Fast one

I was laying (or is it lying??) in bed reading a book when Kyle kindly asked,

"Would you like some Oreos and milk, sweetie?"

Um, is there any better way to my heart than that?

I grinned and without hesitation heartily accepted the offer.

Kyle came back with a plate full of cookies and some milk. Ah, what could be better than this, I thought. Reading, relaxing, and Oreos! I grabbed a cookie and dunked it in the milk, allowing it to get sufficiently soggy before I took a bite---

"OOOh gross!" I screamed.

This is sick! This is NOT an Oreo!"

I looked down at the plate full of cookies. All of them had the "OREO" imprint on them. I was confused. Whatever it was that made its way into my mouth was not an Oreo cookie. Kyle shrieked with laughter. He grabbed the cookie out of my hand and examined it. Then he said,

"I don't believe you!"

Turns out Mr. Prankster tried to pull a fast one on me. He put a Poser Oreo cookie on the plate with the True Oreos and it just so happened the first one I ate was the Poser. I have warned friends that Target's attempt at an Oreo cookie is disgusting. How do I know this? Well, there is an advertisement in Target with an up-close picture of their Oreo wannabes with the phrase "Tastes the same, only much cheaper" --or something like that. So, several weeks ago when my beloved Oreos were priced above the 2.52 limit, I decided to give the wannabes a try. BIG mistake. I kept them in the pantry for Cade because to him a cookie is a cookie. (He calls Oreos "black cookies.") His taste buds haven't matured yet, you know. I guess Kyle decided to put my tastebuds to the test to determine if I really could taste the difference.

I'm proud to say that yes, I reeeeallly know my Oreo cookies.

Also-- FYI-- Only one row of cookies was eaten while Kyle was out of town. That's like a record for me!! He's gone again so we'll see what kind of dent I make in the next batch...

Sabanna Wee

Our lil' Savannah is growing up too fast! She is full of giggles and grins and brings so much sunshine to our lives. Here are her latest Savannah-isms....

She's still obesessed with putting everything in her mouth. Including the floor. She crawls along the floor and stops when she spots a particularly tasty looking slab of hardwood or ceramic tile and tries will all her might to get a good bite out of it. I've got to get a picture of her face to the floor gnawing on nothing. It's hilarious.

She is a drama queen. She'll be playing with Cade or by herself even and then burst into a hysterical fit of tears and shrieks, as if she was bitten by a snake or something. We dash to her side to see what was the matter and then she just looks up and smiles, as if nothing ever happened. She gets us every time.

After each bite of baby food she always says "mmm". Gerber would be pleased.

When she's feeling left out she lets out a huge scream until someone makes eye contact with her. Then she stops and lets out a little chuckle to let you know she's cool with you again.

Bouillon Cubes Are Not Candy!

Even though Cade is almost 4 years old, he still gets a marshmellow every time he goes to the bathroom. Now that he is pretty independent I also notice that the marshmellow jar seems to empty at a much faster rate, because he takes it upon himself to reward his pottying accomplishments.

Yesterday Michelle went to the store to buy bouillon cubes for dinner. She left the jar on the table and then it soon disapeared. I am sure that she thought that I put them away, and likewise I figured she put them in the cupboard. What a funny surprise it was to find the buillon cube jar right next to the marshmellows in the bathroom (we keep a jar of marshmallows on a shelf in there) with an opened cube half eaten and neatly placed back in the wrapper. I guess it wasn't as tasty as a Reese's peanut butter cup after all. Those foil wrappers are sure misleading!

Why bottled water?

I am about sick and tired of bottled water. I am not sure where I was when this became all the rage. People carrying Nalgene bottles full of water was cool for a little while, but now it has gone one step further--individual disposable bottles of water.

Now I know and acknowlege that I am usually in the fading years of almost all things fashionable and so it is no surprise that I am just now getting around to accepting that people actully buy this stuff. Maybe it is because I lived in Idaho/Utah for so much of my life. I think people in Idaho were still wearing MC Hammer pants when people elsewhere where sporting Abercrombie and Fitch.

The Michelle Woodbury side of the Kyle Woodbury family started buying water when we moved to Chicago. Water here costs between 79 cents to $1.99 for most water that I have seen. That is more than 5 cents per ounce! I am paying only 2.3 cents per ounce for gas for our cars. I think West Chicago City charges 1.5 cents per GALLON. Next time someone complains about how much money oil companies are making they had better not be drinking from a bottle of water.

Here are the facts:

1. bottled water isn't a good price
2. bottled water isn't proven to be better for you
3. bottled water creates more garbage (and I am not a green person)

As for me...I will keep drinking from the fridge filter. (even though it takes like 2 minutes to fill a small cup)

Fall Hunting Season

Every fall since I can remember my family goes hunting for elk and deer. In fact, some of my fondest memories are of hunting up on Castle Mountain with my dad, brothers, and closest friends. When I was in grade school and high school, I would take a full week off and go up hunting in the backcountry near Garden Valley, Idaho.

