November 16th - 28th, 2020: I'm alive

I've been absent for awhile and that's because I'm here to say that I'm a Covid19 survivor. 💪😂 I sound dramatic, more to be funny, because I certainly wasn't on my death bed because of it. But it's true, our little family all likely got Covid19 thanks to Adam's boss at work who tested positive after being around someone else who tested positive. We found out on Tuesday, November 17th that Adam would have to work from home for at least 14 days because of his boss being exposed and then Wednesday morning I woke up with symptoms. I got tested on Saturday (there was a wait) and found out the following Tuesday that I was positive. It started out as a sore throat and headache, but within a few hours I was feeling achy and just couldn't deal with the kids (it didn't help that they were acting like maniacs and I had no energy for it). Soon enough I was in bed and for two days I was feverish with muscle aches and a sore throat. After that the aches and fever wore off and I was able to stay out of bed, carrying on mostly normal, but then I got a cough. It was a weird illness in that multiple times I felt like I was on the mend, but then nighttime would hit and I would feel a new symptom - one night it was nausea, another night my head felt like it was heavy and spinning, and another night I couldn't sleep because I was tossing and turning and my body just felt hot and weird. Finally all that subsided and other than a runny nose and a lingering cough, I was fine by Thanksgiving, which I was super grateful for! It was a wild ride for a week and I was eager to feel totally normal. 

Luckily throughout my sickness, I had moments of feeling normal enough that I could get out of bed and clean up a little bit so that the house didn't turn into a total disaster zone. Not that Adam would have totally let that happen, but I just felt better about not leaving everything to him if I could help it. I certainly watched a lot of shows to entertain myself while in bed and I must say -- it threw a wrench in all my routines. Obviously I couldn't work out for a while and I certainly didn't have the brain capacity for scripture study or blogging, so everything went on hold and there was something so beautiful about letting all my responsibilities slide for a while and glory in the wonder of doing nothing. It tasted a little too sweet and I've had a hard time getting back on the wagon. To be fair though, Maeve later tested positive (no symptoms - we only tested her so she could go back to school quicker), so she had to do virtual school all last week and today was our first normal day with her back at school. My routine was certainly different with her at home doing virtual school, so today is really our first totally normal day - which meant it was time to get back to blogging! 

The funniest part about getting Covid19 was that during some of the moments where I felt more normal, I took advantage and got some abnormal stuff done - like made new sticker charts for the kids because good gracious, they were at each other's throats!! I knew we would not survive Maeve being home around the clock and our isolation without something changing. We were getting little cooperation, the fighting was constant, and I felt like all I was doing was threatening and it wasn't changing anything. It occurred to me that instead of threatening and taking away screen time and candy all the time, perhaps I needed to shift it to screen time and candy being privileges they could earn at the end of every day after accumulating so many stickers for good behavior. My my it was really changed things around here!! It's not perfect, but for the most part they have really clung to it and are excited about earning stickers, so they are behaving better and I'm handling the tough moments in a much more constructive way! The funny part about this is that in addition to that, it got me thinking about not only the kind of mom I am, but the kind of wife I am - and it pushed me to have a heart to heart with Adam about some of the same issues that come up between us that we normally temporarily resolve by putting on a bandaid, but rarely get to the root of the problem to actually figure out how to take it away. Anyway, I felt inspired to talk about some stuff with him and figure out some actionable steps and it has helped in that arena as well.On Friday November 20th, President Nelson shared his message of gratitude and I had been feeling like it was something perfect to share with someone that might need a pick me up who is not LDS. I thought of our neighbors and was bold and actually went for it - I sent them the video and a message with it and for the first time in a loooong time had a member missionary work moment. It was very well received and that was really cool for me. Mind you, all of this was happening while I was still sick, which probably sounds weird to be on my A game while sick. Like who does that? Well, then on Friday night after the heart to heart with Adam, we were watching the premiere of A Million Little Things and it started out with one of the characters in the hospital seriously injured with the wife debating on if she should tell her young son or not. This got me thinking about what the right call is in that kind of a situation and I ended up asking Adam what his thoughts were so we could know what we would do it we were ever in that kind of situation. We kept watching the episode and all the sudden it hit me that it felt like I was getting all these things in order in my life at once - changing up my parenting strategies, working on becoming a better wife, doing missionary work, and deciding what we would do if one of us was dying in the hospital. And then I started to think... what if I was getting all this in order because it was my time to go...!?! I feel so silly saying that, but legit I started freaking myself out thinking that maybe my Covid was going to take a turn for the worse and I actually would end up on my death bed. 😱😱 I was straight up in my head for a while after having those thoughts and could not sleep that night for fear that I might not wake up in the morning.... 😂😅 I am here to tell you that it was all in vain because I'm still alive and well today. Whew, dodged that bullet! 😅

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to give a whole lot of detail about the last 3 weeks because I barely took notes and let's be honest - we've been mostly stuck in our house so things haven't been ultra exciting. However, there are a couple noteworthy days to talk about like Thanksgiving and Nolan's birthday! 

