Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Fall Photo Shoot
Please enjoy these pictures from our fall photo shoot at our local park. And just to be clear, when I say photo shoot, I mean me bossing everyone around and promising candy in order to get people to smile; I would say that's real professional like, right?
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Love is a highway
For real though, love is totally a highway.
Some days driving is easy, skies are clear, roads are open and everyone's moving forward; my internal monologue is sounding something like "this is great!"
Other days, there's freaking traffic, cars are slow and road work is causing everyone to merge into one lane; on these days, I'm pissed off and running through different travel strategies and I want to take the closest exit.
My marriage is strong, in fact, it's my safe haven. Jim and I have worked really hard to have a strong marriage, we listen, we appreciate one another and we make time for ourselves whenever possible. But a few days ago, it was different. I was particularly grumpy and as a result I was harsh, too harsh. I apologized. I tried to get a grip. I tried to make sure that Jim realized that most of the things I was upset about didn't even have to do with him, but it didn't excuse the
fact that I hurt his feelings.
If we didn't have such a strong marriage, I think days like this would be much harder. But Jim understood when I apologized and he was able to recognize that I was trying to be in a congenial mood that day, it just wasn't working. He listened when I explained what I was feeling and he tried to be empathetic; he's great like that. So, later that day, when I was past my "moment" I stumbled upon this little notebook and it reminded me of us, lovey dovey but still totally badass. The moment I saw it, I realized that it sometimes is a choice to be happy. To be nice and kind. To apologize and really mean it and to look over and see that despite everything, this man loves me and I love him X a million + 1 whatever he says!
Some days driving is easy, skies are clear, roads are open and everyone's moving forward; my internal monologue is sounding something like "this is great!"
Other days, there's freaking traffic, cars are slow and road work is causing everyone to merge into one lane; on these days, I'm pissed off and running through different travel strategies and I want to take the closest exit.
But when it comes to love, my friend, there's no exiting.
My marriage is strong, in fact, it's my safe haven. Jim and I have worked really hard to have a strong marriage, we listen, we appreciate one another and we make time for ourselves whenever possible. But a few days ago, it was different. I was particularly grumpy and as a result I was harsh, too harsh. I apologized. I tried to get a grip. I tried to make sure that Jim realized that most of the things I was upset about didn't even have to do with him, but it didn't excuse the
fact that I hurt his feelings.
If we didn't have such a strong marriage, I think days like this would be much harder. But Jim understood when I apologized and he was able to recognize that I was trying to be in a congenial mood that day, it just wasn't working. He listened when I explained what I was feeling and he tried to be empathetic; he's great like that. So, later that day, when I was past my "moment" I stumbled upon this little notebook and it reminded me of us, lovey dovey but still totally badass. The moment I saw it, I realized that it sometimes is a choice to be happy. To be nice and kind. To apologize and really mean it and to look over and see that despite everything, this man loves me and I love him X a million + 1 whatever he says!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Well, that's where our weekend went
Just about every Sunday night as Jim and I are savoring the last minutes of weekend freedom, one of us calls to the other's attention that we, "can't believe how fast the weekend went." And pretty much like clockwork, the response is, "I know, where did it go?" So it got me thinking, just where does our weekend go and here's what I found:
Everyone is up by 7:00am. The dog has been out and fed. The kids are still in their pajamas and Jim is on his 3rd cup of coffee.
By 9:00am, we've had a failed attempt to buy PVC piping from Home Depot in order to construct a house frame for another play house for the kids. (The Bumble Bee cafe was a total dump and is now sitting in our garage, patiently waiting to be recycled.) We leave totally dejected and vow to go to Lowes, which will probably never happen, but mentioning this in front of the Home Depot workers makes me feel powerful.
By 9:30am, we're on our way to the Dollar Tree, which of course is at my request. (I was looking for marbles to make my butter, but they didn't have any. Where do you even buy marbles? Pretty sure they don't exist anymore.) We have a very successful trip; some may even say too successful! I tend to go bananas and think that I am some type of tycoon when I push my mini-cart around any variety of Dollar store, be it a Two, a Tree, or a General and I end up buy literally whatever my heart desires, because it's the dollar store damnit and it's the one place on earth I don't feel automatically compelled to shop frugally.
