Sibling Love

Sharing a blanket and snuggles on a Sunday morning while watching Shrek.  I love them so much. My heart does a little pitter-pat at times like this. Reminds me that we've done something good.

Big Girl Alert

Now she sits at the table with the rest of us. Doesn't she look proud?

Happy Easter

  They are a little late.  But here are a few pictures from our trip to Ethel M's where we saw the Easter Bunny. 

   The line to get Ethan & Gabrielle's face painted was longer that to get pictures with the Easter Bunny. 

 Granted this wasn't the most ideal picture I took, but I loved Gabrielle's face.  Like she had a secret that no one knew but her.  Poor Layla was just trying to pull his fur off, so there wasn't a good face shot of her.  But these are my kiddos...silly and goofy....and MINE!

  I love how sweet he is with his baby sister.  Even though in the five seconds after this picture was taken she was ripping his face off :)

Mac & Cheese

She liked it!

It had good flavor just not the yummy creamy texture it should have had. So now I have to figure out what I did wrong.

#12 - 19 New Recipes...

  My goal for this week was to use some of the recipes I found on my new favorite site....Pinterest.  There are a few that I found other places but for the most part they are from here.  I've linked them all below from the blog / website they were linked to.  I'm working on a rating system to make it easy to follow.  So over the next few posts I'll get one set.

So far I've made:
Grilled Balsamic Flank Steak
Pretty good / Everyone ate it
Zesty Italian Chicken
Pretty good / Made it on the stove instead of the crock pot / Jared didn't care for it (he's not a casserole kinda guy though)
Cake Batter Cookies
Dangerously good / Super easy / Everyone like them
Country Potato Salad
Super Good /Easy / Finally one that Jared liked
Buffalo Chicken Roll Up (Stromboli)
Super Good / Just a little too much spice for the girls / an easy recipe that you can do anything with

Baked-Zucchini-With-Mozzerella

Pretty good / Easy / I didn't slice them thin enough so they were a little mushy for me (I'm not a squash girl)

  And today I've got Mac & Cheese in the crock pot and I'm making Sloppy Joes.  The Mac and Cheese is new and I'll post what we thought later.  However, the Sloppy Joes we've made before and I loved them.  I didn't have bell peppers but no one missed them.

  I'm really enjoying having a new place to go and get other peoples opinions on what they cook.  It's easy to find a recipe but not so easy to know if your going to like it or not.  So the fact that all of the "testing" is done for me....makes me love it even more.

  One of the many ways we've been trying to save money is to cook more instead of taking the easy route and getting take out.  It gets hard to find good easy recipes that are kid friendly and Jared friendly.  He gets burned out easily so I have to mix it up and spread out the times I make it.  Another way I've been trying to do better for us is by using Bountiful Baskets.  They have been pretty awesome.  Jared likes the veggies, the kids and I like the fruits, and the price is right.  So it's a good mix for all of us.

Stinky Bath

My sweet spunky Gabrielle loves to have tooty-booty in the bath and watch the bubbles come up...makes her laugh, and makes me laugh and gag at the same time.

Leaves

I'm not sure what kind of tree this is but I love how the limbs sway in the wind.  It makes me wish it was in a big open field and we could picnic under it on a breezy (not windy...just a slight breeze) sunny day.

Ready for the pool

She found the rubber pants in her room and thought they were floaties.  You little girl make me laugh.

Gabrielle the cleaner

At least when you have an accident you know what to use to clean it. Too bad just laying it there didn't soak it all up and make it smell lemony fresh.

Solids & Layla

  This past week we made the break to dinners. We've been doing fruits and veggies since you were about 4 months.
  So far we've had chicken teriyaki (which you didn't like), spaghetti with chicken sausage (that you loved), and tonight pork chops with sweet potatoes and apples (this one went well too). 
  It makes my life easier; I just put in a little of what we are eating into our mini food processor and voila dinner is served.

It's a chicken teriyaki kinda night.

We liked it, she didn't.