Goodbye January

Feeling super thankful today that I finally figured out what was wrong with my Nikon. It's working again and I'm back to looking like this to the boys. :) I missed you big heavy fast shooting awesome camera!





Adam has been gone since early Friday morning to New Orleans for the annual lacrosse Sugarbowl tournament. I am thankful he gets to go, just naturally more than ready for him to be home now.






It was super cold here this weekend (I know we Texans are whimps... it was in the 40's during the day) so me and the boys have stayed in most of the time. We did run out for a bit yesterday to pick up a few movies. I watched My Sister's Keeper last night after the boys were in bed. It was sad. The boys started watching G Force this morning, but I don't think they cared for it. It didn't keep their attention for long.


I finished our taxes yesterday. We're not getting much of a refund, which we feel pretty good about. Just means we didn't make much of a loan to the government last year. :)


Adam took tomorrow off work and is giving me the day off, so my list of to do's is in the works. Yay me! I'm so ready for a me day. Adam has been working really long hours during the week and then was gone all weekend so he probably needs a he day as well. I'm hoping we can secure some good childcare options for such days very soon. I spoke with one candidate on Saturday but knew right away she wasn't the right fit. We're praying about it. Someone will come along.


I've been doing some online research to figure out how to add some more features to our blog. My scanner is not big enough to scan the big 12x12 pages into the computer, however I want to add an area to include some of my scrapbook pages. This weekend I gathered some great things to begin putting mine and Adam's story book together. I found our wedding song's CD and immediately had to listen to it and journal some about the songs we picked, etc. It feels so good when I get some of our history documented and celebrated with words, pictures and paper. I've focused on documenting the boys non stop for the past 3.9 years. I'll never stop keeping books for them, but it's time to work on telling the story of me and my honey :)



Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday. Happy Birthday Nana Banana!




Love & Hugs,

Amanda

This Life Sure is Fun

Feels like we've been on the Go! Go! Go! a little more than usual the past week.
We joined the Buda YMCA. It is such a nice "Y". The boys couldn't wait for daddy to get home from work the first day we joined so we could all go swimming at the indoor pool after dinner.

The water was so nice and warm. It was a little chilly out of the water though. Adam was able to enjoy the hot tub and sauna some as well. Both boys continue to be cautious around water and stayed close to the steps and sides.

I'm excited they offer swim lessons here, and will be signing them up in February. There are 2 indoor pools and two outdoor pools as well. If you are looking for us this summer check the "Y". We knew when we moved from San Antonio we would miss our neighborhood pool dearly. Seems like this will be a great subsitute.

We were blessed with a perfectly warm and sunny afternoon a few days later so we met up with the Clute's to spend a few hours at Landa Park. I absolutely love this park! So much to see and do.

What boy doesn't LOVE pretending to drive a fire truck?!

This teeter totter is so neat.

Feeding the ducks was a huge hit. Thank you Felicia for remembering to bring old bread to share. Cooper was really nervous about being near the ducks initially. He's been around a few times when we've seen ducks be a little aggressive. After a few minutes of watching the others he grabbed some bread and joined in the feeding fun.
Then fast forward to Saturday when me and the boys went to San Antonio to Ryah's birthday party. It was at Pump It Up, an inflatable wonderland of bounce houses. We all climbed and crawled and slid down the slides until we were worn out. It was a lot of fun.

Little Ryah turned 3 years old. We sure miss all our neighbor friends in SA. It was nice to meet up with many of them to spend a few hours playing and catching up.

What's For Dinner?

When the boys were about 6 months old I discovered making weekly menus for our meals.



It seemed when dinner time rolled around every night I was left standing in the kitchen scratching my head about what's for dinner. Sure I would grocery shop every week and pick up things we were out of and ingredients for meals that came to my head while walking the grocery store aisles, but putting it together on a daily basis became such a task that I dreaded so much. (You know the feeling... I just spent $150 at the grocery story and there is nothing to eat!)
Now before I go to the grocery store each week I sit down with my recipe binder, pull out the recipes I'd like to use, make my list of ingredients needed from that and then write on my calendar or menus what we are having each night.

Sometime before lunch each day I glance at the menu and/or calendar to know what, if anything, I need to thaw out for dinner. And when dinner time approaches I grab my recipe and I'm good to go. It makes cooking so enjoyable to me, and certainly cuts down on not having all the necessary ingredients or eating out/ordering pizza in a pinch.

How do you plan your meals?

Did You Take The Pledge?

I don't watch Oprah much anymore, but I happen to watch this week when she had the story about talking/texting on your cell phone while driving. Whoa, it was so tough to watch!

I could never live with myself if I let my cell phone ruin my family or any other. This is serious! So I've taken the pledge to not text or talk while driving. If I need to communicate with anyone I can pull over and stop first, or it can wait.

This is very timely for me as well because a new law came into effect Jan 1st here in Austin where you can be pulled over and ticketed if caught texting while driving.

Won't you take the pledge?

Create This

My sweet friend Felicia had one of these charms on her necklace last time I saw her. She told me how she made them, so I thought I'd give it a try. They are so easy and take minutes to complete! So satisfying to be able to complete a craft project in minutes :) Aren't they cute? You like?

Blog This

I'm certainly not one to invite rodents into our home... but I gave in and brought this little guy home on Saturday.

The boys seem interested in having a pet of their own, and this was about as far as we're ready to explore for now. This is Hamlet, the hamster. The boys were really surprised when we showed them. They kept asking me why I brought it home. For the first few days we are keeping Hamlet in a quiet room, and not handling him a lot so he can settle in to his new home.

The boys are anxious to hold and pet him, and feed him little chunks of apple. I'm hoping they will enjoy their first little pet. He seems to be pretty low maintenance, and I for one am super excited about that!

Adam and I decided to paint an accent wall in our bedroom today. Here's a sneak peek.

I need to get our room put back together now. Then I'll show off the finished product. We really like the way the dark color changed the feeling in our room. It was such a big blank canvas of white in there. Next up I'm going to get some type of curtains hung, and we're going to get a king sized comforter that actually fits our bed.

Hope everyone had a great long weekend like us. This was Adam's 4th long weekend in the past 5 weeks. We could get used to that!

More tomorrow,

amanda