Here are five things that have happened recently, in no particular order:
1. Preschool is driving me crazy. I can't believe that you have to register for preschool for the following school year
in January! I put it off until February but now I'm feeling the pressure. These are the things I want: In my neighborhood (like, if there was one across the street, that would be great), child-centered learning that is developmentally appropriate (no worksheets- and I think I might be the only person who doesn't want the preschool to teach my child to read), a 4 year old class, not combined 3 and 4 year olds, affordable (we've budgeted $90 but was hoping for closer to $75 - and I know a bunch of people who are paying between $135 and $300, which is insane! ) It's not like I'm waiting for angelic visitors to tell me which preschool will be the best, but I am a little worried about finding the preschool that will be the best fit for us and will be the best for Lydia. I've gone to one preschool, and talked to several others. I think that we've
decided on one but I haven't filled out any paperwork or anything. I'm going to go visit it on Monday, so hopefully it just feels like it will work for us. (Plus, it's probably the closest preschool to us - which isn't a coincidence. I just really value that proximity.) I'm having all of these flashbacks to college and how much I hated anything that had to do with preschool. The preschool co-op that we've been doing hasn't been bad, but ugh. I really have negative feelings about preschool.
2. One of our neighbors invited us to go on a little field trip to the Fire Department. I told Lydia that morning and she was so excited! She insisted that she wear her firefighter coat and helmet. I tried to convince her to just wear her coat, but she insisted on having both. Then, once we got there she pretty much just complained the whole time and repeated over and over, "I just want to go home, right now." "Mom, I'm
soooooo hungry. I just want to go home, right now." Nevermind that it was only 9:30 in the morning and that she had eaten a mountain of french toast for breakfast, and then several "snacks" before we left. (This girl is hungry all the time!) In her defense, when I finally got her some more food - she really did eat a lot and was
much happier. She really was hungry, which made her grumpy. So my bad for not bringing snacks in my diaper bag. Hangry, if you will.
So the whole experience was pretty much a bust, ending in tears when she was standing on the front of the firetruck for a picture and the garage door went up and she was afraid that the truck was going to start driving away with her on it. (Poor girl, it's hard to be so little.)
3. Did I mention (pardon me while I have a proud-peacock moment) David recently received a promotion at his work? He is now an Audit Manager at Eide Bailly, and is rocking it - if I do say so myself. I'm so proud of how hard he works and it's obvious that he is a huge asset to his firm. In fact, the national office has selected David, along with 11 others
in the whole nation (23 offices) to be a specialist in the new software they are going to start using. As a "knowledge coach" he will be trained in the software, and then go out to the rest of the company to teach each firm the software. It's a
huge deal for him to be selected and is an amazing thing for his career. He will get to work with many people on a national level and have some serious name-recognition. He's definitely a leader in the company and I'm SO proud of him.
*ahem* I digress. So, along with the promotion to manager comes a fancy office. For Christmas I gave him a nice photo of Old Main to go up on the wall. We went to his office last Friday and hung it together. It looks really nice and clearly marks him as an Aggie. :) He's gotten lots of compliments on it and I'm just glad that it looks so nice in his office!
4. I've been in kind of an adventurous food mood lately. There have been some failures (I'm looking at you Cheesy Beef Enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce), but also some super successes. Some of the best new things that I've found and made lately:
Beef and Noodles (with homemade egg noodles), an incredibly flavorful beef roast, Pineapple-upside-down cake-in-a-mug, and a rock-star White Chicken Chili (something that I've been searching for
for years). Things that are on the meal plan to try are: Italian BMTs with homemade Italian bread, taco cups, chicken gyros with tzatziki sauce, AND for Valentine's Day - I will be attempting to make Beef Wellingtons. Seriously. It might majorly fail, or it might go down in history as the fanciest meal I've ever made.
Can we talk for a minute about making my own egg noodles? I've been watching a lot of Food Network lately, (namely Worst Cooks in America where I've realized my cooking skills actually fit in better with those competitors vs something like Chopped or Cutthroat Kitchen), and they've made noodles several times. I thought, if these "worst cooks" can manage this - shouldn't I be able to? The recipe I was using for the above mentioned Beef and Noodles called for frozen egg noodles. I couldn't find any at the store, and really- my budget was tight and I was going to squeeze them in because I wanted to make this recipe. When I couldn't find them I thought, maybe- maybe I'll make them. I did and it was really not that difficult. Plus the look on David's face when I told him that I actually made the noodles in the soup he was eating was priceless. I must have done something right because he raved about that soup for days. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever fed him for dinner.
5. We've had some pretty good dates lately. Seriously, joining a babysitting swap might be the best thing we've ever done for our date-nights. (We babysit one Friday night and we get two Friday night dates.) Some of our recent dates: Going to the temple together, walking around City Creek and thinking about all the money we saved by not buying anything, and most recently going to the ropes course at Thanksgiving Point Museum of Curiosity. (We've wanted to go to the ropes course for a long time, and we had such a good time. We decided that we could definitely cross a tiny log over a giant ravine in the jungle if we were being chased by lions or something equally as dangerous. Especially if we had enough time to warm up and practice, and double-especially if we were connected to super secure harnesses. Our favorite part was balancing-no hands, and also racing each other up the big rope-stairs.)
We also have season tickets to Hale Center Theatre Orem this year and we went to our first play, "The Nerd" last weekend. Melissa and Blake came and watched our kids. (They are so awesome!) We had such a fun time. We love the Hale, and The Nerd did not disappoint. There were times we were laughing so hard that there were tears to be seen. Just so funny and fun to be together.
