Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day, so I'd like to recognize all of our veterans and thank them for their selfless service for our country.  They keep our country safe, and their sacrifices for all of us should no go overlooked and unappreciated.  My grandfather was a veteran, and I'm so very proud of him.  It's a noble and heroic thing that they do, and we should all be grateful everyday, but especially today, on Veterans Day!  Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans, I thank you immensely!

High Five for Friday

It’s Friday!!!  Yay!  I’m happy it’s the weekend and happy we are that much closer to Hawaii!!  It’s one of my favorite, okay probably my favorite, place on earth and I’m so happy to be going back.  We leave two Fridays from now, and I can’t wait!  Anyway, here are a few highlights from the week:

1.    Drew started to LIKE eating his solid food!  I can’t tell you how enjoyable feeding him is now.  I’m so happy that he’s turned the corner, and that we’re able to keep trying new foods.  He's liked everything we've given him, which makes it easy.  So far, carrots seem to be his favorite, so he must be taking after his great-grandma Pat.  She loves carrots too!

 

 

2.    We went to dinner with friends on Wednesday at the Pour House for Cat Chat.  It was fun to get out of the house and meet up with some friends, and Cat Chat is always fun.  Doug and I also had a good laugh about becoming “those” parents as we forced our friends to watch videos of Drew eating rice cereal and peaches!  Oops!

 

 

3.    We had a couple of snows this week, and I’ve been loving it.  Our new house is beautiful when it snows because we are so close to the mountains.  I feel like I’m living in a little winter village and I absolutely love it!
 

4.    I’m not one to get excited about Christmas before Thanksgiving is over, but for some reason, this year it’s sneaking up on me quite early.  I think all of the commercials, Christmas music, and store aisles lined with Christmas goodies are getting me in the mood.  Plus, since we will be out of town over Thanksgiving and won’t be back until December 1^st, I’m contemplating decorating our house before we leave.  I just love Christmas.  It’s my absolute favorite time of year, and I love the excited feeling I get when it’s near!  Here are some pictures from our house at Christmas last year.

 

5.     Finally, our house has been smelling great this week thanks to this lovely candle! More on that next week, so stay tuned.

 

 

There you have it, the Friday five. Hope you all have a great one!!

Update!

Well, I thought I’d do a little update on Drew’s “real” food adventures.  Last time I wrote about it, he was not into it at all, and was actually quite difficult to feed.  He would arch his back and cry, and when I did get a spoonful in, he’d gag.  He was gagging, even on the good stuff like peaches and applesauce.  I thought the kid was crazy!

Anyway, things are going much better now.  He’s getting the hang of it, and actually starting to like it.  Grandma Brenda was kind enough to get him a pretty sweet highchair, that he loves, and he’s been enjoying his food ever since.  He’s even gotten to the point of grabbing my hand and shoving the spoon in his mouth.

I can’t tell you how happy and proud this makes me.  It’s weird what little things make you happy when you have children!  I was getting frustrated and concerned that he wasn’t ever going to eat solid food, and worried that we’d struggle with it forever.  I’m so glad that we seem to be over that hump, and now he’s loving it.  I guess I’m not surprised because he sure is an easy, happy baby.  He makes being a mommy pretty easy on me, and I couldn’t be more proud of my little guy.  He’s just the best!

In other food related news, Doug and I became "those" parents last night.  We went to dinner with some friends, and had a really enjoyable evening.  We were so close to making it out of there without being annoying parents, but then just as we all stood to leave, we did it.  We had been talking about Drew and his adventures in new foods.  We were explaining how he hated it at first, and then Doug suggested, well here, let me show you a video of him eating rice cereal.  And it just went downhill from there.  At one point, we both had our phones out, actually forcing our poor friends to watch video after video of Drew eating rice cereal and peaches.  And they stood there, feigning interest.  Oh yes, look at Drew eating another peach.  Wow, that's an interesting video.  Yep, it happened.  And when we left, Doug realized that we had become "those" parents in that moment, and we couldn't stop laughing.  I haven't laughed so hard in a really long time.  Hey, what can I say, it was bound to happen right?! 

