For the love of.... Gymboree?

Owen, April 2008. Wearing Gymboree, of course.

First let me all tell you how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband. He is so supportive of my Gymboree obsession. Whether or not he actually appreciates the fine detail in design or not, he will at least sit there and listen to my whole talk about the new line. He patiently watches while I show him every new item I just purchased. He puts up with a lot when it comes to my Gymboree obsession. So much so, that he even wants to start up a Gymboree franchise (also because he probably feels like he knows the whole company because of me). Who better to put in charge then a Gymboree addict, right? ;)

But see, that right there is true love. Loving every single thing about your partner. The weird quirks they have, and appreciating that person for who they are. The Gymboree side of me is something reasonably new, within the past five years. This wasn't something Brian "signed on for" when we were married almost seven years ago. But, he loves how passionate I am about Gymboree clothes, that passion is something I've always possessed. It was just expressed in different ways before I was a mom. Now being a mom has over taken me, and I am most proud of the accomplishments of my child, and general mom things that might seem dull to non-moms. My husband even says that he thinks our son is the best dressed kid whenever he takes him to the playground, or when we are out as a family. To me, that is just as sweet as him telling me I look beautiful. To me, it is sweet to hear those words because I know it's coming from his heart. He knows how happy it will make me when I hear it coming from him, knowing that he notices and cares. It's true, I respect his opinion and like to know that he thinks I'm doing a good job.... even if his positive comment is about our sons wardrobe.

I put a lot of thought into what our son wears each day. His outfit is always perfect coordinated, from head to toe... all matching. I always get compliments from teachers, other parents, and strangers. But, it will always mean the most when it's from my best critic..... my biggest fan.

Balsamic Chicken with White Beans & Spinach

Ready in just 30 minutes, this entree brings the flavor of Tuscany into your home!

This was a big hit in our house, Brian and I both had leftovers for lunch today. Can't beat that!

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 1 pound)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed Golden Mushroom Soup

1 can (about 15 ounces) white kidney beans (cannellini), rinsed and drained

1 bag (about 7 ounces) fresh baby spinach

• Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes or until it's well browned on both sides. Remove the chicken from the skillet.
  
• Reduce the heat to medium. Add the garlic to the skillet and cook and stir for 1 minute. Stir in the vinegar and cook, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
• Stir the soup and beans in the skillet and heat to a boil. Return the chicken to the skillet. Reduce the heat to medium. Stir in the spinach. Cover and cook until the chicken is cooked through and the spinach is wilted.

Crockpot recipe: Cranberry Chicken

After nearly a year of having the crock pot MIA (packed away somewhere), I finally found it last week. I am nothing less than thrilled, my crock pot is seriously my best kitchen friend. You chop everything up, toss it in the crock pot, add some ingredients and voila.... 4-8 hours later you have a homemade meal ready to serve, while you got to enjoy the day or get errands done.

This is my first crock pot meal in a year, and we're going to enjoy it tonight.

ingredients:
- 4-6 boneless chicken breast halves, skinless or skin removed
- 1 can cranberry sauce
- 2/3 cup chili sauce (see note below)*
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 pkg dry golden onion soup mix

preparation:

Place chicken in slow cooker/crock pot. Combine remaining ingredients; add to the slow cooker, coating chicken well. Cover and cook low 6-8 hours. Serves 4-6.

* Chili sauce....
I realized that I didn't have a jar of chili sauce, so I found this recipe and it tasted just like the jarred chili sauce.

1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
dash cloves
1 minced garlic clove
1 tablespoon chili powder
simmer together for 5 minutes

Future engineer (like daddy)

But this engineer likes to build forts. Not your typically "built" forts of chairs and tents. But forts built with wood.

Owen even said he was adding electricity so that he could watch dvd's.

He also made a "fireplace" and of course what every guy needs, a refrigerator.

But here's where my influence comes in..... he decorated the outside so that it looked nice.


I'd say he is a nice combination of mommy and daddy.

