Christmas 08

We had a lovely Christmas with family parties and good food and plenty of time to spend at home during the snowstorms. And because of all the distractions & good times, I've successfully and fairly painlessly made it to week 37 of this pregnancy, which, according to babycenter is "full term". Yay! Not long now. Here's a few pics of our holiday fun:

The lights at temple square

Neil's new best friend

Boys and their new handmade cowboy vests & horses thanks to Grandma B.

Josh's Lincoln Log ranch (or wincoln wogs as Neil would say)
Since I got some new appliances, the boys got the best Christmas present ever.. cardboard boxes!

Neil, Bullseye and Woody sleeping in heavenly peace

Overdue tag

Overdue tag from Sarah!

8 TV shows I watch: (most of this made possible only by DVR.. I can fast forward through half of this and watch when I have a moment to fold laundry)
1. The Amazing Race
2. The Office
3. Survivor
4. Random TLC shows
5. Random Food Network Shows
6. News
7. College football (more Russ than me)
8. Nick Jr(more boys than me)


8 Favorite Restaurants: (In no particular order)
1. Blue Iguana
2. Union Grill
3. Market Street
4. Big Apple Pizza
5. Hires Big H (pregnancy related craving..)
6. Thai Siam
7. Bombay House
8. Nielsons Frozen Custard


8 Things That Happened This Week:
1. Christmas
2. Had the youth in our ward over for tacos and games
3. New refrigerator and microwave delivered & installed
4. 37 week appointment with my midwife
5. Post holiday cleaning
6. Cooked the turkey dinner on Sunday that I was supposed to cook on Christmas Day
7. Played candyland with Josh (20 times or so)
8. I updated my blog


8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Having this baby boy in 3 weeks!
2. 2009
3. Spring
4. Having our kitchen 100% finished
5. Summer.. garden.. flowers.. sunshine
6. Vacations
7. Getting back in shape after this pregnancy
8. No more heartburn after this pregnancy :-)


8 People I Tag:
The 1st 8 people to read this.. Go!

Jolly Old Saint Neil

I had forgotten how round my baby was just 2 Christmases ago. My adorable nephew Ed gets to be Santa this year and it inspired me to look back to Neil's year in the Santa suit:

Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!

Updates at Last

First of all, I failed to blog a Happy Birthday to my Joshua. He is now 4 years old. He enjoyed every moment of his birthday weekend, checking regularly to see if it was still his birthday.

Happy Birthday Joshy!(Thanks must go to Aunts Cheryl and Mia who took care of the birthday cake situation with our lack of functioning kitchen facilities..)

And now, by request.. THE KITCHEN UPDATE

We've still got some projects to complete, but here's a sneak peek at how far we have come:

The empty space after demolition

Russ and his helpers

New playspace for boys..

The countertops & cabinets.. I'm in love.

No more excuses.. time to start cooking dinner again. (More thanks in order for those who fed us and let us invite ourselves for dinner while we were in shambles.)

A tag to pass the time..

Catching up on tags while the boys and I are confined to the basement. Cabinets are being installed even as I type (YAY!). Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! (this was not easy) Then I must pass it on to seven others. Here are the questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? Delta
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? Lorraine
5. Your father? Don
6. Your favorite thing? outdoors
7. Your dream last night? strange
8. Your dream/goal? success
9. The room you're in? basement
10.Your hobby? cooking
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? Cheryl's
14. What you're not? political
15. One of your wish-list items? this
16. Where you grew up? Jersey
17. The last thing you did? amazon.com (is that one word?)
18. What are you wearing? sweater
19. Your TV? Diego
20. Your pet? none
21. Your computer? dell
22. Your mood? content
23. Missing someone? Hubba
24. Your car? messy
25. Something you're not wearing? make-up
26. Favorite store? Target
27. Your summer? gone
28. Love someone? family
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? Sunday


I tag anyone who would like to participate..

What's cooking?

We just said goodbye to our old kitchen:

And hello to chaos:
The rest of the old cabinets come out this weekend and the new ones should be installed next week.. I can't wait!

