Mommy from the Midwest

Children should be equipped with mute buttons.

2009-11-04T16:07:00.001-06:00

Desperate for a couple new shirts for our vacation I loaded up the kids and the double stroller and headed to the mall. I grab the few summer type shirts that they are still selling and tried to maneuver my stroller into a dressing room with the kids. There I am in a small room standing in front of a mirror the size of the room trying on different shirts while my two children watched.
I tried on the first shirt that was cut just a little too low for my liking. My pancake cleavage was just not looking hot. We moved right along to the next one and it wasn't any prettier and much more revealing than the first. Trying to whisper but not succeeding my daughter says, Mommy I can see your boobies. I gave her the look and told her to be quiet and moved on to the next shirt while hearing a few giggles from my dressing room neighbors. Next I put on one that was just not right, not right at all. My boobs hung out with one going east while the other went south, my rolls were looking for an escape route and it was just plain wrong all over.
Mommy if you wear that Mickey is going to be very mad at you.
Daughter be quiet, I told her as I heard snickers within the room.
But Mommy, Mickey Mouse will be mad if he sees your boobies.
And with that I got dressed and left the dressing room without making eye contact as the girl, trying to hold back her giggles, took the shirts and my pride with her.

It's like flavored crack but without the crack.

2009-11-02T13:55:00.003-06:00

It's that time of year again when all the goodness known as coffee crack is being introduced into the grocery stores. I seriously can't control myself and this season always leaves me strung out on caffeine and super addicted.

Oh but they taste so good. And I have to drink as much as possible now because they will be gone in a few short weeks for ten very long months when their makers are so mean and lock them away keeping them captive from the world that loves them.

Excuse me while I go make my third cup of coffee today.

Hooligans

2009-10-31T22:45:00.000-05:00

While taking my two small children trick or treating today these two crazies ran around like this.

No trick or treating they just ran around the neighbor screaming while pushing each other in a shopping cart. It was at the moment I snapped this photo that I realized darn I'm getting old. 10 years ago I probably would have found this hilarious however now that I am old (um I will be 30 in February) I take pictures of punks like this as evidence of a future crime I know they will probably commit. Next I will be wearing a moo moo while guarding my collection of dolls and staring out my front window counting the cars that pass by.

Candy

2009-10-30T08:41:00.001-05:00

All week the child has asked me to have candy. I have given her a lollipop here and there but honestly I just didn't want to deal with the high that can only be had by all that sugary candy. Finally yesterday I gave in. Pick anything; I don't care, I told her.

Given the opportunity to choose anything I would have picked the skittles, the kisses, the sweettarts, pretty much anything but the choice she made.

Candy Corn. My child chose candy corn.

Gross.

I'm blaming the lip gloss!

2009-10-29T13:06:00.001-05:00

Today was the day for the much talked about, highly anticipated preschool Halloween Party. Fifteen minutes before class was over all parents were invited to come in and hear the Halloween songs the kids were going to perform for us. The kids are all lined up, ready to begin their show when my daughter, who is standing front and center turns and lays a big wet kiss on the boy next to her.

I couldn't believe she did it. Then the boy announces.
Ewww gross! I told you if you are gonna kiss me, kiss my hand.
Which made me think this must not be the first time she has done this. Is Spin the Bottle a new center activity or what?

The Great Pumpkin

2009-10-27T09:28:00.001-05:00

We do things real basic here in these neck of the woods.
Fancy carving kits? Ha! not us. We just use a basic steak knife and some tender loving care.

I think our advanced carving skills should be entered in a contest or something. We would totally win. Totally.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

2009-10-26T13:51:00.004-05:00

Update:-)
I have been known to freak out when it comes to my kids. My niece tested positive for the flu this Morning. The kids and I saw them late last week. My daughter started congestion yesterday and today with a cough. I called the doc, they kinda freaked me out and so we went in.
It's negative, whew! At least for now (that's what they said to me so we are watching her).
Wahoo!

