Parenting

Mom’s Mexican Hot Chocolate

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For as long as I can remember, my mom always baked cookies and made a pot of Mexican Hot Chocolate every year as a treat for us to have while decorating our Christmas tree. I think my Dad and I would actually start out making the chocolate chip cookies, but after we’d had enough of the raw cookie dough, we we would let my mom bake the rest. 🙂

Here’s my mom’s recipe:

Fill a large pot a little over halfway with water, add a cinnamon stick and bring to a boil

After water is boiling, scoop 1 cup of the boiling water into a glass measuring cup and add in 2.5 Tablespoons of Baking Cocoa Powder (she uses Hershey’s) and stir so that you have a chocolate liquid.

Add chocolate liquid back into the pot of boiling water, and lower the temperature to Medium, and let it boil for 5 minutes, keep stirring.

Add 1.5 cups of granulated sugar, let it boil for 5 more minutes, keep stirring

Add a can of evaporated milk, and 1 or 2 cans of fresh milk, then let simmer for 2 minutes

Turn off the fire, stir, then use a hand mixer to whip it up (I used my immersion blender with the whisk attachment).

We like to add marshmallows or whipped cream!

Eureka!

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I forgot how much I loved this thing!

We definitely want a new vacuum for the house, and I found a list that shows the best vacuums for wooden floors, with Shark Navigator Lift-away Professional being listed as #1, and I actually found it on sale at Costco this week… But I didn’t buy it yet, because I hadn’t read reviews from real people. It’s $50 cheaper at Costco in Visalia, right now, than it is on Amazon if you are in the market for a new vacuum.

Actually… As I did more digging, I found out that even though it’s called the Professional… It’s a different model than the one sold at Costco. The one at Costco doesn’t have as many features, so it doesn’t cost as much. It’s probably still a really good vaccum, but we’ll likely stick to Amazon to order the right model based on the reviews for wooden floors usage.

But…. If you are just looking for a small vaccum, I’d say hands down, this Eureka Blaze is amazing for the price! I’ve been sweeping with my microfiber floor mop lately and this vacuum saved me so much time. We’ve had the vacuum attachment off for so long that I was thinking I had to use the mini attachment, which takes too long when cleaning up hundreds of kids crumbs, but with the rolling attachment it just took a few minutes.

Couch vs the Marker

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So… Remember that time I was glad that Alexandria only got the marker on her skin and the kids chairs, and was really happy she didn’t get it on the new couch 🛋?

Until my hubby noticed a few days later that she actually did get it on the side of the couch 🤦‍♀️

My friend Kendra mentioned that she cleans her couches with alcohol and water. So… I gave it a go.

It seemed to work, it just doesn’t smell the best. Then, I remembered my Theives cleaner that gets stains out of the carpet and it smells good too!

I’m happy to report that I was able to get the marker off the couch 🛋 🙌

And I even got most of the marker off of Bobby’s chair

Work from home with Userfeel.com

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One of my friends on Facebook posted in one of the local Mom’s play groups about this website that had work from home jobs. One of those jobs that I saw, that looked really cool was Userfeel.com I had seen a page like this before, but when I tried to apply for the job, it said they weren’t hiring in my area… which I thought was a little weird, since it’s a remote job, and I’m not sure why they wouldn’t hire in my “area”. They didn’t specify which “area” I was in either, but maybe they just don’t hire people in California. Something to note is that they aren’t actually hiring you as an employee, they are hiring  you are an independent contractor, so you do need to save for tax time on your own.

However, Userfeel.com did not have this “area” notice when I went to their website. So, I was pretty excited that I could get signed up. After you submit your information, they send you a confirmation email to verify your email address. After you verify your email address, they send you another email for the next step, to take the qualification test. The qualification test is to make sure you can do the job.

So, what’s the job? It is right up my alley! You have to have a computer with a microphone because you open up their recording software that records your screen and your microphone and they give you a set of tasks so that you can “test” out websites and give your honest feedback. I am a data analyst by day, and I personally love testing things to make sure they work right. When they don’t, I like to figure out what could be wrong, then pass the information back to the developers so they can fix it and get it back to me for testing. With Userfeel you go to the website they direct you to, and follow the instructions. My test was actually looking at Enterprise, the rental car company, and trying to schedule a car rental. As you are going through the tasks, you also speak out loud your thoughts on the process, the website, anything that you notice. As you complete the tasks, you mark it as complete and go onto the next task, until you are done and it uploads the video with your voice back to Userfeel and they can pass it along to their clients for feedback, so they can make sure they are providing the best user experience to their own customers.

