7 Quick Takes (#35)

1) By the end of the day, we will no longer be homeowners!!!

Today is closing and I cannot WAIT to be done with the selling process.  But I can only hope that we can find a neighborhood a fraction as cool as our Frederick neighborhood.  We are going to miss our old crew.  Our neighbor even posted a picture of his son Nikolas on our front porch missing Leo and Elena.  Leo misses him so much...

2) I am having so much fun getting messy in the kitchen again!

I saw these on Pinterest and absolutely HAD to try them.

Don't they look amazing???

The rental we are in has a very tiny kitchen with almost no countertop space.

So I had to go all Dexter on our temporary foldout table in order to roll the dough:

I even wrapped my wine bottle in saran wrap to make a rolling pin so I could make homemade pastry puff dough (flour, butter, sour cream)

Drop in some avocado, cream cheese and salsa and top with a little salt and pepper.

They looked pretty.

But they were just not good.  They were bland and a complete disappointment.  Which is sad because a lot of butter went into them.  The original recipe used a sweet mango salsa which I didn't have and it might have been the super special ingredient.  I used regular-old salsa??  But I'm not shelving the recipe altogether.  I just need to figure out how to make them taste good.  Anyone??

3) I found an awesome small Asian market here in Tyler.  They have everything I need to be able to make homemade Vietnamese and Chinese food.  Including 1 pound bags of MSG.  When I am feeling a little tired, I bathe in MSG.  It's like legal crack cocaine.  Try it sometime.*

credit

Due to our complete lack of funds, I am learning how to make as many restaurant foods as I can.  But not just Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, but more foods with lots of veggies.  I am sooo bad at regularly serving vegetables.  My new resolution is to include a ridiculous amount of vegetables into our diet.  That way, I'll at least end up with 1 veggie on the table.  I'm a realist.

I had the Vietnamese Fresh Spring Roll sometime last year at our local Pho place and fell in LOVE!!!  So I hit up the Asian market and started stocking up on supplies to eat these on the regular.

I'm only in it for the peanut sauce.  But making these was surprisingly easy and they were SOOOO delicious!!!  (Even though I was missing all the Thai basil, mint leaves, cilantro AND lettuce!)

*Please do not do this at home.  MSG is the devil.  I do not really bathe in it.

4) I was patting myself on the back for purchasing all these rice products.  Rice is healthier to eat on the regular than wheat products, right?  WRONG!  AGAIN!  EVERYTHING YOU EAT IS DANGEROUS!!  Start foraging for poisonous berries and just off yourself now.  Because everything you consume is bad.

(Graphic from prevention.com)

"Arsenic is showing up in our rice"

"'Significant' and 'worrisome' amounts of inorganic arsenic in nearly every rice product tested" 

"Arsenic not only is a potent human carcinogen but also can set up children for other health problems in later life."

I'm so done.  Gluten is the enemy!  Sugar is the devil!  Dairy is for baby cows not humans!!  Your teflon pots and pans are slowly poisoning you!  Sure there are ways to prevent your toxic exposure by cooking things the right way, but I'm seriously so done.

My new food mantra is "I do what I want."  And it started last night with 2 gallons of Blue Bell ice cream.  And now I should probably go to confession.

5) This guy:

...fancies himself a big kid and has been trying to stand.  He'll make it a few seconds on his own before he falls over.  But his new hobby is pulling himself up and trying to let go.  He is only 7 months old and already a thrillseeker.  We are in so much trouble...

6) We have been in Texas about 3 weeks and we can finally see the light at the end of the tantrum tunnel.  Leo took the move the hardest.  He just acted out A LOT!  Elena wasn't as bad.  But that's not saying much.  Now that I have my normal children back, normal activities have resumed.  And I LOVE IT!

7) Check out this video made by the St. Louis based Lovebird Studios.  I would have loved to have a wedding video like this.  (https://vimeo.com/48246306) 

a surprise & a pure love promise // emily + daniel SDE from lovebirdstudios on Vimeo.

Can't get enough?  Well then here you go.  And have a merry weekend.

Jumping the last hurdle

We FINALLY made the 1400 mile journey from DC to Tyler!!

 and we are settled into our furnished rental!  It is a cute little duplex directly across from the Cathedral Jason works at and right smack-dab in the center of the city.

We are slowly getting things put together and spending time with our friends down here.  I even cooked a real dinner tonight.  The last two weeks were ridiculously long and painful, filled with long days and even longer nights.  There were many moments I was convinced we would not survive through to the next morning.  I am SO glad it is over!

Now it is time to unwind and GET MESSY!!!!!!

Buying my children's happiness

What a weekend. We geared up on Saturday morning to attend the 4th birthday party of our neighbor Nikolas.  We got the invitation over a month ago.  I committed it to memory and threw away the invite so our house was "stage-worthy".  After all, it would be hard to forget this little guy's party!!

