Playground Pictures

Zack is still a bit young for playgrounds, but that doesn't stop us from going.  We go almost every week with my friends Kristi and Leslie and their kids ranging from 4 1/2 to 18 months.  Zack loves watching the big kids play.  I can see in his eyes that he is jealous of what they can do.  Since our weekends are usually booked Adam hasn't gotten to join us at one of the many parks in our area.  This weekend snuck up on us and as it turned out we didn't have plans...weird because I made such a big deal about a no plans weekend last week.
Here are a few of the many pictures we took on Saturday:

riding a dinosaur

sliding with mommy (FYI: the slide isn't made for adult sized legs)

and by myself

crawling through the tunnel

saw the one thing that could stop Z from coming to mommy

yep...his new favorite parent

"I am talking to daddy through the hole!"

"and now I am grabbing daddy's nose through the bars"

right before he cried because Adam walked 10 feet to the car for a jacket.

my mouth is open...Zack's eyes are closed

So happy to hang out with daddy

I think we may use this park for Zack's first birthday party.

Project Organize!

OK...so I feel like a generally organized person.  My problem is I don't really know how to work with our temporarily small space...do I really work on organizing when we have less than a year to go or do I go organization crazy?  Until today I have taken option 1. 
It's not working for me. 
What do you do when you have 2 homes worth of furniture, a baby who has grown out of things and is getting ready for new things, and a ton of treasures collected from all around Asia...and all of this stuff in a two bedroom apartment?  We don't want to get rid of furniture until we are in a more long term home and we know what we need, we don't want to get rid of baby things since we plan on having another (or more), and we LOVE all the amazing things we picked up in our travels (we were very intentional and picked out useful things like platters and vases or decorative things like paintings.  On the surface our apartment is really cute...but don't open any doors.  Zack's closet is literally jammed packed with golf clubs, a baby swing, a jumparoo, baby toys and clothes, the next size up of clothes, and random pieces of furniture.  Our closet has all of our clothing (Adam has a lot since I had the tailor make a ton of pants and shirts for him before we left China...me, well I have maternity clothing, nicer clothing that I don't wear because by the end of the day I am covered in graham cracker mush and sticky versions of whatever Z-man ate that day) plus several boxes that I haven't opened and extra bedding sets (for a future guest room?).  The pantry has several wedding gifts still in boxes (not because I don't want to use them but because boxes are much easier to store), the platters and bowls I mentioned before and all our food.  The coat closet has boxes stacked up under our jackets and on the shelf.  The linen closet has well...who even knows (I try not to look in there).  Our laundry room is packed with shoes (Zack eats any shoe left out and I still have the streets of China in mind every time I see him put a shoe in his mouth), paper products (in bulk...bad idea for space...good idea because these tend to be the things I forget to put on my grocery list), and more food and cleaning supplies.  Our "office" is the catch all...it's behind the gate so I throw anything on the desk that I don't want Z to get into.  I clean it off once a week, I honestly don't know how it gets soooooo bad.
There it is...my deep dark secret is out (did I mention that we also have a large storage unit filled with boxes and I have my Christmas decorations and other unopened boxes stacked up in Zack's room).
THE PLAN:
Do one thing at a time (and be OK with a little mess until it all gets put in it's place).  I plan on simply re arranging first.  Then I will make a list of bins and what not I need (I have set up a budget) and make only one trip to pick up all my supplies.

These run on sentences are making me look totally scattered and thinking about all the unopened boxes is making me feel less proud of the fast unpacking job I did in September and October.  Right now it is 2 am, and I am so restless I was planning on starting on Monday but I may just get up now and work on the pantry.

10 Months!

A friend of mine asked me "When did Zachary become a kid?"  I don't know but he sure doesn't look like a little baby anymore.
I know I say this every month...but this was a big one!  Why does it seem like it's going by so fast?
He looks so much older now that he has a toothy grin...

he has had teeth for a while but all on a sudden they became a part of his smile.
We have had a very busy month here are some pictures:

This month Zack has a new favorite parent...and it isn't me.

yumm...mega blocks

Sitting in the carseat in the house

look at me I went through the tunnel

"helping" mommy install the new carseat...I used him as weight

whole grain pasta and steamed carrots...Ironically after I put him to bed I had boxed mac and cheese...yes, I make better meals for my kid than myself

a new version of stuck under the music table...he was trying to get the ball

Zack...why do you have Cheerios on your bum?

Oh right, because this is how we eat breakfast...which he crawls through...mother of the year, thank you very much!

Chinese New Year Dinner

It's ironic that while I lived in China for 18 months I did everything I could to not eat Chinese food, and now in my first month of new recipes 2 meals have been Chinese. 
I had to do something special to celebrate the year of the dragon.  So I pulled out my Chinese food cookbook and made egg rolls, crab rangoon, hot and sour soup and garlic beef and broccoli.

