That's What She Said

Announcement

2010-11-22T21:43:00.000-05:00

Hello dear readers.

I regret (but not really) to inform you that this is my very last blog post over here on That's What She Said. Not my very last blog post ever, just the last one over here at this blog address!

Blogger has served me well these past four years, but it is time to move on. My husband has created a kick butt website for me and I am soooo ready to start using it! This site will still remain "live", but it wont be updated. So don't forget to subscribe, bookmark, change the blog address on your blog rolls, change the rss or whatever it is you people need to change in order to check my blog!

Now, it will take some time for me to move my 600 something posts over to my new website, so you will just have to bear with me. If you don't see something over on my new website (for example: a certain recipe or photography or vaccine post) you may feel free to come back here and search for it. Everything WILL eventually make it over to the new site, but again, it WILL take me a little while.

Anyway! Without further ramblings, here is the link to my new blog/website/awesomeness! www.amylynntitus.com

Dylan

2010-11-16T09:11:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I headed out to take some pictures of our friend's nephew. He is almost two and just about the sweetest kid on earth. Lucky for me he had NO problem warming up to me or my camera! Seriously, I am thinking about hiring this kid out to give pointers to other toddlers I photograph. The whole time I was with him and his mom he was just so sweet and chill. Seeing as how MY kid tells me to stop taking his picture every time I bring out my camera, it was very refreshing to be around a toddler who didn't mind me and my camera following him around! :)

Without further adieu, here are a few of my favorites from our session!

My Fast Food Breakfast

2010-11-10T20:49:00.001-05:00

I love breakfast.

I mean, I really love breakfast.

And these days I have been craving a bacon egg and cheese biscuit from Burger King just about every morning. Besides the fact that it is a complete waste to buy breakfast every day, I am not ok with feeding myself and my baby that much fast food JUNK every day. Once a week? Fine. I wont lose any sleep over that. But every single day? No, I will seriously start feeling guilty.

To make a short story long, my favorite local coffee shop (Elements Coffee Company, to be exact) started selling breakfast. They posted a picture of their breakfast sandwich and I drooled all over my keyboard. I would NOT feel guilty about eating their breakfast because it is made fresh every morning. And lets face it, anything made fresh every morning is bound to be healthier than Burger King or McDonald's. But I still had the pesky problem of my husband not letting me go out and buy breakfast every morning!

So I decided to try to make my own. Which turns out is way easier than I could ever imagine. Its actually way to easy to justify being a for real recipe post, but I am bored and needing something to blog, so I am going to post it anyway!

Here's what you will need...

An English muffin, two slices of bacon, one egg and a slice of cheese.

Simple, simple ingredients.

Ok, so first fry up some bacon. And yes, I use turkey bacon. Its not quite as bad for you as regular bacon and it doesn't taste too shabby either! :)

Once the bacon is crisped to perfection, lay it on a paper towel so the grease can drain while you make the other stuff.

And just as a side note, you can microwave the bacon if you want to make this even easier. I do that when I am even more lazy than usual. But really, its just not as crispy and delish that way, so I generally try to use the frying pan.

Ok, now here is where you may laugh at me. I sometimes scramble and egg and then put it on the muffin, but I really like the whole fast food egg look. You know, the circle or square that the "egg" is shaped in? Well, I happen to have these cute little bowls and they are the PERFECT size!

So here is what I do. I take one egg and beat it with a fork into that square bowl. Then I microwave it (yes, I said microwave). I nuke it for 20 seconds at first, then stir. Then I nuke it for somewhere between 30 and 40 more seconds until it is done!

And when its done, it looks like this!

Now take your English muffin (toasted or non. I generally don't toast mine because I don't feel like bringing out the toaster, but its your call.) and split it in half.

Slap on the egg,

slice of cheese,

and a few slices of bacon.

Close it up and wala! You have yourself a yummy bacon, egg and cheese sandwich!

So there you have it. You could have probably figured that out all on your own, but I appreciate you humoring me. :)

Two pictures

2010-11-05T08:09:00.000-04:00

*** Disclaimer*** My husbands monitor is not calibrated, and because I am needing to use his computer to edit pictures I have NO idea what they are looking like to you folks. I know they look ok over here on the non calibrated monitor, but they could like like a pile of poo to all of you. So I apologize if my pictures are looking a bit off. One day everything will be back to normal. One day...

I just wanted to show you two pictures of my absolutely gorgeous child. Even while suffering from nasty bronchitis (yes, we went to the doctor today and he sure enough DOES have bronchitis) AND an ear infection he still manages to look like a freaking model. Gah. This kid just melts me!

Oh, and the soccer ball he is holding? He got it from the doctors office. He was pretty pumped about that! :)

Random Ramblings

2010-11-03T19:54:00.003-04:00

Zachariah has been sick for the past two days.

And by sick I don't mean puke sick. I mean congested sick.

The poor guy cant breathe. He has developed a cough and he has a constant runny nose.

And he is clingy.

And tired.

And fussy.

And isn't sleeping very well.

And isn't eating very much. All he asked for/ate today was applesauce. Quite a few bowls of applesauce at that. So that makes me think his throat hurts. Well, that and every time he coughs he almost cries.

When he doesn't feel good he is pitiful and cute and cuddly.

I love the fact that he is cuddly, but I hate he is sick.

And this cough. Oh this cough freaks me out sometimes. It reminds me of his bronchitis that he had last year. And the year before.

Needless to say, we are headed to the doctor tomorrow morning. I need to get some meds into this kiddo.

And I wouldn't be shocked if I moved Z into our bed tonight. Which I have NEVER done before. So you know if I do it I am truly paranoid about him and his breathing/coughing.

Sorry I don't have a more interesting post. I am one heck of a tired mama right now.

A List

2010-11-01T21:39:00.004-04:00

1. I hate not having a computer. Yeah. Its pretty much killing me. Who knew that toddler puke could kill a computer? I am eventually going to get a new computer, but for now I am still waiting till the end of the day to use my husbands. Its not the end of the world, but its really cramping my blogging/facebooking/emailing/photo editing style! So if you are waiting on me to get back with you via email or facebook, or if you are waiting to see cute pictures of my kid... it may take me a little longer than usual. Just know that I am getting to it all. Slowly but surely.

2. Halloween was fabulous. Well, I take that back. The day before Halloween was fabulous. Our dumb town decided to take it upon themselves to change the holiday, so trick or treating took place on Saturday, not Sunday. You know, because its apparently "evil" or something to have Halloween land on a Sunday. I know, I know. I am ridiculous to pitch a fit about this, but honestly here. There is something seriously wrong with a town thinking its ok to change holidays whenever they want!

We went trick or treating with some friends from church and it was a BLAST! We rode on a trailer through the neighborhoods and got loads and loads of candy! This was Z's first year trick or treating and he seriously loved it. He loved spending all of that time with his friends too. Win win situation for us! :)

3. I have the smallest linen closet known to mankind. I'm not lying. Our linen closet is seriously tiny. It is located in the hallway and it has four shelves that are as deep as a shoe box. Since neither bathroom has a closet, this is the only place we have to store towels/sheets. I was about to call Daniel and complain about how I cant fit anything in our minuscule linen closet when I had a thought. There are millions of people in this world who don't have a home, much less a linen closet to complain about. So I slapped myself on the hand for almost complaining about something so silly and decided to reorganize to make the best use of that space. And after I reorganized I ended up with a whole empty shelf!

4. I got my hair cut. Nothing major, but my fabulous hair stylist thinned out my hair and gave me layers so that I no longer look 12. It had seriously been eight months since my last cut, so my hair was looking a bit ridiculous. Needless to say, my hair has been MUCH happier since the cut.

5. I have watched How To Train Your Dragon no less than a trillion times this past week. No lie. Ok, maybe a little lie. I HAVE watched it a lot though. As in, at least once a day. My son has become obsessed and has taken the Netflix movie hostage. I don't know when I will be able to send it back, but its time for an intervention. I think its safe to say this movie will be on his Christmas list. :)

6. There is a ton of laundry on my bed right now. I hate folding clothes. I will wash and dry them all day long. Heck, I am even fine with putting them away once they have been folded, but I truly loathe folding clothes. And because of that 5 loads of laundry have been wrinkling in baskets and in the dryer for a week now. I am actually out of baskets to put the clean (but not yet folded) clothes in, so I bought another one today. Pitiful? Yes. Did it buy me another day of not having to fold clothes? Yes. Yes it did.

7. I hate not having a computer. Oh, wait. I think I already covered that. My bad.

8. I am getting a new blog. My fabulous husband is designing it and I am super pumped to get it up and running! I still have to do a few things before I make it public, but it is pretty much awesome. I will let you all know when the big reveal will occur.

9. I am now 25 weeks pregnant. I'm not even gonna lie. The first 4 months went by incredibly slowly, but I seriously cant believe I am almost in my third trimester. I am amazed at how normal I feel. I haven't puked in a month, my saliva production is down so much that I don't have to spit in a cup anymore, and I am just enjoying the heck out of my pregnancy! I never thought I would see this day, but I am SO glad it is here.

10. This baby is a mover and a shaker! No joke. This baby is ACTIVE. I did not feel Zachariah kick me this powerfully until my 7th or 8th month, but this little boy has been kicking and nudging me quite forcefully for at least a month now. In fact, he has started river dancing on my bladder in his spare time. Talented little guy! :)

11. Diet drinks are evil. I am constantly amazed at all the people I know who drink diet drinks. Usually it is people who are wanting to lose weight and they somehow think that drinking diet will help that. Studies have actually shown that people who drink diet drinks end up gaining weight. I have a whole blog post to do on this, but until then just know that diet drinks really are awful for you. Not like regular sodas are by any means good for you, but they are MUCH better than diet. I'll leave you with this thought: The ingredient list in diet drinks are so bad that pregnant women are urged not to drink them because it could do serious harm to the fetus.

12. My butt hurts. I have officially been sitting on the couch for too long, so I am going to go wrap this up before my butt goes completely numb. I will hopefully be (finally!) posting Zachariah's three year old pictures next time I get on here!

Baby Shark do do, do do.

2010-10-30T16:30:00.002-04:00

Last year for Halloween Zachariah was going to be a pirate. It was the CUTEST costume and he was in a major pirate phase, so I was pretty excited about him wearing it. Turns out he was terrified of the costume (you can see part of it here), so we returned it and he wore a Halloween shirt instead.

To avoid the same thing happening this year we let Zachariah pick out his costume and had him try it on IN the store to make sure he liked it. Wanna know what he picked?

A shark! Why a cute little pirate costume is more scary than a shark eating your head, I will never know. But I do know that he is going to be the CUTEST shark on the block!

Look, it even has a little dorsal fin on the back!

Watch out world! You have a cute little boy disguised as a cute little shark coming to eat all of your candy tonight!

And he has let me know that if he doesn't get lots of suckers, he just might chomp you.

Don't say I didn't warn you. He is pretty fierce.

Happy Trick or Treating everyone!!

Zac and Jack

2010-10-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

Zachariah had his friend Jack over to play today. We have had play dates at his house quite a few times, but because I am a slacker of a mom it is the first time in their year long friendship that I have had him over to play. Needless to say, Zachariah was VERY excited about the whole thing!

We had a great morning that was filled with playing and play-doh making and because of the rainy day, some movie watching. The movie of choice? How To Train Your Dragon. I think the boys bonded over their love for the movie. They had each seen it before, so it was cute to see/hear them telling each other about what was going to happen next. :)

I don't think they could have been any cuter.

So yeah. We had a fun little play date today! And if I am not mistaken, the boys have already planned for our next play date to take place at the zoo! :)

New Toy

2010-10-25T14:30:00.002-04:00

For my OCD child, bubble wrap is the greatest form of entertainment in the whole entire world. Daniel gave him a piece of that pop-able goodness on Saturday and he did not so much as glance at his toys all day. He was on a mission. Every free moment he had (even while sitting on the toilet) was spent trying to pop every single bubble on that sheet.

Dear inventor of bubble wrap,

Thank you.

Sincerely,

A very happy stay at home mom.

A Name

2010-10-22T17:23:00.002-04:00

As you probably know, I am currently pregnant with our second child. And as you probably know, we found out about a month ago that this second child is a sweet baby boy. The ONLY problem with that is that we cannot decide on a name!

I had a feeling this baby was a boy, so we had a few boy names picked out before we went to the ultra sound. But low and behold, I am just not satisfied. I LOVE the three names, but I am having doubts about it being the right name for our baby. I just don't have a peace about any of the names yet. I know that probably seems silly, but hear me out.

Daniel wanted to name our first son Nathaniel Alan. It is a name that he has loved for more than 10 years.Turns out, I don't like the name Nathaniel. Now, don't get me wrong, its a great name. But try as I might, I really could not see our baby having that name. And besides, if we name our child Nathaniel I want people to call him Nathaniel. Not Nate or Nathan, but Nathaniel. Most people don't care what your kids name is, if it can be shortened they will shorten it. Heck, they may even CHANGE the name all together! People call Zachariah "Zachary", which is a totally different name altogether. Its kinda our biggest pet peeve ever. Zac? Yes. You can call him that. In fact, sometimes he will call himself Zac. What about Z? Yes. You can call him that too. (I think my dad calls him Z more than he does Zachariah. Its a cute nickname and we use it a lot when I don't feel like typing out his whole name, so we are obviously fine with that.) Zachary? Absolutely not. That is in no way, shape or form his name.

Ok. Stepping off my soap box.

