My mom came down to help out with Jenna, since we would be in class all day each day.  I think they had a good time.

We did manage to get to a couple of the horse races and we even brought Jenna along since it was so nice out.  She had a blast!

Tyler got to have his first slumber party, with cousin Beau.  My brother and his wife picked up Tyler on Saturday morning and took Tyler and Beau to the Des Moines zoo then back to their house for the rest of the weekend.  It sounds like they had a pretty good time.  I bet Ben and Katy will sleep good tonight though, after handling those two all weekend!!

Tyler was pretty high maintenance too.  On Wednesday we picked him up from daycare and he looked horrible.  A rash all over his face and arms, along with swelling of his eyelids and face.  This is him on Thursday, which was no better.

He looks absolutely horrible, but he wasn’t fussy at all, just his normal self.  He was just itching all over.  So obviously we have an allergic reaction here.  I did take him to the medical doctor on Thursday, just to make sure it wasn’t something serious, and he said it was either allergic reaction or viral.  Since he had absolutely no fever and he was running around playing and eating everything in site, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a virus.  We’ve narrowed it down to a reaction from some sort of food, sunscreen or something at the park, since that’s when they noticed him start to have the reaction. 

He’s much better by now, but it took a lot of antihistamines to get that way.  Needless to say, we will be scheduling an appointment with an allergist soon.  He has eczema and most likely some environmental allergies this time of year anyways.  Thank you so much to Ben and Katy for dealing with his eye drops and medicine!

Since we are not traveling at all next weekend, I should have a better post next time, with hopefully a new recipe.  I definitely owe you one!!

Have a great week… stay safe from all those nasty storms!

I hate to admit it, but I didn’t take any pictures.  Lugging my big camera and case around wasn’t on the priority list for the car.  I counted on Aunt Jaime to fulfill my picture-taking role.  She did great.       

No food pictures, so I’ll fill you in.  We had our usual sausage and corn pizza from Glory Days, plus a couple other treats- smoked ribs made by Grandpa Lance, Scotcharoos  from Aunt Jaime,  pineapple cake from Grandma Cindi, multiple delicious breakfasts and some Henry T’s, a favorite restaurant of ours in Lawrence.

Here are some of the pics from the weekend:

Little Jenna is 3 months old today!  Can’t believe how fast time is flying by.

Of course I have to throw a shout-out to all the mothers in my life and those reading this blog. Hope you had a special day today and were reminded of just how important you are.  I know I felt very blessed today. 

And to my mother, thank you so much for all you have done and continue to do for me.  It brings me so much joy to see you love my children just as much as you love me.  I don’t know what we’d do without you.  And I am sorry for the unfortunate hair choices in the next picture, but I sure love you Mom!

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Our favorite kind of diapers to use are Huggies.  Little Snugglers to be exact.  We’ve tried other brands, but these just seem to work the best for us.  That doesn’t mean we still don’t have blow-outs.  We get our diapers on Amazon because we have a Prime membership and get a subscription every month so they end up being pretty cheap.  Cheaper than buying them at Walmart every couple months.

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We have a full-size crib that Tyler slept in until last week, when we turned it into a toddler bed.  So for Jenna, rather than having her go into the crib right away, we got an Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper Bassinet.  I love it because it’s on wheels, so at night I wheel it in next to me in bed, then during the day it goes out in the living room so the baby-sitter can keep an eye on her.  One of the sides flips down so that it’s like she’s laying next to you at night, but not really so there’s no chance of you rolling on top of her. 

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This won’t apply to everyone, but if you’re wanting to utilize a pump, the Medela Pump in Style Advanced is pretty much the best.  It is also pretty pricey, so I am very fortunate to get mine from a relative who didn’t end up using hers.  Insurance will sometimes cover these, so be sure to check.  We use the Medela bottle for everything too.

We didn’t use a bottle warmer with Tyler, just a glass of hot water.  I changed my mind this time, and this thing is well worth it.  This heats the bottle up in just a minute or two, which is great because Jenna is pretty demanding when she’s hungry. 

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This thing was a lifesaver.  Again, we didn’t have this with Tyler.  We had another swing that a friend gave us, but when we got it out to use for Jenna, it didn’t work.  Then we borrowed another one from a friend and that stopped working too.  Apparently our house is where swings go to die.  I broke down and bought this one because it looked cool and you could plug it in or use batteries.  Money well spent, because every time she’s in it she at least calms down or falls asleep. 

So those are a few of our favorite baby things.  We like our stroller and car seat, but I kind of wish I would have gotten a jogging stroller to begin with, one that you can put the car seat into.  Hope that helps.

