Stuff and nonsense

I have like three different blogs I have started writing but none are ready to be published yet because my family keeps interrupting me. So, for now, enjoy this:

Stuff that scares me.

I am sitting here, writing a draft for a future blog and I look up and on the TV is a preview for an upcoming movie. As soon as I see it, I freeze, paralyzed in fear. I know right now you are searching your brain, trying to think "What movie could she be talking about? What scary movies are coming out now? It's not October, the time of year when Hollywood shoves tons of horror/gore movies down our throats to the point you can't turn on the tv for fear of a commercial scarring my kid for life." Well, I will tell you: It was "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". I would put a picture of it here except the though of googling it and having a picture pop up gives me the willies. There is no way I can do it.

Now, I know you are going, "But Sundee, that is not a "scary" movie. Sci-fi, sure. Maybe there are some thrilling moments in it, but scary? No way. Be serious."

Well, I am serious. I can vividly remember the first time I saw the original "Planet of the Apes". We live in the Cape (for those who don't know, it was our community I grew up in, in Annapolis, MD). It was a weekend and my dad was home and it was showing on tv so he turned it on because "it is a great movie". We all watched it. Well, my brothers and my dad did. I am pretty sure my mom was doing what I do on Saturdays when the rest of the family is watching tv: cleaning/cooking/stuff around the house. I remember watching them discover (spoiler alert!) that the apes had dissected the brain of one of their comrades. I remember watching them trying to escape so they wouldn't have the same thing done to them. And I will NEVER forget the moment when (seriously, spoilers!) they were running across the beach and there was a broken Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand. It was one of those huge end of movie shocks that doesn't happen very often because movies nowadays are so predictable (since everything is either a book adaptation or a remake). It didn't start becoming a scary movie until I went to bed and the nightmares started. It was horrible. It took me a good two weeks to be able to sleep alone in my room. I couldn't ever watch that movie again. When it comes on TV now as it often does, my family will tease me about it, saying they are going to put it on to torture me. They think it is funny I have a paralyzing fear about this movie. My stepdad, in his coldhearted way decided to watch the whole movie marathon one time when I was at my mom's house visiting. I hid out in my room the whole time terrified of watching the screen. When I went to see the movie "Moulin Rouge" with my friend Ashley I we all settled in my seat ready for a chick flick with friends. The previews started and before I knew it there was the preview for the remake of "Planet of the Apes" starring Mark Wahlberg. There I sat, frozen in my seat. I wanted to get up and run but I was too terrified, I could hardly breath through the anxiety attack I was having. I tried not to watch, not to listen but in a movie theater that is hard. Finally the preview was over and sometime into the first third of the movie I was finally able to relax. But it was horrible. I knew that I would never see that movie and my family teased me mercilessly about it.

I really did try to put in a picture but just googling images makes my hyperventilate so that is just not happening. There is no way I can put something that makes my chest tighten in fear on my blog to see all the time. NO. WAY. Sorry. But I do have a picture of something else that scares me: large sea creatures.

 This started with the life sized blue whale in the Museum of Natural History in DC. The blue whale is no longer hanging up there (but my mother has reassured me it is somewhere nearby, packed up, just waiting for-so not reassuring mom!) but they do have another large whale hanging up there. I can't tell you what type it is because I couldn't look at it without having a panic attack and flashbacks to the time I was getting pulled out to sea by under toe, thinking it was a giant whale sucking me in (I know! I know! They mostly eat plankton and stuff and wouldn't want to eat me if I was the last thing on earth to eat. But still. When you are 8, this is a definite possibility. Anything can happen. Including getting eaten by a giant fish.). I was trying and trying to get back in and NO ONE would help me (even though I was asking for it) and I KNEW it was a bad situation when my mom actually got up from the beach chair and got into the water to rescue me while yelling at the lifeguard for not doing her job. My mom NEVER got into the water. Like, ever. So it was a really big deal.

