Same Stuff New Place

New site! Over here.

Weekend Pony (Nate Style)

This is the first year that Nate has had one of Scott’s teachers and it is so weird! I love how two little people can be raised in the same home with the same parents and be their own. Weekend pony is awesome. He gets to come home for the weekend and you write down everything you did in the Weekend Pony journal and share it with the class on Monday. Scott was obsessed with taking Weekend Pony everywhere. Nate didn’t want him to get hurt so he let him take naps in his room all weekend. I think his caregiver fear was brought on by an emergency fur cut we had to give Weekend Pony after he magically got gum stuck in his mane with in hours of being in the Lyon home. It was SHOCKING and is still mystery as to how it happened in the car…in Nate’s lap….while Nate was chewing gum. A mystery.

PS Weekend Pony’s actual name is Lightening. Nate’s class renamed him Lightening Thunder. Nate later renamed him Fire Thunder. I just stuck with Weekend Pony to try and bring some consistency to the poor pony’s life.

We love you Weekend Pony!

7 years 4 weeks and 3 days

Things I just remembered that I forgot. Documenting Scott’s bday! School starting has rocked my world, but I think a routine is finally getting established. Phew. I almost pulled everyone out and starting homeschooling, but instead of being super drama queen, I gave it a week and everyone is thankful.

Scott. Quite simply, you are beyond amazing. You are so smart. Not just you are my own kid and I think you are smart, but you are really smart. Sometimes you bust out a fact or a question or read me something and I am shocked. Especially when you started reading my texts to me. That scared me until I figured out how to hide the pop up on my phone. You are funny and goofy. You like to have your own space and be the boss. You are good to your brother when it matters. You feel deeply and have a compassionate heart. You play soccer and basketball. You have crazy climbing skills that you demonstrate every chance you get. Even in Whole Foods. You are a rule follower. You are daring and brave. Flips off the high dive, jumping off Dripping Springs, backflips on the Blob. You scare me  a little. We love you. Higher than the heavens and deeper than the seas.

PS I really hope your two front teeth never grow in because you are super cute.

Birthday dinner of shrimp, crab legs, scallops and honey chicken with rice. Absolutely no fruit or veggies.

Requested dessert: chocolate cream cookies, swedish fish and chocolate lava cake.

The favorite present!

Reasons I cry during yoga

Have a great year little love bugs that aren’t little anymore. You are destined for greatness.
P.S. I miss you already.
P.P.S. If you could work on being in a better mood when you get home from school this year, that would be great. Thanks in advance.

90/10

Scott starts school on Friday. Nate starts school the next Friday. Why a Friday? I have no idea. It seems weird. School starting always leaves me with mixed emotions. On one hand, I hate it. I want an eternal summer of lazy days. I want my babies to stay right where they are…forever. On the other hand, I am excited for their new adventure. They are super excited and I am so thankful for that. I mean really, what more could I ask for? I decided I need my own new adventure/challenge/distraction. I am joining a fb challenge group called 90/10 that my ex next door neighbor Heidi in Edmond is starting. It consists of eating 90% of your food from the top two Tiers of Michi’s Ladder and 10% of your food can come from Tiers 3 and 4 and nothing from Tier 5. It is a 60 day challenge that I am excited for! What I LOVE about it is that is isn’t anti carb. I know some people love the Paleo diet but I just can’t handle that. Way to strict for me and to be honest I feel like it is too restrictive to be healthy (TOTALLY my opinion). I tried the low carb/no carb thing for a little while to test out the affects on some health things and gained 4 lbs! Yes, I am the only person in the world that has gained weight while eating no carbs. What the what?!

I know 4 lbs isn’t that big of a deal. I honestly just want a challenge and something to work towards. I am also trying to make certain time on the Tulsa Run this year (that I missed by 56 seconds last year… I’m not bitter, not at all.) I also watched the Olympics and am feeling like if I focus I might have a shot at Rio 2016. I hope I still feel like this after not eating sugar for 20 days and knowing I still have 40 more to go.

And all of that was leading up to me telling you to check out Heidi’s blog for some healthy easy dinner recipes. AND if you are interested in learning more about the 90/10 thing let me know! The more the merrier! (It is based on Shakeology/Beach Body. I am trying out Shakeology for a month, but you DON’T have to in order to do the 90/10 group.)

