Our Evening

It is amazing how much difference having a break can make. After coming home this afternoon, I felt ready to face the night head on, engaging and enjoying my kids.

I know these details may seem boring, but this is a way for us to share with Rick what is going on while he is gone, too. I also want to share about our average evenings, too, not just the big events we live. So, this was our evening:

Recently, we bought 2 bags of lemons with the intention of making homemade lemonade. I have borrowed a friend's juicer so this was the perfect time.

We peeled all the lemons, 21 to be exact.

(My thumbs are sore!)

Loaded them into the juicer.

I have two go-to girls when it comes to recipes. The two sources I check first are Paula Deen and The Pioneer Woman. They do down-home southern cooking. I don't make homemade lemonade very often, so when I do, I want it to be good. I didn't find a recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website so Paula supplied this recipe. You can go here to see it for yourself. We had more than 2 cups of lemon juice so we increased everything a bit.

Here it is:

Doesn't that look delicious. The kids thought it was a little bit sour, but not enough to keep them from drinking it and asking for more.

Lauren is really getting into cooking lately so she helped me prepare our dinner: tacos, spanish rice, and black beans. She cooked most of it. Sometimes, I just want to cook alone to get it over with, but tonight, it was fun for us to cook together. She was very proud of her work. She did a really good job following the instructions.

The night ended with some chocolate popcorn and a family(minus Rick) movie night. I even had the energy to clean the kitchen!! It will be nice to wake up to a clean kitchen in the morning.

Chocolate Popcorn

This might gross you out, but I have to share a funny story about the popcorn. Isaiah ate about half of his. At the beginning, he said he loved it. Then at the end, he said, "I don't like it anymore." So, I got it and started eating what was left in his cup. After eating about 5 bites, I began to wonder why it was so mushy. Then, I realized that he had chewed on it and spit it back in his cup. YUCK!! I was eating chewed up, slobber covered popcorn. You gotta love being a mom sometimes.