Parenthood

 

I just cried my eyes out watching the final episode of Parenthood.

 

 

I'm not much of a t.v. watcher at all, but this show I have loved since the very first episode years ago.

They did a fantastic job with the final episode and brought it full circle. The Braverman's don't go to church.  The ball park is their church. 

 

 

 

I loved all of the different family stories they talked about each week.  All the struggles that real families face.  I will miss seeing the Braverman family.

 

 

I've been thinking a lot about parenthood (not the show) a bunch recently.  I always knew I wanted to be a mom.  I actually dreamed of having a really big family.  Now here I am years later with three kiddos of my own.  Parenthood is not exactly what I thought it would be.  It's a lot more work.  It's more exhausting.  It's so frustrating at times. I guess I never paid attention to the hard parts of parenthood until I had kids of my own.  Life will never be easy or perfect, and I'm ok with that.

There are also those moments of laughter, happiness, conversations, proud moments, cuddles that make up for the hard parts. Those things make it all worthwhile.  I'm glad that I get to be a parent.  I'm glad that these kids who drive me mad sometimes call me Mom.  What an amazing experience it is to be a parent! For better or worse we are here for each other.  I am still learning as I go, and will probably never have it all figured out. I am so glad that I have this opportunity in my life.  I'm also super glad to have Patrick with me as we ride the roller-coaster of parenthood. 

 

 

Tucson

The kids and I took a trip to see my sister & her family this weekend.  Unfortunately Patrick was unable to join us.  I didn't take very many pictures of our trip but her are a few of what we did.

 

 

Fancy pizza, then cashew based dairy free ice cream.  Both places were very tasty.

                                         Tanque Verde Swap Meet.  There was everything under the sun or sale.  Trevor got a non electric typewriter, Griffin a cool gem and fireworks, and Savannah a hand held fan.

 

 

The Desert museum.  It was a cool mix of part Zoo and part botanical garden.  All sorts of cool things to see here, and the weather was a beautiful 75 degrees.

We texted this picture to Pat with the caption "Sorry Daddy."  We had to get some In-N-Out

Ice cream sundae party & movie night.  They got Blue Bell ice cream and my very favorite flavor Nutty Chocolate.  Yummo!

It was a nice quick visit.  I know the kids enjoyed hanging out.  We also went to the movies and saw Into the Woods.  The kids all loved it, and now we can't stop singing the songs.  It was a great escape from the cold!

Smoke

Trevor was in charge of making dinner tonight.  Things didn't exactly go as planned.
It got a little, well actually really, really smoky!

 

He followed the recipe perfectly.  No, seriously he did.  It was a recipe for stuffed flank steak, and pre cooking part it looked delicious.  It was a pressure cooker recipe.  This is where it went wrong.  It said to cook it on high for 30 minutes.  Patrick thought that sounded long for the pressure cooker, but double checked what the recipe said.   The house quickly filled with smoke, so they stopped it early.  The steak was obviously over cooked.  We told him these things happen and jumped into the  car to buy fast food.

 

When we got home the smoke smell (even with fans on and doors & windows open) was horrible!!  I started reading about some ways to get the smoke smell out of the house.  The two things I decided to do are : put charcoal on plates in a few places around the house to absorb the smell.  The other thing I decided to try in to place a few pans of vinegar around the house to absorb the smell as well.  I also soaked a dish towel in vinegar, then rung out the excess and then hung it on a fan blade in the living room.  After the kids go to bed I'm going to super clean with more vinegar. 

 

Hopefully the smoke smell will be gone soon.

 

*We are going to try the recipe again tomorrow, this time in the oven.

Here's to a New Year

It's been a rocky start to 2015, but hopefully now we can get it really started.

Savannah and I have been super sick!!  Luckily, we are finally starting to feel better. I was suppose to go back to work today, but just couldn't do it.  Tomorrow the kids go back to school, and I go back to work.  Time to start getting back to life.

Most days we've just laid around, but we did do a few things since Christmas.

 

 

 My Dad & step-mom gave us Christmas money.  We used it to finally buy a chandelier for our dining room.  Patrick installed it.  It looks fantastic, we love it! 

 

 

 

One of the Christmas gifts I gave Patrick is a pressure cooker.  He loves it and has been cooking up all kinds of yummy dinners like ribs, five spice chicken, and the one pictured above winter vegetable ratatouille.  I knew if I bought him the pressure cooker, I'd get him cooking again  :) 

 

I took a bunch of meds and went to bed early on New Years Eve.  Before I did, we had brownies and ice cream.  The kids stayed up and partied on their own. 

 

 

On the 2nd we celebrated our 16th anniversary.  Patrick brought flowers home for me.  We did manage to go to dinner and a movie.  We went to Parr's and had some yummy food, and enjoyed watching some belly dancing too.

 

 

For 2015 I'm thinking just two words Health & Family

 

I'm hoping to make these a priority this year!