Halloween catch-up

I know, it's 2 weeks past halloween (almost). I need to blog more but I'm going to make a big excuse here-I hate logging onto blogger. It takes forever. Apparently google hates me now because it takes about 10 tries to log into gmail or blogger and when I finally do, they insult me with the "this is taking way too long-perhaps you'd like to use our option for ultra slow connections-the dreaded html mode". I don't like html mode-I'm not used to it. Anyway that's my excuse. And I have no idea why I made two different google accounts (one for gmail and one for blogger) because if I used the same account, I could just stay logged in.

Halloween was pretty much the same as every other halloween. We went to some friends' houses and grandmas where the kids got candy, soda and money. I am adding a picture of all three kids in their costumes. Jenny insisted on being a tiger. Guess what-there is no such thing as a big-kid tiger costume. Anywhere. I could not talk her into being something else so I had to MAKE her costume. I bought the amount of fabric on the pattern because I didn't want to run short. I only used half of it. I guess we'll have a few tiger striped pillows around the house now. And she has some spiffy new tiger striped pajamas. The paint is regular halloween face paint and I found a site online that showed how to apply it. It looked better in real life-the camera flash made the white part look whiter than it really is. Sammy was easy-she was a ballerina/bunny. She already has all the ballet paraphernalia so I just had to shell out $4 for bunny ears, tail and bowtie. She didn't want her face painted, which is a shame because it would have been much easier than the tiger face. Jake loves ready-made costumes, thank goodness. He was the blue power ranger and he also had a gen-yoo-wine power rangers gun/sword weapon. Cool! I added a picture of Jake by himself since he didn't have his mask on when I took the group picture (how did I not notice that??)

Still alive...

I made a roast in the crock pot today. I made mashed potatoes to go with it and I wanted to make gravy but I hate trying to dip the juice out of the crock pot (without getting all the fat) so I made this other gravy. It's very easy to make although not as easy as gravy from a jar. Not that there's anything wrong with jarred/canned gravy.

3 tbs oil (use olive oil and you can tell yourself the gravy is healthy)
5 tbs flour
2 cups beef broth
1/8 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste

Put oil in a medium pan. Add flour slowly and whisk to mix until dissolved. Heat on med-high for a minute or so, stirring constantly. Add broth, stirring well so it's not lumpy. Add paprika, salt and pepper and stir. Heat to boiling, reduce to a simmer, and let it simmer for 5-10 min or so, stirring often. Easy.

We are taking Daisy to obedience classes every sunday. I will try to get pics tomorrow but it is really dusty there and I hate to take my camera. I need to take some though-she is really growing (18.5 lbs last week) and doesn't really even look like a puppy anymore.

More puppy pictures

First of all I didn't realize that I didn't even mention our new puppy's name in my other blog post. Oops! thanks to my friend Krista for pointing that out to me. Anyway her name is Daisy. Not terribly original but it's a cute name and we all agreed on it (unlike the other 30 something names the kids picked out). We took her to Jake's football practice on Thursday and I took a few pictures. I am finding that the only way to get a decent picture is to use the continuous mode on my camera (which still isn't foolproof).

These first two were taken when we first got there. She seemed very fascinated by the clicking of the shutter.



Here she is with a big stick she found. Like most puppies she picks up and chews everything she sees.


And here she is looking very entranced by the kids practicing football.


We are also in the process of switching her off of Purina Puppy Chow and onto something better. I always thought Purina was pretty good food. After doing a ton of research (I was actually trying to find out exactly how much to feed her since the bag says 1-2/3 cups to 5 cups for her size/age. That is a pretty big range) I found that brands like Purina, Hills (Science Diet), Iams, even Eukanuba have a lot of fillers in them. Puppy Chow's first ingredient is corn and it should be some kind of meat. We first started to switch to Nutro Natural Choice but then I found out they use peanut flour in some of their biscuits. We don't need Jenny having a contact reaction from handling the food (possibly cross contaminated at the factory) or the puppy so we are switching again to Canidae. The bad thing about all this is that none of the decent foods are available nearby. Thank goodness for the internet! Oh and the better foods seem to cost more but they actually aren't that much, if any, more expensive. You feed less because less of it goes straight through the dog (I have proof if anyone wants to see it. ugh). So in the long run it is not that expensive. Now we just have to teach her some manners-mainly not nipping everyone and everything in sight and not jumping up on people.

A New Family Member

We decided that when we got back from our vacation we would start looking for a new dog. We didn't want to right away, because of the cat. He was boarded at the vet during our vacation and we didn't think he'd want to come home and immediately have to deal with a puppy (we decided to get a puppy since the kids had never had a puppy before). So yesterday I checked all of the classifieds of all of the closest papers. I called on all of the free and inexpensive puppies and they were all gone. It seems that free/cheap puppies go fast around here! There was one place that was over an hour away. I called and it was a recording for a vet's office. I got up early this morning and gave them a call and they had a few left. I got the kids up and ready and we were on our way. It took an hour and a half to get there. They still had the pups so we picked out a cute little girl. She is half Australian Shepherd and half Lab. I'm assuming black Lab since she is almost all black. She's 10 weeks old and seems very smart already. We put her in a crate for the long ride home and she was so good. Just a little bit of whimpering and she didn't throw up in the car (didn't poop either). On the way home we stopped at Petsmart for some supplies and she was so good in there. We had bought a collar from the vet so we just grabbed a leash and put it on her (pets are supposed to be leashed in there, but we've seen plenty without) and she was pretty good with it. Considering she'd probably never had a leash or collar on before. We picked out a few dog toys (one of which she carried proudly through the store), some puppy chow and some puppy biscuits. She was great for the rest of the ride home. She seems to have a little habit of nipping but after just a few corrections she was barely nipping at all. I'm sure she'll forget by tomorrow but we'll just keep reminding her. Her teeth are really sharp and they hurt! I guess that's the herding dog in her-she has the urge to nip our ankles and herd us into a group. Here are a couple of pictures, but it is really hard to get good pictures of a busy puppy. We'll probably be taking her to the park tomorrow so I'll try to get some better pics. We're supposed to take her back in 2 weeks to be spayed. That seems young but I looked around online and apparently it is ok, and even better, to have them done younger these days.




