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