Pampered Chef

I love Pampered Chef. I have most of the tools they offer. I buy them with the intention of using them and making new recipes. It probably works for about a week, then I go back to the same old stuff. I do think they make great tools though. My favorite is the can opener. I would die without my can opener. I'd almost bet that is also the safest tool they make. You can open cans and NOT get cut. You can run your fingers along the edge of the can and the lid when you are done and nothing. Safe as anything.

The food slicer (or, what we call the finger slicer) is a whole different ballgame. I have the first version, the finger slicer version. I should probably get the newest one on the market. It would probably save a few fingertips in the future.

I bought our "finger slicer" back when we lived in Memphis. I remember it vividly. I can't remember who sold it to me; however. Anyway, I remember when it was brand new and how SHARP it was and how awesome we thought it was. Scott and I were making supper and he was using the "finger slicer" to slice potatoes. He was slicing away and all of a sudden, yelled some profanity. He sliced the end of his finger clean off! No kidding! It was so sharp, that there wasn't even any blood. It took the tip of his finger right off. We looked all over for his fingertip and couldn't find it anywhere. I guess we must have figured that it went down the drain in the sink or something? Since there was no blood and we couldn't find the tip of Scott's finger, we went ahead and finished making our side dish of potatoes, which we called "Tony Potatoes" because of the seasoning we used on it. The next day, when Scott was at work, he was in the lunchroom eating with Steve Adair, I believe. I think Steve almost puked his entire lunch up when Scott yelled out, "Hey, there's my finger!" and proceeded to show everyone his fingertip, which had been cooked in the potatoes. Nice...........I know.

I would bet, that ALMOST EVERY SINGLE TIME I use the "finger slicer", I get injured. You would think I would get rid of the stupid thing, but it works so well at slicing potatoes (and fingers!). Tonight I made scalloped potatoes and ham for supper. Yes, I'm sure you know right where this is headed. You'll be happy to know there were no body parts in our supper tonight; however, I sliced my damn finger! Actually, my thumb. It hurt like hell. It's obviously not as sharp as it used to be. When I yelled, the kids came running to see what happened. "It's okay guys! I just sliced my finger, that's all!" Now, you are probably wondering why Pampered Chef would sell such a dangerous piece of equipment? Believe it or not, it comes with a safety guard. Do you think we use it? NO! And why, you ask? I guess it's just plain stupidity. You have to slice the potato in half first, then stick it into the guard and it just makes it awkward to use and takes more time. My plan, typically, is to slice the potato using my hand, without the guard, until it gets small enough that I can't do it safely anymore, without cutting myself, then I stick the potato in the guard and finish. I seriously had just said to myself, in my head, that I should probably get the safety guard, then it happened. I sliced my thumb. AARGH! I'm thinking that maybe we should take up a donation so we can buy the newest version of the "finger slicer"? What do you think?

End of the month

Do you remember what was supposed to happen at the end of the month? If you guessed Emma getting her ears pierced, you were right. I'm hoping she forgets about it! Yeah, right! She asked me the other day how many more days until May was over. When I told her about 35 she looked at me funny. She, of course, was talking about April, not May. She has been trying very hard at school to hold her pencil correctly and I suppose I am going to have to get a report from her teacher to find out if she is still trying and doing it before I go through with this plan. I really didn't think she would do it. I should have known better; however, I am very glad that she is trying to hold her pencil right. I suppose she deserves to get her ears pierced if she can correct that bad habit.

Last night Scott brought home Gage's baseball schedule. I think we are going to be QUITE busy with baseball this summer. He has 2, sometimes 3, games each week. I got everything written down on the calendar and there are a few dates that Gage and Emma have baseball games on the same night at the same time, but if Scott is in town, it shouldn't be a problem. Scott said Gage did pretty well hitting the ball at practice last night and he seems to be pretty excited. Baseball seems to be the only sport, so far, that he says he likes. I enjoy baseball, so I'm good with that.

I can't believe this school year is coming to an end. It went by really fast. The summer is going to go faster and we have so much going on it's going to be crazy. I guess I need something to keep me off of Facebook! :-)

Tuesday practice

It was chilly out today, especially with the darn wind blowing like it is. I hate this in-between stuff. I am an "all-or-none" kind of person and I don't like this weather. If it's going to be cold, then I like COLD! Well, I guess I can't really turn that around, because I don't like it HOT. I'll take the cold, I guess.

