Happy Friday!

I have a really busy day ahead of me, I shouldn't even be on the computer but I'll leave you with this.

Today's Randomness....

This is why I shouldn't make cake.

Can you tell what part of the cake we like?

Here is my boy eating lunch, he was being rather silly today....and then he did...

THIS!

And his mom says "Leave it there while I go get my camera!". Way to teach him not to put food on his face and hair.

My New Cooking Blog

I didn't want to overwhelm this blog with recipes and tales of cooking so I started another blog. If you're interested go check it out!

http://www.cookingwithnutty.blogspot.com/

There is also a link to it in "My Links" section on the right hand side of this blog.

This week's pictures.

I can't believe I'm already halfway through this pregnancy.


Definitely goes by much faster with the second pregnancy.

Makes me wonder if the people that have a lot of kids feel like the 3+ pregnancy felt like you woke up pregnant and then a couple days later you're having another baby. :-)

The perfect rocking chair

So it feels like forever now that we've been looking for a rocking chair. We went through two rocker/gliders in less than 6 months and decided that wasn't the way to go anymore.

This was our first choice, it was like a dream to sit in AND it matches our other furniture.

This was our second choice (we would have gotten it in chocolate), but then we went to Babies R Us and looked at both of those chairs and felt like the quality left a lot to be desired and decided we didn't want to spend that kind of money for a chair that wasn't going to last.

I should add that we've been traipsing all over the city looking at other furniture stores and no one sells little rockers that are of any quality anymore. It's crazy. We finally just decided to go with this one....

And here is where you tell me that it doesn't match our other furniture in color or style. I know.

Sure is comfy though.

Think Pink.

We had the ultrasound today where they check all the parts of the baby out to make sure all is well. I get to hold off on the 17P shots for awhile longer. Everything is looking good and functioning how it should be and we found out that it's a...

GIRL!

We're totally excited even though Cary was sure that it was boy. I think I'm just happy to actually KNOW what it is. My hat is off to all of you that can wait the entire pregnancy to find out. Although, this little girl was pretty determined not to let us see and I was sure we were going to walk away not knowing what it was. They finally got her to move into a position they could see. :-)

Now for shopping!

Breakfast cups

So I tried these and thought they were pretty good, they are very easy, and of course you don't just have to make them for breakfast. I'm a fan of breakfast for supper. :-)

Need:
-Sliced deli roast beef or turkey (or ham if you eat that)
-Eggs
-Cheese

Really you need a muffin tin, but I don't own one of those yet. (I know!) Spray the muffin pan and put the meat slices in like so. (I used the stand alone muffin tins)

Crack an egg into each cup and sprinkle with pepper. (you don't need salt)

Slice or grate cheese over the top.

Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes (depending on how cooked you like your eggs)

Voila!

If the black edges bother you, you can cut them off with food scissors. :-)

I'm turning over a new leaf....

I used to cook a lot, and then the summer rolled around and we were going on trips, and packing to move and I got lazy and started cooking less and less because we weren't home long enough to use the ingredients and food was going bad, etc.... I got pregnant and then the cooking was really non-existant for about 2 months, but last night Cary said "Enough, is enough!" Ok, he didn't really say that, but in a round about way he was saying that he is tired of canned soup, frozen meals, lean pockets, and frozen pizza. Soooo, I've resolved to start cooking again, but I need your quick go to meal suggestions that you like to make at home.

It was a busy day.........

A day in the life of Aidan.....a very SMALL part. It was raining too hard to go do the things we had wanted to do this morning and Aidan was getting into EVERYTHING, so I took some pictures of all his favorite spots.

I missed the best photo op when he emptied my entire bottom cupboard in the kitchen.

Here he is busy in the bathroom...he's so helpful.

Then he moved on to the kitchen. (this was the cupboard he had emptied out earlier)

Another cupboard in the kitchen

Helping out with the laundry.

Loading the dishwasher.

He's pretty excited about this new spot.

Later that day after Cary was home we decided to go to Cafe Rio. Yay!

They even make little quesadilla's for kids (for free!)

I had been craving their salad all week.

Target was next door so we thought we'd go walk around and burn some calories. Cary got the better end of that deal (depending on how you look at it. lol.) and he got to chase Aidan around everywhere!

