I can’t believe today is only Tuesday. It feels like it should be at least Thursday. What a week.
Last night I had to work late so Dave and Ajax were on their own for dinner, which consisted of left over chicken and veggies from the night before. Dave said that he prepared the plate perfectly for the nino, set it down in front of Ajax and all Ajax could do was turn his nose up into the air and proclaim- Noo thaaank youu! He then picked up a piece of chicken and said- this is trash dad, no thank you! Can you believe that? lol.
Dave said that he ended up bribing Ajax with several grapes to get him to eat some of the chicken. They had done bath by the time I got home, but I was able to play with Ajax a bit before he finally hit the sack around 8. Being an adult can be a bummer sometimes when all you want to do is be home with your family.
Although it is officially spring, it’s still very cold out. But because it was so sunny Dave and Ajax couldn’t resist a bit of playing around outside. Dave has been trying to teach Ajax how to play catch and today Ajax caught a few balls. I was doing dishes and Dave and Ajax kept yelling at me from the yard to watch, so sorry the pictures a bit blurry, they were taken from the house. Ajax also helped Dave collect sticks from the front yard and put them in the burn pit. Ajax loves to help pick up sticks.
We did a bit of running today. We dropped my car at the shop for an oil change and then Dave and Ajax hit up up Home Depot while I went grocery shopping. Fun times. We then came home and made homemade pizza for dinner, which was awesome.
We also got a jump on some spring cleaning and spent our morning dusting and moping. We also wanted to get the house in order for Ajax’s birthday party next weekend. Can you believe that Ajax is going to be TWO?
Playing catch!Ta da!Ajax was being silly and wanted me take his photo.Then Ajax wanted me to take our photo.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Rite Aid run. I just wasn’t seeing awesome deals on things we needed. I’m trying to balance my out of pocket against what we really need and hopefully find a happy middle.
As my husband shaves his entire head and most of his face at least three times a week he was low on razors. Actually he was on his last razor and had been telling me for some time that he needed some more. I, however, had been waiting for the “perfect coupon scenario” for razors, which never came. Today I finally pulled myself up by my bootstraps and headed to Rite Aid for this transaction –
Two packs of Fusion ProGlide razors at 16.19 a piece = $32.38
One pack of Huggies diapers = 8.99
TOTAL = $41.37
After coupons, a $3 rebate check, and a $20 gift card I’d earned from a prior Rite Aid transaction, I paid $5.03 out of my own pocket. I also received a $10 UP reward for later. So, all in all, not bad.
Diapers and razors, both items we needed.Ajax wanted to be in the picture as well.And then he knocked everything over.
Ajax and I also made some freezer jam. For one jar, it cost a total of $1.99 to make! Strawberries were on sale for $1 and the pectin was only $.99. Ajax had fun tossing the strawberries into the magic bullet. We ended up eating a bit of it for a desert after dinner, so we didn’t have a full jar to put into the freezer. Oh well.
I wasn’t sure what to make for dinner. I didn’t feel like beef or chicken, and I was tired. I was so tired that I narrowed my dinner choice to anything that would involve my trusty crockpot. I remembered that I had lentils in the pantry and immediately thought of this recipe.
This is an excellent soup that totally works for the crockpot. My friend Erica initially gave me the recipe and then I also found one on Allrecipe.com – this variation is a combination of the two with my two cents thrown in. It is excellent and makes a ton. Dave and my parents loved it, as well as Ajax, who even enjoyed the lentils.
Ingredients
1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage (use 1 lb of sausage)
1 large onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped (I omitted this, only because I didn’t have it on hand)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic (I have chopped garlic and just tossed in a bit, no where near 1 tbl)
1 lb dry lentils, rinsed (one bag)
1 cup shredded carrot (I let Ajax toss in a dozen or so baby carrots, he helped)
8 cups water (I only added about 3 cups of water)
2 cans chicken broth (I used veggie as I was out of chicken)
1 can diced tomatoes (I used seasoned Italian tomatoes w/ basil, oregano, etc)
1 can of RoTel tomatoes with green chilies
2 bay leaves (I actually forgot to add the bay leaves, opps)
Seasonings to taste- salt, black pepper, cumin, paprika, basil, powdered mustard, red pepper flakes… whatever
Fresh spinach (washed, cut up), about three big handfuls, I didn’t measure
Directions
Place sausage in a large pot. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Add onion, celery and chopped garlic, and sauté until tender and translucent. Stir in lentils, carrot, water, chicken broth and tomatoes. Season with garlic powder, parsley, bay leaves, oregano, thyme, basil, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. Cover, and simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until lentils are tender.
