A little Squeamish

Here's something fun for your Saturday morning.  The other day we had just finished lunch and I was doing my usual clean up.  I started to pick up the big chunks of food Bud had left on the floor and when I went to grab the last one it turned out to be a GIANT, HAIRY spider.  I shrieked as loud as possible and jumped up so high I scared the tar out of my poor kids.  But it was traumatizing.

I am still horrified by what happened and it is 2 days later.  And to think I walk around this place bare foot.  *shudder*

A Few Things

So did you see it?  I did.  At the end I was kind of like, "It's over?  Do I have to go home now?"  It felt so short!  I think I could've sat there for another hour and not even noticed.  I was that enthralled and entertained.  Casting was so spot on for me.  Besides Katniss, Gale, and Peeta I absolutely loved Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch (there was an actual audible gasp when Harrelson came on screen.  I was like how do you not know by now that he is playing Haymitch?).  I did picture Haymitch a bit fatter but Harrelson was great.  Who else to play a has-been drunk?  The only casting I wasn't a real fan of was Cato.  Sorry, but that kid looked too nice and tiny to play Cato.  The build up of the games was done well, but I felt like the games themselves were just short.  Lots of details were left out and parts skipped, but overall I think they did a great job.  Yeah I wish the cave part was longer, and I wish they explained a few more things, but I know it's a book to movie adaptation and they have to leave some things out or it would be 10 hours long.  I seriously can't wait to see it again, and I really really want to read the rest of the series.  What did you think?

Last Friday night I was able to go spend time with my girlfriends from high school.  The ones I have known  since I was a young teenager. The ones that no matter where I go or what I do in life, we always manage to reconnect once in awhile.  And when we do it is easy and enjoyable as pie.  We don't do birthdays or holidays (and I'm rather glad of that), but we are still friends.   Our kids play together beautifully (I left my little one home with Dad), so that is an added bonus.  We stayed up until like 3:30 and I have had a sleep deprivation hangover ever since.  Totally worth it.
When I came home my hubby had cleaned my dirty nasty stove, the thing I hate cleaning most in the world.  So thanks babe.  That was quite wonderful of you.

Also a few weeks ago I started couponing.   I am very lazy so I'm doing it with the least amount of effort possible.  I can't believe how much time it takes up, it has become a part time job.  I can see burn out happening pretty quick.  But I'm going to try it for awhile and see if it's worth it/beneficial/long run capable.  Wish me luck.  And when you see empty shelves at the grocery store (Grrrrr!) know that it's probably because some crazy coupon lady cleared the shelf.  My biggest pet peeve.

We have had newspaper on our bedroom windows for far too long now and have started looking into blinds.  I had completely forgotten how blasted expensive they are.  If you know of somewhere to get nice blinds for not too expensive please please let me know!

Here's a picture because I just can't have a picture-less post.  I am team Peeta, in case you had a question.

DONE

I have been trying to lose the same 10 pounds since January (not counting the last 15 years of my life) and I have finally hit that point of DONE.  I am so done...no more kidding myself.  I know I cannot eat like crap and lose this weight.  So starting yesterday I am cutting out sugar and really getting serious.  NO junk food and no endless snacking.  I have 2 months until swimming suit season and there is no way I am NOT going to fit into the suit I invested 30 whole dollars in last year. I will have one free day a week (Saturday or Sunday) but it's time to get serious.  I will be posting my progress on here.  Because this. will. happen.

PS-I know I need to exercise--this has never been a problem.  I workout at least 5 days a week, without fail.  But...as this pin says:

Source: eatnexercise.tumblr.com via Kristina on Pinterest

High Five for Friday

Yay for Friday!!  Here's 5 five things:

1.  Went to lunch with 3 girlfriends on Wednesday.  Sans kids.  It was wonderful.

2.  Planning a possible 3 day road trip to Denver with those same friends in July. Also sans kids.  Which will be nice because this one has come full force into the terrible two's.  It's a blast.

3.  Going to get new library books today (finally!) and I will get rid of this stupid thing.  

4.  Relaxing day tomorrow and then a birthday party for my mother in-law.  Should be interesting.

5.  Finally finished my son's first year albums this week.  He is almost two and I had given up on it for an entire year.  I am pretty much done with the scrapbooking phase of my life but I had to see this one through.  And it feels great to finally be done with it.  Electronic made books from here on out.

Linking up at From My Gray Desk's Five Things for Friday.

Busy Week

I can't believe it is already Thursday.  I feel like we've been going non stop and I'm glad to have today to get some cleaning done and visit the library.  Tuesday I did a quick photo shoot for my nieces.  It can be hard to get a five year old to pose for pictures, but I think we got some great shots! 

