omni-adventures

So on Monday the boys and I took a trip to the Science Museum of Oklahoma with my sister-in-law, Rita, and god-daughter Colette. I had never been there and kids 2 and under are free so it was a win win :)

The weather was a tad bit chilly Monday afternoon so it was the perfect day for an indoor field trip. 

And this place was cool.

It had TONS of stuff for Damien to play with and is set up to be all hands on which is perfect for a curious toddler. 

Rita and I had a good time too and OBVIOUSLY rewarded ourselves, errr, children with Chick-fil-a for being so well behaved! 

*photo courtesy of Rita.

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I talked to my sister for about 25 minutes last night and she said my mom asked if she had heard how I had been and her reply was, "I don't know...she hasn't blogged recently."

AH.

I'm so sorry.

But I did inform everyone that the reason I started this was because I am a horrible phone communicator. And in all honestly it probably shouldn't be called a blog at all, but rather, a photo diary or something. I am not a good writer and I tend to blab a lot. My grammar is definitely not up to par with probably even the average or even decent writer-- but ehhhhhh--- it'll have to do.

The weather has been too good recently that I just couldn't see a reason to be inside on the computer! And even when I did have a few minutes, I spent it making myself a cup of coffee or folding laundry. I did NOT spend it catching up on Downton Abbey, in case you were wondering.

All of last week--weekend-- was just glorious. The weather was high 60's and even into the mid 70's so needless to say we spent a lot of time outside collecting sticks, having picnics, killing weeds, taking walks, and running wild in the back yard. We even spent some quality time with our God-daughter, Colette, and had a little glimpse of what three would be like ( yaaaaaa....whoooooaaaaaaaa). I'm honestly sad to report that we really didn't do anything worth a good reason to jump on here and tell everyone about it... so that is why I didn't update you all on my ever so ordinary week.

We did have some pretty darn good picnics though, and I discovered Dunkin Donuts coffee--- and Damien told a few good stories.

His latest antic includes him stripping himself down to his birthday suit and wetting our garage floor while swaying side to side yelling " woohoooooo...." It was so funny I couldn't react quick enough so I just laughed and smiled through saying, "what do you think you're doing!!" His little buns then carried him into the bedroom where I found him squatting over my freshly laundered sheets saying, " I'm gonna poo on your covers!!!"

Damien has never tried to go to the bathroom anywhere other than the bathroom, so I was definitely wondering what had gotten into him--- but I couldn't think of anything except for the fact that he will be a three year old boy soon and everything has to be about bathroom humor.

I despise bathroom humor. Its gross. So naturally that had to be the one thing my child thinks is hilarious.

Let's just all hope that Owen's first sentence doesn't contain the word, poo.

Cheers :)

coming soon.

I realize that title sounds like I am about to announce a pregnancy or something, but I can assure you-- I am... Not! Hahaha.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure I told all my avid readers ( hehe ) that I have not forgotten I started a blog.

It has been a gorgeous weekend so I haven't been spending much time inside, but I promise a post about my days is coming soon! 

I'm sure the suspense is killing y'all... 

a whole lotta JUMBOlaya.

I don't know what it is about going out of town but for some reason it makes you feel as though you haven't slept in days and your house is falling apart.

Well, not really. My house is CERTAINLY not falling apart, in fact it is quite opposite. I finally feel like it is coming together! But I did feel like I hadn't slept in days. I'm sure some of you find that quite ammuzing as I am the sleep QUEEN. I could sleep for hours, hours, and more hours, if I was able. But alas, having kids does not give you those luxuries so this week was kind of a catch up week of getting laundry done, cleaning, and finally starting to do a little decorating. I am not one for clutter, so OVER decorating is something I am trying to stay far away from and I think I am doing a pretty good job so far. Between paying off student loans and trying to build a savings, there isn't much left for decorating much less anything else, but I think we are doing a-ok. God is good and we are blessed.

