Month: July 2013

And preggo. Or is it prego?

Either way it’s not a word.

But I hate that non-word.

Amazeballs and preggo.

Ok so I’m not so good at this “doing something everyday thing…”

That’s not the confession.

My confession is I’m frustrated.

Every time Devin and I go on a walk or start talking about “things” we always go back to two subjects–Should we get a mini-van and how long can we do this two bedroom apartment thing.

We currently have two children…and only two. That’s the count for now (no announcements here!) But are we stuck with (dare I say only) two as long as we have our current car and apartment?

Then I start looking around and for about two months I had some hope and determination to tough it out and experience life while leaning towards the minimalist side. We could totally have one more kid in our car and one, maybe two, more in our apartment!

Several weeks ago I learned from a sister in our ward that she fits three children in their Civic, carseats and all. I didn’t believe her so she gave me a tour. A certain brand of carseat is especially narrow. Minimally sized high-back boosters work for her two older children. With seatbelt extenders so buckling in isn’t a pain, it fit like a glove. I was totally excited!

Don’t get me wrong. I want a mini-van. The thing is, we only need one car. We love our CR-V and though we can get money for it, I don’t think it’s worth selling.

So extending our CR-V through one more child–check.

Now to the two bedroom apartment. A friend has been living it up in a two bedroom with three children for a year and a half. She did her best at convincing me that it was possible and I believed her.

I believed both these ladies and their three kiddo family strategies.

Two weeks ago the civic was replaced by a brand new mini-van and today my friend moved to a four bedroom house in Utah.

Obviously it wasn’t working out as good as they said.

Back to the drawing board.

If you liked it then you should’a put some cream on it…

With our recent sugar reduction experiment, I often turned to fruit for a sweet. I’ve always loved berries. Who doesn’t? (Ok, besides Devin).

But you can’t just have berries. Oh, no, no. You must have berries and cream. And if you are having strawberries then you must attempt to drizzle-ish some Nutella on them too. But that’s too much effort.

Behold, Nutella cream.

Simply add a gob (no more, no less) to your partially whipped cream and finish whipping.

Using this method reduces your worry and effort trying to create the perfect cream-Nutella-strawberry ratio in each bite.

You’re welcome.

PS: I add some vanilla but no sugar to the cream.

Yes, I missed two days and didn’t make up for them (yet).

Here is why…

We found out what nursemaid’s elbow is. In short, a dislocated elbow.

My darling Abby likes to show resistance in everything. She would fight a diaper change to the death if she had to. The other day we were walking home from a morning at a friends house. As I was holding her hand she decided she wanted to go dead weight on me which caused her to hang and swing from one arm.

I didn’t feel or hear anything but she started crying. I carried her home as she whimpered but I thought that was more of a result of her being tired. When we got home she refused to use her arm and cried when I touched or moved it.

I rocked her to sleep and laid her down only to have her wake up after 20 minutes when she moved and felt pain again. She never went back to sleep.

That night she slept in our bed while Devin and I took turns getting our rest on the couch.

The next morning we headed to the doctor where the doctor asked a couple questions and without even looking at Abby told me what it was and how she was going to fix it. A quick pop and ten minutes later Abby was back to her old self.

So with a no-nap day followed by a night of waking every 20 minutes, I wasn’t up to blogging.

I could say that one time (maybe two) that I earned a high enough score at the horrid testing center to see my number flashing on the score board. Or that one class that the teacher surprised us with no final. Or the time that I got the heck out of Provo (only to be dragged back kicking and screaming). Just doesn’t do the shenanigans that a handful of young adults were always up to quite the justice we deserve.

So to specify, the following events occurred during my sophomore year. Pre-marriage. In the depths of the painful single life at BYU.

My roommate and I had had enough of a girl above us and her make out sessions outside our window. Her and her beau seemed to think that it was ok to park in a no parking zone as long as the car was still running. At midnight or later, headlights and a running engine were not anything we welcomed.

As this happened night after night we knew the drill. After some lovely get-to-know-you time they would leave the car (running) and he would walk our neighbor to her door. So we took it upon ourselves to teach them a lesson.

When they left the car and were out of sight we made our move. My roommate turned off the car, threw the keys somewhere inside, locked the doors and we ran.

The aftermath was fun though we hadn’t done as much damage as we had hoped. After some time they were able to get in the car through a narrowly opened window.

The best was watching their confusion from the comfort of a neighboring apartment.

And then there was that time when we stole a volleyball team poster from campus. Then I had to stare at that poster for months.

And then there was that time when we got in a war with some children that frequented our complex. This resulted in the suicide attempt of an estimated dozen goldfish (not the crackers) on our living room floor.

And then there was that time when a boy took us for a ride in his mustang. He seemed to regret getting an automatic because he liked unnecessarily shifting through the gears that most people use twice in their life.

And then I left BYU.

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage what would it be?

Amazeballs

That is all.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a couple ladies from our ward and we started talking about concerts. One of them was a concert frequenter while the other had never been to one.

I’ve been to plenty of concerts. But I don’t think that all those jazz concerts that I was forced to endure in middle school and high school really count.

So perhaps I should say pop concerts. Not the type of crowd I frequent.

Oh wait. There was that one.

Oh yeah, Backstreet Boys.

It was a weak moment. A good friend who loved them needed a dependable tagalong. And he offered to pay. And he said he would recruit a boy that I liked to come.

Sold.

So I went. And the boy I liked ended up getting too sick to come. And I waisted a bunch of money on a new outfit for nothing.

The end.

Since I’m not the most adventurous person I had a hard time thinking of something. But then I did.

Slurping oysters.

Maybe at my age there are plenty more of my peers that have developed a love for seafood and other such delicacies. At the time of said oyster slurping experience, I was only 10 (give or take). To my knowledge that is not a normal diet or even “treat” for tweens these days.

To make things perfectly clear, the first one wasn’t bad. The second one, on the other had, made me swear off slurping for life.

For further record keeping purposes, my cousin Leann still owes me $7 for completing the dare.

Devin and I just had a conversation about what constitutes a random act of kindness. Is it something that is anonymous? Is it something needed or just extra? Either way, we did something kind today.

As I was in a grocery store getting a treat for another drive-in movie adventure, Devin noticed a mild confrontation between a family and a patron of the store. The family of five was positioned at the exit of the parking lot and held a sign asking for food and money for rent. It wasn’t clear what the conversation was about but the family in need tugged at our heart strings. We drove by a couple times to try to casually see what the sign said. Finally we decided just to ask what they were in need of. Their simple reply was sandwiches.

So we drove a block away to a less expensive store and purchased bread, PB&J, cheese and ham, bananas, milk and a smile in the form M&Ms.

It’s always difficult for us to decide if we should offer something in this type of situation and honestly, we usually don’t. Today we had some extra time to donate to the cause and have been feeling especially blessed with our financial situation lately.

Hopefully this young family will benefit from our help and have the opportunity in life to pay it forward.

A slight break from the random entries…

We decided to go camping for one night this week. We stayed in a yurt as to satisfy our yurt cravings as well as simplify our trip.

The girls loved the yurt so much that they didn’t even want to play outside. It certainly didn’t help that it had two bunk beds in it. Katelyn has been asking for a bunk bed ever since we visited her cousins in Houston.

The highlight of the trip was watching the girls play and enjoy the experience. The lowlight was enduring the other 75% of the time which was filled with meltdowns.

We bought them camping chairs and they loved them.

Roasting marshmallows was fun…as long as it didn’t get hot, gooey, or get on anyone’s hands or face.

But we still love them.