scenes from a monday

Oh Monday, we meet again. 

Today Im telling myself that it's actually Wednesday, because our weekend begins on Wednesday this week! Thank you Thanksgiving!

1. day after laundry day  2. real life builder bob, all day every day.

3. cold, but not cold enough 4. another rain, another mess

 5. making meal after meal so owyn can turn them all away 6. getting ready for Turkey Day!

food, why do you have to taste so good?

This week our taste buds are traveling Asia. 

Well, they think they are, but it's really just me experimenting. Shhh.. don't tell them. 

I've been going outside of my comfort zone this week in the kitchen and we have not been disappointed. 

(1) Homemade Thai  (2) ice cream with left over twix from Halloween

 (3) Chickpea Curry, Basmati Rice and Naan (4) a full sink of dirty dishes

I gotta hand it to those Indian woman, wow, that meal kicked my butt! I was so exhausted when I was done, I didn't even have an appetite.  And look at all those dishes! My dishwasher is full of clean dishes and I really don't want to unload just to load all of those, so those babies are stayin there overnight!) 

I'm pretty sure Im headed for obesity. Thanks a lot Pinterest. 

Recipes! 

image 1: Pad Thai

image 3: Naan 

Indian Stew

everybody loves a good jam sesh.

owyn cracks me up. he has to be the coolest kid on earth. pretty sure. 

whenever he hears a song he likes, he runs for his guitar (everything must be rushed in his little world) and makes me play piano. he's very serious about it. "MOM, MOMMY PLAY PIANO!" he yells while pointing to the coffee table. how could i say no?

Little Miss Riley Jo Jo

I love my niece, she is the most precious thing in the world. 

Owyn is also smitten. He talks about her ALL the time. Everything that is pink, girl or baby, he thinks it belongs to Riley. Sometimes he wakes up from a nap and asks for her. It's adorable. But, when they are together after a while, he starts acting up and doesn't know how to express his emotions and takes it out on her. It's pretty sad. 

He likes to teach her everything he knows. Some stuff, I wish he'd leave out.. 

I used to love rain storms.

And then we bought this house. 

And now a rain storm means loads of cleaning up to do. 

We are pretty OCD about our patio. I don't know why, but we are. We clean that thing off more often than we clean our floors. 

I am also OCD about our windows. I hate having dirty splotchy windows, it makes the whole house feel dirty.Last week Owyn and I went on a cleaning spree and I cleaned the windows inside and out. Cleaning our windows SUCK because they are 60 years old and are actually 20 little windows that make up 1 big one ( okay, that's probably not explaining it well, but you can see what I mean in the photos) so it takes 20x longer to clean. I have a method that works really great now, after trying different things. I spray it all down and then take my carwash glove, dip it in a bucket of dish soapy water and scrub the windows, then I spray them down again and squidgy. After everything is dry I go over then with a micro fiber cloth and Windex or rubbing alcohol. You see, I take it pretty seriously. And it takes forever! I used up an entire nap time cleaning windows. And you wanna know what? It rained 3 days later and now I have dirty splotchy windows again. 

Awesome.

Peace and Freedom

Last night I read this incredible post by Jennifer. 

I bawled my eyes out. I can't shake the thoughts this post has brought into my brain. And you know what, I don't want to. Occasionally we come across these awful unimaginable stories that hit the pit of our stomach and then we fill our minds with meaningless things to distract us from the evil that is in this world. Because we can. I think we need to know and be aware and not forget. 

Tonight as Dave and I were discussing the bible and new things we've learned or discovered, as we do every night, I told him about this post. And bawled my eyes out again. It really makes us realize how a.) incredibly blessed we are to be born with so much opportunity and b.) how we need to use these blessings and opportunities to serve the Lord. 

Then I came across these two verses:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

 John 14:27

The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

Psalm 29:11

Jennifer is such an inspiring woman. I want to have the strength that she has to go to such a dangerous and unfamiliar place for the love of God and his people. What a blessing it must be to for these young girls to have someone like her to devote themselves to give them hope, peace and freedom.  

I know that by prayer, I too can obtain the strength that she has been given.

Thank you Jennifer for doing what you do and sharing it with all of us.

Please go visit Jennifer if you are not already a follower. 

For another inspiring faith blog that I love check out: 

http://beautifuljourneyblog.com/

xoxo

Recently

It's obvious that I haven't been posting as much lately. 

I recently discovered that when I'm not on the computer I'm getting a million other things done. Who would've known?

other things that have been happening recently:

- Trying to plan for our future and our next move. This includes where we want to buy our next house, when I should get a full time job, whether or not I should go to grad school, when to have our next child, what career changes Dave wants to make and what we should invest in. This grown up thing is hard. 

- It has finally cooled off here in Phoenix. Thank goodness! 

It's so hard getting out of bed in the morning. 

I love bundling up in a blanket, drinking hot coffee and having an excuse to wear sweats. 

Back in the Kitchen

I can't tell you how long it's been since Ive cooked.
I've been in a funk lately. Some might call it lazy, but Ill call it a funk. 

Dave doesn't get home until at least 7pm so that means we have 1.5 hours to cook, eat, clean, bath, and read stories to Owyn before he goes down and then we're beat. I never thought Id be that woman to eat frozen meals but that's been me the past couple months. Well, I'm sick of it and quite honestly getting bored so I'm back cooking in the kitchen. I forgot how much I love to cook and how happy it makes Dave (as long as I do the dishes ;)).

The other night I made pasta carbonara for the first time, it was uh-mazing! 

Dave and I took our first bite, looked up at eachother nodding our heads up and down with huge smiles saying "aaaw- yeah"! Anything with "carb" i nthe name is bound to be delicious, right?

I did a traditional carbonara with bacon, parmesan, egg, parsely and lemon but I also sauteed breaded chicken and threw that in there and baked it all together. wow.

Halloweeeenies

Hey guys, guess what, we're back from our vacation! 

We have been for a week but Ive been bad and haven't posted. 

More on that later. 

Did you have an awesome Halloween?

Owyn and I passed out candy to our neighbors while we waited for Dad to come home. Our hood was busy! I bought a lot of candy (really good kind like fundip) and I started out really generous because I feel bad for kids these days. I used to come home with a pillow case FULL of candy, and nowadays the kids walk around with little tiny buckets a happy meal could fit in and when they're lucky 40% of the houses on a block are open for business. It breaks my heart. But anyway, I ran out of candy after the first hour and Dave had to bring me some more. He brought home so much that I had to be really generous again. Owyn has lived through 3 Halloweens and we still haven't taken him trick or treating. We don't let him have candy (unless it's a special occasion) so there's really no point in taking him around. Plus, I'd rather him be doing the giving than taking. That's just me.One day when he's older and can make the decision to go out, he's more than welcome to.

Once Dave got home we packed up shop and took Owyn to the Harvest Festival at church and then stopped by grandma's house.

This year I began carrying on Grandma I's luminary tradition. The kids were more interested in those than the candy. 

 

 

I tried to do a last minute costume and be a 70's girl, but Dave said I looked like I usually do so I guess that means I don't win most creative costume award this year.