We had an appointment tonight so I made it easier on us (i.e., on ME) by suggesting Cowboy Chicken for dinner. Love that place. I had my usual Cowboy Taco:

Their side salads crack me up. It’s basically a bloody mary in a bowl… you’ll even find chopped celery leaves in there.

Poor Brian was trying to chop up Isla’s food for her and apparently he was not doing it fast enough. Sister was yelling and pounding on his arm with her little fist. She is so FEISTY. She has decided that she absolutely hates her carseat, and getting her buckled up is like the most anxiety-provoking task ever. I start pitting out just trying to keep her from standing in the seat, turning around backwards and throwing herself out of the car. She also hates the pack n play. If I put her in there she either stiffens her body and screams or just sits there, staring straight ahead and and moaning, “Maaaaaaa maaaaa…. maaaaa maaaaaaaaa…” in this creepy voice.

She’s actually pretty hilarious. Jack is so happy go lucky and chill that having this tiny, dramatic LOUD little person is constant entertainment for all of us (I mean, as long as I’m not having to strap her into the carseat).

I just think it’s adorable watching her hold her own little drink. Notice the berry stains all over her jammies.

(And 2 minutes after this picture was taken I was cleaning the entire cup of water off the floor! Guess she was finished.)

We were supposed to have bad storms today, but all the warnings just culminated into one short thunderstorm that made our power flicker and shut off Bubble Guppies (thank god for THAT). The good thing about storms is that they usually result in the kids taking monster naps… somehow they shut out Chloe’s complete freak out anytime she hears thunder.

Anyway, with my little bit of extra time I managed to make a slightly more involved dinner. I’ve made these lasagna roll-ups before, but this time I added chopped artichoke hearts and fresh basil to the ricotta filling (along with the spinach and spices called for in the recipe).

Assembly:

Just out of the oven:

I loved the artichoke hearts but next time I won’t chop them quite as finely. It would be good to have some artichoke “chunks” in the filling.

Verdict? Brian had seconds, Jack ate slightly more than usual (like 6 bites instead of 5) and Isla went CRAZY over it.

Speaking of Isla… she and I met my mom for lunch today. Look at what a lady I’m raising:

Foot propped up on the table, gnawing on some pizza crust. She just needs a toothpick and a beer. Faaaaancy.

Isla’s doing much better today! Thanks for all of the calls and texts. This morning she woke up (actually, I had to wake her up at TEN) fever-free, but her eye was still a little swollen. I managed to get her in to our awesome pediatrician this afternoon and her best guess was that the fever was from a virus and the swollen eye was due to some kind of insect bite. It makes sense because we were outdoors a lot this weekend. I had gotten online and self-diagnosed last night, which is never a good idea. Anyway, I’m just glad that she seems to be back to her wild & crazy self.

Tonight I made dinner in the crock pot and Brian actually went back for seconds, which pretty much never happens (for HIM… for me it’s a nightly occurrence). A good chicken chicken cheese steak is really hard to find, apparently. There was a little dive-y restaurant in our tiny VA college town that served great cheese steaks. The irony is that the guy who ran it was from our neighborhood here in Dallas.

Then we had a cheese steak restaurant open up a few miles from us when I was pregnant with Isla. We decided to give it a try one day and it was seriously the foulest thing I’ve ever eaten. It’s probably the only meal I didn’t finish when I was preggo (the restaurant has shut down since).

Tonight I attempted a chicken cheese steak recipe in the crock pot. You can’t really get the authentic cheese steak “texture” in the slow cooker, but the flavor was great. I ended up adding a lot of seasoning (salt, pepper, soy sauce and Worcestershire) after the chicken finished cooking. It was pretty imprecise, so just know that if the “juice” seems bland, feel free to spice it up as you see fit.

How good does that look?? I want another one right now.

Slow Cooker Chicken Cheese Steak Sandwiches

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 green bell peppers, sliced
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used an 8oz can, but you can use fresh)
• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into slices
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 4 Tbs Worcestershire
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• Whole wheat hoagie buns
• Provolone slices
• To taste: Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt

1. In slow cooker, layer butter, onions, peppers and mushrooms. Nestle chicken slices on top.

2. In a bowl, whisk together wine, Worcestershire, soy sauce and spices. Pour over chicken and vegetables and cook on high for 4 hours. Taste chicken and season as needed.

