The Nelson Narrative

I've never been one of those SAHMs that has to "get out of the house" or go somewhere every day.  Some days, of course, but not every single day.  I think because, when the girls were younger, it was such a pain to go anywhere (still is, but not AS much).  Plus, there is always plenty to do around the house, whether it's cleaning or something more fun like scrapbooking, so it's not that easy to get bored, and we did go for lots of walks until they got to an age where they no longer tolerate the stroller for any length of time.  Anyway, now that the girls are older I do find myself wanting to get out with them more than I used to.  But Mondays have become my stay-home-and-clean-house days.  All the clutter and laundry and what-not that accumulated over the weekend gets tackeled on Mondays.  So yesterday I cleaned like a madwoman.  Today I wanted to take them to the play area at the mall but they haven't been feeling well the last few days so I think we need t

I baked cupcakes yesterday for Paul's birthday and couldn't resist letting the girls lick the beaters/spatula.  Too cute.  And this was just frosting, not cake batter with raw eggs.  Not that I've ever gotten sick or died from eating raw cookie dough or cake batter in my 41 years but still.

Today was free pastry day at Starbucks.  I wasn't going to pass that up!  When we got there and I went to put Olivia in the stroller she threw a fit and wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I hate that I can't just walk in there with them on foot but a) they'd be off in two different directions once we got inside and b) I can't hold both their hand plus my hot beverage to walk back to the car.  So, I have to use the stroller just to go into Starbucks for a latte.  One of the reasons I hardly ever go (the other being we can't afford $4.00 lattes very often).  Anyway, not wanting to cause a scene, I decided just to carry her while I pushed Kayley in the stroller.  So there I was, pushing one in a double stroller while carrying the other, and trying to get through the doors of Starbucks.  It's hard enough just pushing the double-wide stroller through the doors (I have to pull it, actually, while using my body to open one door and my free hand to open the othe

We had a great weekend.  The weather was great and Paul and the girls did some yard work.  The girls had an absolute blast playing in the dirt!  Digging is fun! Later, I had my monthly (ish) girls' night out with some friends.  I left early to do some shopping (you know, ALONE) and then we met for happy hour at Daniel's Broiler in Bellevue (21 stories up with cool views of Bellevue and Seattle).  It was awesome.

The girls are on this kick.  They will beg me for something, usually apple juice or milk, and when I offer it to them they refuse it!  It's driving. me. NUTS!  Today, Kayley saw a box of cereal bars on the counter.  She asked for one.  I already had one open that I had offered Olivia earlier, so I grabbed it and offered it to her.  "No!" she exclaimed, pointing at the box and doing her little pouty dance. "It's the SAME THING," I tried to explain.  But she kept demanding one from the box .  Grrr... I just threw the unwrapped one on the floor and walked away.  A few minutes later I noticed her eating it.  Sigh.  And heaven forbid if juice or milk isn't offered in the right cup !  They'll ask for juice or milk, I'll try to give them some but if it's in a different cup than usual they'll think it's something else (water) and refuse it.  "APPLE JUICE!", they'll scream.  "This IS apple juice", I'll expain.  &q

So I'm back at this whole weight loss thing.  Not that I'm never not "at it", I just sometimes am more "at it" than other times.  I was all gung-ho several weeks ago but then the girls' birthday came and with it cake, chips, etc.  I tried to make a fresh start last Monday but darn if it's not Easter Candy Season and I succumbed to the beackoning of those scrumptious Cadbury mini eggs.  I did, however, resist the call of the Cadbury Creme Egg which is my absolute favorite Easter candy and can only be described as a preview of what awaits me in Heaven.  Sigh.  Anyway, in the 2 weeks following the girls' birthday I gained 4 1/2 pounds of the 8 (well, 7.8) I had lost since the beginning of the year.  So this last Saturday the 13th, which was exactly 2 months before our anniversary, I got back on the wagon.  I was hoping to be down to my wedding weight by then but that would require a loss of 10 pounds and I'm pretty sure I can't lose that muc

I was browsing Amazon.com today and the following titles caught my eye: Do you get where I'm going with this?  Now, if only they had one called, "Hair is Not for Pulling" I'd be set!

Today at  Kelly's Korner  the topic of the week is What Is Your Typical Day Like.  I always love this question and am amazed by other SAHMs (by choice or otherwise) who worry about how to fill their days.  Trust me, I don't even have to TRY.  The below is very general, but there is plenty going on to fill in the gaps, like never-ending laundry and other housework. First of all, I'm awakened at 5:30 when Paul gets up for work.  Then I kind of doze off and on until he leaves at 6:30.  Sometimes I fall back asleep until the girls wake up, sometimes I can't.   If I can't get back to sleep I'll get up and have some alone time on the computer before they get up, which is really nice!  Otherwise... 7:30 - The girls wake me up.  They get sippy cups of milk, diaper changes and play. 8:30 - Breakfast 9:00 -10:00  Clean up from breakfast, get everyone dressed. 10:00 - 12:00 - Play, read books, color, etc.  Once or twice a week I'll run errands at this time. 

We've been having a stretch of unseasonably warm weather lately so the girls an I have been playing outside almost every day.  A few days ago my favorite tree bloomed.

Saturday was the girls' 2nd birthday party.  It went great but getting the cake and cupcakes baked and decorated turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated.  It started Friday morning around 10:30.  I whipped up a chocolate cake batter from scratch that called for red food coloring.  I've never baked a cake from scratch before so when I added the red food coloring I was alarmed at just how red the batter was.  No biggie, except that I really wanted a regular brown chocolate cake.  So I decided to put that batter in two round pans instead of the Elmo pan and start over.  As it turns out, the red cake turned out great and was of course a normal brown color (a reddish brown but still brown) but I didn't want to chance it.  So I mixed up a boxed cake mix and put that in the Elmo pan and baked that instead. Then, I baked some vanilla cupcakes from scratch because the Elmo cake wasn't going to be big enough to serve everyone.  That was easy enough but I ende