Today I ...

-Did not get out of bed until 7:30am!

-Had Raisin Bran and coffee for breakfast.

-Wore a new shirt.

-Got my haircut by a friend I used to work with (and checked out a new salon that I might be working at)

-Went to Maly's and stocked up on my hair color and supplies needed for work.

-Discovered a new shampoo that I LOVE. (Logics Color Nourishing Shampoo)

-Organized all of my hair color and work supplies that have been sitting in my garage for almost 3 months. (When I went off work I was too tired and pregnant to care how neatly it was put away so it was a mess. I am happy to say it is nice and organized now.)

-Was very excited to sign for a package at the door. It was our laptop returning to us after it crapped out and had to be sent to HP to get fixed. It's like new again. Minus my pictures of course.

-Was excited to see our friend Joe working on our patio cover. He is rebuilding it for us so it is bigger and better, and he is installing an outdoor light/celing fan under it. Can't wait to see the finished product.

-Went for an afternoon walk with my husband and adorable little girls around our nice neighborhood.

-Finally got a collage of picture frames hung on the wall in Claire's bedroom (with Jake's help).

-Made quesadillas and a green salad for dinner.

-Showered, shaved, AND washed and straightened my hair.

-Did my postnatal yoga dvd after the babes were asleep and Jake left for his softball game.

It was a good day. Hope yours was too.

Pasta Recipe

For those of you interested, here is the recipe for that pasta I made last weekend.

Angel Hair Pasta with Roasted Red Peppers, Feta Cheese, and Herb Dressing

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (basil, oregano, thyme)

2 T. lemon juice

2 T. water

salt and pepper to taste

(1) 16 oz. package angel hair pasta

1 jar (12 oz.) roasted red peppers (Mancini) chopped

1/4 red onion thinly sliced and soaked in cold water (If you don't know this trick already, soaking the red onion in ice water takes the bite off so it is not so strong)

4 oz. crumbled feta cheese (athenos- I use the tomato- basil flavored feta)

1 can sliced olives

1. For dressing, place oil, herbs, lemon juice, water, salt, and black pepper in a bowl. Whisk until blended.

2. Cook pasta and drain. Add dressing to warm pasta and toss to combine. Add remaining ingredients. Toss gently. Serve at room temperature. Leftovers are excellent cold.

Bon Apetit!

Claire's Dr. Visit

If that picture doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will!

This morning Jake and I took Claire to her 2 month check up. (9 days late) She weighed 12.3 oz and was 23 inches long. She had two shots and had to drink something for another vaccine. It always makes me feel so bad when my babies get shots. I gave her some tylenol before and a little this afternoon. She's been okay, just slept much more than usual. Which you would think I would appreciate, but I feel bad for her because I know that is not her normal self.

At two months Claire is becoming a little person. She continues to be our mellow baby in comparison with Hannah. For the most part she rarely cries. Lately she seems to really not like her car seat though, so she does cry in the car. Just the last couple of days she seems to have found her hands and she has started to suck on them a little bit. When she coos I think it is just adorable. She has one sound that she makes a lot and it kinda sounds like an Indian saying "HOW". She might turn out to be just as loquacious as her sister. She also seems to be falling into a bit of a routine with her nap schedule during the day. Now we just need to get her sleeping through the night. We're almost there. I can feel more sleep just around the corner.

Weekend Update

I have a few weekend pictures to share, but not too many, so I am combining them all into one post. Jake was off this weekend, so that usually means it was a good weekend. Friday night I got a little "me" time. When Jake got home from work I got a hazelnut latte from It's A Grind, and then strolled around in Blockbuster for a while. I rented My Best Friend's Girl, which we watched that night. Then I did my grocery shopping, taking my time on the magazine aisle, sans kids.

Friday night for dinner I made this angel hair pasta with roasted red peppers, fresh basil, oregano, and thyme, topped with feta cheese. It is a recipe from one of my cookbooks by Sandra Lee. It is super easy and really good served warm or cold. It also goes very good with red wine. If anybody wants me to post the recipe, just say so. Friday night we also had both girls in their beds before 8pm. Heaven.

