Office Decorating Project

We have a lot of large blank walls in the house, so we recently decided to add a little decoration to the office. We got the gorgeous pillows from Joom on Etsy and the picture frames from West Elm. Which leads me to ask, how much is too much? We thought 4 large frames would do the trick, but we find ourselves wanting to run out and get more. Will these pictures still be on the wall in 30 years? Like when I finally had to send my parents some new framed pictures because for the last 20 years, the only one they displayed of me was my senior high school portrait. gag. Better yet, will we replace these in later years with family portraits where we are all wearing snowflake sweaters, or khaki pants and white tshirts? You betcha!

This leads to the next conundrum. What happens when we have a second child? We won't have any wall space left.

Stay-at-Home-Mom

As you have all read from my twits, I was layed off on Monday morning. I feel like I've been dumped by my true love. I'm not sure what to do with myself and I want to call him to see how he's doing without me. Are you sure you're ok? Doesn't life without me suck? How will you get by? You NEED me. Don't you? *sniff*

Day three of unemployment and I realize that being a stay-at-home mom is not all bon bons and Oprah. I was always afraid of what 'staying at home' meant, fearful that I would resort to sitting on the couch, devouring lean cuisines and watching baby daddy's get dragged onto tv for paternity tests. *Gulp* As it turns out, the days fly by and the tv doesn't even get turned on. In between looking for a job, I want to take H. to the pool every day, hang out with my other friends with kids, and go to museums and the Botanic Gardens.

The question now is, what am I going to do? Ultimately, I will probably need to find a job that requires me to shower and brush my teeth every day. And wear clothes that aren't pajamas, and put H. in day care. I miss her already. Until then, I will enjoy every precious second with her.

Grandparents

Hadley's grandparents came to visit this week-end for cousin Bloom's 4th birthday. Even though they were in demand, we were able to get them for three whole nights! We were very excited and so was Hadley. Grandpa got her to clap her hands for the first time. She was so excited over the loud congratulatory attention, that she then proceeded to applaud herself for the rest of the day, causing a splattering of food during dinner. A small price to pay for the fun of clapping. Other milestones include playing peek-a-boo with a blanket in her hand, covering her own face and whipping the blanket down repeatedly. She also pulled herself from a seated position to standing, get this, twice. Yeah we know, excessive monotonous baby details followed by lots of proud parental gushing.

It must be cool, it's on Etsy

Have I mentioned how much I love Etsy? If I were a website, I would be called www.iwanttohumpandmarryetsy.com. The crib bedding that I purchased a couple of months ago is geoooooorgeous. I feel like that needs to be followed with a daaahling.

These pillows have been in my favorites for months. And finally tonight, DG gave me the ok to go and buy them. They are for our grey couch/futon in the office. I'm hoping that by putting pillows on this couch, DG will stop using it as a storage area for all of his useless crap bills, invoices, and random piles of paper.

My dream is to clean up the office and turn it into an orange and turquoise modern clean space. I love the avian theme and pillows are always a good place to start.

Making Your Own Baby Food

"Have you seen the Super Baby Food cookbook?", I asked DG yesterday. "I can't find it anywhere." "Oh yeah, I've seen it", he says. "It's in the bathroom." You heard it here ladies and gentlemen, good enough to be toilet reading.

I'm pretty excited about all the baby food I've been making. The colorful cubes are so pretty that I had to line them up for a photo op. From left to right there is sweet potato, squash, peas, oatmeal, summer squash, green beans and prunes. I've stopped feeding her carrots, bananas and rice as those are apparently constipating. But these are so easy to make I'm not sure why anyone would buy baby food. Though I definitely have a few jars on hand for traveling. But even when we were on the go all week-end, I'd pop a few cubes in a small tupperware or empty baby jar and off we would go.

To make any of the food, first you steam or microwave the veggies for a few minutes, then you blend them up adding water to get to the consistency you desire. I love using my magic bullet because it is small and just the perfect size. I fill the ice cube trays and freeze them overnight and then pop them into baggies the next day.

Hadley is now eating three meals a day. In the mornings she will usually eat oatmeal or pearled barley (blend 1/4C dry in the blender until a powder consistency and then cook with 1C water for 10 minutes). I mix this with pears, mangos, plums or prunes. At noon she will have asparagus, green beans or peas, and then for dinner her favorite sweet potatoes or summer squash. Though as always she will keep her mouth shut and let the food touch her lip to taste it before she decides if it is something that she has pre-approved.

