Making Tornadoes

I ordered some books from scholastic books through Trinity's school a few weeks ago. We got the books a few days ago. One of the books I ordered was all about tornadoes and hurricanes. It came with a little plastic thing that connects two 2 liter bottles together to make tornadoes.

I read the book to the kids and then we made our own tornadoes. The kids had fun playing with it.

While the kids took turns sharing and watching the swirling tornado go I got some more stuff done to get ready for tomorrows Thanksgiving. I love cheap entertainment.

Brining a Turkey is fun to do....

So this year we are having Thanksgiving at my house for Dominick's family. Dominick bought a 21-1/2 pound turkey to feed maybe 10 adults and possibly 6 little kids. Dominick and I have been watching food network because they have been talking about different ways to cook a turkey.

Well, we decided we (and by we I mean I) were going to Brine the Turkey for a day then put a rub on the turkey for a day before we cooked it.

Today I decided it was time to brine the turkey. I prepared the water, salt, honey and a few spices in a large pot. I got the turkey all ready and placed it in the brining bag. I cooled the liquid with ice before pouring it over the turkey. This is where the fun began. I began pouring the liquid into the bag and the pot slipped. I poured a large amount of the is honey water all over the counter and floor. I got the rest of the liquid in the bag which thankfully was just enough to cover the turkey.

The next fun part was lifting this 21-1/2 pound turkey with the bag full of liquid in a stoneware roasting pan into the refrigerator. We have a side by side pretty nice and big but not all that wide. So I have this very heavy roasting pan in my arms trying to wiggle it just right to get it into the refrigerator. This whole time I am praying that this brining bag doesn't burst all over me and the refrigerator.

This Turkey better be the best Turkey I have ever tasted or I am going to be very upset!!

I still have to get it back out of the fridge and empty the bag hopefully without making a huge mess again.

It's been a LONG week

I was hoping for a stress free week to get ready for Thanksgiving. We are having all of Dominick's family over at our house on Thanksgiving. Dominick started out on Sunday with a what we think is a sinus infection. The pain in his head is so bad (on the floor crying in pain) they put him on percocet (sp?). The other day Dominick wanted me to put my ear on his forehead to see if I could hear what he was hearing inside his head. I could hear gurgling sounds like you would hear if you put your ear up to a stomach after eating or drinking something.

Wednesday Dominick was still not doing any better. The Dr ordered a CAT scan. Thursday the results show nothing wrong in the CAT scan (which is good). Today he seems to be doing ok but if the pain medicine starts wearing off he can feel that the pain is not gone. I have never had a bad sinus infection so I don't know if this is normal or if it takes time for the pain to go away. The Dr referred Dominick to an ear, nose and throat specialist so now we wait for them to call.

Nicholas is getting over his ear infections but he was very clingy and cried over everything all week but seems to be doing better today. Before getting sick Nicholas had been doing better at talking about what is making him angry or sad instead of just crying and making me figure out what is wrong. Let's hope he gets back to that soon.

I think today is a good day to start getting ready for Thanksgiving... I have today and tomorrow off and then this week I work everyday except Thanksgiving. Holidays in retail. I am part time and I have 34 hours this week. I have a 10 hour shift on the day after Thanksgiving.

Trinity's art projects that seem to explode all over the house. I try to get her to stay at the kitchen counter so the mess is all in one spot. But then she takes them to her room and leaves them in my room as gifts. Trinity has a whole cabinet for all of her papers, crayons and stuff she collects to make things out of. I have not figured out how to make her keep everything in that cabinet though.

Time to crank the music and starting getting the house ready for the holidays.

Poor Little Guy

Nicholas was sick with a cold for almost 2 weeks. It would seem as though it was getting better and then just come back. I finally took him to the Dr and he has 2 ear infections. He didn't complain at all about his ears hurting. This is his second ear infection in his 3 years of life. The first one was just in 1 of his ears. Dominick gets ear infections still as an adult so I would say it's genetics. The shape of the ear or sinus area. I breastfed for almost a year before he stopped, he liked feeding himself and sippy cups.

Also, when Nicholas gets a cold it triggers asthma symptoms. So when we were at the Dr they they tested his breathing, oxygen levels and all of that pretty intensely. Nicholas has never been around cigarette smoke EVER (I am very picky about that one). Again Dominick gets asthma symptoms when he has a cold too. Basically we have to keep inhalers on hand at all times, just in case.

Pretty much we can blame all of this on Dominick ... just kidding.

