Family Chopped Night

Yesterday was not a good day for me and "mean mommy" showed up. I hate when "mean mommy" shows up and try my best to keep myself in check. However, I have a breaking point and when my girls aren't getting things done when I ask them to, or tell them to, and I'm working hard to get the house clean, and the boys are into everything,  it makes it really difficult to just breath and let it go. I cracked. Cracking turned out to be a good thing though and made me wonder if maybe there are parts to "mean mommy" that need to show up more often. Most nights, my kids go to bed when I do. Last night, I actually got 'me' time, after I sent them all to bed at a normal bed time of 8:30. Maybe "mean mommy" isn't so bad after all. I didn't beat my children or anything like that, though I did yell at them and let them know how angry I was.

Today was a much better day. Some of the school work, that didn't get done yesterday, got done today. Blessing #2 helped me out in the barn with feeding the animals. Something my husband usually does, but we've recently changed the feeding schedule. It would've taken so much longer for me to do on my own and I wouldn't have been able to give them everything, since we ran out of hay in the middle of measuring it out! Thankfully she is one hard worker and loves helping in the barn. She climbed up to the loft, which I currently refuse to do (after all I'm almost 35 weeks pregnant!), and shoved a bale of hay over to the edge where she could shove it over into the trailer.
Here are some pictures, from the barn, from yesterday:

After the animals were fed and the kids and I had lunch, we got ready and headed out to the grocery store. I was totally reminded of why I hate shopping on the weekends. I don't mind people but I don't like crowds. Especially crowds that move carts around the store (taking up the aisles and walking straight at me!) as badly as they drive. Amazingly, we made it through the store in 2 hours without a major break down or misbehavior from any of the kids. The girls were super helpful. I think they love being in charge of grabbing things for me. Makes them feel more grown up. I certainly appreciate the help, as it makes the trip much shorter! We also hit up Costco for a couple of items. It was just as bad as the grocery store! But we survived and made it out in a rather short amount of time.

Finally we were headed home, except, I kept taking wrong turns. Apparently I was not paying enough attention or something. After going around in a circle we really were headed home. Where I discovered 1) I couldn't park next to the house to unload groceries and 2) neither of the 2 grown men in my house made themselves available to help me and Blessing #1 bring the groceries in! Let's just say I was none too happy about that. Then again, I didn't ask anyone to move a vehicle or to come help, so I got over it and put the groceries away, thanking God they all fit into the fridge.

Then it was time for Family Chopped Night! We like watching food network and one night my husband or I decided we should have our own version of chopped. We'd pick 1 ingredient and each of us would have to find a recipe and make a dish and the kids would judge it. The first time we did it, my husband and I cooked lamb for the first time. Tonight it was Blessing #1 vs me. The ingredient for dinner was spaghetti noodles. However, recently the girls and I decided we would also make a dessert and not have dessert the rest of the week to make this even more special. The ingredient for dessert was fudge.

Blessing #1 chose to make a low mein dish and fudge brownies. I made a simple pasta dish and a fudgey cake. I ended up winning the dinner round and may have one the dessert round, I didn't really hear clearly. We don't time the competition, thankfully, and my cake took much longer to make than expected. It looked horrible and I haven't tasted it yet, but I heard it was delicious.
Here are some photos of tonight's competition:

 Below is my pasta dish.

 Blessing #1's low mein.

 Blessing #1's brownies.

 Me and my "monstrous" cake! (My husband's words...) Oh and, though my glasses did break, I had my old pair and am using them. Although my prescription is slightly different now since I got that pair. I need to go have my other pair fixed and see if I can get my new prescription put into these frames. 

I'd go into more detail, but my body hurts from being up so much and not resting. Plus it is after 11pm at my house and I still have to get ready for bed. I have church in the morning and have worship practice before hand!