A Few More...

Here are some more train pictures! Click here if you missed the first set of adorable pictures. :)






Do you remember Mr. Giraffe Blanket? Zachariah has actually named him ( story on that coming later), so I guess my name is null and void. Regardless of the blankets name, Zachariah is still as attached to that thing.


That being said, it did not surprise me when Zachariah decided to show off his train set to his giraffe blanket. He did this for at least five minutes and when he was done he just sat the blanket down in front of the train as he went about his business. It was absolutely adorable.




He has also decided to show off his train to his nut cracker.

Yeah. I may have the cutest kid ever.

Your Backyard Friends

Zachariah loves to watch TV. So much so that I have to limit it to an hour a day. I feel sure that he would watch it 24/7 if I allowed it. Some of his favorite TV shows consist of Elmo's World, Blues Clues, Go Diego Go, The Wonder Pets and The Backyardigans. He will often have a favorite show for the week that he favors, but this phase has lasted for a while now. For the past three weeks Zachariah has been utterly and completely obsessed with The Backyardigans.



I'm not kidding either. He wakes up every single morning talking about this show. While in his crib he will reenact a scene from one of his favorite episodes. He will sing the songs, try to dance like them, quote lines from different episodes and talk to me about the different characters by name. He does this all day and it is the funniest and cutest thing ever.

One of my favorite things is when he "introduces" himself as all of the characters. At the beginning of the show, the different characters introduce themselves. They say "Hi! I'm Pablo. "And I'm Tasha." "Hi! I'm Austin." and so on and so forth. Zachariah will walk around the house and say, "Hi! I pago", "Hi! I tasha", "Hi! I ausin" until he gets through the whole cast. And he says it in a high pitched voice. It is so funny.

All that to say, Zachariah is obsessed with The Backyardigans. And I am actually glad he is. Personally, I love the show. It is cute, clever and has really catchy songs. Seriously. I sing them all day. Its a little sad actually.

This is probably Zachariah's first "real" obsession with something and I think it is so cute. I don't know if I should think its cute. I should probably be trying to ween him off of it or something. But I really love how excited he gets when he talks about The Backyardigans. :)

Choo-Choo!

I am itching to watch some Gilmore Girls Episodes while Zachariah is still napping, so I am going to make this post kind of short. I am sure another train post will appear on my blog in a few days, but for now I wanted to show you some pictures of our most favorite Christmas decoration!


Once you look past the wimpy artificial tree, you will see our awesome train set. Complete with snow and a village! We have some extremely thoughtful friends, and they happened to give us EVERYTHING you see under the tree. We were pretty stoked.




Zachariah's favorite thing to do is press the yellow buttons. Although all of the buttons get a pretty good work out, his two favorites are the whistle and "all aboard".




Seriously. This kid could sit here and watch the train all. day. long. And he practically does. Well, not all DAY, but most of the morning is spent playing with the train. He just loves it!!!








And here is Zachariah's favorite part of the village set. Isn't it adorable?? He sits on the floor and says "tigga tee house?" over and over. Gah! I could just eat that child up.





The older Zachariah gets, the more fun we have at Christmas! I love it!

Mommyhood

Being a mom can be frustrating, exhausting, tiring, and a little trying on ones patience. But at the end of the day, being a mom is just downright entertaining.



I love the little surprises that Zachariah leaves for me! :)

The Bingham's

Hey everyone! I usually don't post on the weekends, but I took some pictures of of our friends earlier this week. And I wanted to show you a few. :) I would like you to meet our friends Matt and Shelley. I went over to their adorable home on Wednesday and took some Christmas pictures of them and their dog. We all had a great time... except for their dog who was being gift wrapped. :)

Hope you enjoy your pictures, guys!!

Shelley's parents were in town for the week, so we made sure
to have them jump in a picture or two!

Remember I mentioned their dog? Well... this is Francis. Francis and I haven't known each other for very long, but I could probably write a short novel (or at least a decent sized pamphlet) on his hilarious and ridiculous personality. Believe you me, this dog is quite the character!

That's all for now! Everyone should be so proud of me for posting on a Saturday. This is truly a once in a lifetime experience. :)


Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Love Them

These two people make me so incredibly happy.




Just thought you should know.

:)

Wren and Chloe

A couple days ago I met up with my friend and her daughter to take some pictures. The weather was a bit cold, but the location was just fabulous, so it made up for the temperature issue. It took Chloe a while to warm up to me (poor thing was running on no nap and she was being forced to stand outside in the freezing cold), but she eventually decided she would tolerate me and my lens for a while. :)

Hope you enjoy your pictures, Wren! I had a lot of fun hanging out with you and your adorable daughter... even if we did get frost bite. :)

Gah! She is just so stinking cute!!

And last but not least, one of my favorites...

Hope everyone has a happy Tuesday!

Blockhead

I am having an awful case of writers block. I am a horrific "writer" in the first place, but for some odd reason I cannot for the life of me write an entertaining post to go along with my pictures. And for that, I apologize.

Here are pictures of my son building with blocks. And pictures of blocks falling. Because when Zachariah builds, blocks go everywhere.

