proof of life

Uncle Chris is alive! Oh how we love Uncle Chris. Chris is Ritchey's younger brother by 7 years. He is such not a Cable and in a world of his own, in a good way. After college he knew what he wanted in life and up and moved to California. He got a job at Disneyland with the desire of working his way up the foodchain in order to get into corporate Disney. And we haven't seen him since! Sort of. See Chris works at the actual park and they don't get major holidays off. So when all the family is together, he is missing. Ritchey even photoshopped him into last year's christmas photo. And because he lives in California, we somehow find it hard to get our family of 5 out there for less than a bazillion dollars. So our big family hangup was that Chris had never met Sophie, and she is over 2 years old and a full fledged human being now. The boys got to see Chris at Scott's wedding out in CA last year, but sophie didn't make the trip with us. (my sis came to the rescue). At that trip he got us into Disney free, hallah! And he did a great job and was so excited to do so, we got Fast passes, got to skip lines, behind the scenes greatness, for free! Ritchey's parents see  Chris often cuz they fly out there often. But us po Lousiana folks just don't get to do that. But lo the day has come, Chris came home, to Louisiana anyway. Chris took 2 weeks off of work and traveled to see all the people he hadn't seen in a long time and have some much deserved fun. So he drove over from TX for 24 hours and it was so great. He is such a great uncle, as is his brother. He is so great with kids, well at least those over 3. He engaged in continual sword fights, choreographed a fight scene even, played touch football, frisbee, buckled seatbelts, held hands across the road, and did all the things I never like saying yes to, like swinging kids around 100 x in a row. My kids adore him and their other uncle, despite the distance. The other great thing about both uncles, and what I learned this time with Chris, is that he is not afraid to say no, or look both ways, or say no you may not, or be careful, or ask your mom first, or your mom is calling for you, or listen to your dad. He is mature and nurturing and careful with the kids, who knew. Such a great balance of fun and responsibility. Now Sophie was a different issue. She is EXTREMELY shy/afraid of strangers. She is a lot better since her baby years. Literally if someone said hello to her, or looked at her in the grocery store she would burst into tears, no lie. This is brutal for a gorgeous baby like Sophie, cuz everyone wants to greet her and boing her curls in their hands. Anyhoo, I had prepped her, she could pick out pics of Chris, saw him in videos and could say his name. She was kind of excited about the thought of him coming to visit, just not the actual visit. She wouldn't make eye contact and refused to take a picture with Chris. When we forced her just for the sheer fact we needed proof that they had met, she freaked out. But by the end of the 24 hours she was curious about him and even allowed him to co-exist in the same room as her. I do have one pic of them together looking at a photo book, her all time favorite activity. So Chris came, he played, he conquered. We are so glad he did and we already miss him. Here is to great uncles, and aunts, the world would not be as fun w/o them.

PioneerWoman Yumminess

Ok, I'm going to share my two most used PioneerWoman recipes. I just finished making her salsa, which is crazy easy, crazy healthy, and crazy good. I'm even going to put it in my black bean soup. And it makes impromptu nachos a breeze. So here is the link for this recipe, cuz why would I retype what Ree has so painstakenly captured.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/restaurant-style-salsa/

The second recipe I cook often, and anyone I share it with, starts cooking it often, is her crash hot potatoes. You know how some people say oh, whatchmajigger is like candy, I could just keep eating it, but they say it about, I dunno, vegetables, pasta, chips, and I'm always like, uh, no that is not like candy nothing is as tempting and yummy as chocolate/candy. But these potatoes, people, I could just keep eating and popping into my mouth. I know, wierd, it is a potato, and I'm not even a salty/savory kinda gal, give me sweet any day. But these are so good and so easy, and they seem fancy so these are a go to when I am entertaining. So here you go, here are pioneerwoman crash hot potatoes.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/06/crash-hot-potatoes/

