Merry Christmas 2013!

Feeling so blessed to be surrounded by love and laughter this Christmas! 

Halloween 2006-2013

This is a little story about a lion, a zebra, and a bumblebee...  

family fotos, a pumpkin patch, & other fall goodies

Saturday we had our family photos taken. Big E's first grade teacher is also a photographer on the side, and former students get a discount - score! It was great to see her again and I'm so excited to see all the photos after the sneak peek we got! 

This photo captures my babies perfectly...

 And here's the family shot! This was taken in the pasture just behind our house. I love it back there.

We turned out pretty close to my fashion mockup. :) Turns out yellow is not the most slimming color -who knew? Em wears it well anyway.

Sunday we headed to the little U-pick pumpkin patch near our home. I am so over all the big pumpkin patch productions. It was refreshing to just go wander around a little patch. While it was a little picked over in mid October, the kids did find some fun little green pumpkins to pick. Of course there were also some nice pre-picked ones still for sale so we'll have one to carve this weekend.

Em is sporting big brother's old halloween shirt, and a headband she never wore as a baby, tied with a gift box ribbon.  The result?  The cutest little pumpkin at the patch!

We're loving fall around here!  It's been busy though!

Here are the boys planting the fall fiesta maple (also pictured: sawtooth maple and Big E's nectarine)...

Big E roasting some marshmallows at Aunt Brenda's...

And my handsome man as a ring bearer...

Happy Fall Y'all!

Week 12-13 house update & Easter recap

These past two weeks have gone by so quickly that I missed last week's house update.  As of week 12, our garage doors were installed and the house is officially dry inside. Bring on the snowy weather! Oh wait - it's nice outside now.  Oh well that's good too.  I'm glad we sprung for the window inserts in the garage doors because they look fantastic and let the natural light in.  

Week 12: garage doors!

Week 13 brought the HVAC, electrical and plumbing installation. We also got our septic pond dug and the water/sewer lines trenched. Not a huge fan of the septic pond, but we didn't have a choice, so we'll just have to plant tall grasses and trees to camouflage it.

Speaking of trees... we planted our first one on Easter!  It's a red bud sapling we dug up at mom's house.  I don't know at this point if it's going to survive or not, but we've made several trips out to water the twiggy little thing.

Easter red bud

And speaking of Easter...  we had a really wonderful day.  Morning egg hunt at our house and then lunch and afternoon egg hunt at Grammy's house.  The weather cooperated and the kids had a blast.  Em only wanted to pick up eggs; she would scoff at a little toy or anything that wasn't egg-shaped.  My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew all joined us and it was one of those days where everything felt right in the world. 

Easter 2013

Merry Christmas to all!

Big E's Holiday Program

our little rudolph in a sea of elves

dada and brother's biggest fan

em looking cute in her new christmas outfit from grandma

posing with brother the red-nosed reindeer

pure joy

Here are a couple of videos of Big E practicing Jingle Bells and his school's new fight song, which the kids debuted at the holiday performance!

Breakfast with Santa

Breakfast with Santa is always fun, right?  I get to pose in the big jolly man's chair...

wear a Santa hat and take more pictures with my sister...

and sit on his cozy lap and tell him all I want for Christmas and that I've been a good boy.

And then my sweet little sister joins me on his lap...

for about two seconds before throwing her hands up and arching her back, turning Santa into a furry slip-n-slide.

I'm not sure you're getting that meowing cat you wanted.  We'll try again next year, sis.

My Halloweenies

Halloween was such a fun day this year! It started off with a work lunch party, which included a scavenger hunt around downtown to come up with our own spooky story.  However we got a little sidetracked with a Tigger/Astronaut dance-off in the street (Tigger totally took this one.)

Our spooky story isn't much to repeat, but it did end with us tying up our building security guards.  Isn't it a bit worrisome that the only two security guards in our building agree to being tied up together by a bunch of characters on Halloween?  You just can't say no to Tigger.

