My Little Helper

Vivi LOVES going to the grocery store.  You'd think it was Disney Land or something.  She says hello to everyone that walks by and waves...no joke.  It's hysterical!  She's like a little grocery store ambassador.  Then the fun continues when we have to unload the groceries at home.  She loves the paper bags and any food items I allow her to play with.  She's a big help, let me tell you!

Shut UP!

If you haven't seen "Sh*t Girls Say" on Youtube, then you need to stop what you're doing right now and watch this video.  I've watched it about 15 times and crack up every time I see it!  It's hysterical and I think every girl will see themselves at some point in that video.  What does that have to do with my blog post?  Well, to me this silly picture of Vivi's funny face looks like she just heard her best friend (Josie) tell her that her boyfriend (Collin) just broke up with her.... and Vivi's saying "Shut UP!?"  hee hee...

So, Vivi is now 14 months old.  I don't have those cute little month by month stickers anymore, but I feel like I should document her developments just for the heck of it.  Vivi is quite the chunk.  I haven't weighed her recently but I suspect she's about 22 pounds.  I had to run to the grocery store for just one thing yesterday and decided to just hold her instead of putting her in the cart.  Big mistake.  She's heavy!  I love the little Chubette though!  Vivi is now crawling and scooting everywhere imaginable.  She pulls up on the furniture and can make her way around a room.  She loves to walk while holding your hands.  It's so cute to watch her.  Vivi's always been a verbal baby, but now she's just continually shocking us with her vocabulary.  She can say two and three word sentences!  "Hi Mama" "Hi Dada"  "Bye bye Mama" "Bye bye Dada" and "Where'd Dada go?" Some of her other words - sunshine, what, milk, more, hat, baby, ball, papa, that, dog, cat, book, sissy, nana...and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.  It's pretty incredible.  She's not walking but my baby can talk!

Vivi's eating almost all regular food.  I do occasionally give her a jar of baby food if I feel like she's missing something.  We're struggling lately with vegetables though.  She'll eat almost everything you give her.....except a vegetable.  Ironically, she'll eat any veggie in baby food form.  Vivi's babysitter told me today that I need to be more forceful with this issue and only give her green beans or carrots first before any other part of her meal.  We'll see how it goes.  I gave her a bowl of cooked carrots today in a bowl and she took them out of the bowl and put them back in the bowl over and over again for about 10 minutes. :)  Maybe one made it to her mouth, but I'm not even sure about that.  Oh well...she's definitely not malnourished.

I can't believe my baby is so big!!

I Heart Martha!

Source: marthastewart.com via Caryn on Pinterest

For the past two years, my dad and step-mom have bought me the Martha Stewart magazine subscription as a gift....and I love it!  I actually get excited when I see it in the mail.  I have a process for looking through my magazine.  I dog ear all the pages that I want to remember for some reason or another....a recipe to try, a brilliant idea, a craft, etc.  Here's what I dog eared this month for the February issue:

-Page 4: Did you know that Random Acts of Kindness week is February 13th-19th?  I sure didn't.  I'm going to somehow incorporate this into my classroom.  And...there's a website: randomactsofkindness.org

-Page 6: Coconut Thumbprint Cookies with Salted Caramel....YUM!  I will be making these someday!

-Page 30: Theater in a Box.  Sounds fun, huh?  They show Cinderella and it comes with the scripts and masks.  I think Vivi will need this when she's old enough to read. :)  The website for that is: innovativekids.com  It says it's only $17...maybe my nephews would like this too!?

-Page 125: 3-D Valentine's Day cards (see picture above!)  I'm going to have my students make these.  I will probably have to make the 3-D part for them to cut out, but they can decorate and glue for sure!  Pretty cute!

-Page 131:  Toasted Country Bread with Hazelnut Pesto - Now I finally have something to do with those hazelnuts I have had in my pantry for forever!

-Page 139: Spreadable, Edible Butter in Seconds: Martha says that if you need room temperature butter quickly then you should microwave a stick of butter for 20 seconds, flipping it a quarter turn every 5 seconds.  Pinterest says you should grate your butter like cheese.  I tried this.  Yes, it worked, but it made a HUGE mess in the process.  The microwave thing sounds much easier.

So those are the helpful hints I got from this month's issue.  Can't wait for the next one!

