These are a few of my favorite things....

Are you picturing Julie Andrews twirling around in her nightgown during a thunderstorm, surrounded by children?

Humming the song in your head?

Can't quite remember the words?

Here, allow me to help:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings...
These are a few of my favorite things.

That's it....you remember now?

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings...
These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs...
These are a few of my favorite things.

I would have to say that I definitely agree with some of Maria's favorite things. Ponies. Sleigh bells. Snowflakes. Winter melting into spring. Doorbells? Not so much. No idea what a schnitzel with noodles is. :)

So just for fun I thought I'd share a few of my own favorite things....

Cl*rox wipes - love these for a quick cleanup in the bathroom. So much easier than dragging out rags, paper towels, bottles of cleaner....



Casc*de ActionPacs and Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid - ActionPacs because they're so easy and un-messy (and fairly low phosphorus, which is supposed to be good in hard water like we have around here).


And I LOVE this dishwashing liquid by Seventh Generation. My favorite so far is the Lavender Floral & Mint. It works well, and I love the "safety information" on the label that says, "Seventh Generation products, although not intended for consumption, aren't poisonous." It is plant-derived, safe for the environment, and scented only with essential oils and botanical extracts. What's not to love? :)


Reyn*lds Slow Cooker Liners - the box says it all!



My kids and I LOVE this CD. We listen to it all the time. Over and over. I even use it in my 3-year-old classroom at church, and they love it too. It is awesome!

Grape tomatoes - these are a fabulous little jewel of a vegetable fruit (it just doesn't seem right). They are some of my favorite things because they are great in salads - or even just as a side at dinner - and they don't have to be cut up....and they're even smaller than cherry tomatoes, so it's not so hard to eat them in one bite without tomato guts squirting all over the place. For the kids, I mean. ahem.

(photo by D. Sharon Pruitt)

Mr. Clean Magic Er*ser - takes off everything...EVERYTHING I've ever tried it on. It works MAGIC on the door handles of my refrigerator, which I can never get clean any other way because they're textured. Oh yeah, and it took PERMANENT MARKER off my refrigerator too. No idea how that got there.

Swiffer Sweeper vacuum - works tons better than a broom for picking up crumbs, dust, and hair (ewww). I never feel like I get everything with a broom, no matter how many times I sweep...

(sorry - I guess I should have kept all the cleaning products together, but I didn't think of that until now and it's too hard to move everything around.)

Arbonne Intelligence Rejuventaing Cream - I mentioned this in my More About Me post several weeks ago. Here's why I love it...

Jacob has had some sort of skin rash, that comes and goes, almost his whole life. It's related to dry skin or sensitive skin or something like that. We have tried creams, lotions, oils...you name it. Nothing really helped...until THIS.



It is amazing! As long as we use it every day it keeps the rash completely cleared up. But of course, I'm not very good about that. Once it gets cleared up I tend to get lax and let it slide for a day or six, and then it's back in full force. But once we start using the Rejuvenating Cream again, it clears right up in about two days. LOVE IT! (and if you're interested in trying it, I happen to know where you can get some....*smile*).


And last but certainly not least, this....


After all, I do live in TEXAS, y'all! :)


When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things....

....and then I don't feel sooooo bad.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

So by now you've probably noticed that most all of the material for my Tiny Talk Tuesday posts is provided by Jacob. He is a riot! He cracks us up on a daily basis.

Yesterday we had to stop by the store to pick up a gallon of milk. When we walked into the store, Jacob immediately jumped into one of those carts with the ride-in car attached to the front. Now you have to know, I hate those things. They are cumbersome, hard to maneuver, and usually have at least one loud, clanking wheel. I was already tired, frustrated at having to go to the store (again), and in a hurry. Not a good combination.

In yet another of my Great Mom Award moments, I asked him, "Oh, Jacob, how old are you?"

His reply? (To get the full effect, you have to imagine Alvin the Chipmunk when he says "Dave needs a little help from the love doctor.")

"I'm the fun age."

Luckily for me, hysterical laughing tends to dispel fourth-trip-to-the-grocery-store-in-four-days frustration. :)

mmmm.....delicious!

