A Cinderella Story

Once upon a time there was a girl named Cinderella who had a cruel and deranged stepmother. She made Cinderella do everything around the house while she sat around scowling and looking mean all day. Well, one day Cinderella had finally had enough and went and found herself a man. A man who just happend to be a prince.

On the day of her wedding, Cinderella broke the news to her stepmother that she was running off to get married that very day, and that she would never return.

This made The Stepmother so furious that her hand fell off.

She ordered Cinderella to stay, and yelled at her to hurry up and mop the floors. Cinderella told her to do it herself and took off in a school bus to marry her prince. 

The Stepmother couldn't stand the thought of doing any housework herself, and wouldn't dream of making her hateful, spoiled daughters (Cinderella's stepsisters) lift a finger. So in her anger, she went to Cinderella's new house and demanded that she come home. Because she's a wacko and wackos do stuff like that.  

Cinderella refused, telling her that she lived with The Prince now and that she would never EVER go back to that black hole of misery. The Stepmother told her that she had no choice, and that she was going to lock her in the tower forever....right after she cleaned the windows.

So then The Stepmother made Cinderella get in the school bus and took her back "home". The Prince wasn't paying attention and didn't even know his new bride had been taken. What a dolt.  

Back at her old house, Cinderella refused to clean the windows, so The Stepmother brought in reinforcements - The Evil Stepsisters. All three of them nagged and nagged her to obey her orders. 

Still, Cinderella refused, saying that she wanted to go back to her new house and hang out with her prince. Her newfound assertiveness enraged The Stepmother so much that she decided to lock her in the tower right away. She forced her into the tiny room and proclaimed that she would just call Merry Maids instead. Tower life was rather boring, so Cinderella passed the time by pretending to be a wedding cake topper. 

She desperately missed her prince and begged her stepmother to let her go home to him. The Stepmother suddenly became a semi-decent human being and felt sorry for Cinderella. She told her that she wouldn't let her leave the tower but that she would go get The Prince for her.

So she fired up the school bus and rushed off to find The Prince (who still had no idea his wife was gone) and brought him to the base of the tower.

Cinderella begged him to come up and rescue her, but there was nothing he could do without the key. They pleaded with The Stepmother to unlock the door but she just scowled at the universe some more. Eventually guilt somehow managed to worm its way into her black soul and she finally gave it to him. He and Cinderella cheered as he climbed to the top of the tower to free her.

But suddenly, The Stepmother's heart turned cold again and she snatched the key away from The Prince before he could unlock the door. She cackled in joy at her evilness and made sure it was locked extra tight.

It took some doing, but The Prince was finally able to snatch the key away from her and opened the tower door just in time. Cinderella was free! While she was in there, she had even had time to change her dress. A damsel in distress has to look her best you know.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End! 

Joy

Some things are just worth replacing. Grace's broken LeapPad was one of those things.

 See what I mean?

Mixin' it up

Lately I've been trying to cook healthier. It's not that I don't like healthy food, it's that I hate to cook. There hasn't been nearly as much produce in this house as I'd like for quite a while, and I'm on a mission to change that. I'm attempting to train myself to actually enjoy cooking instead of dreading it. Is that even possible? I guess we'll see, but if it doesn't work I'd like to keep up on this healthy dinner thing anyway. At least on most nights. I'm not looking to become a major health freak here. A girl's gotta have her "Hamburger" Helper ya know.

The problem isn't that I don't like vegetables. It's actually the complete opposite - I love them. I love veggies like a dog loves leftovers. I don't care a thing about any kind of meat (hence the word hamburger up there being in quotes) but give me a bowl of steamed veggies and watch me go nuts.

I just really struggle with actually getting in the kitchen and cooking the kinds of foods I love the most, as well as the kinds of foods I'd prefer The Short One to eat on a more regular basis. And it doesn't help that I'm the messiest cook on the planet. Every time I make something that doesn't involve a box it looks like my kitchen got attacked by a pack of raccoons. No joke.

Anyway, I promise I'm going somewhere with this. I got what looked to be an amazing recipe for Sesame Tofu Stir-Fry from a friend. And yes, you naysayers, it was delicious. It was wonderful. It was totally worth the extra time my poor lazy self had to spend in the kitchen. It was even worth the jaw-dropping mess I made preparing it. (By the way, I'm not a grouchy carnivore hater and I'm cool with serving meat to my family. It's just not my thing.)

In case anyone out there is ever interested in the recipe, it came from here on fitnessmagazine.com.

One of my favorite things about this recipe is that it calls for my favorite kind of vegetables - the frozen kind that are already chopped up for you. OH YEAH!

Mine didn't turn out as pretty as the picture on the website but it still tasted awesome.

Even my picky husband liked it pretty well. (Yes you above-mentioned naysayers, he really did.)

But Grace? I'm pretty sure she hated it.

Show us how you really feel, Grace.

You're kidding, right??

The stare down.

This child really needs to learn to express herself.

My parents suck.

I don't know what happened to my little tofu buddy, but that girl is GONE. Maybe she'll come back when she's over her picky phase of only wanting to eat like five things. (Oh please just be a phase)  If not, I guess I still kind of like her anyway.

Wild Child

We had a nice and very enjoyable Christmas, but spent a LOT of time on the road in a few days' time. The morning after Christmas we were exhausted. And in this house, when you wake up super drained from the day before, you buy doughnuts. Because getting dressed, getting in the car, and driving to Dunkin' Donuts and back is so relaxing.

So on the morning of the 26th, we woke up moaning about how tired we were, and how cereal just wouldn't hit the spot with this kind of terrible fatigue. What we need is doughnuts, we said. We deserve doughnuts after all the Christmas activities of the past few days, and woe is us. Yes, we are pathetic.

Since doughnuts were definitely in order to aid our poor tired bones, Dustin took off for Dunkin' Donuts. Grace wanted one with sprinkles, but when he got there they told him that the only sprinkled doughnuts they had were special red Christmas ones. So Dustin brought home the reddest frosted doughnut in the entire world. I was a little nervous about giving the Red 40 plastered monster to Grace but thought whatever, it's fine. We'll blame that on my debilitating exhaustion.

Let me give you an idea of what all that red frosting did to my child:

Oops.

This is a child who is normally not hyperactive. But after eating that doughnut....DUDE. She was running laps around the kitchen table and squealing. She was jumping from room to room and laughing her head off about nothing. Things like that. She stopped long enough for me to snap a few pictures and then continued to bounce off the walls.

I just stubbed my toe and won't notice for twenty minutes!!!!

Everything is just so hilarious and I don't know why! 

You're going to regret giving me that doughnut for hours.

I will admit that it was pretty amusing, but come ON! I guess I just don't understand why people feel the need to put Red 40 in their food when they know it causes so many people (mainly children) to temporarily lose their minds. Okay, that's an exaggeration but you get the point, right? Apparently her doughnut had a ton of Red 40 in it because it's never affected her nearly that much. I guess making food pretty is more important than keeping kids (and their parents) sane, but whatever. Off my soapbox now!

No more red frosting for this girl. I guess we should've just stuck with cereal!