Heartbreaker

He's going to be a heartbreaker, you think?

This face melts my heart. Really.

And this baby is just too darn cute..

Weekends are great

Weekends are usually pretty good. Just a little break from the normal, daily grind where I can rest (sort of) and spend time with all my boys. But then we have weekends like last weekend. Where it's full, but fun. My family came out to visit and cheer on my super awesome second Dad in a half marathon here in town on Saturday. We had such a great time and I was so proud of Phil for not only finishing, but shedding 19 minutes off his running time!

Hanging out before...

Wait, I think I see him!
Here he comes!

Crossing the finish line...he did not finish in 1minute 51 seconds. I am kicking myself for cutting off the time in this shot!

All of us! (minus Mr. F since he was taking the pic)

High five!

What a great time!

Weekly Menu

I haven't forgotten my weekly menu, I just had to make the weekly grocery run last night so I didn't have time to post. I got out my Deceptively Delicious cookbook to get some new healthy recipes...I am getting tired of the same ole thing! I won't be putting in purees of other veggies (which is the whole point of her book/method) this time, but I will be using the recipes themselves because they are good!

Here goes the menu:

Tonight: Family is coming in, so I am not sure what we are going to do for dinner.

Saturday: Vegetable soup, my mama's recipe (to come) that I have made a few minor changes to

Sunday: Leftovers

Monday: Chicken quesadillas

Tuesday: Lasagna (recipe from Deceptively Delicious--to come)

Wednesday: Chicken, homemade mac n cheese, and rice balls

Thursday: Chicken and steamed veggies

Breakfasts will be oatmeal, whole wheat oats with fruit and brown sugar mixed in (Jude), and eggs & toast (me).

Lunches will be pb&j (I found a great jelly without high fructose corn sugar in it!), or leftovers.

Oh! And I am trying my first bread baking session today. Hopefully it will turn out well. I will post about it, for sure!

Things I love today...

Sweet sleeping puffy baby cheeks.

Cats in funny sleeping positions. (that would be my purse)
Making funny pictures with my big boy.
In the camera cute grins.

Funny nose squinched grins.

Bewitched, Zumba and Chicken Pot Pie

Yes, those are probably the 3 most random things ever to be in the same sentence. But that is how I roll. I am random just about all the time. Just ask my Mister.

There aren't too many shows that I would call charming, but Bewitched is one of them. How sweet and lovely Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) is, the husband-wife dynamic, the light but fun comedy, and the neat way they shot it, because after all, it probably wasn't as easy to make something disappear or float back then as it is now. I just love it. Shows nowadays are so dark, heavy or just full of stupidness that I can't handle much of anything on tv these days. There is something about that earlier era that appeals to me. When Darrin was tempted to cheat on Samantha, he didn't. Nowadays, the husband would have cheated in a second. Maybe they had it right back in the 60s... at least with tv anyway. Are there any old shows you love?

Tonight I tried my hat at Zumba. I have to admit, I don't think I did very well. It sure was fun, though. The best part was watching all the older ladies (and men too!) shake their rears like it was nobody's business. Now, if my friends Ashley or Kate would quit being lame and come with me, we could all have a good time laughing at each other!

Here is my chicken pot pie recipe. I tried something new with the sauce and I think it turned out well! The leftovers will surely get eaten tomorrow!

Glaze

I searched and searched for salmon glazes, but they all had honey, or bourbon or something weird in it that I don't have. So, I think I'm going to go with a brown sugar, EVOO, melted butter, salt & pepper (can't forget those), cumin, paprika and roasted red pepper flakes.

A sweet friend pointed out that I didn't post any daily pictures of my boys, but to be honest, I was just being lazy. Here I am catching up!

Weekly Menu

So, today starts the weekly menu planning. I will post all of my meals here, and then daily I will post the recipes. I decided to do it this way because I found there wasn't enough time to try to get all my recipes done in one day. And, I think I am going to try 1 new thing a week. I want/need to expand my cooking abilities, so this is me saying it because I am more likely to do it if I actually say it out loud.

