On a roll!

While Max and Claire were at Mother's Morning Out, I was busy at the gym and in the kitchen!  My kitchen looked like a tornado went through it by the time I was finished!  Lately, I've been on a salad kick.  Today I roasted some sweet potatoes, red peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms to put on my salad.  It was so good!  I drizzled some light ranch and balsamic to top it off ;)

When they went down for their afternoon nap, I made something I found on Pinterest.  Low-fat Lemon Yogurt Cake.  It is so moist and tasty!  You can find the recipe here.

I may or may not have just had my second piece tonight!!

THEN... I made another recipe off of Pinterest for dinner!  Chicken Divan

This was also a big hit!  I love having a Pinterest account!  Have you tried any worth sharing?  Will need more ideas for next week.

And now for the cutest babies I know:

Star Performers

We just returned from a nice, long weekend at the beach.  Family and good food...what more can you ask for?  Max and Claire loved being the center of attention (when are they not?!).  They pulled out all their tricks and even added a few.

Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Darcy loved watching Claire walk around the house.  She is busy all the time.  She constantly signs "please" until you do what she wants.  This weekend she wanted to be outside looking for doggies.  She has also learned to sign "bird".  Love her and those precious cheeks!

Max showed them he learned to sign too!  This weekend he added "eat" and "birds" to his bag of tricks.  All together he can sign "please", "more", "eat", "ball", and "bird".  This weekend I let them splurge and have a cupcake.  They LOVED it!! I started off only giving them half, then Claire wouldn't stop signing "please" and Max kept signing "more" "food" "please"!!! It was so cute... needless to say, they got the other half!!

We had a nice walk on the beach, made complete by doing cartwheels!  

I felt the stretch... not sure my body has felt that in a while... not sure I'll be doing that again!

One more day

We have one more day left at the beach. While we haven't had warm weather, it has been sunny and peaceful!




Kelly - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Go make this for dinner!

I love Pinterest!!  Tonight we tried another recipe I found on there:  White Chicken Enchalidas.  It was amazing!

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

I think I loved it more than Justin.  The sauce is what got me!! However, next time, I think I'll add spinach.  

Served with brown rice.  You can find recipe here.

On to some randomness.....

I think I figured out why Max has been so cranky and waking up at 5AM!  Not only is he getting two more front, bottom teeth, but a molar just popped through! poor thing!  

I also noticed a little something new in his hair, sweet potato a curl!  Max has his first curl!!  Justin had blond curly hair as a kid and so did my brother.  I'll be interested to see if more follow.

snapshot through the playroom window!  climbing in old bouncy seat!

Fun in the bath!! Since they love baths so much, I let them pick out new bath toys at Babies R Us yesterday.  I figured they needed a new toy for their 13 month!!  I ordered some new monthly stickers, just waiting for them to arrive!

Ok, last thing... Yesterday my left ear started feeling clogged up.  I can barely hear out of it and now my right ear is starting to feel that way.  It is so annoying and doesn't feel great.  I bought some sudafed, thinking it was congestion.... we will see if it gets better tomorrow.  The pharmacist said if it doesn't go away it could be ear was build up.. EW GROSS! I don't know if I can wait four days to find out - I might have to go to the dr tomorrow.

I made bread!

I was a little worried this morning when my bread hadn't risen.  But I stayed the course!!

Looks good, right?!

Nice and crusty outside, soft chewy inside!

It was even better with some butter and jam ;)

I was so excited this turned out!  Best part - only 3 ingredients!!

You can find the recipe here

And can't have a post with out pics of Max and Claire.  Sadly, we didn't take them in the snow yesterday when there was two of us.... so I attempted to take them both out this morning.

Yes, we had ghetto snow shoes on!!  I wrapped plastic bags around their feet!  We were only out there long enough to get a few pictures.  I think they are going to love to actually play in it one day.... It's a little hard to take them both out by myself when we don't have the proper clothing and one not walking and the other not walking all the time.  this was the best I could do today!

More, Please!

This morning Max Man gave us an unexpected sign!!  He signed "more"!!!!  I was so shocked!  I've been showing them that for a few weeks, and now, in the past two days, Max has signed "more" and "please"!!  I am so proud of him.  I think he got tired of us always praising Claire for signing "please".  I didn't even ask him to say more, he did it all on his own!!  My sweet boy!!  That helped make up for the whining he did ALL day today.

My baby girl!

they have also been talking up a storm!  

Words they can say:

Daddy

Doggy (Claire) Dog-Dog (Max)

Mama

Claire can also say "shoes" and I think she has been saying "Ma" for Max!

Max can say "ba" for ball and he is starting to sign it too!

