Gourmet Momma

   My husband and I have been married for 2.5 years...Already! For the majority of that time we have both held full-time jobs. Mark works at his Dad's construction company and therefore works long hours. I worked at the bank and had a typical office job of 9-5, but often I would stay late to accommodate my customers (aren't I nice?). This meant that there were many nights that both of us didn't walk through our front door until well past 6 or 7pm. After a long day at work I have to admit, I wasn't always the most excited to cook supper. We often would just settle down with a frozen pizza, grilled cheese (a supper staple!), or a bowl of soup. I always hated that we did this. In my mind I wanted to be the wife that always provided her family with a delicious homemade meal that we would sit down to eat together around the table. Well,  when we were both working, we often didn't have a healthy homecooked meal...and we rarely had room at the table to actually sit down and eat a meal. Table equaled junk central in our first and second small apartments! 
   When I went on Maternity Leave in September I promised myself it would be different. No more grilled cheese sandwiches for supper two or three times a week! I knew that my natural go to routine would be to keep providing the quick and easy meals so I decided I needed to become more focused on my supper preparation. I implemented the '1 Week Meal Plan'. I have a friend who plans her meals 6 weeks in advance...but lets face it, I had a hard enough time planning a meal a day in advance prior to Maternity Leave so I wasn't sure I would be able to mentally grasp 6 weeks in advance! For now, I am sticking with the 1 week plan. Every Friday morning I sit down and come up with a 7 day meal plan for the following week (my weeks start on Saturday). I flip through my many cookbooks, scan through pinterest, search recipes on allrecipes.com and check out some cooking blogs (my favorite is Thepioneerwoman - she's amazing! Check her out at http://thepioneerwoman.com/.).  I choose meals for the week keeping in mind my "regular meal nights". My "regular meal nights" are Saturday and Friday. Saturday night Mark plays hockey (yup, I am a 'stay at home, all alone, Saturday night hockey wife'). Since he often has to leave early in the evening on Saturdays to make his games I have decided not to make anything to extravagant for dinner. This is for a couple of reasons; 1. He doesn't like to eat anything too "heavy" before hockey and 2. I don't like to clean up all alone on Saturday nights...I enjoy having my quiet evening in a fully cleaned house. Friday night is our Pizza Night. I try to make different variations of Mark's favorite food - pizza. Other than that I just try to make sure I don't have five meals of chicken or pasta in one week and try to make sure its interesting, fun, and healthy. I also like to try things that are out of my comfort zone (In all reality my comfort zone is grilled cheese so I guess that means everything else is fair game!) and a bit of a challenge. 
   Mark is probably the best person to cook for so I am truly blessed. Food is a true passion for Mark. He gets so excited for supper and is always willing to try something new. He isn't picky which means rarely does he have anything critical or negative to say about something that I have placed in front of him. He really is fun to cook for because I know he will enjoy it. 
   Here's my meal plan for this coming week.
Saturday - Fresh buns with the LTC sandwich (lettuce, tomato, cucumber and mayo)
Sunday - Family get-together: bringing Greek Salad
Monday - New Years Eve: going out for dinner with our good friends Tara and Ken
Tuesday - Pizza night (switched from Friday because of my Oma's wedding)
Wednesday - Herb roasted Pork Tenderloin with vegetables (compliments of ThePioneerWomen)
Thursday - Garlic Chicken with herb roasted potatoes (found on pinterest)
Friday - Oma's Wedding
   This week was pretty easy seeing as we are away for three nights. Now I just use those recipes to buy our groceries. I have also found that by doing this we are spending a lot less on groceries every week and we are throwing less rotten food out of our fridge every week too! Win win! I love having an empty fridge by Saturday morning that I get to clean out (one of my OCD traits - I clean my fridge at least once a week!) and fill up with fresh food after getting groceries Saturday afternoon. We have also decided to try to forgo the snack food on our grocery list. I am in some desperate need of loosing some final baby pounds before my best friend's wedding this coming Spring. This also has helped with cutting down our grocery budget!
   Anyways, I am now off to go grocery shopping with my family! One of my favorite times of the week. Some fun family time spent together, plus Mark and I get a good boost of Parent Pride from all the other shoppers who stop to compliment us on how cute little P is!! How could it get any better?