Do you guys know about e-mealz(dot)com? There's a link in my sidebar. They have wonderful recipes. Last week we tried this great chicken-corn chili, and it was delicious! Easy and yummy - the perfect combination for me! Plus, you cook it in the crockpot, which I love. It was perfect for a crisp fall evening.

If you try it, let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Chicken-Corn Chili

4 boneless chicken breasts (did you know you can put frozen chicken in the crockpot? I used frozed chicken breasts for this recipe...just put them in the crock frozen....and cooked it on LOW all day....about 9-ish hours)
one 16 oz jar salsa
1-2 tsp garlic powder (to your taste)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
two 11 oz cans Mexi-style corn (or I used southwest style corn, with black beans in it) - undrained
one 15 oz can pinto beans - undrained

Place all ingredients except corn and pinto beans in a crock pot and cook all day. About 20 minutes before ready to serve, shred chicken with a fork (right in the crock) and add the corn and pinto beans. (Mine came out a little bit thick, so you may need to add just a little chicken broth. I would wait until after you shred the chicken and add the canned ingredients, then see how thick it is.) Stir well and heat until corn and beans are heated through. Serve with cornbread.

YUMMY!

Family Night - Aarrrgghh Matey!!

This post from Starr at Lost in Laundry was the inspiration for our Pirate Family Night. Plus, both of my kids love dressing up like pirates. Except for the eye-liner goatee....Kloe wasn't too thrilled about that. (these are their mean pirate faces)

We had so much fun! From the minute I said it was time to start getting ready for Family Night, both kids started talking in growly pirate talk. "Arrggh, Jacob, it's time to wash our hands, matey." Crackin' me up!

I didn't really know what pirates eat, so we had whale and dolphin shaped chicken nuggets (from Banquet), shrimp, and "potato planks" (TGIFridays' potato skins from the grocery store freezer section). The Mister asked me, "What do pirates drink?" Ummm....ale? We compromised with water. :)

We played a game I found at birthdaypartyideas(dot)com. Using plastic cups and aluminum foil for pirate hooks, you see who can move the most pretzels from one bowl to another in an alloted amount of time. Hard at first, but we caught on quickly and had to keep adding more pretzels to the bowls!


Jacob and Dad got into a sword fight when someone cheated at the pretzel game. :)


And of course, we HAD to have a treasure hunt! I used a tan-colored piece of poster board for a treasure map, peeled apart the front from the back and crumpled it up. It worked really well. It gave it a great weight and texture.

The highlight of the night was when we decided to add a little authenticity to the map by burning the edges.


Here are Kloe and Jacob planning out their route to find the treasure.


"X" marked the spot and, voila, they found the treasure chest!


(In case you're wondering why Jacob is wearing a suit coat....think of Captain Hook in the movie Peter Pan.)

We ended the night by watching the old movie Hook with Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Julia Roberts. A few questionable words....hoping Kloe and Jacob missed them. :) We probably should have watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything instead!

Shiver me timbers, we be lovin' family night!

(doesn't my man make a great pirate?)

Tax Un-Season

So I'm up late waiting for my tax software to download, and thought I'd say hi. (it's at 17% right now) Yep, you read that right. Tax software. In October.

Bet no one besides me knew that there are actually TWO tax filing deadlines every year. It's a little known secret that you don't actually have to file your taxes on April 15.

Bet no one besides me files an extension on their taxes....every year. Yep. That's me. Procrastinator extraordinaire. Look...it's in my "about me" section. (wow, can you believe I spelled extraordinaire right without even looking it up? Mr. Spell Checker says so.)

Bet no one besides me - even if they do file an extension - waits until the VERY LAST MINUTE to file, even 6 months later. Plently of people file at midnight on April 15. But seriously. I get an extra 6 months and I STILL wait until the very last minute. Something is wrong with me.

And my download is only up to 21%.

See that other little thing in my "about me" section.....the one that says "CPA"? Wouldn't you think it would be a requirement of my licensing for me to file my taxes in a more timely manner? Yeah, I'm so glad it's not. And believe it or not, I've found it's not all that uncommon for us CPA types to put off filing our taxes. I have at least 2 personal CPA friends who also pretty regularly file extensions.