Saturday morning I made two trays of lasagna and I brought one of them over to Kelly & Jason that afternoon. It was fun to get to see the twins at home with their big brother Derek.

James

Jillian

Both babies must have been on their best behavior when I came over because neither one made a single peep the whole time.

Derek and his Daddy were playing robots. Jason said it was a "rainy day schedule". Very creative, you definitely have to be when you are entertaining a toddler on a rainy day inside.

Saturday afternoon after Hannah's nap we made a pizza. She loves getting to help me "cook" in the kitchen. She also loves to eat if her meal is something that she helped make.

She was telling me that I can lick my spatula if I want to, like we do when we make brownies. I don't particularly like licking the tomato sauce as well as the brownie mix but Hannah didn't seem to mind it.

Saturday night my Mom came over to sit at our house for us so Jake & I could go see a movie. We were so excited since it feels like it's been a while since we got out together alone. We went to see Revolutionary Road. What we saw of it was good, but about 40 minutes into it my stomach started to not feel quite right. We wound up leaving and were able to get our money back. Of course that happens on our night out alone. I was fine, just had some tummy issues.

On Sunday we ran a few errands just to get out of the house for a bit. It was one of those mornings where it seems to take hours to get everyone ready. We started to get ready after breakfast around 9am, and weren't all loaded up in the car until 11:30am. One of the things we needed to do was return the movie to Blockbuster and half way there, Jake realized we didn't have it. So we turned around to get it, all the while Claire is screaming bloody murder in her car seat, Hannah is yelling at her "OK, OK, Care STOP!" By the time we got the movie, got back in the car and on the road, Claire was still crying, and Hannah is yelling "EAT, EAT, EAT". It's now noon, and Jake and I just laughed because now we needed to feed her and probably feed Claire too, and we still hadn't left the house. Just one of those days...

After our errands we put the kids down for naps, and picked up the house a bit. My cousin Donavon and his fiance Kaylen came over for dinner Sunday night. We had a fun visit with them. When they first arrived, Jake and I were attending Hannah's tea party with all of her friends. Don & Kaylen joined us for tea too.

Once we finally got the kids to bed last night (Hannah went down fine, but Claire was wide eyed until 9pm for some reason), the adults enjoyed a very competitive game of Boggle. Guess who won? That's right, I did. I whooped them all. It was a fun evening. Thanks for driving all the way out to us Don and Kaylen!

Great Grandma & Great Great Grandma

Thursday morning Hannah, Claire, and I went over to my Mom's house to visit with my Grandma and Nana. Grandma is my Mom's mom, and Nana is my Great Grandma and my Mom's Grandma. So for Hannah and Claire, it is their Great Grandma, and Great Great Grandma. Did you get all that? 5 generations of women can get a little confusing I suppose. It is so neat to me that so many of my childhood memories are with my Grandma and Nana, and now my kids are getting to know them too. That certainly doesn't happen in every family.

Hannah brushing her teeth and getting ready to go. (Helen Hannah is wearing the pants from you and with the gym bucks you gave me I got her another shirt to match them too. They looked so cute on her. Fit perfectly with room to grow.)

Buzz Lightyear can come too right Mom?

(It was raining Thursday a little bit, so of course Hannah had to wear her rain boots, not her tennis shoes.)

Cutie pie Claire, all ready to go in her new outfit.

Nana just loves to hold and rock the babies. She was getting all kinds of smiles and coos out of Claire.

Hannah and her "Gate Gamma" as she says it.

Look at Nana! 94 years old and she is on the floor playing with Claire. I tell ya there seems to be nothing that my Nana can't do.

Hannah showing Gate Gamma all of the army guys in the play room at my Mom's house.

Time to take a sippy and fruit snacks break.

Thank You for your visit Grandma and Nana! It sure was good to see you.

Love My Le CrEuset

Dear Mommy,

Just wanted to post this picture for you. I have used my new Le Creuset piece more than once now, but have forgotten to tell you about it. Last night I grilled some chicken that I had marinated on it and it worked great. I think I love anything that Le Creuset makes. I love this grill pan. Thanks Mommy.