The group officially starts on Friday, Aug 17th, but I am easing into this week…. And if you see me on Thursday night shoveling a double dip brownie fudge sundae into my mouth, don’t judge. You can laugh…. quietly.

food

monday- BBQ Chicken w/ grilled veggies

tuesday- French Toast (made with Ezekiel bread) with scrambled eggs and berries

wednesday- blackened salmon with brown rice and veggies

thursday- mexican bowls (brown rice, black beans, salsa, cheese and leftover bbq chicken)

friday- buffalo burgers and sweet potato fries (does Ezekiel make burger buns? To be continued….)

saturday- date night

sunday- homemade pizza night (I am going to try to attempt this recipe for my pizza… Thoughts? Or I might just split a whole pita pocket in half… We will see how daring I feel…)

PS I know there have been several issues with commenting… Sorry! I am working on it.

PPS Actually Mike is working on it. I am going to be setting up the blog on a different site. OH and by “I am setting up…” I mean he is.

USAUSAUSA

Like every other person, I have been watching the Olympics every night. I know some people have complained about the whole prime time set up, but I love it. I have kids. I have limited time. We tried the whole,” It’s the OLYMPICS kids! Let’s leave the TV on all day and be patriotic and support our team!” It lasted about 3 hours and ended with me getting mad because people NEEDED STUFF while I was trying to focus. The nerve. And Scott running through the house shirtless with a machine gun firing in the air chant screaming, “USA USA USA.” If  we showed you a video of it, you would swear we were raising a terrorist.

Back to my point. As I have watched the incredible awesomeness of the competitors while eating my nightly dessert, I always inevitably turn to Mike and say, “I just… I can’t believe it. How do they work so hard for so many years for one thing?” It is truly amazing. I mean just the abs alone are feat. And I noticed in every interview the athletes always say, ” (insert sport) makes me happy. I LOVE it. I am so happy.” (the exception might be the Russian gymnasts that constantly look like they are about to cry.) It makes me happy that they are happy. To sacrifice so much you would hope you would sacrifice for something that enriches your life and truly brings happiness. Which made me think. Why do we so often make choices that lead us to an end result that will not make us happy? That won’t bring us joy or enrich our lives? Why do I have days that I make little choices that add up and at the end of the day I look back and go UGH? I know I am not perfect. I know I will always have those days. But it just has made me think about what does make me happy. What choices do I need to make everyday to achieve my personal “happiness”? What choices am I making that are pulling me away from where I want to be instead of bringing me closer? I have the same hours in a day as everyone else. We all get to choose how we use those hours.

 

These people make me pretty happy.

Soup and Jeans

I am not committing to menu planning every week, but I have got to pull it together a little bit. My grocery bill has been too high and my fridge has been too empty… I hate it when that happens. I am blaming the kids. I was grocery shopping alone until school was out and now that they are with me, they talk me into all sorts of fun stuff at the store.

So now that it is 111 degrees in Oklahoma, I am have a huge craving for soup. Why? I have no idea. The other day for lunch at Whole Foods, I ate a big bowl of chili. I also just want to wear jeans, I haven’t indulged that craving because I already have sweating issues without over dressing. Maybe my body is so hot that it is kicking in an ancient survival mechanism to trick it into thinking it is cold. You know… the Rules of the Soup Jean Law Theory…. google it.

food

Monday– Dinner at my mom’s… Evyn is in town!

Tuesday– Spaghetti and Meatballs* and salad

Wednesday– Chicken Crock Pot Chili

Thursday–  Honey Kabobs, rice, broccoli

Friday– out of town

Saturday– out of town

Sunday– Pizza/Movie Night

*Okay, so I made up a super easy way to make meatballs and spaghetti sauce (I seriously doubt I actually made this up, but I hadn’t heard of anyone doing it before so I am giving myself full credit)… I love meatballs, but hate making and baking them. So here is what I decided to do and it was delightful…

1. Make meatballs, I don’t really have a recipe, I just get meat, put an egg, some bread crumbs or crushed crackers, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning  in a bowl and mush it together

PS Don’t forget to take off your wedding ring… I have made that mistake before and it is gross

PPS I mush by hand

2. In a crock pot pour 2-3 jars of spaghetti sauce (or if you are fancy your homemade sauce), and about 8 ounces or so of chopped up summer sausage

3. As you roll the meat in balls, drop them in the sauce

4. Make sure the meatballs are covered, put lid on crock pot and cook on low for 6 hrs or so or high for maybe 4 hrs (I always just start my crock pot stuff in the morning and leave it on until dinner so I am bad with “times”)

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Girls have Virginias

Soooo… It was an interesting night….