Remember, I’ll be back next Sunday with a post, no Thursday this week.  Happy birthday to my mother-in-law Cindi today! 

The pillows on the bottom are to protect him from falling on the hardwood floor.

Jenna isn’t quite rolling over yet, but she is scooting herself all over.  We put her on her play mat with her head right in the middle but a minute later this is where she ended up.

Her little smile is so cute.  I just love the gummy smiles at this age.

Oh look, a food picture!

That’s as far as I got.  Fajita night here, using an adapted form of this marinade.  Didn’t get around to taking any other pictures of the meal.  No other pictures from the week either, except for this one.

I am loving this stuff lately.  It’s got to be the spicy kind.  I’ve been back on a salt kick, so salty tortilla chips work great. 

So my friends, I have decided to once again let you down.  Way back when I first started blogging, I was doing it almost every night.  Then it backed off to every other night and it has slowly tapered.  I’m afraid we’ve hit another breaking point.  I’ve decided to only blog once a week, on Sundays.  I’ve strayed from my original concept, giving you healthy meal options and ideas, and have turned it into a slideshow of my kids.  I’m sure our family doesn’t mind that, but I feel bad letting other readers down.  This is shaping up to be a very busy year, and I feel like I’m already behind.  I have lists after lists of things I need to do, but they just keep coming.  I don’t want to quit the blog completely, but I decided once a week posts will cut back my stress levels just a little bit.  I’ll try to bring you recipes and healthy food options, and I’ll also include plenty of Tyler and Jenna pictures. 

Maybe someday I will pick things up again, but until then, you’ll be seeing me on Sundays.  Or should I say, seeing these guys…

Have a great weekend!

What a wonderful weekend of garage sailing, grilling, and several walks with the strollers.  Hubby was pretty pumped to get out his charcoal grill.

He made some yummy burgers and grilled up some chicken both days.

We went with the cheaper bone-in meat, chicken thighs.  I think it was about $5 for 4 lbs of thighs?  Pretty great deal.  Leave on the skin so you can retain the juices, then when you eat it, peel it off for a healthier option. 

Of course we got in all our smoothies and salads, so we did eat some fruits and veggies.  We’re trying to eat as much of the green stuff as we can- think we went through two big packages of spinach and a bag of kale this week. 

We had another special treat this weekend, Grandma Pat came to see us again.  She’s been babysitting Cousin Beau, so she popped up for a quick visit. 

Tyler had a great time this weekend, with all the garage-sailing and Grandma time.  He was pretty funny, he found my new shoes and decided to try them out for me.

Yes, I have gigantic feet.  My poor kids are going to have massive feet as well I bet.  Can’t wait to try out my new shoes.  This week I’m getting back to the gym- about time, I know.

We had a pretty big milestone for Tyler today- we switched his bed into a toddler bed.  When we put him down for his nap, sure enough, he comes strolling right out.  We gently led him back into the bedroom and put him down again.  I went and checked on him in a couple minutes and he was sitting in his chair quietly reading a book.  Later Hubby checked on him and he was laying on the rug in front of his bed with his feet up on the bed.  Finally he put himself back into bed and fell asleep.  So the nap went well, but we’ll see how he does all night long.  I’m so worried he’s going to fall out.  He has a little bit of a guard rail, but I can see him finding the little part that doesn’t.  I put pillows down just in case. 

I’m so nervous about him waking up in the middle of the night and walking around and getting into stuff or getting hurt.  I think it’s going to be a long night. 

Hope you had a great weekend and got to enjoy the weather!!

Nothing better than Italian-dressing marinated chicken on the grill. 

We are starting to transition into eating much healthier, now that our lives are fitting more of a schedule.  Hubby will grill up a bunch of chicken a couple times a week so we can have it for different lunch options.

There are so many things you can do with the chicken once it’s all cooked up and cut.  We make salads, wraps, sandwiches, quesadillas, rice bowls- the list goes on. 

Earlier this week I attempted a quesadilla, but ended up burning the top, so it became a tostada.

After the picture, I dumped a bunch of salsa, plain Greek yogurt and chopped up spinach on top.  It was nice and crunchy.

We are really needed to find quick meal ideas more than ever, since it turns out that two kids are harder to manage than just one.  Still might pull out the crockpot a time or two, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment below!

And of course I need to throw in some kid pictures for the fam.  Tyler got a buzz cut today, so I thought I’d post a before and after. 

The before is a side shot of him sitting down with one of his favorite novels, Marley and Me.  He just loves the dog on the front.  This kid is seriously trying to tell us something- I caught him hugging the book the other day.  No- we are not getting a dog.

