Recipes of the week!

Well, everything we own is in the house...now we just have to get everything in its place!

And since anything is better than unpacking, I decided I wanted to start my recipes of the week!

I didn't try a new main course recipe, but this is one that we love and don't have that often. It is Real Simple's Pork Scaloppine. AND the leftovers are used for Cuban Sandwiches! So cook once and 2 different meals are done!

For dessert this week, I made Gram's Best Brown Sugar Cake, from the Kraft Food & Family Magazine. This cake is really moist and yummy...and EASY! I have several recipes from the Food & Family Magazine, which used to be free. I received notice a few months ago that it is no longer free (which is disappointing because it was basically just a big advertisement for any and all Kraft products), but you can get all of the recipes from the website.

Happy cooking!

Our First Place

Tomorrow we will be selling "our first place". It is bittersweet as it will probably forever be referred to as our "project house." Over the last almost five years we have transformed this house into our home. There is not a wall that we haven't painted, a floor we haven't torn up, or a light fixture we haven't replaced. Here are a few links to some of our favorite projects:
Wood Floors
Kitchen Tile
Landscaping
Nate's Room

We've enjoyed hosting friends and family here (and our roommate Liz for a while), having Sammy join our family and, of course, bringing home our sweet baby, Nate!

We are very much looking forward to the new chapter in our next home. One that will be much less focused on home projects and more on family time together!

Yummy, Yummy!

One of my goals for the future is to try more recipes and make one dessert a week. I'm constantly tearing out new recipes to try (and most of them are desserts!) but I hardly ever make new dishes! This week I tried this recipe for Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches and it was a big success! I also made a Peach Cobbler- not a new recipe, but used up some peaches from the freezer. However, that only lasted 2 days...so I made Nestle Double Chocolate Dream Cookies! They were really yummy and last a little bit longer since we only make a few cookies at a time.

I'm looking forward to getting set up in our new house and kitchen (with double ovens, yay!) and trying out lots of new recipes!

Who told our baby he could grow up?

This is how I found Nate this morning...happily chewing on the side of his crib. It was partly my fault, as I apparently left the side rail down after a 12am wakeup call...so I was hoping that this was a fluke.
But this afternoon I turned my back for one second and turned around to see this:
Ohmygoodness! Nate continued to amaze us today with more new skills--picking up things off of the floor to eat (particularly Sammy's dog food-which I was able to swipe away before it was eaten), crawling from his room through the foyer, kitchen and all over the house, a sudden burst in language skills saying "bahh, bahh, bahh" AND opening his first drawer! Joel was home most of the day and was able to see these new skills for the first time right along with me...and we captured many of them on video for you to see. Our sweet little guy continues to amaze us!





Oh, and then Nate crawled in his exersaucer...so Joel thought he wanted to go for a spin...

Nate's new spot

Nate definitely has to be "contained" these days if I can't keep a close eye on him. I have resorted to leaving the pack and play set up in our living room as a quick place to put him. Thankfully he LOVES it!

And he may be spending more time here in the coming weeks as we will be packing to move! Our house was on the market for a little less than 2 weeks! We feel very blessed, as many homes are on the market for 6 months or more... and we have a contract on a home for us that we will be able to grow into! We are scheduled to close on our current house on Nov 18th and Nov 20th for the house we are moving into. As long as everything goes as planned we can move straight from our first house to the next, which will make things much less complicated!

Halloween

For Halloween, we were invited to have dinner and Trick or Treat with our friends, The Wallaces. We enjoyed a yummy chili and hot dogs, playing with the kids, and walking around the neighborhood!

Nate playing with cars with Ben. Ben was very good at sharing!

Nate was a lumberjack for Halloween night. I decided to change it up a little from the bear, as he had already worn that costume 3 times (and it was REALLY hard to get him in and out of it!)

Nate and Carlton...next year they will really love Halloween!

Trunk or Treat

Our church held a Trunk or Treat last night. We had never been to one of these events before, so it was fun to have it for Nate's first Halloween.

Our trunk, complete with spooky "witch's brew"

Nate with his buddies, Micah and Carlton

Nate at the end of the night...he was one tired bear!

7 months!

