Rick is 16

Yesterday my oldest younger brother turned the big 1-6. I feel like time is flying in my eyes, I can only imagine what my parents feel like. Like I said, big things are happening around this household this year.

The oldest turned 21 and starting her last year of college
The second turned 18 and then went to college
The third turns 16 and can officially drive
The youngest turned 14 and is headed to high school

When I got my license the state of Texas hadn’t issued the law where anyone trying to get a license has to ride in the car with a sheriff or police or whatever. But now they have to (starting the year after me…win!). Appointments are required and if you tried to schedule one now you would have to wait until October. It’s plain crazy.

Dad, the brothers, and I had to come home early from moving Morg in while mom stayed so Rick could make his appointment for 10:40 yesterday morning. I didn’t think I was going to be awake, so I set out his favorite croissants to rise overnight and gave him the directions on how to cook them when he got up. Look at these things! His favorite breakfast on his birthday 🙂

They got home a lot sooner than anticipated and we had a ceremonial “put the key on the key ring” moment. Him, not me. I’m just the photographer here. And i’m lucky I got a picture of him.

Then afterwards I was sure the world was ending because he decided to spend some time with me. I KNOW. So we watched Tuesday’s Pretty Little Liars episode.

And then I worked on some school work, picked up a box of cake mix to bake, and got a little work-out in before our dinner reservations. I got home from the gym to the birthday boy doing what he does….

…nothing. The boys had gone to get Ry‘s present to Rick earlier (side note: I missed the first drive by himself picture and i’m still kicking myself about it!!!) and then finished throwing the baseball outside before they came in to lay on the couch. Because when all you do is play video games all day, you will be exhausted when you get up for a few minutes to walk around.

We went to our family’s usual birthday dinner place for Rick’s birthday dinner. PF Changs.

This is me attempting a picture because I knew I wasn’t going to get anything else. Oh yeah, let it be known that the outfit he’s wearing – that he probably wears in every picture I take of him – is his favorite outfit. Which means that I was up at midnight on Tuesday night washing his clothes so he could wear these for his driver’s test. #bestbigsisteraward

We got our usual lettuce wraps and wonton soup.

Instead of edamame we got the cucumber slices. Yummy.

Dad got a dirty martini. And ew i’m not a martini fan.

And dad and I shared a new dish: Chang’s Lobster Rice.

While Ry got his normal Honey Glazed chicken and Rick got the beef and broccoli. So good.

We got a complimentary dessert.

And he made his wish and blew out his candle so dad could chow down on the dessert. It was a banana egg roll with fruit. Yeah, not a 16 year old’s dessert.

As we were walking out I mentioned something about taking pictures and THEY OBLIGED. Let this day go down in history….Middleton boys didn’t argue about getting their picture taken.

After we got home, I lit a piece of the cake I baked him and we sang some happy birthday tunes for him to enjoy.

And he opened my gift of a new cross necklace with his baseball number engraved since he wore my other one out. Then went to his room to play video games or something as equally teenager boring. But, I now have another person that can chauffeur me around. #halfglassfull

I love birthdays.

Friday Favorites: It’s finally spring break!!!

I apologize for being a no show yesterday. Will you forgive me? I’ll do better, I promise 🙂 Yesterday as soon as I turned in my statistics test I ran out the door with my hands raised in the air yelling “FREEDOM!” all through campus. I only got a few stares.

No i’m kidding. But really when I did turn in my test I was in the best mood because I knew….no classes for 12 days. TWELVE DAYS I TELL YOU! That is my favorite sentence I have typed yet.

But hey, today is another week’s worth of Friday Favorites coming at ya! Link up with Andrea, Erika, and Narci because it’s fun! And who doesn’t like fun?

Last night was my first time out at the ballpark for the season. Ahhhhh the sweet smell of baseball diamonds is in the air and I am a happy girl. This is the best time of the year. Get me some sunflower seeds and tickets to watch the Red Sox and you’ll become my favorite person.

