Doggy Bags

Do you know why I love my husband? He brings me doggy bags. Every once in a while he gets to go out to a mega-swanky dinner for his work. Since the first one a year and a half ago he has never failed to bring me a doggy bag. It's a big deal to him. At this time in our lives we rarely go out for that kind of meal...spending two weeks grocery money in one night type thing...and I think he feels guilty that I'm home with the kids while he dines with adults. While I'm giving night time baths, some tuxedoed dude is turning on the water in the men's room so he can wash fillet Mignon grease from his fingertips. He wishes I could be there to experience it with him, so...

He eats exactly half of his meal. Last night he brought me two jumbo prawns, half of a lobster tail, half of a fillet Mignon, half a scoop of potatoes, and half of a slice of strawberry cheesecake. My doggy bags always come beautifully presented in fancy packaging and he will sit with me on the couch and describe how everything tasted when it was served and how it was presented. He will tell me what the dinner conversation was and what the restaurant looked like inside. He described how the waiters were dressed and even how the alcohol smelled that was served to some of the people.

This morning I heated up my fillet in the oven, shared my potatoes with Evan and enjoyed my cheesecake. (I was freaked out about eating day old seafood...so with much regret I tossed the prawns and lobster tail...is that just an urban legend or does seafood not keep overnight?) Nic teased me about being an uncultured sloth because I speared the whole hunk of meat with a fork and dipped it in KC masterpiece BBQ sauce. But then he laughed and said, "It's your present, eat it how you want."

Thank you honey for doing the little things that mean so much. I love you.

A Diva Amongst Us

I always think it's funny to see what songs Nic and I listen to that the kids take a liking to. Lately Afton has become attatched to "Bleeding Love". I had to capture her sweet karakoke skills. Kid videos are never as cute to everyone else as they are to the parents, but it's only 45 seconds long and the hip action at the end really sweetens the deal. WORK IT GIRL!

Sometimes Happiness is Cheap!

I'm no good at formatting my blogs, this picture belongs at the very end of the post...I don't know how to move it, so just ignore it til you get to the end of the post! Lame. Sorry.



Super cute Gap embroidered jeans and Gymboree sweater! Weeeee....


The other night I had Sunday dinner over at my place. I was worried about it being too crowded with everyone over. But you know, we found the opposite to be true, we sat around my couch like we were sitting around a camp fire and I can't remember the last time we all talked as a family like that. Sometimes love grows in small spaces:) Plus, we had big pans of gooey chicken Parmesan, pene with broccoli, garlic and Parmesan, home made bread sticks and banana splits. What a perfectly cozy, delicious evening.


Okay, now for my thrift store bonanza! I went to two of my favorite second hand clothing stores today to get some winter clothes for the kids...yes it is still 100 degrees outside, but you who know me know I just can't wait for the next thing! So here is my bounty. Let me describe specifically my satisfaction.
I found good quality brands such as H&M, Gap, Gymboree, Yes, Arizona, Sprockets, Nike, all in great condition, some never even used. I got:
Six pairs of jeans
1 dress
1 sweater
3 pairs of pj's
7 long sleeved shirts
1 pair of cords
2 cool big toy cars
1 adorable winter coat
1 skirt
--------------------------------Cost: 100.00


Cute shirts for Evan


Awesome Old Navy heavy duty lined coat for Evan...for five bucks! Yippee!

Little Bits

Yeast and I don't get along. I am yeast impaired. So one day when I made rolls and let them rise all day in a perfectly warm kitchen ...covered in saran wrap....and heard a strange puncturing sound...and then saw Evan with these scissors....I was upset to find the result. Yeast hates me....even when it isn't my fault. Evil little Evan.

I felt so good one morning, I made breakfast for the first time in literally months. It felt good to eat real food. I wish I could eat this every day. Eggs, pepper jack and mango salsa on whole wheat, a slab of homemade peach cobbler, and blueberries. Ahhh....food, how I have missed you.


Afton has interesting posing skills. I never know what I'm going to get when I ask her to simply smile. Each of these poses were very deliberate and could not be negotiated no matter how hard I tried. There were more, but they only get weirder. These were the most normal.Hmm... What else is going on? Oh I discovered that the McDonald's hash browns my kids love also have other charms for Evan. He eats the wrapper right along with the hashbrown. Like a luscious little garnish. Afton brought my attention to that fact, I wonder how many he has eaten?


That's all for now, I have so much to blog I want to catch my computer on fire just to relieve me of the stress! Love you guys!

