A good time for chocolate

I'm not a huge Obama fan.  But, I am a fan of America.  And, I'm a huge fan of God.  So, I pray for Mr. Obama.

(Honestly, I pray for Mr. Obama's safety alot.  Because I dislike Joe Biden even more than Mr. Obama.)

And since the kids are out of school today, we watched part of the inauguration.  Actually, we watched everyone file in, listened to the Invocation that was not quite a prayer, heard a couple of the songs, and watched the two men be sworn in.  Then when the speeches started, we changed the channel.  Again, it's a school holiday, so you can bet we changed it to Disney channel.

We are having Taco Soup for supper tonight.  And every Mexican food loving person knows that chocolate goes best with Mexican.

That got me to thinking about November 2008 when Mr. Obama was first elected.  I posted a chocolate pie recipe then.  I think I'll repost it now.  I'm feeling about like I felt the day after that election in 2008.

This is what we'll be having for dessert tonight:

Chocolate Pie

1 Oreo cookie pie crust
8 oz. Cool Whip Free
1 cup skim milk
1 sm package ff, sf chocolate pudding mix

In a large bowl, combine milk and pudding mix. Add Cool Whip and mix well. Pour contents into pie crust and chill 2-3 hours. Serve cold and enjoy.

Serves: 8

Happy Monday!

You simply must see this TV

As the ticker above indicates, tonight, my current favorite show ever is back in business. Men In Trees is the little show that could, and I want to encourage you to get on board and start watching now. Before it hits the big time. So you can say that you knew it before it was famous. Because time? Is running out. Fame is knocking on the Men In Trees door, and it's only a matter of episodes before it's opened.

This show is funny, and dramatic, and romantic, and addictive. The characters are deep, but not hard to get to know. And really, if you've never watched, it won't be hard to catch up. Here's all you need to know:

Marin and Jack are meant for each other, but they are taking the long road to finding lasting love. Currently, he's lost at sea and she is waiting for him to return home blissfully unaware that he's in danger.

Patrick and Annie are also meant for each other, but on their wedding day, he was struck by lightning and lost his memory. All of it.

(I hope I didn't loose you with that last bit...I know it's a little daytime drama-esque, but don't judge) And Plow Guy and Jane are meant for each other but the two of them are from different planets. (No, not literally, it's a figure of speech!) She is from New York City, he's from small town Elmo, Alaska. They are plowing (heh, pun intended) their way through a new marriage trying to learn the art of compromise.

There are a host of other characters, but these are the plots that have stolen my imagination. You have to tune in to see what happens to Cash, Jerome, Buzz, Mai, Sarah, and the rest of the gang at the Chieftan.

Here are the details: Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC

Tune in tonight, or set your DVR or TiVo, or do both, which is what I plan to do, and prepare to be swept away to a little town in Alaska. You won't be sorry.

Buyer Beware

This morning, as I was doing the blog thang for the first time in a couple of days, I happened upon an entry that really caught my attention. This mom of triplets has been having some appliance issues. Well, I've been following her story for a couple of months and "some" is a gross understatement. I was frustrated enough to follow her link to another woman's story. She chronicles her whole KitchenAid debacle on her site.

I guess the reason I posted the links was to say that after hearing these stories, I don't plan on buying the KitchenAid/Whirlpool brand of products, ever. I also thought that had these things happened to me? And I'd posted about them on my blog? I would want every reader to link back to my story so that the whole entire world would know and avoid the trouble the brand had caused me.

So consider yourself warned!

What is that savory aroma coming from our kitchen?

Well, girls, I received my copy of Master Cook Deluxe 9.0 a few days ago. After some trial and error and a bit of a learning curve, I'd say that I am 95% satisfied with this product!

