Bread Salad

Like that shiner. Ethan gave it to Jon while we were all wrestling with each other. This picture was taken about five minutes after the fact. You should see it now; it's all yellow and green and purple. Very ugly. Jon's mom asked Ethan on Sunday what happened to his daddy and he said "I smoked him while we were at home." Crazy little runt. But there's no denying that the kid is funny.

So, for FHE this week we did an activity where one of the kids had to come up with a funny "What if...." scenario and then we all worked together writing a poem about it. Christopher said "What if Ryan could fly?" Then I'd ask questions like: where would he go, what would he do, what would happen then...etc and we'd put a sentence down and then the kids would have to think of a word that would rhyme with the last word in the sentence for the next line and Jon and I would have to try to use the word they picked in the poem. It was a lot of fun and helped the kids with their rhyming skills too.

Today I'm posting the recipe for bread salad. I know it sounds a little weird to those of you who've never tried it, but it's cheap, healthy, quick, easy and tastes really good so don't be such a chicken. Give it a try.

For the poems and recipe...

Firsts

Christopher lost his first tooth (the other front one is loose too) and Ryan took his first steps(I'd post the video later in this post except my video posting thing isn't working). Our little family just keeps growing and progressing, it seems so crazy most of the time but mostly it's a good kind of crazy. The photo up top is a picture of the wedding cake I did a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting the recipe for desperation cookies today because I thought it was appropo for me at the moment. It's a great recipe and it never turns out the same way twice. The great thing about it is that you just use whatever you have on hand which is why it never turns out the same but it's always delicious. I first came across it in a book by Joanne Fluke. She writes murder mystery books that have recipes all through them. I think this one was in Peach Cobbler Murder, but I'm really not sure. Anyway...For the recipes

Tinkerbell and Strawberry cake

I did a couple of birthday cakes for a friend so I thought I'd post the pictures. The pictures are from her cell phone, so they're not the best, but I didn't take any pictures because frankly my brain is not fully functional yet. On the up side, despite the constant crying as of late, it appears that Timothy may not have colic after all. We went in to the pediatrician for a follow up appointment for Christopher (more below) and I had him check Timothy's ears while we were there and the poor baby has raging ear infections.

So Christopher come to me crying Thursday afternoon. It took a minute to calm him down, but when he did he finally got out what the problem was. "Mom, Ryan made me swallow a battery!" Fan-freakin-tastic. It turns out the he got the button battery out of his book light and was just messing around with the stupid thing in his mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Poor Ryan just happened to be witness to the incident which means he-of course-had to be at fault as it couldn't be Christophers'.

Apparently my child isn't the only one out there with a penchant for appetizers of the alkaline variety though. There is a special hot-line just for button battery swallowers. We had to drive up to Texas Childrens Hospital and do x-rays and sit around for 5 hours because-shocker-no one at our hospital is qualified to fish the thing out if that's what needed to happen. Luckily we had Timothy with us and the nurses felt he was too young to sit out in the waiting room with the sick people so we got to go to an exam room that had a tv and watch the Discovery Channel while we waited. It seemed to be moving along and, after much debate, it was decided that we would be allowed to go home. On the way up to Houston Thursday Christopher asked me if they would have to cut him open to get it out and I told him that they wouldn't because they have a special tool that could go down his throat and into his tummy to get it. Jon said he'd get to eat lots of ice cream if that happened and then Christopher was hoping that it wouldn't come out after all. Crazy kid.

We're going in today for another x-ray and as long as the thing is still moving we're good to go. If it's stuck somewhere they'll have to go in and get it out so it doesn't start leaking acid. So everyone keep your fingers crossed for us okay. I swear, if you know my kids you'd think it would be Ethan going to the emergency room all the time, but it's always Christopher.

Oh, I'm also posting the recipe for homemade strawberry cake because I told Brandi I would. So, here you go dear....