Exhausted but Excited

I am exhausted.  John has had a very busy week of final exams and papers to write.  Which means that I've been cleaning, running errands, chasing after the Terrible Two, and packing for our trip all by myself.  Until 2:30am this morning.  Followed by some very unsatisfying three or four hours of sleep.  Now I'm up again getting last-minute things ready for the trip.  John is currently at school taking his last exam and when he gets home we are going to hit the road.  We're not entirely sure yet if we're going to stop and get a hotel room for the night in Montana or just drive through until we get to my parents' house in WA at 3 or 4 am.  It will depend on a combination of how tired we are, how crazy we are, how sick we are of the car, and how much screaming is going on from the back of the car (the last one is a pretty big factor).  I'm inclined towards anywhere I can sleep, but who really wants to spend $100 for a hotel room when you don't really have to?  

I bought Johnny a plastic crocodile/alligator for our trip.  I was going to wait until today in the car to give it to him, but when he got into our bags for the trip and was prepared to dismantle my brand new sunglasses, I decided to give him his new toy to curb the destructive feelings.  He is totally in love with it, like I thought he would be.  I hope it keeps him entertained on our 20 hour car ride like it seems to be entertaining him now.  He fell asleep with it last night and when I tried to take it out of his hands to put in his backpack (to ensure that it made it into the car with us), a little boy wandered out of his room (after being in a deep sleep, mind you) two minutes later looking for his toy.  Needless to say, he slept with the darn hard plastic toy.  It hasn't left his grip or sight since.  It is currently eating his toes and growling a fierce growl.  I don't think we have to worry about it not making it to the car since it hasn't left his sight yet.

Now I'm off to continue packing and getting ready in my zombie-like state.  Good news is that we're leaving at a time when I can grab a coffee on our way out of town.  Bad news is that the next eight hours after that are through the flattest and emptiest portion of Wyoming.  Which means no coffee.  Or any way to maintain my sanity.  If you want to know what hell is, please drive the stretch from Billings, MT south to Denver, CO.  

We are excited to go to Spokane though and see all of our wonderful friends and family! :)  We love you all!  Please pray for a safe trip.  

* Also, no Flashback Friday post this week because I'm up to my eyeballs with things to do.  Sorry. Will be participating again this next Friday (maybe - we'll be in Spokane) or at the very least the Friday after that. :)  If you were itching for a Flashback Friday go on over to Christopher and Tia. 

Day 1 of Spring Cleaning

Today was day 1 of spring cleaning of our apartment.  We are hoping that we will be able to finish tomorrow since John has final exams all this week and I will be busy packing and preparing for our trip back home to visit family.  I don't know what prompted us to spring clean this weekend, but it seemed like a good one to get it done since next weekend we'll be back home, the next weekend after that we'll be heading back to Denver, the weekend after that the in-laws come to visit us, then the next weekend is Easter, and then the weekend after that will probably be warm enough for us to start going and doing things outdoors or camping on the weekends, so spring cleaning won't be a priority.  So, yeah, I guess today was a good day to start spring cleaning.  It was a nice day outside so we were able to have our patio door open with just the screen and let the breeze into the apartment.  John and I worked as a team to try and clean as much as we could around the house that doesn't usually get attention and Johnny played his usual role of playing and making messes in the wake of whatever we just finished cleaning.  Typical little boy.

Since we didn't do much of anything exciting today, I decided to post some pictures I took yesterday instead.  They are just photos of Johnny eating ice cream (it is kind of hard to tell, but he is devouring a fudge bar) on his dad and making a huge mess as usual.  The last picture of him is after ice cream sitting on his dad's lap watching "The Neverending Story" on the computer/Netflix Instant Watch.  Johnny was enthralled with the movie and pretty much sat and watched it intently from start to finish on his dad's lap - it was adorable (and out of character for our little energizer bunny). :)

 

  

 

I also thought I would share one of our favorite recipes as well. This recipe makes an extremely tender and flavorful roast - we love it!  It is so so so easy to make too.  Enjoy. :)

3 Envelope Roast

2 - 3 lb beef round roast (remove any netting)

garlic powder

black pepper

parsley flakes

1 envelope dry ranch dressing mix

1 envelope dry Italian dressing mix

1 envelope dry Brown gravy mix

1 cup water

vegetables (carrots, celery, red potatoes) 

Night before season a 2 -3 lb beef round roast with garlic powder, pepper, and parsley flakes (we usually forget to do it the night before and instead just season it with these things when we season it with everything else before putting in the slow cooker - it is still very delicious!)

Next morning put the roast in the slow cooker.  

