currently | talking crackers

Currently is a weekly feature with ♥ Randalin of Harvesting Kale ♥ and I am her happy co-host each week. I hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using the provided themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been borrowing, dancing, building, throwing, buying this week? Over here, we have been...

Borrowing family time. My mom and dad are visiting this week and we are all just enjoying the heck out of having them here. Otto most of all, pure heart that he is, is in heaven spending buddy time with his Papa Mike. My heart will break when they have to leave tomorrow :(

Dancing in the kitchen. Etta loves music and will dance and smash her basket of child-safe dishes around on the floor to entertain herself while we cook. So that is a daily activity. She dances by holding both hands straight up in the air and slowly spinning in a circle. Her other signature move is "the Flashdance" where she stares you in the eye and jogs in place so fast her whole body shakes. Amazing.

Building a nice bedroom (squeeee!) for maybe the first time in my life for my project-per-month project. I am coming down to the wire getting it together but I couldn't be more excited to show you the results and it looks like I'm going to be about $97 under my $100 budget because I got just enough gift cards for my birthday and I've been so freaking frugal with them. Yay! And guys, I wired together a pendant light and hand-wrapped the cord in twine. It is so pretty! ::electric air guitar::

Throwing down mad vocabulary and it makes my heart sing. Loretta's best word, the one she pretty much only screams (while lunging and reaching) is, "CRACKERS!" Annie's cheddar bunnies are her jam. She says the word like she is a demon from hell named Crackers; it is awesome.

Buying Otto a haircut. I showed Otto this picture of the repulsively unhandsome David Beckham and asked him what he thought of the haircut. His face dropped into the biggest scowly frown and then he looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, "Well, I don't really want to have a beard."

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 

coveting, imagining, asking, saving or saving for, fearing


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long weekend

We are in the middle of a nice loooong weekend with my parents visiting and the kids are being spoiled rotten by their nana and papa. So much time spent playing on the front stoop, taking walks for ice cream, drinking cup after cup after cup of coffee, and everyone napping when the kids nap because the kids are wearing everyone out. I have been high as a kite on cold medicine and am about ready to be done with this headcold already. On Saturday I'm pretty sure I was tripping at the mini-golf and pizza place (I took a dose of cough syrup before leaving and had a beer while there, and then all the pretty colors...). Fact: the mini golf place seems extra magical when you are drunk on cold medicine.

Sniffles and cough aside, it's just been magic to have my mom and dad here, doting on my kids. Loretta is getting to know them and is happily bossing everyone around. Otto is just in heaven with his best bud, Papa Mike. He has been downright rude, in fact, "I'm going to go ride my bike now. Just me and Papa Mike, no one else is invited."    

currently | rocking the rooster sauce

Currently is a weekly link-up with ♥ Randalin of Harvesting Kale ♥ and I am her happy co-host each week. I hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using the provided themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been eating, loving, missing, moving, taking this week? Over here, we have been...

Eating sriracha on my sriracha. I have a headcold (or something, gah) and nothing sounds better when you've got a throat condition than hot sauce on your everything and an icy cup of cherry 7up. Mmmm ::cough cough:: mmmmm.

Loving my birthday cake. Did you see? Sweetest boy and sweetest cake ever.

Missing everyone I've known and loved my whole life. How incredibly sad is that? There is a silver lining. My parents are visiting starting tomorrow and it will be the nicest thing to have them here, kicking around with the kiddos, and they are always so good to let Rob and I have a night or two out on the town. I am hoping karaoke and a movie theater are in my near future! Then, my best friend is visiting in just a few weeks with her 5 year old. That will be an epic weekend of friends hugging friends. Then, my other best friend is visiting in July with her two small boys and husband (who is also a best friend of ours) and that will be an epic weekend of more hugging and a Portland visit to see more best friends ♥ Then, I'm going to try so hard to figure out how to get to BlogHer and see as many of you as possible. And then in September I am leaving on a jetplane to visit more best friends to celebrate a housewarming and hug away on some girls I love love love and miss like crazy. We are also going to try to fit a California trip in there somewhere to meet up with my sister-in-law and her fam and in-laws and whoever else can make it for possibly-Disney but maybe just a couple beach days. Summer Lovin around here people. Much needed as my heart misses all of these people so much.

Moving my bedroom around and using my birthday funds to decorate it for my project-per-month project. I gave up on the Anthro comforter that caught my eye; it was just way too costy. But I am hoping to find something nice and energetic at TJ Maxx or Kohl's this week. Wish me luck! I am also hoping to figure out how to DIY a pendant lamp. Wish me luck! I want to plug the chord into the overhead light socket and then run it along the ceiling to over where the chair (that I need to find at the thrift still) will be. This project is based probably too much around luck, and I've waited til the last minute like whoa, but whatever, that room can only get better. Can't wait to share the after pics!

Taking meth. Just kidding. But the government probably thinks I am cooking it, I've bought so much high dosage sinus medication lately plus a bunch of household cleaners last weekend (it's incredibly lame how excited I am to crack into the J.R. Watkins lavender dish soap). Obviously I know all the ingredients of meth; I watch Breaking Bad, yo. Loretta has been taking a break from veggies, unfortunately. Girlfriend can take a bite of soup, casserole, whatever, and manage to isolate the veggies inside her mouth and single them out for spitting. She's a spitter and a vegetable deny-er! Where did this sassy pants pain-in-the-butt child come from? I love her, but for real, eat your veggies, girl, and simmer down with the spitting.

That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 

borrowing, dancing, building, throwing, buying


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a surprise cake

The afternoon before my birthday Otto found out they would be making me a surprise cake. It was all he could think about for the next 24 hours, but he knew he needed to keep the cake a secret.

That night, when we were talking about his day, I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. "Well, when we got off the bus we didn't go anywhere. We didn't go to the store." Then he looked at me with the most excited face and rolled away from me, burying that poker face in a pillow. Then, to himself, mumbling in this excited run-on kind of way, "and it's a mix and I don't know what it is except you can make WHATEVER YOU WANT with it like maybe you can make cake, but not cake, but maybe you make pizza and you don't put anything on it, or cupcakes, or whatever you want, and it's going to be so yummy, hahahahaha!"

He had me fooled, I suspected Rob and Otto were plotting to surprise me with homemade pizza. Until the next afternoon...

Otto had an early afternoon appointment at the audiologist and afterwards we had about an hour to spare. It was my birthday and I was off work early, so I decided to take him to a local bakery for a treat. Try as he might, he gave me some clues about the cake that was waiting at home...

"We can go to the bakery, but I don't want cake how about a cookie or anything but cake."

"Too bad THIS will be our last sugar of the day!"

I was beginning to suspect. After we'd picked up Etta she was a little grumbly on the drive home.

Otto: Oh I think Etta is feeling bad because she wants to see Daddy and have cake!

Me: Cake?

Otto: What?! Oh there's no cake. Etta doesn't know that there isn't any cake ::nervous laugh::

While we waited for Rob to come home for dinner (and there was a mysterious item, covered in a cloth, on the kitchen counter) Ot mentioned, "Mommy, we'll have some more sugar soon! But nothing. We're not having anything."

Keeping the secret was burning him up. Once Rob got home the winking started. Otto and Rob winking and winking to each other, hilarious. We went out to dinner and then came home. "Just lay down on the couch Mommy and go to sleep. Your birthday is over, that's the end. Stay right there, don't come in the kitchen." He and Rob ran off to the kitchen...

My surprise cake. The best cake I've ever seen. Kept completely secret by the sweetest boy in all the world. We all gobbled cake and ice cream. The end.