The difference between girls and boys...

Our bedtime ritual consists of everyone piling into Mackenzie's bed, reading a book, saying prayers, reading another book, singing a couple of songs, and then goodnight kisses. This was the input from our children tonight. Wow! What a big difference between boys and girls.

~~~~~~~

As I’m turning out Mackenzie’s bedroom light:
Me: Goodnight Mackenzie. I love you more than pickles.
Mackenzie: I love you more than yogurt.


~~~~~~~~
Jackson (after just having his diaper changed): “I need to go potty!”
Brian: No, you just went!
Jackson: Then I toot!
Brian: Let’s hear it!
***silence***
Jackson: You heard that?!?!?

I haven't lost my touch...

I got into couponing a couple of years ago when we moved to Tampa. The closing on our home we were selling fell through, and we were stuck with a mortgage payment, an even higher rent payment, and I was nine months pregnant with our second child.

My favorite site for coupon info is www.southernsavers.com. If you don't use it, you should!!! In Florida, land of the Publix, I would usually spend $80 and save around $150 each week. It was fun... especially when I had those great weeks of spending $80 and saving $268. When we moved to NYC, I thought my couponing had to end. :( Luckily, I was wrong.

I haven't mastered the grocery stores here yet.  I'm not doing too bad for a newbie, but I'll get the hang of their sales soon enough. Today I managed to hit Walgreens with all the necessary coups for a successful takeover. I walked home with:

1 50oz Tide
1 50oz Gain
2 Cucumber melon hand soaps
2 Gillette deodorants
2 Secret deodorants
1 Old Spice body spray
1 Olay Regenerist Facial Cleanser
1 Olay Ribbons body wash
1 Olay Total Effects body wash
1 16oz box Domino Brown sugar
2 20-count pkgs Vick's Day-Quil gel tabs
2 bags Ricola cough drops
1 34.5oz Maxwell House coffee

Total spent: $46
Total saved: $65

I'm baaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaack! :)

Fauxfredo sauce

In an effort to get the kiddos to eat more veggies, I started hiding them in things. Now that they've had a taste of veggies *hidden* in things they actually enjoy, I just put the good stuff on the plate for them to see. They like white and green trees (broccoli & cauliflower), princess wands/swords (asparagus), eggplant, corn, and carrots. Of course, they like french fries and ketchup too, which are two of my own personal favorite veggies.

Anywho, in an effort to add more veggies to their diet and remove calories from mine, I came up with Fauxfredo sauce. It's like Alfredo sauce, but SO much healthier! The first time I made it (I didn't tell anyone what was in it), Brian was wowed and told me that it was just like the Alfredo dipping sauce at the Olive Garden. It is pretty darn tasty, either served over whole-wheat pasta, spaghetti squash, or just used as a dipping sauce. I'm not big on actual recipes or measurements. I'm more of a "pinch of this, dash of that" kind of cook, but here goes.

Fauxfredo Sauce
Prep: 5 mins
Cook time: 10 mins (depending on your microwave)

Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower, chopped
• 1 cup milk, or maybe a little more depending on the thickness you want
• sea salt (it tastes SO much better)
• Italian seasoning (I use that McCormick grinder Italian seasoning... on everything)
• 1/3 cup of parmesan (you don't need to get all fancy, the stuff in the green can is fine)
• Garlic or garlic powder. The powder (or a granulated garlic) works a little better for this quick recipe.

1. Put the chopped cauliflower and milk into a glass bowl and microwave for 7-10 minutes, depending on the wattage of your microwave. You're basically just cooking the milk and using it to steam the cauliflower. You could steam it over water, but that's a few extra steps and a few extra dishes. It's done when the cauliflower is soft.
2. Put the milk/cauliflower in the blender along with the Italian seasoning and the parmesan cheese. I always just use the highest setting and assume the others are just for decoration. It should only take a few seconds in the blender to turn it into a hot liquid.
3. Add more milk if you want it thinner and blend a little more.
4. Add sea salt/garlic/more cheese to taste.
5. Toss with pasta.

This makes enough to toss with a box of pasta and have PLENTY left over for breadstick dipping or another meal.

Nutritional Info (calculated by www.thedailyplate.com)

Just for the sake of comparison, Ragu Alfredo sauce (which isn't nearly as yummy) has a whopping 110 calories per 1/4 cup. Too much of that and I won't look so hot in my skinny jeans, you know, when I get some skinny jeans. If you eat 1/4 cup of this over 2 cups of spaghetti squash it's only 100 calories for the whole thing and you are FULL! Enjoy!

WTH is up with the weather?

It's the last week in October. By now, I thought I'd be freezing my @$$ off until the 4th of July. We've had a few cold days, but today and tomorrow, it's supposed to 75 degrees. Huh? What? Um... excuse me... Mother Nature??? Yeah, I've already given away all my kids' shorts and packed up mine. I'm loving the warmth, don't get me wrong, but I no longer have the wardrobe for this weather. Plus, I was rockin' my hot MILF boots last week and enjoying the hell out of it. I'm ready for soups, stews, hot chocolate, and hayrides...

