Let's Review

Warning: You are entering a long blog post zone!

It's a new year so my blog needed a little change. Clean, simple, and blue (my favorite color). Ahhhh, that's better. I thought we could do a little reviewing today.

First up, a review of our date night back on the 10th of this month:

Me at Bolero

Sorry for the dark, camera phone photo, but it's all I got!

What we did: dinner and a movie
Where we ate: Bolero, a Spanish Tapas Bar
What we saw: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

On a scale of 1 to 10 (one being terrible and ten being the best ever):
Dinner: 6
The atmosphere was dark and swanky, but for a Friday night in downtown Oklahoma City, we expected it to be hopping. Maybe the low customer count had something to do with being recently post-Christmas and the weather was pretty frigid. However, it did make for a quiet, intimate meal. Ordering off a tapas menu is fun because you get to try lots of different things. My favorite item we tried was pan-fried artichoke hearts with a lemon-garlic aioli dipping sauce. Sweet heavens, it was good.  We also ate shrimp wrapped in crispy pancetta which was divine. Our other two dishes were so-so. And the meal was not especially cheap. This is why we gave it a 6. We'd go back again if we had a gift card. :)

The Movie: 9
All I have to saw is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was art. It was beautiful, funny, poignant and smart. I was totally swept away and would see it again in a heartbeat. The musical score was incredible (we bought the soundtrack when we got home). I particularly liked Of Monsters and Men. And I would like to go to Iceland in the near future. It is beautiful! (FYI, one of my college friends grew up on an American Air Force Base in Iceland and she would always go on and on about how wonderful the country was. I lost touch with her after we graduated, but I imagine that she moved back there because she loved it so much.) I thought Ben Stiller's character was both believable and lovable. You just rooted for him the whole movie. And I didn't guess the outcome of the film at all, which was a great surprise. My final thought? Go see it!


Next up for review, let's go back to the end of 2013, shall we? December 2013 proved to be one of the craziest, busiest months ever. The first weekend in December, we had an ice storm which crippled our city and cancelled school for three days. Of course months before this weekend, we had booked a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas to celebrate our girls' 9th birthday. Travel on I-35 between OKC and Dallas was treacherous, so we had to cancel our trip much to our girls' dismay. Quickly, I came up with a Plan B for their birthday--a slumber party! So on the second weekend in December, we invited three of the girls' closest friends over to spend the night. We had games, pizza, cupcakes, movies and spooky storytelling. In other words, they had a blast. That same weekend, Hannah had a piano contest and we finished up our Christmas shopping. The third weekend in December, we celebrated Christmas with both my extended family here in Oklahoma City as well as our closest friends. We have a tradition with our friends of a "Goodwill Christmas"-- the challenge being every gift must come from the Goodwill store. Most of the time, the gifts are "questionable" but sometimes they are actually awesome. I got an ancient adding machine along with a book entitled "A Guide to the World Wide Web" with a copyright of 1997. It was a doozie.

First "snowstorm" of the winter. 

We made and decorated gingerbread cookies one of those icy cold nights.

Slumber Party Twister

Singing Happy Birthday

Lucas posing after his school Christmas Program

Hannah and Leah at my cousin Kathryn's house

Lucas lovin some foosball at Kathryn's!

Christmas itself was a quiet, calm event celebrated with just the five of us on the 24th. A simple Christmas Eve service, looking at Christmas lights and Mike reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke. It was perfect. Christmas Day was spent at my Dad and Sally's house. We are really just now making memories with them as they are finally settled in their new home and just celebrated their one year anniversary. It was a lovely sunny day spent playing games, eating good food, and just being together. 

Our favorite (crazy) Christmas house in Nichols Hills

Picture taken on Christmas Eve after our church service.

Christmas Eve at home. We came home and ate steaming bowls of chili, opened one Christmas gift (pajamas!) and listened to Mike read the Christmas Story before heading off to bed.

Our dog Roxie on Christmas Eve. 

She slept through the whole thing.

Christmas morning at Papa and Sally's house. Lucas was my dad's "helper elf" passing out the presents to everyone while we chowed down on my dad's famous whole wheat cinnamon rolls with browned butter frosting. I think I ate four.

