I have a love – hate relationship with you.  Yes, you are amazing.  I will give you that.  You let me buy disgusting amounts of cheese at one time and no one judges me.  Your gas is 3.65 a gallon.  That in itself is worthy of a quick make out session.  Your hot dog and soda combo is 1.50 and more importantly, your “Fat Free” chocolate twist yogurt that tastes like it was churned by Swiss Miss and  a Keebler elf.  (On a side note, this is a Seinfeld episode waiting to happen because there is NO WAY IN HELL that this yogurt is fat free.)  It tastes like the creamiest sweet treat you ever had.  I know, I have had fat free yogurt before and you might as well be licking on the side of a paint can – an old paint can.  You know the kind that is dusty and contains spider webs.  Anyway, I get distracted.  Costco, I love you….until my very best pals enter the building with me because as soon as I cross that threshold, I hate you with every fiber of my being.

There is a level of “showing off” that my kids truly do extend when we get out into large public places like this.  There was some name calling and running wild along with throwing VERY unnecessary things in the cart.  WAY too many treats and LA took it upon himself to “carbo-load” because he put 7 packages of ravioli, tortellini and pasta in there.  I kept ONE.  He was hysterical.  He needed to have them all.

My sweet Eden helped me guide the cart and be my go-to gal.  I always tell here that we have to stick together because we are going to be the only girls in our whole family.  Even the dog has  a weiner……no nuts, but still the tubular dong.  I am out on that.  The 2 times a year it pops out I have a nervous breakdown.

The sad thing is that I don’t even buy anything good…..300 dollars for about 19 kinds of yogurt, some Guinness, a rug for the back door, 4 cases of Lacroix, some K-cup coffee’s, 6 cartons of milk, bananas, orange juice, one giant genoa salami, refried beans and some kirkland brand vodka.  That about sums it up.  Absolutely nothing fun.  Damnit.

So I love you and hate you all at the very same time, COSTCO.  I am hungry so I may just get a pitchfork to open that giant 17 lb can of refried beans I bought.  You know I have a stock pile of Taco Bell sauces…..and vodka.

Holy balls!  It was 48 degrees today!  I know it does not seem like much but when we have been doused with sub zero temperatures for a record breaking amount of time, it feels like paradise.  I am talking kick back with a margarita and chips and salsa paradise.

I was tempted to bust out my swimsuit, you know the standard issue fat mom swimsuit?  This body will never ever see a real bikini again so I cheat with the tankini.  You know you have hit middle age when you own a tankini or better yet, have the word in your vocabulary.

We were outside today for over an hour on the swing set.  It was brilliant.

I actually had to shovel under the swings at at the bottom of the slide so they could be used to their full potential.  Shoveling the grass, that’s a new one.

Miss Eden wanted to master the monkey bars but it looks like she might need a little help.  She dangled there like a trapped salami.

After looking at the photos too I realize that it might be time for a new pair of snow pants.  Or maybe I bought capri snow pants on purpose.  We don’t mess around with fashion over here.

The swing suited her a little bit better, after I shoveled a path of course.

We even busted out their cars and let me tell you, pushing these things through a foot of snow was my workout for the day.  Holy hell.  My arms feel like limp noodles right now.

L.A. gave his a little tune up before we hit the road.  He wanted to put those naked lady silhouette mud flaps on his car but I had to draw the line somewhere.

Poor Butters was inside snoozing so he missed all the magic.  On a side note, what did we do before these video monitors?  It is crazy how convenient they are.  I played outside with my pals and just kept the monitor in my pocket so I could hear him if he got up.  Brilliant.

All in all it was a fabulous day.  We loved the sunshine and officially are ready for spring.  Ready or not…

It was the weekend of birthday parties……one for a 40 year old and one for a 4 year old.  One of my dear friends from High School turned 40 and a classmate of the twins turned 4.

One of the major differences in the parties was this –  the old ladies lined up to take a picture like this:

And the 4 year olds got on a giant hot dog suspended from the ceiling that swung back and forth to take a picture like this:

I don’t know about you but I would much rather have been on that hot dog…that was swinging fast, so fast in fact that poor Eden could not decide if it was so awesome or so terrible.  The best part for Eden was that she had her main squeeze, Wolfie, snuggling up to her during the salami ride.

