Foodie Penpals: July 2012

I have a problem.  Well, two problems actually.

“Bethany, what are your problems?”

I’m glad you asked.  Hunger and laziness.

You see, every month when my Foodie Penpals box arrives, I eagerly tear it open.  I look forward to penpal day every month.  It’s a great way to find new products I would have previously passed right by at the store.  But, in my excitement to see and try the products, I often put off photographing my goodies until I have eaten some all of the contents.  Whoops.

(So, even though the products in the above picture look full and ready to eat, it’s a ruse!)

This month was no exception.  I tore open the box and peered curiously inside at the contents.  It looked like Lauren went with a local snack theme for my box.  The first thing that caught my eye was the box of brittle.  I love brittle, so before I could snap any pictures, I had to pop a sweet candy in my mouth.  It was the perfect balance of sweet and chewy.  Yum!  The downward spiral of devouring before photographing commenced.

Next I saw the pretzels and chips.  Both made locally, they looked delicious.  I hadn’t had lunch on penpal day, so I started munching on a pretzel.  They were very crunchy!  I think they would be great crushed up over a salad.  Salty and crunchy.  What else do you want in a pretzel?

I actually didn’t try the chips until Sunday night while watching the Olympics.  (This is how much I procrastinate my picture taking.)  They were good, but not my favorite chips I’ve ever had.  That honor belongs to Charles Chips from Cleveland, OH.  My, that’s a blast from the past.

(A little side story:  I was born in Cleveland but moved to Tennessee when I was 3.  Every few years, we would travel back to Cleveland to see various family members.  While there, we always had to pick up a few Cleveland staples:  Malley’s chocolates, some kind of bread (I forget the name…Mom, do you remember?), and Charles Chips.  I don’t think we were allowed to leave until all three were in our car.)

Anyhow, after I saw the brittle and the other snacks, I came across a dip mix.  Lauren says this dip is her favorite and she serves it with homemade baked tortilla chips.  She was sweet enough to include the tortillas she uses so I could make them myself!

Of everything I got, the only thing I haven’t tried is the dip, but I plan to remedy that soon.  Perhaps I’ll add it as a side dish or appetizer for this month’s meal plan!

Are you interested in participating?  It’s really very easy and fun!  Just head on over to the Foodie Penpal page and sign up.  Lindsay is so sweet and organized.  She does a great job coordinating everyone.  Here’s some more information about the game:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
– Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.

I hope you consider joining!  It’s great fun and you get something in the mail every month!  Who doesn’t like getting mail?  I also want to give a big THANKS to Lauren for putting together such a great box of goodies!  She’s the sweetest!

Have a great day, everyone!

Summatime Cookin’

I love Mexican food.  I could definitely eat Mexican at least once a week day.    So when I got to the “Tacos” day on my meal plan, I decided to try a new recipe.  We usually have chicken soft tacos, where I use Lawry’s Caribbean Jerk marinade on chicken.  Or, not very often, I use ground turkey to make the filling and we have a traditional “beef” taco.

I wanted something new.  I went to my trusty Allrecipes site and did a quick search.  I found the following recipe for the marinade:

• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika

I quickly threw the marinade together before work and let my beef soak in it throughout the day.  When I came home, it was so hot out, I opted to cook the meat on the stovetop rather than outside on the grill.  It turned out great!

I just added a couple toppings (lettuce, cheese, salsa…we’re simpletons in this household) and chowed down!  This marinade was SO GOOD.  Will definitely be making this again!

To wash everything down, I decided to use my Pomegranate Oolong tea I got from Jungle Jim’s to make a Tennessee staple:  sun tea!  It’s so easy.  Take a big pitcher (you can use glass or plastic, but I prefer glass) and fill it with water.

For traditional sun tea, you add a couple family sized tea bags or 4 personal sized tea bags.  For my flavored sun tea, you add 3 personal sized bags and 1 flavored bag.  I find that if you use ONLY flavored bags, it is TOO STRONG.  Place the bags in the pitcher and cover the opening with plastic wrap.  This serves two purposes.  First, it keeps out any bugs.  Second, it helps create a “greenhouse” type effect and makes the tea percolate faster.

Once the tea is the desired color, you just take it inside, remove the bags and throw them away, and pour yourself a nice tall glass.

Ice and colorful umbrella optional.

