Umm food?

Do you make stuff up?  

Do you look in your cupboard and fridge, see what you have and then make a meal from it?

Or do you plan your meals, buy those foods you need and make a meal?

I'm a "make it up as I go along" kind of gal and that goes for food too.  I never thought this was unique, or strange until last week.  We had some missionaries from our church over for dinner.  Now, these are young men (19-22) and they tend to eat anything.  I made a dinner that we call Chicken Wraps.  They kept asking over and over what it was, what it was called, what was in it.  When I told them I made it up and the ingredients change every time, they acted SO surprised.  They ate it up, and it's one of our families favorites, but it got me thinking.
Last night I opened the fridge and took three different leftovers out, made a casserole and a salad and called it good.  It turned out better than I expected.
Sometimes it's a happy surprise how these meals turn out and sometimes we decide never to try it again.  The apple pork chops I made twice, it just wasn't meant to be.
I love cooking this way, making and inventing, creating.  I also like to try new things and will use a recipe from a magazine or online.  We have tried and true recipes that we love also, but most nights I'm just winging it.

So, I'm curious how do you do food?  Is my way common or do most people go by a recipe and standard ingredients every night?

It typing this I realize, this is how I craft and sew too, just kind of make it up as I go along, sometimes it works out and sometimes it does not!

If you want to know, my chicken wraps consist of raw cut up veggies (carrots/cucumbers/tomatoes/celery/onion whatever we have), a grilled chicken breast or two chopped up and mixed with greek yogurt, sour cream and a dry ranch dip mix.  All of this gets wrapped up burrito style in a flour tortilla.  Oh and maybe cubed cheese too!
The casserole last night consisted of leftover rice and chicken, a chicken thigh cooked and cut up(left over from another meal), and fried green beans cut up.  Mixed together with a can of cream o/chicken soup and topped with grated cheese. Mmmm, it was so creamy good!
I have no measurements, just make it to taste or what will fit in the pan.

Treats!

Holy cow I've been busy in the kitchen!!  It started Sunday with a trial batch of these http://gallamorewest.blogspot.com/2011/12/easiest-christmas-toffee.html  

They are ridiculously easy and SO good I had to make another batch on Monday!  I also made up two bags of "chocolate popcorn" which is popcorn with melted white chocolate poured over and mixed in.  Then I got a hankering for my favorite popcorn additive, hot tamales!  I decided to try something new, I melted down about half a cup of red hots:

 poured them over one bag of popcorn, then quickly spread it out over a paper bag so it wouldn't become one giant blob.  YUM, seriously.

 Today at Winco I saw these Jumbo Peppermint marshmallows and decided to try them out in rice crispy treats.  Also, YUM.  

There is a lot of giving of treats, but still, I'm not sure when I'll be off this sugar high!!

A great quote

"It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one.  There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken."
           -Nancy Turner from the novel "These is my Words"

Ahh, success

Got it on the first take, perfect!

 Well, except for Damen's weird hand gestures, what is that?  

Merry Christmas!

Two months

Yup, that's right, this kid is TWO MONTHS old!  AND I'm going to be one of those mommies that updates every exciting month that passes in the first year of life. 

 Because they change and grow so much!

SO, now he's 24.5 in long and weighs in at a hefty 15.5lbs!  

Seriously, he's huge.

Phobia

So, I have a phobia.  Just one.  Really.

I'm afraid of heights.  I can't climb a ladder without my palms sweating.  I can just BARELY drive across the 91-215 overpass with my eyes open.  I don't do edges/cliffs, walking bridges or step stools very well.  And just ask Dustin about the time we rode the re-entry ride at Lagoon (it's a tall tower that you sit around facing out, it suspends you from the top for 6-7 seconds and then plummets you back down to earth, thought we were going to DIE, and he may still have my fingernail imprints in his thigh).
I first realized this when I was 10 years old and I was asked to help another girl put up some posters in the school hallway.  I willingly climbed up the ladder and was ready to go.  Until I looked down.  That was the end of that.
A few weeks ago I was on my way out of town when I noticed in the sky hot air balloons.  Four of them actually.  They were beautiful in the morning light.  Until I realized just how high up they were, and how there were actually people in them, and they could look down.  OH NO, my heart started racing, my palms started to sweat, it was like I was there, up there!  (I'm actually freaking out a little just remembering).  As I continued driving I tried to avoid looking at them, just knowing they were there was too much!  Wow, I thought, this is crazy irrational for me to be feeling this way, down HERE, on the ground, safe.
So I ask you, is this normal?  Do arachnophobes freak out at pictures of spiders?  Do claustrophobes start to hyperventilate at the thought of a crowded elevator?
I love to tease my sister about spiders, her reactions are SO funny.  Well, they are to me anyway.  Spiders seem like such a silly thing to be scared of, they're teeny tiny bugs that you can squish in an instant.  Using that logic, am I really going to fall off the 91 overpass?  Probably not.  The ladder, well I am clumsy and tend to fall when safely on the ground.  I also love to climb, trees, rocks, naturey things.  Why is that different?

