Blaze pizza

I know I'm late to the game (because I've had at least ten people tell me that), but tonight was my first time trying one of those build your own pizza restaurants and it was delicious! All of my friends have told me about how amazing mod pizza is, but we're in South Dakota right now and so it wasn't mod pizza, it was blaze pizza. 

I went through the line (the concept is just like subway but for pizzas and the inside environment is nearly identical to Costa Vida) and built my pizza and then of course doubted if it would be any good. But holy cow it was amazing. So then tonight I looked up the topping menu options for mod pizza (because now I actually want to go there) and was sad to see that while they have just as many options as blaze, they aren't the ones I would choose. So sad but I'm sure I'll live. 

Tonight I chose the regular crust with mostly white sauce but a little red sauce. Shredded mozzarella, balls of fresh mozzarella, Parmesan, and dollops of ricotta. For meats I chose applewood bacon and grilled chicken. Then artichokes, sautéed onions, lots of pineapple, and cherry tomatoes. And a sprinkle of oregano. Then they fired it and I asked for a drizzling of olive oil. Right now I'm literally singing "these are a few of my favorite things!!!" in my head right now. 

It was so good. Sadly, mod pizza doesn't have the ovalini mozzarella, ricotta, sautéed onions or drizzle of olive oil. And minus the sautéed onions, those things really influence the pizza! 

Anyway, the door has been opened for me and I think I'm hooked. Just had to document it. 

A more manageable Monday

We did chick fil a breakfast (calendar card egg white grill! Thanks mom!) and play place with honey. He met us there and it was the saddest thing ever when we had to say goodbye. 

We hit up the library and Safeway on our way home. 

I played flaws for the kids in the car and they loved it. Five times later and I was all "I should get this cd from the library so I don't keep using data for this." I walked past the cd shelf and this caught my eye. Didn't even have to go digging for it or put it on hold! The kids were pumped. 

 

She's not crazy into puzzles... Can you tell? 

This made my day that I didn't have to hold Elizabeth while helping Brady go potty. 

Brady had a picnic when we got home. 

The kids plays outside with the neighbors  and then watched a letter factory. 

We had Costco orange chicken, rice, and broccoli for dinner. I felt like honey deserved something good after doing a bunch of dishes this morning before going to work. 

And then we put kids to bed and I unsuccessfully tried to fix our upstairs running toilet. 

It was a better day than anticipated! 

Temple and flat acres farm

This morning, we had our same babysitter come back over at 9am so we could attend the temple sealing of some friends in the ward. I love this babysitter. My kids love her, she does my dishes, and she cleans my house. And now she even takes cute pictures of my kids while I'm away. 

But seriously, last night she did a whole sink and counter full of nasty dishes (like the greasy crock pot from the roast I'd made) and loaded and ran our dishwasher. And this morning when she was back over here, she unloaded the dishwasher. 😁

When we got home, we took the kids to a "pumpkin patch" nearby which is really just a fall themed gathering of outdoor activities like hayrides, corn mazes, bounce houses, etc. Abigail was out of school yesterday for her first day of fall break. I won't lie, I haven't been loving it. Why do I have to wake her up and drag her out of bed at 8:15 on school days but the first two days of fall break and I have both kids awake and AWAKE at 7am?!  

Anyway, they've been nonstop playing and making each other cry so we decided to definitely get out of the house today. This fit the bill for a few hours and Elizabeth was a champ about me making her skip a nap today. 

She also had so many corn kernels in her onesie that are now littered over my front lawn because thank goodness I remembered to empty her outfit before bringing her inside. 

The kids had a pool party in my bathtub, honey watched byu win their game, and Abigail and Brady watched a phonics video while honey and I (with Elizabeth and her binky sweetly watching from a stroller) filled our giant blue trash can again. We are really thinning out our backyard. I wonder how much will come back in the spring. Because the extra breathing room is feeling nice right now. 

And then we got the kids all asleep by 7:30... Elizabeth in my arms because she was so tired and I knew I could make that little dream of mine come true. She's my snuggliest baby yet and I've gotta soak it up because she's definitely turning into a real kid and growing up a little too fast for my liking. 

Ugh, I love her so much. 

Bastille at red rocks

Friday 10.7.16

Tonight we saw Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness and Bastille at Red Rocks. It was awesome. 

And thanks to a lot of layering (including fleece-lined leggings underneath my jeans) and my warmest wool Christmas socks from dad, I didn't even freeze. 

It was definitely not a normal date night for us, but as honey said, it's just good for us to break out of our shell sometimes.

It was a really fun night.  

Real yeast rolls

Wednesday 10.5.16

Texts to Lisa:

For the two hours last night that I was awake and texting you around 5am, I was craving chips ahoy cookies and milk. But my chips ahoy were in the basement. 

