Mad Libs Wannabe

Spring Break is a misnomer. I don't know who they think is getting a break around here, but it's not mama. {And if the teachers are mamas, then it's not them, either!} And who thinks it's spring? It was 48 degrees, cloudy and rainy here today, so we had a day of adventures inside or running errands.

Just what every little boy dreams of.

I did take pictures throughout the day hoping for a fun post topic. {Because sadly, when you write a blog, you are constantly thinking of how situations could weave their way into posts.} But, since I have now uploaded, edited and formatted pictures for you {after chasing children all day}, I'm POOPED!

Good gravy! Complain much?

So, here's the deal: I need you to write the story. Just like Mad Libs without the "Farting Hyenas" you wrote about when you were 12. Play along with me, will you, please? Just pick your favorite picture, or the next one in line and add your own caption in the comments section {click Comments- in orange- down below this post and this lovely box appears for you}.
Or, you can complete this sentence: "It was perfectly normal day, until _______".























Thank you for your help! And I can't wait to hear what you think of, you creative people, you.
And I might explain our day tomorrow- that is, if you don't come up with something better. I might take your version of the story- with or without hyenas.

Sad confessions of a lunch packing mom

I have the lunchbox blues. Please, please help. I need you to be my Zoloft.

Let me start off with this: I have the option of paying for a catered lunch for my kids at pre-school. The lunch is from Jason's Deli, so it's quasi-healthy, but doesn't include all the things that my kids usually eat. They eat a lot.

I would probably have to pack more than just what they would get from that lunch. So, I just bite the bullet and pack their lunches every day. I won't lie and tell you that I like it either. It's about as much fun as a root canal, but I do it, danggit. I have been known to say that this was the bane of my existence. Dramatic? Maybe. Honest? Youbetcha.

Oh, and I'm cheap and don't want to pay for that lunch that I would have to supplement. Have I mentioned that I'm cheap, before? I think I might have here. Or here.

Here's the situation, though: my poor kids have a lot of the same foods over and over again. Not only because the foods are easy to pack, travel well, don't grow mold in a matter of hours, etc., but also because their mommy can't think of other things to pack!! I'm out of creative juices (or juice boxes in this situation)!
HELP!

I used to be the Queen of the Lunchbox, but I've gotten into a rut.

Here are my standard "guidelines": meat, 2 veggies, 2 fruits. (They get loads of whole grains at breakfast, so I don't feel bad about leaving those off the lunch list.)

Meats: Ham, chicken or hot dog (yes- the bad ones, they just taste better)

Veggies: Corn, Lima beans, baked beans, black eyed peas, green beans (anything in a can- I am NOT good at cooking frozen veggies. They end up burned on the edges and frozen in the middle when I cook them.) And I send fresh carrots, broccoli or celery with Ollie because he has chomping teeth (vs. his brother) and loves those. AND they give him ranch to dip them in. (Time out here to get a collective *AMEN- Hallelujah* for dipping accessories like ketchup and ranch!)

Fruits: Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, peaches in a little cup, cantaloupe, pineapple (canned), oranges (mandarin canned ones), pears, apples.

(OK, well I'm okay with fruits, thankfully because they will eat any fruit, but I need serious help in the other areas.)

Sometimes I get a little wacky and throw in a cheese (cubes or stringed) or a pasta (like the oh-so healthy Easy Mac). I feel really proud of myself on those days. Or I might send a soy nut butter (2 children in Ollie's classroom are deathly allergic to peanuts) and jelly sandwich with Ollie in lieu of a meat to spice things up a bit. Last week I was desperate and even sent Bagel Bites. I hope the teachers didn't talk about me at the microwave.


I need help!! Please click on Comments and take a few minutes to tell me your kids favorite things that you pack.

I try not to send things that they will completely hate because I want them to eat. I normally try new things at home so I can force them to try it with threats of taking away toys see if they like it before it's carted off to participate in pre-school. It might be traded for something, so it has to at least be a contender.

What? You see potato chips here? I do NOT know what you're talking about...