Moosewood Cookbook Farmer's Market Gazpacho

I've posted recipes before from, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (my favorite). But all it would take is one look at my book's tattered corners and food-splattered pages and you would be able to scratch and taste the love. I really need to move on and spread the love to some of my other cookbooks, but I just can't manage to break the ties. I always come back for more.

So I am very excited to be a part of Jemangelaville's week-end cookbook challenge in which the only rules are to make a recipe out of a cookbook made with ingredients that you purchased from a Farmer's Market. I thought about branching out and making the Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup or even the Cream of Summer Green Soup. But I have issues with change, so am sticking with the tried and true. I love making this soup at least once a summer. You may even call it a summer tradition.

I go to the farmer's market every weekend. You should try to find one near you too. They make me feel 1) social 2) good for supporting local farms and businesses and 3) green because I bring my own bags. Last Saturday morning, I packed up the family and headed to the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market, narrowly making it with 15 minutes to spare. This is the best time to go as the crowds have died down and vendors are more willing to cut you a better deal on the veggies. Wasting no time, I ran through grabbing all the ingredients needed for Gazpacho.

Everything pictured here totalled $17! A total steal. The only items I won't be using in the recipe are the broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, and green beans which are for Hadley. But that is another cookbook and another post that requires steaming, ice cube trays, and the magic bullet.

Here are the ingredients:
4C cold tomato juice
1 small well-minced onion
2C fresh diced tomatoes
1C minced green pepper
1 tsp honey
1 clove crushed garlic
1 diced cucumber
2 scallions, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 lime
2 TBL wine vinegar
1 tsp each tarragon and basil
dash of ground cumin
1/4C fresh chopped parsley
dash of tabasco sauce
2 TBL olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Now here's the best part, are you ready? Combine all ingredients. No seriously that's it. Then you throw it in the fridge and let it chill for two hours while you go watch the new Batman movie, or mow your lawn or something.

Ok, since I'm not ready to let you go yet, here's a few little tricks that I like to do. First, I take the seeds out of the cucumber with a grapefruit spoon.

This is not necessary and I usually don't do it. But I had some extra time today so why not.

Next, depending on how lazy you are, there are several ways to mince/dice the ingredients. If you are a super fast fancy chef-like chopper with a good knife, then good for you. Give yourself a pat on the back, but make sure you take that knife out of your hand first!

But if you are like me, you need to whip this up fast because you are so hungry you're about to start dipping into that ciabatta bread you bought, and ruin your dinner. So your other choice is to use a Cuisinart. Just toss the whole kit-and-caboodle in there and don't stop until it's all minced, because this soup can be pureed as well. Me, I chose the middle option, my Pampered Chef chopper. This is a speedy way to get the mince/dice I want without having to clean the whole Cuisinart.

On another green note, make sure you take all your scraps out to the compost pile.


But that's it, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and serve as a first course of a light summer meal or pair it with other things.


It's really good with a slice of crusty bread. I bought ciabatta at the farmer's market for $1. I paired it with shrimp cocktail because it's Saturday and my fridge was empty for the week, but I had pre-cooked shrimp in the freezer. Voila, a perfectly cool ending for a 98 degree day.

Sick Doggy

Saturday evening, I fed the dogs and Gibson, the canine garbage disposal sniffed his food and walked away. He followed me as I walked outside to ask David, "See anything odd here? Gibson is here and his bowl of food is inside." This from the dog who will drool gobs before being given the ok to eat, beg me for a bite when I'm eating an apple, paw my leg if it is one minute past his dinner time, eat dead birds he found on the lawn, and rummage through the compost, all before deciding he really just wants to eat his own feces. Yes, we knew immediately that little G was sick.

Wouldn't you know it, just when Hadley starts sleeping through the night, Gibson decides to keep us up. So on Sunday morning when he still wouldn't touch food, we packed up the family and headed to the emergency pet ER. We are no stranger to this place as we had to take Tica there in a snow storm several years ago when she threw out her back. They gave Gibson a blood test, noticed dehydration, gave him a painkiller, filled him with fluid and hoped that whatever he had would pass. For the rest of the day he was so sad and pathetic that I was afraid we were going to have to go back to the ER. He slept in bed with us that night.


On Monday and Tuesday he spent the day at Urban Vet Care getting more IV fluids. They love him there because he is the poster child for their ads that DG designed so everyone knows him. They really couldn't figure out what was wrong, but on his discharge papers it said he was flatulent. Tell me something I DON'T KNOW. He was sent home with his IV still in, hence the cone he had to wear above. Tee hee. By Tuesday he was back to eating hard food and whatever was wrong with him had passed. Thank goodness. He is back to being the barky little boy he's always been.