I don't understand this fear, I just know that it is a part of me that I don't like very much.  One day I'd like to be able to enjoy the sight of those hot air balloons in the early morning light.  One day.


PS  I also LOVE LOVE LOVE roller coasters, but that's different somehow. . .

Thanksgiving and stuff

Our Turkey FEAST!  I should have taken a picture of the bird, it looked just as good as it tasted!  Thanks in part to Tiffany who informed me about OVEN BAGS!  They're amazing, you just put in the turkey and your seasonings, bake and wallah, delicious, moist turkey!!  

I also made acorn squash and roasted potatoes and a chocolate Oreo pie.  I took out of the box/bag/can rolls, stuffing, and gravy.  It was my very first Thanksgiving dinner and I think it went over rather well!  

My friend Rene could not believe that after 13 years as a married, competent adult, I had never made my own Thanksgiving dinner. 

 Well we've always traveled to be with family on Thanksgiving.

 Until this year. 

 This year we had to debate about it.  

My parents wouldn't be there (China remember) and we had this adorable 6 week old to think about too.  He eats every two hours, it takes about 20 minutes to feed/change/burp him, and it's a 17 hour drive.  YOU do the math, it would take a lot longer than 17 hours. . . 

So staying home was our decision.   

We watched football, ate too much, had pie, told each other what we were thankful for, and slept in our own beds.  It was good.  We (I mostly) missed my sisters, and our nephews and niece, but it was ok.

On another note, this is Mason the mighty!  He weighs 16lbs and is wearing 6 month clothes, because he's enormous!  He'll be 2 months old next week.

Love him to pieces!

Meet Virginia

Last night I was headed to the store.  After a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully to get the car key into the ignition I called Dustin to the garage to "fix" it.  He started in with a screw driver and the key, nothing.  We worked at it for close to 15 minutes and the dang key wouldn't GO IN!  Finally he got the Valet key from the house and miracle of miracles, that key worked.  We tried the other key, nothing.  Dustin looked at the two keys to compare and started to say that one of them was more worn down, then he stopped, handed me the car keys and asked me to read what it said.  "Nissan", well that's strange, why was I trying to start the Toyota with Dustin's car keys?  We laughed and laughed, so tired yet determined!
As I drove down the street (after digging the right car keys out of my purse), a song by Train came on, Meet Virginia, and my thoughts went immediately to 2001.  We had tickets to their concert at the winter Olympics, but we were going out of town so I gave them to my coworker who had been trying for days to get into an event, any event.  He took his girlfriend and they had a great time.  A few years later he committed suicide.  I started to cry.  I couldn't stop myself.

This is the roller coaster of emotions I am currently riding.  If you'd like to hop aboard I'd love to share some laughs or tears, whichever I'm up for both.

This thing called love

I know the picture's a little fuzzy, it was the best I could find.

We've been married over thirteen years.

It has not always been easy.

We haven't always been happy to see each other at the end of the day.

We have disagreements.

We even have fights!

We kiss every night.

We tell each other we love each other whenever we leave, go to bed, or get off the phone.

We love each other.

I would be lost with out him.

In this world of constant upheaval he is my rock.

How many other women and men have said the same thing about their spouse?

How many of those same men and women are separated?

Divorced?

Unhappy?

It makes us realize that this thing called love is fragile, it needs a LOT of work.

We work every day to keep our kids safe, to keep food on the table, a roof over our heads.

We think of these things and make conscious choices.

Our marriages need just as much work, if not more.

We need to serve the one you love every day, the one you pledged to share your life and eternity with.

  

Lets compare!

It's obvious which boy is which, but do you see similarities?

THE NOSE!! 

And the cheeks.

Both super cute!

One month

Mason is a month old already!  

12lbs  22in

Sad little baby rash:(

Sleeping SO good at night:)

Loves to cuddle!

Halloween 2011

~Halloween night~

 Look out, the "hero" is coming!  Damen has not watched enough Star Wars to know that he's the bad guy, we let him go with it!

