18 Months!!!

I can't believe my sweet little boy is 18 months old!  Actually, he's been 18 months for about a week now, but I'm slow to be able to get on the computer these days, ha!  He had his 18 month check up yesterday, and here are the stats:

Height:  32.5 inches - 55th percentile
Weight:  21 lbs 10 oz - 5-10th percentile
Head:  18 inches - 75th percentile

We've been worried that he is not talking enough yet, but the doctor said he is doing just fine and obviously understands a lot.  For example, when she asked him if she could look at his ears, he pointed to his ears and when she asked him to stick out his tongue he did!  Haha, so proud!!  So far his words are no, hello, cheese, shoes, car, go, this, Dada, and VERY rarely Mama. 

He LOVES Elmo, reading books ('Where the Wild Things Are' and 'Corduroy' are favorites), playing outside, and pretending to cook.  His favorite foods are rice, pizza, apples, cinnamon bread, and mexican food!  He still nurses once a day at bed time. 

He was a great sleeper for several months, but lately has been really difficult.  We are hoping that this is just a passing phase!

He has a little book about pumpkins that I bought his last year at Halloween and so he knows about pumpkins and points to them everywhere we go.  It is the sweetest thing!  We took him to a pumpkin patch this last weekend and he loved it so much.  He picked out a little pumpkin to take home and he loves to carry it around and show it off.

Here are a few more pictures of our fall so far:

What I'm Making... For Breakfast!

I like to start the Peanut off each day with a hot breakfast.  I'm not a huge breakfast person and I guess he takes after me, but I have a few delicious breakfast tricks up my sleeve to entice him to eat a little something!  One of his absolute favorite
breakfasts is pancakes.  It may sound like a lot of work for a weekday morning, but the great thing about pancakes is that I can make a batch and he'll eat a couple and then I'll freeze the rest.  Then on another morning I can pop a couple in the microwave for about 30 seconds and they are hot and ready to go!  I do the same thing with muffins too.


I usually keep it simple with plain pancakes topped with butter, but today I made a fun variation:  Nutella Swirl Pancakes!

Nutella Swirl Pancakes
*Makes 10 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup bisquick (I use the gluten free version of course!)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• nutella
• butter

Directions:  Mix the bisquick, milk, egg, oil, and vanilla in a bowl until just blended.  Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat.  For this next step you can use a few different techniques.  One is to use a pastry bag.  Another is to use a ziplock bag and cut off a corner.  The last one is to simply plop on the nutella with a spoon!  I usually do the ziplock bag.  Melt a tablespoon of butter in the skillet and drop batter in to the pan using about 1/4 cup for each pancake.  If you have the nutella in a pastry bag or ziplock, simply pipe thin vertical lines down each pancake.  Then use a tooth pick to swirl the nutella in a marbled pattern.  If you prefer the spoon method your nutella will just be dropped on and will be more concentrated in clumps.  Cook pancakes until sides are dry and then flip.  Cook until golden and devour!! 

A few things...

I just have to share a few things new to my life that I absolutely cannot live without right now!  First up, my amazing new ipad... a graduation gift from my sweetie!

The ipad is seriously a mommy's best friend!  I do everything with this little beauty.  Before I got one, I really didn't understand what made it so much better than a laptop.  Well, let me tell you that it truly is!  Just a few of the things I use it for:  making shopping lists and carrying in my purse to the grocery store, playing Elmo videos in the car (yes, this may be its most important use!!!), to-do lists, surfing the web, and looking at recipes while cooking (I have a really cool mount that holds it in the kitchen).  Peanut and I are headed to Steamboat Springs this weekend and I don't know if I would be up to the trip without the ipad.  Hopefully Elmo (and an endless supply of snacks) will keep him happy on the plane.


Next, my sister recently turned me on to a new frozen dessert called Arctic Zero.  Now its not exactly icecream, but the entire pint has only 150 calories!!!  Feel free to judge, but I cannot tell you how many times I have eaten an entire pint of icecream before.  This stuff does not fool you into thinking you are eating Hagen Dazs or Blue Bell, but like I said before "150 calories!!"  It comes in several flavors including pumpkin for fall... can't wait to try that one.