Stir in pasta, and cook 15 to 20 minutes, or until pasta is tender. (The original recipe called for pasta, I didn’t add pasta).
Basically – I threw everything into the crockpot and stirred it up. I mashed up the sausage, breaking it up a bit. I cooked it on low for about 6 hours, maybe a little less. Toward the end of the cook time I threw in the can of tomatoes with green chilies for some zing. Although this is a crockpot meal, I found you have to kind of watch this soup so that it doesn’t get too dry. This, however, may just be a quirk of my crockpot which runs super hot even on low. I served this with tostitos.
Toss it all in!See? Just throw it in.Stir it up well.Let it cook on low... till whenever you think it's done.
Today at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor there was an event called Brick Bash. In case you are unaware of what Brick Bash is (I was clueless until Dave filled me in) it’s a Lego induced frenzy of activity where kids and adults get to see some pretty awesome Lego creations, make their own Lego creations, and there were even some robots thrown in. Ajax was feeling better today, his cold finally starting to break up, so we decided an outing would be good for all of us. And of course we all know my husband’s love of Legos.
We got to Ann Arbor around noonish and the place was actually pretty packed. For some reason we didn’t think there would be many people there, but we were obviously wrong. Ajax loved it all. There were model trains made of Legos that he kept trying to chase (round and round the table we went), there were little robots that zipped around a platform just at the right level for Ajax to kneel next to, there were even some drums that kids were allowed to touch and play with. Ajax did wonderful, he held my hand the entire time and not once did he try to dart away into the crowd. Toward the end, he did start to get a little tired, so we packed him up and had a quick snack in the cafeteria before setting off.
What an enjoyable Saturday.
Jimi in Legos.Very excited watching the trains. We couldn't drag him away from the trains. Ajax thought the little robots were pretty cool.Enjoying a quick snack.Zoom Zoom.
This morning when I got Ajax up he was very warm. So warm that I didn’t even need the thermometer to know he was running a fever. Dave and I had a short and pointless conversation- was he ok to go to the babysitters? We both knew the answer, but because we are both so insanely busy with work right now, we indulged nonetheless. We finally agreed that he needed to stay home, so I called into work. I’m glad that I was able to stay home with him, he definitely needed some babying and mommy time. Maybe I did too.
Around 1 pm I decided to take him into the Doctor’s office. He was congested with a deep cough and had a fever. I knew that he probably just had a bad cold, but I was worried about his ear. I’m paranoid about ear infections now. So off to the doc we went, where it was confirmed that he just had an old fashion cold with a slight fever of 99.7 and no signs of an ear infection. I’m glad I took him in, simply for the peace of mind. I would have been very worried about it all weekend.
We got home around 4 pm and the weather was just lovely, hovering around 60 degrees. We played outside a bit until Dave got home from work. And then my mom and dad came over for dinner. My dad is feeling better and Ajax was very excited to see his grandparents. I made us a great crockpot dinner (lentil and sausage soup), a recipe I’ll share later for sure.
Sick nino.Because Ajax was sick I let him eat lunch and watch TV.He was very into Mickey Mouse. I haven't watched the Disney channel in years... but then again why would I?Explaining hats to grandpa.
Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Ajax is a bit under the weather, my dad’s a bit under the weather, and I’ve been a bit under the weather. Were all a bit under at the moment, luckily the weekend is right around the corner.
The other day for dinner we had “every man for himself” night. You know, the traditional meal where dinner is comprised of various odds and ends found in the refrigerator. I had left over chicken burritos, Dave had a pork chop and some hill billy goulash with apple sauce, and Ajax asked for oatmeal. This was so random, that Dave and I both asked him, what do you want? Oatmeal, Ajax replied. It’s so funny that little man is old enough to know what he wants to eat and to have the vocabulary to communicate it. So Ajax had oatmeal and applesauce for dinner. At least he didn’t ask for pancakes. Lately Ajax has wanted pancakes all the time, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I found this recipe on one of my coupon blogs (A Few Shortcuts) and decided to make it for dinner tonight. It seemed like the right amount of comfort needed on a cold Sunday. Dave and I, however, are renaming this – Hilly billy Goulash – because by all accounts it was basically goulash, delicious, but goulash nonetheless.
Ajax pushed it around his plate and screamed throughout the majority of dinner for some reason. We had to keep bargaining with him. One bite of bread, two bites of dinner, so on and so forth. Luckily Ajax can’t count and ended up eating about half his meal on this system (I served it with home made butterhorns and mixed veggies).
