Help, My Blogging Skills Are Fading....

My blogging skills seem to be on hiatus.  I cannot seem to come up with witty ways to make our experiences as of late interesting at all.  Maybe we haven't been doing enough or maybe it is just because some of the glamour is gone and we are now just living life.  Hmmm.

I finally got my Deep Dish pizza to work.  I decided to nix the oil and replace it with-- da-da-da-da-- butter!  What isn't great with a 1/4 of melted butter in it, on it and on the pan?  The crust turned out perfectly and the toppings were quite good as well. If only I had some good Italian sausage or real pepperoni.  Can't seem to find the good stuff here. The best part was that neither of the boys wanted to eat it so more for me!! I even made a second one and put it in the freezer for later on.  I put a picture below, but I was so excited to try it that I ate two pieces before remembering to take a picture....

Not sure if I mentioned this in my blog or just on FB, but Manzie had taken to sleeping (probably more like hiding) in Doug's unpacked suitcase from his last trip to Singapore. Well, he headed back to Singapore on Sunday and took her beloved suitcase with him.  So, what is a Pug to do? Find the next best thing of course- the laundry basket!  It amazes me how a dog with only 80% of her vision and bad hips can still manage to climb into a laundry basket. 

Coop had another swim lesson this week. He loves it so much. He told me it was "Boom-tastic!"  Not really sure what that means, but I am taking it as something good.  He is improving so much each week.  While walking home, he said to me, "Mom, guess what I learned in swimming today?" I, of course, thought he was going to tell me about a new skill he learned, but no, this is Cooper, I should have expected what was coming.  He said, "I learned how to burp underwater so no one can hear me."  I guess this is what the future holds for me raising two boys.  Lovely.

Coop and I did an art project we found on Pinterest (Thank you, Karen).  Pinterest you ask?  Pinterest is an addictive website (Again, thank you Karen because I need more things to suck my time) where you can "pin" all your favourite  (damn that Aussie spelling) things you find on the web in one place and THEN, you get to organise (apparently I now have to spell organize with an "s" or my computer gets mad) them and share them with others. You also get to see what others have pinned and can re-pin what they pinned. Got it?  It is so fun especially for people who are shall we say "hyper-organised" like myself. Anyway, back to the art project. Isn't this cute?

Got my haircut today. Opted for the $39 haircut at Just Cuts instead of the $95 cut everywhere else (Rhonda, how I long for your haircutting skills...). The lady who cut my hair is here from Ireland. It was fun chatting with another "outsider." It was actually just nice to sit and not have to be responsible for anyone but myself. 

Last week I spent over an hour at the Apple Store's Genius Bar getting my hard drive replaced and hoping super, super hard that my photos and music could be salvaged. Well, they were. Not only were they saved, but they were all saved over and over and over again.  Each iTunes song was saved twice.  Not too difficult to deal with.  All my photos in iPhoto were saved 4-5  times.  That is difficult to deal with.  So, I went back to the Apple Store and met with another Genius (these people really are super smart) and spent another hour plus trying to rid my computer of all the duplicates.  Success was had with the iTunes. I am currently running an application to "annihilate" all my duplicated photos. Let's see-- began with 58,088 photos (remember multiple duplicates not obsessive mom who takes way too  many pictures of her udderly adorable and intelligent children and dogs), the programs has 52,566 images to go and has found 2,685 duplicates.  I have been running the program since noon today (now almost 9 pm). Gonna be a long, long night for my computer....

Help, My Blogging Skills Are Fading....

My blogging skills seem to be on hiatus.  I cannot seem to come up with witty ways to make our experiences as of late interesting at all.  Maybe we haven't been doing enough or maybe it is just because some of the glamour is gone and we are now just living life.  Hmmm.

I finally got my Deep Dish pizza to work.  I decided to nix the oil and replace it with-- da-da-da-da-- butter!  What isn't great with a 1/4 of melted butter in it, on it and on the pan?  The crust turned out perfectly and the toppings were quite good as well. If only I had some good Italian sausage or real pepperoni.  Can't seem to find the good stuff here. The best part was that neither of the boys wanted to eat it so more for me!! I even made a second one and put it in the freezer for later on.  I put a picture below, but I was so excited to try it that I ate two pieces before remembering to take a picture....

Not sure if I mentioned this in my blog or just on FB, but Manzie had taken to sleeping (probably more like hiding) in Doug's unpacked suitcase from his last trip to Singapore. Well, he headed back to Singapore on Sunday and took her beloved suitcase with him.  So, what is a Pug to do? Find the next best thing of course- the laundry basket!  It amazes me how a dog with only 80% of her vision and bad hips can still manage to climb into a laundry basket. 

Coop had another swim lesson this week. He loves it so much. He told me it was "Boom-tastic!"  Not really sure what that means, but I am taking it as something good.  He is improving so much each week.  While walking home, he said to me, "Mom, guess what I learned in swimming today?" I, of course, thought he was going to tell me about a new skill he learned, but no, this is Cooper, I should have expected what was coming.  He said, "I learned how to burp underwater so no one can hear me."  I guess this is what the future holds for me raising two boys.  Lovely.

