It's Late on a February night...

<3 Love <3

February is one of my favorite months -and this one has been one of the best. February 2009 is still my favorite February though <3

I feel like this month has been a perfect mix of balancing fun dates with Rob and fun family time with both the boys. For Father's Day, I bought Rob tickets to Book of Mormon and the first show we could get was the first weekend in February. My parents came down and spent the day with Matthew and Rob and I went to the show and then dinner at Chez Jacqueline - (yay Groupon!). It was unseasonably warm for a February in New York, so we walked all over the city. It was very fun and wonderful to spend the whole day with Rob. The day also made us excited to take Matthew in for more trips to the city in the spring and summer!

Valentine's Day 2012

For Valentine's Day, for the 9th year in a row, we celebrated with dinner at Friendly's. I understand that Friendly's is not the most traditional "romantic" Valentine's Day restaurant, but our tradition started in 2004, after we celebrated Valentine's Day the night before at a fancy restaurant. We figured that all the other restaurants would be crowded on Valentine's Day night and we had no wait at Friendly's :). We decided to make it a tradition, and this year we brought Matthew with us too. He sat in the highchair like a big boy, ate off the kids menu and even got a balloon when we left. I'm so lucky to have had two handsome dates on Valentine's Day!

Brrrr!

To celebrate our third anniversary, we took the day off to spend together. We drove out to the "East End", hit up two vineyards, had lunch in East Hampton and even walked on the beach (I was able to check another item off my "30 Before 30 list"). We picked Matthew up and went for a family dinner to Cheesecake Factory. Matthew wore his tuxedo shirt and it was adorable! He was very well behaved and we had a nice dinner. It was the perfect anniversary!! Rob also made a slideshow of photos for me...needless to say, lots of tears were shed<3.

3 Year Anniversary

I've loved this month, and there is lots to look forward to in the coming months too! Life is SO good! :)

PS - very few people will understand the title of this post but a big shout out to the Becky Make Believe boys :)

Three New (unrelated) Recipes!

I've made a few blog-worthy recipes recently but haven't had a chance to write about them...so here goes!January 28th I made Sausage and Caramelized Onion Bread Pudding for dinner. I served it with a side salad, and it was a perfect dinner. 

It was easy, very yummy and a good basic recipe that can easily be adapted for breakfast, brunch or dinner! I even made it for brunch the next weekend when my parents came down and used ham instead of sausage and served with homefries and fruit salad. Came out just as good! :)


Sausage and Caramelized Onion Bread Pudding
1 1/3 cups 1% low-fat milk 

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 large egg white
8 slices day-old French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups chopped yellow onion
1/4 cup apple juice
4 ounces turkey Italian sausage
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk. Add bread; toss gently to coat. Let bread mixture stand 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add juice; cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove casings from sausage. Crumble sausage into pan; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes.
Add sausage mixture and cheese to bread mixture; stir well to combine. Spoon into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until set and lightly browned. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.


February 11 - I made "California Style" Potato Skins
I planned a "date night in" for Rob for Valentine's Day and as an appetizer, I made potato skins. The recipe came from an insert from a past issue of The Food Network Magazine that was football themed. Each team had a potato skin recipe, and Rob chose the San Diego Chargers - but I changed it to "california style" and made a few changes. Here is my take, which made 8 which was more than enough for both us: 


"California Style" Potato Skins
2 all purpose potatoes 

melted butter or butter spread
Mrs Dash or other seasoning (or just use salt and pepper)
shredded cheddar cheese
quacamole 
sprouts
shredded monterey jack cheese


Pierce potatoes and cook in 350 degree oven for about an hour. Let cool, quarter lengthwise and spoon out the potatoes, leaving a 1/4 inch shell. Brush both sides of skins with butter and season with seasoning or salt and pepper. Bake with the skins up for 15 minutes in 450 degree oven. Take skins out, flip over and sprinkle each with cheddar cheese and bake for 5 more minutes. Remove form oven and top with guacamole, sprouts and monterey jack cheese. Enjoy! 

Burgers, onion rings and beer! 

After the appetizer, we had porterhouse (our new favorite!) bacon cheddar burgers and homemade onion rings with brownie sundaes for dessert! We also got our hands on a bottle of Dogfish Head's Faithfull Ale which they made to celebrate Pearl Jam's 20th Anniversary. After Matthew went to bed, we had a yummy dinner and started watching Season 1 of "The League."  














And last night, I made a very good, very healthy and fairly easy weeknight meal of Two Bean Soup. I made a few modifications, below is my version. I used escarole instead of kale, because that's all they had at the grocery store. I also used kidney beans instead of black beans and didn't drain them. The extra bean juice added flavor to the soup. I also had this for lunch today and it was even better today once the flavors had a chance to blend together. Matthew loves beans and enjoyed when I picked some out of the soup to give to him!

· Olive oil
· 1 medium sized onion chopped
· 1/2 cup chopped carrot
· 1/2 cup chopped celery
· 2 garlic cloves, minced
· 4 cups low sodium chicken broth – divided
· About 1 bunch escarole
· 2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed, drained, and divided
· 1 can kidney beans (undrained)
· 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
· 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary
· Mrs Dash seasoning
Heat oil in pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, carrot, and celery, and sauté 6 minutes or until tender. Stir in garlic; cook 1 minute. Stir in 3 cups broth and escarole. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 3 minutes. Place half of cannellini beans and remaining 1 cup broth in a blender or food processor; process until smooth. Add pureed bean mixture, remaining cannellini beans, kidny beans, and pepper to soup. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in seasoning.

Yum, Yum and Yum. :) 

"I Love You This Big"

It's crazy to me that one year ago yesterday, Matthew started at daycare and I was back to work full time. It was one of the hardest weeks of my life, many tears were shed at my desk as I thought about what he was doing, how much I missed him and counting down the minutes until I could see him again. In the past year, I have watched him grow from that tiny baby I left on the playmat in the morning and picked up in pretty much the same spot in the afternoon to the toddler who runs to play when I drop him off, comes back to give me a hug goodbye and comes running over to me when I pick him up with his arms open.  I still have some days where I am very sad wishing I could be home with him, and I still count down the minutes until I get to see him again, but watching him grow into a big boy has brought me so much joy, the tears I shed now are of happiness. 

Three things in the past two days have had me tearing up at my desk at work. First is this photo that a co-worker sent to me.

Second is Scotty McCreery's song "I Love You This Big", which I happened to be listening to when I looked at the photo. The lyrics are about a young boy in love but many of them remind me of Matthew, especially "I'll love you to the moon and back. I'll love you all the time. Deeper than the ocean. And higher than the pines." The third thing that made me cry today was this blog list of "25 Rules for Mothers of Sons" that someone posted. 

To be completely honest, I always pictured myself with daughters. My mom had two girls, I just thought I would follow. When I was pregnant with Matthew, I thought he was a girl pretty much the whole time. I had a few boy dreams and sometimes I wavered, but I had a pretty strong "girl" feeling. When the nurse told me it was a boy in the delivery room, I could not have been happier. I loved that little 11 pound baby from the first cry he let out, before I could even see him. I could not picture life with a baby girl right now (maybe one day...), I know that I was meant to have a son. Not any son, but specifically Matthew James Carlson.

Every day there seems to be something new that Matthew does or says and I try to enjoy every minute of our time together each day. I am learning how much patience I have (don't get me wrong...it gets tested, especially when a sippy cup that he thinks should be a bottle is thrown at me first thing in the morning or the little squirmster somehow frees himself on the changing table and things that should be kept in a diaper are not in a diaper anymore)...but I know that it's important for Matthew to express himself and it's all part of his healthy development. And at the end of the day when those big huge, beautiful eyes look up from his crib and he points back at me when I say "I love you" and point to him, I forget about all the "not so good" things he may have done that day and just take in that this sweet baby boy is mine.

He even reads in the car...but
being so cute is sometimes too tiring to stay awake!

He is learning a lot of new words such as apple, purple, duck, ball, book and cookie and he tries to repeat a lot of what we say or he hears from the kids at school (note to self...no bad words), but my favorite word he says is "Mama". He's been saying "Dada" for awhile and started saying "Mama" but not at me but now he knows I am "Mama" and it's awesome. This morning, Rob was "on duty" so I got to sleep in a bit. When it was getting time for Rob to leave, he opened the bedroom door and from down the hall, I could hear the pitter patter of Matthew's snowman pajamas and him yelling "Mama Mama". He ran in, came over to the bed with his baseball book and I scooped him up and he laid with me as we read the whole thing and then went back to look at the pictures again. I love that he loves to read and I love reading to him. I love our nighttime routine of reading all together before bedtime and I'm so happy that we starting this habit at such a young age! I hope that his love of reading continues and we'll do everything we can to help him with his good habits!

This is probably one of many "love filled" blog entries this month. It is February... one of my favorite months! Lots of special dates/date nights in are planned for Valentine's Day and our three year anniversary with both my loves! <3