And then there is this gorgeous girl who I met when she was just starting kindergarten....and is now a month away from becoming a teenager.  She is so easy going I just love her to pieces.   Her mom's going to have fun when she can start dating (not to compare, but oh man, I looked completely the opposite of this when I was 13).

My New Favorite Song

Oh I wish I could wear a red orange lip like Janelle Monae.

Quiet Time: What Works For Us

Now that I have a kid that will nap past the age of 18 months, I decided it was time my other child, 3.5 years, have at least some quiet time each day.  This used to be a constant power struggle and she would stay occupied for maybe five or ten minutes at a time.  I would just spend her entire quiet time trying to get her back into her room and get nothing accomplished in the process.  So here's what we started doing.  Every day right when my son goes down for his nap, she goes in her room for quiet time.  We get her tent set up and gather all the things that keep her in there busy.  We always get the computer.

And her current stack of library books.

And (the key!) her water and snack.

This has worked for us amazingly well.  In fact some days she tells me she wants to go to quiet time before I even bring it up.  We set the timer on the microwave for one hour, and she always gives me a kiss "goodbye", and I tell her to have a good quiet time.   

Then I go sit on the couch and eat bon-bons (Oh how I wish).

We don't do this on weekends, but I think she'd get burned out if I made her do it 7 days a week. This works for us now and I could not be happier about it.

 Thanks for all of the comments and emails on my last post.  I know family planning is very personal but I appreciate everyone's feedback.

On the subject of having children

I've been having a major dilemma over the past couple of months.  We have 2 beautiful children, a boy and a girl.  Both at great ages, one even potty trained.  It's getting to that time where people keep asking me when the next one is coming.  I always laugh and shrug in response, but deep down I'm wondering that myself.  I know I'm getting older, and I sort of already set a cap on the age in which I want to have children.  That age is about 2 years away so I'm feeling like I need to do the whole baby thing again.  But if I'm being  honest....babies are hard.  At least for me.  I love my children.  So much.  And I am so grateful now that child #2 came way earlier than I had planned or wanted because he is seriously my favorite an awesome kid.
The problem is: I love our life.  Everyone feeds themselves.  Everyone sleeps all night (and I mean I put them in bed, and don't get disturbed until 8:30/9 the next morning-heaven).  There is a one child to one parent ratio.  As my husband says "We have one of each, we are done!"  And right now it takes us a good while to get out the door.  I can only imagine if I added a 3rd to the mix.
And I also feel I know what people are going to say.  It gets easier, the older one can help, etc., etc.  But does it?  Get easier?  It's taken me a good 2-3 years to even get a handle on this whole motherhood thing.  And truth is I still struggle every day.  Going from 0 to 1 child was ten times harder than going from 1 to 2 kids, but I'm thinking 2 to 3 is a big jump.
I feel a bit horrible even writing about this but it has seriously weighed on my mind as of late.  I realize I am lucky because I can just decide when to have kids (although who says it would happen easy for me a 3rd time?), and I should be grateful to even be having this discussion. But still.

I mean it should be a hard decision right?

Pinterest Test Kitchen Part 2

Some more recipes I've tried from my Recipes folder on Pinterest.

• Lemon Raspberry Muffins from WW Recipes: I loved these and will make them again.  Enough said.

• I've seen these lemon crinkle cookies floating around Pinterest and I just had to add my two cents about them.  I personally love them.  As weird as it sounds they are refreshing.  However, I took these to a party once and literally NOT A SOUL touched them. Except the bees.  I guess they aren't big party pleasers (or hubby pleasers, or kid pleasers).  More for me I guess!
• Last time I tried a white chicken chili that was not my favorite.  Erin was kind enough to send me a link to her chili and so we gave it a try.  We loved it!  Easy and came together quick. 

• Creamy lemon chicken spaghetti from Paon Blanc's Kitchen: This recipe was pretty good, and I do think I would make it again.  I didn't have all of the ingredients and used milk instead of heavy cream (gasp!) but the flavor overall was very good.  Mine came out pretty dry so I need to figure out what I did wrong on this one.
• Egg muffins from Kalyn's Kitchen:  I made these for my hubby to take as a quick grab-n-go breakfast before work.  He said they are pretty good and liked them.  The only problem was I used paper baking cups instead of the silicone muffin tin and they stuck really bad to the paper.  So I might invest in the silicone before I make these again.  And fortunately it's not a huge investment, you can get them for pretty cheap.

• Microwave Chocolate Cake from Catch My Party.  This was pretty good.  If you aren't careful it could be really rubbery, but it's really easy and quick if you need a chocolate fix (which I do quite often). I recommend it.