Resting!

We had such a lovely weekend, and Carolyn's wedding was beautiful!  The girls didn't really have a nap Friday or Saturday so they were really tired.  We took Sunday and today to rest and catch up so that everyone is basically back to normal.  Today we had Pauljay over for lunch.  He kindly kept Java for us while we were away, and I think Java enjoyed himself.  He practiaclly mauled Pauljay with kisses when he saw him in the kitchen!  It was nice to know he was with someone who enjoys him!

For a special treat tonight, we had pudding.  The girls and Joel love pudding, but I hate using milk to make it!  We go through milk fast enough without adding that in!  Here is some of the evidence of their bath:

They did enjoy it!

The girls cried when we left him at Pauljay's house.  Pnut wanted to know if we were going to get to have him back!  They love their puppy:)

Tomorrow I have my first doctor appointment for this baby.  It is just an intake history.  Not very exciting.  I can't wait for 20 weeks when we can find out what this baby is!

Just Too Busy

Whew!  What a week!  We have had something every morning and night practically of this week.  I think the only morning we really had off was Wednesday.  Tomorrow we leave for Carolyn's wedding (where I should fit into my dress!), and then we come back on Saturday.  Next week is going to be another busy one with three more softball games and several things happening in the morning again! 

We had a fun time with family today, and the kids had a blast in the pool.  I'll have to post those pictures later because my camera is not on the computer desk.  And now it is supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow!

I'm sneezing a lot so I need to go.  I think I have an allergy to the field we were at tonight!  Have a great weekend!

Cuteness!

Pilly's computer keyboard that she made.

Sprinkler Fun!

Friday was a warm day so we got the sprinkler out.

The girls were quite excited when their silly daddy came out to put his head in.

And they had to do the same.

Someone told me later that she didn't need a bath because she had already had one in the sprinkler...

Much fun was had...

...and the dog wisely stayed away from the crazy maniacs!

Southwestern Chicken and Black Bean Burritos with Mexican Chunk Vegetable Salad

Today was my turn for cooking club, and I was super-excited to try some new recipes.  I re-looked through my Rachael Ray's Classic 30-Minute Meals and found some things that sounded so good to me but I knew Joel wouldn't eat them!  I was so excited to get to eat them, I forgot to take pictures.  These recipes are from pages 15 and 40.  As per usual, I will list the actual recipe and then my modifications:)

Burritos
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 t cumin
1 t chili powder
A couple shakes hot sauce
1 T EVOO or other oil
1/2 onion (I used red)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
3 T smoky bbq sauce
salt and pepper
lettuce
tomatoes
scallions
flour tortillas

Rub chicken with cumin and chili powder and hot sauce.  Heat frying pan to high and cook on each side for four minutes or until completely cooked through.  Remove from heat
While cooking chicken, heat another fry pan and warm up the oil on medium-high.  Cook chopped garlic and onion until softened.  Add beans and bbq sauce.  Chop fully cooked chicken breasts and mix in.  Heat thoroughly and season.
Place mixture in tortilla and top with lettuce, tomatoes, and scallions.  Wrap and enjoy!

I pretty much stuck to the directions in this one except I didn't rub the hot sauce on the chicken.  I wasn't sure about how to do it without making a mess so I just shook it a couple of times over the bean mixture.  I didn't have scallions, but I did have sour cream, which I thought was delicious.  I definitely want to make these again, and next time I think I will shred the chicken instead of cubing it.  I think it would mix more thoroughly with the beans that way.  Really, really good, and filling, meal!

Veggie Salad
2 tomatoes, seed and chopped
1/3 cucumber (or more), chopped into bite-size chunks
1/2 medium onion (again I used red)
1 medium red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 T chopped cilantro or fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 t hot sauce
juice of 2 limes
2 T EVOO
salt and pepper

Chop all vegetables and place in bowl.  Sprinkle with chopped cilantro or parsley.  Put hot sauce, lime juice, and EVOO.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well.

I omitted a lot from this, the jalapeno, the celery, and the cilantro.  I also was only brave enough to put in 1 t of the hot sauce and half of the green pepper.  I am sort of sensitive to super-hot stuff like jalapenos, and last year my throat partially swelled after eating something that had a lot of jalapeno in it so I wanted to take it easy.  I'm learning to like peppers more, but I am still not crazy about large chunks of them so half of the green pepper worked out perfect.  I pretty much think celery is just gross unless it is covered in peanut butter. 