(Click to enlarge)

The amazing thing is, no matter how or when the blocks fall, Zachariah never gets mad. He doesn't cry, whine, or pitch a fit about his tower . He will do one of two things. Laugh hysterically or just start all over, almost ignoring the fact that they fell in the first place.





I love watching him build. I am actually quite intrigued at his patience with the whole process. I mean, lets be honest here. He sure enough didn't get that kind of patience from me. Seriously. If blocks are going to fall on top of me SEVERAL times in a row, I am calling it quits.



But not my baby. He is determined. By golly, he is going to build a tall tower if its the last thing he does before nap time!



Come to think about it, I should probably be learning a very important lesson here...



Naaaa. I don't have time for that. I'll just focus on my kid's cuteness.

:)

Crews Family

Last weekend Hayley and I had the pleasure of taking pictures of the Crews family. We drove out to an amazing plantation and had fun traipsing around finding good picture spots. I could have spent a couple hours just walking around, enjoying the weather and scenery. But we were trying to see how fast we could make this session, seeing as how someone had a girlfriend he was anxious to go see. :)

Seriously, I had a blast photographing this family. They were super fun and anyone that puts up with me changing my mind on poses and locations gets an A+ in my book. :)

Now, without further adieu... here are a few of the pictures from their session!









In between locations, "J" decided to do some climbing. Apparently he is known for his amazing climbing skills, so I thought this was an appropriate picture!







We made "Mom" jump in a few pictures too. "Dad" wasn't able to make it out that day, so we will just have to make sure to get him in some pictures at a later date! :)






Hope you enjoyed your pictures guys!

J and I

Facebook is a fabulous thing. I have been able to keep up with old friends, new friends, borrowed friends... you get the picture.

Last week I met up with a friend from high school. She was in town for the Thanksgiving holidays and asked me to take pictures of her adorable children. Thank you facebook, for providing the means to find and keep up with said friend. And thank you Brittany for letting me take pictures of your two precious kids! They were just as sweet as could be. :)

Here is "J". He is two years old and has a bit of an obsession with trains. He showed me some of his favorites while I was over. I have to admit, they were pretty stinkin cool! :)

This is "I". She is just the most adorable four month old EVER. She did not stop smiling for me the whole time I was there. I could just eat her up!!

This next picture makes me want to have a little girl
this very moment. *sigh*

Well... better get to work! Hope everyone has a great rest of the day! :)

Baked Ravioli

I realize that it has been quite a while since I have done a recipe post. I have actually taken pictures of food as I am making it in hopes of blogging them, but life, laziness and procrastination have all taken over. Shocker.

But guess what? I have a new recipe for you this morning! And if I can get my act together, I will have one for you next week as well! :)

Today's recipe is Baked Ravioli. My husband practically lived off of Chef Boyardee Ravioli for YEARS. Soon after we good married we stopped buying Mr. Boyardee and my poor hubby started missing his ravioli fix. Seeing as how he was out of the canned ravioli phase I decided to try baked ravioli. And boy howdy am I glad I did. Everyone in my family loves it. Its an easy meal and it happens to be one of the few meals Zachariah will eat! Talk about a win win scenario.

Ok! Lets get down to business.



Here are the ingredients. All three of them. You need a bag of frozen ravioli, a jar of marinara sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese. Talk about a simple meal!

(FYI: Our ravioli is stuffed with cheese. I have only found it at Wal Mart, but if you want beef stuffed ravioli I am sure you can find that at most grocery stores)




Cover the bottom of a 9x13 dish with marinara sauce. Don't coat it completely, just put enough sauce down so the ravioli wont stick to the pan. Then lay one layer of frozen ravioli pockets on top of the sauce.

Cover the layer ravioli pockets with sauce and then top it with about half of your mozzarella cheese.

Then start over! Place frozen ravioli on top of the cheese, then cover in sauce and put more cheese.



This is the frozen finished product. Oh, and feel free to sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top of the last layer. It adds a nice somethin somethin to the ravioli. :)




Once the oven has preheated to 400 degrees, cover the pan in foil and let it cook for 30 minutes.




After about 30 minutes, take the foil off and cook it for another 10 or 15 minutes. I usually take it out after 10, but if it looks soupy and it isn't starting to burn go ahead and leave it in for a little bit longer.




Wala! The finished product! Does that not look delicious? Serve this with Italian bread and a salad and you will be set!


Typing this post has made me really hungry, so I am off to find some food. I hope you enjoy the recipe! Let me know how you like it! :)



Baked Ravioli

Ingredients:
Bag of frozen ravioli
1 jar of marinara sauce
2 cups of mozzarella cheese


Directions:
Heat oven to 400°F. Spray bottom and sides of a 9x13 rectangular baking dish with cooking spray.

Spread 3/4 cup of the pasta sauce in baking dish. Arrange half of the frozen ravioli in single layer over sauce; top with half of the remaining pasta sauce and 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers once, starting with ravioli. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered 10 to 15 minutes longer or until bubbly and hot in center. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.