8.31.11

Today's outfit:

Pinterest inspiration photo:

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Black tee, khaki capris, leopard belt & shoes, silver/wood beaded necklace.

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Artichoke and Chicken pasta

Tonight's dinner is a artichoke and chicken pasta.

It's super easy to make and really tasty.

First, brown some chicken breasts (or be lazy like me and use frozen breast tenderloins and add them with the other ingredients).

Secondly, add 1 can of artichoke hearts (halved or quartered, up to you) or you can use a small bag of frozen ones. Then add 1 can of diced tomatoes.

For tonight I got a little crazy and used fire roasted/garlic tomatoes.
What can I say, I'm living on the edge!

Be sure to add your salt'n peppa.

Put it on med-low heat until everything is cooked thoroughly.

Lastly, add about 1/2 - 1cup of heavy cream. Ohhh yeah!

Let come to a brief boil- just until the cream sauce bubbles, then turn it down very low and let that go another 10 minutes or so to let everything marry.

While that's going, add your pasta of choice to some boiling water and cook until al dente.

Pour some of that arti-chicken sauce over your pasta. Top with some Parm cheese if you like and bon appetite!

I remembered to take pics way late in the game, sorry folks!



Mine and Max's:


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8.30.11

Today's outfit.

Inspiration:

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

My outfit - pinks and grey:

Since its still summer here (80-90's mainly now, thankfully we're done with the triple digits), I went with a short sleeve shirt. The scarf is hard to tell but its sort of a rose color. The jeans I got on eBay (<3) and they're Banana Republic's Trouser Jean. So super comfy and I like the overall fit/look.

I wore silver toned necklace/sparkly earrings - which you can't see in the picture at all. But they are there.

And because my shoes got cut off in the pic, here they are :)  Pale pink Coach (they look yellow in the picture, but really they're a super pale pink). I got them on eBay last summer.

Can you tell I like eBay? I definitely have been using it more in the past 2 years since Max. Before, I'd never even used it! Now, its awesome. Plus with all the apps/iPad etc, no reason not too.

I have piles of stuff that I'd like to sell on eBay too, all ready for when I get motivated to picture, price and get it in pre-shipping order. I do a bunch of donations but some of this stuff is just too nice to donate- $100 Nordstrom pants/skirts (with tags).
It kills me that I've outgrown some of this stuff I have, because they're so cute and I don't want to get rid of them, but my hips (ugh)  shifted 2+ clothing sizes post Max and since I work at home, even if I could fit into that stuff, I've got nowhere to wear it to!

These hips are the bane of my existence for the last 2 years! Ahhhhh.

:) Acupuncture tomorrow :)

Whoa, sidetracked there. /rant over 

Back to eBay, one of these days, I'll get around to selling!

All set for fall

Now that I have the perfect PINK wellies:



Bring on the rain!

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Kale Chips

Source: smittenkitchen.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

In an effort to get Max (and lets face it, me too) to eat more green veggies, I thought I'd try out kale chips.

I had never tried kale before, I'd heard it was a 'bitter' green but that roasting them made them really yummy.

So I bought a big bunch at the grocery store. Rinse/dried them. I then ripped the leafy bits off the large stems and then ripped those leafy bits into bite size pieces. Make sure you discard the stems- you don't want them at all for this. Pulled out a big ol baking sheet and plopped the greens on it, drizzled with a little EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), a dash of pepper and some sea salt. Mixed that gently together and spread out the bunch evenly on the sheet pan.

Popped that sucker into a 300 degree oven for ~25 min (could go less or more depending on how large your batch is).  You want them to be slightly crispy when you take them out. If they're still sorta soggy, leave them in for a bit more.


Now, I would be remise if I didn't say that no one ever posts how BAD it smells for the first 15 min or so of the roasting process. It smells like a poopy diaper. No joke.

You are now forewarned. :)

I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies right after to 'freshen' the smell in the house. And plugged in the Scentsy.

That said, I don't have any pictures because they didn't last longer than 10 minutes. Dead serious here.

My toddler devoured them like a no ones business. My husband came home and walked in the kitchen, looked at the stove where they were cooling and said 'oooohhh, can I try?'

He then ate the whole batch in less than 5 min (minus a small amount I pried out of his hands kept apart saying it was 'for the baby').

'They're nummy and delectable" says my husband.

I can see why other folks say they make these a couple times a week. I'll be buying more kale at the grocery store this week for sure!

Getting Organized: Part 1. The Basement.

