Isn't it amazing...

...how many feathers from a ten-year-old down comforter can fit in one's dryer filter? I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture of the several-birds-worth of goose down that was mashed tightly into the lint filter compartment. Once I took the screen out, though, it was history. And now the fine goose down is all over my laundry room (and hallway, and family room, and kitchen).

Anyone have a brilliant way to contain feathers once they're on the loose?

Heard on the Street...

Well, not really on the street, but in and around our house...

Fisher, playing an age-old childhood game, declares "Case stole the cookies from the cookie jar!" Case, wide eyed and wondering how Fisher could possibly have known, replies "No I didn't, I only took one!"

Emma asked me in the car the other day if the horizon is on top of our house. I tried to explain that the horizon is something we see where the sky meets the land, and that we couldn't really see the horizon from where we were because all the houses were in the way. Thoughtfully she took this all in and then asks, "Mom, can you drive me to the horizon someday?"

We borrowed a Go Diego Go! video from the library earlier this week, and Case has really fallen in love with it. He'll sit and watch it and literally yell back to Diego (for those of you not familiar with the show, Diego often asks his viewers for help rescuing animals by shouting in Spanish, jumping up and down, and so forth). Jarad put Diego on for the twins' quiet time the other day. A few minutes later he heard Case yelling "Sube! (pause) I already said it! (pause) I ALREADY SAID IT!!!!" Apparently Case was becoming impatient with that idiot Diego who couldn't hear that he had already yelled "Sube" to the baby jaguar.

Oh my fenders...

Kung Fu Panda is the movie of choice this week among my chitlins. Case has been walking around the last couple of days saying "Oh my fenders," a misquote of the chubby panda in the movie who is bemoaning his injured private parts when he says "Oh my tenders."

When the movie first came out Emma would walk around the house exclaiming "Oh my tenders!" at any little bump, regardless of where it was on her body. Apparently "all the kids" at school were saying this, and she had no idea what it meant, other than "ouch." I explained, in the most "tender" way I could, what she was saying and she was horrified. Problem solved. Phrase forgotten.

Until a couple of weeks ago. I was reading the kids the hot lunch menu for the week and one day it featured "Chicken Tenders." It was all I could do not to fall on the floor laughing at the expression on Emma's face when she said "Mom! Are they really...???!!!???" I just about had a vegetarian on my hands that day.

Confessions of a Chocoholic

I was jonesin' for something sweet yesterday and started rooting around the kitchen to see what I had on hand to whip up a yummy something-or-other. Turns out, I had everything on hand to make "Magic Cookie Bars" or "Seven Layer Cookies" as they are sometimes called. Everything except the butterscotch chips, which is just fine with me because I happen to think they detract from the chocolaty taste of an otherwise perfectly delish cookie.

Do you know the cookie I'm talking about? Crushed up graham crackers & melted butter as the crust, layered chocolate and butterscotch chips, coconut and nuts, all drizzled with sweetened condensed milk? I love these things, and haven't made them in a very very very long time, and have never really thought they needed improving (other than the sometimes too-sweetness of the butterscotch chips).

But what I was REALLY jonesin' for was something combining my favorite tastes of chocolate and peanut butter. How could I add a little PB into this, without having any PB chips on hand (again, I don't really like the waxiness of PB chips, so this wouldn't have totally solved my conundrum)?

Friends, I have come up with the perfect improvement to this tiny delight. Melted peanut butter in the crust. I used about 1/4 cup of butter and a couple of big dollops of peanut butter (at least another 1/4 cup), melted them together and used this mixture to fuse together the graham cracker crumbs for the crust.

O. M. G(oodness).

I cannot stop eating them. We had them for dessert last night. Well, I had them and I allowed each child and Jarad a tiny bit too. I sent one in Emma's lunch today and stuck the pan in the fridge so I wouldn't piece on them all day. Have I told you how good they are chilled???????

I just cut the rest of the pan and put them in the outside freezer. Perhaps I'll be able to stay away now that they aren't sitting in my high-traffic areas. Yes, the fridge is a high-traffic area, especially when you're home all day with two three-year-olds, thank you very much.

So if you're in the neighborhood and need a chocolate fix, please do stop by. You would me doing me a favor if you took a couple of these off my hands (or should I say off my thighs?).

Win something cool from me!

I found this on my friend Wendy's blog, and I'm seriously hoping that what she makes me involves cinnamon, bread and cream cheese frosting...

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make (but I will do all I can to make it totally un-not-likeable!)
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year. That gives me a good nine-ish months to get it done.
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange (but don't expect my gift to be too strange because I am not good at coming up with strange things :).

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repeat this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!* Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!!

**What you get from me, might not be so awesome, but it will be from me, so that's a plus, right?

Rookie Mistake

You'd think that as a mom of four kids I'd have known better.

Today I'd just gotten out of the shower (yes, it was high noon, but cut me some slack, I'd just come home from the gym) and I hear Tess shouting into my room from the hallway "Mom can we go out back?" This from a kid who whines every time I say it's time to go out back to play. "Sure, you can go out back!" I holler back, smiling smugly and thinking that it's finally gotten through to her that outside is a great place to be.

A couple of minutes later I hear the twins playing outside my bedroom window, cute little voices, clearly having fun! I open my blinds to take a fly-on-the-wall peek, and lo and behold, there is Case's bare bum climbing up onto the trampoline. Tess is already on the trampoline, also naked from the waist down.

Apparently when she asked "can we GO out back" she was referring to a different kind of GO. I hurried out to make them presentable once more to find a roll of toilet paper strewn across the bushes beneath my bedroom window. Both kids had pooped in the bushes. Never say yes to something unless you know what you're agreeing to.

Now, if you stopped by yesterday to see my ponderings about green poop, you won't be surprised to hear that I had to have Case show me precisely where he had left his treasure since his poop remains same color as the rosemary bushes.

I'm starting to understand that Web site's fixation with #2.

What makes a kid's poop bright green?

Or maybe a little more aquamarine...

I was sorely tempted to take a picture because I have never before encountered anything quite like Case's little deposit earlier today. But, believe it or not, I have my limits on what I will post here.

UPDATE: Of course I had to google green poop and found this Web site. http://www.poopreport.com/ Um, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that this site exists. Really? People, how much time do we have on our hands?! And what would Dr. Phil say about this poo fixation? What's your payoff? How's that workin' for ya?