National Oatmeal Cookie Day!

I came across a website this morning that lists every holiday that has to do with food. There are a lot. A lot. Anyway, today is National Oatmeal Cookie Day and I decided it would be rude not to celebrate! Plus, May 1-7 is National Raisin Week so these cookies will pull double duty if they last until tomorrow. I'm probably going to be celebrating a lot of foods now that I know what day to do it on.

Pasta

I realize this isn't the most interesting thing I've ever made but I thought it still deserved a mention. I'm mostly a pasta with tomato sauce girl (except for Lemon Pasta! Yum!) so when I actually do something other than that it feels pretty monumental. It's also important for another reason too--tomatoes. I'm only a recent convert to the tastiness that tomatoes offer so this meal was a surprise for me. The cherry tomatoes in the recipe, as a result of how they are cooked, come out tasting like little pockets of tomato sauce, it was great! The recipe is Penne with Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes, although obviously I used rotini.
The Pat and Owen review...Owen ate the pasta and the peas and then later tried the asparagus with success. He wouldn't try the tomatoes though, he just kept telling me they were hot. I know Pat doesn't like tomatoes but I still made him try a couple. Even though he admitted he liked how it tasted his face got all scrunched up when he had a second one and said he couldn't get past the fact that he was eating a tomato...but he did like the rest of it! More tomatoes for me!

Our Weekend!

We had an action packed weekend, here are just a couple pictures!
Saturday morning we went to a resale event for kid's stuff and snagged Owen a fun shirt and a couple new toys (more pictures on that whenever I get them...). Saturday afternoon we went to Rocky River Nature Center for the Naturefest with Scott and Crystal (who took this lovely picture below, thank you very much). Owen was fascinated by a disturbing looking goat and it was actually pretty hot by the time we finished hiking around but we did get to see tons of animals which Owen has been reminding us of ever since.


On Sunday I went to a baby shower for a friend. These are 4 of the 5 moms from Owen's playgroup. The two on the right are pregnant but the shower was for Nicole, in front. It was so cute but my favorite part was probably the candy section of all different kinds of blue and white candies with little bags to take whatever you wanted home.

Book Review and Recipe

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table--So I found out about this book because the author is also the writer of a blog I used to read called Orangette. This is the kind of book you finish reading and think "I should write something like that." The author tells stories from her life and family and the food/recipes that go with them. The stories were short enough that I could put down the book when I needed to but interesting enough that I didn't want to.

I will say though that when I finished the book only one recipe really jumped out at me (although I did also make her Sweet Potato Pound Cake found on her blog but not in the book, yum!). Luckily I don't have to try to pronounce it since this is a blog! It's called Bouchons au thon. You can actually read the story and recipe behind it if you click on that link. I thought they were very very good but the taste was definitely reminiscent of tuna noodle casserole. It also afforded me a mini adventure in making creme fraiche.

Earth Day!

I'm a couple days slow on posting this since Earth Day was Wednesday...oops. This picture is of Owen and his friend Ruby in their matching Earth Day shirts. I have to be honest and say we weren't very earthy that day. We drove to a storytime in Westlake and made birdfeeders out of recyclable materials and then later we drove to the grocery store when we really should have walked. We do what we can on other days though, we recycle, I try to limit Owen's time standing in front of the open fridge (what's with that anyway?). Luckily we live close enough to the library, post office, bank, grocery store and lots of other places so we can walk when the weather is nice and we don't need to pick up too much.

Really Sleeping

I figured I should put up a real picture of Owen sleeping since I put up a posed one last week. Owen rarely falls asleep in the car but this was after a full morning at the zoo so he was totally wiped out.

Book Review and Pancakes

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies--Yay! I finished! I didn't speed through this one because I figured I knew how it ended (having read the original). It was good and I even laughed out loud a few times! To really enjoy this book though, I think you have to have read the original but if you like zombies you can appreciate it anyway. I think the author took the exact text of Jane Austen's version and then manipulated it from there. I enjoyed the ridiculousness of it.

(Owen taking time out to pose with the book while devouring a chocolate bunny pop)

Remember those Carrot Cake Pancakes? Well these Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes are from the same blogger so I was really excited to make them. The verdict? They were good but not super awesome and great. They needed more oatmeal and more raisins to feel like an oatmeal cookie. Kind of like when you eat Raisin Bran (although I try not to...) and you're eating around the bran looking for more raisins.