Sprinkle contents of 1 envelope of dry Italian dressing mix, 1 envelope dry ranch dressing mix, and 1 envelope dry Brown gravy mix over the roast.

Pour 1 cup of water over the roast. 

Put chopped veggies - carrots, celery, red potatoes around the edges of the slow cooker and not on the roast itself. 

Cook on LOW 7-8 hrs or HIGH 4-5 hrs.

The longer it cooks, the more tender it is, so don't worry about cooking too long.

 ***If you are watching your salt/sodium intake, only use 1/2 of the dry Italian dressing mix.

 

Flashback Friday: My Best Friend

I am participating in another Flashback Friday post - if you would like to participate in this awesome weekly event or check out the equally awesome host, then go on over to Christopher and Tia. :)

***

The theme for this week was "Best Friend" - which was an easy theme for me.  I am very blessed when it comes to friends.  My husband and myself both belonged to the same close group of friends (guys & girls) in high school and we all are still best friends five years later, even though we are all spread out across the U.S.  We make a point of seeing each other when we are back in our hometown visiting for holidays or catching up with each other when we can throughout the year.  We all keep in touch over the phone and internet too, and we all are still very much involved in each others day-to-day lives.  It is pretty remarkable, actually.  I consider all of them my "best friends".  I have a good assortment of very close friends from college, church, and other moms I have befriended as well since high school.  In addition to the many close friends I have, I am also blessed with an amazing family whom I am very close with.  Obviously if I had to pick one person in the entire world to call my "best friend", it would be John.  He is my husband and he knows me better than anybody else in the world and I know him better than anyone else.  We talk about anything and everything and we actually enjoy spending time together over going out with others.  I am very blessed to have married my best friend. :)

However, I am fairly certain that this week's theme was meant more for non-family best friends, or at the very least non-husband best friends.  My best friend then is most definitely Katherine.   She has been my best friend since the fourth grade.  I can't pin-point the exact moment that we became best friends, but I think it occurred around the time we worked on a project together - building a car out of vegetables and fruit (our base was made out of an eggplant) which we then raced down a ramp (so they had to be functional).  Ours came in first. :)  We went through the usual girl drama and some bickering fights too when we were in the sixth grade, but it was never anything that threatened our friendship.  As the school years went by, we only became closer and closer.  

By high school, we had our close group of friends that included guys, but our main group was a foursome of girls: Katherine, me, Bre, and Jess (there are pics of them later on too).  I will say that I also consider both Bre and Jess to be my best friends as well, but our foursome naturally paired off into two sets of closer best friends: Bre & Jess, and then Katherine & me.  It was mainly due to personality types, I think.  Bre and Jess were a lot alike and naturally were in sync, and the same goes for Katherine and me.  Katherine and I had also grown up together too, whereas Bre and Jess came along into our lives in middle school.  You can't erase history in a bond.  Katherine and I survived break ups, school, clubs, sports, boys, medical issues, family issues, and everything else together.  We talked about everything together and I trusted her more than anybody, and I still do.  

After high school, we ended up going to colleges a couple hundred miles apart, but we still talked all the time and saw each other as much as we could.  When I got engaged during my freshman year of college, she was one of the first I called.  She was the maid of honor at my wedding.  When I found out I was pregnant three months after my wedding, she was one of the first people I called.  She is our son's godmother - a fantastic one at that! :)  We still talk all the time and every time we see each other, it is as if no time has gone by.  Other than John, she is the only one I can share pretty much anything I am feeling with, and I know she trusts me enough to let me know how she is feeling too.  Even though she lives a couple thousand miles away from me now (off being amazing in a Carnegie Fellowship and teaching math in DC), we still see each other frequently, talk frequently, and are best friends.  

Katherine is one of the most amazing people I know.  She is beautiful, intelligent, witty, funny, compassionate, strong, courageous, wise, spiritual, adventurous, and so many other things!  The way she lives her life and the type of person she is makes me strive to be a better person.  The best sort of friends are those that make your life better and encourage you to be the best version of yourself, and I have that person in Katherine.  We have been book fanatics together since the fourth grade - we recommend books to each other, share books, discuss books, and overall just understand each other so intensely that we could pick out books for each other. :) She is a terrific godmother as well and is so loving and involved with my son that I know his life will be enriched immensely because of her influence.  Not to mention she always gets him some pretty awesome books too and is all about teaching him to be great at math (the one subject I hate). :)  I love Katherine as a sister and as a friend.  I consider her and her family part of mine.  And I know my family considers her part of our family as well.  I know that we are going to have a lifelong friendship filled with lots of laughter, adventures, and love.  I am so thankful to God for giving me a friend like Katherine.  I love you Katherine! :)

Now for some pictures - there are lots of pictures, but I honestly narrowed it down to just my favorites throughout the years since my wedding.  I have pictures of us when we were younger too, but I have to find them and scan them onto my computer - those are better left to a future post of old pics of high school friends anyway. :)  Trust me, these pictures will give you an insight into just how beautiful she is - inside and out. 

