I Actually CAN Cook

I did a post a while back containing some self deprecating humor regarding my cooking skills. I have made a few things that were gross, but for the most part my cooking isn't bad. It's gotten even better lately with the help of Pioneer Woman. She has an amazing blog and even more amazing recipes. I've been trying some of them lately and so far we haven't had one we didn't like.

This was Brian's personal favorite.
Smashed potatoes with grilled steak and sauted mushrooms.

This one was good, but very labor intensive. It took forever, but it was super good.
Chicken parmigiana.

This isn't Pioneer Woman's recipe, but it's good and easy....yummy taco salad.

My latest creation: Greek salad.
Heaven!

Happy Happy Easter

For some reason blogger will only print in BOLD today, so try to ignore it.

I will just start by saying this was the best Easter ever! We had so much fun and the weather wasn't too bad. We started off the morning with a visit from the Easter bunny who even surprised us and left something for me. Brian was off golfing so it was just Austen and I.

Discovering his goodies.

After Austen had his fill of candy (his breakfast seriously was candy) we got ready for church. I packed him some books and healthy snacks to try and keep him quiet and entertained, but with a Great Grandma, Grandma, Aunt, and two cousins there it wasn't very hard.

The customary Easter clothes picture.

He kept making weird faces to be funny.

I finally got a cute serious one. Even though his lips are missing!

After church we headed over to my sister's for an Easter egg hunt and dinner. We had so much fun with the egg hunt and dinner was amazing as usual. I think I gained 5 pounds just from the dinner, I won't even get started on all the candy!

He was super excited about finding eggs. They kept falling out of his basket while he was running, so he just kept collecting the same eggs over and over.

Showing dad his loot.

Little Shrimp

Austen has discovered a new love......shrimp!
He seriously loves it.
Grilled shrimp, shrimp scampi, shrimp cocktail.....
I don't want to get too Forest Gump, so I'll stop there.
Plus those are really the only shrimp things he's tried.
He asks me for shrimp pretty much every day.
His taste buds are so not normal.
He will choose cucumbers over chips 9 times out of 10. He loves artichokes and I just discovered yesterday he also likes beets.
I'm glad he's liking healthy stuff to counter all the sugar his dad feeds him.

Here he is pretending his shrimp is a seahorse.

Sunday Movie Night

We've been having Sunday movie night and we all love it! We let Austen pick whatever movie he wants from Blockbuster and then we all snuggle up and watch it. It is the perfect end to our weekends! Last time we went to get a movie we also got a bucket of popcorn that Austen was super excited to eat. He took the whole thing and got comfy.

Then he thought he could eat it more effectively with a spoon.

I don't know where he gets these creative ideas from, but I love them!
For yesterdays lunch I gave him a cucumber with ranch and hot dog that I sliced up and let him eat with a toothpick. He called me over and said "Look Mom, fingernail paint". I was a little scared to see what he'd done, but I could not stop laughing when I saw that he had used the toothpick to paint his fingernails with ranch. Funny, funny kid!

Our Boring Randomness and Some Cute Pictures

Austen is in the midst of a 3 hour (so far) nap and I'm not even considering waking him. I made that mistake yesterday after a 2 and a half hour nap and he was grumpy pants all evening. I figure he must need the sleep, so I'll let him. Hopefully I don't regret this decision at 11:00 tonight when he refuses to go to bed. :)

He went to the pool today and had the time of his life again. He seriously loves to swim! He has no fear and pushes me away when I try to hold him in the water. This boy needs swimming lessons ASAP!

The lawn mowers came this week and Austen was mesmerized! He sat and watched them out the window while they weeded and mowed. Then of course he wanted a beanie, gloves, and headphones to go with his lawnmower. Don't most kids hate chores??? He WISHES he had them!

Here he is vacuuming.

And about to go out and mow the lawn.

Helping dad fix the sprinklers.

He is totally a little man and the cutest thing ever!
(I may be slightly biased.)

Meet Shelley

Brian and Austen found a new little friend while cleaning weeds out of the window well last week and Austen is totally obsessed. It is a huge snail that Brian so creatively named Shelley. Austen wants to go check on her all the time rain or shine, day or night. He even throws leaves and grass down there for her to eat and he'll pour water down there for her to drink. Brian thought we should put it in a little cage and keep it, but I googled snails and put the kabosh on that idea......holy parasites!!! So for now she lives in our window well.

