Every good day begins and ends with food

Day 38:

Yes, I admit, I love food, seriously LOVE food!  Our morning usually starts out with a healthy breakfast, but not today, today we were out of malt balls (oatmeal powerballs), and I made pancakes.  And I can't make plain pancakes because that would be too easy and make too much sense. So we had chocolate chip pancakes for the kids, and pecan chocolate chip for the big people (that's me and Doug...just to clarify).  But for Doug's second pancake, I decided I should out-do myself.  Let me back track, last night we made chocolate chip cookies when we had friends over for dinner.  We had half of the dough left over, but when they left I just put the bowl in the fridge.  So, while I was making the pancakes I set the cookie dough out to soften so I could put it in an air-tight container.  Which led to pecan-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough pancakes.   Because I'm awesome.  Doug loves ice cream, like maybe more than me, and cookie dough is one of his favorites, but it's only available in Haagen Daas here and costs way too much, so it made my heart happy to make him these pancakes.  I'm not sure if they made his tummy happy, but I'm sure he appreciated the gesture. (If you have questions about my method of getting the cookie dough into the batter, feel free to message me and ask).

These are business on top and party on the bottom.

Today is a Thai holiday, labor day.  So we decided we'd go to a movie, but every one and their mom was at the mall, so they were sold out.  We did get quite a few of our errands checked off the list though.  And I found a great deal on baby goldfish crackers and some novelty flavors I've never seen.

They had fudge brownie and vanilla cupcake...what?!?

When it was time to check out, the employee only rang up half our stuff.  Then couldn't quite figure out how to correct the problem. In the meantime, I had already given Kees candy that the guy had swiped, but his manager came over and took us to the service desk and wanted to re-swipe everything.  Problem: I already ruined the barcode on the candy, so I ran back and found another one like it, so they could swipe it.  I started to tell Doug to explain it to the guy, but decided I would do it myself because I need to practice my Thai, which believe me is not fun sometimes, like when you humiliate yourself.  But, no matter, I am brave, I am stubborn, so I explained that my son had already eaten the candy.  The lady thought we had purchased 2 candies and so she rang it up twice, I understood what she was doing, but figured we'd just buy the second one since we were about 15 minutes into this check out ordeal and Kora was acting like a bat out of you know where. They finished ringing us up, but still couldn't let us leave because the totals didn't match, so then Doug re-explained that we only wanted one candy and we just brought that one over to be scanned, NOT purchased.  Whew, that's 20 minutes of my life I will never get back. In the moment, let me tell you, I was stressed, hot, embarassed, and anxious. But as I think about it now, I can laugh and appreciate that God allowed that craziness and it was a great opportunity for me to practice language. So, I'll take it, and I DID get some crazy good deals: Apple Straws, fakey cheese sauce (80% off), goldfish crackers, cream cheese....ahhhh life's little luxuries!

If only they'd keep her while I'm shopping.

We made it home, after about 3 too many stops for Doug's liking.  I prepped food for our small group, we had dinner, hosted cell group, and now I'm blogging.  Tomorrow begins birthday extravaganza!  Kees turns 4 on Friday...insanity.  This year he has requested an orange dinasaur cake.  I kind of got the hang of cars and now he's switchin it up.  We had money from Grandpa Boo and Ginny to spend when we were shopping today and Kees picked out an orange dinosaur, and two playdough sets, one that makes food and one that makes dinosaurs. So prayers appreciated as I attempt to make fondant in the crazy heat we live in.

Doug and Kees set the school room all up for our guests, then played hide and go seek while they waited for them to come.

We left our duckie at church Sunday, and they brought it back for us! :)

She loves guitars.

Playing

Reading

Hanging out after.

He's too big!

Doug forgot to set out my cheese ball, I had taken Kora over to the house to put her to sleep and when I came back they were almost done eating, I force fed them cheese ball, it included my special hoarded pecans from Oklahoma....thanks DAD!