***

My wedding - July 15, 2006

(She is on the right)  

 

Katherine holding Johnny the night he was born - July 30, 2007

(In the NICU - she was the 2nd person to hold him that wasn't John or myself)

  

Katherine and Johnny at Starbucks/Barnes & Noble - Aug/Sep 2007

 

 Me & Katherine in Seattle - October 2007

(Johnny's first vacation - we drove to visit Katherine at PLU)

 

Johnny's Baptism - November 2007

(Katherine is Johnny's godmother)

 

  

Katherine and Johnny being silly - July 2008

  

Katherine & my other good friend Bre with Johnny

(July 2008)

* Just a note - Bre was also there the night Johnny was born, which meant a lot to me. :) 

 

Me & Katherine Boating on a Lake - August 2008

(I am always paler than her!)

Katherine and Johnny - May/June 2009

(He had just been beating her up with a box - she's such a good sport)

 

(They made up! They love each other. )

 

(She makes this face when she doesn't know why you are taking her picture)

 

Johnny & Katherine at park - May/June 2009

(Back when Johnny carried his plastic lion around everywhere)

 

Trip Home - Christmas 2009/New Years 2010

(Reading the newspaper together at Thomas Hammer coffee)

 

(Katherine & Johnny were dancing in the rain)

 

(Johnny has a foot fetish - it is usually gross except when he acts silly with people about it)

 

(The most recent picture of our foursome together - Bre, me, Katherine, & Jess.  I love them all!)

 

Day Out With Mommy & Daddy

Today was a lot better day for Johnny! :)  He is still getting his molars but he seemed to be in a better mood today and smiled like his usual self.  We took to Johnny to the Flatirons Mall & the dinosaur play area again this afternoon.  Luckily it wasn't very crowded - probably because it was such a nice day and people were outside.  Johnny had fun playing with the dinosaurs, especially since daddy was there to watch him too.  There were a couple of incidents with some bratty girls who were a couple years older than Johnny and would call him "Stinky Baby" (he didn't smell - we checked & he had a bath before we even left the house) and shoving him out of the way.  They were little bullies and were making John a little peeved, which I don't blame him.  Of course their mothers were nowhere near their children and did nothing to intervene with their little brats.  I wasn't there when they were bullying Johnny or else I would have said something to them or to their parents.  John did a good job of removing Johnny from the situation and playing with him in a different part of the play area, though.  Luckily Johnny didn't really know they were trying to be mean to him; he was just a little nervous of them because they kept crowding him and trying to shove him.  Other than that he had a great time and was all smiles. :) We had lunch at Panda Express and I even got to go to Old Navy and finally use my gift card from Christmas and get some (much needed) clothes for myself while things were still on sale.  All in all a pretty good day and a week from tomorrow we will be driving to Spokane to visit family and friends!!! :)  

Here are some pictures of Johnny playing at the dinosaur indoor play area and some pictures of Johnny "driving" the car afterward before we left the parking lot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grumpy with a Smidgen of Play

I'm about ready to put out a hit on Johnny's molars.  Those darn things are relentless and are cause for an extremely grumpy little boy.  Most of today was various degrees of grumpiness.  *sigh*  It was a really nice day today in Denver though and I didn't want to waste the warm weather.  So, this afternoon when John got home from classes, we got Johnny ready (after a huge screaming fight when we attempted to bathe him) and took him to the park down the road.  It has been a while since he has been to the park because of how cold it has been.  As soon as we got outside, he was a lot happier, though still not feeling well.  Unfortunately by the time we got to the park, it was getting close to dark and was getting pretty cool outside, so we weren't able to stay long.  We have plans to take Johnny to the mall tomorrow and their indoor dinosaur play area.  Hopefully my baby will be feeling a lot better tomorrow - it makes mommy sad and tired when he is in pain and grumpy. 

 

 

 

Once we got home from the park, Johnny decided he was going to talk on his play phone and was gracious enough to share his play cell phone with his daddy too.  It was really adorable to watch them together.  :)

 

For dinner tonight we tried a new recipe that we got off of the Hidden Valley website - it was delicious so I thought I would share it with others. 

