Confessions of a stay at home mom

I know you all have those days, when you think, I really shouldn't have gotten out of bed.

Well today has been one of those for me. My kids slept in which was nice since they NEVER do that (should have know it was only downhill from there).

My parents are in town. They came in town for my dad's high school reunion a few hours away. So they aren't really here for us, which is ok because we get to go visit them this summer. They got in last night and left late this morning, but I'm glad they were her for the morning!

I had every intention to make breakfast! I went into the kitchen to find water coming out from underneath my fridge! Turns out the hose that brings water from under the sink to the fridge got a hole in it. I pulled out my fridge and I quickly soaked up 3-4 bath towels, dripping with water! My husband had already left for work, or course! Then I realized I should probably take the stove out and sure enough there was a lot of water back there too. I couldn't get the water for the hose to turn off. I knew where it was but I couldn't get the thing to turn. Luckily my husband works 5 minutes from work and it was slow at work, so he came home and got that taken care of. By this point my parents had gotten up and were helping me. I was hoping to let them sleep in but I'm sure all the commotion woke them up.

I'm sure I could go on and on about what happened and what still needs to get done. Needless to say we had cold cereal for breakfast.

Has anything like this happened to you?

And it seems like today my kids are more hyper than normal and not listening and fighting more. Is that because of me, I don't know. But let's just say I need this day to be over and just hope I have the patience I am severely lacking right now!

Chocolate Banana Caramel Cupcake

So for my birthday I had these!

They turned out pretty good, all things considered. At first I went into my birthday thinking I was going to make a chocolate peppermint filled cupcake. Sounded super yummy. But I made the pudding filling, it didn't taste right. I tried several things to try to improve it, but it didn't work. So I came up with this option from combining a little from several different recipes I had looked through.

First I just made a batch of chocolate cupcakes from a box, you could make them from scratch. Then I let them cool and then took the centers out so I could fill them. I used the idea from here to cut out the center.

For the filling I used a small box of sugar free instant banana cream pie pudding and made it according to the box. Then before I let it set up I added a small container of of cool whip. Then I stirred in about 1/4 c. of caramel topping. Then I put it in the fridge and let it set up. When it came close to time for cupcakes I cut up 2 bananas pretty small and stirred them in. Then I put the filling in a ziplock bag and filled the middle of the cupcakes and then put the tops back on.

For the frosting, I just put a big frosting tip on a ziplock bag and then filled it half with vanilla frosting and half with chocolate frosting. Once I piped the frosting on I drizzled some caramel on top and garnished with bananas.

Confessions of a stay at home mom

I think all of us have "secrets". Well maybe they aren't secrets but we like to keep it to ourselves, and pretend like we don't do these things as mothers, but when we hear other people say it we kind of smile and chuckle, because it makes us a little happy and feel good that we aren't the only ones who do these things.

1)I don't really like to do laundry. Ok that probably isn't a secret, I'm sure most of us don't. It seems like the more kids we have the harder it is to stay on top of it. Well instead of staying on top of it, I usually do it when it's a necessity. Like when there are no more clean pairs of underwear and I know it needs to be done. Or all my exercise wear is dirty, and I know the people that I'm next too in a class won't appreciate the already sticky sweaty clothes.

2)What goes better with washing clothes then folding. This is the worst part for me. Sometimes clothes or towels stay in the dryer until I need to put another load in which might be a few days. Or the hubby is looking for something and ask if there is any clean and I say go check the dryer, and while you are at it bring the clean stuff up so I can take care of it.

3)Even worse than folding, or at least for me is hanging up clothes. When I'm folding clothes I usually toss the stuff to be hung up into another basket that is all the clothes that need to be hung up. I usually wait until this is full before I do anything about it. Which means most of the time they get a "few" wrinkles in them. I kind of wish it would take care of itself. When I'm folding clothes I can just be in one place and put everyone's folded clothes in their own piles and then they can take care of them. But with the hang up stuff, that requires me to get up and go into the different bedrooms to put them away. Not too hard I know but I still don't like it.

