Cous Cous

 Every batch of my cous cous had a layer stuck to the pan. I dealt with it only because my kid loves her some cous cous (as long as there's cous cous and feta, I can add pretty much anything in there and she's good. Yeah, I know).

Why has it only now occurred to me to add the butter to my cous cous during cooking? Life changing, ok somewhat life-altering. I thought the butter was just for flavor and never added it. There I go again...thinking!

Random act of direction following...I add butter when stated, and cous cous didn't stick :O No more soak/scrub/seduce burnt pans and no more waste. Now I'm wishing Fresh & Easy sold their Israeli cous cous in larger packages!

For the record, one of the kid's favorite lunches is this cous cous salad:

Cooked and cooled cous cous (I cook ours in veg stock)
diced cucumbers, grape tomatoes, black olives
crumbled feta
toss and serve

Quite often Tristyn chops everything up with her safety knife while I stare at the cous cous simmering. If there are leftovers the next day I'll toss in some chopped lettuce and whatevers on hand, it's super versatile.

Chocolate Bark - Halloween Candy Edition

Last Easter I stumbled upon an Easter candy chocolate bark - it was gorgeously colored but made me think nothing but "Ewwww, can we say excessive". Although it was right up my friend Amber's alley so I sent her the link :). She made it for her annual kids Easter hunt and it was devine. So I decided to make a Halloween edition with Tristyn.

We used some various halloween candy bars and incorporated them into our pretzel chocolate bark. Super simple & fun!

We started with a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, then spread on a generous heap of melting chocolate. We used Wilton brand candy melts. Next time I'd use a better quality chocolate for the base.

We then sprinkled broken pretzel pieces, M&M's and chopped up random chocolates, pressed them into the base chocolate a bit and let the bark chill in the fridge for a spell. An hour later we checked and it was begging to be broken up into but size chunks and sampled.

We plan in doing this again at Christmas using chocolate candies in an appropriate color scheme.

Salt Painting

Today we did some salt painting for a fun project. We started off using school glue to make a random design on large art paper. Thicker paper works best - but we weren't going archival quality here so I used what we had on hand.

We then covered the entirety of the glue design with table salt. Once completely covered, the excess was tapped off. I poured it into a ramekin to save for the next piece - which I did on my own while Tristyn finished hers. What can I say, it looked fun! I let her dump the salt in the bin when I finished covering my design.

The final step is to dip a paintbrush in water color and let the paint seep into the salt. Mixing colors is fun as well as playing with the intensity of the colors by adding more or less water. The salt picks up the paint and it travels as far as the colored water can until it's absorbed.

The best part of this project is because each step is totally fun and kid friendly my 4 year old completely did it herself from start to finish and there's no waiting :)

Quinn's 1 Month Old!

Where has he time gone? The last 30 days have flown by.

Quinn has already been on her first trip. We went to Dana Point for 4 days while Mike was working there. It was beautiful. We were there 4 years ago for a weekend wedding (while I was pregnant with Tristyn), and I always wanted to go back.

Quinn was great the whole trip. The four of us shared a room and it was no problem. She is such a good baby. Very chill.

A few days after we got back my stepdaughter and her baby came to stay for a few days. The backseat of my truck looked so cute with the 3 of them all in a row (T in her booster seat, Quinn in her infant seat and Sophia in her carseat). Quinn got a nice break from T's constant kisses while Sophia was here to be showered with kisses :) It was fun to have her here, especially now that she's walking. We took her to her first froyo, too.

Quinn's Debut

A week overdue, an ambulance, and a tee time. Quinn's Debut...

In a few hours Quinn will be a week old. At this time last Tuesday I wasn't even in labor yet. Her debut was pretty fast. Here's how it went:

We spent the day having lunch with friends, visiting the dinosaur exhibit and checking out the tiny turtles at the La Quinta Civic Center. I asked The Huzband if he'd be home from work early today. When he asked why, I said "I want to have a baby tonight." He had the next two days off from work so I wanted to take advantage of his time off, plus, I was done. I would be a week overdue the next day, and I was ready to meet our new princess.

Tristyn took this (blurry) pic of me at 5:28 that evening. Twelve hours later, that belly would be no longer!

From Logic. Math. Reality.

About 1:30am I started contracting. They were immediately regular, but far enough apart I knew I had some time. I was exhausted, so I tried to sleep in between contractions after logging them on my iPhone.

Tristyn woke up while I was getting my things together to head to the hospital, and she asked if it was time. I told her yes, and she ran excitedly to tell her dad. It was then that I realized we had an hour drive in order to drop Tristyn off at my parents on the way to the hospital in Palm Springs, and this was the first night of the scheduled road closures on the 10 for construction. Suddenly I knew that I wouldn't make it in time, and the contractions immediately got crazy strong, and I had the urge to push. I told Mike to call for an ambulance. He was on the phone when my water broke.

They wheeled me into the ambulance and Mike and Tristyn followed in the truck. My dad was to meet them at the hospital to bring T back to their house, but he didn't make it in time. We arrived at the hospital at 5:20am. Quinn was born at 5:30am. 9 pounds 7 ounces, no drugs, Tristyn waiting for her Papa in the waiting room holding a nurses hand. Mike cut the cord, Quinn & I got cleaned up, and I was ready to go home! Not that they'd let us. But I felt like I could shower and walk outta the place with my fam of 4 like it was a Jiffy Lube 30 minute service. Yeah, they all laughed at my idea. Then they put a lojack tag on my baby!

Quinn got her first bath, Mike attempted some photography (not his forte) and we all hung out before Q decided it was time for a nap. I followed suit after I told Mike he should go home and shower so he could make his 10:00am tee time. Yes folks, The Dad was golfing 5 hours after his daughter was born, and he golfed with *my* dad, and my dad didn't even let him win on this morning of his daughters birth!

Here's Tristyn holding Quinn for the first time:

From Logic. Math. Reality.

Happy Birthday Quinn!

Welcome :)

40+

Stilllll pregnant!