Monday, August 31, 2009

An Unexpected Visitor

Last week, I got an unexpected knock on my door. Well, actually, it was not a knock, this person does not knock, he just walks in like he owns the place. On Wednesday of last week, Sean had asked me to help him with a cake that he wanted to make for one of his good friend's birthday. I told him I'd be more than happy but he was going to have to pick up the cake pans and bake his own cakes, etc, etc. It was for Friday so I told him he had to start baking right away. Well, he decided that he wasn't going to do it until he got a lot of pressure from his friend's new bride. I guess they knew that if Sean agreed to make the cake, he'd be coming over here to my house for me to help him with it. Well, it worked! So Thursday afternoon he came over and I quickly gave him some cake pans and he got to work. Lucky for him, I had eggs, and I always keep cake mix and a few store bought fillings for unexpected, last minute orders that I wouldn't have the time to make a cake from scratch. So he quickly got to work filling two eight inch square cake pans.

His cake design was an XBOX 360 because they love playing Halo, I think that's what it's called, not much of a gamer myself. I hate doing a cake like this last minute because I like to have the correct dimensions, 360 views, etc. Well, Sean decided that the eight inch pans could probably do the trick. After the cakes were in the oven, he looked up the dimensions and I quickly realized that the easiest way to do it would have been to do a sheet cake. Well, I don't have any sheet cake pans because quite honestly, I don't offer sheet cakes, I just don't, I don't like them and I feel like if someone wants a sheet cake, they should just go to Costco, or Albertsons to pick one up. For something like this that is the shape of a sheet cake, it would have been perfect to have a pan. Or, I would have just done one big 12" square and cut 2 inches off the side. Anyways, long story short, I (I mean Sean) ended up piecing it together.

Sean filled and crumb coated his cake himself





When his cakes were baking, he headed off to the grocery store to pick up some rice krispie treats to mould his controller. Now, somewhere, either on the way to the store, or on the way back, Sean came to the conclusion that he was now the cake boss. Now, all he has done thus far is mix up some cake box mixes and put them in the oven. He didn't even grease his own pans. Must be nice to have that much self esteem ;) So he moulded his own controller and I verbally told him if I thought it needed anymore anything. He rolled out his fondant for his controller, and I (I mean we) covered his controller.





Sean definitely did a lot of this cake himself and he had a great time doing it. I too had fun teaching him how to do stuff. He loved luster dusting some parts to make them shiny and he loved working with fondant. He had some great ideas like writing Happy Birthday Laz with the controller wire, and writing XBOX 23 because his buddy turned 23, instead of XBOX 360. Sean is a very clever fellow!



It's a good thing I had a lot of extra stuff just hanging out because Sean never had to go to the cake store, the board was a little bowed but, it worked!! So what do you think of Sean's first cake?

Thursday, August 27, 2009

New Salad

Last weekend, I was finally able to REALLY grocery shop, you know, the Costco trip and the grocery store trip. Ahhh, it feels so nice to have food in the house. I've been in a cooking slump mostly because it's hard when you need to go to the store for something because you haven't planned any menus and you're going like every two days with kids in tow. Not fun. So, I found a bunch of new recipes because I love to cook. I've also had the nicest break from cakes and cookies, which I have so desperately needed. I haven't had an order since the 15th of August, aside from something I did for my Mom. So nice. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. So, this recipe is so yummy. I'm always looking for new salads because I love salad for dinner, and I love salad the next day for lunch. I make a salad from the Nordstroms cookbook that they also serve in their restaurant. Tim loves this salad. Every time I ask him what he'd like for dinner, he says, "Your salad would be good." Out of all the things I make, seriously Tim, it's time to branch out. I have found a few recipe's that I like but not a good one for like a main dish. Until, Bobby Flay's salad came into my life. This recipe is good. I've made it twice so far and made just a couple of changes, not really changes, I just add more of a few things. Click here for the recipe and reviews or I've included it in this post. It's really good and super easy. Cutting everything up small is kind of a pain but worth it for sure. The other good thing is it uses a rotisserie chicken, awesome, hello easy!! It's called the Chinese Chicken Salad with Red Chile Peanut Dressing. My small changes are, add more cilantro and more green onions then it calls for. Also, I add more peanut butter and more honey to the dressing. The dressing totally compliments the ingredients of the salad and the two become one. Mmmmm. Oh yeah, I also like to add the fried wonton things that you can get in the salad isle. I hope you try this, it is a keeper! So far the two times I've made it, I've been asked for the recipe so you know it's good.

