Super Bowl

Today was a beautiful day! The high I saw on the car was 68 degrees, with the sun shinning great. So happy the gloom has been gone for a while. I could never live in Seattle. I need the sun. One month of gloom isn't too bad when you know the end is in site.

Unless you were on another planet today you would know that Super Bowl was today. Whether or not you watch it is another story. "We" watch it in some form, well, Russ really does the watching. I on the other hand watch when the comercials come on and really spend most of the time eating. We had a great time over at some new friends house. They invited us over and, man, did we eat! One of the things I made for the Super Bowl is my Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies (The recipe was developed with thanks from Jen Graham). Below is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 package of your favorite brownie mix (with ingredients called for in the mix)
1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 large semi-chocolate candy bar

1. Mix brownie mix and preheat oven as described by your favorite directions, then set aside.
2. mix peanut butter and powdered sugar. If too sticky add more powdered sugar. Spread evenly on top of chocolate bar.
3. place half of brownie mix in prepared pan. Place the peanut butter/chocolate bar on top and cover with other half of brownie mix. Cook as directed.

** if you like it gooey eat it right away. But eating it after it has cooled is yummy too when you have a thick piece of chocolate in the middle.

Tomorrow back to "eating right life-style change". LOL.

house hunting

Today we ended up looking at open houses after a lazy morning. We went out to look at 4 houses. The first one needed A LOT of work inside and had a swimming pool (which we are trying to buy without). The second was Russell's favorite. And I do have to admit it was quite nice and if it was $30,000 less I would really like it too. LOL. It had new paint and new carpet throughout. It was built in 2004 and was on a large lot. The only thing it had going wrong with it is since it is a foreclosure a couple of random things were missing. One of the things that were missing is the dishwasher. When the previous owners took it out they broke several tiles in the process. And there was a little bit of mildew damage behind the dishwasher from probably a leak from the dishwasher, no sign of it coming from anywhere else. The third house we looked at was pretty nice but it had a very small backyard. The fourth house ended up not having an open house after all. Which was a bummer--I was really looking forward to that one.

Not a whole lot of interesting things going on today. We drove around a little and stopped by the store, made it home in time for me to cook dinner and give the kids a bath and send them to bed. Russ and I are sitting around a little exhausted. He's watching his recorded Jeopardy shows. LOL. We are not too exciting today.

I need to come up with something better to talk about on here. I don't know if our daily lives are that exciting. LOL.

Day 4

This family has gotten hit by a small "cold bug". Penelope woke up with a little cough, Austyn has had a runny nose for a while, Russ says he feels a little under the weather, and my throat is scratchy. It's a very mild cold in this household so far. But I'm hoping and praying that we all get better soon. Did I tell you my vitamins came in the mail today? I'm super excited about that! I also got some vitamins for the kids so maybe they will get over their sicknesses before Superbowl. Superbowl is a great time when it involves socialization in this family. LOL. Meaning this family is full of people who love to just be around other people.--Somehow just being around each other isn't enough. ;) Anyways, because Penelope was coughing a lot this morning we canceled orientation at the Preschool. We rescheduled it for Tuesday. Doubtfully I'm going to most likely miss Women's Bible study, always a bummer when it involves Beth Moore.

I ended up hanging out with the kids before going into work. AND! I ended up getting off work early today! AWESOME! I went in at 11 and got off at 6! My kids were so happy to have me home. I miss being home with them. Since we had the evening to spare we ran over to Guitar Center, one of Russell's favorite places in the world, and browsed a little. We needed new strings for his guitars and a tuner (since we got rid of the piano). Since I have the tuner I also tuned the violin. I need new strings for the violin too but they don't sell them at guitar center. It's been a long time since I picked up the violin. I'm going to need a lot of practice before I can play in front of anyone besides my most forgiving husband. I'll have to work on the calluses on my fingers too; they need to toughen up some.

We are tossing up what we should do tomorrow. I really wanted to go to the snow. But we still have to buy snow boots for the whole family and a jacket for Russ. That would defiantly set us back some. I think it is suppose to be a beautiful day tomorrow (a high of 65 and mostly sunny). Trying out some of the trails with the hubby and the kids in a jogging stroller sounds nice. Maybe there are some open houses we can stop by at? We still haven't taken Penelope to see Tangled. Is that still in theaters? Or maybe in the 3-dollar theaters?

