My hot date

Tonight Joey and I had a little date. Granted it was only popcorn and a movie but we had fun. Mickey Mouse, Georgie, Puppy and Howie also joined us in the shenanigans!
First off, let me start off by saying that I have trouble watching any show or movie that is kid stuff, especially cartoons. I don't know why it is but I am picky about what I watch. I don't watch a lot of TV and I never channel surf. I have set shows that I watch and that is it.
Anywho, I opted for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Yes I am that geeky person who loves anything HP. Convincing Joey to watch it with me was even easier. See the big bowl of popcorn and cookies? That was all I needed. Did I mention that those where GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!!!
Of course we only made it a quarter of the way through the movie before Joey ran out of popcorn and it was his bedtime anyway so we called the date short. He did end the night off with showing me how he can fit three pacifiers (tuckies) in his mouth. Such a talented little boy! P.S. please don't mind about how messy his room is!

Scene and Heard Sunday

Not too much excitement this week, but none the less...

-I felt really proud when I was asked by my local Fred Meyer Play Land attendant if Joey was an older brother. When I said no, she told me that Joey was acting like one for another younger boy there and that he did a really good job at it. I hope that someday by some great miracle from God that I can bless Joey with a sibling. For now I will relish over the fact that my crazy, wild son can be so nurturing too!

-I have been visiting Just a Girl's Blog and have gotten some great ideas for crafty projects and home design. Now I just wish I would make the time to attempt such endeavors.

-Got into a verbal altercation with the attendant at a Fred Meyer Play Land that I seldom visit all over how Joey takes off his identification bracelet. The details are irrelevant but it did result in me to not putting Joey in Play Land and me ripping up his sign in log at that particular location. It probably was a dumb fight but none the less I held my ground and didn't cower or whimper. I love that by becoming a Mom I have learned to stand up for myself and for my family.

-Joined Swagbucks which is just a search engine that you can gain bucks which in turn you can purchase gift cards and items just for searching as you normally would on the internet. In three 3 days I have earned 272 Swagbucks. When I reach 500 I can get a $5 amazon gift card. The goal is to earn enough Swagbucks to pay for Christmas next year. Click on the banner below if you are interested and want to sign up. It's a referral link, so I do get some swag bucks if you sign up with it. It seems cheesy and gimmicky but I love getting free stuff and I know you do too.

Making a Diaper Cake

Yesterday I went to my childhood friends Baby Shower. I wanted to make a diaper cake but not a tall, huge one so I opted for a sheet cake version. This was my first attempt at making a sheet cake diaper cake and I think it turned out pretty neat.

First off start with your ingredients. Most of this stock I had on hand besides the diapers. I try to buy cute baby clothes and shoes when they go on clearance or when I can get a great deal on them.



Basic Ingredients
Newborn or Size 1 diapers: One pack contains about 50 diapers. I also recommend choosing diapers that don't have a lot of design on them. In this case I loved the fact that the diapers I chose (Target's Up and Up brand) had polka dots on them in boy colors.
Ribbon
Rubberbands
Baby toiletries and clothes/shoes
Cardboard layout fit to the size of your desired cake
Hot Glue Gun (don't worry if the glue gets on the diapers or product, typically it will come right off when dried)
Scissors
Misc. items such as stickers, tag board, etc.
String

*Remember Diaper Cakes are personable and unique. No two are
alike and they should reflect your personality or the recipients. You can put as little or as much "ingredients" on it as you would like!

Step 1.

Take all the diapers and roll them individually and secure with a small rubber band.


Step 2.
Align how you would like to make the cake. The inside of the cake consisted of 4 groups of 6 diapers formed in rows of 2x3. Every "six" diapers were fastened together with a larger rubber band.


In my case I knew I wanted individual ribbons wrapped each diaper along the outer edge of the cake. I counted how many edge diapers there were and planned my ribbons accordingly. Because there were 22 diapers that could fit on the edge and I only had 7 ribbon types chosen I opted to have the 4 corner pieces stand out in a yellow color.
I cut the ribbons to size and wrapped it around the diaper to cover the rubber band and secured with a dab of hot glue.



Step 3.
Loosely secure the entire diaper cake together with dabs of hot glue. You don't need much, just enough to keep its shape for the next step.







