The Terrible Towel

This is a very familiar sight for me. So familiar in fact, that I never noticed that little tag on the top left.

That little tag tells you that the towel is officially licenced, and that a portion of the profits go to The Allegheny Valley School, a school for autistic and mentally disabled children. You can read all about the history of the towel and the school here. It is a pretty cool thing, even if you are not from Pittsburgh! The towel has provided 2.5 million dollars to date for the Allegheny Valley School.

So tomarrow, while you are waving your towel, rooting the Steelers on to a six pack, feel good about giving some of the $7 ish you gave to a good cause. After the Steelers win, go out and buy a XLIII version too!

On the Bad List- Cats and the Weather Man!

Last night, I was all warm and snug when I was woken up at 1:30 AM. By what? CATS!

The back of our house is up against the woods, and we have several strays that live back there. Well, one of the females must have been in heat and had two of the males fighting over her. These dumb male cats decided to have it out right outside my bedroom window! One of them must have jumped up on the window sill, and the other one jumped up after him! They were BANGING off of my window! If I didn't hear the screeching first I would have thought it was a burglar or something.

So, at the lovely hour of 1:30 AM, I was listening to the moaning of a female cat in heat, with two screeching males fighting over her. By time I got my tired brain to think strait and get up to scare them off, they already ran away. Needless to say, I was tired this morning!

I am not the biggest fan of cats because I am allergic. I do not mind them hanging around outside because I think they keep away rodents. Now those cats have made the bad list.

Also making the bad list is the weather man!

Last night I watched the local news and he stated that there would be a dusting of snow here today. I sent A off to school (today was a half day). About an hour after he leaves I get a call from MIL who is picking him up that the roads are horrible. Mr Rock claims that he swept at least 4 inches off the car. The roads were bad enough until A was picked up (of course!). By the late afternoon, everything was clear.

I opened the door to get a pic of this "dusting" and look who was outside of my back door!

The cat just stood there and stared right back at me! I really wish I knew if this was the male or female. Either way- I hope cat mating season is over!

This is a shot of my street (yes it is there!) with the "dusting" Yes, my candy canes are STILL up, I am married to one lazy dude!

My 5 year old

Today is my oldest girls birthday! She is 5 years old today! This is what she looked like just a few hours after she was born-

This is her now!

The day she was born, it snowed. It has snowed every year on her birthday since. Poor thing is also sick, and this is the second birthday in a row that she has been sick.

Luckily, we celebrated her birthday on Friday. Up until kindergarten, the Rocks children get a family only party. Once in Kindergarten, they get a party with friends. G had the best birthday ever (her words!). I let her plan the menu and she got many awesome gifts.

My mom got her an awesome princess blanket and pillow, and her other Grandma and Grandpap got her this-

She of course had to try it on!

She has been very nice and she has let me and Mr Rocks try it as well as her brother and sister.

I am so proud of her and the big girl that she is becoming! She is crazy at times, but I love every minute of her. She is kind and loving as well as out going and sensitive. A part of me wishes that she would stay my little girl forever, but I am looking forward to the big girl that she is becoming.

I Made It Monday

G's birthday is this week, but her party was this past Friday. She requested Topsy Turvy Lasagna. I have also heard of it called lazy lasagna, either way it is YUMMY!




The Ingredients:
1 pound of ground meat
1 jar of spaghetti sauce (I used a frozen kind made at at a local restaurant since we are HFCS free)
1 package of egg noodles
1 package of mozzarella cheese (8 oz)
1 small container of ricotta cheese (the original recipe called for 1 cup of cottage cheese, but I HATE cottage cheese)


Directions:
Brown ground meat, then add in the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. While this is going on, cook the noodles. Be careful to not over cook, because they will bake in the oven for a bit.

Once the noodles are cooked, and the sauce is done, mix them together adding the ricotta, and 1/2 the mozzarella. Put into a greased casserole dish.


It will look like this:

Top with the remaining mozzarella and you get this:

Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 min.

I have made this several times, and it works very well as a make ahead dish. I usually make it the day before a party.

I forgot to take a picture when it came out of the oven. By time I remembered, it was almost all gone!

It was very good! Everyone loves this!

There will be more to come about the birthday party- on another day. I am too tired today!

Semi- Wordless Wednesday

This is one of my favorite pics! Santa was rockin enough to bring my boys matching grey sweatsuits from A's favorite store- Crazy 8's! I think my boys are so cute. I wish my girls would cooperate for a cute picture. I may just be asking for the moon on that one!

I made it Monday

This week I made another diet unfriendly food- Overnight Carmel Cinnamon Rolls. I have seen these several times all over the interwebz, but I used a recipe I found on Momster (bonus- she is a Steelers fan!)


Here are the ingredients:
1 package of frozen bread rolls
1/2 cup of brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 package of butterscotch COOK AND SERVE pudding- NOT INSTANT!
1/4 cup of butter


Grease a bundt pan, I used Crisco. Put the rolls in the bottom of the pan- I only used half of the bag. Sprinkle the package of pudding over the rolls.

Next, melt all the other stuff in the microwave. I did this in a handy dandy Pyrex measuring cup. When it is done it smells wonderful!

Drizzle the melted goodness over the rolls. The laws of science will prevail- the hot mixture will want to fall off the frozen rolls! Don't worry, it is all good. Use a scraper to make sure you get it all out of the cup. It is yummy if you lick it too!

You will leave it like this all night while you go to bed.

When you wake up in the morning- the rolls will have raised, and will look like this! Put them in a 350 oven for 23- 30 minutes.

Your rolls will look like this when they are done. They smell DELICIOUS while they are baking!

