My First Accident

I got into an accident this morning while driving to work. First off I have to say that I am thankful for several things. I am soooooo thankful that the boys were not in the car. I am thankful that the driver who hit me has insurance. I am thankful that we have insurance. I am thankful that Eric was able to rush over and handle all the pesky details. I am thankful that I am not seriously hurt. I've got back pain, and I'm heading to the doctor shortly, but I am able to walk.

On the other hand, getting into an accident is a pain in the butt. I was the second car going through the intersection on our green light. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of yellow, and the girl screeched her brakes and slammed into the passenger side of my van near the rear tire. She hit so hard that the sliding door and the front passenger door won't open. She was freaked out...as she should have been, but she said she was fine. She jumped out of her car and began apologizing and saying it was all her fault. Um, yeah, you ran a red light!

I've got my rental. It's a Toyota Rav4. Very different from my trusty van. I want my Honda back.

Confusion

My first child is a bit confused. He is convinced that bees make syrup. Every morning when he eats his five mini pancakes with syrup he announces to me, "Hey Mom, did you know that bees make syrup?" I tell him no, but he argues with me. I guess in his mind syrup and honey are both sticky, so they are one in the same. Sometimes the child is smart. Sometimes he's not.

Baby in the Tub

What is it about a baby in a bath that is so stinkin' cute?!


Ahhhhh!!! Hudson had to climb out of the tub and run up to me when he saw I had the camera. Little cheesy stinker!

I know his face is dirty. His bath wasn't done at this point in the photo taking. I was actually trying to get a shot of him sticking his tongue into the stream of water. Of course he didn't do it once I had the camera. Oh well. I'm sure there will be many more baths and photo op moments.

Yummy!

I've been working on being a healthier person. One thing I've done nearly every night for over 3 weeks is to cut up fresh veggies for my "summer salad." I love the color and look of my salads, so I thought I'd take a photo and share. I forgot to buy purple cabbage, so there isn't as much purple in the salad tonight as usual.

I truly wish I liked cooked vegetables, but I just don't. I've tried. Many times. I can't get past the taste. I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I simply have to be healthy in a way that works for me. This works for me. The only problem with this is that I like my produce ultra fresh, so I've been at the grocery store every other day.

I can't get enough of my cucumbers, red peppers, green peppers, orange peppers, yellow peppers, carrots, red onions, cabbage, tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, almond slivers, oil and vinegar. Besides the healthy factor, another good thing about doing this every night is that I'm not hungry. I rarely need to snack at night because I'm just not hungry.

I just wanted to share my pretty veggie bowl!

Will I Ever Learn?

I have a 16-month-old. That fact alone should keep me involved in some very stringent habits. However, I never seem to learn. Let me explain.

A couple of weeks ago, I walked out to the garage from our kitchen. I happened to look down, and lying on the doormat in the garage was my WEDDING RING!!! I think I screamed. I promptly stuck my ring on my finger and berated myself for not putting my jewelry away properly in my beautiful jewelry box.

I had left the ring on the bathroom counter, and the wee one affectionately known as Chicken must have moved it for me. I didn't see this happen, so I have no definitive proof, but there aren't many other suspects in the house who would do that. Evan just didn't touch stuff the way my second child is prone to do. I shudder to think of how I would have felt if I hadn't come across my ring in the GARAGE on the GROUND. I would have felt worse than awful.


Don't believe the innocence of this sweet little face. I think I'm going to rename him Sticky Fingers.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I wanted to wear my sapphire earrings. They were my gift from Eric after delivering Hudson in the month of September (hence the sapphire birthstones. I have opal earrings for having Evan in October). I couldn't find my sapphires. I was a bit panicky, but figured they would turn up.

I didn't think much more about it until this morning when I realized that they weren't in the usual spots: my nightstand, the bathroom counter or the kitchen counter. I honestly could not remember the last time I had them in my ears, but I usually only remove my earrings in the bathroom (I don't like to shower with jewelry) or once I'm in bed (I don't like to sleep with jewelry).

I didn't want to tell Eric, so I asked him, "Hey Honey, have you seen any jewelry of mine in an unusual spot?" I know, I know, real subtle. He asked which jewelry. I said I didn't want to tell him. He asked which jewelry. I told him.