Chinese Chicken Salad with Red Chile Peanut Dressing
Recipe courtesy Bobby Flay

Ingredients
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
2 teaspoons chipotle pepper puree
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1/2 cup canola oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
1/2 head romaine lettuce, shredded
2 carrots, shredded
1/4 pound snow peas, julienned
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
Chili oil, optional
Grilled lime halves, for garnish
Directions
Whisk together the vinegar, peanut butter, ginger, chipotle pepper puree, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and canola oil in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Combine cabbage, lettuce, carrots, snow peas, cilantro, and green onion in a large bowl. Add the dressing and toss to combine.
Transfer to a serving platter and top with the shredded chicken, chopped peanuts, and mint. Drizzle with chili oil, if desired. Garnish with grilled lime halves.

I had the leftovers for lunch the other day, mmmmm.


And good to the last drop...

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

10 Months

Another month has gone by and Madi is ten months old. I know I say this every time but, I can't believe how fast it's going. I'm actually starting to think of ideas for her 1st bday party, it's crazy! New things:

1. Blew a kiss 8/23
2. Weaning began 8/21
3. Started taking "steps" 8/16
4. Starting to mimic the sounds of our words
5. Responding to "no"
6. Crawls all the way to the top of the stairs
7. Will not let me feed her. Will only feed herself, wanting to use utensils.
8. Fights back when Riley tries to you know annoy her.





She has been showing a TON of interest in walking. I walk her with one hand most of the time around the house and she loves it. She will let go of furniture to reach and step towards another piece of furniture. On 8/16, she started "walking" from one person to the other. She loves that. About a week before we tried that, I took her upstairs for a bath and she was holding on to the tub and would turn herself towards me and walk towards me, and then turn around and go back. She's not close to walking alone but I'm thinking in a month she might be all over the place walking. We'll see right? Right now, she can take 2-3 steps toward someone or something unassisted.


She's also really wanting to talk. Most of the time after dinner when she is in her high chair, we'll ask her to say some things like, night night time, or Dada bite, or Mama night night, or all done. She really watches us and "repeats" what we are saying. It's so interesting to watch her brain think.


She has started to fight back when Riley takes a toy from her and there is a lot of screaming going on at the Rush House. It's usually Riley doing most of the screaming and Mommy right behind that. My gosh it's hard to teach sharing to a toddler. I didn't know that the entire house belonged to Riley. Whatever! At least Madison isn't a push over, well, it is easy to push her over, but, you know what I mean ;)



She's getting so big, I can't believe it. She still does not sleep. She is still not completely weaned. I went two days without feeding her and this morning, I fed her from me because I was in so much discomfort. With Riley, the day she stopped breast feeding was the day I dried up. Not the case with Madison. Any tips on getting dry? I've heard of drinking sage tea and cabbage leafs but I'm not ready to make a salad out of my boobs. Anyway, she refuses to take a sippy cup while Tim or I hold her but she'll take it alone in her crib. It's like she doesn't want us to know that she's giving in. She doesn't drink a lot of it so I'm thinking it won't last very long and she won't be drinking anything before going to bed, which means milk, milk, milk with meals and in between.


That's the newest on Madi, here's a few pics:


Thursday, August 20, 2009

That's Beachy



Tim's Mom and her sister Terri and Terri's two kids stayed with us this weekend on their way to Arizona. We had some fun, Joy wanted to take Terri to Tai Pan so we went there after a nice lunch at Mimi's. The girls were so good all day. On Sunday, Terri's daughter Tonya had her heart set on going down to the beach. It wasn't an all day affair, we spent about an hour down there just to enjoy the weather and Tim enjoyed some body surfing. I won't mention on here how many times he ate it, that would just be mean. The last time we went to the beach, Riley couldn't get enough of the water. This time however, this is what she did...

She didn't move from this spot when we put her down, and putting her down took a lot of coaxing. She was afraid of the sand, the water, all of it. Oh well, her sis had a GREAT time. Madison was practically running into the water and giggling with excitement every time a wave would crash on her. These are baby waves people, don't worry. It really was pretty cute to watch her squeal with delight. I think if she knew how to swim she would have been body surfing with Daddy.








Right before we left, I swore up and down that I saw a dolphin out in the water. Then, I thought I saw it again, and again. Well, I was right. There must have been a school of like 100 dolphins out there, it was awesome. They were really close too. Click on the pic to see them better.