I left work early to go to Big E's "book character party" at school (when was the last time you read a book about ninjas?)  It was cute to see him interact with his classmates.  I had a breakthrough realization about why he is so wound up and talking nonstop when he comes home from school.  I watched him in his class all tensed up while half of the other first graders are talking at him in full volume.  Like his mom and dad, he's not a large group type of person, so I could see it building up in him and then when he gets home he must let it all out.  I'll try to be more understanding now when he talks my ear off. I couldn't resist asking the three girls at his table if he was a nice boy, and they all answered with an easy YES!  [sidenote: parent-teacher conferences were last week. E is reading at the level he should be, is excelling in math, and his teacher said he was a excellent kid and a role model for the other students! So proud.]

Ok, back to the Halloween recap. Next it was time to go home and get everyone cleaned up and dressed for trick-or-treating.  Here is a shot of my Captain America and little zebra.

Miss Zebra only lasted about four houses before retiring to her stroller with a sucker.  The Captain forged on for an hour or so longer. 

Why no, that is not our neighborhood you see in the photo.  Yes, we are those people who drive to your nice neighborhood with sidewalks and streetlights and friendly homeowners who give handfuls of candy.We get busted each year by a mom of one of E's classmates who will inevitably say "I didn't realize you lived so close to us!"  Um yeah we don't. Thanks for the candy!

And finally, I thought it would be fun to see the kids side-by-side at the same age in their zebra costume (five years apart).  Aren't they cute?  And also a good reminder for mama to not gain those 25 lbs back!

Happy Halloween 2012!

love birds [recipe]

We all spoiled each other this Valentine's day.  Here is a quick shot of some of the spoils.  Red roses for mom from dad, carnations from kids to mom (with broken one floating in water), red rose bouquet from dad to baby girl, and two boxes of chocolates for Big E from dad and mom.  Whew! 

The lovefest continued with dinnertime.  Hubs had to work late, so I gave it a go of making a new dish I like to call "love birds."  You might know it by their more common names, cornish game hens or little baby chickens.

It was my first try at roasting any sort of bird, since meat is usually the hub's specialty. I checked out allrecipes.com and found a base recipe, which I modified to fit our tastes and what was in the fridge. I didn't really measure anything, but here's a good guesstimate.

Love Birds

2 cornish game hens

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/3 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 stick butter, melted and divided

2 tsp dried parsley

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 lb golden new potatoes, quartered

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 red wine

1 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Mix the melted butter, parsley, oregano, basil and black pepper in a small bowl. 

In a medium bowl mix together the red pepper, onion, garlic, mushrooms, garlic and half of the butter and herb mix.  Stuff the little birdies with your veggie mixture.  Place the stuffed hens breast-side-up in a baking dish. (I sprayed mine first with olive oil using my Misto, truly a kitchen necessity.)

Use the second half of the butter and herb mixture to pour over the top of the birds.  Arrange the quartered new potatoes around the hens.  Bake for 1 1/2 hours, basting after 30 minutes.

This part  is the most important.. the secret sauce.  Ok, not so secret that I won't tell you what's in it. While the hens are baking, combine the olive oil, soy sauce, red wine and garlic powder.  Brush it on the chicken and potatoes after about 30 minutes of cooking and then every 15 minutes until done.  YUM!




Voilà, Love Birds :)

Can you see what is wrong with this picture? 

They were almost perfect, but I put them in the oven breast-side-down. Oops. They were still delish, but the breast meat was a little bland. The top part that got all the basting juices was to-die-for though.

Hey look - only one burn this time!

Don't forget about the shrimp cocktail and a flavorful cabernet.

And customized place settings. We had no pretty napkins, so Big E made us some heart napkins. Way better.

And of course.. dessert!  I bought these earlier in the day. It's so obvious which dessert goes with which family member, isn't it? 

What a great meal and a great Valentine's Day!  Lots of love in our house these days!

2011 reflections

while it was a rough year for a lot of people, 2011 treated our family pretty darn well.

i started typing all the great things about 2011, but i fear that it may throw the universe off balance and 2012 may come to bite us in the backside. so i just bow my head and say thanks for all the wonderful blessings my family received this year.

happy new year all. happy new blessings.

christmas [in photos]

dressed in our Christmas best for Jeff & Rebecca's church service.

photo shoot with red santa hat and big brown dog.

Christmas Eve at Grammy's:

big E delivering presents and little E giving her new baby doll a kiss.

baby yoga

sibling love

reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas with daddy.

Christmas morning: the face says it all. Elmo rocks!