Too Sweet Not to Share :)

Nummy Mix

We eat pasta. A LOT. It's one thing that all three of us love and can really never have enough of. Pasta and sandwiches - so easy to make and seriously SO many ways to make them. Really, how can you get sick them? Since we've been eating them so frequently though, I've made the decision to start incorporating more whole grain / wheat pastas into our meals. Not as bad I thought it would be, I have to say. We made the switch to a wheat bread a few years ago and it took a while to find a brand that we liked... and we've gotten lucky with the wheat pasta we've tried. We've found some penne, fettucini, and spaghetti noodles that we like for our dinner meals... but now I'm moving on to my and Penny's lunch noodles.

For lunch, Penny usually gets a mixture of noodles (usually elbow or penne), veggies (usually fresh carrots or green beans), and maybe some cheese (usually of the string variety) or tofu. It's hard coming up with different variations to keep her interested and without resorting to a canned or boxed meal. I've been trying different broths and herbs as seasoning... this week I discovered a recipe that used salad dressing instead so we tried it today:







I found some organic whole grain alphabet noodles at our local Outpost (though you can usually find a box of small "O" shaped noodles at most grocery stores). The recipe called for 1/2 a cup of peas and 1/4 cup of diced carrots... but I just happened to have a bag of frozen mix veggies, so I threw in a whole cup of that instead. Just cook the noodles according to what the box says and a minute or two before it's done, toss in the veggies. Drain when done and toss with about 1/4 cup of salad dressing (I used Newman's Own Italian Dressing and it was DELICIOUS). Also sliced up two sticks of string cheese and mixed them in.

I have to say that I am really happy when I can figure out a meal that we both like and is healthy too!

Nutella Pancakes

Mommy was in a chocolate mood today! For lunch we had some Nutella pancakes with raspberry sauce and chocolate milk :)

These were really yummy and really easy to make! Basically just added 1/4 cup Nutella to a regular pancake recipe and for the sauce, warmed up a 12 oz. package of frozen raspberries with 2 tbsp of sugar, when it started bubbling, I added 1/4 cup water and 1 tbsp corn starch and cooked it for another 3-4 minutes.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Sprung Spring

Happy Spring everyone! We are very much ready for this warm weather and have been enjoying it greatly! It's been in the 40's and 50's all week! ...except today it's icky and rainy and only 35, but at least it's above freezing!

We were delighted to be asked to come back to our old mommy and me group to give a talk about cloth diapers on St. Patrick's Day. We were very well received - out of the 22 mothers there, only 2 were currently using cloth diapers and a good majority of the mothers showed interest. I had packets printed out about cloth diapering basics and a list of links of good CD websites for those who were interested. All 16 of them were taken and there were more moms asking if I could e-mail them the links since there weren't enough for everyone. This makes me SO excited because I wasn't sure how receptive that they would be to the idea. I know how positively it has gone with our family, so I am glad to be sharing this with other moms :)

Check out Penny's get-up for St. Pattys :)


"Suspenders? REALLY, mom???"

Penelope and C-3PO are all ready for Spring :)
Penny is finally fitting into the cute coat that her Aunt Jill got her for her birthday! She's super cute in it.

In other BIG BIG BIG news... Penny pooped on the potty for the first time last night! This look on her face was absolutely priceless. When she stood up to see her big "business" and had to look at us like, "Did that really just come out of me?!"
She was so excited and proud of her self! She got to flush it down the big potty and we called her Grandmas to tell them the good news.