I managed to get quite a few things done and the weather was spectacular this week! We are headed into a weekend in the 70's and I am praying my husband is not called in to any cases, although I can feel it in my bones that it will most certainly happen. Thursday night he was called in at 10pm for an emergency and it took them until 12:30ish am to decide they were not going to do the surgery and so it has been post-poned until further notice--AKA tonight on Valentines Day or tomorrow when he will be trying to catch up on much needed sleep.

Oh well- as I was just saying, God is good and we cannot complain.

Here are a few pictures to show what we did this week.

Enjoy your weekend. I hope it will be as beautiful as ours is supposed to be :)

tulsa.

Where to start. So much to catch up on! Our trip to Tulsa was a great little getaway and maybe a place we will need to explore another time! We left around noon on Saturday and once there we headed straight to the Oklahoma Aquarium! I didn't even know this existed but I'm really happy one of my husbands co-workers told us about it! Damien was in heaven as he was able to get up close to sting rays, otters, beavers, turtles, fish of all sorts, sharks, and a few really cool coral reefs. It took less than two hours to soak it all in and we made it through without Damien jumping in with the turtles or throwing something at the beavers. He liked the turtles the most, which surprised me, because let's be honest with ourselves-- turtles are super lame. I think it was the fact that he was able to be so close to them that made it so much more exciting. The otter could have been named Damien with how ridiculously full of energy it was. In fact, if Damien was animal, it would most definitely be an otter!

We only had one serious moment of Damien not listening which is remarkable! Damien is fearless and doesn't understand the concept of 'stranger danger.' He doesn't give one rip. He is the most outgoing kid I know and doesn't look back for mom or dad-- which keeps me in constant fear but also means I'm basically on my game-- like all the time ;). He ran from us while trying to strap him into his straight jacket, or coat, which is what most people call them. Fortunately the elderly man who was working the information desk had cookies and kept Damien occupied until I made it clear across the aquarium to the desk. Why am I not a toothpick? This kid keeps me running all day long. HA! That my friends is a topic for another day.

Overall the aquarium was pretty cool and definitely worth the trip to Tulsa!          

    

JJ then had a whole evening planned with meetings, dinner, and networking at the Hard Rock and the boys and I stayed cooped up in the hotel room. 

*hotel selfie*

AWESOME. Torture. Sigh. This was not a highlight so we shall just skip over that. Sunday morning was a lazy one and we made our way to the noon mass at the cathedral. GORGEOUS! It was a great homily on marriage and even though the highlight of the weekend is OBVIOUSLY seeing Jesus, it was also fun watching Damien make laps around the whole congregation during the consecration. Yaaaa.......

Picture this. JJ holding Owen and Damien coloring peacefully in the pew. Next thing I know, he is making his way down the empty pew and looking back at me sheepishly as he does so. I give him the stern look of "dont you dare if you want to live another year," as he genuflects and RUNS down the aisle to the back of the church. Obviously I wasn't about to chase my child around so I swiftly genuflected and made my way to the back of the church. Damien is now going in and out of pews looking back at me smiling as if this is some kind of chase game. He then sprints down the side of the church and right into the pew of an elderly couple who are obviously enjoying every minute of this. The man picked up Damien as I made my way to fetch him and kindly said to Damien, "Don't make your mommas life any harder young man." I thanked them for corralling him before he could make his way up to the alter and we headed to the back for a litttttllleee talking to.

We made it through the rest of mass peacefully and afterwards several older couples came up to me telling me what joy Damien had brought them and how he at least genuflected as he ran out of the pew. To be completely honest I wasn't really that mortified. I mean, it is bound to happen at some point! The kid is only two and has the attention span of two VERY brief seconds. So as we headed out of the church and took Damien to apologize to the priest for running around the church, the priest shook Damiens hand and said, "I always laugh to myself when I see a child do something like that. What can you do? I always recite the scripture verse where Harod is talking about killing all of the youth under two." Uh, I'm sorry what? I kid you not. I wasn't really sure what he meant by all of that, considering he was clearly not annoyed but yet made some kind of weird priest scripture joke that I really didn't get about the mass killing of young toddler boys.

