Free Range Family

We had a pretty mellow Thanksgiving this year, it was surprisingly wonderful! My parents and siblings all went to Townsend to see family for Thanksgiving, so we spent it with Lon's family and my father's relatives in the Heights. We were hoping to go up to Townsend to see my mother's relatives this year but as that sounded good in the summer, we just didn't have the funds to actually be able to make it happen. With my car breaking down in August, we spent more money then we had originally planned and couldn't afford to save up for a trip. I am sad about it, but hopeful. Lon reminded me that it only meant that we would have to postpone the trip, not cancel it entirely. We can probably save up for it again after Christmas is over and go in the spring, maybe for our anniversary. That would be cool because we would be able to see everyone AND it would kind of be like a "surprise" or "spontaneous" trip for my family. We usually only try to go up to T...

I cannot post about Color me Rad today, I have something much more important to post about. I apologize for anyone who was looking forward to it. The Color me Rad post will be on Thursday most likely. Keep an eye for it! Yesterday, we had court with our landlord. Since it is mostly said and done, I will share the basics with you all. I still do not want to share all the horrid details with you because I try so hard to keep this blog a positive forum for my family and my readers. But I am compelled to share the basics with you. We lost the case, our landlord had a lawyer and a good one too, probably very expensive. Even the judge wasn't pleased with outcome. We have to be completely out of the house by tomorrow at 5 pm. We also owe him a good sum of money apparently, which I don't agree with the most. This landlord, this man, put a young family of four out on the streets because he is stubborn and money greedy. We have no place to live now and have struggled almost all day y...

This weekend was my staff dinner party, it was held at the local Elks Club. We originally wanted to go but due to craziness and general life stuff, I forgot to RSVP for the event. My boss told me that we could go anyways, so I found a last minute baby sitter (thanks Grandma Melanie) and we got ready for the party. I figured out my pumping schedule so that I could drink some too. I was pretty excited, needless to say. I posted this status on my Facebook: "Getting ready for the Y staff dinner. I am very excited to go! In the 2+ years I have worked there, Lon and I have yet to actually go to one of the staff parties. It should be lots of fun! Who else is going?" We arrived at the party a little late but that was due to Anna wanting to nurse right  before we left lol. We still made it in time for dinner, we just missed the cocktail drinks beforehand. No biggie, I could not start drinking until after dinner and a nursing break anyways. :) Dinner was DELICIOUS!!!! It was chick...

Happy Friday everyone! I hope everyone has a great weekend! Do you like the new look of the blog???? I figured that I would change the background to be more... srpingy lol, since it is March now. Personally, I think the flowers are sooooooo pretty! I love the new look! :) Its been a few weeks since I have been able to join in with the FQF blog hop. Oh how I have missed it! Without further ado, here is this week's Five Question Friday! Does your family coordinate clothing for church on holidays like Easter? I coordinate my family on holidays and for pictures, but only to a point. I usually give the boys a color group (red, green, white or yellow, blue, green, purple) and they can wear anything in those colors. I usually will have them coordinate jeans though. I like us to either all wear jeans or all wear something different. And I like to wear a dress or skirt if Anna does. Now that I have typed it all out, it sounds a little OCD lol. :P But I like for us ...

This weekend we had a guest over for dinner. It was Lon's best friend Shaun, who also owns the gym that Lon works at. We had invited him over last month for his birthday dinner but he was too busy to make plans until this month. I was very excited to have company over, we picked out a movie to watch and I planned out the dinner. I figured we would do some sort of pork chops with potatoes, rolls, green beans and some rice. We could even have wine, if I planned out my pumping and nursing schedule around it. Excitedly, I started looking through my cookbook. And there was nothing that looked good. Oven baked pork chops, thai orange pork chop skillet. Yuck! Okay, so let me disclaimer this before you think that I am a big weirdo. I do not usually like pork or ham, or really any part of a pig for that matter. I was a dedicated vegetarian in high school and even though I eat meat now, I have a very limited palette that I will choose from. Like... chicken, beef and any wild game. That...

Happy Hump Day everyone! No WILW post today, I will already have two posts today anyways and I am a little busy with the kids and packing. Not too much is going on again today but it is my cousin Anthony's 24th birthday. He lives in Colorado, so unfortunately we will not be doing too much for him. I wrote on his Facebook and will be giving him a call hopefully later today. Happy birthday Anthony, we al love you so much here! Otherwise today we are still just packing and cleaning. I have hiphop class tonight and we are learning some more freezes and working on our six step. I think next week I will teach them top rocking. :) For obvious reasons, since I had Anna we have been pretty homebound. Lon works two jobs and is gone weekdays from 9 in the morning until 11 at night. We only have one vehicle right now and it usually goes with him. We also try to only go to the grocery store once every week and a half, if not two weeks. When we run out of things, like milk, we have to get crea...

