iphone photo dump

my mom FINALLY got a cat!! he is so sweet. she named him baby. he has a mustache so i think baby is appropriate don't you? (not!)

                                  i made salad in a jar! this is before...

                                             and this is after!!!

      
           in preparing for our WDW trip in february, i pulled out an oldie but goodie.  this is our 10th anniversary.  and that is caleb not mikey.  he's 5

                  
                      he hates to have his picture taken anymore. poop
                             why do they have to grow up???

mikey's tower of legos.  he has been building this for months.  it's never going to be finished as far as i can see.  notice the nice housekeeping in the clothes drawer. 

co-op started this week and this is composer study.  this month the kids are listening to the music of john williams.  can you tell what he has written music for???

              denver and nick came to spend the day and i gave them a nature  scavanger hunt to do.  these are some of the the things they collected

went to my mom's to see her new cat and she pulled out some old albums.  this on in particular tugged at my heart strings. notice it says kay rogers on it.  in my dad's handwriting.  ah memories!

the boys were invited to gabe's 7th birthday.  mikey is "in training" to be a gymnast.  (the olympics were on this week)  he had a great time and we love to be able to really train in a gym.

       
                                                 nice balance mikey!

                                                         PO!!

               we got invited to ben's 1st birthday.  i was in baby heaven!!!
there were babies EVERYWHERE!!  and they don't make no ugly babies at next level church i tell ya!!!

        i found this on my instagram and wanted it on my blog.  it's well over a year old but i love it!!

The Summer of 2012

so i made it the whole summer without blogging. sad i know. and even as i'm typing this i'm noticing blogger has changed the whole blog layout. i'm lost. more than usual!

this summer has been very quiet for us. caleb did get invited to go to the beach with his friend caden and then to charleston with konner but that's it for vacations. we are saving for a big trip to disney world in february and decided to stay home this summer to save for it. plus michael has had a HUGE kitchen remodel and he's been working his butt off all summer! (thank you Jesus!!) so we have done a whole lot of nothing. lots of video games. lots of reading. a monopoly marathon (which mikey beat the pants off caleb and i) and lots of dr. who for the boys. they are obsessed. i don't watch it so i have no idea why. we have spent time with friends and that's always awesome! hope and nick live around the corner and they have a pool and love to have mikey come swimming. he's gotten so good!! proud of him for sure.

one thing that i have done this summer is totally immerse myself in the french revolution. i've always loved marie antionette and reading about her made me want to dig deeper into everything that happened around her. her innocence and the opulence just intrigues me. thank goodness for the library! some of the books i have read this summer about her are...

Marie Antoinette: The Journey
Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel
Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace
Marie-Therese: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter
When the King Took Flight
Madame de Pompadour
Farewell, My Queen: A Novel
Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin

and these all stem from reading
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B
and the 2 that follow. all about josephine bonaparte

i also have

Far from the Madding Crowd and
The Scarlet Pimpernel to read.
i'm sure i'll find more!

and caleb gets to read tale of two cities for school this year and i'm going to read it with him. i've never been a big non-fiction reader but i'm just loving this era.

i ♥ peanut butter

i pretty much think peanut butter is the world's most perfect food. it's creamy. it's kinda sweet. you can it plain or with a huge variety of other foods. it can be eaten at every single meal of the day. what other foods can do that??

so last night we had peanut butter pasta. if you know me at all, i do not like pasta. i think we were feed to much as kids. but this is one way i will eat it. i started with nigella's recipe and tweaked it to fit our real food challenge.

1 lb whole wheat pasta
1 cup natural peanut butter (only nuts in ingredients)
1/2 cup soy sauce (no sugar)
1/4 to 1/2 cup sesame oil (i used 1/2 cup b/c i love it!)
3 finely chopped scallions
3 cloves smashed and finely chopped garlic (i used 5 b/c i love garlic too)
1 tbsp sriracha ( i would have used more but mikey doesn't like it spicy)
juice of 1 lime

2 cups snow peas

1/4 toasted sesame seeds

cook pasta according to package directions. in the last 2 minutes, add the snow peas. while cooking mix together all other ingredients adjusting to your taste. drain the pasta and peas. put them back in the pot and toss with peanut butter mixture. it's best to do it while the pasta is still warm so it melts nicely together. serve and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. yummmmm!!!