Like I mentioned above, I felt grateful to have my energy back in time for Thanksgiving because we had already planned on being on our own for the holiday at home. I had plans to make the Thanksgiving spread for our little family - including Turkey, Adam's signature mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash casserole, lima beans, jello salad and homemade rolls. I also made two pies for dessert and of course we had sparkly. I made the jello salad on Wednesday night and while I was making it, Adam realized he was up a creek with the turkey because it was still super frozen. We had ordered one from Walmart and they couldn't fulfill the order, but our friends who picked our order up noticed that and decided to just buy us a turkey! Sooo nice of them, but the only problem was it was a huge 21 pound turkey. Yikes. Having no better option that to just cook it from frozen, Adam ended up cooking it in the middle of the night since he knew I would need access to the oven during the day on Thursday with the other cooking I had to do. He literally camped out on the couch and set alarms every so often to check on it and baste it and stuff! 😂😂 We're crazy! Sadly though, despite that A+ effort, it still ended up super dry since it had to cook for so long. Oh well - something to laugh about later! And also the fact that when I was making my homemade rolls, after I kneaded the dough into a perfect ball and went to put it in the oven to rise, I realized I left out the salt. 😱😱🤬😭 I may or may not have needed a moment in the bathroom to myself to feel my feelings.... 😂😭. I was sooooo angry, annoyed, bummed out, wishing I could turn back time - you name it - I was feeling it. I did the only thing I could do, recommended by google, and that was to knead the salt into it as best I could. They weren't totally ruined from a taste perspective, but it messed with the rising and they would have looked a whole lot prettier had I not messed up. I was looking sooo forward to nailing it and having amazing rolls to eat, but at least they were still edible in the end. Aaand I did also ruin the lima beans, because I had saved the bacon grease from cooking bacon in the morning to use for the limas, but Adam didn't realize that's what I was doing and got rid of it. Apparently, they do not turn out the same without that grease, so that was a big bummer. All of this to say that after spending hours and hours in the kitchen, we had a mediocre meal that took so long to put together that the kids ended up eating Cheerios 20 minutes before we put it all out on the table because they were "soooo hungry" and I was beyond caring.... 🤦‍♀️. It was a fiasco that we will always be able to laugh about later and now I certainly have a lot of respect for my mom and all the other women out there who do so much work year after year to make the Thanksgiving spread. It is so much work for about 15 minutes of eating and then a whole lot of clean up. It looked like a bomb went off in our small kitchen! Luckily though we had leftovers for dayssss and all you need to fix some dry turkey is a lot of mayo. 🙌 Also, my key lime pie and double berry custard pie got a big stamp of approval from Adam so that was nice! 

We watched the Santa Claus on Friday to get ourselves in the Christmas spirit because I was feeling way too lazy to decorate for Christmas after such all our hard work the day before. 😂 I forgot how funny that movie is - it's a good one right behind Home Alone! We pulled it together and decorated for Christmas on Saturday (the 28th) and the kids were fully invested!! We all had our Santa hats on and even put a Santa outfit on Nolan for a little bit. The kids were beyond thrilled to help decorate the tree and I am happy to say that Nolan has not been destroying the tree like we thought he would!* Such a relief. In all our decorating, we pulled a Christmas puzzle out of one of the bins and Adam and I decided to sit down and do it together on Saturday night. It was honestly harder than we thought it would be because the pieces were seriously wacko and a lot of them looked so similar. It was fun though to get it all done in a few hours and laugh as we were working. Not our typical weekend activity, but I think that needs to change. As long as we do 500 piece puzzles (which this one was) that can be done in one night start to finish, we won't have to worry about the kids destroying or losing the pieces. 🙌

It's getting late, so I better end here for now, but here are some pictures from the 16th - 28th. 

Losing his pants 😂

I could seriously eat him!! 😍😍

I guess I don't have to wonder how Maeve feels about herself... 😂

😍😍😍

Nolan is so obsessed with his Daddy right now! 😍

He's obviously the gun one 😂

Living the life 😂

This is circled because if you look close you can see a stream, which would be Rowan peeing all over Adam at the precise moment I took this pic... 😂🤢

Getting so many teeth and not a fan of it at all! Wondering when my baby might really nap again... 🙄

😍😍

I love him so much 😍😂

Maeve needed to join the photoshoot and wanted me to take a pic of her "sliding" down this slide that she is as long as now 😂🤦‍♀️

😍😍

He fell asleep in the middle of playing and of course opened his eyes right when I took this.. 🙄 Also, I was holding him after this and felt 2 pieces of play food low on his back underneath his pajamas and I don't even understand how they could have got there... 😂🤔

I don't know why my kids like to eat off of clothespins... after finding the play food in Nolan's clothes, I went downstairs to see them doing this. The world as I knew it is officially over and we live in wackoville. 😂

This about sums up the success I had getting a photo of the 3 kids on Thanksgiving... 😂

Yep... 😂😂

Thanksgiving spread 😍

Grateful for this crew!

