Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
A little Christmas Recap 2012
A little Christmas Recap 2012
Wow, Christmas has come and gone and a new year has begun! Seems like 2012 went by so super fast, I want to soak in 2013!
We had a wonderful Christmas, it couldnt have been any better! Brody is at a super fun age and he was really into everything Christmas involved. He loved Santa and he called him quite often to tell him what he wanted (which changed all the time). His Elf on the Shelf-YAYA was the 1st thing he looked for each morning! It was so much fun to see the magic of Christmas in his little eyes! This was Hudsons 1st Christmas and he started walking on Christmas Day! He had been standing and taking steps prior to but he really just started taking off on Christmas! I think it must have been all the excitement of the presents and wrapping paper!
Brody was in the Christmas program at church this year, he just had a little saying, A baby oh so small, slept in the cattle stall. We have just recently built onto our church and expanded and it is beautiful! We were just settling into the new part of our church this year, so things were kept simple!
Christmas Eve we are always at my parents house with my whole family, which is so much fun! I love when were all "home" and together! My Parents cook a big feast and then we all settle in to open presents! There are 13 of us (15 including my parents) so you can imagine all of the laughter, paper flying, and boxes! I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family! I have 3 wonderful sisters, 3 awesome brother in laws, one awesome baby brother, and 2 adorable nephews! Plus I cant forget my sweet husband and precious baby boys and my Amazing Parents!! My sweet Grandma celebrated Christmas with us too! Brody was not feeling well on Christmas eve, he had a bad headache and was running a fever. He got loved on alot by all of his aunties and he woke up when he knew it was present time!
Christmas Eve night Brody wrote a letter for Santa and left him milk and cookies and off to bed we went! He ran a high fever at bedtime but was feeling better when we woke up Christmas Morning at 8:00 to see if Santa had visited! He was veyr exctied by all of the wonderful things that Santa brought. He said I must have really been a good boy this year!
Later on Christmas Eve day Timmys family came over to celebrate!! We missed his brother Chris alot (He is deployed to Africa with the Army) and his wife Alex and my new sweet nephew, Hunter!
Now the decorations are down and toys are still being put away and this momma is still trying to recuperate from Christmas! So very blessed this Christmas season!
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Tuesday, November 22, 2016
March Recap and April Challenge Oops Im Late
March Recap and April Challenge Oops Im Late
Not the pregnant kind of late. I realized last week that I never did a March recap and I also havent posted my April challenge. Bad blogger!
In March, I tried to focus on healthier eating and specifically, cooking at home. We definitely did a LOT better, but still not anywhere near acceptable. I havent quite worked out the kinks of stocking a fridge and eating it all.
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Even with a meal plan, Im stumped. Ive switched from stocking the fridge up all the way to just going week by week... maybe two weeks with one grocery trip. But more often than not we wont have a plan for dinner and instead of making do well opt to grab town food.
This does not help my quest for health, my waistline OR the pocketbook. You know what Im saying?
I do feel that we are transitioning. A few nights Bryan and I didnt have a plan for dinner and he quickly defrosted some of the frozen hamburger patties or taco meat that I had previously made. With the leftovers from that, plus cooking fresh meals, we ate at home a lot more often. However, until the scale has tipped to eating at home every night and eating town food rarely, I wont consider it a win. Habits still need to be adjusted and formed.
Which brings us to April. All this month I will be working on my stress levels and how to relax, how to cope and how to survive my anxiety and work through it. Ive been really stressed out because we have a lot coming up. There is just so much on my plate and Ive freaked out a few times on Bryan because it seems impossible to do everything. I need to channel my stress and focus on the tasks at hand. Not just bombard my brain with all the lists of things that need to be accomplished.
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This is going to be hard. Most people have no idea because Im pretty good at living with stress. Living with stress and COPING with stress are two different things. Most of the time I just stuff everything stressful way down deep in my soul and it explodes into a huge debilitating migraine. Im tired of feeling bounded by stress. Im ready to break through it.
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How am I going to do it? So far I have been breathing deeply throughout the day. Ive been stretching on my breaks and taking quick walks outside when I need to clear my head. Shepherd has learned how to "dance" so Ive been dancing with him which is probably the best thing in the world. Ive been going to bed on time and waking up earlier.
Ive downloaded the Couch to 5k app, because I really want to start running. I feel like by training myself to run I will be able to clear my mind, have a sense of freedom and give my body the activity it crazy in one fell swoop.
Of course, I have no desire to run in any kind of marathon, but the concept of getting off the couch and running is what I need. Attending the conference and planning Shepherds birthday has really messed up my workout schedule, so Ill be hitting it hard the next two weeks. I have a lot of make up for in the losing weight front but since Im entering a very busy stage of life its a better time than any to start!
