The Sweet Smell of Rain...

Aahhhhhh. It's 7:02 PM. Both kids are asleep and I'm sitting outside on the balcony, enjoying the sound and smell of the first summer rain (and yes, you read that right. Both kids are asleep. Not just in bed, but asleep.). Desert rain is so wonderful, for so many reasons. Probably the best thing would be how beautiful it is.

I can't take credit for this. But I don't know who can.

But I can for this one... right after a good storm last summer.

And the rain has stopped as quickly as it started. But hopefully we'll get more tomorrow. For now I will just enjoy the lightning off in the distance--and the sweet silence of two darling, sleeping kids. :)

I was just informed, by Pat, that his promotion officially went through today. We are both so happy and so grateful. But I don't know many details yet. So, I will update soon after finding more information out and making some decisions about the fall, since this changes things quite a bit.

And the rain started again. :D Goodnight!

My little swimmer!

Zoe started swimming lessons this week! I was really unsure of how she would do, but I couldn't have imagined her doing so well.

She started out with just learning to kick and blow bubbles, but after only 2 days, she was going all the way under to grab diving rings, jumping off the edge, learning how to breathe and blow bubbles while "swimming" around the pool... All the moms keep approaching me and asking how many summers she's taken lessons. I'm so proud of my little swimmer! :)

Daddy's Day!

Just in case you haven't noticed, I LOVE holidays. Any kind of holiday. A week or two before (sometimes more), I start thinking up little things to do throughout the day to make it even more special for my husband or kids. I guess you could say it's an odd little obsession of mine. How crazy I get about all those extra little things. But it's just so fun to me.

Father's Day is one of those really fun days that I look forward to all year long. And this year it was even better because I had a little buddy that is now old enough to help me with most of those little things, and even come up with a few of those ideas herself.

She had made a Father's Day craft a few days ago at Basha's (a fun little grocery store that Zoe is always begging me to go to because they have a little 'daycare area' in the middle of the store with big glass windows and cameras with TVs all around the store so you can watch your kiddie play while you shop. It's pretty fun.) and she was SO excited and proud of it. As soon as we got home from shopping, she ran off to hide it so that Daddy wouldn't see this special little treasure until she could hand it to him.

The kids and I were up bright and early (duh) and got breakfast started for Daddy, and Zoe and I started getting things together for our morning of celebrating that we had planned. The night before, Zoe and I had taken little squares of brightly colored paper and wrote a TON of things we loved about Dad, or things he did that we were grateful for and this morning we taped them all over the house, and tried to coordinate them with what they had to do with (e.g.- "I love how you always help in the kitchen" went by the sink, "Zoe: I love that you play with my dollhouse" went on her dollhouse, etc.). My favorite would have to be:

Hahahah. I had to try so hard not to laugh when she asked me to write this one. It started out just, "I love when Daddy tickles me" but as she looked around the kitchen and saw a picture of a chicken she had made with feathers glued on, she had to add that last part. I can't get enough of the cute little things she says! :)

And here are a few of the other things we made for Pat:

And we ended the day with my first try at Gluten Free cookies. They were super easy, and really yummy! Well... the perfect amount of yummy. Not good enough that I gobbled down the whole batch before the day was over (hallelujah!) but just good enough that I enjoyed 2 cookies, and will hopefully not have another (hallelujah!).

To wrap up this post, I can't help but add a cute little picture that will always melt my heart.

The day Pat became a father. :)

Little buddies

These summer weeks are just flying by. Can't believe July is just a few short weeks away! While we didn't do anything too major this past week, we kept very busy with lots of little stuff. Last friday we headed to Tucson in the morning to visit one of my high school friends that was in town for the weekend and were also lucky enough to be around for my sweet little niece's 5th birthday. While it was a nice weekend, our visits to Tucson always seem to go too quickly.

It has been so fun for me to watch Zoe and Landon's relationship grow and change. They are just the cutest little BFFs. Zoe loves to climb into Landon's crib in the mornings and they just sing, play, read books and laugh together until I just can't take it anymore and have to open the door and peak. 

After one of Landon's naps.

Pat took Zoe shooting this morning. I was a little nervous the whole time they were gone, but I know she was in good hands, and Pat's friend took his 3 little boys too. Zoe woke up this morning ssoooo excited to go out with Daddy and the big kids. She picked out her own "Jesse" outfit (playing inside=princess, playing outside=Jesse) and was all ready to go!

Happy early Father's day to all those great Dads out there! Did I mention how excited I am for tomorrow!? I can't wait to spoil my handsome hubby and celebrate how much we love him. I'm really excited about something the kids and I made for him, so I'll try and take lots of pictures tomorrow so I can show it off. :)

Goodbye Gluten!

