The Many Faces of C

These are just a few of the silly faces we got during dinner last night in a matter of about a minute! This kid cracks me up!

Visitors!

We had a very special treat yesterday!

One of my BFFs, Katie, was in town (in Buffalo) from Florida. I haven't seen her since Xmas 2011 when I was pregnant with Cassandra. Since then, we had Cassandra and she had a little girl named Ava. Typically when Katie comes to town, it's for a week or so and usually I try to see her when she's here. The past few times just haven't worked out though. This time, she came home for 3 weeks so for a special treat, she made a trip out to our house!  She got to see our place and we got to meet each others babies!

Avery and Roman hit it off right away-they were loving Hungry Hippos for awhile!

Ava

We tried getting a picture of all of the kids-let's just say that didn't work out very well (as you'll see). I thought getting a shot of 2 kids was hard...try 4!

Failed attempt #1:

Ava and Cassandra playing:

Ava:

Failed attempt #2 (Roman where are you going?):

And failed attempt #3-babies crying take 2!

Anyways, we had a great visit-of course it went way too fast! We all had lunch together and the kids did lots of playing. Roman didn't want to leave and as soon as they were gone, Avery asked, "When can I play with him again?"  Luckily, I got to tell her soon since we're hoping to see them again this weekend! Yay!!

Eighteen Months

Miss Cassandra is now 18 months old! A year and a half....totally crazy!

She's still wearing 12 month clothes! In fact, some of her 12 months shorts fall right off of her because they're too big! I'm about to drag out her 18 month stuff soon, but really I have no idea what will fit her. She's a peanut! She's still in size 3 diapers for day, 4's for night.

She is still a really good sleeper! Sleeping through the night for 11-12 hours and usually a 2hour (or longer) nap in the afternoon. I really can't complain about her sleep habits!

Her eating is still hit or miss. Some days she loves what we give her and other days she doesn't. She of course devours fruit (just like her sister). She really likes yogurt, bagels, waffles, pasta these days. She had ketchup/dip for the first time and was really into it-so sometimes I'll give her some to try and coax her to eat some sort of meat! Of course it usually ends up with her covered in ketchup/dip and needing a bath!

At her pediatrician appointment, the doctor told us she is talking like a 2yr old...and I totally believe it! This girl is amazing with her words! Some new ones: "ABCD", "ku ta ta" (Hakuna Matata), "pancake", "more music", "rainbow", "oops", "pigtails", "fish", "butterfly" and you also say most names now. One day I started saying the colors of the rainbow...when I said "red", you said "orange". Then I said "orange" and you said "yellow"-I was totally amazed! You also point to our faces and say "eyes", "nose", "hair", etc.

You also sprouted tooth #12 finally! You just have your pointy canines left and your 2yr molars. Also this month you started shrugging your shoulders! And for the first time, you went to time out. I don't even remember why, but Daddy told you to go to timeout and you walked to the step and sat down all by yourself! You sat there perfectly until we told you to get up. I have to admit, it was pretty darn cute!

Here are your photos for this month:

My faves:

Hugs!

I told you to say "cheese"

Flashback: Avery at 18 months!

Two For One

Both girls had to go for check ups yesterday at the Pediatrician...Cassandra for her 18mo, and Avery for her 4yr visit. I decided to get them both done on the same day to get them over with-sort of a 2-for-1 deal ya know?!

That morning, Avery started getting anxious about the appointment, asking every few minutes if she would need to get a shot. I just kept telling her I didn't know. And she didn't stop asking!

We got there and Gabe surprised us by coming too (YAY!). They called us back and took Avery to a room to check her sight and hearing. Then they put her on the scale and measured how tall she is.

We got to the exam room and they got Cass on the scale and did her height too. Then the doctor came in. I fully expected Cassandra to not be very cooperative. At her last appointment, she cried from the time we walked in to the time we walked out. It wasn't fun. I was expecting yesterday to go the same way. But, I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, she was way more calm than Avery. She let the doc do his thing and didn't make a peep! He checked out Avery and she did ok-she was still whining the entire time about the possibility of getting shots.

So their current stats are:

Avery is 39 1/2" tall (50th percentile), 32lbs (20th percentile)
Cassandra is 301/4" tall (10th percentile), 19lbs 14oz (5th percentile)  Just to show how tiny Cassandra is, she is the height that Avery was at 12 mos!

Then we had a decision to make for Avery. She needed 3 shots-either yesterday or next year before kindergarten. He suggested doing it now and getting it over with since she was already so anxious about it all. I was going to choose that route anyway. So...the nurse did Avery first-2 shots in one arm, 1 in the other. She screamed her head off!  Cassandra had to get 2 shots-one in each arm. The child didn't even flinch! No tears at all!

The good news is that Avery doesn't need anymore shots now until she's 11 years old! Crazy! Cassandra doesn't need anymore (besides the flu shot) until she's Avery's age! Yay! Cassandra's next check up is in 6 months and Avery's isn't until next summer-a nice long break for us!

5 Years!

It's hard to believe that this was 5 years ago!