If we say, "where is your hair?" or "where is your nose?" they can point to hair and nose.

They are also misbehaving at meals.  They intentionally put food in their hair and will throw food on the floor.  Claire started the putting food in her hair... then Max started imitating.  Now as soon as I say "NO" or "please don't put food in your hair" or "let's not throw our food on the floor", they do it all at once... throw food on floor and put food in hair... and with a smile on their face.  I usually give them two chances, then I get them down.  Tonight, I turned Max's chair around facing the wall!  I didn't know what else to do!  Any suggestions?!

On another note, I've been busy in the kitchen today.  Thanks to Pinterest!

I made toffee saltines and started a quick bread for tomorrow!

Of course, I can't ever follow directions.. I always have to add or do something different.

This recipe is so easy!  All you do is layer one sleeve of saltine crackers (mine were whole wheat), melt butter and brown sugar then pour over crackers.   Bake in preheated (475) oven for 5-6 minutes then spread white chocolate and butterscotch chips over top.  Let cool then break apart!  I did not have 1 c of white chocolate or butterscotch so I also used dark chocolate and semi sweet chocolate chips! AND I sprinkled some toffee on Justin's side!

I can already feel it on my thighs! ha!

And the dough is resting and will be ready for me to cook tomorrow morning!!

Last thing - Promise!!  It snowed today!! It was 60something yesterday and snowed a few inches today!  Crazy North Carolina winters!

Cheesy Quinoa Mac and Cheese

And a photo dump... but first the quinoa mac and cheese!

I've seen this on Pinterest a few times and decided I needed to make this!

Photo credit:  http://aroundthetableri.blogspot.com/2012/02/cheesy-quinoa-mac-cheese.html

It was pretty good!  Justin said it didn't taste like much, but I enjoyed it!  Is is something I'll add to my favorite recipes? No.  I have a ton left over.  We had it with tilapia and creamed spinach.

It was a little on the dry side, but that may be my fault.  I have only made quinoa a handful of times.

Now for the photo dump!  Both the babes are feeling better... I think.  Max's eye was a little runny again today and Claire still has a yucky cough.

Love this!  One of their favorite things to do!

precious little toes!

making valentines gifts

LOVE this picture!

Computers

It's about time for our house to purchase a new computer. Our dell is over 5 years old and starting to slow down and freezes a lot. We are thinking about getting a Mac pro! Any thoughts?!

In other news.... Max and Claire are feeling better - still have cough and runny nose, but no more temps! They were able to go to mother's morning out today (thank goodness!).
Yesterday was crazy. They both wanted to be held and didn't want me holding the other one! We did manage to go to Target, but then got caught in the rain!



We also tried to paint. That didn't go well. They were not interested and didn't feel well so it lasted all of 2 minutes.



I put a piece of paper in a plastic bag, then added globs of paint.
Maybe next time. What are some other youngtoddler crafts?!


Kelly - Posted using BlogPress

from my iPhone

3rd time is a charm?

Would you believe me if I told you we were back at the doctor today? We were. Yesterday max started getting a rash on his tummy. I called the nurse and she said to keep an eye on it. Today it was still there and starting to spread



So back to the doctor we went.



Doctor said it was one of two things: virus or reaction to his medicine. His last ear infection they put him on amoxicillin. Ear infection was back in a week so this time we tried augmentin. Doctor decided it would be our best bet to switch, yet again. Tomorrow Max will start on Omnicef. Poor buddy!! Hoping we will be over all this soon!!



Overall, they are both feeling better! Now we just need to work on getting appetites back!

Kelly - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

High temps and I'm not talking weather!

To say the last few days have been tough around here is an understatement. We have had sick babies since Friday night. Yesterday we took Max to the doctor, only to find out he has a double ear infection. He finally started feeling better this afternoon, which is when I noticed Claire started feeling worse. She has had a runny nose and low grade temp for two days. After she woke up from her afternoon nap she had a temp of 101.8 so I have her some Advil...by 5:00 her temp had climbed to 105.7!!! This was only 1.5 hrs after the Advil. I immediately called the doctor (office was closed) and they told us to go to the emergency room.



She was looked so pitiful. We felt so bad for her. She was not a happy camper to get her temp taking in the rectal (who would be?!). We got there at 6:45 and didn't get home until 9:45.



She ended up having an ear infection too. She was poked and proded more than she cared for. There was so much ear wax (gross) that the doc couldn't see in - so she had to clean that out :( then we had to wait for the Tylenol to kick in. They finally let us leave when her temp got down to 102.4






She was such a good girl! Thankful my mom was able to come watch Max so Justin could go with me.
Poor things need to get better!

Kelly - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone