Sam A. Baker - Sneak Peek

I'm still collecting myself from this weekend, but I wanted to share a quick picture from our adventures. I believe it was the 32nd annual Sam A. Baker trip and like always, we had a great time. 

Yes, it was as cold as it looks. But not terrible. Ok, it was kinda terribly cold at times. Just ask Nate & Lila, who you can barely see in this picture. They are both on my lap, under a blanket. But we still laughed and the kids (and adults) had lots of fun. 

Back soon with more pictures! 

Throwback Thursday

For today's Throwback Thursday, I decided to go see what we were doing at the end of March in 2009. We had just had a play date with Peter, which brought a smile to my face:) 

Weekend Wrap-Up

Scott has been planning a trip to Las Vegas with some of his friends for months and months. The weekend that was picked coincided with the first weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. So he took off for Vegas very early Thursday morning. I was glad he got to go and was thankful that he worked it out to be on a weekend that he would normally be working anyway. Although his complete absence made me thankful for the mornings that he has with us even when he's working! 

Friday was a beautiful day in St. Louis. Lila & I walked to get Nate from school. When the weather is gorgeous on Friday, I believe it's God's way of saying, "Whatever happened this week, it's all going to be alright." And that's certainly how we felt. We played at the park after school and continued to play outside when we got home. It was glorious. 

Saturday morning was kind of a doozy. I think it was a combination of Scott being gone and over-tiredness. Lila has been on her 5:30 AM kick the last few days and this combined with not sleeping well since Scott's not home makes for a very tired me. And Lila. So Nate went off to play with a new friend and Lila & I took a nap. After collecting Nate, we made our own bubbles (why oh why have I not been doing this before now??) and Lila blew bubbles to her heart's content. It was not as warm as it could have been, but was not terrible outside.

Nate decided he would remove the sticks that had been so carefully placed in our brush pile in the backyard to make a fort. I was for it. It kept him busy.

Then Lila got done blowing her bubbles and started stealing Nate's sticks from his fort. Because that's what little sisters do. So I suggested that he help her make her own fort. They were both so excited to do this. Sometimes, every once in a while, I have a good idea that keeps them from maiming each other.

And for those of you that don't know, Nate's very favorite restaurant is Pei Wei. Thank you Ryan Pooley. He asks to go all the time, but I'm not crazy about it and it's all the way across town (not really, but in my mind it is). So since we needed a little pick me up, I suggested we go to Pei Wei for dinner on Saturday night. They were both ecstatic (Lila loves it too). So off we went, where they ate their weight in chicken fried rice. The simple pleasures of life.

Now that we are officially in Spring, I'm expecting BIG things from the weather fairies. A consistent 60+ degrees would be very, very nice!

Georgia on My Mind

Nate's Spring Break luckily coincided with Gavin's birthday this year, so we hopped in the car after Scott's work week ended to celebrate with him and to see Mimi & Paka and the rest of the Odoms. We stayed in Nashville on Wednesday night to break up the trip and then headed into Atlanta on Thursday. I think I would have rather driven straight through as it was an awful night with Lila in the hotel room. Many contributing factors, but just when I think we're past all that "little kid" stuff:) 

We made it safe and sound to Mimi & Paka's house (albeit a little tired!) and enjoyed catching up with them before the big festivities on Friday. That morning, the light was perfect in their living room and I love these pictures of Lila playing. 

We met the Odom Family at the World of Coke and of course I didn't get a picture of the outside! The kids were so excited because they knew they were going to get to taste Coke. And they don't get a chance to do that very often (unless it's a few swigs of my fav Diet Coke).

They made concoctions...

Operated a bottle crimper by foot...

And visited the super secret Vault. Do you really think the recipe is kept there??

It was fun exploring everything you ever needed to know about Coke. And this picture cracks.me.up.

There was a small movie theater that had a simulator and showed a 3-D movie. The boys were very excited. If this is not the Corse chin in full effect, I don't know what is.  

The simulator was fun, but not so much if you were the one who got to hold Lila. Which I was. She screamed and whimpered the entire time. Fun times. Noted for our next trip to Disney.

Then we headed to the tasting room! The kids were VERY excited!

The many faces of Nate trying weird concoctions from other countries.

