Lovin' the Tile

We used to have carpet in our bathroom. The people that sold us our place had offered for us to keep the bathroom rugs, and we thought, sure, how nice! Upon moving in we understood why....there was a dinner plate-sized bleach stain in the middle of the bathroom floor which they had covered with a rug. The former owners are very nice and we see the lady probably once a week as she is a FedEx driver in our neighborhood, so we just had to laugh.

Carpet in a bathroom can just be nasty. Boys, potty training, toothpaste, water + carpet does not equal goodness.

So we finally got some tile in there a couple weeks ago and we are loving it. They tile guy was awesome and he did a really nice job. It's so much easier to keep clean and it definitely looks nicer.

The Dark Cloud

I feel like a dark cloud that's been lingering over my life has blown away today. It's just been a rough week, or couple weeks, but especially this week.

God is so awesome to give us new mercies every morning, and I feel like today after I spent a little time realizing that I've been giving in to the temptation to feel defeated and discouraged and stressed, etc., and confessing that I wasn't letting the Lord be on the throne in my life in every area, and just putting some things down in an email to a friend, I just feel lighter.

Jesus says: "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest".....so I did, and he did. What a wonderful God.

I also decided I need to be taking better care of myself...so I tried to eat better today and drink more water and I think it resulted in more energy and clearer thinking. I read in my Real Simple magazine a long while back that drinking water helps with clear thinking, and it makes sense. I never really put the two together, but I really think it's true.

Nothing huge going on, just dealing with trying to get the kids to behave in public, and to have them be more respectful in the way they talk to me, etc. Carson had a mega-tantrum as we were leaving Costco....I thought we were done with those....but he was so mad that I wouldn't let us eat pizza there since he wouldn't listen to me while we were standing in line. I had asked him to stop chasing Livi around because it makes her crazy and she screams with glee, but it just gets out of hand, especially in a place where there are so many people around. So when he continued to do it, we just stepped out of line and walked out the door....fortunately he didn't realize what was going on till we got outside, but it wasn't pretty on our way to the car.....screaming, crying, boy was he mad, mad, mad. He must have said "but I want to eat pizza here!!!" thru all the crying at least 65 times....the whole way home. It was not fun.

Then later in the day yesterday we had to go to the post office and we had to wait a long time, and they were just being crazy and I couldn't get control of them. I was feeling really hot and sweaty from the stress. The clerk offered them stickers once we finally got to the counter, but I told them we weren't going to be able to take them today, can't reward that kind of behavior. Arggg. So we left and on our way home Carson made some sort of snotty "na-na-na-na-na" comment and it just set me over the top and I started crying, cried the whole way home. And he got a spanking for disobeying me, but at dinner he told Livi with a smile that it didn't hurt.

Gee whiz, this mom thing can be rough, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. With Mother's Day approaching, I've just been thinking about my precious little kiddos and all the wonder that they are. I'm so grateful to be their mom, I just pray that God will give me the grace to lead them in the way they should go, and that He would help me not go crazy in the mean time! :-)

Chocolate Chunk Espresso Cookies

This has got to be one of the best cookie recipes I've come across...the texture is perfect as is the taste....yum!

3/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp. instant coffee granules
2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1 pkg. chocolate chips or chunks
1 cup walnut halves, toasted, optional (I didn't include them)

Combine butter and coffee granules in a small saucepan or skillet. Cook over medium-low heat
until butter melts and coffee granules dissolves, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and cool to room temperature (don't let butter resolidify).

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Combine butter mixture, sugars, egg, and egg yolk in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with and electric mixture until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Drob by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 325* for 12-14 minutes. Cool cookies slightly on baking sheets. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Oh man, these are so good. Hope you like them, too.

A Meme

What I was doing 10 years ago:

I was finishing up my junior year of college, living in the yellow Prospect house in Fort Collins, CO with my 5 other roommates, dating Jason. That was such a fun year!!!!