The cool thing… you actually get paid to do this!

And you can do it when you have free time. You, of course, need to find a quiet spot in your home, so that you can focus, and they can hear your voice clearly in the recording, but… you can pick and choose when you want to work. I, personally, just passed my certification test, so I haven’t done any real tests yet, and haven’t gotten paid yet. But, I am looking forward to getting my first email with a real test so I can give this a go.

We have definitely been tightening our budget at home, so it will be nice to be able to add some extra income without having to leave the house to do it. I do work 30 hours a week as a data analyst, and also take care of my almost 2 and almost 4 year old, while my hubby is at work, and my oldest is at school, so… it doesn’t leave for a lot of free time, but that’s the nice thing about this, you do it on YOUR time, and you don’t have to get dressed and head out of your home to do it.

In N Out

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While on our trip down to Fallbrook for the night, to visit our family that will doing the 5k with us tomorrow morning (PurpleStride), we of course had to make several pit stops.

Bathroom breaks, food breaks, filling up the superheromobile with gas breaks, breastfeeding our youngest breaks.

We do have 3 kids, an almost two year old girl, who is not ready to give up the boob yet, an almost 4 year old boy, who is mostly potty trained, but still has accidents here and there and is wearing a pull up for this 5 hour car trip that will actually take us 9 hours (he said he pooped a rattlesnake 2 bathroom stops ago🐍), and a 5.5 year old girl, who just said she has to go potty again… we’ve been back on the road maybe 15 minutes since our last bathroom break 🤷‍♀️ and once we pulled over for her… she admitted she didn’t really have to go, she just wanted to get out of her seat 🤦‍♀️

While the older two kids used the bathroom at In N Out in Arcadia, I changed our youngest diaper and nursed her.

Did you know I love In N Out? When I was pregnant with each of the kids, I could easily eat a Double Double Animal style with medium well fries and a large Dr Pepper every single week… and my first meal after each of my 3 c-sections was…In N Out 🍔🍟thanks to my hubby’s good friend Zahur who always came through… and brought a hat too!

The In N Out in Arcadia is one of those that’s a drive through, or eat outside only type. And… true story, my hubby used to work at the In N Out in Camarillo prior to it being reconstructed to have indoor seating.

In N Out will always be a special place for The Superhero Family! And even though we have one in our new hometown of Visalia (which is actually where I grew up), we actually haven’t been to one, to eat, since we moved back in February because the line in Visalia is soooo long… and we don’t eat out nearly as much as we used to.

If you’ve never been to an In N Out and you ever see one… I highly recommend you give it a try! 😉

Fitbit Blaze not charging

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I can definitely say that my memory used to be better prior to having kids..

But… I was pretty sure I charged my Fitbit Blaze on Sunday, and on Monday I saw the low battery indicator, but my phone didn’t alert me (via notification from the Fitbit app or getting an email reminder) that my battery was low. I put my Fitbit on the charger, and thought I was good to go.

But on Tuesday it was low battery again… I know for SURE I charged it on Monday because our painter was here and moved my charger (I LOVE my new charger, you don’t have to pop your Fitbit out of your band to charge it) to another plug while he painted the butler pantry area. So I charged it yet again… and was bummed since I was doing a lot of house cleaning and missed out on all those steps, but remembered when I was pushing the kids and didn’t know what time it was, so I ran in to get it and it was a full battery.

So today is Wednesday and my battery is almost dead again and it hasn’t even been 24 hours… I had to push the kids on the swings today without tracking my arm workout… pushing kids on a swing, especially when they want to be pushed everytime they swing backwards is a workout for sure. Oh and if you are like me and don’t really dig the silicone bands on your Fitbit Blaze, you can always buy a replacement, I love the flower one I bought, and I’m not getting the irritation on my wrist anymore that I used to get with the silicone bands. It’s pretty and it is nicer to my skin. Win win!

This time I did a search and found one lady said she figured out why her battery was dying so soon, once she realized she had switched phones the week prior. So I opened my app and sure enough it last synced 9/23, which was 10 days ago… So, I’m assuming mine is having the same problem hers was having and has been trying to connect to my phone and isn’t able to connect, so it’s draining the battery. I charged my Fitbit this morning. I’m still trying to figure out why it can’t sync (though, that’s right about the time I ordered this new bluetooth headset to make it easier for me to be hands free while on the go with the kids all the time, so… maybe I have too many things connected to my bluetooth on my phone…).

