I'm tired

Whew!  It's been a full day and I'm tired.  Everyday Noah figures out how to get into something new and keeping him out of stuff is a full-time job!

 He turned Katelyn's stool on it's side and then got stuck in it.

 All items that can be have been turned into Noah's personal walker.  He pushed this chair from the dining room table to the kitchen area.  Please note the basket of laundry on the counter that I can't take upstairs to put away because I can't leave Noah.  And then there's the muffin pan on the floor that he has already thrown from the bottom drawer.

 Every morning Katelyn's first words are, "I'm hungry, what's for breakfast?"

 Noah figured out how to get into the trash can last night.  Great.

 After pushing all the chairs around the room he lost interest in that and decided to pull things out of the cabinet.

 He took his socks off, shoved one under the stove and then started spinning the recycling bucked in circles just to see it go round and round.

 Katelyn was watching an episode of Curious George where George makes himself a hat just like the man with the yellow hat's.  Katelyn wanted to do that too so this is her creation.  It's pretty cool.  The little blue paper on the bottom is actually a flap and when you lift it up there's a picture of a dog that she drew.  :)

The little stinker always looks so proud of himself. 

Mom bought us these cool pans that you put a tortilla in and you bake them to create a taco shell.  So we had awesome taco salads tonight. (Thanks mom!)  I made a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, avocado and a homemade cilantro lime dressing.  Then in the crockpot I cooked up a couple of chicken breasts in some salsa and when that was done I shredded the chicken and added a can of Trader Joe's cuban black beans, some corn and some sauteed yellow and green bell peppers.  So, on top of the salad we put a scoop of the chicken mixture with a little cheese and sour cream on top.  YUM!  It was the perfect dinner.

We sent Grammy back to Arizona today.  But, we'll see her when we get there on Saturday!!  We are so excited about vacation.  We're just praying our very active one year old does okay on the plane....At least he's cute.  Maybe people around us will be gracious.

Sushi night

Michael and I LOVE sushi and I have been wanting to learn how to make it for a long time.  So I finally figured it all out and loaded up on supplies at a local Asian market.  I made California rolls for the second time last night.  

 Katelyn's favorite food in the whole world is dumplings.  She would eat them everyday if I would let her.  So of course we had to have dumplings also.  (I got those from Trader Joes though and just cooked them up.)  She wouldn't try the California rolls last time.  She just likes the nori with some rice rolled up in it.  But this time she said she wanted to try a new food and she figured out that she likes it. So we were nice enough to share our sushi with her.  :)

 This is one of my favorite foods.  YUM!!!

 We had sushi, dumplings and fruit.  

Chopstick skills at work!!!  

We had a super fun family night.  I love them.

Yummy goodness

We've had some yummy food in the last few days! Michael was very sweet and got me a strawberry cheesecake on my actual birthday and we had a little family celebration.
Katelyn helped me blow out the candles and Noah watched her. :)

It was so nice out the other night that we went ahead and got the patio furniture out and cleaned up so that we could eat dinner outside...in the middle of March! Yeah!!!!

Michael grilled pork chops and I made a baked cauliflower dish, asparagus and focaccia bread (I didn't make that). Such a yummy dinner.

Last night we had "fancy appetizers for dinner night". (Katelyn thought this was really fun.) I made salad with grilled chicken (that we had leftover), avacados, strawberries and walnuts -delicious!. We had crusty bread with brie (Katelyn had string cheese), pears and meatballs (Katelyn thought it was VERY fun to eat meat off a toothpick!).

I can tell I'm feeling all better because my desire to cook is back! Just in time for all the yummy fruits and veggies... Oh, and Katelyn discovered this week that she likes cauliflower, spinach and asparagus. Just another reason to cook lots of veggies and make sure that she tries them all.

Cooking and Gardening

Two of my favorite things...cooking and gardening. Here are a couple of the yummy meals we've had recently.

This is grilled pork, applesauce I had made and canned, kale "chips" (kale with olive oil and salt on it and then baked until crispy) and a roasted sweet potato, potato and butternut squash medley. The butternut squash was from our garden.