5 snacks I enjoy:

1. Cookies
2. Cheese & Crackers
3. Apples & Peanut Butter
4. Minneolas!
5. Ice Cream

5 Jobs I've had:

Gib's Bagels - A bagel shop in Ft. Collins where I worked for the summer when I stayed at school for a class. It was a boring job, really early hours and not great pay, but I got to bike to work and see some really beautiful sunrises, and take home yummy bagels.

Fraiser Meadows Manor in Boulder, CO - A server in the dining hall at this assisted living facility...I really liked this job...once again, early hours, but I worked with some really fun people and I loved all the old people, especially this one guy who was so nice to me even when I spilled coffee in his lap.

The Teen Parenting Center at my old high school - basically day care, didn't like this job all that much. I worked there for just a couple months after I graduated college and before we got married.

Receptionist at First Presbyterian Church, Boulder - I liked this job. I started a couple days after we got back from our honeymoon, and it was 4 days a week, which was great.

Admin for the Pastoral Care/Counseling ministry at First Pres...I worked with some AWESOME people here and that's what made the job so good.

And of course, now, a mom....which is what I've always wanted to be. :-) My mom said that when I was in Kindergarten I said that when I grew up I either wanted to be a babysitter or a mom. I never enjoyed babysitting all that much, but I sure do love being a mom, although it's harder than anything I've ever done, it's by far the most wonderful and rewarding.

5 Habits:

1. I pick my cuticles really bad, especially when I'm stressed or when it's really dry.
2. Pulling my hair back into a pony tail....I think I'm ready for a hair cut.
3. I almost always have chapstick with me.
4. Play piano on my fingers constantly, or twiddle my feet when I'm sitting in a chair.
5. Thoroughly clean the counters after dinner.

5 places I have lived:

1. Boulder, CO
2. Fort Collins, CO
3. Louisville, CO
4. Longmont, CO
5. Scotts Valley, CA

Yogurt Marinated Chicken

This is a recipe I got off the back of our yogurt container and it was SO good! I'm definitely making it again some day, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's really easy and tasty. We served it with baked potato fries and steamed broccoli, but it would also go well sliced atop a salad, it has a really fresh taste from the lemon in it.

1 cup plain yogurt (the recipe was on the back of a Brown Cow Cream Top yogurt container, but we used the Trader Joe's version of the Cream Top....I'm sure any version of lowfat plain yogurt would work, too...we just like the creamy stuff!)

1/4 cup Olive Oil

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 Tbsp rosemary

1 Tbsp thyme

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp pepper

4 chicken breasts (skinless, boneless)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, add chicken and marinate for at least 2 hours then grill.

Enjoy!!!

The Spring Shoulder Bag

I found a link to this blog a while ago, and as I read along, it seemed easy to follow the directions, so I tried it, and I'm super happy with how it turned out. It was really easy and only took me one Saturday afternoon to make it. The inside has a pocket that matches the outer fabric, which is so helpful for holding the smaller things that get lost in the bottom of a bag.

Have you?

Have you had your Minneola today? They are my newfound favorite fruit! I love oranges, but I'm quite particular about them. These have proven to be perfect every time I have bought them (about 8 so far). Ultra juicy, sweet, sour, perfect texture, easy to peel, no seeds, etc. And did you know that they are 1/2 tangerine - 1/2 grapefruit? I didn't even know that till I just went to look for a picture of one to post here! Look for them the next time you're grocery shopping...you (hopefully!) won't be disappointed.

Maybe this week?