Coop and I did an art project we found on Pinterest (Thank you, Karen).  Pinterest you ask?  Pinterest is an addictive website (Again, thank you Karen because I need more things to suck my time) where you can "pin" all your favourite  (damn that Aussie spelling) things you find on the web in one place and THEN, you get to organise (apparently I now have to spell organize with an "s" or my computer gets mad) them and share them with others. You also get to see what others have pinned and can re-pin what they pinned. Got it?  It is so fun especially for people who are shall we say "hyper-organised" like myself. Anyway, back to the art project. Isn't this cute?

Got my haircut today. Opted for the $39 haircut at Just Cuts instead of the $95 cut everywhere else (Rhonda, how I long for your haircutting skills...). The lady who cut my hair is here from Ireland. It was fun chatting with another "outsider." It was actually just nice to sit and not have to be responsible for anyone but myself. 

Last week I spent over an hour at the Apple Store's Genius Bar getting my hard drive replaced and hoping super, super hard that my photos and music could be salvaged. Well, they were. Not only were they saved, but they were all saved over and over and over again.  Each iTunes song was saved twice.  Not too difficult to deal with.  All my photos in iPhoto were saved 4-5  times.  That is difficult to deal with.  So, I went back to the Apple Store and met with another Genius (these people really are super smart) and spent another hour plus trying to rid my computer of all the duplicates.  Success was had with the iTunes. I am currently running an application to "annihilate" all my duplicated photos. Let's see-- began with 58,088 photos (remember multiple duplicates not obsessive mom who takes way too  many pictures of her udderly adorable and intelligent children and dogs), the programs has 52,566 images to go and has found 2,685 duplicates.  I have been running the program since noon today (now almost 9 pm). Gonna be a long, long night for my computer....

Did you know that every bird that is sitting down in Australia is laying an egg?  It is an amazing and not widely known fact.... Coop cracks me up sometimes. A lot of the time actually.

We have concierges in our building and we have gotten to know each one of them and their personalities. Some are GREAT with the kids others, not so much. Our favourite (here we go with the Australian spelling again) is definitely Darren. He is about 25 with short, dark hair that is spiked a bit on top (this is important momentarily). He is the morning guy and he always greets the kids by name and he humours Cooper with all of his questions and ideas.  We brought him some homemade cookies the other day and he did the whole get super excited for the kids thing. So the other night, Coop got out of the bath and looked in the mirror at his new haircut. His hair was a bit spiked on top and he said, "I look just like Darren!"  Too cute.

Speaking of the building we are living in-- a scary thing happened yesterday. Tuck and I were out on a walk and came back to see the building cordoned off with police tape and tons of police cars and ambulances parked in front.  It turns out someone jumped from one of the windows. I do not know any details, it was very freaky and sad. Really do not want to know any more than that....

On a lighter note, I am making some Chicago style deep dish pizza tonight (thanks for the recipe Karen). I hope, hope it tastes good. I am still trying to find the right ingredients and make the right conversions when cooking.  So far Coop has told me dinner smells like candles and something yucky and something yummy. I am going for the yummy idea.

Tucker is mending slowly. The green elevens are still there and he is still cranky (yes Tucker is cranky), but I think he is getting better. If not, we will head back to the doctor and reassess the situation.

Pizza update- I did not have the right pan so the crust was WAY too thick and did not have much flavor and I did not like the sauce, but the recipe has potential. I am thinking about putting butter in the dough instead of oil- any thoughts?

Doug is off to Singapore again for two weeks so we are going at it alone again, but this time I found a great sitter to help out.  We met her last week and the boys already love her.  I am so happy!

This is kind of a lame blog entry so I am going to end it here. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some excitement for you all to read about.  :)

Did you know that every bird that is sitting down in Australia is laying an egg?  It is an amazing and not widely known fact.... Coop cracks me up sometimes. A lot of the time actually.

We have concierges in our building and we have gotten to know each one of them and their personalities. Some are GREAT with the kids others, not so much. Our favourite (here we go with the Australian spelling again) is definitely Darren. He is about 25 with short, dark hair that is spiked a bit on top (this is important momentarily). He is the morning guy and he always greets the kids by name and he humours Cooper with all of his questions and ideas.  We brought him some homemade cookies the other day and he did the whole get super excited for the kids thing. So the other night, Coop got out of the bath and looked in the mirror at his new haircut. His hair was a bit spiked on top and he said, "I look just like Darren!"  Too cute.

Speaking of the building we are living in-- a scary thing happened yesterday. Tuck and I were out on a walk and came back to see the building cordoned off with police tape and tons of police cars and ambulances parked in front.  It turns out someone jumped from one of the windows. I do not know any details, it was very freaky and sad. Really do not want to know any more than that....

On a lighter note, I am making some Chicago style deep dish pizza tonight (thanks for the recipe Karen). I hope, hope it tastes good. I am still trying to find the right ingredients and make the right conversions when cooking.  So far Coop has told me dinner smells like candles and something yucky and something yummy. I am going for the yummy idea.

Tucker is mending slowly. The green elevens are still there and he is still cranky (yes Tucker is cranky), but I think he is getting better. If not, we will head back to the doctor and reassess the situation.

Pizza update- I did not have the right pan so the crust was WAY too thick and did not have much flavor and I did not like the sauce, but the recipe has potential. I am thinking about putting butter in the dough instead of oil- any thoughts?

Doug is off to Singapore again for two weeks so we are going at it alone again, but this time I found a great sitter to help out.  We met her last week and the boys already love her.  I am so happy!

This is kind of a lame blog entry so I am going to end it here. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some excitement for you all to read about.  :)