Do The Damn Thing

I have never been a lover of exercise.  I wasn’t in team sports in high school.  I never was one to say “my favorite thing to do is go for a run.”  But I do, however, love the way I feel after a really good workout.  You know…the endorphin high.  There’s really nothing else like it in the world.

A few years ago, I woke up one day and decided “today is the day I’m going to change my life.”  I had had this thought several times over the years, but for some reason this time felt different.

I needed a plan.  I made a pact with Carolyn that we would check in with each other every week to discuss gains or losses, challenges we’d faced, and to get encouragement to keep going.  I told myself “you are hungry again a few hours after you eat whether you choose junk food or healthy food so why not choose healthy food?”  I made myself workout as many days as I could.  And you know what?

It worked.  (Weird picture, I know!)

From August 2009 to May 2010, I lost 30 pounds.  I looked and felt great!  I had one of the best summers of my life that year.  I felt so healthy that summer.  One of my main reasons for losing weight was to be at a healthy starting point for when I got pregnant.  As luck would have it, I ended up getting pregnant in September of 2010.

Then, after a tragedy, I started spiraling.  I ate what I wanted, stopped working out, and lost my direction.  When I got pregnant again in March of 2011, I had put almost all of my weight back on.  I never gained my direction back even though I tried many, many times.  By the time I gave birth to Jake, I was 70 pounds heavier than I had been at my healthy weight.

Now, seven months postpartum, I am still about 30 pounds away from my “goal”.  I still haven’t found my drive or motivation, but I have started to search for it.  After a friend’s husband told me he’d signed up for a local 5k, I decided I would too.  Then I began training using the couch to 5k iPhone app.  (This was about 2 weeks ago.)

A few days after that, I began seeing advertising all over the blog world about some boot camp thing.  Brittany had done it before and raved about it.  I have always complained that I needed to add strength training in to my cardio but never knew what to do.  This was my sign!  I signed up and convinced Carolyn to sign up with me.  We both need our butts kicked into gear.

So, to make a long story short (too late), I am starting the process to get healthy again.  In addition to training for a 5k and “going to boot camp“, I have begun logging my food.  I am focusing on eating more whole foods and choosing water over soda.  I am trying to remember to take my vitamins and get my sleep.  I am trying to do this.

No.  I am going to do this. 

For my husband, for my son, and for me.  I deserve it.

***************************************************************************

Update:
Went to the gym this morning (7.23) and KILLED IT!  Did Couch to 5k W1D3 and BBBC Workout A.  Feelin’ it!  I CAN do this!

Food for Baby

Even before I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to make my own baby food.  I wanted to control the quality of ingredients my little one ingested and I wanted to introduce herbs and spices at my discretion.

I was so excited to start Jake on solid foods.  Until he turned 6 months.  I don’t know why, but I started worrying about it.  Should I use purees or baby led weaning (giving them small pieces of cut up food they could self feed with)?  What should I give him first?  How often do I need to feed him solids?  What do I do if he starts choking or is allergic?  New moms are probably some of the most worrisome people on the planet.

I did TONS of research and talked to countless people about it.  My favorite resources turned out to be wholesomebabyfood.com and Carolyn, who works in the WIC office in Louisville.  I still find myself on the website and asking questions every few days, even after nearly two months of solid foods.

I feel like I’m a little behind in the whole scheme of things but Heather put it to me like this, “Food is just for fun until 1!”  I’m trying not to compare what I’m doing to what other moms like Brittany are doing (she gives her daughter full out meals each day and Hailey’s only a couple months older than Jake!), but it’s hard.

I decided to start with purees and see how things progressed.  We tried rice cereal first and Jake was just not sure of it.  We did the whole three day waiting thing and then introduced oatmeal.  He didn’t like either one!  So bland!

From there we moved on to sweet potato.  He definitely liked it better than grains!  He only ate a few bites at a time though, which is typical.

Bananas were next and they were a significant improvement over anything prior.  Is that surprising though?  Jeff loved bananas when he was little.  I think his mom told me they were his favorite food.  I still love bananas.  MMM.

Since then, we’ve tried green beans, avocado, peaches, apples, and prunes.

Want to know what his favorite food is so far?  PRUNES!  I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am.  I ended up buying a couple pouches of the Plum Just Prunes and was planning on feeding him half of one.  After I gave him the half pouch, he was still doing the hungry-bird-open-mouthed-begging-for-more look, so I gave him the rest.  He gobbled them right down!

One day, I was feeling particularly brave and gave him some banana to chew on.  He did fine this time, but then a few weeks later, I did the same thing and he gagged.  Scared me half to death!