Anyway, I hopped on yahoo this morning to check my e-mail and lo and behold this is what I see:
previous


I realize that many people find this stuff "cool" and "amazing". I just find it terrifying. This is probably one of my worst nightmares (although the worst would be being stuck in a room full of bugs like in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". Christopher asked me once if it were him in the room and I had to reach in and pull the lever to save him would I do it....and I couldn't honestly say yes. That probably makes me a horrible wife but if I did go through with it I would probably end up in a mental institution afterwards so I am not sure that is a better outcome). Anyway, let's just say that the story of Jonah and the "whale" had a REALLY big impact on me as a little kid. 


So, my worst nightmare is probably being sucked up by a giant whale, while being forced to watch "Plant of the Apes" and the only way out is by sticking my hand in a room full of bug and having them (shudder) crawl on me. Horrors. 

My Mac decided to start charging itself again today. I am taking advantage of this by uploading some new pictures and make a new blog post (obviously!).

We have been really busy at of late. At first it was because I didn't have access to a computer all the time and I had a lot of "extra" time on my hands because I wasn't on blogger/Facebook/Pinterest. Then my husband got me an iphone for my birthday (as an early present, I am hitting the big 3-0 this year I deserve a big gift, right?). So now I am consumed with playing Angry Birds and trying to beat Wesley's high score because he is WAY better at it than I am. But that is ok because when he starts to beat me I can always take the phone away and say something along the lines of "Because I am the mom" or "Because I said so" and he won't question me (too much).

Anyway, my mom came down this weekend and we did lots of fun stuff including going to the Richmond Zoo. If you are ever in the area you should check it out, it is a really nice zoo. The animals were very active and we saw lots of cool stuff. Wesley wanted to take home just about every animal we saw.

Fuzzy picture, but this was a Burmese Python. Wesley tried to speak Parsel tongue to let it out but it didn't work. At least it didn't work on the python, but later we saw a black snake crawl out of a cage and my mom freaked out. So maybe his magical powers are just slightly delayed. Guess we will find out in 6 year if he makes it into Hogwarts.

Toucan Sam!

Penguins. These guys were awesome. I seriously wanted to steal one and take one home they were so cute. But I had to be a responsible parent and explain how we needed to leave them there where they could be properly cared for.

 Feeding the giraffes. This was pretty cool.

Galapagos Tortoises. I can't believe how much they were moving around or how fast they went. 

Here is a picture of my kids! Oh, no wait those are chimpanzees. But if you knew my kids you could see how I could be confused. ;)

Ok, really, here are my kids:

 My mom and Henry.

 Henry on his first carousel ride. He was unsure at first but then he was loving it and had a fit when we took him off. 

 Out of order pictures-oops. We were hanging out by the llamas but you can't really see them. 

 Wesley

Silly boy.

Alright, tea time. More later. 

Making the most of it

Since I am still having to beg Wesley for use of his computer (well, actually the lying incident yesterday pretty much assured that I would have the laptop to myself as he has lost computer privileges) I have decided to make the most of it. Last night while I was trying to get sleeping enough to go to bed and fall asleep I decided to check out what photos and documents were still on here. I have obviously saved them onto shutterfly and onto CDs before we stopped using this computer but it has been a long time since I had really looked at any of them outside of the ones I really loved. And let me tell you-there are some gems. GEMS. So, go get yourself some popcorn, a glass of wine, cup of tea, that twinkie you have stashed away so the kids/husband can't find it and settle in for a treat.

Before and After

This was back when I was pregnant with Wesley. My grandmother took the first picture so I could see what I needed to get back to after having Wesley. The second picture was taken, in the same swim suit, by my mother about two days before he was born. These are not the before/after shots you want unless you are trying to have a baby.



About 8 or 9 weeks along.




39 weeks (so 30 weeks later).



Of course the most awesome part of the second picture is Smokey trying to hypnotize you into giving him more food. Also, please don't make fun of my cankles. Thanks.

