We're Still Not Responsible Adults

Alas, something I am good at... Almost.

Today I had the day off. Lucky, Tay and Shelby did too!! We had a very strict schedule that consisted of not sleeping in at all, running a quick errand, eating some good samiches, sitting by the pool allllllllllll day, and then meeting the newest little member to my family.

Shelby's parents have the best best pool ever. It's fun, it's huge, and it's secluded. It's like escaping the real world, and being in paradise for a few hours. We even had the pool man (Shelby's dad) offer us some cheese crips'!

*Don't worry, no 16 year old boys were invited, this picture was taken a year ago, just so you understand how amazing it really is*

After our great samiches, a few hours of laying by the pool and one dead camera battery later, this is what we ended up with.

It's ok if you wanna judge us. Go right ahead.

This picture pretty much summed up the day. A. Mazing.

Aren't they so great? We have mini photoshoots, it's really nbd.

Impressive? Two people, one diving board? I like it.

I'm sure she would be super flattered if anyone wants to hire her. But can we get a close up on those tans lines?

This is happening right now, people. It hurts me just thinking about it.

Or maybe it hurts because it's like looking in a mirror. Even my lips got sun burnt!

It was all worth it, obviously, because I knew after all the pain there would be three things waiting for me: A tan after the burn fades, baby Porter, and baby Preston. Let's be honest, my family knows how to make cute babies. Just check them out here, here, here, and here, just to name a few. Aren't they all the cutest?! Well baby Porter and I haven't had a meeting or some snuggle time ever, so today was the day! and I. Love. Him. Paige, can I please just keep him forever?!

He is such a sweet baby, and I just can't get enough of him! He's a month a 2 days old. Presh ious.

I think older brother Preston was feeling a little neglected. This was right before he smacked Porter on the forehead. Sorry Paige!

I'm not so sorry that he got an Oreo, how can you deny him!?

PLUS, look how excited he is!

All in all it was an amazing day off.

Disasters:

-Being too distracted by your stomach you almost forgot to invite Taylor to Lunch

-Then, getting off the freeway because said stomach was acting so hungry

-Being too cool for sun screen

-When Taylor's rare Maui Babe tanning lotion slightly exploded. It's exclusive to Hawaii.... or little boutiques in Colorado. Random?

-Sweating to death right now from being so stinking sun burnt!

-Drinking a few too many Coke Zero's, and eating chips and chocolate while in your tanning attire. Terrible idea.

-Denying the cheese crisp... Oh it sounds so good right now!

-Not having Preston or Porter living at my house

Disasters Avoided:

-Being hungry after our samiches

-Not getting enough sun

-Feeling terrible about your body as you double fist the bag of chips

-A successful meeting of Porter, and some amazing family time. (I MISS YOU GUYS!)

-My hands still smell like a new baby

-Really classy pictures...? What?

How do you spend your day's off? I hope they are just like mine!

*Sorry about the overload of poor quality iPhone photos... (that's what people say who have really nice cameras so I found it totally appro. Let's be honest, my iPhone is probably better then either of our real camera's)*

Panic

We have a serious problem. Chief, our dog, has some serious issues. He's afraid of everything. Just to name a few...

-Baby gates

-Luggage

-Laundry baskets

-Garbage cans

-The bathroom

-Squirt bottles

and the most recent...

-Walking from the kitchen to the family room.

*You see those two door ways? They are literally around the corner from one another. In the second picture you can BARELY see through the open doorway into the family room*

What? That can't possibly be anything. Well folks, it sure is. and I'll tell you what, it's a huge problem. You never realize how much you move around your house until you have a dog sitting in your kitchen whining at you while you are watching TV.

This all started when we brought home the sheet metal for this project. When we brought it home Hub took it straight to the family room and Chief barked the whole time he was walking with it. I can kind of understand why... it's big? While we were working on it he would not go in the family room, and then when we took it to the kitchen he wouldn't go in the kitchen. When we finally got him to go in the kitchen with it, he walked really slow past it, not getting remotely close at all. After that he's been just fine. In fact his bed is right under it and it doesn't even phase him. But something changed. I think he thinks that there is some sort of monster living between the doorways. He will sneak past the door from the kitchen into the dining room to then run back into the kitchen. The worst part about it is, he can't walk very well on the wood floor, let alone try and RUN on it. It's the most annoying sound in. the. world. It's more like he just slides around until he get's his footing.

We have tried everything. We have sat on the floor at the opposite wall from the kitchen, and called him over and over and over, in all different tones of voice, but nothing works. He just cowers away and whines. Hub has even put his leash on him and walked back and forth, and this has had the best results. But once he is off the leash he just can not do it! Nothing in our house has changed, the sheet metal is in the kitchen.