Fun was had by all trying most of the 65 flavors.

Lila pretty much stuck to the Vanilla Coke and I stuck to the Diet Coke of course.

Family picture! Not too bad - at least everyone is looking in the general direction of the camera. Some funny faces and Paka's eyes are closed. Because, of course.

Cheers to the World of Coke!

Now on to the Varsity for lunch!

Being the professional photographer that I am, I didn't mean to turn on the black & white setting on my camera. But I did. And I love how these pictures turned out.

Mimi & the birthday boy!

Back at the ranch, we all played outside and soaked in the warm weather.

Then we had pizza and cookie cake to celebrate sweet Gavin!

We were so glad we could be there for Gavin's birthday and to spend time with Mimi, Paka, Aunt Amanda, Uncle David, Noah, Gavin & Levi! It was such a fun trip and we can't wait to see them again soon!

Breaking the 70 Degree Barrier

We've been down south visiting our fabulous fam for the past few days, but before I do the full post on those adventures, I had to catch up on last week. Last week was important because we broke 70 degrees! Finally!

We celebrated by eating dinner outside 

And walking to Mr. Wizards for dessert. Yes, Lila has on a different outfit. Yes, it was only about 10 minutes in between these pictures. Yes, that's my life. Life is wonderful and this outing was truly liberating. To walk outside again feels so refreshing. Am I overly dramatic about it getting warmer? Um. Yes.

After the warm weather came and left (but not for long), we packed up to head south for our sweet cousin / nephew's birthday party and to spend time with family. Lila on the way...love the hair tucked into the sunglasses.

My sweet boy. I took some Dramamine so that I could sit in the back with him on the way to our adventures on Friday. It was worth it:)

More to come!

Mostly Sunny Weekend

When weekends that Scott is working start out with a sunny, warm, Friday afternoon, I feel like I can make it through the weekend. It makes a huge difference if we can stop at the park on our walk home from school. Since Nate gets out of school at 2:45 PM, if I don't have an after-school activity, it can feel like an eternity before the dinner hour arrives. So this past Friday, all was right in the world and it was sunny and 60 degrees. The kids played and played and we even met some new friends at the park. It was a great way to start the weekend before Spring Break. 

After we came home, Lila decided to be Lila the Builder, we ate spaghetti and watched Teen Beach Movie. Yes. Yes, we did. A kid at Nate's school won a Disney Teen Beach Movie party where one of the cast members came to the school on Thursday night and threw a party. Yes. We went. And I took Lila too. Many Many Many screaming, dancing kids running around. None of which my child was doing since he hadn't seen the movie. But now we've rectified that. Oh Disney, sometimes you are just too much. 

Saturday was not as nice outside, so we hit up Chick-Fil-A for lunch and some play time. As we were leaving, Nate said, "Mom, you know just when to get to our Chick-Fil-A so that we get to play before all the crazy people get there." Yes, I do Nate. Years of painful practice:)

Saturday afternoon, we went to see the latest kids movie. This theater has been a life saver this winter. Who would have thought I would know all the dates for the kids movie releases in the next year? March 21st - Muppet Movie, April 11th - Rio 2. Just in case you were wondering. Mr. Peabody and Sherman was cute. Not overly funny if you ask me, but cute and the kids liked it. That's all that matters here.

Sunday was another beautiful day so we headed off to the library and the park. Where we spent copious amounts of outside time. So thankful for warmer weather!

Happy Happy Birthday to my baby brother today!

Throwback Thursday

In honor of the start of Spring Training games, here's a throwback Thursday Cardinals style!  

Artichoke Stuffed Chicken

Scott does some of the cooking when he's home during his off week. I sometimes use the time to have him try new recipes. I knew that I cut this out of Schnucks Magazine a while ago and just kept passing over it thinking it would take too much time. Turns out when I went to look it up it was from Fall 2009. Guess I need to clean out my recipe book! 