This next picture I love, when it popped up on the screen I laughed, out loud, for about 5 minutes. I am so putting it on Facebook to embarress my brothers even though nothing phases them.

I mean, look at Brad (he is in the middle). And Christopher and I look so young (probably because we were, this was about 6 years ago). And what was Kyle thinking getting a neon yellow cast? Oh, but the cast gets better:



Gangsta cast

I also found a bunch of pictures of Christopher's commissioning at Fort Benning, GA. In case you EVER visit Ft. Benning, let me give you some advice. They have their motto which is "Follow Me". So, if you drive up to the gate and the gaurd checks your ID and then says "Welcome to Ft. Benning, home of the Infantry. Follow Me!" he does NOT actually mean for you to follow him. Sitting there waiting for him to show you where to go will just cause you to get some weird looks and then get extremely embarressed when you see the huge "Follow Me" sign about a quarter of a mile down the road. Just sayin'. But here are some highlights of the day and me looking *Fabulous*.

Getting to pin Christopher for the first time.



The fantastic B&B where we stayed. I am so fabulous, I know!



I don't know why I like this picture so much but I do. Plus this is a great chance for me to tell you how my mom managed to ask Christopher's recruiting officer why he has a ladybug on his bars (it was an oakleaf) and why Christopher had flaming balls on his lapels (the ordnance symbol is a flaming ball. But still. Awkward.).

We ate at this great little historic restaurant. Well, they lost our reservation but managed to get us a table and look! Even our waiter was a ghost. You can't get that kind of service just anywhere.

Ok, there is more to come, but this might be a great time for a potty break or for you to refill your wine if you need to. I will wait.

Ready? Here are some early married life/pre children pictures. These are very rare.

Christopher and his "Little Babies". It is pictures like this that make it hard for me to take him seriously. I don't know how his soldiers do other than the fact they have never seen these pictures.



Me, cooking our first Thanksgiving dinner together. I look like a scary pregnant woman with a knife. Don't mess with me.




About 36 weeks at the top of they Tybee Island Lighthouse. I had no idea C was in the background which just makes this picture. Also, I yelled at a bunch of teenagers who were all winded from climbing the stairs that if I could do all 178 steps at 36 weeks they could do it. And to stop smoking.




Yup, at a bar, getting drinks (for the lushes I was with, my husband and my mom). But they and the bartender thought this was hilarous.









Our first Christmas Eve in Savannah. I don't remember most of the people in this picture but they were all people Christopher worked with. BUT this picture is awesome because it has party mouse in it. Just sayin'.



So, onto post children pictures.

Christopher and Wesley checking out our house in progress. This was the kitchen. I will have to find some "after" pictures or do a whole post on all our different homes. I know you are looking forward to it.



Hilarous family photo shoot.



Getting ready for a ball. One that we had bought tickets for and there we no seats for us at. So we had an even better time out at a tapas restuarant in Savannah.

The Travelocity Roaming Gnome. Great costume, I put it together in about an hour. Those are the best costumes. I know because I had to do it the next year with him too.



Portrait: Man and his dog.



Sorry, I don't know how to rotate this, if I can figure it out I will do it. This is, without a doubt, Kyle's birthday. How do I know? Every year for our birthday my mom would let us choose whatever we wanted for dinner. Brad would pick something like ice cream. I would pick something like london broil with baked potatoes and salad-something the whole family could enjoy. Kyle would choose lobster (which, because of the cost, only he got to eat). And then Brad and I would smack ourselves for not thinking of it ourselves. Repeat every year.

Wesley's first Easter. This was outside my mom's church with my brother Kyle, me, Wesley, Christopher and my stepdad Matt (or as he is now known as G-Matt, or just "G").