So this morning I got up and my first coherent thought was "I'm going to eat a package of chips ahoy today. I'm proud to say I didn't even come close to eating the whole package. But for some reason woke up wanting food and being motivated enough to cook it. For someone that typically can't be burdened to put more than 30 seconds of prep into her food, this was huge. I made a number of things today including roast and veggies and rice for dinner and ham and cheese croissants and ROLLS FROM SCRATCH. WITH REAL YEAST! I don't know what got into me but it was amazing. 

Master procrastinator

This fake plant was displayed in my home in this exact condition for over a year. 

It has finally left my home. 

Sometimes I surprise even myself how long I can let things go. I'm making that my new goal to focus on for the rest of the year. Wish me luck. 

Baseball, Goodwill, and Home at 4:20

Tuesday

Today was good. I stayed up til 2am or so last night doing a million loads of laundry and dishes and then unloading the dishwasher and sweeping and cleaning the kitchen and just a bunch of things like that so I would be caught up in the morning and not feeling behind all day. It worked. Today was much better if a day than yesterday. 

I got Abigail to school on time and without any problems. Brady worked on a puzzle (somehow I've never taught him to do puzzles before now... Whoops) and hung out with Elizabeth while I did a few things. I played baseball with Brady and Elizabeth (he got her all dressed up when I was in my bathroom refilling the soap dispenser so when I got out and saw them, I about died) and pitched while Brady was up at bat and Elizabeth was the outfielder retrieving the ball. And then we took turns and Brady pitched while I batted. We all wore our Rockies gear (they wore jerseys and hats while I wore my Rockies shirt) and it was just awesome. 

After lunch, Elizabeth went down for nap by 12:30, Brady took forever to finish eating, and then he had quiet time from 1:45-3:15. This was the fort time I've had him so quiet time like that where he's been awake the whole time and it went pretty well. I spent my part of quiet time bring up the crap we've been collecting in our basement to donate. I took notes on my phone and got it loaded in my car. I got the kids loaded in the car around 3:30 and we had just the perfect amount of time to drop everything by goodwill and then get to Abigail's school by 3:55 for pickup. Jodi arrived right before we did so I had fun talking with her as we walked to get our girls. And I had fun visiting briefly with Abigail's teacher. I feel so much more connected to her day at school walking up to get her instead of just driving through the pickup line. It's nice to do while the weather is so pleasant. We got home by 4:10 and honey by 4:20!  It was such a wonderful surprise! Abigail did her things quickly and I was able to do some schoolwork with her and then the two of us read some of her new magic tree house book (that she got from the school library today) upstairs together while honey stayed downstairs with the other two. 

When we came down, honey and Brady were in the basement (meanwhile our play kitchen had fallen over onto Elizabeth... A dad's version of watching a baby is so much different than a mom's version. Ha!) as honey looked for more stuff to get rid of. So I got Elizabeth in her high chair with some food and had abigail sit at the table and read to her for 20 minutes while honey and I went through his bins of old shirts. He set aside almost every single one of them to donate! Woohoo! We also set aside some other stuff and eventually called it good with our successful time in the basement. 

We had frozen pizza (I'm loving the Kirkland brand cheese pizza... The sauce isn't spicy at all and the crust is really good) with steamed broccoli and cantaloupe. Honey took the kids up for bed, we all hung out while he read bedtime books, and Elizabeth kept her face slapping (no idea why, but when honey lays on the floor to read the kids books, she whacks his head pretty hard every 20 seconds or so... It's so strange and unrelated to her typical behavior) to a minimum. 

All the kids went to bed easily and honey and I watched some of the voice/Rockies game/who wants to be a millionaire and the pilot of the show this is us before I told him goodnight and got up to clean the kitchen. It made me happy to spend that time with him. It was just a great night together as a family. The atmosphere was happy and kinda different feeling than usual. For some reason, it just felt like a special night. I told honey he should come home at 4:20 every day from now on. 

I'm pretty sure he won't. But a girl can dream. 

Feeling so accomplished. 

He loves her so much. 

I wish I could have seen him dress her. He'd asked me if we could dress her up and I said yes but didn't think anything of it. He went and got his jersey, unbuttoned it all, put it on her arms and around her, rebut toned it all, and then put a hat on her. And she was thrilled. 

Smiling at brady wearing his own baseball getup. 

Then he spent the next 20 minutes trying to get her to keep her hat on. It was great. 

Sunday

My first Sunday back after missing two weeks in a row for Brady's hand foot and mouth! 