How in God’s name we got to be 40 years old, I will never know.  I still remember when my mom turned 40 and I was 9 years old.  Keep in mind she had 6 other kids.  My Dad threw a surprise party for her.  It was a  50’s themes and I remember thinking it was so cool but I also remember thinking that 40 was old.  Holy balls, was I wrong.  I am nearly 40 and I feel like I am still going to get in trouble if my mom catches me doing something naughty.  I mean, how can we be 40?  I still think farts are funny and I love Taco Bell.  I just feel like I am so young….and I know I am not the only one.  40 really is the new 30 or 20 or 19.  Wait, as long as it is the new 21, I am good.

I went to a girlfriend’s 40th birthday party and it was a trip.  So fun to see some great friends that I have not seen in years.  That is the pretty cool thing about when you get older, almost turn 40.  You really learn who your real friends are and you realize that you do not have to talk to someone every week to consider them a good friend.  If you have true, real, deep friends – you really can go months or even years and pick up right where you left off.  I have been blessed with awesome friends who put up with me as I unintentionally push people to the wayside and focus on my 3 pals.  It is certainly not intentional at all but sometimes real life just takes over.  This is why I have an open door policy and I LOVE the pop in.  Remember the Seinfeld episode where he talks about hating the surprise “pop-in”?  Not me.  I love visitors, even surprise ones.  As long as you don’t care that our house may look like a tornado just rolled trough and most people won’t be wearing pants – come on over.

So back to the 40th birthday party…besides the fact that I need a new hairdo (and this is because I cut my OWN hair…..and dye it too), I think we look pretty damn good.  We are all pretty much as thin as we were in High School….and way cooler.  I bought a size 4 pair of jeans the other day and my jaw dropped.  Wow. Having 3 kids and working and living life just keeps you busy and non-stop on the go…..and apparently lets you sneak into a size 4 pant….now, my top on the other side – XXL but that is another story.

Until then, I have realized that the world is full of cycles and we are deep in the midst of the 40 year old and kids birthday parties.  I remember 15 years ago when we had a wedding to go to every weekend.  These have turned into the modern day 40th bday and 4 year old bday which we now go to every weekend.  And I LOVE them.  There are not many things that you invite Arno and I too that we do not show up too.  As my friend NI’al says, “I’m like a bad penny, I show up everywhere.”  We are kind of the same.   And my dad too….we hate to miss out. If you invite us, we are there, usually “with bells on”.  If you have an open bar, we have more than bells on, we have the whole symphony on.   See you soon.

Trying to do 18 things at once, including cook dinner on this particular night, led me to the question, “Where’s your brother?”  I noticed some muffled tears along with the shit eating grin on L.A.’s face……you know this grin.  This particular grin means trouble.

It gets me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

So, for about 2 minutes (which felt like about an hour) I ran around the house screaming, “ABBOTT!  ABBOTT!”  I was on the verge of a panic attack because the crying had ceased and he was nowhere to be found.  Then I noticed this, my laundry basket.

Perfect size for a buttery little guy.  “Is your brother in there?!?!?”  “Maybe.”  Well, that means yes.

The giant baby is no dummy, L.A. let him out and he crawled out of there like he had dynomite in his diaper.

He may be scarred from doing laundry for the rest of his life.  Which gets me to thinking, maybe one of my older sister’s did this to me when I was little because I despise laundry.  I let it get to the point where it is about to take over and then I do about 12 loads in a row.  Then I promise myself I am never going to let it get that bad again…..fast forward to right now.  We are running low on underwear and socks and the pile of clothes at the bottom of the laundry chute resembles a mountain, or that garbage dump from Fraggle Rock.  Who remembers that thing?  Why did it talk?

More importantly, why is it wearing glasses?!?!

Ok, I don’t post a lot of recipes but when I get a good one that all my pals will eat, I like to pass it on.  If it is super easy like this one, it is even better.