I love my Fitbit, especially when it’s actually synced up to my phone and I can see texts coming in, or a phone call when I forgot my phone in the other room. You can’t respond to texts or take calls on your Fitbit Blaze, but just knowing I have a call or text coming in, so I can find my phone and respond to people, especially when I’m trying to keep up with my kids and my job is definitely a nice thing to have.

Oh and if your Fitbit isn’t tracking your steps accurately, make sure your check your wrist placement setting☝️

I was finally able to sync my Fitbit to my phone today, and it got me all caught up on the last 10 days of sleep. I guess I haven’t been checking how well I’ve been sleeping. Also, if you have ever wondered why you are getting basic sleep details, instead of the sleep stages, it’s probably because you had a low battery so it can’t track as well.

The Greatest Mom in the World

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I just threw together some protein balls for the kids that just earned myself the title of “The Greatest Mom in the World” from Bobby… Complete 180 from when he told me I should go live with another family a few weeks ago… and when I walked out the front door, he was not a happy boy.

I’ll be making these more often.

I was making my protein shake for lunch and I like to throw in some peanut butter powder, shredded coconut, and some cinnamon powder. Alexandria asked for some of the coconut, so I put some in her mouth, she loved it. Bobby wanted some too, so I gave him some. Then they wanted more…

So I put some in a bowl and was feeding them with a spoon. Then Alexandria took the bowl over so she could feed herself. I decided to make it a little less messy, so I added some creamy peanut butter, so it would all stick together. Then, after she finished that and wanted more, I decided to just make some protein balls so that they could pick them up and make less of a mess.

I just threw this together without measuring. Oats, Peanut Butter, Honey, Protein Shake, and Shredded Coconut (this is the one we use), and rolled them into balls, and Alexandria and Bobby loved it!

Coloring Pages

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Did you know that you can search for coloring pages online? After failing at an attempt to draw The Hulk for my son to color I decided to search for one and did you know… you can search for almost any character followed by “coloring page” and you’ll get back tons of pages that you can print from your computer to your own printer.

My son likes to color some of the same characters over and over. and he’s really good at staying in the lines for being only 3 years old. So glad I discovered this little hack, especially since I’m not that great of an artist and he could tell that my drawings didn’t look exactly like the character.

Day Moon

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Today Bobby asked while we were out playing, “Why can we see the moon during the day?”

So of course, I had to come in and look it up to give him the answer.

“This means that while it is less visible at night, during the daytime, it is more luminous. And there you have it. TheMoon can sometimes appear in the sky during the daytime because it is the closest object to Earth, and because its orbital cycle means that sometimes it is brighter in the daythan at night.”

Why Can We See the Moon During the Day?

New shoes…

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Bobby just said, “My shoes are saying don’t wear me”.

 

That’s his way of saying he doesn’t want to wear his shoes. The shoes he chose in the store and decided we should buy. The shoes he ran around in the store in and said they made him run faster. The shoes that he chose based on the picture on the box…. that is nowhere on the actual shoes.

We go through this with Bobby. His clothes are “too fluffly” to wear… that just means they are loose…. he’ll be 4 in December, and is still loving and rocking his 2T shirts…. because “they aren’t fluffly”, so I’ve resorted to buying him 3T shirts in hopes that he’ll be happy to wear them soon since his 2T shirts are almost showing his belly… even with his arms down.

 

Back to the shoes… a few months back we were in Target looking for new flip flops for him. We tried on at least 10 pairs of shoes… that he didn’t like. Until he decide on the first pair I chose for him, but he liked them now because he chose them…. They were $20 shoes, which I really didn’t want to pay that much, but if it meant he would wear them, especially after me sweating for 20 minutes trying to get him to try on shoes…. I was willing to pay that much. So we bought the shoes and brought them home, then the next opportunity that arose to wear shoes, I asked him to put on his Avengers Sandals…. he wouldn’t wear them. I made him wear them… he said they were “smiking” him…. which I take to mean they hurt him, and I could tell they wouldn’t be hurting him since they were actually a size too big. So…. we ended up returning them. I’ve held on to too many things in hopes that he would change his mind, and he didn’t…. Ryan ended up taking him to Payless and bought him some shark flip flops that he loves… even though they are like 2 sizes too big. But, they were much cheaper, and he wears them.

So… he’s wearing his new tennis shoes to church today… even though he is saying they are “fluffly”. He’s already asked 3 times if he can take them off when we get to church, or when we get in the van… Nope… sorry, today you are wearing your “fluffly” shoes… that YOU chose.