It's October.

It's October.  And this summer was realllly busy.  And I have posted anything for a month.  So here's a condensed update.  Early July our family visited the Ozarks with Mark's family.  We had blast and James loved every minute with cousins in the "YoZarks."

 

 Before leaving Osage Beach for home we made one last stop for James' first go-cart ride with Daddy.

The following week, Mark left on a 10-day missions trip to Rwanda with a team from our church.  There were few pictures taken that week as it was a challenge to single-parent but the trip was quite fruitful for Mark and the team!

 Also in July, Elizabeth (far right) and I hosted a bridal shower for our (then) sister-in-law to-be, Anna.  It was such a joy for us to do so. 

We enjoyed the planning portion, making a menu of yummy appetizers and creating coordinating decor.

 In August we celebrating the marriage of my youngest brother Jeff to his bride Anna!

 We love this girl and are thankful to have her in the family!

 Mark and I were honored to both play a part in the wedding party!  We were so grateful for Mark's parents coming to watch James and Clara for the weekend to allow us to enjoy it!

 Then we spent four weekends in a row of continued busy-ness---we were in Manhattan, Sabetha, Nebraska, etc.  It's rare that I have my picture taken.  Mark took this one in a field of sunflowers where his parents live.

 Somewhere in there we squeezed in a last minute trip to the zoo.  Gotta love the zoo...James sure does!

 Then just a few weekends ago we celebrated James' 3rd birthday with a trip to the pumpkin patch, followed by a family party complete with balloons, fried chicken, and a dump truck cake (which was quite well constructed by Mark).

 We love this boy.  He surprises us daily with his creativity, boundless energy, knack for memorizing random things, and growing independence.

 Clara is on the verge of turning ONE YEAR OLD.  Can't believe that.  Just had to include this picture of her from the pumpkin patch.

In addition to having much to do on the weekends, we've (well, mostly Mark) taken on a few home projects, including re-tiling the kitchen backsplash.  I love how it has turned out and we now just need to paint the kitchen to finish it off.  Hopefully some before-after posts to come.....

Clara's 9 Month Photos

This summer has been incredibly busy. I'll have updates and photos to share soon but this slideshow will have to do for now. These are the photos that our friend and photographer Sarah Sorell took of Clara to document a 'day in the life'. They were taken two weeks ago and I LOVE them!

www.sorellimages.com/clara9months/

Clara, 9 Months

Clara's first year is flying by! She's 9 months now...already! Her first tooth popped through one week ago and the second is on its way. Clara is pulling up to her knees on everything, whether or not it's very stable. She's still army crawling but definitely ventures from room to room. And she dances to music!


And here's James at 9 months, just to compare for fun. James had way more hair. This was right before his first haircut, in fact. It's hard to remember James' chubbier days, since he's now a lean, mean, active-machine! :)

Balsamic Chicken Sandwiches

It's been a long time since I've posted a recipe, but this one is worth sharing. It's not a new concept--tomatoes, basil, chicken...sandwich. I found this in the Parade magazine that comes in the Sunday paper. It's a Jessica Seinfeld recipe so the original calls for pureed broccoli...which I omitted. But it could possibly go undetected, I suppose, which would fit in with her Deceptively Delicious concept. I halved the recipe and made the following:

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t pepper
1/4 cup flour (she used whole wheat)
2 T evoo
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c chicken broth
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
3 T brown sugar

tomato slices
grated mozzarella
fresh basil

1. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Toss with flour.
2. Warm oil in skillet over medium high heat. Add chkn and garlic. lower heat to medium and continue to cook til chkn begins to brown and garlic becomes fragrant, 8-10 minutes.
3. Add chkn broth, vinegar and brn sugar. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer 10-15 minutes, til chkn is cooked through and no longer pink in center.
4. I served mine on a whole wheat tortilla, layered with mozzarella, tomato slices and basil leaves BUT the original recipe calls for assembling the sandwiches on ciabatta rolls and then baking them 5-7 minutes at 350* until melted.

This recipe would make about 3 or 4 tortilla wrap/sandwiches....

Enjoy!

Belated Father's Day

We are really missing Mark around here. He will be home in three days from a short missions trip to Rwanda. I took these pictures on Father's Day. That's how far behind I am in posting pictures! Mark is a super duper fantastic dad. He is so patient with the kids. James thinks the world of him, and Clara definitely lights up when she sees him the morning! Father's Day was pretty hot Mark pulled out the sprinkler and ran around in it with James while Clara watched from the swing. Later he and James made one of their favorite meals together; "pancanks", fried eggs, and bacon.
I'm starting to think collages could be my new method for including photos in my blog posts. I love that I can smoosh them all together and upload just one image! I realize the black and white I chose here is a little on the artsy side. I'm just playing around with settings!

Fro Yo

As one of our friends pointed out, frozen yogurt is definitely a dessert fad right now. I'll gladly jump on that bandwagon! I love the stuff! Of course I usually pick out brownie and peanut butter flavored fro yo. Mark had picked some 'healthier' fruity flavors when we took the kids a few weeks ago. Disclaimer: I never give Clara adult food, let alone desserts, but we let her have a few tastes. Naturally, it was a hit with her! And yes, I took my camera along just because I had remembered the cool orange chairs, and thought they'd make for great pics!