My hunting experience on Castle Mountain included us taking our sheep-herders tent, (which doesn't have a bottom, but does have sides and a wall and a stove with a chimney) we would also bring our motorcycles to drive around the hills. Often times it would snow 2"-5" of snow during the week. I also remember that everyone had their specific spot that they would hunt and noone else would go...I am not sure why that is just what happened. The Bob Borg family went to "The Face" while the Marc Haws family went to "No Tell'em Creek" and the Don Woodbury family went to "Bumper Bowl."

Now these names were not the actual names of the places. They are names that were assigned through several years of hunting by each individual family. Bumper Bowl was named because for some odd reason there was an automobile bumper halfway down the mountain in the strangest place. I have no idea why or how it got there, nor could I come up with any reason why anyone would bring it there. There was definitely no way, in my mind anyone could drive a car to this location, so I just assumed it must have gotten dropped there by a helicopter. (Remember I was 12 or so when I had this idea)

Yesterday I returned home from the yearly hunt. This year I went with my Dad, Grandpa Hunter, and Wayne Hunter. This was my first year shooting black powder with a muzzleloader and it was definitely more difficult. The muzzleloader hunt is later in the year, which means it is a lot colder. Saturday I was hunting in 24" of snow or more part of the day. While I was walking in the snow sopping wet I was trying to remember why I like hunting so much. I was freezing cold and 4 hours away from camp and it was getting dark.

I tell my wife that the reason I MUST go hunting is "so that I can provide for the family." It seems like a pretty good line, but she doesn't buy it. I guess I don't really buy it either so I am searching for a better one. I was gonna try another one next year, "I need to go hunting because it is a family tradition" or because "my grandpa is getting old and I don't know how many years I will be able to spend time with him out hunting." The truth is that he is in pretty good health though and I kind of feel guilty for saying that. I am pretty sure that he will never read this though...or hope that he doesn't. (grandpa, if you do read this I am sure that someone else had to show you so don't be mad.)

Well, I will spare that details but say that I was successful this year. I didn't have time to cut up the elk and wrap it so I had to take it to a butcher. I will attach a couple of pictures from the trip.

This is taken from the top of 8 Mile Creek Ridge

This is the legendary Grandpa Lavell Hunter

This year this was our kitchen, bedroom, and living room

The morning of the day we saw over 40 elk

The camp cook Don Woodbury frying up some hash browns and eggs

Grandpa Lavell Hunter and Kyle Woodbury

My Curious George

Now that I am comfortably supporting myself on kickbacks from Nabisco for being the official spokeswoman for the Oreo cookie, it is high time I write about the other loves in my life!

The last few days have been an odd combination of lazy,crazy, busy, miserable and enjoyable. With Kyle out of town for the week, my schedule in some strange ways has become quite flexible. Meal time is whenever, and I haven't worried so much about the state of the house. (*Disclaimer. This does not mean that when Kyle is around I keep the place spotless and feed him grand meals. There is just certainly more effort when he is around. That in and of itself is funny because he expects neither a hot meal or a spotless housewhen he comes in the door from work.)

Well, I was laid back about the house until today when I realized I might have a babysitter in the home and that certainly got me moving. An hour or so into my mad rampage of laundry, dishes, mopping and the like, the reality hit that I was going to have to bring the kiddies with me with me on my outing because institute is on Thursday nites. Dang institute teachers have to be so good that it keeps my "driving babysitters" away! Then I relaxed again. It was actually kind of nice knowing that any further cleaning I was going to do could be at my pace and I had no deadline. Once the kids woke from their nap, I really got to enjoy them and for a few hours, didn't have to worry about getting anything ready.

I realized how different my life is when those feelings of having to "get ready" are present. Different things get done. The feeling isn't intrinsically bad-- after all, some times we need a good adrenaline push to get stuff done. But when the adrenaline wasn't there, I was better able to focus on my little ones running around in the nursery giggling. I was relishing in their cuteness and trying to read their personalities. Then my mind drifted to some of the funny things Cade has said this week. I realized I neeed to do a better job at documenting these things because they are just too cute to not!

Yesterday evening I decided to take the kids to the mall during the "witching hours" --that's what I call them--- the hours between 4pm and bedtime. The kids are cranky, hyper, but I can't exactly take them anywhere because I have to get dinner prepared and them ready for bed. After they expended their energy at the indoor play place, we got some food to eat. I was eating a sandwich and Cade discovered my cup contained a liquid substance far greater than water-- an extreme rarity. Root beer! He quickly decided he wanted to be in charge of the drink and began sipping away. A few minutes later I was ready for a sip myself and asked Cade if I could have a drink.