I do have to say Russ is really getting the hang of being home. He's doing well with the kids and taking them out, working around getting things done and their nap schedule. He is doing fairly well with keeping the house clean. I'm really proud of how well he's handled switching roles with me. And I respect him for that.

Day 3

Well, day 3 started off as a hard start. Russ and I woke up to Penelope coming into bed with us at 4:30 in the morning saying she had a bad dream. Within about 10 minutes we realized it was much more then that. If some of you guys don't know my daughter has had some kind of stomach problems from time to time. It started when she was about 1 1/2 years old and after holiday meals only. She would be puke-y the following day like clockwork. After talking to the pediatrician it was decided it was most likely heartburn, from the holiday meals, that her small body didn't know how to handle. Over time it has come and gone. But is now less often after holidays and more spontaneous. Still about 3 times a year, maybe 4. The poor thing. She hates throwing up. She will deny that she feels sick until she can't hold it back anymore. All the while showing all the other symptoms of being ill. I'm not quite sure what it is that is making her sick. Personally I'm still praying and hoping that she will grow out of it. The only thing that has been tossed around now is that it might be allergies, but it isn't consistent. If it is anything else more serious I would hate for her to have to have surgery. So I go back to hoping she will grow out of it. She stopped being sick (sparing you the details) by early morning. But her appetite, I guess, was a little poor. She kept saying all day "I feel fine, Daddy." Ahhh, my little girl.

I officially signed up Penelope for Preschool. And the start date is February 14th, she is going 2 days a week on Monday/ Wednesday until they have an opening on Tuesday/ Thursday. Tomorrow we have orientation, we will go as a whole family before I have to run off to work again. She is going to be so excited her first day of school. My little girl is growing up. Russ and I keep joking around about her entering 1st grade, as she states to us.

Austyn took another spill. I haven't seen it yet because he is sound asleep by the time I got home. But supposedly he was running and stopped his feet before his body was ready to stop and down he went. He has a little rug burn under his nose. Right when his other bruises were healing he's got another. I guess I will have to get use to it. Hopefully he doesn't end up a dear devil and give his mommy a heart attack in my later years. LOL.

I went running today after work! I'm so proud of myself. I've done a work out video after work but not gone running. It felt so good though. I've been thinking a lot about turning 30 this year. I know it still is 9 months away. I think it has something to do about not celebrating the last 2 birthdays much. I feel like I should really celebrate this one. And then I think maybe I should get more face creams or start taking vitamins. (I did order vitamins.) People laugh at me when I talk to them about it. But I want to do something "to keep my youth" (for lack of a better word). And I want to celebrate somehow nice. Any ideas? What would you do if you could do something special?

Russell again wants to be not to verbal about his day. He states he's tired from the day. I set up doctors appointments for each member of the family this month. Very excited about the things I crossed off my to-do list today. Did I tell you I also ordered a camera? Our camera has been lost for about a month now. And I need pictures up on a blog. It makes it so much more interesting. Don't you agree? And of course we have to capture Penelope's first day of school!

Day 2

Today we went to another preschool to check out before I went to work. It was very nice, but I think the other preschool is going to work better for our family. So we will be enrolling Penelope in Bright Beginnings Preschool maybe tomorrow to start soon. The start date is to be decided still. I want to be there for her first day of school. But looking at the other preschool the church that it is located at is doing a 3-6 year old T-ball! It looked so fun! Russ and I are still debating it a little, because that would be a lot of taking the kids around to take Penelope to things. T-ball has an afternoon practice and Saturday game for every week for 8 weeks from April to May. It's only 8 weeks. But I'm not the one taking the kids.

I went off to work after that and Russ took the kids to the park. According to Russell, the kids got dirty and wet. Austyn likes going down slides head first. And Russ is informing me that he went down by himself. Oh boy. Well, either way at least they had fun today. Russ had fun disciplining Austyn about messing with the water cooler. Well, that is what I got from Russ about his day with the kids.

