| Raising Warriors

Playing Catch-up

Well let's see... it's been 11 months since I've posted a proper update.

Oops.

So I guess here's the short version.

In May D turned 1. He was spoiled rotten, as though there was any chance that wasn't going to happen, haha!! We did some hanging out in the yard all summer and he got a little inflatable pool which he loved. He was a HUGE fan of the garden. It's easy to see now why I couldn't get enough fruits and veggies while I was pregnant. He loved helping pick tomatoes... but only if he got one... or three to snack on.

In September is was time for our annual trip to Denver's anime convention, Nan Desu Kan, and it was a blast. Darius even got his cosplay on with a Garu cosplay from Pucca. Minus the pigtails because he ~~kinda~~ totally looked like a girl with them. So Dad gave that idea a "hell no."

I got my cosplay on, too, and we got his godmama to take this lovely pick of the
mean ol' Rebellious Ravenclaw picking on poor little Garu.

Garu is the one on the right for those that are totally lost. Haha.

I discovered a new love: Crochet. Been busy at it ever since and am trying to get some stuff done now to fill my etsy shop: Bitten Designs. These dolls are my first original design and I call them the Gothique Girls. Each comes with a bio and the girls are fans of Gothic Lolita dress and are good role models. Maybe one of these days I'll do some little comics with them or something but first I gotta get the shop stocked up! Currently working on the fourth set I've sold so far! O.O

In November I wrote another ~~rough~~ very rough draft of a novel for NaNoWriMo which is currently collecting digital dust along with the other 3 I've written, haha. Well with the exception of 2011's novel which has a printed and partially edited version collecting real dust. Well, actually I'm dusting it off and got a new notebook to rewrite but we'll see how long that takes. XD I also turned 28. Yippee. Not that I don't like getting older or anything but after milestone birthdays are done they're just so darn boring! Oh and we did Thanksgiving by ourselves!! And we didn't burn down the house or give the entire family food poisoning! LOL. It was pretty fun.

December was holiday craziness but we did get to go home to visit and we took the trailer and it was a good thing we did because it was full on the way home, haha. So many goodies for us all but the best part was being able to celebrate with our families which we are so blessed to have in our lives. Darius also met Santa earlier in the month.

Waiting.

He was less than pleased.
Terrible cell phone pic but his face is PRICELESS.

Our little hippie boy got to go to his first Eagles Hockey game!!
Now everything is a hockey stick to him, even almost 6 months later.

D also helped make sugar cookies!

January 1, 2013: Darius' first ER visit. Kiddo came down with a bug and we had an incident in Walmart that required Cody to run and buy a new set of clothes just so we could get him out of the store. Poor kid wouldn't stop throwing up after that. I felt so bad for him. He couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. He got some anti-nausea meds at the ER though that worked like a charm. There were two days afterwards where we thought he was over it but we quickly discovered he wasn't. >.< Eventually he was good to go again, though!

He was spoiled because of his sickly state
and got to play with Dad's phone.

In March, Cody and I celebrated 6 years together on St. Patty's Day. Darius had his first Easter egg hunt which he liked but I think playing with the golf clubs he got was even more enjoyable. He was totally tripped out by the bucket of goodies on his table in the morning though. He was like "Where did that come from??"

Egg dyeing festivities!

This month has been as every April, birthday madness. Haha. We got to go home to do a little celebrating though, surprise my mom with a party and have another party for Cody and both our Moms the next day. All their birthdays are within 5 days of each other (Cody's was yesterday- happy extended birthday, hun!) plus we have several friends and other family members with birthdays this month as well. So yeah, birthday madness.

I'm sure I forgot half a dozen things or more but the warrior just woke up from his nap so I better wrap it up or I won't get it posted! Oh and you may have noticed the name of the blog has changed... THIS IS NOT A HINT. The plan is for two and I figured I might as well change it now. Before anyone asks, no we don't know when we're going to have another one. Haha. Can you tell we get asked that a LOT?

Coming soon: Darius turns 2.
O.o
Hopefully I'll post something else before then, though, haha!

Happy Holidays!!

Well now! Today is officially two years that I've been blogging here. Despite doing a terrible job at it these last two years I hope to fix it but who knows. I still don't understand how some people have the time, lol. So to make up for my going MIA for six months and in the spirit of the holidays I figured I would share my Hershey Kiss Fudge recipe. It's become a bit of a favorite around here, if I do say so myself.

A while back a friend posted a peanut butter fudge recipe and I snagged it, tried it and decided to see if I could modify it with chocolate. So I replaced the peanut butter with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Not good enough. Next? I unwrapped a bunch of Hershey Kisses and gave that a try.

WIN.

I love Hershey Kisses and this fudge keeps that taste. So here it is along with some crappy cell phone pics because leaving D in the room with a Christmas tree unsupervised is not a good idea so I didn't have someone to take pics for me, haha. Hopefully I can update it with better photos when I make another batch in a few days. ^w^

Ingredients:

2 cups Sugar 1/2 tsp. Vanilla 1/2 cup milk (and another 1/8 cup to mix with the kisses later)

1 jar Marshmallow Cream (7 oz or so) 1 1/2 cups "peeled" Hershey Kisses

First I "peel" the kisses (yeah, yeah I know unwrap is better but we're cooking here so I like to say peel, dang it). I peel them in a measuring cup because it's easier to make sure you end up with 1 cup of melted chocolate and milk. Add about 1/8 of a cup milk to your nekkid Kisses and microwave for one minute. Stir, then microwave in 30 second increments until it's nice and creamy.

In a pan add your sugar, milk and vanilla. Stir and set to medium-hi or so and boil for 3 minutes. Stir often, unless you like burnt pans. While this is going on I have started microwaving the marshmallow cream (in a separate bowl as the container does not have the space for how much it expands during microwaving) for about 45 seconds, which makes it easier to mix with the other stuff when the time comes.