At 7 months our Nate is such a happy boy! He loves his new found mobility and can finally sit him self up--something he's been working on since he could sit up unsupported (which was around 5 months.) He already love to crawl for wires and Sammy's toys. You know, everything he's not supposed to have! Here's a video of his "crawling." He has good form some of the time, but gets impatient and usually ends up just dragging his body with his arms, rather than using his legs to help.

Other things...Nate loves mirrors, shadows, and most of all- flirting! He loves to go out so pretty ladies will ooo and ahhh over him and he'll give them lots of smiles and giggles.

More Excuses :-)

Has it really been almost a month since I last posted? We have been having too much fun! It all started with a new computer so Joel can get more into photo/video editing...so all the pictures were moved to that computer, leaving the laptop I blog on without any fun pictures to post!

Let's see, then we had visits from Sharla & Jackson, Nate's Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Buxton, and Nana and Papa Penny...pool parties, Gymboree, P90x, book club, Bible Study, Junior League and church committee meetings, etc...

And then we decided to put our house on the market! Crazy, right? We're hoping to find a house that we can grow into in our same area to remain close to Joel's office and church.

Nate is now 7 MONTHS OLD! Our big boy is still big- weighing 21 pounds and wearing size 12 month clothes! He's eating all kinds of fun foods (veggies are his favorite-that's my boy!) and has started scooting all over the place. We are hoping the house will sell quickly so we don't have to do too much baby proofing here.

We are looking forward to many fun things this Fall- Aunt Megan coming to visit, Nate's first Halloween, Thanksgiving and, of course, Christmas! I will try to update with pictures soon...

6 months!

5 months

and 6 months- so big and sitting up!

We went for his 6 month checkup yesterday and he is weighing in at 20 pounds, 9 ounces (90%) and measuring 27 3/4 inches tall (90%)! We have a big, healthy boy!

Excuses, excuses....

Well, as you can tell, it's been a busy couple of weeks since we returned from the beach. I still have no idea when I will have time to update, as I have events on 2 nights this week.

However, my wonderful husband did upload all of our beach pictures to our SmugMug site! Enjoy

A few "milestone" pictures

Sitting up unsupported

Riding in the shopping cart

Finally rolling from back to stomach!

We're home from the beach....

with 500 pictures to edit, lots of laundry and a busy week ahead! Stay tuned for some long overdue updates!

Nana is famous!

Check it out!

Nana's report on the Kids Exchange sale in Raleigh!

Rice Cereal!

Nate and I had a fun time last week in NC...I'll do a post on that soon! For now, this should hold you over--we gave Nate his first rice cereal tonight!

4 months!

We had a good checkup at the doctor today. Nate is up to 17 pounds (90%) and 26 inches (90%). He grew 3 inches in 2 months! 4 months

3 months for comparison

Nate and I are off to NC tomorrow while Joel studies all week for the CFP exam that is on next Friday and Saturday!

One Year Ago...

We found out we were pregnant!



And the last three, almost four months have flown by! How quickly our sweet little baby boy grew up from this
to this big boy!I'm learning to enjoy every day and every stage because it really does go too fast!

Keeping Busy

We've had a fun and busy week. I forgot to mention that last Friday night (or actually early Saturday morning) we hosted our friends Ben and Molly during an unexpected layover in Atlanta. They were trying to make it to NYC from Raleigh, but due to canceled flights and bad weather they had to route through Atlanta to make it there. We were glad to have them and even more excited to hear about their recent engagement! I forgot to take a picture in the 7 hours they were here, sad.

The Pennys got in on Saturday afternoon and the spoiling began! I get spoiled when they visit too because I don't really have to lift a finger. Meals are made, diapers are changed and laundry is done for me! I did have some time to clean out my closet which I had really been wanting to do. We made trips to Ikea and Costco. We had fun cheering on Nate in what we hoped would be him rolling over for the first time. He almost has it, but seems to enjoy only going from his back to his side just fine. Here is what else he's been up to-

Watching Wimbeldon

Testing out the high chair at Ikea

Learning to nap without the swaddle

And just hanging out with Sammy!

Nate's Dedication

We celebrated Nate's baby dedication at Parkway Baptist Church today. We love our church and are so happy to be raising him there. Nana and Papa Penny and Aunt Lauren were there to celebrate with us.

