Stupid smartphone

I had a post planned. It involved a couple of short videos that I had taken with my phone. But I can't get them off of my phone. My phone isn't being very smart right now.
So anyway. Here is what's for dinner tonight: Tequilla Lime Chicken. Click to check out the post from a while back! And if you want the recipe, just ask.

Weekend Review

We didn't do much this weekend. But that's fine. I let Dylan watch a couple of movies on Saturday morning to keep the kids from getting on each other's nerves. While he watched movies, I sat in the kitchen and wrote recipes down on recipe cards for my recipe box. I have a habit of printing recipes and then shoving the whole paper into the cabinet. So I got caught up on some of those. I still didn't get it all done. Of course Ethan stayed in the kitchen with me. That was pretty much our Saturday.
Sunday we went up to see what Ryan was doing that morning. We didn't stay out long. So here are some pictures from Sunday.

There wasn't much else going on so like I said, we just came home. It is a very warm day here. Extremely windy too. It has been the last couple of days. We don't have plans for the week I don't believe.

I hope everyone has a nice week!

Cool things to tell you about

First, let me say that I am doing this because I want to. I was not asked to do this post. I am just happy with these things and wanted to tell you about them!
I think that I mentioned in a post not long ago that I have started some Christmas shopping. Well a while back I came across this first thing while on another blog. Here is the website called Calypso Studios. When I saw these bracelets I thought they would be a nice gift for my cousins' little girls. There are 3 of them that are old enough to wear nice things like this. So I finally got around to ordering them. I bought them the Glass Bead Wrap bracelets.

You can see I got pink, light blue and red. Now, a note about the red. I wanted a purple bracelet. On their website they have a color called "merlot" that looks like a darker purple. That's what I wanted. Turns out that "merlot" is red. Even on the tag it does say merlot, so I know that they didn't give me the wrong thing. The colors were just off on that picture on their site. But to me, it was no big deal, so I didn't send it back or email them, because honestly, its fine with me. But if you go to their site and have a question, just fill out their "contact us" form and ask!! That's really why I am telling you about them. They have great customer service. I emailed them asking them if these bracelets would work for kids too. The very same day I got an email back! No waiting! And then once my order came, I also got a hand written "thank you" note on the bottom of my receipt. How cool is that?

Good customer service is hard to come by these days. So yeah, I was a little happy with my experience. Check them out if you get a chance. Calypso Studios

About a week ago I won a giveaway on another blog. It was for this:

A cute camera necklace. I love it! So I wanted to tell you about it and point you in the direction of where it came from. A lovely lady named Ashley has a shop online where you can buy this necklace as well as others and even earrings! Her shop is called After Nine to Five. Click to check it out!

Like I said, these people have no idea that I am posting this. I just wanted to tell you about them, because I like them!

Uneventful. But I could use advice...

I haven't had much to say this week. Ethan still has a cold. The snot just keeps on flowing. How Dylan hasn't had it I will never know. I am just glad that it is only 1 kid though. Only this one kid is whiny enough for 2...or 3. Yesterday was my day to be with Dylan in his class. I left a crying Ethan with Ryan's mom. I always dread that part. The kid needs to learn that it is ok to be unattached from his mother. And that she will come back...eventually! So things went ok in class. It seemed to be a bit chaotic through the day. All of the kids seemed extra hyper and wild. Must have been something in the air. There was a moment during free play when Dylan spazzed out. Just knocked over a container of stuff for no reason and it certainly was NOT an accident. After that incident, one of the teachers told me its been happening from time to time. That during free play he will do something that he knows he shouldn't, but does it anyway. She said that during structured activities he is fine, but during free play it can happen.
He does this here at home. Has for quite sometime. Like a year or two. I just never have been able to figure out how to stop it. Here, he spazzes out when he thinks I'm not watching him or cant see him. He will knock things over, push Ethan, or even kick the dog. He just plain acts out. I catch him every time, but I don't know how to stop it. And now that it is starting at school, I am really at a loss. I feel awful, or feel like I am failing as a parent. I don't know how to make him stop doing things like that when he thinks he can get away with it. He never does get away with it. Here or at school. Does anyone have any ideas???

I will just leave the post at that. If you have some advice, email it or leave a comment. I could use any help you can offer.