Austen wanted me to take a picture of him looking at her.
He is sooooo his daddy!

Blog Fail

We took our first zoo trip of the year on Sat. I am lame and forgot the camera. It is more sad than you know because Austen was in heaven and some funny things happened that would have been nice to have pictures of. Oh well, there's always next time I guess.

We had a ton of fun even though half of the zoo is closed while they build a new exhibit. We still got to see a lot of animals and Austen is still talking about it. He loved the giraffe (and the giraffe poop), the rhino, and he was all about the gorilla. They had rolls of receipt paper in the gorilla enclosure and he was eating it. Austen thought the paper eating gorilla was about the funniest thing ever! I did too until it decided to charge at me and throw his roll of paper at the glass.

It was a perfect day at the zoo, but since I don't have pics, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Jungle Jim's Again

We went to Jungle Jim's again even though it's pretty ghetto. Austen loves it and has been begging to go back since his birthday, so we braved the disgusting dirtiness for a few hours of enjoyment for the little one. I practically gave him a purell bath the second we left!

Driving his own jeep. He was especially excited about this because his favorite book is currently "Sheep in a Jeep".

Riding his motorcycle racer style.

Daddy and Austen "smiling".
You're probably sick of the crazy smile, but it never gets old for me.

In other my child is so smart news.....Austen just sat down with his pretzel snack mix and started listing the different shapes. Line, circle, square, and I have no idea where he learned shapes from. I haven't read him any shape books recently and he hasn't been watching t.v. lately either. I'm beginning to think he secretly gets up at night and watches nick jr. or something.

Eater Preview

Brian's Grandma passed away last week, so Austen had to get all dressed up for the funeral. I put him in his new Easter clothes since he doesn't have anything else nice that actually fits. Sad reason to have to dress up, but I had to share a picture because he just looked so darn cute! (Notice his two passas??? He can never have just one and he was a little sad since I had just woken him up from his nap.)

Swimming In The Snow

It snowed again on Saturday, but we went swimming anyway. It's an indoor pool, but it still sucks to walk out to your car when you're all wet and it's snowing. Spring NEEDS to get here quick!

Austen always has fun when I take him to the pool, but this time he had 4 cousins with him and he had a blast. I think it was the most fun he's ever had at the pool. He didn't even want me to hold on to him, he was just off doing his own thing. He loves to get on his tummy in the shallow end and pull himself around with his hands. He calls it floating. He also loves to get neck deep and jump up and down while he hold onto the wall. I finally had to take him home after a couple of hours to feed him and give him a nap and he was NOT happy about leaving. He would have stayed there all day.

Austen's version of floating.

Austen-isms

Austen has developed some catch phrases and I'm sure they are only funny to me, but I need to document them so I never forget.

He loves to say "it's no big deal" and "that's o.k.".
He says "who's that" all the time when we're out...it can be a little embarrassing.
He loves to pretend his food is saying "oh no, don't eat me" and then gobble it up.
He has combined some words to make new ones like "milkstache" or "hanitizer".
My absolute favorite is
"Hey don't ________" He fills in the blank with "take out my passa" or "put that away".
It's all very funny especially when you get to hear it in person!

My cute boys "smiling" while playing play dough.

Four Blog Posts In One

I think I could make four different posts out of this, but I've decided to condense and mash four totally unrelated things into one post.

First I just want to say I am so amazed with Austen's transition to a big boy bed. I have been dreading it and putting it off for a while because I thought it was going to be hell. I had no idea how I was going to keep him in there because he's the kind of kid that would get out a million times and not be discouraged by discipline. I'm happy to say that he doesn't get out and he slept through the night last night for the first time in four days! He has finally gotten used to the new surroundings and doesn't wake up sad and confused in the night. He also gets really excited to go to bed and actually asks for bedtime! If I knew it was going to be this uneventful, I would have done it sooner!

Here's his bed. He wanted all his treasures on there for the picture.