She really is quite cute, if I do say so myself!

The Dog Came Back...the Very Next Day!

   Look who decided to come back home:)! I didn't sleep well last night and in fact was up baking Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Coconut cookies until well after 3AM (recipe to follow - they are delicious!). Thist seems to be my MO - when things gets stressful or difficult...I get productive...at weird hours of the day. I sit and fret until everyone else has gone off to bed, then I jump into high gear and presto! I have a sparkly shiny kitchen (the night both Mark and Carli were up all night sick), I write a full essay (had four full free days before the deadline - waited until the night before - thankfully I passed!), or, as in this case, wrote out all my thank you cards for the meals and presents we received after P's birth and baked five dozen cookies and wrapped some Christmas presents! 
   Anyways, I finally fell asleep around 4AM and woke up again this morning at about 8AM to get ready to bring posters around to our neighbors. Mark called to see how I was doing and ask me some details about Carli for the email he was writing to the "lost" department of the Humane Society. I walked out to the kitchen and looked out the back window (as I had done hundreds of times in the last 10 hours). This time though...there was Carli!! She was a very dirty (black!) and matted Carli...but she was Carli :).  I ran outside (still in my pjs...good thing we live in the country and my sister who lives above us wasn't around!) and brought Carli inside. I don't even think she was worried at all...she ran around the house a little bit, drank some water, and then she went to lie down on "her" chair by the fireplace. If anything she was more proud that she had found her way home and happy that she had had an adventure. I just hope that she is all adventured out for a while...I don't think I can handle another one anytime soon. She is approximately 2 years old, which I guess in dog years means she is a teenager so perhaps this was just her being a rebellious teenager acting out by staying out all night. One thing is for sure, when P becomes a teenagers I will be tired and fat from all the midnight baking I do if she ever "acts out" and stays out late! 

Passed out after her night long adventure!

   We are so glad that she is home! Now to make an appointment with the groomer to get her de-matted  and cleaned :)! I am tired, but happy that my entire family is where they should be!

Carli

   I had originally sat down this evening to write a different blog post about a delicious coleslaw recipe that I made and ate this evening...but...instead I am going to write about my missing puppy. 3 and a bit months after we got married I begged and pleaded with my husband until he agreed to let us buy a puppy. I had already picked out the puppy and made an appointment to meet with the breeder before Mark agreed...but I knew he wouldn't be able to say no to me! Mark agreed to go meet the puppy but made me promise I wouldn't make him buy the puppy unless he was "on board". I agreed. About 3 minutes after we entered the breeder's house Mark was hooked and we got to take Carli home then and there! Its been a busy, crazy two years with Carli but mostly its been a lot of fun! She isn't the most behaved well trained dog...but we love her just the same. I must admit, there are times when she drives me crazy...but most days end with her snuggled up on my lap or beside me while I read a book, knit, watch t.v. or talk with Mark. 

How could we NOT fall in love with her! Look how cute she was at only 12 weeks old!

   Carli has a lot of energy. She often goes on these little "freak outs" where she runs all over the house, jumping on furniture and banging into walls. She has even, on occasion, moved the furniture in our house because of her fast landings and take offs. She also is a stellar jumper. We have some pretty cool pictures of her mid jump at around Mark's chest height! Carli is a very affectionate dog. She loves to cuddle up and sit close to you. She also HATES being ignored. Often she will take a squeaky toy and squeak it right in our faces if we aren't paying attention to her (for example: while we are watching a movie). She will do this until we finally give in and play with her. She definitely knows how to get her way! Carli is finally toilet trained - she took quite a while to figure it out. She was trained to a pee mat almost right away after coming home with us...but the concept of only peeing outside was lost on her. I have to admit, I was getting sick of coming home to a smelly pee mat by my door. This past summer she FINALLY decided that going outside was a good option! Yay! We were so relieved...especially with P on the way! Carli had a hard time when P came into our lives....but it only took her a week or two to get over it and start to adore P. Now, when I feed P Carli jumps up on the couch and snuggles right beside me and when I burped P Carli leans on my other shoulder - its kind of like having two babies sometimes! When P is playing on her playmat Carli will lie just off of the mat and lick P's feet or just stand guard. I really think the two of them will become best of buds as P grows up. It will be nice to have a more "constant" playmate for Carli!