Weekend Review

Ethan has a cold. I don't remember exactly when it showed up, but it did. He's been awfully moody, and very snotty. He has a shorter fuse than normal. Its been fun...can you pick up on my sarcasm? Saturday morning, I had mom come over and she went with me and the boys to the city for some errands. We got there early and managed to beat the Saturday crowd. I was worried about how busy things would be, and that's why I didn't want to take both boys alone. So we did our errands, and stopped for lunch before heading home. Ethan didn't eat much, and really didn't want to sit still for the meal. But we managed. It was far from a nice relaxing lunch, but honestly, its expected with Ethan. Afterwards, we dropped Dylan off to spend the day with Ryan and papaw in the fields.
I kept the boys up later that night to prepare for the time change. I had hoped that by keeping them up later, they would then sleep later and not be up so dang early. Ethan blew my plan out of the water. That kid was awake at 5:30 in the morning on Sunday! He totally robbed me of my extra hour! It made for such a long day. He had the cold, then he was tired because he was up so stinking early. So he wasn't in the best of moods. Sunday we did nothing. Nothing at all which was fine.
I don't think people understand how difficult Ethan can be. Maybe difficult is the wrong word. Challenging? Maybe that's better. He whines, and cries quite a bit throughout the day. And really for no reason at all. At least no reason to me or even to Dylan. There are days that I will be busy trying to do things around here, and apparently I am not paying enough attention to him, even though he is always right there, that he will decide enough is enough and just follow me and cry. He hates when I leave him. Whoever gets stuck with him, has to listen to him scream. Only he decides when he is done screaming too. If you do something wrong while he is eating...look out. He will get mad, scream, toss things out of his way and then he will either continue to scream or he will whine until you remove him from the table. He has flipped out on us a few times while eating. He is the way he is and no one is going to change that.
Ok, I'm done with that I guess. I wanted to point out an article that I ran across this morning online. I guess it is from the New York Times. It is called Sleep Medication:Mother's New Little Helper. If you click the title, it will take you to the article so you can read it. It talks about how more and more, Moms are seeking the help of medicines to go to sleep at night. First it starts talking about how Moms have a hard time shutting down their thoughts at night. It quotes a few women basically saying that they can't fall asleep because they can't stop thinking about this or that. Or that they wake up at 3am and can't fall back asleep because they are just thinking.
I know that I have talked about that before. It happens to me all of the time. I have tried an over the counter sleep aid too. Tylenol makes a pill called Simply Sleep that I have tried. For me it didn't really work. I hear all of the time how addicting they can be and that has been what has kept me from trying other brands. I don't want to get into that habit. Anyway, it wanted to mention it, because I could totally relate to it. So if you get a chance, go read it. It is a 2 page article, so make sure you read both. Here is the link again (just making it easy for you): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/fashion/mothers-and-sleep-medication.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=fb-share

Ciabatta Bread

I have been wanting to make a good crusty bread. I have a french bread recipe that I tend to use when I want a crusty bread. But I wanted to try something different. So I went looking for a Ciabatta Bread. So I found this one. This specific one is written for the bread machine dough cycle. But is easily done without the bread machine. I suggest you go to the website though if you really do want to try it and read some of the reviews for a few suggestions and help.
Here is the recipe though:
1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon white sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 1/4 cups bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Put your ingredients into the bread machine in the order that your machine manufacturer suggests. Then select the "dough" cycle.

The dough will be kind of sticky and wet once the dough cycle is done but resist the temptation to add more flour. Place dough on a lightly floured board, cover with a large bowl, and let rest for 15 minutes.

Lightly flour or use parchment lined baking sheets. Divide the dough into 2 pieces, and form each into a 3x14 inch oval. Place loaves on the sheets, and dimple surface. Cover, and let rise in a draft free place for around 45 minutes.   

After rising, preheat oven to 425.

Place in the preheated oven and bake on the middle oven rack for 25 to 30 minutes.

While they are baking, lightly spray the loaves with water every 5 or 10 minutes to create a crispy crust.

I waited about 10 minutes before I sprayed the loaves the first time.

Here is the dough right before resting. I used a flour dusted rubber spatula to get the dough out of the machine's bread pan. Like the recipe says, it is sticky. So I poured it out and then folded on itself to get it all on the board to rest.

Before the rise:

After the rise:

All done!

Now here are shots of the inside of the bread. Light and Airy!

Again, go HERE to view the recipe and read some reviews for extra tips.

Friday Foto Day

Yesterday we headed outside to find "Fall" items for Dylan to collect and take into school. I guess they are going to learn about fall and then make a wreath out of all of the things that the kids bring in. So I handed Dylan a bag and out we went. Pine cones, pine needles and leaves.

And while we were out I snapped a few extra photos. I am going to link up with some other blogs like I usually do.