Always

So here's the story of my tattoo. It was not my immediate intention that the tattoo be related to my Dad's passing.

In fact, I had started planning my geeky Harry Potter tattoo before Dad even got sick.

However, once we knew it was really bad for Dad, I knew that my idea had gained double meaning and that I had to get it done ASAP.

The initial idea for my tattoo being a key word from the last book of the HP series: "always". In fact I had initially planned on throwing a Deathly Hallows sign in there with it when I designed it in photoshop.

I ended up deciding to streamline it and simply make it say "always", figuring I could always add the hallows sign later. By then I knew it had gained double meaning and now meant that I would always be thinking of my Dad. 

The nerd-dom in full circle with the passage from the book

Ryan happened to have last wednesday off so he suggested I call and get an appointment to get it done that day. Sadly he forgot that kids aren't allowed in tattoo shops so I asked Britt if they could stay with her while Ryan went with me to get it done, and she is the best and agreed; and all it cost me were some marshmallow cookie bars ;)

The fresh product

After getting the tattoo done we grabbed the boys from Britt's and decided to head out for dinner since it was getting late and we had nothing ready at home yet.

We decided we wanted seafood and ended up at a small local place near our house that happened to be serving crawfish since they're in season now.

Ryan decided to give them a whirl.

I, on the other hand, will never try them. They have eyes. They look at you. How can you get past that?!?!

One pound of crawfish, for Ryan's eating pleasure. Ick.

Ryan placed the crawfish carcasses facing me as he ate them because he thought it was funny because I was so creeped out by them. Aidan thought it was pretty funny too, the little shit.

 My cousin recently sent me an new Alex and Ani bracelet with my Dad's birthstone on it as a remembrance, and Dad's friend Dawn sent me the one with the heart as well. I have had a very "Dad"-filled week and had many moments of sadness, but am still trying to deal with it day by day. Some days I'm ok because life is so hectic and crazy with 2 little boys and I don't have time to pee alone, let alone think....... then some days I can't stop thinking about him.

Now I have many sweet things to remember him by.

How to make a PB & J in a peanut allergy house

First, make sure Mason is asleep or not home.

Grab hidden jar of Peanut Butter (Peter Pan of course) from very top shelf of pantry.

Grab jelly and bread.

Grab 2 knives, one each for PB and Jelly, so as not to cross-contaminate the jelly.

Do NOT wipe the excess PB off on the side of the bread you are going to put the jelly on...you could spread jelly then go back for more thus contaminating the jelly jar.

When done wipe PB knife completely clean with paper towel before placing knife in sink and throw out paper towel.

Devour the PB & J.

Wipe mouth with paper towel and throw out.

Wash hands.

Immediately put the glass you drank out of in the sink, just in case it gets left out and Mason decides to drink out of it.

Now, stress about any of the ways that PB residue could be left around the house/on yourself and immediately regret giving in to your craving for a PB & J....because let's face it, peanut allergies are no effing joke people.

My first Game Day experience....

Soooooo..... the big day rolled around.

Our first soccer game. Aidan's first game playing, Mommy's first game coaching. I was as prepared as I thought I could be.....including the best manicure ever for a soccer game!

Let me tell you what...I learned something Saturday morning.

Coaching 4 and 5 year olds is not for the faint-hearted (I just googled it, it's not feint).

Aidan's #1 fan!

We have a team of 7 kids, and we play on 2 fields simultaneously so we split the kids up into 2 different groups. I sent Aidan off with my assistant coach because I thought he would do better with him than with his own Mom. Ryan was able to come to the game that day so he was able to hang out on Aidan's field and watch him play (I gave him the camera too), which I'm kind of sad I didn't get to do. However, I am glad I decided to not be on his field because he probably would have clung to me instead of playing.

I quickly learned the basics of the game from the other coaches and parents (lots of us have no clue), and went from there. The coaches are allowed on the field with the kids to guide/direct them since they're so little and half of them don't even know which way to go with the ball.

Including Aidan.
 After we were done with all 4 quarters, Aidan was so excited to tell me all about his goal! When he turned away, Ryan informed me he scored his "goal" in the other teams goal, lol.

We still haven't broken the news to him yet ;)

I also had kids crying on the field because they wanted to score a goal. I wiped many tears and comforted many sad little players. Aaaaah, coaching preschoolers.

We went from there to grab some lunch and head to the Outlets to return a sweet Superman under armour shirt that I got for Ryan last week that didn't fit.

We were brave enough to test out cooked cheese on Mason. He did great. Never threw up like he would with uncooked milk/cheese! He's very excited to be able to eat pizza with cheese on it now!

Then we decided to head out to Kemah to finish up our busy family day with dinner on the boardwalk. However, we didn't know it was the Kemah Crawfish Festival (gross), and it was packed. We waited over an hour to get a table for dinner (the other restaurants had waits of 2-2.5 hours!), and we didn't even get to eat outside because we unknowingly put our name in with the inside hostess, not the outdoor hostess.

