3 Posts for the Price of 1!

Man, are you getting your money's worth with this one! LOL!

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I normally don't much care for fall or winter because I hate the cold so darn much, but there is one good thing about Fall: the return of comfort food. Summertime is typically too hot for most of my comfort food favorites, so I have definitely missed them. However, with my favorite weathermen forecasting 40's and 50's as highs this week, I have officially declared this week "Comfort Food Week."

Last night, I whipped up a lovely wedge salad (1/4 slice iceberg lettuce, tomato, walnuts, bacon, blue cheese dressing) with some warm and tasty chicken and dumplings. I don't think Mike got past the salad. So yummy - so yummy.

Today is my nod to Mom - beans and ham hocks with cornbread (non-sweet thankyouverymuch). I can't tell you how long it's been since I've had beans and ham hocks. I'll probably be the only one eating it, but that's everyone else's loss and more for me! LOL!

Tuesday brings a pot roast. And for Wednesday? Homemade macaroni and cheese. I think that is the only one I served throughout the summer since the kids love it so much. As for the rest of the week? I haven't decided yet. Maybe some tuna casserole or some chili. Maybe I'll make some brisket for Mike.

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We put the kids to bed, as usual, on Saturday night. We let them sleep in the same room on the weekends but not on school nights because they just don't go to sleep when they are in the same room. Saturday was no exception...lots of goofing around. About 9:30, Daniel comes out for a drink and we hear a Hannah scream coming from the bedroom. Whatever it is, we know Daniel didn't do it, for once :). Anyway, after about 3 seconds of horrific screaming, it stops. That's never a good sign.

Mike and I run upstairs and Jacob says she hit her head on the bed. I look at her face and she's got a huge blue and purple mark under her eye and it's spreading. Mike goes to get ice and I give her some Motrin but it's still very ugly looking. Hannah calms down and tells us exactly what happened. Jacob was on the bed, holding a stuffed frog. Hannah was on the floor trying to get the frog from him. At some point, Jacob got tired of the game and simply pulled as hard as he could to make her stop. She flew forward and hit the bed frame (it was my old daybed with the metal frame). *Edited...I hadn't been able to figure out how Jacob could have let go and have her fall forward into the bed. It turns out that he yanked harder and did not let go.*

So, Hannah and I sat, for a while, ice pack on her face, on the couch. At some point, Daniel yells that it's not fair that Hannah gets to stay up (he'd somehow missed the drama). Mike tells him to come down and see why she's staying up. He comes down and thoroughly inspects Hannah's eye. "Oh," he says and heads back upstairs, clearly satisfied that she, indeed, has a good reason to be up.

Now, a day later, she's still a little swollen and very black and blue. It seems we've traded swelling for color. It does look a little better...at least her eye's open today. It really is painful to look at. Poor baby girl. She got a lot of sympathy at gymnastics, this morning, from everyone there. Unfortunately for her, as we were walking out, she ran smack into the door with her forehead and fell on her butt in front of everyone. She actually thought that was pretty funny. "I thought the door was open!" She said while laughing. All I could do was sigh and giggle a little.

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My favorite weathermen have been saying for the past week that there was a storm coming Sunday night. The only questions were timing and severity. I took the dog out around 10:15 last night and not only was it freezing (the cold front pushed through) but there was a lot of lightning. I checked the weather blog (freaking football game pushed the 10:00 news back to 11:00) and there were a handful of reports of rain. Then, the thunder - oh my - house shaking thunder. I checked the radar and there wasn't anything really near us - yet. I had posted my report of thunder and lightning but no rain and was told that it was coming. Not long after, the rain started. After the weather on TV (at like 11:25!) I headed for bed, but was having a hard time falling asleep. After about 45 minutes of tossing and turning, I thought I'd heard the tornado sirens going off. I opened the window to see if that's really what it was, and yeah, that's the sirens. I went downstairs and looked out the back door and front door - rain and cold but nothing looked or felt off. Plus, my weather radio was completely quiet, so I thought that maybe it was just some police sirens or something. I go back to bed and Mike asks if we need to go to the basement. I tell him no and fall asleep.

I check the weather blog this morning and someone else asked why the sirens were going off last night. It wasn't just me! They really were going off. Apparently, all of Overland Park's sirens malfunctioned around 12:45AM and since we're right on the border, we could hear them. What a bad time for the sirens to malfunction.