this beautiful life

Friday, January 26, 2018

On the Bright Side

Yesterday was a bit of an overwhelming day over here, beginning with an 8:30 dentist appointment for Audrey to get three little cavities filled. It actually went very well. From there though it was just one of those OFF days between me and my girls. A meltdowns and power struggles everywhere we went the rest of the day and everything we did at home! By bedtime I was more than ready to not see or hear them for 12 hours. I vented to Mariah and Natalie via Marco Polo, trying to make sense of why we had such a crappy day together (even though we did some very nice things, like visiting our new friend Trudy White, who is an older lady in our ward. She had the most beautiful grandma house with toys for the girls and she and I sat and talked about two of my favorite things- painting and family history. She is definitely a kindred spirit). Anyways, in talking to Mariah and Natalie about it all Mariah suggested blogging to help me feel better about it. And I felt like, "Well, DUH! Why didn't I think of that?"

This is the exact reason I started blogging again in the first place to help myself see the many many great and wonderful things about life, particularly my crazy little life with these kids. So thank you Mariah for this reminder. And now here are some of the things I am very happy about right now in my simple (it) stay at home mom life:

Homemade yogurt with raspberry syrup. Pretty proud of myself.

Attempting a portrait of Audrey (it's not going great yet so I won't post any pictures until I like it better)

piggy tail braids in their hair- the braids don't hang down by their shoulders, they get sucked up into the rest of their hair because curls gotta curl, even when braided. Today Hannah stuck a little flower from Hawaii at the top of one of the braids and it has stayed without bobby pins or anything. It looks quite adorable. And now I will probably work that into a hairstyle for her next time. I love things like that, when they accidentally show me a new thing!

Exercising every morning. A fun PopSugar cardio video and Ekhart morning yoga video they like to do with me. The other day they ran and put swimsuits on to do it because that was the closest thing they could think of to the outfits the girls in the video had on. My wonderful little Eli Leilua sits in the Bumbo as I do it thinking I'm entertaining him! It's great because then I can use his nap for other things to get done.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I love this movie and I tend to watch with the New Year the last few years. Inspiring and motivating.

Food goals are going pretty well.

Bright white blankets of snow out our window. It's very bright in the winter here.

Andrew playing his guitar he got for Christmas on weekends and evenings. I love the sound of him learning and practicing while I'm painting or doing stuff around the house. It reminds me of my dad doing the same thing when I was growing up.

COCO. WE LOVED COCO. I wish I could own it right now. I can't tell you how much I loved that movie, especially the end.

Also JUMANJI. Went to see that with Julia and my cousin Krista and it was laugh out loud funny.

Today we'll be going to the library which is always a lovely thing for us. I have two books/books on Cd I'm looking for there today. And of course we'll probably come home with 20 beautiful new children books as well. I get pretty insane with all the stuff I try to haul home from the library, while carrying Eli and holding girls hands. I seriously just CANNOT help myself.

Sand. Sand, sand, sand. My parents gave the girls some kinetic sand for Christmas with little toys in it to bury and play with. It has been so much fun. They're at the table with it right now and I love walking by and just grabbing handful of that softee stuff. (Audrey just told me she finally uncovered the "dinosaur of truth" in her sand. Other things that appear are "the horse of life" and things like that. Is she not super cute?).

And speaking of sand...

Some of my favorite pictures of all time:

Junie B. Jones and Peter Pan books on CD. A very fun part of our life right now.

Marco Polo! It has kind of changed my life, no exaggerating. I have been able to keep in touch so much easier with people I had lost touch with over the years, high school and college friends. And long conversations with cousins and sisters that are very difficult to have otherwise. I love it.

Just Being Audrey book by Margret Cardillo. It was Audrey's gift from Santa but she's been nice enough to share it with me. Children books are one of my favorite things and Audrey Hepburn is one of my favorite people. So the combination? Too exciting for me to express. I'm sure I'm so weird how happy it makes me. She's one of those rare heroes in the world who becomes MORE of a hero the MORE I learn about her. She is truly my friend.

My pandora station! Good music can make such a HUGE difference in a day, don't you think?? I have now tailored one pandora station of mine to be exactly what I usually am in the mood to listen to. And I've learned something about myself- I like jazzy kind of music. Who knew? I love acoustic music- like JUST a guitar or ukulele and little else kind of songs. Those are my favorites. But I also have some jazz because of Zee Avi- who kind of does both. And also on that station are a lot of french songs! Like the kind of music you hear in Ratatouille. I like walking around pretending like we're in a little attic apartment in Paris, atmosphere and all. I rocked Eli to sleep for his nap this morning to the lullaby tune of J'tai Deux Paris. It was quite magical.

