Multi Monday!

I'm not super great about updating my blog every day (or two or five) so I thought I would introduce 'Multi Monday' and just hit on some favorites for the week. Let's see how long this lasts!

1. I made Lazy Sunday Casserole tonight, even though it is no longer Sunday. I doubled the recipe, added more red bell peppers and threw in a green pepper just for good measure. We heart this meal so much and we are NEVER disappointed!

2. We are following the 2/3 Vegan lifestyle that I read about through the Mark Bittman website. Basically you eat vegan (no animal products) for breakfast and lunch, but then you eat a light version of 'normal' food for dinner (lean meats and veggies, pizza with lots of veggies, etc). We did this a couple months ago for 2 weeks and we felt less bloated and more energetic throughout the day. For breakfast I do baked oatmeal with almond milk, lunch is whole grain pasta with marinara sauce, and dinner was the casserole from bullet point 1. Tomorrow is the same for breakfast, boca burgers for lunch and roast beef and carrots for dinner. It's so easy to be vegan throughout the day when you know you can have meat and cheese for dinner! :)

3. I am super enjoying reading Mortal by Ted Dekker this week! This is the second book in the Book of Mortals series, but it's the first that I have read. I listened to the first on audio. I have to say that I love to listen to audio books because I do so when I'm in the car, walking the dog, on the treadmill, making dinner, etc. However, I'm a huge nerd and sometimes I just need to turn pages. If you have read any of Dekker's books, you'll love this series as well. So many of his books run together, or have character overlaps, but this series does not. If you've never read Dekker, I recommend that you read the Circle Trilogy. It's kind of like Narnia meets Lord of the Rings. That's the best comparison I've got.

4. I am SO psyched for the premiere of my shows this fall! Downton Abbey, Once Upon a Time, Glee and Psych are the ones I'm looking forward to the most.

   a. I am so anxious for Lady Mary and what will become of her and her baby on Downton. I can't believe Dan Stevens (Mathew) decided to pursue other avenues...what a prat! I feel that Downton was about as good as he will get. So many people are into this show that I feel like it could go either way. Either his career will fall flat because he was 'pigeon holed', or he will become totally successful because fans loved his character on DA. We shall see! I fall into the former group. I'm angry that he left. We waited so long for Lady Mary and Mathew to be together, then we get one short season of their honeymoon and then he dies. *le sigh*

b. I just finished the second season of Once and I am totally hooked! I am just enough into fairy tales that this show has sucked me in. Snow White and Prince Charming existing in real life with Rumplestiltskin, Pinicchio and the Blue Fairy?? Ok! This feeds just far enough into my Disney obsession to help me escape for a few minutes every day without making me feel like a child. It's grown-up without being  un-family-friendly. I could watch this with my 10-year-old without feeling like her fragile childhood morals are being compromised. At the end of season one, Snow and Charming were trying to procure the magic beans to take everyone from Storybrooke, Maine (all fairytale creatures/characters) back home to the Enchanted Forest. *pins and needles!*

c. I love Glee. I tried not to, I really did. But I was sucked in and hooked after the second episode. Now this fall, season five, will handle several issues. Sue Sylvester, the villain you love to hate, will return as Principale of McKinley High. Will Blaine propose to Kurt as the finale of season four suggested? How will Cory Monteith's (Finn) death be handled? I know that the first couple of episodes will feature many Beatles songs (Hooray!), but that's all I've got. The fun starts this Thursday on Fox!

d. PSYCH IS MY ALL TIME FAVORITE!! That's why I have left it for last. This will be Psych's last season. I am SO bummed about this! I don't know a single person who has watched this show and not wanted to be besties with Shaun and Gus. They are the best friends you wish you had! The show's premise is this: Shaun is a super observant personality which causes his local police force to believe that he is psychic and they enlist him and his best friend/sidekick Gus, to solve all manner of crimes and mysteries. I've read that there will be a Psych the Musical episode this season (holla!) which makes me insanely giddy! I don't have any spoilers because I've tried my best to stay out of the loop so I can be surprised at all the twists and turns this season will take us on. If you haven't watched this series, please do yourself a solid and Netflix it. You're welcome.

I'm pretty sure that this is officially my longest blog post ever. No pics, no anecdoes, just raw me. Can you handle it?? Idk. (PS, everyone at work makes fun of me because I for real say 'idk' and 'brb'.)

So now that all that is covered, let's get ready for Tuesday so we can get this week over with! Goodnight readers. Sleep tight. Don't let the lady bugs bite!