27 years without a trip to the ER

Last Sunday I made my first trip to the ER. Emory Johns Creek Hospital just can't get rid of me! Luckily I was already in "the system" so we were only in the waiting room for 5 minutes. What did I do to get these lovely bandages on my fingers you ask?


Here is the culprit.This is a praline. Yes, go ahead and laugh. Just like a Krispy Kreme, I believe these are best served warm. So after microwaving my beloved praline, I then proceeded to touch test it to make sure it was the perfect temperature. Well, it was not. My finger was sucked into the hot sugar goo (if you enlarge the picture I have circled the indention). After running it under water and icing it for 2 hours it still felt as if my finger was on fire. Many google searches later we determined it would be best to go to the ER. Probably the hardest part of the situation was finding an open pharmacy at 9:30 on a Sunday night. It has been difficult to operate without my right index finger, but I have had lots of help from Joel and friends at church.

All in all it's been a pretty humorous story to tell and who knows when I will eat a praline again.

Father's Day

Joel enjoyed his first Father's Day. We went to church and Joel got cards, a new grilling book and a new tie. Unfortunately the afternoon consisted of this:


more studying! Joel has been diligently studying for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) exam for over a year now. He is now in an intensive review mode, studying several hours a day. The big test is July 17 & 18 and we will ALL be happy once it is done!

Talking and Laughing

Nate has two new favorite hobbies...talking and laughing. You have to coax the laughing a little (so please excuse my raspberry blowing in the video) but he's constantly talking to all of his toys. They have quite the conversation!

3 Months and catching up!

It's been a busy month and we're getting back into the swing of things. After being in NC for 2 weeks we all brought home colds with us. We recovered from that last week and then had Vacation Bible School this week.

Nate is getting so big, so fast! He's up to 14.8 pounds (from home measurement), is wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. He really loves looking at faces now and is very smiley and giggly. Joel really got him giggling one night and as soon as we got the video camera out he clammed up. We'll capture it one day soon hopefully! His hair is getting longer...I call him fuzzy head because it looks like he has a little crew cut. He is also sleeping through the night on most nights--from around 7:30 or 8 until 6 in the morning!

Here is his 3 month picture in his big boy pj's!

And 1 month

Enjoy all of the catching up!

Where did we leave off?

Let's see....my birthday was the 13th, the day before we were leaving for NC. I woke up feeling really sick and figured out that it was probably mastitis. So I went ahead to the doctor to get a prescription, had Joel work from home to help me with Nate, and prayed that I would feel much better for the trip the next day. Joel went and got me Rita's Italian Ice since he didn't have time to pick me up a cake (but they did have birthday cake flavor that day) and I got a new watch that I had wanted. Joel had given me the watch I have been wearing for my birthday 10 years ago...it has had several battery and crystal replacements, so I thought it was time for a new one!

Happily I did feel much better on Thursday and had the Pilot packed tight! Nate was ready to nap around 12:00, so we hit the road. He slept the whole way to Sharla & Josh's! We spent the night there and then got up bright and early to head to Raleigh. Nate slept the whole way again, and starting screaming just as I pulled into my sister, Megan's apartment. We had lunch at Red Robin to celebrate our birthdays and then I went to Mom and Dad's for them to meet Nate for the first time.

I'll break here to say that as many pictures as I think I take, I definitely have gaps in photos when I start to blog :-( I guess this was such a busy day that I didn't think about it.

Next up...Meredith Reunion!

Meredith 5 Year Reunion

Five years has definitely flown by! The reunion weekend was fun, although I did miss seeing many classmates who I was hoping to see -- who aren't on Facebook and I haven't seen since graduation. Still, it was fun to catch up with my girls!

Everyone at the President's house on Friday night.

Class of 2004 PJ Party

And dinner at Cafe Luna!

Nate was loved on....

all week by family and new friends!

He had his first trip to the bowling alley....
and to Build A Bear
Met the Surles

and Uncle Dion

and Great Grandmother "Mimi" Cornett

Such a lucky (and spoiled) boy!

Alan and Tabatha Penny

Part 3 of the trip was to celebrate Joel's brother's wedding. Alan and Tabatha had a great ceremony and reception at Bass Lake Park in Holly Springs. They will be living near D.C. and we hope to maybe visit them next summer! It was a great time for Nate to meet more of the Penny family as well.