Fastest mower in Austin

He got this mower for his birthday from Mimi and Grandpa, but until today, he hasn't really 'gotten' it, yet. Today, he got it out of the backyard and proceeded to jog across the yard, back and forth, back and forth, like a hundred times. He loves it!

We are finally having our floors done this week, so he's running into Jake the floor guy here. And, if you need your lawn mowed, pronto, I highly recommend JM's services... He's quite a fast mower, once he get's going, that is.

Pepperoni Bread

This was one of my family's very favorite meals growing up. Now, I can see why my mom made it. It's cheap, easy and delicious!

Pepperoni Bread:
Serves: 2-4 people (I'd consider it similar to a 'large' pizza. Michael and I almost ate the whole thing ourselves, but we were being piggy)
Ingredients:
1 Rhodes brand white dough loaf (sold in a package of 3 and near the bread in your grocer's freezer)
8 oz mozzerella cheese
1 egg
25-50 pepperoni slices (I used 25 or a half a package, but could have easily done more)
optional: marinara sauce for dipping




Step one: Give yourself at least 2 hours to let the dough rise. You can do the quick version steaming it in the oven (2 hours) or let it defrost all day when you're at work. Follow the package directions.

Step two: Preheat oven to 350. Optional: pour yourself a nice big beer in chilled glass (better than wine for this recipe).

Step three: Put some flour on your counter and roll the dough out into a 12" wide and maybe 20"? long rectangle. Mix one egg and mozzerella together in a separate bowl. Spread cheese/egg mixture to within 1/2" of edge. Liberally spread pepperoni on top. You can see here where I could have added end to end pepperonis, here. :)












Step four: Starting at one end, tightly roll the dough until it's a long skinny roll. Tightly squeeze the edges so it's sealed and form a large ring. Place on a pre-greased cookie sheet and pop er' into the oven for 30 minutes until lightly browned on top.


Ooops, I was so excited to eat my bread that I forgot to take an "after" picture! So sorry! Slice and eat. We love dipping ours in heated marinara sauce, but it's tasty plain, too! Enjoy!

(Mis)Treated Curtain Revolution!

Oh, my God! I have been enlightened and want to stand up and cheer this woman on Sally Field-style!

Confession: we have been living in this house for almost 3 years and I have nary a hung a single curtain nor drapery. Okay, well we did pay an interior decorator to help us plan our living room (yes, the one I want to paint :( )and she helped us get some fancy expensive draperies. But that's it.... and makes me all the more excited about this find.

Today... Looking for some paint ideas (still), I came upon this blog and was so inspired by the blogger's theory on (mis)treated curtains (i.e. "Even I can do that!") that I got the babe in the car, found a fabric store discount bin and swung by Hobby Lobby for some upholstery pins. I am not a huge decorating person and it's never bothered me that we don't have curtains in our kitchen, but after reading about this, I thought what the heck? I can do some no sew curtains! This is my kind of decorating, people!!!!

First, read this for my inspiration...


Before, during and after. First notice my hot husband loading the dishwasher! Aye!



Here is what I did:
1. Buy 2-3 yards of fabric. Thinking I was going to do a simple valence over our kitchen window, I bought 3 yards knowing nothing about fabric and had a TON of fabric leftover.
2. Get some upholstery pins from your local craft store.
3. Pour glass of wine.
4. Fold fabric in half, and maybe again until it's the length you want it over your window.
5. Get on chair with a bunch of pins ready. Fold the edge and tuck in the cut part.
6. Fold pleats every 6-12" based on your preference and place a tack into your wall by each pleat (the measuring was extra easy for me since I had a checked print)
7. Admire your work! I love you, Nesting Place lady!!!!!!

Time spent on first window: 10 minutes
Money spent on fabric: $19.14
Pins: 99 cents

I had so much fabric left over that I did the area over our french doors to the patio. This is the BEST thing ever for lazy decorators like me! I have been Nestitized! Maybe next time I'll do some fringe :)


It ain't perfect, but having curtains makes the space seem so much warmer! And, if I decide I hate the fabric, I'm off to the bargain bin again for another 20 minute project!!! Hallelujah!

