this is not pretty

I was just wondering...does anyone else have one of these in their bedroom?

We moved in and I thought about getting rid of the chair (yes there is a chair under there somewhere) but then I thought it would be a nice and quiet place to sit and just be away from the chaos in the rest of the house. Now however this chair is the landing place. The cats lay there, the laundry lays here, it seems that everything lands on here, except for people. Occasionally we dig out the chair but it doesn't last long.


Just FYI: the chair is currently only occupied by a pair of jeans and 1 sweatshirt. This was taken when we returned from vacation and were in the unpacking phase.

taking some pictures

 Back in December I had the privilege of taking pictures for two families who had just had baby girls! YAY!! Girls are fun. I am in no means a professional photographer but I wanted to try taking pictures and who can complain with getting free pictures. So here is my debut of the pictures I took. I did family ones as well but I only asked to share the pictures of the girls. SO here they are, well a few of them anyways.

 

Thanks for looking!! These girls are so sweet! I had a great time with them.

Little Lady wants you to know

Hi everyone Little Lady here. I have had the most awesome adventure and I want to tell you about it. I WENT TO THE GROCERY STORE!! Ok so mommy and I go to the grocery store all the time so you may be wondering why this time was awesome. First I started riding in the kid seat in the cart and mommy gave me some spices to shake. I love shaking the spices. Then I did not want to sit still and I kept turning around and trying to grab things so Mommy cleaned out part of the cart (where the groceries go) and put me in it!!!! I got to ride around standing up!!! I waved to people! I talked to people! I even played with all the great groceries we were buying. I especially liked shaking the cans of pop Mommy was buying for Daddy. Then we checked out of the store and I got to stay in the cart even on the moving sidewalk ramp. Then we put the groceries in the car and I got a snack!! Today has been a great day. Now it is nap time. BYE!

my somewhat resolution

I don't know about you but I know I love to read magazines. I also love to tear out all the awesome recipes and home projects/crafts that I think are great and save them. I also love putting those ideas in a binder so they are organized for when I get around to them...and there they sit. Well not any more. I have decided that I am going to actually start making some of the food in these recipes. I am going to do some of the crafts (when seasonally appropriate...all those Christmas ones will have to wait another year!). I am going to take advantage of the fact that we have Erapie here to play with LL while I indulge my creative side. I am going to spend entire days cooking, or crafting and not feel guilty about it and if nothing else hopefully by doing all of this I will get out of the dinner rut. Yep. This always happens about this time of year. The grill has been put away for a few months and we are stuck in our rotation of dinners. I always say I am going to meal plan and get organized so we can have more options but I loose interest in that idea the moment it is thought. Well now is my chance and here we go. I tried 2 new recipes the other day from "the binder" (oooohhh I think it needs a name- lets brainstorm binder names everyone) Though these were not dinner recipes. One was a success and the other a failure. On the up side one failure means one less recipe in "the binder"! The failure was banana peanut butter muffins. The banana muffin part was very dry and not very tasty or flavorful and the peanut butter was just a glob of peanut butter. The recipe called for putting in a little batter then put a tblsp of PB on top then pouring more batter over. Well with the dry muffins then the cooked chunk of peanut butter it was not appetizing at all. Even LL who will eat anything wont eat these. So that recipe is outta "the binder" and in the trash. The other recipe which was a success was for Zucchini coins. I made a  mix of breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese (there way probably other stuff too that I cannot remember), set it aside, put 1 egg beaten in a different bowl and set it aside, and then 1/4 cup of flour in a 3rd bowl and set it aside. I cut the Zucchini into small disks dipped each disk in the flour then the egg then then the bread crumb mix. I lined them on a cooking rack...(you were supposed to spray the coins with olive or veggie oil but I forgot this step) and then baked them. I over cooked them so they were a little brown/black (this is where I think the oil would have helped) but they were pretty good. Once they were done the recipe calls for you to use a marinara sauce for dipping. I thought they were pretty good without the dip and LL loved them. Even though they were burned she ate 4 to 5 of them (they were little). So that recipe will get to stay and I will make it again and the next time I will remember the oil. It was great though because LL was content with them and I can see using them as her "chips" they also freeze well before the baking and then you just have to thaw a few and throw them in the oven when needed. Overall I will call it a yummy success!

January 2013 already??

So January first came and went... We had been planning on celebrating Christmas on Jan 1st since we were gone over Christmas but S and LL were sick. S had the flu and LL had a cough and fever. So those two were not in a present mood and therefore neither was I. We sat around and watched movies instead. It was a nice way to spend the day.

January 2nd...Yep their still sick. S stayed home from work and we watched TV and just relaxed most of the day. There were the usual battles over nap. LL hates to take them. Eventually it was bed time and we all went.

The 3rd: Happy Birthday Jocelyn!

S went to work. I drove him and we planned on him coming home early. Though he actually made it the entire day and we even went to steak night at the Embassy for dinner. It was not very crowded. I guess people are still on vacation or something but it was nice for LL and I to get out of the house. Oh and I made muffins today that had veggies in them. They were pretty yummy. I got the recipe from someone at playgroup who had modified the original recipe and then I modified it more. LL loved them and I found them to be a great snack and even breakfast. I will be making these again.

The 4th: We went to City mall and wandered around. We had a few things to get from Carrefore and we returned an outfit to Gymboree that LL had gotten as a birthday present. It was a cute outfit but they gave us a 2t and it is clearly a winter outfit and I just don't know when she will fit in a 2T. So we decided to get her a 2t dress instead and that way we can put long sleeves and tights with it if it fits her when it is cold or she can wear it in the summer because it is a light weight short sleeve dress. We also finally opened our Christmas presents! Little Lady has many new toys to enjoy (now where am I going to put these) and S and I were very fortunate to receive some gift cards to Amazon. Now let the shopping begin!! Thank you to everyone that sent us something. We are very grateful and truly blessed. Sorry it took us so long to open our gifts. It has been such a crazy time for us.

The 5th: S and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary by staying in the house all day!!! lol We watched movies. He played with LL. I made Lasagna and Italian herb bread for dinner. Some Pomegranate pineapple punch to drink and even some apple crisp for dessert. It was yummy. Little lady was her usual stinker about going to bed but she did eventually and we got to finish a movie.


WOW what an exciting beginning to January isn't it? I am hoping to get better about this whole Blogging thing. Though I cannot say the weekly updates wont continue but I am hoping to have more interesting things to type about as we move on through the year. Let's see how this goes!