Remove the pan from heat after the 3 minutes is up, stir in chocolate then stir in the marshmallow fluff. Pour into pan you've sprayed with Pam ( or something like that) and then refrigerate. I use a smaller size Pyrex glass cake pan as shown here:

Enjoy!!

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful, solstice, Hanukkah Kwanzaa, Christmas, or whatever you celebrate and have a wonderful new year as well! Let's hope 2013 ushers in the love and understanding our world so desperately needs.

^w^

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Out and About

I wrote this Monday but kept forgetting to email myself the pics to post with it because if I post them from my phone they look terrible as can be seen with the "Excuse me, Sir" post. (which has been edited to include a reply from one of his Grandmas. ^_~)

Yesterday, Mother's Day, was great despite the night before being fairly sleepless since we're trying to get D over this waking up a ton during the night. We got some garden stuff and I'm really excited about finally getting a worthy herb garden together. Especially since we use so much cilantro now that I found this SW Wraps recipe on Pinterest. It's so good I have to make a double batch and Cody and I still end up fighting over leftovers. XD It's not spicy either though I'm sure you could easily make it that way. We also use steak instead of chicken though because we get burnt out on chicken really easy around here.

Anyway, it was a great day and we all got out of the house which we (read: Darius & I) really needed. We discovered a while back the warrior is not a fan of grass though he did sit on it a while in shorts so it might be getting better now, haha. D also had his first roll in the dirt. It was unintentional, though. Cody was tilling up the garden and there's a drop off from the lawn to the garden. Only a couple inches but more than enough to send D into the freshly turned up dirt! He looked up at us like "wth just happened here?".

Just chillin in the yard while mommy did a little yardwork.

We also went for a walk yesterday with D's birthday present. Yes he got it a couple weeks early but he won't know, lol. We got him a 3in1 tricycle which he seems to really love. For now it has a handle that we can steer him with until he can ride it on his own. We're all about the toys that can grow with him. He was waving to pretty much everyone we passed and had a blast.

Well I hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day as well. ^w^

Excuse Me, Sir

Oh hai old old post...

The Warrior's godmama got us a gate for the kitchen for Christmas. I was happy because at the time I was spending my day going to retrieve him from the kitchen and we didn't have the trash can blocked off so he couldn't get to it so it was a problem.

Darius: Hey let me outta here.

Warden: Nope, sorry. Not happening.

Darius: Then I want my one phone call.

Warden: Yeah? Who you gonna call?

Darius: I'm calling a lawyer (read: grandma). They'll spring me outta this joint.

edit:

Lawyer Grandma: Unlawful arrest! Suing for custody of the defendant!

Happy 10 (and 11) Months, Warrior!

I honestly don't understand how so many mommy bloggers blog every day... seriously. I try and it just doesn't happen. Plus honestly I'd run out of things to talk about (I refuse to discuss D's poop with you all. You're welcome.)

So since I've really screwed up and am two updates behind now I'm going to consolidate it all into one post.

Happy 10 Months, Warrior:

Oh little warrior you started walking just a week or so before 10 months though crawling was still your preferred mode of transportation. Other than that there really wasn't much else new going on or I can't think of it at the moment. See this is why mommy needs time to post so she doesn't have lame posts like this, son. ^w~

Busy, busy, busy!

Happy 11 Months, Warrior:

You ended up with your first cold. We were all quite miserable and you had a fever for 3 days then as soon as it was time to schedule an appointment POOF you were over it. Then mommy got it and understood why you were so grouchy. It was vicious. (In fact mommy was asleep by 10pm which is pretty much unheard of as she values her internet time after you've gone to sleep, haha.)

Top Left & Bottom: Sickly face. Bottom was during the abundance of mommy snuggles.
Top Right: Stopping playing with Mario to watch the opening credits to Stargate SG1

You got your first tooth FINALLY! The Easter bunny brought it for you along with some camo eggs, some new outfits and toys. No pictures though because you barely let us look at it let alone get a picture of it. Grandma and Grandpa Mills were lucky enough to be here for it though and also brought you an outfit, a ball, and a bucket with a shovel. The shovel quickly became your new favorite thing ever and you carried it around for weeks!

Omnomnomnom... Green Lantern doesn't need his foot right?

I've ditched the walker when we go in the kitchen since you're walking more than crawling now. That and it was the perfect height for holding on to the second drawer in the kitchen and allowing you to wiggle it out of the cabinet and scaring the hell out of both of us when you'd leave and it would fall to the floor. You love being able to get into the tupperware cabinet and pans cabinets though and your new favorite thing is a lid for a saucepan.

Someone's mohawk is outta control these days!

We had to get rid of the ottoman that was blocking you from behind my chair. You could nearly crawl over it so it had to go but hey you have a toy box in the living room now, haha. You love hanging out on the couch with one of us so you can look outside now too. It's pretty good at combating a grouchy mood too as is opening the front door so you can see out. You get all excited when you see the kids riding their scooters up and down the street too.

Hey! Come hang out with me!!

We hit up the park down the street and you liked it though you weren't near as thrilled with the slide as I thought you'd be. You were cool with just walking around checking things out and watching the other two kids that were there run around who were also pretty curious about you too.

Grabbing decorations, chowing down on string cheese, chillin at
Bert & Ernie's, & being ornery at Great-Grandparents' house.

Despite that you have quite the temper as of late you still make us laugh. You love music and will stop everything to dance to any you hear and we think you were even trying to sing with it a couple times which is even more adorable. BTW famous rockstar is fine with us as long as you make sure we're taken care of. ;) We love you Darius!