Devil Child

See this face? Notice the red eyes? You might be surprised to know that those red eyes are not being caused by the poor quality of the red-eye reducer on our ancient camera, rather that in fact, our child may be possessed.

15 months is not my favorite age so far. I would have to say I like it about as little as the sleepless nights of early infancy. Teething aside, we have somehow hatched a monster of sorts and I would very much like the stork to bring back our sweet, happy and well-adjusted child who somehow got switched with a child that screams "NO!," hits himself and me and lays on the floor moaning and crying a.lot!

Here he is saying, "Look, I am happy only when you submit to my will!"

As our main goal in parenting is to create a happy child who is kind and loving, polite and generous, I am having a tough time here. So far, my reaction to being hit and seeing him hit himself has been saying "no. no!" in a deep voice and trying to redirect him and trying to show him physically what a gentle gesture is. I have also been giving him lots of extra praise for good behavior. It ain't working so far. Today, he found the button for the water in the fridge door and was happily taking a small cold shower in the middle of my kitchen. When I tried to clean him up and redirect him, he freaked out, pulling my hair, squeezing my lips with his fingernails and hit me! See? Not good! I lost my patience big time, called my mom and of course I had to Google "toddlers and agression" and this seems to be a somewhat normal phenomenon. My next plan of attack is to work on ignoring it in hopes that it will go away. This goes against my nature, but so far there seems to be little rhyme or reason to what's causing these outbursts (well other than when he doesn't get his way), so maybe a lack of responding will help?

Moving on, a friend actually called me last night and asked if I was okay, considering I've been a bit withdrawn this summer. Before her call I was actually thinking about how I've really not been in close contact with any of my friends nor family (my poor MIL hasn't heard much about JM at all this summer :() recently. All I can conclude is that this weather is getting to my spirits. It is so damn hot every.single.day. Too hot to do anything fun outside past 9am and I am sick of it. Summer has never bothered me this much before. Anyway, I think I am in a bit of a funk, but nothing that a little rain and some 80 degree weather wouldn't cure! (hint, hint, God!)

So since I've been spending so much time inside, I've started wanting to redecorate our house. I am thrilled we are finally getting around to replacing our heinous, stick-on laminate laundry floor tomorrow, which is as you can see literally peeling off to reveal another laminate floor from another age. Yikes!


And as I am in there so often, I am spending far too much time thinking about painting our red room another color. When we moved in, I loved it because it seemed so rich. Now, it just seems really red. Any ideas, internet, considering my dark wood furniture, banana yellow couch and olivey/red chair and aqua accents? I am currently considering three shades: a khaki brown, a sage and a dark silvery sage (the front color in the paint swatch pic.) any opinions as to what might look best or different suggestions outside the sagey color group? I would like something more soothing and neutral.

Trip to Pittsburgh/DC

I have a lot to say about traveling with our toddler to DC, but I am too exhausted. It was hard. 15 months is not an ideal age I'd recommend for changes in hotels, cities and public transportation, but we survived and learned a lot. We loved seeing our family in PA and Auntie E and Steve, etc. in DC.

Here are some pictures.
See this child and his dada trying to distract him? He will refuse to take a nap and be very unhappy on his two flights.

In Pittsburgh, meeting Great Grandma Y.

Riding up on the Monongahela Incline

Our family farmland up the hill from my uncle's place. My great grandparents took over this land and moved from the city during the great depression. They were the same people who came over from Slovakia at the turn of the century. JM is 4th generation Slovak

breakfast with grandma, uncle lim and sharon

meeting up with auntie e was so nice!

we ran into the president in union station

auntie e's fiance, steve, gave us a personalized tour of his office, the capitol.

us with honest abe


ac: responsibility

Nana and Poppa will love this

I love that he isn't wearing a shirt in this. Really I love his sweet little belly. I love that he understands what I say now. I'm not sure why, but he got really excited about a picture of my mom and art a few weeks ago and since then, he'll go up to it and say "PA puh... NAH...nuh!"

Yay for playgroup!

The tantrums have gotten a wee bit better since my last post, however, sadly I'm thinking it is a combination of tooth and toddler, since he is still giving me a little attitude, but not as bad as it was last week.

