moved...

I have a new home: Annetisocial

Moving soon

If anyone was wondering why my blog is named "Butty Glirl" it's because it was a nickname for my daughter, when she was little she used to pronounce "butt" as "Butty" and girl a "glirl" and we used to tell her to shake her "butty!"

Alas I am going to move this blog and name it something else, I got statcounter and it showed that a significant number of people come to this blog after doing a websearch on the words "big butty" which is kind of... blech. I don't know if they are looking for big butts or something about the sandwich, but in any case I don't want to be confused with big butts. New post as soon as I find a new home!

Costco Finds

Some people love Target - I love Costco! I always find things that I wouldn't find at regular supermarkets. Maybe it's the samples! They sucker me into buying stuff. We went to Costco yesterday with the intention of only buying toilet paper, eggs, milk and bread but instead came out $387 lighter. Some of the extras that caught my fancy:

• Sip-Ahh straws - straws that have flavor beads inside the straw so when you sip your milk through it, your milk is flavored. I got these for the kids and they seem to like it for its novelty. It comes in Strawberry, Chocolate, Banana and Cookies and Cream.
• Philly Swirl Swirl Popperz and Ice Cream Cupcakes - though they're no Chocolate Green Tea Cupcakes ala Jenn, they were pretty good and fit the bill.
• A big hunking bag of Everybody's Nuts Salt & Pepper Pistachios - good stuff, lots of flavor in a little nut. And you know how you hate unopened pistachios? Everybody's Nuts' pistachios are wide wide open and if you find one that is closed, you can mail it in and I think they will send you a free bag of pistachios. I found 3 so far but they're not 100% closed, but they're not 100% open either.
• A Brita water filter/pitcher - we used to have bottled water delivered to us, then we started buying bottled water from Costco because it was cheaper, now to be more environmentally conscious, we ditched the plastic bottles for Brita's water filter.
• MaraNatha Almond Butter - another attempt to eat a "little" healthier, Almond Butter is higher in protein and fiber and lower on sugar than peanut butter (or so I've been told). Not only that, Costco sold a big jar of it for a little over $6 or $7 which is such a good deal compared to what you would pay for at Whole Foods for a teeny jar.

Lots of people love Costco too.. though it appears more people profess their love for Target on the internet more.

PMS Chocolate

Charles Chocolates offers a "PMS" chocolate subscription starting out at $75 for 3 months up to $300 for the entire year. I will readily admit that once a month I tear through the cupboards, visit bakeries, order cookies online and even go on a baking rampage to satisfy whatever craving I have at the moment. The chocolate subscription works out to be $25 a month (which is what I usually spend when I go on PMS binges) but I would have to hide the chocolate from the family. It drives me nuts when they eat my special expensive chocolate because they wouldn't be able to tell it from a Hershey's bar!

Food Weekend

My weekend was full of food. On Saturday we went to Sunset Magazine's Celebration Weekend in Menlo Park (thanks for the tickets Joyce!). We met Joyce and her family there and first on the agenda was to watch Chef Alicia Jenish from Out the Door demonstrate how to make Spring Rolls. (Too bad they didn't pass out samples). It looked really easy to make and I am now inspired to make my own mayonnaise! We brought the kids along and they enjoyed the Land O'Lakes Decorate-Your-Own-Cupcake booth.



Q obviously enjoyed the frosting.



Sunday I dragged my daughter to the Newark Farmer's Market and picked up a carrot cake cupcake from The Tao of Cakes. (No picture because I ate it!) I also picked up a bunch of fruits, veggies and herbs so now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with half a flat of strawberries.

Cooking for a family of 5 has its issues - it's rare that I can make one dish that everyone will enjoy. My daughter A loves shrimp but my son X refuses to eat it. X likes steak but I'm trying to cut down red meat to 1-2 times a week. I want to eat healthy but no one else "appreciates" vegetables as much as I do. Hence, my role as a short order cook. I made miso-glazed salmon for the adults,



Spam musubi for the two big kids,



and deconstructed Spam musubi for little Q (he has a hard time eating stacked foods like sandwiches and musubi - eating via fork and spoon is much better). I also had to make two types of musubi - one entirely wrapped in nori, and the other sans nori (A doesn't like nori). This is the first time I made Spam musubi - I totally forgot I had a musubi mold that was included in a Costco pack of Spam I picked up over a year ago.



I checked Spam's website to see if they sell it online but it's nowhere to be found. I did find a post about it on someone's blog though! Looks like I lucked out - plus this mold fits a Spam slice perfectly!

