Happy New Year!!

Hi. Let me introduce myself...ha! So I've been debating whether or not to stop the blog. I just haven't made the time to blog for the last several months. I felt behind and had so many posts I wanted to do and then I was so far behind I just gave up. So. I made my decision to not give up the blog yet. It is a new year so I can just start from right now without too much backtracking.  2011 was a hard year for me for several reasons, but things have been looking better these last couple months and I am slowly coming out of my funk.

We had a wonderful Christmas break. We went to Great Wolf Lodge with my parents and my sister's 3 oldest kids. We had a great time. That place is so fun. The boys and I made sugar cookies with royal icing, we cleaned and organized, made caramel corn, went to a couple Christmas parties, spent lots of time with family, and had a wonderful Christmas. After church on Christmas Eve we went caroling at a nursing home in town with a group from our church. A great tradition for our family to give something back to the community. Christmas day was spent at my grandparents in the morning and my parents in the evening. Unfortunately Andy's family was in Florida. We sure miss seeing them at Christmas!

The week after Christmas Andy and I took a 2 night getaway to Cincinnati to celebrate our 11th anniversary! That just makes us sound crazy OLD. It sure doesn't feel like it has been 11 years. We had a wonderful time. We had dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery, Maggiano's, shopped at Kenwood Towne Center, went to IKEA, slept in (LOVE blackout drapes!!), had coffee at starbucks, breakfast at Bruegger's Bagel Co., relaxed and watched HGTV, and walked around downtown. It was so nice to have so much time to ourselves! We did birthday shopping for the boys and lots of looking around. It was wonderful! This trip was our Christmas gift to each other. We celebrated New Year's Eve as a family by having chocolate fondue. That is our tradition. Ty loooved the fondue. He was all over the pound cake dipped in chocolate. He had a chocolate mouth when we were done!

Now we are coming up on Birthday Month in our house. 3 out of the 5 of us have birthdays this month. Wilson's is this Saturday and Luke's is right around the corner so we have finally ironed out party details. We shall see how well I can keep up with this blog!

Hello again!

Wow. It's been a LONG time. Just can't keep up with everything! Here's what we've been up to:

* Tyler is potty training! He has #1 mastered (not at night) but he refuses to poop. He holds it and won't go to the bathroom. I got him to go on the potty one time. Andy & I are pretty frustrated with this. He won't even try!
* We went to Florida over fall break to visit Mimi & Poppy. We had a great visit. We drove which was a long trip but it was worth it. We spent an afternoon at a lovely beach, we were at Legoland on the opening day!, and spent time with family. We got to visit Nanny B in her new assisted living apartment & see Katie & David's townhouse. I'll do a Legoland post sometime.
* I had a girl's weekend in Gatlinburg with several school friends. We shopped, talked, ate, and laughed a lot. It was a great time!
* Andy has his birthday this past Saturday. We celebrated with pumpkin dessert, dinner at O'Charleys, and I got him a new cell phone for his b-day. I think he had a good day.
* Here are 2 recipes I think you should try! Both of these are from my sister. Delicious crockpot recipes! Chicken Tortilla Soup & BBQ. The barbeque is so good. It uses a can of root beer, a pork tenderloin, & bbq sauce. We recommend Sweet Baby Ray's! I'm not a huge fan of BBQ but I loved this.

My New Job

Since I'm updating the blog I thought I'd update you on my new job!  So far so good. My stress level has been waaay down for the most part. It became stressful last week but I'm feeling better now!  We tested the whole school to see who qualified for intervention services in reading and/or math. Those were a long 5 days but overall it was interesting and not too bad. Then we analyzed the data and started making groups. Last week I began pulling my groups. I teach eleven 30minute groups each day. I have groups from K-5th grade which is very new for me and I really love the variety! I teach 7 reading groups and 4 math groups. I literally go from back to back Kindergarten groups to back to back 5th grade groups - but it is great! I met over 65 kids last week. Some groups I see twice a week and some groups I see every day depending on their academic needs. Last week I was struggling with knowing exactly what to do; but after some intense planning on Friday I feel much better now. Today was a great day! I am all over the building picking up kids and dropping them off. I kind of start throwing materials at some points of the day to keep switching groups so fast with no down time in between. But I love it!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Oh. My. Goodness. I've been wanting to make this recipe since July I think. I saw these on a couple food blogs I read and well...I love chocolate and I love cookie dough so I knew I had to make these. Last Tuesday was deemed an official Baking Therapy Evening. It just works for me. Some days I just have to bake something. It helps me feel better - the process and then of course the tasting of what I made. These  weren't just a big hit with me- they were also a big hit with my small group (we celebrated Heather's birthday with them), my boys including Andy at home, and my Mom. So really. Make these as soon as you can! It makes a 9 x 13 so plan to share! Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies from Brown Eyed Baker.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Ty!