I don't know what to do with my whiney baby doggy. He's such a good doggy all the time! Is there such a thing as doggy anxiety? Or Doggy schizophrenia? What do I do people?! I don't know how much longer I can take all the whining!

Isn't he the cutest?

DIY Magnet Board...

Or Don't DIY because it's kind of a pain in the butt.

I really did have a lot of fun making this, even though it was a big pain in the butt. I stumbled upon this blog and thought to myself, "Simple enough". Please read that tutorial before reading the rest of my post.

You thought to yourself the same thing I thought, huh? I'll let you in on a little secret... these blog moms are crazy good at crafts. Their tutorials seem sooooo simple, just like any little housewife could do it! Sure, there's a lot of people out there talented enough to do such simple things like cook edible dinners and make magnet boards... I however am not one of them... once again I realize, I was not born to craft.

On Friday night, Hub asked me what I wanted to do. Oddly enough, I wanted to make this. I just told him about it, and how it was soooo easy, it took the lady under an hour to do it! Hub, being the best little Hub out there, drove me to Home Depot. We walked up and down many isles that all looked the same, wood everywhere. That was simple enough to find. We finally had to ask for some help when it came to sheet metal,We just couldn't find any that was big enough. I have a HUGE empty wall in my kitchen and this is what I've been in search of ever since I saw my cute friend Savanna's.

We finally asked a nice man where we would find sheet metal and he showed us. I fell in love. Nothing has ever been so big and handsome (except for you hub). This was 4'x3' of pure goodness. One thing led to another, we were alone, and hub was ready to saw our wood himself! As he was just about to hit the start button, I read a huge sign above him that said something to the effect of "you don't know what you are doing, dumby". Hub had to go find the nice man again.

We then headed to nails. There was a new helper in nails and by this point I wasn't messing around. We asked him where the upholstery nails were, he kinda looked at me like "Honey, your at Home Depot, not a craft store, get out of here!". After searching and searching the wall of nails we found some. I told the new helper our plan of nailing a hole, and then nailing in the upholstery nail after. He went on and on about how we were going to need a drill, and it's going to take forever to nail them one by one, and that's not how he would do it!! I really just wanted to pull out my sassy pants and say, "Listen up, Buckaroo! I read the tutorial, I can pull it up on my phone! She nailed every single nail by hand, not with a drill! And I don't care how you would do it! This is how I am going to do it! It's going to take me less then an hour! Plus, I have a pink tool set that I rarely get to use, so I'm using it tonight!!!!". But I didn't. I was nice, and said please and thank you at the appropriate times.

I'm pretty sure that our trip to Home Depot was over an hour and we just had a short list of things. Sorry hub! But when we got home we ate a quick dinner, (It was like 9:00) and got straight to work.

DIY Magnet Board

Material: Sheet Metal, 1"x2" wood, nails, hammer, upholstery nails, or any kind of pretty nail

Step one:

I had this bright idea of gluing the wood to the metal so that it wouldn't move while I nailed it, and to reinforce it. Bright idea?? Not so bright. Our really cheap wood wasn't exactly flat, not to mention I couldn't find my hot glue gun, so I used Tacky Glue. I don't even know where I got tacky glue, or when I got it! It looks like I found it in the 80's!

To keep the wood pressed against the metal we used everything remotely heavy in our house.

Apparently Tacky Glue doesn't really dry. Like ever. We let it sit for awhile, but I'm not the most patient person. This could be why everything I do is a Disaster. So we decided to flip it over and start nailing things into place.

Step Two:

Skip step one, please oh please, I'm begging you, just skip it.

But if you didn't, now it's time to flip it. Goooooood luck. This is like a 10 man job, but there were only two of us, so as you can imagine.........

We had to hurry and push some sides in, pull some sides out, shed a tear (almost) and maybe say a curse word, or two. Our sides weren't all pushed in, so there is a really thin line of wood hanging out of the bottom, but I don't even care. It's mine, I made it, and I'm no crafter.

Step Three:

Figure out how far apart you want your pretty nails to be. I figured 2 inches apart, about an inch from the edge. So I used a Sharpie to mark the dots. Pens don't work, nor do pencils. Don't waste your time.

You can BARELY see my dots towards the top, but they are there.

Step Four and Five combined:

Tap your nail through the sheet metal into the wood just far enough for it to get stuck. Then rip it out, and put your upholstery tack there and bang that right in. This is actually pretty hard. If you don't nail far enough the first time the tack wont nail straight in and you will end up with almost 20 that look just like this....