PS- I know I'm gonna freeze soon and pray that my fingers don't turn into icicles and break off my body, but those boots, yeah, they're really cute and I wanna wear 'em.

We'll never run out of things to do!

I subscribe to a website for local (NYC) moms, www.mommypoppins.com, and they always have a listing of that day's happenings in the area and fun things to do with your kids. A few months ago, they published the list of "100 things to do with your kids in NYC before they grow up." It's an impressive, but certainly do-able list, and we can already cross off numbers 1 & 41. My sister and I did #26 (HOLY COW!!!! But, that's a story for another blog), of course I'll have to do it again when the kids are tall enough. Number 98 is planned for a few weeks from now, and number 96 is only 10 blocks away, so we'll be doing that one soon as well. I'm sure the longer we live here, the more I'll add to the list. I'm lovin' it!

1. Visit the NY Hall of Science
2. Go on an audition just for the heck of it
3. Wave to the cameras on The Today Show
4. Have tea at the Plaza
5. Ride the Shark Boat
6. Climb the Statue of Liberty
7. Ride the row boats in Central Park
8. Go to Dylan's Candy Bar
9. Go to Economy Candy
10. Get locked up at the Police Museum
11. Go kayaking on the hudson
12. Take the ferry to Sandy Hook beach
13. Ride a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park
14. Have dim sum in Brooklyn's Chinatown
15. Go hiking in the Staten Island Greenbelt
16. See the new Liberty Science Center
17. Go fishing in the East River
18. Go on a fishing boat from Sheepshead Bay
19. See the money train at the Transit Museum
20. Go to the Brooklyn Children's Museum
21. Get a taste of country life at the Queens Farm Museum
22. Ride on a tug boat
23. Sail on the historic schooner Pioneer
24. Sail in the hudson
25. Take a helicopter ride
26. ride the Cyclone before it's gone
27. Grab the ring at the Coney Island carousel
28. Spend my wad at Dave and Buster's Arcade
29. march in the Mermaid Parade
30. Go to a Brooklyn Cyclone's game
31. Fulfill a child's wish through operation santa claus
32. See the ballet
33. Watch a dress rehearsal of an opera at the Met
34. Sleep over at the Bronx Zoo
35. See the unicorns at the Cloisters
36. Go horseback riding
37. Go sledding in Central Park
38. Cross-country ski down a city street
39. Bike across the Brooklyn Bridge and get ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory
40. Take the Roosevelt Island Tram
41. See the piano dancers at FAO
42. Visit the Sony Wonder Technology Lab
43. Children's Museum of Manhattan
44. Children's Museum of the Arts
45. Sketch at Metropolitan Museum of Art
46. Stargaze at the Hayden Planetarium
47. See the rest of the AMNH after the dinosaurs and mammals
48. Visit the top of the Empire State Building
49. Take an art class at the MoMA
50. Chinese Scholar's Garden in Staten Island
51. Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
52. Holiday Train Show at NY Botanical Garden
53. Check out the Queens Zoo
54. See the wandering wallabies at the Prospect Park Zoo
55. Watch a movie under the stars
56. Madame Tussauds
57. Try all the flavors at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
58. Look up relatives in Ellis Island
59. Visit new waterside playground in Chelsea
60. Get colonial at the Fraunces Tavern Museum
61. Do a medieval workshop at Cathedral of St John the Divine
62. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
63. See the rollerbladers perform in Central Park (just West of the Sheep's Meadow)
64. Fly a kite on the Sheep Meadow
65. See Shakespeare in the Park
66. Going biking on Governor's Island
67. Find the secret Downing Street Playground in the Village
68. Explore Battery Park City Parks from the South Cove to Penny Park
69. Ride the Staten Island Ferry
70. Have knishes and egg creams at Yonah Schimmel's
71. See the giant buddha in the Mahayana temple
72. The Skyscraper Museum
73. Play vintage video games at The Museum of Moving Image
74. The Museum of the American Indian
75. Buy comic books at Forbidden Planet
76. Free concert in Madison Square Park and Get lunch at the Shake Shack
77. Buy flowers from the flower district
78. Buy wholesale toys in the wholesale district (27th and 6th)
79. Swing Clubs at the Chelsea Piers Driving Range
80. Climb the rock wall on Broadway
81. Visit the Science Barge
82. Visit the Intrepid
83. Test out the Whispering Gallery at Grand Central
84. Coney Island Arcade
85. Cook our own food in a Korean restaurant
86. Sail boats on the boat pond in Central park
87. Billy Johnson Rustic Playground in Central Park
88. Explore Belvedere Castle
89. Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park
90. Ride the carousel in Bryant park
91. See the to scale panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art
92. Get Egyptian at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
93. See the new Greeks and Romans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
94. Go ice skating in Prospect Park
95. Riverbank State Park carousel
96. See the holiday lights in Dyker Heights
97. Take a trapeze lesson
98. See the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons get inflated
99. Watch the circus elephants march into town
100. Swim in the floating barge pool

Success!

