A day in the life!

I struggle to write regularly in a journal, so I do a few different things to make an effort to record my thoughts and memories.  One way I "journal" is by taking lots of pictures of what we do.  Will has come to accept this (mostly) and I've also learned, generally, what things will embarrass Will, so I try to make it snappy (ha, nice pun, huh? : )  One of the things that would make me the saddest would be losing my pictures.  Really sad.  Mega sad.  Don't mess with me and my pictures!

Here are some picture highlights from this last week with a little extra commentary so that you can enjoy them too!

Andrew loves to hug stuffed animals right now.  It started with hugging his Curious George - he saw it modeled some.  Then the other morning (note the PJs) as he was pulling toys out to play with he pulled out a small teddy bear (that I won spinning a wheel at the Tracy PD's booth at the Tracy Dry Bean Festival (sounds like a blast, huh? : ) in 2011 - an extremely hot day in early September).  He made the connection that it was also a soft, hugable thing, and I was lucky enough to catch several shots.  Here are some of the cutest. 

Seriously, though, does it get any cuter??!

Andrew still likes the washer and dryer, but he's much more interested now in the fridge and the dishwasher.  Of course I won't let him play in it with dirty dishes, but I do let him "help" me unload the clean ones.  I know that seems counter productive as he handles and even licks things, but I'm ok with it for now - pick your battles, you know?  I open it while he's across the way and hurry and take out any sharp knives. Then while he hustles his little self over I take out the forks, table knives, and anything else I might not want him to get.  Could he potentially get hurt still on a spoon?  Yes, but I guess I feel better about it.  Anyway, he loves it!

Thursday evening Will and I got to go to San Francisco to see The Phantom of the Opera (totally awesome!).  It was our fun outing for our anniversary and we'd been looking forward to it for a while.  That afternoon while I was cleaning up a few things before the babysitter came, I knew Andrew had gotten into the bathroom.  Since I knew he was in one place and wasn't worried about him slapping his hands on the edge of the tub as he stood there, I decided to let him be for a bit.  I realized after a couple minutes I wasn't hearing him play with the bath toys anymore or hitting the tub.  Well, he was happy so I still took care of a couple other things.  Then I decided I better go get him out and tell him he'd had enough time to play in there.  I rounded the corner of the little hallway and audibly gasped - startled him and made him jump!  Then I just giggled and took some pictures.  I asked him if he had at least had a good time.  Then I carefully re-wrapped the roll the best I could and replaced it for the babysitter.

Whatever shenanigans he got into later were between him and the babysitter because we were busy here having a great time!

And since then Will's gotten a haircut.  Andrew and I still need a trim!  Forgive my excess dry shampoo in this picture - I'm not THAT grey yet!  (but close...wah!)

And there you have it!  Andrew's birthday pictures coming soon!

Mother knows best

I remember one time as a kid I had the idea (or wondered aloud?) and suggested buttering toast before you put it into the toaster.  Maybe I was thinking that it'd be fun to watch it melt as the bread crisped up.  Maybe for some reason I thought this would be more efficient?  My mom made sure to tell me that you should never ever butter bread before putting it into the toaster because it could start a fire, or something like that.  She reiterated: always butter it after.

I think about that pretty much every time I butter toast and have for as long as I can remember.  I did again the other night when buttering some toast to go with our omlets for dinner.

Thanks to my mom I'm also extra cautious if I'm reaching to grab another piece out with the same hand that's holding the knife that already has some butter on it.  What if the heat from the toaster causes the butter to melt and drip off into the toaster causing some potentially unknown harm???

These are the things I think about : )

Sunday Dinner

I LOVE Chinese food!  Well, I love American Chinese food, at least.  I know that for sure : )

Two birthdays ago we got Chinese take-out because I had been craving it, and, well, it was my birthday!  This last birthday I wanted Chinese again, but I decided to make a few things at home, from scratch.  I made orange chicken, vegetable lo mein, and pot stickers.  Yummo, right?!  Well, that and rice and broccoli, of course.  Anyway, it took many hours to make it all myself at once - three new-to-me recipes.  (Will and I love to cook together, but he was taking care of Andrew.)  So more hours than I would have liked, and a deep-fried house smell later, we sat down to a delicious meal!

There were leftovers of everything.  Some of the things got eaten up in the following days, but the pot stickers filling got put in the freezer along with the extra wrappers.  I'm pretty sure there was a time since then that we made another batch of pot stickers to go with something else.

Yesterday when we were meal planning for the week we decided we wanted something like orange chicken again - or something else "Chinese"... : )  We settled on orange chicken, and also decided this time we'd just get a bag from the frozen section.  So that's what we had tonight for dinner.  After fasting all day, it was a tasty meal to look forward to!  We had the orange chicken, rice, broccoli (which Andrew loves!), and the rest of the pot stickers.

Now, we didn't know for sure if we still had some or if we'd eaten it up before.  I checked each level of the freezer door, then each shelf (working from the bottom up) and finally found it on the top shelf!  (My wallet is always in the last diaper bag pocket I check, so why wouldn't the rest of the pot sticker filling be on the last freezer shelf I check??)  Luckily, I had seen the wrappers  yesterday, so those were easy (top freezer shelf).

I was able to get 17 little delectable pot stickers formed and on the pan.  Oh, after frying them in February, we decided it was way easier to bake them - and healthier? : )  We still spray them with cooking spray.  Baked 6 minutes on each side to a golden brown.  There they sat on the pan on the stove top next to the broccoli during dinner and we just got up to get them - part lazy, part table space.  Since there were 17 we knew we could each have 4 today, and 4 on the leftovers day.  With one more to arm wrestle over, I guess!

When I got up to get some more broccoli and my second two pot stickers I didn't really count or anything, just saw that there seemed to be lots on the pan still.  I went back around the counter to the table and asked Will, "Did you forget about the pot stickers?"  He answered, "Did I forget about the pot stickers???  Did YOU forget about DISNEYLAND???!!" : )

Hahahahahaha!  I guess I make pretty good pot stickers! : )