Doritos Casserole

Since y'all asked so nicely:

Ingredients:
1 - 2 cans of chili
1 - 2 bags of Doritos (regular)
1 - 2 cups of cheddar cheese, grated

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray (you don't have to, but it makes it WAY easier to clean up afterward). Place a layer of chips in the pan. Scoop and spread chili over the chips. Spread a layer of shredded cheese on top. Repeat the layers once more.

Cook for 20 - 30 minutes.

It's one of the most unhealthy delicious things EVER. Enjoy!

Hate Notes

After receiving this note on my car (and I wanted to include a picture of the note so you could see exactly how things were worded; that there was, in fact, no signature; and so you could read the emphasis for yourself), I am going to include all of my rough drafts for a reply here.

Dear Anonymous,
I'm sorry that your son/daughter doesn't love you enough to give you their own assigned spot when you visit like we do for ours.
Regretfully,
Natalia

Dear Anonymous,
I'd love to discuss the reasons I use a spot in my own parking lot over some hot chocolate or dinner. Sadly, you left no name or contact information. I choose to eat Doritos casserole tonight in honor of your note and hereby revoke my invitation so there is more for me.
Sincerely,
Natalia

Dear Anonymous family member,
If you would take the time to notice, there are four visitor spots in our entire parking lot, which accommodates 44 apartments. I noticed you didn't leave notes wrapped in Ziplock bags on anyone else's car. Thanks for singling me out.
Gratefully,
Nataia

Dear writer of anonymous notes,
It's spelled "Wymount" and "frustrated," and you capitalized your V in "visit." And those are just the things that are incorrectly written, not everything that is incorrect.
Grammatically yours,
Natalia

Dear person who I'm starting to feel sorry for,
Your note backfired. My husband and I have discussed the issue and we are never, EVER moving my car again.
Sucks to be you,
Natalia

Dear lady,
I will make some assumptions to return the favor you made for me. First, I'm assuming that you're actually a parent of someone here in Wymount. That would put you in the middle-aged range. This also almost assuredly means that all of your children are past car seat age. I park in spots close to my home because I have a ten month old daughter who cannot yet walk and has to be transported in a car seat. This means I am always carrying AT LEAST 30 lbs worth of cargo (this is not an exaggeration; I weighed both). When I go grocery shopping or do laundry, it is both inconvenient and difficult to park in an unlabeled spot (which you are also welcome to use) that is almost two-tenths of a mile away. And I don't mean inconvenient in an I-don't-want-to-carry-something-further way, I mean it in an I-have-to-carry-my-child-with-me-at-all-times way.
Use your own extra walking time to learn how to whistle,
Natalia

Dear anonymously jerky,
I don't like parking in my assigned parking spot. My spot is located next to two foreign families who have both told me that they don't drive or park well (and while I love them and they're sweet, good people, they're also being totally honest about this). Every time I travel, I travel with a ten month old in a car seat, which means I have to insert and remove a car seat every time I use my car. This is made very difficult if the car next to me is parked closer than two feet away from the door. The visitor spot in question is on the end of a row, which means that, if I back in, I have all the space in the world to put my child into the car safely and remove her from it. I'm sure that you, a concerned family member, would understand this.
Spacially,
Natalia

Dear secret sister of time,
Wow, we must have the exact same schedule of needing to be in Wymount if it's only ever my car in that spot. I can assure you that I only park my car in that slot about 40 - 50% of the time. And, oddly enough, my car is not "always" there. In fact, I was going to use it today but didn't (see note #5) but that is also not the first time I would have used it this week. I was gone for two hours on Tuesday and an hour on Monday. In fact, my car wasn't there for most of last week; I was only able to park in the visitor spot close to my apartment just before the weekend.
Better luck next time,
Natalia

Dear non-resident,
When I signed up to live at Wymount, I specifically asked the management where I was supposed to park my car because my family is lucky enough to own two. They told me to use the visitor spots.
Take that,
Natalia

Cosmo's Easter Egg Hunt

BYU decided to host an Easter egg hunt for the kids on Saturday, April 7th. Clark and I were a little worried that it wouldn't be organized or fair for younger children (after all, we just wanted some shots of Azucena picking up an egg or two), we were pleasantly surprised, overall. Even though you knew that folks with kids didn't set it up (or at least weren't in charge vocally (and by this I mean, they kept saying "one last thing" or giving instructions after they'd already made the mistake of telling the kids where to line up to get onto the field)) it was still pretty cute. Didn't last long, though. I guess that's what happens when you have 5,000 folks show up for free candy. :D


Meeting Cosmo!

Dad and Azucena in front of the BYU logo.

10 Months Old!

Happy Easter, baby girl, you're ten months old!


