My Son, the Artist

So lately, Lucas likes to color. A lot. On everything....

Like my contact Rx...

 and the floor...

and the Bumbo tray...

and my NOEL letters (don't worry, it's just the back)...

and my tests from classes. Good thing I don't need those for much anymore! I do use them once in a while to look some things up, but I can read through the scribbles ;)

  ♫ These are a few of my colored-on things ♫

It's Christmastime!!!

I love Christmas. Love it! However, the decorating has been slow going compared to my Christmas excitement. First, the tree went up, then some other little decorations, finally finished my ornaments after working on them a few weekends, stockings hung, more little decorations, and finished it all off with some mistletoes yesterday. Yes, mistletoeS. If you're a Pinterester, you may know what I'm talking about. (And if you're not, there will be pictures of course!)

Crazy busy times lie behind and ahead of us. So many parties and whatnot! We went to Levi's work party last night - thanks to a good friend who was willing to babysit!! It was a good party with lots of great food!! Despite all the seafood, I actually was mostly in love with the gouda and pineapple. Yes. Weird. I may need to buy some gouda tomorrow... and maybe a pineapple if I can find one. This weekend will be crazy as well: 3, yes 3, parties on Friday; lunch, a wedding reception and another party on Saturday; and we really need to get tithing settlement done sometime on Sunday. Levi has been working late the past few Sundays so we haven't been able to get it done yet. December is just a busy month! And the kids are still little! Bring on the concerts and plays a few years down the road... ;)

I finally got a {Homemaker Day} today, which I haven't had in a while, and which also didn't really turn out :( I burned the granola - still edible, but sad - and swayed from my favorite bread recipe to try a new one which yielded bread that wouldn't rise and turned out hard. Hmph. We're running out of bread, and I don't want to buy more - because the kind I love, Dave's Killer Bread, is a little pricey - so I decided to make some today. Fail. I will get around to it later this week with my trusty honey and flaxseed recipe :) I did manage to salvage the granola with some marshmallows, making it more into granola treat pieces... sometime like that. By cooking it too long it came out way too crumbly, so the marshmallows kind of hold it together now and cover the burn flavor a bit.

Anyway, I've been meaning to blog for about a week and a half now, and I kept thinking of things to blog about, but of course I forgot by now :S I did pass my CMA exam! Yay! This resulted in a raise at work and the permission to give injections to patients as well. Double YAY!! I could give injections at school and during my internship, but not when I got hired... I understand the legalities, but I still found it slightly ironic. It's such a relief now, though, to not have to find another "nurse" to give injections to my patients! Yeah, we're all called "nurses." Patients don't care whether you're an RN, LPN, or CMA, if they have questions, they want to talk to "the midwives' nurse" (or whatever provider you work for). Just a little side note for ya!

Well, I suppose I've rambled enough for now. On to the pictures!!

A few of the ornaments. Wooden blocks with different names of Christ. I just hand wrote them, but am planning on jazzing them up next year with a Cricut or something. 

Our stockings my amazing Mama made for all of us! 

It's a large wall. I tried to fill it :/

Mistletoes :) Lucas and Via's footprints in green clay. 

And this is where they hang :) You can kind of see my little ornament/cupcake stand tree on the table. Thank you, Pinterest, once again! 

Oh, that's just Via sitting on the wrapping paper box trying to decide what to read next. She wouldn't let go of that blanket the other night! 

The lights I made for Via's birthday that I finally got hung up yesterday... and decorated with pink and purple ornaments today! I bought the ornaments last year to take her baby pictures with but never got around to it :(

Hung some lights in our room as well tonight :) Not the best pic... I was playing around with ISO and time, but this was all I had patience for ;) And Lucas wanted to lay down by Daddy after he came home, so he made him. 

And my {NO_L}. I promise, the E is around here somewhere...

