Think I'll Go Eat a Lizard!

DVB felt like having a little snack:

Thank goodness he didn't find these to eat:

Could you imagine if he would have one of these hanging out of his mouth?! This is the second one we found alive in one week! (this one's life was so nicely taken by my neighbor when she was picking up her daughter after school) They have both been outside, but still! Those things are supposed to be hibernating! It's winter for Pete's sake! It's been 32 degrees the last 2 nights! Could you scorpions please just give me a couple months off from worrying that one of us is going to step on you or that DVB's little curious self might try to pick you up to eat you?! GO AWAY!

I made the bug guy come back this week after he was just here last month-they should have never told me that if we have any scorpions to call them and they'll come spray again for no charge! He might as well just leave me some of his scorpion killer and I'll take care of it myself to save him a few trips!

GO AWAY SCORPIONS! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME AT OUR HOUSE! NEVER EVER! THERE IS NOTHING HERE FOR YOU TO EAT! GO AWAY!

It Was a Soda Experimenting, Tree Climbing, Lefse Making Weekend!

We had more fun at our house this past weekend.

Have you ever seen the diet soda and Mentos experiment on You Tube or Mythbusters?

We had to try it out! First we tried it with Diet Coke and then with Diet Pepsi. We also tried 7Up but that one was a total bust!

Warning: You might want to do a few neck stretching exercises before you view the videos! Apparently, I cannot turn the camera vertical to video tape nor edit it to correct the problem! Someday people, we'll have a real digital video cam!

LOB and DJB decided to go climb a tree! Our only tree, that is! Poor AZ kids really have wimpy trees to climb don't they?

While the boys were at the Marley and Me movie with Grammy and Grandpa, I decided to make lefse. It's definitely a kid-free project. I only do it once a year and usually around Christmas time. For some reason it didn't get done this past Christmastime. I know my FIL and MIL are laughing at my lefse rolling skills! Ya, I don't have any! I cannot roll a circle for the life of me, Betty! Oh well, GOB says it tastes the same whether it's a circle or not! I didn't have any complaints from the little boys either! They eat it the right way, with sugar and butter on it! For those of you who don't know what lefse is: it's kinda like a tortilla but made from potatoes instead of corn or flour. I cheat and use a packaged dry potato mix that I add water and butter to rather than spending hours boiling and ricing potatoes! So I guess my lefse is only semi-homemade! It works for me!

You know what else I could use to make the process a little faster? A machine to roll out the dough for me or a nice little old Mexican lady with tortilla rolling skillz! That would do the trick too!

How to Wash a Dog's Butt

Sorry I've got nothing better for you than a few pictures of DVB wiping Toni's butt with butt wipes! No, just kidding! But the pictures really do look like it!

One of DVB's and Toni's favorite things to do together is to pull all the butt wipes out of the box. Toni's job is to rip them into a million pieces!




"Could you please raise your tail. Help me out here!"

Me: "Hey, DVB, could you express those anal glands while you are in that area?" (she really does need to have it done on a regular basis!) EWWWWW!







"After you wipe the stinky butt, then chew on the stinky butt wipe! Yum!"
Me: "That's Toni's job, remember?"



"And then give your puppy a big, huge hug for putting up with the butt washing!"

disclaimer: No dog butts were actually touched. No dirty butt wipes were actually chewed on by aforementioned baby.

The Chef's Concoction for the Day!

DJB: "Mom, I want to make a recipe that I saw on tv. I need a banana and hot dog bun."

Me: "Yuck, that doesn't sound very good! I really don't think you are going to like it. Are you sure? We don't have any hot dog buns. Will a hamburger bun do?"


DJB: "Ok, I guess."


So I slice up the banana and put it on a bun.


DJB: "Now put some peanut butter and jelly on it."


Me: "Oh, that sounds better. Chow it down!"


You know, whatever it takes to get this boy to eat is ok with me.

Can We Puuuhlease Watch Something Else?

"That's it ! I have had enough of this Presidential Inauguration stuff! I'm changing it! There's got to be something better on somewhere in these 200 channels. What channel is Disney? How about Noggin?"

"Why is it on Every. Single. Channel.?"

"I better find something else fast! I think my turn with the remote is just about over!"

Weekend Fun!

We had another fun filled weekend. Besides watching the exciting Cardinals game on Sunday, we went to the grand opening of a $17 million Equestrian Center in our town. They had a few fun carnival rides and of course many horse related demonstrations. (umm, I forgot to take some pics of the horses--oops, they really did have horses!)











Good thing Papa likes to go on these rides with the boys!




As we were waiting for a 4H club to set up their demo in the main arena, LOB took charge of the camera again. Here's what he photographed:

LOB may just may be a budding photographer!

DVB enjoyed his first bites of kettle corn! He couldn't get enough of it! I know, once again, I'm breaking the responsible parenting rules! No popcorn! Don't you know he could choke on it?!

After our equestrian outing, Grammy really wanted to try out Guitar Hero! And then Grandpa had to show us how he could rock the drums! (I should have gotten a picture of it!) And all of a sudden we realized we had been playing it for a couple hours and it was supper time! Those darn video games just suck you in and you lose all track of time!

We are getting pretty good at Hotel California, On The Road Again, Ramblin Man, and Band on the Run! On the easy level, that is!

C'mon, Jump On The Bandwagon! It'll Be Fun!

Were you sitting on the edge of your seat in about the 3rd quarter of yesterday's Cardinals and Eagles game? I know there were a couple guys at our house who were a leeeetle nervous! But the Cardinals pulled it off! AMAZING!

