I'm ready for breakfast

This is Tyler waiting for his breakfast. He pulls the big chair out by himself and then climbs into his booster seat and sits...not very...patiently for me to fix his breakfast. He had chocolate Chex cereal which he called "chocolate milk." Plus he had a banana and a slice of toast. Both kids were great eaters today. Since we didn't really do anything else today I'll just focus on the food.

For lunch the kids had 1/2 a peanut butter and honey sandwich, strawberry yogurt, grapes, strawberries and another 1/2 banana each. (I think this was all...both seemed to by hungry to no end today.)

For dinner we had Dana and kids over again. My recipe was for "Two Pea Pasta with Ricotta and Tarragon" from my Everyday Food magazine. Dana brought over some cubed chicken, salad and garlic bread to go with it. It was a good dinner. The chicken really carried it through though. Not sure how good the recipe would have been without the added meat. Dana also brought over the fixings for a Lemon Cake. (which called for Lemon Jello, which I thought was weird, which Dana thought was weird that I didn't have any lemon jello just sitting in my pantry????) Regardless, it was deliciously dense and very good. At first Tyler didn't want any but once he took that first bite he was hooked and ate even more than I did.

And that pretty much sums up our day. I'm off to try and make a dent in the Tivo'd shows I need to watch before they get deleted. G'night to all.

is everyone smiling?!

This morning started off as a typical Tuesday. Lauren had school so we had to be on the ball this morning. After we dropped Lauren off Tyler and I came home and went into the basement. He watched a Thomas the Train movie while I worked out on the treadmill. Then we came upstairs and he watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while I took a shower. I'm sure it sounds like it was all about me but I assure you, Tyler was quite happy watching all that TV. After my shower I prepared the necessary "juice-water" it takes for Tyler to be happy in a shopping cart (buggy for all you southerners) and we headed to Wal-mart to find a strawberry planter and a beverage holder both for bunko next month. I found neither and am pretty bummed. I'll keep looking though. I'm already stressing about impressing the bunko ladies when I host.

After our naps we had Dana and the kids over for dinner. Once again our men are both out of town. We had a chicken sausage saute with asparagus and thyme over goat cheese grits and some salad and fruit on the side. It was very yummy. Here is a picture of the chicken sausage saute and grits. (we added some green bell pepper which added some texture and taste.)

After dinner the kids played in the sandbox and then played some Clickstart computer games while us mom's cleaned up and chatted about anything and everything. Dana is a great listener and I'm happy to have a friend to hang out with when Matt is out of town.

While they were watching Shep play the computer game I asked them all to smile at the camera. I'm sad to say that Shep is the only one to receive the "big blue ribbon" on that one. No one else seems to get the smiley idea... Oh well, it reflects their personalities at least a little bit.

Camo Cuties

This morning we had to drop Matt off on the Interstate so he could get a ride from his co-worker to their business development meetings in Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida this week. Since I got to pick the exit where they would meet I decided to pick an exit with an outlet mall. I didn't need much for me but Lauren got a white sweater and I got Matt a couple of birthday presents. We stopped at Chik-fil-A for lunch and then headed home in time for a good nap.

It was a pretty routine day after that. At dinner Lauren accidentally? spilled her milk. I asked her what happened as I was cleaning it up with paper towels and she said, "my cup didn't want to stay on the table. I didn't do it though, my cup did." She didn't seem any concerned so I stayed calm and there was no crying over this spilled milk.

After dinner the kids brought as many toys as they could haul from their playroom into the kitchen. I'm beginning to think the playroom is just a giant toy box. When they want to play with something they bring it either into the kitchen or the living room. Why won't they play in the playroom?!

The evening was finished off with a big hug, requested by me, so I could show their camo pants they both wore today.

singing in the rain

Well our tickets to the game last night weren't quite as "prime" as I thought they'd be but who am I to complain. I got to see the Celtics play (as well as the Hawks) and got a free drink and pretzel thrown in. All thanks to Mr. Nelson. Here's our view:

and here's what Bibby and Allen, Pierce & Garnett saw when they looked up at us!
Today Mr. Jasen left for his flight back to St. Louis. Before he left the kids went out to play in the sandbox. They were out there for awhile and we were inside watching them through the kitchen windows. They were out there for quite awhile before I noticed that it was raining! bad mom I know but the kids weren't complaining...they were loving it. Matt didn't want them to have all the fun so we went and grabbed the hose pipe (southern for hose) and sprayed them down.


It was a fun start to their day!


After Jasen left we did our weekly grocery shopping. Lauren wrote her own grocery list as usual. (she writes random letters and calls them words...cereal was one of the "items" on her list.) For dinner we had yummy spicy sloppy joes and partially home-made coleslaw and steak fries. Yummy...especially the steak fries according to the kids.

Later Matt started preparing for his trip next week to South Georgia and Florida. Lauren's still in school so we won't be going with him. While he was getting ready for the trip I watched the finale of Big Brother. What will I do now that it's over?!

Enjoy your evening y'all.

"He scratcheded Me.....with his teeth"

This happened while I was getting Tyler dressed Friday morning. Lauren and I went into his room and she immediately went berserk and jumped all over his bed yelling and shrieking at the poor drowsy boy who just woke up. A second later she screamed and was crying. She said he had scratched her. I looked at her arm and I saw an indention of Tyler's teeth (this indention didn't go away until late in the evening!) She then repeated that "he scratcheded me, with his teeth." Too funny. Since I didn't know he had bitten her right away, when I scolded him he didn't have a clue what he had done. We'll get it next time.