Wednesday Wisdom

Be honest, you just said "Hump Daaaaaaaaay" in the camel's voice, didn't you?!  Happy hump day everybody!  We're halfway to the weekend and I can't wait!

Homemade Ravioli

For Valentine's Day a few years ago (back when he was still trying to impress me), Doug took a cooking class so he could make me a fancy Valentine's Day dinner.  At the class, he learned how to make lobster ravioli, and he did actually make it for me on Valentine's Day (I heard that most of the guys in the class didn't end up making the meal for their ladies, so I felt pretty lucky!).  It was pretty darn delicious.  We have modified the recipe a little, and have continued to make it at home periodically.  It takes some time, so now that we have Drew, we only really make it on the weekends when we have more time to cook.  We made it this last Sunday, and it sure was delicious!

What you need:

• Won ton wrappers - we buy a 12 oz. package at Wal-Mart

• Filling ingredients - this can be whatever you want.  Obviously, it was lobster on Valentine's day, but now we usually use chicken, mushrooms, cheese, and a little milk.  We've also added spinach.  You can get as creative as you want here.
• Bowl of water
• Discard bowl
• Cookie sheet, or something to put the finished raviolis on
• Pizza cutter

First, we cook up what we want for the filling of our ravioli.  This time, we used chicken (one chicken breast), mushrooms (a small package of fresh mushrooms), an Italian cheese blend (as much cheese as you like), and a little milk.  You want to cut the filling ingredients into pretty small pieces so that it will fit in a ravioli.

Then comes the work, you take one won ton wrapper and wet the edges of it.  I usually just wet my finger, using the water bowl, and trace the outline of the square won ton.  Then, you put the filling in the middle, and grab another won ton wrapper.  Put the wrapper on top of the one with the filling, and press down on the outside edges where the water was.  The water should make the wrappers stick together, and then you will have a square full of filling.  We use a pizza cutter to cut off the corners of the ravioli to make them more round, and discard the scraps in the discard bowl (this is a step that you wouldn't necessarily have to do if you didn't want to). 

 

 

 

You continue that process until you have used up all of your won ton wrappers or until your filling is gone.  We ended up with 26 ravioli (which was all of the won ton wrappers).

Then, you just boil the ravioli like you would any noodle.  It only takes a couple minutes to cook.  I bet we boil our ravioli for five minutes at the most.

We only made 14 of the ravioli, so we had seven each this time, and we'll have six each next time.  One of the great things about this meal is that it feeds us twice, and although the first time it makes a big mess, the second, there's hardly any clean up!

When Doug made it for me for Valentine's Day, he also made a homemade pasta sauce that was really good, but when we make it at home we don't use any sauce.  It sounds strange, and it looks weird, but it really makes it so you're able to taste the flavor of the filling.  However, you could certainly use a pasta sauce if you'd like.

There you have it.  It's not the most pretty food when it's done, but boy does it taste good.  The won ton wrappers give it a different consistency than a regular noodle, which I really like.  Give it a try, and let me know what you think!

Swim!

Drew had his very first swimming lesson on Saturday morning.  Like I mentioned last week, my sister was in town for the weekend, so she came along and documented the lesson for us, which means I am able to share some pictures and videos with you.  We all had so much fun, and Doug and I already learned some pretty great tips for swimming with a little one.

We got to the lessons REALLY early.  What can I say, I like to be on time! Needless to say, we had quite a bit of time to kill before the lessons were going to start.  We showed my sister around our gym, and then headed to the pool to wait. 

As it got closer, I got more and more nervous.  I knew Drew would do great, I just worry about him.  I have nightmares about children drowning, so I was a little hesitant to have him near the water.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite a good swimmer (both of my parents swam in college, so they taught me at a really young age as well), and I don’t worry about it myself at all, but I worry about Drew since he can’t swim and has no way to save himself.  I know that the best thing to do is get him comfortable around the water and teach him how to swim, which is why we are starting lessons so early!