I let this sit in the refrigerator for about 45 minutes before eating it and I had some again tonight with supper, and I think it just gets better the longer it sits.  The dressing really soaks in and is good.  It went really well with the burritos, and because we felt that it really was a relatively healthy lunch, we felt free to have large helpings of dessert:)

For dessert, I made Granny's Chocolate Cobbler, which was featured on Tasty Kitchen last week.  I put freshly made whipped cream on top, but I think ice cream would be really, really good.  It was quite delicious, and I appreciated that all of the ingredients were things that I already had around so it would be easy to whip up for a quick fix!

I just love Cooking Club!  It is so fun to eat good food and have a fun time with some dear friends!  I already can't wait for next month!:)

Country Fried Steak?

Do you ever make country fried steak?  Joel makes it for us, and we had it tonight after not having it for quite a while.  He buys the very thin cube steaks, and coats them with egg and flour and fries them in a combination of butter and olive oil.  The only seasoning he uses is salt and pepper.  Then we dip them in honey, and the combination of salty and sweet is delectable!  I also love it because Joel makes it and not me!  By suppertime, I am not always enthusiastic about making supper:)

Tomorrow, however, I am enthusiastic about cooking because it is my month for cooking club!  I am very excited about the dishes I will be trying, and I will share them tomorrow hopefully.  I keep forgetting what day this is...we are helping with a class at church tomorrow night so I will hopefully have time to post!

I am also thankfufl that tomorrow is cooking club because that means two little friends will be here to play with the girls.  With it being the third (and hopefully final!) day of rain, they could use some extra entertainment! 

Well, posting about the steak made me hungry again (big shocker there!) so I am going to have to find a snack.  Have a lovely night:)

KissyPoo

This weekend we had our softball teams' pancake breakfast.  I watched the children, who were just my girls and one little boy, while everyone else cooked and washed cars.  I think I got the better end of the stick!:)  So our Saturday was pretty busy between that and grocery shopping and taking a walk.  Sunday was church and more walking and just a nice day of rest!  Pilly got up before Pnut did, and she got to do something special:

Joel bought this game for $1.  It is called KissyPoo.

You have to catch the black and white animals and kiss them to make them happy.  That fills up your rainbow, and when it is full, they have a dance party.  Oh my.  The girls love it.  Pilly is funny because she makes kissing noises the entire time she plays and thinks that that is what does it:)  They don't play much!

A dog for your consideration.

Softball was canceled because of rain, and it might be canceled again tomorrow.  It is not really supposed to stop raining until Wednesday morning.  I thought the rain was supposed to come in April!

I think I need to come up with a new sewing project!  Hopefully soon!

Just One More Reason to Love Having Two Girls!

They were nicely looking at a book together, and Pnut would ask Pilly to find one of the pictures and Pilly would and Pnut would cheer for her.  (Run-on, I know)  But come on, how cute is that?!  And they were doing this while I was working so they were not being noisy or asking me 20,000 questions! 

We are out the door to softball.  Have a great weekend!

Pilly's First Person

Pilly drew her first person today.  I drew the red smiley face and was just trying to get her to draw a face, and she drew a person.  Then she gave the person four arms and four legs.  It was Daddy she said. 

Does someone want to send us some sunshine?  It has been really cold and rainy or windy all week!  The girls are starting to get a little batty, and I feel like I haven't been warm for a long time!  I finally turned the heat back on today! 

With this pregnancy, I just haven't felt like sewing lately.  I guess I am so tired by evening that I want to just relax.  And with softball, it feels like we are even busier so I don't really want to do more stuff.  I'm hoping that as I get out of this tired stage I will want to do more projects!  I'm also ready to not go to the bathroom every 1/2 hour!  Getting out of bed at night to go makes me so mad! 

Well, as we aren't really doing anything, I don't really have anything more exciting than that to post!

Cutie Girls

Aren't they cute?!  I took this this morning right after bathtime when they were still neat and dirt free.  They don't look like that anymore:)

I had my final Bible study until autumn this morning and tonight we went for our Mother's Day supper!  There is a place that does 25 cent wings on Tuesday nights, and they are awesome!  I like the honey mustard and the garlic parmesan.  And then we got dessert.  We have never gotten dessert there before...it was really, really good.  Fried won-tons filled with cookie dough and served with ice cream drizzled with chocolate sauce and powdered sugar.  And I wonder why I am gaining so much weight with this pregnancy.  Joel just received birthday money from his uncle, and he used it for supper tonight...the poor guy is going to be broke by next week! 

I have a little less than three weeks until Carolyn's wedding...I hope I can still fit into my dress at that time!  It is getting pretty tight!

This afternoon while I worked the girls went down in the basement to play for the first time in quite a while.  Pnut came up dressed like this...she was so cute!  It was another day with naps that only lasted about an hour.  Apparently they need to be worn out more!