Things you do now:

• You crawl up to me, look up, then throw both your hands in the air to let me know you want to be picked up
• You LOVE pat-a-cake. LOVE. You'll clap for the first bit, then wait until we say "mark it with a B" and then you'll throw one or both hands in the air. Then you'll clap to say "yay" and if we don't start over, you'll give us this look while clapping much slower so we can catch the hint. :)
• You've been able to hang out outside now, and while you were scared of grass and hills at first, that didn't stop you from exploring for very long.
• You "help" with laundry by crawling up to the basket we've just brought home and emptying it of its contents. Good thing I've been trying to keep the floor clean!
• You dance to music! You bob your head or bounce up and down or sway from side to side. This is especially hilarious during sacrament meeting, because that's usually when you choose to do the headbanging. :)

Senior Celebration

 Since Clark is graduating at the end of April, we got to go to the Senior Celebration last night. Lots of activities were going on including a free game of bowling,

 

free food (Creamery ice cream, Scoreboard Grill burgers, pizza, etc.)

 

and lots of games where you could earn prizes!
This one we had Azucena balance stand against Clark, throw something at the bottles and she won a balloon animal.

 

The Bean Museum also had a small exhibit so Azucena got to see a snake up close!

 

I'm pretty sure this was Clark's favorite, though: He got to go in a box that blew air all around you and if you collected a lot or a certain kind of flier, you got certain prizes. he got his Rise Up football shirt and a small cougar for Azucena. :D

Pinterest, the recipes

I love Pinterest. I've found a lot of good on there. Here are some of the recipes that I've been able to try and that I love:

Cheesy Chicken Vegetable Bake (aka, the stuffing casserole)

Breakfast Wraps - delicious. Especially the filling. I kid you not. DELICIOUS.

Banana Strawberry Fields Forever Muffins - I make these muffins every other week now. :)

Beef and Broccoli - I've been looking for a simple beef and broccoli recipe to use for a while and I finally found one!

Breakfast Ring - when I'm lazy but want something baked, this is definitely my new go-to. :)

Nutella French Toast - this is not complicated and I love it. LOVE.

Money makes the world go around

Thanks for all the commiserating on the driving, kids. It makes me feel slightly better about my judgyness (which I'm really, really trying to get over).

I won't lie and say the last few days have been easy, because they haven't. Nothing horrible, just lots of stress, mostly for Clark. It's the end of the semester and, technically, the end of his collegiate career and he has lots of final projects, presentations, and even had an exit interview today. The poor guy barely has time to sleep--and I mean this literally. It's all he can do to go to bed at 10 so he can get 6 1/2 hours before going to work full-time in the morning.

In addition to all of his emotional stress, is financial stress. You know when you plan on expenses (not necessarily budgeting, but at least knowing that your income is x amount and that that is your limit) and suddenly something sideswipes you? Yeah, Clark's car registration was due, which would have been, oh, $80 or so? But, no, his car also needed a brake job. Like, totally replaced. And he needed to get two new tires. And even though I suggested waiting on the tires and at least looking around because I've been places where they cost $55 each and that includes the company replacing them for you, the guy that Clark usually goes to said he'd find a good deal on tires for us and take care of it.

I was skeptical.

And right.

$80 per tire and a $15 fee per tire to put them on? That is NOT giving us a good deal. That is about $70 we didn't have to spend in addition to everything else. Which ten-upled our previously understood $80 for registration.


(That's his angry face.)

So, kids, just know that opposition likes to kick you when you're down. Now is the time that we could throw our hands up in the air and give up and blame everyone and lash out. But you know what? I'm going to post a happy picture. And then I'll say my prayers and remember to be grateful that we still have a warm home; healthy food; a beautiful, smart, wonderful, healthy baby girl; loving families; and each other.

Random Rants, driving

In a two week period, I was almost hit three times. All three of those incidents took place on campus property. Two of them at the same intersection. I actually stopped driving for a few days because I couldn't handle the stress and anxiety I felt after the third (really close) incident.

Today, while pulling into the Maceys in Provo, I almost T-boned a senior citizen because she completely ignored the stop sign. The white line on the road that says "stop." The giant red sign that says "stop." The fact that it's a four-way intersection and her direction of traffic has stop signs while mine did not.

I don't know how much more of this anxiety I can handle. I'm already on pins and needles when I travel because I have a baby in the car. I'm not sure how to make sure I can keep her safe when I have no control over what others do on the road.

Things that annoy the heck out of me:
*When I'm already going 5 mph over the speed limit (the most I'll push it) and the car behind me is so close I can barely see the bottom of their windshield in my rearview mirror.
*Cars that change lanes in the middle of an intersection. (Which is illegal in MO (where I took driver's ed.), but apparently is not here in UT. I know. I've called the DMV. It's "frowned upon" but not actually against the law. Although if a policeman is feeling particularly sassy that day, he can pull you over for "reckless driving.")
*Cars that don't stop at stop signs
*Cars that decide that their time is more valuable than everyone else that's going in the opposite direction by turning left even though they weren't even close to the intersection by the time the light turned red.
*Folks that drive cars that are bigger than they can handle. For example, the truck that's not between the parking spot lines or the car that constantly drives in two lanes of traffic.