Anyway. All that to say, I was not digging the name Nathaniel for our baby. We didn't settle on a name until I was around 7 months pregnant. And when we talked about the name Zachariah I could totally see our kid having that name. I didnt have second thoughts a few weeks later, I didn't try to look through the baby books and find one that might work better for him. I was really at peace with that name for our son.

Why am I telling you all of this useless information? The answer is quite simple, really.

I need help naming my kid.

I seriously need some fresh name ideas. It is overwhelming going through a billion page baby book, in alphabetical order. I know everyone has favorite baby names, so I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it if you all would suggest a few names. At least three. But I would be even more thrilled with five. And even MORE thrilled with a 24 page book report from each of you.

Just kidding about that book report thing.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. We like unique names. Not weird and ridiculous names, but ones you don't hear everyday. Names like Joe, Sam, Bob and Billy are not something we are necessarily going for.

2. It does not have to be Biblical. While we love a good biblical name, it is not a must when naming our child. Just because our first born has a biblical name does not mean the rest of our kids will.

Ok, so shout out some suggestions! It can be a list of your favorite names, a list of your kids names (provided they are boys) or just a list of names you think we might like. I will keep you all posted on the naming process and let you know if we end up choosing one of your suggestions!

Oh, and because of my handy dandy blog counter I know how many people view my blog each day. I KNOW that even though I get 0-4 comments per post, there are 50-60 people view this blog on a regular basis. I am not expecting ALL of the lurkers to come out of hiding, but if I don't have a good number of comments I will be holding a grudge. :)

Oh The Joys

2010-10-20T21:33:00.002-04:00

Miss me?

You better have. I have been absent for almost a week! I had two to three posts lined up for this week, one including some of Zachariah's three year old pictures, but I have had a few set backs. Ok, mainly one set back.

You see, Zachariah got sick. He had a pretty high fever and he was VERY clingy. So we pretty much laid around watching movies all day Tuesday. Later that afternoon I decided to try and blog while sitting on the couch with him.

THAT was a bad idea.

He ended up projectile puking all over me, the computer, the couch and himself. My computer immediately shut down (I assumed out of self defense.) and hasn't turned on since. So if I want to use a computer I have to wait till late at night when my husband is done working on his. Luckily I am able to access my email and facebook on my phone or I would be cut off from the outside world!

Anyway. All that to say, my computer is dead and I will have to wait until it is fixed/I get a new one to blog anything of substance. All of my pictures are on the barf-y computer.

Stay tuned. I will keep you posted on my computer situation and when you can expect to see cute pictures of my kid! :)

Chicken Roll Ups

2010-10-15T11:00:00.004-04:00

I am not gonna lie. This week has been crazy-go-nuts busy around here. For the normal super mom our week may seem like a piece of cake, but for a pregnant lazy mom who usually doesn't get our of her pajamas until 10 and gets back in them at 2, this has been a crazy week. Don't get me wrong, its been a good week... but definitely a busy one!

We have started potty training (which is going remarkably well this time), started our first week of homeschooling (using this term loosely. I will talk about this more in a future post), Z has officially given up his nap (which makes for more errand running, believe it or not) and we ventured out to take part two of Z's three year old pictures. Not to mention our usual errands and library runs and play dates. I am running around so much during the day, that by the time I get to sit down this little baby inside of me starts kicking up a storm! I swear he starts running a marathon as soon as my butt hits the couch. There was a time I thought he was seriously going to jump right out of my stomach!

Anyway. Enough about babies jumping. Lets talk about food!

Since it has been about 23 million years since my last recipe post I decided now would be a good time to throw one at ya.

Back when I was super pregnant with Zachariah, our friends Matt and Jamie had us over for dinner. Jamie made chicken roll ups and they were a huge hit with me and Daniel. Turns out Daniel had these when he was growing up, but I think that was a first for me! The chicken roll ups require a total of four ingredients and it is a pretty tasty meal! Anyway, all that to say, I added this meal to our menu a couple years ago and I thought I would share it with you! :)

Here is what you will need:

Two to three chicken breasts (These are cooked. I kinda forgot to take a picture before I cooked them. My bad.)

A heaping amount of shredded cheese (About two to three cups. Depending on how much cheese you like. I am kinda a cheese-a-holic, so I tend to use a lot!)

One can of cream of chicken soup

And a can of crescent rolls.

Put the chicken in a pot and cover completely with water and boil for 30 minutes. (If they are frozen boil for an hour.) After the chicken is no longer in its raw state, shred it. There is no fancy way of shredding chicken. I wait for it to cool down a bit and then just tear into it with my hands. Its quicker that way.

Now pop open that can of crescent rolls and break one off. Put a little shredded cheese on it, then pile on some chicken.

Then add some more cheese!

Oh how I love cheese.

Starting at the wide end of the crescent roll, roll it up!

Now, keep in mind you do NOT have to stuff your roll this full. Daniel dropped several hints that I did not stuff them full enough for his liking a while back, so I over-stuff them now. I started out just wanting to be a butt and see how full I could get them, therefore showing him that I NEEDED to stuff them lightly. But that backfired, because I actually enjoyed the over-stuffed version. Ha! All that to say, you may go a little lighter on the chicken and the cheese if you would like.

Repeat with each crescent roll, and then line them up in a 9x13 baking dish.

FYI: I sprayed the dish with cooking spray first. Not sure if it is always necessary, but I ALWAYS spray things with cooking spray. Unless of course the recipe calls for buttering the dish, then I butter it. But I am very hesitant about putting things in the oven without spraying it down first. Call me crazy, but I just don't like caked on residue.

Now this is where your cream of chicken comes in. I dump the can into a measuring cup and then fill it with half a cup of water. Sometimes I use 3/4 cup of water. It all depends on my mood. Once you decide how much water to use, mix the cream of chicken and water together with a fork.

I feel like I should tell you that the recipe I got from Jamie says to heat the cream of chicken soup and the water on the stove in order to get it all mixed together. And I'm not gonna lie... if I did that it would probably mix together a bit better. But I am lazy and I didn't feel like using a pot. So I took the easy way out. It obviously turns out just fine the way I do it, but please feel free to follow the rules and heat it on the stove. I just happen to be a lazy rebel. :)

Now take the cream of chicken soup and water mixture and pour it all over the chicken roll ups. As you drizzle it over the tops it will fill in between each roll up and all down the center.

Obviously, the more water you add to the soup, the more mixture you will have. If you want more mixture in the bottom of your pan, increase the amount of water. And vise versa.

Now, plop it into your oven (that was preheated to 375 degrees) for 20-25 minutes, or until the crescent rolls are nice and golden.

Here is what they look like! As you can see, I could have left it in for another few minutes to make sure ALL the rolls got that nice golden look, but I was hungry. And my boys were hungry. So I opted to take the lazy way out and go ahead and take it out.

Don't be like me.

Serve one (or two) of these suckers with some rice, potatoes, or as we did the other night, noodles! They go with a ton of stuff!

There you have it. Chicken roll ups! Nothing fancy, but an easy/yummy meal to serve that will please even the pickiest of eaters! My three year old DEVOURS this meal, so I give it two thumbs up. :)

Here is the recipe without all of the pictures and ramblings.

Chicken Roll Ups

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts
1 tube of crescent rolls
1 can cream of chicken soup
Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
Boil chicken breasts for half an hour (if frozen for an hour). Shred chicken
Preheat oven to 375

Roll up shredded cheddar cheese and chicken into each crescent roll and place in a 9x13 baking dish.

Mix 1/2 cup of water with cream of chicken soup and pour over the roll ups
Cook for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Happy Friday!!!

Just One...

2010-10-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

More will be coming soon(ish) to a blog near you!

The New Playroom

2010-10-11T10:30:00.001-04:00

Zachariah's playroom was previously located in the last available bedroom in the house. We will obviously need that for a nursery in a few months, so we decided to turn our closed in carport (aka: our miscellaneous room) into a playroom! Since it used to be a carport, the room is pretty spacious. Which makes for a perfect playroom! Click here to see Zachariah's old playroom (which will become the new nursery here in a month or so).

It made for a nice playroom. It really did. But I am VERY glad that we were able to move it into a bigger space. I LOVE that everything is less cramped and there is room for lots and lots of play in this new play room!

Wanna see? Because of the largeness of the room and the lens I had on my camera, I was not able to get a full shot of the room, so I have several pictures. You will just have to piece it together in your mind. :)

Looking in from the kitchen, this is half of the room.

And this is the other half of the room. Just in case you were wondering this is my favorite corner of the room. The papasan chair is where I plop in the mornings to eat my breakfast/try to fall back asleep while Z is playing. :)

To the left of that brick step is the back door. And if you walk up that step you will be walking into our kitchen. It is GREAT to be able to keep an eye on/interact with Z while I am cooking.

This toy organizer is my new favorite thing. It doesn't hold all of his toys, but it sure holds a lot of them. Every toy has its place and Zachariah is OCD enough to want to keep it all neat and tidy. Fabulous!

And this is our school/art corner. Those containers hold everything from school workbooks to play-doh. I LOVE having everything all in one place!!

Anyway, that is the quick tour of the new playroom. I am beyond thrilled with the space. I know kids don't need a playroom, and I doubt our kids will always have one... but while we have one I am enjoying the heck out of it!

Tis The Season

2010-10-07T16:15:00.002-04:00

...for eating pumpkin!

Love for pumpkin knows no bounds in this house, especially when it is homemade! Our three favorite homemade pumpkin treats are pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and swirled pumpkin cream cheese bars. I was in the mood to bake yesterday and I have been DYING for some of the bars, but since I didn't have any cream cheese in the fridge (and didn't want to run to the store) I settled for making some bread.

It's a rough life, let me tell ya!

When Zachariah got up from his "quiet time" (which is another name for toddler-who-is-skipping-nap) we set out on our bread making adventure! While I have had the pleasure of my toddler helping me make several things (broccoli casserole, pancakes, scrambled eggs, baked ravioli, muffins... just to name a few) I have never braved the bread making experience with him. But because of my prep work and a VERY easy recipe (no kneading required!) he did a great job helping and I kept most of my sanity. Which is a pretty big accomplishment.

His main job is stirring. Not because that is all I trust him with, but because that is all he wants to do. These days he just does not have time to put the spoon down to dump the flour in the bowl! Oh, and right when we were getting started he asked if I could "find his chef hat so he could be a cook". And then right at the time this picture was taken he started singing a song that he composed right there on the spot about being a chef.

Talent. My kid has it.

Here is one bread pan right before it went in the oven! And the reason the hat is no longer on his head is because he was done stirring. Which, in his mind, means he was no longer a chef, so he couldn't wear the hat any longer.

And yes, he does crack me up on an hourly basis.

So! While we waited for the bread to bake Zachariah decided it was time for a bath. Well, I decided and he thought it was a good idea. It worked out wonderfully, because by the time his fingers were all prune-like the bread was just about ready to come out of the oven!

And here we are. Zachariah with his two loaves of bread!

And yes. That is a pink cat tattooed on his arm. And yes, he is completely naked. Sorry, but he smelled the bread as soon as he hopped out of the tub and seriously could not wait five seconds for me to clothe his naked butt before he drooled all over it.

Be still my heart. This bread not only looked and smelled amazing, but it tasted amazing too!

I don't know for sure, but I am pretty sure that this bread will be a staple around here for a while. :)

Hot Coco For The Win!

2010-10-06T09:40:00.002-04:00

A few days ago I told Zachariah that we would have to bring out the hot chocolate if it got any colder in the mornings. Well, yesterday morning it was in the upper 40's and he heard me telling Daniel how chilly I was, so he excitedly asked, "Mama! Can we drink hot chocolate?!" Since this weather puts me in a fabulous mood (most of the time at least) and since he was pretty much adorable, I agreed. Under ONE condition though. I made Zachariah agree to let me take pictures while he enjoyed his hot beverage! :)

Oh, did I mention that this was Zachariah's first ever cup of hot chocolate? Well, it was. I mean, he may have had some at a family members house last year, but not that I know of. So unless I find out differently we are counting this as his first!

And I think its pretty safe to say that he enjoyed it. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that after I got done take pictures he finished off what was left in MY mug as well!

I love this cute little goober. :)

My Ramblings

2010-09-30T15:39:00.001-04:00

My goodness. It has been over a week since I have blogged. AGAIN.

This is getting ridiculous. Pregnancy has obviously infected my brain. Before I was preggo I was blogging almost once a day! Now I am down to once a week. And its not like I don't have the time. I have a two hour window when Z is napping (or not napping. Regardless he is in his room for two hours), but I completely forget about this poor little blog!

And it isn't like I am lacking content. I have a couple book reviews to do, I have some paintings of Zachariah's I want to show off, I would like to show you Z's favorite birthday gifts that he received... but I just cant remember to do any of that!

Anyway. Enough excuses. Allow me to fill you in on things.

First things first. We went to the doctor yesterday for the 20 week ultra sound and found out we are having another boy!!! We are oh-so-excited. I would love nothing more to have a house full of boys, and it looks like we are well on our way!! We haven't decided on a name yet, but we have a couple that we are heavily considering. Hopefully sometime in the next week or two we will be able to make a decision!

Second, we are in the process of painting. Not painting a nursery mind you, but painting the play room. You see, the current playroom is stationed in the last available bedroom in our house. So that will obviously become the nursery, and the playroom is being moved to the "junk room". Also known as the closed in carport. It is a good sized room and I think it will be PERFECT for a playroom! Anyway, we are smack dab in the middle of painting that. I am hoping we can finish it this weekend!

