Ni Hao

Our good friend, Ella from Denmark, travels to China several times a year for her work. She sent a fun little package in the mail last week. Despite my best effort to get both kids together in their Kimono outfits, it didn't work out.

We had fun, though. Jackson ran and hid behind the couch:

But Brooke was willing to pose:

And she was even willing to be silly. Of course, she does this on her own--she doesn't need any influencing from me:

And now for the two together:

I tried.

JC

Inspired

I love to be inspired.

One of my current inspirations is Ashley Ann from Under the Sycamore. Not only an Oklahoma girl like me*, she's a fabulous photographer, artist, designer, mom, entrepreneur.

Others?

• Jessica from How Sweet It Is. She's my go-to blogger for overly rich and sugary sweet desserts. But she used to be fitness trainer and does her time on the treadmill/weight room. I love her workouts, too.
• Dana from House Tweaking has a great eye for design. Her site is dedicated to "tweaking" her builder-spec-home boring house into something memorable and beautiful. Great ideas. She makes a good living as a pharmacist by day, but has decided it's not her passion. She wants to design full time. Now, they're in the process of "down-sizing" their home, bought a fixer-upper, and hope to pay it off in about 5 years so she can have her dream job.
• Michelle from Three Men and a Lady. I stumbled across this blog while looking for my sister-in-law's blog Three Men and a Lady - Deckers. Michelle is a DIY queen, and will turn any old trash from the dumpster into something wonderful with a little paint and TLC. I often wondered if she was a Mormon girl (she live's in AZ so it's not a dead give-away). Well, her last name is Hinckley and her Father-in-Law is named Gordon Hinckley, Jr. Oh yeah, they're moving to Utah. I think we have our answer!

Here's to some good reading!

*I can still claim to be an Oklahoma girl even if I don't remember living there, right?

JC

Double Chocolate Cake

This was yesterday's Mother's Day dessert. It look's beautiful and it tastes amazing. I believe that if you're going to have dessert, it better be fantastic. Try this cake--it will make your day.

Double Chocolate Bundt Cake

Via Confessions of a Bake-a-holic 

1 chocolate cake mix
1 small pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
3/4 cup water
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup oil
1 heaping cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with cooking spray and dust with flour (I like Pam spray for baking--it's grease/flour all in one). Beat cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water, sour cream and oil in large bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into pan. Bake 55-60 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool 15 minutes in pan on wire rack. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Set on serving plate and glaze.

Chocolate Glaze
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 T butter
2 T corn syrup
1-2 tsp hot water

Melt chocolate chips, butter, and corn syrup in saucepan over low heat. Cool about 10 minutes. Stir in hot water, 1 tsp at a time, until consistency of thick syrup. Pour over cooled double chocolate cake.

Need Some Help

This past week has been particularly hard to stay focused on anything. Seriously, I need help.

I did a search online for brain exercises to help improve focus/concentration, and I came across this article from Inspired Abundance. I think I'll take them up on some of these.

The article lists some exercises to help build your brain, including:
1. Do some crossword puzzles
2. Changing your daily routine
3. Try Sudoku puzzles
4. Eat foods that help your brain like proteins, complex carbohydrates, essential oils, etc.
5. Start a new hobby (maybe I can finally *finish* Brooke's curtains--trying to learn to sew)

We'll see how this goes. In the mean time, I'm relying on caffeine.

JC

Some Days

We’re always a little put out when one of the tykes wakes up sick. It means one of us has to miss work or attempt to work from home (which, if you’ve tried it, know it takes skill) while taking care of said sick one. 

This morning, Jackson woke up with a swollen pink-ish eye and he cried that it hurt and wouldn’t open it. Probably Pink Eye, we thought. We didn’t want to contaminate Joy’s house (our daycare provider), so I stayed home with him and made an appointment with the doctor to see what it is/how to care for it.

I’ve gotten in about 20 minutes of work so far and it’s almost 2:30. But I have to say, it’s been a pretty fun day. Jack started to feel a little better about 8:00am and has been talking my ear off all morning. I’ve heard the most amazing stories. He drank almost my entire can of Diet Coke, told me all about the shows he was watching, poured all of Shadow’s water into her food bowl—just some of the things this little boy likes to do. He told me about volcanoes and requested that we watch some on the computer (“Dad’s computer”, he requested). So we did—pretty amazing.

On the way to the doctor, we stopped off to get a drink at McDonalds, saw several garbage trucks, school buses and “honk honk’s” (semi-trucks). He pointed out every one of them with enthusiasm only an almost-three-year-old can provide. He was cute-as-can be at the doctor: took out two pieces of gum from my purse when I wasn’t looking, read me a Curious George book with Fire Trucks, and so forth. Of course, when Dr. Buchanan came into the room he had nothing to say/face emotionless.

We got our prescription for eye drops and headed over the car wash. I assumed it would take about 15 minutes for a wash/interior clean. Then we could get his eye drops, head home, get him to sleep and me to work in my office downstairs. The car wash was the busiest place in the valley, but I didn’t realize how busy until my car was half-way through the cycle. About 20 minutes, a package of Swedish Fish and 3 bouncy balls into it, we went to see where we were line. No joke, there were about 6 cars ahead of us waiting for detailing. So what did we do?

We walked over the McDonalds. Jackson ate fries, drank another Sprite and played with his new Batman toy. I learned all sorts of new interesting things about Batman and bouncy-balls. He named one of them “Mom”, another “Jackson” and the third “Dadio”. (I guess “Brooke” would be the name of the fourth ball he requested later).

We’re home, he’s sleeping, I’m on my work laptop…but I just had to write it all down. It’s not very often I get to spend one on one time with Jackson or Brooke. Even though illness and germs are usually involved on these days, sometimes they’re pretty fun too.

Here’s to a great week!

JC

P.S. Don’t worry—we washed his hands really, really well after McDonalds. These next few days will be a hand sanitizer festival at our house!