It offers a wide variety of cookbooks, and it allows you to create your own cookbook of family favorites and old standbys. I spent my time this week building my own cookbook. After a brainstorming session with Honey and Bubba (all the girls ever want to eat is chicken nuggets) we came up with a pretty extensive list of meals that I already have in my repertoire. I'd just gotten in such a cooking rut that I would get that eyes-glazed-over-wish-I-were-somewhere-else look when asked "What's for supper?". So, I entered a few of the recipes that we hadn't had in a while into the personalized cookbook and made our meal plan for next week using those.

I use the term recipe very loosely. Most of the ones that I have memorized, I just made a list of ingredients needed to make that dish. My goal for this program is to be able to select a dish, add it to the meal plan, and publish a shopping list of items needed to actually follow through with the meal plan. Here's a little example of my intricate recipe for muffins.

MUFFINS
muffin mix
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Pretty fancy, huh? Now, when I insert muffins into my breakfast meal plan, it prints out everything I need to have on hand to actually cook and eat them. Because I can't tell you how many times I have tried to make muffins only to realize that we are out of eggs.

So for your pleasure, here is our meal plan for next week:

Sunday 6/3
breakfast - smoothies (because we are almost always running late to church)
lunch - eat out (because that is what we do on Sundays)
dinner - cereal, popcorn (because we usually gorge ourselves at lunch and don't have much of an appetite by dinner)

Can't you smell the cooking going on?

Monday 6/4
breakfast - poppy seed bread
lunch - pigs in a blanket
dinner - roast (yes, I'm actually scheduled to cook)

Tuesday 6/5
breakfast - muffins
lunch -
dinner - baked spaghetti

Wednesday 6/6
breakfast - cereal
lunch - lunchables, Lean Cuisine
dinner - frito pie

Thursday 6/7
breakfast -
lunch - spaghettios, chicken salad
dinner - poppy seed chicken

Friday 6/8
breakfast -
lunch - mac & cheese
dinner - wedding rehearsal dinner

Saturday 6/9
breakfast - pancakes (recipe similar to the muffin recipe)
lunch - wedding cake
dinner - shrimp scampi (or go out to eat after the wedding)

Did you notice that there is not one tex-mex meal in there? Maybe I'll slip it in one of those open lunch places.

My least favorite part of the program is the printing. I just can't get it to do what I want. Probably because I am really computer illiterate, but still...

I printed the shopping list pretty easily. My only complaint about this part is when it compiled the ingredients, it converted many of my measurements. Where I wanted 8 oz. of sour cream, it was converted to 1 lb. of sour cream. This was hard because I thought I only needed 8 oz., but I began to question myself, and the tubs of sour cream aren't marked in pounds, they are marked in ounces, so... bought the 16 oz. sour cream just in case and ended up only needing the 8 oz. of it. This is a familar recipe so I was pretty comfortable knowing that I had enough. If it had been a new recipe, I would have been a little more worried about getting just the right thing.

The most disappointing thing about it is printing the meal plan. As I was doing all this planning, I was thinking how good it would be to have a hard copy of the meal plan to hang on the fridge. My computer is not convienent to the kitchen, so it would be nice to be able to glance at the fridge and know what is on the menu for the evening. I tried and tried to print out the simple, day planner-type page I was seeing on my screen, but when it printed it was like 8 pages long with recipes and nutritional information thrown in. Not exactly the compact menu I was looking for. So I created my own spread sheet with the menu on it and it is hanging on the fridge.

All in all, I think I am going to love it. I already love the feeling of having meals planned for an entire week! I guess I won't really know until next week when I actually start cooking the meals if I managed to get all of the ingredients.

But one thing you can count on...I'll keep you posted.

Cinderella III Spoiler!