He wanted to quit after 1/2 hour, but I made him press on!  Mama wanted some Reese's:)

He very carefully went through his stash to take out any peanut candies, what a good kid.

Posing with brother.

Mason did not go out last night, he was too sleepy, but he did go to the church on Saturday to "Trunk R Treat" all dressed up.  

Last week Damen went to a Halloween party at a friends, a party at school, and to the church "trunk r treat" dressed in this costume, Spiderman, this is the ONLY picture I took!  He insisted he was not going to be a star trooper, then changed his mind on Halloween night.  

We didn't go to a pumpkin patch, first time in years, we didn't even buy pumpkins.  I felt bad, but the world went on, and no one seemed to care.

INTRODUCING. . .

Mason Ryan 

Born on Oct. 8th

8lbs 10oz 

20inches

He's perfect!

This wonderful new addition to our family has been long awaited.  

To other moms out there, I have to say his birth was kind of a boring experience, compared to Damen's anyway.  I was induced one week early because of the Gestational Diabetes, we were worried about him being BIG.  So at 2pm we arrived at the hospital ready to go!  My paper work hadn't arrived though so we had to wait until after 4pm to get started.  Then the pictocin began to flow.  

Not much happened until 10pm when the contractions started to increase and I asked for an epidural, that was the worst part!  The anesthesiologist missed the first time, I had 4 contractions during the whole process, but Dustin held onto me and talked me through the whole thing.  

Then I took a nap.

Around 1am I was at 8cm and moving along. 

An hour later I  felt something strange, warm, on my legs and sure enough my water had broken!

Another hour passed and the nurse called the Dr. to come in, we were getting close.

Three contractions, and a few pushes and out he came.  He was born at 3:59am, I bawled, like a baby.

His beautiful head of brown hair was a surprise, so many differences from Damen.

It is amazing how something so TINY can take up so much space in my heart.

Welcome to the world Mason!!

This is love

He snuck into my room in the middle of the night.

Wrapped his arms around my neck and whispered:

"I love you mom."

Before I could say anything he was hurrying

Out the door to his bed.

I love you too.

Beauty

On a beautiful September morning, the sky was inspiring.

Just like ANDY!

The other day after my nap, Damen wanted to show me what he'd been doing while under the watchful eye of his Daddy.  He was explaining it to me, "Just like in toy story mom!" He was really excited, but I didn't understand until I got a closer look: 

He got the D -a - m - e  on before he ran out of room, nice.

Labor Day

We mostly had a pretty good Labor Day weekend.
I should start with Friday after work, we loaded up and drove up a canyon to pick wild Blackberries with our friends.  We were not very successful, we were unprepared in dress and kid to adult ratio!  We had fun though and went out for frozen yogurt after.
Saturday we headed to San Diego to visit the Birch Aquarium, for FREE!!  On the first weekend of every month a bunch of museums and zoos are free to Bank of America card holders.  We've never taken advantage of this, but I think we will more in the future.http://museums.bankofamerica.com/  This is the link if you're interested, there are places to go all over the US.  We were planning on going to the beach too, but Dustin had to go to work, NOT on our list of things to do that day.   We had lunch at Islands, never been there before, then headed back.

 Damen, doing lots of posing at the aquarium.

 I really wanted a picture of the fish in this one, they're called Dragon Fish, we've never seen them before and they are so COOL!  They look exactly like what a Dragon fish should look like, and there's Damen making crazy eyes for the camera too.

 Below is our view during lunch, so nice!

Monday Dustin wanted to go back to the Blackberry picking place, this time better prepared.  We called some more friends and headed up there first thing.  It was VERY successful!  We picked for about two hours, in the rain and humidity.  Damen enjoyed playing in the stream that passed through the little ravine we were in and Dustin enjoyed the challenge of getting the berries that were just out of reach.  We came home, rested and relaxed for the rest of the day.  All in all, it was a pretty good three day weekend with lots of memories!!    

 Our friend Tammy, up on the hill, and this is a pretty decent shot of what the ravine we were in looked like.

Below Damen's holding about half of our picking!

 Dustin with our friend Kerri, he bushwacked his way in, to get to the BEST berries!

Sisters

Me, Traci, Jodi, 

Christi, Kari, and Lori

My sisters, at our best.

At our worst we still love each other 

and now more than ever will be there for each other.

Love them:)

The morning GRIND

For the past 10 weeks or so, I've been dealing with Gestational Diabetes.  It really stinks to wake up every day and think/obsess about what I HAVE to eat for the next 15 hours.  