Remember this post? I can't actually even believe it's been 2 months....how could we have waited that long to actually have something done about it? I would have never waited that long to have our washing machine repaired!!! But sometimes patience or procrastination or things not working out like you initially thought it should, actually works for the better! In this case it did. Since after calling the repair man that I found in the yellow pages 3 times(!!) without any callback (even tho they said they'd page him right away), we decided to try Sears. So we set up a time for them to come out, of course it would be another week out, but at least it was on the calendar. A good start. It would cost us $73 to come out just to look at it, but they had offered this product protection plan thing where we could pay $204.99 before the service call and that would cover the $73 service call and parts and labor up to $500 (without us having to pay any more than the $204.99 deal). And if the estimate exceeded $500 they would give us a $500 Sears store credit to pick out any dishwasher we wanted. Gee....that sounded pretty good, since we figured it would probably cost more in parts and labor than $131.99 (204.99-73), so we went with it (thank you Lord for your leading!). The man was supposed to come, but then got sick, so he couldn't come that day and only could come a week later, while we were in CO, so we had to set it up for a week after that! So, finally 2 months later, we got someone to come out and (hallelujah!) he declared our dishwasher "uneconomical to repair" - meaning it would cost more than the $500 to fix it!!!! So we were issued a $500 store credit and Friday night we went out to pick out our brand new $499 dishwasher. We didn't even have to pay tax on it, or delivery/installation, or haul-away of our old one. Wow......it was a sweet deal to have gotten a new dishwasher for 2/5 the retail price of it, and we have a year-warranty on this new one included in that initial $204.99 deal. Now hopefully it will actually get delivered this week. It is definitely a luxury I don't take for granted. Sorry for all the math and numbers, I just got excited that this worked in our favor!

Colorado Trip

The kids and I spent last week in CO with my brother while my parents went on vacation. We had such a great time. It's always so fun to see friends and family and this time we even got to have SNOW!!

If you (my friends/fam in the Boulder area) are up for a really good cup of Chai, my friend John took us to a coffee shop called The Cup down on E. Pearl St. and it was truly the best Chai ever. Make sure you order it extra hot and it's the one that starts with a B...there are 2 kinds :-) Thanks again John!
I wished I could have had time to see everyone, that's always the hardest part of coming home is not being able to do it all.
So here are just a few pics from a few of the things we got to do.

Carson just loves sweet Emma

Emma, Livi, Carson, Addie

We had quite an adventure around the lake. It was super windy and the kids all ended up wet, but they had a good time. And the view of the snow-covered back range in the distance was awesome.

They just grabbed each other's hands and walked along the path. Angie and I were scrambling for our cameras, it was too cute.

Carson's latest favorite thing is to cut up paper to make different costumes. This one was a dinosaur (which he's really into lately). He made the whole thing (back, tail, and claws also included) and thanks to John's fabulous taping job, it stayed on his shirt all week. The cutest was when he was wearing it in the car and he fell asleep with the whole get-up on...it was hilarious.

This was the first morning of snow, which quickly melted, but was super fun while it lasted.

Livi enjoying her vacation treat of Fruit Loops for breakfast.

We got to spend most of the day with Grandma and Bumpa when they returned from their trip before we had to leave to go home, and that was also the second time it snowed. This time it was enough to make a snowman and a small igloo. Notice the boots - borrowed from Grandma - they worked quite well, although it was freaky looking at his feet thinking that before long they really will be that big, and at that point, he'll probably also be taller than me. Wow.

What a cute snowman!! Gradie the dog kept coming up and taking off his carrot nose to try to eat it.

Carson got this big dinosaur while we were there, so it was his carry-on on the plane. Dinosaur even got a Denver Police sticker from the officer at security.

Carson got to meet the pilot and actually sit in his seat with his hand on some throttle thing. He was SUPER excited....what a great way to end a good trip, the kids did incredible on the plane, I was so thankful.

Easter 2008

We had a fun Easter this year. A playgroup Easter party at the park, a helicopter Easter egg drop/hunt, and an awesome church service on Sunday to celebrate the life we have because of what happened the weekend of Easter. Here are a few pics from the events.

Carson surprised us so much by wanting to stand next to the Easter bunny for a picture. He had no reservations whatsoever and was thrilled to give a good smile and hug the bunny. It cracked us up so much, and he was so proud of himself and thought it was so fun. He kept saying how soft he was. When we got in the car he said to us, "I wasn't quite sure what smile I was going to do when I got my picture with the bunny, but I decided to do this one..." and then he showed us which one he decided to do. It was so funny.

