It's a bird? It's a plane? It's a.....

Our skies were busy this morning. 

Out with the old.....

(Bye-bye you old nasty spa.  Oh, how I won't miss you!  More to follow on this.) 

In with the new...

Folks, thanks to my wonderful husband who's been working really hard in conjunction with all of his tools:

See the hard work below:

(has made the neighbors scratch their heads bald wondering what we are doing now)

Has made us three times more crunchy.  WOOT!  WOOT!

For the last year (or plus) Daddy has been scheming and hording these three beauties.

In their past life these were old, beat-up culverts sitting in a local construction yard waiting for us to swoop in and transform them into our three ginormous rain water cisterns.

With all the vegetation we have growing in the yard,

With how precious our fresh water supply is,

With how well the green life does with just rain water,

With how much a good monsoon storm can dump in a short period....

It just made sense for us to have these. 

And well, the motto in our house is:

 Go big or go home

so....

we SUPERSIZED. 

As Murphy would have it this is what the past two weeks have looked like...

Now that the barrels are up I expect for the monsoon season to pack its bag and move on.

Perhaps I should wash my car now. 

This one or that one.

I know.  I am shocked too.  Two postings back to back!

If you could choose one of the two products below which would you choose?

INGREDIENTS IN PRODUCT #1:

High Fructose Corn Syrup (which has been found to have mercury in it. See here)

Corn Syrup

Water

Cocoa,

Sugar

Contains 2% or Less of:

 Potassium Sorbate (a Preservative)

Salt,

Mono and Diglycerides (read this)

Xanthan Gum (read this)

Polysorbate 60

Vanillin

Artificial Flavoring.

INGREDIENTS IN PRODUCT #2:

½ cup cocoa powder

1 cup water

2 cups sugar

⅛ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla

This is what the first product is:

Like how the bottle reads "Genuine Chocolate Flavor"

The second product is this:

My homemade version.

Recipe Here

This recipe is SO delicious!

See evidence here:

My four month old who's never had anything but breast milk is drooling over the contents of this jar.  He's a smart kid.  He gets that from his Mommy.

I am on my kick again of trying to get away from processed foods and my boy Bug loves his chocolate and strawberry milk from Shamrock Farms.  So instead of buying their products to ruin my kids teeth with I figured I'd feed him my product, free of preservatives and corn solids and whatever other junk they put in theirs, to ruin his teeth with.  He may not have any teeth due to the sugar but you can get those made these days anyways.

Of course Mama can't get any cooking done in the kitchen these days without these two villains helpers:

Sorry to be so Debbie Downer on you over the whole Hershey thing but I think it's important to share these things with you.  Especially when I think something so bad for you can be replaced with something quick and easy that tastes better and is better for you.

Now go on.....

Make some for yourself and let me know what you think!

What another read...

Check this out HERE

Playing catch up

Hello all. 

 Have you missed us? 

Sorry to "disappear" again. 

Who knew raising two kids would be so time consuming :-)

We've been busy....

Duh!  

That's why this space has sat vacant for a week or two now. 

Thank God the rent is cheap.

Let's see.

Where should I start.

How 'bout here:

Look at this photo.  Notice anything missing?

Need help?  Look again.

Do you see it now? 

Yup, that was the former local of our ginormous tele. 

No, we were not robbed.

No, the T.V. is not broke and in the repair shop (do those exist anymore?).

No, we did not sell it because we are upgrading.

Yup, you guessed it. 

We've become those weird people and ditched the ol' boob tube.

We did so in favor of doing more of this....

Before we had children the ol' Hubsters and I decided we didn't want television for our children.  Yes, we were raised with it (and depending on what day you ask who) we turned out just fine.  However, the television has become a whole lot worse these days.  Plus, it's easy to make the transition from the tube to the computer, to PlayStation's and then to Wii's or whatever other gadget that disconnects you from your family.

Well, folks I fell victim to the powers of the babysitting T.V.  I don't recall when it started but I suspect it occurred sometime during the middle of my pregnancy.  It was just all to easy to turn it on for one 30 minute episode of Special Agent Oso and then BAM the whole morning was gone and that ONE episode lasted a few hours. 

So, one day the Hubsters and I planned and schemed while Bug was out doing....

Well, actually the planning and scheming was all my idea.  Hubby was the non-stop talker  muscle behind the plan. 

I wanted to see how Bug would react if we took the T.V. out of his sight. 

Did he ask for Oso and Mickey because the T.V. was always in his line of sight acting as a constant reminder of shows he could be watching? 

Well, folks the experiment went just as I thought.  Bug asked for Oso/Mickey a total of six times that day and only a few times the following day and by the third day....not a peep.

Bug could care less that the T.V. was gone. 