Riley enjoyed a little Surf's Up in the car on the way there and on the way back. The headphones were a wee too big so Mommy had a quick fix for that.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Wounded

Yesterday, Riley and I took a tumble down the stairs. How? Do you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Normally, when I straighten our downstairs area, I start a small pile of stuff to bring upstairs on the stairs. On this particular day, that included some papers and bills. Well, I had yet to bring my pile upstairs when Riley decided she wanted to go downstairs to eat some goldfish. She asked me to carry her so I did, normally she asks me to run down the stairs because she bounces up and down and she thinks it's the greatest. Well, we ran down half way and I stopped mid landing because I then realized that Riley had turned my bills from my neat little pile into a huge catastrophe of paperwork on the stairs. So ever so carefully, I was making my way downstairs when I slipped on a piece of paper that I just didn't see. Well, my feet went right out from under me and Riley and I crashed down. I heard what I thought was her head hitting the wall, but I don't know if it was hers or mine because of the enormous pain that instantly shot through my back.. We were the only ones home so through my pain and Riley's screaming, which woke up the babe, I finally got her to the LR sofa. I thought that the fall just scared her and maybe her head hurt but she was grabbing at her ankle. Which I thought, great, I broke it. I broke my little girls ankle.

Well, it does not appear to be broken but I think she may have twisted it pretty good. It hurt her yesterday off and on so I gave her some Tylenol and wrapped her ankle up pretty good. I guess through multiple sprains myself from volleyball, I'm a pretty good ankle taper. Today she still won't walk on it, but she's been crawling around and has been pretty rough with it. It's a tad swollen but not black or blue or anything like that and she can wiggle her toes. I will be keeping a close watch on her these next couple of days, but I really don't think it's broken. It has not been wrapped all day but she's still some what careful of it. My poor baby, I hate when they get hurt.

As for me, well, my back was awful yesterday. I have an ongoing back injury that happened in college playing volleyball that still gives me fits to this day, it's kind of like an ongoing pain. Well, I was worried that I reinjured that but I think I mostly bruised my tail bone and banged up my right side. It's hard now that I have to carry around two kids instead of one and it's the picking up and putting down that really sucks.

On a happier note, Riley went poo poo in the potty today and is very proud of herself!! Yay, for Riley!!

We went over to Granma's house yesterday for a little Gwamom TLC. She ate some mac and cheese and got to soak her foot in the hot tub for a while.



Thursday, August 13, 2009

Adding to Our Family

We are very happy to announce that we are adding six new members to the Rush family. Yes, that's right, I've had sextuplets. I should say that I'm happy, Tim, not so much. My poor Tim works so hard and almost every Saturday, conveniently, when the dump is open. We have this little side yard type thing that is gated that we usually keep our trash cans in. Well, we did some clean up of the yard and put it in bags and silly me had to take the trash out one day and decided to put our yard waste in our can, well, it went everywhere and we have yet had the time to clean it up. Also back in our little area are just some boxes that need to be cut down and taken to the dump with some other cardboard and big stuff. Well, we've been keeping our trash cans out of our side yard and just close by. Apparently, I don't know if this little lady actually birthed her babies back here or not, but two days ago, she emerged with five cute little balls of fluff. Mama is hurt and limping, I think she broke her leg so I'm trying to become friends so that I can help her and get her leg fixed. She's very skiddish and will not come near me but she's becoming less and less afraid. I feed her everyday and I've given her a little towel to lay on with her babies to feed them, it has actually been a big hit with the kitty family. So, I'm hoping that she will actually start to let me near her so that I can fix her and you know, steal her babies. I'd like to keep two babies and the Mama and give the others to my Mom and brother. Tim informed me that we cannot keep them all, I don't know why not. I guess he doesn't want me to be known as the Cat Lady or something.

Yesterday, I saw Mama cat in the morning and did not see her for the rest of the day. I was afraid she abandoned her babies and I was going to have to nurse them. I'm lactating so that wouldn't be a problem, hahaha, just kidding, I'm not a sicko. But I was so worried that I was going to be up all night with five little kittens and mini bottles, and kitty formula, oh yeah, and with my own baby. Luckily when we got back from my Mom's, Mama cat was hanging out on the fence. Phew, because I still had to clean my house to get ready for company this weekend, and bake some cakes. I don't have time to nurse what look like four week old kittens? If anyone has had kittens before, I'd love to know how old you think these little cuties are. It's been at least five years since I've had kittens so I can't remember. I took these pictures from our living room window through the shutters.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Raisins?

