Celebrating 5 Years

{attempting to catch-up before something big happens..like a baby arriving. hopefully, we'll be up to date soon and back to regularly scheduled blogging. Ha!}

This year was a fabulous anniversary year! On our actual anniversary, we swapped gifts {of wood, since we follow the traditional gift list.} and went to eat at a lovely place downtown {read: it pays to hold on to gift certificates until you can actually use them}. 

Then the first weekend of this month, we headed into the city for a combined anni/babymoon getaway. We've been wanting to see the Lion King for.ever. I'd seen it when I was in 8th grade on Broadway with my parents and remember how AMAZING it was. So, we splurged and got great seats a few rows back from the stage. Worth.every.penny. And then some. 

Beyond the performance, we ate great food, napped, and enjoyed the simple pleasure of just being the "two of us" {+ baby in utero, of course}. It was absolutely marvelous and I'm glad we sneaked it in before she comes.  Count down has definitely started!

My New Motto

Well, at least for this week...

"Only dull women have immaculate homes." 
  
Hooray for the weekend!!

Making Apple Pie

This week for our "Homemakers" small group we made apple pies from scratch. I've been so looking forward to doing this for awhile...especially learning how the make the lattice on top. Martha, our awesome leader: mother of 4, quilter extraordinaire, and fabulous homemaker, got the supplies for all of us.

Her lovely hubby gave us all a tutorial on how to use the apple-peeler-slicer-corer machine {hopefully I'll now have more success on W's}

Our resident baker, Em, taught us all we should know in the world of apple pie making. Lots of hard work. And much play.

Becca showing off her lattice work.

Nat playing with apples.

Almost done.

My finished product!

We learned lots of tricks, like the finger-pinch technique for the sides.

I'm freezing mine for Thanksgiving. All that's left to do is the butter, sugar, cinnamon drizzle and baking the whole thing. And I think I could re-produce this again, but at a much slower pace. 

I totally love and look forward to this group! It's a great range of girls: young and single, married with no kids, and married with kid. Martha asked me to be in charge of one session and to show the girls a Christmas ornament wreath I made a few weeks ago. Definitely excited to share and learn more skills to take care of my family!!

Give-Away Winner

So remember this give-away I blogged about a bit ago?

I actually won it! Yippie!

I won what the photographer, Tabitha Nicolle, calls a secret session. Basically it's a 30 minute session of her taking pictures of...me...with the mindset that they are a little something-something for W. I've never had professional pictures taken of just me before so I was nervous. But I kept reminding myself that it's just plain fun to win something. And W has mentioned on more than one occasion that he'd like to have some 'wifey' pictures of me. But let's just be honest: I still have a waaays to go still before getting back to pre-prego status. But with winning & W in mind, I tried my darndest to enjoy the session, not be self-deprecating, and attempt to bring my sexy back. 

I bought a mini 5x5 booklet of some of the more 'wifey' pictures from the session that only W gets to see. Along with winning the session, I received a complimentary 5x7 which will be framed & placed on W's future desk in his future office. 

So it's not a kilt just yet, but he definitely enjoyed his graduation present. 

Here's Tabitha's blog with a few of the pictures from the sessh.

Loved This...

And had to share:

This Lovely Place.

Goodies galore on this sweet little site.

Mom knows me well

and forwarded a few blogs that she thought I would like. And like, I do!! This lady and that lady are quite up my alley! Thought I'd share for all the other frugal wives & mothers out there who enjoys cooking yummy food and finds joy in the home & family life!

And this by far was a really really good read!

Traditional German Food

We finally enjoyed the most delicious German supper this past weekend!! Anne cooked Traditional Goulash and W helped with the process (hopefully, to be able to re-create it in the future). Since we don't have the type of noodles she used, Anne made everything from scratch! I made some yummy pumpkin spiced cake for dessert and the boys enjoyed some authentic German beer. We had a delightful feast with the Nitches and Gillettes! I'm still waiting for her to translate her recipe into English to it can go into our recipe binder.

Favorite New Recipe

Well, the meal-planning & recipe adventure has been a success thus far. I found this new recipe in a wedding gifted French recipe book & we LOVED it! I served the tomatoes with some brown rice. And they make delish left-overs too!

Spinach-Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes (I added ground turkey since we're meat-lovers)

What You'll Need: (Serves 8)

8 big red tomatoes

Salt, for draining the tomatoes

3 T olive oil

1 C chopped yellow onions

Dry Spinach, about 4 C

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Grated nutmeg, to taste

1 C ricotta cheese

2 egg yolks

1/2 C toasted pine nuts

1/2 cup parsley

Shredded Italian Cheese, used as topping

What You Do:

1. Wash & dry tomatoes & cut off tops. With a teaspoon, scrape out all the inner parts while being careful not to pierce the sides. Salt the cavities and set them upside down on a paper towel to drain

2. Heat pan with olive oil over medium-low heat, add (turkey here) onions, & cook until tender (about 25 minutes)

3. Chop the spinach & add to pan. Then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Cover over low heat, and stir occasionally, for 10 minutes. Careful not to burn.

4. Preheat over to 350 F

5. Beat the ricotta and egg yolks together in mixing bowl. Add spinach mixture (with turkey if added), toasted pine nuts, parsley and season with salt & pepper.