Rowan is always ready to kill it 😂 

Here too 😂

She cracks me up with all the positions she sleeps in! Also her legs look so unsually long in this photo! 🤯

Peace and blessings. ✌️

November 13th - 15th, 2020: Is that Jesus?

I always write these posts in the evening after the kids are in bed. That being said, I normally like to play catch up from the weekend on Sunday evenings, but every other Sunday my family and I do zoom calls now to catch up with each other and it pretty much takes up the rest of the evening. So, that's why sometimes I have to play catch up on Mondays instead. I'm here for it now, so here we go! 

Often, Fridays are great because Adam gets to leave work early. This Friday was especially awesome because A. he only worked a half day and B. he called me on his way home offering to bring me home a hot ham sandwich and the fried potatoes from Bare Bones Butcher as long as I would call in the order. Um, YES please! 🙌🙌 He knows the way to my heart. He was feeling a little bad for me that I don't get treated to lunch all the time like he does at work, so he thought it was the least he could do. Especially considering that day he got lunch out at top golf... which means he also got a little golf in. He's a lucky duck. I wish I got that special treatment on a regular basis, but hey, at least he went out of his way to make my Friday special too. That hot ham sandwich with the fried potatoes never disappoints! SOOO good! 

Soon after I indulged, it was time to get Maeve from school and we thought the kids would enjoy some time at the playground since we had a couple hours of daylight to enjoy still. We proposed the idea and I am most certain Rowan would have immediately gone for it, but he always has to follow in Maeve's footsteps so these were the responses we got: 

M: "We can't go to the playground, we have too much other stuff to do" (like painting nails and reading the 1 book she got from the library at school... both of which could easily be done after dark and would probably take a grand total of 30 minutes 😂) 

R: "We go to playgrounds allllllll the time" (and love it, btw) 

...😂😂... Rowan quickly changed his mind, but Maeve remained stubborn and it only took me pretending to leave with just Rowan to get her on board. That girl sometimes!! She kills me. So off we went to the playground (actually 2 playgrounds - little did we know Rowan has developed a major preference for a particular one) and it was a real party. That is, until Maeve decided she wanted to push Rowan on the swings so badly, when he just wanted to be pushed by Adam, that despite hearing Adam say she needed to move, she stood still as a statue (once again, stubborn) as Rowan swung back towards her and smacked her to the ground. 🤦‍♀️🙈😂 I kinda wish we got it on video because she really kinda went flying and it was hard not to laugh - she landed on her bum so she was fine, but was startled enough to start bawling. Rowan ended up startled as well and worried that he hurt her, so he was bawling too, and it was just a bawling party for a little while. What a spectacle! 😂😂

After having some potstickers (that Rowan will only eat the outside of now because he discovered with his eyes the green cabbage that is inside the meat - nevermind the fact that he was devouring them whole for the last 7 months 🤦🤦), we got a fire going and made some smores, and boy did that fire feel great cause it was pretty chilly! Being at the playground as the sun was setting got me shivering and excited for some hot chocolate, so after the kids went to bed I went Kroger and got some creamer to make some good hot chocolate!! Mmmmm. Let hot chocolate season begin. 🙌 

As for Friday laughs, we got some good ones: 

1. We sing a song everyday during preschool and the song for the unit we're on right now (Clothing) has these words: 

        This is the way we get dressed in the morning, dressed in the morning, dressed in the morning.

        This is the way we get dressed in the morning, so early in the morning. 

        This is the way we put on our hat, put on our hat, put on our hat.

        This is the way we put on our hat, so early in the morning. 

Then basically Rowan throws in whatever other variations he wants like tie our shoes, button our coat, etc. and after singing a few regular verses on Friday he said...  

"This is a funny one! This is the way you put on your book! *busts up laughing* This is the way you put on your butt! *busts up laughing* This is the way you put on your knees! *busts up laughing* This is the way you put on your Zoey! *busts up laughing* This is the way you put on your potstickers! *busts up laughing* This is the way you poop your pants! *busts up laughing*" 

He was on a roll and just went on and on and thought he was soooo hilarious! 😂😂

2. We stopped at CVS on our way home from the playground and it was taking quite a while to get through the line. Eventually, Adam said, "They must be busy out of their minds..." followed by Maeve saying "They're losing their minds...." and then Rowan saying "They lost their marbles! They don't even have marbles!" 😂😂😂 Adam and I got a good a good kick out of their follow up statements!

3. On our way home from CVS, we started talking about what the kids might want from Santa for Christmas. Then this conversation ensued... 