And by we, I mean my husband. I started out helping him paint, but then I woke up the next morning not able to move my neck and one of my shoulders. And when I say I couldn't move, I am not even joking. Daniel had to help me out of the bed by literally supporting my neck AND back. I couldn't so much as lift a glass to my mouth to take a drink. It was ridiculous. Anyway, I went to the chiropractor and he helped me out. I am now able to get out of the bed unassisted, which is a plus! It still hurts to do some things (you know, like yawn.) but I am on the road to recovery. But needless to say, my chiropractor has restricted me from painting for a while. Which is a bummer, but my sister and mom are stepping in for me, so that is much appreciated!

And last but not least... Zachariah is still not potty trained. Shocker, I know. If it makes you feel any better, it is completely my fault, not his. What? That doesn't make you feel better about the fact that my son is three and not using the toilet yet? Ah well. I tried. :)

I promise to think about blogging more frequently next week. Ha. Seriously. I hope to get my act together soon. I may even pick my camera up and take some pictures of my oh-so-adorable three year old here soon! :)

Hope everyone has a good Thursday and a great weekend!

A Picture

2010-09-22T16:20:00.001-04:00

On the night of Zachariah's third birthday we threw away his paci's. It was a sad moment for him, and it took him well over 2.5 hours to fall asleep that night. But it has been over a week and he has done really great.

Well, except at nap time.

We have always had a bedtime routine that we follow. As he gets older we have tweaked it a bit, but for the most part it has stayed the same. Change into pj's, brush teeth, sit on the bed while dad reads a bible story, lay down and cuddle with mom and dad for a minute or two (which usually involves a bit of giggling), then we say our goodnight's and leave. The routine is something we all look forward to and I love that we have it. I think it helps him get in the mindset that sleep is coming. He knows what to expect when we start doing these things, and because he knows bedtime is coming he doesn't protest or argue about it.

I am realizing that we need to start doing the same thing with nap time. In the past we would change his diaper, tuck him in bed and leave. His paci would put him to sleep in no time. We never really needed a routine. But now it is very apparent that we need one. He has only napped once since we threw the paci's away. Once in nine days!

Help me Rhonda.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we have started a nap time routine in hopes of getting those coveted nap times back. Part of this nap time routine involves story time, and let me just say that I am loving it. Especially when Daniel is here. (He will generally schedule his lunch break so he can be home and eat with us, play with Z for a bit and then be able to be here to see him off to his nap. Is that not wonderful?) Because we both like to read to Z we split the reading up evenly. Z likes for Daniel to read his book(s) on the edge of the bed and he likes me to read laying on his pillow with him. :)

I don't know if this new nap time routine is going to help at all, but I sure do love reading with my two boys!

My Son, The Hitter

2010-09-19T21:36:00.004-04:00

I don't even know where to start with this post. I am somewhat of a hormonal basket case right now, so it may not make any sense... but ah, what the heck. I am just going to jump right on in and hope you can keep up. :)

We have been attending a certain church here in town for a little over a year. Just last week we joined this church, and that is actually a big deal for us. We don't just go around joining every church we attend. We have been searching for YEARS for a church that has a proper emphasis on Scripture, and we finally found one. Not only does this church have a proper emphasis on Scripture, but the people are for-real-deal-genuine. And if Scripture emphasis and genuine people weren't enough to make me giddy about this rare find, the fact that my son loves to be there and loves to go to Sunday School just makes me happy as a lark.

So... all that being said, there are a few things you should know.

1) Zachariah loves Sunday School.

2) Zachariah is one of the youngest in the Sunday School class and he loves it.

3) The teachers are fabulous. Z loves them. I trust them with every fiber of my being. Nothing but positivity coming from this Mama!

4) Zachariah has always been really well behaved for them. Everyone tells me what a sweet boy he is. How he shares, how wonderfully he gets along with the kids, how he participates... it makes me happy to hear such good reports about my baby!

I don't know what happened, but last week my well behaved son became a "hitter". He doesn't hit out of anger, he just hits for the heck of it I guess. And he has even done it right in front of me when I would come pick him up. He and another kid will be happily playing and all of a sudden he will just hit them. I think its mainly a playful hit, but its a hit nonetheless.

Since he is not hitting out of anger I can only assume he is hitting out of excitement. I have seen the hit and it's not forceful. It is almost like he just cant figure out a better way to communicate at that moment so he just gives them a little hit on the arm. And the fact that he does it in front of me makes me think that it is so innocent that he doesn't see anything wrong with it!

Tonight after church I was told that he hit so many times that he was put in time out. And guess what? After time out he hit again. What the what?!?! He HATES time out. So the fact that he would hit again after he has already been in time out makes me even more sure that he doesn't"get" that it is wrong for him to playfully hit.

I don't know what to do. He does not hit at home. He does not hit at his grandparents houses. He does not hit when we have play dates during the week. So why does he hit at church?

Yeah. I don't know either. But I really wish I could figure it out!

I left church tonight in tears. I actually haven't stopped crying since we got home, and that was quite a few hours ago. I blame a lot of it on pregnancy hormones, but the other part is pure frustration of not knowing what to do to about this whole thing. I know he could be doing worse things, and I know it is probably just a phase and it will eventually be fine... but not knowing WHY he is hitting is driving me absolutely bonkers.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to my Mommy woes. I hope to be back later this week with a less boring and more thought out post. I just needed to vent and get my thoughts together before I could move on in the blogging world. :)

Birthday Boy

2010-09-15T14:15:00.001-04:00

Monday, my son turned three years old.

Holy freaking cow. That just blows my mind.

But then again, I think I was kinda prepared for it. For the past 3 months or so he has been acting very much like a "big boy" and not so much like a toddler. It makes me sad to see his baby/toddler phases fly right out the door, but it is very fun to see him turn into a little boy. And if he were reading this he would make sure to tell me that he is NOT a little boy, he is a big boy. :)

I don't have a ton of pictures to show you yet, and that is because his party is not until this weekend. But I do have two pictures from his birthday morning I can share if you want! They are pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

We started with pancakes for breakfast (his request). He called them his "birthday pancakes" and was VERY excited when he saw birthday candles sticking out of them. All through breakfast he kept thanking us for his birthday. It was THE cutest thing ever.

After breakfast he opened his gifts (which I will blog about later.), played with said gifts all morning, we went to the riverquarium (his idea), came home and played with his toys some more, went to Mimi and Poppie's house for a family celebration, ate cake, and came home and crashed. Even though it was not the official party day, he enjoyed the heck out of it.

He told me, "Mamma, I am so happy. My birthday makes me happy." It melted me. I just love this kid, and I love that he loved his simple birthday so much.

I'll be back soon to tell you how the party went! :)

Training the Potty

2010-09-10T07:00:00.000-04:00

Is it just me or would training a toilet be easier than training a toddler to USE the toilet?

Oh, its just me?

My bad.

We have had some serious potty training issues. (And by serious I mean inconvenient.) You see, I missed the first window of opportunity with potty training Zachariah. I saw signs of him being ready, but I had ZERO desire to start potty training. So I ignored the signs and figured I would start when I got my act together. Well, by the time I was ready to start potty training I found out I was pregnant. And then 4 months of constant puking ensued. I couldn't potty train a toddler while staying in the bed/hanging over the toilet all day, so I put it off again.

So by the time I was done puking I had missed the window of opportunity. He was not interested anymore. But I decided to try anyway. I was actually convinced that if I potty trained a certain way he would "get it" in 2-3 days and I wouldn't have to worry about it ever again!

Yeah. I'm dumb.

To make a long story a little shorter, we tried a certain method and it failed. While it works great for some kids, it did not work for Z. We tried another method and it still didn't seem to do much. I then realized that Zachariah was not recognizing the "urge" to go. Once he would start peeing he would obviously know he was going, but he just was just not getting the whole tell-mommy-BEFORE-you-pee-thing.

In four days he peed in the toilet once. One time. And that was accidental.

Needless to say, I was discouraged and very aggravated. He wasn't "getting it" and I felt like a big fat failure for not doing this when he was showing signs of being ready months ago. I'm not going to lie... there are not many times where I feel like a failure as a mother. Quite honestly, I think I do a pretty darn good job at being a stay at being a mom. Sure, I could use some work in a few area's. But for the most part, I am rocking it. So this whole failing at potty training thing hit me hard. I was in a mini-depression for a few days because I just had zero desire to try anymore. So we stopped the potty training process. We put him in pull ups and decided to let it be for a few days/a week and then try again once I could re-energize myself.

And do you know what happened? Within two days of being in pull ups and me not saying a word about using the toilet he started telling me when he had to pee. He wouldn't catch it completely, but once he started peeing in the pull up he would stop and finish on the toilet. He then started becoming VERY uncomfortable in pull ups and diapers. (Seriously, when he pees or poops in them he waddles around like a duck. It cracks me up!)

Now, he is still not potty trained, but I am planning on starting the process again with full force in the next day or so. And you know what? If he still doesn't get it, thats ok. I have decided that I am ok with the fact that he may not be fully potty trained at age of three. As with any other milestone, kids move at different paces and I need to keep remembering that.

Anyway! As of right now, that is my potty training story. When he is fully potty trained I am sure I will be posting pictures of him in his Lightning McQueen underwear, so watch out! :)

Sneak Peek

2010-09-08T21:23:00.002-04:00

We have some friends from church named Chris and Corrie. They have an adorable daughter named Ariana and she is turning the big UNO this month! So what better way to mark that milestone than with a photo shoot?! Ariana is SUCH a cutie pie, and she did a great job putting up with my camera in her face for an hour! :) Here are a few pictures!

Enjoy!

Aren't they cute? They are such a fun couple. Always laughing and always in such a fabulous mood. I love it! :)

That's all for now! Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to dust off my camera and spend some more time with you and your cute daughter! :)

Beach Trip 2010!

2010-09-03T15:26:00.001-04:00

See! I told you I would get some pictures up this week!

Ok. No unnecessary babbling. Lets just dive right on in, shall we?

This is the view from the living room in our condo. If I could walk into my living room at home and see this every day I think my life would be complete. This view did not get old!

And we didn't just stare at the beach from the balcony. Our first full day there we ventured down and parked it in the sand for a while. Now, the ocean was NASTY. And by nasty I mean there was nothing but seaweed in sight. So we stayed out of that grossness, but Z really, really enjoyed playing in the sand!

And this is what happened when I asked him to look in my general direction and smile. Yeah. Not so much.

And no, I have NO clue what Daniel is talking about in the background.

And here is Zachariah's favorite cousin, Collin! See Zachariah, Collin smiles for the camera!

*sigh* We will have to see if Collin can help Zachariah out with the whole posing for the camera thing. :)

And what did we do after we were done playing in the sand? Hit the pool of course!

I'm not going to lie... this pool was pretty great. Half of it was in the shade and half was in the sun. I LOVED that I could choose to bake or not to bake. It was great. And grand. And lovely.

Oh, and we don't know that couple there in the sunny part of the pool. Our crew was in the shade at that point and these people creeped into my picture.

Rude.

Each afternoon when we would come back to the condo from our fun activities this is what Zachariah would do. He did not take a nap the whole time we were there, but he would definitely come close resting on the couch waiting for lunch to be fixed!

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats, because this was one of Zachariah's favorite part of the whole trip.

The skywalk. The convenient covered walkway that connects the condo to the parking garage. It can be called a skyway, catwalk, skybridge or skywalk. But in reality, it doesn't matter what you call it because Zachariah will only yell at you and insist it is a spaceship. That's right. A spaceship.

And this kid LOVED going in the spaceship. It was the highlight of every day. Anytime we need to go to the car (rain or shine) he would beg to walk in the spaceship. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Yes, we could have just walked across the street to get to our car. And yes, it would have only taken about 30 seconds to do it that way. But we very rarely did that. We decided to take the extra 2-3 minutes to ride the elevator up, walk through the spaceship, ride the elevator down and THEN walk through the parking garage to our car.

Because, lets face it, there is no way on earth we could refuse such an adorable and giddy boy the experience of walking through a spaceship several times a day. :)

And seeing him walk through the spaceship may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too.

No, wait. This was definitely up on the favorite part of the trip list as well. We went down to the beach to take a group family picture and seagulls were flying EVERYWHERE! Zachariah was basically in heaven.

Every morning Z and I would take a walk on the beach before breakfast, and every morning he would chase the seagulls in hopes that he would be able to hold one. He never got upset when he couldn't catch one, but he was a little discouraged that he couldn't even get close to them. So you can imagine how giddy he was when they started flying very low and very close to him!

Watching this kid run with/towards/away from the seagulls was probably one of the cutest things ever. I mean, EVER. He loved every second of it. :)

And just in case you were wondering, here is our Titus Family group picture. :)

The morning after the seagull fun we started packing up to leave. It was a sad moment when Zachariah realized we were leaving the condo and heading home. We had packed everything up in the car and came back into the condo for one last look around to see if we had left anything. We decided nothing was left behind and started heading out and he quietly said, "I don't wanna go home. I need to stay in condo." and from there it was just downhill. For the first 20 minutes of the drive he cried about not wanting to leave the beach. It wasn't a bratty cry. He wasn't pitching a fit. It was a genuinely sad cry.

And that made me cry. I wont go into how long I cried, but lets just say that Z dried it up well before I did. Darn these pregnancy hormones!

And here he was, about half and hour into the ride home. My sweet baby was exhausted.

So yeah. We had a blast. And while it wasn't his first beach vacation, it was the first one where he was able to soak in and enjoy the wonder of the beach. It just made my year to experience this trip with him! And I owe that all to my wonderful in-laws. This yearly family beach trip is a fabulous tradition they started and it is because of their hard work planning this trip that we were able to have such a great time!