His party was at Pump It Up, the local bouncehouse (which we all know is my favorite place!).  We sat around drinking coffee lazily all morning.  The party wasn't until 12:30 so we had time to kill.  We told the kids that we were going to the bouncehouse for a birthday party and they were so excited.  They LOVE it there!  We left early to make a quick stop to pick up Nikolas' birthday present - a Batman action figure.  We had to take a long detour due to a closed road.  But no worries.  We were still only 5 minutes late.  We walked in the door and were escorted back to the party.  As we walked in, the entire party was taking a group photo.  I started to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.  The feeling that something was terribly wrong here... It was.  

The party started at 11:30 am.  We were over an hour late.  I just walked my 2 children into a bounce house just as the entire group was lining up at the door to exit.

All the blood drained from my face and my nose went numb.  I was dizzy.  Confused.  And too scared to look down at my children who were looking up at me wondering when they could go jump.It was the worst moment ever.  I almost started crying I was so disappointed for my kids.  I tried to get them excited about getting in line for cake, but my kids aren't dummies.  Leo was devastated.  

The next hour was full of tears, cake, confusion and sadness.  I barely recovered.  Some of it was Leo too.

On the way home after an hour of torture, I asked Jason if we could stop and pick up the toy that we bought for Nikolas as a consolation prize for Leo.  Before I told him about the toy, I asked him if he forgave me for making such a huge mistake, he said no.  We held onto the Batman until he decided he could forgive me.  When he finally said "I forgive you Mom", we pulled out the Batman and his eyes lit up.

He didn't completely forget the huge disappointment of the day. But he did assure me at bedtime that he was very happy.  He understood that we were trying to buy his happiness.  And it was worth all thirteen dollars.  I would have paid more too if it meant he would be happy again.

Bedtime happiness montage brought to you by Batman

(I know it doesn't look 4T. But that shirt claims to be a 4T. And so it goes back in the drawer every time.)

*Sidenote: There were a lot of apostrophe's in this post.  None of which are properly placed.  I will never understand the apostrophe.  Were any of them right????

7 Quick Takes (#25)

1) Sometimes we have ridiculously good days around here.  They come at me by surprise now that I have 3 small children and I expect things to be crazy and hectic!  I had to take a photo of this morning just so I could log it and remember it when I look back on my hectic life :)

While I worked...

...they worked!

2) Roman is getting so smiley and he adores Leo and Elena.  They adore him too and spend all of their time covering him up with blankets, sharing toys, singing him songs, etc.  Again - I am taking pictures to prove that they all loved each other once :)

3) Elena has entered one of my favorite stages of action figure play identical to the stage of play in the Caterpillar Room of Toy Story 3.

As she smashes the two dolls together she says...

Elena: Wah, wah wah :( Oh you so sad?

And Roman is in my absolute favorite baby stage - the discovery of hands!

4) I guess it is time I introduce you to Elena's boyfriend.  It's been about 6 months and things are getting serious.

Allow me to introduce you to Ben and his mom Stacy.  

Ben is head over heels in love with Elena and Elena is lovesick over Ben.

Just look at how they gaze into each other's eyes

Jason is currently upstairs polishing his gun...

5) Things got really quiet around here the last couple days.  Leo and Elena kept retreating upstairs to play and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  I finally went up to investigate their new hideout: 

When Leo saw me at the door, he quickly yelled out innocently, "Nufing?" 

6) In a house with 5 people, one Alpha always emerges.  Over the last week, we discovered who the new Alpha is:

King Roman!!!!

After Leo crowned him King, and gave him his booger-sucker sceptre, he closed the ceremony with a bow

Only 2 months in and he rules the house!!

All were invited to pay homage to the newly crowned King

7) Leo used to be King around here.  But he had a sudden and abrupt fall from grace...

Happy Weekend everyone!  For more Quick Takes visit Jen!!

Life so far...

Today I let Jason hold Roman for a little while so I could...uh...play Castleville...and do important things like turn the water on to load the dishwasher, promptly get distracted, and forget why I turned the water on to begin with.

A few minutes after I surrendered defeat and gave up on the dishes (where is my memory?!?!), I came back to see Roman and had completely forgotten how cute he is!!!!

 

Okay - that is just a bad camera angle.  This one is a little more flattering!

 

I take entirely too many photos of all my children, but when you score awesome shots like this, it is so worth it!

Newborns are glorious.  I have a particularly easy newborn this time around so I am very lucky!  However, I also have the memory and experience of going through the newborn stage twice before.

Before you know it, they are jumping out of your arms to climb on the pew and kneeler at church.  Then they are chasing their siblings around and couldn't be bothered with snuggling mom or dad.  I milk this newborn stage.  It is near impossible for me to do anything else but play with the baby when they are awake!  

It's a good thing he sleeps a lot. 

 

Elena feels the same way about the newborn stage.  She spends all day loving on her baby brother :)

 

 

And when he is not kissing Roman's little head and cheeks, 

 

Leo takes his role as big brother seriously

I would say that Roman is having a darn good first couple weeks of life.  And I am hitting a decent stride with getting the necessities done while still laying low.

And I am very thankful for a wise neighbor who hit up the dollar store for gifts for Leo and Elena so I could eek out this blogpost in peace!