 

My favorite go to snack recently has been strawberries. But they have to be cut directly down the center and then turned the other way and cut down the center. OR ELSE they are no good. Kidding, but sometimes I sprinkle a little sugar on there if i’m needing some sweet, but I try not to because i’m giving up sweets for a week, remember?

Last Friday night I actually did nothing, so I walked my little self on over to brother’s room to annoy him for an hour because what else are sister’s for? And he actually talked to me. I did think the world was ending there for a little bit, but look we’re all still here. I’m pretty much ancient to this rather tall 15 year old brat and so therefore i’m his least favorite person and not cool to hang out with. He tried teaching me how to solve this rubix cube (I know, I solve rubix cube’s to bond with my little brother on a Friday night) and I decided that you have to be from another planet if you know how to do this because it’s HARD. And then I was frustrated and left his room.

Y’all know about my lovely food allergies. Because gluten is pretty much the only ingredient in bread homegirl has to make her own. So Saturday morning I had run out of bread and made a new loaf. I’m not going to lie, homemade bread is what it’s all about. It smells good, tastes good, looks good (to some). And now i’m kind of thinking baking has become a new favorite hobby?

The third goal of mine on my March list was to do more home workouts. I can proudly say I started last Friday and I did miss two days, but I have stuck with it so far. I’m really excited about this and hoping that it will give me the results i’m looking for. My favorite thing to do right now is the work-outs I found through Kayla Itsines. However, i’m sure this will change because I get bored easily 🙂

Apparently Tuesday was bring your baby to school day because I walked out of my class behind this girl and I noticed little squirt there. He was super cute, but I was really confused. I’d have to say this was definitely a favorite moment from this past week.

I went to Church all by my lonesome on Sunday morning and had to snap a selfie because…duh, you know me. I’m sorry you have to see my banana in the picture, but I got a lot of compliments on this necklace, so now i’m on the hunt to find it so I can share with you.

Happy Weekend!!!! & Spring Break to some of you!

1st Snow Day of 2015

Down here in Texas, this is what we call a snow day. Yes….you can see the ground but you’re suppose to be looking at the white!!! That’s snow!

Actually, it was really icy out today, so even if everything wasn’t cancelled I doubt I would have gone out to work. I should’ve spent the day studying and while I did a little bit there was a lot of this in my day…

I made momma’s french toast for breakfast (i’m putting the recipe up tomorrow!)

And then spent the rest of what little morning I had left sleeping/cuddling with my giant bear, magazine reading, and coffee/tea drinking.

Sometimes we all deserve a day off of life to do nothing. By 2:00pm Ryan and I went out to walk around because we started getting tired of being cooped up all day. And this is what it looked like haha. We Texans look like a bunch of amateurs to you northerners, don’t we?

But we still  had to watch where we were stepping. That criminal in my picture is just a 13 year old that wanted to stay warm in this weather 🙂

And because it really wasn’t snow, it was just ice, we couldn’t make snowballs to throw at each other, so we had to use sticks. I know….what we do to keep ourselves entertained when stuck inside all day.

And then we came back inside and decided to eat while watching Air Bud because #bestmovieever

Later that night, momma and I watched The Bachelor and The Voice.

(minus Gwen 😦 )

And then around 8:00 last night the four of us went walking in the streets. Morgan in her boot and all. The roads are super icy and Ryan actually fell….I didn’t laugh at all….lies. But, school is cancelled tomorrow too! SO HALLELUJAH I DON’T HAVE TO SIT IN CLASS!!!!!

So, that is what a snow day looks like. Nothing exciting, nothing to write home about, but a day off work/school…so I guess you can’t complain! But I might be having to write home about not having to be in classes from 8:30am-7:00pm 🙂 Whoop!

My Life Be Like…

All over the place. I feel like I live in my car #commuterprobz #livinganhourawayfrommyworkprobz

The more i’m in my car the worse my road rage gets.

The more i’m in my car the more I despise red lights. But I need to chill out because guess what? I got a freaking red light camera ticket. Is that even constitutional? Yeah so there went a day’s worth of work to the city for running a red light. THANKS CITY OF PLANO! NOW I CAN’T PAY MY TUITION BECAUSE OF YOU!

