Recently. . .

I'm just going to give some short little updates on life and then post some pictures, which is what you're all here for anyway! Lol.

• Katie started crawling! Well, she started army crawling about a month and a half ago (at only 4 1/2 months old!) but now she's really doing it up on her hands and knees.
  
• Katie is also pulling herself up to stand. It's been pretty crazy around our place because now she can really get into everything. She pulls up in her crib, on the couch, the entertainment center, in the bathtub, wherever she can! She absolutely loves to stand and I have no doubt she'll be walking within the next 2-3 months.
  
• Brad finished this semester! Grades aren't out yet, but i'm sure he did great. These next two weeks will probably be like heaven for him, especially after having pneumonia the week before finals!!
• I quit my job! Yay! I know quitting a job doesn't seem like something I should be celebrating in this economy, in this stage of our lives, but it really is a good thing. Trust me. When you're stuck at a place where they take complete advantage of you and pay you almost nothing and try and make you feel bad about it, it's not somewhere you should stay, let alone take your baby there!
  

Ok, on with the pictures!


Katie just loves to play Xbox. :D
My little "green" baby is really her mama's daughter. She rolled this empty soda bottle allt he way from the living room to over by the recycling bins in the kitchen. Teach em young!
She then proceeded to crawl into the kitchen and not let me wash dishes.
She loves to play with all the cords. We really need some kind of door to hide them or something.
Just Facebookin'
When I took Brad to the doctor's for his pneumonia, I snagged a Dum-Dum for Katie. She seemesd to really enjoy it. Her first lollipop!
Trying to bite it. Haha!
Katie LOVES bathtime! She especially likes to feel the water coming out from the spout and getting on her tummy and "swimming."
HAHAHA! Aunt Marci snapped this picture.
Katie and Santa Claus, a.k.a. Brother Blakely, at the ward Christmas party.
She is such a little troublemaker!
Katie just loves her daddy!!!
What am I going to do with this girl? 6 months old and she pulls herself to stand on everything! We should probably start some babyproofing.
Here is Katie's Christmas present from mommy and daddy! (mostly mommy). It's this awesome chair that she can sit in, it has straps, or she can stand in, there are leg holes! There's a tray there that velcros on to put toys or snacks in, a cupholder, and even a little sunshade thing (not pictured). The best part is, she can use it until she's 75 pounds! Hello camping and trips to the beach! Or eating cheerios in front of the tv for now.
She's standing here if you can see. Oh, and a big thanks to my friend Daryn who picked the chair up for me from the BabySteals warehouse in Utah! 11 dollars in shipping was a little too pricey for me.
Thanks mom and dad for Brad's Christmas present! We all love it already!
Our Christmas tree! Whoever said that a Christmas Tree had to be a pine tree? Hmm? :)
Presents from Grandma and Grandpa Evenson who were up here a few days ago to pick up Marci from school.
Brad and I made a gingerbread house a few days ago with a kit from Bountiful Baskets. See my little snowman? I was pretty proud of it. Lol!
A few days later, we let Katie help us demolish, and eat, it.
This is what I call "Sugar Drunk."
Can I really play with this momma?
No! Don't take it away! Can I keep this part? Please?
We let Katie open her presents a little early because we'll be in Pennsylvania for Christmas (yay!)
There were a lot of pictures with her opening/staring at/trying to eat the presents, but I just chose the couple where you can actually kind of see her face.
Look at those pudgy cheeks!
Katie and Daddy passed out on the floor the other day. To the other mommies out there: Don't you just love your husband even more when you see things like this?!


That's it for now! We'll be in Brad's hometown in PA from the 21st-28th, so hopefully i'll update when we get back. It should be a great trip and I know a certain grandma who is so excited to see the little one. She's excited too, Grandma Odasso!

TacOdasso

I have SO much to blog about (Halloween decorating contest, Family photos, Katie getting two teeth, Katie crawling, Katie saying mama kinda, our next two vacations, how work is going, etc. . . ) and yet I am here to blog a recipe. Lol!

Last Wednesday (not Nov 10th, but Nov 3rd) I decided to make tacos.
I had made some skimpy ones for the kids I nanny earlier in the day (the family never has food I know how to use so I have to be creative!) that were just black beans, cheddar cheese, chopped spinach and some lime juice.
Although the kids were pretty skeptical because they wanted meat in their tacos, I thought they were pretty darn tasty and wanted more when I got home!
A while ago I scored a bunch of free little corn tortillas with couponing, so I needed to use them up anyway.
Well, after I made them, I had to make them two more times in one week because Brad seemed to just love them and kept requesting them.
That never happens to me with Brad! (I think he's a little picky. Hehe.)
Since I feel so good about myself, I decided to post my recipe.

Oh, and i'm calling them TacOdasso's until I think of a better name.
Also, not the best picture, but I didn't take one and I found this one on Brad's phone. Haha!

