i heart faces: shadows

I'm kinda late on this one, but we had a fabulous day out in the sun all day yesterday.  I raked out gardens, we picked up doggie poop (fun!) and the kids basked in warmth.  And then the topper was a really fun impromptu cook-out with the neighbors.  Complete with margaritas, of course.  Hello, Spring!  We love you so.

Papa likes to pick up donuts on the weekend much to my ass's dismay.  This is Fletcher.  Doing the "donut staredown."  Uh, in kind of shadow.  Just go with it, ok?



friday facts: random week

We all feeling much better around here, thanks for asking.  Fletcher is charming again, and Rowan isn't snoring like our bulldog anymore.  Our newest adventure is waiting to see if the government will shut down and Brian won't get paid.  Fun! 

And today is Friday.  Yay!  Now as a vegetarian, Lent doesn't pose such a problem when Friday rolls around.  I guess I should do something like not eat cheese on Friday, but no.  That would be insane.  My husband, the carnivore, is actually ok with vegetarian meals.  I mean, he's not cooking, right?  I think I make him a meat dish about 3 times a week.  Sometimes less.  And he goes and gets burgers at lunch, so it all evens out.  Anyway, Lent.  Last Friday I made an old standby, fried rice (with shrimp for Brian) and decided to try crab rangoons at home.  They were super easy and fun to make, and were pretty delicious.  I will share it here.  Oh, and yes, I eat these.  I'm not a strict vegetarian- I use chicken broth, etc.  And I wear leather shoes.  It's really just a personal preference in taste and texture.  Like Brian says, it is a fact that if a cow tasted like ice cream, I would totally be a carnivore.  Uh, where was I?  Oh, crab rangoon!

Take a block of softened cream cheese, some canned crab OR fresh crab OR that fake flake crab, about 3 green onions, a couple splashes of soy sauce and worcestershire sauce, a smashed clove or two of garlic and stir it all together.

Then grab one of those little wonton wrappers and put a little bit on it.

And now swipe water on two sides of the square in order to seal it up.

You could use your finger for this, but I found it messy.  This is me doing it lefty while taking the pictures.  Talent!  Ok, now fold it corner to corner, and seal the sides.  You could leave it like this, and it will still turn out great.  But if you want that authentic Chinese restaurant look, you gotsta fold it fancy.

Cute!  Now is the time to decide how healthy you'd like to be.  I'm not a fan of frying anything.  I'm more of a baker with stuff.  So I sprayed the pan VERY well with cooking spray, and then sprayed the tops of the rangoons once I had them on the pan.  You could dunk them in scalding oil and they would admittedly turn out more crunchy and crispy.  Cook em' at 350 for about 8- 10 min.  Your decision, no judging here.  Oh, this uses half the pack of wontons.  Save the other half for next Friday!

Eat up.  They turn out crispy in some areas and still soft in others when you do them in the oven, but trust me, they are still just as addictive.  Yum!  I'm not much for exact measurements (obviously) so if you need them, just google it.  There are a billion different recipes of these out there.

Ok, the kitchen is closed.  Last November I went out in the garden and planted 80, yes *EIGHTY* bulbs.  Tulips (my fav) crocus, and hyacinth.  I did it in an hour using a power drill!  It pays to be married to the handy man.  But, boo.  It seems the crocus decided not to show.  But, I think these are the tulips coming up.

And I know these are tulips.  They are from the bulbs that Brian and I brought back from our honeymoon in Holland and France.  We did not have a house at the time, and have since lived in about 4 different places, but we gave the bulbs to our parents to plant.  My mother in law dug some of hers up to give to us for our house.  These are particularly beautiful when they bloom.  I'll post a picture then, too.

No word from the hyacinth yet, and it seems that my daffodils might stage a flower protest like they did last year, too.  I do not have a green thumb, people.  But spring is here!  Yay!  Soon these trees will have leaves and winter will seem eons away. 



And just to add a little more random to this post, here is a picture of our "organized" back entryway.  Brian asked me not to post the picture because it's embarrassing.  But I'm going to tackle it and hopefully have an "after" picture next Friday!  Sorry, Brian.  Don't be embarrassed.  It's mostly my fault.

Uh, I guess we like toilet paper?  I don't know.  I think I need to pick up a bin for that bag of dog food. 

p.s. How did I get out an entire post without pictures of the littles?  Weird.



You Capture: fun

Well, if you haven't guessed by all my whining recently, we're still getting over the worst. cold. ever.  I may be dramatizing this a bit on my end, but definitely the worst cold the kids have had yet.  We were sad for a long time.  And now we're kind of less sad, and trying to get back to happy.  Well, Rowan was pretty happy the whole time.  She's pretty sweet that way.  Fletcher was a bear. 

