Recipe Review

I'm still getting back in the rhythm of taking pictures everyday for Project Life. The worst is trying to remember to get a picture of what I made for dinner each night...before we eat it! Now that Kyle is joining us at the table and things are a little more hectic in the kitchen, it's so easy to forget about taking pictures of the food.

So here are the 3 meals from last week that I actually remembered to document.

We tried the Pioneer Woman's recipe for steak and pepper sandwiches.

These tasty subs are filled with sliced cube steak, red and green bell pepper, onions and mushrooms. Then they're topped with a slice of provolone cheese and toasted under the broiler. Tyler and I both thought they were really good, but Rick was on the fence about them. Probably because he ate his late at night after most of the sauce had dried up in the pan. I didn't mind having them on the drier side, but he missed the juice.

Next we tried Balsamic Glazed Pork Chops and Polenta.

I love a grilled pork chop and the balsamic glaze was great on these. However, I'd never reduced vinegar on the stove before and whew, you really have to be careful not to get too close...those fumes can really get to you! So the pork chops were popular all around, but nobody cared for the polenta. Maybe because I used low-fat milk instead of whole milk. I don't know, but I'd just skip it next time and go with a different side dish.

Finally we tried Baked Corn Dogs.

So these are kind of like a pig in a blanket, but with a homemade cornmeal dough. Let me just start off by saying these would have been way better with a good quality beef hot dog, but I went shopping on Super Bowl Sunday and all the good hot dogs were gone. The crust though, came out way better than the crescent dough in a can that we usually use. Sure it took a little more time to make and rise the dough, but once that was out of the way it was quick work dividing and wrapping the dough around the dogs. I'll have to make these again for sure, but with a better hot dog next time.

The Battle of the Socks

We have the worst time keeping socks on Kyle's feet. The.Worst.Time. He usually ends up kicking them off multiple times throughout the day. Or I'll be carrying him around and notice that he's missing a sock, so I'll have to retrace my steps to find out where he dropped it. Part of the problem is that he's getting too big for his old socks. He needs the next size up, I guess.

So when we were at the store this weekend, we found a package of socks that claim to be 'kick proof'. Sold! They were in our cart and off we went.

We put the new socks on Kyle right away, but almost immediately noticed a secondary problem.

The socks may be kick proof....we really haven't had enough time to assess that claim, but they certainly ARE NOT 'pluck 'em off your feet and stuff them in your mouth' proof.

Pluck.

Look Mommy...no sock.

Again and again Kyle pulled the socks off his feet yesterday. One and then the other. I finally gave up by the end of the night and just let his little piggies hang out. And to ensure my sanity stays intact today, I changed his outfit, putting him in jammies that cover his feet. Phew! Until tomorrow. That's another story.

Week in Review

Last week Tyler lost yet another tooth, so now he's missing his two top front teeth and his bottom leftmost incisor. I joked that he looked a little bit like a vampire now, but he wasn't amused.

And with all these missing teeth, his money from the tooth fairy is really starting to pile up. I thought he'd want to go to the store over the weekend to buy something, but it turns out he's saving up for a new game for his 3DS.

Last week also marked the end of January and in turn, the end of the "Read up a Storm" contest at Tyler's school. Normally the kids have a goal of reading 400 minutes each month, but last month they raised the goal to 600 minutes, which breaks down to 30 minutes, 5 days a week. No problem. Tyler is a huge reader, so he made his own goal to read as much as possible...way more than 600 minutes.

And when everything was all tallied up, Tyler came out on top. He was the Number 1 reader in his class with 1, 543 minutes. Wow! But even more surprising...it was still a close contest. The next reader behind him came in at 1, 510 minutes. What a close one! Only 33 minutes difference. Whew!

In other news around the house, Tyler got a new fish over the weekend.

It's a white and red male beta named Happy.

In the kitchen, I tried a few new recipes during the week, but I've been doing a terrible job of taking pictures of the finished product.

I made a chocolate pudding pie from an older issue of Cooking Light. It was actually the first pudding pie I've made completely from scratch and it came out really good. I couldn't find chocolate wafers for the crust, so I ended up using a box of Annie's whole grain chocolate bunny grahams.

Tyler and I were supposed to work together to make these Groundhog Day breakfast pizzas from his GP cookbook, but when he slept in, I was on my own.

The recipe calls for premade mini pizza crusts, but I don't even know what that is, so I used Alton Brown's crust recipe from his Good Eats cookbook. They came out super delicious!