So, since then, I have kind of decided to put off finger foods until about 8 months, which is only a few weeks away.  I think I’m going to focus on introducing foods and once we’ve gotten further along, we can revisit the matter.

I’m assuming I will start figuring out what works best for me, as I have with every other thing in motherhood.  It just takes time.  Jake is healthy and happy.  That’s all that matters.  He gets a variety of foods and textures, which is expanding every day.  Soon we will start combining foods (like apples and bananas) and eventually introduce meats and dairy.

Right now, he hates green beans.  I have heard that you need to offer foods over and over again because, though baby didn’t like it the first time, it doesn’t mean he won’t later on.  I plan to give him roasted green beans next time.  I prefer them to steamed.  If he still doesn’t like them, I’ll mix a little apple or banana in to sweeten the deal.

Here are my questions: 
What has worked for you in the past?
What have you learned from giving your baby solids?
Is there anything you would do differently?
Do you feed your baby “meals” or just a bit of fruit or veggie?

I love hearing what other moms do.  I can’t wait to hear from you!

Swiss Burgers

I love burgers.  In fact, if you gave me a choice between steak and a cheeseburger, it would be a very tough decision for me.  I’m not quite sure what it is about the burger.  Maybe it’s the juicy, well seasoned beef.  Maybe it’s the melty cheese.  Maybe it’s just because I like dipping things in ketchup.

It could be all three.

No matter what the reason, I made a killer burger the other night.  I recently purchased Balsamic Glaze from Trader Joe’s.  After I had it on some grilled pizza, my brain started churning.  I immediately thought of putting it on a burger of some sort.

After a few minutes of brainstorming, I came up with what I believe to be a truly great burger.  Brace yourself.  Swiss burgers topped with caramelized onions and balsamic glaze on a toasted brioche bun.  *DROOL*

I just gave you an idea for dinner this weekend, right?  You’re welcome.

Swiss Burger with Caramelized Onions and Balsamic Glaze

2 white onions, thin sliced
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound 80/20 ground beef*
salt
pepper
1 tbsp Worchestershire
Trader Joe’s Balsamic Glaze
4 Brioche rolls

The onions take about 45 minutes to caramelize fully, so plan ahead and start them in enough time to eat them with your burgers.  In a small pan over medium high heat, add olive oil and onions.  Toss to combine.  Once the onions start sizzling, you can turn down the head to low and let cook, stirring occasionally.  Do not salt them at this point.  Salt will bring out the water in the onions and they will take longer to caramelize.  Once your onions are golden brown and very soft, they are done.

Preheat your grill.  In a small bowl, season your ground beef with salt, pepper, and worchestershire.  Mix to incorporate but don’t over mix or your beef will get tough.

Level out your meat in the bowl and divide it into quadrants.  Now, make each quadrant into a burger.  This ensures even sized burgers.  Grill your burgers over medium heat for a few minutes on each side or until your burgers are cooked to your desired doneness.

A minute or so before your burgers are cooked, throw your buns, cut side down, onto the grill so they toast up.  Now’s the time you can put slices of Swiss cheese on your burgers so they melt.

To assemble the burger, top your roll with the burger, then the caramelized onion.  To finish it off, drizzle the balsamic glaze over the onions.

I had some Alexis Sweet Potato fries in my freezer I cooked to serve alongside.  It was one of the best dinners I’d made in a long time.

*Every chef on Food Network suggests using 80/20 ground beef for the correct ratio of meat to fat.  This yields the juiciest, most flavorful burgers.

Jungle Boogie

Have you ever heard of Jungle Jim’s?  No?  Well…it’s a grocery store.  But not just any grocery store.  A HUGE, find anything you are looking for grocery store.  It’s located in Cincinnati just off 275 and it’s fabulous.

Carolyn and I have gone once a few years ago, but I wasn’t feeling well, so we were only able to browse a little of the store.  Last weekend, she was up for a visit and to see Barenaked Ladies.  Since the show was on Sunday, she stayed over until Monday.  When I asked her what she wanted to do, she didn’t know so I suggested visiting Jungle Jim’s again.  Maybe this time we could get through the whole thing.

First stop was at a restaurant I had been wanting to try for a while.  Pappadeaux is a Cajun seafood restaurant with obvious French influences.  They have a wide variety of options from which to choose, but possibly the thing they are most known for is their fried alligator appetizer.  C and I didn’t order it, even though the flamboyant waiter tried to get us to.

