Yummy pound cake and a rainbow!

Wanna make a really yummy and very easy pound cake? Well, here's my mom's (and I think, Aunt Sandra's) recipe for a nice one that we like to make in a bundt pan. It's not too sweet and can be eaten alone or with fresh berries and/or whipped cream (try the new Cool-Whip in a can--very tasty and convenient). You sprinkle sugar into the pan before you bake it and after it's cooled, it makes the most delicious, sugary crust on the outside!

Ingredients:
1 package of Duncan Hines yellow butter cake mix
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
8 ounces sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup sugar

Directions:
Mix first five ingredients together. Spray bundt pan with Pam. Pour 3/4 cup sugar into pan and spread around. Pour mix into pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn onto a cooling rack.

Here's a picture of the one I just made:


We had Ron, Arlene, Heidi and Jason over for a cook-out lunch today and managed to actually grill out in between rain showers. Well, after everyone left, Kevin and I cleaned out the garage while Danny played outside and Ben napped. Then the rain hit again and we came inside. Look at the pretty rainbow that appeared:

It was very faint, but it was a double rainbow. See the faint one up above the bright one?


We had a great day today!

Odd faces and a few videos

Fish face:



Silly face:


And now, for some of Ben's words...try to ignore the tv blaring in the background.

Ball:




Yucky:

Monster House?

Things went haywire around here today. It has been one of the more disgusting days of my life. Stop reading now if you're eating something. I'll try to tone it down a bit.

First, Ben had some kind of strange tummy ache that resulted in 20 minutes of extreme discomfort followed by a really awful diaper and then happiness and normalcy for the rest of the day.

Then, the house attacked us...

Well, really just the kitchen sink. I was cleaning things out of the refrigerator that really should have been taken to a hazardous waste dump, but instead, I just dumped them down the garbage disposal. As I was contentedly grinding up some petrified barbecued ribs and some beans that were once green but upon discovery in the back of the fridge had turned a putrid shade of gray, I noticed water leaking out from under the cabinet door. I whipped open the door and...water everywhere along with shredded up ribs and beans.

This was one of the more disgusting things I have ever seen in my life. A clog had formed and caused the disposal to pull itself out of one of the pipes, spraying shredded pork and pulverized gray beans everywhere. What to do?

I put Ben in the play yard, that sadly, is blocking him from pulling all of our DVDs out of their shelf. Yeah, you guessed it...from his position in the play yard, he could reach all the DVDs and...they are now everywhere. I took everything out from under the sink and put it in the bath tub to be cleaned later (Wal-Mart bags--just threw them away, dishwasher detergent, garbage bags, flyswatter, dustpan, oven cleaner, SOS pads). Then, I set to work cleaning the actual cabinet. It is spotless now, but wow...I had to go through an entire container of Mr. Clean wipes. Love those BTW much more than Clorox wipes. Pulled out the swiffer and mopped the floor.

What a mess. Kevin came home and fixed the clog and the pipes and everything else under there that I don't want to touch ever again. In doing so, he needed to pour some filthy water out of the pipes he was clearing out. We argued for a few minutes about where he should pour the water...not in one of my good bowls, not into a towel (my suggestion because I was just going to throw those towels away, anyhow, but he was against that for some reason)...finally he decided to pour them into the trash bag which I was totally against because I feared a leak later.

Cue the garbage bag springing a leak all over my newly-mopped floor and me ruining another towel.

I ripped the DVD shelf off the wall because I was so disgusted with it after Ben pulled all the movies out. I mean, I was having to block it off with a play yard so he couldn't get to it. Enough.

Back to normal now.

Ever been to Chestnut Ridge Park?

We had a great time at the park today with some of our friends. Just look:







Fun was had by all...wading, digging, making sand soup, looking at salamanders. Only bad part was trying to get both boys cleaned up, dried and into the car at the end. But even that wasn't really that difficult.

Ahh...summer time...fun!

Why do I do this to myself?

I have been trying so hard to lose weight.
Why did I eat seven pieces of chocolate today?
And also a s'more?
And a handful of M&Ms?

I need help.
Anyone have the phone number for Chocolate Eaters Annonymous?

"Hello...my name is Jennifer and I am a chocoholic."

Is Ben a monkey?

Benjamin is not as far removed from the monkeys, evolutionarily, as the rest of us, it seems. He. will. climb. anything. It's really bad. Danny was a climber, but nothing like this. Ben has already had three black eyes, more bruises than can be counted (including a big one on his cheek) and several scrapes that are all the result of falling off of something high.

He can scale the couch. He has figured out how to pull the dining room chairs out from the table so he can get up on them. Occasionally, he tries to get up on the table. To avoid this, I have now tied the legs of the chairs to the table legs with Wal-Mart bags, so that he cannot pull the chairs out. He likes to stand (with no hands) on top of the dog food bin. He and Danny like to climb from the loveseat to the recliner onto the end table, flop onto the couch, then slide off only to run over and do it all again...endlessly...giggling the whole time. Ben desperately wants to figure out how to climb up onto our bar stools...the other day, I saw him trying to move toy buckets over there so he could use them as step stools to get onto a bar stool. He's nothing if not resourceful.

In addition to climbing, he also loves to get up on his tiptoes to pull random things out of drawers that don't have latches on them yet or to pull things off of the kitchen counters. I have not put a latch on the silverware drawer yet...didn't know he could reach inside it until last week when he (I swear to God) had a butcher knife in his hand when I looked over. BABY PSYCHO! Just now, Kevin had to come running because he had opened another drawer and had a long ribbon of postage stamps strung out.

I cannot leave the room for more than 10 seconds at a time. I cannot turn my back on him for more than 20 seconds at a time. I am exhausted from stalking him. Laundry is piled up. Dishes are getting washed on an as-needed basis.

This week he has had a little cold, plus he is getting THREE teeth all at once. He is snotty. He is mucus-ey. He is coughy. He is whiney. He is clingy. He sleeps with us every night and coughs directly in my face because he wants to sleep on my pillow, pressed up against me as tightly as possible.

Ben is under the impression that he needs to do everything better than Danny did at that age. Danny climbed a little bit...Ben's an all out mountain climber. Danny didn't sleep through the night for a long time...Ben refuses to sleep, especially alone...going on 15 months here. Danny spit up a few times as a baby...Ben spit up a few times an hour for nine months and still occasionally hurls for no apparent reason.

I love both of my boys with every bit of my heart...but they are both giving us a run for our money. Why is this so hard? Is it just a boy thing? Are girls easier babies? Is there any way I can get through this without losing my mind?