Boredom + Craving = Baking

I was bored and craved carrot cake after I read a Yelp! review of a farmer's market vendor that sells carrot cakes. The picture alone made me drool. (I'm going to get some this weekend!) So I made Barefoot Contessa's Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting - it was something that I had most of the ingredients on hand already. It's nice to get back into the baking swing of things. Cupcakes were good, not too sweet, and moist. I omitted raisins and nuts because A) I hate raisins, and B) my daughter refuses to eat anything with nuts even though she's never had them.

Scallops Provencal

I made Barefoot Contessa's Scallops Provencal from her Barefoot in Paris cookbook and it was a hit. I made it with a side of Herbed Basmati Rice and I think I'll never make plain ol' jasmine rice again! The only alteration I made was for the rice, I used flat leaf parsley instead of curly leaf - I had to get flatleaf for the scallops so I didn't want to buy both kinds.

I highly recommend these recipes - they use simple ingredients but the meal is elegant. Even my 7 year old daughter gobbled it up - it went so fast I didn't have time to take pictures. I'm sure you can substitute shrimp for the scallops and get similar results.

Thanks Uncle Sam!

We were planning to go to Hawaii the first week of August for our family vacation but airfare for a family of 5 is on the expensive side these days, especially since the cheapest airfare I can find is around $600-800 (multiply by 5!!!) Instead of Hawaii, we 're going to blow our stimulus check on a family vacation to Disneyland. We booked our trip through Southwest Vacations and opted to stay at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. We were debating whether to splurge on the Grand CA hotel or save a little money and stay off site with a larger room/suite. Thanks Jenn & Joyce for the advice - as you can see I took it - we went for convenience and the overall "Disney" experience that I'm sure the kids will appreciate. We're excited - this will be our first time staying at the Grand CA hotel and we didn't tell the kids anything about this planned trip. We're going the day after school gets out (June 19-22) and we're just going to pack up the family and take our flight, and we're never going to tell the kids where we're going, they'll just have to figure it out themselves. We didn't rent a car, still debating whether we need one since our plan is to stay onsite the entire time. If anyone has any travel tips for Disneyland please feel free to comment or email me.

Baby B

I'm an Auntie! Congratulations to my sister and her husband - they had a baby boy on Sunday 5/18/2008 - Brayden Edward. Brayden tipped the scales at a mere 8 lbs. 4 oz. He's adorable if I do say so myself.

reading vs. writing

Wow it's been over 1 1/2 years since I posted here - I realized that reading blogs are so much more fun. No earth shaking updates, the 3 kids are bigger and badder than ever as you can see below. I'll start to post more regularly.

The Golden Child

Or is it the Last Emporer? In any case, we balded him. His hair was growing too long for my taste, it was going over his ears so I called him "Hobbit."

A Mommy Lesson

Beware of the phrase, "My stomach feels funny..."

As it will for sure be followed by, "BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHHHHHHH.... (pause).... BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCCCH...."

"My stomach doesn't feel funny anymore."

poor man's TiVo

I love my TiVo - life has been so busy lately I haven't had time to sit down and watch my shows... on top of that, I have to compete with the Wiggles and Hannah Montana to watch my shows.

Now I can watch most of my favorite shows online at abc.com, cbs.com, or nbc.com. Heroes, CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty (just because it's online too) all from the comfort of my office chair... ER and The Office however, must be watched on the trusty ol' TiVo. Thank goodness the networks caught on because searching for videos on YouTube sucks. You never know what you're going to get.

red to blue

My #1 nightmare is of my teeth falling out. First it starts out with just one tooth wiggly... then it gets really loose and falls out. Next thing you know, all my teeth start wiggling around and falling out. Because of this, I have a fear of cavities and have passed that on to my kids.

Remember those red tablets that stain your teeth to show you where you missed brushing your teeth? I always bought those for my kids, but they aren't always readily available. I always have to go to some mom/pop pharmacy store to get them... now Listerine made a mouthwash called Listerine Agent Cool Blue that does the same thing and you can pick it up at Target. Makes it soooo much easier to make sure the kids brushed their teeth thoroughly.

14 months

Finally! Teeth at 14 months!

baaack

I'm back again - I spent the weekend in Virginia with my family to celebrate my little sister's 18th birthday. My husband couldn't take time off from work so I braved a cross country flight with two of my kids (the baby and my 6 year old daughter). My eldest son stayed behind to keep his father company.

Flying with the two kids wasn't a big deal - they're both well traveled and they were very well behaved. The baby didn't cry once! And no, I didn't Benadryl him (...this time...) Going through security, however, was a huge pain. I had the baby in the stroller and had our carry ons plus the baby's carseat on a cart. I was pushing the stroller and my daughter was pushing the cart - she couldn't see the front of the cart because she's tiny so she kept giving everyone flat tires. Once we got up to security I could tell everyone was avoiding my line like the plague - I had to take EVERYONE'S shoes off.. then their sweaters/jackets, take the baby out of the stroller, fold the stroller while carrying the baby (thank God I have this cool stroller that you can fold with one hand - thanks Joyce!), load the stroller, carseat, shoes, and carry ons through the conveyer belt - then put everything back together once we passed through security. Oh did I mention that they had to inspect all the baby food bottles and I had to dump the water I packed in the bottles (to later mix with formula)? I actually heard this bitch behind me say, "God we got in the wrong line." BITCH. Yes, I like to go around airports with my children and take forever in security just to piss people off on purpose.

