The Adventures of Flat WeaselMomma and Niecey

Let's rewind things a bit and go back to November for a bit shall we. A reminder I had the plague, though was declared to be noncontagious by my doctor extraordinaire and sent off to go spend Thanksgiving with my family. I was hogging hosting Flat WeaselMomma at the time before giving her up so she could go visit NukeDad who still hasn't written a post about their adventures, neither has BusyDad... I of course was excited to see my family, last time I had visited was July and Niecey and Pa visited me in August but I had not seen any of them since. I of course had to take a picture of two of my favorite blog subjects:

Niecey fell in love with Flat WeaselMomma, which awesomely translated into my normally a bit shy Niecey being totally comfortable with the not flat version of WeaselMomma when we visited her later that week. We of course had to bring her on our road trip to Michigan, she helped Pa drive:


Then she went and hung out with Niecey to keep her company for a bit:

She then decided to check on Cheryl to make sure she was still alive after taking cold meds and Dramamine and not sleeping (poor kid gets car sick easy and having a cold on top of it was not pretty). Baby Sibling was quite stoned and out of it and didn't really remember this but was gracious enough to let me post it (she is likely going to use this to barter putting a horrible pic of me on her blog but who could resist posting this hilarious pic?!):

This is the picture I got of the political cesspool city of Chicago, Dad wouldn't stop on the expressway so I could get a better shot and probably didn't appreciate my unsuccessful attempts to get FWM in the picture so this is the best I got:

We made pretty good time and made it into Indiana, notice how the sign is back lit, the sun appears to be in the eastern sky. Who knew that the sun could be over on that side of the sky? Normally when I see the sun it is in the western sky, strange! Whatever this horrible voodoo magic is it is not good for trying to get a picture of the sign:


Daddy was driving a bit fast and my sleep deprived reflexes made me basically miss this one (can you tell the trip was boring and uneventful, especially for the sickly passenger who can't sleep in cars and her niece and sibling both decided to nap):

Since Oldsie is not the only car that has a no bodily fluids policy we stopped at a rest stop after crossing the border, I showed Niecey where we were on the map, she though this was pretty cool and decided we should share it with you:

They had a fake lighthouse by a pond, I had to cross the parking lot to be able to get the whole thing in the shot, makes Niecey and FWM look quite tiny:

We finally got to our aunt's house and after eating a nice big meal, beating up all her big cousins, and playing with her little cousin Niecey, Big Bear, Auntie Cheryl's Sock Monkey, and FWM decided to call it a night (not leaving much room for me!):

Since Michigan borders the North Pole we had a white Thanksgiving, Niecey enjoyed this greatly and FWM got to show off her winter clothes in action, sweet!:


We all had a great time and were sad to say goodbye, too bad we only get to go once a year! It was definitely a busy week full of family and friends, all of whom gave us much to be thankful for.

Shopping With Niecey

Back in August my mom had foot surgery to remove a weird growth, she found out shortly before she was going to come visit me that she needed the surgery. The vacation time was already submitted and she basically had no choice but to cancel her plans to come see me and use that time instead to have and recover from the surgery (she is still recovering but definitely on the mend at this point). During the time that was supposed to be spent with me fell her birthday, I had planned to take her out to eat as her present, the last minute change in plans left me without a present for her nor time to get one so I told her that we would celebrate her birthday next time I visited her, this came over the Thanksgiving holiday. She was working insane hours at work and did not get a whole lot of time to see me so there was no time to go out to eat so I decided to do the next best thing, make her dinner at home. I picked Niecey up from kindergarten that afternoon and told her we were going to make Grah a birthday dinner, she definitely liked this idea. I took her by Grah's work to say hi and inform her that dinner would be awaiting her when she got home, then we went over to a local and cheap grocery store. I did not know ahead of time that they had these incredibly adorable kid-sized carts, Niecey informed me as we walked in, I thought to myself, "Score, I can make Niecey do all the work, she'll have a blast, and I will get an awesome blog post out of it!" And so our shopping adventure began!


1. We got some fresh bread, salad, broccoli and squash for Pa (his favorite, Mom loves it too though). Oh and some of my favorite vegetable in the white fanny may box (mmmm mint meltaways, chocolate being from a bean and mint being a leaf it counts double as a veggie!).

2. Off to the meat department, Niecey decided we should eat cow, I helped her pick a reasonably priced cut (aka cheap), I can't remember what it was only that it is technically used in roasts or something, I cooked it like a steak as I do most cuts of beef. As long as it tastes good I do not mind having to chew my food, good exercise, hehe. I got tired of carrying her coat and discovered the second use of the cart's flag. (Faces blanked out to preserve innocent bystanders' privacy.)

3. Cutting through the frozen stuff section.

4. Niecey was ready for her closeup! We got the fixings for cupcakes since it was a birthday celebration and Auntie Kee is an awesome cupcake maker but a not so good cake maker (unless she buys it from the bakery).

5. We also picked up some fruit and milk. And of course mushrooms for Auntie Kee's signature mushroom gravy (which damn near killed her last night when Grah helped her make it, note: make sure Grah is not going to add greasy "drippings" to gravy after it already has olive oil and a touch of butter in it, GI nightmare!).

6. Niecey had to load the groceries on the conveyor belt. The clerk warned me not to let the managers see me taking pictures, she was really nice, I told her I would throw a fit and write a really mean blog post about the store if they tried to stop me from taking pics of my adorable cart slave! Guess they made a no cameras policy after some idiot teenagers had recently gone in the store with one in a gorilla suit videoing him rampaging through the store and scaring the crap out of young kiddies, jerks!

