TO DO LIST

I have a list of things I would like to accomplish in this lifetime.  I'm not sure if I'm working towards any on the list at the moment or if any of then are truly attainable but maybe I should start trying.  It's a pretty long list so I will just list a few for now.

1. Run a Marathon - true, I hate running and I hate to sweat but this will be first to be crossed off my list.  I already have it in mind to do one this year - maybe not a full marathon like the LA Marathon but a 1/2 marathon, that counts, right?  I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna keep pace and they'll have to pick me up on the side of the road but I will train and I will do my best to complete it.
2. Live in a Foreign County - why couldn't I have thought about this before having kids?
3. Visit all 51 States - so far I can cross Texas, California, Nevada, Hawaii, NY, New Jersey and Minnesota off my list - yay!
4. Try every cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory - I probably could have crossed this off my list a long time ago but somehow I tend to order the same cake every time!
5. Learn to Swim - I love going to tropical places to relax but sadly I don't know how to swim!
6. Learn to Ballroom Dance
7. Walk the Great Wall of China
8. Publish a Children's Book - how hard could it be? ABCs and 123s?
9. Take a Road Trip from Coast to Coast - fun, right?  Maybe not with a car load of screaming kids.
10. Have dinner atop the Eiffel Tower

JUST ANOTHER TYPICAL DAY

I decided to do a photo diary of my day today.  I usually get up and get the boys ready for school.

Nathan likes to tag along for the ride.  He'll be starting school in a couple of months too (*sniff*sniff*)

Lincoln loves to wear his shades, he'll wear it morning, noon, and night!  Nathan has become his little shadow, he'll do whatever Lincoln does.  So if Lincoln wears sunglasses - so will he!

This was taken with my iPhone so it's not the best quality but I usually make a pit stop at the market, Target or whatever that is open at 8 or 9am.  Today we went to Target.  My iPhone was not quick to capture this but right when we got through the sliding door Nathan raised his hands in the air and screamed out "Yaaaaay!!!"  He made a mad dash towards a shopping cart and was ready to go.

Once we're home I feed Noah his breakfast and then we'll take a walk around the neighborhood or play in the playroom.  Nathan loves to watch tv, he knows all the songs to all the cartoons on Noggin.  I hope they mean it when they say "it's just like preschool, but on tv!"  Yes, he really does watch that close - ALL the time!  

It works out perfectly that Noah takes his nap around lunchtime.  I usually go to lunch with these two handsome guys or sometimes just Noah if Tim decides to sleep in.  Today we had banh beo - yummy!

Nathan didn't enjoy it too much, he prefers to eat pho.

Nathan will play for a couple hours before he goes with Daddy to pick up Logan & Lincoln up from school.  I think he looks forward to that everyday.  Every time we put his shoes on to go somewhere he says "Logan.  TinTin"

Noah is enjoying a few minutes in his chair with his puffy stars.  It allows me time to do this...

This is me - yes, the first picture of me!  I'm enjoying the few minutes I have left of peacefulness before the zoo comes home :)

I had to do laundry today too.  I actually don't mind doing laundry, it's the putting it away that I don't like.  That is all clean clothes sitting on top, can you believe that?  Please tell me that I'm not the only one with a laundry room like this?

Logan has soccer practice on Wednesdays so today we packed everyone into the car, grabbed some McDonalds and headed out to the park.

Lincoln sporting his sunglasses.

We wore out the boys by having them chase after a tennis ball.  Isn't it great that kids can have fun just by running around!?

Noah has never been outside on the grass before so when he touched it he didn't know what it was.  He never crawled off the blanket because he was scared.

The kids are usually in bed by 7:30pm so it gives me plenty of time to waste a few hours away.  I'm usually in front of the computer, watching tv if Tim's home, or crafting.  Tonight I'm on the computer, of course you already knew that, blogging about pretty much nothing.  Reminds me a lot of Seinfeld, a show about nothing really.  Hope your day is a bit more interesting than mine!

MONKEY BREAD

Monkey bread is cinnamon sugared little balls of bread that are baked in a tube pan.  After it's baked you can pull apart little pieces of heaven to enjoy!   I remember making monkey bread many years ago from scratch.  I love making bread from scratch!  If you've never tried you should, it's so much fun to work the dough - kind of like playing with play-doh!  Well, monkey bread from scratch was a bit time consuming, it took about 4-5 hours because you have to wait for the yeast to rise and blah blah blah.

Today I made monkey bread in less than an hour!  Yes, Sandra Lee would be proud!

It looks pretty good, right?  It was!  The outside was a crisp sugary glaze while each little piece was perfectly smothered in cinnamon sugar.

Nathan was serious about eating it.  He has a sweet tooth...wonder where he got that from!?

They ate this with their milk right before bedtime.  Luckily they weren't jumping off the walls and went to bed quietly like good little boys.

  

I got the recipe here.  Isn't Pillsbury great?  Who knew you could do so much with refrigerated biscuits!  

FIRSTS

In life there are a lot of milestones which we cross, even more when you have children.  This week we experienced many firsts...all a sign of our kids growing up!  I know I should be happy that they are becoming strong, independent little men but in some ways I am a bit sad for the same reasons.

Nathan decided this week that he wants to sleep in the "new" bed.  Once he wraps his mind around something there is no changing it!  When we first introduced him to the twin bed he cried, he didn't want to sleep in the room with Lincoln.  So we put him back in the crib.  Two nights later he said "no crib, new bed!"  It's been a few days and he's slept through the night in his "new" Spiderman bed (knock on wood!)

It's official, Tim and I finally have our bedroom back - all to ourselves!  Since Nathan is now sharing the room with Lincoln we have moved Noah to the nursery.  I know, finally - he is almost one, right!?  OK, I was suffering from separation anxiety!  It's so sad not to see this smiley face staring at me in the morning!  But it's been so nice to finally be able to watch tv, eat and  hang out in bed!

Logan started an organized sport this year, AYSO soccer.  Spring is such a busy season for soccer since everyone's playing baseball so this gives him a chance to learn without it being so crowded.  We had one practice before his first game.  He seemed to enjoy it, maybe too much.  He started chasing some kids around and ended up throwing his ball at another player's head.  Ugh!  I was not happy about that - neither was the boy - who turned out to be the coaches' son!

We brought everyone out to Logan's first game- which was at 8 in the morning!  So glad that it's always sunny here in the OC, even at 8 in the morning!

Noah probably could have used some more zzzzs!

Nathan was eating a lot of snacks while we watched Logan play.  

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Fives all around!  Later he threw a ball in and it went directly into a goal - I don't think that counts, does it?

Showing some brotherly love at the game!

Of course I had to make Logan pose for a picture in his jersey!

NAP TIME IS THE BEST TIME

Some kids love to nap, who doesn't - sleep is glorious!  My kids, they don't know what naps are.  Nathan is 2 1/2 and you would think that he needs his naps or at least gets tired out mid-day from playing, watching tv, and just plain being bored around mommy and daddy but he refuses to nap.  He will not allow me my time to myself :)

Somehow, on this particular day he must have been so bored because daddy was napping and mommy was napping that he decided to take one too.  I miss seeing that peaceful face.  Why is it when they're sleeping you just can't take your eyes off them?

OCCASIONALLY

Occasionally they get along so well I don't feel like screaming my head off.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER TONIGHT? MEATLOAF

I made a stop at one of my favorite shops, Williams Sonoma, the other day and picked up a few items.  I haven't been there in a long while, because honesty - I haven't really cooked in a long while!  To my surprise there were a lot of new and interesting items - a line from Thomas Keller called Ad Hoc and a few starter sauces from Williams Sonoma.  I picked up this Classic Meatloaf starter since I'm always looking for a great meatloaf recipie.  The directions were pretty simple: 

Add three eggs

1 1/4 Cup of bread crumbs and 2 pounds of meat. 

I even covered mine in bacon because I'm such a bacon fanatic.  Plus the bacon holds in the juices and makes the meatloaf moist.  Isn't bacon the best!

It looked pretty good on the outside, but the meat wasn't as tight as I'd like it to be.  It crumbled pretty easily, making it a bit tough to cut.  I also wasn't very impressed with the flavor - too tangy and bold.  Needless to say, I won't be trying this again - nor recommending this to anyone.

On a side note...I often get asked, how do you have time to do this or that?  I love to craft, cook and bake and often I don't have time but I just do it - 

the house is a mess and the kids are running amuck but in the end it works out.  I decided to take a snapshot of Noah as I was making the meatloaf - he was following me around in his walker begging for me to take him out.  He wasn't happy 

but every time I would point the camera at him he would smile. 

So I can't truly show you what goes on behind the scenes...maybe another day.  This was as close as I could get to him going crazy!

Lessons

Nathan, Noah and I like to take walks in the mornings.  We go to the playground

He plays and he teaches me about life.

Lesson one : Stop and smell the flowers

He's such a sweetie, he picks flowers to give me.  He will make a girl very lucky some day

The Joys of Motherhood

Six years ago my life was carefree... no one to worry about but myself - and Tim of course.  We would fly to Vegas on a whim, eat whenever we felt, and went to bed in the wee hours of the morning.  Life was great, then we started having babies, and more babies, and more and more.  Now... life is perfect.

There are a couple of things that I was not prepared for during my journey into motherhood.  Here is my list of things that I never thought I would ever do or even imagine doing...

• I catch vomit with my hands - because I would rather it be on my hands than on the floors, furniture or the baby's clothes.  Heaven knows I can only change his clothes no more than 3 times in a hour!
• I sit on a wet toilet seat at least once a day - in my own house!  
• Pick someone else's nose better than my own
• Know the lyrics to Yo-Gabba-Gabba, Dora, and The Backyardigans
• Clean pee off the walls
• Clean poop off the walls
• Play hide-and-go seek to someone who is standing right in front of me with only their eyes closed

Crazy right?  But every night when I go back to bed, I'll look back at the day and all its chaos and just laugh.  These are some of the moments that I will miss and remember when they get older.  Life's funny like that.

Remember, Fall Down on Your Side!

The boys went ice skating for the first time over the weekend.  Tim and I were unsure if we were able to skate ourselves much less scoot them around on their skates!  Luckily for me I had to watch Noah so Tim took each one on the ice solo first.  If it was up to my they all would have worn helmets, pads, and metal gloves of some sort, but we came unprepared.  Not even mittens to keep their tiny fingers warm!

Logan was afraid of falling but picked it up pretty well.  He fell a few times and got his pants all wet!

 

Lincoln was quicker at picking up the lessons.  

Nathan needed lots of help but he had of fun!

Poor Tim, he even got on the ice with all 3 of them at one point.  They all loved it!  

Here are some tips they gave us before we stepped onto the ice:

1. Keep your knees slightly bent
2. If you think you're gonna fall, put your hands on your knees
3. If you fall, fall on your side
4. When you get up, ball your hand into a fist and push yourself up
5. Have fun!

On the way to school this morning Lincoln said "When I grow up big, I will ice skate all by myself!"