Merry Christmas, everyone!! Hopefully I will get around to blogging before Christmas actually comes, but if not, that will have to do ;)

Tires, Treats, and Tantrums

Well, I went to post a status on Facebook saying something like: *Mmmm... Pumpkin pie with the Christmas lights on. Much better than the screaming that was going on earlier.* Then Lucas started screaming. I had put him down for bed, and he seemed to go down just fine - it's after 9 pm and he didn't get a nap today - but after a few minutes there was more screaming. There was screaming when we got home, screaming during dinner, and Via screamed almost the whole time I was trying to change the tire. Yep. I got a flat on the way home. Good times. Lucas actually slept through that, surprisingly.

The car started driving/sounding funny after I got off the highway on our way home from work/daycare. Oh, boy. Thank goodness it was only a flat! Luckily I was close to a parking lot, so I made it to there and dug out the donut and jack. I got the car jacked up and two of the four bolts off before a man stopped to help me. I was grateful for the help, but it was nice to know that I could have done it by myself if I had to! Next time... :/

I definitely think it's bed time. It was a long day. Kind of. Now, it seems like it went by fast, but it felt long during the day and was a little taxing. And yesterday was very taxing. So, I think it's time to take the contacts out, turn my heat blanket on, and climb into my very comfy bed. I think it's been missing me. We have trouble parting in the mornings lately.

I figured I should at least blog a little since it's been a few weeks... again. I was feelin' pretty good about starting that tire by myself, so I figured that was sufficient blog material. Hopefully I can get some more blogging done this weekend in between Christmas shopping, house cleaning, and studying for my certification exam on Monday. Ahhh!! I'm so scared. More on that later... Goodnight, all!

Cake-tastrope at Midnight

Holy moly, it has been 11 days since I last blogged. Where did the time go?? I know I've been meaning to blog Via's birthday for a few days, but man! I must be super busy or something ;)

Anyway... I came home Monday night from work - the day before V's first birthday - and started making her cake. I only bought one 8" round from the dollar store because I was too cheap to buy 3, so I spend the whole night baking three separate pieces for her cake. I also baked a carrot cake to make cake pops. Well, I figured out how to get cakes to bake evenly. I tried three different things that I found on Pinterest (of course): 1. When the cake is done baking, if it has that mound in the middle - or in our case just on one side because I discovered either our oven or floor is slanted - cover it with a kitchen towel and gently try to smash it back down and make it even. or 2. Only fill the cake pan about 1/2 full so it all stays "in" the pan, not raising over the rim. or 3. Cut a cloth to the height of the pan and long enough to wrap around it, soak it in cool water, wring out so that it's not dripping but not enough that it will dry out too quickly, then wrap and pin it around the outside of the pan.

The first tip worked okay. I got a little more evenness out of them after smushing; the second tip didn't really work for me, but my oven is jacked, so it could just be that, but... the third tip worked like magic!! Who knew?? Not me. If you know me, though, I cook. I don't bake. (I really don't even cook much right now, but that's a different story.) I'm not a cupcake, brownie, dessert kind of baker. I like pasta and chicken and soups. Anyway... super cool tip! Try it out sometime :)

Well, once I had all three layers *evenly placed one another, I started to frost. And it was a disaster. I don't frost, either. I smother... in gravy and cranberry sauce (can you tell I'm excited for Thanksgiving?) I started frosting with some of the Wilton's tube stuff. Definitely not what I was going for. Wrong frosting/icing/whatever, wrong tip, wrong color. Blah. So, it's about 11:30 pm on Monday night when I decide to go to Wal-Mart to figure out this cake-tastrophe. So glad we live in Pocatello now where things are open all night :) I got different frosting, found the right tip, felt good about it, and took a huge leap in planning to do it right before the party after work the next day. It worked!! Turned out as well as I had expected. I was expecting magical perfection because I'm well aware of my confectionary skills, but it turned out! See???

That's the crappy side. Don't know why I didn't get a better pic of the top... The color was a lot cuter and brighter in real life, too. The picture greyed it a bit.

Looks better from this side... not a complete Pinstrosity! 