I guess that about wraps it up! Well, not really. I still have a post about going to Gulf World while we were in Panama City, but you will all have to wait for that one. I am beat! :)

Until next year...

Well, ok. Until the next post...

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!

2010-08-31T15:32:00.002-04:00

First things first... this is not a post with beach pictures. I KNOW they are overdue, and I SWEAR I will get at least some of them up this week, but I have just had one heck of a time catching up with things around here!

For those of you that want to know, I am feeling MUCH better these days. Yes, the last few months have resembled hell on earth for me, but the "all day sickness" seems to be tapering off. I haven't thrown up in a week! When you compare that to throwing up every day, several times a day... its enough to make a person downright giddy! And because of that I am feeling more "normal". I am able to cook dinner again, play with my son, run a few errands. Its great. Now, I still have to pace myself. I find that when I try to do to much in one day (run multiple errands in a two hour time period for example) I get very lightheaded and sick feeling, therefore making me stay on the couch the rest of the day. So I just have to take it slow-ish. I am so, so, so thankful that I am getting back to normal!

You may be thinking, "Well since you are feeling better and getting back into a normal-ish routine why cant you blog on a more regular basis?"

Well, good readers, that is a good question. And I have a good answer.

My son is the devil.

Haha. Just kidding. But over the past week he has definitely hit a certain stage that reminds me a little bit of the devil. I may choose to go into more detail later, but lets just say that he has developed quite the attitude lately and he is not afraid to show it.

So between me growing a baby and the new toddler phase that has taken over this house, when I get a moment to blog I just plop on the couch and stay there as long as I possibly can. I feel like a major bum, but its the only way for me to do anything remotely close to re-energizing myself. And re-energizing myself keeps me from stabbing myself in the eye with a fork, so as you can see it is pretty important.

Anyway! Thats about it for today. I swear, I WILL post pictures soon.

Don't hate me.

Z-isms

2010-08-27T10:54:00.006-04:00

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to stop by and tell you that we are back. We have actually been back for four days now, but I just haven't graced the blog with my presence until now.

My bad.

Anyway! I have pictures and cute stories to share, but for now you will just have to settle with a few funny things Zachariah has been saying here recently (aka: I am trying to stall until I can get my rear in gear and go through my pictures).

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Here is a conversation we have EVERY time we eat Taco Bell:

Z: Is that poop?

Dad: No, its beef

Z: Beef? I dont like beef. Its yuk.

I walked into the playroom where Z & D are playing...

Z: Moooom. Go in da kitchen and make us some food!

Me: Are you kidding me?

Z: No. Pwease!

Z: I need to change my diaper!

Me: You will have to wait just a bit. Mommy needs to throw up.

Z: But I have POOP!

Me: Well I have VOMIT!

The other day Zachariah informed me that "mushrooms yook yike marshmallows in the grass!"

After hearing some ruckus in Zachariah's bedroom during what was supposed to be nap time, I go in there and ask, "Why aren't you taking a nap?" He responds with "I JUST readin my Bible!". Sure enough, he had his toddler Bible in the bed with him. :)

Me: Zachariah, you need to get dressed so we can leave! Z: Where we going? We going Mimi and Poppie's? Me: Nope. Z: RiverQuarium? Me: Nope. Z: Chick fil a? Me: Nope. We are going to Toys R Us! Z: *GASP* Toys R Us?!?! Maybe they have some toys? Me: Yeah baby, I think they might have some toys.

And last but not least, my favorite...

Due to some recent outbursts of Zachariah's, I was explaining to him how we need to be gentle and sweet to mommy's tummy. He said, "Like this?" And rubbed my belly very gently. I praised him for being so sweet and he got a very proud look on his face. He asked me why I had a baby in my tummy and I told him that God gave me the baby in my tummy. Then he lifted up my shirt a little so he could see my stomach, put his eyeball on my belly button and said, "I need to see it." I explained to him that we would not be able to see the baby for a while because it has to stay in my tummy and grow big and strong. He sat there with a thoughtful look on his face then leaned in close to my stomach and yelled, "BOO!" After giving him a questioning look he said, "I trying to scare it."

Ok! Now that I have successfully documented my sons cute little conversations I am going to go play with him. Stay tuned for beach vacation pictures! :)

Vacation Time!

2010-08-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

We are going to the beach, baby!!!!

Each year we take a family vacation to the beach with Daniel's family and we always have lots and lots of fun. Everyone enjoys the heck out of themselves so much that we pretty much start counting down the days till the next beach vacation the day we get home!

Zachariah has been especially excited this year. He is old enough to anticipate fun things, and this is no exception. Every day for the past week he has been inviting me to go to the beach with him. It is so funny! This week we have had a nice countdown going and announce throughout the house "TWO DAYS UNTIL THE BEACH!" (that was yesterday's in case you were wondering)

Anyway! I just wanted to drop in to tell you that we are going to be on vacation and you should be super jealous. :) If you are having blog post withdrawals, feel free to click here to see last years beach pictures and click here to look at pictures from the year before last!

Now, I am off to pack.

Wish me luck.

Say It Aint So

2010-08-16T15:50:00.002-04:00

In a little less than a month my son will be turning three.

THREE!

He is obviously moving out of the toddler stage and into the "boyhood" stage real quick like. And that makes me sad. But I have a few more weeks until I have to deal with this age change issue, so I am going to just ignore it now, ok?

I took this picture the other day. He had just woken up from his nap. He has adorable bed head, his paci in his mouth and his blue blanket under his nose, (along with gung-gung, this is something he does not sleep without). Ever since he was a baby (not infant, baby. like, 6 months old or something) he HAS to put his blanket or gung-gung under his nose in order to fall asleep. He also does this when he is tired/wishing he was going to sleep. I have no idea why, but it is just something he does. And I LOVE it. It is one of the cutest things ever.

Anyway. I am very glad I took this picture. This is something I want to always remember. It is part of who he was as a baby and part of who he is as a toddler, and no matter how old he gets I want to be able to look back and remember this exact face. This groggy, yet obviously happy face of my baby. I just can't get enough.

My Beautiful Child

2010-08-11T13:20:00.001-04:00

First things first. Thanks for those who let me know their opinion on the crib situation in the post below! Whether it was by comment on my blog, email or facebook, I really appreciate the feedback! I am personally leaning towards crib number two... but we will see how it goes! I will keep you posted! :)

Ok. Now, for the blog post...

Since I have been puking for the past 2.5 months I have not taken very many pictures. In fact, I have not so much as thought about picking up my camera! I enjoy taking pictures and so I have been kinda missing the whole taking-pictures-for-fun-thing that I had going on. And once I can get my act together I hope to trot on over to my friend Shelley's house and take some pictures of her ADORABLE baby girl. :)

Anyway. All that to say that the other day I was laying on the couch, per my usual, when I looked over to see Zachariah playing at the window. He was being SO incredibly cute and so I decided to heave myself off the comfy piece of furniture and grab my camera. It took me a while to remember where I keep the thing, but once I found it I got all up in Zachariah's play space so I could show you some pictures of his adorableness.

You can thank me later. :)

See his cute little dinosaur? That dinosaur lives in the blinds (no joke. that is his home now.) and Zachariah loves to periodically come over and make him "ride the elevator" or "walk up some steps".

I love seeing his imagination at work. I could seriously watch him play for hours. It is the cutest and most entertaining thing to hear him come up with voices for his toys and to see what "trials" he will have them conquer. Today this dino is just getting a lot of exercise going from one level to another. :)

And I am now getting roared at. That was Z's not so subtle way of telling me I was cramping his style with my camera. :)

I just love this kid. His hair rocks my socks, his eyes melt me and I could just kiss that face all day long. God has truly blessed me, and I am so incredibly thankful. I cant imagine life without this awesome kid. :)

Cribs

2010-08-09T15:45:00.001-04:00

So, I have been crib shopping.

Yes, I know that might seem a little silly considering this is our second kid and we still have Zachariah's crib... but here is the thing. We bought Z's crib and changing table for REALLY cheap from a former co-workers sister. She had used it for two kids already and it wasn't in "like new" condition. Which was fine. We aren't snobs and we don't need things to be bran spankin new. But after Z put some wear and tear on it, it is just not that safe to use for another kid. The pull down rail is very wobbly, which is a bit dangerous. (I just learned that cribs with the rails that can go up and down have actually been recalled. They don't make them like that anymore due to safety issues.) The changing table that came with the crib was pretty much a few pieces of particle board with nails in it. Again, after Z put some wear and tear on it, just not the best idea to use it any longer. Anyway, all that to say, we have decided to purchase a new crib and changing table for baby number two. Hence, my crib shopping!

And let me tell you, this is just the kind of shopping therapy that I have been needing. Since I have been so sick I don't really get out of the house much, so that cuts down on my impulse/nonsense buying. (Our budget has been a very happy camper) I cant buy bedding or clothing yet because we wont know the gender of our sweet baby for another two months. So this crib shopping is seriously so much fun for me right now!

So, Daniel and I have pretty much narrowed down our favorite cribs to two different ones. Obviously we have PLENTY of time before baby number two gets here, but we are just trying to plan a few things out in advance. Mainly to appease me and my boredom/need to shop. :)

Here is crib number one:

Crib number one generally runs for about 400-500 bucks, but walmart sells it for $250. How great is that? This crib has PHENOMENAL reviews and it is exactly what I had in mind when I set out on this online crib shopping journey of mine.

And here is crib number two:

This crib is NOTHING like what I had imagined wanting or buying, but I really like it! It is simple yet very unique. It is a little shorter than a "regular" crib, and I find that very appealing since crib rails no longer slide down. This crib is about a hundred dollars cheaper than crib number one, which I think is a VERY reasonable price for such a cute looking crib. The only negative is that it is a fairly new crib on the market, so it has ZERO reviews. I make every online decisions based on reviews, so it throws me off my game when I don't have reviews to help me out.

Anyway, those are the two cribs we are debating between. I would LOVE your opinion on which one you like better/think we should get! Both are a cherry wood and would look great with pink OR blue bedding, so its kinda a win-win if you ask me!

Once we find out the gender I will be back with bedding options. Haha! :)

Have a great Monday!

3 Little Things

2010-08-02T19:30:00.001-04:00

Good evening everyone! Because my son is watching Blues Clues, I happen to have a few minutes of peace and quiet. Well, not technically peace and quiet. Zachariah is constantly giving me the play by play on what Steve and Blue are doing, and I am hearing the "Mail Time!" song... but its about as quiet as its going to get right now! :) So since I have these few moments, I have decided to grace the blog world with my presence.

You are welcome.

Today I thought I would start something new over here on That's What She Said. Over the past couple years Daniel and I have made an effort to eat healthier. Most of the stuff we have done seems like pretty common sense stuff, but before we started making a conscious effort to be a little healthier, they weren't really common sense to us at all! So, just in case you all are interested, once a week I am going to post three to five simple things you can do to extend your life expectancy!

Haha. That was a little joke there. Doing one of the random three things I post wont make you life 10 years longer or anything, but it WILL make you just a little healthier. And heck, if it DOES make you live longer, let me know. I will write a book.

Oh, and just as a disclaimer, I am not a nutritionist. I am not an expert in anything health related. I am a research freak and I am just sharing a few things that our family has found helpful in being a little more healthy!

1) Drink 100% juice. When purchasing juices, stay away from anything that is made from less than 100% juice. Those juices have unnecessary sugar and not enough nutrients. I just don't understand the point of buying a juice that is only 30% juice and the rest water, sugar and "natural flavoring". Why not just buy the real thing? It is better for you and it taste a lot better too! So next time you are at the grocery store try to stay away from the "fake" juices and look for the ones that advertise 100% juice! (I know that Great Value, the walmart brand, carries quite a few 100% juices and they are VERY tasty.)

* Honestly, it is best if you don't drink juices at all and get your daily servings of fruit from actual fruits, but we have not cut out juices in our diet, so I am not about to preach to you about avoiding juice. I did think I should mention the fact that eating an apple is actually better for you than drinking a glass of juice. :)

2) Cut out the junk food. You know what I am talking about. The Pringles, Doritos, Fritos, Chex Mix... all of the pre-packaged snack foods. As wonderful as they taste (mostly due to all the MSG), there is just no good that can come from keeping those items in your pantry. When we decided to stop buying the junk snack food we honestly thought it was going to be ridiculously difficult. But you know what? After a week or two we didn't even miss those things! Instead of bringing out a bag of chips to munch on, try a handful of blueberries, or a cup yogurt, some peanuts, or string cheese. They are healthier AND tastier. Chips (and other bagged snack foods) will fill you up and then leave you hungry again in a short amount of time (again, its the MSG), but the more natural foods will leave you more satisfied. Try it! I swear, if my husband can go from eating Doritos several times a day to eating yogurt and rice cakes (and loving it), you can too!

3) Eat fresh fruit. Canned fruit is probably the worst type of fruit you could eat. Well, chocolate covered fruit is probably a little less healthy than canned, but not by much. The syrup is very sugary and the fruit contains less vitamins and minerals. And quite frankly, it just doesn't taste as good as fresh fruit. Don't believe me? My husband swore up and down that he did NOT like peaches, until I gave him a fresh peach. And then he thought he died and went to heaven! Pretty much all he had eaten was canned peaches and he had no clue how wonderful the real things were! So when at all possible, go for the fresh stuff. But if you aren't always able to do fresh, frozen is the next best thing. (Zachariah eats frozen mango chunks for lunch almost daily!) It doesn't take long to thaw and the fruit still keeps most of its nutrients!