How long is the longest that you've ever sat in the hot tub? For me, maybe an hour tops? Well, Tim and I have been keeping our bedroom window open at night because the breeze has been nice and cool, it's perfect. Last night, however, we went to bed around 11:00, our peaceful quiet night was interrupted by, not babies crying, but neighbors hot tubbing it. ALL NIGHT LONG. Seriously, we could hear like laughing every once and a while when we drifted off to sleep and then the baby woke up around 2:00 to eat. So I fed the baby and Tim was shocked that these people were still in the hot tub. Then Tim got up to go to work very early this morning around 3:45, and they were STILL in the hot tub. Hello, it's a Tuesday night, not a Saturday night, what are these people doing? Well I thought for sure they would be getting out soon. Wrong, at 5:30 the baby woke up again to eat and so I fed her and put her back to bed, STILL in the hot tub. I mean, I'm not the type of person to sit and listen to people, it didn't really bother me, I can sleep through alarms. So I went back to bed to see if I could get a few more winks and when my alarm went off at 7:00 am this morning, guess who was STILL in the hot tub? Yep, you guessed it, the neighbors. Can you say raisins, like their entire bodies have got to look like raisins. Not just their fingers, seriously. Anyone else out there sit in the hot tub ALL NIGHT LONG? Maybe I'm missing out on something...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Potty Animal!!!

I'm so proud of my BIG girl!! Riley has done so good with the potty. Riley is the type of kid that needs just a little push. She is very, very cautious, I mean very, with everything. I remember telling my Mom that I knew as soon as Riley felt herself actually go potty without an Elmo that she'd want to go potty all the time. Well, I was right, for once. It took her about a week to learn how to hold it in and when to let it out with maybe a handful of accidents. It wasn't until yesterday that she actually went potty in the toilet the entire day. She'd even go in by herself without telling me to go pee pee. I'm so proud of her. Going poo poo has not happened yet, I think that one is a little scary. Yesterday she tried to go poo poo twice on the potty but she got scared so I asked her if she'd like and Elmo and she said, "Ohay, Elmo please."

>She is on her way. To show her how excited and happy I was for her, we took a trip to Target where I let her pick out a toy. I told her it was because she was a big girl now that goes pee pee on the potty. She was super excited. We also picked out a book for her to read while she does poo poo on the potty, she was very excited about that too. I made the day about her and how she was a big girl. She got many rewards, a BLUE icee, some goldfish, new big girl underwear to add to her collection, a poo poo book, chicken nuggets, and french fries. She had a big day yesterday and she is so proud of herself. She's growing up, my baby is a big girl now!

As for the toy that she picked, she picked a Dora tricycle. Lucky for Mommy, Daddy was actually home by 6:30 last night so he put the bike together for Riley and we went out front to try it out. Riley still has some practicing to do but she's totally into it. As we speak, Riley is in the bathroom going pee pee, I could get used to this. You think it's too early to start Madi?

The girls at the store, Riley picked out her poo poo book. Look at that nosy Madison...




Here is Riley with all of her goodies...



Vroom, vroom Daddy!!




Her bike is also a nice place to sit back and relax...



Madison enjoyed watching Riley from the grass and eating leaves...


Daddy decided that since we were outside, he'd do a little yard work and Riley joined him. On a side note, Tim is obsessed with his little tiny bit of lawn out front. For the longest time, he had is grass greener then anyone on the street and then, he got some dead patches so he needs to get on these, I think he is even embarrassed of his lawn. We like to tease him about it...

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Oh Brother...

I have no pictures to accompany this post but it's one of those that I don't want to forget. Every day maybe 14 or 15 times a day I'm scolding Riley for being mean to Madi, or stealing her toys, or you know, knocking her over ever so "lovingly". I'm constantly telling her to be nice and to tell her sister that she's sorry after she sits in "time out" for however long I feel like.

Well just now, I'm finishing up my work for the day and the girls are playing in the bonus room. Right in front of my eyes Riley rips a toy right out of Madison's hands. Riley now has to rip things from her because Madi knows that she's coming so she holds on tight! I hear a huge cry from Madison, she screams when she is mad, BTW, and Riley looks at me innocently. I yelled, "RILEY!!!!" You know in that mean mommy voice we all do so well? And she replies, "Yeah, yeah, be nice." She says nice sarcastically too. Oh brother...

Monday, August 3, 2009

I'm in a Funk

A blogging funk that is. I don't know what is wrong with me. I can't seem to get myself to blog about anything. My first problem is that I haven't been taking any pictures. My camera just gets on my nerves these days. It takes two seconds longer to shoot a picture so I never get the picture that I want. We all know that with kids, you need a quick snap and my camera doesn't seem to get that. It drives me crazy so what I do is wait until I'm over at my Mom's house and have her take pictures or I'll pick up her camera and do it myself. But that isn't working. I think I just need to read my book and get my camera working properly, you know, in my "spare" time. I'm disgusted with my recent blogging activity because seriously, there has been nothing interesting on here. I've been so busy with work and orders and babies that quite honestly, the last thing I really want to do is a new post. I'll sit and read other blogs but I've neglected mine. I've even neglected my Sugar Rush page. I have so many orders to post on there and I just don't seem to get around to it.

