Good Morning!

So this crazy morning started with a shooting threat on campus...How lovely. I feel like all the crazies come out on Monday mornings. And really, I'm sure it is just people wanting class cancelled, but it's still scary! For those who don't know, we have had a bomb threat and shooting threat in the last 2 weeks here. I'm beginning to wonder about my sanity and safety if I keep working here! As I speak a Marion county sheriff car is patrolling past my window. Anyways...

I really am writing this post to share the most delicious soup recipe :) Since it is the end of February we  are low on meat, and I'm not shopping till March so I decided to try a soup recipe I found  a little while back. It is just alphabet soup, but soup sounded good, and the recipe is meatless so I thought I decided to go for it. DELICIOUS! S and I gobbled up 2 bowls each...I mean gobbled. I could have kept eating and eating and eating all night. I am really glad I made a triple batch because we both wanted some for lunch today. I keep looking at the clock waiting for lunch hour to happen so I can go eat it.

Of course, I tweaked the recipe because I truly cannot follow a recipe exactly. I don't know why, but I never measure things exactly and my stuff always turns out, so I take that as a sign that its ok to keep doing it!

This soup was so so good. And so so easy. I made it while giving Zeke a bath. All I had to do was dump the ingredients in and stir it once in a while.

Ingredients:

1 can green beans

1 can corn

1 28 oz.can tomatoes

1 7 oz pack alphabet pasta

8 beef bouillon cubes

2 chicken bouillon cubes (Because I didn't have enough beef!)

2 tsp dried onions

1 tsp granulated garlic

2-3 carrots, finely diced

pepper to taste

10 cups water

So I tripled the amount of water and bouillon, and doubled the amount of pasta (plus through in some egg noodles I had left that wasn't worth saving because they wouldn't even make 1 bowl of pasta). I didn't double the vegetables, but there were still lots and lots. I don't think the original recipe was right.

I cooked all the ingredients (minus the pasta) for 20 minutes, then added the alphabet pasta and cooked for another 15. That's it. Super easy and super delicious. And we have enough for 2 lunches for each of us :) Got to love leftovers. Here are some pictures because I love pictures!

I used baby carrots because I had them...The recipe calls for large carrots. Obviously a carrot is a carrot and use whatever you have. Please excuse the other mess of veggies in the back...Those were for a pasta I was making which didn't pass S's palette taste and therefore will not make it on the blog.

I forgot to take pictures after this one! So I added a bunch of things in between :)

Yum!

Double yum...

 As you can see from the pictures, my soup got all frothy...not sure why but it went away as the soup cooled.

So that was dinner :) Tonight we are having that crock pot chicken because we are having people over and I wanted it to be done when I got home!

So this weekend was the best weekend I have had in a while. It was relaxing and we didn't have a million and one things going on. We slept in till 8 on Saturday and Sunday! (Thank you Zeke!)
We went to the beach on Saturday with my MIL :) It was super windy, and the waves were 25 feet! It was awesome! We couldn't walk on the beach though because it was really dangerous...(you can see the one idiot on the beach behind us...everyone else was up high out of the way of the huge waves.

I can't believe this family taking their child out there...It was really dangerous and the waves were coming all the way up the beach....

We mostly did shopping, which of course is one of my favourite things to do :) We got really cute clothes for Zeke! $30 bucks for 3 sets of jammies and 4 shirts. I was pretty happy. They were all in clearance for $4-$6 a piece! My MIL got the cutest little shirt for Zeke's 1 year pics, and the best sweater ever pictured on Zeke below :)

It says little monkey!

Yay jammies!

S really really likes the stunt master one. He actually picked everything out, except the dinosaur jammies cause I really wanted those.

1 year pictures :)

Zeke is in 18-24 month clothes now, and we are sadly lacking in the 24 month area. We have enough pants but needed at least a couple more things...some of these are 2T as well. I guess we will see what he needs when we get there, but we knew jammies for sure since he still wets through his clothes about once a week. Although he has gotten so much better now that he is off his bottle. Its such a blessing to not wake up in the night and have to change his sheets and clothes and blankets.

In other news, Zeke has figured out how to open doors and how to lock our front door. Thankfully he can't open any of our doors yet, just the kind that have a long handle, and not a round knob. But he can lock us out of the house when we take out the garbage. Oops! Guess we won't be doing that without keys. And this will be the end of my post today because my fingers are icy cold from typing!

Love you all!

-T

It's Good to be Us

Happy Friday!
I don't know about you guys but I am super super excited that it is Friday! And I get off early tonight :)  We are going to the beach tomorrow with S's mom here-on referred to as my MIL (mother-in-law) because I am too lazy to type...sorry Lisa :) (love you!)

