Cooking 9-1-1:

i know you all are jealous to learn that i have my very own chef hotline for cooking emergencies - my incredibly talented brother, craig!

who else is going to stay up with me until 11:00pm discussing how a previously hated radish is actually quite tasty with butter and salt?? (it is, i tried it late last night...lots of radishes/radishi in the CSA produce this week.) oh, and craig, i think this is my radish here, the french breakfast radish, which is funny since we were talking about how much french people (and brad toy) like radishes. only i had mine for midnight snack, not breakfast!

now he's just going to have to sell me on beets...i say yuck, but i'm sure chef craig has a way of making them tasty!

Mommy and Her Buddy:

here are a couple pics i took of sutton and me playing at the park. not great pictures of my haircut, but you kinda get the idea of how short it is now! i'll have to remember to get good picture for those of you not around and who are interested :)




i love that last one of my little guy walking...can you tell how proud he is??

Know your farmer, know your food...

i'm not sure anyone can relate to how excited i am right now, but we got our first CSA (community supported agriculture) fruits and veggies today. i couldn't be more excited!! but then, i have an unusually strong love for food. i love to browse at grocery stores, i love reading box labels, i read cookbooks just for fun, i love displays of fresh fruits and veggies, and i REALLY love farmers markets. this is even true when i travel...one of the most exciting places for me to visit in a foreign country is the grocery store or open air food market! i'm sure others can relate (i hope!).

so, i couldn't be more excited that our little family has it's own farmers now :) it's the next best thing to having a garden of our own, which i would love to have eventually...but our completely shaded east memphis yard is not conducive to growing much other than azaleas and weeds.

our farmers, Keith and Jill, run Whitton Flowers and Produce in Whitton, Arkansas. this morning i received our first email from them telling all about how our crops are coming along, how the strong winds from the hurricane affected the farm and their neighbors, and BONUS a recipe suggestion for how to put our apples to good use as an oven apple pancake, yum!

here's a picture of our first bounty; the last of the summer veggies and first of the fall! peaches, apples, cucumbers, bell peppers, basil, squash, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and okra. look at all the different types of tomatoes!

we will have to take sutton out to visit our farm one day soon. how fun will that be! :)

Yay!

Don't cha just love...

when you try a new recipe and it turns out really yummy!

i was in a cooking mood on friday, and it worked out really well that Sutton fell asleep on the way home from school and preceeded to take a 2 1/2 hour nap! (he was resting up for all the WALKING he would do later that evening...yup, that's right he's walking now! here comes Trouble - notice the capital "T")

anywho, that's for another post because this one is about my fave foodnetwork chef, ellie kreiger, and her tasty granola recipe.

i substituted chopped dried figs for the raisins because, well YUM! it's delicious alone, but i'm really looking forward to having it with some organic vanilla yogurt for after-school snack today :) ellie's style of cooking is awesome. she uses organic sometimes, natural/unrefined most all the time and processed/instant only when needed. i'm a big fan and really need her book.

i also made her sweet potatoes and paula dean's pinto beans (without the ham thingy) this weekend. i think i'm so excited about our CSA veggies that i get to pick up on wednesday (yay!!) that all i can think about is food (i might have a serious problem here!)

other new things i tried this weekend were for sutton: (1) microwaving peeled, diced apples (add a sprinkle of cinnamon) and (2) adding frozen chopped spinach to a box of natural shells and cheese (okay...these were for sutton, but both chris and i thought these were really yummy, too!)

and while i'm on foodnetwork.com getting these links to post, i must share this one for tabbouleh
that is fantastic with feta and quinoa (i had to ask my chef bro, craig, how to pronouce..."keen-wah") in place of the traditional cracked wheat. (okay...i told you i have a serious food problem.)

in other weekend news...i chopped my hair off! pics will follow...(ooo...the suspense!)

Happy Birthday to My Chunky Monkey!

happy birthday, buddy! i hope you got enough celebrating in to last you until next year :) let's see...we celebrated in nyc with mimi and poopsie (and even granddaddy-o came up on sunday!). sooooo much fun! we even took you to the fao schwartz, toys-r-us, m&m world, world of disney, the central park zoo, carousel and to see the lion king on broadway! (oh, and don't forget the frozen hot chocolate at serendipity! yum-yum!)