Impulse Buy

So...I recently bought 20 of these.  Yes, 20.  Why?  I'm not really sure.  I was at Mathis Brothers, a local furniture store, with a friend.  We were browsing the "as-is" section and came across these beauties.  They were originally $20 a piece....marked down to $9.99....then marked down again to $4.  As I was admiring these fake birch wood Christmas trees imagining a small forest on my mantel next year for Christmas, the salesman said, 'I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse." (Insert Godfather voice here)  Just kidding...he didn't say that, but it would have been funny if he did.  Anyway, he did say that if I was interested in these then he'd sell them to me for a dollar a piece.  Sold!  I bought ALL of them.  Bargain Betty strikes again.  Now, do I really need 20 of these?  No.  I guess you'll just have to stay tuned to my blog next Christmas to see what the heck I can do with 20 of these!  Till then, up in the attic you go!

My Friend Ellen's Carbonara

I just made the most delicious dinner tonight..I have to share.  When Vivi was born, my friend Ellen brought over a huge pan of Pasta Carbonara.  It was delicious and there was so much of it that we ate it for days and then we even froze some for later.  Frank randomly brings up that pasta that she made, so I just asked her for the recipe last week.  Well, like all good cooks, there is no recipe...she made it up.  She told me how to make it and it sounded easy enough.  I remembered that there was a yellow bell pepper, a red bell pepper, and mushrooms in it.  When I went to the grocery store today there was a special on yellow and red peppers and mushrooms right when you walk in the door.  Weird.  So here's how I remember her telling me how to make it.  Ellen, if you're reading and I got it wrong somehow, then you need to try it my way next time because it was YUM!

1/2 lb. bacon diced
1 yellow and 1 red bell pepper sliced thinly
1package of white mushrooms sliced
1 1lb. bow tie pasta
1 container of Butoni Alfredo (I suppose you could make your own, however this refrigerated brand is all natural and has no weird ingredients- just stuff like cream, parmesan, romano, etc...)

Okay....so all you have to do is brown the bacon, then throw in the peppers until they are soft.  (Yes, you are using the bacon fat...I did not claim this dish to be healthy!) Then add your mushrooms.  When everything is nice and soft you throw in your container of Alfredo sauce.  Add this deliciousness to the pound of pasta that you cooked up separately and voila!

I took a picture of the ingredients and planned on taking a picture of the finished product.  That somehow didn't happen.  We had friends over for dinner and we gobbled it down and I forgot completely about a photo opp!  Oops!  Trust me....delicious!

So true!

Source: Uploaded by user via Caryn on Pinterest

Isn't this so true?  I like the little things better than the big things.  I like when I'm trying to rock Vivi to settle down and she grabs my nose and starts laughing and says, "Hi!".  I like when I feel like I'm actually making a small difference in someone's life at school when I just have a personal conversation with a student.  I like when I wake up in the middle of the night and look at the monitor with a sleeping baby and the clock shows I still have hours to sleep.  I like when someone else orders dessert too.  I like when Frank does the dishes.  I like talking about recipes with other foodies I know.  I like when you can smell the detergent on your towels, sheets, or blankets.

And...I especially like my monthly dinners with my girlfriends.  This group of girls are all related to the school I teach at in some way or another...either they work there now or have worked there in the past.  We all are about the same age, give or take 5 years or so, and we all have babies or small children.  We meet once a month at a different new or trendy restaurant and chow down and can sometimes talk for hours.  The most common topics of discussion range from poop to weaning naps to breast feeding to husbands to throwing up...you get the idea. ;)  (And those were just last night's conversations!)  These dinners/conversations make me feel normal and are great for getting advice on this crazy thing called motherhood.  Thanks gals!

Vivi's Imagination

I absolutely LOVE this!  Vivi has an imagination!  Here she is feeding her baby dolls her bottle.  I've seen her do this a few times lately with her sippy cup without any prompting.  I'm so glad I captured this on camera.  It's so sweet to watch.  It's just amazing watching her little brain develop.

"Do these pants make my tooshie look big?"

"Oh, mom....this is not a good angle."

All kidding aside, look at my big girl!  She can actually kind of walk with that walker toy now.  She walks like she's had one too many glasses of wine, but hey, it's a start!  It looks like this little baby girl is going to skip crawling all together.

2012...here we come!

This is how Vivi rolls on New Year's Eve....she's got her bling and her cell phone...she can't wait to see what 2012 will bring for her!  Happy New Year everyone!  To all of our family...we miss you SO much! And to everyone else reading this blog....I still can't believe anyone actually reads it....we wish you health and happiness this coming year!  Love you all!