I had a good day at work. I met a patient who was a runner. He could run a quarter of a mile in 71 seconds (or something close to that), and he said he has slowed down with age. I asked him for some pointers for training to run faster and longer distances. He really inspired me. I was thinking about getting off of work and going running. And then I got off work at 9:30 pm and my feet and my legs hurt from being on them all day. Maybe I'll go running tomorrow before work. :/

I am thinking about letting myself have a pedicure if I stick with eating right for 2 weeks. I'm like a kid I do better with rewards. LOL.

All Russ is giving me for himself is "He is working on himself"

Blogruary

Well here we go...I've always somewhat considered blog-a-day things that I've seen my other friends do. But never have actually committed. With moving away I feel like I should post more. Plus this month is the shortest month, so that makes it easier on me.

Today was my day off, and it seems that I try to fit everything I possibly can into a day off that I can. We are adjusting well enough. I miss being home with the kids. The kids seem to be just fine now with me leaving for work. It took Austyn about 2 weeks to adjust to that. After tossing up whether to enroll Penelope in dance class again or preschool, we decided to ask Penelope what she wanted more. She stated and begged to be in school. And then continued to say that she is going into 1st grade (her cousin, Emily, is in 1st grade). Russell tried to correct her to no avail, so we left her thinking she's going into 1st grade. I have 2 in mind, I toured one with her today and she loved it. I feel a lot better about preschools then the feelings I got from day cares. So we will have to wait till Austyn's 2 1/2 years old before he could go to this preschool.

Austyn climbed out of his highchair today and ended up with a big bruise on his forehead. He got a black eye from tripping while holding a cup and the cup lip hit the under part of his eye. He looks like he has been in a bar brawl. LOL. My poor baby. He sure is a toddler. But I guess he's a boy.

Russell is doing well. He is doing pretty good with the kids all day and taking care of the house. We recently got a program that goes over "fast carbs" and "slow carbs". If anything it will teach him more about a true diabetic diet. Hopefully we can start his schooling summer or fall at latest.

I am enjoying my career. Trying to work hard to loose the holiday weight plus maybe 5 or 10 more pounds that I didn't loose from last year. But I have a while before I hit the pool in a bathing suit. At least that is what I keep telling myself. I started a women's bible study today, Esther by Beth Moore. I've done it before but I don't mind doing it again. It's always tough being a women (the theme of the study). : )

Russell and I want to take our kids to the snow since it is so close to us about 1 hour away. Plus they got some snow outfits from my mom from Christmas. We went to Sports Authority today and got some awesome deals on some essentials we needed. The whole family still needs snow shoes, Russ still needs a jacket, and of course a sleigh. Plus I told Russ we needed some chains for our tires. And at that point he stopped in his tracks. LOL. I guess we will conquer that road when we get there. We still have to do more exploring of the area. There is a lot to do here. We are starting to remember more names of streets and their relation to one another, which helps a lot.

We most likely can't qualify for a home loan until I'm off the probation from being a new hire at work. We are still looking at listings. Now we have more time to save some money and get our bearings on the area. Of course in the meantime we are drooling over houses that we see.

We found a church that is slowly feeling like home. The people in the church have really welcomed us in and befriended us. Slowly we will find our nitch in the church in the mean time we are being blessed! :D

Off of us, I have a friend who gave birth today. Congratulations to the Loper family! They have entered into a family of 4 like us. So happy for them.

MMXI

We met some friends and they introduced us to some other friends. Anyways, we were actually invited over to someone's house for New Years! Yay! We had a good time hanging out and playing games before the clock hit midnight. At which point Penelope turned into a pumpkin and was in desperate need for her own bed. LOL.

Here are some pictures from that night.

Penelope playing with some of the kids at the beginning of night a board game called Sequence. I took another picture of Penelope but she just kept telling me to "go away". By the way, we played the adult Sequence and it was fun. The women beat the men 3-0. Just sayin'.


Russ enjoying the game with the guys. Don't ask me who was playing. But I know it was football. And I learned at this point that there are a lot of different bowls. In my defense Russ doesn't remember which bowl it was either. LOL.

Paul and Kimberly

Robin and Gary (Robin is my co-worker in the OR)

Russ and I. Below is the best picture I have of Penelope. Sadly I just noticed I didn't take any of Austyn. He was asleep in the pack 'n play in the guest room by 8 pm. And I don't think I remembered my camera till after that. Poor guy, he's the second child. But there are going to be many more years to take pictures with him.