Life lessons

One of the first things I learned in the first little while of being married to Cary was not to take anything he said, or did while sleepy, personal. Being a Faber, he is prone to talking in his sleep, growling at me, or suddenly sitting up in the middle of night scaring me to death because I would think something was wrong. So I would usually be left sitting there with my feelings hurt or my heart beating out of my chest and he would lay back down and go to sleep. Or he'd sit up and ask some random question, and I'd be like "What the...?", and if I answered he'd just go back to sleep and I never know what it was all about. Of course, Cary would be oblivious since he'd still be asleep!
I, on the other hand, came from a family that generally wakes up happy and quickly so the grumpiness took some getting used to.

Fast forward to last night, Cary fell asleep on the couch and when it was bedtime I asked him a couple of times if he was going to go to bed. I got a growl and snarl in response (see?, don't take it personal) .......okay, I'll just turn off the lights and go to bed. An hour later Cary comes stumbling into bed. (I was still awake thanks to my chest being on fire from stinking heartburn)
He's probably STILL wondering why I never woke him up and told him to go to bed. :-)

PG update: I'm fat

We find out what it is on Monday. Yay.

Even though it's for a good cause and all that, it's hard to come to grips with your body expanding and your weight skyrocketing.

I really hate pictures of myself looking like this, but I do it for posterity, and to look back on later and laugh.

Like these pictures from when I was in the hospital with Aidan. Crikey!


Showing off my cankles, thats what 20 pounds of extra water weight looks like. The nurse that was with me the day after Aidan was born didn't even recognize me a week later when she saw me. (She was Aidan's NICU nurse a week after helping me out, weird, eh?)

I'm not sure why I'm torturing myself like this, maybe I'm reassuring myself that it could be worse. :-)

Pasta e Fagoli

Here is the recipe for Pasta e Fagoli. It's supposed to be a copycat of the soup at Olive Garden, but I've never had it so I can't tell you how it compares. I just think this stuff is pretty good! It makes quite a bit so either have it for guests or freeze. :-)

Pasta e Fagoli (makes about 6 quarts)

1 lb. ground beef
1 small onion, diced
1/2 of a small
1 lb. bag of baby carrots, chopped
5 stalks of celery, diced
2 (14.5 oz.) cans of diced tomatoes
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 (32 oz.) carton + 1 (14.5 oz.) can of beef broth (If you like a more brothy soup add more, I made up about 50 oz of broth.)
1 1/2 tsp oregano1
1/4 tsp pepper
2 1/2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped (I used dry)
3/4 tsp tabasco sauce
1 jar (1 lb. 10 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1 cup dry small pasta (such as ditalini or elbow macaroni)
salt to taste


Brown ground beef. Drain if necessary. Add onion, carrot, celery and diced tomatoes. Simmer 10 minutes. Add beans, beef broth, oregano, pepper, parsley, tabasco sauce and spaghetti sauce.Simmer soup on low for about 30-45 minutes until carrots are almost tender.Add pasta to pot and simmer on low for about 15-30 minutes until pasta is just shy of al dente. As the soup cools, the pasta will absorb the broth. You can cook the pasta separate and add it to the soup after the soup has cooled.

(I browned the meat, pureed the onion and celery and added everything but the noodles and put it in a crockpot. Added the noodles to the crockpot about an hour before eating.)

How many people does it take......?

We like to try to buy our happiness...

so we bought a new microwave stand for our kitchen.

Ken, Nick, and Jesse were all over at our place so we put them to work.

I had to MAKE them read the directions. (I'm kidding, sort of....)

Nicks job. :-) Aidan is trying to figure out his phone.

Ken took over the job of containing Aidan.

It's almost done.

Aidan had to make the final inspection.

He approves.

Potluck!

The weekends that we actually stay in SLC, we go to the House of Aaron fellowship that meets on Saturday morning. Normally there are around 10 of us on a good day, but this weekend we had guest speakers, so it brought a bigger than normal crowd.

AND, we had guests staying at our place and they came too. (Yes, Sharon and Kenneth are guests now.) :-)

All in all, we had about 30 people for the meeting..

Jerald & Margo, and Jon and Mary came to tell us about their experience in Israel.

Here is "little" Sam...

He's not looking so little anymore. The kid is almost as big as Aidan. I realize Aidan is a little squirt, but Sam is a big, cute, chubby kid.


This is TROUBLE.

Just eating their crackers.

We had a little lunch potluck after the meeting.

I made and brought Pasta e Fagoli soup (you know, like at Olive Garden) It was really GOOD!

Not cause I'm a good cook or anything, I just happened to find a really good recipe.

I'll post it later for all to enjoy. :-)