Tuesdays Unwrapped

I had one of those moments this week.  I was at church on Wednesday night helping with Ben's nursery class.  Honestly, I was really tired and kind of wished I was at home getting the kids ready for bed instead of being at church.  I know, it sounds awful to admit.  It had been a long day with stress at work. 

I finally made it to class and was talking to Ben's teacher, Lisa.  Lisa has a little girl Ben's age in the class, too.  I started talking to her and she said she'd had a stressful day as well.  I asked her what was going on.  She told me about her cousin's little girl (who was the same age as our little ones) who was in surgery at that very moment having a kidney removed because of a large tumor that was attached to it.  Needless to say, I forgot all about my "stressful" day.  She was waiting on a text to let her know how everything went in the surgery. There she and I sat with our happy, healthy one-year-olds and we were kind of speechless.  I think neither one of us could talk about it without going into tears.  All I could say is that it's a mother's worst nightmare come true.  Lisa said it's the kind of news that takes you to your knees.  I know what she means.  She said she had seen her cousin's little girl the previous weekend and she looked healthy and happy.  The little girl's mother was giving her a bath and noticed an unusual knot on her back, and when they took her to the doctor they found the tumor.  All of these events happened in less than a week.

At the end of class Lisa received a text to let her know that the surgery was successful and everything was going fine.  The last update this week has been that the cancer is in Stage 1 and treatable and I think the family is pleased with the results considering the situation.  If you remember, please pray for Aubrey.

All week I've thought about that family and that little girl.  In times where I feel stressed and overwhelmed, I look at my healthy, happy boys,  and I am just a little more grateful.  It was such a reminder to be grateful for the things that we sometimes take for granted like good health.  I always hate to use someone's suffering to get perspective in my own life, but this experience did that for me. 

I'm sharing this week at Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.

Tea Time

One of my favorite things to do is enjoy a cup of hot tea.  I've been a fan of The Republic of Tea for years since my friend, Loretta, introduced me to their Blackberry Sage black tea.  I usually buy it at World Market, Whole Foods or Central Market.  If I'm at Target I'll usually pick up a box of Stash tea.  The Mango Black tea in the photo is from Trader Joe's.  I bought it this summer when I was in Indianapolis visiting Angela.  Sadly, we don't have a Trader Joe's in Texas. 

Here are a few of my favorite teas.  Most of it is decaf because for the last couple of years I've either been pregnant or nursing.  Now that phase has passed and I can enjoy caffeine again!

Here's where the tea usually is. It's all shoved in the cabinet.  If I'm not careful it falls out when I open the door.  It's not nearly as neatly displayed as in the photo above.

Do you see the Sugar in The Raw?  That and honey are my favorite ways to sweeten hot tea.  For iced tea we like to sweeten it with the raw agave nectar.  We've found some good deals on amazon.com when purchasing raw agave nectar.  It's cheaper than the grocery store.

As fall and winter quickly approach, I'm looking forward to more evenings enjoying a nice cup of hot tea.  Hopefully you'll enjoy a little something in the evening that's relaxing, too.

Sippy Cup Roundup

To go anywhere with children is a major undertaking.  I feel like as a parent I live by the Boy Scout motto "Be Prepared".

We have a checklist when getting ready.

• Diaper Bag
• Diapers and wipes in the Diaper Bag
• Food for the baby
• Tiny Diner Placemat--I've already written about the greatness of this invention here.
• Extra change of clothes for each child
• Phones
• My purse
• Toys for distracting the boys and DVDs for the car ride
• Sippy Cups

Sippy Cups.  Let me just talk about my love/hate relationship with sippy cups.  I love them for helping prevent messes, but keeping up with them is going to give me gray hair.  It never fails that when it's time to leave the house one of the boys has taken the sippy cup we've made for him and lost it somewhere.    We can turn our backs for just a second and it's gone.  You'd think the sippy cups would be easy to find.  Not so much! The lost sippy cup below delayed our departure at least 10 minutes.  We looked all over the house (and our house isn't that big) for this red sippy cup.  Can you see it?  It blends right in.  I know you're thinking, you should have just made another one.  Probably so, but it's the principle of it.  When you take the time to make the sippy cup you just don't want to take the time to make another.  We have a very precise way of filling the sippy cup.  We only put in a little juice and mostly water.  Crazy, I know!  We were determined to find the sippy cup even if we were going to be late.  Thank goodness one of us spotted it hidden on the bookshelf with the children's books.  Since we were running late, I decided to take a photo of the camouflaged sippy cup for a blog post.  Why not?  This is my life.  I've become a sippy cup wrangler.

Identity Crisis

Mommy or Michele? Daddy or Mark?

