Update 2011 ereader challenge and 100 Books in a year

1. Janet Evanovich's Sizzling Sixteen


2. Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark


3. Charlaine Harris' Living Dead in Dallas


4. Charlaine Harris' Club Dead


5. Charlaine Harris' Dead to the World


6. Charlaine Harris' Dead as a Doornail


7. Charlaine Harris'  Definitely Dead


8. Charlaine Harris' All Together Dead


9. Charlaine Harris' From Dead to Worse


10. Charlaine Harris' Dead and Gone


11. Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday - Paninis

Monday - Philly steak wraps

Tuesday - Tacos

Thursday Applebees club house grill

Friday - Bennigans buffalo chicken sandwich

Desserts - Red Robin Mountain High Mud Pie, Peanut butter blossoms, and chocolate chip sensation

* Craig gets two dinner picks a week

**using recipes from Pampered Chef Casual Cooking, Top Secret Recipes, and Delightful Desserts

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read


• Open to a random page


• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page


• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I tried to imagine staging an ectoplasmic reconstruction in the parking lot of Merlotte's. We'd have to find at least one more witch, I thought, because that was a large area, and I wasn't sure Octavia and Amelia could handle it by themselves.

You Tube Videos I Love - Walk It Out

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read


• Open to a random page


• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page


• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“I have the money, thank you very much.”

That startled him. “You do? Where’d—” He stopped before saying something inexcusable.

pg 300 (of 495 on an ereader ) Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday - Shrimp and linguine

Monday - Steak, baked potato, salad

Wednesday - Big Boy Cream of Broccoli soup, salad

Thursday - taco soup

Saturday - Black Bean Soup

Dessert - grasshopper dessert squares, quick chocolate mint fudge

* Craig gets two dinner picks a week

** Using recipes from Pampered Chef It's Good For You and Top Secret Recipes

Kids Gym 1

Last week Emerson moved up to her new class which means that she is all by herself and mommy gets to sit on the bleachers and that Ethan and Emerson are back on the same day same time for class which is NICE!! It also means that I get to take some pictures of the kids.

Emerson is the little girl in the purple. She refused to wear her leotard I think she wanted pants and a shirt so she cold be like the little girl she is standing directly behind. Emerson is really enamored with that little girl she follows her lead everywhere good or bad.

Here are some pics of Ethan on the bar?? I'm not sure what it is called and I'm not sure what's up with my pictures

Blackened Fish Tacos

I was really excited about this recipe and then as I started pulling out the ingredients I started to get really worried. And by the time I started putting things together I was pretty sure that Ethan and Emerson weren't going to like it and that Craig would eat it only because he was hungry. I was so wrong. Even after screwing up the coleslaw and then sort of redeeming it everyone liked it.

What you need

For slaw

2 tbsps cilantro (recipe called for fresh, I'm not that fancy I got the stuff out of my cabinet)

1 tablespoon lime juice

1/2 teaspoon N'Orleans Cajun Seasoning

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil

1 clove of garlic (but once again I pulled mine out of the cabinet because I suck at pressing garlic)

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups broccoli slaw mix (note the bag at the grocery store holds 5 cups don't believe your husband if he says it looks like it's about 2 cups, anyone want to guess what my mishap was??)

Fish

1 pound tilapia (I made two pounds, I was worried it was too much but the kids went back and ate just fish for seconds and there was hardly anything left at the end of the night)

avocado

8 corn tortillas

Weber N'Orleans Cajun seasoning

Garlic Salt

Ahead of time mix the broccoli slaw together and let stand in fridge

season fish

place in pan that has been heated to medium heat and sprayed with cooking spray

let it cook on one side for 8 to 10 minutes and then flip and cook on the other side until it is done cooking (it won't take as long on the second side)

flake it apart and put inside the warm tortillas with chopped avocados and slaw

You Tube Videos I Love - Birth

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read


• Open to a random page


• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page


• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Bill, you take charge of her," Chow suggested. "If she turns on us, kill her." "That sounds wonderful," Bill said smiling in a fangy way. Charlaine Harris, "Dead to the World" pg 246

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday - smashed potato soup

Tuesday - Tacos

Wednesday - Pizza

Thursday - Teriyaki pork stir fry

Saturday - Applebees quesadilas

Dessert - Strawberry tall cake, Chilis peanut butter cheesecake, chilis chocolate chip paradise pie

* Craig gets two dinner picks a week

**got my recipes from Pampered Chef It's Good For You, Top Secret Restaurant Recipes

Zebra Nipples

Fun to say, quick to make, and yummy to eat - a great blend of crunchy, salty, and sweet.

What you need- cookie sheet, wax paper, pretzels, hugs, and m&ms

About the pretzels, you're supposed to get something called waffle pretzels??? I had never heard of them and didn't see them so I got the normal little ones.

They were obviously a little bigger then the waffle ones so I put 2 Hugs on each pretzel. My cookie sheet held 35 pretzels so it took almost a whole bag of hugs to cover them all.

Preheat oven to 200 and put them in there for 5 - 10 minutes. The directions said 10 minutes but I never left them in that long, I think the longest they were in was like 7 minutes.

Here is a pic of them all ready to go in the oven.



After they get out of the oven plop a m&m down on top of them to sort of flatten them out.

Oh, and you'll want to put down wax paper, trust me.

You Tube Videos I Love - Speeches

These are two Ken Robinson speeches.

