Yuck!

Last week with the Chamber of Commerce I toured some of the facilities in Idaho Falls that keep the city running smoothly. This included the city power plant and city sewage center. It was intersting but also very gross. (see below) 

Hydro turbine. 

Sewer plant. That house is draining water from the poop pool into another pool below the grate. 

Really? These signs were everywhere. I guess someone did drink the water a few years ago...and this lead them to putting up signs. Ew. 

Poop water. 

More poop water. This guy above scooped up a cup of poop water and put it in the small container. I was totally gagging. 

Um. Ew. 

Pretty Exciting Week

This was a pretty fun week. Martin (Sexypants) Sexton visited Idaho Falls and performed at the Colonial Theater. With the fabulous Miss Joy's help from work we were able to snag a photo of him, autograph and I even got a nice hug. He's from Boston and is what I would consider 'under the radar' with his music but the fun part is he wants to stay there and has even released his last "CD" free from his website. He's a nice cool guy from a family of 10 kids. He's also 5' 5" inches so we were both pretty much the same height and that was fun. These are the perks of working for a Performing Arts Center. I can stalk or I mean  meet the performers an chat them up before they go on stage. 

So enough about me. This week was fun as it was my moms birthday and I took a few days off so the kids and I had some time to visit Barnes and Noble and they were pretty excited to spend their Barnes and Noble giftcards from Grama LeeAnn. We had a good time!

Another MAJOR Award! No Way

This time the Major Award is for me. I can't even believe it.
I serve on the Board of Directors for Stevens Henager College in Idaho and
as a token of thanks the director of the College delivered me this dandy above.
It even had a package of hot-cocoa WITH marshmallows inside.
A candy-cane was included too.
Peppermint hot-cocoa anyone?

It's a Christmas miracle.

Note to self.

Do not under any circumstance decide to "watch a few YouTube vidoes on how to cut hair" and then cut your own bangs. The results are going to be a total disaster. Guaranteed.

Big ol' disaster. Not. Cute.

Guess who has super clean carpets?

We do! We do!

We do! We do! 

Valentines Day-We'll start with dessert first

I made a cake. I don't  bake or make treats too often. I don't know why (or actually I do know why...I would eat them all so I just don't make them...that way we don't have them around to eat)

(Is that terrible? Cole told me it's terrible. He also told me Grandma Trudy makes
6 cakes a week and I should ask her to teach me to make a cake)

So I made a cake. A devil's food cake with pink frosting and it was DELISH. 

So while we waited for Chris to come home the kids colored and drew. Cole was working on his 'landmark' poster for school and he drew the Golden Gate Bridge. Carter was just working on some 'monsters'. His favorite thing to draw these days.

I set the table with new caramel chocolate covered apples to add to our devil's food cake dessert. 

We didn't cut any calories this Valentine's Day.

So here it is. Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon. All 16 oz of bacon that took 3 special and specific steps to prepare before adding to the meat that was simmered in the bacon fat. It was pretty good. Next to that is a potato dish. The second potato dish in 2 days.

We are out of butter. We are out of cream. We are out of cheese.

These are Julia Child's favorite ingredients.

Also, don't crowd the mushrooms when sauteing them in butter. All very good cooking rules.

Last night was Tuesday. 

Taco Tuesday to be exact. I picked up 9 qty $1.50 tacos from Cafe Rio. 

My favorite taco place. Chris said the taco's were not nearly as good as our two day Valentine's dinner and dessert feast. I think he was on his best behavior for saying that. I sure appreciated it.

1 lb of Butter

Last night I made 3 of Julia Child's recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 

I only used 1 lb of butter.

I made one of her potato dishes: 2 cups of cheese, a stick of butter and
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream.

Could not believe it. I do have to admit.
I replaced the cream with skim milk.

I mean seriously. Seriously. 

To top that off we had devil's food cake. 