Isn't that collar cute? Collar design has come a long way. Unfortunately the only small leashes they had were black and red. I picked red and it really clashes with her collar.

Post Traumatic Vacation Stress Disorder

We got back from our long vacation about a week ago. I've had a headache most of that week-mostly mild but a couple of days it was bad. I'm sure I'm suffering from PTVSD (see my post title-I can't type it all out again). Our vacation was great overall. But the first day out (for the record we drove across the country, up the country, and then back across the country, for a total of about 6000 miles once we did all of our activities) our transmission light came on. Crap. We stopped for the night and learned the next day that we needed it rebuilt. Another day and a half and almost 3K later we were back on our way. The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful but we did have this expense hanging over our heads the whole time. The rest was actually pretty fun. We went to Disneyland for a day, relaxed on the beach for a day, and spent another day at the San Diego Zoo. We visited with family and threw my parents a surprise anniversary party. Then we drove to Vegas and saw lots of sharks (the kind that swim in the ocean) and went to my sister's wedding. We drove north to Oregon and visited Crater Lake and a fish hatchery (and some more family) and then headed back home. The worst part was riding in the car for so many hours. I was sore from sitting for so long and it was boring at times. I can't do anything in the car or else I'll get sick so I'm stuck just staring out the windows. The kids fought like cats and dogs even though they had books, video games, dvds and more to keep them busy. We ate so much fast food I was sure I gained twenty pounds (but I actually lost a pound-go figure). But we all had a great time. Now we're back to reality. I'll post pictures from our vacation later this week.

This is one of my go-to recipes when I'm feeling like crap. I made this last week.

Super Easy Ground Beef Stroganoff

1 lb ground beef
2 tbs flour
1 envelope onion soup mix (or use my homemade version posted here)
1 cup water
1 cup sour cream
Egg noodles, cooked (we use the ronzoni whole wheat kind)

While noodles are cooking brown ground beef and drain well. Sprinkle flour on top and then stir until the flour disappears. Add onion soup mix and water and stir well. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 min. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Serve over egg noodles.

Easy baked pasta

I got this recipe many moons ago from a magazine. I've changed it a little to make it easier to make. Originally it was called Cavatelli but I think that is a certain type of pasta and I don't use that type so I will just call it baked pasta.

Easy Baked Pasta

2 cups (dry) rotini or other interesting shape pasta
1 lb ground beef or pork sausage
1 chopped onion
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can (about 14 oz I think) diced tomato
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
1 cup shredded mozarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350°. Boil pasta as directed on package. While pasta is boiling, brown meat (and drain it), then add onion and garlic and cook until they're done (or do what I do and use 2 tbs dried minced onion and 1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder). Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and spices. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the meat mixture. Mix well. Add 1/2 of the cheese and mix. Put in a 2 qt baking dish (I line mine with foil because I hate soaking it for days to get all that stuck on food to come off). Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, remove foil, and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.

The search for sunblock

Well the summer weather has been here a while but it's just now getting really hot. I'm on my annual quest for the best sunblock again. We have to find something that won't bother sensitive skin, has no nut oils in it, won't stain our clothes, yet will protect the kids' skin. If they, God forbid, get skin cancer someday, I will at least know I did my best to protect them.

So we tried Coppertone Sport Spray spf 50, now with Avobenzone (parsol 1789 or something like that) and oxybenzone, which is supposed to be broad spectrum. It stained horribly, and I found out all sunscreens with avobenzone will stain if you have iron in your water. We have well water and even though we do have a water softener, it is not a miracle worker and iron is still in our water. So we are going to avoid anything with avobenzone in it. So that means we had to find one with a physical block like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide (both of which hopefully don't stain). Apparently avobenzone/oxybenzone, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the only things that protect against pesky UVA rays.

I read about Rocky Mountain sunscreen on the peanutallergy.com board. I ordered samples for patch tests and everyone tolerated it well. I went ahead and bought a bunch of the spf-50 which has titanium dioxide. It's hard to apply-not nearly as easy a spray-but it will have to do (the kids can do most of their bodies by themselves). I refuse to ruin any more clothes with sunscreen stains (like I did 3 yrs or so back with Loreal Ombrelle) and I want my kids skin to be well protected. Especially since Sammy has freckles and fair skin and burns easily, and Jake has a few moles. Jenny has a couple too. The other advantage to this sunscreen (which I think is technically a sunblock) is that you don't have to wait 30 minutes before going out or in the water, plus it is very waterproof and doesn't need to be reapplied as often. They cited tests on their website where they applied once, did not reapply, and sent people out in the sun all day. No one burned. It was originally formulated for skiers who are in intense sun in the mountains.

The Rocky Mountain sunscreen has to be ordered online so I might try Blue Lizard too, if I can find it locally.