Ok, so whenever we talk about Wesley having a lemon for the first time my stepdad says it was at Mellow Mushroom and we (my mom and I) say it was at Yin Yankee. I am pretty sure Matt is thinking of this time (as seen here). I do have a YY photo somewhere, I can't say right now which happened sooner. Investigation to follow. I don't read Agatha Christie for nothing you know.

Me and Harry Potter! How cool! Oh, no wait. That is just my brother with hippie hair. Nevermind.

Easter, 2007. Wesley's second. And he is pulling off that seersucker sucker suit just like a proper southern gentleman should. And, for the record this had to be the COLDEST Easter in Savannah we had. It was freezing. Wish it had been this cold when I was pregant with Henry.

My brother Kyle with his mohawk. I keep tyring to take Wesley into getting one. As soon as Henry has enough hair (or any hair for that matter, outside of his mullet) he is getting one. Oh, and yes, that sign hanging on the wall says "Martha Stewart can kiss my butt".

Last pic for today: Me and one of my best friends Stephanie hanging out on my mom's deck. Obviously I was in the middle of going on about something VERY important. I have no idea what. But this right here is what I love about finding old pictures. Those little moments you capture that you can so easily forget about. This is just a moment of good friends hanging out, having a good time together (and sharing some good food!). These are the moments to treasure.



Update

My husband took my laptop into Best Buy to be checked and *of course* it worked fine there and it worked for about 12 hours and then stopped charging again. So I will have to take it in again or send it to Mac to get fixed. Once again, I am using Wesley's computer so if I am missing any letter "U"s you know why. Even though it really annoys me I am just not bothering to fix them right now. Sorry, I know that is annoying. I will try to keep all other grammatical errors to a minimum (and I think I just REALLY broke the u key. Yikes.).

I miss my Mac! So sad. I have completely forgotton how to copy and paste on here.

We had a busy day today, we got school supplies for Wesley. We made woopie pies. Wesley found one of my eyeshadow applicators and decided to make "no baby" signs on the walls and then got in trouble for 1) coloring on the walls ("But it's not colorin' Mommy! I didn't use crayons!"), 2) lying about it ("Henry did it" "Bt it is too high for Henry." "Oh, it was the cats."-I mean, if you are going to get in trouble for lying at least make it a good lie!) which led to a huge meltdown becase that meant no woopie pies for dessert. Armageddon.

The other big news of the day, which we are not really sharing (but since most of my friends and family don't read my blog I don't think it should be a big deal. That will teach them to ignore my blog! ha ha ha ha ha). We got our list of possibilities for our next duty station! Of course we still have NO idea where we are going, but possible postings include, in no particular order: Ft. Lee, VA (sound familiar? yeah we like to get places and stay there like, forever), Bamburg Germany, Korea, Ft. Knox, Niagara Falls, Battle Creek, MI, Ft Drm and Ft. Riley. I honestly can't say where I would like to go. Overall it is a fairly good list of places. Of course NONE of our "wish list" choices were on here (I mean, really, that was a waste of several hours of my life even thinking about choices of where we would like to go. I could have been blogging. Or on Pintrest. Seriously Army, I have better things to do with my time.). We should find out by my birthday where we will be going (Happy Birthday you are going.......!).

I might have to get on my Mac tomorrow and use up some precious battery power to upload some pictures. Maybe you will be in for a treat and I will have a fabulous post with pictures of all the fun stuff that went on this week. Right now, I am off to bed. I have a sneaking suspicion that two little boys will be up early tomorrow.

Hi, my name is Sundee and.....

I have a ton of stuff to blog about, and a million pictures to upload. Why haven't I done it? What is my excuse now?

Well.

