Rude Awakening

 

Today started out interesting!  And no, it wasn’t because of the snow.  Nothing makes a parent shoot out of bed faster than the sound of vomit hittin’ the sheets!  Yep, Dylan came up to lay with us around 3am and the next thing we knew, our bed was covered in puke.  Too much information for some, I’m sure.  But whatever.  Deal.  And then the snow came.  Not too much, but enough to make it look purdy and make me have the “I want to decorate for Christmas” itch BAD.  I might give in.
I wish someone with a very tall ladder would come over here and decorate that tree.  I always think it would look fantastic with lights on it!  Eric?  Are you reading this?  Wait, who am I kidding – I put up the lights.  Dang it!
We went to town this morning so Eric could try to pull a fast one on the hockey equipment people and scam a pair of skates for our nephew Reed.  It didn’t work out.  Then we went and did some Christmas shopping and had lunch.  And finally, we went to the YMCA (cue the dance) and went swimming.  They really need to do something about the temperature of the water!  Don’t make me bring some band aids next time, Y!   Anyway, once we arrived back at home – you know what had to happen IMMEDIATELY.  Playing in the snow!
And for those who know Avery well, I bet you can guess how she reacted to it all.Yep, not a fan.  Not a fan of cold.  Not a fan of the puffy get up, not a fan of mittens, not a fan of boots.  Hated our wonky sled.  Yep, pretty much hated it all. 
I’m sure she’ll warm up to it. Hey, at least she looked cute! Ahhh, much better! See them building snowmen in the background?  She was perfectly happy to watch from inside. Yeah, so what – picture is taken thru the window!  The wind was way too cold! Finished product!  A smaller, more creepy snowman was also built, but it was too dark to photograph him when he was completed.  Maybe tomorrow.  There – gives you something to look forward to!    Well, time to go be lazy!  Later!

Sullivan Lake Sunset

  Christmas is coming, Dylan’s getting…FLAT!  (That’s how he thinks the song goes! LOL!)"Mom!  Take a picture of me!  I’m flat!”

 

  Not much else to report from today.  Sunset was awesome tonight though -

Yeah, dock is still under water.   

I have nothing more to tell you.  Good. Night.

Distraction

  So I hear I was missed?  Yay!  It was only ONE day, Danny.  I think you can live without your grandchild fix for ONE day!    Truth be told, not much happened yesterday.  We baked some Peanut Butter Kisses (Dylan’s fav) and waited for Gma and Gpa Puppy to arrive for a quick visit before they head to Mexico (jerks).  This morning, Gma and I dropped Dylan off at school and then went SHOPPING (Gpa and Avery stayed home)!  Woohoo!  Sweet, sweet freedom.  Christmas shopping in the Brainerd, people!  Be jelly!  My main agenda though, was to find some shoes to go with Avery’s Christmas outfit.  Mission was accomplished and other mission’s I didn’t know I had were also accomplished.  I’ve had my eye on these cute little purple shoes (coincidently, the style is called “Dylan”) and just had to have them for her.  Um, apparently she doesn’t like them?

Ok, is it time we have the “you are a GIRL.  Act like it!” talk again?  She is dissing SHOES!  What is going on here?!  She screamed like there was poison seeping into her feet from within the shoes.  

“How do I get these things off?!” Finally, I was able to distract her with music and she forgot about them for a few minutes.  

Dylan tried to help with the distraction plan.  I think I was more amused than Avery was.  “Do it again, Dylan!”  He happily obliged.   Then it was time for food.  Spaghetti was decided on.  

And wine.

And bread.There was a minor distraction in the form of a tap, tap, tap on the window.   And a glass of wine later, spaghetti was ready. 

The rest of the wine is now being drunk, so I must supervise the drinking. 

Flipped

  Greetings!  Anyone miss me?  Admit it, you did.  Not a lot has happened in the last day or so.  We had soup.  It was good.  Here is a picture of it.Here is the recipe I used (got it from some random website and changed it a lot, so I’ll just type it out here for you):

Chicken Tortilla Soup

1 rotisserie chicken – shredded

1 can diced tomatoes (15-oz.)
1 can enchilada sauce (10-oz.)
1 medium onion -- chopped
1 can chopped green chilies (4-oz.)
4 cloves garlic -- minced
2 cups water
1 can chicken broth (14 1/2-oz.)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 bay leaves

In your slow cooker, combine shredded chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chilies and garlic. Add water, chicken broth, cumin, chili powder, salt, black pepper and bay leaves. Cover and cook on LOW 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH 3 to 4 hours.

Remove and discard bay leaves.   I puree all our soups, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.  I use a stick blender, which comes in handy so I don’t have to pour it into a blender or food processor.  One less thing to clean! Serve with whatever toppings you want.  We do monterey jack cheese cubes and tortilla chips.  This cheese gets all melty and the big globs of melty goodness are delicious!

Well, its a good thing these two are cute because it was a LONG morning.  Wanna know why?  Oh, because we all decided to get up in the 5 o clock hour!  I got up at 5 like I always do for my workout.  Dylan was up at 5:15 to give me form pointers.  And Avery was up at 5:20ish because of her brother’s soft spoken voice.

They may LOOK like they are in decent moods, but don’t let these pictures fool you.  Either one could have flipped a switch at any second (and trust me, they did).  Notice there are no pictures of me today?  Well, I was feeling a bit flippy myself!    

I would like the phone number to someone who can help me with this problem.  The problem is the time change.  Why do we have that again?  To screw up the lives of those of us with small children for a week twice a year?  At least, I’m hoping its only a week of my time! 

Until then, we will have to coast on their good looks and charm.

What’s so funny, Dylan?!  This is serious!  If you don’t start sleeping to your normally scheduled wake up time,  Mom might lose it!  I didn’t even get A cup of coffee in before he got up!  Heck, I was still in the clutches of torturous thigh work courtesy of the Bar Method!  

Anyway…moving on.  It was 60+ degrees today!  On November 9th!  Who flipped the summer switch back on?  Seriously, at one point I considered putting on a tank top to try and get some sun!  So, we spent most of the afternoon outside enjoying it.  With the rink still iceless (duh), Dylan had to do the next best thing.  

He really does have a wickedly scary slap shot for a four year old.  I had to take cover many, many times.

Eric stained the swing chair yesterday.  He wanted a picture of it for you all to see.  

Mux was out catching mice, as usual.  I even saw one scurry away from her and later it turned up dead.  Dang it, Mux, I don’t need to see that!   Final bike ride of the year???

 

Love how Avery is mid fall in this one!

Seriously – his slap shot is POWERFUL.  

Split THREE balls in two today.

And he of course had to play some more after dinner tonight.  Lit by the light of my super awesome icicle lights!  Be jelly!  

This picture kinda makes me excited for snow and the ice to go in. 

Only a teensy bit though.

Later!