Austen's always been very interested in what I'm cooking on the stove and lately he has been getting a little too close for comfort. I keep telling him it's hot and not to touch it, but I figured it was just a matter of time before his curiosity won out. Well, it happened. He touched the burner the other day. Both Brian and I were standing right there, but couldn't stop him in time. Luckily he touched it pretty soon after I had turned it on, so it wasn't at it's hottest yet. It still burned him though, but it could have been a lot worse. I hope he learned his lesson and doesn't try that again. Here's his battle wound.
Remember my post about bi-polar weather. We went to go fly kites in 74 degrees and woke up the next morning to this:

That is for sure crazy weather.
But to make myself feel better I look at the following picture:

And I remember the world's best cupcake. Brian took me to The Sweet Tooth Fairy on our date night last week and convinced me to try a cupcake. I'm not kidding best cupcake ever!!! I usually get their cake bites because they are amazing, but the cupcakes are even better. If you go, you should get the Va-NIE-lla. Soooo good!

Favorite Foods And A Big Boy Bed

Austen has been eating like crazy lately! He has also been growing....none of his clothes fit him anymore, but I don't want to buy new winter clothes, so he's been wearing floods while I hold out for warmer weather.

He loves fruit! It is by far his favorite food and has been for a long time. He eats pears like candy, loves bananas with peanut butter, gets excited over cantaloupe, and I thought he was going to die when I couldn't find grapes anywhere for a whole week. He's also been loving asparagus and red peppers lately. (see he does get something from me.) He loves ketchup and salsa on everything......even weird things like pineapple and strawberries.

We took a late night trip to the store the other night to get an ice cream fix and we let Austen pick out what he wanted. He went with the little ice cream dot things and he devoured them! Look how wide he can open that mouth!

Dipping a strawberry in salsa

And currently the ultimate meal for him
Costco hot dog and a root beer.

And since he's getting so big from all that eating we decided to make his crib into a big boy bed. It's a very long story, but to summarize we bought a crib that is supposed to convert into a big boy bed. We bought the conversion kit at the same time we bought his crib, but they were never able to actually get it from the manufacturer and I can't find it anywhere on the internet. So, we had a little (read big) problem trying to make a toddler bed. I wanted to throw in the towel and just wait until we can buy an actual toddler bed, but luckily I live with the world's second best problem solver and he made it work. Last night was Austen's first night sleeping in his bed and while he was super excited before he went to sleep, he didn't really sleep that great. He is definitely a creature of habit and not a fan of change, but I'm sure he'll adjust eventually. In the meantime at least he's really proud of the big boy bed even if he doesn't want to sleep through the night in it.

Bi-Polar Weather

Since it snowed about 12 feet today I thought I'd try to keep myself from getting too depressed by looking at pictures from last week.....when it was starting to warm up.

Here's our latest trip to the farm.

Austen's cute cousin J got to milk a cow.

Austen steering a tractor.

Eating the duck bread that you have to sign a waiver saying it won't be used for human consumption before you can buy it.
I'm sure it's fine.....right?

Let's Go Fly A Kite

Another "real time blog post".
See, sometimes I am so on top of this blogging thing. We were flying a kite just minutes ago and now you already get to see pictures.

Today was seriously perfect kite flying weather..... warm and windy. Austen got a super cute Buzz Lightyear kite for his birthday, so we took him out for a spin. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of flying kites so I was really excited to go. Brian claims he has never flown a kite, but he was a natural and I'm expecting him to take up stunt kite flying any day now.

Austen thought it was neat for a minute, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Pine cones on the other hand held his interest forever.

Sophie hated the kite and wanted to kill it. She kept trying to attack it when it would crash and barked at it while it was fluttering high above her in the safe zone. She has mental problems, but we love her anyway.

Get comfy cause I posted tons of pictures. There were too many cute ones to choose from so I posted them all.

You can kinda see that he's pointing at Buzz.

Look how high he got!

Here's Austen imitating Buzz's crash landing. Notice crumpled Buzz in the back.

Doing it "all by self".

Sophie attacking...

Cute Daddy moment.

Boys are weird. I have no idea what Austen's doing (besides being a spaz), but this pic made me laugh.

This one is so cute I think I need to get it framed!