Well I think I've probably aired enough of my own "dirty laundry" for today. I hope this makes some of you moms feel a little better about that job you are doing. We all have those days! And we all have those tasks we don't like doing!

Thankful Thursday

Today being my birthday my thoughts are turned to life.

On this Thankful Thursday I am thankful for:

1)My life, and the wonderful parents I have

2)My body and being healthier now than ever before

3)For my wonderful family (I wish I got to see them more)

4)The gospel of Jesus Christ that brings my life so much hope and happiness.

and

5)This very thoughtful and wonderful post from my husband.

Do you ever feel...

...like your life is boring. You get in the same old routine as a mom and feel like, what do I have to send out to cyber space that anyone will find interesting. Well that's me! I've gotten in a funk. When I started this blog I was religious about posting, but sometimes I feel like I have nothing to entertain the few of you that are out there that read this.

So why the post then....Well I got a nice little text from a cute friend of mine saying she just found my blog. Now don't be judging her about being a friend and just finding my blog because #1 I don't pass around my blog info to everyone I know and #2 we just recently met when she moved into our neighborhood. Needless to say her text made me think. Why don't I blog, I have to time to do it? I feel like I have nothing exciting to share. I'm sure I'm not the only one, RIGHT?

As mom you get into a routine. For me that consists of cooking, feeding kids, laundry, exercise, trying to keep my house clean, etc., etc., etc. So what about that is exciting or would people like to read about?

So here's to trying again.

I've come up with a topic for 4 days, so that should give me some ideas of things to write about. So here goes nothing. And thanks to my friend for helping me want to get back in the swing of things.

Happy Anniversary

What a wonderful day! Ten years ago today I married my wonderful husband for time and all eternity. Time has flown. I can't believe it has been 10 years and we have 3 wonderful children together. How lucky I am to have you in my life! From the moment I met you I know there was something different about you. I never met a guy that insisted on opening doors for girls, even when you weren't on a date or dating someone. I tried my hardest to not have this be anything serious, but Heavenly Father knew differently. I'm glad you were patient with me and still are. How lucky we are to be together! I love you more than I show sometimes, and I'm sorry for that! I look forward to the rest of our lives and eternity together. Thanks for loving me, my imperfections and all.

P.S. I miss you and can't wait for you to be home!

Happy Birthday

It's been a pretty crazy week. It started off with the tree incident. And then on Sunday we had a birthday celebration for my mom since she was in town visiting, even though her birthday wasn't for 2 more days. Then on Monday we celebrated this handsome boy's birthday.

I can't believe he is 8! Where did time go? On his birthday we celebrated with family and had with cake.

Then today we celebrated with friends. He wanted an animal party so we had a friend of ours who owns a wildlife education facility. It was a hit, or at least I loved it. I wish I would have taken more pictures. I always think about getting my camera out a little too late. She brought a chinchilla, a skunk, an umbrella cockatoo, a bunny,

and a sulcata tortoise. Oh how cute, these two were reunited, although I don't think they really cared, since our little titan wouldn't come out of "his" (not sure its gender, but we always refer to Titan as a boy) shell. This is Titan with his mother. He used to be the size of a quarter when he was born, but he is much bigger now. It's amazing how much he has grown in a little over a year.

To go along with the animal theme we made these adorable cupcakes.

Happy Birthday to my little man.

Our happenings

Things have been pretty crazy lately, we've had somewhere to be every weekend for the past several weeks. A couple weekends ago we made a trip up to Oregon to visit my brother and his family (we don't see them often enough). We were only there for the weekend and drove so we probably spent just as much time in the car as we did with family, but it was worth it! We had a good time, even though we had to drive through a pretty crazy storm. Here are some pictures of the trip.

And this past Sunday morning we woke up to this.

Then later that morning the last standing piece fell so our big huge tree was laying on the ground in 4 pieces. We finally broke down and bought a chain saw since we couldn't find one to borrow. Most of the tree is now down, but we have a lot of work still to do.