I want to punch you in the throat.

Watch this. And laugh. And do not judge me if this movie is stupid, or raunchy. It has made me laugh out loud because recently there are a few people that I've desperately wanted to punch in the throat. 

(And I will...seriously....If I meet you in the dark alley, I will punch you right in the jugular.) 

Momisms

I keep seeing this quote all over the internet:

Man. As if Parenting weren't intimidating enough. I'm expected to keep them alive, clean, educated, AND I'm their inner voice? Intense. Well this got me thinking about the things I say all the time to Lucy. Every mom has them. The momisms. I still remember some of my mom's. 

"Nothing good happens after midnight." 

"One day your brother will be bigger than you, and you'll be sorry." 

I know, gold. I bet my mom is so proud these are the things I remember her saying most. 

Here are things I feel like I say over and over. Some of them I hope Lucy will remember forever...some of them...not so much...

"If you need to throw a fit, you have to go sit on the naughty spot"

"It's ok to be upset, but you don't need to freak out."

"It's ok that it's broken! Now you have TWO!"

"You have to eat something healthy BEFORE you can have candy"

"No one MAKES you cry, you DECIDE to cry."

"Don't listen to anything Joe says, he's an idiot."

"Yeah, I'll come watch Dora/Blues Clues/Diego with you, let me just grab my coffee/ computer/ phone/ book first."

"I don't know."

"I don't want your foot on my ear."

Good luck Lucy...you're gonna have one crazy inner voice. I expect lots of tattoos and drummer boyfriends. 

3 Years Time...

"Yours is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

Now I don’t know where I am 

I don’t know where I’ve been

But I know where I want to go"

In some ways, I believe every cliche Momism you've ever heard. That my life was completely changed the moment I looked at that hot mess of a human whom I'd forever call my child. Every label I've ever had is now playing second fiddle to "Mom". This is so true. True in a way you don't fully understand until you also are a parent. But I'm glad to still be me. A crazy mom version of me, but me none the less.

And you know what me loves? PARTIES! 

I find that having a small child is like, the BEST excuse to get overly crafty and pinobessed. This year, Lucy turned 3, and we talked for a long time about what she wanted to do for her party. She decided she wanted to have a pool party at Grandpa Kreider's house. (I may have pushed the mermaid/sea theme on her a little bit...) So I started collecting, planning, and crafting.

At every birthday party I like to display pictures or something to share with people about Lucy in the past year. This year, I decided I'd put up some of my favorite Lucy quotes:

My favorite part of parties is getting a bunch of people I really like in the same area. 

I loved it. I felt blessed, and happy, and relaxed that it wasn't my house I had to clean before and after the party. :) 

I think Lucy also maybe loved it...

Lucy and I made this piñata. I plan on devoting a whole blog post about this ridiculous craft project.

Birthday success. I just really like this kid. Seriously guys. She's pretty freaking cute. 

How to start a diet. The Amber way.

Like anything you want to accomplish, and accomplish well, going on a diet requires some planning and preparation. I usually have to spend some time getting my head wrapped around the idea, before I can just jump in. Here's my "day before the diet" (which was yesterday)

8:00 am - Wake up feeling great! Think "I will do this! I will give up sugar! I will eat more fruits and veggies! I will stop drinking coffee!"

8:15 am - Pour first cup of coffee. Decide never to make life altering decisions before drinking coffee. 

8:30 am - Start a Pinterest board full of fitness inspiration

start with this one:

And then find this one:

And then find this:

9:30 am - Decide I was born in the wrong era. Google "Time Machine".

10:00 am - Remember how awesome Doctor Who is. Find a blog all about Matt Smith's hair.

-----waste 2 hours on the internet-----

12:00 pm - Husband calls and asks what's for Lunch. Throw dinosaur chicken nuggets and tator tots in the oven. 

12:15 pm - Tell Siri to remind me to make a healthy lunch tomorrow

12:30 pm - Don't eat a second helping of tator tots. Give myself a mental high five "I will be skinny!"

12:45 pm - Find the last piece of pie. Make a very convincing rationalization as to why I should eat it. 

1:00 pm - Don't feel even a little bit guilty for eating that pie. Wish there was another piece.

1:30 pm - Feeling very full, slightly regretting eating the pie. Decide to sleep it off.

2:30 pm - Wake up feeling great! Think "I will do this! I will give up not eat so much sugar! I will eat more fruits and veggies! I will stop drinking coffee!"

4:00 pm - Go to the grocery story to stock up on healthy snacks. Avoid the cookie aisle like it's the plague.

6:00 pm - Make dinner. Only eat one serving. Wish there was pie left.

9:00 pm - Husband goes to get ice cream to make milk shakes. Hide in my room and watch Felicity on Netflix until he's done. 

See! I'm totally doing this! I'm motivated! I'm prepared! Here's how today has gone so far:

8:00 am - Wake up feeling...well...normal. Thank my past self for not giving up coffee.

8:30 am - Look at my collection of Cocoa Pebbles and Fruit Loops. Wish I had a giant donut. Make an "Oatmeal in a Mug" recipe I found on pinterest. 

8:45 am - Decide it needs more sugar...and maybe deep frying.

9:00 am - Sit down to do devotions. Read every passage on "self control" and pretend they are talking about not eating junk food. 

10:00 am - Decide I should most defiantly write a blog post about my new, innovative dieting plan. 

So there it is. I'm on a diet. Today at least...well this morning...I think there's some ice cream in the freezer...

I Heart Food

I know. Shocking right? But who doesn't love to bake? I used to want to put a bakery in the field in front of my house when I was a kid. Good thing THAT dream was never realized. I'd be at least 400 pounds right now.

