe changed and get ready to walk out the door. Then I realize...oh my gosh! Where did Justin go??? I am panicking to myself thinking that he went out the door and into a different classroom or just went out and started wandering the halls. I search the classroom with my eyes because I didnt want anyone to catch on to how panicked I felt... then I back up and look down right where I was standing. There was Justin in his little blue shirt, sitting at the art table with scissors in hand, looking at everyone like "where's MY paper??" I dont know why that was so funny to me. At 2.5 years old, he blended in with the kindergartners and just jumped right in like he belonged. I laughed about that for a long time :)

 

Funny Story #2:

Yep... another school story! Sorry :)  Andy is collecting pledges for the marathon at school, and got really into it last night. He came home and told me he needed to call some people to get some money for his school. So, I am giggling to myself and say ok...let's call some people. I gave my Mom and Dad, and my grandma a heads up that he was calling them back in a minute to do this, just so they were ready. I didnt tell him what to say because I wanted to hear what he'd come up with on his own. I listen as he calls my dad... Hi. Ummm.... my school is having this marathon, and they need some money for it, so I was thinking maybe you could give me some? I get the phone back from him as my mom and dad are laughing on the other end. Then he calls my Grandma and is just as straight forward with her too...but I dont remember exactly how he phrased it...something like : Hi- I am having a marathon for school, do you think you can give me some money for it?? It just cracked me up. It was a glimps into the life of a telemarketer, but much cuter and fuinnier!!! So glad he knows how to say what he wants nd no beatin' around the bush!  Toooo funny!

QotD: Football Highlight

What was the best football highlight of the past week?

Ummm.... being at Ikea and getting some ideas for my new scrap room during the Vikings game!!! I wasnt a mean wife... when we were eating at the food court of ikea, we sat by the TV so Jake could watch the game. When I went to get the food, the score was something like 17-7 (of course we were losing) and when I got back with all of the food, Jake asked what the score was when I left and told me that it was tied now. That was cool. I like football...but dont get all pumped about it. My highlight was being at Ikea and not sitting inside if my house being bored :)

My 3 little bears...

 

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RYAN: Melting hearts with my baby blues... and enough drool for a nice slobbery baby kiss!

 

 

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JUSTIN: I love my Goldie Gopher that my big brother Andy won for me at Valleyfair!

 

 

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ANDY: Hey, mom! Do you want to come to Dairy Queen with me? I'm driving my tractor- Chicks dig it! 

I think he's over it!

So, Andy has been having a MUCH better time with school! I guess he just took a while getting used to it...the second week :)  He hasnt said anything about being sad, or missing me (now I will cry...he doesnt miss me?? Just kidding) He wakes up and gets ready...we walk him to the bus stop, he gives me and Justin, and Ryan, and Rayna and Rachel hugs. He has to make sure no one is left out! How sweet. He actaully jumps up and down clapping when the bus comes down the street! He gets on the bus and waves at us till the bus is out of sight. I am so glad. I know with preschool, he took a while adjusting to the separation at first, but then was totally fine with it... so I know he will be fine now!

 

QotD: Today's Mix

You're the DJ: what are the next five songs coming up after the break?

FIrst of all... that depends on the station. I couldnt pick just 5 songs- thats impossible, so I will do it by type of music :)

Country: (Dont mock me)

1.Forever and ever - Randy Travis

2.Broken Wing

3.Before he Cheats- Carrie Underwood... (Before they ruined it by playing it every 5 minutes)

4.Grandpa- The Judds

5.I will- Shedaisy

 

Alternative (From my days !) :

1.Plush- STP

2.Black hole sun- Soundgarden

3.Black- Pearl Jam

4.Lightning Crashes- Live

5.Disarm- Smashing Pumpkins

 

 

Rock/pop:

1.Cryin' - Aerosmith

2.U and UR Hand- Pink

3.Who Knew- Pink

4.When I look into your eye- Firehouse

5.Why cant this be love- Van Halen

 

This was fun!!! Jake and I spent 2 hours listening to old music tonight now. I just relived high school in a couple of hours :) Ahhhhh..... Fun times!

 

 

Daddy, Youre like a sloth!!!!

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A couple of weeks ago, we went to Minneopa State Park. Jake always goes off the path and climbs on whatever is around... this time, it happened to be a bent down broken old tree. As he started climbing onto the tree, Andy got all excited and said "Woah Daddy!!!! You're like a sloth!!" I laughed and laughed. He wasnt like a bear, or a mountain lion, or a koala bear...or heck, even an explorer or something... Daddy was a nice, big slow tree sloth. Haha!!! NIce try dad!!

Do drill sergeants cry on the inside????

Andy had a great day with school yesterday. No tears- no hesitation. His teacher emailed me and said he was happier and talking more. A friend of mine who is a teacher there, told me he even found his classroom by himself. Things were looking up!!! Today, totally different kid. I had to peel him off of me so he'd get dressed. He got up and put on his regular clothes so he didnt have to go to school (he wears a uniform to school). I told him they needed to be changed anyway since he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and its colder out today. I tried and tried to be patient and understanding...give him ideas, things to make him want to go to school. I even told him there was something in his backpack that he needed to give to his teacher so I can go into his room and volunteer. Nope. No interest there. He just didnt want to go. So, then I had to get a little stern with him because we had to leave. I had to try to get him to eat breakfast, change his clothes, get 5 pairs of little shoes on 5 kids who cant do it by themselves, get the stroller set up and walk 2 blocks in about 7 minutes to catch the bus. I was a little frusterated and felt really bad by this point, but just said that he had to go. We had no choice and that it will get better. Short and sweet- and that is what I left it at...by the time I was getting shoes on the little kids, I asked if he was done with his oatmeal. He cheerfully said, "almost!" Ok...so by ignoring the issue and telling him that this is the way it has to be...and just getting everyone else dressed- he had a total change of heart.

It was so hard to see my crying little barely 5 year old saying he just wanted to stay home with us and play and have fun at home. How could I be so mean to say, "No, you HAVE to go to school." It completely broke my heart. But I couldnt let him see that I was weak... How do you act all strong and hard core on the outside, and be just dying inside?? So do drill sergeants have to do the same thing when people are crying and saying they just cant do it anymore... I would be the most compassionate drill sergeant around  :)

QotD: This Is Classic TV

What television show stands the test of time?

All I can think of when I see the title "clasic TV" is when I lived in Milwaukee...
Jake and I were watching Wheel of Fortune and the category was classic TV. I looked at Jake and without thinking before I spoke (normal for me) I yell out "A horse is a horse, of course of course." I was just joking, but as they kept turning the little letters over, I realzied that I was right! Yeah! If only I would have said that I knew it the whole time, and it was just becasue I am soooo smart, not a lucky guess. Oh well. It was a million dollar moment for me!

Of course there is always the price is right, Little House on The Prairie, and to make Jake feel better, I will say MacGyver. I dont even know how to spell it.... oh well.