Frugal Friday - $5 Cooking Light Subscription

The majority of my cooking is done from Cooking Light magazine or their website. I love using their recipes as a guide and then tweak and modify as I go along.

This week Amazon.com is offering Cooking Light subscriptions for $5. I've never seen a price that low. The offer is over tomorrow.

And Then

The day started off good: healthy breakfast, read some books.

And then I let the kids watch a good hour and a half of TV while I looked at houses online.

And then I packed the kids into the car to meet the realtor to look at houses.

And then I schlepped the kids all around town looking at houses from 11 - 2. Yep, right through lunch and naptime. I passed back a bag of stale cheerios at one point.

And then I let Little A choose where she wanted me to get lunch from (at 2:15 mind you) since she did such a good job going from house to house.

And then I went through the McDonalds drive through. Thanks Mickey D for having My Little Ponies in the happy meals (and thanks to my Dad for teaching her about Happy Meals. That! Come! With! A! Toy!)

And then, in one instance, realized I became the mom my idealistic 28 year old self would have wanted to kick: harried, no make-up, sporting yesterday's hair, driving a mini-van, passing back McDonalds french fries to two kids who looked away from Clifford on the van DVD just long enough to reach for the fried, white-carb heavy, nutrient lacking, GMO, mass produced substance.

And then, Little Mister decided that the 10 minute nap he took between houses was enough. Except it wasn't. So, he spent from 3-5 being grumpy, yawning and moaning.

And then I let Little A play computer games on pbskids.org while I sat on the couch with Little Mister and watched Big Green Rabbit on repeat.

And then this song implanted itself firmly into my head and will play on repeat for the next 2 weeks.

And then I almost called CPS on myself.

But, all hope is not lost. Yes, I may have lost the contest for world's best mom for this week month year, true.

But then, I sang Little Mister to sleep (granted it was pretty easy since he was ready for bed since 5pm) and got to snuggle with his sleeping self and feel his sweet, cool breath on my cheek.

And then I got to watch Little A's delighted face as I read A Bad Case of the Stripes (complete with voices) before bed and smile as she asked when she could try lima beans like the little girl in the story.

And then I got to snuggle with her until she fell asleep.

And then I had a nice glass of wine and recounted the day on my trusty little blog.

And then I am going to bed!

Long Overdue Halloween Pictures - part 1

An impromptu visit to a local church fall festival. We improvised a costume with bunny ears from Gramma's house. Little Mister was dressed as, uh, a toddler. Who doesn't have much hair.

Weekly Menu

Lunches
Chickpea Salad
Garlic Bean and Vegetable Soup (recipe from chickpea bag, I'll post if good)

Dinners:
Double Potato Soup and Bread Machine Rolls
Mushroom Orzo and steamed broccoli
Mushroom, Pepper and Onion Pizza (using Bread Machine dough)
Black Bean Tortilla Soup

Five Latest Favorites - Tag

Tagged by Heather.

The task is to report on my five latest obsessions. 'Obsessions' is a bit strong, so I'll post on my five latest favorites.

1. Pumpkin Bread. Still making this recipe. I made some this yesterday and we've already polished off one loaf. All four of us love it.

2. Jasmine Green Tea. I love the Good Earth brand, followed by Stash. It has the double whammy of good taste and soothing aroma.

3. Healthy Eating. Now that I'm back home full time, I'm relishing in being able to cook and serve good, healthy meals again. We ate okay while I was working, but some nights I was just too tired to try new recipes or cook some old recipes that take longer than 30 minutes.

4. The pitter patter of little feet on our apartment hardwood floors. Such a sweet sound.

5. Just being a mama. Not having to split my focus is wonderful.

We're here!

Hi! Just a quick update.

We have settled into our corporate apartment in San Antonio. We'll be here for the month of November. After that? To be determined....

We'd love some prayers as we try to find a house or decide if we should rent for awhile. So far, no luck on the home buying front. We put a low offer on one, but were rejected (or, more accurately, rejected the counter the seller proposed). It's nice, but quite overpriced for the square footage. The seller is pretty adamant about keeping the selling price above appraisal price and we are having a hard time justifying paying above appraisal, especially in such a buyers market. But, we may get desperate....