Doh.

So we took some selfies while Daddy went to go check on our table:

Hope your weekend was as great as ours!!!

Pearland United's newest player and Coach

After seeing a small sign for a soccer club in the shopping plaza in January, I decided to sign Aidan up for soccer. The league we joined is called Pearland United and they have teams of all ages, starting with the U5-U6 (under 5 and 6);  a team of 4 and 5 year olds.

Last weekend was our first Parent's meeting since the season starts this coming Tuesday. At the parents meeting it was announced there are 9 teams this year, each has a name (ours being Cruz Azul, which means Blue Cross) taken from a professional Soccer team. We were then told that our team didn't have a coach and were asked if anyone wanted to volunteer.

Crickets.

I asked about not having any soccer experience and he said just use YouTube to find videos of drills for small kids. Uh, ok. He then told us that if we didn't have a coach volunteer that the team would be disbanded and that they couldn't even send the kids off to the other teams. So, you're telling me that if someone doesn't step up my kid won't get to play at all?

OK, I'm in. Sign me up.

I am now the Head Coach for Team Cruz Azul.

YIKES, what have I gotten myself into???

Rodeo Houston 2014

Us Yankees decided we absolutely had to check out the Rodeo when it came to Houston. We've been talking about it and looking forward to it since we moved here last summer!

It did not disappoint.

We decided the best way to travel was to drive into the city and park in Ryan's parking garage at the hospital, then hop on the Lightrail and ride it to Reliant Park (where the Rodeo is). We figured the boys would love the "monorail" experience and they sure did!

 Waiting for the Lightrail

Since we are indeed Yankees, we had no idea that the performer for the night's concert was included in our rodeo ticket.  Since we got our tickets at the door all that was left was standing room only, but since we saw the rodeo and Selena Gomez for $16 each, we can't complain, right?

We got there just in time for Bull Riding, and we finally found an area where we could stand that I could actually see something. It was awesome! The boys were staring down watching everything with their mouths wide open.

The calf scramble was funny. Not quite sure what the point was, but a bunch of kids (in the white tshirts) try to wrangle up a herd of calves that get released. This was so funny because these kids were tackling these calves and pulling on their tails...anything to get them to stop running around!

Some of the calves were quite stubborn

After the scramble they started moving the stage out to the middle of the stadium, and got it all set up while they were doing the Mutton Bustin event. You can see up in the right behind the stage where they were set up for it, so I didn't get any good pics.

Mutton Bustin is when little kids grab on to the backs of sheep and ride them until they fall off.

HILARIOUS!

When Mason is old enough we are totally signing him up for the event! Aidan, however is a bit more nervous about things and was totally against the idea, haha. Mason's all for it!

By the time that event was over, the lights were dimming and Selena was taking the stage. I was amazed at how they wasted no time at all in getting to the concert. I wasn't actually sure if we would stay for it because I assumed there would be a time gap between the rodeo and the show. Guess not.

We stayed until the whines of "I'm hungry" were too great from both boys to enjoy the show anymore.

We grabbed food and a glass of wine outside in the wine garden, then took the boys to check out the rest of the rodeo.

Inside the Livestock Show they got to sit on some tractors and see lots of animals.

You could even have your picture taken sitting on a real Longhorn Steer!

We went back outside and they got to ride a few rides....

and we checked out the Ford display area where there was a truck apparently climbing up a tower of some sort. Aidan was thoroughly amused by this.

All in all, it was a blast. We went late to the rodeo events because we forced Mason to nap and I wish we hadn't because there were so many events that started before we got there that we missed! 

Next year we pre-order our tickets and pick good seats (so I can actually see!!!!) and we go on time. We had so much fun, but now we know how to make the most of it next year! Oh, and y'all should come visit for it next year. You won't regret it.

This is how Mason plays Xbox......

I figured I would write a blog post about this instead of just throwing it out there on Facebook to be reported for nudity.

We made cupcakes today and Mason got his jeans covered in chocolate frosting. I took his jeans to the laundry room and got a load of laundry started, and when I came back I found this:

Apparently Mason thought by removing his jeans I was giving him the go-ahead to take off his pull-up, too.

My first thought was: "Oh, perfect Mike Wazowski is green and our Beautiful Messes theme for this month is green, let me grab the camera!".

Then I actually turned around and saw this:

And that, my friends, is just a typical day in the Lawless House!

Accidental Green Cookies

My Aunt Linda makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies.

Hands down.

People beg her to make them for them. She brings them to parties and events and they're gone in minutes.

I've been telling her for years that she would make a fortune if she started selling them. No joke.

She shared her recipe with me years ago when I asked for it, but then she admitted to me the big "secret".  

Be prepared, if you know my Auntie and love her cookies, this may just blow your mind. She said: "you know, it's just the recipe from the back of the tollhouse bag."

Yeah, I almost died.

However, there are some tricks she uses to make them Auntie quality that she's passed on to me.