3. Serve chicken mixture on hoagie rolls. Top with provolone (melt over the chicken either in the microwave or under the broiler).

YUM.

And lots and lots of leftovers, too… woohoo!

Poor Isla has had a rough weekend. On Saturday night she suddenly spiked a HIGH fever (104.4) and was super fussy, which had us completely freaked out. Jack has NEVER had a fever that high. We called our pediatrician’s office and the nurse told us to give her Tylenol and see if she responded. Well her fever started to go down and she seemed much happier, so we put her to bed. Then this morning she woke up fever free but with this weird swollen eyelid:

When it didn’t look any better after her nap, Brian and I took her to Pediatric After Hours and they checked her out and gave her an antibiotic shot. Then tonight her fever went up again over 102. Poor thing. We still have no idea what’s going on but plan on taking her in to our regular pediatrician in the morning.

Other than that whole ordeal we had a fun weekend celebrating some great friends! On Saturday we headed to Addie (1) and Ellie’s (3) birthday party. We love those sweet girls!

They had balloon animals but of course Jack opted for a balloon sword. He’s been playing with it ALL WEEKEND and keeps stabbing me with it from the backseat of the car.

Isla just hung out and looked cute.

Then tonight we headed to our friends/former neighbors/adopted family The Barteau’s house to celebrate tiny (ha!) Aaron’s 20th birthday:

Jack pretty much worships Aaron and Brad.

I mean, they JUGGLE for him. And Bradley may have pulled out a unicycle before we left. I’m dead serious. Jack almost lost his mind… he was still talking about it when I put him to bed tonight.

(PS- If he starts trying to juggle plates tomorrow, I’m coming to find you guys!)

Hope everyone had a fun weekend!

Heyyyy! So Brian and I had a hot little weeknight date/Parents Night Out to an 80′s cover band concert at the Arboretum. I meant to take pics but got too wrapped up in talking and wine drinking with friends. My sweet dad watched the kids BY HIMSELF and even let us grab a drink at Times Ten afterward. I think it went great, though he did mention something about realizing, “Why it’s young people that have babies” and another story about Isla getting into Chloe’s bowl and having a little kibble snack.

(Have I mentioned that she’s my challenging child?)

Anyway, great night! So much fun! But you’ll just have to trust me on that because I don’t have any pics.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Well guys, I’m glad you like my whining and complaining… I’ll try to keep it up!

This morning Lauren and Caroline came over. Jack LOVES his LaLa and operates under the general assumption that she comes over only to play with him. As soon as she walks in he starts freaking out and asking her to do 5 million things. And then he gets all bossy:

“My airplane is sad because the tower you built isn’t tall enough.”

“Um, that pear I just told you to draw should be bigger.”

“Let’s leave those colors alone now.”

So, yeah. My child has no manners. Thanks for putting up with him, Lauren!

I’d heard great things about the indoor playground at the new Watermark church, and this afternoon was rainy so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check it out (FYI, click here for a great list of indoor play areas around Dallas). The play area is open to the public most days from 9am-6pm (scroll down for schedule here). The setup is not like a traditional indoor playground… it’s called the “tree fort” and it’s 2 stories, wood, with mostly just stairs and bridges to climb on, though there is a small play area with a slide for toddlers.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea…

Jack loved it and wore himself out climbing up and down all the flights of stairs and jumping on the bridges.

Isla just hung out on the floor and observed. One wall is solid windows so she did enjoy checking out the rain. Look at this happy face.

Oh, and they both took monster naps afterward. We’ll be heading back there soon.

My parents went to the lake last weekend and brought us back some produce from a farm stand: vidalia onions, purple hull peas, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. I finally managed to cook the peas while the kids napped today.

Ingredients: Onion, celery, bell pepper, peas, ham shanks, chicken broth.

I just heated some olive oil in our Dutch oven and sauteed the diced onion, pepper and celery:

Then threw in some minced garlic, 2 bay leaves, the peas, 6 cups of chicken broth and the ham shanks.

Brought to a boil, then turned it down to low, covered and simmered for about an hour. After that I removed the shanks and butchered them to remove the ham, then added the diced ham back to the peas. Seasoned with salt and pepper.