i love this with asparagus instead of snowpeas but that's what i had on hand. feel free to add chicken or shrimp. more veggies like red peppers would be great too!

just call me chef

i love love love how i feel eating real food!! however i'm getting a little sick and tired of my kitchen. i really need to plan on doubling everything so i don't have to bake/cook/prep every single day. that being said, everyone is doing great. but b/c i have been cooking so much i don't have time to blog it all. i have taken some pix. which my kids think is so weird. i hand them their plate then say WAIT! i have to get a picture.

here are some things we have made/eaten this weekend

homemade whole wheat tortillas








so good!! we put cream cheese and smoked salmon on them for lunch! excellent! and oh so filling!

some homemade granola



yummy smoothie!! this one had almond milk, pumpkin, flax, cocoa powder, spinach, cherries and peanut butter. mmmm....

last night i made a cobb salad. oh yeah! and the dressing was AMAZING!! i will be making that for all of my salads! (and maybe just to drink!)



(mikey's cobb salad deconstructed)


and tonight we had tacos!!! (on home made tortillas!)



as we speak i have some zucchini,carrot, banana muffins in the oven. phew! i'm pooped!

powerballs!!

i just haunt this woman's page. 100 days of real food has become my new facebook! i love everything she posts! when we started our 10 day pledge i knew the hubby would need to have something sweet. so i found the recipe for lisa's powerballs. i wanted chocolate but knew mikey wouldn't eat them if there were nuts in them. so i combined her 2 recipes together.

3 cups rolled oats (organic if you can find them)
3/4 cup honey (raw)
3/4 cup almond butter
3 tablespoons dark cocoa powder
4 dates chopped

mix, roll into balls and devour!

day 2

i have dishpan hands. all this cooking requires cleaning up. and i'm the one doing it. i need lotion


breakfast - home made granola! i tweaked the recipe from 100 days. i didn't add all the nuts or add coconut and not quite as much honey as she did. but boy it made the house smell great! i had a bowl for breakfast with some dates. mikey didn't care for it so after taking a few bites, i made him some toast. caleb and michael both loved it

lunch- nut butter and fruit sandwich for mikey and i. then we went to trader joe's to gather up the rest of our weeks food. i have no idea what the other's ate!

dinner - oh yum! red lentil and curry butternut squash stew. i've made it before and just love it! even mikey will eat this. while this was stewing, i made a batch of zucchini muffins for mikey. getting veggies in him anyway i can. stole another of lisa's recipes. no nuts b/c of mikey. sigh. anyway i made them and forgot the baking soda. so they are a little dense. but yummy! then i decided to pull out mom-in-law's bread maker and make a loaf of ww bread. starting to smell good in here. and if i hadn't done enough, i found this pin on my favorite place to waste time. hard boiled eggs in the oven!! supposed to take away that sulfury smell. mikey loves hb eggs so i know i can get him to eat these!

tomorrow is co-op so there will be temptations for the boys in the form of a vending machine! going to make them leave all their money at home! i have leftover stew and home made bread for lunch! can't wait!

day 1

so even tho we haven't eaten dinner, i can say that today has been a success!! no processed foods have passed my lips or the lips of my boys! (unless michael snuck something while he was out!)

we never have bkft together b/c michael gets up so early and then mikey then me and finally caleb rolls out of bed. michael left without bkft b/c he was late. mikey was starving when i got up even tho i told him last night to eat an apple or banana till i got up. i hadn't made any cereal so he couldn't have that. i had a smoothie with almond milk, spinach, banana, frozen cherries, pumpkin, flax and a dash of cinnamon. oh and almond butter. it was yummy! mikey had a nut butter and honey sandwich as he dashed off to art class. i made caleb eggs and toast.

b/c we all had such a late bkft we didn't really have a big lunch. i had 1/2 nut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple, mikey had some cheese and crackers, caleb had nothing and hubby finished up my smoothie and ate an apple.

in the mean time i decided i needed to purge foods from the shelves. i filled a huge bin with off limit foods and this is what is left...