Class Dismissed

I'm excited, can't wait to see this.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read


• Open to a random page


• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page


• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Since it seemed I was going of town, there was laundry to be done and stuff in the refrigerator that needed throwing away. I wasn't particularly sleepy after spending so long in bed the preceding day and night, so I got out my suitcase, opened it, and tossed some clothes into the washer out on the freezing back porch. "

pg 49 "Club Dead" by Charlaine Harris

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday - Beef tamale bake

Monday Greek lemon chicken soup

Wednesday - steak, baked potato, salad

Thursday - blackened fish tacos

Friday - brinner (breakfast for dinner)

Dessert - creamy cappuccino cheesecake, banana cream brownie squares, bennigans cookie mountain sunday, chichis mexican fried ice cream, strawberry tall cake

* Craig gets two dinner picks a week

**recipes are from Pampered Chef It's Good for you, Pampered Chef Casual Cooking, Top Secret Recipes

Egg Geodes Take 2

Ethan had been asking to make some more egg geodes for awhile. The eggs were ready to go and sitting on the counter for at least a month and in true procrastinator fashion I didn't find time to do them until Christmas Eve Eve when I was supposed to be baking and cleaning.  I'm not sure what happened maybe it was the fact that the eggs while cleaned had been sitting around for at least a month or if it is because this time I set the eggs in wax paper but it was almost a complete flop. Bummer, so that means that there will be an egg geodes take 3. After that I don't think we'll do it again... ever... because it's a pain in the butt to clean the eggs out.

Christmas

Christmas was a little different for us this year, my cousin was playing in a soccer tournament and her family had to leave town on Christmas day. So this year instead of gathering at my grandmother's house for Christmas dinner we got together for dinner on Christmas Eve. I really enjoyed getting together on Christmas Eve it was nice to not be beaten down by the long day that Christmas always turns out to be. It was a little rough trying to get the kids to go to sleep. Emerson fell asleep easily enough but was still up until almost 11, Ethan was much harder to get to sleep and I think he gave in somewhere around 1 or 2.

The next morning all of the adults were up before the kids. I was up by 7 and was able to make breakfast and get everything ready for my parents and brother's arrival at 9:30. Minutes before they got to the house Emerson woke up and happily pronounced "It's my birthday" Poor thing she is very excited about her upcoming birthday, lol. Around 10ish I finally decided Ethan had slept enough we had eaten breakfast and were ready to get the show on the road. Santa brought Emerson a Tinkerbell guitar and a microphone on a stand and Ethan got a black DSi just like he had been wanting for the last 2 years.

In the evening when headed to my parent's house where we entered into a very serious minute to win it competition. The winners got a lotto ticket. It was fun but we had to cut the evening short to get Ethan and Emerson home.

Sunday morning was very interesting and is a whole nother blog entry. In the afternoon we headed to Cheryl and Keith's house to exchange presents amongst our family.

It was the best Christmas we have had so far. The kids were both excited and into it, they have played with and loved every toy.

All of the Christmas decorations are now packed back up and ready to be set back in the corner of the garage. The presents have been moved to the kids rooms and some have been put up but most are still strewn about the rooms being played with and well loved.

To see pictures click here

Snicker Cupcakes with Chocolate Mousse Filling

I got the recipe for this cupcake from Kevin and Amanda. It was delicious. We had it for our family Christmas dinner out at Cheryl's house. For some reason, the cupcakes all fell in the middle but I fixed it by adding extra mousse to them to puff them back up. Also, when making the icing I had to add milk, not sure how much but prior to adding the milk it was a chocolate rock. If you click on the link you can make these cupcakes too!!

100 Books In a Year

I just posted about the ereader challenge but I also decided to join in this challenge. I'll post what books I have read but I'm not sure if I'll do reviews or not. We'll see it's not really my thing.

2011 E Book Challenge

I never thought I'd be much of an e book reader but then I had kids and discovered that kids steal bookmarks, like to pretend to read books themselves, spill things, rip things, and on and on. All of a sudden I understood the appeal of the ereader. I don't actually own an ereader but I have an Ipod touch with the kindle app, barnes and noble app, ibook, and stanza installed on it.

I've already finished two books.

1. Janet Evanovich's Sizzling Sixteen


2. Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark

You Tube Videos I Love - Post It Notes

Rearranged Emerson's room

Last week, we I worked hard to rearrange Emerson's room and got some of her baby toys moved out.

I did all of that so that

she could lay in her bed in her room for about 2 hours before deciding she wasn't quite ready to be done cosleeping. Which is fine with me. We have moved her whole bed in there now and she has asked to sleep in there a couple of times but I have found that that means that she wants to lay there for about 10 minutes and get up and then around midnight when I'm dying to go to bed she decides to go lay down with us. I suspect she'll move out for good at some point during her 3rd year just like her brother did. I'm not sure what I'll do with all that extra room in our bed.

Project 365 Day 2

Countdown to Emerson's Birthday

Emerson is super excited about her upcoming birthday. She started asking about her birthday before Christmas and on Christmas when she saw her presents she yelled "It's my birthday". I started a paper chain for her, this picture is from the 28th. I on the other hand can't believe she is days away from being 3!! She is definitely acting 3 though, ugh!

Project 365 Day 1

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday - Cheese burger hoagie sandwich

Monday - Parmesan chicken and pasta

Tuesday - Tacos

Thursday - Grilled Steak adn potatoes salad

Friday - California Wraps

Dessert - Fudgy glazed brownies and creamy cappuccino cheesecake

* Craig gets two dinner picks a week

** all recipes are from Pampered Chef It's Good For You