And here he is flying by after his haircut:

And now a picture of baby Jenna in a cute outfit from Jessie and John (she is also moving too fast for the camera):

And the two of them just watching some ‘toons.

Obviously Hubby helped that picture out a little.

And that is all for today, looking forward so some more decent weather and garage sailing this weekend!!

As I looked back over the pictures of the last couple days, I realized I didn’t take any food pictures.  Just picture of the kids, and of my drinks. 

Only one of them had alcohol in them, thank you very much.  Hubby made me a whole fruit margarita for my birthday, which was lovely. 

Instead of a fancy glass, we put them in our tumblers so they stayed cold yet didn’t make our hands cold.

The other drink I took was a picture of my homemade mocha latte that I had this morning. 

2% milk works even better for the foam. 

We didn’t really make any meals this weekend, but we did order pizza twice in one weekend.  Once on Saturday and once on Sunday.  We didn’t exactly plan it that way, but oh well.  My parents and my brother and his fiancé dropped by today for a little visit so we ordered pizza instead of cooking something.  One of the pizzas was a cheeseburger pizza from Breadeaux, which was fantastic.  Turns out I love pickles on my pizza.

I’ll leave you with some cute pictures of the kids… that seems to be pretty much all I have for you these days, sorry! 

My little loungers

Smiley girl

Dishes with Tyler (*Note to self, although sweats are super comfy, they are not-so-flattering)

Since it’s my birthday, I decided I’m going to take the night off and spend it eating nachos, drinking whole fruit margaritas and chilling with my family.

Have a great weekend!

I was going to post the recipe, but I read that I can possibly get in trouble if I copy and paste the recipe since it’s from a cookbook, so just google the name of the recipe and the name of the cookbook and I’m sure you can find it. 

I served them on top of some red-skinned mashed potatoes.  I wanted them to be as good as the ones we had in a really fancy restaurant in Vegas, but surprisingly they weren’t.  Still not bad for little ol’ me.

We had a good weekend around here, our friends Jessie and John drove over from Chicago so that they could meet Jenna.  I did not do a good job with the camera, didn’t get a single picture while they were here.  Oopsie.

I did work on Jenna’s 2 month pictures though.  I need to retake them another time when the lighting is better, but you get the idea.

Getting so big.  Better throw in a picture or two of the other big kid…

Looks like it’s time for a haircut. 

Tyler and I snuck out today for a walk since it was really nice out for a short stretch.  Tyler brought his new basketball to the park- thanks Kiewiets!!

And that wraps up our weekend.  Sorry I’m slacking on some recipes lately, kinda busy these days. 

I really should have taken a comparison shot for this one so you could see just how enormous this salad was.  I love love love buffalo chicken anything, so this was spinach, celery, chicken, bleu cheese, buffalo sauce and ranch dressing. 

Believe it or not I still have a couple freezer meals left.  This was the last meatloaf from the freezer, made with a beef/turkey mixture with onions, peppers and carrots.  Sides were some grilled potatoes and steamed carrots.

And the last of our freezer supply went to taco meat.  I made two soft-shelled tacos, with toppings galore- cheese, salsa, plain Greek yogurt, spinach and a couple crushed up blue corn tortilla chips.

A big staple around here lately has been sandwiches for lunch.  We love the ciabatta bread from Walmart’s bakery, so we fill those with turkey, ham, roast beef, cheese and spinach.  On the side here are some BBQ Baked Lays.

I have been loving me some bbq chips lately, did you know they make BBQ Sun Chips now?  They’re delicious.

I was going to have a recipe for beef short ribs for you today, but an eye emergency prevented me from making them (apparently they are pretty time-consuming).  Don’t worry, everything is ok.  Just had a little freak-out moment when I thought my retina was detaching.  Called up my most favorite optometrist (BFF Jessie) and she said get to my local doc to get checked.  So I went to my second favorite-est optometrist Dr. Woodland who confirmed my retina was fine.  Turns out I was having an ocular migraine, which is commonly associated with hormonal changes.  That’s me!

I was in and out which was great, but they still had to super dilate my eyes.  Here’s a scary, big-nose, no make-up picture that was taken about two hours afterwards.

For awhile there you could barely see the ring of green around my pupil.

While I was gone, Hubby had the kids under control.

He’s such a good daddy.

So instead of the short ribs, I made some chicken strips, using this recipe.  Tyler finally ate some of my homemade chicken strips/nuggets!!  He usually only eats the crappy processed kind (which we try to limit of course). 

That’s all for now… maybe I’ll have a new recipe or two for you this weekend!