Panda Bears

Jake LOVES Panda Express the restaurant. He always calls it Panda Bears...I guess fitting to a 2 year old when the place has lots of pictures of pandas everywhere. Jason & I of course really enjoy this place as well. We frequented it very often while I was pregnant and wonder if this is why Jake loves it so much. Any time we ask Jake what he wants to eat he always says "Panda Bears, chicken & rice."

I wanted to scrapbook his favorite restaurant at 2 so I of course was crazy mom in the restaurant taking pictures...thankfully no one was there at the time & the girl who works there totally knows us. So I didn't really look to crazy.

Maybe part of the reason he loves it so much is the giant cookie he gets at the end

Menu Plan (4/28-5/4)

I get asked a lot what we eat around here. And I really enjoy planning menus and cooking food. Although, I do sometimes get tired of coming up with things to cook. I decided that I would share our weekly(hopefully) meal plan with all of you and possibly a recipe or 2 as well. Since we have started getting the Farmers Market Basket on Tuesdays I have had to move our shopping day to Wednesday instead of Monday. So my weekly menu will be from Wed-Tues each week. Please feel free to leave any yummy meal ideas in the comments...especially lunch ideas! This is the rough plan sometimes we change meals around depending on our schedule.

                                                           cilantro stuffed chicken
Wednesday:
Breakfast: apples & bagels
Lunch: visit Daddy at work, pizza
Dinner: cilantro & garlic stuffed chicken(using last weeks farmers market basket cilantro) brown rice & broccoli

Thursday:
Breakfast: cereal & banana
Lunch: sandwiches, veggies, yogurt & fruit
Dinner: Sausage & leek casserole, homemade hash browns, & green beans

Friday:
Breakfast: whole wheat waffles & bananas
Lunch: peanut butter & jelly bars, veggies & yogurt
Dinner: Deluxe hamburger salad & fruit

Saturday:
Breakfast: waffles & fruit
Lunch: chicken salad sandwiches, fruit & veggies
Dinner: mushroom stroganoff, salad, whole wheat bread

Sunday:
Breakfast: cereal & fruit
Lunch: out after church
Dinner: mom's house-bring homemade guacamole & chips

Monday:
Breakfast: oatmeal breakfast cookies
Lunch: peanut butter & jelly bars & veggies
Dinner: grilled hamburgers, baked beans, & salad

Tuesday:
Breakfast: oatmeal breakfast cookies
Lunch: peanut butter & jelly bars with veggies
Dinner: left overs again (usually plan this in 2x's a week)

Snacks we are eating this week: fruit (lots of it thanks to our farmers market basket we have oranges, apples, bananas, & pineapple), homemade chewy granola bars & veggies with hummus

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have always wanted a garden. In my dreams I live on a farm with tons of fresh everything. But when I am awake I live in the suburbs with only 3/4 of an acre (including the ground our house sits on). This doesn't leave much room for too much fresh stuff. Not to mention we have rules in our neighborhood that prohibit much live/fresh anything.

We finally took the plunge this year and planted a garden. I felt so Martha Stewart & I loved every minute of it. I will say my wonderful hubby did the hard work like tilling up the ground and adding new soil to be tilled in as well. I got dirty when all that was finished and planted the stuff with Jason's help and of course Jake's too.

I am so afraid nothing will grow or that things will eat what has grown, but I check on it everyday (it has only been 4 days).

Here is the run down of what we planted:
6 tomato plants, 1 jalapeno & 1 banana pepper plant
Squash seeds, green bean seeds, & cucumber seeds

It is so exciting, but nerve wracking too. Oh please little garden of ours be fruitful...or would you really say veggieful? Since that is all we planted. Of course any & all advice about garden is very welcome!! Tell me How Does Your Garden Grow?

And of course a blog or garden wouldn't be complete without pictures. Hopefully this will be a regular post with tons of great updates on all the fun we are having in our garden.



See my cute gloves, it was the only thing I could get...I really want a cute hat and tons of other cute garden tools, but Jason says I am making the garden more expensive then it needs to be


I didn't realize the only picture I had of the whole garden and Jake was so blurry...hopefully we will get a better one next time.

Farmers Market Basket

Today was Fruit & Vegetable Christmas. We have this thing called the farmers market basket and for $18 you can get a giant basket filled with fruit & veggies from the farmers market delivered to a pick up location near you. A friend of mine set one up in our neighborhood & today was the 1st pick up day.

OH MY GOODNESS!!! We have so much stuff and I am so excited to use up all these great fruits & veggies. Jake was pretty excited about it too. We sat on the floor and looked at each item. Then he decided to grab a piece of broccoli and start eating it straight from the basket.

It was so fun and totally like Christmas. Other then the pineapple & grapes which I special ordered we had no idea what would be in the baskets. It will be so fun using things I would have never bought like bok choy which came this week.

Here is what we got:
bok choy, broccoli, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, bananas, nectarines, garlic, cucumber, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, lemons, & cilantro

Triple Whammy

It took almost 2 1/ 2(well in a little over a week) years for this to happen & my heart is so sad for it! Our sweet almost 2 1/2 year old is sick, not just a little sick, but triple whammy sick. He has double ear infections & strep throat. Ugh...my poor sweet boy.

He has had a cough all week, but nothing that seemed too bad. Besides everyone here seems to have a cough that is what happens when you are choking on a pollen count over 5000(did you know that 120 is extreme). Plus you just can't keep a 2 year old in the house so he breaths it and chokes like the rest of us.