And this weekend, thanks to my friend Kelly Harp at http://abouttheharps.blogspot.com/, I will be trying her lasagna. Although my lasagna is truly the easiest recipe you've ever heard of, but I'm willing to try this one. Here is my basic thought on pioneer woman if you haven't been to her website. If you haven't, and if you have a couple free hours, read her love story! Anyhoo, first she is hysterical. Second she is a great writer, and third she is a downhome cook.  Like I've blogged in the past, I am a meat and potatoes cooker, nothing fancy, pretty basic. If I've never heard of the ingredient or don't think my kids will like it, I probably won't cook it. But I do cook healthy and I am the master of semi-homeade. So pioneer woman works well for me. Although she uses lots of fats, and I would say about 1/2 of the recipes I have made I love, the other half just haven't done it for me, so I'm not a total groupie I suppose, but I'm willing to give them a try because she makes them so darn appealing. Oh and I'll leave you with one last of her recipes that I have yet to dry, but salivate just thinking about it, her cinnamon toast. Happy cooking this weekend! I know I will be.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/04/the-right-way-and-the-wrong-way-to-make-cinnamon-toast/

My hubby

I thought I would just post about my mostly great day- due in large part to the fact I love my hubby. The day started crazy. We all slept in and I finally heard sophie at 7:18, mind you we have to pull out at 7:30 for school. But thankfully for uniforms and cliff bars, we made it to school on time. Sophie had mom's morning out and I had a couple of meetings. Of course on my way to the meeting that I had actually put make-up on for and non lycra attire, I got a text that it was cancelled. Now what was I supposed to do, looking all snazzy with a free morning. I had lots of grubby work to do at home, but looked to good. I would have loved to go workout, seriously, but have this weird thing that once I'm dressed for the day in non-workout clothes, it ain't happening. So I had some free time. I did have some reading to do and very basic errands. It was so nice to get my chapter read in knowing God ahead of time and not having to use coveted nap times to do it. So I sat up at the church and read and waited for my impromptu hotty lunch date. As I was sitting waiting for him to be done with chapel up at the school, I heard his voice from a far. I stopped reading and opened the door to the little reading room I was in, and could hear him from the podium at chapel. I don't know why it caused me to pause and grin and listen in. I've heard him teach, I've heard his voice everyday. But for some reason today I was so proud, impressed, in love with the strong compassionate sound leader that I could hear from afar, teaching such wonderful things to this impressionable crowd. I love these little moments of rekindling. And the best part was, as soon as he was over we got to go out on a lunch date to our favorite spot, the Wok. As I have noted, our boys are in the absolutely craziest stage they have ever been in, we can barely hear ourselves think when we are at home, so I am so thankful for our adult only, quiet lunch date with the man of my, I could only dare to dream, dreams.