K-dub

The List Maker

There are so many different kinds of people in this world. There are people who love chocolate (moi), there are people that don't (wierdos and my sister). There are people who only like mild, white cheeses in their omelets (pretty racist, Mom).  There are the Type A people who like to be in control, there are people who like to sit back and go with the flow, there are the in-betweeners. Then there are the List Makers. I fall into the latter category hardcore. I make grocery lists, activity lists, meal lists, packing lists, lists of lists I need to make. It's all very sad. I'm sure it's some form of OCD and I'm sure that I will seek help in the future. But not before vacation. Vacation needs lists! I've made shopping lists, packing lists, grocery lists, snack lists, lists for car activities, lists of maps I need to print out in case we can't get cell signal to use our gps, lists of things to do if we have down time. I've even made a list of restaurants to eat at in case our preferred restaurants can't seat us, which is of course different from the list of restaurants that I've already made reservations for.

*sidebar* Since we added an extra day to our vacation (checking in on Saturday instead of Sunday), it was super hard for us to find a restaurant to have dinner at on Saturday. You can make dining reservations up to 180 days before your arrival date. I tried to make reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table five months out and it was already booked solid. Anyway, we finally made reservations at Sanaa for Saturday. Sanaa is an African-themed restaurant in the Animal Kingdom resort. You can look out on gazelle and zebras while you are eating. I think it will be relatively quiet and peaceful for our first night on property, which is good because we will all be dead tired.

Today I made an itinerary (read: fancy word for chronological list) for the week leading up to the day we leave for vacation. We have 38 days. I am so overwhelmed with the planning, even though the big stuff has already been scheduled. Overwhelming in a good way though. I'm just super, crazy, ridiculously excited.

Tonight I did our pre-check-in for our resort so all I have to do is show my ID at the front desk. We also customized our MAGIC BANDS tonight!! We all selected our favorite colors and put nicknames on the bands (mine is Mama, our oldest says Key, youngest says Ave and hubs says Dad). These will be our room keys, dining plan payments, park tickets, etc. This is just a test phase, so we will have actual room keys and stuff, but I am so excited that our resort is doing this. I'll take pics of them as soon as I get them in the mail and update all of you because I know you are oh so excited! *sarcasm*

My good friend Amber and I have thrown around the idea of designing a website devoted to planning vacations. We both LOVE the planning phase so we think it would be awesome to plan for other families as well. We would, of course, specialize in Disney vacations. Amber goes every year to the parks and I've read enough travel blogs and planning sites to write my own book. We wouldn't charge for our services, but we would ask for donations for the time that we spent planning. I think it's a fab idea and that all of you should use this service if and when we get it together.

I promise my next entry will be on something other than vacation. Like a recipe, book or movie review, or just a plain old rant about work. Until then...Happy trails.

*Pins and Needles of Excitement*

FORTY-FOUR DAYS!!! That's how many days I have until we leave for vacation!! All I have left to do is check in online, which should happen sometime tonight or tomorrow. An unexpected surprise that I get to look forward to? Magic Bands!!

The resort that we are staying at is testing them out in September and October!! I'm super psyched because I've been reading about these over the last few months and they are pretty incredible. After testing, if all goes well, these bracelets will be your room key, park ticket, Fast Pass and Dining Plan payment option. Right now, you have to carry your room key (or 'Key to the World' as it is called), for all of these things. The Magic Band basically makes it so you have one less thing to keep track of. I'm ok with the card, but this new gadget will be super fun to try out! I actually just found out tonight that our Key to the World can also be used at the various gift shops and will charge whatever credit card we have on file. Pretty cool! Also, if we get any souvenirs, a cast member will take it back to our hotel so we don't have to lug it around!! I doubt we will buy anything that would be too cumbersome, but seriously, these people have thought of EVERYTHING!

We have extended our trip by a day, which is SO exciting to me! We will now have an extra day for HARRY POTTER WORLD! *swoon* It means that we have to drive all night, but I can power through if that's what I have to look forward to! I am trying to fit in watching all of the older Disney movies before our trip (Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Pinocchio, Swiss Family Robinson, etc) because the kids have never seen them and because there are attractions/characters in the parks that are based on these films (also because I want an excuse to watch my favorite movies without being judged).


