Eight Years Ago Today...

My life changed forever! What happened? I'll give you a hint: The only thing I ever wanted to be in life, was a mom (except for a short-lived childhood dream of being a Dallas Cowboy's Cheerleader, but this post isn't about that). February 25, 2002, 8 days AFTER my due date, Megan Grace was born! She was the sweetest, most beautiful chubby-cheeked baby I had ever seen! She grew and grew, despite being on a strict diet of only chicken nuggets.

We moved a lot, and added a baby sister and baby brother along the way, but she is still my sweet, beautiful girl (I'm not going to cry, dammit!). She is smart, funny, tender-hearted and one of my favorite people in the world. It's so much fun to see the kind of young lady she's turning out to be!Happy birthday to my sweet girl! We love you to bits! You are, without a doubt, my favorite 8-year-old in the whole world!

Now, Mom just needs a minute to get it together...please ignore the sniffling in the corner.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

But when "evil" looks this cute and squeaky clean, it sure can make you smile!

Meal Plan Monday

I try to follow these meal plans. Really, I do. I hate waiting until the last minute, and then scrambling around, trying to figure out what we should eat that night. It causes lots and lots of sandwiches and hot dogs! This week, menu planning should go pretty smoothly, though.

Monday: Mighty Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, creamed corn. It will make a meatloaf convert out of non-meatloaf lovers (like myself). My friend, Angela, originally gave me the recipe, and it's in regular roatation in our house!

Tuesday: take-out (fast food). On Tuesdays, the girls and I (all the kids, if Kevin can't pick Owen up) don't get home until around 6:45, after dance & gymnastics. Unless I'm super on top of things and have something in the crock-pot, we pick something up on our way home. Nine times out of ten, we pick something up! Add to it that this particular Tuesday, I'm going to a Southern Living at Home party that my next-door-neighbor is having, and it's fast food, all the way!

Wednesday: Spaghetti, garlic bread, roasted broccoli

Thursday: Megan's choice! Thursday is Meg's 8th birthday, so she gets to choose a restaurant. Right now, she has it narrowed down to O'Hana Steakhouse (the one I'm hoping she'll choose), Olive Garden & Rosa's.

Friday: Parmesean Crusted Tilapia, roasted asparagus, wild rice

Spencer

February 14 is so much more than Valentine's Day in our house. It's also our puppy, Spencer's, birthday! I had intended to make a cookie cake for the kids in honor of V-Day. Once it was cooked, they decided that it needed to be decorated as a birthday cake for Spencer instead (although, being chocolate and all, he couldn't eat it)!

Nine years ago, I told Kevin that I either wanted to have a baby, or get a puppy. He jumped on the puppy bandwagon! We researched dogs, and fell in love with the West Highland White Terrier (better known as Westie). We found a breeder who lived outside of Hearne (we were living in College Station at the time, so it was close). She had a litter born on Valentine's Day, and we fell in love with the pups! I have no idea which one is our doggie, but here he is with his brothers and sisters at only a few weeks old. When they were 8 weeks, we got to bring him home and have loved having him! I've never considered myself a dog person, but I am a Spencer person (if that makes sense). When I gave that "ultimatum" to Kevin, I didn't expect to get pregnant within 2 months of bringing our puppy home, but that's how it played out. He's been in our family from the beginning, and he truly loves the kids (and they adore him)!

Happy 9th birthday, Spencer! You might stink from time to time, but you're a special part of the family!

Valentine's Day

Since I best communicate my love through food, that's what the whole holiday was about!

I started out the holiday weekend by making heart-shaped hamburgers for lunch on Saturday (the 13th). Yes, I know. I might need help. The kids thought they were hilarious and adorable, though. Shaping the raw meat into hearts was a tiny bit gross when I stopped to think about it, but luckily, I was hungry and love hamburgers, so I got over it quickly.
Halfway through eating our heart burgers, the doorbell rang. Since Kevin best communicates his love by buying me stuff, he hit the nail on the head with these beauties! (Just kidding, Kev!) We don't normally "do" much for Valentine's. We normally get each other cards, sometimes sappy (him) sometimes funny (me) but don't usually do gifts. With that in mind, it was extra special to get these beautiful flowers!
Since the big day itself was on Sunday, we had a normal morning (CCE, church, quick lunch at a Mexican place we hadn't tried before). We knew the best was yet to come!

Like I said, we don't usually do much for V-Day. Restaurants get super crowded (I don't enjoy eating dinner at 5:00 or 10:30, so going anywhere nice on the actual day is hard). Babysitters are scarce on the best of days for us, so for the BIG day we'd have to plan weeks/months in advance, and we don't do that. Since we started having kids, I've taken it upon myself to make a fancy-schmancy meal each year. It's getting hard to out-do myself each time, but this year was close! Based on the kids enthusiasm for my bacon-wrapped fliet mignon on New Year's Eve, I decided to make that again, this time also going for steamed crab legs, green beans with bacon & roasted potatoes! The original plan was to have chocolate fondue for dessert, but we were so stuffed after dinner that no one had room! That got pushed til the next night! My mouth's watering just thinking about it!
Most importantly, though, is that my Valentine cleaned the whole kitchen for me afterwards! It was a GREAT day!

Wordless Wednesday

I know, I know...

...it's been a long time! I don't really have an excuse for not blogging, just been busy and lazy! There really hasn't been anything blog-worthy going on, anyway! It's been cold, wet & snowy the past few weeks, so we have been going stir-crazy, being cooped up in the house! I promise, as soon as something fun happens again, I'll be back at the blog more regularly. Until then, enjoy these recent-ish pictures of the family.