A couple of months ago I received my weekly email from Urban Outfitters and it featured these shoes. I had these shoes when I was in, wow, maybe 5th grade? They were all black, I think, and I'm sure they looked great with my white socks and my pale toothpick legs.

I know I have pictures of myself wearing these shoes. I remember rocking them at a cheerleading clinic. I think I was also wearing a white sweatshirt with hearts on it. Crazy, that they're back. I dare say that they're "in style", because I'm sure most people would debate that. Unless, you're a Samantha Ronson or Lily Allen fan, then you might me down with old-school high tops.

I can't believe who was voted off of Top Chef last night. I thought this person was going to be a finalist. I know a handful of readers watch the show, so I won't say this person's name and ruin it.

Overall, I don't think this season is as good as the others. Hmmm...maybe it's just me.

I saw about 7 minutes of a show called, "Honey, We're Killing the Kids" last night. It's an hour long show that focuses on an all-around unhealthy family and tries to correct their bad habits.

The family featured last night consisted of 2 overweight parents and 4 overweight kids. They didn't spend much "family" time together, no one-on-one time with the kids, and never any physical activity. The majority of their meals were fast food and the pantry was filled with unhealthy foods. You get the picture.

I've seen shows like this before, as I'm sure we all have. I'm going to ignore the obvious problems here and focus on one thing. The eating. The host/nutritionist supplies them with new recipes that they must try. The first dinner that they made last night was some kind of paella, complete with mussels and clams. Mussels and clams. To kids. Who are used to eating burgers and fries. The second night it was something with tofu. Again, tofu. Tofu.

Yes! Give someone who doesn't cook much somewhat advanced meals to prepare! And make sure that all the ingredients are totally foreign to them as well! While I'm sure this is done to make the show interesting, it drives me nuts! Why not start them with tacos using ground turkey? Whole wheat tortillas, low fat cheese, and veggies to top it off. Because that's too easy. I'm thinking if I'm overweight, sitting at home watching this show I'm going to say, "See, I can't make paella, guess I'm going to go hit the drive-thru..."

It's the same principle as make-over shows that try to turn a Goth teen aged girl into someone who would carry a pink fuzzy purse.

Baby steps people, baby steps.

(And, yes, it's still raining.)

Why, yes, it's still raining.

Soggy

It started raining on Saturday morning and hasn't really stopped yet. I ran out of brilliant ideas to keep Vance entertained inside 2 days ago. I'm running on fumes here.

The majority of the last few days here have been devoted to keeping the peace between Daisy and Vance. Daisy is like a teenager and Vance is the annoying little brother always messing with her stuff. For some reason, Vance has been relocating Daisy's bed lately and using it for his personal play space (yuck). Daisy hates this. This is boring stuff.

I stole this picture from Charity's site. It was too cute not to. Ry's first day of kindergarten was today. How cute is she?!

Vance and His Hand Holders

Weird Google Referrals

Someone from Bangkok did a Google search for "charisa and texas" and found my site.

Someone from Chile did a Google search for "Cat Deeley's dress" and found my site.

Someone from Springfield, MO did a Google search for "exhibitionish web" and found my site.

Interesting.

My Little Mucus Lover

Vance loves music. Or, mucus, as he calls it. A big chunk of our day is always spent making music. He loves his keyboard, recorder, and drums. He's been asking about guitars lately, so I'm sure we'll be getting one of those soon.

He's also a big singer. Real songs and made up ones primarily about Daisy. I know I've mentioned before about him singing along with Amy Winehouse and Ludacris, but we hit a new low last night.

Justin gets home from work last night and after Vance excitedly shows him the Cwesent Mooooon! (Vancese) we congregate in the kitchen. Justin is singing that painfully annoying Sean Kingston song, Beautiful Girls, and stops right before the "...suicidal, suicidal" part. This must have pissed Vance off, cause he spoke right up and finished the line for Daddy.

Yes, my 2 year old sang, "suicidal, suicidal". After a bug-eyed glance at Justin we quickly started singing, "We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching!" to try and erase what had just happened. But we both know the truth and it is scary.

Vance is a closet Sean Kingston fan. And this leads me to believe that he has inherited Justin's questionable taste in music.

Justin? He used to like Polka when he was a kid too. And the nail in the coffin? Him buying a Chumbawamba CD. Sorry, dear, you may never live that one down.

What's New Pussycat, Whoa Oh?

Not too much going on here lately.

Have heard how hot it is back in STL and will mention that it's a beautiful 76 degrees here today. Hah!

Justin has been super busy at work, having to work even later hours than he already does. So, lots of mother/son time for Senior and myself.

Seems like any free time during the day is devoted to house stuff or making new stuff for my Etsy site. Guess that's why I haven't been doing much posting.

That's really all I've got for you.

What's For Dinner? Kahlua Cake

Update: Click here for an updated post with better pictures!

So, Kahlua Cake. A cake that Sandra Lee could be proud of. *hiccup*

Disclaimer: Apologies for the random spacing and pictures at the bottom. Things got a little messed up and I ran out of time trying to fix them.

