No shoes, No shirt, No service!

I hate Wal-Mart.  Have I ever told ya'll that?  Oh yes, at least 100 times.  Well now I have a dang good reason not to ever show my face there again!

Bee is doing SO good at her potty training.  SO good in fact, I was super confident about taking her in the car and into the store sans pull up.  Ya'll, she was SO excited!  We pottied one last time before we left the house.  I ran to check on napping brother (YES, Husby was home with him) while she was getting her shoes out of her room.  Ya'll I'm going to stop you right there and say this.  Just because a toddler is putting something ON, doesn't mean they won't take something off.  Just sayin...

We head to Wal-Mart, I am beaming.  My 'big girl' didn't pee herself in her car seat.  We were so excited about how grown up she looked in her pretty dress and sandals.  She even brought in her purse.

I went all through the store grabbing what I needed, not really paying attention to Bee...she always entertains herself.

We head down the baby aisle...Bubba needed shampoo...that's when IT happened.  My grown-up, lady like, well behaved two year old stood up in the basket, lifted up her dress, and revealed to the entire Wal-Mart world what she was NOT WEARING.  Oh, and she yelled WHEE as loud as she could.  (Trust me, this girl echoes!)

Once I picked my jaw up off the grimy floor, I managed to shove her back in the basket and attempt to cover her 'parts' up.  I am flustered, fumbling, and trying to think of some excuse to blurt to the hillbillies next to me... which they oddly don't seem to surprised that my daughter is not wearing anything... but a dress...and a purse.  OH MY WORD.

Practically running to the checkout it hits me she must have taken off her panties in her bedroom when she was putting on her shoes.  Sure enough, there they were, in a little ball...in her play kitchen sink.  Remind me to never ask her to cook me anything....Bless her heart!

My grandmother always taught me there was a silver lining to everything.  Reflecting on our afternoon, I can say this. 1.)  Praise GOD she didn't poop at Wal-Mart! 2). I will always always always have an extra set of Dora undies in my purse.  ALWAYS.



What item of clothing did you forget to wear to Wal-Mart?
XOXO Summer

Sloppy Joe, Sloppy Sloppy Joe!

Easy peasy lemon squeasy, ya'll!  This is yummo and quick!  :)



 Sloppy Joe Casserole

1 lb ground beef, cooked, drained
1 can original sloppy joe sauce (Manwich is our preferred brand)
1 can refrigerated original breadsticks (Pillsbury)
1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese

*I browned my meat with a dash of red pepper flakes, worchestershire sauce, Lawry's, pepper, and garlic powder.  Trust me, it makes a difference!*

1.  Oven at 375 degrees.
2.  Brown meat, drain, stir in sauce.
3.  Pour mixture into 12X8 or 11X7 baking dish.
4.  Unroll breadstick dough and lay over mixture to form crust.
5.  Bake at 375 for 13 minutes.  Add cheese.  Bake an additional 2 minutes or until cheese is melted.



If I didn't have a picky Husby family member, I would also add red onion to the meat...

Happy Eats, Yall!
XOXO Summer

Friday Five

This week is quite an eclectic mix!

1.  

I'm back at creepin! Someone needs to tell this poor girl that 1. We don't live in LA. And 2.  Her wedges make her look like a candy striper jolly green giant. 

2.  

I am obsessed with this giraffe! He is adorable. Doesn't he just make you grin? Oh the cuteness!!!

3.  

I'm not anywhere near artist quality in my drawings but these colored pencils are the BOMB! They make your illustrations look so fluid!

4.  

Husby and Bee face timing. LOVE!

5.  

OMG I'm seriously pushing for my FIL to do this. :) Happy Friday, Y'all!

XOXO Summer

Chicken Gristle Road, TX

I was folding laundry today and somehow found myself reading the labels of some pants.  Did you know the Levi Strauss's headquarters is on Battery Street?  Isn't that a weird name?