Ok folks! That about does it for today. Again, these are very simple things to do, and I feel a bit silly even posting about them, but if one person realizes that there is a difference between 100% juice and the juice they are purchasing, then I consider it a successful post! :)

Happy healthy eating (or drinking)!

Advice Needed

2010-07-30T17:30:00.000-04:00

I want to paint.

But I don't want to paint just anything, I want to give one of the rooms in the house a spruce. I know that if I wait a few months I will be able to find out the sex of the baby and then we will be painting the nursery... but I don't want to wait for that.

That being said, I think I want to paint our hallway! Our hallway is extremely bland and... well, so many other boring words. I am actually ashamed we haven't painted it yet. I mean, we have been living here for four years now and I think a paint job is LONG overdue.

So here is where your help comes in. I need help figuring out a color to paint the hallway. For your convenience, I have included a picture of the bland and yucky looking space.

My gut reaction is to go with a neutral color. An earthy tone. Something safe. But here is the problem. The hallway leads into the living room, which is a brown earthy color. The hallway also leads into mine and Daniels bedroom, which is painted in two different brown colors. And guess what? The hallway leads into the kitchen, which is ALSO painted with two shades of brown and a lovely shade of white.

Yeah. We went a little crazy with the browns. We realize this now.

So here is my question...

Would painting the hallway an earth color just be too much? Should I go with a red or something different to set it apart from the rest of the house, or will I be safer to stay with the same color scheme we have going on?

Oh, and then there is the problem of this nasty wallpaper covering the bottom half of the hallway. What do to with that? Paint over it or re wallpaper with something a little more trendy?

Obviously I need your help people. So PLEASE leave your feedback! I am desperate!!!

Pregnancy Update

2010-07-21T20:51:00.001-04:00

Hello! Its been almost a week since my last post, so I figured I should pop on over here and update you all on what is going on. And to tell you the truth, this is going to be a pretty short post considering nothing much has changed! And this wont so much be a post as much as it will be me rambling. Just thought I should give you all a fair warning!

Ok, so pregnancy news... I am about a week and a half away from being out of my first trimester. Can we say, hurray? I cannot wait to reach that point. Not like the sickness will magically go away like it does for most people, but it means I am that much closer to holding my baby and being DONE with pregnancy. For those that say pregnancy is the most enjoyable thing, I want to slap them. For those that say the second pregnancy flies by, I want to slap them too. Now, I wont actually slap anyone, but these two things could not be farther from the truth for me!!! I guess its kinda hard for a pregnancy to "fly by" when I am constantly being reminded (by spit and puke) that I am pregnant.

Speaking of being pregnant, I am so incredibly emotional and exhausted all the time. I cry at the drop of a hat least once a day, and it is usually because of something silly. Yesterday it was because Jackson asked Suki to marry him on an old Gilmore Girls episode. I have seen this episode at least a dozen times, and never once have I done anything more than smile at that particular part. Needless to say, I felt dumb. And I remember being extremely tired when I was pregnant with Zachariah, but it has been hitting me hard this go around. Thankfully Daniel has the flexibility with his job where he can stay home for a couple hours in the morning and he takes care of Z and lets me sleep in! How wonderful is that? I am telling you, I am spoiled rotten. I mean, Daniel is usually a BIG help to me and Z on a daily basis anyway, but he is really outdoing himself during the pregnancy issues. He wins about 438 awards for being so fabulous! Having the luxury to puke in the morning without a toddler climbing on my back or sitting in my lap is just... heaven.

Speaking of puke, as of this week I have gotten my puking issue under somewhat control! I am throwing up no more than two times a day, but mostly its just once in the morning! I am stoked about that. Now, I don't feel 100% fine and dandy all day and I still hang over the toilet a bit and hack up mucous like its going out of style, but its so nice to know that I have the puking on a schedule. It allows me to get out of the house every now and then! Can you believe that I went 5 weeks without going out and about? I went to family's houses... that's it. Monday was the first time I went out into public, with my toddler, in 5 weeks. Now, I felt like I was going to pass out the whole time, but I did it! I went to Target and bought my baby some big boy underwear.

Speaking of big boy underwear, he is not actually wearing it yet. But I had high hopes of starting potty training this week, so we bought it just in case. So far I have been lazy and not been diligent about it. Anyone surprised? Didn't think so. But I swear, I am starting soon! I told myself that I wanted to start potty training when he turned two. That came and went and now I have set the goal at potty training him before his third birthday. Well, sadly, his third birthday is coming up in TWO MONTHS. Don't get me started or I will cry. I will just say that I don't have much longer before I meet this deadline! So I promise, I WILL start it sometime soon (as in, before he graduates high school) and I WILL be keeping you updated on the craziness.

Speaking of craziness... haha. Just kidding!

Well, I guess I did have a decent amount of stuff to say. So much for this post being short, huh? Ah well. I don't think I have anything else to ramble on about, so I will just go ahead and say goodbye.

Goodbye! :)

Laundry Fun

2010-07-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

I have had these pictures ready to post for a week or two now, but I just haven't been able to come up with any words to go along with the post. So, in fear of never posting this, I am just going to post the dang pictures and get over the fact that its going to be a lame post. Is that ok with everyone?

Ok. Good.

This is Zachariah's new laundry basket. Its pretty much the most adorable laundry basket I have ever seen and Zachariah LOVES it. I mean, absolutely loves it.

Along with being flat out adorable, it has this fabulous handle that you can use to swing over your shoulder and carry the lion down to the laundry room. Fabulous? Yes, yes it is.

The mouth of the lion opens up so you can throw clothes in there. Zachariah LOVES this.

Every time he has dirty clothes he runs over, opens the mouth, throws the clothes in, closes it and says (in a very deep and raspy voice), "Mmmm. Yummy shirt!" (Or shorts, or pants. Insert appropriate clothing item.) So yeah. He talks for the lion. How cute is that?

Anyway. I just wanted to share about the cute laundry basket. We found it at Target for $10 and we are VERY pleased with it. They had a couple other laundry baskets similar to this. I think one was sports related and one was a butterfly or something. But this one is by far the cutest. And it fit his safari themed room so wonderfully, so purchasing "Mr. Lion" was a no brainer for us.

And yes, Zachariah named his laundry basket. :)

Like Mother, Like Son

2010-07-08T11:36:00.002-04:00

In case you missed it yesterday on facebook or twitter, here is a picture for your Thursday morning enjoyment...

Is this not the funniest thing in the world? I was hanging over the toilet and when I turned around Zachariah was doing this little number. Cracked.me.up. He did have a few sound effects to go with it, and he did spit in his toilet. I started getting onto him for spitting, but then I figured that sounded a bit hypocritical. Ha!

Anyway, just wanted to share this priceless cell phone picture with my blogger friends! Hope everyone has a great day!

Pregnancy Woes

2010-07-06T15:30:00.001-04:00

Ok... I really am hoping to post more than once a week, but, as my last post explains, I am pregnant. And for those of you who have not realized this yet, I feel you should know that pregnancy is a form of torture for me. Seriously. I am not one of those pregnant women who have a bit of nausea for 3 weeks and then joyfully enjoy the rest of their pregnancy. I am cursed.

You see, while some pregnant women only suffer from nausea, I suffer from vomiting. And while some pregnant women suffer from vomiting, I suffer from extreme vomiting. (I have actually busted blood vessels in my face a time or two.) When I was pregnant with Zachariah I threw up 6-8 times a day until I started taking Zofran. Even with the meds I still threw up 3-4 times a day. Not fun when you are a preschool teacher! This go around I am not yet on meds and only puking 2-3 times a day. So its not quite a bad as last time, but still just as inconvenient due to the fact that I need to raise a toddler. Oh, did I mention my vomiting lasted the whole 9 months when I was pregnant with Zachariah? Yeah. Well, it did.

Now that we have covered the vomiting, lets move on to the spitting, shall we?

Yes. I said spitting.

Believe it or not, excess saliva is a common pregnancy symptom. Most women have an increase in saliva, but its not a very noticeable one. And the women that do notice it can usually just swallow the excess saliva. Not the case with me. I have SO much saliva that I have to spit it out. I have to spit so much that I am forced to carry around a cup with me to spit into.

Yes. I have a spit cup.

And yes, I have been asked if I am chewing tobacco.

Doctors and nurses brush me off and tell me that the spitting will probably go away around the first trimester and then I promptly give a respectful eye roll. My vomiting does not stop in the first trimester and neither does my saliva increase. In fact, when I was pregnant with Z I did not stop spitting until four weeks AFTER I had him. And every month when my menstrual cycle rolls around I would always notice an increase in saliva. Never to the extent of needing a spit cup, but I would have to spit in the sink a few times a day during the week of my period. (Sorry if that is TMI. Going through pregnancy and child birth makes me numb to the whole TMI factor. lol)

And now that we have covered the saliva issue, lets move on to the mucous. I guess mucous and saliva could go into the same category though couldn't they? Ah well. On with the mucous!

Ok, so along with the puking and saliva issue I have developed a mucous problem. Tons and tons of mucous will literally back up in my throat and I will have to spend an hour or so gagging it up. I literally have to stick my finger down my throat to get it up. And sticking my finger down my throat triggers the gag reflex which makes me puke again. Oh the joy. Anyway, the mucous problem is getting a tiny bit better thanks to Zyrtec. It thinks out the mucous a bit and makes it easier to gag up, which means less puking.

And I would be completely fine if I never type the word "mucous" again. That was just too much. My apologies.

All of that to say that I go through one heck of a time during my pregnancy and that is why I may be slack on my blogging. I am starting to cope better with my symptoms though, so hopefully you will see a couple more blog posts here and there. Just know I haven't given up, it just takes me a little bit to drag myself to the computer!

Signing off,

Your sick-o pregnant blogger

Zachariah's New Shirt

2010-06-29T10:00:00.001-04:00

Zachariah has a new shirt and he has been DYING to share it with you all, but I have made him wait for a few weeks before showing it off. Partially because I am a mean mommy and partially because I like to keep secrets.

Ok, fine. Its only because I like to keep secrets. But the time has come and Zachariah just couldn't wait another moment to model his new shirt. So without further adieu, here is the new addition to our two year olds wardrobe...

You like? :)

Well, the shirt doesn't lie! I am about 7 weeks pregnant and my due date is February 12, 2011. Come early next year, ZACHARIAH IS GOING TO BE A BIG BROTHER!

And you know what?

We couldn't possibly be more excited about it! :)

False Alarm

2010-06-28T15:39:00.002-04:00

Nope.

Hate to break it to ya, but this is not an actual blog post.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I just wanted to check in and ask you all not to hate me for going a flipping WEEK without updating. I promise I will have a real blog post for you tomorrow... ok?

No hard feelings? :)

Post Nap Ergo Propter Nap

2010-06-21T15:15:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. I have been slacking again. But hey, at least I have an excuse this time! I have been plagued with a sickness. Some kind of stomach bug has attacked me and I have been out of commission for quite a few days. But have no fear, I have just what the doctor ordered: A dose of Zachariah cuteness for this lovely Monday afternoon! :)

The other day I was editing some pictures at the kitchen table when Zachariah woke up from his nap. He was still VERY groggy and just walked up to me, climbed in my lap and then flopped himself up on the kitchen table. I typically do not allow Zachariah to take up residency on our table, but he was really working the cute factor that afternoon. So I just smirked and went on with my editing.

After a few moments he started waking up (for real this time) and getting very giggly. It may have had something to do with a particular Queen song that Pandora decided to play for us, but I am not positive. :)

Appropriate shirt, no?

And then he ate my apple while we rocked out to Pandora. :)

If you cant tell, post nap bonding is my favorite. He is in such a fun, loving and happy mood during that time and I love to take advantage of it whenever possible!!!

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!

Flower Power!

2010-06-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

A few months ago we planted some Black Eyed Susan's. The started out as pretty small plants (a bit smaller than what you see in the above picture. that was taken a few weeks into the growing process.) and I didn't have much hope for seeing a pretty yellow flower this season. I read online that some black eyed susan's can take a year or more to start blooming!

Let the record show that I am NOT a patient person, and that lack of patience flows right into my gardening. When I plant something I want to be able to see it grow the second I bury it in dirt. Obviously that is ridiculous, so I talk myself through the months of watering useless plants. Eventually I started to see them growing taller and then one day I saw something besides a leaf! How exciting!!

At this point Zachariah started getting excited about watering the plants too. He was excited to see that a flower was on its way!

So, imagine my excitement when two days ago I walk outside and find THIS...

Be still my heart. I see a flower!!!! I did a little happy dance right then and there. Is it not the most pretty shade of yellow you ever did see??

*sigh*

I love it.

Some of the plants are a little behind, but right now we have two pretty flowers staring at me, and I am so pumped about it!

Stay tuned for more updates on my Susan's! :)

The Pigeon

2010-06-14T08:47:00.001-04:00

Happy Monday morning everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. If you ask me, weekend need to be at LEAST three days so we can really enjoy them. But alas, I had no choice in deciding how long weekends lasted, so we are stuck with only two days. Bummer.

This week I should have a post about the dangers of artificial sweeteners (sweet n low and splenda to name a few), and you are NOT going to want to miss that. Mainly because most people are very uninformed when it comes to the side effects and damage the artificial sweeteners can cause. And by people I mean me too. As I learn I am going to post... so stay tuned!

In the meantime I wanted to talk to show you one of Zachariah's new favorite books! It just so happens to be a library book (Zachariah LOVES the library) and it has stolen his heart. You may have heard of it. Its called...