Love me some Southern peas!! Though seriously, ham shanks are not cute. I guess you could use bacon or diced ham steak if you didn’t have the stomach to deal with those bad boys, but I think simmering the beans with the full shank/bone gives the broth a richness. Just my 2 cents.

So our tornado sirens were just going off, but now they’ve stopped so I’m going to bed. Texas spring storms are the best!

I feel like with blogging there’s a fine line between oversharing and making your life seem like 24/7 puppies and rainbows. I was talking with friends about this the other day. Like if the kids are driving me crazy but I can see how it might be a funny story, I’ll post that. But I hesitate to write about the minor, frequent annoyances because: 1. Who wants to read that?, 2. What good does it do me mentally or emotionally to rehash it?, and, 3. Basically ain’t nobody got time for that. I mean, everyone has laundry and messes and drama and NOT ENOUGH TIME and toddler poop on the walls (no? just me?).

My point is that sometimes I feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I have to pick someone else’s underwear off the floor one more time, if Jack asks me for the 150th time for a snack ten minutes before dinner is ready, or if I have to endure another unaccompanied trip to Target with Isla. The thing with Isla is that her hate for Target is inversely proportionate to my undying love for the T.  She DESPISES it. Jack will at least humor me as long as he gets a cheese sample from the deli counter. Today we were in the looooong checkout line and she starts freaking the hell out and tries to climb out of the seat and throw herself on the floor. Of course like half our neighborhood is in the store and gets to witness this little performance. Not awesome.

Oy. Anyway, we got our groceries, made it home in one piece and then she was back to her happy little Squish self. The girl is feisty.

Okay, so dinner. I made this slow cooker pork tenderloin that I’ve posted about countless times before. It’s ridiculously easy and you can throw some onions, carrots and mushrooms (or even diced potatoes) into the crock pot, too, and you have a meat + sides taken care of.

It’s amazing over mashed potatoes but we had ours with brown basmati rice and roasted broccoli. Both kids ate really well and Isla LOVED the pork.

So this was intended to be a quick post, but now it’s 11:00. I’m just so distracted by the Facebook and the Pinterest and the fun bloggy things…

Night!

Today started with a pretty wide open schedule and ended up being the busiest day we’ve had in a while! Some friends have started a babysitting co-op and this was my morning “off.” I ended up dropping Jack off at Camille’s to play with his buddies and Isla and I hit the new Santa Fe trail for a run. We ended up taking it to White Rock and then around a short section of the lake:

It’s really hard to squeeze in runs during the week. We don’t have a double jogger so I can’t take both kids, and when Jack’s at school I’m usually trying to get errands done with Isla- it was so nice to have that free time this AM to zone out, listen to music and enjoy the gorgeous day.

After Isla’s morning nap we made a trip to the Arboretum with my mom. It was pretty warm out so we let Jack go crazy at the frog fountains. Honestly, he HATED them at first. He ran through one of the streams and then had a major breakdown when it sprayed him in the face. Like 5 full minutes of hysterics… after which he decided that it was okay and ran around like a crazy person for the next hour.

Cheering section. Hey girl heyyy. Notice how she has ripped the bow out of her head and is holding it in her hand. Story of my LIFE.

Tonight Brian and I had a nice little date (thanks for babysitting, Mom and Dad!!). We planned to see The Great Gatsby at Studio Movie Grill at 7:15, but it was sold out when we got there. How the hell does a movie sell out on a Monday night? Who are these people who can go to movies on Mondays? And how can I become one? Anyway, there was another showing (in 3D!) at 8:15 so we bought our tickets, left to grab dinner at Asian Mint, then headed back.

As luck would have it, it was $1 sushi night at Mint!

My pad thai.

And then wine + popcorn at the movie, which I really enjoyed. The movie AND the wine/popcorn, that is. I thought that it was a gorgeous film and Leonardo DiCaprio was pretty amazing. Just throw in compelling visuals, pretty costumes and good music and I’m basically set. We decided that Isla Fisher was underutilized, though. I want her to have as much exposure as possible, not only because she’s awesome but also so people will start pronouncing our daughter’s name correctly. EYE-la. Not IZ-la, or EEEES-la.

Oh, oh, oh… last thing! Our house has this side courtyard and we’ve talked about doing something cool with it since we moved in… just, oh- 6 short years ago? It’s such a wasted space. There’s a big live oak out there that drops tiny leaves constantly, and our living room (and laundry room, and bedroom) look right onto it so it’s kind of sad that it was just a big mess. See? Blech. Embarrassing.