I got curious, as ya'll know I often get...what other random street names exist in the good ol U. S. of A?.......

Cannibal Road in California

Peppermint Road (actually here in Sand Springs...Husby and I were actually looking at a house on that street, wouldn't that be FUN to live on a Peppermint Road?  It would be like living in Candy Land!  Except the house was a tad creepy and the neighbors had a dog the size of a horse.  And not a mini one...)  I digress.

Waterdragon Road in Hollywood!

Gungywamp in Connecticut...

Cow Shed Road in Oklahoma

Licking Hole in Virginia...gross....

Pooh Bear Drive in Missouri (LOVE it!)

Stuck Street in New York-- avoid that one in the winter!

Jesus Road and Demon Street in Pennsylvania (wouldn't that be awkward if they intersect?!)

And lastly, my favorite:


Digestion Drive.  I definitely plan on finding where that street resides and opening a chili restaurant.  Immediately.

What crazy city streets are in your pants?  Or shirt?
XOXO Summer

Icing on the Cake

I've decided Pinterest ideas are much like Online Dating.  You never really know what you are going to get and one must always anticipate a sketchy outcome.  In fact, I was telling a good friend the other day that 75% of my Pinterest attempts are worthy of a toilet flush.  

But have faith!  I baked a cake and tried the 'faux fondant' icing technique I saw on Pinterest and it was success!

I baked a yellow cake (I cheated and used a box mix...don't judge)!!

 

I tore a sheet of parchment/wax paper into quarters and slid a piece under each side of the cake.  That way when I am done icing, I can remove the paper and there won't be a messy cake plate.  I know, I'm a genius.

Here's where the faux fondant idea came in.  You are supposed to microwave store bought icing for 15 second intervals until it's 'liquefied'.  This only took me two 15 second intervals, stirring in between.  If you get the icing too hot, just let it cool on your counter for a few minutes.  

Then you just pour the icing over the cake and let it set.  That took about 20 minutes.  

I slowly removed the wax paper and voila!

I added strawberries to make it all fancy schmancy and there ya'll go!  Happy Cake!

XOXO Summer

FOUR

Saw this.  Intrigued me.  I'm doin it!

Four:

1. Four people who text/emailme daily:

       1. Husby  2.  Jessi (Mama Jessi)   3.  Bestie Houston    4.  Bestie Anne

2.  Four of my favorite places to eat:

       1.  Texas Road House   mmmmm steak....and their baked potatoes are ah-mazing!

       2.  Smashmouth Burgers!    The 'Fried Chicken Oklahoma Burger' is divine.

       3  Pizza Hut, ya'll already know!

       4.  Fadi's- Lebanese/Mediterranean restaurant...unfortunately the closest one is in Dallas but I would seriously drive there every three days for a schwarma and humus!

3.  Four places I'd rather be right now:

    1.  Maui.  For forever.  There is a certain magic there that no place on Earth can match.

    2.  My Grandmother's house-10 years ago- when she was happy, healthy, and making memories with us.

    3.  Weight Watchers Meeting.  As weird as that sounds I have an amazing leader and she is so inspirational!

    4.  Whole Foods.  I love doing a food crawl through the store and finding new, healthy (expensive) things!

4.  Four tv shows I watch over and over:

     1.  Friends!    2.  Frazier (Niles is hysterical!)   3.  Grimm  (This show is life changing.  Even Husby likes it.  SO good!)    4.  Real Housewives  I know it's cliche but fascinating!

Happy Saturday!  EVERYONE got to nap in our house for over 3 hours but lil ol me.  I organized my two binders of recipes.  HOT mess but now I feel more organized!

XOXO Summer

Friday Five

This week is full of Pinterest 'flops' in my book. Enjoy!

1.  

A fridge. Painted entirely in chalkboard paint. Come on now, Martha Stuart. Even you would find the sheer ridiculousness of this. 

2.  

She's got the whole world, on het face! She's got the whole world on her face. She's got the whole wide world on her face! She's got the whole world on her face. Sing it with me now!