We made hot cross buns this year, it was Carson's idea and they were pretty yummy.

Our ham, spinach, cheese croissant strata

Fruit Pizza

Livi loves to blow bubbles!!!

HAPPY EASTER!

A New Polka Dotted Project

I've been finding some great links off of How About Orange's blog to cute and easy projects. I've been wanting to learn to sew something new besides the purses I make for the Christmas boutiques, so when I found this link, I was excited....it looked easy enough to follow the directions, and the pictures she had of ones she made were SO cute. So I gave it a shot. I didn't want to buy material for my first one in case I totally messed it up, so I found some scraps in my closet...an old sheet that was all frayed on the edges, but good enough in the middle for what I needed it for, and then some left over polka-dotted fabric from when we recovered our dining room chairs.

It was fun to make and I like how it turned out. I'm excited to try it again with different fabric!

Last Year's Goals (2007)

I realize it's almost a quarter of the way into 2008, but I wanted to list on my blog the goals I had for 2007. I had this list hanging inside the medicine cabinet in our bathroom, so I could look at it every day.

For the record, I am not a goal person. Never have been. But last year I felt very inspired for about 10 minutes and these 10 goals came to me one after another, so I grabbed some paper and wrote them all down. Once I got to 10, nothing else came. It really was kind of funny the way it happened, but I'm so glad it did, because it was really fun to have that list to keep looking at and to have things to look forward to try to accomplish. Out of 10 goals, I achieved 8 1/2. I feel pretty good about it.

So here they are (or were):

1. Read 5 Books (non-children's types) - didn't accomplish - I maybe read 1 1/2. Sad but true. This year will be different!

2. Finish Livi's first year scrapbook - Yes! It was so fun, and I'm glad I did it. I started with hers because it was freshest in my memory.

3. Start and Finish Carson's first year scrapbook - Yes! Fun as well, now I need to figure out what to do with all the other pictures we have from the last 4 1/2 years (since we bought our digital camera). May be a goal for this year.

4. Join a couple's small group - Yes! It was only for a 7 week study, but we did it!

5. Buy a tuning fork (actually I wrote down pitch fork, but then crossed it out when I realized that's not what I'd need to tune the guitar, that would come in more handy if I were a farmer!) and relearn how to play my guitar - some kids songs, worship songs and Christmas songs. - This was a 2-part goal...and thanks to Jason for buying me a tuning fork for Christmas, I was able to achieve the first part of this goal....now I need to put that nice gift to use. :-)

6. Knit something new - Yes! I knit Livi a little jumper dress and that was really fun. I've come to realize though, that as much as I love making things with yarn and fabric, once the project is done, I've looked at the material so much that I get tired of seeing it. The dress is a really pretty color aqua blue and makes her eyes stand out.

7. Ride my bike - Yes! I love riding my bike. I used to ride a lot. In college I had pretty sweet calf muscles from all the riding I did. And I have some pretty cool scars on my knees from my wrecks, too. But ever since we got pregnant with Carson and moved to CA, I hadn't ridden my bike! So this was the year I wanted to change that. We bought a bike seat for Livi, so now I can ride with the kids, and it's been SO much fun! I hope to do much more of it in 2008. I've always dreamed about family bike rides. :-)

8. Go to Colorado for a girls trip (with college friends) and for my 30th birthday - Yes! Got to do both in the same trip! It was such fun and I have great memories of it.

9. Get away for a night with Jason - Yes! While we were visiting CO again in August, we got away for a night without the kids and stayed in a very nice Inn in Niwot. It was a lot of fun and I wish we could do it more often.

10. Try yoga - Yes! A friend of a friend who is now my friend was teaching a little yoga class for some gals at her church on Wednesday nights for free...so I decided to try it and it was great. It felt so good and my friend is a Christian so there wasn't any of that potentially weird yoga-y stuff. Just good ol' stretching and relaxing. I loved it, but she didn't continue it after the summer, so it didn't last long, but I achieved the said goal. :-)

So 8 1/2 out of 10. Not bad for a non-goal person. It was really fun. I have very broad goals in mind for this year, so I think I need to sit down and get some more practical ones on paper. It feels good to accomplish things I've set out to do. Every day of this new year I've looked at my list in the bathroom because it just makes me happy that I actually wrote some goals and accomplished most of them. Here's to the other three quarters of this year left to do some new things!