See, it's also a little known secret that I hate taxes. OK, maybe not so little known. But little known to my new bloggy friends. In fact, I seriously considered changing my major in college because I hate taxes so much. Really. And then in my junior year, when we were all diving deep into our core classes, the professor of my auditing class - which I loved by the way. the class, not the professor. well, he was great as far as professors go, but I didn't want you to get the wrong idea - ANYWAY....my auditing professor saved my college career by walking into class on the first day and announcing, "I know you are all taking Tax this semester. Don't come ask me for help. I don't like taxes, I don't do taxes, and I can't answer any tax questions for you."

The sun emerged from behind the clouds and angels sang the Hallelujah Chorus.

I cannot tell you the huge weight that was lifted off my shoulders by that announcement. Who knew you could be a CPA and not do taxes? Occasionally a friend will call me and say, "Can I ask you a tax question?" And I feel complete and utter freedom to say to them, "Nope."

As a CPA, however, I just can't bring myself to pay someone else to do our taxes, so I do ours, but that's it. And I use software. Which is now only 29% done downloading.

So now you know. I hope you will still be my friend, even if I won't help you with your taxes.

I can recommend some great tax software, though.

Turbo Tax.

But be prepared for the slow download. 33%. It's going to be a long night.

Ok, so I think I'm required by law to put some sort of disclaimer in here. First, if you don't file your taxes by April 15, you DO have to file an extension by April 15. And you guys know you can't consider any of this actual tax adivce, right? You have to check with your own personal accountant for that. We're just having a late-night chat between friends. Because I don't do taxes, remember?

You are Cordially Invited....

To a Bloggy Baby Shower!!

For Bill and Lynsay *******

Don't know Bill and Lynsay? Me neither.

Now why would we want to go to a baby shower for someone we don't know? In real life that would be awkward. "Hello, I know you don't know me, but a friend of a friend that I met on the internet told me you were having a baby shower, and...well...I wanted to give you a gift." Yeah. Awkward.

But in this case it's not awkward at all. My bloggy friend Linny at A Place Called Simplicity is co-hosting a baby shower for her friends Bill and Lynsay.....who, by the way, are not having a baby.

Ok, so let me get this straight. We are being invited to a bloggy baby shower for people we don't know, who are not having a baby?

Yes. :)

Let me explain.

Bill and Lynsay live and work with special needs orphans in Ch*na. They have recently opened Morning Star Family Home, a f0ster home where they are currently caring for 5 of these sweet babies, providing love, food, nurturing, and medical care for them. Last December, they began renovating MSFH in order to provide more space, where they will be able to care for up to 25 babies at a time.

And so the baby shower is a way we can shower them with blessings, providing the things they will need to care for and give a home to all of these precious little ones.

Current estimations say there are 147 million orphans in the world. 147,000,000. That is such an enormous, overwhelming number that we can often feel helpless to do anything. It may seem like any small effort we could give would never be enough to make a difference.

Have you heard the story about the starfish?

The Starfish Story
Loren Eiseley, while writing his book The Unexpected Universe, was walking along the ocean in Costabel early one morning. It was shortly after a storm had subsided and as he continued walking, he noticed that thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. Ahead of him was a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection shimmering into existence. At the base of the rainbow stooped a little boy, gazing fixedly at an object in the sand. Eventually, he flung the object far beyond the breaking surf.

Eiseley went up to him and asked, "Son, what are you doing?" The little boy answered, "I'm throwing starfish back into the sea because if I don't they're going to die."

"But there are thousands of starfish. In the larger scheme of things you're not going to make much of a difference to all these starfish."

The little boy looked up at him, stooped down again to pick up another starfish and, gently but quickly, flung it back into the ocean. "It's going to make a big difference to that one," he replied.

Eiseley was embarrassed, uncomfortable with the contrast of the little boy's youthful, innocent love for the living with his own hardened, "mature" indifference to death. He had nothing to say and left, continuing to walk on the beach but unable to get the picture of the little boy out of his mind. It was a moment of truth for Eiseley, of deep soul searching and self-confrontation.