I'm having a little bit of an identity crisis.  Will's going through a phase where he calls me by my first name instead of mommy.  It's funny, I guess.  I wonder what goes on in the mind of an almost four-year-old.  Who knows, right?  This phase doesn't really worry me, and I can find the humor in it.  One of my friends went through a phase where her little girl did the same thing, and she's "normal".  I think one reason he calls me Michele is that he's becoming more observant of families and what roles people play in families.  One of Will's favorite questions to ask us is, "How many kids do fill-in-the-blank have?"  He then likes to answer his own question.  For example, "Mark and Michele have two kids, Will and Ben."  This Q&A goes on for at least five minutes.  We go through all of the couples with children that we know and then we go through some couples we know without children. Q:"How many kids do Matt and Jenn have?" A: "They don't have any kids.  They have two dogs and a cat."   We humor him and play along.  Usually these conversations take place in the car when we are driving somewhere.

This is kind of a fun part of parenting.  It's neat to see Will grow up and figure things out even if I get called "Michele" for a little while.

Photo taken by Lauren Wensel Neyra November 2008.

What I Wore Wednesday Wk 6

I'm back for week six of What I Wore Wednesday.

I've kind of been feeling like a big dork doing WIWW.  I realize I have no advice to offer on fashion. Most days I'm just hoping the What Not To Wear crew doesn't show up at my front door :)  Honestly, the reason I keep doing it is because I've met some really great people by linking up to the Pleated Poppy's WIWW.  Even though my outfits aren't trendsetting or cutting edge I still like joining in the fun!

Sunday: Church

Gray shirt ($7!!!), black capris: Gap outlet

Black flats: Ann Taylor LOFT

Necklace and earrings: Premier Design Jewelry

Monday: School

Black top: Banana Republic outlet

Skirt: It was made by my grandma almost 10 years ago.  I'm not sure where the fabric came from because it was just in her pile of fabric scraps (you ladies who sew know what I mean.  my grandma never threw away fabric--ever!).  I'm thinking it's a very Scarlett O'Hara creation because there's a good chance the fabric may have had a former life as curtains.  It does't matter to me what it was formerly because I love the funky flower design.

Flats: Old Navy

Black Bead Necklace: Gap outlet

Tuesday:  School

Same outfit as Sunday

Wednesday: School

Skirt: Old Navy

Striped Tank with lace trim: Gap outlet

Gray cardi: J Crew outlet

Gold Sandals: Gap (on sale around $10 or $12)

Necklace: Forever 21

Probably my favorite outfit of the week.

Thursday: School

Red Skirt: Gap outlet (it's at least 5 years old)

Black ruffle top: Gap outlet (it's new)

Black and white poppy flats: Gap

Black sparkly bracelet: Premier Design Jewelry

Love these shoes!

Friday: School

I'll spare you another photo of my jeans and spirit t-shirt combo.  No one wants to see that for two weeks in a row, including me :)

Saturday: Visiting a dear friend who just had a new baby. 

Here's my "mom outfit" once again!

Bermuda shorts: J Crew outlet

Orange/Red shirt and white layer tank: Old Navy

Shoes: TOMS bought at Whole Foods

*Buy some TOMS.  It's a good thing, and I'm seeing them everywhere.  Remember if you do, buy them a 1/2 size too small.  That was the advice I received when I purchased mine.  I wear a size 7 but bought a 6 1/2.  They were a little snug, but after a couple of days they were broken in and perfect. 

Head on over to the Pleated Poppy for more WIWW.  Thanks for hosting the fun, Lindsey!

Chocolate Cobbler

Windom Feed Sack 

Chocolate Cobbler  

Pour melted butter in a 9x13 baking dish.

Mix flour, 1 ½ cups of sugar, vanilla and milk. Pour this mixture over the melted butter.

Mix 1 cup sugar and cocoa and pour over the flour mixture.

Pour 1 ½ cups cold water on top.

Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until done. (I usually cook an additional 10 - 15 minutes.)

It's still hot and bubbly!

Windom Feed Sack

Chocolate Cobbler

Ingredients

2 sticks margarine or butter

2 ½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cups self-rising flour

¾ cup milk

1 ½ cups cold water

5 tablespoons cocoa powder

¾ cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

Pour melted butter in a 9x13 baking dish.

Mix flour, 1 ½ cups of sugar, vanilla and milk. Pour this mixture over the melted butter.

Mix 1 cup sugar and cocoa and pour over the flour mixture.

Pour 1 ½ cups cold water on top.

Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until done. (I usually cook an additional 10 - 15 minutes.)

* If your recipe calls for self-rising flour and you only have all-purpose, here's how you can adapt. For each cup of all-purpose flour, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.



 

Windom Feed Sack

This summer we went to Windom, Texas, which is a small town about 30 miles from my small town.  We drove to Windom (in the middle of no where) for one reason and one reason only.  The Windom Feed Sack.  It's an all-you-can-eat-buffet that's known for it's fried catfish.  Fried catfish is one of those delicacies (is it really a delicacy?...catfish is a bottom feeder) enjoyed by most people in the South.  Even if you don't like seafood or fish, most people enjoy eating fried catfish.  I love it and usually eat so much when I'm at the Windom Feed Sack that I leave feeling a little sick.  I didn't take my camera inside, but I took some photos before we went inside. 

Only in Texas do you see a truck and horse trailer parked outside the restaurant with horses still inside the trailer.

I'll be sharing the recipe for the delicious Chocolate Cobbler served here.  The owners willingly shared their recipe.  It makes me love this place even more!