I feel like I should talk about work for a minute to tame this post down a few notches. ;) I am a Phlebotomist (basically I draw blood from patients all day) and I love my job! I love my patients, I love talking to them and hearing their stories. You would be surprised at what you can learn from someone in a scant 5 minutes. Some make me laugh, some make me want to punch the wall. Like one day, the adult daughter of a patient bandaged her mother's arm after I pulled the needle out (why? idk...I was about to do it myself), and after she bandaged her mother she said, "See? I could so do this job." That made me so angry! There is so much skill involved that you would never think of unless you had to do it. There is so much information to keep in your head, let alone policies, legalities and procedures. I just looked down at my tubes of blood, labeled them and smiled. That woman has no idea what we do all day. But through it all, I'm smiling and pleasant. I know I couldn't do it with out my 'Five Girls' that I work with. There are really 4 of us altogether...it's a long story. But these ladies are my pillars. They get me through the hardest of days. They are my voices of reason and support, my shoulders to cry on and the very things that make me laugh all day. And we do laugh SO much! Anyway, I hate needles, and I'm not the biggest fan of blood. But as long as the needle is pointed away from me and the blood stays in the tube where it belongs, then I'm ok.

Just for funsies, here is a picture of me and my mini-me at a Big Time Rush concert last month. She looks SO much like me and acts even more like me. It's a little scary, actually. She's super smart, funny, kind and generous (unless I try to take a bite of food off her plate at the Mexican restaurant here in town. Then she's stingier than anything!). She's my little buddy and I love her so much! I couldn't have picked a better girl to be my eldest child!

 

What things are exciting you this week??

Weekend Fun

We have had SUCH a full day today! We went to Celebrate Science Indiana at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with our kids...let me tell you, there was more to see than what we were able to do in 3 hours. Our big girl loved making art our of shaving cream and food coloring (that was SO cool!) and our little girl loved having her face painted. They painted science-y things like beakers and molecules. She had a purple beaker with pink fluid in it and sparkly white bubbles coming out of the top. Too cute. :) We learned about surface tension, robotics, meteorology, chemistry and biology. Our oldest said science was lame and she didn't want to go. I knew better. I'm a (closet) science nerd, and I can spot one of my own. She ended up having a great time learning (and I thought it was great that they had Star Wars Storm Troopers [the little one called them 'trophies' for some reason] )We will definitely be attending this event next year!

Later on, after we made dinner, we went to the park to play. I didn't really have the energy, since the sun zapped me all day, but I conceded because it's too hard to say no to my kids when they demanded asked so sweetly. I'm really glad I did, though. I finally (at 30-years-old) learned to throw a Frisbee (which we got for free at the science event)!! So B and I threw it around while the kids played and collected acorns. We were super psyched because we thought, "Hey...this would be fun to do at the BEACH!!" Which brings me to my next thought....

We have SIX weeks and FIVE days until vacation!! FORTY-NINE days!! The kids are currently watching Cinderella on Disney channel as I type. I watched the first half hour or so, and all I could think was 'magic'. That's what Disney is. I know there are people who don't think so, and that's ok, but I have such fond memories of visiting the parks as a young child (twice), and then again as a teen (Disneyland once, and Disneyworld for the third time), not to mention all of the memories watching the movies and playing with the games and toys! We used to have a Disneyland board game that my mom played with my sister and I when we were little. It was a particularly hard time in our lives, but Mom knew how to distract us and make things a little happier. I think I need to find that game on eBay or something. Also, we had the Disneyland game for Nintendo. The first Nintendo. You remember...it was two shades of gray and the games were the size of 8-tracks?? Oh, you don't remember 8-tracks either?? Well never mind then. Anyway, the game was super cool. You had to navigate through the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Space Mountain. I pretty much loved it.

ANYWAY, I can barely contain my excitement. I've gotten some gifts for the kids and I'm trying to find a print-out of a count down that I like. I'll probably settle on a Mickey silhouette or something. I want a new car before vacation starts...but that probably won't happen. I've never liked mini-vans, and I've never considered buying one until yesterday when I test-drove my aunt's Town and Country. Brand new and pretty fabulous! Too much to hope for right now, I think. Maybe by next vacation??

Peace Out!

Time Warp

Last night the hubs and I watched Sixteen Candles (K stayed up for part of it, too) for about the 30th time. He hates the 80's and pretty much everything that came out of it (except for me, duh). Any time I want to watch a movie or listen to music from that decade, he pretty much tunes it out. Last night was different though.

Last night we got into a discussion about how the 80's were so much better than the present day. We were getting a tad nostalgic. I feel like things were so much simpler then. Kids were more innocent later into their lives, our lives weren't driven by technology they way they are now. I feel like media wasn't as ever-present in my childhood like it is for my kids. In 2013, we feel that we need to know everything about everyone, and in turn, we feel that everyone should know everything about us (figuratively speaking...not 'us' like me and him). There are COUNTLESS reality shows that are just about random people's day-to-day lives. Keeping Up With the Kardashians (puke, sorry), Real Housewives of Insert-City-Here, Sixteen and Pregnant...I could go on for days, I'm sure.