For Super Bowl Sunday I made a crock pot full of Rachael Ray's Beef and Black Bean Chili and my favorite recipe for cornbread to go with it. For dessert I made chocolate chip cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies are not my favorite. In fact, the whole plan was Rick's idea, but I went ahead and made them for him because I was already knee deep in the kitchen with all the other things. I used Alton Brown's recipe for chewy cc cookies and honestly, they were the best I've ever made.

Tyler Bear's Day Off

Tyler's had so many days off from school this month, either because of holidays, snow days, or legislative cuts, that I don't think he's had a full week all month long. Yesterday was another one of those days, so I decided to take him out of the house and have some fun.

First we stopped and the bowling alley and played two games.

I wish their hours for open lanes started a little earlier so that our outing didn't land smack dab in the middle of Mr. Fussy Pants' nap time. I was hoping he'd fall asleep on the way over there or while we were there, but no such luck.

I think Tyler's arm was starting to fall off by the second game so his score went down a little bit. Meanwhile my score actually improved. A strike and a spare in the 10th frame. Woot!

After we finished up at the bowling alley, we headed over to the park to feed the ducks.

They usually hang out by the frozen pond, but when they saw our car pull up, they literally all flew over to the parking lot. We almost didn't need to get out of the car to feed them.

Then we went for a walk around the perimeter of the park, which was free of snow and easy to navigate with the baby stroller.

When we got back to the car the ducks were still waiting around in hopes of more food. And this guy even hopped on top of the hood. Excuse me!?

Not a Fan

Kyle's first two baby teeth are breaking through the skin. That means he's getting ready to eat more solid food. And the doctor told us that he should be eating his baby food multiple times a day. We're past the introduction stage and moving into the 'make a meal out of it' stage. Since he'll be joining us at the dinner table more frequently now, Rick and I decided it was time to break out the high chair.

We got one of those seats that you place right into your existing dining room chair. It comes with it's own tray still, but it saves a little space not having an additional free standing chair at the table. For now though, we're just pulling the seat right up to the table and doing without the tray. We'll save that for when Kyle can start feeding himself.

We had started him out with fruits, because those are yummier of course. He enjoys the bananas, pears, apples....all of it. He even likes sweet potatoes and carrots. I did buy peas, but we'd never given them to him yet. Until yesterday, that is.

Turns out he's not a fan. At all.

Look at that poor devastated face! We took the peas away and tried him on something else, but he was over the whole meal at that point. We'll have to try again another day...he's not getting away from eating vegetables that easily!

Kyle at 6 Months

Kyle turned 6 months old earlier this week and today I took him in for his 6 month check-up. His height and head size were average, but his weight was a little low....at 15 lbs, he's only in the 13th percentile. He's been eating solid food for a few months now, but I guess I need to up his serving size or offer it to him more frequently. He loves rice cereal, bananas, and sweet potatoes, so it'll be no problem getting him to eat more of those.

He's almost sleeping through the night, getting up anywhere between 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning for a feeding. The doctor says he's perfectly old enough to go the entire night without eating, so instead of feeding him in the twilight hours, which is what he expects, I can just give him a pat and tell him, "nice try mister, but it's back to sleep you go". If only it were that easy.

Right now he tries to grab everything he can reach and put it right in his mouth. He especially loves the spider out of his bug jug (so many legs to grab and chew on) and anything that rattles when he shakes it.

He loves pulling off his socks and....you guessed it...stuffing them in his mouth. It's nearly pointless to even put socks on him, except for the fact that's it's the middle of winter.

He's also been making this face a lot. He scrunches up his nose, clenches his gums and breathes forcefully in and out of his mouth. I'm not sure if he's just experimenting with sounds or if he's trying to copy some of the silly sounds his brother makes. It's funny either way.

He's generally a happy baby and is very ticklish, unless he's tired and then it's another story.

Recently he discovered that he has a tongue and that it's fun to stick it out of his mouth, so he's been doing that trick....oh, about a million times a day.

He's getting stronger and can hold himself up longer with each try. It won't be long before he's sitting up on his own and crawling all over the place, but for now he's more of a roller.

So we have a few things to work on, but overall he's doing just fine.



Boys at Play

Tyler was so excited when he first found out that he'd be getting a brand new little brother. He couldn't wait to play with him, read books to him and all that sort of stuff. Then Kyle was born and he literally did nothing but sleep all day long for months at a time. Let's just say...Tyler was quick to realize just how 'boring' little babies could be.

But now Kyle is 6 months old and he loves his big brother. He loves it when he does the running man. He loves it when he gives him rib kisses. He loves watching him play Mario on the Wii and best of all, he loves it when his big brother plays with him.

And I love it too.