Baby Kisses

Whenever I pick Hadley up from her crib, I cuddle her, and give her kisses. Lately, I've been asking her if she wants to give me a kiss and I put my cheek against her mouth. I also have a little ditty that I sing to her called "Kisses for Hadley". Consequently those are also all the words to the song, along with some smoochy sounds. Just recently, she has started to kiss my cheek when I pick her up. I didn't think anything of it until last night when we were out on the patio and she was kissing on command. WARNING: Proud parental squeeling and delight.


And just to show you that it wasn't total coincidence, there is video of her kissing DG as well.

Grocery Shopping and iPhones

Hadley sat up in the shopping cart like a big girl for the first time this week-end. My mom made this awesome green shopping cart cover with floral trim for us to use. It has pockets for her toys and everything. Of course we still use a bleach wipe to clean everything down before putting her in it. She especially likes helping to pick out sweet potatoes and pears.

And in other news, this photo was taken on DGs new iPhone. Yes, we are taking the plunge and moving our service from Sprint back to AT&T. DG got his phone early and in 2 weeks, when our contract is up, I will be getting one as well so that we can be on the family plan. I had AT&T for years and loved it, but you may recall that when we got married, DG made me switch to Sprint. In my rant, all I wanted to do was for a phone to make calls. Now I will be able to watch movies, listen to my music, play games, surf the internet, and a myriad of other useless things as well. Now I just need to find a new song for my ring tone. Any ideas, anyone? Hello...is this thing on?!?

Losing Baby Weight

I really do not want to be one of those girls who is constantly obsessed with her weight. But the days are over that I can say "Oh my body looks like this because I just had a baby...7 1/2 months ago!" I have no more excuses and it is time to get back on track. I'm no stranger to calorie restriction and not eating sugar, dairy, or alcohol for months at a time. Though I'm not quite ready to go to that extreme...YET.

Breast feeding officially ended after our trip to San Antonio. Since I didn't bring the pump with me, it just faded away. Now I can officially diet without affecting my milk supply. So a few weeks ago, DG and I started our healthy eating again with a simple 1,700 calorie a day plan. It came in a book with our Bosu ball of all things. So here is what I am currently doing, and it seems to be working as I am losing about a pound a week.

1,700 calories a day which includes the following per day:
10 complex carbs/starch (whole grain breads, bagels, pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, potatoes, corn, beans, etc.)
5+ veggies (one serving = 1C raw green or 1/2C cooked)
5 servings of lean protein (boneless skinless chicken breast, eggs, white meat turkey, salmon, shrimp etc.)
4 servings of fruit and/or sugar
2 servings of dairy (1C skim milk, 1 non-fat yogurt)
2 servings of fat (1 TBL salad dressing, 1 tsp butter, oil, etc.)

In addition to this plan, I am working out 4 days a week. Monday and Wednesday, I run 2.7 miles up around the park and back. I am happy to say that after a month, I can do the entire 2+ miles around the park. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I do a 30 minute sculpting video from On Demand cable. I currently like Jillian Michael's (the Biggest Loser trainer) 30 day shred work outs.

I officially have 15 lbs. to lose before I get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. If the above ends up not working, I will do Slim4Life again.

I even did research on Nutrisystems and Medifast, both of which send you all your meals in the mail. Though I am sure that they both would work if followed, I do not want fake food to replace my meals with shakes and bars (Medifast) and the food on Nutrisystems does not look appetizing. Though I would love to have all of my meals made and sent to me.

Camping in the Backyard

I am a big fan of sleeping in the back yard, especially if I've had a few drinks. DG and I recently took an inventory of all of our camping equipment and decided it would be fun to have a test run in the back yard before we headed up into the mountains. So we invited Cyn and Jeff over to try out their new HUGE tent for a 4th of July sleep over.


One of the benefits of not being in the middle of the woods is that I was able to cook dinner without a propane tank. I made homemade pizza (ricotta, garlic, tomato, basil and an onion red pepper), along with a spinach, almond, strawberry salad. For dessert, we skewered marshmallows and cooked them over tea lights to make s'mores.

Oh yeah, and the other benefit of being at home is that you wouldn't be able to have a blender in the woods to make up a couple batches of my fresh margaritas. We squeezed the whole 5lb bag of limes because in the my-eyes-are-too-big-for-my-delicate-constitution mind, I was thinking that I alone could drink a pitcher. Needless to say a few sips of my first one and I was done for the night.