Zombies continued...

This picture has nothing to do with this post except that it's another example of Owen being cool. Owen had a rough night last night because he was not done playing outside when we made him come in. We tried a few different things that calmed him down for a bit each time but then he went right back to crying. Finally we just sort of gave up and chalked it up to him being tired and decided we needed to just get this kid to bed. He fought us putting on his pajamas so finally I stopped and told him to go pick out any book he wanted and then we would put on his pajamas and read it together. He was gone for probably 30 seconds and when he came back the tears were gone and he looked extremely proud of himself. In his hands he held Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Needless to say, we read our 2 year old son a zombie bedtime story (about a little boy who likes to read zombie books) and put him in bed without anymore problems.

Ready for Sleep

This is how Owen gets himself set up and ready for a good sleep. He goes on his tummy, and puts giraffe's face right up next to his and then you have to cover him completely with his blanket. Every night, about 10 minutes after we've left his room, he yells one of our names and you have to go in and redo the blanket for him. You can see this picture is a bit posed since his eyes are open but it's sweet anyway. There's no way I would risk waking him up by taking a picture when he was actually asleep!

Zombies!

Remember when I said I was going to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies when it came out!? I got it! Yay! Owen has somehow totally latched onto the word and now wanders around like a zombie (thanks to direction from Pat!) whenever he spots my book. I'm glad he has no idea what a zombie is...Don't worry, the book review is coming soon. I have to finish reading it first!

All-Star!

This is what happens when you announce that you're an all-star to someone holding a camera.

(That's right, Pat misses and Sophie, the dog, gets the rebound)

Easter!

We had a great Easter but it was full of lots of in and out going from place to place. We definitely got plenty of candy and food and got to see lots of family. Here are a few group shots!

Easter Egg Hunt!

We organized a little egg hunt for the kids in playgroup and it was tons of fun! We had each kid hunt for a specific color (Owen was yellow, although somehow he slipped a blue into his basket...). Once we got inside Owen attacked the eggs that had candy in them and started shoveling them into his mouth as quick as he could.


One of the best parts of these things are the group pictures! We can never get all the kids to cooperate at once and it's always hilarious. Owen is actually pretty good about standing still but he needs to work on his smile!!

Success!

It hasn't been happening very much lately but I finally managed to try out a new recipe that everyone liked! They were carrot cake pancakes! You have to actually like the taste of carrots because this batter does nothing to disguise them but they were terrific anyway. Owen had them for breakfast with applesauce (there's no way I'm cleaning syrup off of a 2 year old...) and then one for a midmorning snack and then another with his lunch--all by his request. Pat and I each had one in the evening as a snack with some leftover cream cheese frosting we happened to have and I thought it was fantastic. Recipe Here. (I didn't make the cream cheese spread in the recipe nor did I add the pecans to the pancake batter and oops, I forgot to add the salt too!)


I haven't been very crafty lately which is a shame since Easter has a lot of possiblities for craftiness but I did manage to make a fun new wreath for the door.

Cow!

Last week Owen and I were driving past a Chick-fil-A and I noticed they had someone outside dressed up as a cow. I thought it would be cute to point it out to Owen so he could wave and he did. I didn't realize, however, that he would latch on to this and talk about waving to that cow for the rest of the day...or the next day...or the day after...So we did some research and found out that the cow would be appearing at Chick-fil-A's family night! Owen was totally fascinated by the cow but didn't want to actually talk to or touch it. It was pretty cute and he hasn't mentioned the cow since:)

Hugs

We went to a playground last week with Owen's playgroup and my friend took this picture. Owen had just fallen down and ran to me for some reassurance and a hug. I was sad for him that he fell down but I was also glad to be getting a hug. Owen doesn't always slow down long enough for me to get one:)

Sprout!

We're growing some tomatoes! They aren't very far along yet but that little sprout on the right totally appeared between the morning and afternoon and was standing up by the end of the day. It was fun to check in with them throughout the day. I finally trained myself to like tomatoes so hopefully I'll get to enjoy some homegrown ones.

Pat's Birthday cont.

Pat's birthday present finally came in the mail yesterday! He got a new GPS but I think he might be a little confused about what it's for...