August 29, 2013

Flawed but Fabulous

My friend Lisa lately said she would describe herself as "flawed but fabulous."  I LOVED that!  And man, have I been flawed this week.  It just hasn't been a stellar week for me.  I can't quite get anything done, I've felt defeated and frustrated, and there has been other things that just seem to keep getting in the way of me having a stress-free week.  But it's looking up.  So anyway, I haven't blogged in a while, so here are some pictures.
 
A hilarious picture of my newest nephew, Sawyer.  This picture made me laugh so hard.

My hair is doing something weird, and Charlie looks so serious here.

First time on a swing.  Guess what?  He liked it. :)

Emily would swing all day if she could.  But the real gem in this picture is Andrew in the corner.  Apparently he was feeling a bit lazy in his swinging.  Mike and I saw this and couldn't stop laughing.

There is no pain like having a Fischer Price Little People person shoved on your middle finger.  :)  But she was happy.  :)

August 14, 2013

Yep. She's Mine.

Growing up, my poor mother was in charge of washing my clothes.  I was the messiest kid ever.  I remember playing and looking down thinking, "How did all this mud get on me?"  And....I think I have gotten a little Mini Muddy Me.
 
A couple of days ago, the kids asked to go outside, and since it had only rained a little bit, and the puddles were very small, I consented.  I thought, "They can't get terribly messy in that little bit of water."
 
 Boy, was I wrong.
This picture cracks me up, first of all.  She looks like a muddy little puppy.
I checked on them, only to find my baby girl face down in a puddle licking the ground/puddle.  I made some sort of disgusted cry and she hopped up, rubbing her tummy and saying, "Mmmmm, num!  Want a gink, Mommy?"  No, Emily.  I think I'll pass on the drink.
The picture doesn't accurately show the amount of dirt all over her face and shirt.  I think I need to invest in Oxyclean stock.

Especially since this was just a couple of days before that.  Ah, well.

August 13, 2013

What's for Dinner?

Dinner lately has been (if I do say so myself) SO delicious lately.  For those who are interested, here's what we've had the last week or so.
 
Mike got a recipe for fettuccine alfredo from a lady at Filomena's restaurant in St. Louis.  It isn't the perfect alfredo, but definitely super tasty and ridiculously easy.
Filomena's Fettuccine Alfredo
 
1.  Cook 8 oz pasta.  Drain and return to pot.
2.  Add half a stick of butter until melted, then add 1/2 c. cream and 3/4 good grated parmesan cheese until all melted and smooth.
3.  Stir in one beaten egg yolk
 
I also added some roasted broccoli.  It was good, and both kids even ate it.  That makes it a miracle meal.
 
Mike and I like meat, but sparingly.  We eat probably 50/50 meat vs. non-meat meals and sometimes, especially during the summer, we like to go without meat more often.  Hence, my meatless-but-it-totally-tastes-like-it-has-meat-in-it spaghetti sauce. 
Karen's Meaty Non-Meaty Spaghetti Sauce
 
1.  In a large pot (I used my dutch oven heavy duty guy) cook 2 medium onions, 1 lb. baby bella mushrooms, zucchini and garlic in olive oil until soft and starting to brown (or you can let them brown- they'll be amazing either way). 
2.  Add 2 cans diced tomatoes and 2 cans tomato sauce.  Add your spices - I used salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and fresh basil.  Sorry, I don't have any measurements, I just kind of add some, and then adjust later if needed. 
3.There are two secrets to this sauce, though.  One is sugar.  If you add a couple tablespoons it will lessen the acidity.  I learned that from Mike's mom and grandma.  :)  The other secret is that I add some chopped up parmesan rinds.  Since it's harder than the rest of the block of cheese, it doesn't melt all the way, making it a really hearty sauce. 
4.After I cook it for at least 3 hours, I blend it up until my kids don't know there are vegetables in it.  And there you go.  It is really delicious.  
 