M: Maybe Rowan wants a microphone

R: What's that? 

Me: It's that thing you speak into that makes your voice sound louder. Yours just broke so maybe Santa can bring you a new one. 

R: Why? 

Me: Just cause maybe you like microphones, but it sounds like you don't...

So apparently, that wasn't Maeve's best suggestion for Rowan, but it got us all laughing! 😂😂

4. Two seconds after Rowan started brushing his teeth, he pulled the toothbrush back out and said "Can you get me more [toothpaste]? Because I drinked it all..." 😂😂🤦‍♀️

Saturday I got some productive stuff done that had been on the to do list for a while, so it felt good to finally cross it off. I treated stains in some of the kids clothes, did some laundry, and did a bunch of ironing. Once I get going, I don't mind ironing too much, but there is something about pulling out that ironing board and getting set up that just feels so daunting every time... 😂🙈 It's something I consistently put off and then I end up with wayyy more to iron than I bargained for. 😵 I am now thinking I need to change that! I think if I could make myself do it once a week I could knock it out more easily. I do like that it's mindless and I can listen to something while I do it - I actually had a stake leadership training meeting to listen to on Saturday, so I knocked both out at the same time. 👊 

I also took Zoey to get a bunch of very overdue shots, which needed to be done so I could order some more of her heartworm/flea/tick prevention medication. I ended up finding out that they actually have the same medication that I order for her from Chewy at the petvet clinic where we did her shots and it was a few bucks cheaper. So I'm happy now knowing that is streamlined and I can just do/get everything with/from them. Makes my life easier! 🙌 She was such a champ for the shots and didn't even whine. Meanwhile, Adam had the kids doing a picnic outside waiting for me to finish since he had to meet me there for the sake of time. The clinic is only open certain hours on Saturdays and he ran late with work so it was mad dash getting there just in time. But the kids loved their Burger King picnic and had nothing to complain about killing some time waiting for me. Adam didn't want me to miss out on the fun, so he got me a milkshake too, but I didn't get to it quite soon enough. It was pretty runny once I could drink it, which was a shame. It took longer at the clinic with Zoey than I thought it would... 😒

My laugh of the day on Saturday was Maeve seeing a picture of me back when I was pregnant with Nolan and asking "Why do you look famous?" Being confused, I asked her if she knew what famous meant and she nodded and said "old" - good to know having that big belly makes me look older! 😂 🤔 

On Sunday, we had stake conference and were supposed to be able to watch it from home on zoom, but apparently too many people trying to watch it at the same time messed it all up because Adam could not get it to work. Maeve was bummed, because when she heard we were having a conference she immediately asked if there would be candy (like we do for general conference) and I agreed to it. With it not working, she said "but what about the sour patch kids??" so we put on some old conference talks and had her and Rowan listen for some different words to earn one sour patch kid for each word. Adam and I actually had a wedding we were getting ready to attend, so while they watched we were upstairs for a bit. After I finished getting ready and 10 minutes had passed since they got their bowl of sour patch kids, I was surprised to find the bowl mostly full still and them sitting and actually listening like they were instructed to. Some serious self discipline there! I was quite impressed the bowl wasn't just empty. 👏👏

Our babysitters (one of my ministering sisters and her husband) showed up at noon and off we went to Adam's coworker's wedding. It was held outside on a farm and the reception was inside a barn. That being said, it was still a fancy setup and luckily the sun was out so it didn't feel so cold I wanted to die. I actually forgot a jacket, so that sun definitely saved me. It was a nice Christian ceremony and the reception was also fun - we sat a table with a few nice people and had some fun getting to know each other a little bit. They served chicken and waffles with eggs, bacon, and hashbrown casserole. It was all pretty tasty! For dessert there was a donut bar with mini donuts that were pretty good and the wedding cake was also 👌👌 - I'm usually in it for the food, the let's be honest. 😂 Nah, I really love the whole affair - seeing the bride's dress, hearing the vows and the toasts, and just being reminded of the day Adam and I got married! Weddings are always happy and bring out all the feels, so it was a good time!! The bride's dress was super pretty and it had me wishing I had picked out a long sleeve dress for my wedding. So elegant! 

We enjoyed our break from the kids and they had a good time without us, but were overjoyed to see us return and kept climbing all over me fighting for my lap. 😅 I was definitely feeling the love. 🥰 The rest of the evening was pretty low key, since we were stuffed and having a hard time getting up off the couch. 😂

So that's about it. My Sunday laugh of the day was when the kids saw a picture of the prophet and we had this conversation... 

Rowan: "Is that Jesus?"

Me: "No, it's the prophet. President Nelson!"

Maeve: "Is there a new one? Didn't Daddy just vote for one?" 

Me: "No, that would be the US President" 

😂😂👌 Good times, good times. 