7. Another cute pic of her loading the groceries on the belt.

8. Of course she had to bag them too, I did help, didn't want everything all squished!

9. I was too busy cooking and keeping my assistant cook busy and safe to take pics while cooking and then we all descended on it like rabid dogs when I was done so the only food pic is of the cupcakes. We got 50 candles and had them all stuck in the cupcakes and lit, I wanted a pic but the heat of all those cheap and small candles had them last maybe 30 seconds after they were all lit! I had no idea how much light and heat would be put off by that many candles, it was really neat! I took this pathetic pic of them after we pulled the candles out, imagine them looking like they are all on fire and you've got what it looked like, hehe.

All in all it was a lot of fun shopping and cooking with Niecey. She can be a pain in the butt to get to eat but I have noticed that the more she helps make the meal the more she is willing to eat it. Too bad that small helpers can make the job take a lot longer than it normally would! When I am not in a hurry though it is definitely amusing to let the kiddo help out, she is soooo proud of herself when she does and it is nice to encourage her to develop new skills and it is generally good quality time spent together.

Niecey's Thanksgiving Thankfulness Two

Niecey has decided that she wants to write another Thanksgiving post, I tried to get her to label it as a Christmas post but she would have none of that craziness so Thanksgiving it is!

Each of the following is proceeded by "I am thankful for..."

1. Auntie Cheryl (who I stole for like three weeks)
2. Auntie Kee (Because I am insanely indulgent)
3. Big Bear (best $9.99 I ever spent)
4. Monkey Weasel
5. Tiniest Weasel (aka Smallest Weasel)
6. Turkey
7. Pa
8. Her Computer (Yes she has her own, it is an old junker from our uncle)
9. Trees
10. Her house
11. Momma Weasel
12. Pa's computer (which I am using now)
13. Boy Weasel
14. Middle Weasel
15. Cheese because it's yellow (Yellow is her favorite color if you didn't guess)
16. Time (she got a watch for Christmas)
17. Bunnies (Auntie Cheryl has two of them)
18. Frogs (because they hop apparently)
19. Random crap on the desk (she is listing everything on the desk trying to think of more, she is so a blogger in training!)
20. Herself (so am I, best niecey ever!)
21. Auntie Cheryl's sock monkeys (oh how she covets them!)
22. coolwhip(she wrote that herself copying the cool whip "bowl", aka the fancy dishes in my mom's collection)
23. crown(sweet, she is writing this post now, I just have to add the parenthetical comments for her amusement)hehehohoho
24. Big Weasel (aka Eldest Weasel)
25. Music (Ian will like this one)

And there you have it, things Niecey is thankful for, hope you enjoyed it!

Niecey has decided to end this with "hehehoho"

Merry Christmas everyone!

Microblogologist in the World of Weasels

A few months ago I came across a hilarious blog. Little did I know that not only would this blog entertain me and give me a fun source of blog fodder (the Flat WeaselMomma series), but it would lead to my becoming friends with the real WeaselMomma. And so being that she lives not too far from my parents' place and I was pretty sure she wasn't a serial killer* I suggested we have a playdate "for the kids". She must have decided I wasn't a serial killer* as well and her daughter Monkey Weasel decided it would be fun to have us crash her birthday dinner so Niecey and I jumped in the trusty oldsmobile and off we went.

A great time was had by all and the real WeaselMomma is an even better cook than the Flat one! Her family has the same tradition as mine and the birthday person gets to pick the meal so we had fried chicken, broccoli and noodles so ironically both forms of WeaselMomma made me chicken.

Her entire family was delightful and Niecey and I felt at home right away. I am so happy we were able to have our get together, we'll definitely have to do it again! Niecey wanted to write WeaselMomma a letter when we got home, she wrote the first part and then I took over:

Dear WeaselMomma,

i am niecey i am 5. I have a bear named big bear, he is my favorite bear. He loves me and I love him too and I have a monkey comforter and I like it, it is my favorite and I love it. And I have my own bed I like my own bed. I sleep downstairs and I go to kindergarten at school and I have friends that I like they are nice to me.

Niecey

I thought she wanted to write a thank you note but apparently not, lol. Guess I'll have to thank them myself. Thank you Weasels for being great hosts and making us feel like part of the family! And for all you jealous people who read WeaselMomma's blog and have never met her, she is even funnier in person and hanging out with her was like a living a great blog post. Her husband is hilarious as well and the two of them together...

I can't wait to see the pictures her hubby took, I didn't take many myself so have to wait to see if they turned out. I'm also looking forward to reading her post about our meeting. Oh and there will be a few more FWM posts, I have plans and pics for them but have not gotten around to writing them all up, they will have to wait until I get home.



~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*Unless we are both serial killers with very involved cover stories to try and lure our unsuspecting victims and our meeting was part of an evil serial killer alliance to make our stories even more believable.

Thankful Thursday

Niecey is helping me write this post while we are in Michigan with our family. Here is what she is thankful for not necessarily in order.

1. Turkey
2. Auntie Cheryl
3. Auntie Kee
4. Pa
5. Her family
6. Momma
7. Graw
8. Big Bear
9. Big Bear's old ribbon
10. Her monkey
11. Bed
12. House
13. Monkey comforter
14. Auntie Marilyn
15. The kitchen
16. Her cousins
17. Auntie Carol
18. Zippy*
19. Bananas
20. TV
21. Lily
22. William
23. Freddy
24. Telephone
25. Months of the year
26. Herself
27. Her pig shirt
28. Plants
29. Flat WeaselMomma

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope you all have plenty to be grateful for =).

~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*Zippy is Auntie Marilyn's dog (Auntie Kee and Zippy are not friends).