1) Don’t blog about DWTS
2) No food or recipes

Seems she finds these two topics B-O-R-I-N-G. I love unsolicited advice. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate her readership. I’m touched that she and her darling twin sister enjoy the blog and even share it with some of their friends.

It also does not go unnoticed that they easily provide about 50% of the blog fodder here. Family life is the springboard for most of my blog content. But she is not the boss of me.

So, Roger Leroy can get her own blog or suffer through the food fun Scary Baby and I had while they were in Arizona.

With all that said and my quarterly disclaimer that this is not a food blog, the simple fact is that we love, love, love to eat. And I’m a pretty good cook in spite of what you may have been led to believe.

The sugar addiction is still a problem as you will soon see.

I have taught all the kids to cook figuring it is an important life skill and comes in handy every once in a while. We jump started our Home Ec classes with that insanely good Lemon Cake in the spring. I became a bit obsessed and made it 3 different times.

The last 2 times I combined and tweaked 2 different recipes in my personal quest to simplify the cake. I’m never really drawn to complicated recipes. Making homemade lemon curd was a giant stretch for me. But I love lemons and love this particular cake so much that I wanted to get the recipe recorded for next spring when I might turn the oven on again.

This cake is worth adding to your recipe collection. File under fabulous desserts to make especially for company and special occasions or to just impress yourself! You can download and print the recipe by clicking the link:

Printable Perfect Lemon Cake Recipe

Scary Baby soon tired of lemons and we moved on to other desserts.

She also became a self-appointed food stylist volunteering to take a picture 20 pictures of everything we made saying “You really need to put this on the blog, momma.”

After making Honey Lime Fruit Salad for lunch one day, she announced that she knew a way to make it even better…

If we only had some “whupped cream.” (She also added graham crackers and made herself a fruit s’more.)

Imagine her amazement when I showed her how we could make homemade whupped cream with heavy whipping cream that we had in the fridge. It’s easier to dazzle kids in the kitchen than you think.

We made all these things in May and June. Some sort of weird cooking frenzy before the darling twins came home I guess.

No offense to my food stylist but you will find much more appealing photos with each recipe by clicking on the links below the pictures.

1. Blackberry Cobbler ~ My new favorite, easiest cobbler ever. Added Blue Bell ® Summer Berries ice cream. Yee haw!
2. Blackberry Jam Almond Bars ~ 3 of my favorite things: shortbread, almond flavoring and blackberry jam — so delicious!
3. Lemon Cheesecake ~ Yes, I slipped in another lemon recipe mostly because it was NO BAKE and I had extra lemon curd I wanted to use!
4. Caramel Pecan Brownie Cake ~ Ridiculously rich even for chocoholic PhilBillPaul. I could never have predicted I would say “too much caramel” on anything but I would reduce the caramels in this one by half!

No pictures but we also made a few other fun things…

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips ~ Perfection – I ate pretty much the whole batch by myself. Remember PhilBillPaul has fruit issues. Oven time could be eliminated with graham cracker sticks or using small tortillas in toaster oven.
Maple Pound Cake ~ This cake is so good I made it twice and we’re adding it to the holiday menu. I made it without walnuts and with the icing she recommended. PhilBillPaul’s new favorite cake.
Buttermilk Cake with fresh strawberries ~ Yum! Light and sweet. Big plus–it’s one layer so it can be made in toaster oven.

I haven’t been able to turn on the oven since June. This summer has felt like we live on the actual face of the sun and I know many parts of the country have felt the same way – not just here in the South!

I’d love to hear what your favorite summer dessert is. Share it in the comments and I’ll be sure to make it this winter when I can use my oven again. Any day below 80 degrees now feels cool.

Special note to Roger Leroy: Aren’t you glad I condensed these into one post instead of dragging it out and posting them one at a time? Thanks for enduring the food post, sweet daughter of mine.

Happy Labor Day weekend to all!

…there should be no complaining of boredom or bad days or a host of other things I heard last year.

This is the view from the darling twins college dorm room.

