Our Dos ♥

We finally had our wedding!!! April 23rd, 2011 ♥
These are the photos that we have gotten as our "sneak peeks" from our photographer so far, so excited to see the rest!

Everything went so well on our special day - we could not have asked for it to have been any better! We had great weather, so we were able to take photos outside by the lake, like I had dreamed. We were certainly not without our own little hiccups throughout the night, but no huge problems, and that is all I could have hoped for. Everything was just really loose and relaxed, I have to say that I kept my cool very well - very proud that I did not turn into a bride-zilla. I think my favorite last minute detail was that I had run into Dairy Queen 20 minutes before having to be at the wedding site to set up to buy our wedding cake - so romantic, right? This whole time, that is what I REALLY wanted as our wedding cake, but I kept on forgetting to order it. I dashed in there last minute like a crazy woman, grabbed to cakes and was out the door. And it was a huge hit! Not a slice was left.

Our ceremony was incredibly sweet and beautiful. Our theme song throughout the ceremony was "All You Need is Love" by The Beatles. Our parents, my sisters and our wedding party walked down the aisle to a string quartet version of the song, as we were pouring our vases in our sand ceremony, we had a ukulele version, and the original version as we left the ceremony. I walked down the aisle to a string quartet version of "Anyone Else But You"... a song by The Moldy Peaches, one of my fave bands.

Our reception also went very well. My biggest fear was that the dance floor would be completely dead, as my my family is not known to dance much. Luckily there were some awesome little girls who kept it alive for us! We also had some amazing DJs - even my family was out there dancing the night away! Even myself, I don't think I stopped dancing all night. Couldn't help it! Such a wonderful day, I couldn't help but dance!

We are so incredibly grateful that we were FINALLY able to have out day after waiting so long - and that it went SO well! We have a ton of amazing friends and family members to thank for that! Alan and I took advantage of having our family in town and had a "mini-moon" - we went to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells for a night and left Penelope home with Grandma Mimi. Boy did Penny enjoy having her grandmas and grandpas around! She still asks about all of them every day!

Breaded Shrimp with Orange-Ginger Sauce

So here's one from a little over a week ago - super yummy though, I promise. Super easy too. Just take your raw, thawed shrimp - rinse and toss in whole wheat flour. Heat a bit of oil and some minced garlic in a large pan, then add shrimp and fry for about 8-10 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, cook some wheat linguine as the box recommends. When our shrimp was done, I just added some pre-made orange-ginger sauce that I bought at Pick'n'save - then topped the linguine with the shrimp. Delicious.

Note that not all of the breading stays on. I have no idea how to accomplish this. But I just left in all of the little over-fried pieces of breading anyways and they added a nice little crunch to the meal.

Penny really enjoyed it too :) She INHALED her shrimp (which did not have any sauce on them).

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 :)