Wordless Wednesday: Apple Monster

Apple Picking!

The boys and I went apple picking for the first time (ever!) yesterday. We went with a bunch of fellow Border Patrol families to two different orchards. The first one was a complete bust! There were no good apples, only tiny rotten ones. The second place was A LOT better! Owen had fun picking the apples from the trees and Ben had fun picking up the rotten apples from the ground! Now I have to figure out what to do with all of these apples! Enjoy the pics!

I'm ready to go, Ma! Point me in the right direction!

The grass was a little too long for Mr. Ben!

How about that one up there, Dad?

I'm not so sure about this one.

This one looks good!

This bag is getting heavy, Mom

Appropriately dressed for apple picking.

Can I have that apple?

No, I don't want to hold your hand, I want your apple.

Okay, fine. But I'm only holding it for a second.

They had a lot of fun!

Darn pacifier-always ruining good photos.

Handsome boy.

Ben was a big help.

Here, you can have this one.

Ew. What's that?

Apple picking crew #1

Apple picking crew #2.

Wordless Wednesday: The Back Yard Peas?

Tasty Tuesday: Owen's PB&J Sandwich

Recently, Owen has been in the habit of immediately going downstairs to help himself to breakfast in the morning when he first wakes up. (Usually he hops into bed with me). This hasn't really been an issue until the day we ran out of bananas (since someone ate TWO bananas for breakfast the day before). That day he ate two slices of cheese, and some cheese crackers. Healthy, I know. (I now put out a breakfast for him the night before).

Well, one day I was upstairs trying to put Ben down for a nap and Owen was outside playing, or so I thought. I could hear a lot of thumping and bumping going on downstairs in the kitchen. When I made it back downstairs, Owen had set out everything to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, except a plate. He forgot the plate. This was, mind you, at 11 o'clock, so technically it wasn't even lunch time, so he should not have been hungry. But I allowed him to make his own sandwich anyway.

Here are Owen's step-by-step instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.


Step 1: Lay out the bread on a Spider-man plate. Squeeze out fake "strawberry preserves". Say "Ewww." because you didn't shake the bottle first and it came out runny instead.

"Step 1: Put some jelly on some bread."

Step 2: Taste the runny liquid and decide that it's okay after all; your sandwich has not gone to waste.

"Step 3: Put some jelly in my mouth."

Step 3: Spread out the lumpy fake jelly with your Gerber toddler knife.

"Step 4: I got my knife. I'm not painting with my knife on Tuesday."

Step 4: Use all of your big muscles to open up the peanut butter jar. Do NOT ask Mommy for any help because it is a well-known fact that she "have no muscles".

"Step 5: Try to get the peanut butter out."

Step 5: Carefully dunk your knife into the peanut butter jar so you don't get any on your fingers.

"Step 4: Put some peanut butter on the bread."

Step 6: Quickly shove the peanut butter into your mouth before Mommy has a chance to realize what you are doing and yells at you for putting a knife in your mouth. (It's okay. The knife is not sharp).

"Step 4: Take my knife in my mouth."

Step 7: Put peanut butter on the other side of your bread.

"Step 1: Put some peanut butter on the bread and wiggle it around."

Step 8: Smoosh the two pieces of bread together. (Contrary to what Mommy might think, they do NOT need to match up perfectly).

"Step 1: Put down and down.Slow down."

Step 9: Contemplate whether or not you want your sandwich cut in half. (Although past experience may prove that you actually prefer your sandwich whole, consider the fact that Mommy is allowing you to use a knife; you may want to temporarily change your preference).

"Step 1: Cut it? In half."

Step 10: Totally take advantage of the situation and slice that baby up!

"Step 4: Cut it on this half. Do it like this."

Step 11: Reevaluate the situation. You are using a knife that is duller than Mommy's stories. There is a pretty good chance that it will not cut your bread.

"Step 5: Ocho."

Step 12: Forgo the knife. Eat and enjoy.

"Step 3: Eat."

Just Call Me "Miss Slacker"

I have been seriously remiss with a lot of aspects in my life right now. There are umpteen million people who are waiting for a phone call/text/email from me. My "To-Do" list has doubled in size rather than been cut in half. My daily "chores" are falling by the wayside. And my blog? Haven't even given it a second thought lately, (except today, apparently).

I blame this all on my total lack of motivation, inspiration, and desire. I feel as though I've hit a slump in my life right now (personally, professionally, and psychologically) and I'm just focused on trying to get that all sorted out and in place. Everything else has pretty much been put on the back burner for now. (And to top it all off, I'm getting sick!) So please bear with me and have patience. (I'm also wondering if this might be the result of some form of "twin transference" or something similar).

I'm not giving up entirely on my blog right now; my posts just won't be as frequent as usual.

And  while you're waiting for me to return, please take a gander at my super adorable little boys:

P.S. It just occurred to me that this is my 50th post. Woo-hoo! Yay me.

I'm FREE!!!!

I am super excited to announce that I have the next two, count 'em-one, TWO, whole days to myself! Two days AND two nights! Now this has not happened in well over a year, so I'm a tad excited about this, as you can probably imagine. How did this miracle happen, you ask? Well, basically I asked forced Daddio to take the boys down to Grandma B.'s house for a visit. This was necessary for two reasons, 1) I need the boys out of the house so I can clean and organize their rooms and 2) I was emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. We were this close to a catastrophic "Mommy-Meltdown", of epic proportions. The biggest known to mankind.

So here are my goals for the next two days (technically one day because I will be working on Friday):


*Get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. (I've heard that it's possible).

*Get out of bed before 8 9 o'clock.

*Clean Ben's room and "rotate" his clothing.

*Clean Owen's closet.

*Call Ancestry.com and chew them out for automatically charging me to renew my subscription without any notification, AGAIN. (This is the second time it's happened, and I've canceled my subscription, so this shouldn't be happening!)

*FINALLY hook up our answering machine. I mean, we've only been living in this house for a year and half. Maybe I won't miss anymore calls to set up a job interview now!

*Catch up on my blog! I've been a complete slacker. But this is mainly due to my state of mind and mood these last couple of weeks.

*Call OBG, (although I will most likely end up emailing instead). This one will probably take top priority.

Wish me luck!
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Wordless Wednesday: I ♥ Pasta!

My Son, the Hoarder

I was changing the sheets on Owen's bed the other morning and this is what I found:

14 books
6 stuffed animals
3 pillows
2 additional blankets
2 flashlights
1 pretzel


All in ONE bed! He slept in his bed with all of these things! The child had spent the night in Junk City!

 

 (Source)

He may have a future in television, reality television, that is. One day, several years from now, you will turn on the television to watch an episode of Hoarders on A & E, and there he will be. He will probably be sleeping in a room that looks like this:

(Source)