We started with their fresh baked bread and butter.  If you know anything of the French, you know they have possibly the best bread on the planet.  This bread was no exception.  It was crusty on the outside, warm and fluffy on the inside.  We couldn’t get enough!  Good thing our “diet” started the next day…

On to salads.  We opted to split the Greek salad and it was so yummy!  It was made table side and the only complaint I have was that the waiter put a little too much dressing on it.  Other than that, I loved it!

For our main dishes, Carolyn got the Blackened Costa Rican Mahi and I got the Pasta Mardi Gras.  Both were delicious, but I think Carolyn chose better.  The fish was seasoned and cooked perfectly and those grits!  They came with cheesy grits which we both agreed tasted more like polenta.

After our huge meal, we were both stuffed.  We loaded ourselves back in the car and went to Jungle Jim’s.  After stopping at Starbucks (located within the store itself), we proceeded to shop.  We had both decided to only buy things we couldn’t get elsewhere, though I fudged a little.

I must have gotten too caught up in shopping because I really don’t have many pictures!  When you first walk in, you see the “American Groceries” section.  Here you will find items you can get in a typical grocery store.  I ended up picking up several things from this section, believe it or not.

One of my favorite lunch sides is the Mott’s Healthy Harvest applesauces.  They had a blueberry variety I had never had before, so I put that in my cart.  I tried it last night with dinner and it’s pretty tasty!  Carolyn said it was her favorite but she couldn’t find it anymore.

I’m a huge coffee drinker.  I drink at least 2 cups every day.  My favorite coffee is Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla (of which I just bought a case on Saturday from work since it was on sale).  When Jeff and I went to the Taste of Cincinnati a few years ago, they were introducing the Dunkin Donuts Turbo roast.  I have it at my Kroger, but I never seem to catch it on sale.  Since Dunkin Donuts was on sale in the jungle, I picked some up.

Speaking of coffee, apparently there is a coffee shop in West Chester called La Crema Coffee Company.  I like supporting local companies so we looked at their coffee.  We ended up each getting a bag and splitting them.  I purchased Creme Brulee and C got Highlander Grog.  The creme brulee is pretty good, but I haven’t tried the grog yet.

Making our way through the American section, we came upon the nut butters.  Now, anyone who works with me will tell you I eat oatmeal with nut butter probably 3-4 times a week.  I love getting flavored nut butters to add to my oats.  My favorite brand is Peanut Butter and Co.  They have 10 different flavors of peanut butter and I have tried almost all of them!

My Kroger carries a lot of the flavors, but I had never seen the Mighty Maple version before.  I had to have it!  I’m kind of sad I didn’t buy a couple!  It is SOO good.  I actually ODed on peanut butter this weekend.  I had a bit more than I should have in my oatmeal and felt gross for a couple hours after. 

Making our way to the next section, we passed the biggest sushi display I’ve ever seen!  Too bad we were full…sushi would have been yummy!  They also have a deli, a cheese shop, a bakery, and a coffee bar where you can get food or drink and enjoy them in the store.  We obviously didn’t do that.

Next we made our way past the candy and the registers (see map for explanation) and found ourselves in the natural section. The red line is the route we traveled.

I picked up some white chia seeds to add to my oatmeal.  Never tried chia seeds?  They are a nutritional dense super food!  Here’s what Dr. Weil from http://www.drweil.com has to say about them:

Chia is very rich in omega-3 fatty acids, even more so than flax seeds. And it has another advantage over flax: chia is so rich in antioxidants that the seeds don’t deteriorate and can be stored for long periods without becoming rancid. And, unlike flax, they do not have to be ground to make their nutrients available to the body. Chia seeds also provide fiber (25 grams give you 6.9 grams of fiber) as well as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, copper, iron, molybdenum, niacin, and zinc.

I first learned about them from Kath.  Speaking of Kath, I was just on her blog and realized she has about a million “recipes” for oatmeal!  If you’re getting bored with yours, like I am, maybe you should try a new “recipe”!

While in the natural section, I saw a huge display of honey!  I’m not a big honey person, but if you are, you’d love it.  They had all different varieties and tons of local products.  I love how many local items we saw at Jungle Jim’s!  Supporting local farmers and retailers is very important to me.

If you notice on the map, we were only about halfway through, but had been there at least an hour at this point.  We didn’t want to miss anything!  I found out later, we missed a pretty decent portion.  Whoops!

