In the kitchen

Here are some things we've eaten lately:

Quinoa, black bean, & corn tacos.  Fantastic!  I used salsa instead of canned tomatoes, and I didn't add the coriander because I didn't have any.  But other than that, I followed the recipe perfectly.  I highly recommend it - it's a great vegetarian meal and makes great leftovers.  I had mine over salad greens to make it like a taco salad and it was really good.

Pesto Pasta with Chicken Sausage and Roasted Brussels Sprouts. I also highly recommend this one... even the kids loved it.  I sauteed the Brussels sprouts instead of roasting them, but other than that I followed the recipe.  I used a "spicy chicken sausage with jalapenos" from Trader Joe's.

I used this method to make black beans and it turned out well.

Pesto Ranch Crockpot Chicken.  This was good too, and the kids liked it.  I always love a good crockpot recipe!  I used boneless skinless chicken breasts instead, since that's what I had on hand.  Served it over angel hair pasta.

Coconut Red Lentils.  Another great vegetarian meal, served with jasmine rice.

Quinoa Stuffed Sweet Potatoes.  I loved this.  The only things I changed in this recipe were that I used spinach instead of kale (didn't have kale on hand), and I used real butter instead of butter substitute.  Oh, and I left out the almonds because I didn't have any. 

29.

I turned 29 last week!  Thanks to our friends Anthony & Kristi, I celebrated with a divine chocolate-chocolate cake, with chocolate chips on top.  It was awesome... they make it for each birthday and it's always a highlight for sure.

(P.S. - do you think making a blowing-out-the-candles wish to "lose the baby weight" is counterproductive seeing as how you are about to eat a piece of cake?? haha I thought so too.)

We certainly made a dent... and yes, that is chocolate ice cream with oreos in it (thanks again, A&K!).

All in all, it was a good birthday.  My birthday was on Friday, the 19th. The night before, a bunch of my girlfriends took me out for sushi and frozen yogurt, which was fun.  On Friday I spent the afternoon with some friends - we took the kids to a splash pad and just hung out.  Grabbed a pizza for the kids on the way home, with plans to get some nicer takeout for me and Garrett but I was just so tired that we ended up just eating the leftover pizza and watching Netflix. Garrett gave me a new Magic Bullet - our previous one broke just a few weeks ago so I was needing a replacement.  Then on Sunday we had dinner and cake with Anthony and Kristi.

A few weeks ago, upon finding out that I was about to turn 29 someone told me, "Oh, your last birthday!" At first I was a little creeped out (am I going to die or something?) but then they explained that everyone always claims they are turning 29 for each next birthday.  Haha.. I don't think I will mind turning 30 but I guess we'll cross that bridge when it comes.  I'm not dreading it.... yet!

28 was a good year.  Olivia was born after a great pregnancy, we spent time with both sides of the family, and I was able to accomplish a good portion of my goals from my list.  One more year to go until all 101 need to be finished!  Better get to work!  It was also a hard year.  Two of Garrett's grandparents passed away, his parents moved far away from us, and Garrett worked a LOT.  I am thankful for everything I learned this year.

Here's to living up my last year of being in my 20's!

Mei-Mei (x3)

When Abby was a year old, some of our good friends gave her a darling little Care Bear for her birthday (or maybe it was Christmas?  I can't remember!).  Anyway, we named it "Mei Mei", which means "little sister" in Chinese (from "Ni Hao Kai-Lan").  When Ellie was born, I found the same style of Care Bear on eBay and bought one for her, too.  So, per tradition, Olivia recently got her own little Mei Mei, also thanks to eBay.

The girls love them a lot.  Thanks, Lindsay and Justin, for the sweet gift all those years ago!  You can read about when Ellie got her Mei Mei here.

The last night

I did the math: Garrett has been working nights for 14 weeks total over the last 6 months.

Sure, only six weeks have been true "night shifts" - 8pm-9am, six nights per week.  But the rest have still been pretty miserable: either 4pm-2am or noon-midnight (but thankfully only 5 nights per week).  Still not much better, in my opinion.  The hardest was probably the noon-midnight weeks because the kids never got to see him.  Also, it really seems like Garrett's immune system decides not to work when he's on nights, because he always gets sick, which makes it even harder!  This last week he has been battling the stomach flu while working 13 hour shifts (you really can't take sick days when you are working nights because no one can cover for you).