We're looking daily and hoping something good will come on the market soon.

It's funny to be in an apartment again; I feel like I should be donning a back pack and heading to class. We have Little Mister sleeping in a play pen in our closet (someone call CPS) and this morning he was up at 4:45 (darn you time change), so, of course, we were too.

I made the mistake of showing Little A the pool yesterday and she swears that she won't be cold if we go swimming. It's 70 out, which is a bit cool for swimming. But, I may get desperate. Trying to entertain two kids in a 900 sq foot apartment with minimal toys will be a challenge. In fact, I just turned around to see that Little Mister made his own fun by unraveling the paper towel roll.

Yesterday Little A looked at me at 3:30pm and said loudly "I'm boring. Let's go somewhere."

Reunited

Friday night. I walk into the house after a long day of meetings, flying and travel. Head pounding, body aching (I’ll realize on Saturday that I have the flu). I drop my bags at the door and head to your room.

I see you and your Dad sitting on the bed with a stack of books. Blond curls, mismatched pajamas, sparkling blue eyes and the smile. THE smile. The smile that makes me whole.

‘Mama!’ you giggle. I am now more than whole.

I change out of my work clothes, wash off the airplane funk. I lay down next to you. You nestle into me, your bare feet on top of mine.

“I've been missing you mama.”
“I’ve been missing you too.”

Because life had gotten boring and all

Husband starts a new job on Monday.
In San Antonio.
I will work my last day on Monday.
In Fort Worth.
We will move at some point.
And find a house.
And move out of our current house.
I don't know anyone in San Antonio.
Oh, and we must decide what to do about our unexpectedly vacant home in MN.
And we are all sick.

Whew.

Cowboy Game

Husband and I got the opportunity to go to the inaugural game at the new Cowboy stadium. It's impressive and we had a fun night out. Thanks to Dave and Erin for babysitting for us! Great Seats!

$14 Margarita. Yummy!

Little Mister 1.5

Words: Quite a talker. He loves to repeat whatever you ask. He is putting 2 words together now, like ‘bye mommy’ and ‘more cheeos.’ He can identify most of his extended family members and loves looking at pictures and telling me who he sees. Words we hear often: dink, all-done, mo (more), mommy, daddy, sissy, NO, baby, apple, oh-no, I dunno, walk, outside, NO!, raisin, softie (for his blanket), eyes, nose, mouf, ears, micky mouse, elmo, abby dabby, walrus, effant (elephant), puppy, zeba (zebra), hold you, NO, show. And an impressive array of animal sounds. My favorites are his versions of snake and elephant.

Eats: Lots of dry cereal (cheerios, wheat chex and shredded wheat are his favorites), oatmeal, steamed broccoli, pasta, peanuts and raisins, oranges.

Actions: He loves to climb and is getting pretty adept at mastering ladders at playgrounds. Granted I’ve saved his life several times, but he can do it on his own more often than not. He loves to get a reaction from his sister, whether it be by turning off her favorite show, taking a puzzle piece away from her and running away or walking over to her and bopping her on the head while she plays. It’s great. He is also really determined to get his point across. Several times he’ll say something to me over and over, seemingly roll his eyes when I can’t figure out what he’s saying and then take me hand and lead me to what he needs, be it a specific snack, toy or book. I love how much he loves books.

Things I want to remember at this age:

• How he likes to sing songs before bed and that he’ll tell me no if I sing a song that isn’t of his choosing. I’ll just keep starting different songs until he finally tells me ‘yeah.’ Then he claps when I finish the song, which makes the initial rejection worth it.


• How he buries his head in the left side of my neck when he is tired.


• The way he happily says ‘bye’ to his day care class each day when we leave.


• His fish face.


• How excited he is to find a picture of a dog in a book and how he’ll usually hug and kiss it, all the while saying ‘ahhh, puppy.’