Love, Toilet Paper and Rock and Roll

HA! So I did get to this today... as I said in the earlier post - we've been busy busy busy! But you have to love it too, right? The day just goes by SOOO much better when you have things planned! Believe me - I've tried staying home all day with nothing planned. Penelope and I just don't know what to do with each other and we can't take it!
Last weekend we were invited to a Rock Star Birthday Party - it was a combined 1st bday party of two of Penelope's Mommy and Me friends, Brock and Karizma, who are neighbors and were born 2 days apart! Their moms had asked if I would be the paparazzi for the day, and of course I was delighted! Wed had lots of fun - Alan came too! Penelope wore a cute rock star tutu outfit that she had gotten for her birthday and we were able to comb her hair into a Mohawk :)




...funny thing is that before the party, we made a trip out to Brookfield to run some errands... we ended up stopping by Buy Buy Baby, as Baby super store similar to Babies'R'us... we were shopping around and a woman had stopped us and asked if we wanted Penelope's portraits taken for free.

Free portraits? Yes please.

They ended up having a little studio at the front of the store. The woman was training and was learning how to use the studio lighting. They happened to be having a deal where you received a free 8x10 collage and there wasn't any sitting fee.... and of course I was willing to help out to give the lady a crash course in taking portraits of a toddler :P
They didn't turn out too bad. Just a simply white background and my beautiful little Penelope in her punky outfit and hair and pink converse sneakers :). I'll have to scan them in sometime to share. I have to admit that I am reeeeaaaallllly not a fan of standard studio photos from places like this... and like Wal-Mart, Target, JcPenney and Sears... I just find them unattractive and not worth the money... because seriously?

Seriously?

They're terrible. But honestly... I kind of want to get Penelope's portraits taken at one to be purposely horrible. I can put her in a carters outfit that looks more like pajamas in front of a lovely nature scene (that's TOTALLY BELIEVABLE... I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT IT WAS TAKEN IN A STUDIO! ) Or better yet, I'll dress her up in a tiger sweater and have them sit her in front of a backdrop of a starry sky. I'll paste it in her scrapbook and order a million prints for everyone in my family.
I have to laugh. I really do love the ones like this that my family would get every year. Just because they're unbelievably cheesy. We would get Christmas photos done at Wal-Mart in front of a backdrop that looked like a living room decorated for Christmas. The fireplace was smaller than me... it was ::cough:: quite believable.

Anywhoooooo, that was my rant for the day... we had a great week. Penelope and I babysat the boys on Monday and Wednesday as usual. Tuesday we had our first play date - we had the second one today... we're going to aim to have one every Tuesday with some of our friends from our Mommy and me group.
Penny and I spent Thursday running errands, trying to find some fabric for my grandma to sew into table runners for our wedding reception. FOUND. It's pretty.
Friday all three of us drove up North, where we spent the weekend at my parents' house. We were able pick up Zoe on our way through Wausau, so her and Penelope got to spend the night playing together. They were SO freaking cute together! They talked together the whole car ride. Penny would be yammering about something and Zoe would laugh and say, "Penny, you're funny!" CUTE.
They spent the whole night running around and dancing in their jammies.



Saturday, my family threw a wedding shower for Alan and I. A lot of my mom and dad's family came to celebrate and we had a blast! My wonderful Aunt and Godmother, Linda fixed up her bar so that we could have the party there. So many people put a lot of hard work to see that the day went well and I am so thankful to have such a great family.






After the wedding shower, a bunch of us stayed and had a few drinks... others of us continued out to another bar down the road... and yet other of us continued to the after bar at a local's house... and yet others of us (mainly me) were still drunk when they woke up and were pretty hung over for the later part of the day. But it was all good. Long deserved and a lot of fun was had. I can honestly say that I had TWO drinks that night... the rest was given to me shot by shot. I can't tell you how many people I ran into that night. I felt like I was talking all night. It was like walking into Cheers... because everyone seriously knew my name and I was more than happy to shoot the shit with them.
Penelope woke me up at 8... it was so nice of her to sleep in an hour for her mommy... too bad her mommy didn't get to bed until after 4 (eeeeps!). But who was the first mommy up making breakfast for the hungry gang of toddlers at my parents' house that morning, hmmm? Yeah it was me :) ...hangover didn't start kicking until around noon! At least by that point, I was smart enough to eat something and take some ibuprofen.

