Good Dad, Bad Dad

I can be both a good dad and a terrible dad at the same time: I make sure the boys are fed enough and on time. But I feed them chocolate cereal and muddy buddies. Then, I give them a bath--mostly, I fill the tub up with water--a couple inches or so--and then I sit and wait while they play in the tub. When they start crying I take them out, dry them off and get them dressed for the night.
Tonight, we watched Cinderella after the bath.
And,oh, I don't leave them alone in the tub--that would make me a really terrible dad. I sit next to the tub and think about other stuff--you know power tools....and water skiing.

Every now and then Oliver will wind himself up into a roaring cry. It sounds like the cranking of an engine when you turn the key until it turns over. Oliver does the same thing. Only, it usually stops after 10 seconds. I started timing it.
The other day, though, Jonah and he were playing quietly in the front room and I was in the kitchen--(I could have been on Facebook for the terrible dad scenario). And Oliver started his cry up. And it didn't stop. I thought, 'Hmmm, that's longer than usual.' When I went into him after a minute, he had been playing with a clothespin and got it stuck on his finger. Poor guy.
Am I going to be accused of child neglect for posting this?
As soon as I took it off his finger, he immediately stopped crying and resumed playing. What a trooper.
And I went back to doing the dishes.

Um, tonight I fed the boys Jambalaya with sausage. It was spicy and delicious. Jonah loves the stuff. Oliver stopped eating the rice after two bites, and only ate sausage from then on. Jonah has acquired an immunity to spicy foods. At first, his cheeks would be wet from watering eyes as he continuously shoveled the food into his mouth. Now, he just shoves it right in with no symptoms.
Is it time to increase the level of heat and spice?

Just now--and I'll finish with this--Jonah came out of his room and asked me to sing him a song. I put him to bed over 3 minutes ago. But, I obliged and I asked him which song from my repertoire he'd like me to sing. After a few offers and his response of no's, I just started sing the 'little brown mouse' song. It's about a little brown mouse that laps up the spilled liquor on a bar room floor and at a quarter past 2, eats a 'gosh-darn cat'.

Katie is taking a leave of absence

Katie and a couple of her friends have decided to take a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit their friend, Amy, who moved there last June. She left me and the boys all by ourselves with nothing in the fridge and nothing on the shelves. Well, she did leave some pumpkin dessert behind--which I love very much.
I told Katie that I would carry on her NaBloPoMo--whatever that means--and will be submitting posts over the next three days, beginning today.
So, let's start with how great Katie's husband is:
1: What a sweetheart to let her go to North Carolina for a WHOLE WEEKEND without the kids!
2: What a sweetheart to write her blog for her for a WHOLE WEEKEND without the kids!
and
3: What a sweetheart to eat her delicious pumpkin dessert over the WHOLE WEEKEND (without the kids).

Of course, the three days--or two--whatever--won't even come close to the 4 months I spent in Arizona while you took care of the boys. So, here's to you babe! Have a fun weekend--a WHOLE WEEKEND, without the kids! I hope you get a lot of sleep.
We love you, Katie.

Pumpkin Dessert

Here is a recipe for my favorite dessert. If you like pumpkin pie, you will love it. I love pumpkin pie, but I like this dessert even better. It's sooooo good!

1^st layer:

1 pkg. yellow cake mix (reserve 1 cup)
1/2 cup (1 square) softened butter or margarine.
Mix together then add:
1 egg, beaten
spread in bottom of 9x13 in. pan

2^nd layer:

1 30 oz. can pumpkin pie mix (if you only have a can of plain pumpkin, add 3 ½ tsp. of pumpkin pie spice OR 2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground ginger, and ½ tsp. ground cloves. this is important.)
2 eggs, well beaten
2/3 cup evaporated milk
Mix together and pour over 1st layer

3rd layer:

1 cup cake mix (reserved from 1st layer)
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
Mix together and sprinkle on top of 2nd layer

Bake at 350 for 60-70 min or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Chill. Serve cold, topped with whipped cream. Store in refrigerator.

*Bonus*
How to make delicious pumpkin dessert by Katie Johnson

1. See an open tub of cool whip in the fridge and decide to make a yummy treat to serve under cool whip
2. Find recipe for pumpkin dessert and check pantry for necessary ingredients. You don't have evaporated milk.
3. Go to store to buy evaporated milk
4. Pick up older son from preschool, make and feed lunch to everybody.
5. Try for an hour to get younger son to take a nap.
6. Finally give up on nap for younger son.
7. While older son miraculously does nap, clean bathroom and mop kitchen floor while trying to keep younger son out of the toilet, away from the toilet paper and various cleaning supplies, and off your clean wet floors until older son wakes up.
8. Resume dessert making.
9. Realize that you don't have any yellow cake mix.
10. Go back to store to buy yellow cake mix.
11. Younger son falls asleep in the car on the way to store (of course) so drive around for half an hour to let him sleep.
12. Realize that you're starving and so is older son.
13. Take a small detour to Zaxby's for a delicious and nutritious dinner of fried chicken, french fries, texas toast and coleslaw. Yummy.
14. Eat dinner in grocery store parking lot
15. Go in and buy cake mix
16. Come home and resume dessert making.
17. Have a brilliant idea! Decide that for NaBloPoMo it would be really clever to take pictures of dessert making process and to post those and recipe for pumpkin dessert.