Pilly really wanted me to take her picture, but she also wanted her face right up to the camera so the light was really bright.  What a goofy face!

Well, I had better go before the others realize I'm not jumping on the bed with them.  Have a great night!

A Little Announcement

I have a little announcement that involves those little monkeys above.  We are going to have another one of those!  We were finally able to tell Joel's mom this weekend, she says it was the best Mother's Day gift ever:)  Therefore, I can now share it with everyone else who doesn't already know!  This baby is supposed to come December 14, 2010.  We'll see about that!  I'm hoping for two weeks early again!!!  I'm at nine weeks and am already anxious to be done...I'm not a fan of being pregnant.  But it is exciting to have a baby so I guess I will be able to stand it:) 

Jumpnig Rope

Daddy brought something home for the girls today.  Something that they don't know how to use but will learn.

They try really hard!

Jumping rope can be dangerous, so be sure to wear the proper equipment!

Jump ropes also like to take rides in the car, which is easier than actually trying to jump over them.

And dogs don't get jumping rope at all!

Broccoli Soup

My sister Randa gave me this recipe.  It is really good.  It reminds me of the base for my tomato soup, which I love!  It has a really nice garlic flavor. 

3T Butter
1 onion, chopped
4 large carrots, chopped
4 c. Chicken broth
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 lb Fresh broccoli florets
2 c. half & half (or Heavy Whipping Cream or milk)
1/4 c. ice water
1/4 c flour
1T soy sauce
1/2 tsp Black Pepper

Melt butter. Add carrots and onion and garlic until onions are white. Bring broccoli almost to a boil in chicken broth. Add butter mixture. Add any seasonings you want. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until broccoli is tender to a fork. Pour soup into blend 1/2 at a time. Blend until smooth. Pour back in pot. Heat on low. Add half & half and soy sauce. Separately mix water and flour. Add to soup to thicken (make sure soup is fairly hot when adding).

I think I would blend a little less to make it chunkier.  I probably didn't do a very good job thickening mine, and therefore it was just thin and nothing to chew on.  I'm not a huge gravy maker so I don't have a lot of practicing thickening.  I would definitely make this again.  I'm sad that soup season is basically over!

In other news, I got a new foot pedal today for free!  I was selling mine to someone from my work who still needs the old one, and she had an extra of the one that I need so we traded!  It was great because now I don't have to wait for it to come in the mail.  Now I just have to wait for the doctors to start dictating on the new system instead of the old one.  In the meantime, I am working on my word expander, which we have to do by individual input again.  It's frustrating because I can't get into my old one to just copy and paste!  Oh well, I'll live.

The girls and I went to a special playground by where we used to live today and then we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream.  We were going to go to Rita's but it wasn't open when we got there.  Thank goodness DQ was right across the street or I might have had a riot on my hands!

Hopefully I will have a picture tomorrow!

At the Playground

Whew, we just got back from a softball game and the girls are in bed.  It's funny how tiring it is to just go, not even play:) 

Today we went to the playground.  We had to hunt for our "treasure" that we found on Friday.  It was a nerf baseball, and I didn't really want to bring it home with us so we buried it by a tree.  Apparently some pirates found it over the weekend, and it is their treasure now.  Pnut wants to find them and make them give it back. 

There was a little girl at the playground about Pnut's age.  She wanted to play, and Pnut did say a few things to her, but she told me was too busy to play with the little girl.  Pnut showed her how she likes to be a pretzel, but other than that they didn't do anything.  Of course, when the little girl left, Pnut wanted to play.  "I'm not too busy any more!"  Hopefully she'll remember this the next time we are there!

I have to go prepare for Lost now.  I have a delicious recipe to share that I got from my sister, but that will have to wait.  My fingers are tired!

Softball Makes Us Busy

Softball is really keeping us busy!  Tonight we went to a game of the other team from our church.  It was great to have Joel be a spectator and help with the girls.  He took that maniac dog along as well.  I won't take him along when Joel plays, I have enough to do with just the girls!  This week we only have one game, next week two, and the week after three!  Whew!

We recently got two children's bicycle seats at yard sales for really cheap.  Joel had to get something from Lowes for one of them, but overall they were super cheap!  We got to try them out yesterday.  The girls loved it!  It is just going to take some time to get used to having the extra weight on the back.  I think it is going to be great exercise!

Joel is watching Unwrapped, and it is making me really hungry...they are doing a segment on Five Guys!  Mmmm.

Tomorrow it is back to normal schedule for us, which will be nice!  I am slowly moving closer to being able to being able to work again...