We kept walking through some of the different countries.  Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and France (among others) all had little cubbies in the “Eurpoean Village” section. We did manage to find a little treat we couldn’t resist buying…

It was like 75% off!  I realized later the reason for this was because it was set to expire within 30 days.  Oh well.

We walked along the back wall into England where I found a big display of Harney and Sons tea.  I had had these teas a few years ago when Starbucks carried them.  I couldn’t remember if my favorite tea had been the Pomegranate Oolong I spied, but I thought it was so I nabbed one.  Turns out, it IS the right tea!  My favorite thing to do with these leaves was to make sun tea.  (Showing my southern roots again, eh?)

To make sun tea, I fill up a big glass pitcher with water and put two regular Lipton tea bags and one flavored tea bag in the pitcher.  Then I cover the whole thing with plastic wrap.  This keeps little buggies out of my beverage.  I then sit it outside for a few hours or until the tea is the color I like it.  You can actually even make sun tea in the winter as the pitcher and plastic wrap create a greenhouse like effect.  The pitcher really needs to be clear though for the process to work.

After Robin Hood said hi to us, we kept walking until we got to the cookware section.  Carolyn and I love cookware even though we each have way too much and don’t really need anything else!

I ended up buying a pepper grinder because mine was broken and I could never find one I liked.  This OXO one works great!

We were getting tired at this point (it had been at least 2 hours), so we found ourselves skipping through a lot.  We did manage to find Russia (Carolyn had been there last year) and Hawaii (does this really need an explanation, people??).  If you notice, we skipped quite a bit!  Although, to be fair, this was a week ago, so I could be remembering wrong.

Finally, it was time to head home.  We checked out, split up our coffee, and went on our way.  The next day when Carolyn and I texted each other, we both realized we had done the same exact thing:  gone home and made beignets.  And they were delicious…

If you’re ever in the Cincinnati area and you’re even remotely a foodie, you should visit the Jungle!  It’s really a great place to kill a few hours.  You can find it at 5440 Dixie Highway Fairfield, Ohio 45014.

 

Take Out Fake Out

Who doesn’t love take out?  It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s delicious!  Jeff and I love take out, especially when said take out is Chinese food.  YUM!  Our favorites include General Tao’s chicken and Sweet and Sour chicken.  Healthy…

I love stir fry, but more often than not, when I make my own it’s lacking.  Therefore, when I chose to make Chicken Stir Fry for my meal plan, I opted to seek out a recipe to follow.  In the past, I would head to allrecipes.com first, but now, I hit up Pinterest.  The pin with the most repins was this recipe.

It looked delicious, but I was skeptical because a lot of times the recipes I pin don’t taste as good as they look. That was not the case this time!  It was oh-my-gosh delicious.  You may notice there are some different ingredients in this recipe (like sesame oil and oyster sauce).  Don’t be scared.  If you like Chinese food, chances are you’ve eaten them before.

Take a chance and try this recipe.  You will love it, I promise.  I made it for dinner on Wednesday night and Jeff already asked me to make it again for dinner.  That’s a win in my book!

Chicken Stir Fry
(from blogchef.net)

1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs (cut into 1” pieces)
¼ cup honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh ginger (minced)
2 tablespoons fresh garlic (minced)
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 pinch ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons oyster sauce

Combine chicken, honey, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and black pepper in a large resealable bag.  Squish chicken around to ensure even coating.  Put in fridge and let marinate for at least 1 hour or up to overnight.

When you’re ready to cook, heat a wok (or large skillet) to high.  Add the oil and let it heat up.  The original recipe called for the entire bag’s contents to be poured into the wok, but I drained most of the liquid out.  It seemed like a LOT of sauce.  I also used more like 1 TBSP of oil, but that’s up to you.  It worked fine for me.

Stir fry your chicken until your chicken is thoroughly cooked and your sauce has reduced slightly.  It should take about 8 minutes.  After that, turn off the heat and add your oyster sauce.  Stir to coat.

I made a batch of jasmine rice to have with the chicken.  Normally I would add veggies in my stir fry, but in this case, I didn’t.  I will next time and use the excess liquid to cook my veggies in.  I think that would be yummy.  Speaking of liquid, the sauce you make is a little overpowering on it’s own.  I suggest making the rice because it helps balance the flavors and tone the dish down a bit.