"No Mama, you hafta eat your sammich first. Then you can have pop."

Said like a true parent!

On the way home he asked, "Where's Curious George's Mommy?"

Cade despises the response, "I don't know" so I answered,

"In the jungles of Africa." At least to the best of my knowledge that's where she was.

He seemed satisfied with the answer. I suppose it really started to bother him that there was no maternal figure in George's life. Just the Man in the Yellow Hat.

A few weeks ago Cade was watching a "big" baseball game with Kyle (if you ask me, every one Kyle insists upon watching is a "big" game. What consitutes a little game then, because they all seem big!") and said,

"Daddy, you're my best friend. And baseball's my cousin."

Here are some pictures of the fun Halloween festivities Cade and Savvy joined in on while we were away on our cruise.....

Lesson learnt

After reading the last two posts anyone perusing our blog must think we are junk-food addicts. I firmly hold my ground that I am simply a HUGE Oreo fan (okay, and sweets in general--but the only junk food we have in the house are my Oreos). And as for Kyle--well, I am honestly surprised that he blogged about Oberweis ice cream. He is usually quite anti-desserts and more pro-entree-like foods. Lest we forget that there are still a good 6 (or more!) weeks left in the Hunter family Biggest Loser contest? Blogging about junk food is not going to win us anything!

In any case, time for a fresh topic to blog about.

Wait--- except I do have to confess something. (uh-oh. This could get scary) Two days ago the kids were napping and I felt some hunger pangs. I realized I hadn't eaten yet for the day (For busy, SAHMs forgetting to eat is a common occurence. You know, so much to do and keep up with that we remember at aboout 4pm that we forgot to eat breakfast*) and a smile quickly came to my face. "I've got Oreos," I said to myself. So I grabbed a glass, poured the milk and took a handful of cookies. I sat down in the living room and dunked a few (okay, like 6) oreos in milk and washed them down. I sat on the couch enjoying the hunger that was just appeased.

Moments later my head began to spin and I could not even stand up. This uneasy feeling crept up my throat and my mouth watered. Just like the pregnant days--only I am not pregant. I was closest to my front door so I ran for it and reached the front yard just in time.

I literally tossed my cookies.

So, dear friends, I have learnt my lesson well. Thou shalt not eat cookies on an empty stomach.

Next time I'll be sure to eat something substancial before I partake in the Oreo goodness. I know, even after that, I still swear upon the greatness of Oreos. Psycho.

Okay, I'll blog about something else now. :-)

Good news!

Oreos were on sale yesterday.

This is a big deal for me. It's been about 5 weeks since I purchased any. I don't know how I've survived. Well, the all-I-could-eat-at-all-hours-of-the-day weeklong food fest (aka-- "cruise") probably helped some. I've made this deal with myself that if Oreos are more than 2.54 a package I can not purchase them. I know at Wal-mart they are about 2.52 all the time. Sometimes they drop the price to 2.39--- but I don't frequent Wal-Mart very often. Chicago doesn't seem to believe in the Super form of Wal-marts, so the Super Target's have taken over around here, which is fine by me because I love that place. The last several weeks the going price for a package of Oreos has been 2.70. Just couldn't do it. So what's 24 cents? Perhaps it's just the principle of it I guess. I set a standard and I committed to keeping it. Maybe it just makes me think that I am doing well with sticking to the grocery budget or something. But in any case, the heavens opened and knew that in order for me to get through this week, (Kyle's out of town....again) I needed to be well-stocked on Oreos and they were on sale --2 for $5. So I bought three packages! We'll see how long they last.....

While on the Oreo's topic, I was in Utah back in September and went to Reams, this huge warehouse grocery store in Provo where Food for Less used to be. From what I understood, Reams is supposed to be this super-thrifty, awesome place for folks to get groceries. It is not. It is terrible! Worse than Albertsons! Guess how I know? Oreos are 3.69 per package. Outrageous, isn't it?

Oberweis Dairy

I remember a couple of our friends ranting about how good the ice cream was at Oberweis Dairy. (Alicia & Luke, Jared & Jodie) It took me about 9 months to finally decide to give it a shot and now I am hooked. It is the chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream shake that gets me.

We're baaack!

After a lovely 7 days cruising the Mexican Riviera, Kyle and I have returned to the real world. We missed Cade and Savannah so much, but they had a blast with our friends, the Michnicks. We came home to a plate of halloween cookies, Sunday dinner, and a cute little poster with pictures of what they did this past week (including artwork from Cade). We are so lucky to have such a wonderful family take care of our kids.