A while back on Good Morning America I heard about a restaurant in Georgia that had a recipe that sent women into labor. I filed the information in the back of my mind, and did not think about it again until a couple nights ago when I decided to google foods that are supposed to trigger labor.

I came across the article from GMA about the Eggplant Parmigiana in Georgia and almost drug Bobby to Olive Garden to see if their recipe did the same, but then I noticed they made the recipe available to the general public! I figured, if anything the recipe looks like it tastes good, so what would it hurt to try it? So today we went to Safeway, picked up the ingredients and I slaved over a hot stove to make it.

OMG! Labor or no labor, this recipe is SO worth it!! It turned out perfect, there is no way it could have tasted any better. My husband and kids devoured it also. I would have made a few changes though: I would have started cooking earlier, this took a long time to make. I would have halved the recipe, it made two HUGE pans of food, enough for our large family to have it as three full meals (thank goodness Italian food makes the BEST leftovers and anything in red sauce usually tastes better the next day). I also would have skipped the rich bread I served with it (the frozen, pre-buttered, garlic toast) and opted for a plain white french bread.

If you are looking for a GREAT recipe, make sure you check out Scalini’s Eggplant Parmigiana recipe. The legend is pretty cool and I guess we will know soon enough if it works for me. Also, if this recipe is any indication of their other meals, and you are in the Smyrna or Marietta Georgia area, you should check out Scalini’s Italian Restaurant; let me know if it is any good!

…or as my kids know it… “Mandatory Slavery Day”.

So today DH painted the wall around our fireplace and finished painting the kitchen so now 100% of my two main floors are finished.

Austin and Christopher scrubbed doors, counters, and trim.

I vacuumed, shampooed carpets, shampooed my dining room chairs and living-room furniture, fixed a hole in the back of a sofa cushion and puttied a hole in my window from where Isis ripped down the blinds.

When DH was done painting he made a super yummy dinner for Austin’s birthday of BBQ steak, pasta salad, corn on the cob and mashed potatoes. I also made him the cake he picked out. OH YUM!

We got SO much done, I am exhausted and we are going to go lay in bed and watch movies, if we can stay awake.

Happy Mother’s day to all the mothers!

I made my dad’s famous red beans and rice recipe tonight and it could not have tasted better, it was so yummy and SO filling. I doubled the recipe because I figured my little boys would not be full on just the normal serving amount, so I doubled the recipe… wow, talk about a cheap way to have TWO meals! They ate exactly one of the two casserole dishes and were full, so the second one went right into the freezer for an easy way to come up with a hearty, healthy meal for after I have the baby.

I also doubled the corn bread recipe so we can have it tomorrow with our chili, which I am hoping yields the same overabundance to make enough for a second meal. Each meal I am able to freeze will just be one less meal I need to burden Bobby with, or one less meal we might get from the drive through. I have to tell you, making 2 cups of rice instead of 1 was not any extra work, but it will save me the time it took tonight to make two meals later down the road.

My beans for chili are already soaking tonight and I am hoping I can get it into the slow cooker before my prenatal appointment tomorrow with my midwife so I have the crock pot doing the work while I am away.

Last night I was talking to a friend in IMs about my lack of energy to clean my house, and took some pictures of my horrible messy house to share with her, since she was saying she has not been cleaning due to a newborn, toddler, and preschooler… sheesh, what excuse is THAT! (Joking of course, she has more reason than I do).

So last night I got inspired to put a shelf in Matthew’s closet, but the shelf I had was about 6 inches too tall, so I found the perfect one at Home Depot’s website and decided tomorrow we would go get it… thinking I could get his closet looking better and then sit my ass on the couch and relax the rest of the day feeling accomplished enough with cleaning an ENTIRE closet.

So here is the before, you may not be able to tell but I *did* have a four compartment cart in there that I put his blankets in and on. Of course you probably CANNOT tell because he tore it down and all that is left is the frame and of course the blankets.

Here is the after, I actually was able to put everything in the before shot on one shelf! I used the others to empty two drawers of Sophie’s dresser, boxes from the other side of the closet, and a ton of stuff from my room!

Ok, so since we are on the subject of the corner o’ baby stuff in my room I will show you the before and afters of it:

This is all the crap I had in there before. Swing, bed, clothes, fabric, diaper bag, baby book, etc.

And this is all that is left, but only because they are two boxes of cloth diapers (clean of course) that I need to wash before I can put them away, and then also my Hypnobabies home learning package box that I need to find another home for, and some bags of baby magazines I need to go through and my sarong I need to wash for birthing day.

Here is the after of where those big boxes ended up, this side used to be crammed full with more clothes, blankets, and the crib (which now nicely fits in the closet behind the new shelf and a couple rails in this side).

Ok, so I could not start on the closet and leave his room looking like the disaster it was, so I started picking up and organizing his toys, here is what I did with his “cubby” shelf:

The before of course, yikes!

And the after, much better!

Moving onto his shelf:

Need I even tell you this is the before?

And the after.

His bed, before.

And after.

This is the changing table & Sophia’s dresser, before.

And the changing table afterwards.

And some misc after pics, because a clean room is so much more fun to take pics of:

His dresser & his diaper stash.

And his shoes on the back of his door.

Another project I have been putting off is my freaking NASTY toilet seat. I took a belly pic with my toilet seat up and could not use them because the underside of my seat had been scrubbed so much the paint was coming off, so it was stained REALLY bad from anytime anyone was sick (think splatter, EWWWWWW!) Here is a tiny before, since it is so so bad.

Gross, gross, gross, GROSS! Can you believe a new seat was only $10? Had I known this, I would have replaced it when we moved in! I seriously think the old owners cleaned the seats with turpentine, the other bathroom needs a new seat as well (of course I notice this AFTER we get home with the first seat).

