Vegetables and Life

FYI- This is a long blog about a little bit of everything.

About two years ago we discovered kale. I feel weird being part of such a trendy vegetable craze, because I really don't care for vegetables. The ones I like are few and far between, or at least that is how I feel. I shared this recipe a while back, but it was the first time we had ever made kale and I am here to say that we have made some changes. 

First of all we love kale because it doesn't have strong flavor and we eat it baked so it's neither mushy (we are both texture people) or bitter. The recipe I originally followed baked the kale after mixing olive oil into the kale and then adding salt. Well that took quite a while, made a big mess AND some chips were a little too oily while others had almost none. Secondly we decided salt alone just wasn't cutting it for flavor. 

So we added these two wonderful things to our recipe. Now after rinsing the kale all I have to do is lay out the kale and spritz the olive oil onto all of the leaves, which means less oil and a more even spread. Secondly that garlic salt is soooo yummy on kale, don't be afraid to just dump it on because a lot of it doesn't stick/ stay on the leaves. 

Lastly I give you evidence of a stinker who also does not eat his vegetables very well but will in fact eat kale chips. He even asks for them! So when I see people on the internet complaining about kale or making fun of how it's trendy I roll my eyes because kale is a vegetable I can fully endorse. For example, Jim Gaffigan made fun of kale in an interview with one of the late night show hosts recently and he and I share a love of bad food things so when I say I like kale (like a lot) you can almost picture Jim Gaffigan endorsing this vegetable. People who dislike vegetables know good vegetables when they eat them, so you can take that to the BANK!

Subject change- Paczki season is upon us and I would just like to say that I feel I have controlled myself (and David haha) quite well so far this year. I kept thinking I would blog about paczkis after we discovered them in 2012, but I never got the chance. Basically they are Polish treats that are made for fat Friday and before lent. They are like powdered/ granulated sugar covered doughnuts with custard or fruity filling only SO much better. 

Davie and I went on the tour of the fire station a couple of weeks ago with some of the kids and mom's in our ward. I'm not sure how much he really cared, but there were other kids there, we got to get out of the house and he brought home a shinny red hat!

This hat is not compatable with a carseat haha, so he often wears it backwards. 

 He refers to himself as Daydee. So he will say "Daydee ret (red) hat".

This is a little hose that keeps exhaust from the trucks from building up all over the station walls. Who knew? So of course all the kids wanted to touch it.

We recently toured the hospital where I will have our little miss and once you get into the inner part of the labor and delivery section you have to wear a face mask because of flu control. These pictures pretty much sum it up. David had to abruptly leave the tour and I stayed to listen.

His face mask had Mickey mouse on it, which we thought MIGHT actually help. Nope. About 2 minutes into wearing the Mickey mask he was yelling "No Mickey, No Mickey!". 

We recently went to a snowman themed story time and because this little guy loves books it went quite well and was a great way to break up our day.

The activity was glitter glued onto a snowman, such messy fun!

Come on mom lets break out the good stuff, i.e. glue and glitter.

Davie isn't really into crayons or coloring but he will scribble a bit. The snowman theme was perfect because this is what Toledo has been like this last month and a half.

Like this

and this,

and this

AND THIS.

I have now experienced my first level 3 snow storm, our first year here was a big snow year and we had one level 3, but I was visiting family down south so I missed it. This year has been our worst winter, in terms of extreme weather, that we have ever had here in Toledo. 

While it is definitely beautiful and I enjoy the snow removal service our condo association fees pay for to clear our driveway and sidewalks (meaning I NEVER shovel EVER) the days of snow do have me dreaming of the possibilities of moving to Florida or Arizona for residency. I feel warm and happy, like the sun is on my face, just thinking about it!

This is a regular sight at our house. About every other day Davie decides he won't eat something that we KNOW he likes. This day was cottage cheese. For Pete's sake what is it with toddlers? 

This kid already is a little small for his age if only I could EVER rely on a single food from every food group. And before you say anything that's only 5 different foods which I think is completely reasonable. 

We LOVE Kroger, I think it is a little more expensive then Wal*Mart and some other stores, but it's always been the closest store to us and the couple of cents I might have saved by traveling to Wal*Mart are never missed. Back in November they opened a BIG HUGE brand new Kroger and it is such a nice store. Not to mention carts like this have been added to their fleet of regular ones. Davie Loves this cart and so do I! A little bulky maybe? Sure, but I don't have to buckle him in (I know you are supposed to so don't even bother telling me) and he just kind of hangs out but is still free to move around a little while I get the goods. 

This balloon here has been welcoming us into Kroger the last couple of weeks and Davie always begins to yell "sunbeam! SuNbEaM!!" when he sees it. 

I managed to make my sister in law Anna this sensory square/ Taggy (I don't really know what they are called) for her new baby, which I thought I would share. 

It actually turned out pretty good.... 

except for this one part. It's seams like this that make me hate DIY presents to people. I am a perfectionist and that big sideways off track seam gets me every time I look at it. It's a good thing I made this for a baby who will gladly drool on it either way!

Proof that this little boy does occasionally slow down.

After his 2 year old photoshoot this little guy got himself a new doo.

And instantly grew up a little :(

Davie LOVES the headbands I have for his little sister. I don't know how I am going to keep them away from him. I feel bad too because he gets so mad when I take them away and my biggest concern isn't any gender issues its that his head will stretch them out because lets face it these little headbands are cheap!

Towards the end of 2012 David finally caved and let me get a storage unit. It was essentially a small 5x5 closet that held things like our luggage, Christmas decorations, the baby swing once Davie had outgrown it and a couple pieces of nice furniture that we just couldn't fit in our place. And it was AH-mazing! By the beginning of last year (so 6 months after we got the unit) it began to look like this. 

Totally full already, right? Wrong! David is like an organizational whiz when it comes to organizing boxes in a moving truck, in storage and or in the garage.

This is how he did a lot of the boxes towards the top,

haha it always made me laugh because it was kind of like a game of Tetris.

But like all good things this unit was not meant to last.

Because we have too much CRAP! So we upgraded to a 10x10 unit about 2 weeks ago. 

Believe it or not this unit is already quite full. It's been great to pack all the extra blankets, towels, certain dish ware, decorations (although I do probably miss those the most), certain seasonal clothing and just about anything else we don't NEED. I'm still tempted to donate this stuff, but David might die if I did that, haha he's a big pack rat and I just LOVE my clothes. 

The day we moved our stuff it rained. All. Day. LONG! David did about 90% of the work because it was pretty slick outside and lets face it I'm barely useful even when I'm not 9 months pregnant. Thankfully our storage units were only a couple yards apart. I'd also like to give a special thanks to David's brother Mike at this point for helping David with the bigger pieces of furniture I know it really helped! Who needs movers when you have TWO Wardens close by! Seriously these guys are great.

Lastly this was what I walked in on last night. Davie just relaxing and enjoying a good book. That's just about all that's been going on around here... I think. Blogging this last year and a half has gotten tough between school and life in general so this year I decided to attempt the 356 day challenge by uploading a picture each day to Facebook. That actually makes blogging even more tricky because I don't want to repeat myself and not a whole lot goes on around here... or at least that's how I feel. Yesterday I blogged and I couldn't really find a picture moment to share on Facebook so my new rule is if I blog on any given day I don't have to post a picture of the day on Facebook. Call it a loophole. So blogging might be scarce until like July? this year. Thats hopefully when we will have settled wherever it is were are going and life calmed down a bit.