TacOdasso's

Shredded Chicken (enough for however many tacos you want. I make shredded chicken using this method)
Little Corn Tortillas
Vegetable Oil
Cumin
Mexican Chili Powder
Salt
Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Iceberg Lettuce
Cheese, Cheddar or Jack or a Mexican mix or whatever you like
Fresh Cilantro, roughly chopped
Half a Lime

Brush tortillas with vegetable oil on both sides.
Heat a skillet on medium-high and then plop a tortilla right down in there.
Wait about 30 seconds or until it looks good and then flip and repeat.
Once it looks yummy (they can be soft or crispy, depending on how you like your tacos) transfer to a paper towel, get off any excess oil (I use tongs and just kinda press it on the paper towel), and then fold in half and sandwich with another paper towel. (We don't want oily tacos, nuh-uh.)
Repeat this with however many tortillas you want.
Next, heat some veggie oil in another skillet (about 4 Tbsp for enough chicken for 4 tacos I think) on medium-high heat.
Once the oil's all good and hot, dump that chicken right in there and toss in the seasonings, as much as you like.
If I had to guess, i'd say I use about 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 Tbsp cumin (maybe more. I love cumin!), and just a pinch of red pepper flakes.
Get it all good and sizzly but be careful not to let the chicken dry out. I tend to do that. (Also, if you're amazing like me, you'll be doing all this while the tortillas are cooking up to save time)
Once the chicken is a nice golden-y color, just turn the heat to low while you get everything else ready.
Now, slice up the iceberg lettuce so it's in nice bite-size strips (make sure you wash and dry it too.)
Shred the cheese, unless already shredded.
Now set up your station! I like to have a little assembly line ready.
Grab a tortilla, fill it with chicken then cheese followed by some lettuce, some cilantro, and then squeeze just a few drops of lime juice across the top.
Scarf it down and make another one. And another one. And then remember you're hubby and make him some too.

Just a note: These would probably be good with some chopped red onion and chopped tomatoes, but we had neither so I don't know!


I think I use way too many parentheses. Lol.

Lo Siento

I need to stop procrastinating blogging because then I end up writing one HUGE post!
Beware, there are quite a few pictures in this post.
First, I just wanted to show everyone the little M&M mini cupcakes I made.
They were for a Relief Society get to know you activity at the beginning of the month. They are a little sloppy, but that's because I was in a serious rush. Brad helped me too. He's so awesome, even if he doesn't have the best frosting skills. ;)
A couple Friday's ago, we went with our friends the Roundy's to the straw maze! I had never been and it was pretty cool. They had some family with us as well and we all went to her sister's house afterwards for hot chocolate. Katie stayed awake through the entire maze, which was pretty crazy!
I didn't take many pictures, mostly because I forgot, but here's us waiting to go in!
My friend Daryn stops by every once in a while to visit and chat and one time when she was over here, Katie squiggled her way almost out of the chair and had pulled her headband over her eyes.
She was squirming around and making all these frustrated noises.
It was kinda sad, but also pretty funny so I took a picture (and then promptly helped her out.)
Two Friday's ago, we went to the Corn Maze out in Shelley with a bunch of our friends.
It was cool. Not really worth the hour long drive, but still fun to get out with friends and do something new!
After, we all stopped and ate at Denny's!

There are two pictures of our group because Daryn wanted to take a picture so that I could be in it.
Work has been going well. I've basically been a zombie the last week or so, but I get to nap after I take the girl to school, because then the boy and Katie both nap, which means I do too!
My job makes me way tired as it is, but with Katie teething REALLY badly and not sleeping well because of it, I haven't had very much sleep at all.
Sam loves Katie so much, it's so cute. Whenever we get there in the morning he comes running over to see her saying "A-E, A-E!" (Sam has some speech issues because he had some hearing issues for a while, so he has trouble with his consonants. I've been able to learn some sign language to better communicate with him and it's been so fun!)
Here he is trying to play ball with her!
Katie grabbed the ball and wouldn't let go. Haha!
Sam is always wanting me to take pictures, and since we're always laying on our tummies on the floor together I thought it would make a cute picture.
Not so much. Lol.
I look through the BYU Idaho school bulletin board just about everyday and last week I saw a girl offering to do Halloween photo shoots for babies for free and you get to choose five to keep, so I thought why not!
Katie has a few costumes to choose from but I ultimately chose this bear outfit (even though it isn't really a costume per se) because it was warm and fit her really well.
Here are the five I chose:
Brad actually chose this picture of me and Katie because he thinks it's cute.
Suuuuuuure babe. Haha.
She was pretty fussy and a little uncooperative for most of the shoot because it was right in the middle of her afternoon nap, so we didn't get many smiles and she had her pacifier in a lot.
I feel like I should do something really cool and artsy with this picture, but I don't know what!
Definitely the best one. See, this is how Katie is almost all of the time when she's not teething. Big smiles and uber cute.
We also took some family photos on Friday with another girl from the bulletin board who was offering to do them for only $5! And we get a CD with all the pictures! Woo!
I should be getting them in the next day or two, so hopefully i'll get around to blogging about it.