On our way home, we stopped at our local Growers Market to restock on smoked cheddar cheese. Jim splurged on a pumpkin pie and we hightailed it out of there because as the name implies at a local market, you're inevitably going to see someone you know with whom it's too awkward to even make eye contact about their Honey hobby. (Seriously though? Honey. Never in a million years would I have thought this person would have a Honey enterprise.)
Once we got home and settled, Jim indulged me in a Halloween craft project for the Grandparents. (You know what blows about the homemade craft projects is that I make 1 extra of whatever we're sending to the Grandparents, this allows me to give the best 3 to the them and we take the crap-that's-left-over for ourselves. So, that means that we have all of the projects ones with like 3 toes instead of 5, or where the kid isn't smiling. I'm pretty sure that our kids are going to think that all of the projects they did when they were little were of poor quality, when really, that's not the case. It's just that Mommy has very high standard, so I can't send the worst one out the other family members. Sigh.)
By 12:45pm, we we're on our way to our cousin's 6th birthday party. A plate full of chick-fila and fries with a side of birthday cake later, we headed off to what was to be our only "planned" activity of the day: the pumpkin patch.
We arrived at the pumpkin patch at 4:00pm and by this time the boys were asleep. I'm talking head-bobbing, mouth-wide-open good ole' fashioned nap. So I went into the road side stand alone. But it's ok, because I was able to get 4 cute pumpkins, half a dozen apples for the pie that we're baking tomorrow and some green onions for dinner in a matter of 15 minutes; which is virtually unheard of these days since most of the time, I have a screaming baby with me. Since there was no baby clawing its way out of a stroller or smashing me in the face with the butt end of a nail polish bottle, I thought I was home free, but I wasn't. When I started to try to push the mini-cart (hunh. Just realized that this day kinda involved a lot of mini-carts. Weird.) across the gravel parking lot, I realized that this wasn't going to happen. So, we held up the entire parking lot traffic flow to unload our goods into the trunk; we made sure we got out of there real quick.
A quick stop to the grocery store to get some random things, including: almonds, sesame oil and pie crust and we headed straight home.
Earlier, Cullen had been running around in the driving try to catch the leaves that were gusting up from our yard, so we decided to head outside for some leaf sweeping and picture taking.
By 5:20pm, we were off to Church. On our way, Jim realized that we hadn't put away the groceries. (Isn't that the worst feeling?!) Luckily, we weren't too far away, so Jim was able to drop us off while he ran home to put everything away. Cullen wasn't happy that Jim wasn't there and for the first 15 minutes, he kept saying, "Bye, bye, Church!"
Finally, after I caught up briefly with someone from high school, we came home and cooked dinner: an Asian influenced stir fry with beef, broccoli, green onions from the pumpkin patch, mushrooms, garlic, lite soy sauce, sesame oil and red peppers (which I picked out before I ate it; peppers me no likey!); delicious!
When the day’s events are laid out like this, it's easy to see how we can literally not know how we spent different portions of our day. Because for everything I included, there were like 100 things I didn't include: diaper changing, reading books, potty training, blogging, emailing, catching up with family, coloring, cleaning, etc. and when you put everything together, it's kind of a lot. But I guess that's ok, because doing a lot means there are lots of memories. Lots of stories. Lots of experiences and adventures and I'd take all of it, any way I can get it.
Please enjoy these scenes from us playing outside:
Everyone is up by 7:00am. The dog has been out and fed. The kids are still in their pajamas and Jim is on his 3rd cup of coffee.
By 9:00am, we've had a failed attempt to buy PVC piping from Home Depot in order to construct a house frame for another play house for the kids. (The Bumble Bee cafe was a total dump and is now sitting in our garage, patiently waiting to be recycled.) We leave totally dejected and vow to go to Lowes, which will probably never happen, but mentioning this in front of the Home Depot workers makes me feel powerful.
By 9:30am, we're on our way to the Dollar Tree, which of course is at my request. (I was looking for marbles to make my butter, but they didn't have any. Where do you even buy marbles? Pretty sure they don't exist anymore.) We have a very successful trip; some may even say too successful! I tend to go bananas and think that I am some type of tycoon when I push my mini-cart around any variety of Dollar store, be it a Two, a Tree, or a General and I end up buy literally whatever my heart desires, because it's the dollar store damnit and it's the one place on earth I don't feel automatically compelled to shop frugally.