Our motivation for doing this was not only driven by the fact that there is junk on T.V. and that doesn't even include the horrible news that flows out any of the news channels but what I had really noticed was that Bug was forgetting how to play and more importantly we had forgotten how to play with him. 

I'll admit....as long as I could keep him entertained in front of the T.V.  I would keep busy with this or that but the things I was choosing to do really weren't as important as spending that time with my son.

Don't fret as my mother did because the T.V. is not gone, gone. 

Daddy is still bracing and preparing himself for that day to come. 

After a few days Daddy moved the T.V. into our bedroom where we enjoy family movie night on Sundays. 

Sunday evenings are our special time as a family.  Bug and I make popcorn, then we let him pick out the movie and then we all curl up in bed and watch it. 

Truthfully, it goes something like this....Bug and I make the popcorn, Bug gets the movie which will be Toy Story 3 (for the third time), Mr. C will fall asleep in bed while Bug and I are chowing down on the popcorn and filling our bed with the droppings that I'll be kicking out all night.  Shortly thereafter I'll fall asleep followed by Daddy in another hour.  Bug, well he's the hold out.  That child refuses to miss one minute of "Woody and By-by"

Mr. C or Squishy as he is better known around here could really care less about all of this.  His days are filled up with this...

 I am a proud baby wearing mama who LOVES her Ergo baby sling.  With having a second child this has by far been the best investment.  As you can see Squishy is a huge fan as well.  As I am typing this out he is passed out in the Ergo. 

I know you all may think we are a bit more nuts now but my dad told me this back on Mother's Day..

"If I could do it all over again I would have raised you girls at the property."

My dad can't take us to the property now and raise us there.  Somehow I don't think he would win against four women all in their 30's but Daddy and I can make this change now and when Bug and Squishy become adults they can make the decision to watch the boob tube.

As Daddy said:

"No one is going to go to their grave wishing they'd watched more T.V."

I am off for now.

Our First Camping Trip

I figured before we take our second lake trip this coming weekend I should blog about our first lake/camping trip as a family.  

Our first camping/lake/boat trip took place last month at Apache Lake.  And cue Troy Olsen's "It's a summer thing" video which was filmed at Apache and it's about Apache and oh how I LOVE this song.  But I digress...

Some folks thought we were crazy for taking a two year old and two month old out camping at the start of summer and then take them on a boat not knowing how they would do but I said "sign us up!"

I want Bug and Mr. C to have a great childhood and when given the chance to take them to the lake on a boat....I won't pass it up.  Thank you Lumpy and Rach!

In the rush to get there, get set up and on the water as soon as possible I forgot to take some before pictures so technically these are the after photos. 

This is where Bug, Mr. C and I slept and poor Daddy was demoted to the tent on the ground. 

 This was our view...

I swear I should have been born on a boat.  I love being on the water so much.  As a child we went to the lake a few times here and there but my most fond  er., memorable time was when my father thought it was a good idea to have his young family of six walk ALL.THE.WAY.AROUND. Patagonia lake. Google the lake.  You'll think he was crazy too.

Back to some better memories.  Here let me help set the mental stage for you... 

(double click here)

You're on the boat. 

There is a slight methodical rock going on.

The weather is HOT.

There is a light cool breeze coming off the water.

You're holding an iced chilled cerveza sippy cup in your hand.

Bob Marley's Legend CD is playing in the background.

Worries....GONE!  Stress....GONE! 

Whining Kids....in the background (hey you can't have it all)

When you are on a boat life is good. 

But I digress again...

Bug did really good on the boat.  Honestly, I kinda expected him to get a little upset about being on something so big, on such a big body of water AND with noting really to do--but he was awesome!  He never complained once.  Sadly, he never dared to get into the water. 

 It's kind of hard to see but the moon was creeping up over the mountains. 

 Mr. C did really well too.  My biggest concern was the heat for him but he didn't seem bothered by it.  Yes, I know he's not wearing a life vest.  We at least had one for him.  Does that count?

After a few hours on the boat we came back to camp for the evening.

 Bug, I think, was too wrapped up in everything around us that he never noticed the tent set up in the back of Daddy's truck.  I can't recall why I initially put him in the tent but once I did he never came out again.  He loved being in there just jumping around.

Mr. C who is generally very grumpy at night even loved being in the truck tent.  I know this picture may not show that but I promise he did.

 The next morning...

After breakfast and chocolate milk we went back out on the lake.

These next two photos crack me up.  Miss P. brought some grapes with her and my kid can CHOW DOWN on them.  So here is Miss P. rationing the grapes...

And here is Bug asking for just one more which really means just hand me the whole bag.

Here are two more reasons to why I love the lake...

Here is the reason why I love leaving the lake...

Poor Bug slept half the way home.

This weekend we'll be exploring the awesomeness of Canyon Lake.