It was a winner! Nate helped Scott make it and both the kids ate it up. Which is unusual at our house. This is not the exact picture of the recipe but it looks very similar.

www.foodsapor.com

Artichoke Stuffed Chicken Breasts (Schnucks Cooks Fall 2009)

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (we used 2 large for our family of 4)
4 slices mozzarella cheese
1 can quartered artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
6 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 small lemons
1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 teaspoons olive oil
chopped fresh chives for garnish (we left these out)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray rimmed baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Slice chicken breasts horizontally in half, but do not cut all the way through. Open chicken breasts and spread flat, cut side up. Cover each with 1 slice mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup artichokes and 1 1/2 teaspoons of Parmesan cheese. Set aside remaining artichokes for use later. Fold chicken breasts to enclose filling.

2. From lemons, grate 1 tblsp peel into a medium bowl. Stir in breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Rub outside of each chicken breast with 1 teaspoon oil. Dip both sides of chicken in breadcrumb mixture to generously coat, then place in prepared baking pan. Bake 25-30 minutes (ours were more like 40).

Enjoy!

Home Tour

Back in early December, Scott & I went to look at yet another house. I was pessimistic, knowing that it probably wasn't our next house. So I told him on the way over that if this wasn't our house, that we were going to get new living room / dining room furniture. He said he thought that was a good idea. We'd been waiting to find a new house before we bought new furniture, but who knows when that date will arrive. And our house needed some sprucing. At least according to me. 

So off we went to the furniture store the next week, with Lila in tow. It was about as much fun as you can imagine. We quickly picked out a model and then went in search of fabrics. Since our time limit on Lila not getting on every single one of the beds in the whole store was about up, we grabbed some fabric and took it home to check out. 

This is a long story, but has a point. When we got home, we decided that we liked the color but that we had forgotten to pick up the fabric choices for the pillows (there were about 456,457 of them). So, in a moment of weakness, I sent Scott back to the store and told him just to text me a few choices and I would pick it out like that. He nearly fainted. I must not have been feeling very well that day. But off he went, and within a few minutes, he texted me 3 choices, I picked one and it was done. 

The couch and pillows are custom made, so it took about 10 weeks to arrive. Thankfully we still liked our choices. I think Scott was nervous. 

It's taken me several weeks to get things the way I want them, but I think we're very close. We removed the coffee table this past weekend. I just got up one morning and decided that it was too big for the space, we didn't use it anymore, and it wasn't worth trying to paint it to see if I liked it better. So off it went to the curb, where someone promptly picked it up. And that was that.

We were able to order another insert to the couch, so when we have a bigger living room (someday:), we can make the couch bigger.

We also replaced our old entertainment center. Scott found this one at Sam's, the same day I found it online. Glad we were on the same wave length.  I do love it so. And I also love the new chair that I found at Target. My.favorite.place.

If you've been a blog reader for a while, you'll remember that we had a TV in the basement that we weren't using (our old one stopped working under warranty and they replaced it with one that was too big for our entertainment center, so we kept it for later). So we pulled it out and added it to the makeover. Scott hung the shelf behind the TV (he hates hates hates to drill into our walls, but he did it any way).

The biggest prize of this makeover is our new dining room table (if you can call it a dining room in our house:)) Scott & I went in search of a new table. And didn't find anything we liked. So I suggested that we take the table we had in the basement and re-purpose with a treatment from Pinterest.

I couldn't find a picture of the full table, but here is what it looked like before. We got this at a furniture store down the street from where we lived in Georgia.

Scott worked hard on the table and chairs and was able to achieve my EXACT VISION. I am so happy with how it turned out. Every time I look at the table, it makes me happy. It is exactly what I wanted and we had it in our basement. That doesn't happen very often!

I found the fabric at JoAnn's and he recovered the seats too. 

I matched the couch without even having a swatch. It was meant to be. 

This little corner was changed up too. This chair belonged to me beloved Aunt Mil. And I originally thought I would put it in the basement when we got the new couch. But I just couldn't. I love it. And it also makes me happy when I look at it. So it is in the corner by the table and I've actually found myself sitting in it. So it will stay. I moved Nate's picture over to this wall and added Lila's (thank you to Michael for capturing this one on a day that she didn't want to be captured!). This wall turned out exactly as I envisioned too.

I have a few loose ends - like painting the end tables. I can't believe we still have these end tables, but they've been good to us and I decided to wait and see what I wanted to do about new ones when we move. Scott is going to antique them like the big table, but in a silver. Then I think I'm going to paint the green floor vase, but can't decide what color.

Thanks for looking! Come visit!