Is this enough protein? 

 How many carbs are in that?  

Do I have a snack to take with me? 

Etc. . . 

So, in July when we were visiting family in Washington, my great friend Yvonne gave me something to add to my mornings.  Choffy.  

It's an amazing drink that consists of ground cocoa beans.  That's it.  Cocoa!!  And who doesn't love chocolate in the morning?  Especially chocolate that's FREE from sugar and only has 3 carbs/serving!  

It's not like throwing baking cocoa in hot water, it tastes fantastic!  It's brewed in a coffee/french press for 4-5 minutes and then drink it up.

I like to add a few dashes of cinnamon while it's brewing and then a teaspoon of splenda and some milk to cool it down and make it creamy in my cup.  

It's been such a wonderful treat to have and I honestly think anyone who tries it will agree.

If you'd like to try it, or learn more about it, go to: 

http://www.drinkchoffy.com/ 

I'll gladly brew you a cup anytime too:)

1st day of SCHOOL!!

Well, we did it!  We started Kindergarten.  I say we, because it really was a collaborative event.  Dustin had to convince me to let him go, and Damen of course is the one that actually goes.   

Don't you love the posing?  He's so cute, who would want to send him away every single day??  Ok, enough of that.  

He was very excited, grabbed his back pack first thing in the morning and was ready to go (even in his jammies!)

He showed us around his class room, played with the little people castle, listened to the teacher when it was time to sit on the carpet.  And never even looked up when we left.

After school was when he told me he had cried, he wanted me.  Really, those were his exact words, who would have thought from MR. Independent?  

It's nice to be needed, but I also realize that we need this, school, kindergarten, growing up.    

Rainbows

Driving down the road today

Damen said he saw a rainbow.

It's 100 degrees out.

Clear skies. 

But he saw a rainbow.

It was right there, outside the window.

It had two humps, like in his name (the letter M).

Mom, do you see it?

I missed it, but I'm so glad he saw the rainbow, I think it made his day:)

Pregnant me!

I know, you all LIVE for these kinds of pictures, the infamous belly pictures!  Until last week I hadn't had any taken, just by coincidence I'm sure.  

The first one is from a kaleidoscope room at a museum we went to last week, it gives a GREAT 360 view!  

The second one is from Monday and the last one is from the beach yesterday. 

So, they're all from 30-31 weeks, enjoy!

 Ok, this one does not really include my belly, and it's not a great picture of either of us, but it's included anyway. . . 

Toy box for Damen

In preparation for the new baby, we've been moving Damen from the bedroom closest to us, to the bedroom at the end of the house.  It's a bigger room, but it also has a queen size bed in it so we had to change some things.

We decided to get rid of these shelve/storage bins that housed his toys and get him a small toy box.

I found this box at the Goodwill for $14.99 a few months back, it's hideous, but I knew it could look better!

I pulled off all of the green pleather, gag, the contact paper and black cardboard, took off the lid and removed the buttons and batting from it.  

The bottom was moldy and cracked so Dustin replaced that for me. 

I got new foam for the lid and material to recover it at Joanne's, and with my 40% off coupons the total was around $7!!  

I gathered my supplies and got started! 

 I forgot to take pictures of the lid process, but basically I placed the foam down on my material, sprayed the foam with adhesive and pressed the lid onto it, then started pulling and stapling the material to the lid.  I kept the black cardboard from the lid and restapled it to cover the raw edges of the material. 

Next came the bottom of the box.  I thought I had measured SO carefully!!  I had to cut an extra piece and sew it to make one long piece that would wrap around the entire thing.  I planned on having two seams, one where I sewed and one where the ends would meet up.  I started stapling along the bottom, and halfway through decided to make sure the piece was long enough, well it wasn't.  Somehow I was short by 10 inches! I had to cut another piece of material and sew that on, so now there are three seams in the fabric. 

Moving on, I got the bottom all stapled on, turned it over and started with the top of the box, pulling and stapling all the way around,  Dustin didn't like the unfinished edges on the inside, so I hot glued those down too.   

 I screwed the lid back on and DONE!!  Well mostly, we decided it needs little feet and some sort of handle and maybe safety hinges so it can't slam down.  For today though, it's done.  It looked so cute I almost wanted to take it for my bedroom, you know end of the bed little bench with storage?  But Damen's need was greater. . .

We sold the shelves for $60, so minus the cost of this toy box -$22, we actually made money on the project!


I'm linking up to  Transformation Thursday  at  http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/