Corn Mazes and Other Randomness

I took the girls to the local corn maze last week on their early out day. The weather was absolutely beautiful--perfect for an outing. The girls were kind of whiny when they first got home from school and I was kind of second guessing my plan to take them. I kept asking if they were up for it and they were, so we ventured out.

The maze started out in a bunch of hay bales, and we got lost immediately. Actually, Lindsay ran off ahead of us right away and as I hollered for her (I did not want to be looking for her in a corn maze!) Kera got kind of worried. She's my worry wart. She said something about wanting to go home. Lindsay finally came back to us and I made sure she knew we had to do the maze together. After that it was pretty fun, even if they argued once in a while about who was going to choose which way we would go. Eventually I just wanted to be done and take them home! It wasn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be when I imagined it.

After we got out of the maze, the girls went into the petting zoo area, I convinced them to let me take their picture in the pumpkin patch, and then they played on the playground equipment for a while. We were there about an hour total when I finally said it was time to go home. I had dinner to prep and homework to do and all the normal things. They whined and argued and complained all.the.way.home. It was soooo irritating. You'd think after going on a fun outing, on a school night even, they'd be happy and grateful. But, no. Ugh. Really makes me want to do more things like that with them. Not!

**************************

I made chicken stock the other night according to recommendations in this wonderful cookbook that I got the other day. Instead of boiling the heck out of the bones & veggies, I was careful to keep it at a very gentle simmer for several hours.
 The next day I used that broth to make Sopa de Tortilla.
Oh.my.word.

It was hands down, the best soup I've ever made. Erik kept giving me compliments on it and I'm almost positive the difference was my homemade stock. I'm making stock that way from now on!

******************************

My windows are clean. Like seriously. Both inside and outside.

They sparkle.

The screens and sills and everything is clean.

It took Erik and me several hours yesterday, but its sooo worth it. Our windows haven't been this clean since we moved in almost 10 years ago. A few of the taller ones still had paint specks from the original paint when it was built! Not because we're lazy, but the windows are like WAY tall. We've always just used that spray window cleaner stuff and called it good. Not this time. We used water and some vinegar for the hard water spots.

Yes, just water.

I invested in some awesome, wonderful cleaning cloths from a company called Norwex.

They are amazing. I can clean almost everything in my house with just their microfiber cloth and water! Cleaning has never been easier or cheaper. I'm totally not buying more of many of my cleaners. I've already been switching to more green ways to clean like baking soda and vinegar and these just help even more. I'm in love with my new Norwex cloths, but don't worry Erik loves them too! ;-)

**************************************

A sign of the humor in my home....
Yesterday I was trying to get the last little bit of ranch dressing out of the bottle, and so when I squeezed it it made that squirt splatter sound.

My eldest said, "Oh Mom, you might have a poop mark in your underwear from that one."

Nice. Real nice.

Maybe things like this will keep me from having to deal with them dating when they get into high school...lol