I am pretty sure I've complained about the heat in every single one of my last blog updates and I will continue here. It's hot. So hot that it feels like we are inside all day every day. It's been over 100 degrees for at least 6 weeks in a row, now. After 9am or so, it's not fun to be outside. I've even started mentally redecorating my house because I'm looking at it so much! I even made my first HSN purchase! Hopefully this is not the beginning of me hoarding closets full of dolls or anything like that. I digress.

Thank God for playgroup. It's getting us out of captivity on a regular basis. We went to a carnival yesterday and it was pretty fun. JM even skipped his morning nap and did okay so I'm thinking we may be moving toward a permanent one nap a day thing, as he has been fighting his afternoon nap consistently for a few weeks now.

JM's first bouncy house experience at the carnival
Being protected by sweet Lily. Notice the crazy big kids jumping all around him! The little kids lunch table at the carnival. You can see JM's new Chuck Taylors inherited from his cousin. Love em! JM and his little girlfriend Skylee eating. They take their food very seriously, as you can see.

SOS... you can't handle the tooth!

I am praying it's just teeth and we haven't entered some new phase in toddlerdom.

Take John Michael. The past two and a half days have been painful.

We went to playgroup and I didn't know they had a water fountain near the playscape at the new place we went and didn't bring any towels or swimsuits. Of course, he wanted little to do with the slides the other kids were playing on and he ran in and immediately got soaked.

So I had to borrow a dry outfit from my friend Sandy and when I refused to let him get soaked in 2nd dry outfit, he threw a FIT. A back arching, on the wood chips, screaming protest cry. Not the slide... not the other sweet babies... nothing would make him happy. Meltdown 1 yesterday.

See this child looking sweet on a library chair? He loooooved going to the library, hugging on a big Clifford they had in the kids area, climbing up on the reading chairs, etc. but after he started pulling books off the shelf, I attempted to pick him up to go. He played for about 10 minutes, so I felt it was fair to leave. Wrong, mama. Meltdown 2 yesterday. Have you ever had a screaming child in a tomb-like library? It's not a fun place to have a loud wailing toddler.

Today has been better, but he still has had a short fuse. He refused to eat this morning, which was a sign to me that something is going on. Yesterday a new tooth broke through on the bottom, bringing him up to 8 (4 top, 4 bottom), but he is acting so little like himself, that I'm starting to wonder if molars are coming in, too. It's impossible to see inside a toddler's mouth and trying to put my finger in is also a challenge. I have no idea how people can say, "oh it's a tooth coming in." Really? How do you know? I can never feel it until it breaks.

Anyway, either way, as we enter toddler-dom, I'm going to have to come up with some sort of bag of secret interesting 'new' items that I pull out in public when a meltdown occurs. At home, I either ignore or divert him, but when you're out and the diaper bag only holds so much, it can be a challenge. At the library, he hit the graham crackers I offered onto the floor, turned his head away from the cup of water, the book, my keys, etc.

Worse, it's hot as hell, here and I'm starting to think I have the Texas version of SAD. Could we please have a day that tops off in the low 90s? I don't think that's too much to ask.

Thanks to Uncle Peter who distracted my little crab at Phil's today with some fun monkey sounds.

And, super thanks to Aunt Emily for the HUGE bag of clothes and shoes she brought yesterday. I love hand me downs! 10 pairs of new PJs! 7 pairs of shoes (including some sweet Vans and gently used See Kai Runs seen here). So thankful!

last week in pics

enjoying some toddler chat with buddy r. who is going to be a big brother to a SISTER!
sire really liked his first cocktail shrimp... only the finest delicacies for his majesty

looking cute in his new marquette cap.

enjoying kamryn's swim party... no fear cavalier wanted to go down the slide on his belly with the big kids.

enjoying a little morning read

now that it's been cloudy, it makes the park so much more cool and fun!

he LOVES carrying around that cup of snacks... and to the dismay of his parents, suddenly finds Chicken Dance Elmo interesting (and can push the button to make him start dancing!)


new words this week:
otter
tree
deer
flower
apple

he is repeating quite a bit of what we say...