On our way home, we stopped at our local Growers Market to restock on smoked cheddar cheese. Jim splurged on a pumpkin pie and we hightailed it out of there because as the name implies at a local market, you're inevitably going to see someone you know with whom it's too awkward to even make eye contact about their Honey hobby. (Seriously though? Honey. Never in a million years would I have thought this person would have a Honey enterprise.)
Once we got home and settled, Jim indulged me in a Halloween craft project for the Grandparents. (You know what blows about the homemade craft projects is that I make 1 extra of whatever we're sending to the Grandparents, this allows me to give the best 3 to the them and we take the crap-that's-left-over for ourselves. So, that means that we have all of the projects ones with like 3 toes instead of 5, or where the kid isn't smiling. I'm pretty sure that our kids are going to think that all of the projects they did when they were little were of poor quality, when really, that's not the case. It's just that Mommy has very high standard, so I can't send the worst one out the other family members. Sigh.)
By 12:45pm, we we're on our way to our cousin's 6th birthday party. A plate full of chick-fila and fries with a side of birthday cake later, we headed off to what was to be our only "planned" activity of the day: the pumpkin patch.
We arrived at the pumpkin patch at 4:00pm and by this time the boys were asleep. I'm talking head-bobbing, mouth-wide-open good ole' fashioned nap. So I went into the road side stand alone. But it's ok, because I was able to get 4 cute pumpkins, half a dozen apples for the pie that we're baking tomorrow and some green onions for dinner in a matter of 15 minutes; which is virtually unheard of these days since most of the time, I have a screaming baby with me. Since there was no baby clawing its way out of a stroller or smashing me in the face with the butt end of a nail polish bottle, I thought I was home free, but I wasn't. When I started to try to push the mini-cart (hunh. Just realized that this day kinda involved a lot of mini-carts. Weird.) across the gravel parking lot, I realized that this wasn't going to happen. So, we held up the entire parking lot traffic flow to unload our goods into the trunk; we made sure we got out of there real quick.
A quick stop to the grocery store to get some random things, including: almonds, sesame oil and pie crust and we headed straight home.
Earlier, Cullen had been running around in the driving try to catch the leaves that were gusting up from our yard, so we decided to head outside for some leaf sweeping and picture taking.
By 5:20pm, we were off to Church. On our way, Jim realized that we hadn't put away the groceries. (Isn't that the worst feeling?!) Luckily, we weren't too far away, so Jim was able to drop us off while he ran home to put everything away. Cullen wasn't happy that Jim wasn't there and for the first 15 minutes, he kept saying, "Bye, bye, Church!"
Finally, after I caught up briefly with someone from high school, we came home and cooked dinner: an Asian influenced stir fry with beef, broccoli, green onions from the pumpkin patch, mushrooms, garlic, lite soy sauce, sesame oil and red peppers (which I picked out before I ate it; peppers me no likey!); delicious!
When the day’s events are laid out like this, it's easy to see how we can literally not know how we spent different portions of our day. Because for everything I included, there were like 100 things I didn't include: diaper changing, reading books, potty training, blogging, emailing, catching up with family, coloring, cleaning, etc. and when you put everything together, it's kind of a lot. But I guess that's ok, because doing a lot means there are lots of memories. Lots of stories. Lots of experiences and adventures and I'd take all of it, any way I can get it.
Please enjoy these scenes from us playing outside:
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Holy Smokes, I Just Made Butter
So to recap, I totally made butter (on purpose); how Victorian is that? Answer: so Victorian.
Let me explain how this works and what you need:
1 small glass jar (I used a 2nd stage baby food jar)
Heavy whipping cream
Pour heavy cream to fill 1/4 of the small jar. Shake for 2.30 or until you no longer hear liquid sloshing around. Whalah.
I have also heard that you can put a marble in to help the process; however, I didn't find it necessary. But if I was doing this with kids I would do it just for the sound effect.
Kids or not, I highly recommend this because the butter tastes amazeballs and you will feel like a total pioneer.
Tip: the amount of cream you put into the jar is important, do not fill more than 1/3 of the jar with cream or it will not work.
Let me explain how this works and what you need:
1 small glass jar (I used a 2nd stage baby food jar)
Heavy whipping cream
Pour heavy cream to fill 1/4 of the small jar. Shake for 2.30 or until you no longer hear liquid sloshing around. Whalah.
 |
| Please note that this was after the butter was made, the cream was not filled up to the lid. |
 |
| This butter even looks like the butter at the store! |
I have also heard that you can put a marble in to help the process; however, I didn't find it necessary. But if I was doing this with kids I would do it just for the sound effect.
