This Week For Dinner

Do you know Jane over at "This Week For Dinner"?

She talks about this novel concept of *gasp* MEAL PLANNING! wow.
AND she lists her weekly meals - she is on like week 213 or something ridiculous.
On top of that - her readers list THEIR daily meals.
Talk about inspiration!
I've been doing this for a while now -and thought - "hey, why not post on our little blog?"
So - here we go, (I'll call this week 1) nothing like a fresh start.

mon – curry tofu and cauliflower w/ brown rice
tues – basil pesto tilapia w/ quinoa and green salad
wed – white lasagne w/ caesar parmesan flatbread (oh - i won this awesome book on jane's site!)
thurs – lemon chicken breasts (ina) steamed green beans
fri – chicken fajitas bar
sat – take out or go out
sun – crock pot meal (tortilla soup or smoky black bean chili)

The recipes: curry tofu and cauliflower AND smoky black bean chili come from the new Kristine Kidd book - Weeknight Fast + Fresh available at Williams-Sonoma NOW! I get to meet Kristine tomorrow at a book signing event at one of my accounts - she is serving HER curry tofu and cauliflower which I am sure will be much better than the version of hers that I made tonight (although... tonight's was applauded by all in this house!)

so - much inspiration goes out to you (all of my ONE blog reader - i love you mom!)

yummy :)

Round here, we love us some red velvet cake balls... even the littlest member of the team loves them, and was very curious about the colorful sprinkled chocolate covered goodness that was tied up with a pink ribbon.
SO curious that he just had to check it out - he was so cute - I had to take some pics.

"mommy, can i please have one? pleeeeease?"

"If you can unwrap it, you can have one... just ONE"
"YAAAAY!!"

determined!
almost there...

Getting closer.

GOT IT!
(Can you tell that i absolutely LOVE this face??!!)

Sweet sweet chocolatey success!!!

bootcamp

Potty training bootcamp that is.
Liam spent most of the weekend with his pants off. We kind of thought he might be ready to potty train, and figured that we would take advantage of the three day weekend - as we didn't have too much going on, and could spend some time with Liam to work on potty training. He has been doing pretty good on the potty - he will sit on it and go - but really only when HE wants to. The plan was by the end of the weekend - he would be potty trained.

FAIL!

We diligently took him to the potty every 30 minutes. He had some success - but a lot of times he didn't want to be on the potty - and didn't go. He seemed surprised when he actually did go. There were rewards and big dramatic potty dances.

There were several times where he would just start going (off the potty) so we would swoop him up - a stream of pee flying through the air (on the floor/ walls/ me - you get the picture) and plop him on the toilet until he was done. We mopped the floor about 25 times - it's never been cleaner by the way. We THOUGHT he would get it... he hasn't. He IS better... but far from potty trained. I guess he just isn't ready. As with everything else - he will do this on his time - why would we ever have thought differently?

ROCK OF AGES!

Last night Kurt and I had a great date night and saw "Rock of Ages" at the Pantages! It was AWESOME! It takes place on the Sunset Strip circa late 80's early 90's when the glam bands were making their way onto the music scene in a big way. The costumes were a hoot - the music was so much fun, and the entire show was a blast! This show was especially fun because Kurt actually lived in LA and hung out on the Sunset Strip when all of this was REALLY happening... so he knew all of the little inside jokes - like about the new Arby's moving onto the strip - and that the "Bourbon Room" was really "Gazari's" .... i think he even used to dress like these guys - seriously! (I think my brother kind of did too - they are about the same age and liked the same kind of music)... Even if you were never into glam rock or hair bands... SEE THIS SHOW if you can. It was only the 2nd night of performance in L.A. and it only stays here fore 2 weeks. Oh - and that guy from American Idol - Constantine Maroulis was the lead - and he was great!

Some of the covers featured bands like: Whitesnake, Pat Benetar, Twisted Sister, Poison, Asia, Night Ranger, Styx, REO Speedwagon - and more :)

Here are some pix and our playbill!!