DVB was pretty excited with all the hootin' and hollerin' going on! And when I took the picture, I didn't even realize he had a mini football in his hand!

Kurt Warner celebrates!

So we might just have to jump on the bandwagon and have a Super Bowl party like the rest of Arizona! And buy a little Cardinal paraphernalia!

DVB Will Now Play You a Tune...

I don't have much for you today except for a little tune played by DVB on my 30 year old recorder that my mom so graciously saved for me and re-gifted it 30 some years later. Ok, maybe it's only 20 some years old and she re-gifted it 20 some years later! (oooh, that sounds much better) Oh, the memories! And for the record, I can still play it! Well, only Mary Had a Little Lamb and Hot Cross Buns. But still!

By the way, who in the world would let their 13.5 month old walk around with such a dangerous object in his hand let alone let him put it in his mouth? Geez, he could really hurt himself with that! He could poke is eye out or swallow it or impale himself with it! Don't you know any better? And who knows who's mouth that thing has been in! He could catch a terrible cold or something from it! Gross!

Look What the Chef Made Today!

Little Chef had the cooking bug again!

So today we made salsa! We got 60 tomatoes for $9.75 from our fruit and veggie co-op. What a steal, I know! We also got the "mexican pack" which was $5 and included all the other ingredients to our salsa: garlic, onion, green onion, jalepenos, cilantro, tomatillos!

Now that's a bowl of salsa!

Now who is going to help me can this salsa?

Papa's behemouth grill, that's who! We're stocked up on salsa for the next couple months! (we eat a lot of salsa!)

Want to come over for some chips and salsa? Oh, we could probably mix you up a margarita too!

The Chef has Breaking News!

Just as I thought I had nothing to blog about.....

Chef DJB was thumbing through his new Paula Deen's My First Cookbook and felt inspired to whip up some cupcakes. So we put on his funky red apron and got bakin'!

Here's what the little monster man decided to do to keep himself occupied while I played sous chef to DJB:

I should have taken the picture with the crockpot pulled out on to the floor! I put him in his walker so he would stay out of trouble for just a couple cupcake cookin' moments!

"C'mon and hurry up and bake! Mom, are they done yet?"

"Oooooh, these look yummy!"

Here's the finished product! Yumm-O! Oh, you say they look a little girly? No! They are Valentine's Cupcakes, silly!

AND NOW FOR THE BREAKING NEWS YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR:

LOB has his first loose tooth! Yes, that's very exciting in our house! It seems like we've been waiting forever! So does anyone out there have any information on the going rate of the first lost tooth? I'm clueless and I need help!

3 Boys Brewery Band!

The fam has joined a band! And what a better name than 3 Boys Brewery Band! Well, it's really Guitar Hero: World Tour complete with drums, mic, guitar, and bass! Oh ya, we rock! Really, it's pretty fun even if we really are terrible musicians! Even The Brewer is trying to find his inner rocker music makin' self!

That's DJB on drums, LOB on guitar, and GOB on bass. The singer is taking the pic.

We need to send out a special shout out to the cuz' who got us started! You see LOB got the guitar kit for Christmas but after a couple of us tried it out and decided it was way too hard, we stuck it on top of the tv and there it sat for 2 weeks.

That is, until Cousin J came over on Saturday and showed us how to do it! And then his dad showed us how totally awesome he can rock it out! Obviously, they too are a rockin fam and play GH on Xbox! These guys and their momma are professionals! Oh, and they told us about the lag on the HDTV and that apparently was one of the problems we were having initially! *ahem* READING THE DIRECTIONS WOULD BE GOOD WHEN YOU ARE CLUELESS!

We got so into it that we kicked the kids upstairs to play quietly while the adults could have a few cocktails and jam until midnight! Whew! It's a little on the difficult side to be musical after a couple drinks but it sure was fun!

On Sunday, the boys and I went to Toys r us to buy the rest of the band and now we can all have a part in the band! I'm trying to figure out why the boys always ask me to sing?

Here is our loudest, rowdiest, obnoxious fan! Oh, he's the dancer! Ya, that's it! The dancer! Like his blue rocker socks?

Here's all the neighbor girls relaxing with the boys after their after school jam session!

If you have a Wii and have been clueless like us, go get it! It's fun! It's family time! It's entertaining! It's educational! It's ADDICTIVE! You won't be sorry!

Marley and Toni!

Have you seen the movie or read the book Marley and Me?

I am pretty sure we have a direct descendant of Marley!

Maybe she really wanted to race my Kasey Kahne car on the NASCAR Ultimate Speedway Track that is on top of the air hockey table. Nah! I bet she's looking for FOOD! Any. little. scrap. of. food! Who knows why she'd be looking up there? What kids would leave food on top of an air hockey table?

But wait, there's more! Not even 5 mintues after she checked out the race track, she decided to find a new roosting spot!

But first she had to bark at a car driving by....

Can't you tell she's thinking: "This is a great spot to keep watch on my peeps and guard the front door from evil people! Now if I only had some cushion!"

Stay tuned for more tales from Toni and Me!

Why Kids Should Just Get Boxes for Christmas!

Why in the world should we spend 100's of dollars on Christmas presents for kids when the boxes they come in are so much more fun to play with?

Why should we stress and ponder for months about what to buy these kids when cardboard boxes exceed the creativity level that any $150 Nintendo DS could ever provide?

And add a few feet of string and the imagination can go WILD!

It works for any age....

And you know what else is fun to play in?

Yep, you guess it! A dirty, stinky dog kennel. We cannot keep this boy out of here! We usually leave the kennel door open so Toni can let herself outside but when this little boy is on the move, he thinks it's a fun place to hang out in so we need to remember to close it!