Cooking Disaster

In an attempt to grant my daughter's wishes and make pancakes for breakfast yesterday morning, poor Al was attacked. What could he have possibly been attacked by while making pancakes, you ask? Take a look for yourself...

And, please disregard the hair - I had just woken up and was clearly not prepared for a photo op at that point).

Yep - poor Al was attacked by the flour. As I was carrying it to the island to begin cooking, I learned (the hard way) that the cute silver case that surrounds the flour container and makes it look nice while on the counter? Yeah...that was no longer glued to the container and as a result, slipped right off as I was carrying it and landed right next to where Al was standing.

I have to admit - I thought it was pretty funny. Al? Not so much. As you can see, he was totally freaked out by the whole thing. I guess I would be to if I were just minding my own business and all of a sudden got attacked by a pot of flour...

Dear Al...

If you continue to wake up at 3:30 AM and scream for an entire hour like you did last night, you will be wearing pink pajamas until you are 18.





Love, Mommy and Daddy

Dear Mommy and Daddy....

I am BEGGING you...PLEASE try to stay a bit more on top of laundry...

And, while you're at it, please don't try to force my sister to smile in pictures - it really isn't a good look for her...

Love, Al

Down Right Balmy

You know it's been a bad winter when you consider 43 degrees to be warm. At this point, I do my best to get the kids out of the house if it is at least 35 degrees or warmer. Otherwise? We all go a bit batty and I get rather irritable. And, if you have ever been around me when I'm irritable, you know it is not a pretty sight.

SO, that said - this last weekend, I was going to take Deacon outside to throw the ball for him (which is something that we haven't been able to do for a while, as our yard has been one big ice skating rink for weeks) and on the way out the door, I figured I should bundle the kids up to take them outside as well - a) they needed to get out, as they too were getting irritable and b) considering Josh wasn't home and Alex can now open all doors in the house, including the basement door, it is no longer safe to keep them in the house unattended. Not that it ever was, but lately, it is even less safe.

So, we all went out and the first thing that the kids did? Went for the sandbox. The site of them in the sandbox while surrounded by snow and bundled up for the winter was somewhat comical, but it worked - it occupied them for a good 20 mins.

What the $#%#$% is this, you ask?


Well, you see - this is a bird feeder that Avery made out of a toilet paper roll at daycare.....in SEPTEMBER. Yes, this thing has literally been sitting in our kitchen since SEPTEMBER. It starts out on the island. And, then, when guests come, it moves over to the corner of the kitchen where I put a pile of various papers that I need to do something with (because I think that it is completely reasonable and understandable for everyone to have "that pile" in their kitchen - even when guests are over) and then it makes its way back to the island in an effort to put it somewhere where I will see it and remember to hang it. It has literally been making this journey between the island and "the corner" since SEPTEMBER. Well, no longer. While the kids were playing in the sandbox, I hung it on the tree. And, I even witnessed a bird eating from it the other day - apparently birds don't mind stale bird seed that has been sitting around since SEPTEMBER...

Happy Valentine's Day

A (surprisingly) relaxing weekend

This last weekend, Jess and Christine (and their babies) both came up from Houston and Columbia, MO, respectively (did I just use the word respectively in my blog??). One would think that a weekend with 3 women, a 3 year old, a 19 month old (who happens to get into EVERYTHING), a 6 month old and a 3 month old could get to be a bit hectic and stressful. Well, it may have had we tried to do, well....anything. We were smart however, and stuck to the original plan of really not doing much at all and I think that we were all ok with that. The weekend was primarily spent eating (clearly, it was not a low-cal diet as evidenced by the bag of chips),

drinking, napping (for everyone but the 3 adults, unfortunately) and taking care of babies.

Avery was in seventh heaven and wanted to be holding either Max or Oliver at all times.

At one point, I had to take Oliver from her so that I could walk out of the room and Avery's comment to me was, "Mom, can you please bring him back? I just love him so much." Yet one more reason to have another baby in the Holland house! :) Kidding. Really.

We did manage to venture out for a short walk near the beach.

It was a gorgeous day and it felt great getting out of the house.

And, I can't post without mentioning the thrilling Super Bowl win by the Packers! Jessica was kind enough to cook dinner while I (i.e., Avery) took care of Oliver and watched the game.

It was heavenly for both of us, as we each got to do something that we don't get to do very often - me, watch TV (and watch the Pack win) and Jess, cook in the kitchen without a baby attached to her hip! As you will see here, I have my Packers shirt on (thank you, Sara!). I'm convinced that wearing Packers shirts while watching the games is good luck - ever since I've started wearing them, they have won. It had to be because of that because, it was clearly not a result of my stunning beauty on this particular Sunday.

Overall, it was a great weekend and hopefully one that we can do again soon (except during the summer so that we can do nothing on the beach in 80 degree weather).

Smarty Pants

This post is actually about me, believe it or not. And, not only is it about me, but it is about something ridiculously embarrassing that I said last night at the dinner table. Clearly I wouldn't share this if I had more than 4 followers, but it is such a classic Whitney-ism, that I had to tell you all....

So, the other morning, when Josh went out to start my car, he noticed that I had NPR on the radio and he made the comment when he came in that he was so impressed that I was listening to that (rather my usual country, pop, etc. music). So, at that point, I felt the need to impress him even more and tell him, "you know - there is some crazy stuff going on in Egypt right now - people are not happy." At which point, he asked me why (note - he already knew the answer, just as most of you probably do) and I had no response. But, that isn't the point of this story, so we'll move on.

So, LAST night, on the way home from work, I listened to NPR again. And, as we were eating dinner, I exclaimed to Josh, "Did you know that Mobama Borack isn't stepping down? He just isn't going to run in September!!!!???"

At that point, Josh bursts out laughing.

CLEARLY he doesn't realize that apparently, the president of Egypt, Mobama Borack is a distant cousin of our own president Barack Obama....duh!