Happy Halloween

I don't know when Neil became so opinionated. As of Tuesday, he was going to be Mickey Mouse (because I am lazy and that is the costume we have that fits him). All of the sudden he started saying that he was not going to be Mickey. The boy is 2. The kids are obsessed with Toy Story right now, so luckily Heather saved me by lending me this Woody costume and gave me the tip that there was a Buzz Lightyear costume at the DI. Joshua hasn't taken it off in 2 days and Neil is currently napping in his costume.
Last weekend we were up in Logan with my family and went to the Pumpkin Walk. Here's the boys by the KungFu Panda pumpkins.

The funny thing about this picture is that the girl who put her face in the Yoda cut-out after Josh got her head stuck in the hole. It was not pretty..

And who knew that glow in the dark fangs from the dollar store would provide such entertainment..

Home again and Kirsten's Recipe Tag

Well, I am back from San Francisco. I tagged along with Russ on a business trip and of the 5 pictures I took, none of them are very good, but since my favorite part of reading blogs is the pictures, I have included the gorgeous view from Alcatraz looking back on the city. We've had a busy couple weeks with the trip and getting ready to remodel our kitchen(don't worry, I will document with before and after pictures). Oh yes, and Russ was called as Bishop of our ward, which will surely bring about some changes in our family.

On an unrelated note, Kirsten started a recipe tag-- I love this idea because especially during pregnancy, I have the hardest time coming up with dinner ideas. Everyone who reads this is required to participate :-) and to post a recipe on your own blog. Let me know in comments if you have posted something. I will look forward to all sorts of delicious new simple dinner ideas. Here's one of our favorite standby recipes.

Chicken Pesto Pasta

1 lb penne pasta, cooked

2-3 cooked sliced chicken breasts (I often bake the chicken seasoned with garlic powder, salt & pepper, or even better when we have leftover grilled chicken)

1/2 pint of cream (or milk)

~1/2 cup of prepared pesto to taste

handful of parmesan cheese

sprinkle of garlic salt

Cook the pasta. In a sauce pan, mix the cream, pesto, parmesan cheese and garlic salt. Heat until warm. Mix pasta, chicken and sauce all together and sprinkle some more parmesan cheese on top.

AND, just because that was so easy, here's a bonus recipe. This one I cannot take credit for. It comes from my gormet cook friend Christy, but it has also become a family favorite.

Green Chicken Tacos
3-4 cooked chicken breasts (shredded)
8 oz cream cheese
1-2 cloves garlic
½ red onion chopped
~1/2 bottle green chili sauce (I usually use pace green taco sauce)
dash oregano
1 t. cumin
Tortillas, cilantro, lime for serving.

Sautee onion and garlic with a little oil. Add shredded chicken. Cut cream cheese into dice-size pieces and add to pan to melt. Add cumin and oregano. Add green chili sauce. Heat through and serve. Amounts are all farily adjustable, so just add til it looks good. Its good served with black bean/corn salsa.

Enjoy!

Last little trip of the summer..

Since it appears that summer may now be over (48 degrees this morning!!), here's some pics from our last little trip of the summer. We went down to Capitol Reef last weekend for a couple of days. Its really beautiful there. I think its often looked over in favor of Arches and Zion. Here's some highlights:The boys

Climbing trees

I love this picture of Neil

Neil, enjoying his ride.

Josh, ticked because he doesn't get a ride.

Roasting marshmellows.(I know it looks like there is no fire, but there are a few hot coals left.. I promise)

Picking apples in the orchards in the park.

The end.

Harvest

All these beautiful vegetables came out of my very own garden. Pretty, eh? Would anyone like some zucchini? Please.. I'm begging.. take some zucchini! Or tell me what to do with a kitchen full of zucchini when we've already had zucchini bread, grilled zucchini, zucchini brownies, zucchini bran muffins, chocolate zucchini cake, sautee'd zucchini.... etc. etc. Anyway, onto the rest of the harvest. Besides new potatoes with fresh herbs, fresh salsa, caprese salad, BLTs and tomato cucumber salad, here's one of this summer's favorites:

Tomato Basil Mozzerella Pasta Salad (based on this recipe from the WA Post)
Ingredients:
8 ounces pasta (I like gemelli or bowties)
Salt
8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/4- to 1/2-inch dice
Tomatoes (a couple of big ones, diced or a bunch of little cherry or grape tomatoes) 10 to 12 medium or large basil leaves, coarsely chopped