3.  

Upside down braided pony tail. What?! Ain't nobody got time for that!

4.  

I'm from Oklahoma. I'll even show a lol Okie pride now and then. But cow nails?!

5.  

Clearly Ariel wants to be...a part of her world? Oh man. 

XOXO Summer

 

White River Fish Market

Southern Living ranted and raved about White River Fish Market in one of their previous issues this year.  Sidder and I were so excited to try it!

This past Monday I finally got to eat at White River.  It was SOOO good!

It's located in 'north' Tulsa, in a scary sort of area but once you walk in the doors and see all of the fresh fish and shrimp, any hesitations go out the window (and into the questionable 'salon' next door)...

Being back on Weight Watchers has at times been a struggle, especially when I am at a restaurant that serves amazing fried shrimp... my favorite food EVER.  EVER.  EVER.

I opted for the 'broiled' platter, a piece of tilapia, 3 shrimp, scallops, and hush puppies. You also get two sides (baked potato was yummo, cole slaw sucked).



My Uncle ordered the gumbo, rendered delish once hot sauce was applied!  He also had the seafood salad.



My parents always order the same thing at every restaurant they go...fried catfish...and they also gobbled down theirs.



Everything on the menu is around $14 a plate but you get so much food and the fish is MEGA fresh.  Completely worth it!

The best part for my Momma was the Buttermilk pie.  It had a luscious lemon flavor which I didn't care for but everyone else loved it!



Now do you see why I had the hiccups? :)

Starving as usual,
XOXO Summer

Hiccups

Tonight was the scariest night of my life.  After three days of a tightened feeling in my chest, difficulty breathing, and light headedness, my father convinced me to go to the ER.  "Summer, those are symptoms of a heart attack in women..."

Husby flew us to St. Francis, I don't remember Husby carrying me into the ER.  I collapsed trying to breathlessly explain to the nurse lady at the desk what was wrong.  "Chest.....hurts....heart....attack...numb...ow"

I looked down at my hands in my wheelchair and I realized they started spasaming and doing weird things that I had no control over.  My feet were completely numb.  I COULDN'T FEEL MY FACE.  I looked up at Husby and screamed as loud as my flustered, numb, stupefied face could scream "I can't feel anything.  I'm having a stroke!!!" IT sounded like I had been hit in the face with a frozen fish.   I blacked out before I had to opportunity to cherish his reaction.

Obviously they escorted us back behind the solemn, creepy, uncomforting doors into a triage room.  I am hysterical thinking I will never see my children again, my husband can only rub the edge of my foot to comfort me because there are 4 people surrounding a screaming, flailing ME....

One IV, oxygen nose thingy, and lorazepam drip later, I am conscious and semi-coherent.  (Lorazepam is quite the 'relaxer', LET me tell ya!)

I am able to answer all of these questions for the nurse.  I have an EKG done.  An MRI.  A chest x-ray.  I am tested for everything under the sun.  Did I have a heart attack?  Was that a stroke in the admissions area?  Am I paralyzed?

Dear friends.  None of those catastrophic medical diagnosis made my chart.  (Praise GOD!)  After talking to the ER Doctor we have concluded this:  Monday is when I noticed a shortness of breath.  It progressively got worse over the next three days.  Then my 'super NON medical' parents convince me to chug aspirin and high tail it to the ER, leaving me with the feelings of death and anxiety not even measurable on a chart.

What started the shortness of breath?  Muscle spasms.  Muscle spasms?  Hiccups to be exact.  THIS GIRL shoved her food in her face too fast at lunch with her parents (that's tomorrow's blog!) and got the hiccups over hush puppies and sauteed scallops.

As I am being discharged from the ER the sweet nurse says, NO LIE, "Bless your heart you were so worried!  And all of this over a few little hiccups!"  Gee thanks.  That's. Awesome.

Tell me,
How was your evening?

