Toasted Ravioli

Ok, I made a "new" dinner tonight, in my quest to spice things up in the kitchen. I made Toasted Ravioli's from the Gooseberry Patch cookbook and website. It was good, but man it took forever. You take a bag of frozen ravioli's and cook according to the package directions. Then, dip in an egg/milk wash and then coat with a mixture of italian seasoned bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Then, coat a skillet with EVOO and toast the ravioli's to your heart's content. The plus side is that it was really tasty, and my house smells really good like home cooked italian dinner. The bad side is, it took FOREVER, and I do mean forever. A standard bag of frozen ravioli's is 25 oz, and it takes so long to coat them all and toast them in the skillet. I think next time I will coat and toast only half of them and then freeze the other half with some marinara sauce.
Next up for my "new" dinners is at Chris' request: Tator tot casserole. I know, this isn't really new, but I haven't made it before and he specifically requested it. I am going to try the Duggar's version since they rave about it all the time on their show. I'll let you know how it goes.

Easter Pictures

Easter is almost here and Sydney couldn't be more excited. We've been reading books about Jesus, talking about Easter eggs, and got a pretty little Easter dress. She even kind of remembers bits and pieces about Easter last year, which is exciting. Today she had her Easter portraits and oh my goodness, that girl is so stinkin' adorable it just takes my breath away (I know I'm a bit biased, but come on, look at those curls).

She kind of looks like a 50's housewife here, right? "Welcome home, dear, the pot roast is on the table."



So precious, this is how she looks when she's praying, except here she was peeking!

I also did some casual shots while we were in. She was hamming it up for the camera!

Our Little Princess

When we were at Disneyland a few months ago, Sydney's favorite part was meeting the princesses. You go into this courtyard-type place and meet each princess individually, and you get to spend 5 minutes with each princess. The down side is it's 3 random princesses at any given time, so she was disappointed when Cinderella wasn't there. While you're in there, they have a professional photographer there taking pictures, and you can order the photos or a CD. Being the blogger mom that I am, I of course got the CD so I could order my own prints and share these fun pictures with all of you.
Her favorite princess by far that day was Ariel, which is funny considering she's never even seen The Little Mermaid. The Ariel lady was awesome, she asked Sydney to help her practice dancing "on human legs." Sydney was truly in awe!





This is my favorite one, you can just see how excited she was!


Then it was on to meet Mulan and Snow White. You can probably tell by the fake, pasted on smile that she was not impressed with them!


That should have been it, but then they did a princess shift change, and Belle and Aurora came in, so Sydney got to meet 5 princesses instead of 3! Aurora let Sydney play with her hair, which is one of Sydney's favorite things to do!


Sydney still talks about meeting the princesses every day. She can't wait to go back to Disneyland again! It was well worth the price of admission and the 2 hours in line for her to have that experience! I LOVE having a daughter!

Creative Thinking

Melissa and I were talking a few weeks ago about a truly boring topic, but it got me thinking. We were discussing our lack of creativity lately with planning dinners for our families. Doesn't it just seem like it's the same ol' thing lately? At my house, the "same ol' thing" is tacos, pizza, or Wendy's. Not very fun, and not very healthy. Inspired by a few friends who have been posting recipes, I have decided to do something similar. My friend Annie takes pictures of the recipes she makes, and they are beautiful, but I won't do that because my camera is ghetto and it would show my messy kitchen in the background (Annie's kitchen, by the way, is always immaculate in her photos). Patti has been writing about healthy recipes, which is inspiring, but just be warned that my recipes won't always be healthy, per se. They will be healthier, however, than going to Taco Bell, simply because they are homemade. My goal is to find meals that are easier to prepare and will freeze well so I can freeze some dinners before baby Savannah makes her appearance.



My first "new" recipe is from Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious." I made the chicken salad. It has pureed cauliflower in it, which is actually a funny story in itself. I don't like most vegetables, and I bought cauliflower for the first time and didn't know what to do with it. Without laughing at me, Melissa talked me through the preparation and steaming of cauliflower. The only recemmondation I would have for it is to only use 2 stalks of celery and cut them, don't finely chop them. We are a cheesey family, so we put cheese on our sandwiches. They could also be put in pitas, which we would have done had our pitas not molded (grrr). We enjoyed it a lot, and best of all, I think it will freeze really well! The combination of spices on the chicken was really good, too. We'll definetely try it again!

Next up...semi-homemade ravioli.

February and March

The last two months have gone by so fast! Thank you to all who participated in our polls. Finally, here are some pictures of Sydney, it's been a while!

Here she is, all ready for church. Whenever she wears this outfit, our pastor calls her a Nordic Princess.


So random, I know, but our little miss Sydney has been, well, a three year old lately. She has been spending lots of time in time-out and one day I found her Snow White doll in a time-out!


Sydney with her Valentine's Day cookie from Grandma, which is a tradition in our family.


Being a nurse is always hard on my back and feet, but especially now being pregnant. Sometimes I come home from work just aching, and Chris usually rubs my feet. Sydney likes to get in on it, too, which is too cute!


In sorting through my parent's house lately, we have found all sorts of interesting things. My mom wore this clown's hat for Halloween when I was 4 or 5, and now Sydney has added it to her dress-up collection.


One of the best things about being pregnant is the food! I appreciate tastes and spices so much more now. I have been craving this really spicy salsa from a local restaurant a lot. I joke that I would put it on drywall if I had to! Here we are a few weeks ago at that restaurant. Sydney likes the salsa, too.


Chris and Sydney came with me to an appointment two weeks ago. Sydney likes to come along and one of the best things about her being so much older than the baby is that she is really able to get involved in the pregnancy. Everyday she pretents to check my blood pressure, and she loves to bake cookies and things to take in to my doctor. After the last visit, we went down and had some Gelato at a nearby restaurant, which of course was a huge hit with Sydney!


On a recent warm day, we took Sydney to the zoo and she went in the petting zoo for the first time. The goats were very gentle and Sydney liked them.


On our way to church in her new sunglasses!


We went to Matt and Melissa's last weekend for an Oscar party and Sydney wanted her hair curled. She is such a cutie! I love her hair this way.


Three years ago when we found out that Sydney was a girl, I was so anxious the day of my ultrasound that we just had to get out of the house because I was going crazy and just needed to leave! We randomly went to Round Table Pizza for lunch that day and it was a really fun lunch. We haven't back to Round Table since, it's not really super close to our house. This time, our ultrasound was in the morning, so we decided for tradition's sake we would go there the night before for dinner. Sydney had lots of fun and we told her the story of her ultrasound.


Painting Sydney's toenails. One of the best things about having a daughter!


We had a birthday dinner at my parent's house on Friday. I wanted one last birthday dinner there before the house sells. It was a really nice evening, and this is the cake Chris picked out for me! He knows I love Harry Potter!


And finally, the big news...we are having a baby GIRL!! We found out on Friday we will be welcoming a second daughter this August. This is Sydney getting ready to go into the ultrasound, and then us during the ultrasound.



We are thrilled beyond belief to have two girls! Daughters are an amazing blessing and we can't wait!

Gender Poll

This Friday, March 12, we go in for our ultrasound to determine the gender of the baby. Please vote in the poll to the left!