Sunday, June 17, 2012

Today was a great day!

I am in a good mood. I am not even tired though I feel like I should be. I was up late making Shane a yummy breakfast casserole for Father's day. I baked it in the morning but it was ready at 12 last night. The recipe suggested being in the fridge all night.
I woke up first around 8:30m. Can I hear a Halleluia for sleeping in? I put the food in the oven and had everything ready by the time Shane and the kids came down. I was proud of myself for my timing. It was a fun morning. I had time to wrap his little gift even. Time to prep the Primary lesson for today. I was overwhelmed as I usually am when there is too much on the agenda but I kept my cool and did it all.

After church I quickly threw everything in the oven or on the stove and my parents came by so we could celebrate the dads, Shane and my dad, two boys I LOVE with all my heart. I made a yummy Caprese salad, little yellow potatoes and baked chicken plus a few appetizers and mom brought a homemade Tiramisu cake. So good!

Oh and how could I forget? Shane's gift was for me to clean the house without him helping. Ha! I didn't totally reach my goal and only cleaned the living room but that included carpet cleaning. So yesterday until about 10pm I was cleaning carpets. I had taken a long nap so that's why the delay. I will keep on cleaning until the whole house gets done. I am ready to de junk in a major way this summer. I don't even care to do a garage sale or sell anything. This is the reason why we still have the stuff I was going to get rid of last summer. It's best to just go to DI and donate. I already went once but I have long way to go. I thought I could do it sooner but it turns out cleaning a big mess takes more than just a day. So I am taking a deep breath and will have to schedule a room a day, a project a day come summer. I sure hope we'll be home more this summer unlike last.

The kids have school one more week and I have to work for two more and then 7 weeks off. Yahoo!
I have big plans of doing work around here, lots of reading, going to the lake, going out on hikes, camping, setting the kids on a chore system and less computer and electronics time for all of us.

I really am praying I will do what I plan as I tend to come up with excuses or everything all of a sudden doesn't happen as I imagine it. I am planning to cook more, plan our meals ( I am not a planner and this will be a challenge) and get the kids to help around the house more. Dacian is a pretty good helper. Lavinia not so much. She always starts crying when I say it's cleanup time. She says she hates it. A girl who takes after her mom sadly. She does like to cook and always helps me out in the kitchen. I will try to encourage that and give her the opportunity to help me there if that's what comes easier for her.

I am hoping that with donating some toys and putting some in time out she won't get so overwhelmed and it will be easy to clean.

I still want to update the blog with my 10 K run/walk from Vancouver, BC but that will have to wait for now. I remember that as soon as I get off for summer the posts start to happen more often, I am rested and relaxed and happy, I see the sun more and life is peachy.

June is a hard month at work with all the end of the year stuff I have to do but the end is in sight. I've been coming home super stressed and feeling like I hadn't taken a breath the whole day.

My exercising took a back seat due to my foot injury. Not working out hard it became easier to concentrate on eating healthier, less carbs, less calories. But with the June stress I haven't been as consistent about it. I beat myself up but not too harshly. I am trying and that's good for now.

I wonder if my feeling of contentment today is because of how much I accomplished with how little energy I had. Now my kids are watching "Cars". It's been a while since we've seen that show. The DVD player wasn't working and Shane just fixed it today. I missed the running that happens around our table right at the beginning of the race. I was curious if Dacian would do it again. I saw him watch the cars get ready to race. He put a stick down as his start line and he darted along with Lavinia as soon as the cars took off. I want to remember this.  He's becoming such a big boy. I blame school for that one. :) I joined in the race and chased them so much. Now the house is quiet and I also enjoy that. The end of the show slows down and so do they.

Wow, this post is becoming too long. Like I said you will see more of me around here soon.

Hope you all had a nice father's day. We had  great one.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Football

It's no secret we are pretty big Seahawks fans. Dacian says he will be the Seahawk quarterback when he grows up. :) He actually throws and catches pretty well. I have to find out where we can enroll him to play some football. 

Our good friend, Taylor gave Dacian this wonderful present for his birthday. I can say this was way cooler than what gift we've given D. We are so happy to have Taylor be our good friend. Thank you, thank you!










I ironed number 12 on the back, for the famous 12th man, the fans of the Seattle Seahawks. 









Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Easter 2012

Easter seemed so rushed this year. We came home from our trip and then quickly painted eggs on Friday and bought a few things for dinner for Easter. Like I mentioned my parents invited us over for dinner. I love every opportunity to go there and partake of the yummy Romanian treats my mom tirelessly makes.

Before church we had the kids find their Easter baskets. Lavinia of course was so excited to wear her cute Easter dress. I got this idea from a wonderful blog I read about  a fun way to get to the Easter baskets. Tying string form their rooms and leading them to the baskets. I made it kind of hard for D but it was fun and I think I'll keep this tradition. Lavi had help. We then made delicious resurrection rolls and had the kids watch a wonderful movie clip on lds.com and of course talked about why we really celebrate Easter.

I am trying to incorporate fun and more traditions and actually doing some things that I find cool and not just store them on my pinterest board. For sure though I am becoming happier with myself and OK with the fact that I am not super mom, crafter extraordinaire or whatever thing I wish I were more of. I am who I am and my kids love ME for who I am. For now at least. :)



Pavlova-out of Holly's pinterest board :) It was so delicious and easy to make.