My computer is not charging. So right now it is dead. I am not sure what is wrong with it but I am hoping it is something really simple like a new battery. However, not having a working computer has made me realize something. I am addicted to my computer. I knew it wasn't charged, wouldn't turn on and I kept trying to go get it and use it. I thought of blogs to write, random facts to look up, I NEEDED to get on Facebook and see updates (thank goodness for my blackberry)! I NEEDED to pin things on Pintrest! I was dying. I can understand how someone who is trying to quit an addiction feels. All you can think about is what you can't have. How can you get it? What are your alternatives? I am not kidding, in the first hour after realizing I wouldn't be able to use my Mac I thought about using Christopher's laptop, using Wesley's laptop, going to the library, stealing one from my neighbors (ok, just kidding about that one! Really, just kidding!). Then I thought, "Surely I can make it through a couple days without my laptop. I can survive. I WILL survive."

I made it through one day checking my Facebook account via my phone all day. Today I just gave in and hopped on Wesley's computer. Which is an "ancient" (at least in the computer world) 2005 Dell laptop. It is a PC which I now hate and cannot remember how to use, runs super slow and the U button doesn't really work. Wesley pulled it off a few years ago and if you don't hit it *just right* then it won't type. VERY annoying. I am finding myself searching for words to use without the letter U but it is hard (count the U's-they get used a lot more than you think. Then try to find alternative words for them. Sometimes impossible). And then, every once in a while, just for fun the computer jumps around the text and I start typing in a random area of text and have to go back and fix everything.

I know, there are people who are starving or dying or have real addictions and in the grand scheme of things and I shouldn't really complain. I am getting more housework done and my fantastic husband is taking my Mac in on his lunch break to see if they can fix it.

Guess I am off to do more laundry, dishes and to brave the commissary with two small children. Wish me luck.

***I counted 52 u's-counting the title and not counting this sentence. How many did you count?****

Friday Facts

Fact: I do not like bugs.
Fact: Seeing a bug in my house (particuarly any type of raoch/palmetto bug/cricket) makes my stomach churn.
Fact: Telling me that I "should not" be scared of bugs will not magically make me change my feeling on this and make me un-scared of bugs.
Fact: Catching said bug for me and then pretending to throw it at me will NOT endear me to you, nor will it make me any less afraid of said bug. It will make me scream and possibly, throw up on you.
Fact: If you ever want to rob me then I would suggest using one of the above mentioned bugs as your weapon of choice. If you use a gun/knife I will probably try to get away or disarm you, but if you threaten to throw a cockroach on me I will give up my phone, car keys, money, credit cards, jewlery, first and second born children, huband and pretty much anything else you would want.
Fact: Bugs are gross and scary.
Just sayin'.

Domestic Goddess: Tomatoes

Let me tell you a little story....
Once upon a time there was a wonderful housewife/mother who would make spaghetti sauce from scratch. She would carefully sautee the onions and garlic, brown the meat, add in the spices and tomatoes. She would let it simmer to get a good flavor going, tasting as she went to make sure it came out "just right". He husband generally liked the results and would sometimes have helpful comments on what he liked and what could be better about it.
Then, one day, the very busy housewife/mother was running super late getting dinner on the table so instead of making sauce from scratch she decided to pull out the jar of Prego she had stashed int he panrty for just such an occasion and throw together a spaghetti dinner. Her family sat down, said blessing, and dove into the meal. That is when her husband exclaimed, "Wow honey! This is the best sauce you have ever made! You need to make it exactly like this every time you make it!". The very kind, loving, housewife/mother decided not to kill her husband on the spot and she also chose not to tell him his dinner came from a jar that night. She just continued to buy the Prego and pass it off as her own. He did not suspect for several years until she finally told him that her sauce came out of a jar and that she hadn't made it in years because of his comment. He was shocked and slightly apalled that he could not tell the difference.

And that is why, to this day I do not make homemade spaghetti sauce. Because Prego makes it better than I do. Although I like Bertolli for my lasagna (the basil one). So, I don't really know why I tried to make home mdae spaghetti sauce again. Oh, I made some salsa with it, with fresh peppers from our garden and I saved some tomatoes to slice up and serve with some sea salt or balsamic vinegar and mozzarella cheese and basil from our garden. But the sauce....well...I am thinking it will go better on a slice of italian bread with some fresh melted mozzarella on top and some fresh basil. Not really sure it is going to make it as a spaghetti sauce. Oh well. At least I have a stockpile of Prego in the pantry, right?