So other than red light tickets and whining, let’s get you up to speed on what has been happenin’ in my neck of the woods?
I’m going to have to ask you contain your excitement over there…. 😉

This week…..I wake up at 6:15, get littlest bro up, breakfast, and kick him out of the house in time to catch the bus. The other two are on their own because ain’t nobody got time for that. And then i’ll go to work looking OLD? Maybe it’s just me but when did I get old….?

And then I come home from work or school (i’m saving you from early morning school pictures) and take littlest brother to baseball practice at 8. Seriously…who has baseball practice from 8-10 on a Tuesday night? Sitting in classes and at the office all day during the week makes me want to run 10 marathons on the weekends. I’m not used to sitting all the time. So, Tuesday night I thew on my running shoes and power walked around the baseball diamond. Haha…..one of those! And in case you were wondering, no I didn’t have my arms pumping like propellers about to take off.

Tuesday night I ended up at the ER at 11:00pm. God bless my EXHAUSTED soul (pity party for Molly) haha. Morg texted me “I have some bad news.” Then I asked what it was and she said “I hurt my ankle during my game and they told me I might have to get x-rays”. And she wouldn’t go without me because she didn’t know what to do! Hahaha

She wasn’t kidding. Look at how gross that thing is! Even the doctor goes “wow…”

The doc was worried about a little part of her ankle after she took the x-rays, but the Radiologist told her it wasn’t what she was thinking and it turned out all it was is a sprain and some major swelling. So guess who gets to bring ice, motrin, and snacks to homegirl up in her room this week???

#sisteroftheyear

I’m kidding. I’d sit there for her until 11:30 any day of the week.

That night, I was #sisteroftheyear again and picked up Sonic for the brothers. I kept saying no to both brothers, but when I finally realized they actually needed to eat dinner and I was about to take homegirl to the ER I decided I should probably just pick them up some food. So, I caved. Even though fast food grosses me out. Sacrifices!

And on another totally random note…i’m lifting again! Because I miss being active and doing things…like I already said. (yoga every other week isn’t cutting it for me!) I decided to lift some weights while I watched the Bachelor on Monday because Rick got me these for Christmas and you can’t let a good thing just collect dust.

I see a lot of this in my future today.

Because while you were sleeping……

I picked up MOM AND DAD FROM THE AIRPORT. HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH AMEN!

And finished my paper that’s due at 8:30 this morning. #procrastinationatitsfinest

And packed my lunch for today. #foodallergyprobz

And was on time for school today….. #hahahafirsttimeforeverything

Booyah! What have you done?!?!?!?

P.s. I apologize for the excessive use of hashtags. I may or may not be delirious right now from lack of sleep.

Weekend Recap: Home Alone edition

Mom and dad are in Hawaii for their Anniversary (a couple months early). I’m so glad they went!! This week i’m holding down the fort with Rugrat 1, Rugrat 2, and Rugrat 3.

Thursday night I finally saw Reeana since she’s been home from her graduation in December. We went to Mi Cocina and hung out for 2 hours. We talked about being old with jobs, graduation, law school, and all that big kid stuff. It was so fun!! Love spending time with this friend 🙂 And how cute is she in this picture???

And what’s good ol’ Mexican food without some Bud and lime?

Friday morning I went in to the office and was super productive. Because always.

After I got home from work I had a couple hours before Ry had to be at his baseball practice. So I did some dishes. Morgan was at her soccer game and after we left I got a call from Rick saying he was locked out of the house. HAHA! He whinned and complained for 2 hours….however I got them Little Caesers breadsticks and pizza and when we got home the four of us sat around the table and laughed about Rick acting like he was #OMGSOFREEZING from being outside that long. Drama!

Saturday morning I slept until 11. HALLELUJAH. And I “connected over a cup” of vanilla coffee with cinnamon and watched my Hart of Dixie recording. Best. Show. Y’all.