It's only (maybe) the 4th or 5th time in my life that I've been hung over (and definitely not the worst)... but between that and day light savings time... I'm not sure if I'm still trying to catch up on sleep at this point or if I've slept way too much. Thank GOD I ended up not having to babysit yesterday. Definitely needed that day to be lazy so that I could be at least somewhat productive today! And despite still being way tired, I am pretty satisfied with what I have accomplished today: baby bath, cleaning, play date, laundry, diapers, lunch for Penny and I, wedding errands, dinner, and even watched a Shirley Temple movie with Penny bit by bit throughout the day.

Back to the grind tomorrow and Thursday we get to go back to our old Mommy and Me group at the Hospital! Mary Jo, the woman who runs the group, has asked me to come back to talk to the current moms about cloth diapering! Exciting :)

YUMMO YUMMO TODDLER and MOMMY FEAST

So we've been crazy busy (as usual)... and I'll get to that later today (maybe.... hopefully....). But for now here is a picture of the amazing sandwich I made for lunch today:



...and because I'm always interested in how things like that can be translated into a yummy toddler feast:


....and baby joyfully devouring said yummy toddler feast:


I've been trying to make a point of keeping better track of yummy recipes that we've tried and / or created. Keeping them all together in a book just isn't cutting it anymore...
I HATE those weeks when we just get too lazy to think of anything to cook for dinner, so we end up eating out or having spaghetti with jarred sauce. So I'm trying to document our meals better and hopefully it will be easier to keep a handy list of yummy and healthy go-to meals!

The above sandwich has (errr.... had) some serious yumminess going on. I shredded up a carrot (sliced for Penny) and mixed it with some hummus. Spread it on some whole wheat bread. Added sliced cukes, chopped olives, sprouts and some lettuce and voila! YUMMO!

For Penny, I just made some thin slices of carrots and cukes, spread some hummus on little squares of bread and added a few slices of olives for her to try. It was a hit! ...I also happened to give her some string cheese because she gets SUPER antsy while I'm making food... but that's not important...

So this past week has been a little all over the place. We surrendered Bailey on Saturday, which was a lot harder than I had imagined. I knew it was going to be rough, but I was devastated that first night. Bailey's foster mother was suppose to be there that day, but for some reason, she couldn't make it. Bailey had to go home with another woman for the night, and she took Bailey to her foster home the next day. I was sad I didn't get to meet the foster mom and the woman who took her home for the night crates her dogs. Bailey hates being alone, so I know she cried that night. Monday I received an e-mail from the foster mother, Elaine and that made me feel worlds better. Bailey is getting along wonderfully with her foster brothers and sisters and is adjusting well... and even shares the foot of the bed nicely with them. Elaine seems fantastic - it is reassuring to have Bailey under the care of someone I am comfortable with. She said that she'll send occasional updates, letting me know how Bailey is doing and, of course, let me know when she is adopted. From there, it's up to the adoptive family, if they want to give me updates - which I hope they do!

Monday I got a screw in my tire, and I had to go in to get it patched. That night I got a call from one of the families that I babysit for - they had heard of a woman who was looking for a nanny position from a friend and she was able to start immediately. They weren't expecting to find someone so fast, but it just worked out that way. I'm glad they were able to find someone though, I can't imagine how scary it would be to find childcare! I haven't even been brave enough to find someone to use as an occasional babysitter! So needless to say, Penny and I only work 2 days a week now for another friend.
We're learning to spend our free time wisely, though... Tuesday, I was very productive during Penelope's nap time:



Alan and I are habitual box savers - every time we purchase anything, we stash the box in the attic just in case it needs to be returned or if we need to store it in the future. The above house is made up of about 10 - 12 different boxes. Penelope LOVES it! She seriously screamed like a 13 year old with Bieber fever when she saw it. I have since added a floor so that she can't move it around - and it is now in her nursery with her kitchen set inside. I plan to add onto it eventually: some roof tiles, maybe a little chimney, window frames and maybe some siding... frame some pictures for the inside walls... lots of fun stuff to make :)