Pintrosity!

Oh Pinterest!  Our love/hate relationship continues.  However it really isn't your fault Pinterest, its the people that use you or rather abuse you.  I know I've ranted about this before, but I have a feeling it won't be the last time either.

I'm done trying recipes from Pinterest after my cauliflower massacre.  Just because another pinner writes, "ooh so yummy" or "I made this last night it is soo awesome"  does NOT mean it tastes good.  We all know  people who use Pinterest don't know how to erase the captions when they haphazardly click "repin."  Also who pins a recipe after they have tried it?  So how do you know it is "the best"?  So not only will I not be trying any more recipes, I will no longer be listening to the mommy bloggers and there "I'll be so glad I pinned this one day" toddler activities.

Photo credit

We've all seen "pins" like the one above, but let me spare you.  It is full of stupid ideas.  Well, at least they don't work with Autumn.  "Fill an empty wipes container with fabric scraps and let the child pull them all out."  Great idea in theory, but they don't pull out the same way wipes do, they aren't wet, and they certainly don't taste like alcohol, so Autumn isn't buying it.  Another popular suggestion is letting a child play with beans, pasta, or rice.  They will have "hours" of fun dumping out and putting them back in the container.  Sure don't get me wrong Autumn loves to dump out her bin of pasta, but it only takes about 4.5 seconds then she walks away.  And then there is what happened last week.  The pudding fiasco.

It has been suggested that you let toddlers "finger paint" with yogurt or pudding.  I don't have a high chair so I thought the bathtub would prove to be a great place to contain the mess.  I made some pudding and let it sit. I scrubbed down the tub. Stripped Autumn down and let her have at it.  She whined because she didn't want to get her hands dirty.  They I gave her the bowl and she had a good 2 minutes of fun stabbing the pudding with a spoon.  Then she tried to stand up.  FYI pudding in a bathtub is very slippery.  It was pretty much all over after that.  The fun that is.  I grabbed the camera for a couple pictures before taking her out of the tub. (which proved to be quite a dilemma.  She was climbing over the side of the tub all pudding-ee and crying, while I was attempting to wash her down.  Which proved to be harder than I thought since the tub was all messy she just kept getting more messy.  It was like the fish and the loafs of bread.  The more I hosed down the two of them the messier it became.  I finally grabbed a grubby towel and let her sit on my lap for a few minutes, while I cleaned out the tub.  She finally calmed down once I convinced her to put the pudding spoon in her mouth.)

The point of these toddler activities (in my opinion  is to give the mom something to do, to kill time rather.  Well kill time it did.  After making the pudding, cleaning the tub twice and bathing and soothing a crying Autumn, we killed about an hour.  So perhaps the activity fulfilled its need, but we won't be trying it again anytime soon.)

On a positive note, she now keeps hair clips in!

So from now on I will wait until my friends try things out and then they can let me know if it is worth my time.  Like the following:

photo source

I saw this on Pinterest several times and didn't try it until my sister suggested it (because she had actually  tried it.)  It is "AHHHMazing."  I often buy whole fryer chickens, because it is cheaper than chicken breasts, then shred the chicken for lots of recipes I use (chicken enchiladas, BBQ chicken sandwiches, chicken pesto with pasta, gun powder chicken, chicken broccoli casserole, chicken pizza, to name a few) .  I hated shredding chicken until I started using my Kitchen Aid.  It works best when the meat is warm, but it doesn't have to be.  Even with the time it takes to clean the Kitchen Aid it is still faster to use this method than the old two fork method I use to use.

When my mom was visiting she made Oreo truffles, from Pinterest.  They were also "Ahhhmazing."  So I made a double batch and took some to our neighbors for Valentines day.  Autumn was even entertained for awhile when helping me make them.

Oreo Cream Cheese Truffles recipe

So my friends, when you try a great "Pin" let me know.  Or I'll just stick to using Pinterest for a good laugh.

Source

P.S Pinterest is also lame, because of its search function.  However I just discovered you can create "secret" boards.  Sweet!  Now you won't know what I'm making you for Christmas.