Husby is still laughing at me...
xoxo Summer

MIA

Ya'll, this summer has been crazy busy but so much fun!  I must say I am really enjoying NOT being pregnant through another Oklahoma summer!

That being said, I will update you on what's going on in the Bass House.  (Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how much that sounds like the name of some small town, off the highway fish joint in Texas...)

Turtle is so close to walking!  He has such a fun big sister to learn from.  Too bad she is always so busy trying to climb over everything in sight he can't quite keep up.  Yet. 

I have joined Weight Watchers again and I LOVE my meeting but I am so sad because school will start in a month and I won't be able to go to my weekly 10:00 session.  Sad face.  But I've lost 15 pounds.  CRAZY, right?  Husby laughs hysterically at me because I will still stuff my face daintily nibble on cookies, I just have to track them...

I cut my hair off.  Completely.  I saw a friend's wedding pictures from this summer and LOVED her beautiful hair (and pictures-- they look like a fairytale bridal magazine photo shoot!!).  I scrambled into the beauty salon, having never met this poor stylist before and declared she had "30 minutes to make me look like this *enter picture from my scratched, mangled phone* and to ignore the remnants of my faulty eyebrow wax (I waxed off HALF of the left side of my face by accident.  Shame on me for attempting this feat with a 2 yr old and 1 yr old audience)...  Anyway.  The stylist succumbed to the challenge and pulled off an amazing cut!  :)



We have been so blessed with amazing people in our lives.  Our neighbors have been so sweet and we have SO enjoyed getting to know them.  (How many times can I say so?)  I am SO excited for school to start and the fall decorating, baking, holidays, and EATING can begin!  You know you've got it good when your neighbor needs a dash of vanilla for cookies and then brings them to you straight from the oven on a silver platter.  Warm.  With fireworks outside to watch.  Ah-mazing.  Envious?  You should be.

We have had fun play dates with friends!  Bestie Houston came up this past weekend, two birthday parties in ONE day, pony 'double' birthday back in the beginning of July...and the list goes on and on!  This Friday we are super pumped about our trip to the Jenks Aquarium!  God has brought some wonderful friends in our lives!  It's like he knows Bee needs life lessons on sharing.  (Wink wink!)

I have attempted several Pinterest 'things' that have been a complete FLOP.  Here's a hint.  A recipe that I was eager to try and after I had all the ingredients ready, the link to the recipe DOESN'T match the ingredients.  I bought things for some sort of cream cheese chicken lasagna thing.  The recipe link went to chicken enchiladas with corn tortillas.  GRR.  I did what I could with the ingredients....our poochie, Caddy, had a GREAT dinner, let me tell ya.

My next Pinterest flop is the 'Listerine vinegar' pedicure foot soak.  You're supposed to soak your feet in a mix of Listerine, vinegar and hot water.  For 10 minutes.  And like an idiot I sat in my bathroom sink for THRITY minutes, convincing myself it was working.  I walked away with BLUE feet (Listerine apparently dyes skin...), tingly legs, and a weird smell throughout my house...thank you vinegar.  But no dead skin sloughing off as promised.  So glad I wasted precious 'quiet time' after putting the Littles to bed.

I've spent the last two days relaxing in Stillwater with my parents and sweet Uncle from Colorado.  I'm headed home tomorrow, clearly Husby cannot survive on left overs for three nights in a row.  It might kill him.  Ha! 

What have you been up to?
XOXO Summer

Morocan Shrimp-WW recipe

Ya'll this dish was so good!  When I posted the picture on FB, I was thrilled by it's attention!  Here's the recipe you requested!


Moroccan Shrimp

1 medium onion
1 (9 oz) box of raisins
1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes
1 (1.7 oz) jar garam masala
1 1/2 pounds peeled and deveined large shrimp
cooking spray, salt, pepper

1.  Coat pan with cooking spray, add onion and brown.
2.  Add garam masala, stir, add shrimp and cook until done (about 4-7 minutes)
3.  Add tomatoes, raisins, salt and pepper, stir constantly and serve as soon as everything is hot.
Makes 4 one cup servings at 4 points each.