Ranch Baked Quesadillas

serves 4

1 cup shredded cooked chicken (we used leftover Salsa Chicken) 

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese 

1/2 cup Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing (or can use low fat)

1/4 cup diced green chilies (we used 1/2 of those little cans)

4 - 9" flour tortillas

Salsa

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine chicken, cheese, dressing and chilies in medium bowl. 

Divide meat mixture evenly between each tortilla; fold in half to seal.

Place quesadillas on baking sheet. 

Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Garnish with salsa.

***

Very simple dinner, especially if you are using leftover shredded Salsa Chicken. :)  Also extremely easy to make and delicious with a bit of a spicy kick.  If you try it out, let me know what you thought in the comments!    

Grumpy Day

Johnny had a Grumpy Day.  I think his molars are still trying to emerge fully, he was tired, and just all-around cranky.  He didn't want daddy to go to school, he didn't want either of us to touch him (or look at him), he didn't want to eat anything or be comforted in the least.  He just wanted to be in a bad mood and he wanted us to deal with it.  John says he gets this from me, but I totally think he gets it from his daddy.  

While I was in the midst of making lunch, Johnny decided to make a phone call on one of his play cell phones.  He talked to this person for a solid twenty minutes - complete with his own language, hand motions, sighs, and even some eye rolls!  I kept peeking into his room to see him being cute and walking around talking to this imaginary person.  Which was fine until Johnny saw me with a camera and then he freaked - he has this new camera phobia that irkes me to no end.  

I got a couple of shots on the camera before he noticed the camera and started getting angry (also notice the lovely mess behind him - his room had been clean about 30 min before this picture and then he decided to flip his play table and chairs over...which had LEGOS all over it...*sigh*):

 

 

Then he got mad for the last couple of pictures and no, that isn't crying, but rather whining (sorry the pictures are a little dark for some reason - they looked a lot lighter on my camera):

 

Here he is screaming at me:

 

After the phone incident and lunch, he took a nap.  I thought this would abate the grumpiness - I was wrong.  If anything, he was grumpier when he woke up.  He didn't want anyone to touch him or look at him or anything.  He just whined and screamed and kicked his feet.  It was ridiculous, but a little amusing to say the least.  John went back to school for his evening class and so it was just Johnny and me hanging out together as usual.  He did a little bit better after dinner and cuddled with me on the couch and we played with some toys and pretended we were dinosaurs.  

The highlight of his night though has been ice cream, hands down.  He was starting to get a little grumpy again - his molars were bothering him - so I brought out an ice cream bar which he enjoyed sitting on our kitchen island while mommy took pictures of his adorable little ice cream beard and facial expressions. :) 

 

 

 

 

He actually let me take pictures this time without a fuss because he was quite immersed with devouring the ice cream. :)  I hope for his sake (and my sanity) that he has a better day tomorrow.  I want to see smiles and giggles and his usual carefree self - no more Grumpy Days!  Daddy should be home soon to say goodnight to the munchkin and then it's off to bed for him (and finally a grumpy-free zone for mommy)!! :)  Oh, and less than two weeks before we go home to see family and friends!  We're so excited!

Eggplant, Spinach & Tomato Lasagne

One thing I hate about living in a large city: the noise.  A loud truck with compression brakes and a sporty car with an overeager horn drove outside our apartment today and woke up Johnny from a nap.  He had only been asleep for twenty minutes.  This makes for a grumpy little boy and a grumpy mommy for the rest of the day.  Screw you, Denver.  

Now, for another recipe.  We made Eggplant, Spinach and Tomato Lasagne for dinner tonight.  I got the recipe from here.

 

This vegetarian lasagne was delicious! The only thing we might not include next time is the eggplant, which seems to be a little ridiculous since it is a main ingredient.  We just didn't like how slimy and chewy the eggplant was in the dish.  Perhaps if we slice the eggplant thinner, it might help the problem.  Also, another note: we peeled the eggplant before slicing since we don't like the rind on eggplant when cooked.  Other than the eggplant, the lasagne was a nice vegetarian dish.  Poor Johnny - he fell in love with the eggplant and wanted to adopt it as a pet but we had to take it away for dinner.  He sobbed for at least ten minutes while he watched us peel and slice it.  It was pitiful how sad he was, but we couldn't help but laugh a little.  I love that little boy more than words.  :)

On another note, I have a song stuck in my head.  It is an awesome song by the Viper Creek Club.  The guitarist in the two-man band from Seattle happens to be one of my friends from high school, Brandon Jensen.  The band has a really unique sound and this song is really catchy.  Check out the link below to their song "Eliza" and its brand new music video released today!  They have an album  Letters  coming out in April.  

Viper Creek Club - Eliza