Last night, Friday night, I threw a Halloween party in our lounge!
It was so fun to plan and make all the goodies, but also really stressful.
My little sister Marci was SO great to help me put it all together and I am so grateful!
(Did I mention Marci's bf of 3 years Mario was staying with us for the last two weeks? He flew up from Cali to visit her here and stayed in our spare room. He left on Friday afternoon.)
I took a few pictures of the party, but mostly of the food I made, but you can see all those on Facebook if you like.

Here's the food table. I made everything there except for the little green alien cupcakes in the front. Daryn brought those. :)
We also had more food brought later by the Roundy's, the Jordan's, The Dickey's, and the Petrich's. Thanks guys!
Unfortunately, I focused so much on the food that we had a serious lack of extra drinks, spoons, forks, etc... but oh well!
(You really should check out the pics on Facebook because I made some cute cute goodies if I do say so myself)
The party was also lacking in activities, but mostly people played ping-pong, talked, ate, and then we all played Mafia a couple times!
It was a really good turn-out with around 20 people so it was awesome.
Anyway, this month has been pretty eventful and the weather has been SO NICE, for the most part.
I am so glad that summer/fall lasted so long.
Unfortunately, winter is pretty much upon us now.
Bleh.

That's all for now!
I'll blog next time about our family photo shoot and our awesome Halloween decorations!
Oh, and maybe about our not-so-new-anymore apartment since I forgot to do that last month!

Crazy crazy coupon lady

I just have to post about what I just did at Albertsons because I think it was pretty awesome.

I did 3 separate transactions because it was cheaper out of pocket right then and there for me since all I had on hand was a $5 bill and some change.

Transaction 1:
Tylenol Cold Multi-Symptom (the liquid kind)- Regular price $7.49
On sale for $4.99
Used $2.00/1 coupon from Tylenol.com
Used a $0.50 off my next purchase coupon from my last shopping trip
Total= $2.49 ($0.30 tax= $2.79)
Recieved a catalina coupon for $2.00 off my next purchase

Transaction 2:
Tylenol Cold Multi-Symptom (the liquid kind)- Regular price- $7.49
On sale for $4.99
Used $2.00/1 coupon from Tylenol.com
Used $2.00 off my next purchase from transaction 1
Total= $0.99 ($0.30 tax=$1.29)

Transaction 3:
2 bags of Halls cough drops- Regular price for 2- $3.98
On sale for $0.99 a bag [Side note, I accidentally grabbed one of the more expensive bags of Halls which ended up costing me an extra $1.49]
Used $1/2 coupon
Dial bar soap 3pack- Regular price- $2.79
On sale for $1.50
Used $0.35/1 coupon that rounded up to $1/1 with Albertson's Great Coupon Round Up Promo
Used $2.00 off my next purchase from transaction 2
Total= $0.98 ($0.26 tax= $1.24)

In the end I got $23.11 worth of items for only $5.32
Which was just about all I had in my wallet and now we're ready for cold and flu season. :)

Fooooooooooooooood!

Last night, I decided to let Katie have her first "real" food.
She has been SO interested in grown up food lately and wants so bad to eat whatever I am eating.
I know she is just shy of 4 months, so it's really early to start her on food, but I figured there's no harm in giving it a shot just once.
Plus, my milk supply has been REALLY low lately from not eating enough (I'm supposed to have about 2300 calories a day, but because of work i've been getting less than 1500 i'm sure) so she's been eating every hour and it's driving me crazy!
Especially since she was sleeping so good for a while, about 6-7 hours from 10-5 or 6, but now she gets me up every hour to eat!
Argh!
Anyway, it was just some rice cereal but she seemed to really enjoy it!
It was super messy, which was expected, but it didn't help her sleep any better or fill her up, so i'll continue to just exclusively breastfeed for the next month or so I think.
Just gotta get more calories in during the day to up my milk!





Videos of her eating will be on Facebook soon!

My Little Zoo Animal

Last Saturday was a free admission day to the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls.
Since we'd never been, we decided to go!
Katie enjoyed being outside, as she always does, and was even a little interested in some of the animals.
It was SUPER busy and it's a pretty small zoo, so getting around with our stroller, and parking, were kind of awful, but we still had a good time.





This monkey was SO funny! He was just chillin' by the glass, arm up and relaxing. Sorry about the reflection of some little girl's flip flops.
We got her this cute little shirt from the gift shop. 35% off!