little bit of this, little bit of that

This week sure seemed to fly by! Not that I'm complaining, I love for Friday to show up and know I have two whole days to spend with the hubby! Although it's better this weekend because it's a three day weekend! Woo Hoo!

Let's see, this week seemed to have something going on everyday. For the past several weeks, Evan's had this horrible cough that just seems to get worse by the day. I took him to his pediatrician on Monday to have it checked out. As we were sitting in the waiting room, I suddenly realized that the room was filled with little boys. I don't think I've ever been around so many little boys before. As I've mentioned before, most of our friends have little girls so Evan mostly plays with them. Think pushing around a little pink stroller with a baby doll inside it while wearing a pink flowered headband on his head. Yes, that happened...one time. Hopefully we've moved on from that! haha!

Anywho, the waiting room was filled with little boys and Evan was politely playing near them on one of the table play areas they have. Well, one little boy kept saying, "This is mine. You can't touch this! It's mine!". Evan would just kinda ignore him and keep playing. Well, when he and his mom were called back, another mom sitting in the room said (about Evan), "He's so good! And well behaved!". That made me smile! I told her how he's not used to playing with many boys because our friends have girls and she said her son is the same way. She made me laugh because she said how you can tell who plays with boys and who plays with girls. The ones who play with girls are calm and easy going as opposed to those who play with boys are much more rowdy and rough! Maybe there's some truth in that!

So his appointment went well. Aside from the usually screaming when they take his temperature and check his ears, he did fantastic! haha! The doctor said his lungs sounded clear but in case there's an infection she prescribed him an antibiotic. Evan also developed a sty in his eye so she prescribe him some eye drops to help clear that up. In my opinion, giving eye drops to a toddler is a joke because you need an army just to hold him down! We haven't been too successful with those so we've kinda made our peace with that! I've had sty's before so I know they eventually clear up on their own.

On Tuesday, my mom took Evan and I out to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I love me some Cheesecake Factory! I ordered the orange chicken and Evan had a personal pizza. We had a nice time visiting and then headed back to my house to watch a movie. We watched this movie called 'Evelyn'. It was pretty good and a tear jerker if you're easy to tear up. My mom definitely is and was crying throughout and would occasionally ask me if I was crying! I wasn't and kinda felt bad that I wasn't. I felt as though I should have but maybe I'm dead inside! haha! (For those who watch FRIENDS, you'll know what that means!)

For the past month or so, I've been really trying to cook a lot more and have tried a couple new dishes. I don't really enjoy cooking much so I've been praying about it and asking the Lord to help me get excited about it so I'll actually do it! On Tuesday night I made homemade onion rings for the first time! I've never fried anything like that so I was a bit scared about the oil. Well, I was so glad that they turned out so yummy! The frying wasn't as scary as I thought but I sure did need a couple fans to help clear the smoke! Along with the onion rings, we had sloppy joes that I made from scratch which also turned out pretty good. I would have taken a picture of them but they were gone in no time flat! If you're interested, you should check out the recipes. They're pretty easy, which is #1 for me otherwise I won't even bother!

On Wednesday, I spent most of the day doing chores and trying to keep the house cool. Why has summer decided to show up in September? Anyhow, when Ben got home I headed over to take some pictures of Heaven for her senior photos.

Here's some more photos from the session:











We had a lot of fun but was basically dripping with sweat after wards. Eeewww! When I got home, Evan wasn't there and Ben told me that my parents showed up and wanted to take him out to dinner. It makes me happy how much my parents just love to be around Evan. They would take him out everyday if they could! No lie!

On Thursday I decided to practice a bit on some cupcakes that I was planning to make for a family get together on Friday evening. Since Veronica started posting about piping cupcakes, I decided to take out my icing tips and pastry bags and try some of my own. I usually just spread the icing on with a butter knife because it's easier and looks clean and simple to me but this time I decided to try something new. I also decided to make some icing of my own because store bought seems to melt so easy. I first tried a butter cream icing that I found on YouTube. The consistency was pretty good and it held up at room temperature but I didn't like the taste at all.

First bag with first icing recipe:



Then I tried a little color with a new gel I bought at Michaels:



First ones I practiced with!



I was bummed that I didn't care for the taste but kept trying to find something that I did like! Then I found this butter cream recipe and let me just tell you...YUM-O! It was so good! I'm so glad I found it! It calls for butter flavoring so I think that's what really gave it it's rich buttery taste. I think it tastes like a bakery and that's what I was going for. The consistency was perfect and held up well!

With this icing I used my large tip like the one Veronica has been excited about! On some of them the little dollops where schmushed by the lid of the container! Oops!




So on Friday I made my cupcakes with the new recipe and they were a hit at our family get together! I knew that everyone liked them when they kept coming back for more! Ben's cousins from out of state were in town so we all met up at my mother.in.law's house for a roast dinner and some games. We played 'Catch Phrase' which is always hilarious and Evan actually got to play with a boy! Hooray! Ben's cousin has a little boy who's around three and a half and they seemed to get along pretty well. He tried to teach Evan how to play 'Hide and Go Seek' but since he hasn't played it before, he just kept coming out from his hiding spot! haha! It was really cute though!

Here's a pic of the kiddos playing together! Too bad they live so far away otherwise I think these two could be great buddies!



The cupcakes were a winner with the kids!

Griffin couldn't wait and actually stuck his finger in his cupcake before it was even out of the tray!



And my Evan....lovin' his cupcake!


Now today is Saturday and around 1pm and we haven't done anything to get ourselves ready for the day! I'm still in my lounging clothes with no shower! I'm excited though because Ben and I have a date night tonight and my parents are coming over to watch Evan while we're gone. I always love time with my hubby and I'm looking forward to some alone time!

Well, this post is a lot longer than I planned for it to be but I wanted to document our fun week! I'm thankful for the long weekend and I'm looking forward to hanging out with my mother.in.law and sister.in.law on Monday while Ben hangs out with his buddies doing Fantasy Football stuff!

Hope everyone has a fabulous holiday weekend! What are your plans?