That's right folks. Don't let the pigeon drive the bus.

Basically, you have this driver who has to step away from his bus for a few minutes. He asks you to watch out for things, but his main instruction is for the reader to NOT let the pigeon drive the bus. Simple enough, right?

Wrong.

Especially when it comes to a two year old being in charge of keeping the pigeon from driving the bus. As soon as the pigeon asks if he can drive the bus Zachariah excitedly says, "Ok! Yes!". Good thing I am there to help out. He is just not cut out for this tough love type of thing.

The pigeon keeps asking. Trying to convince you that he will "be careful", at which point Zachariah says, "Ok! You can drive the bus!" He SO does not get the point of this.

Sigh.

Luckily I am there to keep the pigeon in line. And he pouts. Its pitiful, but you have to stand your ground!

Such a dramatic pigeon.

And just when you think he is going to give up, this happens...

Mr. Pigeon here has an attitude issue, and I think that should be addressed at some point.

Anyway, the book is pretty cute and it actually made me chuckle a few times. Zachariah sure enough loves it, and all the other pigeon books! So, besides the attitude issue that the pigeon has (yes, we are actually having a small issue with Zachariah about that. He has been mimicking that very attitude and it is being nipped in the bud.) we give this book a thumbs up! :)

Oh, and just for the record, I misspelled my sons name every single time I typed it out during this post. Sad? Yes. I am having an off day, okay! Sheesh. Get off my back!

Ok. I am going to go return that pigeon book right this instant. This is ridiculous.

Pregnant Shelley!

2010-06-11T09:00:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! Sorry I have been a little slack on the blog updates this week. I really have no excuse. I have had pictures of Z complete with stories that show how fast he is growing up, but I just haven't had the motivation to post them.

But have no fear, Shelley is here!

In case you werent reading my blog six months ago, I took some pictures for Shelley and her husband Matt back in December. (Click here to see the session) You may notice that Shelley looks a bit different in those pictures and that is because she is just a few short weeks (or days!) away from having a precious baby girl! I have never photographed a pregnant woman before, so I was really excited/a tiny bit nervous when Shelley agreed to let me try my hand at maternity pictures for her! It was a great learning experience and I had fun (as usual) hanging out with my sweet friend.

Here are a few pictures from our time together earlier this week! Hope you enjoy them, guys! :)

I think this one is my favorite. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I will try and get myself motivated for being a better blogger next week!

Motherhood

2010-06-08T10:50:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, during his "nap", Zachariah hurt his toe. I don't exactly know how he hurt it, but from what I can piece together he kicked his bookshelf while attempting to kick a book. Why he was trying to kick a book when he was supposed to be in his bed asleep, I will never know. Regardless of the reason, he kicked something and I am pretty sure the toe is jammed. Or broken. But it hasn't turned black and blue so I think it is just jammed. It is definitely swollen and it is obviously bothering him to walk on it though.

After dinner I turned on the tv and put him on the couch. I spent the next half hour trying to prop his foot on some pillows, giving him medicine to help the pain, icing his toe (which did NOT go over well), re-propping his foot on the pillows, attempting to tape his toe but realizing that is not a battle worth winning at that moment and putting a band-aid on his foot because, lets face it, band-aids make everything better. Oh, and re-propping his foot again.

My poor kid was hurt and I couldn't completely fix it. He was emotional and tired of me messing with him and his foot and I was getting emotional because I didn't know what to do to help him. I was drained. I sat down on the couch and started to pout. I was this close to giving myself a pity party too. Wanna know what stopped me? Zachariah all of a sudden stopped watching tv and said to me (in the most sincere voice I have ever heard), "Thank you for making me all better."

I almost balled my eyes out right then and there. I know I wasn't able to take away any of the pain, but he was thanking me anyway. I didn't miraculously heal him. I didn't actually "make him all better", but I made him feel better. And that just made me so happy.

Words cannot explain how it feels to be appreciated by your toddler. My husband is very good about showing his appreciation for the things that I do. He is constantly praising me or thanking me. But to hear a two year old thank me for doing my regular scheduled motherly duties? Man. That is just something else right there.

Ok. I know I am babbling now, and for that I apologize. I have read one to many tear jerker blogs posts today, so I am a bit on the sentimental/emotional side. Everything should be back to normal tomorrow. But let me just close by saying that I love my sweet little boy. He seriously makes my world go round. :)

Housework

2010-06-07T09:40:00.003-04:00

In July of 2009 I did a child labor post, and back in March of this year I did a part two. Guess what? Its time for part three!

The other day I was folding some laundry on my bed and Zachariah decided to start rearranging the clutter on my dresser. Instead of having to explain to him for the three hundredth time that he cannot wear my deodorant, I decided to put him to work.

As you can see the dresser was quite dusty. And as you can see, he cleans with a smile on his face. Which is a lot more than I can say for the woman of the house.

Ahem.

I could get used to this!

Now if only he could operate the vacuum...

Honkey The Donkey

2010-06-04T13:03:00.002-04:00

Funny story:

A while back the kids were coloring pictures of a donkey in Sunday School. Zachariah, being the bright kid that he is, let everyone know that he thought he was coloring a dragon. His friend Emma (who is the closest kid at church to his age) said, "No Zachariah. That's not a dragon, its a HONKEY!".

Fast forward to a month or so ago:

When Zachariah broke his arm, Emma came over and brought Zachariah something to make him feel better. She, with the help of her mom and siblings, brought a YUMMY cookie and a Webkinz toy! Can anyone guess what animal the Webkinz was? It was a donkey! We appropriately named it Honkey the Donkey. (And yes, Zachariah really does call it Honkey.) I love that it is "their thing". I didn't know two year olds could have "things" or inside jokes, but they do. And its absolutely hilarious.

Fast forward to earlier this week:

Here is Zachariah's book shelf. The bottom half of the bookshelf (the half that is visible) holds all of his stuffed animals and books. The books are in the green bins. The bins keep me from having to worry about the books being displayed in a nice, organized fashion. Its fabulous.

But that is beside the point!

You may or may not have noticed Honkey the Donkey and a randomly placed book on the top shelf. Usually Honkey is one of two animals that Zachariah takes to bed with him, but on this day he choose not to have any animals share his bed. (I guess he was feeling a bit claustrophobic.) Z had been reading books at the beginning of nap time, and before he fell asleep he propped a book up next to Honkey so he could read it.

Is that not hilariously cute? I am sure its just one of those "you had to be there" sort of things, but it just cracked me up!

Anyway, Zachariah REALLY loves his Honkey. And I just thought I should share the cuteness with everyone. :)

FYI

2010-06-02T13:20:00.002-04:00

I know quite a few of you will stop reading this post because it is *gasp* health related, but for those who may be interested, I am dedicating this post to giving some info about MSG. The fact of the matter is most people have NO idea how much MSG they are consuming. So I figured I would share a few things I have learned over the past few months!

I guess the most important thing to do is to define MSG (aka: Monosodium glutamate & sodium glutamate). It is sodium salt of the naturally occurring non-essential amino acidglutamic acid. It is used as a food additive and is commonly marketed as a flavor enhancer.

And I guess the second most important thing to do is share with you some facts I have come across. So here goes!

- MSG has been hidden in food ingredient list hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract,soy protein isolate, and many other names

- It was once predominantly made from wheat gluten, but is now mostly made from bacterial fermentation.

- Like the sodium salts of other amino acids, MSG is a stable colorless solid that is degraded by strong oxidizing agents.

- MSG is used commercially as a flavour enhancer. Although once associated with foods in Chinese restaurants, MSG is now used by most fast food chains (Burger King, Wendy's, McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC, Chili's, TGIF, Applebees, Zaxby's, Denny's. The list can go on and on and on) and in many other foods, particularly processed foods. (For example: soups, chips, BBQ sauces, seasonings, salad dressings... just to name a few.)

- A report from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, on behalf of the FDA, concluded that MSG was safe for most people when "eaten at customary levels". However, it also said that, based on anecdotal reports, some people may have an MSG intolerance which causes "MSG symptom complex" and/or a worsening of asthmatic symptoms.

- MSG is added because the food being prepared for sale to the public is of low quality due to cheap ingredients or due to too long shelf life. (If the food is of low quality I probably don't want my son eating it anyway.)

- The FDA has set no limit on how much of it can be added to foods.

- It is an addictive substance, and because of that it is often referred to as "nicotine for food". You wonder why you cant just eat a few Doritos? Why you consume half the bag in less time than it takes you to say, "Man, these are good!" Its because they are covered in MSG. And MSG is addicting.

- MSG stimulates the pancreas to release insulin into the blood stream even when there are not any carbohydrates in the dish for the insulin to act on. Your blood sugar ends up dropping because of this flood of insulin, and then you end up hungry again an hour or so later. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Maybe when you eat Chinese food? Yeah. They use MSG in EVERYTHING they cook or even think about cooking.

Some results of MSG consumption:

Obesity

Alzheimer's disease

Migraine headaches

Insomnia

Cancer

Fibromyalgia

ADHD

- Food scientist Harold McGee states that "toxicologists have concluded that MSG is a harmless ingredient for most people, even in large amounts." Even if it is safe to eat in mass amounts, why on earth would I? Why would I intentionally feed my child something that has absolutely no nutritional value? Why would I feed my two year old something that would cause him to get addicted to junk food and possibly lead to obesity? Lets face it, if MSG is an ingredient, it can pretty much be classified as junk food. You don't see apples or carrots being fertilized with MSG do you? I know I am over-exaggerating a little bit, but I think you see my point.

Anyway, these are just a few things I thought everyone should know about MSG. We have tried to drastically reduce our MSG consumption in the Titus household. I don't know that we could ever COMPLETELY cut it out (I mean, there are times where I just NEED to eat some fast food), but we try our best to limit it. Buying real food as opposed to processed food is a good way to make sure MSG is not present. Eating at restaurants that do not use MSG is a good start too. But good luck, because as of a couple years ago there were only four restaurants in this town that do NOT use MSG in their food. (Chick Fil A, Sonic, Arby's and Hong Kong Cafe, if you wanna know.)

Go to your kitchen and start reading the ingredient list on things in your fridge and pantry. You might be shocked at how many things contain MSG. And if you want to reduce the amount of MSG your family consumes, start by reading nutrition labels at the grocery store. Paying attention to the ingredient list can make a world of difference.

Alright. Thats all the rambling I will do for now. If I stick around much longer I fear I will go off on my tangents about how dangerous artificial sweeteners and non organic milk happen to be!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hope I didn't bore you to death. :)

Sprinkler Fun on Memorial Day!

2010-06-01T13:50:00.000-04:00

Happy Day After Memorial Day!!!!

Ok, so I have about a bajillion things I am supposed to be doing right now, but I wanted to drop in and say a quick hello and show you some cute pictures. :) We had a great Memorial Day weekend complete with spending time with family, friends and sprinklers! I only brought my camera out during the sprinkler portion of our weekend, so that is all you have to look at today. Luckily my kid is cute enough that you don't NEED anything else in the blog post! :)

Ok, I am sorry to interrupt the cuteness, especially since we JUST got started, but does anyone remember the show Freakazoid that played on cartoon network back in the day? (Click the link. It is the intro song to the show.) I KNOW my Dad and my siblings will remember it, but does anyone outside of my crazy-go-nuts-family remember this show? Regardless, the picture above reminds me so much of the crazy looking run that Freakazoid does. And for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, or just in case you need a refresher, watch this six second video.

Doesn't Zachariah look like he is doing that exact thing??

Oh man. I about died laughing when I looked at these pictures! Even if he was just trying to block the water from hitting his face, my son is doing the Freakazoid run! It serious cracks. me. up.

Ok. I'm over it now. Back to the cuteness.

And seriously. You don't get ANY cuter than this. Gah. He melts me. I just want to go wake him up from his nap and kiss his cute little face right now!

But I treasure my nap times, so I wont go do that.

Daddy played too! :)

Ahhh! There it is again! Bahahaha!

Sorry.

Anyway, I don't think its hard to tell that Zachariah loves playing in the sprinkler. And once it stops raining down here I am sure we will be setting up our little pool for him to play in too!

But for now the sprinkler does just fine for this little Freakazoid. I mean... boy.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!! :)

Like Uncles Like Nephew

2010-05-28T13:30:00.002-04:00

Zachariah has some of the coolest Uncles around. I dare you to find Uncles cooler than his. In fact, I triple dog dare you! Anyway, you get my point. They are some cool cats. And one day I may do a post on just how cool they are, but for now I am posting about tattoos.

Both my brother and Daniels brother have tattoo's on their arms and Zachariah loves looking at them. He talks about their tattoos all the time and then promptly tells me that he needs a tattoo. And I often give into his wishes. :)

Today's tattoo of choice was a fish. And a mighty cute fish at that! After we were done applying the fish he literally jumped for joy and said, " I got tattoo!!!!". Then he made up a song appropriately titled "I got tattoo" and sang it the rest of the morning.

Adorable. :)

Have a great weekend everyone! See you next week for quite a few cute Zachariah stories and long overdue vaccine post!

Chichen-itza Pizza!

2010-05-26T13:32:00.002-04:00

Sorry. That is the name of one of The Backyardigans episodes that Zachariah has been watching here recently. Its kinda stuck in my head.

Ok, so we are a pizza loving family. We have pizza and movie night once a week and it is something that all of us have started looking forward to (Zachariah especially)! But we quickly found that frozen pizza's are just so dang expensive for such a small amount. And we aren't about to order pizza every week, because those are even MORE expensive. So we decided to make our own.