And then to get the siblings to stop whining about how there is no food in our house. (Wrong, there were just no bagel bites) I had to go to the grocery store. But look at this weather!!!! February in TX means sunny and 70. No complaints 🙂

And Saturday afternoon I got a much-needed haircut. Hey, thanks for buying dad 😉

Saturday night I babysat this little cutie and we multi-tasked while playing Mario Kart and eating Doritos.

Sunday morning I went to Yoga as per the every other week usual.

And Rugrat 3 had practice Sunday afternoon, so Morg and I drove to pick him up. Not gonna lie..I almost broke a sweat out there! Beautiful sunshine!

They begged me for Subway, so being the awesome big sis in charge that I am, I obliged so they could get sandwiches. And definitely not so I could get sweet tea or anything 🙂

And I just want to leave you with this picture before we wrap up here, so we can all hate on my parents for being in beautiful Hawaii while each of us are at work/school/the gym/wherever this Monday morning.

Yes. I know.

21 part one

Yes, the infamous 21st birthday weekend has come and gone. I feel like I took a jillion and a half pictures this weekend, so i’m going to split it up into two different days.

“EEP, I’m almost 21”

Just kidding, the Emily’s both texted me and asked what I was wearing to the basketball game we were going to later that night and when I said probably what I wore to work they MADE ME stop what I was doing, take a selfie, and send it to them. How needy….am I right? But let’s not act like it was that big of a problem for me 🙂

Through my work, the employees got to request tickets for the Texas Legends basketball game because it was Miracle League night and we sponsor The Miracle League. I requested the max (10) and brought along Emily #1 and Emily #2 and then told my siblings there was 2 tickets left, so I let them argue who got it. Morg and Ryan won.

I had to take pictures of us. You know, to document that we are in fact friends. It worked out perfectly because they both knew of each other from the restaurant we all worked at.

And that picture above was apparently “too awkward” (thank you Morgan) so we had to take another.

And then strike a pose (we got to the game a little early, can you tell?)

And I didn’t like any of them so Morgan had to get it at a different angle.

And then after still not liking any, I gave up. Here’s a quick snap of the boys! All photos by MorgMiddPhotog because i’m sure you’ll be asking 😉

And this is our motley crew!!!! Nice selfie taking skills Morg, you do a sister proud!

We were serenaded by an elementary school choir singing God Bless America (so cute!) before the game.

     

And then we moved seats because ours sucked. And we watched the game from there.

The Emily’s had a little one crushing on them and making faces at them. He obviously did not want to be there but he was seriously giving us a good laugh! At one point I winked at him to see what he would do and he just stared at me and turned around. Too bad I creep little kids out 😉

Hey girl, you single?

This game was suuuuuuuuuuuuper boring and I would have been disappointed had we paid for these tickets. There was too much going on, it was loud, kids were playing games on the sidelines, people were talking on the mic during the game, someone smelled like illegal substance. It was just all around bad. Nobody said they wanted to leave because they wanted to stay there for me, which is super sweet!!! Finally I was the one that said we should go because everyone was pretty much hating themselves at this point! Haha. So we left at half.

We went to Chili’s because Jowers was starving, the other girls wanted a milkshake, and I didn’t want to go home. We attempted another picture, but I again didn’t like it. Ugh!

There were fries involved…’nuff said. Plenty of grease. Plenty of smiles around the table.

We drove through steak ‘n shake so everyone could get a shake because chili’s doesn’t make them anymore. And then we all went to our separate places and fell asleep.

Saturday morning I slept until 11:00, so yes I wasted the entire morning. But no worries I ran some errands for my momma, including a run by the grocery store for her.

Then we took some furniture to dad’s office. So here I am in the back with lamps, pictures, and a table.

I swear my mom has been there every day for the last I don’t know how long trying to get his office set up for him, everything in it’s place, pictures hung, etc. It sounds hard being a wife 😉

When we got home it was late in the afternoon so I made some food and caught up on Parenthood.

And after that I decided to go to the Saturday night service at my Church because I knew I wasn’t going to get up early to go Sunday if I was heading out to brunch at 10:30.

The message was good and challenged me a little for this upcoming year, so i’m glad I made it. I came home and sat by the fire and blogged a little for part of the night.