So how about y'all?  Any new fabulous finds out there??

What I'm Making... For Lunch Everyday!

I eat the same thing for lunch pretty much every single day.  The recipe changes slightly here and there based on what I have on hand, but its basically a greek salad.  It's hardly even a recipe really, but I thought I'd share because I used to have such a hard time coming up with something yummy, healthy, and easy to throw together for lunch everyday. 


So each week I buy a cucumber, a bell pepper, hearts of romaine (or other greens if I'm in the mood), grape or cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and a pack of chicken breasts.  Sometimes if I have any on hand, I'll use some pepperoncini or garbanzo beans as well.  I cook all of the chicken breasts after marinating them in italian dressing overnight.  It is so wonderful to have this chicken in the fridge ready to throw on the salad at lunch time or to give Peanut for a quick snack.  I also wash and chop all of the veggies so they are ready to go.  Then at lunch time I combine everything and dress with one tablespoon of Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar dressing mixed with a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar.  I LOVE a lot of dressing on my salad so this is a good way to get that without a lot of extra calories!

What do y'all eat for lunch during the week??

So long Bar and hello Summer!!

The Bar Exam is over!!!!!!!!!  It was really hard and I seriously have no idea if I passed, but I am just so thrilled to be done studying. 

Now that the Bar is over, I'm really excited to share some news with y'all.  Some of you know that I've been struggling with how I would handle working and spending so much time away from the Peanut.  He is just so precious to me and I love how close we are.  I guess I'm just a testament to the fact that you really can't predict how you will feel as a mother until you actually have kids.  That's why we've decided that at least for now, I'll be staying home with the Peanut.  The past few weeks have been terrible.  Even though I know he has been in amazing hands with my mother in law, leaving each day to tears, and coming home to only see him for an hour or maybe two each day has really made me feel that my decision is absolutely the best thing for us. 

Today we kicked off our time together with a trip to the Houston Children's Museum and he absolutely LOVED it!  He just could not get enough of the activities or the other kids.  He was so worn out I feel that this is going to be a good nap day too, haha! 

Anyway, I'm excited to be back to blogging and hope to share a fun little sewing project with y'all sometime this weekend!

What I'm Making... for the Fourth of July

Happy weekend y'all!  I'm so happy to be enjoying my last low key weekend before the Bar Exam, which is less than a month away.  We are going to to two gatherings for the Fourth, one Sunday and one Monday, so I've decided to make a dessert that will be easy to bring to both.  Many of you know that I'm obsessed with everything that Our Best Bites makes, but these little cuties were just too much to resist!

{image via Our Best Bites}

I'm going to put my own little spin on them of course, by making the blueberry and cherry and then making buttermilk pies as well.  And I'll be making all of the components as opposed to using refrigerated pie crust, canned filling, etc.  But, if you need a last minute dessert idea, I think they will turn out adorable and delicious either way!

Then, I'll also be making an appetizer that is so easy it barely needs a recipe.  This easy peasy corn dip is so delicious and seriously addictive. 


Spicy Creamy Corn Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 8 oz container of sour cream
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 cans mexican corn
• 4 scallions
• 1 can diced green chiles
• 1 and 1/4 cups shredded mexican style mixed or cheddar cheese
• 3 jalapenos

Directions:  Roughly chop scallions.  Seed and dice the 3 jalapenos.  Then combine and mix all ingredients in a large bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours to allow flavors to combine (this last step isn't absolutely necessary but I prefer to).  Serve with tortilla chips... I like the little scoops ones!


I hope y'all all have a wonderful holiday weekend and I'd love to hear what recipes you made.

Sharing the Blog Love

I thought I'd take a minute to share a few new blogs I've been reading that I absolutely love!  Most of these are other moms because I just love to read how other moms are handling all the craziness and see what's coming up for me in the next couple of years.

First up is the fabulous Kelly at Kelly's Korner.  She is an amazingly patient and adorable mom of two precious girls.  She also periodically gets tons of bloggers on board with these SUYL (Show Us Your Life) posts and they are so much fun!

