I was just going through some old photos and came across a couple that really stood out.
First: Espen & Jeremy Sleeping
How sweet is this picture. I took about 50 or so of them sleeping that day, every one turned out beautifully.
Second: Me in Oslo
How sweet is my hair. Can someone please tell me why I went nuts two years ago and whacked it to my chin. Never again my friends, never again.
I don't know what it is about Sundays, but I love 'em and this weekend was no exception.
I have no idea how it happened, but we didn't get out of bed till well after 10:30, Espen included. I played on my newly charged laptop while Espen goofed off with his Lego’s and Jeremy edited some music. It was such a nice day out that we knew we wanted to get some sandwiches and head to the park to eat them.
We ended up at DeFalco's for food. Seriously, that place never let's me down. We order the same thing every time and every time it's super good. But then again, how can you mess up copicollo, salami and prosciutto on a crispy baguette...mmmm, I'm drooling.
Espen insisted on getting a pickle...and yoohoo. eww.
{Jeremy and his usual, the Combo}
After we ate Espen worked off his food with about an hour of running around the playground while Jeremy and I people watched and I listened to my Norwegian lessons. Man, was it ever a good day to people watch. One girl was crying her eyes out confessing to some older lady how 'terrible' she feels after 'it' happens, what on earth was she talking about. Then there was the lady who kept calling someone, just to get in an argument with them and tell them 'NEVER CALL ME AGAIN', this happened at least 6 times. Then there was the one lady, with about 8 guys with bedazzled jeans (the guys, not the lady) huddled around the corner of the playground while the lady's daughter (I assume) played on the monkey bars. There were two little girls balancing at the tip top of a dinosaur on a spring that fell at least 4 feet to the ground landing on top of each other right in front of their mom/grandma who's reaction was a nonchalant'oh, what happened'. THEY FELL OFF THE DINASAURS HEAD LADY!! What do you think happened? The list goes on, the people watching was in full swing. I can only imagine what people thought of us. ha!
The weather was perfect for kite flying so we busted out the 4 foot dragon.
Espen did an amazing job flying the kite, holy cow. I was beyond impressed.
How hilarious is Espen. Jeremy was wrapping the string around the kite handle when Espen decided to pretend to be a fish. He attached the little plastic piece at the end of the string to his mouth like a hook and had Jeremy 'reel' him in.
I grabbed him once Jeremy successfully reeled him in and told him I was going to fry him up and eat him, which he thought was pretty funny. Ha.
This was the first Sunday in a while that I didn't get a nap in but that's because I was too busy playing with some new things I got over the weekend.
{New Paddington Bear book in Norwegian and new hair. ha!}
Disney Family once again has included another fabulous Crock Pot recipe on their site. No joke, this was unbelievably good.
I got home from work by 5:30 last night which left me 30 minutes to prep the food, change out of my work clothes and head over to my hair appointment. I decided to make Provençal Lemon and Olive Chicken . Yum. I raced around the kitchen(and outside to cut onions) cutting up chicken, dumping in spices, slicing lemons, pulling out seeds and boiling up some broth.
I set the Crock Pot on high and ran out the door at 6:06 and arrived at my appointment just in time. Everytime I see Roberto for a haircut we always end up talking about movies and TV shows, especially the obscure ones. He'll mention some far off film and I'll tell him how I have seen it 10 times and then I'll mention one and he'll tell me how he has the soundtrack to it on his iPod. He even knew Death Race 2000.
After a quick trim I was on my way home. Jeremy finished giving a make up exam and had to pick Espen up from his parents house, which worked out well. The food was supposed to cook in the crock pot for 3-3.5 hours on high so we wouldn't be able to eat it till after 9:00 anyway. After chatting with his folks, Jeremy didn't end up getting home till 9, perfect. Espen was out like a light when they got home so we tucked him in and went straight for the Crock Pot.
Holy cow, this was AMAZING. Seriously. I was squawking and yelping after every bite, I think Jeremy was a bit annoyed, ha. Like everything I make in the 'Pot' I would do some minor tweaking the ingredients on the next go round. I'd probably add a bit more onion, chicken broth and olive juice and use less salt. I'd also pull the lemons out of it before stirring it all together which they don't tell you to do in the recipe. We ate it out of bowls like a soup almost, but I think serving it over rice, like they pictured it on Disney Family would help out with the saltiness.
This was one of my favorite Crock Pot recipes so far and I'll definitely be making it again, soon.
I picked Espen up from the park yesterday, he was there with my mom, my sister and her kids. The boys fed ducks and rode their bikes around finally ending up at the playground.
These two are pretty good at rock climbing, I was a little shocked. Kids have no fear, it's awesome.
Instead of heading home Espen and I went over to my sisters so that I could play hairdresser. I snipped hair while the boys goofed off.
-boys will be boys-
-what a good little buddy-
After the haircutting and digging was done, my sister cooked us dinner and Joshua, the bartender, made me an Orange Margarita! Thanks Jenny & Joshua!
While my sister was finishing up in the kitchen I played with little 'Baberham'. Abe let me stick olives on his fingers, I was able to get to pictures before he gobbled them up.
Dinner was delicious! Espen was obviously a happy camper. Joshua even made him a glass of orange juice with salt on the rim, just like mommy's margarita. haha!
After stuffing our faces we headed home. Espen fell asleep in the car and luckily stayed asleep when I put him in bed. I shoved an earbud in my ear and fell asleep listening to the sweet melody of conversational Norwegian.
