Today I bought a box of diapers at Costco. That’s 180 diapers not counting random diapers we have around the house and in the car and diaper bag. babyM has graduated to size 4. We’ve been having too many leak out the side mishaps with the size 3s so I’ll finish those off first and then graduate to size 4.

I have been steadily prepping her and myself for potty training. If she ever requests to sit on the toilet, I make sure I put her on there. 3 out of 5 times something actually does come out of her. YAY! When she wakes up in the morning, it’s right to the toilet she goes. Before bed, while we’re brushing our teeth, she sits on the toilet. 5 out of the 7 nights of the week she will wake up with a dry diaper. The poop tho… that’s another story. I can never read her “signals”. Lilmiss would grunt and turn colors. Lilman would hide. babyM she just does it, as if it’s nothing. But once she done… she’ll come over and tell you, “I caca.. Change?!” And before even her times would be predictable… now not so much. UGH! So frustrating.

So I’m hoping this will be our last box of diapers that we have to buy. EVAR! As sad as I might be that she is our last baby… I can’t wait to be done with diapers!

OPERATION PT! I am hoping to be done before she turns 2. I have 3.5 months to go. READY! SET! Goooooooooo!

I used a recipe from the cookbook on the right left, which coincidentally is the same that I found here. Easy peasy… so easy that I even found a video made by people from none other than, Hawai’i ! Cool ‘eh?!

The recipe is really watery/ liquidy which I’m not used to when baking things. But I hoped for the best… and then even questioned the bake time of 1 hour and 20 minutes

And now here it is after the allotted 1 hour and 20 minutes…

The house smells absolutely divine! Buttery, sugary goodness. YES! I can’t wait to cut into it, unfortunately I need to let it cool down before I cut it, otherwise it will be a puddle of a mess.

4 costume parties this year. Trick or treating. 2 different school events. Pixi.eland’s 1st ever pumpkin patch. Our usual pumpkin patch. A kid friendly event in the city tonight. DAAAAAAAAANG!

Lilman, who didn’t seem very enthusiastic about dressing up this year, is going to be a zombie. An easy peasy costume. We found these shirt/ bandana combos at Wa.lmart the other week and it was either the zombie or the vampire. He was leaning towards the vampire but I didn’t think it looked as cool as the zombie… and well the zombie is easier to outfit than the vampire anyhow. I had him dig up an old pair of his jeans and I took some scissors to them and shredded them. $6 costume. Woot!

Lilmiss is where the money was spent. Of course right? When we were in Hawai’i for the SUMMER Cost.co busted out their costumes and automatically she wanted to be sTinkerbell. I opted NOT to buy it there tho and waited til we got home to pick up the costume. But I didn’t wait long either. We’ve had her costume since late August and since then she’s been trying to get OUT of being sTinkerbell. Good thing we got it when we did tho, b/c by September they were already out. I think it was around $21, way cheaper than the D-store and the party/costume stores. Buuuuuuuuut we also picked up some sparkly shoes $12 @ Target and some glittery tights $2, Target.

babyM has 3 choices for costumes. I dug up N’s old mermaid dress up thing that we picked up a long time ago for like $2. My cousin also “loaned” us their daughter’s old lady bug costume. And I also happened to be looking in the girls’ closet and found a Chinese outfit that N never wore. I picked up M some sparkly shoes when I got N’s, M’s are red and can go with either the lady bug or Chinese ‘fit.

I don’t dress up for Halloween and I’m not quite sure what S is going to be. He has to “work” that night and he needs a costume.

This meal is a common occurrence in our house maybe every other week and sometimes every week. The kids really like it and it’s so easy to make. I like repurposing leftovers too which is always nice. Good for any time of the day even, especially if you come from an Asian household and rice is always available.

