So, every Thursday I go to the grocery store. It has become my weekly routine. I am embarrassed to say that I know all the regular Thursday workers and I am now on speaking terms with the undercover security at Walmart. I also try to park in the same spot every week so that I do not have that 25 seconds of panic when I come out of the store and I can't find my car. And yet, even parking in the same spot every week, I come out and for that split moment while I am walking towards the cars, I feel a panic that I might not be able to find the one that belongs to me.

Have you ever noticed how everything sounds so magical and beautiful when you write it? Like I could write and tell you about how Jaxson just spilled his juice and I yelled at him and it sounds a little harsh but not as bad as if you had actually witnessed it.

And I am reading back on my previous blogs and I am beginning to wonder how much I really use this blog as a journal? I think it is a beautiful collection of memories that I would want my children to look back on one day but the negative emotions are left out. I realized today that it is so easy to read other blogs and feel insanely jealous of the lives that others live because blogs LIE! ok, they don't lie but they do not tell the whole story. They are like a heartbroken teen who can only remember the "good" memories. Point of this......don't be fooled by my happy messages. The bad does exist...I just don't write about it. But what's the point of doing that now because I just told you all that it is there. HA!

*No, I am not having a bad day!*

Jaxson's game

Jaxson is very interested in emotions. He likes to play a game where we have to show each other our happy face and then he wants to do his sad face. When he is 19, grown, and leaving home I want to remember his silly game of happy and sad faces. I will miss these times.

Jaxson

Jaxson making a statement

Hockey

Connor's second year of ice skating. He is the ONLY child out on the ice wearing a Dallas Star jersey. Seems to be a lot of Philadelphia Flyers fans on the ice and one lone Dallas Star fan.

We went from this weather.......

To this! Just one day apart. We spend one day outside riding bikes, the next building snowmen.

Mean People

The world is full of mean people. Granted, the world is also full of nice people, it is the mean people that make the journey through this life so miserable. A common misconception is that once we graduate from high school, we become adults and the "mean people" go away. NOT TRUE PEOPLE! The mean people from high school become mean adults and those mean adults have mean children and it is an endless cycle. One of the qualities I admire about my mother is that she has a "tough" skin. She doesn't allow people to treat her unkindly and it doesn't hurt her feelings to be unliked. I am not my mother. I take everything personally and I agonize for days over nonacceptance. I think more so than I even did in high school. As much as I think it hurts to feel unliked by peers, I can only imagine what it must have been liked to be nailed to a cross, spit upon, and forced to face all those "haters" during my last moments of life. To watch them chant and cheer as I suffered and died for their sins and the sins of the world. Ok, my life isn't that bad.....Jesus definitely had it worse.

Dallas

Bathtime

Banana Foster

You need:
9 oz angel food cake cut into 1 inch strips
2 1/4 cups milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup spiced rum (I used rum extract)
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 bananas

Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the angel food cake 20 minutes tossing three times during baking
Whisk milk, eggs, brown sugar, rum, and vanilla together until sugar is dissolved.
Stir in cake and banana slices.
Pour into 8 inch square baking dish. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes for the cake to dissolve some of the liquid.
Bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 25 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before eating.

This was YUMMY! I topped it with fresh whipped cream and got rave reviews from the family. It was super easy to make and it is now one of the family favorites.

I miss these days. I remember it being hard to have a three year old and a newborn but now that I look back, they were the best memories of my life. I love my kids and I am really struggling through school this semester because I want to be home with them. Connor always had a silly smile back then and Jaxson looked like a little owl with his big brown eyes always open wide. I have decided that I really want another baby and would gladly have another if I could convince my partner.......he is not so much the baby lover that I am. I remember a time when I wasn't sure if I would ever have children, and I wanted them but NEVER realized that they would affect my life the way that they have. I love every day that I get to see their smiles from successes and hug them better when they are crying from failures. I especially love that I get them for at least 14 more years!!!!