And now featuring live action!

We finally decided to upgrade our SmugMug account to include video uploads...so you will find most of our videos uploaded now! Still working on the technology to upload from the tape recorder-which is sooooo 2004, I mean really, who records anything on tape anymore? haha.

Follow me and recipe of the week!

Whitney reminded me in her recent post that I hadn't checked my analytics lately to see how many people are visiting, from where (apparently searching for "bandages on my fingers," "puppy car seat" or "my baby grew 3 inches in 2 months" will get you to our site), how long they read, etc. It's pretty fun to spy on your account.

That said, since I signed up for the analytics a little over a year ago there have been 813 unique visitors to our blog. Crazy! A little scary too, but I like keeping our blog public and will for the unforeseen future.

Anyway, one way to let us know that you are one of those many visitors (other than comments) is to become a "follower." You can do this by clicking on the follow button in the right hand column. You can login with an existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID. Or you can make a free account with Google.

So I hope at least a few of you will join me as a follower. And especially if you have a blog...I love to read other blogs!

Ok, on to recipe of the week. I was planning to make fish tacos tonight, but I am feeling under the weather and spent the afternoon on the couch. So I will share an awesome Bread Pudding recipe that I made yesterday. It is REALLY good and will definitely not last a whole week in the house.

Ingredients:

• 12 slices day-old baguette, cut into 3/4-inch
  cubes
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries or raisins
• Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Directions:

Lightly butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Spread the bread cubes in it.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until well blended. Pour in the milk and whisk until combined. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes. Let stand, pressing down on the bread occasionally, until it is evenly soaked, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat an oven to 350°F.

Scatter the cranberries evenly over the surface of the soaked bread and press to submerge the fruit. Set the baking dish in a large, shallow roasting pan. Add very hot tap water to the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish.

Bake the pudding until a knife inserted near the center comes out almost clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Generously dust the top of each slice with confectioners' sugar. Serves 8.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection Series, Dessert, by Abigail Johnson Dodge (Simon & Schuster, 2002).

A few more things....

I forgot a few things I wanted to include in Nate's post....

He LOVES paper. He loves to hold catalogues and tear out pages (and then try to eat them.) And he tries to steal my grocery list the whole time that we're shopping.

His favorite books are Usborne Touchy Feely Books...we have 3 of them :-)

He is babbling more and says ba-ba, ma-ma and da-da...I'm only sure that he says ma-ma to mean me, but he doesn't do it very consistently yet.

We are working on clapping, but for now pat-a-cake just means you put your hands together and hold them...it's still pretty cute.

A few things he does know is "jump" where he will bounce up and down and "shake" where he will shake whatever he is holding.

One funny thing that he doesn't quite understand yet is that when he has a paci in his mouth he can't eat cheerios. I'll put him in his highchair sometimes with a paci in and he'll pick up some cheerios but will either just hold them, or try to bring them to his mouth and then just ends up holding them under his nose. So he doesn't get that you have to take the paci out! Again, it's pretty cute.

He is ticklish! Mostly around his neck, but also is tummy and feet. It's fun to have tickle fights and get him giggling.


I'm still probably forgetting some things...but now I feel better that I got those down :-)

10 months!

At 10 months Nate weighs 23 pounds! I missed his 9 month post, but at his checkup he weighed 22 lb 4.5 oz. and 29 inches (75% for both.) He's starting to level off a little bit! He wears size 4 diapers and size 12 month clothes fit perfectly *right this second*...any new clothes I'm buying him are 12-18 months size.

and he's wearing size 4 shoes--like these cute Sperrys I bought last year at a consignment sale :-)

Nate has a tooth! He got his first tooth the week of Christmas...it's his bottom left one. We thought he was starting to teeth for the 2nd one...but nothing yet!
He will finally hold his own bottle. Another step towards self feeding! And he has found that biter biscuits are yummy.....and REALLY messy!

Here's a little recap of other things he is up to:
*He generally goes to bed at night around 7 and will sleep until 7. There are occasional days where he will go to bed at 6:30 and sleep until 8 (these are really nice when it happens on days that I want to sleep in also...like today!)

*He still usually takes 2 naps a day, that are about 1.5-2 hours each....but the days where he only wants to nap once are becoming more frequent.
His favorite toys are anything that can fit in his mouth....and an added bonus if it also makes noise.

*His favorite toys that aren't really toys--Sammy's rawhide bones (yuck), tags on things, door hinges (I hate this one!), diapers & wipes.

*He pulls up to standing all the time and can stand on his own after letting go for up to 30 seconds or so...we're working on encouraging him to take a step, but nothing yet. Thankfully he is very steady on his feet and plops down well...he just got his first little baby black eye this week when he tripped and fell on a toy.

We're loving this age as he is so fun, generally really happy and very sweet. And in a little less then 2 months he'll be 1! Wow!

Recipe of the week- Taco Soup

I know you were all waiting for this...

Taco Soup

And this will be the shortest blog post ever! Lots to do!

Recipe of the week

So I decided to take it easy this week after my fiasco last week...and upon Sharla's recommendation there is now a frozen pizza waiting in my freezer for such days. :-)

I needed to make a meal for one of Joel's coworkers who recently had a baby, so I made a double batch of my favorite Baked Ziti recipe.

