11 months

last monday, bryan made that slow roasted moroccan chicken for dinner, with roasted tomatoes, chickpeas with raisins, and a salad of cucumber, tomato, and lemon balm. it all turned out very tasty. oliver *loved* the chickpeas, and those became a great dinner time item for him all week!

wednesday, our neighbor john brought over his heavy machinery, and he and bryan ripped out the tree in our front yard. i didn't mind the tree so much, but it was keeping sunlight from bryan's roses, so out it came. bryan and dad spent a good amount of time sawing it apart, and bryan made i don't know how many trips to the yard, as evidenced by the size of the darn thing:











for dinner, we had chicken fried steak with home fries. breaded and fried steak, with cream sauce? hello!! guess how much i love this dish. we had the cube steak on hand, and after reading about kristi's brother's chicken fried rib eye, we decided to have the original for dinner. not that we're not going to attempt that rib eye, mind you.

i spent that evening chasing oliver around the house. he likes to put a toy in his mouth, just like a dog. i kid you not - he will growl, shake his head from side to side, and crawl around the house as fast as can be. he must have learned it from the dogs, although they don't do it that much anymore (they spend a lot of their time looking at us woefully, as if to say, "remember when you loved me, too?"). that evening, we took a family walk to enjoy the GORGEOUS weather we'd been having, and the stuffed dog came along too - in his mouth of course. i swear he didn't chew on it the whole time.

thursday was csa day. we got, among other things, delicious radishes, brussel sprouts, green beans, and some kick ass carrots (in shades of purple, orange, and white). more tomatoes, too, of course, but i can't get enough of those sweet golden ones, so i was happy.

that night for dinner, i don't remember what we had planned (i blame mommy brain), but whatever it was didn't work out so we made what i will heretofore refer to as left over nachos. we used left over taco meat, and bryan made a pepper jack cheese sauce to mix that into. we also used the leftover home fries. put that on the remains of our tortilla chips from the previous week's nachos, along with lettuce, tomato, and sour cream and - ta da! left over nachos. :) they were delicious and i was too stuffed for ice cream.

friday, bryan made moussaka. normally, we make moussaka with ground beef, but as i have been liking lamb lately, we decided to try with half ground beef / half ground lamb. turns out i don't like ground lamb. i ate around the meat as best i could (and i did try to eat it - but just couldn't!), and filled up on ice cream afterwards. i was sad - i love moussaka, and bryan did a great job!!

saturday, i tried a new experiment: homemade sauerkraut. now, the old fashioned method of making sauerkraut involves a bucket, a basement, and a lot of salt (and perhaps 25 pounds of cabbage, depending on where you look). we decided that it wasn't worth it to do this with one head of cabbage (but just wait until next year). so instead, i packed sterilized jars full of raw, shredded cabbage and filled them with a simple brine of water, white vinegar, and mustard seeds, including a sprig of dried dill (from our garden) which had gone to seed, at the bottom of each jar. i processed the jars in the canner, and they're now hanging out in our basement. we'll see in a few weeks how that worked out. i made 8 jars, so hopefully it turned out well. :)

bryan picked me some gorgeous roses from my favorite rose bush in the back yard. this bush has the biggest, most beautiful, most fragrant flowers i've ever seen. and it keeps blooming! that bush won't quit. which is fine by me, because it keeps my house smelling like roses.

after oliver's afternoon nap, we headed to the zoo to kill some time. we went through the aviary. oliver had never been in that building before. he *LOVED* the penguins. he was so excited by them swimming and playing - he was jumping around in his stroller, flapping his arms, and talking excitedly to them. too cute!!

a few random pics from that day (hey, he's really cute, i take a lot of pictures, k?):

my boys, working hard:




his, "ooooooooooooooohhh, that's silly" face:


throwing a fake fit when i wouldn't let him do something (like chew on a laptop power cord, or climb the heating vent into the bay window):


hanging out at the zoo:





that night for dinner, bryan used the leftover cabbage to make a slaw, and served that with burgers and homemade potato chips. his burgers were outstanding, as usual, with cheese and that yellow tomato i love. the chips were thin, crispy, and the best ever. who knew i could be wooed with hamburgers?

sunday, the day started out great, but took a turn for the worse when oliver decided he didn't need an afternoon nap. it wasn't that he was cranky, but since we had dinner plans, i needed him to nap so as to not have a meltdown at 5 p.m. no such luck for momma. i thought about selling him back, but wasn't sure if i could get good money for a sweaty baby who wouldn't nap and was probably teething.

sunday night for dinner, we headed over to gram & gramp's house. gram made pot roast, mashed potatoes, and a cauliflower and broccoli bake with cheese and bread crumbs. i love gram's pot roasts!! for dessert, she served ice cream, which included a homemade lemon ice cream. i had that *with* a scoop of chocolate, because i know how to get down. oliver had a blast exploring a new house and charming gram and gramps. gram brought out a box of little toy cars and trucks, which oliver marveled at - they rolled! i know what he's getting for his birthday! for skipping his afternoon nap, he was in a great mood. i was duly impressed, and decided to love him again.

yesterday, day care had the day off, so i worked from home. bryan and i split caring for oliver so we could both get some work done. oliver was incredibly well behaved; played nicely and napped well. after we shut down work for the day, i shoved some food in oliver's mouth, and then we ran off to target to get that errand out of the way before the weekend. dad dropped by so he and bryan would work on the tree stump some more (and determined that due to random pieces of metal being embedded mysteriously throughout the stump, bry will have to pay the city $25 to pick it up rather than ruin 18 chain saw blades trying to cut it down). oliver took his sweet time going to bed, so dinner wasn't until after 8 p.m., but it was so delicious that it made up for it being so late. bryan seared steaks on the cast iron, for which i made a quick mustard horseradish sauce. he also braised swiss chard from the csa along with garlic, yellow tomato, and a pepper from our garden. so flavorful with just a little bite. we also had the green beans from our csa. dessert was butter pecan ice cream. we watched heroes, then i crashed in bed.

oliver is 11 months old today! i can hardly believe it. he'll be 1 next month - totally crazy. where did all the time go? oh, yeah - sucked into a vacuum of sleep deprivation, that's right. i'm pretty excited for his birthday!

bunch of random new pictures in the september gallery.

WFD: if bryan gets a chance to finish the prep, it'll be pastitsio. pastitsio is a greek pasta dish, traditionally made with ground lamb (ours will be beef), tomato sauce, cheeses, and a bechemel sauce. in short, most of the things i like, all in one place. if that doesn't work out, it'll be organic frozen ravioli, with ground beef and a sauce of some sort. either meal calls for wine, me thinks.