These last couple of days have flown by pretty uneventful. Wednesday evening Zeke fell down and busted the corner of his eye and his eyebrow. There was blood and he was sad :( It was kind of funny watching S try to hold him down while he was screaming and squirming. S was trying to put pressure on it but really, who is able to put pressure on the eye of a toddler? It's impossible if they are awake. I cant even change his diaper without him squirming away. Here is a picture I took after he fell asleep last night. He was so so tired he fell asleep in his high chair while he was eating.

You can't really tell but the cut is pretty small. And just a little puffy. I am really thankful he didn't hit his eye :( Silly boy. He is taking a lot more spills now because he is getting more confident with walking.

Speaking of walking, S and I took him to the park after work last night because it was still light out and beautiful. We held his hands and he walked in the little middle. He walked almost the whole way(2 blocks), but I got tired of having to stop for him to look at the grass or at a branch on a tree...he has a very short attention span! He loves the swing though so much! It is really fun and you just can't help but smile as you watch him swinging with a huge open mouth grin!

So I don't know if anyone else has a problem with coming up with lunch food ideas but I really suck. S and I are not morning people, and this week he works at 7 am, which means we are up and out of the house almost an hour earlier than normal. The last thing I want to do any morning is get up even earlier to make lunches for us. So we do them the night before. If we don't, I spend a fortune for not that great of food, and S starves because there are no food places near him since he doesn't have a car to drive anywhere! I have made it my new mission to do more hand made foods and less sandwiches and prebagged chips. I can't stand spending a fortune on prebagged things that cost so much more than from scratch recipes. And I like to bake/cook so I am dumb by not doing it by hand. Plus, Dave Ramsey would probably have a fit if he knew how much our food budget has increased since I started working full time...Anyways, I have a couple recipes to try out, and I will let you know how they go. One snack recipe went through testing in our kitchen last night:

You will notice one is missing because S and I couldn't resist tasting one :) They turned out delicious. I did a small batch (only 6 pretzels) because it was a new recipe and I didn't want to make a million pretzels that we didn't want. I guess I could have fed them to Zeke because he is like a trash compactor. He will eat anything you feed him. You just pretend to take a bite then he is all for it. But we didn't have to do that because they were seriously delicious. I am definitely making more this weekend. I will be making a salted batch and a sugar/cinnamon batch...hopefully they will taste like auntie anne's pretzels! Here is the recipe for anyone interested:

Dough 2 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 2 1/4 tsps yeast (pretty much 1 packet-that's what I used. I just dumped the little bit extra in) 1 cup warm water Topping 1 cup boiling water 2 tablespoons baking soda coarse, kosher or pretzel salt, optional 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted Dough 10 1/2 ounces King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1/4 ounce instant yeast 7 to 8 ounces warm water* *Use the greater amount in the winter, the lesser amount in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall. Your goal is a soft dough. Topping 8 ounces boiling water 1 ounce baking soda coarse, kosher or pretzel salt, optional 1 1/2 ounces unsalted butter, melted Dough 298g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 7g instant yeast 198g to 227g warm water* *Use the greater amount in the winter, the lesser amount in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall. Your goal is a soft dough. Topping 227g boiling water 28g baking soda coarse, kosher or pretzel salt, optional 43g unsalted butter, melted   1. Place all of the dough ingredients into a bowl, and beat until well-combined. 2. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, for about 5 minutes, until it's soft, smooth, and quite  slack. Flour the dough and place it in a bag, and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. 3. Combine the boiling water and baking soda in a dish that is big enough for you to fit your pretzel into. Then aside to cool. 4. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees F. Butter a baking tray really well, or line with parchment paper (we used butter and I think it added to the pretzel). 5. Flour your working surface, and transfer the dough. Split into pieces. 6. Allow the pieces to rest uncovered for about 5 minutes (I was too impatient so I only waited 2 and they turned out fine) 7. Roll each piece of dough into a long thin rope..I had trouble with this. My dough was a little too thick to want to roll very skinny. I ended up squeezing it through my hand to make a rope shape...I'm not sure how to fix this problem but if I figure it out this weekend I will update this. 8. Once you have your rope, you twist it in to a pretzel shape, then soak them in the baking soda bath for two minutes each. 9. Once soaked, transfer them to the tray to cook! I melted butter and brushed it on the tops before I put them in the oven and after I pulled them out...I didn't read the recipe right. it said afterwards but I liked the golden deliciousness of putting the butter on before, so I will be keeping that step. Also you are supposed to let them sit on the tray for another 10 minutes before popping them in the oven...I didn't do this either...mostly because it was already 10:50 and I desperately wanted to go to bed....I will try this step because I think the pretzels were a bit smaller than they could have been if I had let them "rest" a little longer. 10. Sprinkle with salt...whatever kind floats your boat. Salt is salt to me. Some may look prettier than others but they all taste like salt. But we used Sea salt from our grinder because S likes big chunks of salt on his pretzels. 11. Bake pretzels for 8 to 9 minutes. 12. Eat. Das. Pretzels. Super easy..time consuming because you have to wait for the dough to rise and all that, but not really time consuming to actually make them. Plus they are super cheap to make, and taste delicious. And you can't help but feel a little proud when you pull these beauties out of the oven! So in other news, as some of you know S and I are following Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover Plan. It is coming up to our budget meeting time for March and I am super excited!!!! (And meal planning is happening too which I will probably post on here because some people have asked me how we meal plan/grocery shop.) I know, I know...I am the nerd and he is the free spirit when it comes to money...in every other way he is the nerd... We are almost ready to finish Baby Step 1 which is so exciting for me. I love knowing that we will have security in case we have an emergency. God is good, and I am thankful to be able to follow this plan. I listen to Dave Ramsey's pod casts every day and couples call in with $100,000+ in debt and I am just overwhelmed with the thoughts that could have been us if we had never been taught how to handle money. Thank goodness we only have some leftover hospital bills (stupid gall bladder surgery). But God is good. I just have to say it over and over again. He provides for us in our times of need and always. I will probably post more about Dave Ramsey as we come on to Baby Step 2 and then 3. For now, I am going to end this post with a scripture that helps me when planning:  5 Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind. Proverbs 21:5 MSG

