life with the lieutenant

• Another week in review- Monday was spent playing outside, doing tons of laundry (so much laundry that our transformer started smoking- my solution? turn it off. Steve's solution- replace the blown fuse causing the smoking. I am so lucky to marry someone smarter than me.), and throwing together one of the weirdest spaghettis ever. (pumpkin + ricotta cheese + cream cheese + other random cheeses + noodles + pasta sauce) I have concluded that you can throw cream cheese at almost anything and have a successful meal. No pumpkin was detected and the color just looked incredible cheesy. Probably due to all of the.... cheese.

• Sam also requested carrots and "white sauce" for snack since we were out of apples, so it was clearly just a weird day all around.

• Tuesday- preschool day! I met Steve for lunch and we headed to Starbucks afterwards. Shared my drink with Sam after preschool. This child really likes coffee. 

• After naps, we played Magna Tiles while I worked up the courage to bundle everyone. While the weather was beautiful, it was bitterly cold with a whipping wind. But we needed produce from our favorite neighborhood market, so off we went.

• Brrr

• I love it when a man can multitask.

• On Wednesday we went to a kids cafe with a friend from church and her sweet butterball of a baby. Seriously reminded me of Molly at 6 months. All cheeks and stretched out waistbands. Love love.
• Steve has been requesting more red meat in our diets lately, so I decided I'd figure out how to grill steaks on the stove. Not nearly as good as on a grill, but the butter really helped soften the blow. Homemade dinner rolls (30 minutes! start to finish!) and mashed Korean sweet potatoes (holy yum that was definitely a happy accident). Green beans to provide some color.

•  Sam had to be bribed with bread, of course.

• He still has some texture issues. After being forced to eat a bite of potatoes, Sam made a gag face and said, "Oh no I think I'm gonna give up!" (throw up) He talked himself down from that and we immediately supplied a roll. If he was playing us, then he's really good at it.
• Preschool on Thursday (!!!) and I went on post to grab coffee for myself and a friend with a sick baby. I got "randomly" searched on my way on post (I've been searched a lot lately. Is this a sign that I should spend more time on my appearance?) and saw this crazy wild protest outside the main gate.

Smile! Or look serious. I guess you should look serious. We are protesting serious things, after all.

• I tried to keep a low profile (hence the blurry photos of my dirty side mirror) so as not to incite some sort of international riot. 
• After school and naps, the kids spent the afternoon looking at pictures of themselves, one of their favorite pastimes.

• Sam showed me a picture of our backyard at Fort Campbell and told me that once we leave Korea, we will go back and live in that house again. Hated to burst his bubble, but that will never happen.
• Friday morning brought with it the news that facebook thinks Steve and I should parent 12 children.

Don't you dare pretend to know anything about my mental capabilities, facebook.

• Good thing we don't believe anything we read on facebook.
• Table scrubbed, floors mopped, laundry washed.

waiting for the floors to dry

Had to send Steve a shot of what clean looks like before it's destroyed with yogurt and crumbs and grubby little feet.

• Decided to head outside and walk up to post. For wine. And playgrounds.

This little shop (the one door in the middle behind the tree) was the one delivery place here that served real cheeseburgers/American-style food. They recently stopped serving Americans because they can't understand us. (Insert me laughing a lot but also crying because no more cheeseburgers.) I get where they're coming from, but can you imagine the outrage if this sort of thing happened in the States?

Pet shop stop

Can't wait til the ice is replaced with flowing water and GREEN trees!

Kids were in heaven watching this digger move rocks. For some reason I just started craving Oreos.

• We checked our mail room and then began the long trek home. (Got the wine. Kids decided that they were done with the playground five minutes after we arrived. Lovely.)
• Saturday morning started with some story time.

• We stopped off for coffee and then walked to our favorite park. The walkability of this place just never gets old.

Molly going to say hi to a tiny dog. Escorted by Steve, her chariot, of course.

Sandman

• Our neighbors arrived to play and we hit up the playground together. Then we headed over to the Italian buffet place for lunch. I think I saw their eyes bugging a bit when our group walked in.

No, we are not here to make a huge mess and eat all of your french fries.

It's hard to find "hight quality" pizza these days, you know. So when the resident Italian calls it good, it's good.

• After naps, we dropped the kids off at a friend's house while Steve and I went out for a date. (Babysitters are now nonexistent so we are now in this arrangement of swapping out babysitting with friends. Sad, but cheap.)
• We tried out a little lunch box place that we had walked by many times before. It was delicious!

Garlic "steak" - hamburger patty. And four fries. LOLZ

• Naturally we wandered around and had dessert.

• The kids were having too much fun at our friend's house, so we lured them into the car with donuts. 

Worked like a charm

• Sunday morning brought some attitudes....

• Driving home from church, we noticed that our ice skating rink was converted back into a mud field.

• We borrowed our neighbors' bikes when we got home and went biking along the river.

classic Steve "kimchi" pose

• We eventually headed back towards town and just happened to find ourselves near our beef and leaf at lunchtime...

discussing how much he's going to eat

photo credit: Sam

photo credit: Sam

• We stopped at the Korean market on the way home and scored some super cheap strawberries (which now translates into $4/carton).

• We hung out at the playground while I cruised Pinterest for ideas on what to do with said strawberries..

• We went up to post to get the boys haircuts and hit up the PX. Then Steve and Sam went out to get pizza while Molly and I hung out at home.

Hmmm... which top best suits this dolly's stockings? And that toilet scrubber really helps keep her mind on fashion.

• I settled on making this cream cheese pound cake to go with the strawberries. You know, because the best way to end a day of bike riding is with diabetes.
• Well due to our incredibly stupid tiny oven, the pan was sort of tilted, which caused some of the cooked top part to spill over the side of the pan when the cake rose and down into the open flame. Luckily I happened to be walking by and spotted the bright orange flames coursing through the oven and the oven shut itself off while I opened the windows and fanned out the smoke. In an ironic turn of events, Steve, the one I make fun of incessantly for not knowing how to use chopsticks, fished out the burnt cake using chopsticks. My hero.

•  Luckily the fire was put out and the baking continued without any further mishaps.

Just a natural beauty

• I sliced out a hunk for my neighbor whose husband was on duty that night and took it over to her. When I came back, half the cake was gone...

Steve made some homemade whipped cream though, which almost made up for him eating half the cake.

• This weekend was a 4-day for Steve for some weird reason (St. Patrick's Day? Maybe?) so we headed out to the playground after laundry.

• We ended up walking into town and eating at the same lunch box restaurant that Steve and I dined at for date night. We knew the kids would inhale a pork cutlet.

Sam even had soup! Score one for the picky eater!

•  We celebrated a good lunch and the warm weather with the first ice cream of the season!!!

• After naps, we were back outside with the rest of our neighbors to play at the playground.

We are so happy to be jacket-free!!

• I'll save the last day (Tuesday) of the 4-day weekend recap for next week because this is already insanely long. See you here next week!