Chicks & Kittens

Updates from oldest to youngest:

Me - Good. I lost 9 pounds on the SparkPeople plan. Then I fell off the wagon and am scared to see if I gained it back. I plan on starting over again after the holiday...so Tuesday. It works. I just had a bad week (eating great, not losing anything) and then got discouraged. I'm a wimp like that. Time to get back on track.

Work is going great. I have decided to start using the financial software I use for my part time job to set up a new company - MY HOUSEHOLD. I need to get a handle on where my money goes and set up a budget to follow. It is really hard to break all the bad habits that I had before. I have broken a LOT of them...like the shopping habit I had...the kids and I drove by a shopping complex the other day and I commented on how I missed shopping - made me realize how long it has been since I have done that. Hard to do when you're broke. This summer will help since the girls are going to be watching Lil Brother for me 4 days per week. Then it's just one more year of daycare and I'll be in a MUCH better position. Daycare kills me - over $700 per month goes to that. Then there's the braces payment for Hollywood - $200, Student loans $150, and all of the medical bills, utilities, car/home/health/life insurance...not to mention the mortgage(s). I just keep working and paying...I'll get there someday.

Mary Katherine - All is well. She's doing just great in school. She has one advanced placement class (Lit/Composition) and she took the test to get college credit for it...she won't find out for a while how she did but she said she felt like she did well. She's also having a great time right now with her chicks. Yes, we ordered chicks. 30 of them. That is not a typo. Well, we ordered 28 but they sent 30. We got another coop from MK's dad so we have more room for them. We're going to sell the eggs once they start laying....not that I will EVER come out ahead though. I grew up on a farm and the lessons she's learning from raising them and being responsible for them are worth it. We lost 3 of them. That's pretty common. They don't all make it. However we are doing better than last time - we ordered 8 last time and lost 4 right away.

Temporary basket while MK cleaned out the brooder.

Hollywood - she's doing great. School is going awesome....she's given 3 speeches recently...something she HATED doing but she said she's getting more comfortable at it. She had a cupcake bake-off with one of her teachers the other day. She made her famous red velvet cupcakes with the marshmallow cream frosting and these cool little things:

Yep - Hollywood won the bake off. The teacher even borrowed one of Hollywood's cupcake cookbooks to compete. Ha! Another teacher asked Hollywood if he could hire her to bake these for parties. :)  She told me she wants to go to culinary school. I'm going to weigh 500 pounds someday. LOL

This is Hollywood at her band concert:

Her cat had another litter of kittens. This time she's not getting out of the house again until she's spayed. She had 5 this time. Of course, Hollywood is in heaven...they have taken over my laundry room so I'm not super thrilled. But they are SO STINKING CUTE. I have found homes for 2 of them so far...they are still here for another week before they are ready to go. At least they are litter box trained now...that helps. Here some of them are:

Lil Brother - He's doing fabulous! Still smart, sweet and as funny as ever. He's picking up our bad habits though...like the word shut-up. I have got on him about it and now he's the "shut-up" police. I think I'm the worst offender. I say it in jest to my sister....I have been known to holler it to the fighting girls...or whatever. I never realized how much I say it. Horrible. So I guess he's helping me break that bad habit too. He says, "You can't say that mom! Do you want to sit on the naughty chair?!"

He found the left over party favors from my aunt's birthday party:

Rocking to Smashmouth - Allstar



This is how Lil Brother dressed himself to go play outside the other day. LOL

 We have some plans tomorrow to go to a petting zoo/conservatory type place in Wisconsin. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post them too. :)

Out-takes

I guess my aunt (the birthday girl) couldn't see the previous post I made...something about flikr interfering...so I uploaded these instead mostly for her enjoyment. Hahahaha



Make sure you have a bunch of crazy people to celebrate with!



Blotkake - a Norwegian cake my grandma Berit used to make for all of our birthdays. It's a sponge cake with strawberries inside and homemade whipped cream outside. This is the very first one I made from my grandma's recipe. It was yummy!




This is what a kransekake is supposed to look like. My aunt M ordered one for my aunt Anne for her birthday.



This is what ours looked like.



We did have delicious shrimp like they serve at all the parties in Norway.

And since it was a butterfly theme....Hollywood made butterfly cupcakes.

Guess who she got this from? Hahahha

Anne's 60th!

Where has the time gone? Seriously!! I posted almost a month ago?!! No way!

I only have time for a short update - but I wanted to get these pictures up here weeks ago! My aunt Anne came for a visit at the beginning of the month - it was her 60th birthday and we threw her a party at my mom's place. I've linked to the picture set below. There were some Scandinavian items for food...like the ring cake (called Kransekake). We ordered that....it was a lot smaller than we expected...but it was yummy. I made the Blotkake - it is the strawberry and whipped cream covered sponge cake. That was my grandma's recipe and it turned out fabulous. :) Hollywood made her the butterfly cupcakes since it was a butterfly 3D theme party...and she also made her some of her famous red velvet cupcakes with marshmallow cream frosting....maybe those were not Scandinavian, but they were sure delicious!

We all had so much fun and (as always) her visit was just too short!

Anne's 60th!, a set on Flickr.