Lucas and my dad playing with Lukey's new foosball table. 

My step-brother, Jimmy, is looking on.

Me modeling my new t-shirt and scarf that Mike got me for Christmas. Thunder colors, I might add which will be perfect because we are headed to another game on February 5th.

The final weekend in December took a sad and very unexpected turn, however. On Sunday, December 29th, Mike and the kids and I picked up his Aunt Nancy from the ER. She had been seen for dehydration after battling a stomach bug for a few days. We took her home that night and got her settled in for the evening. The next day, December 30th, Mike and I went to check on her and bring her the prescriptions we had filled for her that afternoon. Sadly, we found Nancy had passed away during the night. It was awful and traumatic. We called 9-1-1, stayed for police interviews, called and comforted Nancy's daughter, Ashley, and waited for the Medical Examiner to arrive. It was a long, difficult night with not much sleep. Mike's parents flew in the next day (Nancy was Mike's mom's only sister) and the rest of the week was a blur of cleaning, organizing, and preparing for a memorial service and reception. While Ashley did most of the work (and did it with amazing poise and grace I might add), it was quite the week both emotionally and physically. We dearly loved Nancy and will miss her very much. I am planning on writing a tribute to her (or a series of tributes) in the coming months with stories and pictures honoring her, so stay tuned for that.

Nancy's memorial service was really lovely.

She was a bright, colorful, full of life lady and we loved her.

Nancy in her modeling days. Wasn't she absolutely gorgeous!?

You can go to Ashley's blog to read Nancy's obituary.

And with that, I think I have caught everyone up to date on our life over the last month or two. Heading into 2014, I look forward to all the ups and downs it may bring. Life is truly and adventure. You never know what is just around the corner, so cherish each and every day.

New Year's Food and Date Night Challenge

I know I've been away for awhile. Between the girls' birthday, Christmas and a very unexpected death in our family, this blog has been put on hold for a little while. But here it is....ten days into the new year and I have a resolution to blog more consistently. No rules or pressure, but just more often.

I love making new year's resolutions. I'm not one to beat myself up if I don't fulfill them though. If I do, great! If I don't, oh well, there's always next year. Mike and I talked about some of our goals for 2014 and one of them is to have a consistent monthly date night. Date nights are something we did often when my mom was alive. But then life got complicated and it just hasn't been the same since. We're committed to either finding family or hiring a babysitter to keep this important time that we crave together. We also talked about how there are so many fun, funky new restaurants popping up all over Oklahoma City and we want to try them! We love food. And we love to eat which works out great. Sometimes we tend to stick to our side of town just for the sake of time and ease. This amounts to the mall and Olive Garden. Trying some new restaurants will force us out of our "safe zone" and into some "new" old territory.

Together, we made a list of twelve restaurants we have always wanted to try, but have never been to in good old OKC. I'll list them out for you in a minute along with links to their websites or Facebook pages. If you are from the area, feel free to give us reviews and food suggestions to try. We are excited to hopefully check them off month by month!

In no particular order, our twelve must-eat-at-restaurants are:

1. Ludivine
2. Flint
3. Bolero
3. Guernsey Park
4. Stella
5. The Mule
6. Vast
7. Backdoor BBQ
8. Cafe do Brasil
9. Mickey Mantle's
10. Mutt's Amazing Hot Dogs
11. Waffle Champion
12. Packard's

Some close runner-ups include: Tamazul, Kitchen 324, Victoria's Pasta Shop and Saints Pub.  If we end up with some extra opportunities, we'll definitely check these out too. If you want to suggest another restaurant, feel free! It may be that we've either eaten there or we forgot about it! Our goal is to try new things together and have a few small adventures here in our own city. Oh yeah, and see twelve movies this year. I repeat, twelve non-animated kid movies. That's more than we've seen in the theater in the last five years. Sweet!

And guess what? We are kick starting our date night/food adventure tonight! Mike secretly hired a babysitter and surprised me by taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight. We plan to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and check out Bolero, a Spanish Grill and Tapas Bar we've been really wanting to try! I'll give a full review tomorrow.