Dressing
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 T balsamic vinegar, or more to taste
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until it is done, but still a little firm to the bite. Drain and rinse with cold water until the pasta is completely cool. Let it drain for a few minutes and transfer to a large bowl. Add the mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste, adding more vinegar if desired. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Note: Great as a side dish, or I even added leftover grilled chicken one day and made it into a main course. No mayo in this pasta salad, so its a good one for outdoor picnics and such. Enjoy! (And much thanks to our kind computer genius neighbor Bryan who cleaned our computer of all sorts of spyware and viruses! )

Summer

I know its winding down, but we love summer around here. Here's a few reasons why:

Crusing in a convertible at Lagoon

Checking out the "wildlife" at the zoo

Playing in mountain streams

Riding bikes & eating ice cream cones while wearing only a pj top with your brother's Sunday shoes.

Sidenote: My computer is infected with a virus. Blogging is no fun with a computer virus, so expect posts to be even more sporadic than usual until I get it fixed.

So...

Check out the newest Dickson boy:

He even took a moment to give a "thumbs up", so I guess everything must be going ok in there.

Craving of the Week

I know its summer, but this baby wants the Soup Kitchen (ok maybe its me that wants the soup). I got all stressed out when I went on Saturday and it looked like it was closed, but whew, not to worry, I was able to get my fix. I knew that I had been there a few times in the last month, but last night Russ informed me that I had been there 3 times in the past 8 days. Its tasty.. its cheap.. you can take as many breadsticks as you want.. clam chowder.. creamy tomato.. broccoli cheddar.. chicken noodle.. what's not to like? Feel free to share a craving of your own (pregnant or not), to make me feel less crazy.

Bear Lake 08

We just spent the last 2 weekends at Bear Lake (one with Russ's fam & one with mine). Here's a few pics of the good times in the sunshine:

Take a vote

We have our ultrasound scheduled on August 22, so take a moment and vote... Boy? Girl? One of each.. ha!

Babies

Above are pictures of my newest niece and nephews. Aren't they cute? Each of my siblings have had a baby in the past year and we decided we could not be left behind. In case you are unaware, we're having another baby in January. I'm officially in the 2nd trimester now which means happier times for me (and the rest of my family). It also means that the baby is roughly the size of a lime.. cool, eh? My morning sickness has been relatively mild, but I have this painful condition where I'm hungry every 20 minutes but nothing sounds good to eat. Because I feel like I've been obsessed with what my next snack will be, I will provide a list of foods that have kept me and the baby nourished over the last 3 months as well as foods that I hate to even mention because they make me want to barf.

Good Food

1- Cheerios

2- Bananas (must be on the green side) as well as most any other fruit-- especially grapes, nectarines, watermelon, strawberries... whatever I have on hand will do.

3-Grilled cheese dipped in ketchup (Thanks to Christy for this one)

4- Colby jack cheese (served with ritz crackers and some grapes)

5- Multigrain toaster waffles with Adams crunchy peanut butter

6- Smoothies- Aloha Pineapple from Jamba is especially tasty but more regularly I make them at home with vanilla yogurt, milk, oj, frozen blueberries, banana, strawberries, etc.

Bad Food

1-Hummus (this one is the worst.. blech)
2-Salsa (usually on the top of my favorite food list... sigh)

3-Any other food with too many onions
4- Hamburgers (even the good ones off the grill have no appeal)

5- Leftovers, even if it was delicious the 1st time around

On a non-food related note, I usually love to read, but haven't been able to stay awake to read anything in the past 3 months. Instead of my evening reading, I've been setting the DVR so I can watch So You Think You Dance and The Next Food Network Star. Quality. There was also a phase where my blog made me sick, but I guess I'm over that now. Allright.. I'm off to make myself a snack.

The boy can swim & I sewed something

Check out Josh in his stylish hooded beach towel-- I broke out the sewing machine(for the 2nd time in 5 years) and made these towels for the boys (with guidance from my seamstress mother, of course). I was so proud of myself. But enough about my domesticity, the real reason for this post is that Joshua has been a champ in his swimming lessons. He can actually swim underwater all on his own, and jump into the pool and sit underwater & hold his breath and float on his back. I'm so proud.

My baby is 2

Oh, how I love this boy. How did he grow up so quickly?
Highlights of Neil's birthday including chocolate cake and his new radio flyer wagon: (Yes, that's a handprint in the side of his cake)