Licking P's feet!

Already becoming best of friends!

   Anyways, the reason I am up at 1AM writing a blog post about my adorable little dog is because this evening she went missing. As Mark was barbecuing sausages for our supper Carli wandered out of the yard. Mark turned his back for just a moment and in that moment Carli disappeared. She has taken off a couple of times since we moved into the country and she always returns within a couple of minutes so we didn't get too worried at first. We waited for about 20 minutes calling her from the back door. When she didn't come running back (even at the promise of treats), I started getting worried. Mark and I took turns driving around the country roads with the headlights on looking into the ditches and along the road. We looked for her until about 11PM at which time Mark said that we might just have to face reality that we wouldn't be finding her tonight. I am so worried about her! She is just a little dog...and really, she doesn't have a lot of the normal "dog instincts" that most dogs would use to find their way home - she's never had to find her way home before tonight! I just hope that one of our very nice neighbors have let her into their house for the night so that she is safe and warm. Tomorrow morning I am going to call the Humane society to see if anyone has brought in a little bichon poodle. I am also going to make up posters to hang in the local general store and restaurant (we live in a small community) and to put in our neighbors' mail boxes. Hopefully someone knows where she is! 

   Its 1AM and I can't sleep...I just keep thinking of her out there! Instead I am keeping myself busy baking cookies and checking out my back window every five minutes in the hope that she is waiting by the back door to be let in. Hopefully she'll be back in her bed before too long. 

Please come home little Carli! 

   Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to write a happy blog about Carli being found and coming home safely. Our family doesn't feel complete without her running around and snuggling us! Also, I know I won't sleep properly until my ENTIRE family is in bed safely - I might be a tired Momma tomorrow! 

    

Christmas Time is Here!

   Christmas Day is in exactly 1 week! I can never believe how fast this last month before Christmas flies by! This year I think it has gone even faster now that I am at home with Peyton. All of a sudden last Friday I realized that we would be opening presents with both Mark's parents and my parents in less than a week and a half...and we hadn't bought anything yet! Both of our families follow similar traditions, instead of buying everyone something, we pick names and just buy the person's who's name we have picked a present. This helps to keep the budget realistic and allows you to put lots of time and thought into the present for your person.

   With Mark's family they decided to throw a little twist by adding the stipulation that the present you buy must start with the first letter of your person's first name (so the person who picked Mark must buy him something that starts with the letter 'm'). This makes it a little tricky, but adds an element of fun to our gift giving night. We lucked out with the names that we picked - we have to buy a 'j' present and a 't' present. The funny thing is...as Mark and I thought about the presents and walked through the mall we couldn't think of a single 't' present! Haha! Probably the easiest name to have picked and the easiest letter to have to use: t-shirt, toque, travel mug, tea...you get the idea. The things we could think of at the time? Turtle, tiara, tights, tarantula, toad, titanium...once again, you get the idea! All in all it was a fun exercise and I hope that our two people like what we finally purchased - and nope...it wasn't a tarantula!   

   With my family we do something a little different. Instead of putting a restraint on what you can buy, we appeal to everyone's creative side (or lack there of). Everyone must write a poem for their person. This poem can be about anything...well, anything, as long as it somehow refers to your person. The poems add a lot of fun to our gift giving evening. They get lots of laughs and help to make the evening not just about the gifts. I have to admit though, poetry writing is not one of mine or Mark's top skills! We are often sitting downstairs at my parents house still trying to put something creative (and rhyming!) onto paper minutes before our evening starts. This year I hope to try to finish our poems before getting to my parent's house...especially since we have never had to try to schedule our poetry writing around an unpredictable child:). My dad and mom are great poem writers - its always so fun to hear theirs!

Decorating P's first Christmas tree!