Yesterday we had playgroup at Miss Cynthia's house. She has two boys probably 3 and 5. Abigail and Isabella were there too. Us mom's had strawberries and muffins on the back porch while the kids played in their beautiful, flat fenced-in backyard. Lauren loved the little playhouse they had so we might have to get one for her this summer.

When we got home I made some serious pizza dough. I did one batch in the bread machine and 2 others from scratch. It was the final night of our pizza week. I made 2 different veggie pizzas. Greek-Style with Ricotta and Feta and Goat Cheese Pizza with Spring Veggies.
And because of the company we had, the very southern taste-buds of the Hancocks, and our very own picky eater guest Jasen, I decided to only do half pizza's with the veggie toppings and two whole pizzas with pepperoni. (well one was turkey pepperoni so I did sneak something healthier by them.) Buddy just got a big green egg smoker so he cooked one that turned out awesome while I did the other two in the oven. It was a fun night for all. After Tyler went to bed the rest of us headed down to the basement. Lauren and Emma played very well together and I think both girls had a lot of fun. Meanwhile, us adults enjoyed a game of Apples to Apples...won by yours truly.

Today we had Casey come over to watch the kids while we went to a car show at the Georgia World Congress Center (this building sustained lots of damage from the tornado and had many many windows still boarded up.) While we were at the show Mr. Nelson from across the street called and said he had 3 extra tickets to the Hawks v. Boston Celtics game tonight!! Whoo hoo. We're having Morgan and Shana (next door on the other side) come over to watch the kids tonight. I'm so excited. This should be a great game and knowing Nelson these tickets are prime. More to come but gotta run and get myself ready.

Anyone up for a grass fight?

Today was another beautiful day. I hear the rain is coming though. This morning Matt got to sleep in since he had a day trip planned to Coosa Pines, Alabama. He cooked us breakfast...2 fried eggs each for the kids and they were still hungry so had a bowl of cereal and a 1/2 banana each. Crazy kids. Lauren had school and Tyler and I went to church so I could help out with the Sunday school prep. I could only stay for about 30 min. because I had a Mom's club monthly meeting to attend. Our playgroup was in charge of the kids area this week. This just means that I get to watch the kids while the parents listen to the guest speaker. We were supposed to have a speaker on water safety but apparently she had a personal crisis to take care of and wasn't able to make. I hope everything is okay with her.

Later I baked some bread (since we were out and I didn't want to go to the store) and also made some Pineapple Black Bean Enchiladas for Mexican night at our Community Group. The enchiladas were surprisingly decent. Someone else brought spicier beef enchiladas which were definitely better...but mine competed as a meatless dish. Matt got held up in Coosa Pines so he wasn't able to make the community group. Somehow I talked Jasen into watching the kids for an hour until Matt got home so I could just go and enjoy some food and adult fellowship and not have to worry about the kids. When Matt got home he, Jasen and the kids all went out to a late dinner at Smokey Bones.

The kids came home completely wired and crazy but they were so sweet. Lauren wanted to snuggle and Tyler did too so I got to enjoy a few minutes of snuggle time with my two babies before I sent them off to bed so I could watch the first new episode of Grey's Anatomy since the writer's strike. (I watch way too much TV...)

Grilled Caramelized-Onion Pizza with Rosemary, Olives, and Prosciutto

I thought I'd focus on tonight's dinner for the blog because 1. it was very good and 2. I don't have any other pictures. I'm still very re-excited about my bread machine and I'm on a pizza kick lately. In fact, we are going to have 3 different types of pizza in the next few days because it is pizza week for us. This onion and prosciutto pizza was delish. After I took this picture I put it back in the oven to brown the prosciutto and when it came out I topped it with a few spoonfuls of sour cream. Very YUMMY! This and the other pizza recipes I'm going to try are all from Shape Magazine's May 2008 issue.

And in other highlights of the last two days.... Yesterday Matt had a business dinner to go to and I had to get my hair cut (chopped the back off...so it's short again like it was) so we had Casey come over for a couple of hours. I left them all eating dinner so the kids didn't really care that I was leaving. They had fun and were totally wired when I got home.

Today I decided we needed to get out of the house. Since I needed a few things from the grocery store we packed up our Thomas DVD and headed up to Trader Joe's in Atlanta. Matt was in a meeting during lunch so we didn't get to see him but we got a lot of neat things at TJs. Chocolate covered raisens and balloons were the highlights of the kids trip. I got a cool looking enchilada sauce to try in tomorrow's Pineapple and Black Bean enchiladas I'm making for our Community Group's Mexican night.

A fun surprise tonight was that our friend from Eugene, Jasen, came into town on business. We insisted he stay with us instead of a hotel. The kids got a kick out of him even though Lauren kept calling him Mr. Brad. I guess we don't have many friends who come to stay with us. Thanks for the love Mr. Brad. He'll be here until Sunday when he flies home to St. Louis. We have Casey coming back on Saturday to watch the kids so we can go do something adult for a change. Probably just dinner and a movie but we'll make sure it's at least a PG-13 movie. =)