Cheers to 2014!

Like Dominoes

If you are a mom, I am sure what I am about to say will resonate with you no matter if you have one child or five children. When you get a busy stretch of days, routine housework gets put on hold, and before you know it you are living in downright chaos. After nine years of parenthood, I am still amazed by this fact. I sometimes look around and think, "wasn't this house clean like two days ago?" 

After a busy birthday/holiday-prep weekend, our house had exploded in mess, disorganization and piles of laundry. Usually if I go even one day without doing at least one load of laundry, it's like setting the falling dominoes in motion. I decided that since all three kids were in school today, I was going to put a whopping on the mess and get things back under control. 

Here's a riviting list of some of my tasks accomplished today:

--Six loads of laundry done. Washed, folded and put away. Bam.

--Two loads of dishes washed and put away. Like a boss.

-- Crusty cat vomit cleaned off of Hannah's comforter (Gross, I know. It skipped by me! Ellie sleeps on her bed every day and night. It's clean now). Got anything else to throw at me?

-- Two bowls of crusted on the top, soggy underneath bowls of cereal dumped and scraped. 

-- Puppy poop cleaned off my scarf. Double, extra gross. I had hastily thrown my scarf on a chair today. It slid to the floor and while my kids were supposed to be keeping am eye on her as I cooked dinner, she decided to relieve her bowels. On my scarf! Officially done with cleaning animal messes!

-- Mooped the kitchen floor. Holla!

-- Vacuumed the whole house. Oh yeah!

--Emptied the trash. High five!

--Managed to play with the kids and cook dinner for the Fam. Super mom (I am not, but sort of felt like it.)

I know there are no mommy awards out there (and many days I do not earn one at all!), but today I kind of wish I had a ribbon or something. It was a long hard day, but I think all my dominoes are upright and ready to go again.

9th Birthday

 Happy 9th Birthday, Hannah and Leah.

May you always hold each other's hand.

And tell each other secrets

And giggle together

And act goofy

And know that you are forever loved.

 What a gift you both are-- yesterday, today and always.

Slumber Party

My girls turn 9 on Monday, the 16th. This is halfway to 18 and I can't even talk about that without tearing up! So for their party this year we told them they could invite three friends over for a slumber party. Oh my. Did I just say slumber party? My own person memories of slumber parties in elementary school are kind of wild. I remember there being a lot of girls, little parent supervision, watching movies that I wasn't allowed to watch like Dirty Dancing, lip synching to Nasty Boys by Janet Jackson, staying up all night and freezing each others' panties (while your friend is asleep steal their undies out of their bag, get them wet and stick them in the freezer. They will be frozen solid in the morning). 

Um....our version tonight is a much more tame, G-rated kind of slumber party. Pizza, charades, cupcakes, and a movie (Despicable Me 2). So far all the girls are getting along great and are having fun giggling and just hanging out together. I'll give a full pictorial update tomorrow, but here's a quick glance from my camera phone!

         "We're here and we're excited!"

            "Happy Birthday to You!"

Cherry Winks

Tomorrow is our annual Christmas party at the gym where I teach.  After class we always have treats, and we usually do some sort of Dirty Santa gift exchange. Unfamiliar with Dirty Santa? I will quickly explain. If you already know, skip to the next paragraph. Dirty Santa involves bringing gifts and writing down numbers on pieces of paper according to however many gifts are up for grabs. For example, 15 people brought 15 gifts, so numbers 1-15 are written down and placed in a bowl or jar. Everyone draws a number. Whoever draws #1 selects any gift he or she wants, opens it and lets everyone see. Starting with number #2 and all the way through #15, people can either select a wrapped gift or "steal" one that is already open. A gift can only be stolen three times before it is "frozen" and no longer up for grabs. At the end, person #1 gets to go one more time since he or she didn't have an opportunity to steal in the beginning. The end.

So tomorrow after class we are having a crazy-colored exercise sock Dirty Santa exchange. Neon colors seem to be the thing now (hello 80's!) so I found a pack of bright neon orange, lime green and pink exercise socks to bring to the par-tay. In addition, I am bringing a little something to add to the food table. This year, I'm busting out an oldie, but goodie cookie recipe. My grandmother used to make these and although there is a decent amount of prep work, the outcome is a sweet, rich cookie that is a nice change from your standard chocolate chip or sugar cookie. I love the combination of pecans, cherries and dates, but you could totally play with the fruit/nut combos that you like to eat.

I present to you the Cherry Wink cookie.  Ta-da!

Aren't they pretty? The red color is festive for the Christmas season (or just pretty no matter what season it is or what holiday you are celebrating!).

Here's the recipe!
Sift the following dry ingredients into a bowl:
2 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Using a mixer, cream together:
3/4 Cup butter, softened (which is 12 tablespoons if that's easier)
1 Cup sugar

To the butter and sugar, add:
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix thoroughly. Add the sifted dry ingredients and mix again. Finally add the following and do one final good mix:
1 Cup chopped pecans
1 Cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries

Finally, crush 2 1/2 Cups of Corn Flakes cereal in a bowl. Drop the dough by heaping teaspoons into the crushed cereal and roll into balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet and top with a fourth of a maraschino cherry on each. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

These are really, really good! If you don't like maraschino cherries, dried cherries would work. Or even dried cranberries. Or be crazy and try dried blueberries! If you don't like dates, try figs or prunes or raisins instead. Walnuts would be a nice substitute for pecans or just omit the nuts altogether if you don't like 'em! Really the fruit and nut combinations are endless. I happen to like the sweet note that the maraschino cherry adds to the cookie which is funny because I don't like maraschino cherries plain. But chopped up in a cookie, they are delicious! I'm weird like that.

Enjoy!

A Little Family History. And A Story.

My dad

1st Grade

Stecker, Oklahoma

Have you ever heard of Stecker, Oklahoma?

No?

I didn't think so. Stecker is not a town. It's more of a smattering of old houses and abandoned buildings over a few square miles of Oklahoma farmland.

There's no school.  No post office. No bank. No chamber of commerce. No businesses at all.

It's practically a ghost town.

There's no sign for Stecker off the highway. If you find yourself there, you either a. live there b. are completely lost or c. you are visiting my family.

My dad was born in 1947, the oldest of five children to a farming and ranching family near Stecker in southwestern Oklahoma. At the time, Stecker was an actual bonafide town. A small town, but an official town. It had a post office. You could buy and trade at Tripp's Country Store. You could worship at either the Methodist church or the Baptist church. And there was the Stecker School, grades K-8 only. If you went beyond the 8th grade, you had to attend high school in the nearby town of Apache. The families that lived in the area were farming families. Kids worked hard, rode horses everywhere and swam in Hog Creek to cool off in the summer. In Stecker, everyone knew everyone. Either you were related or you went to school together or you had neighboring farmland.

As the oldest, my dad spent a lot of time out in the fields helping his dad work the land and tend to the animals. Because of this, my dad has SO MANY stories to tell. One of my favorite stories is a Christmas story that he has told me and my kids many times. They always think it is funny.

When my dad was in elementary school, the kids in the school put on a Christmas play for the parents and other members of the Stecker community. The play was a scene out of Santa's Workshop. All the kids were elves, busily working and hammering on new toys. The boy picked to play Santa was a big, country boy who had a bit of an accent. You see, people from small towns down here in Oklahoma have a little twang to their talk. If you're not used to it, it's a bit like understanding a foreign language. Santa's big opening line was to walk into the workshop and declare, "What is all this racket for?"

But here's how he would say it, "What is all this racket fer?"

In country speak, "fer" equals "for."

Every day in practice, he would say his line with the word "fer" and every day the teacher would correct him and say, "No, it is FOR not FER!" Dad says the poor guy really did try his best. But when the big night came and the performance was in full swing, he walked on stage and declared, "What is all this racket fer?"

And without missing a beat, all the elves on stage looked up and said in unison, "IT'S FOR!!!!!"

Dad says it was the best, and funniest, play ever put on in the great town of Stecker. And you can take that to the bank. If there was a bank in Stecker.