   On another note, I haven't had much trouble getting into the Christmas mood for our own little family's celebration! We decorated our tree the first weekend of December (the Grinch Mark won't let us decorate or listen to Christmas music before December 1st). At first we decided that we weren't going to go 'all out' for P's first Christmas as she will only be 13ish weeks. Then I started shopping and have had a hard time stopping! Its so fun to buy little toys and imagine her using them as she keeps learning new things. We bought her a couple of "grabbing" toys (toys that are easy for her to grab!) because this past week she has started to grab at things around her. I am still not sure that she fully is aware or understands that she is grabbing...but in the next couple of weeks she will start doing it more fluidly and now we will have "grabbing" toys for her! Also, in the next month (or so) she can start to use her Bumbo chair (her neck's getting stronger!) and play with toys sitting up! I am so excited to actually play with her! Needless to say, as we started thinking of these big milestones coming up...we started shopping and well, we might have gone a little overboard. My favorite purchase(s) so far are the bath toys we bought her. She already loves her bath, but I can't wait for her to actually play during bath time once she is able to sit up!

The glass ball that we bought at Bronner's Christmas Store during our 'babymoon' in Michigan! So special! 

   This evening I left Mark at home with P and tried to escape to finish my last minute shopping. I had attempted to go out on Friday afternoon but the mall was sooooooooo busy and I started to be a little scared for my life! Its hard maneuvering a big stroller through crowded stores without people getting slightly annoyed! I finally realized that it wasn't going to happen on Friday (after driving over the fifth (or more) person). I escaped for an hour and a half tonight but it was slightly overwhelming. I hadn't been sure I would be able to get away and, when Mark finally succeeded in pushing me out the door, I realized I wasn't prepared. I arrived at the mall without a list or a clear idea of what I was looking for or for who I was buying. I  wandered around feeling slightly overwhelmed. I also had forgotten my glasses at home...and well, I don't function well half-blind (don't ask how I got to and from the mall...there was some guessing involved :s). I wandered through the mall bumping into other overwhelmed, confused shoppers just like myself (mostly men to my embarrassment!). Anyways, after wandering around for about an hour I realized that my time would be better spent at home with my upset child (evenings aren't our best time around here). I headed home with a few purchases (not nearly everything I needed). Of course, of those few purchases, three of them were for P that I hadn't counted on or expected to purchase...oops! So, *sigh*, tomorrow I will swallow my fear and head out in the morning with both P and a list and *hopefully* I will be able to finish my Christmas shopping without running over *too many* other shoppers! Happy shopping to me! 

The finished product with the presents for everyone underneath :)! It looks better in real life with the lights on! 

 

   

Okay! Here goes...my first blog post! I am not sure why I am sitting up in bed at 12:30 AM on a Sunday morning starting a blog. I guess its just something that I have been thinking of doing for a while and now seems to be as good a time as any to start. As you can see from my blog name I am a momma. Just an ordinary, normal, everyday mom! I am by no stretch of the imagination a Super Mom...in fact, I wouldn't even say that I am a great mom. I am just new at this momma thing and well, I'm a work in progress - that's for sure. The one thing that I do know about being a momma so far...is that I LOVE it! I have loved every moment that I have had with my little girl since that moment when I saw her for the first time. And, although she is only 11 weeks old, (today! how time flies!) (I know you will all think "duh you are a work in progress, she is ONLY 11 weeks old") I keep thinking that time is going by so fast. She has already grown so much and learned so much...and I have been told that this growth and learning just keeps happening for the next 20 or so years. This scares me. I don't want to miss or a forget a moment of this time in our lives...hence the blog! I hope that this blog will be a sort of 'diary' for me. I hope to share my thoughts on being a momma, the adventures I have as a momma, my successes at being a momma, and the failures I have as a momma (that's a lot of 'momma's!). I also want to be able to look back on this blog and relive some of the memories of my daughter as she grows up! In addition to being a momma, I am the wife of the most amazing man! Once again, I am not a Super Wife or even a great wife. Just a normal, everyday wife. I will also be sharing and documenting my attempts at 'wifehood'. God has blessed me so abundantly by placing these two people in my life and my hope is that in this life I can show my thankfulness to Him by being the best momma and wife possible. Its a crazy life but a wonderful life and this blog is here to help me document and remember it! Stay tuned for some laughs, tears, and the story(s) of an average momma! 

First family picture! So tired but so proud of our little Peyton Joy!