So without further adieu, here is my weekly menu:

For breakfasts, we usually do oatmeal, cereal, or eggs&toast. Lunches are sandwiches (pb&j--yeah!), or leftovers.

Tonight - Marinated pork chops, smashed potatoes, and biscuits made from some bisquick I need to use up

Friday - Grilled salmon (with some kind of glaze, not sure what yet) and veggies

Saturday - chicken noodle veggie soup

Sunday - leftovers

Monday-Homemade chicken pot pie (recipe to come)

Tuesday - Spaghetti with somewhat homemade sauce (recipe to come) and more biscuits

Wednesday - tilapia quesadillas

Thursday- fresh snapper, sweet peas and steamed carrots

The new thing I am going to try this week is attempting to bake my own french bread. The Frugal Girl has inspired me to start baking my own rolls and some breads. I want to move us away from eating breads that have bleached flour and lots of preservatives in them. Although I have to admit that I am a little intimidated about this. Baking bread is an art that takes a lot of refining to get it right. Eeeek! I'll let the blog world know how it turns out!

Rough Nights

Having a baby means some nights are just plain rough. Sometimes they get sick, or hurt or sometimes they just can't settle down. I am not sure what was up with E, but I think I finally got to sleep somewhere around 5am. Then, with Bible study starting back up this morning, I was back up at 7:30 to get ready. Needless to say, a nap was to be had today and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not feel guilty at all!

BSF was fun this morning. I am excited to get to know all the new ladies in my group, and even see some faces I already knew. It should be a good year!

I have no idea what I am cooking tonight. I know, I know, I was all high and mighty with my accountability post yesterday. But, tonight is grocery shopping night (if I want to get anything productive done, I do not take the kids), so I may just get something easy for us to eat tonight. And tomorrow, I will figure out my weekly meals and post them for all to read. I know you are super excited, ha!

Realizations

I just realized as I was typing out my dinner plans last night (that later were changed) that I need to be more intentional about planning out my meals. Reading through my previous posts, they usually read like this "Well, I think I am going to make this, but I'm not sure, or I could make this, or this, or this..." and then they end with "we'll see!" I don't know about you, but that is frustrating to me! I usually don't get started with dinner until 5:30 or 6 because I can't flippin decide what I want to cook, which means we eat late, which isn't good. Soooo, starting this week (after grocery shopping), I'm going to post a weekly menu of what we'll be eating so maybe I can bring some order and accountability to my life. Help me out here, friends!

We're getting ready to go to our first fall story time at the Library...which just happens to be one of my most favorite places. Jude will usually only sit through a little bit of the time, but he's a little boy. What do you expect? :)

Oh, for tonight, I am definitely cooking some fresh fish caught by our super awesome friends Derrick and Ashley. She said the fish was taking over her whole freezer and was ready to get rid of some. I said, "We'll take it!" I'll probably drizzle it with lemon juice and some spices, cook some roasted red potatoes and sweet peas to go with it. And maybe I'll get to make a grocery run tomorrow and start my weekly planning!

POST EDIT: I decided that fried fresh catfish sounded better than baked and drizzled with lemon juice. So, fried it is!

B-E-Autiful day!

Just because I know you can't go a day without seeing my sweet boy's face...

I watched two good movies this weekend. Killers and I Could Never Be Your Woman. Killers was cute, light, fun (except for the killing people part) and had 2 of my favorite people to watch on screen. I Could Never Be Your Woman is an older movie that was really funny, cute and had my favorite funny guy in it (Paul Rudd)--although I have to add that the parenting in it isn't my style at all. Just watch it for fun and not for parenting advice, and you'll enjoy it. We also watched a really disturbing movie called Harry Brown. I honestly wish I could unsee it. Just erase it from memory. Where is Eric Northman when you need him? Unless you like movies about revenge, kids and drugs, with very strong violence and language and disturbing sexual content, I wouldn't recommend seeing it. I guess I need to be a little more knowledgeable in my movie choices next time.