UPDATE: Check out part 2 here

Meet My Peeps: Rick

Today is another edition of “Meet My Peeps”. Don’t forget you will find this tab on the top of my page to revert back to in the future. Every week I am introducing to you one of my people. The ones who make me, me. I think it’s only fair that you get to know them a little better (with their consent of course), because usually at least one of them is in each of my posts.

So without further ado let’s meet…….
Rick

How do I know Rick?
Homeboy has been my brother for 15 years now.

What do I love about Rick?
The kid can be super funny. He has a good heart when he’s not being a teenager, and I think he’s a really good kid and makes wise decisions. Rick tries to act all tough, but I know he can be protective of Ryan and I love that about him. I also love that he’s playing baseball for the coach that I was the manager for. I also love when he comes into my room and asks me to help him study.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Rick?
A hatred of picture taking. I love, love to take pictures and Rick is just about as opposite as it gets. He’s the one who throws the “tantrums” when it comes to Christmas Card pictures. This is probably why you will see a bunch of OLD pictures of him because he never takes any. And then I think of baseball…of course. And sometimes he’s the annoying and conceited little brother, of course. 🙂 And the fact that we share a Jack and Jill bathroom and we have arguments about how the toilet seat should be left for the other person. He refers to the toilet seat as an Alligator’s mouth….

What do I think is one fun fact about Rick?
His nickname is Chip. I came up with his nickname because one year we got a Christmas card addressed to my parents. My brother is named after my dad and whoever sent the card called my dad “Chip” because they think that’s his nickname. They are both Richards. So I asked Rick what he would do if I called him Chip and he said he would hate it. Thus, his nickname was born. Somehow I always call people by the names they would hate 🙂

  

I asked all of my peeps the same 13 questions (I didn’t count the name). Because lucky #13. So you will see the same questions, but obviously a variety of different answers. Honestly, I had so much fun with this!!! Some of these answers were cracking me up.

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What is your name? Age?
Rick Middleton, 15 years old.

1. If money weren’t an object, what would you do with your life?
“I would go on an island all by myself with my own helicopter and plane and all that.” “Wait did I say by myself? I meant with my fiancé. Then i’d make my own baseball field.”
(Yeah, Rick i’m sure your fiancé would love that.)

2. List 3 of your favorite things.
“Baseball, Money, God.” “Yes, I nailed that one.” “Oh, I left out family. Oops.”

3. If you were another person would you be friends with you?
“Yeah because i’m like amazing and sexy and very funny.”
(K. remember when I referred to the 15 year old teenage boy?)

4. What annoys you most about me?
“Um, that thing you do when you sing.”

5. Do you like taking this?
“No.”

6. Who’s the first person you’d call if you had a bad day?
*starts singing Bad Day* “Um, what’s that song called?” Me: “Rick answer the question.” “Um, probably Heath.”

7. What’s one thing I don’t know about you?
“Wouldn’t?” “Like you as my sister?” “What are you writing down right now? I haven’t said anything yet.” “Oh I don’t know you know everything about me Molly.”

8. What is your favorite Bible verse?
“Philippians 4:13” Morgan: “Oh, you’re so original!”

9. What is one thing you hid from your parents?
My food from dad because he always comes by and eats it.
(hahahah this is awesome and so true.)

10. What would you rather be doing than this right now?
“Who came up with these questions?” “Watching the World Series.”
(ps. he was watching Pokemon before this interview began)

11. Who is the funniest person you know?
“I don’t know any funny people.” “I act like they’re funny ’cause I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
(Sidenote…don’t be friends with Rick)

12. What is a “color of your life”?
“Black. Um, because it’s dark and what’s that military term?” “Because I go MIA in the summer.”

13. What is your favorite holiday? Why?
“Christmas. Celebrating Jesus’ Birth.” “Or opening day of baseball.” Morgan: “Rick, that’s not a holiday.” Rick: “Yes it is, according to a retweet on Twitter it is.”

Oh Rick, you’re so weird. But I still love you. Thank you for participating!!

Glad you all got to meet Chippy today. Come back next week to meet another one of my peeps 🙂