"It was so bery good!" - Mary TuTu




"Ha! Can we watch the funny parts again?" - Brooke




As you can imagine, yesterday was quite an exciting day at our house. After school, we went to Walmart to pick up a few odds and ends. As we were approaching the Valentine section, the girls spotted it. Cinderella III! I had...kinda'..."forgotten" about it, and I thought they had, too, but they saw it and we couldn't leave the store without it. They even sat stone still in the basket until we left because I told them that we wouldn't buy it if they weren't good while we were shopping. (If you know my 3 yr olds, you know the effort it took for them to be so still and quiet for so long...I had to reward the effort) Of course they turned the movie on as soon as we got home (much to Bubba's dismay) and sat for approximately 74 min. lost in happily ever after. Their favorite babysitter even stopped by for a visit and they wouldn't even budge long enough to give her a hug.



I didn't have time to watch it until this morning (I really didn't have time this morning, but I needed something to help me put off cleaning). I must say, Cinderella III did not disappoint in the fairy tale department. It was pretty creative as sequels go, and of course in the end Cinderella and the Prince got to live happily ever after...again.



**SPOILER**For those of you with only boys at home, here's the scoop: On their one year anniversary, the prince (I was slightly disappointed that by the third installment we still don't know what "the prince's" name is) and Cinderella were celebrating with the fairy god-mother at a magical party in the woods. Fairy god-mother lost her magic wand. After finding the magic wand, the evil stepmother figured out that Cinderella had used magic to make her fairy tale come true just one year ago. Driven by bitterness and revenge, the stepmother cast a spell to turn back the clock, make the shoe fit Anastasia the step-sister, and make the prince forget all about the night he spent with Cinderella at the ball. As the prince and Anastasia's wedding approaches, Cinderella and her mouse friends try to break the spell cast over the prince. Even under the evil spell, the prince can feel that something isn't right. In the end, true love is stronger than the evil magic, and the prince falls in love with Cinderella all over again. Anastasia realizes that the prince will always love Cinderella and chooses to help them get together. (because...all any girl really wants is someone to choose her over everyone else in the whole kingdom.) Brooke and Mary TuTu laughed the hardest at the end when the step-mother and the evil step-sister get turned in to toads.**END SPOILER**



So, all in all, I say we give it three thumbs up. Thank you, God, for giving me daughters. Girly stuff is so much fun with them. Thank you for giving me my very own Prince Charming. Thank you for Bubba and the Prince Charming you are growing him to be.

Anxiously Awaiting

The twins are 100% girl. I know this because they are counting down the days until Cinderella III comes out on DVD. (I'm not sure what Cinderella II was, we were obviously not into the girly stuff when it came out.) If you haven't heard about this movie, let me fill you in. The story attempts to answer the question "What if the glass slipper didn't fit Cinedrella?" Of course there are evil plots and schemes by the stepmother, and the stepsisters are as ugly as ever. It promises to include every element needed to be a bonafied fairy tale. Will Cinderella still fall in love with the Prince? Will the Prince fight against all evil for the love of his princess? Are they destined to be together in spite of the forces against them?

The girls spent some time with my mom this weekend and they found the trailer to the movie on-line. After watching it, they were indignant at the possibility of Cinderella's fairy tale falling apart. They were crushed and couldn't stop talking about it. "Mommy, Cinderella doesn't marry the prince!", in that "how can it be?" voice their dramatic selves have perfected. They can't wait to see the movie to find out what happens to their heroine.

I'm glad to have some allies in this department. Until lately, I was the only female presence in the house. We had to skip the mushy parts of movies and get to the "good stuff". Just about the time my favorite part of the movie would come on (the end where everyone kisses and makes up and finally admits that they are in love) the boys would begin to wrestle, or just change the channel all together. As boys just knowing it's going to happen is enough. As a girl, I want to see it happen. I want to watch the end and experience closure. The boys just want to watch how they win the fight scene.

Now when we watch a movie, the girls sit entranced until they watch Troy and Gabriella finally get together at the end of the movie. Then they reinact the stories for hours (Brooke almost always has to be the boy). They are girls, they love a good story, all of it, not just the gross parts.

I, for one, can't wait until the movie comes out so we can buy it, bring it home, and relish in the "girlyness" of it all. It will be fun to see just how the Prince wins his princess all over again!