Gramma's bday

The kids, dog and I loaded up the car and headed over to Houston last Monday to (hopefully) surprise Gramma for her birthday.  I think we were successful!  We did a nice lunch on her birthday and I didn't get any pictures!  We came home and opened present and had a delicious cupcake.

On Tuesday we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  It was fun!  Izzy, gramma and grampa went to all of the planetarium shows while Logan and I joined them for the last show.  We saw the Faberge egg exhibit and breezed through the dinosaurs section. It was really nice! 

Taking a break.

We the. Headed into the butterfly exhibit. Always fun!

We loaded up and headed out Wednesday in order to make it home in time for ABA.

So glad we were able to spend some time in Houston over Spring Break!

Brian's Bday, July 4th weekend

I swear I already wrote this post, but I can't find it.  Ah well.  Let's start with Brian's birthday.  It was on a Tuesday.  Fun day of the week, no?  So Isabel and Logan decided that he needed to have a soccer birthday party. So I bought a Wilton soccer cake pan and went to work.  It was by far the easiest Wilton cake ever.  It took about 30 minutes from start to finish.  Black and white icing?  Yes please!  Easy peasy.  I made sea scallops with an avacado/wasabi sauce and roasted asparagus to start.  It was amazing.  SO  good.  Took bad diver scallops are so expensive or I would have bought 10 lbs!  But they are expensive, so we had 4 scallops each.  I also made shrimp/tomato risotto.  It was a new recipe.  Not as great as I've had, but still pretty good.  The recipe didn't call for shallots, only a white onion.  So strange.  Shallots are definitely essential to risotto.

The kids had to add sprinkles.

Happy Birthday Brian!

Wednesday Brian's office closed early, so we headed to Houston around 3pm.  We got to Houston and Tank immediately decided he needed to get sick.  He was peeing out of his butt every 20 minutes pretty much the entire 4 days we were there.  I think everyone really thought we were going to have to say goodbye to Tank (he is very very very old), but I took him to the vet on Monday and she gave us an antibiotic and sent us on our way.  The antibiotic is like a miracle pill.  Tank was better the next day.  I've gotten in the habit of letting him out multiple times an hour and yesterday he refused to go out.  He's like "please don't make me go out in 19394 degree weather AGAIN.  I'm fine people."  Yay!

So Thursday we got up and went to the 4th of July parade.  A ton of people and a surprisingly long parade.  It was about an hour and a half long!  I think we all had fun.  Lots of candy thrown out and fans passed around.  After some swimming Lila and crew and another family friend couple came over for some delicious brisket Grandma cooked and other good food.  Yum!  Lila, Jennifer and Greg went swimming with us.  She's practicing for the ProAm surfing competition.  (Is that real?  It sounds legit, right?)

Making pancakes.

Parade fun.

Lunch al fresco

We stayed up late and saw the top half of fireworks.  Pesky new construction got in the way of the view.  The kids didn't seem to care or notice, so it was all good.

Back rub from Grandpa.

Waiting for fireworks.

Friday my Mom and I went to a few stores.  There is a kid's resale shop right by there house that is amazing.  I love going there and finding bargains.  We have the same store in Austin, but it's about a 30 minute drive for me.  The kids tried on their wedding attire that Grandma made.  SO SO cute!  They are all going to look great!

Fargo had a long weekend.  It's tough being so pretty.

Saturday we went to the Dynamos soccer game.  It was a lot of fun and we got a bonus fireworks display after the game!

Sunday we headed back after a little swimming.  It rained on us a little.  Such a nice downpour.  We don't get many of those in Austin.  We had to stop for Tank, but still managed to make it back in 3 hours.  Not bad!

We had a great weekend!

My princesses!

Keeping Tank busy at the Vet's office.

Around Here

Lots has been going on lately. We made an unexpected trip to Houston last week and were there on Grandma's actual birthday! While we loved helping her celebrate and see Grandma and Grandpa, we didn't like the reason for the trip. Everything will be ok though.

We got back to Austin Saturday evening and took baths and went to bed. Sunday we went out for lunch at Trudy's. Logan had an accident on the way there in the car so I took Isabel and Brian took Logan to get some new clothes. Isabel got a Shirley Temple and was pretty excited about that. She requested them for her birthday party.

