How is it that you blink, and all of a sudden your kids are doing things that you don’t think they should be able to do yet? I have felt like this a few times this week. Every time I see David riding his bike up and down the street with his big boy helmet on, or sitting at the lego table all intensely occupied building legos I feel this way. Emma all of a sudden wanted to sit on the potty last night, and actually went! I was like, What? Could this really be it? Is she actually wanting to learn to use the potty? She can’t be big enough for that. Not my baby! I don’t know if the potty thing is going to stick or if it is just a momentary fascination, but I don’t want to miss my window of opportunity. She has been showing some signs of readiness, like not wanting to wear her wet/dirty diapers. There have been a few mornings recently when I have gone to get her out of bed, and she has already taken her wet diaper off! (Thank God they were only wet!) So we are going to work on potty training this week. Say a prayer for me because I’m going to need it!!!

Emma’s hair is also growing rapidly! I was able to fix it in piggy and pony tails this week. 🙂 Too cute!!!

Andrew made it home earlier this week, and we were so excited for him to be back!! We went on a family date night Friday evening. We went to Dave and Busters, and “us” kids played games and ate way too many calories!! 🙂 David has reached the age where he can actually play a lot of the games, and had a blast! He talked about it all day Saturday! 🙂 This was his first experience going to a place like this. We have intentionally avoided such places until now. He compared it to Pizza Planet, which is the place on the movie Toy Story that has all the food and games. 🙂  Emma had fun too however. She liked playing all the games that involved balls. She liked throwing them. 🙂 Emma also liked pretending that she was playing the games.:)

Today was a rough morning at church. For some reason, both children decided they didn’t want to sit through the worship service. I would have to take David out, and then Emma would act up and I would have to take her out! I took them both out together. David was particularly aggravating because he knows better! (Or he’s supposed to any way!) The worship service itself was good, and Andrew preached a great sermon on prayer. The whole time I felt like I needed to pray more because of my poor parenting skills. :0) Let’s just say I needed a whole mountain of prayers this morning! Next Sunday will hopefully be better!

I tried a couple new recipes this week that I would like to share with you. They are definitely keepers! The first is a sour cream noodle bake. I was inspired by the pioneer woman’s recipe of this, however, I made a change to the recipe to fit our taste. Instead of using the tomato sauce called for in her recipe, I used a jar of tomato/basil spaghetti sauce. It gave the recipe more of a lasagna flavor. Also be careful when cooking the “No Yolk” noodles. They cook extremely fast! I didn’t even have to let my water come to a full boil before the noodles were al dente. Here is the link to the Sour Cream Noodle Bake recipe. We had enough left over to freeze for another meal!

The other recipe was Pasta ai Quattro Formaggi, which means four cheese pasta. This was also inspired by the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I however, only had one of the four cheeses recommended in the recipe, but she does say you can use any four cheeses, so I guess she’s right because it still tasted amazing! I had parmesan, monterey jack, queso fresco, and mozzarella in our refrigorator, and it turned out great!! Other than grading the cheeses, this is super easy to make! I also cooked some fresh shrimp (My new favorite way to cook shrimp is on a sheet pan in the oven! Tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh minced garlic! Bake at 400 degrees until the smell is amazing!)  and cut up a salad to go along with it. (i.e. Andrew cut up the salad) Here is the PW recipe for Pasta ai Quattro Formaggi.

Here is our menu for this week.

Monday: Lunch, Pizza. Dinner, Asian glazed chicken thighs, rice, and asparagus.

Tuesday: Lunch, Polish Sausage, navy beans, and peas. Dinner, Steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Wednesday: Lunch, Onion-tended burger and fries. Dinner: Ramen.

Thursday: Lunch, out. Dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs.

Friday: Lunch, Chicken and cheese quesadillas. Dinner, Pan-fried pork chops, stewed apples, and macaroni and cheese.

Saturday: Lunch, Hot Dogs and chips. Dinner, Coq au Vin.

Sunday: Lunch, Beef Enchiladas. Dinner, Pork Sliders.