I think they are settled in and ready for a very good year.

We drove up last weekend to deliver a few odds and ends they forgot and took them to dinner.

It is really beautiful up in the small town where they go to school.

For the first time in their 19 years, they are not sharing a room.

Well, sort of not sharing a room.

They are suite mates in this brand new dormitory.

Which means they still share a bathroom but they have separate bedrooms.

A bathroom that is much bigger than all four darling Humpfreeze children share at home.

They have two showers between the four suite mates but only one toliet – go figure?!

Wizzy is rooming with Meadows and Roger Leroy lucked out and is by herself.

It took my covert photography skills to snap a picture of their trash can.

Meadows did her best to stand guard over it but she should know better.

It was refreshing to see some habits never change.

They also explained the story behind the one poster they are allowed on the wall.

Something about their social director status but I wasn’t clear on the monkey pictures.

But then we were walking to the car for dinner, Roger Leroy had to stop for a minute.

And the monkey pictures all made perfect sense.

Hey Jenna,

Roger Leroy is keeping everything very neat until you arrive next semester.

You are going to love the new rooms! I was even impressed with the “hotel” door locks. Hope your mom and dad copy and print this to include in your next letter from home so you can see your new room.

Side note: Jenna arrives for second semester but she’s at her Army National Guard AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood.

Don’t worry Wizzy and Meadows, I know you both pass room inspection with flying colors and you keep your room clean too.

It was a lovely Sunday evening visiting with the darling twins and we’re thankful they have such lovely new digs!

Really though, did anyone else have a view out their college dorm room window like this?

I’ll go first.

No.

My room overlooked a parking lot and the TKE and Sig Ep house.

We had some quality time with the darling twins before they went back to college last week.

A couple of good dinners. A good game of Scrabble.

PhilBillPaul’s word of the night was booger.

Some things never change.

Agnes and Roger Leroy

We squeezed in a movie that 3 of us hadn’t seen yet.

I rarely can sit through an animated movie. Despicable Me started a little slow but Wizzy told us to hang with it because it was really funny.

I found myself seriously mesmerized by the fact that Agnes and Roger Leroy were twins.

I had to dig these pictures out when I got home to see if the resemblance was all in my head.

Frankly, it scares me a little to think of my little two year-old looking so much like a cartoon character.

Am I the only one who sees the resemblance?

I give the movie an “A” but I think I’m biased because they used my daughter as character inspiration.

What was your favorite movie this summer?

“We’re going to the beach.”

Over and over again. In between car repairs and work schedules and having about six weeks of summer they were going to the beach.

When the beach trip got changed multiple times and looked like it just wasn’t going to happen, leave it to St. PhilBillPaul to have a brilliant idea.

“Why don’t we all go to the beach?”

Never mind that it’s not in the budget. Never mind that all three big kids are scheduled to work. Never mind that mom and dad have work too.

Let’s Go To The Beach

PhilBillPaul’s second brilliant idea was that MOM could work her magic and use the power of the internet and find a last minute beach bargain. In less than 48 hours.

“Yea!!” the children shouted. “Let’s leave on Sunday at 4:00 a.m.”

PhilBillPaul’s third brilliant idea was that MOM could make a breakfast casserole and cheesy potatoes so WE would have food right when we got there and WE wouldn’t have to cook.

What would I do without all the brilliant ideas surrounding me?

Leaving out most of the gorey details of everyone packing themselves and going to bed while mom cooked and sweated in the 150 degree kitchen and made lists and packed DIRTY clothes because…

The Washing Machine Broke

Oh yes it did.

On Saturday while the big kids were all working, PhilBillPaul turned himself black trying to fix the washer which would not drain or rinse the clothes.

Suspiciously this happened after Roger Leroy had C-R-A-M-M-E-D a load of clothes in that was seriously bigger than the washer.

Perhaps we did not teach her how to properly do her laundry. Oh wait, YES WE DID.

The Army and college have taught her that sorting is a waste of time.

I remained calm – surprising I know – and announced that we could do OUR laundry when we got to the beach.

The darling twins could take their wet ginormous load to a laundromat. And Rachel could buy the part she broke. And they were never allowed to touch our washer again.

Side note: I’m pretty sure that Roger Leroy would want me to extend her personal and heartfelt thanks to her sister Wizzy for doing this while she was at work.

This I said because we had paid for the last minute bargain I found and there were no refunds.

Off to the beach we went at a more reasonable time of 6:00 a.m.

The view from our bargain 6th floor condo wasn’t too bad.

And other than one giant scene about Scary Baby and brushing her hair, we all survived.

I’ll be so bold as to say that everyone had FUN.

I asked them if we could recreate the blog header photo.

But this is about as close as I could get.

Everyone was on their own for dinner.

It was very nice that they actually wanted to have one night be a family dinner so we all gathered at Pompano Joe’s.

And I made sure to snap this very important picture after she had told me numerous times to quit taking pictures of her.

I told her the whole goal of the trip was to get her darling toes in the sugar white sand.

She was very specific that it had to be the sugar white sand of Destin.

And then declared, on our last day, that she really doesn’t like sand.

Later this week, I must tell you what happened on the way there and the way back because no Humpfreeze trip is complete without some ridiculous moments that are not funny except to everyone else who didn’t have to be there. Or drive to the Piggly Wiggly.

Stay tuned.

Who are these bloggers who can blog about an activity they did yesterday? Complete with a dozen pictures of the event.

If you came for that, sorry – wrong blog.

First though, let’s recap what I’ve been asked about too many times to count even though it’s such old news now…

Where’s The Bachelorette Finale Recap?

So yes, it’s really true. I had to watch it a WEEK later because we did some spontaneous family travel complete without internet and very little TV. I’m not complaining about missing either of those things because quality time always trumps internet and TV.

There’s really not much to say about the finale since I’m old and can’t remember. Perhaps it is also because short of her sending Chris from Cape Cod home early so as not to put him through the misery of the final rose ceremony there was nothing too memorable.

I did think that was a genuinely nice thing to do – breaking the rules and sending him home early. Now let’s hope he doesn’t buy into the trash TV and become the next Bachelor or {gasp} be on the next season of The Bachelor Pad.

He’s really too good for that. Oh, and I did just remember one really sweet and memorable thing.

The rainbow.

I don’t care how unsentimental you are, if you saw that you had to be touched.

Final words on Ali and her incessant giggling and lack of shampoo…I do hope she lands the TV hosting job of her dreams.

And I guess it’s a good thing Wizzy and I didn’t start driving to Charleston since Roberto is moving to California.

Enough of that Bachelorette nonsense – I’m not even going to touch The Bachelor Pad because Roger Leroy and I watched the first episode a few nights ago and I still can’t talk about it. I’m not saying we didn’t laugh and pause the show several times to discuss it but it far exceeds the self-imposed PG-13 rating of my blog.

On to July summer fun…

In the midst of everyone’s busy schedules, we squeezed in a family bowling night.

You would think Wizzy would keep her smack talking about beating everyone to a minimum but she was at it again.

With no gloating and The Grunter on my heels, mom beat everyone in the first game.

Let the record show: I let her win in the 2nd game.

Culture

The big kids stepped up their game a bit by planning a night out with something a little more high ‘falutin than bowling.

Phantom of the Opera at the Fox Theatre

Here is what happens when my kids get dressed up and attempt a little culture.

They looked nice.

It’s a rare moment when they all are off work and go somewhere together.

After the show, they all shared their highlights on their way to fine dining in Atlanta…Zesto’s for dessert.

Roger Leroy’s favorite part:

“The part where there were fireballs and sparks coming out of the cane.”

Wizzy’s favorite part:

“The End.”

The Grunter’s favorite part:

“Did anyone say intermission?”

I guess we should have exposed them to more culture and less fine dining.

Bowling, culture or The Bachelorette…what have been some of your favorite summer activities?

The Grunter had a swing too. Just no polka dot outfit.

We’d tried to plan one “fun day” activity each week like going to a $1 movie or rollerskating.

They were so stinkin’ cute.

And even cuter when we added Scary Baby.

Those days are so over.

Returning home from their 5 months in Arizona on their 19th birthday, the darling twins have been home for 30 days.

Oh, so short in so many ways.

And oh, so long in other ways.

Friday, Day One: Drive to airport to reunite with the darling twins while The Grunter calls us seven times as he has to get his new car tag all by himself.

Yes, he did get a replacement after his accident. He is pretty pleased with the new ride that dad just happened to drive by and find for him. We now have 3 shades of blue cars in our driveway.

After our airport reunion and birthday lunch, we stopped by Publix to say hi to The Grunter who has been made to work two jobs for the summer by his mean parents.

Finally home to see more grass, the new lounge, have friends over, a quick run to Taco Bell and a good night’s sleep so they could really get busy enjoying their shortened summer.

Saturday, Day Two: Roger Leroy goes by herself to get her motorcycle permit.* Wizzy spends the day and night with another family. Mom wonders if she has enough x*nax to get through the summer.

*Side note: PhilBillPaul doesn’t think she will pass and she’s not prepared. The five months have obviously dimmed his memory of what the stubborn, circus baby child accomplishes when she wants something. She missed one. Passed with flying colors.

Sunday, Day Three: We gather together at church. Extra-strength prayer time required. Sunday evening birthday present…Rascal Flatts concert. We send all three darling daughters to a concert with two sister friends we’ve known since birth.

Rebecca has been to almost every one of their birthdays. She and Scary Baby share the same birthday.

She and her sister Hannah lived next door to us for 17 years.

It was nice to see the girls go to the concert together.

Monday, Day Four: Scary Baby has 3 day basketball camp at church. She’d rather stay home with her big sisters. Negotiating Bribery takes place.

Day Five through Thirty: Mom loses track of what day it is and who works what shift and gives up trying to keep anything straight.

The Lazy Days of Summer

Here is what I know they’ve done in no particular order:

Georgia Aquarium
Whitewater Water Park
Tubing x2 in North Georgia
Downtown for dinner x2
Shopping

plus

Going back to work at Publix and…

Drill weekend for Army National Guard and…

4 trips to their college for paperwork (3 in one week) and 2 days working at the college for the Army National Guard.

Summer Movie Time

Some combination of family has seen these movies and the letter grades are not necessarily mine since I’ve only seen 3 on the list:

• Toy Story 3 ~ A
• Marmaduke ~ C
• The A-Team ~ A-
• Iron Man 2 ~ B
• Get Him to the Greek ~ A-
• Knight & Day ~ F
• Grownups ~ B
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ~ B-
• Inception ~ A
• Despicable Me ~ A
• Cyrus ~ A
• Salt ~ B
• Ramona & Beezus ~ A

I don’t think my list is any longer than anyone else’s.

I’m just documenting my exhaustion from their activity level.

How’s your summer going?

The cleaning and fumigating and throwing away and sweeping and mopping and sorting and disinfecting and organizing, etc., took us many weekends. I’ll save pictures of that for another day.

Another day is here.

The darling twins have had this double dresser since they were toddlers. When they left for Arizona in January, we knew it would be a good time to bravely go where we had refused to enter while they were here.

Discovering that several of the dresser drawers were overflowing with clothes crammed in them, PhilBillPaul mustered all his courage and said he would wash everything because we were both afraid of what might be living in the drawers.

This is from ONE side of the dresser.

I don’t recall ever having to vacuum drawers before but there is a first time for everything. While PhilBillPaul repaired 3 broken drawers, my job was to get all the clothes sorted, organized and make them fit in proper places

PhilBillPaul even redid their closet, hanging a new clothing rod and wider shelf. Scary Baby organized their scary shoes. Sorry, no picture of the closet. I can only show you so much of our chaos.

The Grunter really pitched in and helped us…

by holding Sabu after his exhausting bath.

Finishing this massive project just before they returned, we didn’t decide on ordering a futon in time for their arrival.

Wizzy claimed the one bed as hers and Roger Leroy waited patiently for its arrival.

I was excited to find this inexpensive royal blue one online at Walmart.com and had it shipped to the store.

How exactly did I miss one crucial word in the online product description?

This picture will help you find the word I missed.

Still don’t know the word I missed?

Here’s another picture…

Hello? It is a futon for small people.

The eleven year old is too big for it.

The word I missed:

MINI

I gotta tell you that Roger Leroy gets a big shout-out for her flexibility and embracing the

mini

futon and sleeping in it and laughing at mom’s mistake!

I know you are thinking, “Why the heck didn’t you all return it?”

I would have gladly returned it but our trash service picked up the box the day after the futon arrived and we then went back to the website and discovered the word I missed in the description.

Anyone need a miniature futon for little people?

You know, we don’t always connect all the dots in a timely fashion around here.

For sale: One toddler futon. Like new, barely used.

Cranky, residual drug lethargy and I’m sure PhilBillPaul could add a few more choice words in describing my behavior.

Did I mention I’m a wuss in the pain category?

Grumpiness may have been triggered by hunger, a sticky toaster lever, someone eating my natural peanut butter without asking (two giant jars in pantry for those who have informed me “we are NOT trying to eating healthy MOM…”) and the shooting pains of my weenie 10 stitches.

The flip out came when I saw Scary Baby with my Deluxe Yahtzee game. I have an unnatural and unhealthy obsession with keeping my games from childhood to adulthood in pristine condition.

I’m not blaming Junebug but I will say there were a few memorable days where we hunted for that ONE missing puzzle piece or a game token or a box lid that mysteriously disappeared.

My children do not share my addiction for keeping games in order and put away in their boxes they way they came. Go figure.

Side note: The Grunter shares my addiction. Something about being September Virgos. Not that we are into astrology.

I seriously adore the fact that they all love to play board games. Especially in today’s video and computer world.

But I’m well aware of the mixed message of me snapping when they touch my games without asking and furthermore do not put them away properly.

So yes, I snapped.

And it only got worse when PhilBillPaul opened up one of the game cabinets and there were loose cards and the Taboo game buzzer was NOT in the box.

Breathe, Sherra, breathe.

After a shrieking fit (I wish I could think of a nicer way to say it but let’s call a spade a spade), I made some toast and retreated to my room.

The x*nax had clearly worn off.

Which left PhilBillPaul sorting cards and taping broken box lids with packing tape.

And Scary Baby was upstairs crying because we sent her friend home because we also discovered her room was a wreck and the rule since birth has been “Work Before Play” which meant her room should have been cleaned up before she had a guest.

About an hour later, a brave soul pecked on my bedroom door. Scary Baby said,

“Hi Momma. Lizzie and I made you this.”

Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, milk, sugar and ice.

Love in a glass.

With a bendy straw.

Crappy Mother – 0
Darling Children – 1

How’s your summer going?

They are still not thrilled with the changes.

The most disturbing part for Wizzy has been the moving of their beds.

She has said at least three times…

“I know we’re in college and will only be home for 3 months but why did you have to take the other bed out the room?”

“But Mom, why did you have to take a BED out?”

“Seriously Mom, why is one of our beds in the basement?”

Another traumatic event I can be blamed for pretty much through eternity.

I take full responsibility and it’s probably wrong but I still feel pretty good about the new arrangement.

Call me mean. Oh wait, they already do.

Hey, maybe this is why she has been sleeping at other people’s houses?

TV is moved up from the basement. They’ve never had a TV in their room. That’s another good reason why this is now called the lounge.

Video game system – again never allowed on any TV in our house – now hooked up since they bought it while they were at college.

The benefits of being the last born and old rules flying out the window because you have three older siblings.

Futon is ordered. They are guests in our home and we have invited them to use the lounge until they head back to college in August. I think it’s pretty generous.

The cleaning and fumigating and throwing away and sweeping and mopping and sorting and disinfecting and organizing, etc., took us many weekends. I’ll save pictures of that for another day.

We really like the lounge. Scary Baby likes the lounge. The Grunter likes the lounge.

And I don’t really see what the big deal is about with one twin bed.

It made me think of my “You’re Gonna Miss This” post from last year as their senior year was ending.

Photo from April 2009

They’ve been sleeping together in a twin bed more than they have slept in separate beds for their whole lives. It’s some kind of twin thing.

Shoot, at our house THREE can fit in a twin bed. They should all be glad they are skinny.

How cute is that on the first night they were home that their favorite brother climbed into bed with them after he got off work to snuggle and talk?

The fleeting moments when they all get along make my heart sing.

Really they do.

Because sometimes it feels like yesterday that those three little people climbed in that same bed and talked and giggled and didn’t have a care in the world.

I’m interested so leave a comment and tell me…

Do you take advantage of the extra space when your college kids head off to school? Did you or are you currently preserving your college kids’ bedrooms? Just curious if I’m in the minority on the room conversion and where I fall on the mean mom scale.

I do want to go on record here and note that I did wait a full year!

The green kind that they don’t have much of in Arizona.

Those were Roger Leroy’s words when we drove up to our house.

“I love grass.”

In full disclosure, she was looking at the next door neighbor’s grass. Because we have patches of weeds and a front yard that I’m sure has most of our neighbors wishing we would move.

The darling twins both contemplated getting out of the car and rolling around in the neighbor’s side yard. She has really good grass.

Wizzy’s comment as we rounded the loop on the interstate leaving the airport, “I really missed Georgia. I really like trees.”

I do understand their feelings about the green grass and green trees. I remember the first time I visited Arizona and came home saying “It’s really brown.” It’s a unique and different landscape for sure.

I think I get bonus points for NOT taking any pictures IN the airport.

I love pictures of them walking in front of me as I watch them. I wanted to capture this one in particular because Roger Leroy’s duffel bag is almost as big as she is.

“Welcome to Georgia” moment when one of the shuttle vans honked at me when I stopped in crosswalk to snap the picture of two Soldiers coming home. NICE.

I did refrain from hand gestures but will admit that I stopped in my tracks and yelled something that might have sounded like, “Bite me.”

Roger Leroy was none too happy when I “forced” them to stop at the entrance to the parking garage for this shot.

First stop for a late birthday lunch per Wizzy’s request.

One of her favorite chain restaurants and it was a delight to learn that they both got a free spaghetti meal on their birthday.

Wizzy got a little stressed because she wanted fettuccine not spaghetti. I told her to relax and I’d ask. The manager waited on us and service and food was excellent.

She got her fettuccine and Scary Baby did not sit on top of her for the whole meal. (Just part of it.)

We were also relieved that the restaurant police did not issue a ticket to PhilBillPaul who ate Roger Leroy’s birthday spaghetti in clear view of the staff while she and I split a combo platter. He wanted spaghetti, she wanted lasagna.

Are we really that big of restaurant rule rebels when we switch plates? He always gets a little paranoid and we always get hysterical watching him stress about our plate switching and overall bad behavior.

We just speculated out loud on what he thought The Spaghetti Warehouse Police might say if they caught him eating her spaghetti.

Home

The dogs might have been happier to see them than we were.

Maybe it was a tie.

We are all glad they are home with us safe and sound.

Wizzy also shared that she couldn’t wait to see it rain. It never rained while they were gone. I was pretty sure we could accommodate that wish and within hours of being home, she got her wish.

They turned their chairs to the window and sat still for at least 5 minutes watching a storm blow in and the rain beat down.

They set a personal record and stayed home until 8:30pm and then the call of Taco Bell was too much to stand.

Wizzy ended the day with this touching Facebook update for the world to read…

And, for the record, it was all our fault. Well, mostly her Dad’s fault.

I’ll take the blame for other things in day two and day three.

A few more fun things to share this week about their homecoming.

But first up, we need to get down to the serious stuff…it’s officially day four and we’re watching The Bachelorette together tonight.

Woo-hoo!