Growing up too fast

Good morning!
First I just want to say how much I adore pinterest. I would even dare to say that I kind of have a little obsession with it. I have found so many cool things and cool blogs from so many creative people out there! It gives me inspiration for so many crafts and recipes...especially recipes!

So now that S and I are both working full time we are finding great joy in our crock pot. I use it every week...usually 2 or 3 days out of the 5 work days. I love coming home and knowing that the majority (or all) of dinner is ready, and it frees up my time to play with Zeke! Using pinterest, I have recently (a month or so ago) discovered freezer cooking with the crock pot. Basically the concept, for those who don't know, is making a couple meals ahead of time for the crock pot and freezing them in freezer bags so that all you have to do is dump all the ingredients in the crock pot in the morning then go to work. Genius!

So S and I decided to try two of the most popular recipe pins in this category on Pinterest. The first being A1 steak, and the second was Healthy mama BBQ Chicken. I have to say that I was sadly disappointed. It wasn't that they turned out inedible..its just that they really weren't that great. So I'm thinking I am going to have to come up with some of my own freezer crock pot meal creations. It just gives me an excuse to try new things :) I love cooking so much that we rarely have had the same meals since we got married. And that isn't an exaggeration. We just love new recipes...well I love to find and make them and S loves to eat them!

I will periodically be posting our recipes and culinary adventures on here (mostly because I lose them all)...S laughs at me because I usually write the recipes down on the backs of envelopes then accidentally throw them away before entering them into my recipe book. We cook with a lot of trial and error. I guess that's the way to really learn things right? My favourite crock pot recipe that I have found on Pinterest is absolutely delicious :) It definitely makes our list of repeat meals! And I am going to share it on here cause it is super super easy:

Ingredients:
4-6 Frozen Chicken Breasts (that's right...frozen...how easy!)
1 Can of corn, drained
1 Can of black beans, drained and rinsed (we used chili beans the first time because that's all I had in my pantry)
8 oz Block of cream cheese
1 cup of salsa
Tortillas
*Rice (optional)

Directions:
1. Place frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of the crock pot.
2. Put the cream cheese on top of the chicken.
3. Dump in the rinsed and drained black beans.
4. Dump in the corn.
5. Dump in the salsa.
6. Turn the crock pot on low (we did 10 hours on low because that is our only option with both of us at work). You could also do the 6-8 hours setting if you have it and you will be home.

A couple things we noticed/did differently than the original.
-It said to stir every two hours but we were at work, so that wasn't an option and it still turned out delicious.
-The cream cheese didn't lose its form but when we got home, S stirred it all together and the cream cheese mixed it very easily.
-Also, we filled tortillas with this mix and rice and ate it, but the original calls for you to serve it over rice. Whatever floats your boat :)

OK now that I am done with that rant, I wanted to share Zeke's last growth charts and such with you all! He is large as you all know, nothing new to report there.