Next is Allyson of Heathcott Party of Six.  She is the mom of four boys under four... three of whom are triplets!  I've never been sure if I could handle four kids, but she makes it look so easy!

Last but not least is Christa of One Cheap Mama.  Christa is a corporate mommy turned stay at home mommy.  I love her blog because she is hilarious and has so many practical ideas on how mom's can save money.  Of course they could apply to other people too!

So, do y'all have any fun new blog finds to share??

Phillip's 12 Month and Family Photoshoot

These pictures were taken a little while ago (obviously since he just turned 14 months old today!!), but I finally got the digital images so I can share them.  The pictures were taken by a friend of mine from junior high.  We reconnected through Facebook recently, where I discovered what an amazingly talented photographer she is.  She lives and works in Dallas, but has family down here so we were able to get together.  If you live in Dallas and you're looking for a photographer, you can check out her blog here.

I had to get all of these because this kid is just too darn cute!!!

What I'm Making... for a comfort food Friday dinner

So I've decided to start a new series of posts called "What I'm Making..."  Basically, I'm just going to share some of my favorite recipes for different occasions.  Pretty obvious, right?  Some of them will be LBK originals and others will just be great recipes I want to share with you.  Today's recipe is for a super easy peasy but delicious comfort food dinner.  When I cook, I don't necessarily need it to be "healthy," but somehow I feel that if I'm cooking its more nutritious and wholesome so I can feel good about feeding it to my boys.  I hope y'all enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Skillet Chicken "Pot Pie"
Serves 4

Pie Filling:

• 1.5 pounds boneless skinless chicken (I use thighs because that's what we prefer, but breasts are fine too - or if you are feeling super lazy, just pull apart a rotisserie chicken)
• salt, lemon pepper to season
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 shallots minced (but you can use any onions you have on hand)
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1/3 cup dry white wine (or in my case left over flat champagne, ha!)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon herbs de provence (if you don't have that use thyme)
• 2 cups frozen pea, carrot, corn medley

Biscuit Crust: 

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1.5 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Begin by making the biscuits.  Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.  Stir in the cheddar cheese.  Stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until the dough forms.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured area and form a ball.  Knead the dough briefly until smooth.  Then, cut biscuits (I use the top of a glass) and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake about 15 minutes.

Pat chicken dry and season with salt and lemon pepper.  Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a skillet over medium heat.  Brown chicken lightly on both sides and transfer to a plate.  Add the remaining butter to the skillet and heat on medium until melted.  Add shallots and salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, whisk together the cornstarch with the wine.  When the onions are ready, stir the liquid mixture in with the onions for about 1 minute.    Slowly whisk in the broth, cream, and thyme, and bring to a simmer.  Place the chicken back into the pan, cover, and cook over medium low about 10 minutes.

Transfer fully cooked chicken to a plate.  Stir veggie mixture into the sauce and simmer about 2 minutes.  Once chicken is cool, shred it into bite-sized pieces and return it to the skillet.  Season filling with salt and pepper to taste.  Either place biscuits on top of the filling and serve from the skillet, or put individual servings into ramekins and top with a biscuit.  Enjoy!
 

Lately...

Wow so much to catch up on!  I said goodbye to law school this month after three years.  I truly can't believe that it's over.  I had a break for about two seconds and now I'm in bar review class to prepare for the Texas Bar Exam at the end of July.  Here are a couple of pictures from my graduation day although we got very few!

Over Memorial Day weekend, we traveled to North Carolina for a friend's wedding and had such a great time!  The Peanut slept wonderfully despite being in a new place and did great on the plane. 

At the lake!

Just wanted to show off my super cute top by Calypso St. Barth for Target!

 

Our fam with the bride and groom.

Family picture in the lake!

Peanut chilling with Daddy!

Peanut and Mommy.

On the way home in first class!!!

I'm trying to enjoy having a bit more time at home with Peanut right now, but it's been difficult with going to class everyday.  I truly cannot wait until August when I have an ACTUAL break!  On a positive note, I've had a chance to do more cooking and baking lately, which has been wonderful.  I have a couple of new recipes I hope to share with y'all later this week.