You can get this to the table in 15 minutes or less so it is a winner all around.  Serve it with salad and garlic cheese bread and you just made dinner worthy of company.

Carbonara can take much longer than this but I take shortcuts when I can and suggest you do too.  This recipe freaks people out because it has raw egg in it but essentially the egg is cooked when you toss it on the hot pasta so you really have nothing to worry about…..promise.

Ok, here we go.  Here is what you need:

And noodles of course, any kind you want.  I do fusilli or tornado pasta as my pals call it.

Now a word about this packaged bacon – it is brilliant.  It is located in the grocery store by the salad dressings and fake bacos but this is the real deal.  It is real crumbled bacon and it is about 3 bucks.  I always have it on hand to toss in omelettes, scrambled eggs and pasta.  It is much easier than frying up bacon or prosciutto that the original recipe calls for.

This makes enough for our entire family with no leftovers.  I cook exactly half the box of pasta which according to the package is 8 servings.

Ok, back to the details:

2 eggs

1/2 cup parm cheese

1/8 cup milk or cream or half and half (whatever you have)

1 cup of peas

1/2 – 3/4 cup of the bacon

1/4 -1/2 tsp salt  (I just do it to taste)

few dashes of pepper

3 tsp butter

Now down to business.  Beat the 2 eggs in a bowl then add the cheese, milk and salt and pepper.

Set aside and boil your noodles in salted water.  Throw about 1/2 tsp of salt in there at least….tornado pasta in our house.

Drain the pasta.  I usually do it half ass on purpose so I have a couple teaspoons of the starchy water left in there.  Add the butter and let it melt.

Then throw the bacon in there.  The piping hot pasta will melt a little bit of the bacon fat and make it nice and smokey and bacony without adding drippings like all the original recipes call for.  Now take your cheese and egg mixture and pour it on the hot pasta.  Toss it up real good and it cooks and coats the pasta as you do this.  Don’t dick around and get distracted.  Do it right away so the pasta is hot enough to accomplish this.

After tossing this for about a good minute, throw in your peas.  You can throw frozen peas right in there as the residual heat will also cook these little babies right up.  I LOVE peas and I put them in everything.  Peas.  What’s not to love?

Now you can eat it right out of that pot if you want or you can put in a fancy dish like this…..

Top it with a little more cheese and you are good to go.  This is one of those dishes you will make again and again because if you keep the bacon on hand and peas in the freezer, you should be able to make this on one of those nights when you have no groceries and are short on time to make dinner.

Give it a whirl.  You will not be disappointed.  I promise.  Everyone in my family loves this one – even the giant baby….and the dog.

Remember, just don’t dick around or your eggs won’t cook on your hot pasta.  You have been warned.

Enjoy!

Just ask to use their shitter and see what their toilet paper looks like.

If they have toddler’s or little tots, it will look like this:

If they have teenagers (or a lazy Mommy who has 3 kids 3 and under) it will look like this:

(The best part is that the roll that is resting on top is almost gone).  Oops.

My mother has this amazing sign in her bathroom:

I think I may need to order one, hang it up and heed my own advice.  (I am not sure I used that word “heed” correctly but it sounds good….and smart).

Someone wants a taco….bad.  Poor Butters snuck up on my pals while they were having their favorite, tacos and guacamole.

Look at that poor little guy.  “Por favor taco mamacita”.   Maybe I should just put a full throttle hard shell taco on his high chair tray and see what he does.  Knowing him, he would ask for hot sauce then tip his head to the side and start noshing.

My kids LOVE tacos.  If I ever give them the opportunity to choose dinner, it is always tacos.  They have to be the hard shell and L.A.’s have to have tomatoes and white sauce (sour cream).  He really likes them loaded up while Eden on the other hand is more of a minimalist with her tacos – just meat, lettuce and cheese.  The call guacamole “Oscar” dip…because it is green like Oscar the grouch.

This works out well for me because I happen to LOVE mexican food.  Their other favorite thing is chinese soup (egg drop soup) and crab rangoon.  I can get down with this too.  I have never met a crab rangoon I did not like.