I call it our "almost homemade pizza". I think it is the closest thing to homemade pizza you will have without making your own dough. And I am going to do that sometime soon, but right now this does just fine.

You need a baking sheet. I use stoneware because it is pretty much the best thing ever. Everything cooks so perfectly. I have never ever had anything burn! I have a stoneware pizza stone, muffin pan, bar pan and a baking sheet. Ah-mazing.

Next comes the almost homemade dough. Pillsbury's pizza crust in a tube. I mean, it doesn't get any easier than this folks.

Then you will need pizza sauce (about 3/4 cup),

A handful of pepperoni's (or your topping of choice)

And a cup or two of shredded cheese.

From here on out you pretty much follow the directions on the Pillsbury can, so technically I could just stop the post now. But I am desperately needing to procrastinate some housework, so I think I will keep going, even though we have now reached the common sense stuff. :)

Roll out the dough onto the cookie sheet.

I like to roll the edges up a bit to create a crust around the whole pizza. I think I would be lost if I had to hold a piece of pizza without the outside crust.

Pop it in a preheated oven for five minutes. (The oven temperature will depend on the type of crust you have.) When you take it out it will be nice and puffy. Not browned at all, just puffy.

Now pour 1/2 a cup or so of sauce onto the warm pizza crust.

Spread it around and add more if necessary. I think I ended up using close to 3/4 cup of sauce, but that definitely depends on your preference.

Sprinkle some mozzarella cheese over the top of the sauce. We are a divided family. Z and I like mozzarella AND cheddar cheese on our pizza, but Daniel prefers straight up mozzarella. So we do both!

Now throw some pepperoni's on top of the cheese and you are set!

Pop it in the oven for 10-12 minutes

And pull it out when the crust is a nice golden brown and the cheese is completely melted.

Does this not look delish? Tastier pizza with less preservatives and for half the cost of a frozen pizza?

Yes, please. :)

TCBY

2010-05-24T09:00:00.004-04:00

Last week Z and I met up with my friend Rachel and her daughter Eva. Since the temperature is in the 90's now, we decided to take the kids for a refreshing treat at TCBY!

They were both adorable and fun, but I noticed a few distinct differences between the two kids.

The most obvious difference (besides gender, obviously) would be their size. I mean, Zachariah looks huge compared to Eva's dainty little self! And seriously, could they be any cuter looking at the ice cream flavors?? I think not.

The next few differences aren't quite as obvious at first glance, but once you sit down and pay close attention I think you will be able to see them.

She licked her frozen yogurt sweetly and carefully

while he shoveled MASSIVE spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth in record time.

She giggled because her face was messy (which was totally adorable by the way)

and he got a brain freeze.

She posed with her mommy for a cute picture

And he... well he didn't so much as pay the camera a lick of attention. (Yes, pun intended.) Maybe hanging out with Eva will get him out of his photographic rebellious stage he is in.

Despite his knack for ignoring the camera, we had fun. And I think the messy faces were a pretty good indication of that. :)

Herbs, with an "H".

2010-05-20T10:00:00.004-04:00

Less than a month ago we planted some herbs. Since I have a bad track record when it comes to keeping plants (and pets) alive, we bought a little starter kit so I could, to quote The West Wing, "dangle my feet in the water".

Now I am kind of regretting not buying half a dozen pots and a lot more seeds, because I am totally loving this whole container gardening thing!

Random fact: I like to pronounce the silent "H" in the word "herbs". Don't ask me why, but I just do. I mean, its not like I go around pronouncing this word incorrectly in public... just in the privacy of my own home. For some reason I am under the impression that I am funny, and so I keep doing it just to crack myself up. And yes, I will understand if you never want to visit my blog again.

But for those of you who are sticking around, let me show you some up close and personal pictures of these cute little herbs!

This is the basil. These little suckers were the first of the herbs to pop up out of the soil. Basil takes up 1/3 of the container but I honestly expect it to take over the whole thing soon. This herb is quite the space hog.

Here are my chives. Luckily I planted them in the middle so that they can give basil a little bit more room. I don't use chives very often, but I kinda like the look of them. So if nothing else it is fun to watch them grow!

And last but not least we have the parsley. Besides our Italian seasoning, parsley is one of our favorite things to use when it comes to seasoning our food. It gets used quite a bit in this house, and because of that I probably should have just had a larger pot dedicated to parsley only. But I guess this will do for now!

So there you have it. My three herbs that I have not killed yet! Hurray for me! Now that I have dangled my feet a bit, I am kinda wishing I would have put on a swimsuit and waded in a little deeper this year. Alas, I am a bit of a chicken. But believe you me, I am going to be a gardening fool next go around! I could so get used to this whole growing my own food thing. :)

Do you have a green thumb? What is in your garden/containers this year? Help feed my curiosity! Its never to early for new ideas!! :)

Sleeping Babe

2010-05-19T08:45:00.001-04:00

The other night, as we were starting to watch a movie, I told Daniel to pause it so I could go make sure Zachariah was asleep. (I heard a lot of ruckus coming from his room 15 minutes before hand, so I just wanted to make sure he wasn't laying under a pile of rubble before I got settled in for a 2 hour long movie.)

And good thing I went and checked on him...

Because if I hadn't, there would be a good chance that he would have had a major crick in his neck!!!

I don't know why, but for the past couple weeks Z has been falling asleep anywhere but his bed. Sometimes he falls asleep on the floor, sometimes in the closet, other times in the rocking chair. And its only at night. During his nap (when he takes one) he sleeps in his bed and ONLY his bed. But I guess he wants to change things up for bed time.

Crazy kid. Now he has us playing the "guess where Zachariah will be found sleeping tonight" game. Which is actually kinda fun! You should try it sometime! :)

Sibling Love

2010-05-18T10:00:00.005-04:00

I am the oldest of four children. My mom had three kids in three years, had a seven year break and then had my youngest brother. So yeah. Me and my brother and sister are all VERY close in age. And I love that. The only bummer is that both of them have moved off.

My sister is working in Alabama and I only get to see her twice a year.

My brother is in the air force and last week he he left for Japan and will be there for two years. So unless I come into a lot of money that will allow me to go visit him in Japan, it will be quite a while before I see him again.

These pictures were taken a couple weeks ago when ALL of us siblings were in town together. I am super glad that we were able to spend some time together, but it really made me miss the good ole' days. You know, when we weren't grown ups living our separate lives. *sigh*

That being said... if anyone wants to start donating to the "Japanese Sibling Reunion" fund, that would be greatly appreciated. :)

I Think I Can

2010-05-17T08:06:00.000-04:00

The other morning while I was cleaning up the house Z was playing quietly in his playroom. This almost never happens, so I decided to go see if everything was ok/what was keeping his attention for this long.

When I walked into the room I noticed he was building a train track. That may not seem like a big deal, but it really shocked me. You see, all he has is a beginners train track and it ONLY does a figure eight. You can not make it completely connect any other way. That being the case, Zachariah usually asks me to build the track for him and then he goes to town playing with it.

But this time he decided to start building it himself. When he saw me standing in the doorway he was more than halfway done and said, "Look Mama! I putting pieces together! I do it all by self!" He was so incredibly proud of himself. The cuteness was almost too much to bear. I couldn't stop smiling and praising him for the great job he was doing.

After he put whatever he considered the appropriate amount of pieces together, he let Thomas give the track a test run. I honestly thought he was going to get upset about the track being incomplete, but it didn't bother him one bit! He was just so proud of the fact that HE did it.

And I was proud of him to. Its funny how little things like this can make a a mommy so happy. I mean, technically its just a little ole' train track. But hearing the excitement in his voice and seeing the look on his face when he is able to do something new is just enough to make me giddy.

With that being said, I think I will go hug my little munchkin.

I hope everyone has a great Monday! :)

Candi Sushi

2010-05-13T15:00:00.005-04:00

Last weekend we had a going away party for my brother who is in the Air Force. Since he is headed to Japan (Literally. As I type this he is on a plane headed over there) the party was Japanese themed and I had volunteered to bring candy sushi. I saw a recipe a year or so ago and bookmarked it because I thought it looked fun.

I was wrong.

I had originally planned to do a recipe post showing everyone how to make these cute little things, but they turned out to be the biggest pain in my butt. Since I was already throwing food against the wall, yelling and crying I decided not to add to my stress by taking pictures of the whole thing.

But IF you want to know how to make them, I will give you the recipe. Just take some Prozac first. It may help.

Its a rather simple recipe. You need 1 cup of Rice Krispies cereal, 4 fruit roll ups (preferably green, but any flavor will do), 4 red twizzlers, 8 large marshmallows and 2 tablespoons of butter.

Here's what ya do.

In a small saucepan, melt marshmallows with the butter over low heat. Add the rice cereal and stir to coat; let cool slightly. (And by slightly, it means slightly. Like, 2-3 min.)

Cut licorice to the length of the fruit roll-up. Unroll the fruit roll-up and peel off the plastic film.

Note: This is where I started cursing the world. I live in South Georgia. Its blasted hot and humid down here. So the fruit roll ups did not peel off the plastic film as much as they tore into 5 thousand little sticky shreds. So a word to the wise: Put the fruit roll ups in the fridge for 5-10 minutes prior to unrolling. It works SO much better that way!

Place about 1/4 of the rice cereal mixture on the edge of each roll-up. (Just eye ball it. Basically you need to make sure there is enough to cover 1/2 of the fruit roll up.)

Place (and push) the twizzler in the center of the rice mixture and roll up the candy sushi. Dip a knife in water to keep it from sticking and cut into 2-inch pieces.

Here is a visual. I wanted all of the fruit roll ups to be green, but NO ONE IN THIS GOSH AWFUL TOWN SOLD GREEN FRUIT ROLL UPS. *ahem* So I had to use a combination of Shrek tongue tattoo mini fruit roll ups and a multi colored pack. Which worked out fine in the long run, but during the whole process I was quite sure the world was ending.

Ok, so I may have some issues that need to be worked out. This candy sushi thing really messed with my psyche.

Here are all of the completed candy sushi. In order to make this many you need to quadruple the recipe or something.

And much to my surprise, the candy sushi really did taste pretty good. I mean, I expected it to be WAY to chewy, but it wasn't too bad! In fact, I would almost say that it was worth the 3 hours I spent in the kitchen.

Almost.

Guess What?

2010-05-12T22:37:00.002-04:00

Zachariah got his cast off!!!!

We went to the doctor on Tuesday for the cast removal and more x-rays to find out how his arm was doing. The doctor said that it is almost healed and there is no need to re-cast the arm, BUT the bone is still very weak so we need to restrict his play for 2 weeks. (Which is just mind boggling. I mean, how do you restrict a two year olds play?? Ah well. We will figure it out.)

Here is the first picture of Z without his cast. (Well, the first "real" picture. I have a couple cell phone pictures, but they are blurry. So they don't count.) After we got home Z sat with Dad and watched some tv while eating his sucker the nice people at the doctors office gave him. :)

As you can imagine Zachariah is beyond thrilled to have his arm back. :) He keeps walking around and rubbing it saying, "My cast off!". He is still not back to using his arm normally, but I think its going to take him a couple days to remember that he can use it.

Everyone is pleased as punch around here, and if we can keep him from re-braking it for the next two weeks we will be out of the woods completely!

Wish us luck!

Mothers Day

2010-05-10T09:00:00.001-04:00

I am afraid I don't have a super sweet/sentimental belated mothers day post for you to read today. And I don't even have a ton of cute pictures ready to show you of me and Zachariah. But I do have two pictures of us that were taken yesterday... which is actually a pretty big deal when you take in consideration Z's camera phobia. :)

Even though being a mommy is more challenging than I ever could have imagined, it is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Zachariah has made me one heck of a happy Mom for the past 2.5 years and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I hope all of you Mom's had a great Mothers Day! :)

One Picture; Three Thoughts

2010-05-07T13:45:00.003-04:00

1) T-4 days until this cast comes off.

2) I love Z's shirt for many reasons, but the most recent is because it goes wonderfully with his cast.

3) I have the cutest kid in the entire world.

Life With a Cast

2010-05-04T14:00:00.003-04:00

We have had quite some adjusting to do since this cast has been on Zachariah's arm. The first couple days were quite aggravating for him as he figured out that he could not do things quite as easily as before, but he adjusted quickly and has finally stopped asking me to cut the cast off with scissors. Which happens to be a great sign in my book!

Over the past week Zachariah has a few of his favorite "cast friendly" activities that he frequently does during the day, and so I thought I would share some of those with you. :)

Playing with the Tag Jr has proven to be a great one handed activity for him. And after a few tears of frustration he figured out how to prop his cast on the opposite page so the book wouldn't close on him!

Some of Z's friends stopped by the afternoon that he got his cast on. They were so incredibly thoughtful and brought by some Toy Story toys for him, and he LOVES them. That is pretty much all he played with that afternoon and they have been a big hit ever since.

Another friend gave Zachariah a Toy Story coloring book with those super cool markers that don't color on anything but the coloring book pages. Ingenious. This has been great for obvious reasons, but under normal circumstances I do NOT like him coloring with markers. With this I am able to give him some room to breathe while coloring and he is able to enjoy coloring his favorite Toy Story characters!!

Eating a banana is a great one handed activity that he has been enjoying as well. Well, eating any snack is a favorite activity of his, but I just happened to have the camera out for this one. As you can see the cast has not had an affect on his silliness. :)

Is this kid not the cutest thing ever? Gah. I just love him and his cute little cast!

Pre-Cast

2010-05-03T15:35:00.001-04:00

A week ago today we found out Zachariah had a broken forearm. Last Monday was a very long day spent at our pediatricians office and the waiting room at the hospital for x-rays.