On another note, you may notice the collage above....I've downloaded the latest free trial of Lightroom and am loving it. With a lot of coaching from my friend Allison, I'm learning my way around it. But if the collage looks funky, it's because I downloaded a template on my own. Fun to play with! By the way, check out Allison's blog...she and her hubby are starting a photography business!

A Splishin' and a Splashin'

Two weeks ago we took a family trip to visit Mark's sister Gail and her family. They were wonderful enough to watch both our kids for the night so Mark and I could spend a night away from them in a B&B. Such a nice break for us. The second afternoon and night we all stayed together and got to take our kiddos to the pool. James had been to the swimming pool once, when he was about 10 months, so it's about time he try it out again. He was very hesitant, but Mark was super patient with him.

talking it over...a little pre-swim pep talk

all ready to go in her bathing suit!

SO brave all on his own (in the kiddie pool)

splashing Daddy with chilly water!

very first dip in the pool

Good job, James! High five!

Miss Clara, Almost 8 Months

Clara will be 8 months old next week. We are celebrating the fact that she only wakes up once in the night now and can sit up steady enough that she doesn't need padding & pillows all around her. Clara is eating two meals a day and loves it! I haven't done a good job of offering her much variety, but she likes sweet potatoes, squash, bananas, applesauce, and avocados (as long as they're mixed with something). She also LOVES these little teething biscuits I bought for her. They are great for keeping her busy and content during either my dinner prep or dinner time as a family, but BOY do they make a mess!

"I'm so happy sitting up! Sitting up means more social interaction!"

"Mmmm, teething biscuits. What a gummy mess I am!"

First Baseball Game

A few weeks ago, my Aunt Debbie, Uncle Dale, and cousin Tim took us to a Royals game. Since last year they have been wanting to take James to his first game and even got him a Royals tee for Christmas. James had a great time, ate tons of peanuts, and even made the big screen! What fun!

riding the carousel during the eighth inning

picking up his 'first game' certificate

clapping for pre-game fireworks

Rocky Mountain Sky

My brother and his wife just bought a house. It's a-dorable!!! And before they move in they're taking the time to paint and update quite a few things. All of the talk about renovating and painting really has made me take a closer look at our home. When we moved in, we were picking paint colors/carpet/fixtures faster than you could believe. We (well, family) changed so much in a month and it was a HUGE improvement, one we've been so thankful for. But I've started to notice a few things around the house I'd like to switch up. Mostly paint colors. And we've started in the living room. I can't tell you what a difference it has made! It was dark green. Everybody would say, 'it feel so cozy!' That's nice. I didn't mind cozy, but it was pretty dark.

While Jenny was visiting she coached us in paint color selection, because let me tell you she has done some research for spiffing up her new home. Here are a few paint swatches she was brave enough to throw on the wall. Can you believe we ended up choosing the upper right paint color? Against the green it definitely appeared only gray. Granted we went a slight nudge closer to blue when we picked our final color.

Jenny was SO excited to do this with us. :) She was right, the paint samples we had bought were a little more powdery blue than we actually wanted. And she TRAVELED WITH her own paint samples. Isn't that great? We ended up going with one similar to something she brought.

The new wall color is the backdrop for Clara in the above picture. I still don't have a whole-room finished picture, because there are a few things we need to do first, like hang up pictures and paint a table. We did buy an entertainment center off of Craigslist. It is huge. We've named it Hercules. Although bigger than we were expecting, it was such an ordeal to move it in that we're keeping it. In the spot it sits. For life.
More pictures to come, eventually.

Smoking Meat Memphis Style

Phew! Time is flying by. I can hardly believe this was two weeks ago. Andrea and I went to high school with Jenny and love any opportunity to reunite and hang out. Jenny has married Drew and moved to Memphis, so we don't get to see her as often as I'd like, but when we do we relish every moment! It so happens that Drew is quite knowledgeable about smoking meat. Mark loved learning tips from him, and we all enjoyed a yummy meal together after a day of hanging out. These are all out of order and fairly self explanatory....enjoy!

Sauce-tasting; the men (including James) tasted three different sauces...and each preferred a different sauce! go figure! it was fun to sample ribs 'sauced' with three different brands!

The Farm...Revisited...Again

A few weeks ago we headed back to 'the Farm', a local petting zoo park/farmstead. When I ask James what he feels like doing, he usually responds with three of his favorite locations: Home Depot ('to see the forklift'), the pumpkin patch, and this park, which he refers to as 'the Barn' or 'the Farm'. We'd been waiting for a little sun to peek through to make our second trip of the year.

My mom came along and we met up with Elizabeth and Annie, too.

Clara along for the ride. Since she's still napping twice a day, she had a mid-morning snooze in the stroller.

Annie loved the baby ducklings. The barked at them.

We've fed the small goats enough times that James really looks forward to it.

And we found a few fish food pellets on the ground to feed the fishies, too.

This was Annie's first shot at walking the majority of the park. I think she loved the independence!