ile flottante

I let Benson pour his own syrup this morning. He helped his brother out, too. When I asked him why he poured so much he said, "Well I just really like the flavor of the syrup." Well that makes sense. It kind of gives me the sugar shakes just looking at it, though.

thoughts on banks' birthday

Yesterday was much better, just as planned. Lots of fasting and praying for patience may have had something to do with it. Anyway, I am grateful.

On the dinner menu for Banks' birthday:
Fettuccine Alfredo
Cesar Salad with homemade garlic croutons
Garlic Bread
Strawberries
Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and peanut butter cup filling

Banks ate:
Croutons
Strawberries
Cottage cheese
Cake!

He was very happy.

He got to open lovely cards (with moola!), 2 books, and a tee-pee made by me. I was very happy that we avoided going crazy on toys, and he was just happy to open something.

He's getting to be such a funny kid. The night before his birthday we were trying to get him all excited for it and he just kept yelling, "No! No Birthday!" He didn't really "get" the whole birthday thing for most of the day. The thing that finally convinced him that birthdays are cool was when we showed him the sweetest video his cousins sent of them singing "Happy Birthday." After watching it a few dozen times in a row, he walked around the house singing, "Happy you-yoooooou." Which we should have got on video, but didn't. I'll have to see if we can recreate it.

Lastly, my favorite story of the week from Banks:

On Friday we left our kids with some friends so we could go out. They have a little boy only a day older than Banks (which makes for some pretty hilarious encounters on both sides) so when we picked the boys up Ben asked Banks if he had played with the boy. Banks replied without delay, "No. Mean!" hahahhahahaha Which really says nothing about the boy (he is adorable), as they are equally feisty to each other, but we thought it was pretty funny. Happy 2nd, little sweetie. We love you, and we are still in love with your crazy dimple chin.

Ps. These photos are horrible quality. Anybody have thoughts on this? Sometimes my photos convert so strangely from RAW to internet jpg. Somebody help me!

blech

today i'm sad

today i'm tired

today i'm grumpy

today i yelled at benson for flinging the fridge open so 20 glass bottles flew out of the fridge door

today i don't want to get out of this bed even though those cute boys are downstairs watching bolt


tomorrow i will do better

tomorrow i'll be happy

tomorrow i'll show banks i love him being in our family for 2 years

tomorrow i'll be sweet to my children and not be impatient

tomorrow i'll bake chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and feed it to 2 19 year old boys away from their mothers

tomorrow i'll be the me i want to be

does everyone have days like this?

oh man oh man

Photo credit: thepioneerwoman.com

We just had this roasted red bell pepper pasta for dinner and it was insanely good! I don't even like bell peppers, in fact I usually leave them clean out of a recipe, so I don't know what came over me when I decided that a whole dish centered around bell peppers sounded like a good idea. But it is. Oh baby, it is. And the only things I changed in the recipe are that the red bell peppers were ridiculously expensive today, so I did a prepackaged trio of red, yellow, and orange and it was marvelous, and half the price. Oh and I used the "parmesan (I can't make that work with spell checker, sorry) cheese" in the green shaker.

Recipe and glorious photos of it all here: the pioneer woman.

Does anyone know the policy for posting other folks' photos on your blog? I did it a long time ago and I got yelled at! So now I'm all skittish about it. So PW, if you are reading this and you don't like your photo on here I'm sorry! I like you! Don't yell at me!

pants/shorts

I've been eying patterns from oliver+s for months now, and while I was in Utah I finally decided to fork over the money to take this little cutie home with me:
And then yesterday we had a crafting get together with some crafty women at church and I made these:And although they look kind of really pink in the photo, I assure you they are boy-appropriate salmon. And Benson loves them and calls them his "optimus prime shorts" but that could just be because I let them watch transformers while Ben went to scouts last night so I could finish them.

I'm pretty sure I love sewing. I'm going to need to get a job or rob a bank or something to support my newly addictive habit.
And Banks is cute.

arches

Have you been to arches? You should. It's super neat.

the tamale lady is my hero

Pork and Chicken Tamales, originally uploaded by cheezemaster.

She's been hounding us for a year now, and tonight we finally gave in. I don't know if it was the fact that it was 8 pm and we still hadn't eaten dinner, the driving 10 hours from Utah all day, or her awesome persistence, but the Tamale Lady in the Walmart parking lot found some more customers in us this evening.

And wow.

We should have bought our 6 for $6 spicy pork tamale wonders the very first time she quietly shouted (oxymoron?), "Tamales!?" at us. They are soooooooooo good.

So if you come to visit us, you might very well be served a meal by the Tamale Lady. That is, if we don't wake up with horrible food poisoning tonight.

Back to regular posting next week. We are having a fuuuun week.

xoxo,
C

chillin

First of all: how cool is this optimus prime?

Banks has the most hilarious expressions!

Happy and content this week. Sigh. Except for Banks deciding to quit eating a couple of weeks ago, we have really hit a good stride at our house lately. We are busy, but happy, and finally everyone is getting over their sicknesses. People are having babies (not me) and getting ready to be showered and then have a baby and spring has really sprung around here. Oh and Ben and I found a guilty pleasure restaurant (Zinc) where I got to try truffles (the pig-harvested kind, not the chocolate variety) at a much earlier age than I ever anticipated.

Three cheers for domestic bliss!

wowee

Ben just back from a 9 mile run.

What?

I'm shocked, and amazed, and proud.

13.1, Ben is coming for you. And he's actually going to make it (even though i used to think you were safe).

Wow. Way to show me who's boss, Ben.

biiiiiirthday!

Benson's birthday dinner request (after some prodding) was "neatballs"

Ben declared this to be "the most boring birthday cake ever" but at least it tasted yummy (it was classic white cake with caramel buttercream filling)

This was the same reaction for all the gifts he got. Pure excitement.

Baaaadly photoshopped photo of the awesome birthday banner I made.
Close up of it's awesomeness

Ben says this is where I wax poetic about how crazy it is to have a 4 year old (it is!), and how sweet he is (he is!), and how quickly he's growing up (it's true!). I'm too anxious to sew, however, and he can't read yet so I guess I'll save that for next year. My favorite part of the day though, was how he said, "I just love you so much, Mommy," at least a dozen times, and probably even more than that. He was so genuinely grateful for all I did for him, even though it wasn't much. And he LOVED each and every thing his sweet aunts, uncles, and grandmas and grandpas sent to him. What a thoughtful family we have.

Thank you, everyone for all the phone calls, cards, and gifts. I wish you could have just been here.

There is nothing like the smell of loaf of freshly homemade bread, hot and steamy from the oven.

Except maybe changing your own break pads. It's easier than pie (I'm serious!) and will save you $80. And the satisfaction you get from beating the system is just... priceless.

Oh but the bread. It's pretty nice too.

I guess we'll have to call it a tie.