Anyway, the instructor came over (we had a substitute instructor because our normal instructor is 30 weeks pregnant and was having a baby shower that morning) and we all got in the pool.  Drew really seemed to like the water, and immediately starting kicking his legs!

Unfortunately, Drew was by far the youngest child in the class.  There were three other children, two that were three years old and one that was four. Consequently, we had to modify most of the activities because Drew was so much younger than the others.  I was kind of hoping we would be in a class with children more Drew’s age, so the activities wouldn’t be so advanced, too advanced for Drew, but there must not have been any other young ones signed up.  More than anything else, we really just wanted Drew to get used to being in the water, so it worked out fine.  I think our substitute instructor is used to teaching older kids, so maybe next week, when we have our regular instructor back, she will have more ideas of things for Drew to do.

One of the activities was floating across the pool.  Of course the older kids were kicking their way across, but we just helped Drew float across the pool.  He was a natural!

Drew did awesome with all of all of the activities that the instructor had us do, up until the submersion that is.  I knew it would be hard to put him underwater, but I wasn't prepared for him to get as sad as he did.  He didn’t love it.  Here’s a video of Drew’s first time being dunked under water.  Poor guy!

We've already learned some helpful tips about swimming with a young child from just this one lesson, so I'm excited for what the rest of the class will bring. The instructor thought it was great that both Doug and I were at the lessons.  In fact, she said it was the first time that both parents had come to a lesson, which I thought was really weird.  I guess we just figured that’s what everyone did, and of course, we both wanted to be involved.  She thought it would be good in the long run too, because sometimes when a child swims with one parent at the lessons, they get used to swimming with that parent, and won’t swim with the other.  She said that the same went for submerging Drew.  Since Doug did it the first time, I should do it next time so that Drew doesn’t relate dad to having to go under water and not want to swim with him.

Overall, the lessons were really fun.  Drew really liked it, and I’m already excited for next week.  It will be so much fun to take him in the pool in Hawaii, and now I feel like we have a better idea of how to do that safely!  It sure is fun to watch him grow up, and I'm so excited for all of the activities we will be able to do together as a family as he gets older!

High Five for Friday!

Happy Friday friends!  It was another fast week around here.  I’m pretty excited for the weekend though because my sister’s going to be in town, and that’s always a fun time.

Here’s a recap of the highlights of my week:

1.    We started feeding Drew “real” food this week.  He’s not really loving it so far, and if I’m totally honest, it’s been a little frustrating for me.  I know I need to be patient and he’ll get it figured out, but it’s definitely not been second nature for him.  I’m hoping he catches on soon and starts to like eating solids, but it is fun to see him progress and move on to new things.  He’s growing up so fast, it’s crazy!  I can't believe he's already six months old.

 

 

2.    Halloween came and went…….and was lackluster.  We only had 2 trick-or-treaters, which was a little disheartening? Where were all the kids?  Other than the lame turnout of trick-or-treaters, it was a pretty fun Halloween because it was Drew’s first.  He dressed up as Frankenstein and was a pretty cute monster, if I do say so myself.  He got to visit dad at the office and see his cousins all dressed up too.

 

 

3.    Drew starts swimming lessons tomorrow, so we’ll see how that goes.  I’m excited to see how he reacts in the pool and excited to learn how to help him “swim.”  It will make me feel so much more confident when we’re around the water later this month in Hawaii.  I’m hoping that Drew loves the water, just like I did as a child!

 

 

4.    My sister is coming this weekend to watch her sister-in-law play some volleyball.  It’s always fun to have her and my brother-in-law around, so I’m sure it will be an excellent weekend with family.

 

 

5.    Drew had his six month doctor’s appointment this week.  He was in the 70^th percentile for weight, 75^th for height, and 97^th for head circumference.  The boy’s got a big noggin’!!  He also got another round of shots, which is never fun to watch as a mom, but he did pretty good with them.  He’s such a trooper!

 

 

Well, there you have it.  Another great week in my world.  Hope you all had wonderful weeks as well, and here’s to another fun Fall weekend!