It's My Birthday

So, today marks yet another year that I have been making the planet a greater place :) I spent the day doing nothing. Got the kids off to school, loaded the dishwasher and then plopped down on the coach and have pretty much remained here.
My family and I went out last night to Yamafuji in Front Royal for sushi. I have been craving sushi and have been quite fortunate to be able to eat it 3 times within one week; I ate some at the hospital in Charlottesville on Tuesday, and then went out with my awesome friends on Sat night. On Sunday, we went to the restaurant and discovered that the last Sunday of the month is Sushi Festival (basically, AYCE sushi) for $19. My husband wasn't feeling the different ones they had available on the bar, so he and the kids got bento boxes instead. I ate one of every type of sushi they had on the bar, and then went back and ate even more of my favorites. I ended up eating at least 24 peices (4 rolls), plus some Miso soup (delish) and edamame. I loved this idea because it let me try some rolls that I normally wouldn't order for fear of not liking it, and discovered that I liked basically all of them. I do believe I have a new favorite in the Dragon Roll, though! The best part, was the fact that my daughter ate 3 pieces of Cali Roll :)
As far as birthday presents, my great friend Amanda gave me the book Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez and a bag of cookies from this amazing bakery in Alexandria, Buzz, who have the perfect Ginger Snap cookie. The make this cookie with fresh ingredients, organic I believe, and use extra ginger to give them a wonderful kick. To top it off they put a touch of lemon icing on top :) These were so great, that I only let my husband have about a dime sized bite out of the 6 or 7 cookies in the bag.
My husband purchased my gift about 5 months ago apparently and has lost it, so that one is still up in the air. I am going tubing on Sat with the girls, and possibly one of them's husband, so I get to continue the awesomeness of my birthday until then at least!

Finally Friday

After spending most of this week sick with some weird stomach bug and then my computer just completely refusing to connect to the Internet, I am back. We had a snow storm on Wed. and luckily my husband had called in sick that morning, because he would have never made it home that evening! We ended up with about 7" total, and of course my children could care less that the whole family is sick, they wanted to go play!
                                    My husband took them outside and they built a snowman ...

before my husband played to my weakness and told me that the backyard was perfect for pictures.

My children also enjoyed playing on their teeter-totter that they got from their Aunt and Uncle for Christmas

   

Maddie Grace's favorite thing to do in the snow is sledding down our hill in the backyard

Unfortunately, her brother would not pull her :(

My husband wanted to see how big of a snowball he could make with the driveway; this was only from about 1/4 of the drive...

We then came inside and tried to warm up as quickly as possible and all crawled back on the couches and stayed there for the rest of the day :)

Black Bean Zucchini Quesadillas

4 med zucchini, grated

1½ t salt

30 oz cooked or canned black beans, drained

12 oz Monterey Jack, grated

2 green onions, chopped

1 jalapeño, minced

8 eight-inch flour tortillas

olive oil


Mix everything except the tortillas and oil together in a large bowl. Heat either a skillet over med-high or an electric griddle to 350*, brush one side of the tortillas with the oil and then lay oil side down on the skillet. Put a generous amount of the veggie mixture on the tortilla, lay a second one on top and brush this one with oil as well. Cook until golden on each side. Serve with whatever condiments you would like, I found them quite tasty just as they were :)

Traveling This Tuesday

You might be able to guess by the title of this post that I had to do a little driving today, 190 miles to be exact. My daughter has got some stomach problems and so we had to make the drive to Charlottesville to see yet another GI specialist. We came away with a plan and go back in 2 months to see how things are going!

As promised, I have some pictures for you guys.

This weekend the kids had to make snowflakes for school; of course, my kids are total originals and decided to have snowflakes with designs and not holes. My daughter is a total girly girl and decorated her's with flower nail stickers :) and my son is part Transformer and so he drew those. If you give him a piece of paper and pen or crayon he will draw Transformers, the playroom walls are testament to that ;)

This is the beginning of a beautiful blanket that I am making for my friend's daughter. I started this back in the summer, but life got in the way and it got pushed aside. I started working on it again this week and have discovered that I can get 3 rows done in the time it takes me to watch an episode of Buffy on Netflix. I will post pictures weekly so you can track how far I am getting, and then once I am finished I will post the pattern for those that are interested.

