Here are a few pictures from the weekend:
Riding his “horsie” at Gran and Granddaddy’s house:
Music man:
“Liam, the phone’s for you”:
Helping Dad with the yard work (in his PJs):
Off to pick up sticks:
Little boy, big stick:
Sweeping the walk:
Alien invasion:
Grasshopper:
Headlight:
Grasshopper:
“Hi Dad!”
“Hi Liam!”
Despite failing to create a Saturday Splurge this week (many thanks go to my mom and grandmother for feeding our sick, pitiful little family on Saturday night), the interest in food rages on. I’ve brought food back into the realm of creative outlet and have been working hard to create new, interesting things for dinner. Matt and I are also both trying to do a better job of eating better (for me that means eating less, eating whole where possible, and replacing as many crackers and bread products as possible with fruits and veggies — for Matt I think it means limiting his fast food and beer, though he may beg to differ…). I find that I work harder to make things look nice when I’m taking pictures and recording results (as has been the case with the Saturday Splurge meals) and that things that look nice create a better dinner experience for me so I thought I’d bring it to the blog.
Behold, my first non-Saturday-Splurge meal worthy of pictures and written word: It’s called Chicken, Mushroom, and Polenta Lasagna, the recipe for which can be found here. It was awesome. I think that anything that starts with organic tomatoes grown with love by my Mama and fresh herbs from DFM could hardly be anything but. Throw in pesto, mushrooms, and polenta, and we’ve got a winner!
Here’s a shot of the freshly pureed tomatoes (although no camera that we could afford could really capture the beauty of the reds):
Here’s what the tomato and herb mixture looked like (if only there were smell-a-vision, because folks, it was pure heaven in here) before I stirred and began simmering:
Here’s what the whole thing looked like in process:
Here’s the final product:
Top that off with one of our favorite spinach salads and we’re in business, baby!
Liam’s really trying to put on and take off (unfortunately not always with the best timing) his clothes lately. This morning he was so proud of himself as he put on his own jacket (albeit backwards). It was too cute not to grab the camera:
And…he’s off!
This is what happens when Liam and I are sick for 5 days:
What you are looking at is an entire full-length couch plus two laundry baskets completely full of clean, unfolded clothes. There’s another load in the dryer and a pile of dress shirts on the back of the other couch and I haven’t even washed the load of sheets and towels that needs to come next. Seriously. My dear, dear mother spent almost four hours cleaning the equivalent mess that had taken over our kitchen. There is still much more to be done. It’s going to take me a week to get my head back above water. I’m already having nightmares about what the house will look like when I get pregnant again. Wow.
Here are a few pictures from the last several days:
Liam gets a handle on proper hydration:
Checking out the half-marathon runners as they pass our house (although they went out there to cheer on the runners, Liam’s cuteness (and probably his outfit) caught attention and more runners were cheering him on than the reverse). Matt and I both think that this would be a really cool race to run in the future.
On Sunday Matt got to go with us to PDK for the first time. The weather wasn’t great, so there wasn’t as much activity as we’ve seen before, but it was easy to see where Liam gets his fascination of planes:
Hooray for Hummus!
Chickpeas are good for the hair, right…?
Monkeys:
Hooray, Monkey!
Blanket cape:
This week we went to the Gundersen’s for Oktoberfest. As a result, our splurge “meal” was themed accordingly. We took Beer & Brat Biscuits (to fulfill the German component):
and pumpkin cupcakes (to fulfill the October component):
I can’t really attest to the Beer & Brat biscuits (I can’t stand brats, so this was all about Matt), although Matt says that they were “okay.” Not exactly a glowing endorsement. The pumpkin cupcakes, on the other hand, were ridiculously good. I got the recipe from an issue of Real Simple, and it’s going straight into my go-to stack. They were delicious and moist, they looked fantastic, and they were very simple to make (not surprisingly, considering the source). Bonus points for the fact that I’d never made my own cream cheese icing, and after my first foray I’ve decided that I’m never going back (well…time allowing, of course). Mmmmm.
Here are a few shots of Liam playing outside yesterday afternoon:
There were planes:
There were sticks and there was bark:
There was silliness:
There were many “Hoorays:”
There was running:
There was pure glee:
There was abundant sweetness:
There were helicopters:
It was a wonderful afternoon.
Welcome back, Fall. Oh, how I’ve missed you!
On Sunday we visited the Dunwoody Nature Center for the first time. It was a really nice place to explore — but it was clear that the flooding from the previous week had washed a few things towards the creek. It was a great place for Liam to try out walking on a trail without too many hills or tree roots to trip him up and we’ll definitely go back! Hopefully next time it’ll be a bit less soggy…
The unintentional creek in the parking lot:
A boy and his rock:
Checking out the creek:
A boy…
…and his Dad:
A boy and his (large) stick:
A boy and his dad:
You can’t see the resemblance, can you?
First time on a tire swing:
Wet slide:
Aftermath:
Where’s Waldo?
Leaf!
“Oh, how I love the wind in my hair!”
A boy and his (VERY large) stick:
We take eating very seriously in this house:
A boy and his Gran:
Through a (very) dirty window:
This is what Shannon looks like after 6 hours in the car, 2 hours in church, and 1 hour of sleep:
(notice the nightgown paired with pants, Matt’s dress socks, and a string of pearls)
Hanging on by a thread, but so happy to have had the “Jimmy Carter Experience:”
This is what Gran looks like after one morning with Liam:
Visit with Mo and Pok:
Liam doesn’t quite understand the concept of a walker, yet…
Rifling through Mo’s goody bag:
Reading with Pok (for approximately 5 seconds, before he was off to the next thing — and drenched in sweat from running around like a crazy person for at least half an hour at this point):
Russian dancing bears:
Upon discovering that Mo has an entire bucket of tops, bottles, and scoops:
He couldn’t have been any more thrilled:
Playing the pill bottle kazoo:
Take ‘em out, put ‘em back in. A better game has never been invented.
Taking a “nap:”
He’s up!
Engaging Pok in a good, old-fashioned game of roll-the-scoop:
He loves a good cane!
Tickle, tickle, tickle!
Helping Mo ‘put her face on:’
The world’s tiniest inchworm (so tiny, in fact, that you can’t see it on Gillian’s arm — but I swear it’s there):
(check out her top finger right near the cuticle — he’s the tiny speck sticking up straight in the air)
Reading a book with Aunt G (quizzically, apparently):
Gazing at the rain hitting the skylight:
Ethereal boy:
Tonight’s main dish splurge was the Artichoke Risotto from The Flying Biscuit cookbook. April Moon is a genius (not that we didn’t already know this, of course). The only mishap was that it took about twice the amount of chicken broth that was called for. Luckily, I (almost) always have broth on hand, so I added more and we were off to a fantastic meal. Plus, this dish calls for both fresh parmesan and fresh asiago cheeses, and with my particular affinity for very sharp, very stinky cheeses, it was right up my alley. We paired it with wine, multigrain french bread, and our favorite salad, which consists of lettuce (or spinach), dried berries, crumbled goat cheese, toasted almonds (or pecans), and raspberry vinagerette. Absolutely fantastic (and surprisingly filling — neither of us were able to finish what we’d served ourselves)! Here’s hoping Liam likes parmesan and asiago as much as he does goat cheese, because leftovers are what’s for dinner in the near future.
Mmmmm! Just because we can’t get to Candler Park very easily anymore doesn’t mean we can’t splurge on our favorites (it just means that we have to make them ourselves)!