I just had a feeling that the last time I wore them I went to bed and took them out and put them on my nightstand. They weren't there, but then I remembered son #2 and his penchant for grabbing things off flat surfaces over his head. Hmmm, I thought. could he be responsible for this mystery?

I got down on my hands and knees on my side of the bed and proceeded to find one earring. Great. One earring. Better than nothing, but not the outcome I was hoping for. Eric got me a flashlight. I widened the search to the entire side of my bed. After all of us searched for about 10 minutes, I finally found the second earring on the floor down by the foot of my bed.

I was so relieved. For obvious reasons, my sapphires and opals are extremely meaningful to me. I would have been devastated to lose them.

I am hoping I have learned my lesson. Put the jewelry in the jewelry box. ALWAYS. No exceptions. I could wait for Hudson to grow up, but I may lose a lot of jewelry in the process.

Oh, and rest assured. I took the earrings out of my ears to take a picture of them and promptly put them back in my ears. I am not leaving them on the kitchen table overnight. I also took a picture of them in my ears, but I couldn't bring myself to post a picture of my ear on the blog!

No Training Wheels!

Evan learned to ride his bike today with no training wheels. We decided to take a family bike ride this afternoon. I led the line with Hudson in a bike seat on my bike. Evan rode his Diego bike with training wheels behind me. Dad brought up the rear.

At one point in our journey through the neighborhood I suggested to Eric that we head back home and take the training wheels off to see how Evan would do. It turns out he had been thinking the same thing.

We got home, Eric removed the trainers, I gave Evan a few directions, I chased him around the cul de sac one time, and he was off and riding! It was amazing to see him take off and stay upright.

We had to do a few mini lessons on the art of starting and stopping. Evan is as proud as a peacock to say the least. I think it's easier for him riding the bike with no training wheels than it was with them on.

We are really proud of our little monkey.


Here I am pushing Evan along to get him started.


I looked like a complete goober running like a monkey behind Evan as he gained his balance.


I'm just about ready to let go of him.


He's doing it! He's doing it!


Looking pretty confident!

I have a strong suspicion that a lot of family bike rides are in our near future!

Little Chicken keeps getting older

My little Chicken is 16 months old today. I'm not sure how it happened, but it did. He's growing up before our eyes. I usually tell people he's mean, but that's only because he bites his brother whenever Evan gets in his way. In that case, I can't say that I really blame him! His latest trick is to make this face whenever we say the word cheese. It cracks us up every time. We love you Hudson Chicken!

Evan goes to the dentist

Evan went to the dentist for the first time today. He was a great patient and had no cavities. Yay! Dr. Madrigal was the best and made Evan feel very comfortable.


Our silly dentist grabbed my camera after I walked out to go to the bathroom. He and Evan took a couple of self portraits!


Here's a better shot of the two of them stealing the camera!


Dr. M showed Evan how to raise his hand if he felt any pain.


Dr. Madrigal would pull the water gun far away from Evan's face. The child loved it!


No cavities!


The flouride treatment just looks painful! Actually the painful part was that Evan wasn't allowed to eat or drink for an hour after his treatment. That made him crazy.


Thanks Dr. Madrigal! You made Evan's first trip to the dentist a great one!

I'm Old

I just had a funny moment. We are re-watching the premiere episode of The Bachelor. (Don't judge us...there is nothing else on!) Since I am the absolute perfect specimen of a female (far from it but my husband likes me the way I am), I feel that I am entitled to pass judgment on all the yahoos vying for the Bachelor's attention. One lady got out of the limo and walked toward Jason. I looked up from the computer and said, "She's old," as if that was some awful character flaw. Then they posted her name, age, and where she's from, and it said she is 34. Woops. I'm going to be 34 in exactly one month and one day. I guess that means I'm old too. But I'm not on tv trying to find me a husband! I don't know if this story is really that funny, but it made me laugh at myself.

Random tidbits of our life

There's not any one big thing that has happened in the past week. I'll just post a few a few tidbits about what we have been doing over the past few days.

Evan finally got his school uniform jacket today. Now he'll be warm! He seems to think that because he has his jacket, he can play T-ball. One has nothing to do with the other, so I'm not sure where he got that idea. We will be signing him up for T-ball very soon. It's the beginning of his athletic career, and it's the beginning of the loss of our Saturdays as we know them!

Hudson says a couple of words. Saying "Mac T" is his favorite. That's the name of one of our dogs. He's starting to say "Bandit," the other dog's name. Lovely. My child's first words are the names of the dogs. Why couldn't it be "Mommy?" He also says "Owie" but I'm not sure if he says it meaning it as a word, or if he just likes the sound. Regardless of his lack of vocabulary, we usually have no trouble understanding what he wants. He grunts well.

Eric is working working working. That's just what he does.

I'm working working working. That's just what I do. And I'm getting over a cold. I've been sick four times since starting back to school. Nasty germs. I am looking forward to the weekend. The first week back after a vacation is always long.

A Meat Aisle Expert

I am so not an expert on meat. You know, meat. Steak, chicken, pork, fish. However, I was sharing with some friends that we are trying to eat a bit lighter around here, and I listed some of our dinners lately: chicken, pork chops, flank steak. My friends thought those meals sounded truly wonderful and wondered what our not so light meals consisted of. I got a chuckle out of their chuckle. They seem to think I am a meat expert, but I'm not!

You see, I have this fear of the meat aisle. I love to eat meat. I don't even mind cooking meat. However, buying it is so haaaarrrrdddd! I can't tell you the amount of times that I have stood in the meat aisle at the grocery store wondering what the difference was between a ribeye and a t-bone steak. I usually end up calling Eric with the greeting of, "Guess which aisle I am standing in?" He always guesses correctly. Then he has to guide me through the meat choices. He's a smarter meat man than me.

Now after being married to a meat-loving man for nearly six years, I am finally making peace with the meat aisle. I know my flank steaks from my ribeyes, I know my beef ribs from my pork ribs, and I know that I like to buy my salmon at Costco. With that being said, I have to share a little story that illustrates how dumb I can be when it comes to meat or cooking in general.


This is a picture of a delicious little snack that my sister included in our family cookbook. These little bacon-wrapped wieners are drizzled with brown sugar and baked until crispy. They are so yummy and are the perfect holiday appetizer. However, I have two funny stories where these little beauties are concerned.

The first story involves my first attempt at making the little snacks. I wandered all over the meat aisle (see above for my ineptness in the meat aisle) looking for the bacon wrapped weenies. I found the bacon, and I found the sausages, but I could not find the two of them pre-wrapped. I nearly rang the bell for the meat man to show me where I could find the bacon-wrapped weenies. I am SO GLAD I did not do that. Much to my embarrassment, the weenies don't come pre-wrapped. I think I ended up calling Eric to ask where to find them. He laughed so hard he could hardly talk as I stood in the store trying not to cry. Finally he squeaked out that you buy the two meats and physically wrap them yourself. Hmmm, who knew? Apparently everyone but me!

The second funny story regarding these delightful things involves me taking them to a birthday party. My friend invited a bunch of us to her house to eat and see a movie. She asked everyone to bring a dish. I decided to bring these because they are always a hit. The only problem is that my friend is Seventh Day Adventist, and they do not eat pork. No problem, I thought to myself. Instead of buying miniature pork sausages, I'll buy the beef version. Problem solved. It never occurred to me standing in the store holding a pound of BACON in my hands that this was also a pork product. It didn't hit me until I was half done making the little suckers. Luckily my friend has a great sense of humor and wasn't worried about the pork.

So there you have it. While I like meat, I am not so smart when it comes to meat.

If he wants to see 5...

then Evan had better not wake me up tonight! I am at my wit's end with this child waking me up in the middle of the night - and doing it more than once a night.

I am back to work, so I really wanted a good night's sleep. Yeah, that wasn't happening last night. Evan is good about going to sleep in his bed. He's not good about staying there. And for some unknown stinkin' reason, he feels compelled to wake me up to let me know he's in the room.

Eric and I have done everything we can think of to make him stay in his room all night, or at the very least, to lay down on the floor and leave us alone unless the house is on fire. We have threatened, bribed, and begged...all to no avail. For the longest time we had blankets and a pillow on the floor next to Eric's side of the bed. That worked well until Evan either couldn't cover himself up or kicked the blankets off of himself and got cold. Then he had to wake us up to share that he was cold.

Knowing what a predicament we were in, Santa Claus decided to give Evan a sleeping bag for Christmas so that he could simply slide his tiny tush inside and go back to sleep on our bedroom floor. Worked great for a week. And then came last night.

I don't know what was up with this child. The night started off rough because I got into some bad habits by staying up too late during vacation. It was hard for me to go to sleep. Then Hudson woke up at 2:30 screaming. When he screams like that, I think he's in pain because his foot is caught outside one of his crib slats. But no, he was just mad. I got him some milk and went back to bed. Then the fun began.

Evan came in and woke me up no less than four times. By the third wake-up tap, I was ready to smack the kid. I didn't. But I did yell for him to go away. He wanted me to cover him up. I told him to cover himself up. I think he went away. All I know is that he was tapping me a fourth time. I didn't even let him tell me what he needed. I beat him to the punch and told him if woke me up again before my alarm went off, he was losing his Wii forever.

He finally left me alone, and I got all of 7 more minutes of sleep. And wouldn't you know it? When 6:30 rolled around and it was time for Evan to get up, he was SOUND ASLEEP in his sleeping bag on the floor of our bedroom. I just can't win.

Christmas is over

Christmas is gone. All evidence of it is packed in boxes and stored properly in the garage or the shed. Well, all evidence except for the snowman cookie jar that I forgot all about.

Now I am debating whether or not I am going to go to the effort of dragging boxes out of the shed to properly store the cookie jar for the year, or if I am just going to shove it in a closet somewhere only to forget all about it next Christmas. My natural lazy tendencies are leaning towards the closet. I hate it when I forget to pack something.

One item I purposely decided to leave out was my new Willow Tree nativity set. I see nothing wrong with having Jesus out all year. I'll pack it up next year, but for now, the set is going to grace my piano, unless I find a new spot for it. I think it looks pretty where it is.


I am glad to have my house back to normal. Eric and I even did a bit of reorganizing with some of the furniture. We have some big ideas concerning our bedroom and office, but I'll wait until it happens before sharing.

False Advertising

I love commercials. I have ever since I was a kid. I remember lying on the floor of our family room, laughing at one commercial or another while my family rolled their eyes at me behind my back. I still love commercials today and more often than not can be found watching infomercials as well. I am convinced that I NEED every single thing they are trying to peddle on tv.

During football season there was a soup commercial that sucked me in. Campbell's Chunky Steak & Potato soup. I think the commercial showed the mom of a huge football player feeling satisfied after eating his hearty Chunky soup. I am not a huge soup fan and rarely eat it at home, but I love steak and I love potatoes. I figured this must be the soup for me. I ran my little self to the store and bought two cans. Advertising influence at its best.

Today I finally decided to eat my soup, and I got a nasty little surprise. It contains mushrooms. To the average person this would be no big deal, but to me, it's a travesty. I can't stand mushrooms. Granted, I am probably a pickier eater than most, but of all the foods in the entire world, mushrooms have got to be my least favorite. I can't even stand the smell; it makes me nauseous. Eric kindly cooks his mushrooms outside on the bbq so I don't have to be offended by the smell. The only time I can tolerate a mushroom is when it is in a recipe calling for Cream of Mushroom Soup, and even then I have to pretend like I don't see the little gray specks.

So imagine my disgust when I started stirring my soup, only to discover wretched little gray things floating amongst the potatoes and steak. I grabbed the can to see if I had misunderstood the premise of this soup. Nope. Nowhere on the front does it list a mushroom. I flipped the can to the back, and listed in the ingredients is mushrooms. Ack.

I'm eating the soup. Now I'm just having to be very careful to not mistake a yummy piece of steak for a nasty mushroom, and that irritates me. Had I realized there were mushrooms in the soup, I probably would never have bought it in the first place. I think Campbell's was trying to trick me. Evil Campbell's.

I wish I liked mushrooms. Heck, I wish I liked many more vegetables. It would make my life easier. I'd have many more food options available to me. But I don't. In the meantime, however, I guess I will have to be more vigilant when it comes to getting sucked in by commercials.

We didn't make it unscathed

One day into the New Year, and we have our first blood. Hudson cut his thumb and needed medical services performed by Mom and Dad. Dad bandaged his little itty bitty thumb, and Mom held him super tight to keep him from squirming. Let's just say we aren't his favorite people right now.


I know he actually looks pleasant here, but this was several minutes after the tragedy. You can see his thumb at the bottom of the photo.


A close up of the injury.


And this photo is just because the child is so cute.

On a totally separate note, Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!