I also need tips on lunch box containers. I have to have a size that will fit into their lunchboxes, but I am SO tired of the cheap $1 ones I got from Target (that they don't sell anymore!!). I only have 2 lids without cracks left and I clean those and use them everyday. It would been nice if the packages told you not to dish wash the lids, but apparently the level of instruction on a $1 container isn't quite what it needs to be. Or didn't translate from Chinese. Or wasn't a concern while they were filling it with lead. Whatever.

They need to have separate areas for each food (that quirk comes to my beloved children courtesy of my husband) and preferably can be dish washed.

Go wild with your ideas and tips! You can do it!
Thanks in advance!! You're the best!

What did you just call me?

First, thank you all so much for your wonderful dishwasher tips and congrats. Our new addition is fitting into our family quite well. He is quiet and still does what I tell him to do. Nice for a change. And, I bought the Electrosol tablets at Sam's. Thanks for the tip!

Over Christmas, I had another flare up of an embarrassing problem. Not my fever blisters, although those showed their pretty little heads, as well, but a different one.

This one is much further down- all the way down to my left foot.

I do know my left from my right. This is just a model of my lovely right foot on Christmas Day. It is proudly displaying a gift from my mother-in-law. A gag, recycled gift, but a gift, nonetheless.

I get this massive bump in the middle of it when I stand on it for too long. Apparently, all the cooking, shopping, cleaning, teacher gift making, candy eating baking, etc that comes along with Christmas pushed me over the edge. It was either that or the "Christmas should not be about materialism and to-do lists, but about quiet preparation time" soap box that I tend to get on pretty often.
Hmmm. Hard to tell.

Let's just say that it looked like the peak of Mt. Everest was in the middle of my foot. (Five points to anyone who knows what wonderfully- named man was the first to climb to the top of Mt. Everest.) It was painful, a little ugly, but worst of all, I couldn't wear my hot mama black boots without severe pain.

So, I did what any woman would do. I wore the boots anyway and called a podiatrist.

I saw the foot doctor today and - even though it isn't flared up nearly as much as it was- he could still tell there was something there.

So, he sent me to X-ray.

I met a very nice old lady there who was hoping to get to be able to wear 2 shoes today for the first time in 3 months. She'd had a boot on one foot and then the other.
I made jokes about her one clean shoe at home.
She told me I looked far too young to have 2 children.
I miss her.

After X-ray, I went back to the room and it was just what he thought it was: a Ganglion Cyst.

What did you just call me?

That's right- some sort of foul sounding cyst. EEWWW.
Well, it's also called a "Bible" cyst, so I'd like to think that Jesus got them, too.
And would you like to know why it's called a Bible Cyst? Because people used to drop Bibles on them to get rid of them.

Really.

My options to get rid of it are 1) Bible dropping 2) deal with it or 3) surgery.

Although I do live in a Bible-beating area, I'm going with option #2. I think Proverbs warns against option #1.
=================================

And for your viewing pleasure, here is another picture of Ollie from his dress-up montage the other night. He is saying, "To infinity and beyond!" Except his "beyond" sounds like "Byhooond"- thus the O sound you see here. He still loves Buzz (and there are more links if you need them).
What am I going to do when this doesn't fit him anymore? I think if he leaves it on long enough that it will mold to his body.

Yes. That's what I want the pre-school kids to remember about him. He'll appreciate that in middle school.

Just your average Thursday night...

At the Dunham home.
One child who thinks he IS Buzz Lightyear (we are going to have to surgically remove this costume):One child whose favorite toys are in the trash (ok- recycling bin): And a little explosion:

The culprit:

Don't ask me how it happened like my husband did. I shook up the salsa- like you always shake salsa, so you don't get just the juicy part at the beginning- and it just popped when I opened it! And it went everywhere! I had a red polka dotted shirt, a phone with an onion stuck in the earpiece and salsa in my EYE! Ouch! Thankfully my eye is fine, but there is never a dull moment around here. I'll invite you all over next time for tacos and show you my little trick. It's kind of like a pinata... just with salsa.

I caved

But it was so worth it!

Bumper Stickers

First, Happy 100th Post to my blog! Thanks for reading my ramblings. You make my day!

