{Life Lately} Miss Musician

Lily has a set of play instruments at my parents' house that she loves! I can remember when she couldn't even figure out how to play the recorder and one day she finally learned she had to blow in it! Ever since that day, the house has been very loud with her music!

Not only is Miss Lily a musician but she's got a crazy booty shakin' thing going on!


The drumset velcros around her neck.
And here she's playing with my cousin, Lauren. They could almost be sisters in looks - same color hair (sometimes Lily's is a little more red, which goes towards Lauren's big sister Audrey) and they both have big, beautiful, blue eyes. We are looking forward to spending more time with Lauren as she now goes to the local university instead of living 12 hours away! Woo hoo!

{Life Lately} Miss Lily's First Day

OK, so technically, it isn't her first day at daycare EVER but she did start a new one and she hasn't gone to her old daycare for months, so it was a big change for us. She had gone with me the other day to tour it and she really liked it. Today was no different and she did not want to go home! She showed me that she could climb and I know she had a blast. There is a girl there that went to her old one for awhile and they are close in age. They saw each other today and that was fun. Lily acted like she remembered and the other girl, who is a little older, definitely remembered Lily.

This daycare writes down what she eats for breakfast, lunch and snacks and anything else for the day. I actually am looking forward to the day she'll start bringing home little crafts.



She even had a first day of school outfit that was new thanks to a visit from Doug's parents! The pants are really cute on them but only a little show through in the one photo.



And don't you love the hair?! That's what happens when she goes to bed when it's wet (even though it was combed!).

By the way grandparents (and/or other family members), if you want copies of the photos I'm trying to get everything uploaded to my Shutterfly site. Same password as always for all the photos. They don't have the writing on anything, that's just for the blog.

{Life Lately} Miss Lily and Beefy



I was going through my boxes of books in the basement the other day to find which ones I could take to work, which ones needed to go upstairs, and what else was down there. I found my old atlas book that I loved to look at growing up. It's super sized and full of fun little details - animals, architecture, random facts - and I knew Lily would enjoy it. I was right!



And then there's Beefy. Beefy has definitely gotten use to the house over the last 6+ months here. She enjoys the fact that she lives with Lily who has a lot of pillows that she doesn't always use. The white thing she's laying on in this picture is the bunny Pillow Pet Lily got from Babby for Easter and the brown thing is a blanket. 100+ degrees outside, mid 70's in the house and she enjoys being bundled up on top of hair pillows. Can you say spoiled?!?!




{Lily} MagnaDoodle


Lily's grandparents bought her an Elmo MagnaDoodle and book combo and she loves it! So much so that we went and bought her a big one a few days later. But I love this photo of her laying out on my mom's ottoman, playing with her toy.

{Food} Jalapeno Popper Dip

While checking out Pinterest I found a delicious recipe for Jalapeno Popper Dip and knew I had to try it. My whole family enjoys spicy food, especially my dad, and he grows his own jalapenos (along with some other peppers too!). Yesterday my mom was in town and brought me a bag full of them so I could make the recipe. The original recipe calls for the jalapenos to be cut up but doesn't say anything about roasting them first. I love the flavor that roasting brings out in all peppers and so I popped these in my oven on broil for maybe 10 minutes total (5 on each side). Don't they look pretty?


The recipe also calls for bacon, which who can argue over delicious bacon!?! I am trying to eat healthy, as is the rest of my family, so I bought bacon that was uncured. Uncured bacon doesn't have nitrites and nitrates that are unhealthy for people. Yes, bacon is fatty, but I didn't use much in the recipe and only stole 1/2 slice for myself in the process.

After the peppers were roasted, I cut them in half, removed the seeds, and piled them on top of each to dice them.



Both the peppers and the bacon were diced. I have a nice knife set that came with the knife with the grooves on the side (I have no idea what it's called) and it makes this job easy and quick! I might do this with gloves on next time only because as I was getting ready later and any time heat came in contact with my hand, even after washing, the heat from the peppers made it super sensitive to heat from my blow dryer. Two types of heat, so that sentence may be confusing. Heat temperature and heat from peppers... yeah, I'll stop now.





The recipe called for Panko bread crumbs mixed with parmasean cheese and butter. I used a smaller dish so I didn't use nearly as much as the recipe called for and I still thought it was over powering. We eventually mixed it up, which helped, but I don't see this as a necessary part of the recipe.