*The top one wasn't nailed straight down, see it's little tail? And you did observe that right, I don't have a super fancy camera!!*

and this.....

And you will probably nail your thumb a few times too. I'm new at this, so I got mine 3 times and called it quits. Luckily there were like 4 holes left and Super Hub came to the rescue again.

Isn't he the best? Gosh, I sure think so too.

Then hang up that bad boy and........... TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Isn't it just lovely?! I am obsessed to say the least! As for time frame... we watched all of Baby Mama while we were hammering away. Or should I say, we listened in between all the banging. I guess if you are super crafter you could do it in an hour... Then again, if you are super crafter you never even made it to the bottom of this post, you were too busy showing me up!

Now I just need some cute magnets for it!! I found this today.... Maybe next time? I can't possibly mess these up! Or can I?

The Almost DMV

My car has had a Utah license plate ever since I've had it. It's been registered at my parents house until June when my dad so kindly told me that it's not his car anymore, signed the title over to me, and wrote up a bill of sale. (I still owe you that dollar dad)

Obviously I do things at the last possible second. I have my alarm go off right when I need to wake up and when it does I tell myself "I'll just hurry today", then hit the snooze for 9 more minutes of bliss. Why on earth would I go in June to get my car registered? That would be CRAZY! So now it's the middle of July and I've come to learn that Hub wants nothing to do with Safety and Emmisions and the DVM. As luck would have it, my diva friend Taylor also had the day off. She asked me if we could go to lunch, and I said we could AFTER we went through the miserable process of registering my car.

*Isn't she a babe, hot and single*

As Taylor and I pulled into the Safety and Emmision place she made the very rude comment of "What if your car doesn't pass?". I'm pretty sure my mouth hit my stearing wheel and then my hand somehow just flew across the car and hit her. "Why would you even say something like that? How rude! It passed last year, so it should be juuuuuuuuust fine". Tay, you jinxed me. Brat.

When we got to the back of the building things started to get a little rough for us. There were like 7 lines to choose from so naturally I chose the line with the shortest wait time. Taylor start's going off about "vehicles newer then 1996" and other ridiculous stuff. I was lucky enough that the shortest line was also the right line to be in after debating back and forth about our different options. Tay was slightly panicked. She's never had to do this kind of stuff before in her life. (nor did I until last year, but Jim was with me!) So I walked her through what was about to happen.

"We just get out, and stand in a really hot booth, and they look at your car, and then you get back in and drive away. All done, and you always pass".

This is the part that is kind of a blur to me. I'm still not exactly sure what happened.

The lady flags us forward and signals for me to roll down my window. She then proceeds to yell at me telling me what could possibly be very important information. I honestly did not understand one word she said. Tay picked up that she wanted my a/c and "other accessories" turned off. I knew that she wanted me to go sit in that nasty greasey chair (instead of the sweaty booth). We hurried out of the car and stood by the greasey chair. As we stood, I told her it would literally take 2 minutes and we would be on our way to the dmv then Cafe Rio. That was not the case. The lady who had just screamed so kindly to get out of the car now came back and screamed about how I failed.

Failed.

Failed.

Failed.

Failed.

FAILED!

Tay your JINXED me!

I don't fail easily. How embarrassing. I had just stood on my soap box 5 minutes ago saying how I passed last year with flying colors, this year would be just as easy. The lady may have screamed at me why I failed, but I was to busy shrinking in embarrassment to hear, so she directed us to the office where someone would go over in better detail the reason why.

We pulled away, tears may have filled my eyes, and instantly turned from embarrassed to pissed.

The guy in the office told me everything I already knew. "You're check engine light is on and all the tests that we ran didn't tell us why. You need to go to a mechanic, have him reset the blah blah blah, fill out the back of this, bring it back within 30 days, and we will run the tests again for free". (Oh ya, did I forget to tell you that I had to pay $27.75 to fail this test?)

I KNOW that my engine light is on. It comes on when it has trouble excellerating, and eventually turns off. It's not a problem, it just happened to turn on the day before, and I'm sure it would go off soon. I didn't tell him that, but I sure wanted to sweet talk my way into passing. But my sweet talking self was stuck inside my embarrassed pissed off self.

So we left. I called the hub and in a very stern way told him, this is your problem, this is exactly why I don't do stuff like this, I don't even understand what just happened, I don't care if I never get my car registered, ya know, that kinda stuff.

Me and Tay went about our day, skipping the DMV, and enjoyed our lunch at cafe rio.

The next, when I got in my car to go to work, my engine light was off.

Surprise, Surprise.

It's August now, and I still haven't gotten my car registered. Hub told me it's not one of those things that I can keep putting off. I told him I can put it off forever.