Sorry no exact measurements:
leftover cold rice
chopped garlic
chopped onion
eggs
meat of your choice (Spam, bacon, chicken, steak, hot dogs- whatever you have on hand)
frozen mixed veggies
salt
oyster sauce (optional)
soy sauce

If the rice is a little hard and clumped together I sprinkle a little water on it and mash it up so it separates a little bit, and then set aside. This is a one pot/pan method so… I normally cook and scramble the egg first and then set it aside. Depending on which meat you choose I throw that in the pan next. Of course bacon is going to take the longest to cook, unless you already have some cooked up. I normally cut up the meat into small pieces so you get a little in every bite. If using bacon, there will be some fat/oil rendered from that. KEEP THAT IN THE PAN, it gives you good flavor. Once your meat has been cooked or heated through, remove it from the pan. Add a little oil (unless you’re using bacon then you don’t need any). And throw in your chopped garlic and onion. Let that brown up a bit and then throw in your rice. Mix and stir, mix and stir. Then add your veggies. FROZEN. Straight from your freezer. It’s up to you how much you put in. And then again mix and stir, mix and stir. Season with salt and cook through until veggies are no longer frozen. Add your meat and eggs and mix and stir, mix and stir. At this point you’ll want to season with your choosing. Sometimes I use soy sauce and sometimes oyster sauce. The oyster sauce goes a long way tho in flavoring so be wary. Depending on how “crispy” you like your fried rice is up to you, so leave it on the heat for however long you like.

In this household it’s normally a one dish meal. The kids love the stuff and I can count on clean bowls/ plates EVERYTIME. And the veggies are in there too. YAY! Lately the baby has been hard to please when it comes to food. She only ever really asks for rice and it’s really hard to get her to eat any meat. Veggies are hit or miss these days and even eggs can even be a chore. She refuses to eat pasta. So it’s nice that she’ll eat EVERYTHING when it comes to this fried rice.

“Throw everything in there but the kitchen sink” Have you ever heard that phrase. It’s kind of the concept with this dish and that’s why it’s called “Kitchen Sink Fried Rice”!

She’s such a puppet sometimes it’s hilarious. Lilman is constantly telling her to say stuff and for the most part it comes out sounding right with a lil splash of babeinese. One thing which boggles me tho is that she won’t say “Thank you” after given something where she has said “please” over and over and over again for. So instead I’m teaching her to say “mahalo” and it comes out more like “ma-lo-lo” but better than nothing I say.

Bananas seem to go bad faster than the kids can eat them sometimes so I’m forced to make my mom’s banana bread. I haven’t been making them into breads tho, and instead kid friendly versions= muffins and mini muffins. I tried a zucchini bread recipe last week and it came out okay. The first loaf was undercooked despite baking for over an hour. I thought it looked okay but after it sat for awhile the top wasn’t looking cooked so much. This weekend I made more banana muffins and made some oatmeal, pineapple, mac nut cookies. Once these are done… I’m hoping to try out a rolled sugar cookie recipe. I had some yummy sugar cookie favors recently, but the maker won’t share the recipe.

What else have we been eating? Roast chicken and root veggies, turkey tacos w homemade salsa, buttermilk fried chicken, bistek tagalog, and short ribs. I’ve also been doing a bit of freezer diving which means that the kids have also been eating a bit of chicken nuggets, frozen pizzas, and the like

Tomorrow I have to bake cuppies for school’s bakesale Wednesday and for dinner we eat oven fried buttermilk chicken. I would like to make some smashed potatoes to go along with that, but I don’t really want to venture out in the rain that’s supposed to hit tomorrow.

Came home only a few days before Lilman started 5th grade. Yikes! Soon he’ll be in middle school.

Lilmiss followed suit the following week and started preschool. 2 days a week for 4 hours w Lil Toots. Her first day went well… her 2nd day? Not so well… Lil Toots wasn’t there . I felt so bad leaving her and never really expected her to react that way. She acts like that when he’s not there before her *sigh*

babyM is getting into everything and anything and drives me nuts and is so adventurous. One nice thing is that I get 1-on-1 time with her when N is at school. It’s funny she doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself when the 2 big kids are at school, but I’m sure relishes in the fact that no one is yelling at her or taking things from her.

The 2 big kids went on their annual Dr’s visits too as well as babyM for her 18 month check up. Lilman is huge-ish. I won’t say how much he weighs b/c he’s quite embarrassed about it, but the Dr did say that it’s nothing to worry about after summer time and once he gets back into his “activities” he should be fine. The Dr also said that by the time he’s 18, he should be well over 6 feet. Possibly 6′2″. WOWSERS!