I told Chris....we have to slow down. I think this will be weekend cooking. 

However, I am making beef bourguignon tonight. Did you know you brown the beef in bacon fat before putting it in the oven in wine and beef brooth for 3 hours. Sounds pretty delish. After tonight...we'll be back to hot dogs, homemade pizzas, and spaghetti...these are the work week staples.

How again do the french stay so thin?

In other news...and bad timing. I think Chris and I are going to start training to run a 5k. 

My heart is full of joy

I feel like I'm just playing catch up.....I realized today that I didn't ever post the photos from Cole's Art Show. This year Carter was running a fever and not feeling well at all so I stayed home with him and Chris took Cole to the Art Show. I was very sad to miss the special night for Cole but I was glad Chris could take him. The last back to school night I went with Cole and Chris stayed home with Carter so it worked out OK for us to trade off. 

Cole talked about this horse drawing for 3 weeks and he kept telling me "It looks terrible. The head of the horse looks terrible!" Well he brought it home and I was sure to tell him that it 

DID NOT in fact look terrible.

 It was a wonderful drawing and he did a great job. He really did. 

Cole's work is the blue batik print with the leaves. 

These art pieces are hung proudly in our house. Framed and the works. 

And just because....Carter has a mess of curls and it's cuter than cute.

So Carter will definitely sport his curly mullet for as long as possible. 

Here he is in the morning.....

A Pretty Exciting Easter

We had a very fun Easter. Cole lost his first tooth. The tooth that he lost was his very FIRST baby tooth so I was a little teary eyed about it but also excited for him We'll get to that in a minute though. We have been busy trying to enjoy some of the "Spring" weather here and we took the kids to the river to feed the ducks. I love feeding the ducks and Cole laughed so hard chocolate milk came out of his nose! The ducks are just crazy and Carter told them all that they were his "babies". Carter just loves animals. Animals on TV. Animals in magazines...he just goes crazy and tells anyone around that they are his babies. So here are the photos from the greenbelt. This is pre-haircut for Coley...his hair was pretty long...but still super cute. 

Ah...Chris is such a good lookin' guy.

After we got home the kids love to watch Sesame Street and drink out of their sippy cups so here are the boys relaxing together. Carter likes to hold Cole's hand while they do this.

Easter 2010! 

Here is Cole (peter pantless) checking out his basket.

And the search for eggs is on!

Sadly, this is the only photo I got of the kids Easter morning actually dressed as we got out of the car at church. The church looked so beautiful. I absolutely LOVE all the stained glass windows. Holy Rosary is one of the oldest churches in IF and it's just gorgeous. 

And Carter was totally pooped after mass. 

So...the other BIG news is Cole lost his first tooth as I mentioned above...so here Chris and he are preparing for the tooth fairy and Cole was making sure his tooth was in the baggie ok. Then he went straight to sleep so the tooth fairy would come. 

The grown up teeth are already coming in behind his lower teeth so we were anxious to get the baby teeth out. He still needs to get the second lower front tooth out....

The note the tooth fairy left for him. 

And in other news. I made meatloaf and I took a photo of it to prove that I did it. Chris has been asking for meatloaf for a long time and I just wasnt too sure about how to make it and it's actually very easy. Chris is very particular and he had specific directions (i.e. how to chop up the onions etc.) so I was a little nervous it wouldn't be as good. Aparently his Grandma LeeAnn makes the BEST ever meatloaf...so the next time we see them we'll have to get her recipe. Mine turned out ok. I wish I had the right pain to drain more of the drippings out...but Chris was happy and took leftovers to work the next day. I thought it was pretty good. I am just shocked I could make it. I'm still learning how to cook and make yummy food. It's alot of work! I love it though. 

Having too much fun!