My kids like Taco Bell and I am not ashamed.  I have 3 kids three and under so sometimes we go to Taco Bell to kill time.  I am talking sit down in the corner booth and have lunch.  As you know this winter has killed me and work has been slow so we have had a lot of quality time, which I love but sometimes we run out of stuff to do.  What the hell, let’s go to Taco Bell.  They each get a hard taco and beans.  They usually fight and I am sure the employees do a mexican hat dance when we leave.  I get to eat Taco Bell too so it is a win win all around.  They have high chairs for Linus…..who knew?  It has to be better than a chicken nugget happy meal, right?  I am not above those either….and PS, they are 2.99 right now.  I make healthy-ish homemade dinners every night so having fast food here and there is totally fine in my book.  So are chips.  We love chips.  Chips……and Rudy, the manager at the local Taco Bell.  He has been with Taco Bell for 27 years.  Trust me, I know.

My pals are pretty much good eaters although L.A. goes on eating binges and then eats like a bird for a couple days. My wise friend Eileen refers to these as “snake days”.  He eats like a snake every few days.  One day he will drink a gallon of milk, eat 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 3 bananas, 4 slices of pizza and then for the next 2 days he will eat 3 cheerios and a noodle then he comes back with a vengance on snake days and can out eat his dad.  Snake days are awesome.  I really should start jotting down all he can consume on these days.  Poor Miss Eden out eats her mom EVERY day.

My giant baby eats real food now so we are officially buying groceries for a family of 5.  Every week my cart is literally overflowing and I cringe when I get the total.  I cannot fathom how my saint of a mother did this while feeding 7 kids.  Hell, I cannot fathom how she had 7 kids.  She is still sane……and my best friend.

You know when someone nails something right on the head?  Like that time someone mentioned that Red Bull and vodka tastes EXACTLY like Smarties candy.  Or that time someone told you that Bruce Jenner is slowly becoming a Golden Girl?

Well, the other day a friend said to me, “Don’t take this the wrong way but your kid looks exactly like Linus from the Peanuts gang.”  I was taken aback for a second and then I googled Linus to refresh my memory. Holy Balls….Best.  Call.  Ever.

Here is your proof.  Here is Linus:

And here is my guy – Abbott:

They have the same whispy hair and black eyeballs.  His hair really is amazing because it is almost like it is not real hair.  It is like a fuzzy pile of puffy and silky threads that have a mind of their own.  It is orange when the light hits it too which is the best part.

Oh Linus, how I love you so.

That tiny nose that is like a teensy weensy button resting in the middle of a giant very circular platter.

I told Abbott that he looked like Linus and he asked me if Linus was famous….I told him that he sort of was famous, Yes.  Then he crawled over and got his glasses and put them on so no one would recognize him.  He loathes the paparazzi and signing autographs.

Get used to it Linus.

Ok, I really did honestly think that I may have had a home run on my hands with split pea soup.  I was off base, WAY off base in reality.  I figured that my pals would think it was cool because it was green and Sir Butters would like it because in reality, it kind of is like baby food.  I thought I liked split pea soup and my husband likes everything – except Phyllo dough.

So I made it in my handy dandy crock pot.  It took about 2 minutes to throw it together so this was even more up my alley.  After 6 hours we ended up here:

Then after my son had his first look at it, he ended up here:

I felt bad because I was literally laughing so hard that my stomach hurt.  L.A. was so confused.  He could not figure out why in the world Mommy was attempting to make him eat such a hideous thing.  He would not even try it.  I told him that if he took one bite he could have a treat.  He was still not even considering it for a second.  He was fine without a treat as long as he did not have to eat whatever the hell it was that I put in his bowl.  “Mommy, WHY is my soup green?  Why am I supposed to EAT that?”

Eden tried it.  She didn’t like it but she at least tried it.

My giant baby looked at me like I was trying to feed him poop and the best part is that I tried it too and poop was not too far off.  It was terrible.  It tasted like a salty armpit dipped in garbage.  It. Was. Awful.

So, naturally, my husband liked it but he is a trooper and he likes everything.  God bless him because it was terrible.  Actually terrible is an understatement.