I so wish I could go back and re-live that day! It was so exciting and so much fun! It just goes by way too fast!

Happy 5th Anniversary my love! To many, many more!!

Crockpot Cheese Tortellini

If you've been on any sort of social media lately, I'm sure you've seen this recipe pop up on someone's page. I saw it and decided to give it a try last night!

Crockpot Cheese Tortellini

1 small bag of frozen cheese tortellini
1 small bag fresh baby spinach
1 box vegetable broth
2 cans Italian diced tomatoes
1 block cream cheese

Throw everything into the crockpot, making sure you cut up the block of cream cheese first. Turn crockpot on low and cook for 5-6 hours. Done!

(Notes: I used 1.5 bags of tortellini. One bag was 4 servings and to be honest, it didn't look like much for the 4 of us to eat. So I added half of a second bag. I also used fat free cream cheese. I did find that I had to stir this up a few times while it cooked-the cream cheese just sort of sat there unless you stirred it. So I don't know how this would work if you were gone all day. I cooked mine for 5 hours and it was more than enough-the tortellini were falling apart they were so soft!)

This turned out pretty good! Avery tried one bite and said it was gross (big shock)...Cassandra ate two bowls of it!  It made enough for us for dinner for two nights which was great! I really liked the sauce it created-we're thinking of doing the sauce over regular pasta sometime for something different.

Sorry I didn't snap a pic of this-totally forgot!

First Pigtails

Finally someone has hair long enough to put in pigtails!

Although they only lasted about 5minutes in her hair! They are adorable though!

And this outfit?! Too cute!

Freezer Jam

I have never made jam before. I've thought of it and wanted to try it, but it always just seemed like something that was very time consuming and a pain in the rear. While I was at the chiropractor last week, one of the workers mentioned that she made freezer jam and that it was so easy. Which of course got me interested. Add that to the strawberry picking we did over the weekend and I was sold!

One thing I've noticed about strawberry picking....the berries seem to go "bad" really fast. If I buy a container of them at the store, they stay "good" in my fridge for at least a week. But when we pick them, in about 2 days, they are already moldy, etc. And I don't wash them or anything-just keep them in the picking quarts and pop them in the fridge. I don't get it....and it makes me wonder what the hell the stores are putting on their berries!  So....when we pick berries, I know we won't eat them all before they go bad. Even with my kids who chow down fruit like it's their last meal. Last year I froze a bunch of them to use in smoothies, etc. This year I decided to give homemade jam a shot.

Let's just say I'm glad I did!

I chose to do a low sugar jam. I'm not a huge jam/jelly eater myself so I usually buy what Gabe eats since the kids at this point don't know the difference. He's on a low sugar kick these days and when I saw how much sugar goes into the low sugar recipe, I didn't even want to know how much goes in the regular recipe!

Low Sugar Strawberry Jam

4 cups prepared fruit (roughly 4pts of strawberries)
3 cups sugar
1 box pectin for low/no sugar
1 cup water

1. Make sure your storage containers for the jam are clean and dry.

2. Crush strawberries thoroughly and measure out 4 cups of crushed fruit. Set aside.

3. Mix sugar and pectin in a large saucepan. Stir in water. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add strawberries and stir 1 minute.

4. Fill all containers immediately leaving 1/2 inch at the top. Wipe off edges of container and immediately cover with lid. Let stand at room temperature for 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Keep in fridge for up to 3 weeks or freeze for up to a year. Thaw in fridge before using.

(Notes: I crushed my strawberries in a food processor using the pulse button. Just do it until you reach a chunkiness that you like for your jam. I used just under 2qts of strawberries. This made six 8oz jars of jam.)

I could not believe how easy this recipe was. And honestly, the jam is awesome! I'm so glad we tried making it and we will definitely do it again!

Strawberries!

I've been wanting to go berry picking for awhile now. I think it's been 2 years since the last time we went. Last year was hard because Cassandra was only a few months old. But now that she's mobile, I thought it would be easier and fun for the kids.

Today was looking like a nice day so we decided to go in the morning. I had a hair appointment at 11am and they only do berry picking from 8am-noon so we figured we would get up and go.

The kids got up, dressed and ate a quick breakfast and we got to the farm (which is only 5min away-score!) around 9:30 or so. We got a few quarts to fill and headed out to the field.

Let me just say that my phone said it was 75 out...it felt like 100 degrees by the time we left! An open field and blazing sun is very hot and we were all feeling it towards the end! We were there maybe an hour and the kids wouldn't have made it much longer.

Cassandra was funny-she just wanted to eat the berries. If she saw one hit the quart, she'd snatch it and stuff it in her mouth! We had to keep her away from them or we would have had nothing to bring home! Although at times she was very whiny and the berries were the only thing to satisfy her!

Avery did great this trip. Last time we went she was only 2 and really had no interest in any of it-eating or picking! This time, she was all about hunting for berries and filling her container!

Berry face

Another full container!

We brought home 4 quarts of berries....the kids ate probably a full one that day!

We had a lot of fun and will definitely do it again, especially with the farm being to close to us!