Does anyone "know a guy" who can pass my car?! OR How do I get it to turn off?! Help a Sista Out!!

*In the defense of Hub, He works a regular job. He's at work at 8 am, and leaves work around 5:30, Monday-Friday. The DMV isn't open on Saturday's so really I do have to deal with the problem. But he would be so much better at it then me!*

In Recent News

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO YOU!!

Happy Anniversary, Hub!

I hope every year is just as easy as this year!

If not, that's ok too. I'll always love you a million billion!

xoxo, your fashionably late wife

Disaster Averted... For Today

Last night, just after I put dinner in the oven, and just before letting out the GIANT sigh of relief that says I'm-so-glad-this-is-over-now-I-can-clean-my-kitchen the hub asked me if I wanted something for dessert.

"We could make brownies, cookies, cake..." he suggested.

On this rare, very rare occasion do we actually have all of these things on hand. This day we actually did because we had gone to the grocery store. Shock. (I don't think we've been since April). Something you may not know about my darling little hub; this man has a saaaaweet tooth for chocolate. Brownies are in the running for favorite, but chocolate chip cookies are the end-all-be-all as far as he's concerned.

As I start cleaning up the mess from dinner the conversation goes a little this way,

Hub: "Or we could make The Thing Kyle's Mom Made with the brownies AND the cookies".

I knew right then that we were headed for a Natural Disaster.

At the age of 17 I tried to make brownies. Apparently, boxed brownies are to hard to handle and I ended up switching the amount of water and the amount of oil. THEN I proceeded to bake them in our very old oven that required you to change the setting from "pre-heat" to "bake". These brownies were like trying to chew on charcoal, everyone wondered why you were doing it, and no one wanted to join in. They went right in the trash and I'm nearly positive I haven't made a box of brownies unsupervised since.

As I got all the ingredients out to document this most likely disaster I remembered what Hub said the last time I made a cake, "We are officially out of vegetable oil after this. Add it to the list". I didn't add it, he didn't add it, it didn't fall off the shelf at the grocery store into our cart and then later into our cabinet. It's still at the grocery store, but it has made the list this time.

So I pulled out my lap top and did what only a Natural Disaster would do and googled "vegetable oil substitutes". As it turns out, apple sauce is a good substitute! Or melted butter, melted Crisco, or really any other kind of oil. I immediately wanted to use apple sauce! We had it, so WHY NOT USE IT?! I'll tell you why, I love my Hub. And I knew he had his little chocoholic heart set on The Thing Kyle's Mom Made, so I went with the safer choice, melted Crisco.

Here's how you substitute for vegetable oil in The Thing Kyle's Mom Made

Ingredients:

Box of brownie mix (for lazy people)

2 eggs

1/4 c. water

1/2 cup Crisco (melted)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (store bought for the extra lazy)

Mix your lazy people brownie mix, eggs, melted vegetable oil, and water together

(and if you're like me, use your Kitchen Aid because honestly it doesn't get used that often, show it some lovin'!)

Then put the brownie mix in the cute pan you've never used before, and if you don't splatter it all over the side you are doing it wrong.

Clean up the terribly embarrassing mess before anyone judges you, and let Hub snack on the dough balls

Take a dough ball and push it into your brownie batter, evenly spaced apart.

Make sure that you've let your cookie dough sit out for a really long time so that its really soft and difficult to push into your brownie batter. (don't really do that. Leave them in the fridge until the last possible second. I think it would be easier. But I don't listen to rules like that)

Look past all those perfect disasters going on on the side of your pan and your cookies that wont go in the brownie batter and throw this Low Cal, healthy snack in the oven and bake according to the brownie box directions.

Take a quick sec for a game with these two and then assign dish duty to the man asking for The Thing Kyle's Mom Made.

Now go change your clothes. You are gonna need to take off those jeans and put on your fat day stretchy pants that are so old you they have holes everywhere. This allows for the more room to expand.

I would probably top this with some ice cream and chocolate and caramel sauce, but as we have it our options were mint chocolate chip (toothpaste anyone?) or Strawberry. So we did without.

Then Enjoy!

Forget about manors, just scoop it on to the plate!

GET IN MY BELLY

*Note the fat day stretchy pants*

All in all, I feel like The Thing Kyle's Mom Made was successful. I satisfied the hub's sweet tooth for now, and I don't think I'm ever going to buy vegetable oil again... Ok probably not true. The batter was a little thicker than I thought it should be, but again, it's been a few years since I've made brownies.