then i put an approved chicken to roast in the oven. we will have it with organic sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts for the hubby, peas for the boys and asparagus for me! popcorn popped in coconut oil with grass fed butter for snacking if needed.

while i was waiting for the chicken to cook, i prepped the granola to bake for later so there will be cereal in the morning! and for dinner tomorrow we are having red lentil and butternut squash curry stew. it is SO FREAKIN' AMAZING!! but it requires some prep so i got the butternut squash chopped and ready to roast for tomorrow. my oven is going to be on till midnight!!

i will be heading out to the store for more food tomorrow. bananas, veggies, some local beef if i can find it. and maybe some clean snacks for my snacker mikey.

one day down and nine to go! :)

10 days of real food

after a month of exhaustive research i'm putting my family to the test. tomorrow we start a 10 days of real food pledge. we eat too much crap. and it's making me sick (and tired). i stumbled across this recipe on pinterest and it linked to 100 days of real food. and i thought, if she could do it, so could we! weirdly enough she lives in matthews. which is like 10 minutes from me.

anywho. real food is described as true and actual; not artificial. we are packing up anything that has refined grains, such as white flour or white rice, refined sweeteners such as sugar, any form of corn syrup, cane juice or artificial stuff like Splenda. Nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label. and there will be no deep friend food or fast foods. our pantry is going to be empty!

i'm prepped with local organic eggs, milk, butter, veggies and fruits. i'm going to make my own bread tomorrow and homemade granola for cereal. i will take pictures and post our meals.

hold on tight! it's gonna be a bumpy ride!!!

hit or miss monday!!!

i'm actually posting this on a monday! woo-hoo! i guess staying up to watch the oscars then getting up early, really paid off for my blog today! not really. i'm pooped.



for my hits!!

is this the best idea ever!!! girl gets roses, boys gets bacon! love!



hahahaha!! i love this! but i'm thinking mario doesn't have a blue-tooth. i could be wrong...

and my misses...



who even came up with this idea?? must be a man b/c no woman would even THINK about wearing something that sharp and plasticy on their body. but i guess as a nursing bra you wouldn't have to worry about leaks...



and this. when i first saw it, i stared. then i pinned it. and i stared some more. and it keeps getting weirder. yet i can't look away....and what's going on with her arm/wrist/hand? see i keep spotting weirder stuff!!


linking back to the pinterest project

awesomeness!

here are some amazing things that have happened so far this year...

hubby has work out the wazoo!! so grateful!

caleb is going to be the worship leader for the student center at church!! he's just 16!!! way to go caleb!!

mikey is learning fractions and i don't have to teach him!! (b/c he has a computer program for that)

the boys (and all the co-op kids) got the opportunity to have a month of lessons on the bells for free!! thanks Ed!! they loved it!
winter camp was a HUGE success! and i only stressed out 1 time!!





being positive in 2012...

new years resolution

so yesterday, the first day of the new year, pastor mark was teaching at church. i just love him! he always makes me smile! his teaching was about the 5 things he would wish for us in 2012. great idea! to start off he asked us to turn to our neighbor (which was my hubby) and tell them one good thing that happened in 2011. do you know i couldn't think of ONE SINGLE THING??!!! but i could tell you 1,125,250,955 things that were not good. what in the heck is wrong with me!! on the way home i was thinking about it and came up with tons of AWESOME things that happened in 2011. i just am confused as to why none of them could come to me on the spur of the moment. and why only bad things popped into my head. so my resolution this year is to make sure i document all the great/awesome/fantastic things that happen this year, 2012. even if it's only fantastic to me. b/c really it's my blog and i make all the rules right! :)

so already in 2012 prayers are being answered. had some truly special people bless us at church yesterday. and not just with physical things. prayer are being lifted up for my husband and family. and we can tell! so thanks my wonderful friends!

and the first dinner of the new year, AMAZING! black eyed peas, ham and cornbread with some greens on the side. in the crockpot no less. so super easy, delicious dinner was a success! :)

and know what else is fantastic already!??!! i got up and took a walk this morning. yay me!

time for school. but here is something awesome that happened in 2011... a family Christmas picture!! never happened before. i'm blessed!