Ah well, we headed home and both boys napped the entire ride home which was AWESOME. It is less than a two hour trip to Tulsa so it really was a fun trip considering it can be done during nap time. I need to look up some fun places to visit and maybe we will make another trip when JJ doesn't have to be gone the whole evening. All in all it was a great time and we are so blessed that he even has these little events to go to. It gives us a chance to get out but not break the bank while doing it!

pink

This morning I made just a little goodness to start off my day.

Amazing.

I don't know why I don't do this more often.

I think its safe to say, my grandmother is better than your grandmother. Unless of course we share the same grandmother, then its safe to say that we have the best grandmother. Literally, she is the best. I don't know anyone as thoughtful as she is. Every little holiday she sends a little something special; whether that is a card, or in this case, a box! It always puts a smile on my face when I get mail from my grandmother and I hope that I can catch on to her good vibes and become a little more thoughtful myself. It really is the little things.

Its also safe to say that I am absolutely over cold weather. I hate being inside for this long and unless we get my husband a better car for the snow, I am car-less when there is snow. His car is like 17 years old, so I cannot hate on it too much, but for real, I am spoiled. I need the car. Props to one car families. We did it once and I don't ever want to go back, God willing. I suppose I should just count my blessings. Last time we were a one car family I only had a small apartment to take car of. Now that we have our own home there are a few more rooms that could use some attention and Im not at all "bored."

I remember telling my mother I was bored when I was little. HA. That was like a 'live and learn' part of my life. You only told mom you were bored once and then you realized what an unbelievable mistake you just made. "Oh, you are bored?!" "Well why don't you fold the laundry, or mop the floor, or clean the bathroom, or load the dishes, or vacuum the floor..." ya, you get the picture. Needless to say I am certainly not bored, considering my laundry basket is full of unfolded clothes and my dishwasher needs unloading. I loaded it though, so that has to count for something.

Anyway, we are off to Tulsa this weekend for a work shenanigan for JJ. It should be a good time. We are going early on Saturday to visit an apparently cool aquarium located just outside of Tulsa and Damien is excited to see sharks, "JUST LIKE VECTORS HOUSE." **If you have seen Despicable Me then you know Vector, the villain, has a shark swimming in a pool under the glass floor of his home. If you have not seen Despicable Me then you are missing out and the minions need to become a part of your life. Damien wants to be one for Halloween this year, something I planned on him being last year, but I suppose it will be more fun now that he is old enough to start choosing what he wants to do. **

Now that I am done with that little rant, as I was saying, we are off to Tulsa and we get to stay at the Hard Rock so I am excited about that! The last time I was at the Hard Rock Hotel I was in Paris, France (ahhhhhh the memories) so I am excited to go, even though Tulsa, Oklahoma is nothing like Paris, France.

                             Here I am outside of the Hard Rock with my travel companions!

And here I am enjoying fresh baguettes.

Well, I suppose I should try and get my life a little more in order before our little trip this weekend. It is also lunch time, which means I need to feed my children. Man, if someone would have told me these little scootchies required all of this work.. why .. I....

haha: ) Don't be scandalized people. I love my children. I just hate making food. Which is why we drink smoothies instead. WAY EASIER.

monday, tuesday, smoozeday

Monday was a cold one around here. I'm not quite sure what the temperature was, but I can assure you it was arctic by Oklahoma standards. Ever since moving here from Nebraska, my standards as far as the cold goes, have dropped. I'm a total pansy when it comes to weather-- seeing -4 on my hometowns weather outlook for the week made me cringe. 

Since it was too cold to play outside I had the brilliant idea of going to the grocery store! Damien and I had an understanding- if he behaved, he would receive Chick-fil-a! Seems like a pretty decent deal to me. He was an angel, naturally, and so we made our way across the street to the home of chicken goodness. 