I love to post recipes when I have something that I think everyone needs to try so here is my recipe.

Split Pea Soup

-4 cups of “Don’t even bother”

-2 teaspoons of “What are you nuts?”

-3 cups of “Throw this right in the trash”

-1 teaspoon of “Ramen noodles are way better”

AND….. a dash of “just eat garbage instead”

So, what does it really take to be a celebrity?  These days, not much.  Just bone some guy on video and apparently you can become a bazillionaire.  So can all your brothers and sisters….and your Mom, don’t forget about your greedy Mom.  She wants in.  Bad.  She will even keep her Mom hairdo for good measure.

But seriously, I want to get in on this celebrity, famous person thing for one reason and one reason only – so I can check into the hospital with the diagnosis of “exhaustion”.  How many times have you heard about a celebrity being in the hospital only to be diagnosed NOT with the flu or a heart attack or simply losing their marbles due to Grey Goose and Valium overload but with – EXHAUSTION.  Is this a real thing?  If so, someone may want to call the local hospital and let them know to open up a bed for me.  Hell, I will even take the broom closet at this point.

I am going to march right into the ER with my dog hair infested yoga pants and my thumbs through the slits of my hoodie and check right in.  “Jenn Gerbrecht, here for exhaustion.  I am going to need a big bed, a giant TV, a bed pan and one of those buttons I press for food and pain meds…..you also might want to send someone over to check on my pals because I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”

This winter has OFFICIALLY (yes, I am yelling) kicked my ass…..my ass is flat to start with so this is not good news on many fronts.  I did not use to mind winter, now I hate it.  My mom told me never to say that word but it seems so fitting.  I hate winter.  I hate that it is too damn cold to even go outside and build a snowman.  I hate that I had a 400 dollar gas bill and am still freezing every second.  I hate that my kids watch more TV than I thought humanly possible.  I hate that I get wind burn when I take the dog for a 2 block walk.  I hate that my giant pimp mobile is too big to fit in our 100 year old garage so I have to park it outside and it gets loaded with a foot of snow a day. I hate that a can of red pop FROZE in my pantry the other day and exploded all over everything.  Yes, the pop was IN my house, in my pantry and it still froze.  W.T.F?!?  DO not forget it was red – damn you Cranberry Sierra Mist.  I hate trying to cram 3 kids into giant car seats while they are wearing so much gear.  Between the snow pants, the down jackets, the gloves, the boots, the scarves and hats – they are about three times their normal size and those damn car seats were not made for this.  I have blisters on my thumbs from trying to get them in those damn things, let alone buckle them.  I keep Crisco and a shoe horn next to Butters car seat because he is the worst.  He hates getting in the damn thing so even getting him to sit in it is like wrestling with a baby alligator on crack who happens to always smell like Sloppy Joe’s for some reason.

Everything takes at least three times as long as it should and leaving the house has become an Olympic sport.  If we have to be someplace at 5 that is 10 minutes away, we start getting coats etc about 3:45 because between the fighting, the walking to the car, the getting in the car seats, the brushing off of the snow etc, it really takes that long.  I am OVER it.

I need a vacation someplace warm…bad.  In the worst possible way.   Either a warm vacation or I need to check into a hotel and just not leave for 3 days.  As long as they have room service, I can make it work.  Just please don’t let me find a stray pube when I check in.  My sister used to clean hotel rooms when she was in High School, well actually she did NOT clean hotel rooms is more like it.  She got paid to but did not follow through.  Should I change these sheets or just give them the “once over”?  She went with the once over….or none over.

So, between this winter weather, the constant feeling like crap and the cabin fever – I am done.  I need to check into the hospital for exhaustion.  Apparently you really do have to be a celebrity to do this so I guess I have to start there.  What to do, what to do…….Do you think Arno will notice a giant tripod at the end of our bed?  Wait, that means I have to take off the 37 layers I constantly have on, all covered in dog hair…and shave.  My pubes may be down to my knee caps at this point, who knows.  It keeps me warmer and that is what counts right?  Well it looks like I am going to have to come up with a plan B.  Quick.