Too bad she wasn't on my flight - I would've made the baby cry just to irritate her.

Eh?

I have no idea where I've been. Q's face is how I've been feeling the past 2 months. Family and work have been keeping me busy as you can see...

But I interrupt the lazy blogging break to announce this:

Q turned 1 year old last week and he is still toothless. (And in case you were wondering, he doesn't walk yet either.)

We celebrated Q's birthday at San Jose's Happy Hollow Park and Zoo - great place for kids. The park/zoo itself isn't that big so you feel comfortable letting the kids run around without having to worry about them getting lost. But then again, I wouldn't know because I didn't venture outside our little picnic area. (I stay where the food is at.)

The bigger kids X & A started school a few weeks ago. They attended a private school before and we thought we'd give the lovely California public school system a try. It was a first for both me and the kids since I went to private school when I was little too and it was a huge adjustment. Too much of an adjustment - we ended up putting them back in private school.

I think I'm just not used to how big and open public schools are. First, the little one, A, got lost a few times within the school grounds and cried. She got lost trying to find her class line, trying to find the bathroom, trying to find her classroom after lunch.... Second, after school I was surprised to learn that they just let the kids out. At the private school, I guess I was spoiled in that they don't let the kids leave the school grounds unless they actually see the parents or guardian pick the kids up from the gate (this is all the way to 8th grade too). If the kids aren't picked up, they immediately go to afterschool daycare. I like the fact that I can show up anytime of the day and they will always know exactly where my kids are. Public school... not the same way. I almost cried one day because I couldn't find my kids. The first grade substitute teacher let my 5 year old daughter leave the school grounds - at least she let him leave with her older brother, but I had a hell of a time trying to find them.

On top of all that - they didn't have room for my daughter and they wanted to overload her to another school. I asked if they could move my son to the same school but they didn't have room for him. I refuse to make my daughter adjust to yet another campus - she was already having such a hard time with the one she was already at - plus I didn't want her to be at a school without her big brother.

I'm not knocking the public school system - we're just not ready for it yet. I know that I'll have to put the kids in public school when they get older because I can't afford the $5000 a month for high school tuition, but for now, I'm going to ride the private school train as long as I can.

chicken marsala

Last night I made Giada's Chicken Marsala with Mustard Mascarpone Sauce for dinner and it was mmm mmm good. Did I mention that the recipe can be found in my special autographed cookbook?

So far I have had good results with the recipes from Giada's cookbook. She really has the "Everyday Italian" concept down pat. The recipes are simple and easy - it took me about 35-40 minutes (maybe even less) to make the marsala. Pretty convenient for a weeknight dinner.

goodies from teacake

I am on vacation this week and I ventured out to Emeryville's Bay Street to have lunch with my three kiddies at California Pizza Kitchen after I ran an errand in Berkeley. (Yes, I went out to a restaurant with three kids by myself. No spills or thrown food either.)

While at Bay Street, we stopped by Teacake Bake Shop and I was overwhelmed with all the sweets they had to offer. While their prices might be a little high ($3 for a regular sized cupcake), I think they're worth it. You can tell that they use quality ingredients - because you can taste the vanilla in the cupcakes. My favorite was the vanilla buttermilk "cupcakie" which is a wide flat cupcake. I also got a white chocolate pistachio and pecan praline cookie. All very good. I would post pictures of the cupcakes, but they got annihilated in the box so they aren't very pretty.

h o t

It's hot. Triple degree weather. It usually doesn't get that hot in the bay area either. We tried to take the kids swimming over the weekend but the line to get into the rec center wrapped around the building because the pool was full! Then I had the bright idea of just getting a kiddie pool for the backyard so we ran over to Toys R Us and we weren't the only ones who thought of that because all the pools were sold out. Ditto for Target and Wal-Mart. After that, we went to Lowes to look into buying a portable air conditioner and when we got there, a big sign was posted outside the door: "We are completely sold out of air conditioners and fans." Ditto for Home Depot.

I resorted to taking the kids to the movies just for the a/c. FYI, Monster House is pretty scary for a kids' movie. Not so much funny. I didn't like the animation either - the characters weren't cute, they had skinny bodies and big heads. I wish I watched Cars instead.

But I am definitely looking forward to watching