After they are cooked, let them cool for about 5-10 minutes and turn them over onto a plate, or something else that is big enough to hold them. I used a pizza pan.

This is the end result- Yummy, gooey goodness!

All the kids were off today, and I had an extra kid here today too. Between 4 kids and 2 adults, we ate about 1/2 of this for breakfast. They are still good later in the day. Just do not ask how they are the next day- they didn't last that long at the Rocks house!

A Night With my Girl

Today there was no school. Like most everyone else in America, we are in deep freeze!

By about 5:00 I had enough, cabin fever was already setting in! I decided to take G to Target to have her birthday pictures done. Lucky for us, they had an opening!

I got her outfit on, did her hair and we were off.

Only it wasn't so simple. I went and started the van, came in and got her bundled up, but there was still ice on the windshield. Then her door was frozen. Which is a big deal when there are 4 car seats in there! But FINALLY we were on the way!

The photographer was behind when we got there (big surprise) so we went to shop while we waited. Target is my number one favorite store. Today was even better! They had 30% off clearance clothes! WHOO HOOO! I went through all 4 kids departments and got each of the kids something. Nothing was over $3! The only bummer was by time I went to look for myself the $9 stuff seemed too expensive!

G did so good for her pics and I can not wait to get them back. I had a hard time choosing.

After Target we went to eat and we had such a nice time. We talked "fancy" talk and made plans for her birthday. She decided that she wants chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, vegetables with ranch dip, and hard boiled eggs. And of course cake. A Hello Kitty cake to be exact. I can not wait!

I love these special one on one times with the kids, and this one was a hit! It was exactly the kind of night that i needed to remind me why I had kids!

I Made It Monday

One of my New Years resolutions was to do more things with the kids. Last week I discovered the Pioneer Woman I came across a recipe for Dump Cake. It looked good and simple and something that would be easy to do with the kids.



The Ingredients:

A box of yellow cake mix, a can of crushed pineapple, a can of strawberry pie filling, a stick of butter and a stick of margarine, and my personal favorite Cool Whip. PW's recipe calls for cherry pie filling, but I do not like cherries, so I improvised.

First A dumped in the crushed pineapple (with the juice)

Then G dumped in the Strawberries (sorry, I do not know why the pic went in twice, and I can not get it out :( )

Then you mix it all up

Next, you dump on the dry cake mix. You can see how there are lots of clumps. Just break those up with a fork.

Next slice up the butter and margarine and spread them out over the top. (oopsie- PW only called for 1/2 stick, I just pretended this was a Paula Deen recipe) You may ask yourself, why BOTH butter and margarine? I consulted Mr Rocks on this since he is knowledgeable in baking and he says butter makes it flaky and margarine makes it soft, so using some of both gives it the right texture. For example, you use butter to make biscuits.

Bake it in the oven for 45 min to an hour and you get this! It smelled so yummy!

When it cools, put it in a bowl and add some Cool Whip!

We all liked this one. It was really, really sweet. I think it may have been better with a little less butter. I think that I may experiment with other flavors too. I also think that ice cream would taste great too.

However, this is not a part of my other New Years resolution to lose weight! I did find a weight watchers recipe that used LIGHT cherries and applesauce on top instead of butter and margarine. I just was not in the mood to worry about it.

Finally- Christmas Pictures!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve here was unseasonably warm! We went to church and then to turkey dinner at Grandma's. After we got home the big kids went out to sprinkle the reindeer food that they got from their teachers at school.

Here is G sprinkling hers (you can see she wasn't getting the concept of spreading it out)

A (in true oldest child fashion) was a perfectionist about getting it ALL over!

They were nice enough to share some with K.

After the reindeer food is all sprinkled, you must spin around three times and yell- I have been good all year!

The kids really enjoyed doing this and I look forward to doing it again next year.

We also let the kids exchange the gifts that they got for each other at the secret Santa shop on Christmas eve. Then it was time for bed.

I managed to get a pic of all the presents under the tree before bed! You will notice the gift me and Mr Rocks got- the new TV. It was actually NEEDED and it cut out a hefty chunk of out of our Christmas budget. As you can see, Mr Rocks has been enjoying watching football.

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning I was woken up at the lovely time of 6:15 to excited children anxious to tell me that Santa had arrived. By 7:15, everyone was up, present were opened and this is what we were left with:

After all was cleaned up, we were ready to go.

I made breakfast at my in laws. We stayed the whole day. It was a very nice day. The kids got a ton of gifts and they were very happy with everything. I was so worried about it, because times have been so tough and of course I was worried that we didn't have enough gifts. Turns out that I worried for no reason, they had plenty to make them happy! I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband and children!

The Snuggie

I wanted to share some Christmas pics, but I left my camera in the car and Mr Rocks will not go get it.

We will wait on that, and while we wait I want to vent about the Snuggie. The Rocks children want this, and they want them BAD!


(Watch the commercial here since I do not know how to post a you tube video)

I do not know how we lived with out this thing. All this time my arms have been freezing off when I was on the laptop or holding the baby. (never mind why the baby isn't cold). I almost died of hypothermia when I had to toss the blanket off to answer the phone. Those were tough times.

Really, who invented this thing?

My BFF's kids want them too. Why do they advertise the snuggie on Nick? A has brought me the phone to CALL NOW! while G was yelling at the same time- "no she can order online!"

I want to sit by my fire pit with the whole Rocks gang in snuggies. Maybe we can go to the football game and we can wear our snuggies there, and all the other families that be super jealous. (well, at least the kids will be jealous, the parents will probably have other thoughts....)

Snuggie is at the top of my list, right up there with the Craft light cutter and the pancake puff maker.