We went into the city last night to do some shopping. Brian needed new cufflinks and had gift cards the holy-crap-did-you-really-just-pay-that-much-for-a-tie men's store. Our stroller is huge and weighs 50 pounds... without the kids in it. We've almost never left home without it, but since it's such a pain to lug down the steps to the train and maneuver down crowded streets, we thought we'd give it a try. We were less than a block from the house when we slowed to a crawl so that Mackenzie could pick up every stick and leaf and Jackson could put on impromptu (music-less) dance shows for the passersby.

Brian: "Do you want me to go back and get the stroller."
Me: "Mackenzie, if you don't hurry up, you'll have to ride in the stroller."
Mackenzie: Walks a bit faster.
Me: "Nah, I think we'll be okay."
Brian: "Jackson, c'mon! Mackenzie, stop licking that!"
Mackenzie: "Mommy carry me."
Me: "I won't carry you, but you can ride in the stroller. Daddy, please go home and get the stroller."
Mackenzie: "Noooooooo! I walk." Starts running toward the train station.
Jackson: "Daddy carry."
Brian: Gives in.

Made it to the station, down the stairs, through the turnstiles, and onto the platform. The train took awhile to show up (the R&N lines are fondly referred to as "Rarely" & "Never"), so Brian stayed busy by pointing out all of the rats coming out of hiding on the tracks. [Insert full body shiver here.] Luckily, our stop is the 2nd one on the line, so it was easy to get 4 seats together. Jackson quickly decided Brian's lap would be more comfortable, so he climbed on up. The train rocked him to sleep.

Brian carried Jackson the three or four blocks to the store and Jackson was awakened by the revolving door. B got his cufflinks, we made the kids walk a little further for a slice or two for dinner, through a department store to search for shoes, back to the train station, and finally the 4 blocks home.

I'm shocked that they did so well. We're still looking into a smaller, single seat stroller for trips into the city, but it's nice to know that, if push came to shove, I could do a quick trip into the city without the stroller if I absolutely had to.

The password is "pickles."

I'm a foodie. Not one of those extra special ones who gets paid to eat (Adam Richman has my dream job), just a regular gal who believes that one bite probably won't kill you and it may even taste great. I've only found a few things I don't like to eat, and I keep trying them over and over, attempting to will myself into liking them. Fried chicken livers, Lefsa, and Krebkaukers are the top three on my "no thank you" list... for now anyway.

My new favorite food is half-sour pickles. If it weren't for the water retention from the salt, and the stares and whispers from my neighbors, I'd have them delivered by the truckload. I haven't been able to find any within walking distance of our house, so I decided to go all Martha Stewart and make my own. Although, I bet she's never made pickles- she's got peeps for that. So anyway, I googled "half sour pickel recipe" (why thank you google, I did mean "half-sour pickle recipe"), and found one that looked like cheap, easy, yummy, fun.

I washed the cukes and dill, and peeled the garlic, but the kiddos did all of the assembly. It was a lot of fun for all of us. I'll let you know in three days how the pickles tasted, but the giggles, smiles, and family time was definitely some of the best I've ever had.



~~~

Handful of very very very hard cucumbers.  (1/2 a bag full for 5L)

Fresh dill. (2 bunches for 5L)

A bunch of salt. (4 tablespoons for 5L)

Garlic cloves. (4 garlic cloves for 5L)

Water.  (1/2 a pitcher full for 5L)

1.  Wash the pickles. We used the Kirby ones

2.  Bed of Dill. Take a giant handful of dill, stems and all, and line the bottom of your container.

3.  Place cucumbers. Make one layer of cucumbers, as tight as you can.

4.  Garlic. Drop one garlic clove on top of the cucumbers. (Ok, that's what the recipe says, but I heart garlic, so we did like 3-4 cloves on each layer.)

 5.  Layer. Just keep making layers of dill, cucumbers, garlic, dill, cucumbers, garlic... Top it off with any leftover dill you have. I also added about a 1/2 cup of whole peppercorns because they're in the Claussen jars and those are my favorites.

6.  Salt the water. It needs to be really, really salty. We did about 1 1/3 cups of salt to 2 quarts of water. It doesn't need to be exact, just needs to be salty.

7.  Fill pickle container w/salt water. Keep filling the container with salt water until the water level reaches the top of your container.

8.  Wait. They need to be in the jar (unopened) for 3 days.

Thanks to www.classychaos.com for the recipe. :)