The kids were relatively easy to deal with this morning prior to school. Gage wanted to wear his Heelys, but they aren't allowed in school. I told him he could wear them without the wheels at school; however. He couldn't find the plugs to plug the hole when the wheel is out and tried blaming that on Emma or me. He finally found them in the basement, right where he left them. :-) He rolled to school and then I had him pop the wheels out and plug the holes and I took them with me so he couldn't lose them, or get in trouble with them. I then proceeded downstairs to the library to put some books away. There are tons of new books in the library and they had me salivating. We are currently reading the Gary Paulsen "The Hatchet" series. It is really good. We have read "The Hatchet" and are almost done with "The River". Gage loves it when I'm reading books to him that I really get in to because I say, "Just one more chapter" and then can't stop at the end of that chapter and we keep going on until I just have to make myself stop. Tonight while I was sitting in the car while Emma had soccer practice, I cheated and read through the end of the book on my own. I knew he would be home late as he had his first baseball practice, which Scott took him to, and we wouldn't get a chance to read it. Now I can't wait to get started on "Brian's Winter". I'm not sure if we can get through the whole series before school lets out for the summer though.

Scott is home from trapping ducks. I was glad to have his help tonight. Gage's baseball practice was at 6:30 tonight at Rita Murphy Elementary baseball field and Emma's soccer was at 6:30 at Grimsrud Elementary. They are on opposite sides of town and it would have been difficult to do by myself.

I'm quite tired, so I think I will call it good.

Last show-and-tell day for Gage

Man, I HATE it when Gage has show-and-tell at school. Each kids gets to do show-and-tell about once a month, one kid assigned to each school day. Today was Gage's day. I thought if it just as I put them to bed last night, but I didn't want to say anything then, because I knew he would never go to sleep. He has such an AWFUL time figuring out what to take. This morning, at about 8am, he said he wanted to take Sid, the salamander. Good Lord, it was almost time to leave for school and there was no way I could arrange for that to happen. I thought they weren't supposed to take animals to school for show-and-tell, but he told me his friend Alexandra has taken her tadpoles and someone else had a hamster. I told him it was too cold out for Sid and he would have to figure something else out. He was ticked and whining and crying. He asked if he could take his Heelys and I told him he could, but he couldn't ride them at school. Then he didn't want that either. After he figured out that I wasn't giving in about Sid, he knew he needed to pick something else, and in a hurry, because it was almost time to leave for school. He asked if he could take some Legos and I decided what the heck! Go ahead! If you lose them, don't come home crying! He couldn't decide and was upset again because he couldn't take Sid. I then asked him if he wanted to take his MTT Star Wars Lego set. The HUGE set I built for him last fall. He said, "Really?" He was happy then. After school when I picked him up, he said that everyone was so jealous of his show-and-tell. LOL. I guess that's what he wanted. Thank goodness today was his last day for show-and-tell!

Not much happened today. I got all the laundry done AGAIN. I try to make Monday my day for laundry since there isn't anything else going on, usually.

Scott is out in the field trapping ducks and should be home tomorrow afternoon. Gage has his first baseball practice tomorrow at 6:30 and Emma has soccer at 6:30, so I need him to be here to help shuttle kids. Actually, I hope it rains, like they are forecasting, so there won't be any practice. I know we don't need the water right now, but just enough to wet the fields would be nice! :-)

Pictures as promised

I decided I better blog before I get distracted on Facebook, so here goes.

Not too much happened today. It was cold, rainy and there was also a little bit of snow. The snow wasn't too much to speak of and we're needing 1.2 inches to beat the all time snow record, so we need some of this precipitation in the forecast to be snow, so this year can be remembered in the record books.

Since there wasn't much going on today, I'm just going to post the pictures I took yesterday, as promised.


This is the flag ceremony to begin the Scout Show at the State Capitol.

Gage and Tyson making neckerchief slides. I don't think they are going to be very "functional" but I'm looking through the Bear handbook to see if it will count towards earning his bear badge.

This is how it's done! We had to then bring the neckerchief slide home and bake it in the oven to make it harden.

Gage making a Pinewood Derby car display at one of the Pack's booth. This was a neat little craft that does count as an achievement in the Bear book, so we're already on the trail towards earning the badge.

Gage getting a few instructions on how to hammer a nail without bending it. :-)

This is what I call concentration. I see there are safety goggles here that are not in use. Hmmm.

It's much easier to hammer a nail two-handed!

Emma takes a crack at the climbing wall. She didn't make it all the way to the top. It's a bit taller than the one at the zoo, so I think it was not that it was too challenging to make it to the top, but that she was a little too scared to try.

Dad and Emma taking a little break before the closing ceremonies and Pinewood Derby awards.

Emma won 1st place in the "Outlaw Division" of the Pinewood Derby races. Her "Flower Power Love Bug" cannot be beaten! It seriously didn't lose a race and this was a district wide race!

All the winning cars. :-) Gage says that Emma is NOT racing that car again next year. He was quite upset that she won the race and didn't care that it wasn't him that she beat. I'm quite sure Emma will not be retiring the Love Bug any time soon!

Gage snaps his wheel into the bottom of his new Heely's.