Domestic Goddess: Rainbow cakes and one year old birthday parties.

As a faithful follower has pointed out to me, I have had a lot to blog about int he past couple of months. There was a lot of times when I wanted to blog about what was going on but I was either too busy or too tired or didn't have internet and it just didn't happen. So, I figured, why not just do it now? It is still interesting stuff even if it happened a while ago and it will give me something to write about on days that NOTHING happened (well, unless you would like to hear about how I disinfected the toilet or did 10 loads of laundry because the cat decided to pee on everything we own or how I didn't do the dishes all weekend and ended up with a whole counter of dirty dishes to wash-epic stuff, let me tell you).

So, today I will talk about Henry's FIRST birthday party and the totally awesome cake I made for him. He turned one on June 10th and took his first few steps that day too. He was SO proud of himself.

We decided that since we were so close to Maryland and all our family and friends (well, not all our friends, such is the life of an Army family) we would travel up there and have a party up there. We got lots of cute sock monkey decorations, balloons, put together a taco bar with all the fixin's and sides of rice and beans. I made my totally awesome guac that people (literally) fight over and that I had to ban my brother from touching it until the party started beause I was afraid it would all be gone before anyone arrived (yeah, it's that good).

Don't eat all the guac!

However, the cake was the special surprise of the day. From the outside it looked like a normal, everyday monkey shaped birthday cake that any 1 year old would love to dive into:

Cute, no?
But the real surprise was when I cut open the cake. I really wish I had had someone videoing everyone reactions to it because this is what they saw:

 Awesome, right? I mean, who does not want to eat a RAINBOW cake? So, the next questions was "How did you do that?" Well, it actually very simple and anyone can do it. Seriously.

You will need: 1-2 boxes of WHITE cake mix. The amount of cake mix depends on how many cakes you are making/what kind of pan, ect. Follow the instructions on the back of the box and mix up the batter. Then split the batter into 6 different bowls. You will get a little less than a cup per color. Then you will need GEL food colors. You can get these at any place that sells cake stuff like Micheal's or A.C. Moore. I recommend getting one gel of every color you will need (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). I guess you could do the whole "mixing colors together until you get orange or green or purple but really, who has time for that?. Mix a little of the right color gel into each cup of batter. It will end up looking like this:

Wesley, big brother and "Cake Boss".

Ooohh...pretty colors....

After that is done, just pour the colors into your pan, one of top of the other. Center the colors as best you can, as you pour in the next color pour it right into the middle of the previous color. Don't worry about spreading it around or anything like that. It will bake up like a rainbow on it's own. Trust me on this one. I have done this before, I am a professional. Once they are all in the pan it will look like this:

Bake as directed on the back of the box. When the cake is done (stick a tooth pick or your mom's really old Mickey Mouse cake tester in the middle and if it comes out clean it is done!). Let it cool a bit in the pan (hopefully you did not forget to coat the pan with a layer of Baker's Pan Spray or with a bit of shortening and flour. If you didn't good lick getting it out in once piece) and then turn it out on a cooling rack to cool down. It will look like this:

After the cake cools, decorate it as you see fit. If you just do a plain round or rectangular or square cake then a really simple icing to do is 1 pack of vanilla pudding and 1 8oz package of whipped topping. Mix together and decorate the cake. It's really yummy, we used it on the rainbow cupcakes we made, as seen here:

This is the first time in a really long time I have made a cake (and cupcakes!) and all of it was gone before the end of the party. I can confirm (based on information given to me by Wesley) that this cake will NOT make you poop rainbows. Just in case you were worried about that.

Finally, I will end with a picture of my brother in my grandfather's wheel chair because it is hilarious. At least it is to me.