School Activities

There's been a lot of school productions in the past few months. Sadly, I took all of these pictures with my iPhone so the quality is junk.

Jacob, Sammy & Ethan

2nd grade play: "We Come Everywhere"

Cohen's Valentines day program

Cohen's Fiesta... his Spanish name: Caesar!

President's Day

I think it's in the Brown blood

Ethan had to do a project based on the book, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He was to pick from a list of options, such as making a diarama of the town, designing a travel brochure, writing a different ending to the story, etc, etc. Well, what did he choose? To film his own weather report! It's pretty cute if you ask me. I blame the actors in the family... Ed and Diane.

Park City Ski Weekend

Eric and I were so excited for our annual couples ski weekend in Park City. We lucked out with awesome weather and fresh snow...among other things like great friends! Eric boarded all three days but I was good with one full day. Gotta save a day for shopping and lunch, right?!? Park City is so convenient for quick trips. When we were there for New Years it was so bitter cold so this trip was a nice follow-up.

View of the Resort from the condo.

Goggleface

Cameron & Sarah

Why didn't I get any pictures of Dan & Leigh?? Sarah - did you take any?

I may or may not have had some time to kill this afternoon.

Here's some recent finds on Etsy. There really is some serious junk on that site but I weeded through the nastiness and found these. Enjoy!

Handmade Rocker


Custom Lounger


Folding Desk



Planters


Why the sideways camera angle?


Nursery?


Fan

Superbowl 2011

What could be better than having the Packers in the Superbowl? Um... nothing, unless they are the winners of the Superbowl! We had a great time cheering them on with the whole family. The boys were excited for about 5 minutes.

Green & Gold M&M's

Anne supplied most of the parts to this edible football field and then we put it together surrounding the 7 layer dip. It was a masterpiece of twinkies and pretzel mix. I can't remember the last time I ate a twinkie - and I had my fair share that day.

This is some car that I have seen at school everyday for the last couple weeks leading up to the game. I wanted to paint something on mine the day after the Steelers lost just to stick it to this lady. So obnoxious.

As if I need another reason to be woken up in the middle of the night.

3:30am: Sound asleep on my back (I sleep on the left side of the bed). Eric is asleep on his left side, knees facing me.
3:31am: I am awoken by the most painful blows to my right thigh/hip area. Blows that are coming from the swift kicking legs of my bedmate, Eric.
3:31:20am: In tears, I have to arouse Eric from sleep to get him to STOP kicking the crap out of me.
3:31:40am: Eric is now awake, heart pounding, sweating, trying to explain himself.

Eric was dreaming. Dreaming about being confronted by a black poodle bodied animal with a racoon face and teeth. What? Can this be happening? Apparently, Eric and the rapoodle, were in his driveway at his childhood home. It was a stand-off, and when the rapoodle charged Eric fought back. And he fought hard. I have never been kicked like that before. Eric was really trying to protect himself and unfortunately, I was on the other end.

Telling this story makes me laugh becuase it is crazy ridiculous, but it isn't the first time that I have been attacked in bed. After Eric and I were married I woke up with a pillow smothering my face. Seriously. I don't recall what that was about but I'm sure he had a great explination at the time. Then there was the time that he punched/knocked me in the nose so hard that it cracked - I thought it was broken for sure. Therefore, this is an issue that needed some research.

Thank you WebMD

REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is characterized by the acting out of dreams that are vivid, intense, and violent. Dream-enacting behaviors include talking, yelling, punching, kicking, sitting, jumping from bed, arm flailing, and grabbing.

In one study, 38% of patients diagnosed with RBD subsequently developed Parkinson disease within an average time of 12-13 years from the onset of RBD symptoms.

The main symptom of REM sleep behavior disorder is dream-enacting behaviors, sometimes violent, causing self-injury or injury to the bed partner.

The person may be awakened or may wake spontaneously during the attack and vividly recall the dream that corresponds to the physical activity.

Seek medical care if unusual behaviors, such as violent thrashing and kicking, occur during sleep.

I think an appointment needs to be made.

Just looking at this nerves me out.

west elm

Lemonade Stand

Ethan had a some buddies over yesterday and what did they decide to do? Random... a lemonade stand. Ethan provided the table, chairs, cups and quarters and Sam provided the product! They had a great time. I think they each went home with over $3 so that was pretty good for selling each cup for 25 cents. You could hear them screaming "STOP" and "LEMONADE" from two streets over they were so loud. Cohen was angry with me because I kept telling him to stop drinking the lemonade. He was loving it.

D Day 2011

Ethan made it through yet another year of dealing with type 1 diabetes. I love spoiling on his D Day because a day full of spoiling Ethan is way better than a year full of moaning and complaining about having to do blood sugar tests and eating a restricted diet. He really is great about it. In February he will be switching to a new pump which hopefully, will be an easy transition.

In essence it's his day to choose what to do, so of course he chose to go to Chuck E Cheese again to play the arcade game. I refuse to eat there so In N Out was his first choice - because of the shake. I was a horrible mother to forget my camera - the iPhone just doesn't cut it but I guess it's better than nothing! Here's to one more year of health without any emergency room visits!

Read This

This article was interesting - never really thought of "us" this way.

thanks Nat

Summer's here?

January 15th, 2011... what were you doing?

Won't shut up about it!!!

Diane got me this book for Christmas. I was excited because I love using a slow cooker but am kind of sick of just making pulled pork and pot roast. So, I tried the recipe on page 189: Sirloin Teriyaki. Let's just say Eric won't stop talking about it and is now insisting that I try a new recipe from this book every week. So here it is....

2/3 c soy sauce

1/4 c vegetable oil

1/2 c rice wine (mirin)

1/4 c packed light brown sugar

1 t freshly grated ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

One 2.5-3lb sirloin roast (tri-tip)

2 c beef broth

2 large sweet onions, chopped

2 t cornstarch mixed w/ 2 t water

Chopped green onions for garnish

**the author is a huge fan of the slow cooker liners you can get in the Ziploc aisle of your store. I used one and it was amazing - no clean-up!!

Combine the soy sauce, oil, rice wine, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic in a large zipper bag. Add the sirloin to the bag and marinate in refrigerator for 8-24 hours.

Pour the marinade and the meat into the slow cooker. Add the broth and onions. Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours.

Remove the meat from the cooker, wrap in foil to allow to rest for 15 minutes. Remove the cooker liner from the slow cooker and pour liquid through a strainer into a sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Taste the sauce and dilute with water if it is too strong.

Add the cornstarch mixture (i started with the recommended teaspoon but ended up using a tablespoon to get it to thicken how I wanted it), bring back to boil.

Served meat with sauce and garnishes. I also had brown rice and broccoli.

Drive-in

Last weekend Eric got this wild hair to take us to the drive-in. I haven't been to a drive-in movie theater since I was a kid. I didn't realize they still existed. Good news...they do, but you have to visit City of Industry, not a town I would ever volunteer to spend time in. The boys were confused about the whole concept but ended up enjoying themselves. The double feature included Tron and Yogi Bear. Tron kept Ethan's attention but Cohen was not that into it. By the time Yogi Bear came on it was 9:30 and Cohen fell asleep 10 minutes in. What was amazing was that we were able to do this in January.

Happy Resolution Making

Etsy