Disneyland

Today is Wednesday! I love Wednesdays because Jake is home from work. Although very soon, (starting February 11) I will be at work on Wednesdays. We decided to use our Disney passes today and get some use out of them before they expire next month. Jake's Mom is visiting in 2 weeks and we are going to go again with her too. I don't know that we will renew them this year. My parents gave them to us as a Christmas gift last year and it was so great. This year with Claire being an infant, I would rather spend the money to renew them later when Claire is old enough to enjoy it too. It's been a while since we took Hannah so I wasn't sure if she'd remember. She fell asleep in the car on the way there and once we were parked inside the parking structure she woke up and starting clapping and said "yeah!" So I guess she remembers.


It was very cloudy with a chance of some rain today but we decided to take a chance by going. We never stay too long anyway, and we actually got lucky. It only began to rain really big drops for about 2 minutes while we were in line for Dumbo and then it stopped.


We almost didn't go today because Hannah was very out of sorts this morning. She woke up early and was cranky, and just not acting herself. I hope she isn't getting sick. This is always how it starts out when she has gotten sick. I just bought Hannah the t-shirt she is wearing. It says "I still live with my parents (for now").

Claire bear, in her seat and ready to go. This was her first trip to Disneyland and she's only 9 weeks old. It's funny how your 2nd kids have all of these kind of firsts much sooner than your older ones.

Hannah and Daddy making their way to the carousel line.

It was so hard to get a clear picture of them. That thing was moving fast.

Hannah & I in line to ride the flying Dumbo.

Last time we did this ride she did not like to go up and down. This time Hannah did the controls and we were all over the place. She loved it.

I purposely dressed Hannah in bright colors today so she would be easy to spot. She doesn't want to be in the stroller all the time anymore, and she doesn't want to hold your hand either. That girl thinks she is so grown up.

I can not ride the tea cups because they will make me sick. So Dayee and Hannie did this ride.

Daddy looks like he might be sick in this picture.

Since Hannah's favorite movie is Toy Story, we bought her a Buzz Lightyear toy today.

I think she liked it.

We stopped for a lunch break in the Princess land. We made pb & j's and Claire got good old formula.

Claire is really starting to notice her surroundings more and more.

She seemed to like Disneyland.



Bath time, to clean all the Disney germs away.

All clean!

Random Pictures From This Week

After what happened to our computer last week, I have learned my lesson about backing up. Not only will I be sure to back up every couple weeks, I am also going to start putting all of my pictures on cd's, and dowloading them onto snapfish, and blogging as many as I can! Because you really just never know. So be prepared readers, you may get bored of all the pictures of my kids I am going to be putting on my blog in the future. I guess that is the majority of what I blog about anyway.

Since my devastating picture loss, I have been snapping away and taking pictures like a crazy woman. I haven't even been taking them of anything especially exciting, just taking them so I will have them. I guess that is what you start to do when you've lost hundreds of them.

Hannah helping me get Claire up after her nap.

Stretching

I missed the smile in this shot, but thought it was still a cute picture.

Relaxing on the couch with a sippy and a snack. (It takes forever to upload pictures onto the blog with our old desktop computer. I am getting impatient so I thought if I made the images smaller it might be faster. It wasn't. For those non bloggers who don't know, if you click on the smaller images you can see them full size.)

Noah stopped by for a quick visit when Gamma came to drop off Hannah's new curtains.

I find Hannah lying down on this mat sometimes when Claire is not even on it.

Day dreaming in her swing.

Precious as can be in her sleep.

Tummy time.

It's funny how when I ask Hannah to give Claire a kiss or show her something she yells "NO", but when I am busy doing other things I will catch her giving Claire hugs and showing Claire her toys.

A pharmacist that Jake works with gave this blanket to us for Claire. It is so big and so super soft. I almost want to curl up on the couch with it.

Instead, I just joined Claire on it.

Love the little cutie on her bum. Jake's Mom bought this outfit for Hannah when she was a baby.

More chillin on the couch. I think Toy Story 2 was on. What else?

Ta da. The finished curtains that my Mom made for Hannah's room. I just love the way they pop against the light wall and Hannah's light colored furniture. Thanks so much Mom! I wish I knew how to make things like that. Maybe one day I will learn and I can make them for my grandkids too.