Anyway, fun.  You Capture's theme is FUN.  I used to have a lot of fun.  I used to have so much fun in college I used to throw up with all the excitment.  Or maybe that was the long islands, I'm never sure.  And then Brian came along and he is super FUN.  He's still super fun, and usually I feel like the tired old mom next to him.  Now our fun is mostly  contained to whatever is fun for the littles.  But like I was saying, getting over colds can really tame the fun.  I was hoping we could go to the zoo or fun parks and get some good pictures, but sorry.  You get to see us having extremely mild fun in the comfort of our home. 



{playing with our food}



{and now eating it}

Whoa.  Fun.  And now here is Rowan getting super wacky and fun, climbing on the toy shelves.

Don't be jealous of our fun.  You too could have this fun every day!

i heart faces: best of march

This week's i heart faces challenge is best of March.  So here is one of my personal favorites.  It was thisclose to another one with Fletcher, but how can I pass up these icy-blue eyes?  Besides, Fletch was in last week's i heart faces.  Let's keep it even.  Or I'll sure hear about it later.



friday facts: confessions of a sick mama with sick babies

1. My littles watched a gabillion hours of t.v. this week.  There, I said it.  Go ahead and throw the stones now.  I'd do it again in an INSTANT.

2. We gave the two (almost 3!) year old some cold medicine.  I KNOW, ok?  You aren't supposed to.  But the pharmacist at Target (holla, Michele, I'm taking you down with me!) told us to give him 1/8 of the dose for 6 year olds.  So we did.  And he slept.  And did not cough and cry.  It was great.  I'd do it again in an INSTANT.  Before you pick up more stones, we did NOT give it to the baby.

Yes, the shirt says it all.  Crabby Cake INDEED.  And running a fever. 
3. I threw out my back wrangling the baby, who likes to suddenly play "stiff as a board" without any warning.  Yes, I know I sound like I'm 60 when I say things like "I threw my back out."  I've taken ibuprofen like skittles ever since.  My liver says boo, but my back is more bearable. 

4. I've taken out my crankiness of this sick-filled week on my husband.  More than once.  I would feel more guilty about it, but he gets to escape to work where he doesn't have sick children clinging to him and whining nonstop. 

5. My poor niece is spending her spring break here, and while I had plans for the Children Museum, parks, and other museums, I can't with good conscience lets my snotty drooly kids crawl all over public play places.  So my niece has been subjected to endless cartoons and whiny children for her spring break.  Nice.  I would like to add she hasn't complained about it even once.  What a champ!!

6. I only ran once this week.  And it was really more of a walk.  Ok, it was just a walk.  And that's all, folks.  I'm not going back to the gym until these lungs stop producing copious amounts of phlegm.  Sexy! 

7. I think we brushed Fletcher's teeth about once this week.  Gross.  But he's screaming and writhing after baths, and I'm just too. darn. tired.  Whatever, he gets more teeth later on.  It's like nature's second chance!!  On a side note, we did brush Rowan's teeth for the first time.  She loved it.

8. I have done zero cleaning this week.  Not that I can really blame all the sickness.  This is kind of per usual for me, in fact.

9. We got take out/drive through 3 days this week.

10.  When I "cooked" at home, it looked a little like this.  Or exactly like this.

Nothing like a home-cooked meal!  Yep, that's my beer in the background.  It was for medicinal purposes, of course.

11.  Ha, ha!  April Fools!  I actually cleaned the house from top to bottom, cooked gourmet meals, ran 15.6 miles, the children were charming and we did lots of fun crafts and played educational games.  I almost had you there, right?

You Capture: vibrance

Multiple choice.  I'm up at 5 am because:
a. the baby woke up at 4:30 am
b. I caught the kid's colds and can't sleep with this scratchy scratchy throat
c. someone (not naming names) was snoring. right. next. to. my. ears.
d. all of the above.

If you chose d then *ding, ding, ding* you get the prize!  I don't really have a prize, so don't bother me about it, people. 

Anyway.  You Capture.  Vibrance.  These are from the weekend when sleep and health were in abundance.  Those were the days.

{a little bit of a vibrant blue sky}

{This man is the epitome of vibrance.  Seriously, he reminds me more than anyone else in this world to enjoy life and wring every last drop of joy out of it.  I really, really heart you, B.  Even when you snore.}

{my vibrant boy}

{my vibrant-eyed girl}

{spring!  spring is vibrant!  come back to us, spring.}

Next week's You Capture is fun.  I'll have to wait until we're all back to healthy.  Cause the only fun around here right now is blowing noses.  And who wants to see pictures of that?