Valentine's Day Love

Happy Valentine's Day (just a couple of days late!) We have been so busy over here, i have sorely neglected to update this blog - but I can not skip over Valentine's Day - especially because we had such a nice one this year :)

We baked cookies as a family over the weekend. Liam did a GREAT job of decorating the cookies and putting lots of sprinkles, sparkles and candies on top. We gave the cookies to some friends and teachers - they were a big hit!

We had a special dinner guest on Sunday night - Arlene - Grammy M! She has been sick for a while so, we haven't seen much of her lately - actually we really haven't spent any time with her since the holidays, so it sure was great to get to spend some time with her - know Liam enjoyed it. One of the funniest moments of the night is when Liam asked for his sleeping bag - when he disappeared inside of it for an extended amount of time, we realized that he had gone in there to sneak away and eat more chocolate (after we had told him "thats enough")! We got a good laugh about that especially since he had done something similar at Christmas.

On Valentine's morning, we had a love fest skype call w/ Gramma and Grampa in Oregon - they had sent a box of goodies for Liam, so we had him open it while they watched - it was pretty cool... gotta love skype for times like that! At 9:30 there was a party at school. Liam and I made the fruit salad together - and all of the other moms pitched in and brought bagels w/ pink cream cheese, goldfish, juice, cookies and really fun crafts. It was a fun party - probably one of the best because Liam actually decided to WEAR his listening ears, he was engaged, he followed instructions, he loved the food, the crafts and passing out his valentine's cards!

When we got home from school, we got to go through his bag of treats - he got some great stuff :) His school even gave him a teeshirt to wear for School Pride Day! how fun!

After Liam went down, Kurt and I had a delicious and healthy dinner at home together (at the grown ups table which we rarely eat at!) - it was a great time to reconnect, turn off the TV and actually talk... we should do that more often :) I highly reccommend it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

How cute is the little love bugs bulletin at school? i love it!

Our Valentine's Day table setting.

Liam's cookies - they were so cute - and how funny are the new conversation hearts? "holla"

"CHEESE" w/ grammy m.

He was lovin all the cards :) he especially liked the cards from the grammas/ grampas and the special special doggie card that he got in the mail from his GREAT GRAN!

I am not sure i can explain... he just decided that the shirt needed to come off so the necklace could speak for itself!

passing out invitations - Ms Danielle is such a great helper!

Daddy was a super helper too!

We all pitched in (even Mommy got a minute to help out and pass the camera to Dad!)

This is what 14 two year olds looks like eating breakfast together! They are all so cute - we are blessed that Liam is meeting some really great friends!

saturday hike

We had a great Saturday. We started our day with Sports Class - we signed up for another session through parks and rec... it meets on Saturday mornings at 9am for a half an hour. Liam is still a little young and doesn't quite get the concepts of all the sports - but he is getting better - and he seems to enjoy it, so we are sticking with it.
It was such a gorgeous day today (sorry East coasters!) high was around 78! So, we were itching to be outside. We attempted to go to a fun hike/picnic place called Red Rock Canyon... and we kind of got there (via gps directions) however, we ended up on the back side ... with no picnic area or anything. Liam was a trooper and did part of the hike and had a blast throwing rocks, kicking dirt and being a total boy!
It was fun to do something different... explore a little and see a local spot that we have never seen before - it was pretty spectacular!

on top of the world!

coming down

throwing some rocks over the edge

time for a water break!

juicy

SO - apparently there are some health benefits of drinking fresh juice... I mean REALLY fresh juice. I have been reading this book called "Clean" that tells all kinds of good stuff about it. SO.... I thought I would give it a whirl.

Here is my new toy -a Breville Juicer - not the top of the line... but not the bottom of the barrel either.

My first experiment was apple, carrot and celery. It was on the list of the least weird combinations. Also - I had all three on hand because Liam and I went to our regular Tuesday night Farmer's Market date.

So - I started with two apples, a few carrots and a stalk or so of celery - all organic from local farms.

THis is what two apples a few carrots and a stalk or so of celery look like when juiced. A little frothy, a funky color - but WOW... this stuff was actually good! I barely even tasted the celery. Next time I will add some lemon so its not SO sweet.