Well, here's some pics!

My mom just sent me this pumpkin. So cute and I love that it has lights in it! 😍

Just the queen on her throne 😂

😍

Marshmallow man in his coat 😂😍

Preschool fun! Trying to stack as many hats on his head as possible 😂

Maeve got in the car on Friday and said "I have a surprise for you!!!" and then pulled this out of her folder when we got home. I can't even with the cuteness! She totally nailed her smile and I love it. 😍😍

9 times out of 10 you will find Nolan crawling around with a ball in one of his hands. It cracks me up that it doesn't faze him to be a little off balance! 😂  

Enjoying our cranberry sprites 😂👌

My hot wedding date 🔥

Peace and blessings. ✌️

November 10th - 12th, 2020: You can call me a professional breadmaker

Last night utter exhaustion set in for me as soon as the dinner hour approached, soooo instead of using the evening hours to write a post, Adam gave me a massage and I caught up on the Bachelorette while eating some candy. It doesn't get much better than that, let me tell you! 🙌 Sometimes we all just need some good relaxation time to reinvigorate the soul. So, here goes my update for Tuesday, yesterday, and today. 

Tuesday morning as I was doing some pick up around the house, I found 2 apple peels in the bottom of our blanket basket. 😱 Rowan likes to eat his apple slices down to the peel and then ditch that part, so who knows when he decided to throw two of his peels in that basket, but I am 100% positive he is the culprit. What's gross is that blankets were probably thrown in there on top of those peels the day before when we had no idea the peels were in there. 😳 The joys of mothering small children - you never know what surprises you will find in any given moment! 

Speaking of the devil, Rowan had me laughing while I was upstairs doing some stuff that morning - he was making me some food in his play kitchen to entertain himself while I was busy. I told him I wanted a hamburger, some corn, and some pears, but then he found the hot dog and said "oh what about this hot dog??" I responded "Why don't you make that hot dog for yourself?" and he said, "No, hot dogs are for kids, so it's for you." 😂😂 Glad to know I'm viewed as just another kid in this house by that boy!

We did preschool before picking up Maeve and it's always an adventure - he's either acting like wild animal and having a hard time focusing or he's all in and a total hoot. He loves to purposely sing the Months of the Year song and end it by singing "The 12 months of the month" instead of singing "year" - and then he covers his mouth with his hands, laughs at himself, and says "that's funny". 😂😂 He's learning to recognize his letters though and getting smarter everyday! 

While we were in the carpool line waiting for Maeve, Rowan said to me, referring to himself, "Why is it taking sooooo long to be 5 and go to school??" Poor little boy really just wants to join big sis at school! Bless Maeve's little heart, she also really wants him there and got sad the other day when I had to burst her bubble and let her know that when he goes to Kindergarten, he won't be joining her there, because she'll be in 2nd grade. Poor little girl thought that eventually they'd be in the same class together. 🥰

Tuesday night I had youth activities and for some reason, Maeve always insists that I make her school lunches. For the most part I do anyway, but every now and then Adam will do it. On Tuesday, while I was gone, she just insisted that Adam write down what she wanted in her lunch so that I could make it after I got home. Of course, he didn't want to put it on me, so after she went to bed, he just went downstairs and made it. While he was toasting the bagel she wanted to take, she heard the toaster and said, "what are you doing Daddy?" and he lied through his teeth and said "Oh nothing, just taking the dog out!" 😂😂 Oddly enough, she didn't even question that and went back to bed, but it gave me a good laugh when he told me that. 

Something else that gave me a good laugh that day was Maeve asking, "Mom, do you know what the biggest number in the world is?" and after a few guesses of mine that were "wrong" (a million, infinity, etc.) she said, "It's 100!" 😂🤔

Wednesday was a pretty typical day. Adam worked from home, so I was able to go grocery shopping by myself at 4pm when he was finished for the day, which was nice. It's so much easier and quicker when I don't have to haul the kids! As I mentioned above, after the kids went to bed, the rest of the night was quite enjoyable getting my massage, watching the Bachelorette, and binging on candy. I don't really have much else to mention about the day, except for stuff that made me laugh.

Wednesday laughs:

1. On the way home from school Maeve was telling me that for some reason, she opened her lunch box and the bag her bagel was in was just DRIPPING! She acted so shocked and kept saying "I don't know why because that's never happened before when I haven't had anything liquidy in my lunchbox" - I was perplexed by this myself, but had to laugh when I opened it up after we got home and saw like 4 water droplets on the bag. 😂 It was literally just a tiny bit of condensation and she acted like the whole world as she knew it was different and wouldn't eat the bagel because of it... 🤦‍♀️

2. After telling us about the crazy dripping, she also said "I ate my peas and my piece of candy, but not my grapes" and Rowan replied "Uh oh. You lost your marble!" 😂 We say "you've lost your marbles" a lot to our kids, whenever they're saying something crazy or not making sense. So I guess he thought she was crazy for eating her candy before eating her grapes. It's definitely living on the edge, considering she doesn't get away with that at home! 😜

3. Rowan was eating m&m's as his treat before bed and dropped a green one on the floor and said "can you pick up that green vitamin Dad?" 😂😂

Today was an exciting day because I decided to attempt making melonpan again and actually make the bread dough soft and pillowy like it is supposed to be. I was determined to figure it out, and at one point I was nearly defeated thinking it was a lost cause. But I googled some videos and figured out I needed to just add more water to the dough until it became elastic enough. It was a doozy, but eventually I got it to feel and look right!! And oooooh my goodness, the bread dough came out SO soft and pillowy, it was reminding me of the rolls you get at OCharley's or Texas Roadhouse. 🙌👏👊 My taste buds could hardly believe it because it was night and day from the first time I made it. Unfortunately, the biscuit dough did not cooperate this time and was too dry and crumbly. I tried adding water and also some oil to some of them and it still didn't help. Soooo the end result was still not the prettiest because of that (you wrap that around the bread dough, which is kinda impossible when it's crumbly), which was a bit of a letdown since I was feeling confident that I did so well with the inside part of the melonpan. The crazy part is the first time I made it, the biscuit dough was not like that! The only difference is that last time I used fake butter and this time I used real butter (which it calls for), so explain that one!! Luckily, it had no effect on the taste, so all in all it was a huge momentous victory for me! Feeling pretty professional over here if I'm being honest. 😂 I think I've found my passion in life! Now I'll be adding a kitchen aid, dough scraper, and digital thermometer to my Christmas wish list and I'll be baking all kinds of bread, rolls, etc. into the New Year. 😊 Next up is perfecting my Lion House rolls, which I think I will be able to do now that I figured out how to make the melonpan more soft and pillowy. 🙌

Melonpan takes a long time to make and it's quite the process, so I was working like a mad woman to finish assembling them in time to get them in the oven to rise the second time before picking up Maeve. I cut it super close, so I literally threw on a pair of my booties (quicker to put on) with my workout clothes and prayed that I'd make it in time so I wouldn't have to walk inside her school looking like a train wreck. 😂😅 My prayer was answered because apparently there was no ESP today, so the car rider line was longer than normal and the line was still in full force when I got there. 🙏🙏

Well, that's about all I got. We won't get into how I lost my crap with Maeve tonight and feel like a terrible mother. 😭 I guess it's just balance - a victorious afternoon followed by a disastrous evening. 🤷‍♀️

Here's a few pictures. 

Living the life like the queen that she is 😂

His favorite spot in the house - which is probably why I found the apple peels in there 😂

😍😍

A little rough around the edges cause of the dang biscuit dough, but at least it didn't alter the amazingness of the taste/texture!! 

And for your viewing pleasure, I give you the many talents of Rowan.... 😂

https://youtu.be/G4azBJ72aps

Peace and blessings. ✌️

November 9th, 2020: Broken beds inconsolable babies

I didn't write yesterday because I decided to read instead. I'm officially recommitting to reading 20 pages from any kind of book a day and started yesterday. After I finish this, you better believe I'll be getting on that. I just have so many books I want to read - for pleasure, parentings books, self help books, etc. The list is long and I need to start chipping away consistently if any of them are going to get read! I'm queen of starting books and then not finishing them. I did this with No Drama Discipline - a parenting book - and the sad part is I was pretty close to the end and then just stopped reading it a long time ago. So, that's the one I decided to just start over yesterday since it's been so long. Here's to getting through it this time! It's good stuff and honestly a book I should probably always be reading and re reading so that it's fresh in my mind. Heaven knows I need the help so I'm not just an angry reactive parent when my kids are being extra naughty. 😅

Anywho, yesterday was a good day getting back in the grind after the weekend. Usually Mondays are days I need to get the house back in working order, but sometimes I struggle to get back into the grind and wish it was still the weekend. Luckily yesterday I was on the ball and got everything done I wanted to as well as preschool. I even curled my hair. #winning 🤗 I just got a new wand and some other hair products as an early Christmas present and I am pleased with the curls that it produces. It's fun stuff. Rowan had me quite concerned though for a minute while I was curling my hair, when he asked me from my bedroom why our bed was broken. He kept saying "You broke your bed Mommy. Why is the bed broke?" and after questioning him for a minute and getting no peace of mind, I peeked around the corner to see that he was just referring to the fact that I had taken the sheets off the bed to wash them. 😂😂 Gotta love his definition of "broken". 🤦‍♀️

Sadly, just before it was time to go pick up Maeve, Nolan apparently fell at the bottom of the stairs and scraped his arm along some of the plexiglass that we have on our gate so that Zoey can't get through the bars. I say apparently because I didn't see it happen, but it's what I gathered based on how I found him. He was BESIDE himself for so long that we were late picking Maeve up - like so late that I had to get her from the front office. 🙈 Ugh. Poor baby boy was not himself for the rest of the night and even this morning. He would barely crawl around at all for a chunk of the morning and had me worried that something worse happened internally when he fell that just wasn't visible to me, but luckily by the afternoon today he was acting more like himself again. 🙏 

After school, Maeve's friend Bella came by and she ended up riding her bike over to her house with her and played with her for a bit before dinner time. Watching her leave with her helmet on got me to thinking that I really need to buy another helmet so both her and Rowan actually have one. I miiiight be guilty of letting them ride around without helmets since we only have one. 👀🙈 I said it out loud that I should order one and Rowan said "Maeve needs a pink one cause she likes pink, and I need the red one (the one we already own) cause I like red too, and I like orange." 😂😂 His favorite color is orange haha - it made me laugh that he had to tack that one on too. Luckily he still likes red too! 😏

Well, if I have any shot at getting my reading done tonight, I better stop now so I get enough sleep tonight. But I think that's all I got for Monday. I'll have to write about today and tomorrow tomorrow night. 

I did snap a selfie to capture my curly hair yesterday, so there ya go. 

Peace and blessings. ✌️

November 5th - 8th, 2020: Is it going to explode?

Somehow Adam convinced me to relax with him on Thursday evening and skip writing. So here we are. Four days to catch up on.

Thursday was picture day and Maeve went off to school all cute in pigtails with some new matching bows from a bow set that I just bought her. She wanted to do pigtails for the picture and I realized she didn't own any matching bows - thank goodness for Amazon, where I can order bows during any given day and have them delivered that night!! 🙌They came to rescue for me on Wednesday night just in time. 

Thursday was also quite the productive day for me, as I both cut Rowan's hair and cleaned/vacuumed our van (to the extent of also scrubbing and hosing off all the mats), in addition to all my other normal daily to dos. And I must say, it felt great getting all of that done! I know I said I was going to switch over to taking Rowan to the salon because he is just so terrible for me, but honestly his last haircut that I paid $17 for was not perfect. If I'm gonna pay for it, I don't want to see mistakes! I was secretly hoping that by now he would be better for me just cause he's so many months older than the last time I cut his hair myself, but nope. He was terrible. But we got through it, and I am pretty satisfied with the cut. It was getting so long and almost covering his whole forehead and I was just ready to see it nice and short again. I also figure if he's going to be terrible for me, I'll cut real short like I just did and let it grow out to be as long as it was before I cut it to really space out the haircuts. Bada bing bada boom - new plan! 

Maeve absolutely cracked me up as I was switching over some laundry on Thursday night before she went to bed. She saw one of her favorite shirts go into the dryer, which has hearts on it that are made of pink sequins. Seeing the sequins concerned her and she quickly asked me, "Is it going to explode??" and before I could even laugh she followed it up with, "Well, it didn't explode in the washer so it probably won't explode in the dryer..." 😂😂🤔 She kills me!!

Friday was Wacky Tacky day at school so I sent Maeve off looking pretty wacky and she was loving it. 😊 After drop off, the day went on as normal and then we had a little weenie roast on our own back patio. We had thought about going camping, but forgot that with Luna and Bear around like they  usually are on the weekends, that wouldn't really be feasible. But at the very least, we figured we could have a bonfire at home and have some roasted hot dogs and smores. That Maeve is just growing up on us and surprised us by eating a hot dog and a half! 😲 It wasn't too long ago that she couldn't get through 1 whole one. She also has been ordering hamburgers lately when we eat out from time to time and the last couple times has eaten the whole thing!! I kinda couldn't believe my eyes when it happened the first time. 

I also took the time to catch up on some marco polo action with my college friends on Friday night and it was fun to at least have some girl time virtually. 🤗 AND I watched the most recent episode of the Bachelorette, which was CRAZY, because Clare literally got engaged to Dale (who she had her eyes set on from night one) after only knowing him like 3 weeks. They hadn't even gone on a one on one date before she decided she was only in it for him, went on a one on one date that turned into an overnight date, broke up with everyone else, and then he proposed that night. 😱😱😱 His proposal was the weirdest proposal on the planet too because he basically said "I know you love me so much and you will do everything to make me happy, so will you marry me??" It was so focused on what he was getting from her, instead of being focused on why he loved her and sharing what he wanted to give to her. It was so lame I wanted to die! They will surely break up in no time. Poor Clare is 39 and still a hot mess. But now it's going to switch over to Tayshia being the new Bachelorette for the rest of the season with the leftover guys so that will be interesting. 

