Hubby has been away since last Thursday.  And you are surprised I haven’t blogged about it yet?  Well, being that I was alone with the kids and only have Mickey to guard the house (his bark isn’t quite a bark, not like Cosmo’s old bark) it just didn’t seem like I should be putting it out there on the internet, you know?

So, yes, Hubby has been away at a conference and we have kept ourselves pretty busy so that we wouldn’t notice how much we missed him.  The kids have been great.  Friday through until Tuesday, they slept in every morning and I got some pretty great sleep.  It all went downhill on Tuesday morning when they woke up at 5:30am for the day. And since it was the day for Opa to arrive, it was ok with me, I got a lot accomplished on Tuesday.  I baked up a couple of batches of mini-loaves, one pumpkin the other lemon.

Of course, I didn’t know that Opa doesn’t eat pumpkin.   All the more for me!  With Opa’s arrival last night, I felt a sense of relief that my back-up had arrived.  The kids finally went to bed.  Only to have Apple wake up every 45 minutes until 3am.  It would appear that she caught her brothers cold and could not sleep properly.  She slept from 3am until 7:30am which was great, but I am spent, done, ready for bed.  I hope that tonight is better I could use a good nights sleep.

For our special dinner tonight we had Party Chicken.  This is another of my Aunt’s recipes, she is a wonder that woman.  easy, easy, easy is all I can say.  My Aunt cuts the chicken breasts into small pieces, but I  leave them whole.  Line a pan or dish (depending on how much chicken you use) with dried beef, we don’t get this in Canada, so I use any dried salami or beef from the deli counter, wrap the chicken with a strip or two of bacon, lay on the dried beef, mix a can of cream of mushroom soup with 1 cup of sour cream, pour over chicken, bake for one hour at 350.

And tada!! Serve with potatoes or rice and choice of vegetable (more photos on flickr).

I felt terrible that Hubby wasn’t here to see the kids with Opa, sitting playing Lego, then after supper Opa, A and J played Monopoly Jr.  It was a great evening and makes me wish we had so many more of these nights together.

Back to normal with Hubby home tomorrow, can’t wait.

Another thing we sort of brought home from vacation is this marshmallow shooter. I say sort of because rather than pay $5 for one at the Riverfest, like my cousins did, we paid $5 and got two full ones with pipe left over for another one.

I am not sure what kind of shooter it really is, I guess you can shoot anything, but marshmallows seem to be the best for a few reasons.

They don’t get stuck.

They only slightly hurt if you get shot by one.

The dog will clean up if you miss one on the carpet.

And last of all, marshmallows are yummy!

My cousins tried grapes, lemon-heads and skittles, but marshmallows really do work best. We have been having tons of fun with ours here and yes, there are a few rules of engagement that have to be applied, one of which is that safety glasses must be worn.

Enjoy! And let me know if you make one yourself.