A not-so-typical Friday

Fridays at our house are usually rushed in the morning. Maddie has school at 9:00 am and that means Andy has to be out the door with the kids by 8:20 am to make it in time for drop off. Maddie does not like to miss drop off. If you miss drop off that means that your Mommy or Daddy has to walk you in to your class room and that just isn't cool enough for Maddie. And yes, I said Andy takes the kids on Friday mornings. His days off are Friday and Saturday and he gives me off on Friday mornings. It's glorious and he totally rocks! 

This Friday there was no school so we hung out at home. In our jammies. For most of the morning.

Apparently jammies were too constricting so Ellorie got naked and had snack in Mommy's nice chairs in the living room. Awesome.

Hey Mom, whatcha doing?

She may or may not be wearing yesterday's braids and eating snack in front of Doc McStuffins... I just love that she has a couch full of baby dolls and stuffed animals and is holding several while trying to eat snack and watch tv. She cracks me up!

We watched Daddy mow the lawn and weed eat. How 'bout those pink socks?? She went upstairs and go those to go with her outfit along with a pink sparkly bow and a Christmas bow. Gotta love a 3 year old's sense of fashion!

We shared some sisterly love. This just might be my all time favorite picture. Ever.

Ellorie was not sure about this...

Yea, pretty sure she does not want to be hugged/choked by big sister anymore, ha!

We modeled in the boot tray that Mommy was trying to photograph for the blog. Oh well, at least they're cute! Guess that post will have to wait for later!

Hope you had a good Friday, too!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Did you wear your green today? You know we did (OK, to be honest, I think this is actually the first year I've remembered this holiday but whatever)! 

Maddie looked like this for school on Friday (attitude and all!). They had a St. Patrick's Day baking party. She says they baked a cake, fun!

Got her to smile a little for this one once she stopped posing like the super model she thinks she is.

We ate GREEN pancakes (with Aunt Sarah, yay!) for breakfast.

They were enjoyed by all (even if they were on turkey plates...).

Keeping one eye on Daddy as he makes more.

Even baby Katherine had some (she thought they were delicious, she did the delicious dance!) 

 And we had a nose picker, gross (could you at least wait until after you're done eating???), ha!

After lunch we had a scantily-clad toddler roaming the house performing many costume changes for her adoring audience. This was probably the worst of the bunch but Aunt Sarah insisted we send this to Rob. She actually insisted on a different version (b/c it was hilarious) but I opted for the PG version ;)

I had planned to make green chicken nuggets and edamame for lunch in keeping with our theme for the day. This plan was halted after some awesome 3 year old funness (and when I say I fun I mean awful ridiculous tantruming to the point where Mommy forgot all about making the awesome green lunch...). That NEVER happens at our house, we're always so well behaved ;)

 We had (not green) ham and cheese and Ellorie insisted on eating her entire lunch while holding her foot. 

Well, hello foot....

I forgot to take pictures of our awesome green dinner but I will post the recipes and you'll just have to suffer photoless. 

Green Chicken Nuggets

adapted from Toddler Treats and More

3 small chicken breasts, cooked (think I used 5 oz?)

1/2 box of frozen spinach, thawed

2 eggs

couple handfuls of mozzarella

3/4 - 1 cup bread crumbs, plus more for rolling

Throw all of this in your food processor and mix. The mixture should roll into balls easily, you may need to add more bread crumbs to achieve this consistency. Put some bread crumbs in a bowl for rolling, set aside. I used my small Pampered Chef scoop and dropped each ball in my bowl on top of the bread crumbs. Roll them in the bread crumbs until covered. Place on a baking pan, OK to be close as they won't spread like cookies do. Flatten out with your fingers. Bake at 375 for 5 minutes on each side. Let them cool a bit and serve! We had them with ketchup (because we have to have every meat with ketchup but I think they would be good with pasta sauce, too).

You can also flash freeze these by placing them on a baking sheet and in the freezer for 2 hours. Then throw them in a freezer bag and they're ready to pop in the microwave for next time.

Green and Gold Corn Casserole

adapted from Paula Deen

8oz reduced fat sour cream

1 stick of butter 

(bet you're thinking why even both with the reduced fat sour cream, ha!)

1 can cream style corn

1 can sweet corn, drained

1 box corn muffin mix (I used Jiffy)

some of the frozen spinach leftover from your Green  Chicken Nuggets

green food coloring, a few drops

Mix all of the above in a bowl. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray and spoon casserole into your dish. Smooth out the top and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until it is set in the middle. I usually jiggle the pan to test for this. 

The grown ups in our house had spinach and red pepper stuffed chicken breast, mmmmm. I just used some of the spinach leftover from both recipes and mixed it with a little cream cheese and a bit of red peppers. It was yummy!

Are you drinking green beer tonight? Drink one for me!