It was perfect. We had missed the rush of all the lunch goers and had the whole place to ourselves pretty much. Since it was a cold day the play area came in handy and the boys roamed free for almost an hour. I always told myself I would never allow my kids to play in those germ infested areas, but naturally I didn't have any kids when I had such ridiculous ideas. They are really starting to enjoy each other and I absolutely love watching them crack each other up. 

Monday is homemade pizza night around here! Okay, we have done it a grand total of once, but I think it is a nice little tradition to start-- check in next Monday to see if that actually pans out. Anyway, it was delicious and something Damien can get involved in. He has been extremely hands on the last month or so, wanting to do everything I do whether that is cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, you name it. It's turning out to be pretty nice for me because I can give him a damp cloth and he scrubs my floors while I deal with Owen. 

Monday turned out to be an a-ok day around here. Then again, Chick-fil-a can make any day an a-ok one :)

Tuesday! Or shall I say 'smoozeday.' Gah. The day that was never going to end. I'm not sure if it's because I started working out again or because JJ took my car to work due to some snow and therefore I was locked at home all day. It's not that I would have gone anywhere anyway, but just knowing that I wasn't able to made it so much harder! 

We did just about everything that can be done inside: dance party, stamps, built a fort, had hot chocolate, counted in Spanish, took a bath, built block towers, played hide-n-seek, colored, read books, watch a Tom and Jerry episode, read more books, fed our fish.. Okay, you get the picture. 

And for some reason that was all before 1pm! The rest of the afternoon wasn't pretty, until dinner, when I made these GLORIOUS green beans and hardly shared them with my gang. 

#sorryimnotsorry

I shouldn't act like it was the worst day. But you moms know how it is. I don't even need to say more. I did get some quality time with Damien while Owen napped which was great. We read lots of books and played trains and even did a little of 'ma scool' as he likes to call it. 

All in all, it has been a pretty good start to the week :) 

weekend recap

WARNING: photo overload.

 I would love for this post to be full of exciting adventures and fun activities that we as a family did this weekend, but instead it will be a little less exciting than that.

I might as well get the obvious out of the way-- it was SUPER BOWL WEEKEND!

Blah.

It was probably the most pathetic show I have ever seen. The Seahawks destroyed the Broncos and since my husbands team was not in the superbowl this year it was pretty laid back. 

Now for a little back-tracking!

Friday seemed like an extra long day because JJ had a few case add ons and did not get home until around 8. We then made a fast trip to target and before I knew it the boys were asleep and Edmund, Jjs younger brother, was headed over to spend the night. We stayed up way too late and unfortunately for JJ he was called in to an early case about 7am and wasn't home until 1pm. Damien on the other hand was ESTATIC to find a guest in the house when he woke up and Edmund was a great help watching the boys while I got a bit of cleaning done. 

After Edmund left the boys played trains and Damien practiced his dribbling with the new basketball he got from JJ. I received a gift too! Flowers! That really added a nice burst of color to our kiten table. 

A quick lunch of my new favorite soup-- or bisque I should say-- and then we headed to confession and mass before having my brother and sister in law, Jon and Rita, and our goddaughter Colette over for a spontaneous dinner of potato soup. Soup twice in one day is not the norm around here- but I would probably eat my new favorite bisque every day if it wasn't so darn pricey! 

Saturday evening was an early one for us since we had stayed up much too late the previous night. The whole family was asleep by 10pm and Sunday morning was a snowy one. Damien finally got his wish- a snowball fight! 

After a breakfast with our shades on (Damien wore his sunglasses), we went out to get the boys a haircut at Sportsclips. Owen and I waited in the car so that Owen wasn't tempted to get down onto the floor filled with other humans hair and it's safe to say Damien thinks he is the coolest kid on the planet getting his hair cut like a big kid. 

 

I think y'all know the rest. Super Bowl time. Jon and Rita had a great BBQ party which was a lot more fun than the game. It's always a great time hanging out with family and friends so I guess the Super Bowl wasn't too much of a bust. 

It was a pretty good weekend overall, even if we didn't explore a crazy beautiful forest or find a super quirky thrift store- which is what it seems like the rest of the world does on weekends.