So far, my stance on sex ed has been on a need-to-know basis. If a question is asked, I answer it honestly. I have been asked, “Where do babies come out of your belly?” And I have answered. So far, no one has asked how a baby gets IN your belly. Last night, the boys were being boys and hiding a bouncy ball spasticly from each other while the other one guessed where it was, of course the it soon ended up hiding in underwear. They started yelling something about PP’s (our short cut for penis) then they just started full on yelling PENIS! PENIS! My mistake was intervening…

Me: Guys, penis isn’t a bad word, but it is a private word. It isn’t something that I want you to run around yelling because you are talking about your super private areas and we don’t talk about our private bodies with people that aren’t the 4 of us. Got it?

Boys: GOT IT!

Nate: Girls don’t have pp’s.

Me: Nope they don’t.

Scott: What do girls call their private areas?

Me: (deep breath, stay natural, deep breath) Girls call their private area vagina.

Silence

Nate: Girls have a VIRGINIA! That is so funny! It is like a VIRGINIA!

Scott: (cracking up) Oh man, virginia! VIRGINIA!!!!

Me: (having a deep internal battle, do I let it go? Because how hilarious is this?!) Guys, chill out. The word is vagina and it is also a private word, so please QUIT SCREAMING ABOUT IT!

I am sure this will be repeated in public sometime soon so put earmuffs on your kids if you frequent Target and Whole Foods.

Speaking of Virginias

Nate decided to turn into a 14 yr old girl for about 30 minutes. Some how in the bath tub, Scott’s eye got scratched and he was “going blind” so I quickly got both the kids out to ease the drama. To set the scene, No one was in trouble. I didn’t yell. I just said, “Time to get out.”

Nate: (laying on the ground with his head in his hands fake crying) I need a new family! No one in this family loves me. I am going to live with a family that likes me.

Me: Umm, Nate, what just happened here? No one is upset at you.

Nate: I want to live with a new mom and a new family. None of you love me. Everyone is mean to me. 

Me: I am so confused right now. What is going on? 

Nate: (fake whimpering)

Me: (time to change tactics) Nate, if you had a new mom, she wouldn’t know your secret handshake… I would be so sad if I didn’t have you.

Nate: (looking up with dramatic eyes) I can teach it to her (and I am not kidding he really said this…) DUH!

Me: Okay, well, I would love to read to you before you go to bed, but if you want to lay in my closet and be sad, that is up to you. PS, I hope you don’t go to a new family, we would be super sad.

Nate: Ughhhhhhh….. (comes out 10 minutes later and acted like nothing happened)

RANDOM.

I really hope he doesn’t start turning into a 14 yr old girl very often, because I was really excited to have boys and skip all that drama. 

PS Vagina is a super creepy word and so are all the other words to use instead of vagina so feel free to just start saying Virginia because I definitely will be. 

Never a dull moment. Ever.

4 yrs and 7 days

Nate is 4!

(and 7 days)

Nate-

Everyday you make us laugh out loud. You are kind and you are fast runner. You love knights and pretending and Scott. You amaze me with how smart you are. You went off the diving board, the slide, and the high dive for the first time all within two days. You decided you were going to do it and you did. You are brave and strong and your smile lights up a room. Thank you for being ours. I’m glad I don’t have to share you for a long time (although, you do already have your wife picked out, but you promised me that you won’t get married until after college). I love you Nate Keener. I love you higher than the heavens and deeper than the seas.

Thanks Mimi and Poppy!

 

All about Nate.

Every time we have gone to Target in the last year you have looked at the GI Joe cake and said, “I want that on my birthday!”

 

For Nate’s birthday, he let me off easy. He wanted to go to Big Daddy’s for dinner and wanted a store bought cake, I felt bad for about 30 seconds. We had a super healthy day of donuts for breakfast, a hot dog and slushy for lunch, and dessert at the pool. He went down the slide over 30 times at the pool! You got a castle and knights, a knight costume, and a new board game. Happy Birthday Nate, we love celebrating you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It really is a treat

Day one

On our way to Fisherman’s Warf, we accidentally visited Nob Hill, China Town, and North Point. What? You can’t tell I’m in Nob Hill?! I look like I am in down town Tulsa taking a self pic?! Oh! That’s because I have awesome photo skills.

San Francisco sour dough… Ghost Mike is in the background.

Better get going… On my way to ALCATRAZ!