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

I'm so behind this week so please pardon the fact that this is a day late, as was his Happy Birthday call from the girls. Better late than never I guess? 

Happy Birthday to my Dad! I love these pictures and I thought it would be appropriate to share in honor of him. Love you Dad!

I spent lots of time up here as a kid. It's a good spot!

Check out the shorts! Classic Dad :-)

My kids do this to Andy now, something about feeding Daddy!

  

He's also a VERY loved Granddad to my two little girls :-)

 Ellorie calls him "Dandad," just like Maddie did.

 I hope you had a wonderful day! I love you Dad!

Naked Pear Eating

Get your mind out of the gutter! It was hot and we had pears for snack. Naturally we had to eat them naked, or at least Ellorie did.

I somehow managed to capture this, which I find hilarious and I'm sure she'll hate me for later. But I had to share. It's one of those leave me alone I'm trying to eat faces possibly bordering on possessed?

Hope you're enjoying the warm weather as much as we are!

Snow Day.... Late!

Better late than never right? I finally uploaded the pictures from the first snow day we had this year. The girls had a GREAT time in the snow!

Pardon me while I bask in the cuteness... 

I know I will treasure these pictures and so will she. She loves Nanny! 

She looks like a little pink Care Bear! Love it!

She was SO excited to get down on the ground and "run" around while the big kids made a snowman with Nanny. Little did she know she couldn't actually "run" in the snow. After a few wet face plants, she and Mommy decided to stay on the sidewalk where she could walk a little better.

Must feed little sister yellow snow while Mommy isn't looking, oh wait...

I love this one, it looks like they're trying to hide behind the snowman.

SO excited to be part of making the snowman, so she thinks ;)

I'm cute Mommy, take my picture!

And me too!

 Helping Nanny roll a ball to make the head for our snowman.

And it's a little heavy to lift but she's determined!

The head was a little small so we ended up having to pack on some extra snow.

He turned out pretty cute, even without a big carrot for a nose. His bottom half was the only remaining snow in our yard the following day. 

Her cousin teaching her how to make snow angels. She loved it!

So fun! 

She was very proud of her snow angel!

Couldn't resist one more pictures of the cheeks! 

We had a fun day in the snow!

Ellorie Lange

Last year was so crazy, did you know we had a BABY?? You would if I ever bothered to blog about it.... But between adding onto our house and learning the ropes of being a mother of two girls I just didn't have my act together to make it happen. Better late than never...

Introducing Ellorie Lange, born on Dec. 18, 2010 and weighing in at 7 lbs 2 oz and 18.5" long.

I would be lying if I told you we didn't have fun in the hospital awaiting her arrival. Having a baby is pretty darn exciting if you aren't dying in pain (like I was for 3 days the first time....). After a "cocktail" and a fabulous soak in the tub I had a really great epidural. Our nurse was one that I knew through my old boss and she was awesome. There were lots of stories told and laughs shared. It was an awesome experience for sure.  

Daddy being silly waiting for her to come...

Proud Mommy & Daddy holding her for the first time

Sisterly love

Super cute newborn(ish) photos courtesy of the awesome Caroline Meyers (thanks!!). You would not believe what our house looked like while she was taking these pictures. Let's just say there were quite a few people crammed into a tiny play room (the only room on our first floor that wasn't under construction....).

First laughs, captured by Granddad. Thank goodness he was taking pictures!

Matching big sister for Easter with the family. Not quite sitting up at this point.

More sisterly love, even the dog wants in!

She learned to crawl around 6 months, a little earlier than Maddie did. She decided that wasn't enough, she had to go ahead and master crawling to sitting and sitting to crawling the next day... We have to keep Mommy on her toes!

She used to sleep like this (and I'm the dorky Mom who takes pictures of the monitors):

Out walking with Daddy. She is SUCH a Daddy's girl!

Our mini vacation to DC, where I got the best call ever. Eeeee! I am a little strict when it comes to schedules and this vacation was the first time we had ever just not had one. There were quite a few naps in the stroller and thankfully she is a great baby who was willing to nap on the go. It made our trip so much fun!

They LOVE playing together, can't get enough! The girls really have become great friends. We still have daily struggles over toys but we're getting there. 

She had cake well before her first birthday (2nd child...) but you know she had to wear the same #1 onesie that her big sister turned one in. 

 She loves coupons (like her mama!) or maybe just ripping them apart and spreading them all over my office?

She's ALWAYS laughing and smiling and keeping me laughing and smiling

 She's totally the 2nd baby (who likes the get in the dog crate and chew on dog bones and instead of stopping her I whip out my camera......)

She's now 14 months old. She's into everything these days, climbing anything she can get her hands on. She demands to feed herself everything off of a plate at the table like the 3 year old she insists she is. She's a total mess most days. But she's amazing and she has brought so much joy to our family. We love her so much!

We are so lucky!