what to say, what to say.

I just realized that it's been quite a while since a post. I don't want to get in the habit again, so here's a short little post.
My sweet G-Lou turned 6 this past weekend. On her actual birthday we got up, went to starbucks for her birthday frappacino, went shopping, ate at Max n Cheese in Cedar Hill, dropped off daddy and the other girls, went and shopped some more, picked them back up and then finished the night with dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse. Sunday, the next day, was party day. She had a nice little party where I didn't have to do a darn thing, at the carousel at the Parks Mall. I sware, those are the best parties. The set everything up and all I have to do is watch the kids ride the carousel till the get sick. lol. Thankfully that never happened. :-) Anyway, she received lots of nice gifts, got to visit with lots of friends and just had an all around good day! The fun didn't stop there though. The next day was the first day back to school after spring break. So....mommy made cupcakes and took for her class. Only three of her classmates were able to come to her party, so she wanted to celebrate with them too. And, since I'm a pushover, I made her cupcakes. :-)
When my sweet hubby gets the pics on my computer for me, I'll post some of them. TTFN!

Pioneer Recipe #1....for me.

Tonight I made my first Pioneer Woman recipe. I made this with the hopes that all three of my kids would sit down, not complain and just eat! They did that very thing. I believe that off in the far distance I heard angles singing. They all three sat down and ate. No complaining. Nothing of the sort. G-Lou even asked for seconds. That never happens. Ever. Never. G even got excited when I told her this would be our leftover meal for Thrusday. I nearly fell out of my seat. So...thank you, Pioneer Woman, for your tasty dish.

I love pictures of food, so here is our meal this evening.

This is what we started with...Plus chicken that was cooking at the time.

Here is the before.

And here is the after.

And in my bowl.

And G having seconds. (I totally had to document that)

Tomorrow night's dinner is at church. Hooray! No clue what they're having, but it's usually pretty good!







Loopy

Well, our weekend went well. It started Friday morning with a trip to Canton. I always LOVE a trip to Canton for First Monday. We didn't buy a whole lot, but we had a good time and I had the best fried pie ever. It was a southern coconut filled pastry, deep fried and straight from Heaven. I could kick myself for not taking a picture of it.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. That's always a good thing, if you ask me.

Today was filling day for Graci at the dentist's office. We really like our girl's dentist. They've all done very well there. I don't fancy going to the dentist myself, so I really don't want my girls to be uncomfortable when they go. Today was no different for Graci. Even though she was getting a filling, she was perfectly fine. I have to wonder though, do you think what's going on in the picture below had anything to do with how comfortable she was??

She was just a wee bit loopy when I had to leave the room. It was over in about 20 minutes and as a reward for being such a good girl, we went to eat at Chili's with Daddy and she got to have a milkshake. I think she's even looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks for another filling. (I really need to help my kids floss more) I'll keep you posted...hopefully with an equally cute picture to document the occasion!

Saturday Night...

Well, it's Saturday night and I'm sitting in my living room with my hubby, watching COPS and listening to the crackle of the fireplace. I love that sound. It reminds me of my favorite time of the year; October thru the first day we hit the 70 degree mark. This is a nice treat to be able to have a fire going in March. Most people around where I live don't enjoy the cold weather. In fact, most of them whine if it gets below 40. I, on the other hand, love it. I don't know why. I've lived in North Texas my entire life, but I'd take the cold over the heat any day. Maybe it's because I spent so much time in other parts of the country growing up. My dad drove truck for a living and all of my family aside from my parents live mostly in West Virginia. I don't know what the deal is. I just know that I detest the heat!
Thanks to my good friend, Rho, I've recently discovered Pioneer Woman. Her site is addicting. I want to cook everything that I see on it. I love the way she takes pictures of EVERY step of a recipe. I found her cookbook at Target this evening, but it cost way more than I am willing to pay for it. E was nice enough to look it up on amazon for me and found it for almost 15 dollars less. I think I'll be ordering it. (if he hasn't already)
One of my friends suggested that I pull a "Julie & Julia" and cook something of hers every day (or close to it) for the next year. I know right now I am not disciplined enough to cook every day for the next year. BUT...I do love to cook. Maybe two recipes a week? Who knows? I was totally inspired when watching Julie & Julia...maybe I could do that too?! I have no desire to become a famous blogger and have a movie made about me, but I do like seeing people break out of their comfort zone and try new things. Who knows...maybe I could inspire someone to try cooking on a regular basis that doesn't like too cook at all?! In all likely hood it would just end up a record of a years worth of cooking that two or three people check out here and there. Hmmmm...what do you think, Rho?

My Daddy Doesn't Drink The Same Things I Do...

That was the phrase that came out of the mouth of a little boy in my mission friends class at church this evening. I asked him, "Well...what do you drink, honey?" He replied with the normal kids stuff. Juice, Sprite, Milk, Water. And then something came over me. I'm sure it was the devil. Before I knew it, the question came out of my mouth. "What does your daddy drink?" The little boy just sat there for a second and then a totally different little boy uttered the words that me and apparently all of the kids were thinking..."Uh...beer." I couldn't help but giggle. Which led to more giggling, which led to my G-Lou saying, "Hey...that's what I was thinking too!!!!"  5 of the 7 kids tonight all agreed that that's what they were thinking. Out of the mouths of babes, I tell ya. The moment passed quickly and we were able to get back on task talking about our week and our missionaries for the month. Those kids are so sweet and I love them dearly. :-)


My day was pretty good. I got the tags for our new van today and then I met a girlfriend at Costco and walked around with her and her kids while they shopped. After that it was just business as usual. Wednesdays are usually pretty busy once I pick Rosie up from school. From there we pick up the other girls, come home and rest for a few minutes, go to church to eat dinner, the girls go to choir and then there's mission friends and CIA. Thank goodness for teachers that don't pile on a bunch of homework on Wednesday nights!!

E and I just finished watching AI and now we're just waiting for the news and then it's bed time! Tomorrow I have a load of laundry to do, a kitchen to clean up (and maybe out), and the girls bedrooms to try and get in order. I'd like to have a garage sale soon...a little extra cash is always a good motivator. I don't like selling clothes, so I'll probably just take those to Brighter Tomorrows or somewhere like that. Everything else is fair game though. Hansen better hide what ever he doesn't want sold! Lol!

Tuesday has become a fun day for me. It's when two high school friends and myself get together for a little girl talk, food, and usually some sort of coffee drink. (I'd like to make it a fab 4 with another mutual friend, but I seem to let her know the plans 15 minutes late every week. lol) It's become quite a welcome time for me. I love that after all these years it's like we never spent any time apart and I'm just as comfortable with them now as I was in school. No dressing up is involved. We come as we are, even if that means looking like homeless people, as R put it today. Today we laughed our rear-ends off watching clips of SNL, drank "frappies" from McDonalds and had a lovely little breakfast together. (oh, and laundry. they were kind enough to keep me company through 6 loads of it and even helped me fold. By the way...R is the Martha Stewart of sheet folders. She folded a fitted sheet like I've only seen my mother fold one. I usually get the corners done right and then as I'm folding it I get more and more frustrated with it and it ends up being this big, jumbled mess that I just stuff in my linen closet.) 

Ok...I fancy myself somewhat of a baker. I love to bake. I bake cake, cupcakes, pies...you name it...I try and bake it. (or I will if I haven't yet) It occurred to me last week that I've been baking all this time and didn't have an apron. I have a dozen shirts with grease stains on them from making butter cream icing, but no apron. I expressed that thought on facebook a week or so ago and one of my girlfriends surprised me with something when she got to the house today....

Isn't it adorable? I've always loved the "Bake and Call Girl" phrase. She saw it on a logo that another good girlfriend of mine made me and she put it on the apron. How cute is that?!?! So, K...if you're reading this, thank you again! I love it!

The rest of my day was rather uneventful. I picked up the girls from school, got G-Lou ready for her gym class (then sent her with her daddy), fed the girls and then watched AI with Eric when we got the girls down for the night. As I'm typing this my eyes are getting heavier and heavier. So, on that note, I shall end for the evening. Nitey nite.

Sunday...

Our Sunday was uneventful. This was a good thing.

We had a pretty rough day yesterday with Syd. When she was much younger, she used to have these fits where she would tense up, scratch, growl...they were horrible fits. She's had two of these in the last month. One was last night. It would be an understatement if I said she was stronger now. She is WAY stronger now. When she was just a baby in the hospital, one of her doctors told us that she could have several things go on as she got older. They said she'd probably break bones easily. They were wrong. So far, she's had no problems with that. They said she'd be on oxygen and monitors for months if not years. They were wrong again. She came home free and clear of both oxygen tanks and monitors. They said she could have behavior problems. Ugh. They said she'd possibly end up with something like ADD or ADHD. Let me tell you...I'm beginning to wonder. They never mentioned anything about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I'm beginning to wonder about that a little as well. This is the single sweetest, most innocent child that you'd ever want to meet, but you have to tread very lightly with her. Any little thing can make her take a down hill turn.

My constant prayer for her is that she just have good days at school. I can handle anything at home if she just has good days at school. Her folder this last month has been written in more times than not though. I feel so bad for her every day she comes home and has to be in trouble for something that happened at school. I think some of the times they tend to be easier on her at school because they hate seeing her get in trouble. She has fantastic teachers that love her dearly and that have on more than one occasion told me that she's done something wrong but they just couldn't bare to be mad at her or couldn't stand the thought of 'turning her in' to the higher ups. This makes me happy, but I also don't want her getting away with anything she shouldn't. She's been held more accountable this year though...hence all the black in in her folder. I have a feeling we'll need to speak to someone professionally about her behavior if it doesn't get better. She's normally a happy girl. I want her to stay that way.

On to today...
We went to the inlaws (well, my inlaws) today to celebrate my husband's and my father in laws dad's birthday. Syd did good at church, so I kept my fingers crossed that it would continue the rest of the day. Thank you, Jesus, it did. She was perfectly fine all day long. Again...I am terribly thankful for this. We had a good day, eating, laughing and visiting with Eric's mom and our extended family. After we got home, we (the girls) had showers with out getting mad at each other and all got in bed with out any conflict. A fine way to end the day.