Tales from the Crypt

Well guys, It's been a while eh? Here's the deal in a nutshell. I felt mega-nauseated on a wednesday afternoon, sat on my couch and cried because I couldn't bring myself to cook the hamburger and onions for the spaghetti my kids were screaming for, called my friend Ashley to come over and cook it for me and then I realized, What in the heck am I going to do? So my dear husband sent me to my mom's house in the middle of Nevada for the last 5 weeks where I rotted in the living room recliner while my angel of a mother took care of my kids and me.

So now I'm 11 weeks pregnant and doing much better. I'm still kind of couch-bound, but at least I can eat and sleep now. If only I could poo. Too much info? Sorry. I just don't have a lot more going on other than that.

So anyway, I'm so glad to be home in my own house, see my husband every day and not feel so lonely and isolated. I wanted to thank everyone who helped me with my kids, sent me notes, called and lots of other thoughtful things that helped out so much.

I can't wait to get blogging again with actual life experiences and photos! It may be a few weeks til I have it in me, but I just wanted to say hi to my friends and post at least something! See you soon.

Gag me with a yogurt taco...or pregnancy will do it too

If you are wondering, "gag me with a yogurt taco" was one of my favorite valley girl sayings from the 80's.

Yick. Bleck. I feel sick! I am so afraid I am going to get as big as a house because the only thing that seems to keep my nausea at bay is to constantly feed my face. My sister lived an entire pregnancy on Werthers Originals and Rootbeer. The only thing that sounds good to me are chipotle steak burritos. Yeah, that's gonna get pricey. Every time I think about the sensation in my throat I mentally say the word "keck". I think that may be a barfing sound effect...I'm not sure.

Anyway, random stuff is starting to gross me out. I am going to start an official pregnancy gag list on my sidebar. I'll update it as need be.

So ladies, what made you gag during your pregnancies?

Summer Vacation

When I stood on a cliff looking over this view I felt my ribs unzip and my heart practically float away.

We're finally home from our summertime escapades. We've been gone for almost two weeks and had such a good time getting out of the city and back to nature. We went camping with Nic's clan in Duck Creek Utah first and then came home for one day...shook the dirt out of our shoes, washed the clothes and took off to do the whole small town fourth of July thing with my family back home at Pablo Canyon. I wanted to share some of the pictures.

Pablo Canyon

One of the main events back home is to load everyone up in a 4-Wheel drive vehicle and bounce up to Birch Creek where we have a cook-out and let the kids play in the creek. Then we drive all the way to the top of the mountain and go down the other side to Austin to play at the park, swim and eat at the Toiyabe Drive in Frosty.




Afton and Evan at Birch Creek


Evan sporting his new sheriff hat

Afton at Birch Creek cook out

Here's a video of our fist night at Pablo Canyon. This is the ranch where my parents live and Nic and I stayed in one of the empty rental trailers in the main yard. Everyone showed up to have a true country ho-down. We had a great time cooking up a big bunch of cowboy beans, corn on the cob and staying up late to tell ghost stories. Even Afton and her cousin Ellie got in on the action!

MMM!!! One of my favorite back home meals...there's a cup of brown sugar in those bad boys!

My dad Frank and Nic at the very top of Birch Creek canyon. You can't really see that well because there was a haze from the California wildfires, but we were so high and could see for a hundred miles in every direction. It was windy and exhillerating up there!

My mom Sandy taking the kids for a quad ride up pablo road. Evan cared more about the motorcycles than eating. We had a scary moment when we lost him for about 15 minutes and we found he had wandered up the ranch and found a riding lawn-mower to "drive".


Here's the sweet 10 ft wide trailer Nic and I stayed in. The porch also doubled for our talent show stage. This is my dad telling red neck jokes. Ashley Stout and I performed a Tahitian hula and can I just say how completely heart-broken I am that my hubby didn't get it on video!? In case you don't know, one of my items on my life checklist was to learn and perform a real hula. Humph. Sigh. So sad. I am praying Ashley will put it on her blog. Nic played the guitar and we sang Allison Krauss's "You Say it Best When You Say Nothing At All". Afton did princess dancing with her cousins.

I love this uncertain expression on Afton' face as she greeted a surprise visitor.

Duck Creek

The Larkin crew including Papa Larkin


My favorite activity of the whole Duck Creek trip was our family hike to Cascade Waterfall. It was the perfect hike. Not to long for little kids, yet still makes you sweat...breathtaking views (the first picture on this post was during that hike), varied landscape, not all uphill, and an awesome destination. It was the perfect family hike and I want to do it every year now.

Cascade Waterfall...Nic and Evan testing the waters

Afton on her first real hike.

Local Wildlife

Can you say Velveeta CHEESE?!




Phew...this whole vacation has been so fun, but also so exhausting because Evan had diahreah (cha cha cha) the entire ten days and...I'm Pregnant!