catching up-camping Cable style

Ok, so here is a catch up blog I promised. I just finished 30 pages in my Packer Knowing God book, so I'm a little mental mush, cuz man that is some deep but great stuff. I'll leave you with a passage in a later blog. So I'll update you on the boys first ever camping experience. The young families in our church go camping about 2x a year, spring and fall, so far though we have not been able to go because they always picked the weekends Ritchey was preaching, but yay we finally got to make it, the boys that is. Sophie is definitely not to the point of being able to A)sleep in a tent in the woods, or B)even share a room with others. We tried that a couple weeks ago while on the road, and literally from 2-3 am she thought it was party time and was jumping up and down and talking in full party voice. I digress. The boys were so excited, at least the two younger ones. My big 32 yr old boy is not too outdoorsy, can be an introvert at times (not conducive to camping with 20 other people) and likes his good night sleep and clean hands. He was kinda a party pooper at first, but I in my sweet proverbs 31 voice told him to buck up and get a grip. I kept reading facebook posts from other camping friends about taking a couple days to pack up and plan, it kinda worried me a bit, cuz I didn't do a thing but buy some weanies and marshmallows and a couple cereal bars for the one night and one full day out there. Soph and I stayed home that first night, as it is an hour drive to this camping place and a bit too far to just go out and visit. So we ran errands and had chinese food together. The boys kept sending me emails and photos of the trip, I can just see Ritchey in his tent with his Iphone the whole time, but I was kinda glad to see the smiles. Cooper was exhausted and begged to go into the tent to sleep at 8:45. You'll see the pick of Cooper and Ritchey during bedtime. He was exhausted but I also think just so excited to get in his bag and go to sleep in a tent. At one point he rolled over and whispered to Ritchey that he was the best dad in the whole world for taking him camping, awwww! (this made it worth all the trouble to Ritch). Parker however, who had all his close friends, didn't roll into the tent until after 11 p.m. But thankfully they slept till 7, which is sleeping in in the camping world. (ritch however woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep). The joke of the weekend was Ritchey and my boys pathetic camping food and gear. I packed them a banana, Clif Bar and some milk for breakfast. Parker kept joking with me to pack our usual Saturday morning pancakes, fully knowing that camping and pancakes was impossible. But oh wait, actually most of the families out there did indeed cook pancakes. ouch. And the night before our hot dogs were up against grilled fish and a potroast pack. Thankfully they felt bad for my poor Clif Bar family and passed on some sausage and pancakes. But I did pack ritchey's french press and ground Starbucks beans, I mean c'mon. Sophie and I joined the rest of them about 10 am the next day and we all stayed thru dinner and came home around 7. We went on a family hike which was so great, found a dead ginormous turtle shell, sat around the fire some more, Parker went on a guided nature hike with some scout guy that came and visited. It was wonderful. We had planned on going home sometime late afternoon (most of the others were staying another night), but our kids begged us to stay thru dinner, so we bummed some more hotdogs off others and stayed. The kids were so dirty, really, it hasn't rained here in weeks so the dust is crazy, we looked like dirt people of the prairie. Even after 20 minutes in the shower I thought they would be clean but they weren't and I literally had to SCRUB the dirt off of them. But it was so great. You feel like such a good parent doing these kinda things. Intentional family time away from the norm, the t.v the boredom of home. It was so great, and I think you could maybe get Ritchey to say the same. And we had a good time with friends too, so double win. Maybe some day we'll do this camping thing right, get a decent tent rather than a pup tent, bring some real food to cook and real gear, rather than mooching off of others. It was great. Here are a couple pics- sorry for the totally random placement of pics, I still haven't figured that part out yet.

Murder and mayhem

Ok, sorry for the week long hiatus of blogging, but man has it been a full, fun, but so busy week. This will be a bit of a bore of a post, not a lot of my usual wonderful wit :), just filling in some details of our past week. Last Thursday started with murder and ended with a burglary. Sort of.

So here is the murder victim, Tina Texas and her mourning sister, Ms. New Mexico. Here are the suspects below.

I hosted the most fun Murder Mystery Party. It was a beauty pageant theme so everyone had an assigned state and came dressed to kill. It was hysterical, everyone stayed in character all night yelling accusations at each other, bribing, name calling, backstabbing, it was so funny, and even more great is that people met new people. I had been in a funk this summer which I have referenced earlier so in August I told myself I needed to plan a party. Cuz that's what I do, I host, I socialize, I plan. So I forced myself out of the funk with the help of my friend Elizabeth, aka Tina Texas and it was a hit! You must try one someday, they are so easy and loads of laughs. So on to the burglary part, this is crazy.

After the party I hopped in the shower to wash out the massive amounts of hairspray and makeup I had on.

did you know that night is one of the only times I can remember using rollers, and the first time since probably junior high that I used  hairspray.