So this summer I have slowly been trying to organize the house a bit more.

First I started out in the basement. Our basement looked like this (I can't even believe I'm showing these pics to the world btw.  /shame)

Our basement was just mainly used as a dumping ground for everything baby, storage, junk, and the unused. Behind the chair there, is our spare bedroom.

So I spent a couple nights after Max went to bed and got all the toys/baby stuff organized and put together.

I didn't really take a good shot, since it was like at 2am when I finished.

I had Sam haul out the old gym equipment. I took a huge carload of stuff to the Goodwill. I have some more to do down there still. I got new wall mounted bookshelves that Sam needs to install (I've only been asking him to do it for 2 months now) and then I can finish decorating and sprucing this place up.

I've got some World/USA maps to hang up and some additional artwork. I can't decide if I want to paint the space or leave it creamy as is.  This space gets very little natural light, so if I did paint it, it'd need to be a light color. My goal for the space is 3 fold really: play room, school room, and family hangout.

So I'm trying to design the space with those three things in mind. I've been utilizing the web and Pinterest to find inspiration pics. Here's a few I like:

Source: ohdeedoh.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Source: smg.photobucket.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Source: reddustlove.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Source: confessionsofahomeschooler.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

You see, the reason why I want to do a classroom is I'm very seriously thinking of homeschooling Maxwell.  Controversial I know. But I really am interested in it.

SO much so that I've been devoting crazy amounts of hours into planning a toddler pre-school curriculum for this year! I'm still gathering some materials and getting my lesson plans in order. I'm shooting for a couple hours a day/2-3 days a week starting probably in September.

I figure if I work on pre-school at home for the next couple years (or even just this year heh) I can see how I like things and see if I think I can do it. That way if it doesn't work out, we know well before kindergarten. There are a TON of home-schoolers in Maryland. Lots of co-ops and groups to work/partner with.

That topic aside, hopefully I can nail down the hubby to put up those shelves and I can semi-finalize the basement.

8.25.11

Today's Outfit

Inspiration Pic:

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

My Outfit:

(Ignore the messy bed/room and bad lighting etc)
Cardi: Old Navy, Shirt Old Navy, Pants: Banana Republic, Shoes: Target, long gold necklace: ukn

Regarding the shiny shoes. A couple weeks back, a sorority sister of mine posted something on FB about her having small feet and snagging shoes in the girls department.

I was like, wow. Really?! The girls department has all the cute shoes!

So while strolling through Target yesterday, I spied something sparkly. As in gold sparkly shoes! Yessss!
I wear a 6.5/7 in women's. I found for these shoes, the girls 4.5 fit best.  So for $14 here's what I got:

Cute right?

/happy dance

Max's doings.

Here's what Max has been up to this week:

Playing in the park. LOTS!

Now that it is a bit cooler out, we can actually go out and play.

Max found the Fisher Price catalog/mailer and was entranced with all the babies/kids in it. He grabbed it out of my hands and held onto it from the house and into the car for the duration of our car ride. 

Total time occupied: ~45 min. Score!

Found these on Amazon and decided to give them a try. He likes them. I like them more. ;)

Went to make a donation at the local Goodwill and decided to see what they had (been doing some organization projects, always on the hunt for baskets/jars/etc).  Saw these and loved them. I've been looking for chairs for the playroom and these are in 100% pristine condition. They don't even look used.

$5 each and the best part is, they're from Pottery Barn Kids.  Deal of the month right there folks.

Cleaned out the office and found some old phone. Gave it to Max. For the last few days, he won't even set it down to eat, it sits with him. To say that he loves it is an understatement.

He wanders all around the house just babbling (Yeah, nana, yaya, mmmm, D) to whomever he's 'talking' to. He'll seriously spend like an hour just walking around talking on it.

Football season is quickly approaching. Max outgrew all his sports stuff. So I saw this on eBay and it arrived yesterday. We're all set!

8.24.11

Here is my outfit inspiration from Pinterest.

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

And here is what I look like today.

(P.S. Ignore the laundry on the bed and bad lighting)

I used gold tone jewelry and slightly darker brown accessories.

Not bad. I think I can do it a bit better next time.

Its funny, when I wake up in the mornings now, I grab my iPad and open up Pinterest. I look at my inspiration boards and pick out what I'm going to wear for the day.

Makes my life so much easier haha. And it keeps me from wearing the same old shirts/capris day in and day out. I lack so much imagination on my own.



Here's me again a few days ago.