Another before. And no, we did not paint, it was the only room in the house that was not white when we moved in.

And here is the toilet after, amazing how much $10 can make over a bathroom!

Much like the new shelf in Matthew’s room inspired me to clean the room, the toilet seat accomplished the same thing.

This is the right side of my bathroom vanity before.

And after.

Center part of my vanity before.

…after.

Sink before.

The sink after, not TOO much of a change there.

I also vacuumed my entire upstairs, even my bathroom because the jackass designer of this house thinks bathrooms should be carpeted, gag. I also cleaned the upper shelves in my walk in closet where I keep the curtains for my family room I need to put back up, and also the shelf where I am keeping all my pre-pregnancy jeans. All in all, this ‘makeover’ cost a total of $70, $50 for the shelf, $10 for the toilet seat and the final $10 was for zip-ties and tax. The zip ties are for redneck baby-proofing, to make sure she crib and shelf is secured to the wall. I also had a ton of help from Austin and Christopher (and a little from Bobby, who claimed he wanted no part of my “wicked shenanigans”) and between 4-6 hours of time. We got one box together of items to donate to Goodwill when I hit the drive through on Thursday after my prenatal appointment, and one large garbage bag of garbage. I also got about three arm fulls of toys to add to his cubby from his toy box in the family room, which was getting too full to clothes. So two rooms down, nine rooms to go!!

Both babies are napping… dare I sigh a breath of relief?? I am afraid if I exhale too much they will both wake up screaming.

Well, I have been somewhat productive… I put the childproof knob covers on the guest bathroom, Austin & Christopher’s room, and my bedroom. I also started a load of laundry and picked up the kitchen a bit. I would like to take a picture of my lilies to share, but that is far down the list of priorities right now.

Bobby, Austin & Christopher are belt testing tonight in Taekwondo. Because of this Bobby is crazy busy at work trying to get finished by 3pm so he can come home and practice with the boys. Because of this I am trying to get all my blogging done before this evening and then try to get my house put back together. I would love to be cleaning now, but I need to vacuum and put away dishes, and both are noisy chores. I know, I know…. “excuses, excuses…” Well yes.. I am tired! LOL

…but only when A. was sleeping.

This weekend we assembled a new bookcase for DVDs and were able to not only move all the DVDs to the basement, but I was also able to fit some computer games, CDRs, and books on the shelf. Today I spent the morning putting them in order and rearrange the placement of some of the items.

I also was able to sort through the piles of papers on my desk, and pulled out the taxes I need to pay (State & Property), and a bill I got from the pediatrician. Thankfully with three quick calls I was able to get it sorted out. I still have been unable to sort though the bank statements. And I need to put away the legal papers, VA papers, and a few other odds and ends; but I feel like I have accomplished a lot.

So, even if I do not get to tackle it tomorrow, at least I feel like I have done a lot yesterday and today.

Today’s room I did was my Master Bedroom & Master Bath. I did enlist some help from my husband to help with some heavy lifting. [Click Images to Enlarge]

Mom, please advert your eyes!! I can’t believe I let it get this bad!

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I ran some errands today, expecting that leaving at 5:30pm on Sunday night to go to Petsmart, Home Depot, and Safeway would not be an issue. Apparently I was wrong, even in my city everything closes early on Sunday. My fish will just have to live in filth until tomorrow because the pet store closes at 6pm. I will have to get some dog food tomorrow from the feed store anyways, so I guess I will just hit 2 stores and HOPEFULLY the post office tomorrow.

Home Depot was closing as I was checking out, but I am so thrilled that I found the step stool I needed, since I no longer have kitchen chairs to climb on (the new ones are too nice, too tall, and covered with fabric).

Today was a nice game, Bobby and I played Mexican Train Dominoes with Austin and Christopher. We had a lot of fun, but had to break up the game early when we heard a huge crash in the basement. Turns out the cat knocked the full bottle of detergent off the washer and a spilled the entire full button onto the floor. Thank goodness it was onto the linoleum and not the carpet. I used that time of cleaning the floor to start some more laundry, clean my third (basement) bathroom, and clean the fish tank. I am also glad my Charlie’s soap was not spilled, I LOVE my Charlie’s and I am getting ready to start a load of diapers right now.

Well, I have been putting off some paperwork for a while… I finally got it all in, some was paperwork that I recieved recently… like the paperwork I needed to send back to the attorney for Austin’s birth certificate, some I have been sitting on for a few days, like the paperwork to child support enforcement, some I did not need to do, like the letter I sent to Austin’s Birth Mom. I also paid the mortgage, sent a letter to a credit card company I did not know was still open to close my account. I sent back some paperwork the insurance company that they needed me to fill out, and sent a copy of Austin’s insurance card to the billing company who billed the wrong company, and then called my local bank to have them issue me a login number so I can balance my account online like I do my main bank.

So now I am poorer and out of stamps, but it sure feels great to finally have it all done.

Ask me again in 30 minutes when I am making mashed potatoes, putting in the green bean casserole, pulling out all the food, making the gravy and baking the bread and carving the turkey. However, of all the Thanksgivings ever, this one has been the most relaxed ever.

I think a lot of it had to do with preparing beforehand and being able just to pop it in and move on. I think the other part of it has to do with it just being the 5 of us. Last year we adopted 3 single soldiers, and a young married soldier and his wife. Cooking for that many people and making dishes I don’t eat, but they liked (sweet potatoes) for the first time, it was pretty damn stressful. I opted to have family only this year before I made a new tradition of ordering takeout.

Also, the kids are older so they are out of my hair and can entertain the baby. Nothing worse than trying to cook a huge dinner with kids underfoot.