I told him I needed a picture of them before they got all scuffed up so I can put it in the scrapbook with his first big accident, when it happens. Notice I say "when" and not "if"!

Gage wanted Dad to help him out just a bit at first. He was outside playing around with these for a few hours yesterday afternoon and he is actually getting pretty good at it. However, he is still crashing and there were a few big "thuds" heard on the living room floor this afternoon. Gage was not very happy about the rain today as he wanted to be outside Heelying (can that even be a word?) Scott made Gage read through the instruction book on how to take care of the Heelys and it said not to use them when it's wet, as it will cause rusting, or in the dirt, which can clog up the wheel. Let me just tell you that I have Heely wheel marks all over the living room and dining room floor. He's not going to be happy when I tell him there's rain or snow forecasted for most of the week! It's going to be a fun week, I can already tell!

Busy Day

We had quite a busy day today! Emma and I started our day off with soccer. She did such a great job and scored 2 goals. I was really proud of her and excited about her aggressiveness, which you know Gage has been lacking in the sports department. I think maybe Emma is going to be the athlete in the family. She ran hard and did just what she was supposed to do. She was playing against a team that one of our Daisy Scouts is on, so she was excited to see Paige there and they had fun playing against each other. After we left the soccer field, we headed to the Capitol for the Scout Show. There were tons of things going on there, which is where we spent almost the rest of our day, it seemed. I have tons of pictures that I will post tomorrow. The kids were exhausted tonight and fell asleep relatively quick after putting them to bed. Gage used his money he's been saving to buy himself a pair of Heely's, so I've been telling people we've seen outside this evening that we now have 9-1-1 on speed dial! I'm almost sure we'll end up with a broken bone before the summer is over...............heck, maybe even before the summer begins!

Scott brought me a note (like Emma does) asking me to join him for a movie and popcorn upstairs, so I better get going. I'll post the pictures I have on here (and Facebook) tomorrow.

Bismarck Youth Baseball

Tonight we had to be at SMCHS at 5:30 for Emma's T-ball team uniform distribution and team pictures. I have to say that Bismarck Youth Baseball is the MOST organized group I have ever seen. They have things figured out, let me tell you. Two summers ago we signed Gage up for Parks and Rec T-ball and we were so disappointed. The only thing we enjoyed about the season is that Jody Jennings helped Scott coach Gage's team, which meant Emily and the kids were at most of the games and I had someone to talk to and Emma had someone to play with. That was the MOST unorganized group I have ever seen! We showed up (Scott was the coach, mind you) and there were no bases, no T's to hit off of, no helmets, no nothing. After that season, I was determined to get Gage into the Bismarck Youth Baseball program. Last year, initially Parks and Rec wasn't even doing baseball and it was all Bismarck Youth Baseball, so everyone who wanted into the program was allowed in. I was happy that we were able to get in that way. Anyway, I was super impressed with the whole organization and how smoothly everything flowed. It was no different tonight. We arrived just a little before 5:30 as the team was supposed to be ready for pictures at 5:40. When we went inside the school, they had a table set up with a guy there to register each team. Only the team coordinator was supposed to register at the table. Then when they called your team, they had all the kids line up to go into the gym, no parents allowed, to get their uniforms. I had to go make sure of how it was going to work this year, because last year they had a rental truck and all the kids, one team at a time, piled into the truck, stripped to their underwear, and they came out fully dressed in uniforms. I wanted to make sure, since Emma is the only girl on her team, that they didn't take her into the room with the boys to get dressed. I think that would completely traumatize her. They told me they had a separate room for the girls, so not to worry. Then, the parents just stood around talking and waiting. The kids then came into the other gym where they lined up for a man to take individual pictures. When he finished with each child, they then went to the area where the team photo was being taken and one of the volunteers would bring each parent a sack with their child's clothes in it. They took the picture and then we were given the schedule and sent on our way. They make sure that all of the uniforms fit, the zippers work, etc etc, so no one can come back saying they didn't get this or that, or say that the zipper was broke when they got them. Everything is in working order when it is put on each child. They get hats, jerseys, pants, belt and socks. The hat and socks are yours to keep and everything else gets turned back in at the end of the season. I think part of what makes it so organized is that they keep the parents out of the way and then do their thing. When I saw Emma in line in the gym for the individual pictures, I almost started crying. She is SO CUTE in her uniform it isn't even funny. It is mandatory that all kids have their complete uniform on for games, or they don't get to play. Hat included. Emma had her hat on with her little piggy tails sticking out the bottom and she was adorable. I wish I had my camera with me. I will be getting pictures though, so don't worry about that. Emma is playing for the Twins and Gage is playing for the Diamondbacks. I'm sure he's going to HATE wearing purple!
Tomorrow we do the same thing again for Gage.