Last Sunday our new neighbors told us that they loved our family values and were looking for a church (they said they've been to church one time in the last ten years or so) and wanted to come to ours with us sometime. I dropped off the August friend magazine to them the following day. It sounded like they'd like to join us at church sometime in the next few months. So that's exciting. 

Abigail gave the talk in primary today. Honey wrote it for her and we practiced it last night. He texted it to me this morning since I would be the one helping her. 

So those two stories together, I kinda laughed when I saw these two texts next to each other after sacrament meeting ended this morning. 

Abigail did a great job giving her talk and did it totally by herself (although I stood with her to keep the phone screen from going black). I love that she can read. I can't believe how good she is considering a year ago she only knew maybe three letters and couldn't even tell you what sounds they made. 

Getting home, the kids did their things, I made them plates of food and then fed Elizabeth and put her down for nap. And then I went to my own room and fell asleep around 2:45 or so. Of course when I woke up at 4:15, they'd trashed the kitchen and I was instantly yelling and in a bad mood. Sooo, the rest of the day wasn't spectacular but, looking at the positives, the kids enjoyed playing together afternoon with no technology. Abigail's favorite thing is crafting. Always a big mess, but it entertains her for hours. 

Brady keeps wanting to wear his new football footie pjs but then gets sweaty and takes them off. On and off and on and off. This only reaffirms to me my good decision this summer to hide all footie pjs in the basement so the kids couldn't wear them. 

Elizabeth is so good at going up and down stairs. Super fast too except that she goes slower when she's not wearing a onesie. To avoid carpet burn on her bare belly. 

Brushing her teeth is her favorite and least favorite part of the day. 

It cracks me up every time. 

Somehow when I tell my honey, "and have Brady clean his room... But check it real well after to make sure he doesn't just throw everything in is closet," that never actually happens. In our household, the dad take shortcuts. We call it "efficiency" or something like that. 

How has it already been another well? Life is flying by and here we go again! 

Gymnastics, dugout, seafood, mini golf

Saturday morning I got the kids up early and we went to Thalia's gymnastics meet. All of those tiny little competing gymnasts. 

But Jamison and Julian were playing games on phones so of course Abigail and Brady were instantly more into that than the actual gymnastics meet. 

I made Abigail watch when it was Thalia's turn on something, but other than that, I think it was just me watching. Ha. We may not be going back for more meets...

Honey was anxious for us to get home so we could go ahead with the fun day he planned for us. First stop, the dugout store to use up an obscene amount of credit on Rockies gear. We get credit with the season tickets and have to spend it by the end of the season or it goes to waste. I got two pairs of pants, two pullovers, and a shirt. Abigail got a hat. Honey got a pullover that I actually love. Brady got two hats, a purple jersey, a t shirt, and a glove. Elizabeth got two more Rockies sippies. And honey also got more gloves or glider airplanes or things like that for his birthday gift stash. All of this is comical because we aren't really Rockies fans. Although our closest a would tell a different story. 

Then we hit up pappadeaux for lunch. We had a giftcard and the kids and I had never been. I'm hooked. It was delish and the environment and our servers were top notch. I wanted shrimp and catfish and the server had me order a platter and switched out the tilapia for catfish so I wouldn't have to choose one or the other. No where near as amazing as granny's or mom's catfish, but for a restaurant, it was good. We got the calamari for our appetize but next time I told honey I want to get the seafood mac and cheese appetizer. I told him next time he's taking me there for a date night. 

The kids loved it. They like the calamari and their shrimp and my catfish and Elizabeth enjoyed all of those things plus the tomatoes from honey's salad that he never got to. 

And then honey had a groupon so we went mini golfing. Ha. We live the high life with discounts. 

Initially, Brady was thrilled and Abigail was complaining that she doesn't like golf, but once we got there and started playing, they were both loving it. All four of us even got at least one hole in one. Although Abigail's hole in one came from hitting it half way there, and then Brady's shot hitting her ball perfectly that it miraculously rolled in the hole. So technically a hole in one for her even though her ball required two hits. Brady was pretty good. He's had quite a bit of golfing experience and practice. Abigail could never get how to hold her putter and then would get impatient and just swing it with one hand while her ball was still in motion from the previous hit. Like this...

Honey and I each tried to help her so many times but our efforts were in vain. Some people just don't care about learning proper technique. 

And we were all tired when we got home and just tried to hang in there til it was time to get baths and go to bed. Abigail did an awesome job practicing her talk a bunch of times. 

Brady would "call" me and I would use my phone and pretend to have a conversation with him. He thought it was amazing and honestly he was so insanely adorable. He didn't know when my phone was up to my ear that I was actually snapping photos of him. 

Literally giddy. Sometimes he's a punk, but most of the time he's great. And when he's cute, he is downright irresistible.