And the Kitchenaid mixer goes to...

I did not win the red and shiny KitchenAid stand mixer. Oh well. It would have been nice. And I found out that Ree doesn't go through all those posts herself. She has someone named Don doing it for her. I don't blame her! Yesterday afternoon, when I went back to see if she had posted the winners, there were well over 60,000 comments/posts on the blog! Good grief!

Congratulations to the winners of the red and shiny KitchenAid mixer! I already have a Kitchenaid mixer. It's not red. It's not exactly shiny. I think it has a nice dusting of flour or other dry ingredient on it. And egg goo.

Red and Shiny and hopefully mine?

Yesterday I entered Ree Drummond's Kitchenaid stand mixer giveaway. All I had to do was comment on her blog post in the Cooking section of her website. I think my comment was on page 90 and there were a few thousand entries prior to mine. The winners are to be announced sometime this evening. When I looked today, to perhaps see if she posted the winners, I see that she hasn't because, I'm a-thinking, there are upwards of 59,499 comments! I would not like to be her, or whoever she has, reading them. Good grief! I guess a lot of people want that mixer.

The Key To Getting a Teen to Wake Up

I've figured it out. The way to get my 15-year-old son out of bed on school days is to: a) take away his cell phone the night before and b) don't give it back until he wakes up and eats breakfast. It works!

The sugar bowl disaster

Yesterday morning, my nine-year-old son asked to have sugar put in his Cheerios. I said he could get the sugar. He chose the sugar bowl in the upper cupboard. He should have used a stool. He was trying to put it back when he said loudly, "OH GREAT!" I said, "What?" I walked over to where he was in the kitchen and saw the shattered lid. So sad I was. My mom gave me that bowl when she moved out of state. All I said was, "My mom gave me that. I feel like crying." And that broke the flood gates of my son who was in tears and went to his room. Moms don't say the brightest things all the time. Strike one for mom. A little while later, while my son was eating his Cheerios and I was sitting at the same table, working at the computer, I said, "Well, I guess I could use a sugar bowl for Mother's Day. Just sayin.'" This put an idea into my son's head, because later in the day I saw him walk up to his dad and say, "Can we go to the store today?" My work here is done. For now.

A bomb went off. I think.

What is this??

And this??

Well, I thought a bomb went off in my son's room. This was after hubby and I told him that we had given up on asking him to keep it clean. Big mistake. BIG.

Dinner... what can I do with hamburger?

Dinner is all me. I mean, it's all mine tonight. No, wait, that still didn't come out right. What I meant to say was that I'm in charge of making dinner tonight. There's a 2-pound blob of ground beef sitting in the fridge with my name on it. I'm sick of the usual things that I make with ground beef. My youngest always wants hamburgers, but last night when I asked out loud (to anyone in hearing distance) what to make with ground beef, he said, "Hamburger Pie," to which my husband flat out said, "NO."

I have a large assortment of cookbooks that I'll peruse in a little while, but if anyone is reading this, would you kindly give suggestions? I like new recipes!

A little sugar = craziness

I may have mentioned this before, on my other blog that I've since neglected, but somewhere along the line I (or me and my hubby) came to the realization that sugary snacks in the evening create sleepless nights for everyone in the house but the one causing the problem.

My youngest son, age 9, has had night terrors for quite some time, and about a year ago I noticed a pattern as to what set it off. Excessive screen time (t.v., adrenalin-rush movies [which, for him, would be Harry Potter], video games) and/or sugary snacks (which could be anything from Kettle Korn to cupcakes to ice cream to candy) are the culprits. We limit his screen time and he really doesn't watch t.v. much, except on weekends, and we limit his video games to two hours on weekends only.

Last night, the kids had activities at church. Hubby retrieved them and brought them home, and they proceeded to get ready for bed. After they had gone to bed, all was right with the world. Until the screaming began. K (I'm using initials, yes) started screaming and hubby went to calm him down. Eventually, K went back to sleep. This morning, I asked K what went on at church last night, and he said, "We had cupcakes." WHAMMO. That's what set him off. If only I could convince the church to have healthy snacks instead of sugary snacks.

What I really want to figure out is what can we change or what can we, as parents, do to help our child? How long will this screaming-at-night thing last? Is it a psychological thing? Does he need help? He's already on meds for ADD, so I really don't want him to take anything else. And really, I almost believe that sugar is the cause of his ADD because most foods contain some amount of sugar and studies have shown that if children ate no sugar, their ADD/ADHD symptoms subsided. And no, I don't feed him Pop Tarts and candy and cookies. We try hard to have nutritious meals and snacks at home. I don't have much control over what he eats when he's not at home.

Anyway, I'm hoping that tonight there is no craziness and that we all get a good night's sleep.