Michael and I both love Thai and Indian food so I combined both one night. I made chicken pad thai (which Katelyn loved also) and curried sweet potato filled samosas that I baked instead of fried. Yummy!!

The butternut squash just started growing in our garden. We had tilled our compost pile into the soil in the spring and this was came up. I've harvested 20 squash from about three separate plants. I've got them put up and we'll use them all winter to roast and I'll bake, puree and freeze some to use later in soups and breads. This was a fun surprise this year and one we're loving!

Before the frost hit I harvested all the tomatoes that I could. They are currently laid out all over the counter. I got a big batch of ripe tomatoes before this one and I canned 12 pints of diced tomatoes. We canned and used LOTS of tomatoes this year and they all came from the 50 cent half dead plants I bought at Lowes on clearance. We got a whole lot out of the $4 we spent on tomato plants! What a blessing!!!!

More tomatoes!!! (Really they're everywhere around here.)

Today it was in the mid sixties. A beautiful day for sure. We got some rain earlier this week and so the soil was soft. Before it gets really cold out we decided to have a productive day in the yard getting ready for winter. We pulled everything out of the gardens, raked all the leaves into the compost pile, weeded out old planters on the porch and threw the dirt into the raised bed (and finally threw out all of our old porch containers...new ones to come in the spring), put up the patio furniture, hosed down the patio and put the hose in the garage. We need to mow one more time and rake in the front yard but other than that, the yardwork is done until spring!!! (Good thing because this pregnant mama is about done being able to do all this stuff!) Katelyn was very helpful though. She collected tomatoes that had fallen and she found a worm that kept her busy for a VERY long time. :) She said...."Oh, I love bugs." She was FILTHY by the end of yardwork day.

A productive fall day for sure. I feel so much better!! There is much to do inside now before the baby gets here....Let the nesting continue!

A yummy day

I love Thursdays because Katelyn and I get to hang out all day. We don't have any agenda necessarily except to have a girl day. Katelyn says, "No boys allowed."

I had a coupon for a free pizza so Katelyn and I went out for lunch. $1.69 for my drink is not a bad lunch total. :) Katelyn loves cheese pizza. When I ask if she wants anything else on it she simply says, "No thanks mom. Just cheese and sauce." She always knows exactly what she wants, I'll give her that.

This afternoon Katelyn played outside for a bit.

The thing in her hand is a magnifying glass. She was running around looking for ants. She loves ants. When she finds one she picks it up and lets it crawl on her arm. Ewww...

I was finishing up dinner and looked outside and Katelyn and Michael were dancing together in the backyard. He always hums a waltz when he dances with her and sometimes I'll catch her during the day humming the same tune while she plays. So, so sweet.

Normally Katelyn could care less about dolls and her stroller. But today she marched the whole setup outside and tore around the backyard like an off road vehicle. Hillarious. I wonder if she's too young to do the mowing?

This was our dinner. Michael and I went out the other night to a great local restaurant and had a grilled zucchini "burger" So tonight we recreated the burger ourselves. The slices of zucchini were marinated in some sundried tomato vinegrette and then grilled. I sauted onions, mushrooms and bell peppers and put them on there with some sliced tomatoes and a piece of mozarella cheese on top and threw it in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese. Then we put lettuce and wasabi mayo on it. SO GOOD! The broccoli is from our garden and we just steamed it. Delicious dinner!

Because we tilled our compost pile in with our garden soil we now have some mystery plants growing out in the bed. I'm pretty sure this is butternut squash (We ate a lot of it this fall/winter) but we will see. It's growing really well so I just left it.

The cabbage is beautiful right now.

It's been so hot this week that we are having to hurry and harvest the broccoli because it is starting to bolt (go to seed and flower which will make it inedible.)

I really love having a garden. This is a very yummy time of year!!!

February in a nutshell

I just need to sum up February. It started out just fine. Then for two weeks our house was full of illness. And then the month ended fabulously!!