Disasters:

-Not having any vegetable oil

-Not using the apple sauce

-Making something edible... Those fat day stretchy pants with the holes are a little bit more snug today

-Not actually knowing if this is how Kyle's Mom made it, or if there is a name rather then The Thing Kyle's Mom Made

-After taking the first picture the water spilled down my cabinets, resulting in a little baby water fall

-No ice cream. none. ugh. I'm still upset

-Half the pan went missing last night. I looked in the trash, and there was nothing there... I guess that means we ate it.

-Never using the orange pan before. Sure it's cute, but does ceramic cook different than glass? I have no idea!

-Soft cookie dough. Boooooooo.

Disaster's Averted:

-Wanting to ever fit into my jeans again. Mmmmmmmmmmm so yummy.

Natural Disaster

Yes Yolks, that's me. The Natural Disaster. I'd like to take a minute of your time to explain to you just why I'm this way. Fact of the matter is, I don't know. I just am. In my tiny little brain I seem to think that I'm the best at EVERYTHING I do. Obviously I'm some sort of gourmet cook in my mind, so adding and subtracting things from recipes seems like a good idea. WRONG. Or while driving, I think I know the roads way better then google maps of course! 20 minutes after the ETA... I'm still not there. Things like that. Naturally, I'm a disaster. I have found myself saying a lot lately, "I don't follow those kind of rules" regardless of the situation. So please, sit back, and let me tell you about last weeks adventure.

After many, many hours of stalking my favorite blogs, I decided that I'm going to take this domestic house wife thing into my own hands. I found two tutorials that looked so simple even I couldn't mess them up. So I went over the supplies of the stamped wall art and declared myself ready to craft. Easy. As. Pie. (literally, because pie is so not easy to make). Looks simple enough right?

Let's start with the supplies.

-Old frame that needs to be revamped.

I'm going to stop right there. I have no such thing, but I've read on tons of other peoples blogs about just where to get one. So I threw on some clothes super fast and rush on down to the local Goodwill. I B-line straight to the frame section, and there she was a beautiful gold frame that was in desperate need of a revamp. It had to be too good to be true. The FIRST frame that I stumble upon can not actually be THE FRAME!

*It looked very similar to this one, only a little more "loved"*

And alas... I found a flaw. This perfect frame had no glass. No glass means there is nothing to stamp on. It was just that, a frame. When I turned her around to see her ridiculous low price to justify me buying her anyway... $75.00. Even in a thrift store I discover the most expensive thing and fell in love instantly. So after we parted ways I walked up and down the frame isle for a good 20 minutes trying to envision my life with another frame. Nothing else spoke to me. I left the store empty handed.

I decided to pull out the trusty old iPhone of mine and find out where the nearest DI was. I found it and was headed there. I was so excited because after not finding anything at Goodwill, the DI would defiantly have what I need. Much to my surprise, their frame section was not even a quarter as good as Goodwill. This is when I start to get depressed and improvise...

"I'll just run to JoAnn's... they ALWAYS have something for me... I need stamps anyway...."

"Maybe I just need a new frame instead of an old one..."

These thoughts all start running through my head and I walk slowly to my car. On my drive to JoAnn's (which is way closer to Goodwill then the DI might I add) I had a great idea of Modge Podging "J & K" for our bedroom. I've wanted to do this for awhile and since I'm crafting right now anyway, what's another project on the pile? This was an easy one, so easy in fact that I've done it before while I was single.

*Thanks for letting me hang this in out closet hub. It no longer matches my bedroom and it's to cute to get rid of.*

Now my list for JoAnn's was:

-Frame (with glass)

-Modge podge

-stamps

-grey and yellow paper

SIMPLE! JoAnn's has NEVER failed me! As I begin my journey through the store I head for things I knew I could find easily. Giant paper mache J & K.

J, check.

K, check.

"and" sign....... crickets..... nothing. Only letters. For the next 10 minutes I picked up and put back the J and K, over and over. I can't repeat the conversation going on in my head because it's far to foul. I had another idea standing in front of the giant letter's to modge podge an "R" for our family room. Then another 5 minutes goes by and I put all the letters back because I don't know what color I would do the "R". I move on to frames... Pricey sums up that problem. So I decided to just get the stamps to make this day worth SOMETHING. I never even found the stamps, or stencils for that matter. Paper was a problem. It was all just so blah.

I walked out of the store that has NEVER failed me, with nothing.

How am I suppose to be this domestic housewife that I read about if I can't even find the first thing on the supply list?! I want to be that housewife so bad... but I guess that's what makes me

The Natural Disaster.

Help!? Where do I get an "and sign"? And cute frames?! Thoughts??

*sidenote: the two people that I told my story to both corrected me when I said "and sign" with "ampersand". I know what it's called*