Yesterday we noticed he didn't seem to be eating as much as usual, but still just thought it was a little cold. He felt a little warm, but I try not to take temperatures around here unless he feels really hot. I mean a fever means your body is doing what it was made to do & fight off the infection. We gave him some motrin to make him more comfortable. He did say "he felt bad," but was still mostly acting ok.

Then comes today he woke up feeling pretty warm so I busted out the thermometer and he had a fever of 102.6 give him more motrin and he is back to normal. Still has his icky cough, but really running around and acting like Jake, but without eating too. I went back & forth all day about taking him to the doctor.

He started to feel warm again late this afternoon & I thought it best to take him in. For those of you who remember this with our last pediatrician I will say we didn't go back there. We have an Urgent care right up the street & I had heard great things about them. So I took him there. They were great and super nice and got us in pretty quickly.

I was really expecting them to say it was allergies or sinus and recommend something for him.

They took his fever and it was 104.5....Yes!! 104.5 Umm...that sounded really high to me and they seemed to be a little freaked out about it being that high too. But they reassured me that it was ok. They were just going to give him motrin and try to bring the fever down & keep us there until it came down some. Well, about 2 minutes later the nurse comes back in & says "the doctor wants him to take some Tylenol as well." This of course had me a little more worried thinking it must be a little more serious then 1st thought.

The doctor came in & checked him out...said his ears were red and his throat looked red too. Usually with a fever this high they have strep so they would test him for that as well.

Sure enough...she comes back in and says "he has double ear infections & strep throat." It took everything I had to not bust into tears. Thinking "oh my gosh he really didn't act that sick." She kept saying "he hasn't been pulling at his ears?" But he really hadn't acted much different. Talk about feeling like total crap...how do I not know that my sweet boy is so sick.

Because his fever was so high and still had only dropped a little they gave him a shot of antibiotics in the leg & a prescription for an antibiotic as well.

So we made it 2 and almost a half years until he had to have his 1st dose of antibiotics. He seemed better by the time we got home from the doctor and wanted to go play outside. He did keep asking me after we left "why that lady have to give me a shot in my leg?"

If you have been around my child in the last couple of days I am sorry...we really had no idea it was anything more then allergy related.

Of course he couldn't get his first sickness and have it be mild...no he had to go all the way. Hopefully this is the 1st and last for a long time.

Here is a picture of our sweet boy on the day he was diagnosed with his 1st real sickness. Please excuse the messy face it was a last minute decision for me to take his picture and the only one I have from today. We had just finished eating dinner.

Shovel & Rake

For Easter this year Nana & Pawpaw got Jake his very own shovel & rake. They are so cute and real, but in Jake size. Of course as soon as possible Caleb & Jake were out in the yard using their new tools. Later that day Jason had some raking to do & Jake was right there helping him. It seems these were the perfect gifts as in the last week I think Jake has used them almost every day. He helped Jason in the yard another day and then every time he goes in the back yard he needs he shovel & rake. And heads out the back door saying "my need work in the yard."

He is Risen!!

THIS IS A LONG POST...sorry

Easter just might be the greatest reason to celebrate! Just think our Savior conquered the grave to save us from our yucky sin. What could be a better reason to celebrate?

Jake & I kicked off Good Friday with some of our very good friends and their church. They hold a cross walk every year. We walked through downtown Dallas following a big wooden cross. Just as Jesus had to carry his own cross to be crucified. Along the way we would stop and read each station of the cross.(you can see a small overview of them here) Although, it was very hot(I am loving this weather) we really enjoyed getting into the meaning of the season & learning more about what Christ endured. (I guess really me...Jake just was along for the ride in his stroller.)

We followed Fridays cross walk by going to my mom's house and dying Easter eggs with all my nephews and my cousin who was in town from Florida. The boys loved it & thanks so much to Family Fun magazine for their great tip of putting the egg in a whisk and using that to dye the eggs. No colored hands for the little boys!!!


The Easter bunny made a stop at our house and Jake was so excited when he woke up. We use the same basket every year, so the night before Easter Jake & I sat his basket out with a carrot for the bunny. This was a mistake, at least 4 times after I put Jake to bed he came down stairs wanting to know if the Easter bunny had come yet. (thankfully he hadn't). But when it was finally morning Jake was so excited to see that the bunny had eaten his carrot and all the fun stuff that was in his basket.


Then of course we enjoyed an amazing church service on Sunday morning. It was full of great celebration for our risen King (including a strobe light show)!!! Have I mentioned before we attend a contemporary rock and roll church & Love it! During the service our band sang a great song that was accompanied by video clips that I think brought tears to everyone's eyes. How He Loves Us you can hear the song by clicking the link...amazing!!!


Afterward we headed home to prepare for our annual Easter brunch in our beautiful new kitchen. And the Easter egg hunt in our back yard. It was so fun to see Jake during the egg hunt. I was very surprised he knew exactly what to do and took off running out the back door and grabbing every egg he saw. Too cute!!!

We all had a great time and some of the best moments of the season were teaching Jake about Easter. He loves to sing "Hosanna" & always asks me to turn it on as soon as we get in the car.

Of course a post about Easter wouldn't be complete without pictures of our Easter Weekend!

Renovations

A little renovating goes a long way! We just finished a small renovation project in our kitchen with new floors & counter tops. It has totally transformed our kitchen & we love it!!! You will have to excuse the before pictures as I didn't realize my step-dad & Jason were going to be taking the kitchen apart that day & I had to hurry and get before pictures before it was all torn apart.
Just the floor...Old floor: yucky linoleum...new floor: beautiful tile!!
New counter tops, sinke & faucet...the sink is 2" deeper and seems huge...love it!
View from dinning room
View from living room