******************************************

To announce the shoe has been found and returned to its rightful foot (wahoo!) and I may or may not be headed to the pediatrician's office in an hour to have one of my children tested for SWINE flu!
Keep your fingers crossed and be glad you can't catch it while blog surfing!

Halloween always brings out the crazies.

2009-10-25T16:52:00.003-05:00

I took the kiddos to a local shopping place to attend their Trick or Treat Event. It was to begin promptly at 11:00 and end by 2:00. We were there by 11:01 and by 11:15 the stores were out of candy, sigh. We walked the whole place anyways and some where along the way my son threw his shoe. After retracing our steps and never finding the shoe, we enjoyed some free pizza and waited around for the costume contest.

I had to subject my children to this clown who found way too much pleasure in his own costume. He may or may not have been totally drunk.

When he got on stage and face planted after doing cartwheels I am sure it was a moment only his mother could be proud of.

Oh and if you are out walking and you happen to find the other one of these, we are still looking but quickly giving up hope.

The End.
p.s. I am giving away two copies of Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Blu-ray combo scrat packs on my review blog. Leave any comment (click here) to be entered.

It was Rockin'!

2009-10-24T09:44:00.001-05:00

Last night we picked up the hubs from a weeklong work trip at the airport and then we headed out because we were given tickets to the opening show of Disney's Rockin' Road Show. I honestly didn't have high hopes, do you remember our Wiggles experience? So my hopes were that at least the kids would see some characters, maybe not freak out and enjoy the show. Oh my gosh! It was awesome. Seriously I had a great time and I think I even saw the hubs laughing and enjoying himself.
The gist of this show is Mickey and Minnie are on a search to find people to star in their talent show. The entire first half is basically an introduction to all of the characters they find along the way (Cinderella, Buzz, Woody, Tigger, the wicked step sisters) on their bus trip.

After they find all of their people for the Talent Show they take an intermission. It felt long while trying to keep the kids occupied. The second half of the show is Mickey's Talent Show. All of the characters they found along the way on their bus trip come out and sing a song for the kids. Cinderella stole the heart of my kids and they were in awe but the favorite by far was when Tigger came out and got all the kids to bounce, bounce, bounce.

Somewhere in that mix is my daughter bouncing in the aisles. She had so much fun. Minnie is a huge hit in our house now. When the show ended she looked at me and said, But mommy I want to do it again. And you know what? I did too, lol.
It really was a great show. If it is coming to your area and you have little ones I'd check it out for sure.
Yay Mickey!

Frosted

2009-10-23T00:02:00.000-05:00

My daughter was bored. I had cake mix and frosting in the pantry. I let her have fun.

Some she frosted and some I frosted.

We'll let you figure out which in this batch is mine and which is hers.

Yep, we might just have The Next Food Network Star on our hands.
And why is it that the container of frosting states to refrigerate after opening but cupcakes can sit out? Answer me that?

Happy Birthday Nana! We love you.

Rainbrow Bright must have had a garage sale.

2009-10-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

While we were out shopping yesterday my daughter saw these fab shoes.

Oh mommy those are beautiful.

So to humor her I put them on and spent the next 10 minutes dealing with all that velcro!

I know, you're beside yourself with jealousy.

You want a pair now too don't you?

Lesson Learned (hopefully)

2009-10-21T21:05:00.002-05:00

After I wrote this post a lot of people either commented or emailed me to ask how to get pictures from flickr into your blog post instead of using the standard blogger upload tool.
Here is the best way I can explain it. I swear it is not hard. HTML is not scary so just practice and you will get the hang of it. It is worth it for better looking pics!

If you don't have a flickr account you need to create one. If you already have one or a yahoo account sign in.
Upload the photos that you want to use.

After they are uploaded go to your photos (I always click on home at the top, there might be a better way but that is what works for me) and pick the first one you want to use and click on the picture.

Once you are at the picture you want click on ALL SIZES.