The beginning of February left us to our own antics because it was so cold. So one fun night started out with a Michael and Katelyn tinker toy creation.

Then Katelyn got crazy.

And the living room became a scene from Where the Wild Things Are. She decided it would be fun to run in circles dancing around the tinker toys while Michael and I whistled John Philips Sousa marching band music. Let me remind you...yes, we really are this cool.

Katelyn was thoroughly entertained for quite a while.

I love this girl.

Another milestone this month was a big girl bed. I know...she's three and a half. But she loved her crib. She NEVER tried to climb out of the thing so we weren't in any hurry for the big girl bed. But we finally decided that it was time for the switch. The funny thing is she still calls for us in the morning. She won't get out of the bed until we come in and get her. She's a girl who lives within her boundaries. :)

And this is what her room looks like with the new addition. See how I found a quilt that matched so I didn't have to do any other redecorating? Smart, right!!!

And then the illness came. On the same night Katelyn got the flu (fever, runny nose, coughing...miserable) and Michael got the stomach flu. Michael was down for three days and Katelyn was on the couch for a whole week. It was so sad...and her cough was just lousy. Katelyn has never had more than just the sniffles. In the last two years she's gone to the doctor for her two year old and three year old well visits....that's it. So it was hard to see this super active, healthy kid curled up on the couch for days. She lost three pounds that week (and she only weighed 37 to start off!) But she's better now and eating us out of house and home so I think all is well.

Katelyn has been starting to write letters. She was doing A, E, F, L, T. Then all of a sudden a few days ago she was at the table with her markers while Michael and I were cleaning up after dinner and she said, "Mommy, look. I wrote my name." I was expecting her to have written a few letters...but no, she really did write her name. All by herself. I'm going to frame it. :)

We went out to Red Robin the other night because I really wanted a hamburger. (Please note...I never say this. We eat red meat about once a month maybe.) Katelyn got a balloon. She held on to that thing all night and then was devastated the next morning when it was on the floor because the hellium had leaked out. She kept asking why it wouldn't fly and could I make it fly over and over.

For dinner tonight we made White Chicken Chili, cornbread and a salad. So yummy!!

And to wrap up February with a bang and kick March off with much celebration, Michael got a job as a project manager for a German company in Frankfort (20 miles from our house) that manufactures plastics for the automotive industry. (Background....Michael speaks fluent German, worked for 10 years as an automotive engineer and has been doing engineering consulting for a company that manufactures plastics for the last six months). Yep, it's that perfect. He starts on Monday.

So we had a bumpy patch but we are healthy and ready for spring to get here. We're starting to plan the garden. The seed catalogs are on hand.

More goofing around

Saturday was a glorious day. Katelyn slept until 8:45 and then we were all in our jammies until noon. Now that's the way to ring in the new year!

I made pumpkin waffles...which were oh so very tasty and we watched the Rose Parade. Katelyn played helicopter with Michael...which is one of her favorite activities. The take off...the turbulance...the bombings...the landing. There is much belly laughing to be heard. The more Katelyn is thrown around the louder the laughter. :)

Seriously, don't you love this???

For dinner I made kielbasa and homemade sauerkraut with some potatoes and onions thrown in. It was a super yummy winter dish and I got in touch with my Polish self. :)

Katelyn likes to play school. Mommy gets to be the teacher and Michael's the lunch lady. I think that's funny.

Here's our star student. We gave her an A+ for the day.

Then we made up a Blues Clues adventure about a letter that came in the mailbox from grammy and papa that said "We love you Katelyn" and made her guess what it was all about as we drew pictures. This is our evening entertainment around here. Please note that Papa has a golf club in his hand and that's how Katelyn was able to guess who the letter was from.

A three day weekend and today was back to work...a whole five day work week this week. How will we do it?

But we booked a condo in Destin, FL for mid-May when Michael finishes school. Only 4 1/2 more months to go and then a whole week on the beach. That's what's going to get me through winter.