Everyone has been mentioning how lean N has gotten. She’s sprouted in height quite a bit and has lost a bit of her chub… but her cheeks still remain. At her appt she weighed in at 37 lbs, which is the 50th %. I can’t recall her height. A few days after her appt, I had to rush her to the ER… b/c she stuck a bead in her nose and there was no way to get it out. UGH! The triage nurse told me that I could probably get it out myself by plugging up the unobstructed nostril and covering her mouth with mine and blowing. SUCCESS. The bead shot out at my face as well as some boogers. Oh joy of joys… at least now she knows NOT to put things in her nose.

babyM is also in the 50th percentile for weight, 21 lbs. WOO HOO!! A long way coming from her eensy teensy self when she was born. I’m contributing this to all the good food she ate in Hawai’i. Lol. Her height has her in the 20th or 30th percentiles I think.

I’ve been working on purging and donating. It’s a slow process. Like molasses slow… but it’s happening. I’m so proud of finally purging all the junk that we’ve accumulated. And I’m happy that it’s going to people who need it instead of collecting dust here in the house and just taking up space.

Tomorrow S tackles the backyard… small steps. I am really hoping to have the girls’ bedroom set up before Christmas *crossing fingers* It’s been almost a whole year since we bought that super kitchen, and sadly it’s been sitting in my sister’s garage. Lol.

The rain had woken me up around 530am-ish. I thought I wouldn’t get any more snoozes in, but managed to fall back asleep for another hour. When I finally got up Mama said that it was raining. Looked in the direction of the beach and it looked fine to me, in the other direction though it looked cloudy. No bother anyhow, the rains are just normally a passing thing. So I packed up our “lunch/snack” and got everything together.

Still clear as blue skies… up until we set up “camp” and the kids headed out to the water. Not even 5 minutes and a light shower started to pour. And then the sky opened up. Not a down pour but little more than a passing sprinkle. You could tell b/c the waters were a little “rough” even. The kids remained in the water though. BabyM and I had to get out b/c it was just too cold for me. We sat up at “camp” with Mama and waited for the rain to pass, we watched a number of other families pack up and head home. The thought had crossed my mind but the kids weren’t leaving the water.

I don’t even know how long, but it finally passed. YAY! And then the sun was beaming hot. Took babyM back out to the water and she was having a grand old time. Tried to work on my tan but it’s difficult when the wee one wants to be in the water all the time. And when I say working on my tan, I’m only talking about my legs. Pwahahaha.

We were there a good 3 hours and then came home. That was “Beach Tuesday”

All the kids got a haircut today. Even babyM! First it was J. He was in need of some cleaning up, so I took the clippers and cleaned his hair up a bit. Next was babyM, her hair was all sorts of uneven and we had never cut her hair since she was born, so I asked my mom to even her out a bit. I put all the cuttings in a plastic bag to keep. I did it with the other kids too, only thing is don’t ask me where their clippings are. D’oh! Next up was lilmiss. Her hair is pretty but really uneven as well and I figured she could use a cut to stimulate some growth in her hair. It was down to her waist almost and Mama trimmed off about 5 inches. YEAH! That’s a lot I know, but her hair grows fast so it’s okay.

What should have been a trip into town turned into a trip to Salt Lake and Pearl City.

We went to check out the other Target, and ooh wee found some good deals! I spied a 75% off end cap and found a bunch of “summer” line stuff that was on clearance. Got Mom a bunch of things for the house and nothing was over $1.50. Lol. Score. Picture frames, placemats, knives, and the like. The kids even managed to get a little something.

Then it was off to Kmart by the stadium to pick up some shampoo for the girls b/c it was on sale.

Then to Sam’s Club to have lunch and pick up some necessities.

Just a lot of errand running and mundane stuffs.

So we made plans to head to Ala Moana. No biggie.

We stayed home the majority of the day and thankfully the tradewinds were in full effect so we spent a lot of time on the lanai.

We ate a late lunch. And when that was done, we headed out to Target.

When we got home I decided to try the computer one more time before my appt tomorrow. Low and behold it was back to normal! YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! So I been trying to cancel my appointment and their stupid concierge is down. But damn my computer is back!