Overall, I loved it; Via, not so much. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Lucas was like that as well. Apparently my kids just don't like being messy. At least when they realize they're messy, because, let's face it... my kids are messy a lot. Via was also tired, too, so about halfway through the party she decided she could cry if she wanted to!

My grandma sent some frosted animal cookies as part of Via's birthday gift. She liked the cookies much better than the cake. Did it bother me? Surprisingly, no. I was a big girl and realized the cake was really mostly for me and my pictures ;) And she loved those animal cookies so much I just couldn't be upset... they also made for great pictures... 

Yeah, that's a cookie stuck to her shoulder... 

Despite being tired, I think Via had a lot of fun :) She played with Grandma Dawn and Grandpa Terry, Daddy, Lucas, and I even got a quick picture with her when I wasn't behind the camera!

I just love that face :)

"What are you doing eating my cake?"

It was an emotional day ;)

All in all it was a great first birthday for Little Miss! Family, friends, food, and a tutu!!

"Oh, I knocked it over?"

New boots from Gma and Gpa

Cleaning Day!!!

My friend posted this e.card the other day... I related very well! Except I didn't dust. I'm not a big duster... whoops. 

I busted out the Christmas music yesterday after nap time and got to work on my house - finally!! (I went to a Holiday Super Saturday in the morning so I was in the mood!) I spent 9 hours cleaning, organizing, washing laundry - my sweet mother-in-law came over to play with the kids but also ended up helping me fold the laundry :) - and I was exhausted when I went to bed! (But could I get to sleep? Of course not. Meh. Different story.) Anyway, it got to about 9:30 pm and each time I looked at the clock I kept thinking, "It's really only like 8:30, though. Thank you, daylight savings!" I finally quit around 12:30 (non-daylight savings time), and I got a back rub from my hubby for all my hard work ;) He did help by taking Lucas to his mom's so they could watch the Boise game. That meant I got Lucas's room cleaned, organized, his sheets changed and his clothes put away. It's messy again already, but whatever. At least it's not trashed with a ladder in the middle of his room anymore.

Today, after nap time, of course, I got around to making more laundry detergent. I am trying out a new "recipe"where I didn't have to sit there and grate soap :) And it's liquid. I tend to like liquid more. Seems to disperse better. Hopefully it works, because I made three bottles of it. Best part, though - even if it doesn't work - is it's cheap! Not sure exactly how it compares to the powder kind I was using... I use less of the powder, but each Fels Naptha bar is about $1 and usually use 3-4 to make a big batch. This recipe uses Dawn dish soap (weird!) and I made my three bottles for about $0.30 worth of Dawn. With the Dawn, it's just Borax and washing soda (and water) for pennies! I'm a little excited about it! But, now I have no laundry to wash because I washed it all yesterday!! Don't worry. I will find some. There's always laundry. Always. I do have a few things to stain-treat still. That'll work :)

Anyway, that was my SUPER Super Saturday. Because we are literally considering hiring someone to clean during the week. Because I don't clean much during the week. And the mess makes me sad. But not sad enough to clean it during the week haha! Once again, this working mom thing is kinda hard! I'll get used to it someday :)

Messy Halloween!!

You know that mess that I didn't clean up yesterday?? Yeah. It got worse :S I was gonna come home and clean today, but I got sick last night. Wonderful. I did break down and take the kids trunk or treating at the church a couple blocks down. They loved it! They especially loved the candy afterwards. And I have pictures to prove it. *Please, no judging ;)

Lucas unwrapped himself shortly after we got home...

My messy ghost

My messy floor... Don't worry. It got worse.

...See?

Lucas apparently doesn't like peanut butter cups. He spit his out into the bucket. Joy. At least it made it to the bucket...?

Trunk-or-Treating

Yes. That's a sucker stuck to her arm. 

Apparently he didn't want to be a mummy at all anymore. He wanted to be a moose :)

And here are our costumes :) I loved my tutu! 

Happy Halloween, everyone!!  Hope yours was great!