Pick what size you want. I typically use medium because large doesn't fit. Scroll down and click and copy the html code.

Now go back to your blogger post and click on Edit HTML. Paste your code here and click back over to Compose. Your picture should now be in your post.

Now if it is off center just click before or after the picture and center the same way you would center text.
Does this make sense? I swear it is really easy once you get the hang of it. Just practice and delete the practice posts til you get the hang of it. Please if you have any questions or something is not working email me (midwestmommy@gmail.com) and I will try and help.

*I just realized this after writing this post. Flickr is free but a free account has a limit of how many pictures you can upload each month (100 mb). So upload wisely, writing this post tonight with all these pics used up my limit for the month, lol. Oh well, I might just splurge and pay the $24.95 for unlimited uploads for one year. I have been ok til this point and didn't even know there was a limit so you might be ok with a free account. Just a heads up.
I should also add I was able to upload about 35-40 pics this month so you do get plenty of space with a free account.

It was probably the ears?

2009-10-21T13:43:00.002-05:00

Disney's Rockin' Road Show is coming to my area this weekend. This morning they were holding Fun-ditions for the pre-show (btw if the show is coming to your area and doing Fun-ditions and you can get your 3-6 year old up on stage it is totally worth it. Trust me! Go!). With our upcoming Disney World vacation approaching I really, really wanted to get the kids use to the characters so we headed down to check it out. After the kids went on stage and auditioned (my daughter refused, lol) guess who made an appearance? Squee!!!!!

Yep, Mickey and Minnie came out to see the kids.

My little guy loved them and Minnie even kissed his nose. My daughter on the other hand was scared to death. She wouldn't step near them. *Sigh* Disney will be interesting with all those characters walking around, lol.

Afterwards when we were leaving my daughter yelled, Mommy, mommy look! Look! It's Minnie's Store.

Um, no that would be Victoria's Secret not Minnie's Secret honey!

It must have been the polka dots!

Do I need glasses?

2009-10-21T01:29:00.005-05:00

Look at this picture.

Now take a look at this picture.

Ok, now look at this picture (Ok, I swear I have a point coming up).

Now look at this one.

Besides the sizes do you see a difference? None of the pictures were changed I just used Flickr for the first one and the standard blogger upload for the second one. I never realized it til last night when I was working on this post. I had all these pictures up and whenever I looked at them they just never seemed right; like something was off. So I deleted them all and reloaded them with flickr instead and whoa did I see a difference. The coloring, the clarity, the sharpness, well just about everything was so much better with flickr than with the standard blogger upload tool.

Do you see the difference or am I just going crazy?

Today

2009-10-20T19:37:00.002-05:00

It's Tuesday and I am not ticked off! Seriously after getting my $100 bucks back I have been nothing but happy and so thankful.
To get out of the house today we went to a forest preserve to walk around.
I like to take pictures.
I loved all of the reflections off of the river.

Fall is all around us.

It's a great week.

Ok, you can all now proceed to dispose of your vomit buckets I am done being all Hallmark card mushy gushy.

The End.

All of the pictures are straight out of the camera. No editing.

So I got an email...

2009-10-19T21:00:00.002-05:00

So this email just popped into my inbox and I was all like, huh? Did it really just say that? See for yourself...

Can't get enough of Mario Lopez? Really? Mario Lopez? Wasn't his golden boy days back in 1991 when he was roaming the halls of Bayside High?
Wonder if they ever heard of this hottie.

We should probably totally hook him up with a fan club page too.

One Hundred Buckeroos!