(This is where the serious dessert tutorial begins)

Wash mixer bowl (because you haven't done the dishes yet today):

Make 1st layer
It will be sticky, so cover with wax paper and use a cup to roll it out:
This Dora cup works very nicely. Don't feel sad if you don't have a Dora cup. You can use a boring old glass cup:

Don't forget to remove wax paper when finished:
Think to yourself "these pictures look like crap." wonder how people take good looking pictures of food.
Wash mixer bowl, again:

Mix 2nd layer:
Pour over first layer:

Decide if the leftover evaporated milk is worth saving (It is) :

Wash mixer bowl, again

Younger son is hanging on your leg. Try to walk around and continue making dessert:

Younger son bites your leg while you're taking a picture of him hanging on your leg. He cannot be ignored any longer.

Take a small break to get him a graham cracker. He's happy:


Melt butter for 3rd layer.
When you open microwave you will be disgusted by how dirty your microwave is. Swear you really will clean it tomorrow (you've said that before, but you really will clean it tomorrow. Probably. And no, I'm not putting in a picture of my dirty microwave. Just trust me, it's bad)
When older son sees you taking so many pictures, he wants you to take a picture of his train Thomas:

and Gordon:

and James:
Can you tell he likes Thomas trains?

Make 3rd layer and think to yourself "this looks like dog food, but it smells really good":

Crumble over 2nd layer
Put dessert into oven and feel very proud of yourself that you remembered to set the timer :)
Wash mixer bowl, again:

Put kids to bed while dessert bakes.
Take it out of the oven and take a picture of it because it looks and smells SO good.

Sit down to write your totally awesome blog post.
While you're typing the part of the recipe that gives directions for substitutions for pumpkin pie mix, get the empty pumpkin can from the kitchen only to realize that you grabbed the wrong can and used pure pumpkin when you thought you had used pumpkin pie mix:


Feel very sad that after all your efforts to make a delicious pumpkin dessert, even though it looks amazing, and smells incredible, it is going to taste like poo because you used the wrong can, even though you know better!
Eat Halloween candy to compensate for your loss.
Feel a glimmer of hope when you remember that at least you saved the rest of the evaporated milk, so if you decide to try again tomorrow, at least you won't have to go back to the grocery store.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. We carved pumpkins. I haven't done this since I was a kid. It was really fun. I wish we would have gotten more than one pumpkin.



We went to my friend Lexie's Halloween party and had a blast!




"Snookie (Tracie) and me as um... an 80's chick(Don't judge me. I only spent $7)


My awesome friends. They make me so happy.


Jonah kept saying that he wanted to be a puppy, but he REFUSED to wear any puppy costumes (he doesn't like to wear anything that isn't just regular clothes). So I was able to get him to wear this and go as Woody from Toy Story, but just barely- as you can see. He was upset and really wanted me to take it off. Needless to say I couldn't get the hat or boots on him and I compromised by tying the bandanna around his waist instead of around his neck. Eventually he forgot he was dressed up and had a pretty good time.

Oliver as a ninja. I'm pretty sure this is the cutest thing ever. I should have entered him in a baby costume contest or something because it was just too adorable. (I know, I'm bragging, but I can't help it, look at those eyes, those ears sticking out, and those cheeks!)

Two for Tuesday

Election Day
Today was Election Day. I'm glad to say that I voted. Yay. I really hope you did too. I had a serious conflict about one race. Of the two candidates one was a member of my political party, but has some ethical issues. The candidate from the other party seems to be a pretty honest guy. So who do you vote for? At first I would say the honest guy, but he will be fighting against things I want. Hmmm, I love America and our system is better then most, but it is far from perfect.

PIE!
My friend came over this afternoon and we made pumpkin pie. From scratch. All the way. We even cut up and scooped out fresh pumpkins instead of using canned. Pie crust from scratch. I'm just saying that I'm pretty awesome. And I love pie.

NaBloPoMo!!

I am doing it, and so can you!

So what is it? See here. It stands for National Blog Posting Month. I am going to attempt to post every day in November. I really need to catch up on a bunch of stuff anyway. Since I need 30 posts in the next 30 days, I'm going to let this serve as today's post. I'll catch ya tomorrow with some Halloween pictures.

Let me know if you are going to participate too so I can be sure to check your blog.