Kids or not, I highly recommend this because the butter tastes amazeballs and you will feel like a total pioneer.
Tip: the amount of cream you put into the jar is important, do not fill more than 1/3 of the jar with cream or it will not work.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
It's not just a day, it's a scene
I've gotta admit that some days around here, things kinda go like this:
But then there are others that go a little like this:
And you see, the thing is, you never really know what type of a day it's going to be until it's all over. Sigh. Because for every sleep in my highchair instead of eat dinner day, we tend to have 2 jump from-the-chair-to-couch, don't-touch-the-floor-it's-made-of-lava days. And it's not fair that sometimes when we really want a sleepy day, the volcano erupts or that when we're ready for the volcano to erupt, it's not so much a lava slide but rather lots of smoke that just diverts planes and causes everyone to slow down for the day.
But like it or not, this is how we roll; all, eyes so heavy they slowly, heavily struggle to stay open or don't put out the fine china 'cause it's about to get smashed. Somewhere, every once in a while, we find a happy medium, but those days are kinda boring because there's nothing crazy going on, but it's not comfortable enough to cat nap on the couch. So here's to decades more running, jumping, smashing, falling-asleep-in-your-spaghetti good times!
But then there are others that go a little like this:
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| The green tint is all me, but the face that inspired "The Hulk" adaptation, all Cullen. I asked him to smile and this is what I got. |
And you see, the thing is, you never really know what type of a day it's going to be until it's all over. Sigh. Because for every sleep in my highchair instead of eat dinner day, we tend to have 2 jump from-the-chair-to-couch, don't-touch-the-floor-it's-made-of-lava days. And it's not fair that sometimes when we really want a sleepy day, the volcano erupts or that when we're ready for the volcano to erupt, it's not so much a lava slide but rather lots of smoke that just diverts planes and causes everyone to slow down for the day.
But like it or not, this is how we roll; all, eyes so heavy they slowly, heavily struggle to stay open or don't put out the fine china 'cause it's about to get smashed. Somewhere, every once in a while, we find a happy medium, but those days are kinda boring because there's nothing crazy going on, but it's not comfortable enough to cat nap on the couch. So here's to decades more running, jumping, smashing, falling-asleep-in-your-spaghetti good times!
Friday, October 7, 2011
Good but a Little Mushy
As someone who tries to watch their carbs (what up diabetes?!) I have been searching for a spaghetti alternative. Well, I did some Googling and found out that zucchini was the next best thing.
I'm going to continue on with my zucchini experiment and see what else I can create! (Insert scary, creepy laugh.)
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| Delicious |
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Chicken Me-Me
Recently, I made this amazeballs dinner. It was one of those meals that's great on a cold night. The requirements for any meal I make are: it's gotta be easy, it's gotta be cheap and it's gotta be good. Chicken Me-Me met all of those requirements. By the way, I'm calling it chicken Me-Me, because I it is really good and I cooked it, so I'm giving myself 100% credit for this!
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| Pan sear thin sliced chicken breast in olive oil |
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| Tip: Put a papertowel under the cutting board to keep it from sliding. |
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| There is no real recipe, just chop an onion and mushrooms and sautee them in olive oil. Once browned, add the juice of half a lemon. Next add reduced sodium chicken broth and generic italian dressing in almost equal parts. Finally add about 1/3 of an 8 ounce package of cream cheese. (If it becomes too thick, just all more broth and italian dressing.) |
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| It comes out looking like this. Enjoy! |
Monday, October 3, 2011
Polyvore
The name is weird (ahem... like I should be talking). The site it awesome (again... like I should be talking)! I fell in love with this because of my obsession with Pinterest. All you have to do is go to this website www.polyvore.com and you can start creating all sorts of oufits for literally any occasion. I have made this one for my high school reunion.
I have since changed what I'm wearing at least twice and have ordered two other dresses (I already have the one pictured below). Once I make my final decision, I will post it here. Thoughts? (Although, I'm really not looking for thoughts other than, "It's fabulous!" So, please keep that in mind. Thanks!)
I have since changed what I'm wearing at least twice and have ordered two other dresses (I already have the one pictured below). Once I make my final decision, I will post it here. Thoughts? (Although, I'm really not looking for thoughts other than, "It's fabulous!" So, please keep that in mind. Thanks!)
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