My son passed out yesterday. Escaping from the NYC Jail is hard work, especially if you have the stomach bug :(

Once he woke up, he was back to playing with his Transformers. Oh to be a child again...

Supper last night was Black Bean Zucchini Quesadillas, with a side of Organic Black Angus Ground Beef purchased at a local market that came from a farm here in my town. I found the recipe here http://www.theveggietable.com/recipes/blackbeanzucchiniquesadillas.html I made a few little tweeks to this recipe;
Instead of the 2lbs of zuc I used 4 med. sized zucchinis that I had in my fridge (no point in buying more) and it made more than enough. Although, grating zucchini can be quite messy

It was all over me and the floor... I also used the jalapeno in with my husband's ground beef instead of the veggie mixture and a packet of El Paso taco seasoning for his meat. I broke out the horrid electric griddle to cook these up, this thing is so unevenly heated :(

I loved them, my husband not so much. I figure the next time he wants tacos I can just pull my container of mixture out of the freezer and we can both be happy!

Last, but not least, I am currently trying my hardest to read Room by Emily Donoghue. I will give a review once I finish it, but that might be aways off. This is not a light easy read by no means. I started reading The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle this afternoon while waiting in the Dr's office and think I am going to really enjoy this book (I only made it to page 7). This was a gift from one of my best friends, and any book to come from her is practically a guaranteed winner :)

I will close this post out with a silly picture of my baby girl before we left on our car ride.

Oh, Monday, Monday

Today was supposed to be the Big Start of my Motivated Mom's Planner chore list...it wasn't :( I got a call at 8:35 to come pick my son up from school; he luckily made it into the parking lot before getting sick and didn't stink up the bus! We have spent the morning and apparently the first part of the afternoon on the couch snuggled up, watching Mythbusters (and Transformers), and taking naps. Let's hope that he is well enough to go to school on Wed.

Have any of you heard of the Motivated Mom's Planner? I hadn't either until my awesome best friend (www.domesticwonderland.blogspot.com) showed me her printout that she had inserted into a daily planner book. I am constantly searching for something that will keep me motivated to clean the house. I despise a messy house, but get very easily discouraged at cleaning it when I see everything my kids mess up. This chore list is great because they only give you about 6 items to do each day, in addition to the normal everyday items eg. wash dishes, make bed. I find that this is something that can be utilized by anyone, not just moms. I suggest anyone looking for a simple way to keep their house orderly check out this site (www.motivatedmoms.com).

Tomorrow, I going to try and post some pictures of the blanket I am working on making, and will let you guys know what books I am currently indulging in, and will post pictures and the recipe of tonight's dinner.

Welcome

Well, I bit the bullet. It took me quite awhile to finally break down and decide to have my blog. I have been wanting to do one forever, but never could figure out what exactly I would talk about, there are tons of book blogs and as much as I would love to get books to read and review, I am just not sure that I would be great at it. I am a fairly competent knitter and crocheter, but fail miserably at creating my own patterns. I love to cook, yet again, not much is my actual creation. Are you getting the picture here. Kinda like the old saying, "Jack of all trades, master of none." I have decided to make that the theme of my blog, following me as I search for that great recipe for supper, finishing the latest great YA novel to come my way (thanks to http://www.apatchworkofbooks.blogspot.com/), attempting to actually finish whatever my latest yarn masterpiece is, and just trying to keep my house in a semi-guest friendly state (this is the hardest!).

To kick everything off I will give you a little background on my family and myself. I am Jessica (Jes) and am married with 2 kids and a step-daughter (lives with her mom in the great state of AK). My husband of 5 1/2 years is originally from NY, then transplanted to Alaska, where he spent 20+ years before joining the Air Force and getting stationed in Middle Ga. There he met me and we were soon married and shortly afterwards welcomed our first childand I became a stay at home mommy; 15 months and 1 deployment later we had another baby to join the madness. We lived in Ga until Thanksgiving of '09 when my husband was stationed in the NoVa area. We recently bought our first house and are enjoying the joys of being homeowners. I will be doing many posts about the wonders and expenses of owning a house built in the 20's, I am certain.

Well, that should be enough to have you returning at least one more time to see just what madness can come forth :)