On a positive note, Nicholas is already sleeping better and not coughing as much. He has been taking his medicine very nicely. He even holds the mask on his face by himself for the inhaler.


Also, after about 9 hours of work between Dominick and I ... Dominick's computer game is fixed and running just fine.

Oops!!

Dominick is VERY into playing World of Warcraft again (he stopped playing for about a year). Well I am also going to start my own account again. I was trying to do a network transfer with the game and ended up deleting World of Warcraft off his computer. That sucks because when the game is all installed and all the patches are updated it's about 7 gigs.

Now I have to reinstall the game on his computer. It's about 9 CD's (I can't find our DVD's) to install and a bunch of patches... My goal is to have it all fixed before I have to go to work at about 3:30pm.

Dominick called right after I realized I broke it and said he was on his way home from work early because he is sick. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

It's a good thing it Tuesday and World of Warcraft does their patches on Tuesdays. All of the realms are down otherwise I am sure he would have played right when he got home. He knows that I did something but has no idea that I deleted the whole game.

All because I wanted to play an stupid computer game... hours of my life are now being wasted trying to fix my mistake =(

She's only in preschool!

Ok so Trinity had some questions for me today. Thanks to "Google" I could answer her correctly in a way she could understand.

Where does wind come from? Now I knew this one but I wanted to double check with Google and show some pictures to Trinity. I explained it was warm air and cool air and air pressure. I did a few examples for her with a lap and talcum powder.

She wanted to know "how can fish breathe in water?" This one I know too but I wanted to explain it to her in a way she would understand with pictures. We went over how a fish has gills and it takes the oxygen out of the water. We went over a little how water is made of H2O hydrogen and oxygen.

If she is already almost stumping me on questions now, what is it going to be like in a few years?? I really hope Google is not going anywhere and stays consistent with correct answers.

This summer Trinity was watching some butterflies in the backyard. I went to Google and found some really good pictures of the life cycle of a butterfly. I was like "Trinity come here I want to show you something..." She looked at my life cycle and was like "Mom that is the life cycle of a butterfly. They start out as an egg, which hatches into a caterpillar, then they make a chrysalis and then the butterfly come out." So my fun little science project was not so fun because she already knew all about it.

No more chubby baby cheeks =(

(Nicholas at about 5 months)

As we were driving to Trinity's school today the kids were talking in the back seat. Trinity said "Mom, we can't call Nicholas, 'Chubby Cheeks' anymore." I haven't called him that in a long time but Trinity does every now and then.

It made me a little sad to think that my chubby baby is no longer a baby and not really chubby anymore. He's a big boy and likes to do things by himself. Although, when he gets tired he still grabs his blanket (that is now falling apart) sucks his fingers and wants to cuddle.

I can buy his shirts in the 'boys' sections of the store now instead of the baby/toddler section. He can get himself dressed. It's good that he is getting more independent because he has to learn to do things on his own. Next year he will be in preschool. It's just bitter sweet.

(Nicholas at about 3 months)

Halloween!!

I should start off by saying Nicholas was not happy about dressing up. He didn't want to be anything because he is Nicholas. We talked him into wearing a costume finally but he would not wear the mask.

We had plans to go out Trick or Treating with Dominick's brother Justin, his 2 kids, Dominick's cousin Blake, his 2 kids and our kids for like 3 weeks. We were in the car going to Justin's house as planned. Justin called and said he and his wife had gotten into a fight and the plans were off.

Awesome!

We had to stop by my Mom's and Dominick's Grandma's house anyway which are in the same area as Justin.

So, we called Blake and told him plans had changed and we were now meeting at our house. Justin was not coming so it was just us, Blake and the 4 kids. Which worked out because our Neighborhood goes all out for every holiday. We went around the block and the kids (ages 2, 3, 4 and 5) had more than enough candy. Plus the last 3 houses we went to scared all of the kids and Blake. They all had fog machines and went all out on decorations. I didn't bring the camera of course. They had a guy in the front yard with a chainsaw, a huge flashing devil guy and a bunch of other scary stuff.

We went back to our house and the kids ate candy and played. Dominick, Blake and I just hung out talking and stuff. The kids were all passed out by 10:30 (which is very late for our kids). We would have rented movies or had something planned if we knew we were going to end up at our house. Oh Well! It was still fun and the kids had a blast playing and waking up in the morning and playing some more.

It would have been nice to see Justin and the kids but what can you do.