I can't figure out what meat I want to make for dinner. We have a ton of fresh fish in our freezer, but I'd have to thaw it a certain way in which I should have started this morning and I did not. And I am soooo sick of chicken. Maybe I'll cook the frozen salmon and veggies? I am a super indecisive person, can you tell?

I am so in love with fall. I can't decide if I like fall or spring better. They are both so lovely. What about you? Which one do you like more?

POST EDIT: I ended up cooking chicken with a red sauce drizzled over it and parmesan cheese and steamed broccoli and carrots. Yum yum!

Girls' Night

Ross is going off to do man things like eat fish, watch sports on tv, and have man talk...whatever that means. So, my friend Ashley is coming over to hang out with me (and the little boys) and do what girls do. Eat pizza, cookies and watch chick flicks.

Thankfully, I am not cooking tonight because my sweet friend is bringing pizza. But, we need dessert, right? What's a party without dessert? So, I baked some YUMMY oatmeal blueberry cookies.

I have to admit, I am normally not a baker and I did not make this recipe up myself (although I did substitute blueberries for raisins or nuts cause I don't like either), but it is still a good one you should try.

You can find the recipe HERE.

A great little discovery

While Jude and I are eating grapes, doing our daily music lesson (first a classical piece - Brahms's Hungarian Dance was actually a neat little piece...and then he asked for Elmo's Song, go figure), I thought I'd share a fun little discovery I made this morning. As I was preparing my eggs, usually scrambled because I am just that lame and unoriginal, I was trying to think of a new way to spice them up. Literally. So, as they were cooking, I dashed some cinnamon and curry powder in them. I know that probably sounds disgusting, but I love curry powder. I put it in a lot of things. Those Indian folk know what they're doing when it comes to curry powder. After I put that and the cinnamon in (I know. Weird, right?), I immediately regretted it. I said out loud "I bet this is going to be the most disgusting batch of eggs ever made" because I have to admit, it smelled kind of weird. I was prepared to eat something that resembled the taste of sandpaper...or vomit...but certainly not eggs. When I took my first bite, I was skeptical, but it actually was quite tasty. It gave the eggs a little something extra, but not too much extra. Keep in mind, I just sprinkled a dash of both on there while they were cooking in the skillet. Don't go throwing the whole container in there, or you will be sorry for sure.

Seriously, try it. You just might be surprised!

Tonight may be a homemade chicken noodle/potato soup kind of night. I know soups are usually a winter kind of meal, but I can get away with it since it's fall now, right?

Anyway, here's the recipe.

I have to include the daily dose of cuteness. Ezra likes crackers...sometimes. When he can figure out what to do with them.

Consider it a joy when you go through trials...

These past few weeks have been full of anxiety, worry and just plain exhaustion. You know how it is. Sometimes life stuff gets you questioning your faith, your abilities, and even your worth. I go through this every time there is a trial in my life. I just can't seem to learn from it. I've been through every emotion in the past week, but the best way I can describe it is joyless. Or Frustrated. Or unbelievably exhausted. Any one will do, but joyless sums it up best. But frankly, I am tired of feeling like that. I don't know how miserable people go through their whole lives being miserable. It's exhausting and it just plain sucks. There has been a looming sense of worry over my shoulders for 2 weeks. So today, I am letting it go. I am choosing joy, I am choosing faith and I am choosing love. I will choose joy in God and family, and not in my circumstances. I will choose faith in the One who sustains me and fulfills all my needs. I will choose to love my husband and kids, instead of loving myself, and just trying to cover up the pain with a book or zoning out online. After all, that's what trials are for, right? So that we can learn, change and grow. At least I think so.

Last night we had tacos. Tonight, I am thinking about trying this new recipe from the Pioneer Woman (but add chicken, of course). If you want to view it, go here. Although I don't have any cream, or half n half for that matter. Maybe regular milk will do? We will see!