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Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Weekend Recap I Threw The Candle Away
Weekend Recap I Threw The Candle Away
This past weekend I was pretty productive, if I do say so myself.
I received electronic mail on Thursday that Lorac Cosmetics was on sale at Sephora in JC Penney, so I called my homegirl Colleen and we went over to check it out. They didnt have anything I was specifically interested in but they did have some Sephora liquid eyeliner on sale for $6.00 so I picked one up in black and one in purple. I havent tried the purple yet but I figured it would be good to do a cat eye on days that I didnt want to do the whole eye-shadow song and dance. Easy peasy!
After, I just hung around at Colleens house and her husband Jordan made us chicken parmesan. So good!
Bryan and I dont really exchange gifts for Valentines Day, but he and Shepherd got me a card. It was adorable.
Coincidentally, Urban Decay was having their friends and family 20% off sale, so I placed an order Friday night for a little somethin somethin and thanked Bryan for my Valentines Day present. Im pretty sure that is cheating but who cares?
Saturday, Bryan had to go to the studio to work on some stuff so I hung out with Shepherd before going to get my hair colored by my sister, Kari. We played, I fed him and made a small batch of carrot baby food, gave him a bath and got him ready to go hang out with his Papa Rick. Kari and I added a bunch of blonde to the bottom part of my hair to lighten it all up. I want my hair to be quite light. Almost blonde but not totally. Here is a really horrible photo of myself!
You like those baby hairs huh? The hair that I lost after pregnancy is starting to grow back, THANK GOSH. Also, Shepherd likes to grab my hair when we wrestle and hes yanked out a ton of my hair. So sad. But Im loving the all over lighter color of my hair and hope to keep lightening it up over time!
Kari mentioned that she needed to go to Costco so I asked her if I could go with her. It was the fastest Costco trip ever. We arrived at about 5:10 and were loading up the car at 6:00. It was like Supermarket Sweep up in there!
I got a bunch of fruit and veggies for Shepherd so I can do large batches of food for him. We are doing a modified baby-led weaning. We give him large pieces of carrot and pear to gnaw on but we also do pureed versions. He just eats a lot more that way.
We had a super busy day on Sunday! We accidentally slept in really late, so we started getting ready for Owens 3rd birthday party and headed over there. While we were hanging out, I started to get a migraine! We got home at 3:30 and I went straight to bed.
It was Bryans birthday and I was really starting to stress because we had tickets to go see Brian Regan perform in Visalia. Bryans mom and step-dad give a family gift every year for Christmas and this was it! I really didnt want to miss it. I took my migraine medicine, drank some coffee hoping the caffeine would help and I slept. I started to feel better and I made it! We had a great time!
Bryan decided that Monday got to be an extension of his birthday since we really didnt have time to celebrate him on Sunday, so we went to lunch with his Dad (who he had seen only for a few minutes on Sunday at the comedy show...He had purchased tickets as well.) and that snowballed into spending the whole day together.
There was ping pong, pizza and froyo on the agenda and I started to feel pressured that nothing had gotten done in the house, so I went home to shake off some bad juju and clean up the house.
I went around the living room and put everything that didnt belong into a plastic bucket. I threw away any trash, making sure to grab that pine scented candle from Christmas. I also put away the laundry that Bryan had cycled through and laid out on the couch. After that was done, I went to the other rooms to put everything away that was in the plastic bucket. It helped me streamline because I often get side-tracked while I am cleaning. Instead of completing an entire room, Ill do like ten percent of every room. Not super effective. I made sure to jot down some items for Bryan to get done this week so that we are on the same page.
One thing Id really like to do this weekend is deep clean and reorganize the kitchen cabinets. Everything in there is just super crazy and it works against us! Itll also help when Im ready to pull the trigger on my freezer meal preparation.
All in all, a very full, busy weekend! I felt good about tackling some projects but made sure to just have some down time too. I want to get to the point where work on the weekends is minimal. That means doing more after work during the week so that I can spend more one-on-one time with Shepherd on the weekend and also get in a little Megan time too!
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Thursday, September 15, 2016
Weekend Recap Bryans 10 Year Class Reunion Mini Quiche Recipe
Weekend Recap Bryans 10 Year Class Reunion Mini Quiche Recipe
My weekend started on Thursday night when I went to dinner with my sister and her family. I got the sweetest video of Shepherd and my nephew Owen. They havent been able to hang out for quite some time now and they missed each other. It was adorable:
On Friday after work, Shep and I went over to Colleen and Jordans to hang out. I cant wait for Baby Brown to make his appearance and its so cute to ask Shepherd where the baby is! He points right to Colleens belly. Its adorable.
