On the Feast of St. Joseph

Good morning!

Yesterday was the wonderful Feast of St. Joseph.

I really really want to celebrate feast days with my children, so I tried to do a few things different on this feast day.

There were strawberry "pancakes" (more of a giant omelet) for me and Rita for breakfast.

I mostly exempted myself from housework, Rita watched a few extra episodes of Curious George and I spent a good amount of time scoping out summer clothes for the kids.

Ideally we would have attended noon mass, but Jo was napping.

We visited grandparents, and had a picnic dinner at the local park. When I opened the fridge in the LATE (ahem!) afternoon to bake the chicken it was still frozen solid. Not cool. So we improvised with a rotisserie chicken (not ideal, but doing the best we can).

On the way home from the park I realized that Rita would be going to sleep early, so we had an impromptu date, thanks to some very special family members!

So celebrating the feast day didn't go quite as I planned (I really really wanted to get up with Tyler but Jo hasn't been sleeping unless he is latched on, which means little sleep for momma!), but by surrendering expectations to Jesus it was still a FANTASTIC day!

Sweet St. Joseph, mirror of patience, lover of poverty, terror of demons, pray for us.

SO Glad This Isn't Some Professional Blog

This is not a happy post.  Please do not read on. (Ok there is a bit about minimalism in the kitchen, just skip to the third real paragraph).

Today has just beenAll week it has been a crazzzzzyyyyy week.  Maybe because I have seriously done laundry until there was no more to do and our love seat has not seen the light of day since Sunday.  Maybe its because for some dumb reason both kids babies have colds and are extra needy.  Maybe its because Jonah is officially teething.  Maybe its because Jonah is desperately trying to get the hang of this rolling-over-cause-i-really-want-to-play thing.  I don't know.

This IS what I know.

There is laundry on the love seat (yes, still. no, I'm not going to stop typing to move it. not yet. but when im done ...taking the power cord away from Rita, excuse me...taking laundry basket of 5059558985 socks from Rita...ok. when I'm done typing THEN we will wrangle the children in (turn on Netflix) and cook dinner (reheat the crock pot).  True story folks.  Welcome to life. (and THEN i can do something about that laundry. is it already 3:41pm? oh good!)

But on a lighter note the dishes are  done. ok there are like two pots left. but i mean, dishes are done, ya know?

I have totally reconfiscated (Blogger says this isnt a word. whatever.) all of the kitchen cutlery and dishes.  Four plates. two water jars. three to-go water bottles. two juice jars. four sippy cups. three forks. four spoons. three bowls. salad fork and spoon. serving spoon. three butter knives. three syringes for medicine. three coffee/tea mugs.  This is the second go-round (click "reconfiscated" up above to read about my first go-round with pairing-down in the kitchen) and we have even less this time.  I'm pumped! (Here's good parenting while blogging: "Rita, leave all that stuff alone!" as I sit at the kitchen table and she rummages in her somehow messy post Christmas post Jonah changing sizes post her changing sizes post where does all this music equipment go shuffling that has been happening since...oh, you know, a month ago.

You should really feel better about your life/parenting/everything by now.  You probably aren't in your pajamas like I still am. And you probably didn't have to turn down a visit from a really sweet high school friend cause your kiddos decided to nap simultaneously and then wake up like 45 minutes after you canceled your plans.  Its a beautiful day.  Really. I just need to get out of this pigsty house and enjoy it.

Sorry to rant.  But i feel better. :)

Sour Cream Made Simple

My husband and I have marveled (in the distant past) at fast food Mexican.  How on earth is their sour cream not globs of dollops smeared to death? In our casa de mal comida Mexicana the sour cream is pretty much the biggest flop, every time.  But not tonight!!

Maybe it was the creative juices of Tolkien flowing in me after our date to see The Hobbit (Yes! Loved it! Did you see the sweet pic of me and my most amazing husband? No? Get on twitter and insta-steal and find me!) but as I assembled tacos at 9:45pm I had the most brilliant idea to do sour cream a la icing technique.

Total success!!!!!!

How I executed this task:

• sour cream
• a utensil
• a plastic ziploc bag 
• a pair of scissors.

Stuff desired amount of sour cream in bag.

Squeeze down into bag, near one bottom corner or another.

Snip the tiniest corner off of the bag.

Serve-up icing-style on your comida muy bien Mexicana.

Cheap-o (and still tasty) sour cream and the sour cream "icing."

Viola!

So impressed!

This simple invention, of sorts, made taco night much easier (no broken shells), less messy (no attempted utensil and then resorted to finger smearing), and fun!

Maybe you totally already do this.  If so, sorry!  I often find the most obvious of things much later than the average bear!

Freecycle Sofa

We have had only a love seat for nearly a year! Our original sofa was HUGE and was terribly terribly ill-fitting in our shared living-dining area. So we purchased new (ah!) with cash (yay!) a love seat and have been hoping for an average sized sofa to join the plush party.

In the meantime I had joined Freecycle and daily receive emails from them about items around our area.

Lo and behold one day I saw "free sofa." On further examination of the post I learned that:
A. The home of the sofa was less than five minutes away.
B. The sofa came with a brand-spankin new slipcover!

Bingo!

Can you imagine our excitement when arriving at this sweet aged woman's home that Tyler's co-worker lives next door and used his truck to bring the sofa home for us?! (YAY to not having to have a sofa hanging out of our SUV on the way home!)

We LOVE the sofa! We love the free-ness. It is super comfortable and a gift to this young family. And when Rita smears her blueberry juiced hands All Over, it's no big deal! Cause we know this sofa already has wear and tear.

Do you have any awesome free finds?


Thank you Lord for this blessing!

In Light of the Fact that I Tend to Overspend

Yep! I admit! Using a cash back credit card with the intention to stay within budget has yet to work for grocery shopping for me! Since Jonah's birth our finances have been in crazy land of I-have-no-idea-what-is-going-on!

So I had given myself the deadline of Thanksgiving as the end of postpartum madness (haha!).

So today I go shopping with cash! Renewed and recommitted to the Big B: Budget!

Advent tomorrow! Our wreath and candles totaled only $8 before tax at Hobby Lobby! Hoping you can put together a simple one for you and yours!