Even though I do not like this picture of myself, I wanted to give a shout out to my awesome sister-in-law, who is due in October (10-10-10-coolest due date ever). She is such a great friend and sister. We are so excited to be welcoming baby Lucy to our family in just a few weeks! Love her and Sammie big time!

Back to the daily grind

I ::heart:: three day weekends. We were visited by loved ones. The park had a visit from our family of four. We slept in (does 8:45 count?). Watched lots of Willy Wonka. It was heavenly. The three day weekend left us feeling somewhat rested, rejuvenated and loved, but weekends can't last forever, right? We were sad to see it go, but accepted it nonetheless.

And with the new week starting (Monday/Tuesday? It's confusing.), it was time to start level 2 of the 30 Day Shred. Wow. That Jillian sure knows how to kick your butt. I seriously think she's a sadist.

Tonight for dinner is a simple bbq flavored chicken, corn and fresh green bean night. Nothing too spectacular, I had to go easy tonight to ease myself back into the week. :)

Here is my beautiful niece...I love this girl!

A taste of fall

Before it got scorching hot again, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take the boys to the park yesterday. It was so gorgeous and serene out that I didn't even want to go home.

Ezra spent his time in the stroller, but at long as he gets to be outside, he doesn't mind where we park him at. (I don't know why this is blue. Blogger is stupid and won't let me change it to black)

A break from the heat

I so love this weather. It's so nice, I just want to sit outside all day long and read. I hear it's supposed to be nice this weekend also, we just may have to spend a lot of it outside!

Tonight, Ross's parents are supposed to come in, so I don't think I'll be cooking. It'll be fun to go out for a bit. This has been an exhausting week...my eyes are about to close as I am typing this. Every girl needs a break some time!

A few pictures of my sweeties. Jude was trying to do his new favorite thing---make mommy (or anyone) fall down. He'll pull on your arm until you fall off the chair, the couch, wherever you are sitting. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is not.

I love open mouth photos! This boy loves to catch flies with this open mouth!

Happy 9.02.10!

Ok, I'll admit it. I was a huge fan of Beverly Hills 90210 back in the day. What's not to like? Bad hair, bad clothes, bad acting, bad story lines. And who didn't love Brenda and Dylan? Or Kelly and Dylan? OR Kelly and Brandon? What about when David got addicted to meth? Or Dylan and his love for alcohol? Or Kelly and her bad cocaine addiction? Trashy, you think? No way. Silly? Not even a little. I am almost ashamed to admit I actually loved that show. (I won't mention that I recently watched season 6 on dvd and was glued to the tv. Talk about rotting your brain!)

Now, on to more important matters (ahem)...

Tonight for dinner, I am making some fish and chicken (not together!) quesadillas. I usually bake the meat beforehand, then I smoosh (I like the word smoosh) it out on a whole wheat tortilla-taco size, then I sprinkle tomato, lots of cheese, beans, and corn on it while the EVOO is heating up in the pan. Then, I cover the top with another tortilla and put it in the pan to brown it. It gets good and crispy, then I flip it to crisp the other side. It's pretty easy to make and it usually just takes a few minutes to cook...oh, and don't forget the salsa! I usually dip mine in salsa while eating it. Yum yum!

This is how we roll around here

Still in pjs at noon (ok, not every day), playing outside with our rain boots and hat on.

Whew! This afternoon I have been researching preschool ideas like crazy (that will be a post for another day). I am tired just from doing that! Time to get my butt up and get to Shredding. But first...

Tonight for dinner, I'm thawing out some porkchops and plan to marinate them in my curry mix (EVOO, salt, pepper, garlic salt, curry powder) and bake them.

Homemade mashed potatoes, maybe? If so, always red-never white, and with the skins on.

Fresh green beans. Seriously, try them. Once you eat the real ones, you'll never want canned yuckies again.