The recipe suggested serving this with a side of couscous but we prefer rice.

Here's how I did it!

I used all of the ingredients listed above but I used powdered garam masala-- about 1 1/2 TB
(can you buy it in a liquid/paste form?!)  And I bought 'onion and garlic' petite diced tomatoes to add to the flavor.  Oh, and I just used a 1 pound bag of frozen, pre-cooked shrimp so I wouldn't have to worry about 'un-done' sea fare.

 I will say this, the raisins added a nice 'unfamiliar' flavor but Husby told me next time skip 'em.  Ironically the baby, Turtle was the only one who really gobbled those down.

And like I said, I just boiled some long grain white rice with 2 whole bay leaves, salted and buttered the rice and served the shrimp over it.  YUMMY!  :)  I hope ya'll enjoy this as much as we did-- perfect for a summer night!

WW Original Recipe
Taken from: Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook

XOXO Summer

Window Seat

Whilst talking to a dear friend yesterday, I gained a valuable lesson. She told me in their almost ten years of marriage, she has learned to 'calmly gaze out the passenger seat' when her husband drives to avoid backseat driving and 'slow down! squabbles'. 

"It's habit now. I look to the right and that's it."  Pondering this, I'm wondering how many fights my sweet Husby and I would have avoided had I known this trick. 

Reflecting on our scenic drive back from Branson last year. Pouring ran. Flying through a two lane highway. Screaming toddler. My hair all but stood up. When we made it back to Tulsa I literally kissed the driveway. Could I have just looked out my passenger window and shut my mouth?

When we were dating... he hadn't even met my Dad... the ONE time Husby is driving and I do keep my mouth shut. And he rear ends an Escalade. Do you see the irony??

And what does a good wife do when the man of her dreams is all but hanging out the window blasting some poor guy on the BA just because he cut him off? I guess it wouldn't be too hard for me to look away and act like I don't know the crazy man in my drivers seat...

I should be lucky I suppose.  My daughter has learned to say 'Whee!' in the car when I 'accidentally' give the car too much gas or we go a smidge past the speed limit. Only the good Lord knows how long it will be til she rats me out to DaDa.  But I wonder dear friends... Would Husby have the self control to just look out the passenger seat window?

Only time will tell. Thank goodness a minivan can only go so fast. 

Adjusting my side view mirrors,

XOXO Summer

One Night Stand

 I love my Husby. So when summer break started for me I magically transformed into this amazing, attentive, caring wife. (I know, I'm shocked too!)  

With the summer heat beating down on his back every day it really kinks his appetite. He isn't really hungry until bed time. Enter gross details...

 One time he actually ate CHICKEN WINGS in bed right next to me. I have awoken in the am with his previous night's popcorn kernels stuck to my face. When I rolled out of bed and into three pudding cups I had enough. (Ok one more. Once he was sleep walking in the kitchen, poured himself a GIANT Eskimo Joes glass of Pepsi and attempted to drink it in bed. Epic fail. We both woke up covered in sticky syrup and wondering who peed the bed. Haha sure the man can successfully pour a glass full while in deep slumber but drink it? Apparently not...)

Due to my kitchen creativity and being a sucker for his sweet 'pleeeease's, I created something I thought would be a one night thing. Boy was I wrong. 

'Snack plates'. I started small. Crackers and cheese. Then popcorn and strawberries. Now he asks 'only one plate?'  What have I done?!

It is now our nightly ritual to put the kids to bed and he prattles off whatever sound good to him while I head to the kitchen as a short order cook. 

I may sing at the top of my lungs off key. Shrink laundry. Accidentally wash all of our mulch down the street with my inability to run a water hose. But I'd say Husby has it pretty darn good!

What shall I make for his snack plate tonight?

XOXO Summer