Pampered Chef is AWESOME!

I baked my very first pie this week! It was a caramel apple pie, and according to the friends that ate it, it rocked! Alison even said "I think this is seriously the best apple pie I've ever had!" I got a new stoneware pie plate from my recent pampered chef party and decided to try it out and man, does it make good pies. :) And I would hope that eventually I'll also be able to give some credit to my mad pie-baking skills, but since this was my first, I'm going with kudos to the new plate.

Another thing I got from my PC party was a trifle bowl and I got to make my very first trifle this week also! I made a brownie-espresso thing, and while it didn't look as appetizing as I'd hoped, everyone ate it just the same. I think it would be safe to say that my trifle making skills leave a little to be desired--we'll just leave it at that.

Another awesome thing I got that got use this week is a pineapple slicer. My kids all love fresh pineapple, but man, what a chore to have to cut it up. Messy, and sticky, and time consuming.... well not anymore! This baby looks and works like one of those apple slicer deals that goes over the pineapple and slices it and cores it, but unlike the apple one, it peels it too. It's awesome.

Anyways, I'm pretty certain that with how much I love pampered chef I could sell the stuff, but I don't like direct sales, I'm not a huge fan of home parties (though to get free pampered chef I'll do just about anything) and I'd always feel like I was annoying people by asking them to host parties for me. My consultant must be really good at selling, because I'm never annoyed when she asks me. Maybe she's just generally less annoying than I am. Who knows?

Kids say the darnedest things!

So, Charlie seems to have an odd obsession with skeletons these days. Not sure where it came from, but EVERY SINGLE DAY, multiple times a day for the past 2 weeks, she asks both Phil and I to "play skeletons." At first, I thought maybe she just didn't know what a skeleton was, but she was able to identify one in a picture! Then, we asked her if we HAD any skeletons and where they were, thinking that maybe she was thinking of something we had that reminded her of a skeleton. She said "Yep, we have some, we keep them in the closet!" We looked, but didn't find any. Oh dear though.... it does something to you when your 3 year old asks to play with the skeletons in your closet! That was last week.

This week, she was outside in the garage and asked us to play with skeletons again! Even after we showed her there were none in the closet! This time we asked her to SHOW us where the skeleton was, after she insisted again that we did have one. She looked at me with a frustrated look, as if I should just know where we keep the skeletons, and said "MOM! It's in the freezer! Just get one out of the freezer!" And she walked over to the deep freeze and pointed. We were laughing SO hard we could hardly answer her! But, I lifted her up and opened the freezer and showed her that there was nothing but food in there. Then she said that maybe it moved to the freezer in the top of the fridge in the garage, but we checked there too, and alas, no skeletons. I have NO idea where she got this! I only wish I knew where she'd seen one, or that I could find whatever it is that she really wants to play with, but no luck so far. I'm sure with halloween coming, she'll see a few around, but hopefully that will end this obsession! All I need is for her to go tell some nursery worker at church that we keep skeletons in our freezer.... that'll be the day!!!! Not even sure how to respond to that-- "Kids say the darndest things!"

No More Diapers For Ducky

Want a great read for your toddler? No More Diapers for Ducky is such a cute book! We're potty training Mason this week. Kind of makes for a boring (and stressful) holiday weekend, but I took advantage of the long weekend over Labor day to get a jumpstart while Dad was home to help. It's been a pain in the butt, but when is it ever easy? The good news is that I think he's ready. Today marks the beginning of day #5, and he's only peed on the floor once today! AND, he's actually told me 3 times today that he had to go potty and headed straight for his potty chair to get the job done. He put a matchbox car in the potty after he went, but such is life. Matchbox cars are easier to clean off than upholstery, which we'd have had to clean if he put his pee where his matchbox cars usually go. Hooray for potty-training! Maybe we can use the $40 we won't be spending on diapers this month for a date--after this weekend, we deserve one!