Inspiration outfit:

Source: jonesdesigncompany.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Me:

I flip flopped the colors on tank/cardi and used a skirt. The necklace is super long and with chasing Max around, it was just easier to double it around instead of wearing it the fully long length.

Super comfy.

I love Amazon!

Replacement parts (straws & spouts) for Max's sippy cups. Just replace the spout and keep the old cup instead of tossing it.

/love




and 

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Pinterest

This is an example of some of the stuff I've been looking up for fashion inspiration via Pinterest.

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Source: polyvore.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I have items in my closet that resemble many of the items I've found but would have maybe not have combined them like in the images I've seen. I've found new color combinations that I wouldn't have come up with on my own too.

As you can see, these images are made by folks on Polyvore.com which has also become a favorite site to look at for fashion. You can put together and save all sorts of these little boards with just about any fashion image that's available on the web - and shop directly from that site. Very nifty.

With Pinterest, you can also 'pin' recipes, architecture, how-to's, and just about anything else you can think of.

Such as:

Key lime cupcakes

Source: mymadisonbistro.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Fridge snack kit - to make snacking on healthy things quick and easy.

Source: thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Pantry organization tips

Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Doing your own board/batten (I totally want to do this in our basement btw)

Source: granvillehouse.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

And the great thing about it is that in addition to keeping the image of whatever you see/like, you can make notes regarding what caught your eye and also it keeps track of where the image originated. No more crazy bookmark bars!

You can find me here.  What have you been Pinning?

Max at 21 months

Max turned 21 months on the 2nd.
I'm tardy in posting all this. He was sick. I was sicker. We've been busy. Better late than never :)

His vocabulary is about the same as it was last month. He can say more words than he actually does.  He does however understand everything really well and follows commands. He's just more into doing things than he is with talking. He is really good with the 2 signs he knows- he ignores most other signs I've tried to teach him. I do need to be better about using them all the time- especially with please/thank-you. I did get him to say water (wawa) today.

He's gotten really good at going up and down the stairs. I still put the gate on the upstairs but that's mostly just to keep him out of the rooms up there (aside from his bedroom they're not baby-proofed). We took down the gate for the downstairs after I tidied it up a bit and so he can go down there whenever he wants to play. I've been working on converting the basement into a play/school room. He goes up/down like we do if he holds onto railing spindles or if he's holding our hand. Otherwise to go down, he just crawls or scoots on his bottom. Its cute.

Max has finally started to take an interest in coloring- especially downstairs at his easel.

Sam and I have been working with him on the alphabet. I use the foam magnet letters and we practice sounds/words. So far, just about everything is a "D".

Example: We hold up the "M" and say the sounds and use it in a word. We ask Max what the letter is and he says "D" (dee). We hold up the "C" and say the letter/sounds and ask Max, he says "D". So between Sam and I we joke that instead of doing the alphabet, we're doing the "D's".
Although, yesterday he did run up to me while I was doing dishes and was carrying the "P" and the "B" and he told me both sounds -with the proper letters.  /proud
We only watch a couple things on TV and the one thing he did during a letter/sounds game with the letter "B" he ran over and started saying "B" (bee) and pointing at all the "B's". /proud

Here's a few pics to show what else he's been up to:

Max loves, loves, loves to try on our shoes.  He loves to try to put his own shoes on, but gets really frustrated so he moves to ours which are easier.

He really enjoys stacking and sorting things. The cat food is a favorite haunt.

He has mastered climbing up to and then going down the slide all by himself.

He loves trying to wash himself during his baths. He also has taken to trying to help pour the water over his head to rinse. He can do it pretty often. Once he's done, then he likes to stick the bucket on his head and chill out with it. Blackmail pics! :)

Family Pic

Here's a recent (July) and rare family pic!

Aren't my boys handsome? :) For those who don't know, my wonderful hubby Sam has lost over 130 lbs in the past year. Doesn't he look awesome!

Inundated

I have so much to post but no energy to type/post.

Max turned 21 months this past week- need to record his doings.

Got a bunch of great style tips & recipes via Pinterest.



Bad iPhone pic- but the idea for the outfit/color combos were from my new BFF, Pinterest.

If you haven't done so, sign up for it. It's awesomesauce!

I am inundated with clutter and crap.
I feel overwhelmed by it in fact- which I am ashamed to say. I take much pride in being organized. But post baby- things have just gone downhill. My goal for the week is to go thru the house and get it all sorted and put away.
I'm tired of it!!!

I need to find ideas for Max's 2nd birthday party. I've no idea what to do for it.

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