In time, he returned to the star thrower, silently picked up a starfish and spun it far out into the waves. "I understand." he said quietly. "Call me another thrower." Together, still under the hues of the rainbow, they spent hours throwing starfish back into the ocean. It was a task not assumed lightly, for it was men as well as starfish they sought to save, sensing intuitively that man cannot exist spiritually without life.

I have so often felt like the one gift I could give...the small amount of money I could send...the one person I could help wouldn't really make that much of a difference in the world. But it makes a difference to that one.

Jesus said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for Me."

Bill and Lynsay are making a difference....one baby at a time. And we have the opportunity to help them.

You can read more about their work by visiting the Morning Star Foundation website here, and why they do what they do here.

Visit Bill and Lynsay's blog here.

Read about the bloggy baby shower and how you can participate on Linny's blog, here (AND...she's having a give-away related to the shower! Don't you just love shower games?).

See the list of items they need here.

I sure hope you'll join us. You CAN make a difference in the life of a little one who needs love and care and the hope of Jesus. And....baby showers are so much fun!

Thankful Thursday - New Dishwasher!!

YAY!! I am so excited to finally have a new dishwasher!! Isn't it amazing the things we can take for granted....or start to think of as necessities....when we have them every day?

Ok, well, it's not new exactly. I'm sure you can tell that from the picture. But hey, it's new to us. And it sure works better than the one that was leaking water underneath the wall into our laundry room! (what is it with us and the water lately? hmmmm)

Actually we got it from my cousins, who recently remodeled their kitchen.

For free. Free is good.

Isn't God great? Even though it's used, it works great, it's much quieter than our old one, and....He gave it to us for FREE! He is such a faithful, patient Provider.

So, my friend Starr ended her blog post yesterday with the following comment:

I feel like an idiot when I blatantly ask for comments, and get none.
So help out my pride and leave a little comment love. Please.

Ever feel that way? Yeah, me too. :) Today I'd love to hear your stories about God's provision to you and your family. He is so good! And we all need to be reminded of His faithfulness. I know I sure do. So share away! Don't leave us hanging!

Meet DespeROSE

Isn't she the cutest little thing?

Kloe had been asking and asking and asking for a hamster for months. We hamster-sat for a friend of hers a while back, and she fell in love. She had to have the tiniest one we could find (she's like me that way), and after looking around at several different breeds, she had decided on a Robo Dwarf, which is only 1-2" when fully grown. [That seems really funny to me, because every time I hear the name I think of Robo Cop.]


So we surprised her by taking her to the pet store on her birthday and letting her pick out a hamster and all the trimmings (sounds like we're having her for dinner, doesn't it?). Well, wouldn't you know it, it seems the very day we arrived to pick out our sweet little friend, the wee Robo Dwarfs had gotten into a tiny little gang fight and had all beaten each other up! All of them had sores and scabs, and some had even been restricted to solitary confinement.

We were told we could wait for a new shipment to arrive in a few days, but Kloe couldn't stand to wait that long. So alas, it seems the Robo Dwarf was not meant to be.

Next in line on the size scale was the Russian Dwarf, which is 2-3" when fully grown. Kloe picked out the smallest one in the cage, and we became the proud family of a new, tiny little rodent.


Kloe had decided long ago that when she finally got a hamster she would name it either Despereaux or Zephaniah (*smile*), but you know, a girl really has to see a hamster before she can know what it's name is going to be. So once we had picked out said wee one, Kloe decided on Despereaux.

Except that the nice hamster expert lady at the pet store informed us that our Despereaux was actually a girl. ALL of their hamsters are girls, apparently. They like it that way so there are no surprises of extra hamsters showing up at your house when you've only taken home one....if you know what I mean.

So I tried to convince Kloe that Despereaux is actually a boy's name.....really, honey, remember in the movie? It was a boy. But she was not to be swayed. Despereaux it would be. Maybe we would start a new trend in hamster naming.....boy names for girl hamsters. You know, the way other boy names are now making the transition over to the girl world. Evyn. Hayden. Micah. Taylor. But I digress.