Here are his growth charts from the doctors office for his one year check-up:

And we also took him in to his first dentist appointment :) We are taking him to a Pediatric dentist..mostly just because I worked there and it is the best place in the world! I would highly recommend it to anyone with children! He has 8 teeth: both maxillary and mandibular central and lateral incisors, and his maxillary canines are coming in (upper for you non-dental people reading this). Maxillary is upper and mandibular is lower. He had a rough night because of his teething the night before last so last night we gave him tylenol and orajel and he slept great. His nose is all runny too :( This has been his first real teething symptoms that he has complained about and its sad to not be able to do much for him.

In other development, he is walking all over the place and learning how to be silly and play. I seriously love this age so so much! He wears his little shoes and walks around the grocery store holding our hands...he waves goodbye at everyone...he gives kisses and hugs...he puts toys away...I freaking love it! There are down sides to this too...like the fact that he deliberately will disobey to see how you react...but even those things are still funny and cute (right now). We took him out to eat with us and some friends at a restaurant and that probably won't happen again for a little while because he was way too active to want to sit, and way too talkative to be quiet...we were that family with the screaming child and I was a little embarrassed. So only Red Robin for us if we take him!

As for me and S...nothing really new to report. Both working, and I am planning on taking a class Spring term if my financial aid comes in :) I will write more when I think of something new!
-T

Working for the Weekend

Good morning all!

Still not too sure how I am going to format this blog yet. I guess I will get into the rythym as I write. I'm pretty sure most of my posts will be about Ezekiel since that is the main reason I have started this blog! Thought I would add some photos from the weekend.

I would have to say that next to Wednesdays, Fridays are my favourite day of the week. I love coming home from work and knowing we have the whole weekend together as a family. Sleeping in on Saturdays (ha...sleeping in when you have a child and you commute to work means 7 am for us), and actually eating breakfast that isn't a rice cake in the car as I'm driving. Staying up late together (really means cleaning the house while Sam plays on the computer and Zeke sleeps blissfully)...but at least we are together in the same house at the same time right? So much for my romantic notions of what the weekend is. I guess we really use it as a catch-all for everything we didn't do in the week!

So on that note..what did we do this weekend? Well, Sam had fun playing with the Nelson kids and Zeke while I went to a committee meeting at the church on Saturday morning. Still don't know how he got out of that one, but he convinced me to fill him in on the details later. Then he went to a men's event at the church eating nachos, and watching 'Courageous', while I made paper bow ties in preparation for a birthday party later that evening...then it was off to the party, then Sam was off to his friends till the wee hours of the morning. Not exactly the relaxing Saturday I had thought it would be. Zeke sure had fun playing with everyone and eating their food though. He has started this new thing where if he wants your attention he will either cock his head to the side and get real close to your face, or he will just adjust his little body so he can get his face right in front of your face. This usually means he wants your food, but he will do it in other situations just for attention. Once in a while he will even grab your face and turn it to look at him...but I have only seen him do that to me!

Sunday was a little more relaxing thankfully. We got a babysitter after church (which as a sidenote is really hard to do for me). Not the babysitter part because she is awesome, but I leave him all day during the week so getting a sitter on the weekend makes me feel guilty-something God is definitely working on in my life. We (Sam and myself) took a much needed date afternoon. Yummy Olive Garden for lunch, then getting our taxes done. I know you are thinking taxes are so romantic, but we didn't want Zeke there with us so we bundled our trip to Salem. Oh, and we bought Sam some much much much needed new jeans. Praise the Lord we found two pairs to satisfy his pickiness. Pants don't really come in his size and style combined (if anyone knows of a place that sells 33x34 Carpenter style jeans please let me know and I will update you to best friend status!). Then home to an evening playing with Zeke. Pictures below :)

Zeke showing you his bedroom.



His dirty diaper in the pail.



These are his clothes. He needs to pick out his jammies.



Zeke's curly hair. As soon as it is wet is tightens up in these little curls like mama.



Pinned him down!

Family picture :) New facebook profile picture for me!

Being silly with daddy :)



Bedtime routine: bath, bottle, and story.

We are almost done with the bottle for him. He almost never uses it anymore. 4 oz at bedtime and thats it. He wants to be a big boy and drink out of cups and sippy cups now...where has the time gone? I can't believe how big he is already.

Well, that was our weekend. Hope you all feel filled in and warm and fuzzy. Just kidding. I probably bored any readers to death, but its nice for me to keep it journaled. For when I am old and gray and want to look back on things :) Love you all.
-T

First Post!

Hello to our family and friends! I decided to start this blog to keep everyone updated on our lives here in Oregon. I can't promise to write everyday, but you can expect at least once a week. I decided that we need a place other than facebook to share things so this is it. I also wanted a place to post recipes and life adventures, and again, you can't really do that on facebook. So here we are. I hope you enjoy getting a little glimpse into our lives :) We love you all!
-S&T