Better Late Than Never

I guess I'll post some pictures from a few months ago now that it's July! More to come...thinking of my sister and brother-in-law tonight as they're getting ready to bring little Seth home from South Korea!

Buddy's Birthday!

I can't find the hospital pictures right now though I'm sure we've got multiple pictures somewhere, but these pictures show a little bit of the change that a year brings in the life of a baby. Happy (belated) birthday little buddy! We love you! We celebrated with a trip to the zoo and a Hungry Caterpillar cake and dinner/gifts with grandparents. It was much more of a success than the Elmo cake episode AND much less time consuming.

Spanish Rice

Mom wanted my recipe for easy spanish rice. My friend Karen used to make this for us in China when she would make us American food on Wednesday nights. Even though we ate rice all the time somehow this was different! You will need some sort of skillet/pan with a lid. :)

Fry until begins to brown:
1 cup uncooked rice
3 tbs oil
Add and fry until onion is transparent:
1 small onion, chopped (I use less)
1 clove garlic, chopped
***I add chopped carrots, 1/4 tsp. cumin and 1/2 tsp chili powder
You could add red/green pepper too.
Add and allow to cook for a few minutes:
2 diced tomatoes or 3 Tbsp. tomato sauce - fresh tomatoes are better
Add:
3 cups water
1 tsp. salt
Cover and cook without stirring over low heat 30 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. I usually have to season it a bit more with salt, cumin and chili powder to taste. I add chopped cilantro and sometimes some rinsed black beans. I serve it with cheese and sour cream on the side.

This is great with crockpot tacos and my cornbread recipe. :)

Preparation

So I'm a little late with these pictures, but here's a few ways we prepared for Christmas as a family. We made cookies and chocolate treats and acted out the Christmas story (Jensen pretended to be Mary with the scarf across her face instead of her head and took tons of extra stuff to the "stable". I assured her that Mary probably didn't have a purse, a bunch of princess costumes, etc., but Jensen wanted to be prepared I guess!). Chris made a ham and cheese scone that was shared with the neighbors and Jensen got a new pair of Christmas jammies right before we started our advent calendar. Hayden, well...he just kind of hung out. He mastered crawling and determined to go places and get into things that he had not explored before!

Apple Fun?

Orchards are fun. Nobody cries at an apple orchard. There's tons of room to run, it's fun to pick apples, there are fall beauties everywhere you turn, there are pumpkins and lots of treats to look at and sample. Chris and I packed up the kids to head out to have some family fun to a nearby orchard. I packed a picnic lunch and had read to Jensen books about apples - how they grow, what an orchard is, etc. We got to orchard #1 (that's right, we went to two) where the woman behind the counter said that they were not a U-Pick orchard nor could you walk around the grounds unless it was on a Saturday for one of their fall festivals in which case you had to pay several dollars a person to enter. Hmmm...I should have called ahead. The only thing you could do on the day we arrived was shop in their country store. Not what we had planned. So I got back in the car and relayed the info to Chris. Jensen said that she wanted to go somewhere where people were more friendly. So thanks to Chris' smartphone we found a U-Pick orchard to drive to. The kids didn't nap and everyone was getting hungry so by the time we got to orchard #2 we knew we needed to hurry before the window of pleasantness closed. We ended up getting a nice big bag of apples and got a few pictures between the tears. Yes, people do cry at an orchard. Even though the afternoon was not our family's finest moment, Jensen still talks about the fun we had and had a great time celebrating Apple Week at home. We made apple butter in the crockpot, apple chips (which were kind of a flop), made a painting of an orchard complete with bumblebees, and made an apple family tree with each member of the family contributing a hand print. We also had a apple seed toss and did stamping with the the star part of the apple. Even though there were tears at the orchard I consider Apple Week a success.

I didn't caption the pictures...Jensen wanted to show off her green froggy boots. She also wanted to show her orchard painting...she painted a few of the trees with the leaves blowing which you can see in her brushstrokes. Poor Hayden was so tired he wouldn't smile in front of the pumpkins.

Swimmy

Hayden started rocking back and forth on all fours last night, but this is the position he normally is in...on his belly with all four limbs in the air moving...Jensen thinks he's trying to swim. Will he be crawling soon?

Snuggle Bug

I left napping children with Chris while I ran to the grocery on Sunday afternoon. Hayden apparently had trouble staying asleep and could not calm himself down. Chris snuggled up with him on the couch and he slept there for an hour and a half! This is a rare moment for our kiddos who seem to only sleep well in their beds! It may make me a bad mom, but I kid of like it when my kids are sick so that they'll want to snuggle up a bit more than normal. :) While he didn't get much work done while I was away, I think Chris kind of liked it too.