Jake's Check up and Salsa making

Jake had his 4 year old check up this past Wednesday.

At 4 year's old he is 38 pounds (67%)

41 inches (64%)

So just above the middle of the road. I expect he will be like Josh and be 5'8 or so and lean, but he has my personality:) haha.

I have shared this on facebook but I am recording it on here for memories. This what Jake said to the doctor this week:

Jake at his 4 year old check up today. "doc, I think I know what the problem is". "
doc says, "ok".
Jake" i think my heart hurts. "
Doc" why is that?"
Jake" I think it's because I eat boogers"
Doc "yes, you should probley stop doing that."

He has very good vocabulary and suprises me and how adult he can be sometimes.

He got 4 shots which he DID NOT like (but who does?) and hobbles around for the next day saying it hurt because they did them in his thighes.

We have SO many tomatoes that I am running out of ideas as to how to use them. So I told Josh I wanted a blender for making salsa (suprised we never registered for one when we got married over 6 years ago but that is besides the point). So Josh came home with one this week as my early birthday present.

My neighbor Leah traded some cilantro for some of my tomatoes and green onions so I will able to try to set out and make some this morning with Jakes help.

I loved how easy it was to blanche the tomatoes.

  Ingredients:

3 cans of rotel (great value brand)

4 fresh tomatoes cut up

minced garlic

onion

cilantro

lime (left over from what I ordered at dinner last night along with some red onion that Josh didn't want on his hamburger lol)

This is Jake reading the directions to the blender.

At first I thought the salsa looked a little soupy but after tasting it I think it was a success!

I went ahead and fixed up 6 more tomatoes and a green pepper (that was pretty much turned to a red pepper) and put them in Ziploc vaccum frezzer bags which I had in my storage cabinet.

I am very excited that it was so easy to make and have already consumed half of the above container, luckily it made enough for entire larger container (not pictured).

Coming Up......our trip to Chicago this week to see family.....yay!

Catching Up

So I would like to update more often but I just never get the energy to sit down and put all of the pictures together, or the time for that matter:) So this will just be a catch up post. 

 This was our tomato plant a couple of weeks ago, its worse now. Not that we don't have a TON of tomatoes but it has taken over our garden. We had to move both our blue berries and our green pepper plant because of all of the shade this plant gives off. Now I just need to buy a blender to make some salsa:)

 This is my new favorite food, mini mexican bowls. I just cut out tortilla's the width of a martini glass, microwave them to make them soft, stuff them in the cupcake molds and put some shredded cheese on the bottom and fill them with cooked chicken, back beans, tomatoes and top with some more shredded cheese.I LOVE them, but after making them twice and seeing the scale go up I think I should hold off before making more..haha.  

 Jake LOVES to play on our front porch, here we were playing super heros:)

 Jake and one of his best friends Sydney who is also our neighbor hanging out at our house

The two green peppers our plant has yielded. I expected more but I think because of all of the shade it has gotten and having to replant it in a sunnier area this may be all we get. 

We had to reschedule Jake's 4 year old check up so hopefully I can update those results soon.

Football started on Friday with Media Day on Saturday. Luckily Jake was able to go work with Josh while I worked (I try to pick a MOD day that he doesn't have football and other than yesterday and the weekend before Thanksgiving we have games every weekend.)

So football life has started again! Every year it gets easier in some sense as Jake gets older (unless we decide to throw another kid in the mix next year). 

Josh and my birthdays fall around next weekend. I usually spend the weekend in ATL with my girlfriends but  this year I am flying up to Chicago with my family to see my mom's side of the family which is great too. Looking forward to a few days off.:)

Jake's 4th Birthday

Yesterday was Jake's 4th Birthday Party. I can't believe another year has gone by! He is growing up too fast. Although I am glad that the party planning is over, it always stresses me out since we live in one town and he goes to school in another town an hour away it always makes it hard.

This was the spiderman cake and cupcakes that I had R.A.Z's bakery make this year. The sad thing was that the party moved along so fast that we forgot to cut the cake since all the kids got cupcakes. So I am hoping to use the cake on his actual birthday on Tuesday in his classroom.

This is a picture of my sister who is 19 weeks pregnant and just found out it will be a BOY. Excited to have another nephew, especially with it being on my side.

These are my two cute nieces Thea and Peyton who will be turning 2 soon.

Me and Thea

 Party decorations

 My mom and the bounce house we have at the Y

My Child Watch coordinator and 2 of her 3 girls

All of the kids got to make superhero masks and went home with either a cape I made or fairy wings.

Our neighbor Sydney

Jake's friend Cayden trying on his cape

My sweet birthday boy

This is when my in-laws got here. 4 kids under 2 in one car, it was a long ride to say the least but we are thankful they took the over 2 hour trip and made the party.

Present time

kids eating and making spiderman necklaces

 This is a picture of my brother in law Stephen and my nephew T.J. (not related).

On the right side is a picture of Uncle Stephen showing Jake how to use the NERF gun he gave him for his birthday.

Family Day - hiking

Yesterday we decided to take a hike up where it was cooler in Blowing Rock. This was after I had already walked with my friend Leah that morning. 

We ended up at Price Park where it said that the hike was 2.4 miles, which I obviously thought was fine at the time, BEFORE we headed off.

Jake loved the creek and the mini falls that he found.

 This is Jake about half way in to the hike. We had no idea that our little hike would end up being for a hour and a half!

 This is Jake and I before we started.

After the hike we took Jake to the playground in Blowing Rock (suprised that he had any energy left to play). We treated him to some ice cream:)

We then came home and our friends Sydney and Avril came over that night to play.

It was such a wonderful day getting to spend time as a family doing something outdoors where the weather was cooler.

Next up is Jake's 4th Birthday party. Where has the time gone? It will be a Superhero/Spiderman party. Family is coming in friday night to help celebrate and the party will be Saturday morning. I will update after all the festivities:)

Kimberly's Wedding/Garden

This past weekend one of my good friends, Kimberly became Mrs. Thompson. That's right, we now have the same last name!:) About 12 of our friends shared a house near Young Harris, GA to stay and celebrate the wedding. The above picture was taken before she went down the aisle.

This is beautiful Kimberly coming down the aisle. It was a small wedding of about 80 of mostly friends or family.

This is Trish, Larisa and I with a quick picture before we were off to the wedding and to see the rest of our friends!

Love this picture of all of us. These are a great group of friends. We have been friends since 99' and no matter how near or far some of us live from each other we reconnect a couple of times a year whether it be coffee, dinner or a wedding. Some of us are closer to each other than others but as my "big sister" Larisa said, "we all have our special bond with each one". It feels fantastic to be able to go and see them  for the weekend, for it to be comfotable and easy and fun just catching up. Having moved around as much as I have I cherish friendships with good friends, because good friends are hard to make and sometime hard to keep as people's lives change and some move on.
I miss these ladies and can't wait for the next time I see them!

 These  are just a few of Jake that I found that I wanted to make sure I post, probley a little old.

 This is our garden back on May 14th when we first planted. As you can see in the pictures below the garden has gone crazy. We are starting to get green peppers, LOTS of tomatoes, (so much better than last year) and onions and peas too! Our blueberries have been alright, the birds seem to like them so one plant has no more berries. I am just glad we finally decided to build the planter this year and grow some food.

 

 

Jake loves to eat the green onions out of the garden. Sometimes we will sit in the morning or late evening hanging out eating green onions.:)