Dessert I made for D







We quickly had an Easter egg hunt inside the house
The golden egg was extra special! 


Mom's dinner table

The blotchy, ugly eggs we produced. haha Kids had fun that's what counts! 
Traditional egg knocking
My beautiful LAV


Grandma got her a second dress. So pretty!
She got kid make-up and was beyond delighted

And here's the empty tomb-aka Resurrection Roll

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Spring break


Soooooooo behind with writing. I want to write about our spring break, Easter and then the fun 10 K we did as a family in Vancouver, BC. I will break this up in several posts though.

Spring break happened finally to coincide with Conference. That meant we had time to drive to UT so we could see my brother. Bonus, he flew his family with him. Since he lives in KY which is way to far to visit really, we were excited to have the time to drive down and see him. We got tickets to Conference too so we had so much to look forward to.
I took Friday off from work so we would actually have more time with my brother since he was leaving Tuesday morning. My sister in law, Ashley was super nice to let us stay with her. We didn't actually spend that much time together since we were mostly running around in SLC but we get to see her again in July when we go visit to meet her new baby.
The drive was pretty long but it was nice to break it down a bit. Thursday after work we drove to Walla Walla, WA and stayed with my other SIL Noel and Michael, BIL. It was fun to spend a little bit of time with them in the morning. The drive was about 10 hours from there so actually not that bad. I even got to stop in Boise for lunch with none other than my old principal. It was so good to see him again. We all miss him so much at Bell.

Anyway, we spent the weekend listening to conference on the grass in front of SLC temple, talked lots with my sister in law, Heidi and loved seeing my kids play with my brother's kids for what felt like the first time ever. They kids clicked and had lots of fun together. We spent time with my brother mostly in the afternoon as he was busy translating the whole weekend.
I even got to see my friend Jessica Ashurst who was super nice to drive and fight the conference craziness just to see me. I loved seeing her precious newborn and even though it was nice for his mom that he was asleep I would've loved to hold him a bit.

On April 1st Dacian turned six and we had to do something special for him. We had a big yummy breakfast with Ashley and Chris at their house and then opened presents. He was delighted with what he got. He waited so long for this day. He woke up with these words: "Woo Hoo, woo hoo, I'm six!" Gotta love kids.

We also went out to dinner that evening and he got spoiled some more.

In the afternoon Heidi was so very sweet and patient and babysat the kids so we (my parents and I; Shane didn't come as he had to work) could go to conference. As much as the traffic was super annoying we very much enjoyed listening to conference uninterrupted and we were able to feel the special and strong spirit that was there.

The next day we all drove to Ogden and stayed the night with Heidi's sister. She has three kids and with our two and my brother's two we had a full house of fun and happy kids. I was so impressed by everyone who got along great and they were all so nice and accommodating.

On Tuesday morning we drove all the way to Spokane. I not being used to driving very long distances (yes, Romanians/Europeans use the train mostly and even then a 5 hour ride is considered terribly long) broke the trip some more and were welcomed with open arms by Noel's family. They love my parents and so it was extra fun being there. They also enjoy my mom's cooking so we made them a yummy chicken soup with dumplings, mousakka, and the yummy orange cake. Noel, had her spring break too so she went to visit her family there.

The best part of a long trip? Talking lots with mom and dad, learning more about their ancestors and all in all quality time. The kids did OK, slept lots, played phone games and read.

The highlight of the Spokane part for me was the fact that I got to ride a horse for a few minutes. I have always wanted to do that and finally I got to do it. Noel knew of this important wish and made it possible for me. Her parents live away from the city and have lots of land. Noel even had horses growing up and used to ride often. Now she has nice neighbors with horses so everyone in our family got to ride Sunny for a little bit.  She was very nice and gentle. Even though I've always wanted to ride a horse I have to say that horses kind of scare me, they are huge after all and can throw you off them pretty easily. Of course, we had the owner there holding the horse so this was a very fun experience.  We also went to a stable where they board new moms and babies so we got to see week old foals. So much fun. It got cold and snowed that day. I guess that made for pretty pictures but I can say we were all over snow by then.

So this sums up our spring break. Great, wonderful time with family is just precious to me. I felt like we had our own small family reunion and let me tell you that doesn't happen often.

When I came home I was overwhelmed at the fact that Easter was just right around the corner. It was nice though that we came home on a Thursday so that still gave me time to prepare some. Thankfully my parents had us over for dinner.
All the grandkids on my parents' side
Happy grandpa



The kids mostly played in the fountains by the temple

I thought for sure the littler one would fall right in 


Girl cousins and boy cousins. Dacian took such good care of his little cousin. Super sweet!

This lady bug entertained them for a long time


Playing Angry Birds

Birthday boy

8 days old , cropped would look better but then again if I really would spend the time editing probably there would be no pics

The baby has no teeth but it was funny it kept thinking D' gloves were carrots






We fed these goats. They were so funny running to the fence as soon as they saw us

 



Cousin L



Meet Sunny


Look at the menacing clouds

 
My dad

Proud rider

Lavinia with Lamont, I love this picture
Spokane Temple

Brrr, it was cold
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