Saturday, I woke up really early for whatever reason, so I decided to go hit up some yard sales while the boys slept. When I got home they woke up and we ran errands and just hung around the house. Saturday evening we went to Bryans 10 year class reunion, which was small but fun! I got to catch up with Andrea about motherhood, babies and life in general, then made the rounds with everyone else. One of the highlights was when Amanda came up to me and said that I inspired her to start a blog! She and her boyfriend just bought a house in SLO and they are gutting it and starting over. I caught up on all the posts last night and I cant WAIT to see how it all comes together!
Bryan and I also had a great discussion with Kara about music, journalism, social media/networking. It was really interesting. It is not often that someone from Hanford moves to New York and actually makes it. Ive followed her writings on the Daily Beast over the years. Kara and I were on staff at the high school newspaper (so high brow) and now shes writing full-time. What a dream!
Anyways, we skipped out right before 11 so we could get home to our boy. I wish more of the graduating class had attended, but luckily there were a lot of people that showed up that I havent talked to in a long time so it worked out.
Today we slept in and I ended up getting a migraine. I hate those dumb things. They are the worst! So it ate up most of my afternoon. When I woke up, I felt so weak and disoriented all I did was lay on the couch. Finally around 7pm I kicked into gear. I just knew that I had a busy week this week that I couldnt not get some grocery shopping and meal prep done.
Bryan took a nap and Shepherd and I loaded up to go to the great Bullseye, Target. After spending way too much skrilla, yes I said skrilla, I called in a pizza at Boston House of Pizza in the parking lot and had just enough time to drop off the cold stuff in the fridge from Target and hit up the grocery store before walking over to grab the pizza. It was perfect. We got home, ate, and I started teriyaki chicken in the crock pot and made twelve mini quiches for breakfast in the mornings over the next few days.
You know what is stupid? Photographing food. UGH. A food blogger, I am not. The quiches have a pie crust bottom, zucchini, spinach, bell pepper, ham, a little feta and a little cheddar cheese. I used the scalloped end of a biscuit cutter (that was about the size of a 1/4 measuring scoop wide) on the pie crust and put that in a muffin pan which was sprayed with baking spray. I fill scooped the veggie mixture in and topped with 9 eggs mixed with a bit of milk so that it was about 3/4 of the way full. Are you asking yourself why I specifically mentioned that I used a scalloped biscuit cutter on the pie crust? Well Ill tell you, because A. its prettier and 2. I feel like the egg attaches better to the scalloped edges and it holds together better. Does it make sense? Maybe. If you arent sold on the science behind it just refer to my first point. Its prettier. The second point is just a plus if its true. And Im 99.4% positive Im right.
Anyways, I baked them for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. I was going to cut up tomato but usually the simpler the better with these. Once cooled, pop them in a ziplock bag and heat them in the oven, microwave or toaster oven (which is my preference because the crust gets crunchy again) in the morning before running out the door. Perfect, healthy breakfast. Youre welcome.
Life hack: If you ever have some veggie/ham mixture left, save it and throw it on a salad with some strawberries, blue berries and Raspberry vinaigrette. YUM. Way to make two meals out of one. GO YOU!
I have class tonight and a group meeting tomorrow night and Wednesday is the first day of school at work! Not to mention homework. Eeek! Sometime this week I have to make it over to Visalia to pick up a bridal shower gift for the event on Saturday which Im one two days late RSVPing for because I didnt read the entire invitation. I hate me.
Hope you guys had a great weekend and a happy Monday!
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Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Labor Day Weekend Recap
Labor Day Weekend Recap
Actually, let me rewind a little bit before Labor Day and share my day of labor from two weekends ago where I turned this:
In to this:
3 pints + 1 quart of salsa and 11 pints of yellow marinara sauce. My salsa is AWESOME. My marinara sauce.....not so much. As I was putting it in the jars, I was a little bit in tears from having spent NINE HOURS making it with the children running around my feet making me crazy (while Joel was working on the barn project that never ends). I will never, ever make marinara sauce again. (Not that I will ever need to given I have 11 pints of crappy sauce to eat through......) Suzie homemaker, I am not. Nor am I a candidate for becoming one of those apocalypse survivalists (those jars are not "canned" - that process was too scary for me so they are just in the freezer).
One day last week, Lily put this puzzle together by herself. I am not sure who was more proud - her or me. She did it in about 30 minutes - taking her time and chatting up a storm the whole time. Usually I do this puzzle with her, but this time I just watched and kicked myself for helping her so much before. Shes probably been capable of doing this solo for quite some time, but I just never realized it.