I’m trying to resist making this again for dinner tonight.  The fight is not going well…

Barenaked

Ladies!!  BNL!!  The Ladies!!  I don’t care what you call them, they are still amazing in concert as usual.  Sunday evening Carolyn, my sister-in-law Shannon, and I went to see them in concert at the Fraze pavilion here in Dayton.

It had been super hot all weekend (I’m talking over 100º) but miraculously started cooling down on Sunday morning.  By the time we went to the concert, I think it was about 80º or 85º.  It was actually a pretty pleasant night!

(Notice the thrilled-looking guy in the bottom right corner…)

We grabbed some cocktails and made our way to our seats.  A couple things to note:
1.  The Fraze takes only cash, so don’t forget to bring some!
2.  They have a yummy punch made with passion fruit rum, grenadine, Sierra Mist, and orange juice that is very good.  It’s actually relatively strong!
3.  Those Daily’s Frozen Pouches are super sweet and not very strong.  I suggest the punch instead.

4.  Bethany and rum do not mix.  I didn’t drink much last night but this morning I have a slight hangover headache.  #Fail!

Anyhow, back to my boyfriends.  They had three openings acts:  Cracker, Big Head Toad the Wet Sprocket Monsters (otherwise known as Big Head Todd and the Monsters but we had problems calling them the right name all night long), and Blues Traveler.  Remember Run Around?  It was a fun song from my high school days. 

Not bad, but they are no Ingrid Michaelson (the opening act for the previous two BNL concerts we attended).  LOVE INGRID!

Starting Now is one of my favorite songs by Ingrid.  It helped me deal with some hard times in the past.  Actually a lot of Ingrid’s songs helped me.  That’s how I deal with things sometimes…blare music and sing at the top of my lungs. 

But I digress (that was for you, Jo!).  After listening to the opening acts, partaking in adult libations, and making fun of super tan ladies people watching, our men came on.  Yay!  They started withAnother Postcard, which has never been my favorite song, but it did get the crowd up and moving.

They played a pretty decent set consisting of several chart toppers and a few lesser known songs.  They also played a new song off their next album.

One of my favorite things about BNL is Ed’s freestyling.  He always includes a song about the city he’s in.

Another favorite part of every BNL concert is when they play theBig Bang Theory theme song!  (I dropped the ball on this and started recording more than halfway through.)

Barenaked Ladies always put on a great concert and tonight was no exception.  We all had such a fun time!  I love the Ladies!

Seven Months

Our little guy is seven months old!  He is such a good little boy, always smiling and laughing.  He loves his mommy and daddy and lights up when he sees us.  One of Jeff’s and my favorite things to do is pick him up at day care.  In fact, we fight over it!  When we were on vacation last month, we would almost always pick him up together because we wanted to see that smiling face so badly.

In the last month, Jake has had so many new experiences.

He went to a friend’s birthday party,

and then got to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.

He ate solids for the first time, his favorite being apples!  He gobbled those apples right up and asked for more.  He loves peaches too.

(BTW, that bib says “Star of Mommy’s Blog”…thanks, Auntie Carolyn!)

He started sitting, unsupported, on his own.  I can now put him on his little booty and leave him there.  He can hold himself up with no problems!

He has continued scooting and has pretty much mastered turning around in a circle.  I watched him on the day care video feed from Friday and he was turning all over the place!

He has a tooth!  It’s just starting to come it, but it has broken through the skin already.  We didn’t even know he was teething until Jeff told me he felt something sharp in Jake’s mouth last week!  What a good little boy.

Just yesterday, he took a big boy bath without the baby tub! (Yes, I know this is still him in the baby tub, but I didn’t have a picture from yesterday.)

We are so lucky to have this little boy in our lives.  Every day is a gift and is more precious than the last.  Love him!

Writer’s Block

You may have noticed I didn’t blog on Wednesday.  I could blame it on laziness.  I could blame it on lack of time.  I could blame it on getting ready for the Fourth of July.  Want to know the real reason?

I’m suffering from Writer’s Block.

I have several ideas for blog posts, but no pictures to go with them.  I posted my Meal Plan the other day and figured I’d get several great blog posts from the meals I cooked, but this week many of the meals I’ve made have been recipes I’ve already talked about on the blog.  Crazy, right?

In all honesty, I have been pretty busy lately.  I didn’t even take pictures of Jake on Independence Day!  I had to work, so I wasn’t home with him for a lot of it, but still.

So, dear friends, if you’ll bear with me, I will be back to my old self in a few days!