Since it was St Patrick's Day I made corned beef and cabbage. I also put some food coloring in the toilets and told the kids that some leprechauns visited us. Isabel was seriously amazed. It was so funny. She then got a little frightened and we had to do a leprechaun search to make sure there weren't anymore in the house.

I found my unused gift card stash and called on to see the balance on my Bed Bath and Beyond gift card. It was just enough to cover a bread maker! I've been looking at them for a while and am so excited to have bread with just 5 ingredients and no preservatives! I've already made 3 loaves!

First loaf!

Enjoying some bread with honey.  It was so good.

Yesterday I spent all day ( while the kids were at school and then napping) painting Isabel's hutch that was delivered on Sunday. It took about 6 hours and 3 coats of paint. It was an off white, creamy yellow color. It's being discontinued and it was that or navy blue. The color was not my style at all and didn't match anything else in the room. I painted it white, but the silly off white was bleeding through as a bit blue(?). It was frustrating, but it looks great now! I just need to put the protective coat on and then we can get it in Isabel's room.

We're also still trying to close on our refi.  It's getting ridiculous.  Brian is about ready to walk away from Bank of America.  It took them 3 months to begin processing the loan.  Since it took so long we had to send updated statements, etc.  They mailed us a GFE last week and it was completely different from the one we got 3 months ago.  After Brian getting angry (he rarely gets angry) at our contact (who really just wants the loan to close so that he can get his commission) they added back some credits they had removed, but they didn't allow us to waive escrow.  WTF?  After the contact said he would 'see what he could do' Brian said we need a definitive answer today and a closing date or we're walking away.   We went with BoA because our current mortgage is with them and we thought it would be more streamlined.  WRONG.  In hindsight we should have gone with the other quote we got, but what can you do.  I just can't believe that after having a mortgage with a bank for over 5 years and never once having a late mortgage or property tax payment that we're being treated this way.  It has now been FOUR MONTHS since we first started the process.  It's like they absolutely don't care.  So if anyone reading is considering a new mortgage or refi, I would strongly encourage you to NOT go with Bank of America.

The perfect roast chicken.  SO good!

He was so happy about something.

Watching the car wash.

I was watching dishes and she was out by herself.  You can't see it from the picture, but she just had the biggest grin.  So excited to be swinging and enjoying life!

Celebrating Grandma's Birthday and the Livestock Show

We loaded up the crew and headed to Houston on Friday night.  Traffic was a little heavy with Spring Break and SXSW starting.  The kids did really well on the ride over.

We headed to the Livestock Show mid morning and had some fun riding a few rides and listening to a little Disney show.  Grandma put Isabel's name in a drawing and she won a Blu Ray of 'Wreck it Ralph.'  Nice!  We saw some cows, horses, pigs, sheep, goats and bees.  We planted sunflower seeds in soil.  The line for the petting zoo was super long, so we skipped it.  Probably for the best since Isabel was getting a tiny bit wheezy around all of the livestock.

Saturday night we watched the new movie and ate popcorn.  Lots of popcorn.  Sunday we relaxed and went out to lunch, hit up Kid to Kid and loaded up some garage sale items in the truck.  We're going to participate in the neighborhood garage sale in mid April and wanted to help load things for Grandma and Grandpa in the truck since Grandpa isn't supposed to lift anything for a few more weeks.  We raced cars and watched Grandma open a few presents.

We headed back to Austin after nap time.  It was a little tougher ride than on the way to Houston.  Logan wanted to go back to see "Grandpa/Grandpa" and kept saying that he missed Grandpa.  It was cute the first 800 times.  This morning he woke up and said "where is Grandma?"  I guess they had a good time. Isabel keeps showing me her staples and scar. Haha.. I think grandpa impressed her with the new battle wounds.

Today Logan had therapy from 12-2pm.  Not the best times, but it ended up working out pretty well.  I took Isabel and we went grocery shopping while he was in therapy.  I've been going to Whole Foods and think I've finally figured out how not to spend Brian's entire paycheck on a weeks worth of groceries from there.  I've also found a good alternative to Nutrigrain Bars (Logan's favorite 'food').  It's an all natural, preservative free, organic pop tart type of thing.  I made homemade bars last week and, while they were delicious, I ate over half of them.  Not good.

This week I hope to clear out more clutter for the garage sale/Ebay, do some deep cleaning, and get Isabel's birthday party invitations made.  If I get really crazy maybe I'll even get some Easter decorations up.