Last week, I had a team building overnight "camping" trip with my coworkers. As a part of the trip we did a high ropes course which essentially means we climbed a tree to a "high wire" and then crossed said high wire from one tree to another while holding on to a rope that was tethered to only the starting tree (we were all harnessed in like in rock climbing). There were about 10 of us that did this and I went last, getting more and more and more nervous that I was going to make a total arse of myself and not be able to do it in front of all my employees and coworkers. But I put on my big girl panties when it was my turn and I shimmied up that tree, gracefully maneuvered myself on to the high wire and proceeded to move across it in LIGHTENING FAST SPEED. I made it the 20 feet in about 30 seconds. I think the next fastest person was probably 5 minutes or more with most people averaging 7-10 minutes to cross. Not only did I not make an arse of myself, I impressed the crap out of EVERYONE - myself and the camp staff included! One of my coworkers took photos with an old fashioned DISPOSABLE CAMERA (I totally didnt know they even still made those). Once they are developed, Ill have to post a pick of my "bad self" - a term we said during the activity - you know, "climb on with your bad self!"
While I was camping and hire wire shimmying, I was not really reachable by phone due to being in the wilderness. Figures, cause Tyler ended up sick with a fever while I was gone and had to be picked up from daycare on Thursday. Shocker - we were heading in to a holiday weekend so it was inevitable that one of the kids be sick. Joel ended up having to leave work early to get him. Ugghh. Friday morning, he still had the fever so I took him to the doc. Double ear infection. Poor feller. At least Advil, suckers and donuts help.
Earlier that week, I decided I would take the kiddos to Evansville for the last swim of the season. I knew Joel would be working on the barn project from hell for the whole holiday weekend, and I really, Really, REALLY needed a distraction for the kids.
Unfortunately, we really only got in a few hours of swimming on Friday before the rain came in and drenched our parade. So instead we went bowling. The kiddos LOVED IT. Great idea Grams. Check out their little bowling shoes. Is that not the cutest thing youve ever seen?
Tyler man handled that 6 pound ball like a champ.
I tried to convince Lily to "granny style" it, but she wanted to use the ramp like Tyler.
Even Uncle Jason graced us with his presence... a rare event indeed!
The kiddos lasted about 8 frames before they started to lose interest and melt down a little. Ok Tyler melted down A LOT and did NOT want to return his bowling shoes. He was pretty p*ssed at me when I took them off of him.
We headed back to Grams house and Tyler barely made it through lunch before he passed out. Lily was being SO GOOD that I didnt make her nap. Im telling you, she was down right angelic. My heart was bursting from my chest, I was so happy.
At one point, she wanted to help Grams clean so she had grabbed a baby wipe and was cleaning the glass on the end tables. I told her not to do that, cause it would make them streaky. So Grams says, "Here Lily, if you want to clean the tables, use this" and gives her some paper towels and the window cleaner. A few minutes later, this is what we find:
Id say she got it clean.
She had earned a "small prize" that week which we had yet to "redeem" so I took her to Target for some "Mommy and Lily time" and so she could pick out her small prize (stickers, a notebook, a toy from the $1 bins.....). We get there and Lily says, "Mommy, theres other people here at Target." I said, "Of course, honey, other people shop at Target." Lily said, "But you said it was just Mommy and Lily time and theres other people here. See that guy over there? Hes not even a girl and its supposed to be girl time."
Youre smiling from ear to ear right now, arent you? Yeah, me too. Which is why Lily came home with this:
Slightly more than some stickers. BUT SHE WAS SO FREAKIN CUTE. And it was SO FUN to be around her for like 24 consecutive hours of fun cuteness. So I caved.
And then, about 2 hours later, it allllllll turned to sh*t.
My hellion came back.
After dinner, she decided to pester her brother. She wasnt kicking him exactly, but she would put her feet on him until he whined. I asked her to stop. She did it again. I moved Tyler out of her reach. She moved so she could do it again. Tyler started crying. I asked her to stop. She did it again. I told her one more time and she was losing her new crown. She looked me square in the eyeballs and Ill be damned if she didnt put her feet on Tyler again. I snatched the crown and put it on top of the fridge. She screamed bloody murder. I asked her to calm down. She hit me. I said, "hit me again, and the dress goes too." She pulled back and hit me again. I pulled that dress off her so fast, she didnt have time to blink. She continued to scream at the absolute top of her lungs, take swipes at me, etc etc. She got a spanking. No effect. Spanking has absolutely no effect on this child. I tried talking to her. Explaining. Asking her whats wrong. You name it, I tried it. Mom is standing back the whole time just in total shock at the complete 180 Lily pulled in a matter of moments. It was CRAZY. And unfortunately these days, the norm.
And then, almost as quickly as the tantrum started, it stopped. Was a short 20 minute tantrum this time.
Sadly, Lily earned back and then lost her Rapunzel dress two more times before the weekend was over and I found myself in tears just as many times over the total feeling of helpless and lack of control. Mostly because if my 3.5 year old can act like this, what is my 15 year old going to be like????
So as not to finish up on such a depressing note, heres a couple pics from the playground on Monday afternoon. I took the kiddos to play for a bit while, you guessed it, Joel worked on the barn (it IS almost done, though! HOORAY!!).
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