Also, it seems like when he is on days, he gets scheduled to work an overnight shift during the weekend!  This means he has to stay up late on Friday night so that he can sleep most of Saturday, so that he can work all night Saturday night, then he comes home Sunday around 9 or 10am, sleeps for a little bit, but not too much, because he wants to be able to sleep Sunday night so he can go back to work Monday morning. 

I am so ready to put the last few months behind us.  It's been really hard on everyone.  "They" say that second year is the hardest for radiology residency, and we are definitely experiencing that! But April is looking promising... he just switched weekends with someone and so now he has EVERY weekend free in April (well, starting when he gets home tomorrow morning sometime).  That's exciting... because our yard is looking pretty sad right now.

I'm ready to start eating dinner together as a family again.  I'm ready to hang out with him in the evenings instead of being alone every night!  I'm ready to go out with my girlfriends while Garrett is home with the kids.  I'm ready to go to bed at the same time.  I'll get to start making my bed every day again (I haven't been able to since he's been sleeping during the day!). I will be able to text him during the day without worrying that I will wake him up.  Now the girls will be able to play as loudly as they want (well, louder than they have been!).  And now, hopefully Garrett's immune system will get back on track and he'll be back to normal too.

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm complaining too much... just trying to document what our lives have looked like the last 6 months.  I'm so thankful that Olivia has been so good because I don't think I would have survived being all alone with a difficult baby.  I'm also thankful that I have such a hardworking husband.  He is really dedicated and, from what I hear, he is also very good at what he does.

It has been a long six months and I'm ready to move on.... for the next 11 weeks, anyway.  He starts nights again in July.  

Strawberry picking

Strawberry season was supposed to start three weeks ago, but we've had some really chilly nights and days lately which really slowed the berry production.  Thankfully, the picking farm opened up last week and we went early in the morning on opening day!

The berries were big and ripe and we had no problems filling our buckets quickly. Afterwards, Olivia and I hung out at the picnic tables while the girls played at the farm's playground for a while.  It was a really fun morning and worth the drive out.  We love this farm and hope to go back once more before strawberry season is over sometime in May.

I love strawberries in anything - smoothies, pancakes, on waffles, in crepes, all alone, etc.  I also found some fun new recipes on Pinterest that I'm excited to try out.  Thankfully the girls love them as much as I do, so I don't think we'll have any troubles getting through them.

What we're up to

Ellie tied wet wipes to her feet and "ice skated" around on the floors:

The girls started soccer!  The first day (a couple weeks ago) was a little chilly so Ellie wore sweatpants, but still insisted on hiking them up so that her new shin guards would show.  To be honest, I think we started Ellie a bit prematurely... she is constantly running off the field to play in the sand pit instead.  Or, she just sits down in the middle of the field and starts playing with the sandy dirt and collecting "pixie dust".  Last week, at the end of practice when all the kids are supposed to put their hands in the middle of the circle and say "1-2-3- soccer!!", instead of just putting her hand up at the end like she was supposed to, she threw a bunch of sand into the air and said, "Pixie dust!"  It's adorable, sure... but I'd rather she do that on her own time rather than the time I paid for her to learn soccer.  Oh well.  Abby, on the other hand, is a superstar and she loves it.

I hosted Book Club a few weeks ago.  We read "The Happiness Project".  It was a pretty good read, and led to an interesting discussion.

Here's the latest book I'm reading... I'm loving it so far:

Abby borrowed a kids' workout DVD from the public library:

I took the girls to a bounce house - our groupons were about to expire!  It was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something different for a change.  There were 9 different big bounce things to play on so they were occupied for a long time.

Abby reading to the girls:

All ready for church:

Piggy tails:

Ellie, showing off the little garden they planted:

I went for a walk with just Abby one evening last week.  It was so much fun to talk to just her without any distractions.  She is so funny.

"Hey Mom, my legs look like a 'P'!"

Abby and her friend Jack after getting off the bus:

The girls went running with me last week.  I was doing some circuit training and had to run 400m at a time (5 different times I think), so they came with me since it wasn't far.  Abby's a great little runner - faster than I am, sometimes.