A Trip to the Snow

We went up toward the snow this past weekend with the Thomases and the Mathisons and we had such a great time with them! There was no snow at the cabin, but we were able to drive a ways and find a perfect sledding hill. It was just right for the kids and even really fun for us!
Our camera decided not to work past Friday, so we didn't get any pictures, but if you look at the Thomases website by clicking here, By did a great job summing up the weekend.
We look forward to doing it again guys!

We did, however, get some pictures of our tour at the Jelly Belly Factory on our way up to the mountains and that was a really fun time. Carson loves Jelly Bellies, so he had a super time seeing the way they are made, and of course sampling a bunch of different flavors! We came home with a bag of Belly Flops, the Jelly Bellies that don't make it past the perfection point, so they are funny shapes or bundled together, etc. Very yummy indeed.

One of God's blessings to start off a day with joy that in my mind began way too early:

And of course, this:

Quality Assurance

We had a computer crisis this week and it just made me want to remind you all to back up your computers if it's been a while! We used to be good about doing it monthly, but this time it had been since before Christmas, so when our computer went kaput this week, I was really nervous. But after 48 minutes on the phone with a guy whose accent was very hard to understand, especially on top of my rowdy kids who just couldn't seem to behave and leave the room....let's just say we had some major conversations after that phone call and a few consequences... we got it working again!!!! I was not a happy mama during that phone call, except for the fact that the man was helping me bring my computer back to life! I kept having to remind myself that "this phone call might be monitored for quality assurance purposes..." Why was I more concerned about that than the fact that God is the one who is more concerned with the quality of my heart and the way I was treating my kids by yelling under my breath (if that's possible) and treating them not calmly to try to get them to leave the room. Sometimes looking back on a situation I can't believe I couldn't find a better solution to a problem than what I was trying. I know other things play into that like the fact that I was a little stressed with the computer, and that I had to strain to hear the wonderful computer man and understand him, and that "computer" is not my first language. In our house we are really working on having our kids obey us the first time we ask something of them, and then we can discuss it after they've followed through if they still feel the need. Let's just say it doesn't come naturally.
But I'm thrilled that our computer is back to life and we didn't lose anything, we just had to "reinstall our operating system". So go back up all your stuff, it would be sad to lose all those wonderful photos and music and everything else. :-)

Garrapato State Park

We had such fun exploring Point Lobos a couple weeks ago, so the next weekend we decided to try out another park just south of it, Garrapato State Park. This one consisted of little pull-offs along Hwy 1 that had a bunch of little trails that meandered along the steep cliffs by the beautiful raging water. This one had me gasping a bit more than the other park because of the steep drop-offs, and we had to be sure the kids stayed right by us, but it was SO incredibly beautiful. It literally took my breath away for a minute just looking at the beauty of it all. We walked along the trails and sat and had our little picnic lunch, and then we got back in our truck (yes!! we got a truck, I love calling it that!!!! I've always wanted a truck! - it's a Honda Pilot) and drove to the 2-mile beach (although it didn't quite stretch 2 miles while we were there cuz the tide was so high). I have never seen such huge waves, it was awesome. It didn't take Carson long to get wet, he just loves the beach. He found a huge piece of a kelp tube that he was wrangling in logs with, his imagination just goes wild when he's out there, it's precious. It was a perfect day to be out there, the sun was shining bright and warm with a coolness in the air that was just right. It's fun to explore the beauty around here this time of year when there isn't the crowd of summer travelers.

Our new wheels...Jason was trying to get a magazine-type photo shoot of it. :-)

This was just a crazy looking tree

The seas have lifted up, O Lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea -
the Lord on high is mighty.
Psalm 93: 3-4

For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts...
Psalm 95: 3-8

Dishwasher repairman, please come to our house!