Overall, we enjoyed the recipe but there could be some changes. We discussed adding different varieties of peppers, more peppers (which I did but I mean it when I say we like spicy!) and less crumb mix. Another huge change that I did was substituting the mayo for sour cream. I am not a big mayo person and I feel that it makes recipes seem extra fatty and greasy. I actually used light sour cream so the fat count went down a lot.


My recipe:

16 oz. cream cheese
1 1/4 c. light sour cream
2 c. shredded cheese - I used the "Fiesta" blend, but any cheese would do
8-10 jalapenos, depending on preference - cooked and diced
8-10 slices of bacon - cooked and diced

Topping:
1/2 c. bread crumbs (my grocery store only sells lemon pepper panko, so I had to use original bread crumbs, not Panko - this could make a difference or not)
1/2 c. parmasean cheese, grated
2 T butter, melted

Super easy instructions:
The cream cheese needs to be soften to room temperature and then you mix the first five ingredients together. Top with the topping mix and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Mine was in a small, 8 inch round container but I'm sure you could adjust the time depending on your container. Enjoy!

I'll definitely make this again for work events or future family gatherings. It made plenty for five adults and Lily, who ate a few small dips. We have some leftovers too.

{Life Lately} Lily Time


The Missouri heat is killing us! It was super crazy hot for the longest time and we got a little stir crazy, so this week saw a few trips to the mall for us. One day, Doug came with us and we went shopping and had a good family day. The next day we went without him because he had to work (the life of a coach!) and I only wanted to go back because I had bought some clothes and as soon as I came home I had a coupon. So we returned in the mall, coupon in hand, to get the discount and buy a few more items.

Our mall added a carosel a few years back and Lily loves it! We didn't let her ride for awhile and we don't do it every time (it's $2 every time) but I had the cash on me and she loves it so much. Lily and I had lunch (Taco Bell of course as she is slightly addicted to their chicken burritos) and then we rode. While at the mall we also go to Barnes and Noble so she can play with their Thomas the Train train set. She also plays in the Kids Court for awhile. Normally I let her play until the big kids come through or it gets busy. You can tell that other parents are stir crazy too as there were a lot of parents of little ones there. But in this heat, you can't enjoy the park! Luckily though, the heat hasn't been as bad the past few days and even stormed yesterday. I love a good thunderstorm!

So that's what we've been doing. What have you been doing in the crazy heat?!

Her language is so fun lately...

After finding her empty candy container (M&M Minis) she asked: "Mommy, more?"
Me: No, we don't have any more.
Lily: "Car? More?" She knew we'd have to go to my car, to the store, to buy more. Too smart!
I'm surprised she just didn't ask to go to Walmart, as she knows that's the store. That'll probably be next week.

Earlier today she asked about Babby and Bapa (her grandparents) and I said we're going there later.
Lily: "Babby? Bapa?"
Me: "Yep, after naptime."
Lily: "Colby? Pete? Wyatt? Babby? Bapa? Babby's house?" and repeated. She listed everyone there, including the pets... how cute! Yesterday I asked her what the name of their cat was and she said "Colby" followed by "kitty kitty kitty!!"

I could post this stuff all day long. The girl is always talking! I'm going to have to print a bunch of this off and make a scrapbook for it. :-)

{Life Lately} Lily's Fort

The other morning, I walk into Lily's room and she asked if we could do a fort. I had covered her bed the other day with some of her bigger blankets and I knew that's what she wanted. So, I took her big blanket, covered her crib up, and then blocked the sides so it was cave like on one end. She LOVED it. Do you see her new (giant) pink pillow?!?! She loves sleeping with it, even if it does take up a good chunk of her bed.




In other news:

After getting some jelly beans from the jar, she bit into a red one and it must have been cinnamon (no more random bags of jelly beans from the grocery store, as they include some nasty flavors!).

L - "No like-y red jelly bean."
M - "OK" as Lily hands me a chewed on, sticky red blob.
L - "I like-y jelly bean. Mmmm. I like-y red jelly bean. E's (it's) good!!"

I have no idea why she will say that after she spits it out but she's done it a few times when she gets a bad bean. It's funny that she'll say it and I loved the whole conversation she had over the jelly bean. Her expressions definitely add to the cuteness factor!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...