Bake a chocolate cake. Any box mix will do. Don't spend time doing it from scratch. Let it cool.

When cool, poke holes all over it, using a fork or a bamboo skewer.

Pour Kahlua on top of cake. 1/3 or 1/4 of a cup. Whatever it takes. Give it about an hour to soak in.

Using a sharp knife, cut the cake into 1 inch squares.

Back tracking just a smidge, get a start on your chocolate mousse while your cake is cooling and soaking. Again, any box mix will do. My fave is from the No-Bake line from JELL-O. I'm drawing a blank on the actual name, but it's a kit in a red and white box and comes with a cookie crust, that you obviously wouldn't use for this cake, but could save it for later. You need 2 boxes for this recipe. I've also used another choc. mousse kit that called for instant choc. pudding and that worked okay too. You can find them in the grocery store in the pudding and jello aisle.

So, cake is soaking and mousse is made, next get cracking on the candy part. You have two options. I prefer Skor bars, but sometimes they're hard to find. The other option would be Heath bars. You can either get the pre-crumbled bags or crumble your own. If you do your own, it takes around 8 bars.

Almost time to assemble. But first you need some Cool-Whip and a lot of it. 2 of the big containers. Make an assembly line with all your ingredients.

A trifle dish is ideal for this, but any deep bowl-form would work. Start with a layer of cake cubes, then a layer of chocolate mousse, a layer of cool-whip, then a layer of the crumbled candy. Repeat again. Viola! Kahlua Cake!

Always aiming to please, we took the Little's to the National Mustard Day Festival. (Yes, our guests traveled 5 hours to see us and we took them to see some mustard. Doesn't everyone want to come visit now?)

It's always fun to see the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile, right? Right! We ate free hot dogs, perused the Mustard Museum, and passed on the Mustard Custard. We also stood in line for about an hour to get balloon animals for the kids.

We had been having great weather here and were hoping to spend the rest of the afternoon outside. The kids were going to play contently in the backyard while we enjoyed sundowners on the patio. All sunshine, rainbows, and kittens, you know. It started to rain as we were leaving the Mustard Festival and didn't stop until the next day. Pouring down rain. Thunder. Lighting. It hasn't rained like that in months. Yes, we were needing the rain, but not that night.

We substituted the patio for the dining room and had a great dinner. (Total count for meals eaten in the dining room is up to 3 now.) After dinner we ate Kahlua Cake, Charity won 2 games of Three Thirteen, and Mark and Justin went bowling. Hhhmmmm...Let's not talk about that last part.

We had a wonderful weekend and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. As always, it's hard to see family leave. I can't remember the last time Justin and I laughed so hard. I love that Vance loves his cousins and it hurts when he asks to see them everyday. I'm close to the line where this starts to get depressing, so I'll just end it right here.

Side note: Yes, I'm two weeks behind in posting. I am working on catching up (not really).

Carry On.

i know you all are missing me terribly, but you'll just have to wait a little longer!

i'm only stopping by to announce that i mailed off the commenting prizes today. well, except mr. john aschraft's. he has yet to email his address to justin.

they should be in your mailbox in 2-3 days.

there's no exact purpose for these prizes - that's where your own creativity should come into play. i keep mine on the christmas tree. you may want to display yours on your rear view mirror.

you know - tomato, tomahto.

Prom

Before I discuss our wonderful weekend with The Team, let's talk Prom.

While I'm sure that Cat Deeley's dress is not vintage Gantos, it sure looks like my Senior Prom dress. Does anyone remember Gantos? At the Galleria, second floor by Deck the Walls? If you couldn't find it you could just follow the trail of sequins and beads.

Bad shots and lighting aside, I think it looks pretty similar. The lighting of my dress looks more teal in the picture, but it's really as blue as Big Cat's. I guess I could have dug through boxes and found my old Prom pictures...maybe later. I also had shoes dyed to match and matching sequins on the toes. Because there just wasn't quite enough sequins on the top half of me. Wow. What a vision.

Well, that was fun.

So, I've been on hiatus and I have a lot to talk about. Not all today though.

Firstly, I want to thank Charity and Sarah for commenting on my Etsy post. I was really excited about the whole etsy thing and it was nice to get some support. You guys made my day, so I'm handing out Atta Girls! Atta Girl Charity! Atta Girl Sarah!

I've been slacking with these, so lets refresh our memories.

Atta Girls! and Atta Boys! to date:

Charity, Dave, John, Sarah

Prizes will be handmade with love and sent via USPS. John, please email your new address to Justin. Dave and Sarah, you guys get to share. No fighting. Charity, even though I'll see you this weekend, I'm still going to send yours.

Now that the business is done I can move on. Here's some of the highlights for my next posts.

My new-found friends. Vance's potty relapse. Vance not napping anymore. (Gasp!) Frau Farbissina and Charter. And the big one............Cat Deely wearing my Senior year prom dress on Wednesday's show! I'm convinced it was. Took pictures of her on TV. Got mine out to compare. I will add that it still fits me. I have no effing idea how, but it does.

Feels good to be back. More later.