2009-10-19T09:19:00.003-05:00

Saturday morning we rushed out of the house to make it to the same day cleaners by 10:00 so the hubs clothes would be ready by 5:00 that night. Both of us were tired, gathering clothes and trying to get the kids wrangled up and in the car to drive the 35 minutes to the place. We made it and at 9:47 I dropped the clothes off.
We went about our day killing time here and there waiting for 5:00 to come around so we could drive back up there and get his clothes. 5:00 comes and I pick up our clothes. That night around 8:00 long after the cleaners is closed the hubs looks at me and says, "crap did you check the pockets of my pants?" Instantly my mouth dropped open because I knew instantly what he was referring to. You see he had went to the atm and took $100 out which is something we NEVER do, we never carry cash on us EVER. We needed cash this week for something and completely forgot about it when he placed it in his pocket. The khaki pants pocket that went to the cleaners on Saturday morning by 10:00 so we could pick it up by 5:00. Yep, we turned in dry cleaning with $100 in one of the pants pocket.
Saturday night I cried on twitter. Great friends consoled me and pretty much thought what I had thought, that money was long gone. I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was called the cleaners and asked to speak with the owner. He informed me no one had turned in any found money. My heart dropped. Oh well, there are worst things that could happen to us than losing five twenty dollar bills, right?
Oh but wait, what was that he said? Oh you have security cameras and you are willing to watch the tape and see if anyone took anything from our pants? Really? Oh I understand some people get confused and there is no found money but you are willing to watch the tapes and see. And I am willing to bet my puggle you will see $100 in that surveillance video. He said he would call me back.
Five minutes later the phone rang, my heart stopped, here was our answer.

HE HAS THE MONEY!!!!!!

He threatened his staff with watching the surveillance video together and seeing who took the money. The thief fessed up and gave back my money. I love surveillance video!
I can pick up my money anytime today.
It's a great day!

Jack Frost

2009-10-18T09:27:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning to this....

the first frost of the season.

And I did what any other god loving person who hates winter would do; I let my dogs crap all over it.

The end.

Hello Beautiful

2009-10-16T07:39:00.000-05:00

Seriously, who knew? I had no clue. I became addicted in a mere 10 minutes. I was grabbing them left and right and taking them from here and there. What is it you ask? What is my newest vice? Downloading apps for my brand spanking new ipod touch. Squeeee!!! What should I name her? Yes, she definitely needs a name.

What is your go to app?

What do I absolutely have to have?

Squeee!!!

Not So Wise Guy

2009-10-14T21:20:00.001-05:00

So we totally cheated on our healthy diet tonight and went to Red Robin for dinner. I always order the same thing, Whiskey River BBQ Burger. After ordering I noticed banners and fliers all over the place advertising their new burger Wise Guy.

It is a burger topped with pepperoni, three mozzarella sticks and lots of other stuff. Ugh, look at that burger. Come on now, that thing has got to be so bad for you, I wisely told the hubs when he thought about ordering it. We both got our burgers, ate, went to preschool open house and then I then came home and looked up the nutritional information on this wise guy: 1012 calories, 51 grams of fat and 2017 mg of sodium. Holy cow! I told the hubs I told you that thing was bad for you.

And then just because I like to torture myself I looked up my Whiskey River's info totally believing that I was going to prove how much better my burger was than that other burger: 1114 calories, 69 grams of fat, 1805 sodium. Yep, you read that right. Who would have guessed I was better off ordering the Wise Guy.

Tomorrow morning I may look something like this.

And I am blaming you Red Robin for the extra jiggle in my wiggle.

Missing out?

2009-10-13T19:01:00.008-05:00

I have four giveaways going on over at my review site.

As with all my giveaways all you have to do is leave any comment on the post. That's it.

Here is a list of the current giveaways:

1. Elmo's Animal Adventures dvd- 3 winners closing tomorrow.

2. Chop Socky Chooks dvd- 5 winners ends 10/21/09

3. Little Spirit of Christmas- 3 winners ends 10/21/09

4. Animal Planet Presents African Elephants- 3 winners ends 10/21/09

These are great to keep for yourself or the holidays are coming up and these might just be a great way to give a gift that won't cost you a thing :-)

Totally Ticks Me Off Tuesday

2009-10-13T01:55:00.002-05:00

Totally Ticks Me Off Tuesday, the post where I get to rant, complain and just plain scream about what has ticked me off.