Family reunion coming this summer! Excited to help with decorations for it. I already have some ideas....

Dreaming with Andrew about our future. We're thinking some changes may happen for us in the next few years. So we're doing a lot of dreaming and scheming and preparing right now. I love having him to dream with.

See, once I got started I couldn't stop!

Friday, January 19, 2018

Dobbins Christmas pictures 2017

Side By Side January 19, 2018 Christmas , Dobbins 0 Comments

Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, present opening, games, sneaking, basketball games, gingerbread house making with aunts and uncles, cousins, grandma and grandpa! It was a memorable white Christmas here in Utah with our Dobbins family we love so much.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

2018 goals for deliciousness

Side By Side January 13, 2018 food , goals 0 Comments

I still have some Christmas and New Years posting to do. But in the meantime while I get all of that organized, here is this post about resolutions going on around this small apartment.

I have big goals for 2018. Actually, not big ones. They really are kind of small. But theres a lot of em, let me tell you.

Every New Years Eve the last few years I feel a buzz inside me of ideas and goals for the new year. It feels SO GOOD to be motivated. It usually fades all too quickly, but a few resolutions still make it through. This year we have some big things to tackle for each of our kids. Starting school for Audrey, potty training for Hannah, and solids and sleep training for Eli. I’m trying be optimistic and motivated in each of these things. But it’s already hard! I cant even talk about it. Let's move on.

I always am very excited about my personal goals. I won’t share all of them, but one I will share (because we’ve already done pretty okay on it so far) is about FOOD. I’m shooting for becoming a better cook. For my family and for myself. I’ve never much enjoyed making food, honestly. But I’ve been recently especially inspired in this by my mom, my sister Julia, and the Big Family Cooking Showdown on Netflix! Also of course the Great British Bake Off. That show was kind of the very very very beginning of this interest for me.

this beautiful berry tart my sister made for the baby blessings. (picture stolen from her Facebook). she taught me how to make it before we left. so i will now be making it everyday for the rest of my life.

I got some cookbooks from the library- Everyday Italian, Our Best Bites 400 cal, The Food Nanny and a few more.

And guess what? I’m loving it! I’ve done 3 new recipes this week (two hits and one slight miss- someones gonna have to teach me about risotto) and I’m already feeling 100 times more confident in myself and in my small kitchen!

My favorite so far was Wednesday. I made a red vegetarian curry with coconut rice and was so on top of it that I looked at the clock and thought I’d attempt some homemade Naan bread too! Overall it might’ve been the most delicious meal I’ve ever made. I was so happy with it.

maybe someday i will get a nice enough camera to take good food pics. my phone only seems to take nice pictures in natural light. i could also probably plate it a lot nicer, but i made my family wait to eat so i could take pictures so i didn't want to ask them to wait any longer.

We also had a successful meal of Panino Di Prosciutto E Fontina (can you believe I made something that fancy sounding?) from Giada De Laurentiis’ cookbook which basically was just prosciutto panini’s. With it we had sweet potato fries, sweet peas (canned), cherry tomatoes, and kale chips. I think I went a little overboard with the sides that time but that’s a specific part of this goal. We’ve always been a one dish dinner kind of family so I’m trying to expand things a little.

I’m loving this goal because it is teaching me what I’m capable of. I’m learning some very much needed lessons about TIMING. And how much I can do if I can be on top of that one detail. And I get so excited to think how much even more I’ll probably be able to do once I don’t have such a young baby. Except…I actually don’t want Eli to ever grow up so……let’s just not think about that one yet.

It feels so good to be pursuing this because I think it’s going to be a big part of my Menieres answer. I’ve never gotten very good at the low sodium diet but I know that this will be an important step for that. Cooking as many things as possible from scratch.

Of course we have an overall goal of being healthier as a family. But right now this goal actually has little to do with that for me. I’m planning on breastfeeding as long as possible and so for me that means allowing myself to have NO WORRIES about my eating habits for the next year (because I don’t seem to produce enough milk unless I am stuffed full). I go back and forth about it, but in the end I know that’s what I really want.

This goal really is mostly just about learning and developing abilities and habits that will contribute overall to everyone’s well being in this little Dobbins family.

One of the biggest motivators for me is what they keep saying in the Family Cooking Showdown- that cooking together, spending time in a kitchen or around a table with your loved ones brings heart to the home. That’s how our childhoods were, Andrew’s and mine and I want to be able to bring that to my own family. Audrey and Hannah have loved helping me bake or cook in the kitchen, or sometimes just stand on a stool next to me and talk while I do it (the stool being our giant BYU rice or flour buckets). I want more of that.

So I’ve got to up my game! And so far, this is how.