Following dinner, we lit a few colored smoke bombs, and some kid friendly sparkling bubble fireworks.

Here are Cyn and Jeff setting up their new 6 person tent that they just got at REI.

And here is me in my brother's tent. Though it may look like I am casting DG a come hither look, I am actually wondering aloud how many ladies my brother had lured back to this very tent after all the Grateful Dead and Phish shows he went to in Indiana. Though I had to spell a lot of what I was saying because there were children around.

Naughty Noodle Necklace

When she was 4 months old, Hadley loved "B" words. At a moment's notice we could spout off an alliterative list of fun words beginning with B and it would throw her into a giggling frenzy. By the time she was 5 months, we had moved on to "P" words. Just today, the word Necklace was tickling her funny bone, which got me started on a slew of words beginning with "N". Her giggle is contagious, and my struggle, at coming up with good words is amusing. Feel free to comment and add to my repertoire.

Happy Red, White and Blue

Fun in San Antonio, Texas

Upon arriving in San Antonio on Saturday, my parents had the Toyota Highlander gassed up and ready to go from Hertz. We got the car seat installed and were off immediately to the River Walk.

Downtown San Antonio is truly the bright spot of this city. The Riverwalk is vibrant, full of energy, and is the heart of the action with it's restaurants, shopping, and hotels. Doesn't my mom look awesome? She's lost almost 50 pounds since her heart attack! She is truly an inspiration. And no, there's no magic pill to lose weight. It's all diet and exercise.

First things first, we sat down for margarita's and chips. Mmmm, icy cool liquid lunch.



Nana and Hadley are reunited at last.


















Grandpa is equally as excited to see baby girl.
We had to slug down our drinks fast so that we could go check into our motel in Helotes and head to the surprise dinner for my Aunt Betty. The anticipation was building for us as we sat and waited for everyone to get there. In the car ride over, we called Susan to let her know we were running late, but she put Betty on the phone with my mom who had to FIB about being in between meetings in Pennsylvania. I told everyone to move away from her in the car because lightening was going to strike for sure. My mother is awful at not telling the truth, but apparently she did a really good job because doesn't Betty Lou look surprised?

Aunt Susan made reservations at a restaurant called The Lodge, which was located in an old mansion that had been converted into an eatery. The head chef is only 31 and quite the up and comer in the city. We had a beautiful private room on the first floor and the seasonal menu was a fixed price meal with six courses. I had a seared scallop over brioche with a potato puree appetizer, followed by an heirloom tomato with grilled watermelon and balsamic reduction salad, seared salmon over wild rice with fiddlesticks and olive tapenade main course, and for dessert a Soufflé Inspired Nutella-Dark Chocolate Cake with Homemade Caramel, Banana Fritter and Peanut Butter Mousse. There was also a complementary pasta course and a bacon wrapped fig with blue cheese. Good thing we were on a diet last week.

Before dinner, we watched a slide show that DG made of 70 years worth of photos of Betty Lou. Our entire group included: (From l-r back row) Aunt Susan, DG, Janny, Dad, Aunt Betty, Betty's daughter (my cousin) Linda, and Hadley and me. (bottom row) Loretta, Sue, and my mom.



After falling into a food induced coma and sleeping through the night, we got up and went to Susan's for breakfast in the morning, followed by a trip to Sea World.
Even with the big crowds, we never lost each other, because all you had to do was look for the ladies wearing bright cantaloupe.

We saw the Beluga Whale and Dolphin show first. At the end as I was clapping, Hadley started trying to imitate me, arms flailing about, attempting to clap, and hitting herself in the face. It was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Then we headed to the Sea Lion, Otter and Walrus show. Well, minus the walrus because she was still sleeping. The main woman in this show lives on my Aunt's street, so she gave us a backstage tour afterwards. It was so fun. We got to see the walrus up close, all 2,100 pounds of her. And we had our picture taken with Spanky, who at 600 pounds has retired from show biz and lives out his days eating fish and swimming around. That's actually Spanky smiling on cue.

We also bought some slimy fish treats to feed the Sea Lions. They are greedy little buggers who catch fish really well.
















Of course, you can't leave Sea World without seeing Shamu. Now which one is Shamu again?
Hadley managed to beat the heat and remain cute through the moist humidity.

Until it got to be too much and she needed a nap. She missed the dolphin petting pool and sharks, but by then it was time to go home for all of us.