Tornado drill

Growing up in New York, we never had Tornado drills in school. It will be something that Owen will become very familiar with, living in Indiana. Since we moved to Indiana in April, there have been over a dozen tornado warnings for Allen County; Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Last Wednesday we had our first tornado warning in our new house, in our very own storm shelter! How mid-western! The sky grew dark and ominous, as we watched leaves blow in circular motions across the street. We grabbed some blankets and pillows and Owen's baby mattress that was handy in our garage, and headed into our storm shelter. Owen of course, loved every minute of it. He was so excited to help me gather items to take in with us. When we got in there we looked at each other and Owen smiled and said "mmmmm!!! Look at all of this delicious food in here!" and proceeded to eat scooby snacks, apple sauce and peanuts. I'd say that our first tornado drill was a complete success. There was even a verse or two of "Somewhere over the Rainbow". As we left the storm shelter Owen said "can we do this again tomorrow?" and I thought to myself, man.... I hope not!

Making room for LIFE

The past few blogs I've written, included words such as "hectic", "busy" or "crazy", which has prompted me to blog about a recent sermon series that has started at my church. For the past two weeks, and another week to come, our pastor has discussed how important it is for people to not cram so much into their lives that they barely have time to do normal every day tasks. I have been trying to make my life less busy. Of course there are some things that I just cannot change (ie. the house situation - but once we close on the house, we won't have that craziness anymore. Well, just the craziness of unpacking. But once that is all over, and we're settled in.... there are no more excuses!)

Owen started preschool about two weeks ago and he is LOVING it! I don't know who loves it more, Owen, or myself. They have this drop off system where the moms line up in their cars and drop their kids off at the front door. It's great because Owen unbuckles himself and when the teacher comes to his door, he gets a huge smile on his face, grabs his back pack and hops out. Sometimes he's so excited that he forgets to wave goodbye to me! This is SUCH a relief because last year was anything but joyous. He would kick and scream and cry, and the teachers would have to pry his arms off of me. It was a nightmare. I felt like the worst mom in the world every single day when I left him (which was only 2 days a week, but it was torture for both of us) So that was the reason why I took him out of preschool last year. This year is just amazing. He goes four days a week, but always says "I wish I went to school every day!"

We thought that once everything settled down, we would sign Owen up for hockey because he is obsessed! I can't wait to see him out there on the ice in his hockey gear.... so cute!

I see your promises, promises

I promise I will get better at updating this at least once a week now that Owen goes back to school on Tuesday. There has been a lot going on here (when isn't there, right?) To our great disapproval we haven't moved into our new house here yet. That is a LONG story that I most certainly do not feel like getting into right now, but it looks like we will close on the house by the end of September, or early October. It's ironic because we closed on our house in NY in October of 2007. Speaking of, our house in NY didn't sell - which complicated the whole house buying issue here even more. We took our house off the market after our contract expired after five months. Several people were interested in the house, but nothing concrete ever surfaced. We felt like we would have been taking a huge hit if we had sold it, after all of the upgrades we had done to it, and the sale price which would have been what we paid for it three years ago if we were lucky, or less.

You're probably wondering how we pulled this off. Well, a couple circumstances were in our favor and we were able to rent it out to Navy nukes stationed nearby for training (the same site Brian was at almost 8 years ago when I met him). We plan on doing that for however long it takes for the real estate market to pick back up, and then sell it. Meanwhile, we're buying another house here! We are in love with this house. It is absolutely perfect for us. It has everything we were looking for and here's the best part.... it's 10k less than what we paid for our house in NY and it has SO much more than our house in NY has. Unbelievable.

We feel so blessed to have found such a wonderful city to call home. Not only is the cost of living lower here, but the quality of life is so much greater than in NY. Great schools, great hospitals, low taxes, more for your money house-wise, low home prices, friendly people, great churches.... I could go on and on. We are confident that we made the right decision in moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana. The move has been tough, and things haven't gone smoothly the whole time we have been trying to settle in here, but nothing worth it is ever 100% easy. We have learned a lot about ourselves, our family, people in general and our faith. We miss our family in friends a LOT, but look forward to seeing them whenever they can make it out here, or we can head over there.