One of my most favorite things to bake? Banana Bread. Yum. So the other day, I decided to bake up a couple loaves and ended up with a little experiment.

The one on the right is a normal loaf of banana bread, baked off of this recipie.

Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

Turned out great, but I ended up having extra bananas, so I wanted to make another loaf. As I started though I realized two rather unfortunate things. 

#1. I didn't have enough white flour

#2. I didn't have enough butter

So I decided to try and make it a bit more healthy, and altered the recipe slightly and made the loaf on the left. 

Slightly Healthier Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 ripe bananas, smashed
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 Container of Yoplait Vanilla Yogurt
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 Cup ground flax meal

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter and yogurt into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda, salt, and flax meal over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

This actually turned out really good. You couldn't tell the difference between the two. The "healthy" version actually was a bit more moist (I'm guessing because of the yogurt) the best part? I just worked out the nutrition facts.

Normal Version

Healthy Version

Do you see that? 123 calories A SERVING! And 24 grams of FAT?! OMG. I really didn't think it would be that big of a difference but...wowee. I will now be baking everything a bit more healthy. 

I wonder how many calories that butter adds...

Well anyway, I had to make up for all those lost calories some how, so...

Last night I found Pink Lemonade Cupcake mix at Target. 

(Side note, have you seen all the fantastically cute outdoor stuff at Target? I should probably get an award for not buying any of it last night.)

They turned out delicious, like a lemon poppy seed muffin...at least that's what I told my self when Lucy and I ate one for breakfast. 

I think I might try and make a homemade version of these, with lemon cake base, and fresh strawberries or rasberries in it. YUMMO! I'll let you know how it goes. 

The Bathroom Remodel: Before and After

There are quite a few things I'll miss about my house when we finally do move. Like the view from my front window.

And the big back yard that Lucy loves to run around in:

But what I'll miss the most is my new, beautiful bathroom.

It was a nasty mess before. First time DIYers + an old bathroom = this:

Maybe not the worst you've ever seen, but let me walk you through the major issues:

#1 Huge, ugly vanity. 

this vanity was big for this tiny bathroom, and left you with not much room by the toilet. Also, it was not the prettiest counter top.

#2 Poorly/Half done shower

There were some issues with the old shower, so within the last year or so, Jeff ripped it all out, and replaced it with a cheap shower surrond. Well...it didn't quite work as well as we hoped, and he never completely finished the tile on top. 

#3 Peel and Stick Floors

Honestly, not terrible. And we were pretty proud because we did this ourself.  But they were looking old and dingy and if you look closely you can tell which one we had to replace, because it's a different color. 

#4 The Walls

We had the basic damage from tearing down wall paper, but we also had this. 

Yuck. This was from our not so well done shower redo. 

It's hard to believe what a little money and some professionals can do.

Before

After

Everything was redone, and done well, and professionally. I'm so thankful for our friend Chuck at Renovation Creations for putting together this beautiful bathroom. You can be sure, I'll be calling him when we move to the next house. Because in our budget, I just keep finding bathrooms like this:

Yikes. 

The Bathroom Remodel: Part One.

Moving Back Home

As we readied our house to put on the market, we knew we had to do SOMETHING about our only full bathroom.

It's a pretty small bathroom to begin with, so every little thing matters. Like the giant vanity with terrible old countertop. The too loose shower surround, the nasty flaky walls. Anyway, it was bad. And in this terrible market, I knew something must be done to help the house sell. So we called up our friend Chuck at Renovation Creations and he came over a few days later to start a complete bathroom redo. Now, the incredibly unfortunate thing about fixing your only full bath, is that you are without a bathroom for a while. And if you've ever had a small child with you while someone is trying to fix something, well you know, we had to get out of the house for a few days. So Lucy and I moved in with my parents, while Jeff stayed at the house at night and showered at his dad's.

What could have been an incredibly stressful time, was like a mini vacation for us! My family were great hosts. It was nice to get texts from my dad like "Got donuts. Please eat them"

Well OK! 

Lucy and I slept in the same bed, which was a litte strange, especially since she likes to be touching you ALL THE TIME. It was fun to wake up in the morning and see her say "Good Morning Mama! Sun's awake!" But I was glad to get my own bed back. In the morning we'd shuffle upstairs, I'd make some coffee and get Lucy to eat something, and then sit down at the kitchen table.

This pretty much sums up everything I love about my parents. All my life I've woken up to my mom being awake already, sitting at the kitchen table, reading her bible. I've talked about it before, how I want to be that mom, and am still working on it. And then, of corse, there is my dad. Who still reads the comics and randomly strums his ukelele. (My dad sits at the kitchen table and reads his bible too, don't worry). The older I get, the more I realize what amazing people and parents these guys are. I so enjoyed spending all this time with them. 

Although, the more time I spent there, the more I remembered that Brent had moved far away. There are so many things at that house that remind me of him. From all the Minnesota paraphernalia that my parents have collected:

wish I was sharing this cup with you brother!

To the childish cereals that were left behind from the last time he visited:

You'll have to go shopping the next time you come, Lucy and I dominated these boxes.

I miss him lots, and am really looking forward to the week or so in the summer he'll be here. 

I'm so blessed to have two sets of Grandparents that not only adore Lucy, but that she adores. Every day she asks to go to "Grandpa's" and when I pick her up, she never wants to leave. I usually have to bribe her with something to get her in the car with me. Sometimes, it makes me a little sad, but I quickly realize what an amazing blessing it is. She loves Grandpas house because as my dad says "There's no naughty spot at Grandpas!" 

A great time was had by all, and I was very thankful to have a place to shower and watch cable TV all day. (HGTV...all day...I am now a DIY expert)

Coming soon: Before and after pictures! WAHOO!