So baby mouse has a pink cage. When we got her home, put the cage together, and sat back to admire our new family member, Kloe said "I should have named her Rose. See? Pink cage....ROSE....get it?"

Me: Well, she's your hamster. Change her name if you want to.

Kloe: But I like Despereaux.

Me: I know, what about DespeRose (how do you spell that?)

Can you believe she actually liked it? And so, DespeRose it is. Rose for short.

She's adorable. Noisy, what with the exercise wheel and all, but adorable.

Now my question is....why is it that we are feeding this little mousey in the house while we kill her cousins out in the garage?? :D

I can't believe I did this.

Jacob had a football game on Sunday afternoon, but he was sick and couldn't play. It was our turn to bring snacks and I didn't want the coach to have to scramble (no pun intended) to find someone else at the last minute, so I thought we'd just run by Walmart real quick, pick up some snacks and drinks, and drop them off at the stadium. In the Walmart parking lot I packed mini-Gatorades in a styrofoam cooler (so it wouldn't have to be returned to us) and covered them with ice. We ran by the stadium, dropped off the snacks, then headed back home so Jacob could rest.

Mission accomplished.

Only I forgot to get the bag with the rest of the ice out of the car.

Yes, that's a huge puddle of melted ice-water you see in my floor board. Apparently the floor of my car was in need of a good soak....look how dirty it looks in this picture. yuck. You can't really tell it in the picture, but the water was literally standing in the floor board. It made me think of those people whose cars get filled with water when they drive through a flooded ravine.

So here's my opportunity to choose thankfulness, yes?

I am thankful we had to go to the store to get milk last night, or the entire bag would have melted in there! :)

More About Me

I was thinking that since we're going to be friends maybe you should know a little more about me.

Have you ever played that ice breaker game called "Two Truths and a Lie"? Here's how it works. Each person on their turn tells 3 facts about themselves....two of which are true and one of which is not. Everyone else has to decide which one of the facts isn't true. So here's my list:

1) I played tennis in high school.
2) I played trombone is high school.
3) I love brussels sprouts (did you know it really is "brussels" with an "s"?).

Any guesses? Answer at the end of this post. :)

I loved the big puffy heart list on Julie’s blog at Joy's Hope. It looked so fun that I wanted to make one of my own! So here's a little more about me....

I heart:

Y family get-togethers

Y Sonic happy hour

Y old music by John Cougar, Bryan Adams, and Journey

Y office supplies (weird, I know)

Y green

Y humpback and beluga whales

Y San Antonio

Y Mr. Clean magic eraser

Y coffee with lots of cream (preferably flavored) and sugar

Y coffee with friends

Y scrapbooking

Y PaperBackSwap.com

Y Extreme Makeover Home Edition

Y the US Representative and State Representative from my district, and one of my US Senators (really)

I big puffy heart:

Y Jesus

YNantucket island

Y tacos

Y rain in the mountains

Y adoption

Y Arbonne Rejuvenating Cream

Y Steven Curtis Chapman

Y the giggles of my little ones

I have no puffy hearts for

x dirty dishes

x weeds

x flossing

x okra

x cooking

x litter

x smoking

x creepy-crawlies: spiders (especially wolf spiders and sun spiders), scorpions, centipedes, earwigs

snakes are ok as long as I know where they are and they’re not poisonous

x bananas

x prime time TV

x most movies rated above PG

x political nonsense (anywhere - in the government or anywhere else)

x selfishness

I have a sad, broken heart for:

homelessness.

those who are living with hunger, poverty, desperation, hopelessness.

children who are orphaned, lonely, hurting, sad, neglected.

.

And the answer to my ice breaker? #1. Unfortunately I was a big geek in high school (still am) and never played any sports. I did, however, play the trombone, which got me a gig in the State Lion's Band for three years, and a spot in my alma mater's marching band! Geekiness has its perks! And yes, I really do love Brussels sprouts. :)

Ok, enough about me....tell me about you!