Mexican haystacks.  Um....yum.  It's basically a burrito on rice.  I've made it with white and brown rice, and both were good.  The idea for it came from Pinterest, and they used ground turkey, but we really like tofu, and it was cheaper, so I just chopped it up and added the taco seasoning to that.  I also made my own refried beans here.  I used the recipe for black bean hummus, but only used about 2 teaspoons or less of the vinegar and smashed the beans rather than blending them.  They were amazing.
 
 
And last but not least, open-faced egg salad sandwiches with bacon and avocado.  Yeah, that's it, but it was really tasty.  Andrew was NOT a fan of the egg salad, but Emmie went nuts and loved it.  So that was good.  :)  It's nice to have a kid who eats what we give her.

Eight is Great

Eight years ago, I married Michael Jacobs. 
 
Eight years of lots...
 
and lots...

and lots...
 
and lots...
 
and LOTS of laughs.

Happy Anniversary, honey!  I love you.


August 11, 2013

Feel Sorry For Me

We have an external hard drive where we back up all of our pictures.  Well, somehow we ended up backing up everything from Andrew's birth on, but nothing from the four years prior.

Yeah.

There are sometimes 3 or 4 copies of the same picture of Andrew eating peas, but we have lost all the pictures from the day after our wedding on. 

Our first Christmas together, vacations, our home life.  Everything we documented from August 2005 through June 2009.  And it's super sad.

I haven't cried like I thought I would, but I have sniffled a bit, and I definitely feel sorry for myself.  If anyone has pictures of us pre-kids that you want to share, that would be awesome. 

Yeah, so... feel sorry for me.

August 9, 2013

Six Months

Technically Charlie won't be 6 months old until Sunday, but I'm blogging now, so figured I would share some little gems with you.
 
First off, is this not the funniest picture ever?  You can see he is on his little knee.  Although not crawling yet, he is getting some good distance here lately.  And he is fast.  He mostly goes on his elbows and toes, but occasionally propels himself forward by rocking on his knees and elbows and then hurling himself forward.  Funny little guy.

Sweet little Charlie all dressed for church on Sunday.  He got his first tooth almost two weeks ago.  Since then he has been working on at least one more.  He's fussy, and yet the easiest baby to take care of usually.  He's just so cute.
 
 Although he doesn't take bottles all that often, he does sometimes and doesn't seem to have any problem with it.  Mike and I discovered last night that he can hold his own bottle.  I think he's growing up too fast!

Half a year old.  How is that possible?  I remember thinking how fun it would be to meet our tiny guy when I was still pregnant.  I had no idea how much I would love his company as time went on.  He's so sweet, so funny, and such a fun little guy.  He's such a snuggler, and loves to give kisses.  Luckily, I love that too. 

We love you, Charlie boy.

The Old Man is Snoring

Boy, oh boy has it been wet around here lately.  So much rain.  My kids don't seem to mind.  At all.
Andrew: "Yay!  Yahoo!  YES!"
Emily:  "Messy!  Yay!"



Not pictured:
1.  Andrew deciding he needed to go potty and getting buck naked running into the house.
2.  Emily lying facedown in the puddle, refusing to get out or go inside.
3.  Me carrying a struggling little girl into the house while she screams "I want my pubbles!  I want jump in pubbles!"
4.  A still naked Andrew sneaking outside to "wash" his towel in the puddle while I was distracted with the grass covered gal.

August 1, 2013

Attack!

Oh, hey, Mommy!  I love you so much, and I think you're.....you're....
 
 What is that?....it's shiny, and it's right there.
 
Oh, man.  I'm coming.  I HAVE to eat that.  *scooch scooch scooch*
 Victory. Is. Mine.

Roasted

One of our favorite dinners is a simple roasted vegetable meal.  The nice thing about it is that it is so versatile.  This time, we used carrots, onions, tomatoes, and zucchini (from our garden - yay).  All you need is a little olive oil, some spices, and then after it's cooked and caramelized how you want it, you just add parmesan.  We change it up by using pasta or couscous sometimes, but we usually make it with quinoa.  Mushrooms are incredible in there, as is squash, leeks, peppers, etc.
  It tastes amazing, is versatile, and is an easy leftover because you can eat it as is, or add it to spaghetti sauce, or in a quesadilla, etc.
  It's goooooooooood, and we like it.