Weekend Recap

J and I had the pleasure of hosting his two nephews this weekend while his sister was out of town. It's the first time we've had the responsibility of being in charge of children together so I was eager to see how we'd handle it (and whether or not the children would survive). We started off Saturday morning by going to Target to pick out a few "necessities" and ended up with a cart that looked like this:

This of course was before the giant tent and glow-in-the-dark soccer ball were thrown in. As I said, we had to get the necessities. After that we went to Gamestop where I made the mistake of staying in the car and letting all 3 boys pick out some video games. Let's just say I think the purchase at that store was more for my husband's benefit than anyone else's. We followed this up with a visit to the Sonic drive-thru, which is always a pleasant experience.
After we went home and played for a while, Grandpa came over and we decided to go to the Laser Tag/Arcade/Bowling place near our house. I think everybody had a great time.
I'm not sure who had more fun, him or the boys...

Grandpa and Shawn playing


After playing laser tag and a slew of arcade games, we cashed in our 667 tickets for 2 small bouncy balls, 2 plastic flash lights, 2 rope bracelets and 2 dolphin key chains, and decided to head home.
We ended the night by lighting up the fire pit and making smores which I think everybody enjoyed. Then J and the boys put up their brand new tent while I blew up the air mattresses in true roughing it fashion.




I had to get up early and head back in to work Sunday morning, but not before enjoying a pancake breakfast with these 2 boys

I think we all had a great time and are hoping we get the chance to do it again soon. They are such sweet boys (and they go to bed early!).
Hope you all had a great weekend!

Home sweet home (away from home...)

The past 40 hours of my life have been spent here:

My call room at the hospital. It's not too bad, and I'm just glad I have somewhere to rest and decompress! In addition to my lovely room are some great nurses, who never cease to keep me entertained.

Exhibit A: Audrey (AKA Swami) who I met last fall and seem to have a lot in common with. We both got married on the same weekend last March, and we both failed the great cracker challenge of 2010. But that's a whole different post.
The days leading up to this 2 day work-induced hibernation were actually quite productive. I went to the local sewing store in hopes that they could fix my machine, and instead ended up walking out of there with a brand new (FABULOUS) one. I think my mom is going to have sewing machine envy. It's a BabyLock Sofia and embroiders, monograms, and has all kinds of great functions. I went home right away and finished the kitchen curtains AND a baby blanket that was made for one of my friends. The blanket was a bit of a challenge, but overall I think it came out pretty well and I'm excited for her to see it.



I have a few new projects lined up that I'm eager to get started on , and I'm going back to the sewing store next week so they can give me a one on one tutorial on how to work my machine.
Overall it's been a productive week. Although, being stuck in the hospital hasn't been good for my wallet. I bought these cute shoes and purse online today:



At least they were on sale.
Have a great weekend!

Precious Time

So, as you can see it has been awhile again since my last post. I'd like to say it's because I've been doing really important work, or changing the world, or anything else worthwhile, but the truth is, I've been basking in the glory of working once a week. I've been staying up late reading books, going to bed without setting an alarm, going to the gym, spending time with some of my favorite children in the world, and overall enjoying life. Of course, I've also been fine-tuning my domestic skills like picking up the dry cleaning, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and cooking. I mean, just last night I made fish sticks and sweet potato fries for dinner. Don't judge, I think it's J's favorite meal. His face lit up like a 4 year-old at Chuck E Cheese when he saw what I had made. Tonight we went out for dinner, because I wouldn't want to use up my newfound cooking skills all at once.

I've also been trying to finish some sewing and craft projects, but have been unsuccessful thus far. My sewing machine has decided to rebel against me before I could finish the curtains for the kitchen, an experience that has taken me to a new level of frustration. So tomorrow will consist of a trip to Joann's to see if they can help exercise whatever demon has taken residence in the bobbin holder thingy (yes, that is the official term) thus causing it to malfunction. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to post some pictures of my kitchen curtains hanging in all of their homemade glory.

Anyways, I've been trying to think of some fun things to post on the blog and one of the things I decided to do was post some weight-watchers friendly recipes that aren't entirely tasteless and boring (although it will be hard to top my fishsticks and fries feast). I've been in the gym every day and trying to eat healthy, and looking for some fun things to make (which unfortunately means staying away from my Pioneer Woman cookbook...). So if any of you have any recipes you'd like to contribute, email me and let me know!

Hope you all are having a great week. J and I are hosting his nephews this weekend while his sister is out of town and I'm really excited about it. I'll try and take some pictures and let you know how our first experience in parenting goes!

It's Been a While..

I tried not to look at the date of my last post, since my goal was to keep this blog updated fairly recently. I go back and forth between the understanding that most people really don't care about what I had for lunch or what I did at work or any other mundane details of my life. On the other hand, I wanted to keep this blog as a way to journal all of the events (exciting or otherwise) of my life, just to have something to look back on. So with that warning, here are all the fun details of my week!

I've actually had the past ten days off, because February 1st marked the beginning of my FABULOUS new schedule where I work 6 days of (24 hour) call at the hospital a month. That's right, I work full time and I only do 6 days a month. I told you it was fabulous. Anyways, I tried to cram a lot in this past week and a half and I think I managed to succeed. I had the pleasure of taking two of my favorite little girls to pain pottery on Tuesday at a fun place called "You Do the Dishes". You go in and pick a piece of pottery and sit down and paint it in whatever fun way you decide. Since I'm lacking the creative gene, this has never resulted in something I would consider displaying around my house, but I figured the girls would enjoy it and they did. Here are a few pics of them painting their masterpieces (I'm sure their mom can't wait to proudly display the multi-colored miniature horse and whimsical fairy that were painted....I suggested the fireplace mantle!).





Inspired by my recent creativity in painting pottery (notice I didn't post any pictures of my "artwork", although the girls promised me it was beautiful. Is it bad that I need to get affirmation from a 4 and 6 year old?), I had Tara and Jenn over to bake and decorate Valentines Day cookies. Jenn and I were not new to this process, but Tara was, and we decided to pass on our wisdom to her (read: we needed to have another person to tell us how fabulous our cookies were and to help keep my husband from eating all the dough). Pictures were taken, however, it was 10:30 at night, we were covered in flour and hyped up on icing, and needless to say, the outcome was not flattering. So instead I'll show you the end result.



I did learn that you can't stack the cookies before they are completely dried, or they'll stick to each other and end up not so pretty (see picture above).
We are by no means experts at this, but we've come along way from our first attempt which included the mistake of tripling the recipe, 9 cups of flour and a handheld mixer....not a good combination. Needless to say, we are getting better and it was a lot of fun just getting to spend time with my sweet friends.
Anyways, this is Valentines Day weekend and we've got plans to go to dinner and see Wicked! I am so excited (even though I've already seen it) and have desert with some friends after. I can't wait! Anybody else doing anything special?