Carson, 10 months, loved to spin the spraying arms like a propeller.

This is exactly what I feel like...."hmmmm, how does this work?" Or rather, "how can I get this to work again?" "What's wrong with this thing?!" We've been having dishwasher problems for a while now, but it's gotten to the point where I can't even use it anymore, which has really made me appreciate having a working one. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but it has tons of build-up in the spraying arms. I've wasted many hours scraping bits of dried up white stuff out of the holes with a toothpick (which has been partially satisfying), only to have it all come back again after we run it the next time. We've tried many loads of just a bowl of vinegar (a tip I found online), changing soaps to one the Maytag guy recommended (and it just so happens to be one from Trader Joe's!!!), we've tried cleaning it out every time, even taking the arms out of the washer and scrubbing them in the sink. We've tried JetDry, which has actually made a positive difference in the appearance of our glasses, but has done nothing to help our other problem. I always make sure to have hot water running in the sink before we turn on the dishwasher to ensure that the hottest water is filling up the washer. But...a couple of times I've tried starting a load and opening it up to see what might be going on in there and I felt the water and it's not been very hot at all, barely warm actually. So now I'm wondering if maybe the heating element is broken and so it's not melting the soap and therefore not cleaning the dishes. I've got a call into the repairman, but it's taking a long time for him to respond....there was only one guy in the phone book....so I guess I'll have to wait for him. I know we have REALLY hard water, so maybe stuff has been building up for some time, but I'm so done with having all this white crusty stuff in my life. I think I'll put calling the repairman again on the top of my to-do list for tomorrow. :-) Along with getting some new shoes for Livi...I feel like her feet grow so fast. And they are SO wide, which makes it a little bit harder to find shoes that fit well and don't smoosh her little toes. I wonder if I can tackle 2 problems in one day (or maybe I should lower my expectations and make it one week!). Wouldn't that be nice....but the latter problem will be much more fun to deal with, shoe shopping, yeah, bring it on!!

Fun with Friends

Our friends, By & Ty, and their 2 precious little boys came to visit on Sunday and we had such a great time with them. We watched the Superbowl and ate dinner and hung out after the kids went down for bed. Then we spent the morning at the beach on Monday. The boys had a blast playing in the sand with their trucks, and Livi, of course, enjoyed just chilling on the beach towel!
Thanks for coming down you guys, we are looking even more forward to our time in Tahoe in a month! Yay!

This was before Elias got wet from head to toe by a small surprise wave. :-)

Point Lobos

We had such a great time exploring a new area today. There are so many beautiful places around us and this year we hope to get out more and get to know it all better. We went down to Point Lobos, just outside of Carmel, and we walked on a couple different trails, one in the Cypress forest and one along the rocks down to some tidal pools close to the water.

Carson has such an adventurous spirit, we had to be really careful to be close to him next to the steep dropoffs and slippery rocks. He was having a ball climbing and exploring. He brought his little binoculars and I think he looked out of them almost the whole way down in the car ride.

We went down to a little beach area that was all dark pebbles mixed in with all kinds of really cool shells and rocks, dead crabs, huge pieces of kelp and long pieces of kelp tubes that Carson was having a blast trying to pull out of the rocks. It was fun to discover a new part of God's beautiful creation. Oh yeah, and we saw a sea otter carrying her little pup on her chest, I just love them, they are so cute. And...did you know...we have about 100,000 hairs on our heads and sea otters, in just one square inch, have 1 million hairs!!!! That's how they keep warm since they don't have any fat. Very cool fact, I thought.

Not too convincing...

Carson very often tries to convince us that he's not tired. He must be afraid he's going to miss out on something if he dared to take a nap. He was crawling around on the floor saying he wasn't tired over and over when the next thing we knew, he was fast asleep on the floor under the sewing machine. Silly boy. He woke up with scratchy carpet cheek.