Step 4.

Once the diaper cake is put together you can choose how you want to secure it so the individual diapers don't fall out. I always go with ribbon and wanted to accent this sheet cake as if there were two strips of Icing going along the edge.
First I tie a piece of string around the entire edge on top and bottom. This step is not necessary but it does ensure that when you wrap the finished ribbon around it it will be secure and snug. Once the string is on, wrap the ribbon over the string and secure each end with dabs of hot glue. Press the two ends together until the hot glue is dry to ensure a secured fit.
At this point I cut the string and remove it from the cake. The knot I tied with the string tends to get bulky and stick out.



Step 5.

At this point you are almost done. Lay out how you want the top of the cake to look like. Play around with a design and when you like what you have secure the clothes/shoes/etc. with COLORED push pins. I suggest colored because you are pushing these pins into the diapers and the idea of a diaper cake is for the Mom to be able to use every ingredient. There is nothing worse then a pin pricking a little babies tush. Pins are so tiny and are easily missed.


I finish my cake with an ingredients list so the Mom knows what size and quantity of items are on the cake. I also add some scrapbooking paper to the cardboard sheet to dress up the cake a bit more.

Works for Me Wednesday

Keeping a clean, organized and functioning sink

Kitchens can get messy real quick!
Finding a balance has really helped me keep my kitchen clean and my clean-ups quick.
Part of the routine is functional sink/station.

I hate having to bend over and rummage through the sink cabinet to get out dish soap, sponges, etc. So I keep it all in one place.

Here is my sink.



Nice and Big right?
I have found that filling the hand soap dispenser with dish soap has saved me time and money. The dish soap is dual purposes (for dishes and hands). I also keep a bottle of lotion and sanitizer for good measure.



In the sink compartment itself I keep a scrubbing brush and a sponge. I use the scrubbing brush to quickly clean up dishes that can't go in the dishwasher by just pumping a little soap on to it. The sponge is readily available for any spills or quick clean ups. At night the scrubbing brush and sponge go in the dishwasher for sanitation.

Probably the best thing about my sink is that it can hold that really cool cutting board/strainer. Not only does it serve its intended purpose but it also hides dishes for when last minute company comes over. I like using this board over my sink b/c it saves time. I don't have to dig out a strainer and the board is big enough to cute multiple things. I've seen this board at Macy's, Target and Costco and come in a variety of colors.

See it in action!


To round out my sink organization I installed a towel rack right on the cabinet door. I keep dish washing detergent and kitchen spray underneath the sink and I never feel like my cabinet is overflowing with 1000 types of kitchen products.

Keeping my sink in this working order has helped me with keeping a clean kitchen and also cleaning as I go so there is never a big stock pile of dishes in the sink. This is what works for me!

Does anyone have anything to add to this organization either of the sink or the kitchen? I would love to hear it! Anything to make my life easier. =)

Vegetable Applesauce

If your kid(s) are anything like my Joey you know that getting them to eat vegetables is like pulling teeth.
Joey doesn't have the greatest eating habits in the world but I am a stickler for the Food Pyramid recommendation of eating enough fruits and vegetables. We don't seem to have a problem with Joey eating fruits but when it comes to vegetables I always have to trick him.
The other day I bought a jar of baby food squash, put some cinnamon on it and called it applesauce. Joey gobbled it up! =)
With is loving affinity of applesauce I usually find I can mix some sort of vegetable in with it so that he is getting double the nutrients in one serving.

As I write this blog post I can hear Joey searching for cookies. He'll never find them! Muhahahaha!

Making homemade applesauce is super easy and healthy.

Ingredients:
4 apples (any type, peeled and sliced)
half can of pinapple tidbits
1 can of cooked carrots (drained)
cinnamon and sugar to taste



In a crock pot put all ingredients and pour the pineapple juice from the can into mixture. You can use as much cinnamon and sugar as you would like but the pineapple and its juice really serve as the sweetness factor for this recipe. I recommend sprinkling the cinnamon/sugar on to the carrots themselves as to further hide the carrot flavor. Cook on Low until apples are soft.



When the apples are soft (not mushy) start mashing them and stir to incorporate the mixture. Mixture will be textury. (If your child doesn't like the texture you can mix in blender). Turn off crockpot and let sit to cool.