Sunday was an awful lot like Saturday. The weather was crappy and all I wanted to do was go play outside. Instead we stayed indoors most of the day, in and out of bed, watching the Olympics, spying on our new downstairs neighbors, chopping up veggies for the crock pot and coloring my hair.
Oh ya, in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday I ran over to Toni & Guy to have Christina fix a couple of stripes I found in the middle of my head and also to fix a couple of streaks in my bangs. I was in and out and the streaks were gone but the process left my hair a bit on the BRIGHT LIGHT BLONDE side, not quite the look I was going for but, nothing a box of toner from CVS couldn't fix. 15 minutes later, and bam, buttery blonde perfection. I kept pulling Espen's face up to mine to show Jeremy that Espen and I are little blonde twins again.
Here's a before and after:
There are 2 things wrong with the picture on the left. One is obviously the color of my hair, kind of yellow, right? But please note under my eyes. While cutting onions for dinner my eyes began to tear up, thus leading to my mascara irritating my eyes. I rubbed a towel against my watering eyes yelling 'make it stop, make it stop' and you know what, it stopped. What I did not know is that for about an hour I had mascara smudged underneath my eye. When I finally saw myself in the mirror I was shocked! I ran out to Jeremy, pointing at my eyes, 'Babe, seriously, this whole time you've been talking to me you haven't once said to go fix my face!' He said he didn't notice. What the heck is he looking at? How could you NOT notice. Haha! There you have it, the picture on the right is me sans smudgy makeup and yellowy hair, not bad.
So, speaking of cutting onions, I was cutting onions, celery and other veggies for the Weight Watchers Hamburger cassarole recipe I found at LaaLoosh.
It was okay, it was definitely hearty like the description says, but I would probably either leave out the potatoes or add some sort of chili pepper, it was a bit bland. I added salsa and cheese to mine and ate it with BBQ sauce today for lunch. I did skip the part of the instructions that says to spray the crock pot with cooking spray and now we have a crock pot soaking in the sink, hopefully it will clean up oaky with a bit of (Jeremy's) elbow grease.
Espen was in full on entertainment mode all day. I could here him making a ruckus in the bedroom and when we went in to see what he was up to we found this.
How hilarious is this? He said his shark flip flops were tap shoes and he was dancing and squealing with his guitar. I need to edit the footage we got of him and upload it to show off his impressive dance moves.
Later that night he came running into the bedroom with 3D glasses on and a camera to take his own pictures. He was singing his own lyrics to the Spiderman TV show theme song, Jeremy and I were dying! Doesn't he look like the old guy from UP!
When he wasn't goofing off Espen was playing with one of the best, time consuming, easy to clean, fun and creative toys that we have around the house, Moon Sand. I think he spent a good 2-3 hours squishing, building, molding and playing with this stuff. If you have kiddos, you need Moon Sand.
What a wonderful weekend! I would have liked to have seen less rain and more sunshine, but in the meantime this will do.
Bye bye roots, hello blonde. Don't I look happy in this picture? Maybe a little grumpy, it was 7:30 in the morning, but the morning gloom faded away when I pulled into the McDonald's drive through for a breakfast burrito and iced coffee, so fancy. ha!
My colorist and I decided on something a little different than what she normally does and this is definitely the way to go. Just a quick 'mini partial' (I guess that's even less than a partial?) did the trick and for half the cost of what I normally get done. I was there for a fraction of the time which meant I had plenty of time to hang out with Espen before he crashed out watching the woman's half pipe with us. During each run he would stand up and slowly spin around, moving his arms up and down and then he'd bend over or roll onto the bed all while whispering the names of the 'moves' he was doing. He was acting out snowboarding. So hilarious.
Jeremy & I snuck in an episode of House before returning to the Olympics, this time for the men's free skate. Oh my god. These dudes are amazing. Their costumes had Jeremy and I cracking up. The men are so serious but they are dashing around wearing more jewels and Lycra than I ever have, or will, it's a riot. My favorite costumes so far were actually worn by a pair of skaters, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, the harlequin clowns (which I have seen everywhere lately).
Then there was Evan Lysacek. His snake outfit was incredible. Vera Wang? Amazing. Just like his routine. Although I was expecting Snake in the Grass to start playing and for Evan to bust out some sweet Bob Fosse type moves.
This costume is equally as creepy and awesome at the same time.
I couldn't stop myself from laughing watching his reaction when he realized he won the Gold. It wasn't like a 'thank you Jesus' moment, it was a cracking up 'is the score board kidding?' moment. He and his coaches were just laughing, it was rad.
Speaking of rad, how rad is it that it's the weekend! The only thing I have planned is Yoga tonight. The rest we'll make up as we go.
I'm fairly certain that we will be doing a bit of this over the weekend.
For years now my dad and I have started off our phone conversations the following way:
Paul: Hello, this is Paul
Me: Hello Paul, it's your daughter
Paul: Oh hello daughter, what color is your hair today?
There is a reason why he asks me that, and the proof can be found in this pretty amusing slideshow I put together for a couple of friends back in Sept. '08.
The slideshow consists of pictures of me between 9/06-9/08. It's obvious I can't seem to make up my mind on what color hair I want and that is still true today. In the summer of '09 I dyed my blonde hairs dark brown again and have since been making the transition back to the opposite side of my hair color spectrum. I have an appointment this evening with the best colorist ever, she's been bringing me back to blonde for almost 4 years now...and tonight, she will do it again.