So we finally sucked it up and hired someone to come install flagstone. They finished today.

SO MUCH BETTER, right? I’m really excited to get some patio furniture and actually have a place outside to hang out! We don’t spend a lot of time in our backyard for a number of reasons (noisy street, can’t see the yard from inside the house) so I’m thrilled to have this area. I’m planning to plant some Japanese ferns around those trees ASAP.

There you have it. Monday. I feel like my posts have been mind-numbingly long lately so I appreciate you hanging in there… I’ll try to do less tomorrow.

Happy Mother’s Day! We had a pretty perfect weekend. The weather was gorgeous so we spent a LOT of time outside. On Saturday Jack had a t-ball game, we played at the park and then Isla and I squeezed in a run. I love running with her- Jack’s been over the jog stroller for a while (plus he’s HUGE) and I forgot how much fun it is when you have a happy little baby to keep you company.

My 4th official Mother’s Day was fabulous.We met up with my family for brunch at Breadwinners- we managed to beat the crowd but it was CRAZY when we left. I forgot to snap any pics, but my cinnamon raisin french toast (and bacon… and mimosa…) were delicious. They gave out free desserts to all the moms but I was stuffed, so now there’s a slice of strawberry-chocolate malt cake in our fridge. We sat outside and had a great time with my parents, brother and sister-in-law (and crazy to think that next year little Owen will be sitting with us, too!!!). Breadwinners and La Duni at Northpark are both PERFECT because the kids can play in the enclosed courtyard while waiting for the food. So fun.

After brunch the kids went down for a nap and I ran out to get a sadly needed pedicure. When I got home, Jack greeted me at the door, screaming, “HAPPY MUDDERS DAYYY!!!!!”

He was literally bouncing up and down waiting for me to open my presents:

Sprinkles cupcakes, a bag of random bulk candy that Brian let Jack pick out for me at the mall (including exactly 1 blue Jolly Rancher, a candy necklace, 1 gummy strawberry, a few pieces of green apple licorice and some cherry sours) AND the Rodan & Fields Macro Exfoliator that I’ve been lusting over for months. Holla!

Anyway, Jack was losing his mind for me to open the bag of candy. He immediately ate like half of it.

This afternoon we took the kids to the park:

Brian surprised me with a little picnic snack:

My sweet, crazy babies. These two make me so happy… even when they karate kick me in the face.

And then we capped off our evening with dinner at La Calle Doce… ahh, ceviche:

I’m a lucky girl to have an amazing mom, a sweet husband who makes sure that I feel loved and appreciated on Mother’s Day (and every day), and the two best kids I could have ever hoped for! Hope all you other ladies had a perfect weekend, too!

Wow, you guys! It’s nice to know that if I ever went missing, y’all would be on it ASAP. I had a few calls and texts today asking if everything was okay since I didn’t post last night… I’m so sorry! Everything is fine! We had book club last night and were having so much fun that by the time we checked the time, it was already 11:30. That’s LATE for us old ladies. Anyway, I got home after midnight and pretty much collapsed. To make up for it, here’s an extra EARLY Thursday evening post for you…

I do have a good summery recipe to share: Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake Bars. They were my book club contribution. An oatmeal cookie crust topped with lemon cheesecake, fresh blueberries and more cookie crumbles. Ridiculous.

My only complaint was how messy they were. I expected them to be firm but you definitely needed a plate and fork to eat these. Maybe I didn’t bake them long enough? I chilled them overnight so that shouldn’t have been the problem. I don’t know. But they tasted amazing. The filling isn’t overly sweet so it complements the cookie crust & topping nicely.

This morning Jack’s school had Muffins with Mom (as opposed to Donuts with Dad a few months ago).

He presented me with a homemade card and a sweet little trinket box that he was SO excited for me to open. I was thinking, “Oh how cute! He’s really proud!”

But then I realized that it was filled with Hershey Kisses.

“Those are for sharing,” he informed me.

Oh, ok. LOL. Still very sweet and I had such a good time hanging out with my best little buddy. I still wonder how I hit the kid lottery with these two… they’re just amazing.

Finally, a friend posted this article on Facebook and I’ve spent the past hour watching and re-watching these videos. Touching and beautiful.

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!