Today is Tyler's birthday! We have celebrated tonight just us at home. He wanted spaghetti for dinner with cheesy bread. Since Andy and I worked hard on the cake pictured below this past weekend we bought 5 cupcakes at a local bakery. Tyler was thrilled with his cupcake with sprinkles. We sang and he blew the candles out early! He couldn't wait to bite into the cupcake! He also got to open a new Lego Duplo from mommy and daddy plus a train car from each of his brothers. He was so happy! We love you SO much TW! Andy took pictures of the fun tonight so I'll try to get a few of those on the blog soon. Here are some pictures from his family party on Saturday.

The CARS wilton cake that Andy and I made on Friday night. I baked the cake on Thursday. Then I made homemade buttercream frosting on Friday and did the tinting. Andy did 90% of the decorating. I helped with some of the red stars. Team effort and SO worth it! Tyler was so excited and kept talking about his cars cake.

Six of his cousins at the park. Madelyn isn't in the picture but she was there! We had his party at our favorite local park. The weather was perfect. We decorated in the color red & cars- Ty's favorite color and party theme. The menu was planned for Ty's favorite foods: ham and cheese sliders, cheetos, applesauce cups, and sugar snap peas (on the veggie tray). He was one happy boy. He was so intent on eating that he was the last one over to the blanket for opening presents!

Blowing out his 3 candles! Guess we should have scooted the cake a little closer to the birthday boy!

Wilson reading Tyler his train card. Loved seeing that. See giant Lego head? It is a Lego storage container to hold loose legos! He kept saying "I got big wego!" He was so excited opening all of his gitfts and has had a blast playing with his new things. Thank you everyone for coming!

Back to School!

The boys both had a great start to school. Wilson has walked right into class every day with no problem. So thankful! We have come such a long way! He is really happy in his new classroom and has many of his friends from 1st grade in his class. Luke loves school already. Andy dropped the boys off for the first day of school and he said Luke walked right in, no problems. By day 2 Luke wanted to walk from the cafeteria to his classroom by himself. He said he didn't need Wilson to walk him to class! I was shocked but oh so thankful! Luke was so happy on the first day because he got to go to the treasure box and had 2 recesses! I think he is going to love going to big school with Mommy and Wilson. He has been EXHAUSTED but happy. He has been rather grumpy but we are trying to be patient with him as he adjusts to a school schedule. The pictures are from the first day of school!

Chicken Gyros & Garlic Lemon Chicken

A couple weeks ago we made Chicken Gyros and Garlic Lemon Chicken Kabobs on two different nights. We used tzatziki sauce to go with the chicken both nights. We enjoyed both dishes!

The Gyros were a favorite of Andy's. He loves gryos so I was hoping he would enjoy a homemade version with chicken. The gyro has a pita with marinated chicken (that we broiled), halved cherry tomatoes, purple onion, & tzatziki sauce. The sauce is good though I did add a packet of splenda to the recipe. Plain greek yogurt just needs that added in my opinion! I did not strain my yogurt as the recipe suggests. I just bought greek yogurt. Annie made her own pita bread so you will find that link in the recipe as well. I just used store bought whole wheat.

The kabobs were good and anytime I get to use my microplane to zest a lemon I'm happy! Ha-ha the little things that make me happy..:). The boys enjoyed this chicken though Luke thinks any grilled chicken needs to be dipped in barbeque sauce. Ty refers to it as Q sauce - he loves Q sauce! Wilson, Andy & I dipped it in tzatziki sauce.

Both recipes are from Annie's Eats.