We are still currently living in our old apartment. Spoke with our new landlord on Friday and he is just waiting on a furnace part before we can start moving in. He said Monday, but I have yet to talk with him today. Keep your fingers crossed for us, we may get our keys and such tonight! How awesome would that be???? This weekend was a nice and easy weekend for us. No crazy moving, although I would have been okay with that. Maddie's baby shower was Saturday afternoon. Sunday, we stayed home and did some more packing. We are now down to having only the necessities unpacked and alot of our belongings have been gone through. I have four big boxes full to the brim with stuff we are donating to Good Will, we have developed so much clutter in these past two years of living here. I thought we had gotten rid of most of it over Memorial weekend before Anna was born, but this weekend I have found the most random things (I think I may do a post on it later this week). I have become the new ...

I am pretty excited for this weekend. We should hopefully get a call from our new landlord, sign the lease to the new place, and start moving in tomorrow or Sunday!! Yay, so very excited!! Saturday is also Maddie's baby shower at my aunt's house. I am excited for this too. I made her little boy (they are going to name him James, so sweet) several cupcake onesies to go with the diaper cake my mother had made for her. And Anna has a onesie to wear that goes with the theme of the party! Winnie the Pooh! It should be a lot of fun for everyone. As for today, there's not too much going on here. Just packing the last of the stuff we do not need on a daily basis and some more cleaning. But tonight we might go over to my parent's to see everyone off. My father, April and Kalvin are going to visit Natalie in Missoula. They are going to her homecoming football game with her. Oh so fun! I want to do that with the kids one year! We always wear maroon that day but it would be so co...

Chili is one of those foods that everyone has their own way of making it. Some people believe chili has beans in it, others think its only made with different meats. Me, I like my chili a specific way and that's my way lol. :) With beans, but with meat and veggies too so that you get a full meal in one serving. That way my kid eats it lol! Mmm, as I type this I am finishing up the pot of chili I made the other night. It is so good, sometimes even better the next day! Yum! Here is "my way" to make three bean chili! I encourage you to try it out, it only has five steps and takes a half an hour to cook! Three Bean Chili 1 pound of ground hamburger (we also use deer meat sometimes, you could probably use turkey) 1 pound of kidney beans (dark or light, sometimes we do both) 1 pound of black beans 1 pound of pinto beans (if you don't like pinto, use another kind of beans) 2 tomatoes 1/2 an Onion (or a whole, my family just doesn't like onion that much) Ta...

Happy Friday everyone! This weekend will be a little busy as we have a birthday party for one of Alan's friends, the Ringling Bros circus and an old classmate's baby shower to attend. We might also have a little park playdate with Aunt Ariel somewhere in there. But it should be a fantastic weekend! We can't wait! Here is this week's Five Question Friday! What is one grammar issue you cannot let go without correction? I really hate when people use the word "seen" wrong. Like, "I just seen that over there." It drives me bonkers! And it sucks too because living in Montana means that I will hear the word "seen" misused more times than any sane person could handle. My other pet peeve grammar wise? Ain't. Sorry Montanans (and any other people who use ain't all the time lol) but ain't ain't a word! So stop using it! While I am ranting I might as well get on spelling and punctuation too. Misuse of a word only bothers me so...

Saturday didn't go as planned for us, which made me sad face. Lon was supposed to only work at the gym in the morning and spend the day with us but he got called in to work the restaurant too. Grrr, sometimes it really stinks it being the family restaurant. I was mopy about it all morning, even though I knew I had my lunch date with Tanya still. But I wanted my husband, to make me laugh and play with Alan and sing to Anna and tell me interesting stories and help Alan go potty like a big boy (the way only HE can) and yes, just help me with these kids in general. I really missed him. Plus Alan was excited for the day and wired from it so somehow while I was nursing Anna I guess, he magically aquired a pen and drew all over his little hands. Then he deposited the pen back where it belongs. All without my knowledge, I swear. I did not see the culprit pen and still have not! Ugh! After texting my mom and sharing all these feelings and my morning with her, ...

For Alan's birthday, we made him cupcakes. We were originally going to make him a cake but my cake pan had seen better days and so I decided to put it to rest rather than use it one last time. I was going to borrow my mother's but forgot until that day so we were out of luck. Alan was convinced that he did not want cupcakes but that was about all we had, except for a square brownie pan that he was not going for either. To convince him to use the cupcake tins we had, I decided to be creative and bake them without papers and call them mini cakes. Alan just loved the idea so we used it. Here is how to make mini cupcakes, step by step (with Alan as our Vana White): Step one: Mix ingredients Step two: Pam the cupcake tin (Not shown because Mama did this) Step three: Play game with adorable birthday boy while cakes bake Step four: Mix cool frosting Step five: Frost mini cakes Step six: Sprinkles!!!!! Step seven: Clean frosting spoon appropriately S...