Every day we are pummeled with someone else's reality show problems. Celebrities (who no one really knows WHY they are famous in the first place *cough* Kardashians *cough*) complain about paparazzi following them and hounding them, yet there they are, on TV for another mindless season. I've never really been into reality TV. Now, I like some game-type shows like Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls, or The Amazing Race, but never talent show-type deals like American Idol. My mom watches the Bachelor/Bachelorette, but I think it's silly and ridiculous. I know it's just my taste, and everyone has their own.

Back to my point: When I was a kid, the world seemed like a bigger place than it does now. I don't want Egypt on my doorstep or North Korea in my back yard. I know people shouldn't be ignorant...I know that it's good and responsible to be informed of the goings-on in our world, I get that. But I feel like I need to take a Xanax just to watch CNN anymore. So I don't. I don't read the newspaper anymore. I didn't know about that girl who was kidnapped by her mother and brother's killer until like a week or more after it hit the media. Maybe it's just me, but I like to live in my safe little world with my 2 kids, my husband and my dog and not worry about another country's war. I know this stuff was televised and reported on when I was a kid as well, but I feel like it wasn't so in-your-face.

B and I have talked several times about living in the middle of nowhere, just us and the kids. Growing our own food, disconnected from the constant media coverage of whatever is happening at the time. I wish I owned a DeLorean. They are ugly as heck, but if it can get me back to the simpler times, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

New Beginnings, Vacation, and Birthday Planning

I had to ditch my old blog. It just wasn't working for me anymore. I was using it to show how 'young and cool' I was even after being a mom and having a mortgage. I'm still cool (duh), but I'm on the wrong side of 29 to be considered 'young'. So. Here we are. Also, I'm loving the new look. Tiffany blue with polka dots! I'm sure this blog will be similar to my last one, but I think I'll feel more comfortable being 'me'.

We are just shy of 8 weeks until our Family Vacation Spectacular!! We decided sometime in April to take the kids to Orlando for fall break. Seriously though, I know I'm more excited than anyone else. Even the kids. We've had our reservations since the beginning of July and my mind has been running NON-STOP since, with dinner reservations, extra activities at the resorts, car activities (because flying is just too freaking expensive). BLARG!!! It's just SO MUCH to think about! Especially when you have two kids that are so far apart in age. K is almost 11 and too old for Princesses and stuff like that, A is 3 (tomorrow!!) and way to young for some of the car games that we usually play and for some of the rides. However, I know we can make it work! That's just how cool I am. (See?? Still cool!)

We are staying at the Pop Century resort on Disney property and I couldn't be more excited! I know it's a value resort, and that there are nicer resorts available, but I've never stayed 'on property' before, so don't rain on my parade. Another reason I'm so excited?? We got the free Disney Dining Plan this year!! That means we can eat pretty much wherever we want, and disregard pricing. I would never go to a park and pay $30 for a steak, but with the free DDP, anything goes! We have reservations for the Rainforest Café at Downtown Disney for our first night (it's a tradition), Toney's in MK for the day that we're there, Aloha Luau at the Polynesian, and Dinner with the Princesses at 1900 Park Fare. I've totally talked my hubs (he's so fab!) into an extra night, so now I need to plan an extra dinner for that as well. *sarcastic shucks finger snap*

This year we are doing so much more at DW than we did last time. We are going to the MK (duh), Animal Kingdom, Blizzard Beach (I wanted to go to Typhoon Lagoon, but I read they will be closed for some construction and maintenance, boo), Downtown Disney, all of the above-mentioned dinners, a campfire/singalong/s'mores roast/outdoor movie with Chip and Dale, a day at Cocoa Beach, AND HARRY POTTER WORLD!! (I know it's The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Islands of Adventure, but I don't care.) I am a little skeered that I am planning too many activities for the kids and there won't be enough down time, but most of the nights the parks close between 5 and 7 (depending on the park) and we will have mostly-relaxing evenings. It's going to be epic.

I just spent 3 paragraphs on the subject of vacation, so now I'm going to counter that with some cuteness:

This little girl, the light of my heart, will turn THREE tomorrow! I love both of my children equally, of course I do, but she's just so stinkin CUTE!!! (K is out of the cute stage because she's a pre-teen. She does amazing things that I am so incredibly proud of. She's beautiful and smart and lovely and I adore her!!) A is my baby. Possibly my last baby. *sad face* These last three years have been so wonderful! She is such a joy to be around and she makes me smile on my hardest days. Happy Birthday, Gooberstains. Mommy loves you so much!!

 

What's been going on with all of you??