6. Gently blot tomato cavities dry with paper towel & spoon an equal share of spinach mixture into each one. Top each tomato with a sprinkle of shredded Italian cheese.

7. Arrange the tomatoes in a shallow baking dish & set in oven. Bake until the tops are well browned and the filling is hot & bubbly, about 20-30 minutes.

We Got A...

Crock pot!! Ok, so not the most typical exciting news, but we were blessed by generosity nonetheless. A few days ago, I went over to my favorite jeweler designer's house for some gifts and was updating her on my recent adventures of house-wife-hood. She asked me if I had a crock-pot to which I answered, "No...Goodwill here I come!" And she said, "I have one for you!" She gives them as wedding gifts and had one that she was planning on returning. Wow! I was so floored by her giving. It's a 5+ person, really nice quality, brand new crock-pot! And she even e-mailed me a few recipes to get started. Then I found this blog from a friend's blog list. I'm *very* excited to get my crock pot cooking on!! :)

Coupons

My mom recently shared these little tid-bits of knowledge about coupons as I've become much more enthusiastic about them. I thought they were great reminders and wanted to share them. Most of them are well-known, at least in my house growing up, but here they are anyway...

As an avid long time coupon clipper there are a few things to watch out for……

1) Generally a particular product will be put on promotion and may or may not be the best deal. The store brand/generic can be just as good and a better price than with the coupon

2) Check out all the grocery ads because something might be a better price at Safeway one week then a better price at Raley's the next. You could be like grandma & grandpa running around to different stores each week. Just remember to factor in travel costs.

3) When you do this for a few months, you'll get a feel for where the best deals are…..I sometimes walk the aisles at Raley's and look for their manager specials because it is a really good deal…if I like what it is and will use it.

4) You'll also learn that the prices dip in cycles so if you have the cash and the space (and then can remember you have it in stock) you can buy a bunch to get you to the next sale. Some products you just always use.

5) Costco doesn't always have the best prices….especially if something is on special at one of the grocery stores, deeply discounted.

6) The largest size is not always the best deal, be sure to check the "per unit price"

7) Make sure you are purchasing an item that you would want to buy anyway

(image from cheaptweet.com)

The Joy of Preparing

Here's our oh-so high tech/ uber cute design of our recent adventure: meal planning! I know, right?! You've never heard of this before...we are forging into new territory at home. So up until recently, I have been rebellious and teen-like in my attitude toward meal planning. That's probably a heart-check issue for another time! ;) A week ago, I saw the error of my ways. W showed me how his mom used to meal plan with said above chart & I'm loving it. We know with the addition of a little one coming, simplifying our life would be a huge asset.

So we review the upcoming 7 meals for the week and plan our grocery list accordingly. All on the same piece of paper! Asterisks mean I need to buy it that week. It's also encouraged me to try new recipes from the *cough* wedding-gifted cookbooks that have been gathering dust on our top shelf. I've given myself a goal of one new recipe a week. I tried a french fry recipe last night which was amazing! I've even been looking at (gasp!) coupons online! Who am I?!

Our life has become easier already. I look forward to cooking since the guess work has already been taken out of it & I already know I'm prepared with all of my supplies. And W & I are both helping in the kitchen more. Team effort! I'm finding it similar to teaching...I would never present a lesson without preparing beforehand! This life-theme could probably fall into all categories...I'm just focusing on feeding my family for now. ;) Who knows what I'll try to prepare for next!!

The Sin of Impatience

On Saturday, I learned about how nonconstructive my impatience/time-consciousness can be to William sometimes. During the morning, I bought us tickets to a fun play for the evening. It had great reviews & a wonderful story-line. At the time, William only had one ride & was planning on being home by 3pm. No problem. We could enjoy "Butterflies are Free" in Walnut Creek at 8pm. All this changed within 2 hours. William got another ride & wasn't going to be back in the office until 7pm...when the theater doors opened. He told me he would call when he was driving back to the office so I could meet him there.

Around 6:45, I hadn't heard from him so what did I do?! I started calling him...as if that would get him there faster or something? First impatient mistake. It went straight to voicemail. So did the other two times. He called me 10 minutes later to tell me he was already at the office but had to finish paperwork. He didn't want me waiting in my car so he was timing it out. Being me & in a rush to make it to the play at least 30mins before 8pm-- I jumped in my car to head over-- ignoring his request to heat up his dinner one more time. Second impatient mistake. So I got there with his semi-warm dinner & clothes, and then waited for a few more moments (when I should have been waiting by the microwave) before he came out.

It was a small venue & we already had great seats (although I didn't think long enough to realize this) so we actually just waited around for 20 minutes before being seated. We found free parking walking distance from the playhouse too. It was a fabulous, well-acted play. We laughed a ton. A great evening, only dampened by my impatience. William was gracious in forgiving me & I was sad that I hurt him by not trusting his plan & timing. It really all worked out just fine & we had fun. I just also learned that it's good to be timely, but not at expense of my husband & his plan. I was no help in our problem whatsoever. And it was pointless to stress. I'm pretty sure this is just the beginning of my learning curve. I wish learning was easier. Annoying!!