Homemade Goodness

I've been into making things a little more homemade lately.  Not all the time (it's hard to do with a newborn) but I like to do it when I have the time.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I have made lately.  I have a really good recipe for blueberry muffins (compliments of my friend, Julie) and a recipe for homemade basic balsamic vinaigrette (compliments of my friend, Amy)!  Perhaps I'll get a chance to add those in a few days!

 These cute little veggies are from our garden.  We didn't do too many things this year because we knew our summer was going to be very busy.  I'm super excited for the tomatoes to start ripening so I can have tomato sammiches everyday!

Oh yeah, and we killed all of our herbs, a little random flower, and our hibiscus too. I guess that happens when you forget to water them...ever.

 The last time I made Strawberry Pretzel Salad it was WAY better than this one I made this week.  I want to make it again in a few weeks and tweak a few things that I messed up on in this recipe.  Either way, it is so good and cool and fresh.  Perfect for summer!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

2 1/2 cups crushed pretzels

1/3 c margarine

3 tablespoons sugar

1 8oz package cream cheese, room temp.

1 cup sugar

1 13oz carton whipped topping

2 3oz boxes strawberry Jello

2 cups boiling water

2 10oz packages frozen, sliced strawberries 

Prepare:

Heat oven to 350.  Mix first 3 ingredients together in a small bowl and press into a 9x13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with 1 cup sugar; add whipped topping and mix well. Spread over cooled pretzel crust. (OR pipe in onto the pretzel crust, this works well for me!)

Dissolve the Jell-O in the boiling water and add the frozen strawberries.  Break up the strawberries with a fork as they begin to thaw. Chill until slightly thickened.

Pour strawberry mixture over whipped topping layer. Chill and serve!

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Sun Dried Tomato Hummus

I got this yummy recipe for homemade hummus from Taste of Home magazine!  I like that it is so fresh and tasty, but also takes little to no time to put together!

My handy helpers helped me whip it together and add my ingredients.  They love to help!  I usually half the recipe and then make the rest later!

 

 Ingredients:

2 cans (15 ounces each) garbanzo beans or chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 jar (7 ounces) oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, undrained

2/3 cup water

3 tablespoons Crisco® Olive Oil

2 garlic cloves, halved

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Chopped fresh basil, optional

Prepare:

In a food processor, combine the beans, tomatoes, water, oil, garlic, pepper flakes, salt and pepper; cover and process until blended. Place in a bowl; sprinkle with basil if desired. Serve with pita chips and/or vegetables .

We like to eat ours with pita chips or Ritz crackers!

 

I'm A Little Biased....

I might be a little biased, but I believe this is the sweetest baby I've ever seen!

 

 

 

 

I could just eat him up and stare at his sweet face all day.  I am so glad my multi-talented friend Bethany came over and spent way too much time working with Noah and getting just the right shots. I am thankful for these beautiful pictures!  Also, my boys were BEYOND thrilled that she brought her boys with her when she came!

Stuck In The Middle

So now that we have 3 boys, Matthew is officially a middle child.  I don't know if there's anything to the myth of being a "middle child".  I hope each one of our children will feel happy, special and cherished as they grow up.  BUT, Matthew is so different from his older brother!  Matthew throws caution to the wind and just does whatever.  He doesn't understand NO and he is constantly stealing my drinks around the house!

But then I see his sweet little scrunchy smile and his antics usually melt my heart.  He is just such a hoot most of the time.  JM is our cautious, sensitive first child and it has been so good for him to have a wilder brother to show him how to loosen up a bit at times.  They each have learned so much from each other already.  I am so glad they are going to be growing up so close in age!

Typical Matthew!  Just being silly!

I have loved his summertime curls!

Can you see the expression on his face as he messes with the lock? So what's Matthew been up to lately?

John Michael usually says "Matthew makin' that mess" and he's usually right.  Matthew likes to empty cups upside down, throw food, slam golf clubs or bats into furniture or the fireplace.  He also likes to constantly get into the pantry and either try to get food or get Jack's food and put it into his bowl or mess with Jack's water bowl. He also likes to sweep and swiffer.  He has discovered baby pacis and he tries to take them whenever he can and chew on them!  He is SO strong and he recently hit a HUGE growth spurt.  He gained two pounds and I'm starting to wonder if he truly might be built like a lineman like my dad.

He still loves yogurt and grain bars with a mighty passion.  He has started turning his nose up at a lot of fruits that he used to love.  Some days he eats like crazy and then other days he eats nothing.  I guess that's life with a toddler!  He's not so much into books on most days but he still loves to play golf with anything that he can find that could be a club and a ball!  Matthew loves all sports and loves to play basketball outside and he loves to play with all the other balls we have inside the house.

He really is such a sweetie!  I love his deep brown eyes and his sweet little brown curls atop his head.  Yep, he might be a middle child now, but he's all mine and I hug him and squeeze him everytime I get the chance to stop him from tearing the house apart and make him huge me back!

A Week (or Two!) Off

Guess how much I've been enjoying Jordan being home on close to two weeks of paternity leave.....

SOOOO much!!