I seriously think I'm having way too much fun these days. I was asked to judge a poster contest for the Idaho Coin Club on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. (which by the way should be illegal to force anyone out of bed that early on a Saturday morning when offering said person crummy weak coffee and stale donuts in return for time spent tallying up points for poster concepts about pennies and nickels) at the Elks Lodge. My morning greatly improved after I found this little gem in the parking lot. 

Of course being the considerate citizen that I am...I parked to the right of the Exalted Ruler.
Sadly, I did not get to meet the Exalted Ruler of the Elks Lodge.
Hopefully there will be another opportunity for that, fingers crossed.  

On to the events of the week so far:

Cole (A.K.A. Shaggy) has a new and improved look complete with a fabulous haircut via Pam. 

And Carter continues finding himself in trouble....his new obsession is crawling onto....

Carrying anything that is way too big for him....

And crawling into anything possible... 

My Week so Far and it's only Tuesday

So far this is what the week has looked like:

Tuesday morning about to walk out the door and my boss calls and needs me to fix a file for our Cirque Mechanics Factory show tonight (it's like Cirque de Soleil...only for kids) because she's leaving the office in 2 minutes....to get to the matinee...so I turn around drop everything and fix the file...re-save the PDF and impatiently wait for Gmail to send the attachment. At this point Cole is now in his room (again) looking for a "show n tell" after we just discussed at length for 30 minutes why he could not take a "show n tell" today. Pulling myself together again and remembering I had not yet put any hair spray into my hair I run to the bathroom and dab a bit more blush on and spray my hair. Then I run to Carter's room and discover he has had a major (and I mean MAJOR) poo poo in his pants. (Cole is still in his room coming up with 1,001 reasons why he should take a "show n tell" and running through different items trying to convince me to agree) So I begin to take off Carter's pants and see that the poo poo is everywhere. Down his legs into his socks and up his back and up the front and down the other leg. Carter drinks only soy milk because he has had some very serious reactions to regular milk. He can eat small quantities of milk if it's in ice cream and macaroni and cheese and that's it. If he were to drink a small glass of milk his bum would be an entire mess of blisters and rash. So back to the poo poo explosion....I begin to peel off his clothes (gagging all the while) and in the process he ends up with poo from his armpits down to this wrists. Ew.

So he goes straight into the tub.

It's now 8:36 a.m. (all this has happened in 6 minutes) We are almost late to school.

8:38 a.m.

I scrub Carter down (he's screaming at this point because he wants his blanket and it's covered in poop so that is NOT happening) and Cole is still trying to convince me to let him take his book to school.

8:39 a.m.

I give up and agree. Cole can take his book.

8:41a.m.

I'm frantically trying to put a diaper on Carter who has decided that it's very funny to wiggle like a little worm as I'm trying to put on the diaper. Frantically. Cole is going to be late to school!

8:45 a.m.

Carter is dressed. No shoes. But dressed.

Cole has his coat on backwards and is holding his reading book in his mouth.

Cole has his book, I Stink.

(One of our favorites. He has it memorized and it's an awesome book about a New York City garbage truck and it's adventure through the night picking up the trash. This book even comes with an

 "alphabet soup rhyme" including puppy poo and gobs and gobs of gum)

8:50 a.m.

We arrvie at school. Late. Cole kisses Carter goodbye and changes his shoes and heads to the classroom.

I walk back to the car. Realizing. (now running) We forgot his lunch.

9:00 a.m.

We are back in the car (Carter and I) with the forgotten lunch heading back to school.

I look down at my arm as we pull into the parking lot for the 2nd time at school

and there on my arm is POO.

So much to talk about today

Ah...hello. It's Monday and the 2nd day of "Spring Forward" I love the spring and summer months. I just love them so I was glad to wakeup Sunday morning one hour earlier and start the day. Before I get into everything here are some cute photos of the kids sleeping. Chris thinks I'm a little crazy because I absolutely LOVE taking photos of the boys when they are sleeping. They are so peaceful and so sweet. I can promise you that when they are both awake there isn't a moment that they are not running around or talking like little chatter boxes. Carter loves to play with Cole and he will chase him around the house and tackle him. So much for my quiet baby. 

