Do you smell that bread?

In an attempt to curb our horrendous food spending habits, I started making our own bread. Yes, it started out rocky, but it has been perfected. For whatever reason, our kitchen turns into an oven during the summer, so baking in the actual oven is pretty much out. What to do. Turns out a fabulous sister-in-law of mine had a brand new breadmaker that had never been used and wanted to see some action.

I'll spare you the details of the inch tall loaves and the mushied middle loaves and get to the good stuff. King Arthur has some great recipes on their site. (They also have a great blog that you probably shouldn't ever check out.) The winner of all our bread tests (not based solely on the fact that Ava will eat the bread AND the crust) is the 100% Whole Wheat with flax seeds and Abigail's Honey. Over the course of my bread eating life, I've had quite a few $5 loaves that don't even compare.

Nevermind the fact that we're saving a few bucks and know each of the eight ingredients in our bread, the smell that occurs when those few items knead, rise, mix and bake is the reason I do it!

Rude ass bitch

As a human, the pool of stupid comments is, let's say as big as Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. When you add the title mom to human, the pool of stupid turns into at least one ocean. Add an ocean for each additional child. That's a whole lotta stupid. Knowing this makes it possible for me to ignore most of it.

However, when people are downright rude, that's another story. I haven't had much rude directed at my little family.

I often go shopping with my sister in law, also a mother of three. We're most aware that we look like a preschool - six kids ages 7, 4, 4, 2, 2 and almost 8 months - on a field trip when we're out. If people have nasty things to say, they've always been quiet about it. Until the other day.

We were making our way into Whole Foods (which I'm liking less and less - thanks for getting rid of our fave & your most popular selling cereal - makes sense) when two ancient women were leaving. One old bitty said real bitchy like, "Well, thanks for helping with overpopulation." So I said, "Actually, they all have different dads. That makes us -2 when it's all said and done." No, I didn't, but should it happen again, I will.

A clean fridge

Cleaning the fridge, as in taking everything out and washing all that sticky goo off, is an activity so heinous that I do it about once a year. Yeah, seriously. At least I can admit it. So it was that time a couple weeks ago. It's almost like I opened a window and let in the light. The clean fridge sparkles. It smells good. It's empty. Is this what happens when one cleans a fridge?

We're, okay, I'm pretty good at labeling leftovers with a name (oh, don't tell me that you've never had one of those unidentified moldy sculptures in a rubbermaid) and date, so I knew exactly how old some of that stuff was. The new plan, which will work for at least a month, is to remove food items after one week.

And while we're on the subject of cleaning, what is up with those foamy soap dispensers? I love them, don't get me wrong, but I'm tired of being assaulted as the thing fires off in random directions due to formerly foamy soap clogging the shooter. The worst was when I shot Lucy the cat. My mother in law suggested spraying some canola oil into the shooter to keep it lubed up. Only worked for a shot or two.

Happy Father's Day!

Wade and our college buddy went to see The Queers last night near Cincy. I thought Wade was going to take part of this morning off and have a yummy Father's Day breakfast with us. At 8:30pm last night I realized that we were out of an essential Overnight Cinnamon Roll ingredient - buttermilk. (If you've never made these DO IT NOW!) We were also out of plain yogurt, so off to Krog we went. Taking the kids out past 7pm is usually a very bad idea. 7pm might as well be the full moon for my little werewolves. Being the daredevil that I am, we went for it.

After getting home around 2am, Wade got up at 6am and did the unthinkable. He went to work. Since he didn't stick around for breakfast, we called to tell him how delish his rolls were as we scarfed them down. Then, I made the best dinner I could think of to show my love. One with green peppers (barf-o). And homemade flour tortillas (super yummy)!

Daddy Hutt was so appreciative of all the good food that he promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Oh, and it turns out that being barely 30 and male at an all ages show makes you the creepy guy at the show.

Intentional Injuries

What is it with band aids? My kids will do anything to get one of those stinky pieces of sticky plastic on their bodies. That becomes a problem when we actually need a band aid and have wasted them all on non injuries. We've been out for a while and I finally remembered to buy some yesterday because I've gotten tired of raiding the first aid kit in the van every time there's a band aid emergency.

The kids were so excited. I didn't give into the Sponge Bob band aids or anything fancy. Though, I might've if they had a little absorbant pad that actually sucked up blood and they didn't leave nasty film behind that takes forever to come off.

Belle managed to get a scratch a few minutes after we got home. She picked a blue band aid. About five seconds later she told me that a bee stung her. While we were in the house. With all the doors and windows shut. Hmmm. Five seconds later she "fell." Five minutes later she'd had enough. She asks, "Actually, mommy, can you just hurt me?" WHAT?! At that point I gave in and let her have a band aid for her non injury.

Neato toys

Last month I won a Balancing Monkeys toy (which I can't seem to link) from Plan Toys via GoodyBlog. That's my first win. Not as exciting as a trip for two to Hawaii, but the kids have had a blast fighting over playing with the monkeys.

Plan Toys is a green toy company. Their toys are made out of old rubber trees that would otherwise be cut and burned. The toys are made in their own factories, giving them control of the materials and processes used to make them.

If you're in the market for some non toxic toys made by an environmentally friendly company, check them out. They have some really fun stuff!!

The 90s are back

It's not summer according to the calendar, but according to the sweat drenching my shirt, the humidity making it tough to breathe and the fact that school is out - it's definitely summer. I've been dreading the 90s since they left last year. Damn 90s. Actually, it's not really the 90s' fault. It's more humidity's fault. Without humidity the 90s wouldn't be so bad. Those two are in one of those troubled, unhealthy relationships. Thank goodness it only lasts for a few months. But they always seem to get back together. Therapy. Maybe they should try therapy.

In an effort to keep myself the kids from going bonkers this summer, I decided to sign the girls up for the summer reading program with the public library. Ava has to read for 15 hours (doesn't that seem like a lot?!) and Belle has to have 25 books read to her. In perfect Ava fashion, we came home from the library that first day and Ava read for over two hours. When she was at 02:57:53 (she's using the stopwatch on my cell phone to keep track of her time) I told her to go ahead and fill in three hours' worth of reading time. That caused a humongo melt down. She can't lie about how long she's read. So, maybe this is going to backfire.

The girls taught Luke how to tell knock knock jokes. Great. I thought we were done with those for a while. While they get the whole Knock Knock. Who's there? thing it's the part that comes next that they. don't. get. It's usually something along the lines of Daddy banana or pink donkey.

Gotta run. Time to hit the slip n slide!