I took a little break from my Fireworks quilt and made a cute strip quilt with the same fabrics from that same fat quarter bundle.  A strip quilt is supposed to be a fast method to make a cute quilt top.  I don't know what happened, but the first quilt top I made was terrible.  Okay, I do know what happened.. I sewed all the strips starting on the same end, and by the time I got to the last strip, it was much further down than the first strip.  Basically, the quilt top wouldn't "square up" and was really wonky.  So, I unpicked nearly the entire thing... so painful.... and reassembled it, alternating ends that I started on.  I still didn't end up very well (not sure why this time), but it was better than the first time so I went with it.  I agonized nearly the entire time that I quilted it, thinking that it would be horribly "off" and never look quite right.  Thankfully, the final product seemed much better than the quilt top itself.  It's not perfect, but it's still really cute and it'll work for what I made it for, which is snuggling!

The final product.. It's a good size, perfect for keeping warm:

Sisters:

We got to see Garrett!  The girls helped him wash his car one evening.  I'm sure they were a really big help:

So that's what we've been up to lately... among a few other things that will be getting their own posts.  It's been a busy Spring so far!

Happy Easter!

We had a nice Easter this year.  I showed the girls some videos on the Mormon Channel on YouTube during the week, and we also spent some time doing some of the secular Easter celebrations as well.

My friend Leza and I put together an Easter Egg hunt for our ward playgroup (okay, Leza suggested it and I agreed we should do it, and then she did all the coordinating, ha).  Every kid brought a dozen eggs and went home with a dozen.  We had a great turnout and got to spend time with lots of good friends - the Hostetlers, Sanovich's, Browns, Sudweeks, Tams, & a bunch of others.  We love our ward!  The park was fun, too.  I had never been to this one but will definitely go back, even though it's a bit of a drive compared to the ones we always go to.

On Saturday Leza and I took the kids to the local Methodist church, which hosts a great Easter event every year.  Both our husbands were working so we went together - it's always nice to have another adult around to help out!

They had lots of fun things to do - carnival games, face painting, free lunch, "hayride" (with no hay), bounce houses, a cake walk, and a big egg hunt as well.  We opted not to do the egg hunt since our kids had just done one the day before.  That turned out GREAT because we had pretty much everything to ourselves for about 20 minutes while everyone was out in the fields hunting eggs.

My swag:

On Saturday afternoon, the girls and I colored some eggs.  Those little dye kits have not changed one bit since I was a kid.

Church was pretty nice, but a bit difficult since I was alone with the kids.  Abby and Ellie were a bit more wiggly than usual and Olivia just wanted to eat.  Thankfully that kept her quiet most of the meeting, but it made it hard for me to keep the girls still since I didn't exactly have my hands free.  But what I got out of Sacrament meeting was nice, and Ellie gave a cute little talk in Primary.  Abby helped her so I got to stand in the back of the room and watch, which was fun.  Abby is a great helper. (Side note: I realized today that Garrett has not spent Easter Sunday with us in probably 4 years.  Kind of sad! His work schedule just never seems to work out.)

After Church I made a pasta salad, some sandwiches, some hummus, and sliced up strawberries.  We met up with friends at a little park and had a nice Easter picnic together.  It was very low-key and the weather was gorgeous - about 75 degrees.

I had originally wanted to bake a traditional Easter dinner - spiral ham, potatoes, rolls, a salad... until I went to the grocery store to pick up the ham and nearly fainted when I saw how expensive the glazed hams were! I could have bought a cheaper kind, I guess, but those aren't nearly as good and I really only love the spiral ones with all the sugary glaze.  So instead, I bought some deli ham and made sandwiches, which were also delicious.  I was surprised, though, when I told Ellie that I was making ham sandwiches and she said, "Where's the ham?" I showed her the deli meat and she said, "No, it's supposed to go around and around!" and she waved her finger around like a spiral (for the spiral ham).  So funny...  the last time we had spiral ham was last Easter in Savannah.  Great memory - she must have loved it!

And yes, the Easter bunny did come.  He (she?) brought a few little plastic eggs of candy, a box of Trix, and new beach towels for the girls to take to the pool this summer.  He also ate the carrots that the girls left on the front porch.  The girls were thrilled and loved their sugary breakfast, especially.

Happy Easter!  I love this time of year and the chance for the world to celebrate such a wonderful event.