Karl Rove, tex-mex, Super Mario and the Cleveland Browns--Can you get more random?!

So in spin class, there's this really short, muscular guy with a mustache and curly hair. When my legs are searing in pain, I watch short little guy and imagine he is Super Mario jumping over wood barrels and I hear the sound effects and everything. It helped me get through 60 minutes of biking to nowhere. Well this morning, he walks in the room and he has a go-tee (spelling?). My total distraction is ruined. I may very well have to drop a note in Super's  gym and tell him to go back to just his 'stash--and I'll address it Super M. Maybe he'll think it mean Super Man and someone has a crush on him and he'll listen. Right?!

Right now I'm eating some stuffed jalepenos Mike brought home. So yummy--it's time like these I wish everyone lived in Texas and could enjoy some Tex-Mex.

Most memorable moment of election night? Maybe not the most historic or most important but on Fox news (bet you can't guess who I vote for ;) ) Karl Rove, the political shark, brought cookies to share with the crew. I am not kidding. He passed out cookies and he was really excited to share the cookies. You just wonder did he go vote that day and think hey, I think I'll surprise my friends with cookies tonight while we cover the election. It will be so much fun--now should I go with chocolate or sugar? I wonder if it's on youtube.

Hey, ho--Kellan Winslow's got to GO! Seriously, you hate living in Cleveland and guess what? Cleveland hates you! We've got Brady Quinn--Spanky (my TWO year old) could catch his bullet passes. Yet, you--you blow simple school yard bread and butter plays. And cost us the game. The Browns aren't losers--YOU ARE.

Well folks--there's a green chili quesadilla calling my name.

Happy Weekend!

WW--This grocery inflation is insane ;)

**Yes, it was a mistake and yes my sweet cashier Michelle caught it right away. There's no way I would ever pay over $75 a roll ;) **

(Please excuse the messed up lines--I'm new to this)

There was nothing said about the food....

As I have been mentioning (each time I see a Christmas catalog), I love Christmas. And because some direct ancestor of my husband is either Scrooge or the Grinch, I am only allowed to listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas CDs after Halloween. It is very hard to be strong--I can almost smell the spirit of Christmas--the turkey, the pies, the cranberry sauce...or is that smell coming from my kitchen on this sunny October 85 degree day in Dallas?

Why it is!

See today at the grocery store, I clutched my list and made my way through the produce trying very hard to watch prices and stay in budget. And then I saw them. A beautiful little box of fresh organic cranberries--so plump, round and red. I had to have them. I could not leave them there. They had to be in my cart. And that is where they went.

When I got home, I told the girls I was making some orange cranberry sauce to go with dinner that night.

"Mom," Miley giggled. "It is not Thanksgiving. It's not even Halloween." (The scrooge blood runs strong through her little veins.)

"Well honey, "I had to think fast. "You know I like to try out various side dishes before Thanksgiving to make sure it will be OK."

"So what kind are you making?"

"Orange fennel."

She shook her head. "Mom, we had the orange fennel cranberry sauce last year and I hated it because I hate fennel."

She had me. I was busted by the ten year old with the memory of an elephant.

"Well, I wanted to make this again to compare to the new stuff," I blurted out and began to zest the orange.

"Whatever. Have you bought the High School Musical 3 tickets yet?"

"After we enjoy the cranberry sauce and ham dinner--without complaints," I smiled.

The magic of HSM works again ;)

Getting healthier

Overall, we're a pretty healthy family. We get our groceries at Whole Foods (so no partially hydrogenated oil or high fructose corn syrup), we avoid processed and fast food and try to eat a good variety of veggies. But we have our weaknesses--I love baking something sweet with the kids about once a week, I absolutely prefer white pasta over whole wheat and everything always seems better with bacon. So in this New Year, I'm going to try to make a few changes to improve our diets.
First I am going to be more dilegent in all of eating 'the rainbow' of veggies at least every three days (basically this is just what it sounds--I want to serve everything from red tomatoes to purple eggplant since a variety of colors guarantees a variet of nurtients and antioxidents). Note I said 'serve'. The baby will easily eat all the veggies--he is in the eating 'honeymoon' stage and loves everything from red bell peppers to spinach but my 3 yr. old is in the 'yucky' stage and getting him to eat anything but bread has been an issue. My older girls both went through this stage and thankfully the 9 yr old has returned back to veggies world and is gladly gobbling up her sauted kale; the 6 yr. old is getting better but it takes a lot of prodding. I am not pushing my 3 yr old to eat the veggies too much in hopes, he will come back to enjoying his veggies soon--it is just very difficult to watch him turn down everything but a grilled cheese.
Second, I want to up our fish intake. Currently we have wild salmon approc. once a week. I am planning on adding more wild fish to the diet and I hope we will 'go fishing' at least twice a week.
Third, I want to once again try to replace the white pasta with whole wheat even if it is only 1/2 and 1/2. I personally love pasta (my true weakness) so this is going to be the toughest. Pasta makes almost all veggies awesome!
Finally, I want to cut down on coffee and Starbucks. I usually get an organic Chai twice a week. I'd like to cut down to once a week. I love brrewing coffee at home--I'll try to limit it to homeschool days and maybe Sunday since I am not crazy about church coffee.
And that' about it. I have a baby sleeping on me, my laptop is out of juice. It's time to sleep and get reeved up for tomorrow!