I love that every Chinese recipe requires green onion...it really makes things easier.  

I broke my own rule and bought special ingredients for the meal.  Thankfully these are ingredients I will use in other Chinese food recipes.  I am also really excited that I was able to find bamboo shoots without any issues (I figured it would be a hard to find item...but they had it in a special display and on sale...SCORE).

I did most of the prep (innards for rangoon and spring rolls and made the soup) during Zack's naps.  When he woke up he played with my Tupperware while I finished up.  I heated the soup, wrapped the rolls, baked the rangoon and sauteed the beef after Adam got home to distract little man.

 My rolls may not look like they do in the book (notice the first one I wrapped was exploding).  But they sure did taste good.

Yumm....I hardly ever make appetizers!

 I think I was most impressed with the hot and sour soup...doesn't it look like the soup you would get at PF Changs?  It was my first time cooking with tofu and it tasted AMAZING!  What makes homemade Chinese food better than going out...I left out the mushrooms and added extra chili oil to make it more our taste.

 All in all...a great meal.  However the book said to saute the beef for 12 min...I took it off the stove after 6 and it was still overcooked.  This is why you have to do what you know is right.  Next time I will listen to my gut and not even cook the meat that long...it's tricky though because you do want the broccoli to be soft.

I love this cookbook.  It's great because it uses ingredients even found in my own little grocery store.

Date Night Movie Night

I am really enjoying our date nights at home.  They are really cheap and you can wear sweats...don't get me wrong I love getting dressed up to go out, however my "nice" clothes are few and far between since living in China (they don't make clothes for girls with curves), being pregnant (I wore regular shirts, stretching them all out and spilling on them) and now staying at home with Zachary (I don't buy anything that I don't mind getting crusted graham cracker, snot and other bodily fluids on), I basically haven't bought anything nice in over 2 years.

We decided to have a movie night.  Since babysitter + movie tickets = $$$$, we watched it from the comfort of our own home.

We watched:

and because I think it's cool...here is the movie trailer.



I got to pick the movie this time.  I love old movies and I have tried to find an oldie that I love, that Adam will enjoy.  I think this was a winner...not one sarcastic remark and I heard a few snickers...plus (and this is big) he didn't fall asleep.

When we plan for a movie night and make it more intentional it feels more like a date than hanging out at home watching a movie.  Since I wanted to make it special I picked up some special snacks:

I even bought a pack of the "extra butter" popcorn to take the place of our usual light

We decided to make this a monthly thing...Adam gets to pick, and I am very excited to go through my recipe books for another special movie night snack.
Maybe someday we will see a movie in a theater again...until then this is PERFECT!

No Plans Day!

I can't even remember the last time we had a peaceful Saturday at home without any plans.  This is one of the things I miss about life in China...time to relax as a family.
When we realized that we didn't have anything on the books for this weekend we made an effort to keep it that way!
Z and I woke up and had play time,  Adam woke up a little later and I went down for a nap.  (Is this not already the best morning EVER?)
I made us brunch.  Adam read the paper

and little man watched his daddy read the paper while munching on his breakfast (he liked the sausage best).

and we played...

built towers

and knocked them down

  

crawled through tunnels

"walked"

and "walked" some more

crawled around with (clean) socks in our mouths...well Zack did...Adam and I passed on that one

we put balls in the trunk of his car

and found them again

We had a WONDERFUL day!

Gumbo and Brunch

Last weekend was CRAZY...and a crazy weekend always leads to an off week for me.  Plus we had several play dates (which are AMAZING), a couple library story times, and several meals with friends scheduled for this week.  Long story short...not much time to cook let alone eat a meal together at home.  I used this week as an opportunity to cheat a little bit on my resolution.
****SIDE NOTE****I use New Years as a way to start something...knowing full well it won't continue but it will get me started, which is the most difficult part of any goal.  Just because I miss a week...or two...or, as I suspect, many more, doesn't mean I will stop all together.
I used a mix I bought at the Junior League's Shopping Spree this past fall.

I love directions like..."put it all in a pot and heat"

All I did was add the sausage, chicken and can of tomato (I hate canned veggies but tomato is OK for something like this) and a bag of who knows what.  Voa La: GUMBO!

and it went really well with the leftover cornbread.

Saturday I made a recipe from my mom.  Apple Pancake Bake.

It's made mostly with egg and has thin apple slices on the top...you can use any fruit!

We ate breakfast for lunch (I intended for it to be breakfast but a lazy morning and my early nap turned it into lunch).
Sausage...Apple Pancake...Hash browns...

Adam's Plate

and Z-man's plate...I love that he eats our food!

and I never cook a breakfast without a little help from Pillsbury...

(the bottom one is cut in half because I gave Z part of a roll without the frosting)