I just have to add, too, that Adam fell asleep on the couch at 9:45pm Friday night. We experienced a major role reversal, because he NEVER does that, and somehow I managed to stay wide awake until 11pm. Stranger things have surely never happened! 😂

Yesterday (Saturday) we played some board games all together before Adam went roofing. While he was gone I blew the kids away with my ability to blow bubbles with some bubble gum from one of their Halloween candy buckets. It was pretty funny to see them so mesmerized, and I think it's the first time they've even seen someone do that. They kept asking me to do it again and I kinda got some stage fright at one point and started laughing at myself that I was caving under pressure caused from my 5 and 3 year old. 😂😅 🙈 Good times around here, that's for sure. Maeve and Rowan also were feeling quite imaginative and wanted to be chefs in their play kitchen and make me food. Maeve actually even wrote up a menu! She sounded out the words herself and it was so cute to see the mistakes, but she definitely knows her sounds and spelled all the words according to how they sound! Ironically, before we could get going on them making and serving the food, it was lunch time and after eating all they could think about was pretending to be dogs together. Maeve literally had Rowan on a leash on all fours and was walking him around the living room...! 😂😂 And Rowan just follows her lead with all of it. I just love them. 

After Adam got back from roofing, we headed out to Spring Hill to hit up a playground near Costa Vida, cause heaven knows I will only be able to stand waiting a few months between Costa Vida visits. 😂 We were due for some sweet pork salads again. The playground was fun until 3 minutes in when I watched Rowan waddle over to me. I was fully expecting him to say he peed his pants, but nope, it was worse. He said he pooped his pants because he didn't know where I was. 🙄 So off I went to clean him up in a nasty bathroom and was forced to put Maeve's old yoga pants on him for the rest of the night because it was all I had in the bag. 😂🙈 Keeping that diaper bag restocked is not my forte aaaand I need to work on that. I swear though 9 times out of 10 it's stocked and the stuff doesn't get used and then the 1 time it isn't is when something actually happens. 🤦 Why does it have to work that way?! Anyway, despite the hiccup, there was more fun to be had at the park. 

Costa Vida hit the spot as it always does and it was funny cause not only did we run into Jessica Blanscett and her daughter (the YW pres in our presidency that I work with), but we also sat near another young family and ended up finding out they were also LDS so that was kinda fun. We chatted with them for a little bit before heading out. We got some Culvers on the way home because the flavor of the day on the sign piqued my interest - ironically it didn't end up sounding as awesome once it was explained, and then I ended up getting something seasonal instead of my usual and it was a letdown. I was honestly kinda sad inside the whole time I was eating it, thinking of what could have been if I had just gotten my usual... 😂😭

And what do ya know, we were back to our typical me falling asleep at 9:30pm on the couch and Adam staying up later after the kids went to bed. 😂Usually watching shows makes me fall asleep, but I guess it takes something as juicy as the Bachelorette to keep me awake. 🤷‍♀️

Well, that brings us to today. It was our assigned week for church and I got to say the closing prayer. Adam actually assigns the prayers and last night he said to me, "I have a serious question to ask you....". He paused and I honestly was feeling a little nervous about what was going to follow.... but then he asked me to say the prayer. What a knucklehead! Getting me to hold my breath for nothing. 😏

After church, I decided to test out the Lion House roll recipe that I got from the Jessica mentioned above and though they turned out pretty well, there is room for improvement. I'm determined to figure out how to make them look more beautiful and uniform and end up more fluffy and perfect. The pictures you see in recipes always look more perfect than what comes out in your kitchen, but I soooo want to fix that! Someone else made them look that awesome, so why can't I!? We might all end up fat from rolls before I figure it out, but I'm gonna do it. 💪

Adam also made another fire this evening and we had some smores again. The kids had me laughing with this conversation they had:

Rowan: I can feel the heat!

Maeve: Do you even know what heat is Rowan?

Rowan: Yes

Maeve: Then what is it? 

Rowan: I don't know 

😂😂👌 Too good! 

Before I wrap up, I should also mention that Nolan has started giving kisses, and I can't get enough cause it's the sweetest 😍😍, but he also has started whacking us in the face for fun. It is kinda driving me nuts, because how do you tell an 11 month old to stop?! 🤔 I'm genuinely not sure how to get him to stop. Send help. Sweet and salty, that boy! 

Time for some pics: 

Rowan loves to throw blankets all over Nolan in an attempt to lovingly smother him to death... 😅😂

Rowan put on a little tea party for preschool on Thursday and it was too cute. 👆👇

How he greeted me from his nap 😍

This face cracks me up! 😂

The love is real between these two! 

Making his tea 😍☕

Attempting to give Nolan some tea 😊

I was so alarmed to feel this earring and notice that it did this. Apparently this hoop can be taken out more ways than one... 😳

Found him like this after a nap 😍

Wacky Tacky day! 

Rocking Maeve's old yoga pants 😂

She was my helper with rubbing all the rolls with butter 😍

Peace and blessings. ✌️