Ingredients
1 box macaroni
2 cans diced tomatoes (One of my cans of tomatoes had Italian seasonings in it, which worked out fine)
1 Small can tomato sauce
1 can chili beans (I used mild chili beans which gave it a nice zing)
½ cup diced onion
½ cup diced bell pepper ( or just by the frozen pepper onion mix)
1 lb. ground beef
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. (+-) chili powder
1 tsp. salt
Dash pepper
Shredded cheddar cheese (optional)
Ended up adding more spices.
Directions
Boil macaroni until al dente (about 5 min). You want it to finish cooking in the chili!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In skillet cook and crumble ground beef, onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Until done.
Add seasonings, tomatoes, and chili beans. Bring to a simmer.
In large casserole dish, layer macaroni and Chili. It is easier to mix together this way.
Top with shredded cheddar cheese if desired.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and serve!
Serves at least 6! (I actually made two complete casseroles with this and froze one for later).
No picture. Taking food pictures is really hard. Dave said the photo was so bad and unappetizing that it could not be published. So, trust me, this was pretty darn good.
Goodness I woke up tired today. Maybe that’s why I confused my dates.
As my favorite consignment shop closed, I decided to hit up a mom-2-mom sale. On Thursday I just happened to see an ad for one on the 12th. Great I thought. So this morning Dave, Ajax, and I piled into the car to head off to St. Matthews Church. As we were sitting in the church parking lot I was thinking, how odd that a church would have a sale on a Sunday. Where are all the signs and moms with strollers? Yes, it was odd, so odd because today was in fact the 13th. Darn.
As we were out and about Ajax was not going to let us just go home without some sort of actual trip. So, we cruised over to the mall and let Ajax play on the indoor play scape. Ajax had a blast and for the longest time it was just him and another toddler who was 27 months. Those two had a great time and played so well with each other. Ajax even worked up to going down the slide on his own (something he hasn’t been 100% sold on as of yet).
Around noon we headed home for lunch. After lunch Ajax held me make butterhorns. He is a good helper, but he now likes to lick the flour from his hands. I don’t know if this is necessarily bad for him or not, but it just seems like a bad idea to me, so then it turns into a game with me constantly cleaning his hands and him trying to get the flour into his mouth. What fun. I also let Ajax knead a small portion of the dough and he did such a good job, but then he took a bit out of it and I freaked out. That certainly can’t be good for him.
Relaxing on the couch after a hard day.One destroyed living room = rough day.
It’s 2 pm and that means it’s nap time in our home. All is quiet. Ajax fell right asleep as we’ve had a very busy morning.
Ajax slept in until 7:30 this morning (yay!) and woke up in such a good mood. We kicked it around the house till about 8:30 or so and then set off. We had breakfast at our favorite Coney Island. We hadn’t been there in quite a while and the waitress was surprised at how big Ajax was (we always seem to have the same waitress, which is nice). Ajax was great at the restaurant and ate a ton. He also inadvertently got chocolate milk with his meal, even though I had asked for white. I was going to send it back, but Dave said, let him have it. Ajax was polite and talked to the other patrons and even gave them high-fives as we left.
We then hit up Target and the Library (Ajax loves the library, especially all the different puzzles). Ajax was again wonderful at each stop. We then hit up Toys-R-Us. Dave and I want to get Ajax a tricycle for his birthday, but we were unsure what size to buy for him. I picked out the classic radio flyer on Amazon (with the little bell and streamers- so cute), but the comments all indicated that the 12 inch trike was just way too big for most 2 year olds. I was able to find a 10 inch trike, but just wasn’t sure which one to get him. So, this is why we stopped at TRU, to check out bikes. The 12 inch bike was indeed way too big for Ajax and I’m glad he got to try out some different styles of bikes. I think we’re going to go with a 10 inch tricycle, which he should grow into nicely over the summer.
We also did a stop at the grocery store and dollar store, and then made it home around 1 pm. Again, Ajax did wonderful throughout all our stops, to the point where Dave and I were just amazed. After we got home Ajax had some lunch, helped me dump some ingredients into the bread maker and played before crashing.
The weather is now turning cold and I think we may get some snow before the day is through. I have been dreaming about spring and summer, but I realize we still have a few more storms before that comes.
Also, my dad was nice enough to come into town on Friday to babysit Ajax for us, thank you dad! Ajax had a great time.
This is our backyard. Wet and soggy. It won't dry out till July.My dad bought this hat for Ajax. Ready to go fishin'!Ajax didn't want to sit still for his picture.Silly kid.