When cooled, place in individual serving tupperware or regular tupperware.



Enjoy!

Seen and Heard Sunday

In a brief recap of our week, here are some things that went on.

-Running running everywhere! Joey doesn't stop. We go over to my parents house a lot so Joey can run wild (can't really do that in apartment living). The weather has been absolutely beautiful so we have been spending a lot of time outside.
I taught Joey the importance of sidewalks and why he should use them when we walked from my parents house to Chambers Bay. It was a beautiful sunny day and opted to take Joey out sans stroller or Puppy harness, not sure if I will do that again.

-Joey keeps has quite the fascination with Fuzzy (my Mom's cat). He will want to call Grandma just so he can talk to Fuzzy. Two days in a row he brought the mail in from my parents house only to walk past Grandma and Grandpa and shove it in front of Fuzzy's face. Apparently Fuzzy pays the bills around here.

-Baby Genius? My brother, the wonderfully nerdy Chemistry major he is, taught Joey that those big concrete red balls outside of Target are Protons. So of course every time we go to Target (which is a lot) he points out the Protons.


-I finally decided to start working out and lifting weights again after perusing through an old college friend's Facebook page and discovering that she is involved in Fitness Shows and is looking great, especially after having a baby.
I want to be physically fit not only for me but for my family. I don't consider myself fat by any means but I do have a layer of fluff that could stand to never be seen again. So I am eying for working out three days a week and staying as active as possible so that I can tone up and lean out.

-Had to have a talk with Joey about appropriate bathroom behavior. We have always had an "Open Door" policy when it comes to the bathroom so that we can encourage Joey to try Potty Training again. Well I apparently have had too much of an open door policy because I caught Joey with a tampon mimicking what you do with it (he was fully dressed). I can't believe I am telling everyone this, but kids catch on so quickly. And so you can understand why I have started locking the door. <----(insert Mom of the Year Moment Here)

-And finally....Pretty sure our downstairs neighbors moved out of their apartment into a new one on the way other end of our floor. When we first moved in we received a complaint that Joey was being a little too loud (toddlers walk/run loudly!). So I made a 'peace offering' to them with a nice bottle of wine and asked them to please let me know if the noise was a problem again as we were working with Joey on being "Tiny Guy, Quiet Guy."
Well we never heard from them again (even though there have been numerous times where Joey has thrown raging fits on the floor while kicking his legs and pounding on the walls). The other day I was getting on the elevator and saw our downstairs neighbor getting off the elevator on to our floor with groceries in hand. With quick deductive reasoning I soon realized that they probably moved out, more than likely b/c of Joey's loudness. I am too afraid to ask the Apt. Managers, but I have noticed that our apartment has been very cold lately. We haven't had to turn our heat on since before Christmas because we are on the top floor and the heat rises into our apartment from downstairs. So there goes our free heat. =)
And yes I feel bad that our neighbors moved (because of us). But in our defense the floors seem almost paper thin here b/c it sounds like a herd of elephants from up above when we were only walking. And further more it probably wouldn't have been as big of a problem if both our neighbor and Joey and I weren't home all day.
But of course we are still working with Joey on being more tame, even if there is no one underneath us.

-

Hurricane Joey

We have breaking news coming into the newsroom tonight.






It appears that between the hours of 2pm and 3 pm this sunny afternoon, a freak Hurricane ripped through the living room. Deemed Hurricane Joey, the wreckage produced massive amounts of scattered blocks, an emptied out diaper bag, train tracks leading to nowhere, and couch pillows tossed about. Left in its mist this Toddler of a storm left large traces of fingerprints all over the window and TV.

Upon arriving home from her afternoon workout, Joey's Mom was completely puzzled how such a freak storm hit so unassumingly. It was then discovered that directly in the path of Hurricane Joey was a resting Uncle Cody who did not notice the Hurricane's approach until it was too late. After being hit mid range with a flying block Uncle Cody was able to maneuver the Hurricane into his waiting room for a much needed nap. The aftermath, although messy, resulted in a quick clean up. The only set back seemed to be a lack of Windex so the fingerprints remain for another day.



This is reporter Bloggy McBloggerson reporting live from Mom of the Year's residence in Tacoma, WA