Baked Ziti (from Publix Apron's Simple Meals)
16 oz ziti pasta
1 lb ground beef
1 cup diced onions
1 4oz. can diced green chilies
1 26oz. jar pasta sauce
1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes
1 tb Italian seasoning
1/2 tb basil pesto
cooking spray
2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook ziti according to package instructions.

Place ground beef, onions and chilies in large saute pan; cook over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes until meat is brown and no pink remains. Stir frequently and break up meat as it cooks.

Stir pasta sauce, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and pesto into meat. Reduce heat to medium; simmer 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until hot and bubbly.

Coat 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Pour ziti into baking dish. Stir in meat sauce; top with cheese. Bake 12-15 minutes until thoroughly heated.

Enjoy!

Snow 2010!

Here are some pictures from our "snow." It was really just enough to cover the ground at our house, but we took Nate out and let him crawl around for a minute. We still have some icy patches in shady areas because it is still so cold!

Lots to catch up on!

Well, I definitely don't know where to start. It's been a whirlwind couple of months for us! We are happy that it is 2010 and we have barely any plans (so far!)

I have uploaded ALL of our pics from 2009 onto our SmugMug site. I'm going to be much better about this going forward, since it is our "backup" for all of our picture files!

**WARNING: I really ramble in this post...you may want to grab a snack**

The new house is starting to feel more like home...our new furniture came in after Christmas and we have begun organizing and arranging the rooms. Here is a little loving/not loving list about the new house!

Loving: SPACE! 3 "living" spaces, a playroom for Nate, a "spare" bedroom, etc....

Not loving: STAIRS! Our wonderful space is spread out over 3 levels. This means you NEVER go up or down a level without looking around to see if anything needs to be taken with you...unless, of course, you have the pleasure of carrying 24 lb. Nate up or down with you!

Loving: Fantastic kitchen with granite and double ovens!

Not loving: The sad dishwasher. It is much more picky about needing dishes to be pre-washed or you're stuck with yucky bits. It is also pretty small and will not accomodate all the dishes if you have a big cooking day. I'm also really missing a garbage disposal...but we hope to start composting in the spring, so that will make it seem worth the trouble.

Loving: The nice, wooded lot!

Not loving: The lack of a fence and use of Sammy's doggie door. Thankfully Sammy has been good about signaling that he needs to go out. But it is COLD!

No house is perfect, but we are really loving this one and hope to feel really settled soon! And I'll be working on a little photo tour.

Ok, on to some recipes. I was going to skip this this week, because it was such a disaster...but I guess I should share both my successes and my failures!

So, on Monday, I was starting the new year off right with my new cooking schedule- Monday-new recipe and dessert for the week

Tuesday-Mexican or Italian (rotate weeks)

Wednesday-Dinner at Church

Thursday-Leftovers

Friday-Date Night (dinner after Nate goes to bed)

Saturday-Big Breakfast (in the AM) then Chinese in the afternoon for lunch/dinner (we found a GREAT place near the new house)

Sunday-Crock Pot lunch/dinner

On Sunday nights I'll plan for the Monday/Tuesday meals and shop on Monday and then on Thursday I'll plan for the Fri/Sat/Sun meals and shop on Friday (since the sales are effective Thursday-Wednesday it's most effective for me to shop like this to get the deals and still have fresh food.)

This week sirloin steaks were on sale, so we planned to try Chicken Fried Steak from our Williams Sonoma Steak & Chop Cookbook and I picked out a Potato, Onion and Cheese Gratin recipe from my Junior League cookbook. In an effort to be more healthy (which sounds rediculous after just reading that we were having fried steak and cheesy potatoes, right?) we decided to serve all of our desserts in shot glasses, like many restaurants are doing right now...

I was all hyped up to make a great meal. I even took pictures! Here is the dessert of the week- Peanut Butter Cup Pie in shot glass form.

I used low fat cream cheese and light cool whip to be a little healthier also! Once the desserts were done I went on to arranging the gratin...which needed the use of my mandolin. I rarely drag this out, but it did a really nice job slicing the onions and potatoes.

Ok, on to the tragic part. I'm very bad at paying attention to timing on recipes. I had put together the gratin in the afternoon while Nate was napping, but didn't pay attention to the fact that it had to cook for nearly an hour. And the chicken fried steak had to sit in the batter for 30 minutes before cooking...anyway, it was a big mess and the steaks were done early and we were waiting on the potatoes to get done (past 6:00 which is unheard of in our house.) I gave the potatoes a taste and they were disgusting! So awful that I couldn't even pretend like I could eat them. I was so frustrated! I whipped up some instant mashed potatoes from the pantry and was ready to forget all about this meal!

Thankfully, I do have a good recipe to share. For "Mexican" night this week I made Creamy Chicken Enchiladas, which were wonderful! This recipe is from my Junior League's Cookbook-At Your Service

1 tb butter or margarine
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies, drained
8 oz cream cheese, chopped, softened (I used low-fat and it was fine)
3 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken breasts
8 (8 inch) flour tortillas
16 oz shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
2 cups heavy cream (I used 1/2 and 1/2 to lighten it up a bit...you could also use picante sauce instead)

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion. Saute for 5 minutes. Add the green chilies. Saute for 1 minute. Stir in the cream cheese and chicken. Cook until cream cheese melts, stirring constantly. Spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with Monterrey Jack cheese. Drizzle with the heavy cream. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Thanks for sticking with me and reading through my tumultuous experience! Cooking really is trial and error...which is rather frustrating for us Type A's!