The first being that you add peanut butter of course! Well, in our house we don't cook with, or use PB in anything due to Mason's allergy so I stopped making these cookies long ago when he was diagnosed. I just knew they wouldn't be the same without the peanut butter.

Yesterday I finally decided to give them a whirl using SunButter, which is a peanut butter substitute made from Sunflower Seeds.

I can usually get my cookies to turn out very Auntie Authentic. My brother was visiting in PA once and insisted she had mailed them to me, when I had made them myself.

Quite the compliment!

However, the sun butter changed up my usual recipe/tricks so yesterday's batch weren't quite up to par, although Ryan says they were tasty, but "no Auntie cookie"....and then told me to call her and place an order to be mailed to him. SMH.

Then today I go to eat one and realize it's a blue/green color inside. Since the only thing different about this batch was the sun butter, I googled it and discovered that sunflower seeds contain a chemical that turns the cookies green when they cool. Not harmful but I guess may freak some people out. They say you can adjust your leavening agent (baking soda in this case), but if they taste the same, I say why mess with it?? So now we have green chocolate chip sun butter cookies.

Perhaps we could write a new Dr. Seuss book about green cookies.......

Diving for Gold...

My boys like watching Gold Rush and Bering Sea Gold on the Discovery Channel. The big machines seem to be the draw if you ask me.

Usually the household preference is Gold Rush, the show that "Parker is on" as Aidan refers to it, and only occasionally do we get to catch the Bering Sea one.

Apparently it has still made a impression on Aidan because he had me cracking up the other day as we were on our way to pick up Mason's antibiotics for his ear infection when he took the straw from his juice box, put it in his mouth and turned it upside down telling me it was his snorkel. Well, he didn't say snorkel but he told me he was "undersea diving" for gold. 

We had to wait for Mason's prescription, and while we did so Aidan entertained the girls behind the counter as well as other customers by continuing to pretend he was "undersea diving" in the waiting area. 

This consisted of jumping off the chairs to the floor (jumping into the water) and pretending to swim around the waiting area (ocean).Once he was done diving for gold he started bringing me lobsters and some jewelry he was finding in the ocean for the lobsters to wear. This proved to be too much for the girl behind the counter who was laughing pretty hard by now.

I wish I had video of it but Mason had my phone to play with while we were waiting since the poor kid was having a rough sick day.

Ah just another day in my life with 2 little Lawless monkeys.

Cheers, Dad

If you knew my Dad you would know that he liked shitty beer. Not just that he didn't want to spend the money on better beer, he just genuinely liked Genny Light.

Eew. 

You could have a fridge full of amazing microbrews and Dad would still go to the store to get a six pack of Genny. Then he would tell you he wasn't drinking your shitty beer.

At the family gathering after the services, my cousin's husband paid tribute to dad by surprising us with a gigantic can of Genny Light.

(Which he had stopped at the store to pick up along his way, because you can't buy that nasty shit in bars or on tap.)

That beer got passed around the entire group of family and friends as everyone took a sip in honor of Dad. 

It was a great final tribute to Dad, and I know he was having one with us wherever he is. 

Birthday Dinner at the Hibachi!

The night before Ryan's birthday we sat on the computer trying to decide between dozens of super cool ideas for what to do on our date night for his birthday. When you live in the 3rd largest city in the entire country your options are endless.

There are movie theaters where you can actually sit and order dinner and drinks, there is indoor virtual golf,

there are hole in the wall bars with amazing food trucks parked outside… the list goes on! We decided to skip the bars with food trucks because it was unseasonably in the 30's that night. We decided against the dinner theaters because there weren't any movies out that either of us really wanted to see.

In our search for steak houses we stumbled across a site for a Benihana in Sugar Land. Neither of us had ever been to a Japanese hibachi so we decided to give it a whirl.

The next night we dropped the boys off with Brittany and headed for dinner.

We had shrimp, friend rice, veggies and steak and chicken. It was soooo delicious, and they put on quite a show!

We sat with a family with 2 young boys and my chopstick handling was so bad they offered me their kid's chopsticks (which they weren't using) because they're attached at the top and make it easier to learn how to use.

Gee, not embarrassing at all, but at least I could laugh at it. Actually as we got up to leave the dad said if they ever see us again he's going to check on my chopstick skills, lol.

While we were out the boys had a blast at Britt's…and she even built them a fort! She rocks.

For Ryan's birthday each year I make brownies instead of cake because Ryan isn't a huge cake fan. This year I decided to make them from scratch because I didn't want to go out in the crazy cold icy Texas weather to get brownie mix. (as I type this it's 70 degrees outside again).

I have one piece of advice for you: when the recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate, do NOT replace it with semi sweet chocolate chips or your teeth will hurt when you eat them.

 That didn't stop Aidan from wanting to share birthday brownies with Daddy when we got back from picking them up at Brittany's. 

Daddy decided to just sit and enjoy them right where they were haha. Who needs plates?

Happy Birthday Ry!!