Plus, it's hot, and I spoke with Edison today about my bill, I thought for sure it was wrong. Well, it's not and apparently this month it will be even more than last months. Bummer. So they told me to put my air at 78 or 80 if I could handle it. What???? Are you serious??? In this heat??? Okay so all day I've tried 78, every 15 minutes or so I get to feel a drip of sweat run down my back and pools of it collect in you know, other places. I also got a refrigerator for my cakes and stuff that is sitting in our garage, that too is the culprit. What do you people keep your air at? I was keeping it at 75, 76 and that was perfect for my house, ahhh, I'm imagining those days of cool living right now. I've toyed with the idea of walking around my house in a bathing suit and a squirt bottle but that vision is just plain ugly. Ohh yes, the air just kicked on for what I imagine will be a very short five minutes or so, maybe I should go stand under a vent...

So any who, I really don't know what this post is about. I feel the need to explain why I have not been blogging. The real reasons are, aside from the camera, I'm just a busy, busy person, I don't stop. I'm watching my girls from 7 in the morning and I'm the one putting them down at 7 at night. I don't have help with the bedtime routine, lunch, breakfast, dinner, story reading, bathing, walks, Tim works a lot. And I work all day too, plus if I have an order, that night I'm working on that, and it does not matter what the order is, it's at least a three day process, unless it's a small cookie order. Plus, you know, I do have to run errands, go into the office to get work (a.k.a. bring my Mom BRC burritos and Starbucks coffees), bring the girls to my Mom's to swim, clean my house, etc, etc. Oh yeah and to top it all off, my little Madi still does not sleep at night. So I'm tired too. I'm not complaining at all, I'm just explaining myself. I mostly feel bad about this lack of posts because I know my in laws need to see pictures of the girls and they need to know what's going on in their lives. I feel guilty when I don't blog at least twice a week. So, I'm going to try to do better. I'm going to charge up my dead, gay camera and start taking stupid two second late pictures. You might only see pics of the tops of heads or the sides of faces but dang it, there will be pictures.


What have we been up too???

So glad you asked. The potty thing. Riley. Potty. Pee pee. Dukey. Big girl underwear. I took into consideration everyone's comments, to put the big girl underwear away and give it a break. But, I'm afraid I've opened up a can of worms. The worms are all over the house. Riley has been telling me that she wants to wear her big girl underwear and go potty on the toilet. Problem is, she does not always get there. She will try to get to the potty but she's still learning. She has actually gone on the potty a couple of times and is very proud of herself when she does. I think she wants to go on the potty all the time, it's still all very new to her. So I give her the option everyday and she tells me what she wants to do. I think this will be at least a month long process but I think she's getting there, and she wants to use the potty. So we will see. I'm very proud of the progress she has made though. I was totally going to just forget about it for a while but Riley has her own ideas.

We have spent a lot of time in the pool at my Mom's house and that has been fun. Riley loves the water and so does Madi. They are little fish. I need to get Riley in swimming lessons, see, I should be looking that stuff up right now instead of blogging. My Grandma has been hanging out with us a couple of days a week and the girls love that. Especially Riley, she loves her BaBa. She also stayed the night with us one night last week and that was really fun. I made her my Nordstroms salad that I do and she was in heaven! She's doing so much better too, she looks great.
We really have not been doing anything exciting but Riley is happy just to go to my Mom's to swim. She asks me everyday, "Gwamom's house? Get in the car and go to Gwamom's house?" When I tell her no, it's, "Go to the oppice? See Gwamom at the oppice? I think she has a slight obsession with my Mother...


My blog promise:
To at least post something fun at least once a week, the ultimate goal right now to post twice in one week. To have at least five pictures of side and top head views of the girls per post. To blog even if I'm sitting in a pool of my own sweat. Monthly updates of Madison do not count as a weekly post. There. We'll see if I can keep this up.
 

Me

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I'm Kristi, the wife of one very lucky and handsome husband, and mother to two beautiful little girls. I'm honest and sarcastic, funny and easy going. I love to eat and love to hate that I love butter. And wine. And did I mention butter? I'm always learning new things, happy to lend a hand, and love my life. This is a blog of my family and the day to day crazy that we call Rush Hour. I hope while you are here that you enjoy yourself and come back often!

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The Rush Family

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