Yes, that's right. I have officially gone gluten-free! I am on day #4 today and loving it. In fact, I love it so much that I'm considering starting a separate blog for all the good recipes I find, helpful tips I come across, and to brag about the weight I will hopefully be shedding and the health benefits I will hopefully be feeling. :) But for now I'll just post on here about it from time to time.

After having baby #2 and being about 50 lbs heavier than I was before baby #1, I was getting pretty depressed and frustrated with my weight and other health issues I've been dealing with for years. Over the past 5 years or so I have joined a few gyms, bought different workout DVDs, tried numerous diets, etc and have had basically no results from them. For about 6 months straight I was going to the gym 5-7 times a week for 1.5 hours at a time and eating "well" and didn't lose a single pound! After that I started running 3-4 times a week with my mom for about 45 minutes at a time and again... not a single pound lost. I always end up just getting frustrated and give up after a few months of not seeing results.

A few months ago, my sister called and asked if I'd ever considered going Gluten-Free. I never had. She told me about a friend of her's that has had great success from being Gluten-Free. I spent night after night researching and thinking about it, but really wanted to get tested for Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance) before I started. I finally just dove in before getting tested and am glad I did!

I posted on facebook that I could use some help from anyone that had helpful advice for me and was expecting only 1 or 2 responses. Instead, I received message after message from people that I had no idea were gluten free or gluten intolerant. Each of them told me about the same thing: that they feel great all the time after giving it up, that they highly recommend it, and that it's hard at first but easy to get a hang of.

I felt a little overwhelmed and almost wanted to cry as I made my first 'gluten free shopping trip'. Basha's has gluten free tags up on their shelves, pointing out the very few things I had to choose from. I would walk down entire aisles and not see a single tag. But it's really not so bad. I've come up with some really yummy and creative meals and haven't had to go out and spend a fortune on all the health store-specialty made gluten free products.

Oh, and I was trying so hard to wait an entire week to weigh myself, but gave in this morning. I am down 2.5 lbs in 4 days. Hard to say how much of that is just a different outfit, different time of the day weight and how much is really lost weight, but still encouraging! And I'm feeling A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Muffin Tin Flan

I decided it was about time to introduce Zoe to one of Pat's and my true loves--Mexican food. Is that even 'politically correct'? There was a girl in one of my classes last semester that would always grumble under her breath and shake her head whenever our instructor said, "mexican food"... but, you get the picture.

Since we were having tacos and horchata for dinner, flan for dessert just made sense. ;) There is something so fun about making flan. And it's oh so easy! And delicious, of course. 

Mmmmm! :)

Thanks to a wonderful suggestion from Pat, I ended up making mini flans in a muffin tin, instead of the usual 9 inch round pan. While I'm no flan pro, the 2 or 3 other times I've made it I have always had people comment on how difficult it must be to make, etc. And it definitely isn't.

This is the recipe I like to use, with a few small changes. 

Fist, begin melting the sugar over low-medium heat. I add a few drops of lemon juice to the sugar. I could be crazy, but I think I remember hearing it helps with the melting...

As you keep melting and stirring, the sugar will turn a little rocky. This is a good thing.

Stay patient. The sugar will turn liquid after a few more minutes, and you just keep stirring as it darkens. The color you want is a dark, amber color. 

I should have probably gone a little darker, but I had a cute little 3 year old helping me that was getting a little impatient.

So next, I spooned the melted sugar into the muffin tin, which had been sitting in the warm oven. If you pour the sugar right into a cold or room temp pan, it will harden too quickly to spread. But I guess I didn't have to worry about that with the muffin tin, due to the tiny space I had to fill...

While I was melting the sugar, I had some help mixing up the rest of the ingredients and whipping up the eggs. I also like to add in 4 oz. of cream cheese to make the flan a little more firm. Keeps us from having to leave in it in the refrigerator overnight. :) 

Then it all gets poured on top of the melted sugar and baked @ 350. Our oven is a little whacky, so I didn't trust to just leave it for a certain amount of time. I just kept checking the oven every few minutes after the 10 minute mark to see when the middles had set, and then I removed them and let the pan sit for a little over an hour, while we munched on our tacos and horchata.

The final few steps are the trickiest. I boiled some water and dumped a few inches of the water into the sink and let the pan sit in the boiled water to melt the sugar down again.

Then I used a knife around the edges to separate the custard from the pan. There has to be an easier/prettier way to do this part.

Finally, I flipped the whole thing over onto a cookie sheet and WAH-LAH!

They weren't the most beautiful little flan, but they sure were tasty and fun to make! 

Pat has officially started his new job and is loving it (so he says):

Ain't he cute!?

We were lucky enough to have my mom and 2 younger brothers come and visit us this past weekend. We didn't do anything too exciting or out of the ordinary but we loved having them.

I wish I had more to write about. But we don't have many blog-worthy things going on these days.