Since he's been home we have been able to go and do so many fun things with the boys.  It's really hard to go anywhere with a newborn, but with all of us on an outing I can easily take care of Noah and Jordan can handle the boys.  It has worked out beautifully!  I have SO enjoyed having him around all during the day.  He's such a helper to me and I just generally enjoy being around him and talking to him all throughout the day.  Now, if only we could win the lottery so that he could stay home with us every single day of the year, that would be great!

We've been to Gymboree classes and open play, the library, the Farmer's Market and we've also been to a local gym place that has open play.  They have trampolines built into the floor and a huge foam pit to jump into!  JM loves it and Matthew hates it!

Matthew finally warmed up to it toward the very end once he discovered a ball to play with!

I didn't get any pictures of JM in the foam pit but he has gone in it everytime we've been!  He loves to play at this gymnastics place!

I'm extra sad that paternity leave will be ending this week, but I do know that it's time for us (me!) to start getting into our "new" normal.  Handling the needs of 3 so close in age is going to be tough, I know, but I just hope that God can guide me through each day with a positive attitude toward my little ones!

 

3 Weeks and A Recipe!

Look who is 3 weeks old now!  I can't believe how fast all the really new, newborn stage passed.  Before we know it he'll be a month old!  I'm trying to savor this time because who knows if this might be my last time to have a wee little one in our home!

So far, Baby Noah is so super sweet!  He generally sleeps, wakes up to eat and get changed, looks around a little while and then goes back to sleep.  He's also been a great sleepr at night.  He usually always gets up around 2 or 3 and then again at 5 or 7!  I can't complain one bit.  I've been so happy that he is so sweet and such a good baby!

I feel so bad that I haven't taken many pictures of him the past few days.  We've been pretty busy dealing with poopy potty training (which, don't even get me started on this...we're at our wits end with this the past few months) but I've got to do a better job of taking pictures everyday!

I did, however, take time to make my favorite peanut butter pie recipe.   I found this recipe on allrecipes.com (love it!) and to me, it is by far THE best recipe out there for peanut butter pie!  Generally, I add more than 1/2 cup of peanut butter to my pie, but to each their own!

Ingredients

• 1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust


• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened


• 1 cup confectioners' sugar


• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, whip cream cheese until soft and fluffy. Beat in sugar and peanut butter. Slowly pour in milk, beating mixture until smooth.


2. Fold whipped topping into mixture. Stir in nuts if desired. Pour mixture into graham cracker crust and freeze until firm. Store any leftovers in freezer.

I hope you like it!

The 4th Times 2!

This year we celebrated the 4th two times!  We had my parents here on Sunday and we cooked and played out back and then the next day Jordan's family was in town.

On the actual 4th we headed to a church right down the road for some fireworks and bouncy house fun.  They had homemade ice cream and hot dogs and hamburgers!

Matthew enjoyed the ice cream....

 

 and John Michael enjoyed the bouncy house, even though he still has problems getting out when his turn is over.

 Here's all 3 boys ready for the 4th!

Happy 4th of July! 

We were very unprepared for fireworks this year.  Luckily, we met up with some of our friends who had brought blankets and lawn chairs.  We were glad they let us borrow some of their chairs! 

 Baby Noah slept most of the time we were there!

 

 

 The fireworks were good and our boys were super interested in them.  I'm not sure they had really seen them before this year!

 For our other 4th of July celebration with Meme and Papa we cooked a yummy meal and let the boys run wild in the back yard.  They swam in their new pool.... 

 and even Noah spent a little time outside with Papa!

 We ate our BBQ outside and the boys were thrilled to eat at their little table.

 We had slow cooker BBQ, corn, baked beans, deviled eggs, and homemade peanut butter pie.  John Michael had never had peanut butter pie before so this was his first time to have any.  I think he liked it!

 Matthew enjoyed his pudding cup and he also rolled around in the dirt in Jordan's garden.  They were SO dirty when they came inside!

 And of course Jackson scrounged around for scraps of food after the boys were done!

 We let the boys play and play until the sun went down and they were brown from being so dirty!  What's more fun than that for little boys?!!

 We were so glad that we had both sets of parents up to celebrate the 4th!  I think it's always nice to celebrate Independance Day with our families!

Slip, Slip, Sliding!

We have really had a great time in our backyard this summer.  We generally go out every night because it's nice and breezy and shaded.  The boys now have a little pool, so they've been enjoying playing around in it too! 

We've been trying to teach John Michael how important it is to wait your turn.  It's a hard concept when you're little!  The boys had been using their slide to slide into the pool and JM just wasn't going to wait for Matthew to go down....

 

 Poor Matthew had no idea John Michael was pushing him down the slide!

 

 

Matthew was NOT happy and it didn't make it any better that John Michael was laughing the whole entire time.

 

Matthew eventually got over it and was happier when it was time to eat dinner outside!

 

 

Sunnin'

Someone was a wee bit jaundiced last week, so he had to spend some quality time in the late afternoon sun!

I had the best time looking at his wee little toes...

and looking at his sweet scrunchy face....

and marveling at the sight.....

of our sweet newborn!