Both of the boys have had an absolute fascination and love for Ragedy Ann dolls. Here is Carter sleeping with Cole's "Big Ann" and he just loves here. Cole has a Andy doll that we have taken all over the country with us. Andy has flown from Virginia to California and all the stops along the way 

with Cole. 

Cole is a bit of a wild sleeper....and he kicks the covers off....the lady bug next to him is his nightlight. Carter has a turtle nightlight that is exactly the same (the shells light up and cast shadows of stars and a moon on the ceiling). (Thanks Grandpa Coke and Tamara for the turtle night light. Carter loves it!)

Sooooo what I want to blog about today is my last trip to the grocery strore. I made a fast dash into 

Fred Meyer's on Friday night to pick up some basics for the weekend and as I walked by the meat section a package of bologna caught my eye. It's been YEARS since I've had a bologna sandwich and being extremely hungry as I was I picked up the yellow package and put it in my carrier. I remembered the summers eating bologna sandwiches with ketchup and cheese and thought of how great summer was. This was a perfect memory to share with Cole. In my optimism I was hoping it would be nice enough for us to have a picnic outside on Saturday (it snowed in reality) so I checked out and paid with these wonderful ideas floating around in my head.

Zoom to Saturday afternoon. We were getting ready to have some lunch and then we were heading to the Museum of Idaho to spend the afternoon there. They have a great exhibit about wolves and their connections to dogs and of course Cole and Carter both love the children's room.

I took the yellow package of bologna out of the fridge and turned it over. I was curious. What was bologna made out of? I vaguely knew it was a combination of meat but I figured it was a simple mixture. Oh....how I was wrong. This is how the package reads: 

(my comments are in the parenthesis....sarcasm included) 

INGREDIENTS:

Mechanically separated chicken, (not capitalized) Pork (why is it capitalized) Water (again, why?) Corn syrup, Contains less than 2% of Salt (?) Sodium lactatee, Flavor, Sodium phosphates, Autolyzeded yeast, Sodium diacetate, Sodium ascorbate, Sodium nitriteDextrosese, Extractives of paprika, Potassium phosphate, Sugar (because lunch meat needs sugar) Potassium chloride.  

I stood in the kitchen for a few minutes #1 trying to read all the ingredients and #2 in shock. 

Asking myself, "Have you lost your mind---why in the world did you buy this?"

I had NO idea this is what was in bologna. 

One word for you: APPALLING 

Another word: FRIGHTENING

This is cheap meat. What that translates into is this is easily produced and produced in mass. I'm sure many parents are feeding this meat to their children and by all means I understand that all parents are doing the best they can but after all the processing it has undergone....is it even considered meat let alone a source of protein? 

The most unsettling part of the ingredients (besides I have no idea what all the different 'Sodium' ingredients are and why. so. many?) is the MECHANICALLY SEPARATED (lowercase) chicken. That is insane. Apparently Water can be capitalized on the ingredient label but 

chicken=no capital letter C. 

The yellow package of whatever it is bologna so-called-meat was put back into the fridge and the kids had peanut butter and jelly for lunch. I am not sure what I'm going to do with the yellow package of whatever it is bologna so-called-meat. 

I think I may drop it off at my office. My kids are absolutely not eating anything that contains those ingredients. I understand there is an entire industry that is fueling parts of the economy and making bologna is the key to that successful engine....however....my opinion on this matter is that this is not food we should be feeding out kids. Our rule of thumb at the house is if we can't pronounce the ingredients we don't eat it. If we aren't sure of where the food came from or how the animals were treated to produce the food-we don't eat it and it certainly doesn't find a place in our fridge. 

Me: Food snob, maybe. However, it's only responsible to consider where our food is coming from before we put it into our bodies....and growing little bodies of the Smith boys.