When I got out Ritchey told me he thought someone had been in my car. We live in a great little pocket of town, but our neighborhood is a great cut through to a not so great part of town, so some foottraffic. Anyway, i asked him why he thought so. Basically he went to lock the car doors from the clicker (inside the house) but it wouldn't lock. The automatic doors don't lock if one is open. So he saw that the sliding door was open on our swagger wagon :). He thought that was wierd but figured one of the kids had not shut it behind them. He automatically shut it with the clicker from the front porch and went inside. Then he heard the alarm go off. And that was where were at when he got me in the shower. His theory was that the alarm only goes offf like that when someone from the inside tries to open a locked door. Don't tell but my kids have set off the alarm that way when I have purposely locked them in there to return a video or post office run or to have some peace and quiet. Anyway, so he deduced that someone had been in the car. I thought he was dillusional and asked him if he had gone out there to see if the car was trashed or our dvd players stolen. This led to a power struggle and me implying he was a wimp and "Fine, I'll go out there if you're too scared". Such a wonderful Proverbs 31 wife I am. Not my shining moment. Anyhoo. He decided we'd just call the cops just in case these possibly fictional character were waiting in the bushes to jump us. So the cops came by and yes indeed these fictional characters were real. Our car was trashed, the dvd players were stolen, but not much else damaged. I was just glad they hadn't gone through the door that was broken and I had finally gotten to shut properly. We were pretty freaked out by this. It is so cliche, but you really do feel violated. Someone going through your stuff touching things with their grubby hands. And it was even more freaky to know that Ritchey had trapped them in our car, I'm sure freaky for them too. Then you move to anger, like, these punks, don't they have anything better to do, are they void of any morals. We've even had someone steal all of Cooper's bicycles/tricycles once a couple years ago. You're just like, come on people, get a life.  So that was our exciting Thursday night. Murder and Robbery!  I think I am going to bed, but hopefully soon I will blog about our camping trip, fill you in on my work with the crisis pregnancy services start up, and perhaps share a paragraph from Packer's Knowing God that blew me away. But that will have to wait. We have nothing to do this weekend, I am so excited, so I plan on getting back with you.

coming soon

I haven't disappeared completely, I'll be back within the week, I promise. Our life has been crazy busy lately, I know, you read that all the time. But I'll be back to blog about murder, burglary, tents and more soon.

I've Caved

So today I have caved in 2 major ways. no not the two giant cookies I ate. I caved in the area of Star Wars and birthdays. As most of you know who have young ins, they think and talk about their birthday all year. Cooper every so often sees something or thinks of something and then says, "thats what I want to do for my bday or thats what I want for my bday". And he'll do this one week after his birthday. I don't really start taking him seriously until about the end of August. he is an october baby. I know some of you with toddlers are like, what, I don't get to pick and plan my kids parties forever. No you don't, so get all the wonderful non-character ideas out of your system now, because once they hit 5 or so, they all of a sudden have an opinion and realize that your cute creative handmade invites and favors aren't plastic, make noise, and have their favorite hero on them. although last year I used all my mommy skills of manipulation into getting him to agree that a firefighter birthday would be the coolest ever. Anyhoo, I digress. So initially Cooper wanted a superhero party. Shocking I know. And I have done a superhero party for parker when he was 5. It was so much fun, and a lot of work. Ugh, I didn't know if I had it in me again. Lately I have been fighting this super party planner in me. I am all about planning my kids parties, we have done bug hunts, real firetrucks, father son building projects, zoo outings, all low on the pocketbook, high on creativity. But I just don't know if I have it in me this time around. I even kinda caved with Parker's last by going bowling. So anyway, all I really wanted to do for Cooper is go to one of those places that does all the work for you or rent a jumper or something. But the cheapskate in me just couldn't fork out the money. do you know it is nearly impossible to spend under $100 for a party after cakes, favors, games, decor, etc! But I still didn't want to put the work into it. So here are my two big caves. I am hosting a Star Wars party (yes I caved to this obsession) at, drumroll please, we are going to Chuck E Cheese! And to top it off I went to Wal-mart and bought all their tacky Star Wars partyware, even the ugly invites and partyfavors. I hope some of you who are all about this means of party planning aren't thinking I am the biggest snob. I'm really not, but party planning has always been the one domestic nurturing kinda thing I could actually do. I don't sew patches, I can't cook well, besides pounding chicken, cleaning, nope, nor crafts with the kids. So this was my one thing, and I am giving it up just this once. ahem. And you know what. Cooper is so so excited. He is already telling all his friends about going to chuck e cheese, although he probably doesn't realize we aren't doing the whole party package, pizza and all, just cake and tokens on a walk in basis. and he about blew a gasket of excitement when he saw all the walmart star wars crap. He lined it all up, raced to Ritchey to show him, he is so excited. My poor middle child, oh well, based on his reaction, I guess I am a good mom afterall.