Best Buy.

Seriously that should be nuff said because I think every single person on Earth has some Best Buy customer service story that has ticked them off, ours happened yesterday.

The hubs bought something online and paid for it with gift cards. He chose the in-store pick up option instead of having the item shipped. Item will be waiting for you at the customer service desk for pick up. Yea, right he waited over thirty minutes before someone finally figured out how to do an in-store pick up (this option has been around for over ten years, it's not brand new). He brings the item home and guess what? It doesn't work.

Now here's the part you are not going to believe. The "manager" would not issue him new gift cards for the return. Nope, she made him go home and dig through our trash cans to find his two gift cards. After much arguing between the two of them she told him that was his only choice and handed him his receipt that showed the money went back to his original gift cards and said there was nothing else she was doing. Can you believe that? So yes, he dug through our garbage yesterday. I was ticked. I called corporate today and when they picked up I said,

Yes, I have a question.

Go ahead.

Yes, if I buy something in the store with a gift card and I need to return it do you guide me to where your dumpster is and ask me to find my original gift cards?

(Silence) No m'am we wouldn't do that.

Well, have I got a story for you...

Stupid flakity flake of a manager.

Got something totally ticking you off? Join in on the fun below.

Nature Smature!

2009-10-12T13:18:00.009-05:00

We had a homework assignment.

We were to collect nature stuff for preschool.

I had high hopes of getting some good fall shots of the kids.

My daughter was not in the best of moods. Most pictures showed just how miserable she was. She wanted nothing to do with anything that required smiling.

Then, when I finally decided to pay attention I realized after 116/127 shots that my son had gotten into my camera bag and smeared something all over my macro lens.

116/127 potentially cute pictures turned out cloudy. Thankfully out of 126 these two turned out.

Seriously, I had the best intentions.

I am exhausted from the whining.

I am exhausted from the crying.

I am exhausted from the nature walk.

Is it nap time yet?

Click here, I am giving away three copies of Elmo's Animal Adventures dvd. Ends this week. Leave any comment to win.

The Story of Cali

2009-10-09T08:14:00.009-05:00

It was August 2003 we just got back from vacation, we were engaged a few days and we just moved into our townhouse. We were out shopping late one Friday night when we saw a pet store. We went in with no intentions what so ever of getting anything. We had been shelter shopping. We weren't buying anything from a pet shop. And then be still my beating heart I saw her. She was on the top shelf in a glass cage. I walked up and we immediately made eye contact and I felt connected to her. Oh my word I had to have this dog. I stood there looking at her and just knew she was mine. I couldn't leave the store without her. The store was closing and they were turning off the lights. I started to cry. I had to have her; I had to rescue her from this dark and lonely pet store.

The hubs walked up to the desk and paid for her. She was mine. For a few days her name was Bruiser. After about a week the name never really fit her and I decided to change it. The hubs and I love California and one day we might just move there. We named her Cali, short for California.

Cali the puggle puppy then...

And now.

I'm glad I just couldn't say no to that face.

BTW- Head over to my review blog for my latest giveaway. Three winners!

Click here to leave a comment.

If I wasn't so ticked I think I would cry.

2009-10-08T16:24:00.006-05:00

Seriously I just bought them at Gymboree. He wore them both just one time each. I ever so carefully washed them separately so other clothes wouldn't ruin their white sleeves. The first time I put them in the dryer they didn't dry so I quickly looked for something to throw in with them to help them along. I grabbed my white fleece and threw it in without a second thought. An hour later I walk back and I open the dryer to find this.

I was baffled. It looked like breast milk poop was all over the clothes. What the heck? They weren't like this when I put them back in again? All the white had turned a shade of yellow? And then I had the aha! moment, otherwise known as I am a complete and total flake.

I checked the pocket of my fleece. Yep, this is what I found.

All that was left was the wrapper to the dandelion crayon that I had earlier taken away from my son when he was attempting to color my freshly painted walls.

I think I want to cry.