Aww Sub N YAy

For Evan's birthday I bought us tickets to see The Lion King play.  We had a great time dressing up and going on a fancy date.  The traffic wasn't bad and since I also bought us a parking pass, that was a breeze as well. However, the main event (the actual play) was lacking.  Evan and I were both a bit bashful in admitting to each other our disappointments.  After talking about the pros (the inventive costumes) and cons, we couldn't figure out why we were sitting there waiting for the play to be over.  I was cheap and bought the tickets on the very last row. The very last row.  So this could have played a part in the problem (although we sat on the last row when we saw Wicked, and we LOVED that).  I concluded that I didn't like the acting, the singing was not great.  Evan thinks he just didn't like the musical, which is also a great option.  I love the film "The Lion King," but as a musical performance it just wasn't doing it for me. Oh, well we still had fun.

Autumn took this for us before we dropped her off at the sitter.

The Detroit Opera House was quite stunning, very intricate paintings, hand crafted thingys, and

chandeliers.

See Autumn Climb

Parents often remark that "kids enjoy the box the toy came in more than the toy itself."  Oh, how I underestimated the power of a box.  Autumn has gotten quite creative with her "box"  we scored at Costco when my mom was visiting.

It's a stage

It's a cave

It's a sled

Oh did I forget to mention how Evan has been teaching (yes teaching, encouraging, promoting whatever you want to call it) Autumn how to climb. On everything.

Up, up she goes.  I guess I'm to blame as well since I didn't stop it.

Oh yeah, the box is also a slide for her car. Grandma taught her that one.

More climbing.  This time, IN the ottoman.

And the shoe bin.

...And in her Bumbo.

Strong man.  When she picks up big objects she grunts, just like the boys in the "Strong Man" competitions.  And funny enough she always lifts with her legs instead of her back.  Oh this kid cracks me up! 

We love grandma because...

1. She bought me a cool tent that makes my hair stand up.

2. She let me play with her Kindle Fire and watch the dogs "lick" the screen on her "screen cleaner" app.  

The dress Autumn is wearing was made for ME by my grandma, Deon.

3. She let me play with her camera and touch all the buttons.

4. She played with me while my mom slept in and/or took naps.

5. She took me to the library and danced and sang to the silly program the librarians hosted.

6. She gave me sugar-free sour mints from her purse, so many that it made my poop funny.

7. She let me unpack her suitcase several times.

Come back soon Grandma.  We miss you already!!

The Fam Bam visits!

My parents came to visit. YAY!  Being far away from family is hard. End of story it just is.  I was so happy when they said they were coming to visit.  My dad opted to visit the Ford Museum instead of the largest Christmas store in the world.  Last time we visited I was too concerned about Autumn's nap schedule to really see anything.  So I'm really glad we went back since I got to appreciate some pretty historically significant artifacts (not including the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile).  Henry Ford was a real history buff and liked to collect "stuff" and so there all his "stuff" sits in a museum.

This is us last time we came to visit when Autumn was 9 months old.

In a vehicle for agriculture.

In an old car, not a Ford, but I can't remember the name of it now.

Evan is SO strong getting the light all the way to the top. 

Autumn and Grandma in the play area where there were some Legos.  

"Changing the oil" on a pretend car.

Evan and Autumn in front the same car Evan had growing up.

The chair Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot and killed.  (Leigh, doesn't this make you want to visit me?)

Sitting at the back of the bus Rosa Parks was famously arrested in for not giving up her seat to a white person.

Grandpa and DETROIT

My parents came and visited!!! My dad was here for a couple days and my mom stayed a little over a week.  For whatever reason, my dad wanted to visit Detroit.  I tried telling him that wasn't anything there.  I love living in a big metropolis, but Phoenix and Detroit don't really have much tourist things to do.  Alas we meandered downtown anyway.

Autumn and Grandpa reading a story together.  He tried to win her love by giving her a PEZ dispenser with PEZ in it.  She still loved him despite the fact that I took it away from her.

My brother Noah made this shirt for my dad for Christmas.  It's a racetrack, get it?

Autumn with her Pez and watching videos of herself.  She is IN LOVE with watching her younger self on "the big screen."