Now, on to the matter at hand- bumper stickers. What are your thoughts on them? My husband is ANTI. As in, he does not want anything sticking or magnetized to his car. He can have a custom tag (not with "JAY Z" or anything like that on it, but he did get stuck with my "helping schools" themed tag that I got a few years ago) or a plate on the front (he has an SGI plate there for Saint George Island), but nothing else.
Where are you on the spectrum?
I feel the added pressure to represent for our family and unfortunately, my car has started to look like it might be on the NASCAR circuit soon (insert you own joke here about my driving). It started innocently with an Auburn sticker. Then a church magnet. Then our pre-school got magnets. Next I added a UAH sticker for parking on the college campus. And this is the time of year that our Junior League sells Apple Annie apples, so I temporarily have an Apple Annie sticker (that one is on the front windshield, though). THEN (I know!), I had to add a De Colores sticker after my awesome Emmaus weekend! With that last one, I had to move the school magnet to the side of the car in an attempt to disguise what I realize is a little over the top. Here is the kicker- I have an SGI sticker I bought on our last trip in the car (not on, yet) and a McCain- Palin sticker that is on order (I'll address politics in a later post, I'm sure, but know that I'm not personally against you if you are voting for the other guy, but I happen to be in the camp that falls in line with this guy/ gal team in most areas).
I think with the political sticker I'm definitely going to put it on a magnet so I can take it off after the election- no matter who wins. Don't you hate seeing a "Kerry '04" sticker on a car? (Or any sticker that indicates a really old election for that matter.) Scrape that sucker off, please! Or are you trying to show people that that's who you would prefer to be president FOUR YEARS LATER? I don't understand.
And for the SGI sticker, I just don't know where I would put it! Surely that's a sign that there are too many on there.

When I was in high school, my dad served on a federal grand jury that met in Montgomery for several days a month. He was selected for that based on a 20 page-ish questionairre and one of the questions was about the bumper stickers on his car. I remember thinking how odd that was, but it makes more sense now and I obviously have never forgotten it. I think bumper stickers show where your true passions lie. And/ or where your money goes. (So that means you don't have to write out, "My daughter and my money go to Alabama"... you can just have a classy "AU Mom" and we all know.) I can understand Jason's position that he doesn't want people to judge him based on his car labeling. It's the same reason that I don't put shirts on my children that say, "Trouble" or "Spoiled Rotten" or any label- even if they are funny. But for me it has been an avenue to discussion in many areas; several people at our pre-school have asked about our church and other friends have asked when I started taking classes at UAH.
And, as a positive effect, I've tried to drive much more considerately with the realization that there is a church magnet on the back of my car. (I think I need to put the sticker that says, "I'm not perfect, just forgiven" above it!) But, if I'm in a pinch, I've decided to just honk, cut off the offending driver and then drive away really quickly so they can't read it.
Or, on second thought, I think I'll put more stickers on there so that they are distracted by all the other stickers on my car to able to catch that one!

You know you're a mom when...

Today, I took my bug-covered, dirt smothered car to the drive through car wash. Ours is called the Goo-Goo Car Wash, so we just call it the Goo-Goo. When I got there, the Goo-Goo employees (always dressed in ties???) told me BEFORE I went through the first time that it would take 2 trips through the car wash to even touch the bugs. It was on them, so I was all for it!

After my second trip through, I got out to vaccuum and realized that I'd forgotten the towel that I normally bring to help dry/ wipe the dirt out of the creases of the car. Hmmm. Looking around the car... AHA! Baby wipes! That's right! They helped get those bugs and random dirt off like a charm!

So, if you smell a fresh baby hiney coming down the road, it might be me!

And we're eating out tonight...

Q:
What happens when you think you're supermom, put 2 1/2 cups of water on the stove (at high) to boil for rice and a splendid dinner you have planned, then go play with your kids for about 20 minutes?
Hmmmm...
A:
A smoke filled kitchen. And house. And lungs. And clothes that smell like smoke. (If I would have been able to breath I would have taken a shot of the kitchen. It was ugly.)
So, I took the kids on a wagon ride to let the house air out.
AND, we're eating out tonight.
:-)