That evening we decided to spend a little bit of time in the backyard for some much needed fresh air. Z was so excited to be out of doctors offices that he just decided to play with every single outside toy that evening!

He did some swinging on the play set with daddy, we played with bubbles and he played baseball. Keep in mind that he is doing all of this with a BROKEN ARM. I was cringing the whole time, but it didnt seem to bother him at all.

He knew when something was going to cause his arm pain and he would figure out a new way to do it. Take for instance the picture above. (by the way, he makes that face every time he hits the ball. It cracks.me.up.) He usually stands sideways and when he swings the bat it usually comes all the way around. But since he had a hurt arm he stood to where he could face me better and his swing was very short. He knew that if he swung the bat any harder his arm would be in a lot of pain.

Smart kid.

And after he was done with baseball he played some golf. Apparently nothing is slowing this kid down.

And even though it made me so incredibly nervous that he was playing with a broken arm I am so happy that he was able to have a good time on that oh-so-stressful day!

And I am also happy that we got the cast on the next day so that he wouldn't accidentally make his injury any worse. :)

My house is a mess...

2010-04-30T15:00:00.001-04:00

My living room is cluttered with toys, socks, shoes and a bib. My kitchen is cluttered with toys, dishes, crumbs and whatever we happen to throw on the table as we are passing through the room. My hallway is cluttered with toys and dust (Its been quite a while since I have cleaned baseboards around here). The play room is cluttered with toys and my bedroom is cluttered with bath towels, a couple of Z's toys, shoes and a mountain of my clothes on the floor.

If you know me at all you will know that this look is very normal for my house. But guess what? We have friends coming over for dinner tonight. So I kinda need to get moving on the housework. I have T- 3 hours until they walk in the door and I am sitting here on the computer.

So, I guess I am off to clean. Wish me luck, for I am bound to find some excuse to get back onto this computer. I kinda hate cleaning. Could you tell?

And I will now leave you with a picture of my ADORABLE two year old eating lunch. With his cast propped up at the table.

And no, I have no clue why his fingers are in his mouth. He saw me with the camera and started doing all sorts of weird things involving food, his fingers and his mouth. This happened to be the least repulsive of them all. Your welcome.

Have a great weekend everyone!

My Week So Far

2010-04-28T18:45:00.003-04:00

So... wow. It has been one heck of a crazy weekend/week. I usually don't like to let two whole days go by without a new post, so the fact that it has almost been a week since I last blogged has just about killed me.

Why has it taken me so long to get up a new post? I am glad you asked.

My computer has a virus and it is not letting me use the Internet right now, so I have to wait till my hubby gets home so I can use his.

I have taken zero pictures of recipes recently, so I have no recipe posts ready to blog.

I have read zero more chapters in my vaccine book, so I have no new info to blog.

I have taken some pictures I want to show you, but they are on my computer and I am not allowed to use that until my hubby fixes it.

Oh, and Zachariah broke his arm.

Yeah. You heard me. My two year old broke his arm this weekend.

Here is the short version of what happened. Thursday evening Zachariah was running around the house and when he tripped (I mean, who didn't see that coming?) he landed on his left arm. He cried pretty hard but after hugs and a band aid he dried his tears and went on with life like normal. He did not complain about his arm or make mention of it hurting. A day or two later we noticed that he was not using his left arm and he would cry every time pressure was being put on his arm/wrist. Thinking he might have sprained his wrist we got an x ray which showed he has a broken forearm.

Unfortunately the x rays aren't very clear and the doctor is not 100% sure how bad the break is. (It can take up to 10 days for a serious break to show up for a toddler) So the doc put Z in a cast and in two weeks we are going back for more x rays.

Just in case you were wondering, this whole process was a nightmare. Z HATES doctors and the x ray machines at the hospital scared him to death. If anyone at the doctors office even so much as looked at his arm he would scream. And I don't mean cry. I mean scream. I have never seen this side of my child before and it made me very sad.

It took four of us to hold him down so that someone could put his cast on. During that process he was screaming, kicking, hitting, crying, yelling, kicking, screaming... you get the picture. It was bad. But the cast is on and we get it off in two weeks.

This is a picture I took with my cell phone. It was taken right as we were leaving the doctors office. He kept telling me, "I don't yike my big band-aid!" My pitiful baby. :(

Anyway! I will have some more pictures and details on how he is doing coming in a day or so, but I just wanted to check in and let everyone know what was going on. This has been quite an emotional couple days for us. But the worst is behind us (that is until we have to take the cast off).

Hope everyone is have a great week. Talk to you soon!

Breakfast Muffin... Or Something.

2010-04-22T15:27:00.004-04:00

Over here in the Titus household we LOVE breakfast foods, and when I found this recipe for a ham and cheese egg cup I knew I had to make brinner. Immediately.

So that is what I did. Last night we had breakfast, and it was wonderful. And because I am a nice person, I will share this treasure that I found (thanks again to Tasty Kitchen!).

Here is what you will need.

One dozen eggs,

Twelve pieces of deli sliced ham,

And two cups of cheese (give or take).

Once you have all of your ingredients ready, go ahead and grease a 12 cup muffin pan.

Now put one slice of ham in each muffin cup. All I had on hand was extra thin deli ham, so I used two slices. Which is really cramping Daniel's style when it comes to having meat on his sandwiches. But if you have normal deli sliced ham you will be good to go with just one!

Put some cheese inside of each piece of ham.

And just for your info... the original recipe called for frozen spinach to go on top of the cheese. Seeing as how my husband will NOT eat spinach, I passed on this ingredient. But I think it would be a great way to get some veggies into the kids (or hubby's)!

Now crack an egg on top of the cheese!

I did this two ways. The original recipe just said to crack the egg and then pop it into the oven. But Zachariah is not a fan of seeing a whole yolk. He gets a little weirded out then refused to eat the egg. Needless to say, he prefers scrambled eggs. So I beat an egg and then poured it into the ham and cheese cup. I did that six times... that way I could have half scrambled and then half the "normal" way.

See, the scrambled works well too!

Salt and pepper to taste and then pop these bad boys into an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees and cook for about 20 minutes.

I could have probably gotten away with only cooking these for 15 minutes, so I think you will just have to keep an eye on them. Oven temperatures vary. Regardless, they were DELISH.

Here are the two different kinds. I enjoyed both of them, but I must say that I think the scrambled muffin cup wins by a tiny bit. It just turned out to be the most perfect comfort food. In fact, I ate one just a little bit ago for a mid afternoon snack! So, so good.

Since the muffin pan is pretty well coated with cooking spray these suckers come out pretty easily. Just run a knife around the sides and you will have no problem at all!

Here is the recipe... enjoy!

Ham and Cheese Egg Cup

Ingredients:

12 eggs

12 slices deli ham

2 cups cheddar cheese

1 box frozen spinach (optional)

Directions:

Spray a twelve cup muffin pan with cooking spray and put a piece of ham in each cup. Sprinkle cheddar cheese in each piece of ham. Put (thawed) spinach on top of cheese and then crack an egg on top. Salt and pepper to taste. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until done.

Stream of Consciousness

2010-04-20T13:23:00.008-04:00

I have been going through potty training mood swings here recently. One day I will think that I am ready to take on the daunting task of potty training a toddler, and then the next day I will wake up and realize that I have no desire to potty train a kid. Ever. Lately I have been feeling like I "need" to potty train Zachariah right now. I think I mainly feel that way because I told myself that when he turned two and a half we would start potty training. I had that in my head and he is now two and a half and I haven't started. So that has the potential to stress me out, but I am trying to make it a point to not let it. You know why? Because the average age for potty training is three years old. I need to wait until he is completely ready or else it is going to be ridiculously hard on me. Now, don't get me wrong... he is so incredibly close to being ready. But I still think he has a few more steps to go. And I am ok with waiting.

I am in desperate need of improving my parenting skills. Don't get me wrong, there are certain areas where I believe I am a kick butt parent (yes, humility is one of my strong points), but recently I have been shown some areas where I really need to improve. I will let you know how it goes. :)

As much as I hate to admit this, I am 99.9% sure that I am going to be a homeschooling mother. I know I have a few years before I even have to think about Zachariah's schooling, and don't even ask me how I am going to muster up patience for it, but for the past six months or so I have been tossing the idea around. After hearing so many friends with kids in public AND private schools and after reading blogs/talking with friends about their homeschooling experiences, I am almost certain this is what I want to do. Explaining the reasoning behind all of this is going to take an entirely separate post, but I just wanted to let you know what was going on in my crazy little head.

A while back I was changing Zachariah's sheets and I got distracted and forgot to put the rail back on his bed. He came in the room and freaked out. All I heard for the next 60 seconds was, "Oh no!!! Where my big boy bed?!?!?!?". Let me just say that it is NOT a good sign that his big boy bed is defined by the rail that keeps him from rolling off. But Friday while I was changing his sheets I "hid" the rail in my closet. You know, just to see if he would notice. And you know what? He has been sleeping on the bed without a rail for the past three days and has not said a word about it. Score! That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Now if only potty training could be that easy...

I know I have been very slack on my vaccine posts and recipe posts. And for that, I apologize. But if it makes you feel any better I will tell you that I have two or three new recipes I am trying out this week (coincidentally enough they all happen to be breakfast foods). Now the kicker is trying to remember to take pictures while I am cooking! I need an assistant.

And since I hate to post without a picture, here ya go...

Hope everyone has a happy Tuesday! :)

How to Eat a Lollipop

2010-04-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

Coincidentally, this is also how to eat a sucker.

You're welcome.

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

2010-04-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

I am not a huge lemonade fan. The bitterness is just too much for me. Now I can down some Chick-Fil-A lemonade in half a millisecond, but that is usually the only lemonade I can handle.

Until last night.

Dun dun dun!

Out of the blue I decided I wanted to make some Lemonade. It may have had something to do with the fact that I had an adorable three year old over at my house the other day and she asked for some lemonade to drink. Usually the mention of lemonade has no affect on me ever wanting to drink any... but I just could not get it out of my head. So yesterday afternoon we headed to the grocery store to get a bag-o-lemons so I could try my hand at making some fresh lemonade.

I'm not gonna lie. I don't even know why I am doing a "recipe post" on something this simple. I guess I am kind of desperate for things to blog about these days. Ah well. Here is the simple yet yummy lemonade recipe I found online yesterday!

You are going to need 6-7 lemons, depending on how large they are. (I used seven, just so ya know.)

Roll the lemon around between the counter and your hand in order to get the juices flowing in there. It makes juicing a lemon SO much easier when you do this first.

After you get done rolling the lemons around on your counter, slice them in half.

Such a pretty yellow! I need to figure out how practical it would be to grow my own lemons. I mean, can I just plant a lemon tree or something? I am sure those are a bit pricey. But boy would it be convenient to just run out to the backyard when I wanted to make some lemonade!

Quick tip: If you hold the lemons like this while squeezing them you will be less likely to have those pesky seeds floating around in your lemon juice.

Rachel ray taught me this a couple years ago. I have been forever grateful.

See! The little seeds just pop up to the top of the lemon for you to grab and throw away. Convenient!

After about seven lemons are squeezed you should end up with one cup of juice. IF you happen to be a lemon short I would not look down on you for using store bought lemon juice to top it off. But only if you have too! The fresh squeezed stuff is the best.

Now you are going to need 6-7 cups of water (I used somewhere between 6.5 and 7. I am a wimp when it comes to tangy drinks)...

And one cup of sugar. (I am eventually going to try and work us down to 1/2 a cup)

Now mix the lemon juice, water and sugar together in a pitcher (add more water if need be). The recipe said to use a one gallon pitcher, but all I had was a half gallon and it held everything perfectly. So don't sweat the one gallon thing.

Stir everything together and wala, you have some fresh lemonade!

I HAD a full glass right before this picture was taken but I couldn't contain myself. I just had to take a gulp. It was sooooo good. You know whats even better? It has zero preservatives or artificial sweeteners. Score! I will seriously never buy lemonade from the store again. This is just too easy not to make.

Try it, I think you will like it!!

Fresh Lemonade

Ingredients:
6-7 lemons (1 cup of lemon juice)
6 cups water
1 cup sugar

Juice lemons and mix the lemon juice, water and sugar into a one gallon pitcher. Serve with fresh lemon slices. Enjoy!

High Fructose Corn Syrup

2010-04-14T15:35:00.002-04:00

I saw a commercial the other day that just made my jaw drop to the floor. I don't watch much tv so everyone else has probably already seen these, but just in case I put two of the commercials down below. They are very short so it wont take you long to watch.

I don't get offended easily, especially by things I see on tv, but this actually offended me. I cant even express how angry I was/am that these commercials are on the air. The average person will believe ANYTHING they hear, and so now people are thinking that high fructose corn syrup is perfectly fine. News flash: ITS NOT. Whats next? A commercial that is trying to convince us that smoking actually increases your life span!! Grrrr.

Ok. I am going to take a time out and calm down a bit. While I am doing that, please watch these other two commercials I found. They are "spoofs" of the two ridiculous ones at the top of the post. They are obviously not "professionally done" but I liked them anyway. :)

High fructose corn syrup is not good for you, MSG is not good for you, food dyes are not good for you... the list could go on. Sure these things are not HORRIBLE in moderation, but they happen to be in everything we eat. So we cannot possibly eat them in moderation. I hate that most people think its ok to eat all this junk.

Alright. I think that is enough video footage and ranting for today. Just... PLEASE don't believe everything you see on TV. Do your own research.