ProlificMom

All For the Love of a Cat

Please put the cat down and eat your lunch.

Thanks to the in-laws for their Christmas gift of a $50 Applebee’s gift card, we celebrated on new year’s eve with a night on the town.   First, we had dinner at Applebees.  I recommend the Smothered Chicken.  It was fantastic and I still have some leftover in the fridge.The gift card paid for most of the meal and we covered the rest.  Eating out has gotten very expensive since four of the five kids no longer order off of the kids menu.  Even if two of them share an entree, its pretty expensive.

The kids had a great time posing for pictures but I think the people in the surrounding tables may now be blind  from my flash going off constantly.  Don’t those shutterbug moms just annoy you at restaurants?  We ate until we were completely stuffed.

mugging for the camera

goofing off again

After dinner we headed to the movie store and rented the final install of the Jason Bourne trilogy.  I think we are the last family in Texas to see this movie.  It was everything I heard it would be – a great action thriller.  And yes, we let the  children watch all that violence – but we watched it with them so we could talk about any issues that needed to be addressed.

Death by Brownie

After picking up the movie we went home where we ate desert which I had prepared before leaving for the restaurant.  I try not to buy restaurant deserts because they are so expense for a family of seven.  About an hour before leaving home I baked a pan of brownies in my bunt pan and left them on top of the stove covered with foil.  They were still warm when we came home.  I like using this pan for baking because its easier to cut slices for the kids.  All of my breads/cakes get baked in this pan.

Our new year’s desert:  Death by brownie.  My secret ingredient – about 1/4 cup of Hershey’s chocolate syrup added to the mix.  It doesn’t matter what brand of mix you get.  I use Great Value brand and I always add this extra ingredient to make sure its extra moist and rich.  Then I get a large scoop of ice cream and cover them both with more Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. UMMMMM, GOOD!

Death by Brownie

We watched the movie while eating the brownie desert and then groaned from being too full. This one fell asleep at 9:00 while rocking in his XRocker chair while these two updated their Facebook pages:

Rocked himself asleep by 9:00.

Updating Facebook

Finally, we ended the day by playing Yatzee and watching Dick Clark’s traditional new years eve show from Time’s Square on TV.  It was great to see him ring in the new year again. This has been a year of great trials and triumphs for the ProlificMom family, but through it all I can say that we have been truly blessed by God.  We are looking forward to a FANTASATIC 2010.  Oh, and In now just 3.5 months away from turnin 40.