AND we celebrated at mimi's house the next weekend with lots of family, food and fun presents! of course, you got into the strawberry cake!

then we celebrated with a few friends and family at our house in memphis. you loved all the balloons and pom-poms with monkeys hanging from them, but i think your favorite was the monkey cake! (thanks poopsie!)

finally, mommy took breakfast and chocolate monkey pops that she made to school so you could celebrate with all your teachers and friends! whew! that was doing a birthday up "alley-style" for sure!

mommy and daddy love you so much and are so blessed that God gave us you one year ago today! you have lots more exciting adventures in store for you :)

8 things....

i wanted to update my 8 things, since my little guy has changed so much since february and sutton is doing so many precious things these days!

8 things about Sutton:
1. i love how he laughs and shakes his head side to side when he sees someone acting silly
2. i love how he pretends to be afraid of tilly and cowers into my legs, all while shreiking, smiling and laughing hysterically
3. i love how he sounds a lot like the tazmanian devil when he's "talking" since he loves blowing raspberries so much!
4. i love when he gobbles down yummy food that i've made for him - right now he thinks macaroni with peas, carrots and parmesean cheese is the ultimate!
5. i love how he never meets a stranger and loves to smile at EVERYONE! sometimes he'll be sitting there smiling at someone and if they don't look at him he makes this really irritated sound until they do look at him and smile back!
6. i love how he stands up and let's go of what he's holding on to and looks around for the applause that are sure to follow :)

7. i love the sound he makes when he wants me! it's not exactly "mommy" all the time, but it's really close and a lot of times it's "mummm...mama....mmmmm....mummeeee!"

8. i love how he attacks us with big-sloppy-wet-open-mouth kisses! usually both of his hands grab your face and he pulls you close saying "aaaahhhhh" and then proceeds to slobber all over you. such sweeeeet slobber! i love it :)

oh, i could go on and on!

My, My How You've Grown!

september

october

november

december

january

february

march

april

may

june

july

august
september (almost)

my little guy turns 1 tomorrow!! that means one year ago today was my due date and we spent the whole day hanging out with trish, jacob, and little dakota waiting for him to come. we walked (well, i mainly waddled) around the farmers market, had some spicy food from pearl's oyster house (where dakota left a little mess on jacob's shirt and it took trish like 1/2 an hour to clean up her new little girl in the restroom!). then we went back to our house and played games and watched football (i think), and dakota christened sutton's baby swing :) . i don't know what everyone else had for dinner, but for some reason i thought fruity pebbles sounded really good (i was into all things fruity-tasting) and about 10 or 11 that night the cartners finally decided to head home. all that walking/waddling, spicy food, laughing and artificial fruit-flavored cereal must have done the trick because just a few short hours later (at 3:30am) my water broke and my precious little guy was on his way into this world!!

here's a bit of what he's accomplished in the past 12 months:

- truly "looking" at me about 2 weeks old

- "conducting music" at about 3 weeks

- smiling at 5 weeks old

- "ahh-gooing" at 6 weeks

- rolled over once at 6 weeks

- standing in my lap at 7 weeks

- sleeping through the night at 8 weeks

- kissy face at blowing raspberries at about 3 months

- going to school at 4 months

- sitting up at 5 months

- eating cereal at almost 6 months

- rolling over "for-reals" at 6 months (hey, that's a lot of weight to push over :) )

- giving big sloppy open mouth cheek kisses at 8 months (he still does this!)

- eating baby food at about 6 1/2 months (avocado and banana were his firsts)

- eating finger food (gerber puffs) at 8 months

- playing peek-a-boo with us at 8 months

- waving "bye-bye" at almost 9 months

- pulling up started the weekend of betsy and wes' wedding (almost 9 months)

- at his 9 month appt he was in the 95th percential for weight and >95 percentile for height! (i like to say he's slim for his height!)

- eating real finger food at 9 months

- 1st nights with mommy away for business at 9 months

- during our beach trip he started "cruising" (walking while we hold his hands) (9 months)

- army crawling started the day we left for 4th of July weekend (almost 10 months)

- real crawling started the next day! (almost 10 months)

- saying "bye-bye" (first time to the jewelry store lady!) and "uh-oh" (still his favorite word)

- walking while we hold just one hand (11 months)

- bringing loads of love and joy to everyone he meets since September 9th, 2007!!

Some of my recent faves...

in no particular order: