Resolutions

It's that time of year so I thought I'd make a couple resolutions.

1. Watch the news daily.  One thing I've really noticed being on maternity leave and in the middle of the winter is that there are days where I don't go outside at all and I have no idea what's going on in the world.  I've decided I really need to start watching the news so I'm not so cut off.
2. Organize my day a bit better.  With a little baby at home I've found that it's real easy to not accomplish anything in the day, I need to set and achieve a few daily goals
3. Finish sending out Thank you cards from the baby shower.  Sorry if you haven't got one yet, I started just haven't finished.
4. Become a Photoshop pro.  For some time I've been wanting to increase my skills and I have a great tutorial I just need to make the time to complete it.

Happy New Year!
L

Cousins

Catie has 6 cousins on the West side and all of them are boys.  Half of them can't be bothered to pay attention to the boring girl that doesn't do anything but the other half sure loves her, none more than her cousin Gage though. 

We walk in the door and he immediately asks, "Where's Catie?"  If he comes upstairs after playing and doesn't see her I get the same question.  He loves to tickle and kiss her and can often be found where she is.    He commented multiple times on how cute she was and was constantly petting her head.  My favorite quote from him was when he said, "She's so cute, where did you find her?"

I put her on the floor at one point and the three boys crowded instantly around her.  There's nothing like cousin love and I hope her and her best cousin Gage continue to have a special friendship.
L

Dry Clean Only

You know how the tag on ties say dry clean only?  Apparently they mean it.
Brad walked into the living room this morning holding this very sad tie that was accidentally run through the wash... good thing it wasn't a favorite.  We had a good chuckle over it.
L

Santa

Bibbed

Lesson Learned, I shouldn't put Catie to bed wearing a bib.

She was all dressed for church in her Christmas dress and I didn't want her to spit up before we got there.  I went back in to get her after her nap and this is what I found.
L

Yum!

I haven't talked about any sort of food on the blog for a while but we had such an amazing dinner last night it's all I can think about.

A couple months ago, in the summer, I had these amazing pulled pork tacos and it created a desire for more delicious pork so I bought a roast, threw it in the slow cooker with some store bought sauce.  When it was done I shredded it and piled it on yummy buns.  It tasted just how it's described, like pork with some store bought sauce thrown on it, nothing special and I was unsatisfied.  The taste was very generic and it could easily have been beef.  Luckily since it had been a big roast I'd only cooked half, meaning I still had another to try again and I was determined to have better results.

This time I scouted out some recipes and found one that included a spice rub, some searing and a homemade sauce.  I figured if I was going to do this I'd do it right so I'd also make a homemade coleslaw to go with it.  I had serious doubts about the coleslaw, the main ingredients where cider vinegar and mustard and we're not huge fans of either but I thought it would go well with the pork rub and sauce so I made it anyway thinking it contained only cheap ingredients and we could toss it if we hated it.

So I rubbed, seared and cooked.  I chopped, whisked and stirred.  We were pretty unsure about the slaw but I didn't want to go halfway so I loaded our buns with lots of yummy pork and topped it generously with the slaw.  What an incredible meal!  The mustard and vinegar were a perfect compliment to the slightly sweet pork and we raved numerous times throughout the meal.  Today's lunch of leftovers was just as good.

My only complaint is that the pork really didn't shred well, I ended up cutting it instead.  The recipe called for cooking in the oven, next time I'd use the slow cooker.

Have I made you hungry yet?  Make your own, it was worth it!
L

Just a Photo

Daddy's Girl

This past semester in school Brad has been really busy so there were often days where we wouldn't see much of him, he'd go to school all day and then have homework at night.  I worried a little that he didn't get to spend much time with Catie, I didn't want either of them to miss each other but Catie has constantly proven that I don't need to worry.  She sure loves her Daddy and shows it by saving her best smiles for him.  She beams when she sees him and they have a good time playing together.  Tonight she gave us her best laughs yet and thought it was so funny to punch Daddy in the face.  It made her smile and giggle until all three of us were near tears.  She then took a horsie ride on Daddy's knee.

This isn't the greatest video but the last couple seconds are worth it, there's nothing better than a babies first laugh.
L

Christmas Continued

I've already mentioned once before what my Christmas Sheets mean to me so I won't repeat myself but you can read about it here.  It's one of my favorite traditions and I happen to have this great Mom who is helping me carry on this tradition with Catie at an early age.

Happy Birthday!

Today is a special day, it's the day the very best Mom and Grandma was born.  I thought I'd take the opportunity to share just why she's so wonderful.

1. She's always willing to have long phone conversations, even when we're talking about nothing some days.  It's rare that more than a couple of days go by without a conversation.
2. She taught me the importance of people over things.  Spills on couches and messes on carpets all meant nothing because the spiller was more important.
3. I've often taken for granted the skills she taught me, I didn't know it was rare to be able to make really good gravy and the best cheese sauce.
4. Someone had to sing the doodily song to Catie and no one does it better than her.
5. No one looks forward to sleepovers more than Mom does with her grandkids.  I'm excited for Catie to have those memories.

Thanks for always being there for me Mom!
L

Video Time

I thought the Grandma's would appreciate hearing the cute noises Catie is making these days so enjoy the video below.  As for the rest of you, don't worry it's only a 30 second video.

L

Bunny

That's right, she's wearing bunny slippers.
L

Perfect

Drooly Girl

Catie seems to have reached the putting everything in her mouth stage. For now it seems to be mostly limited to her hands, Brad and I got a good chuckle as she tried to put her entire fist in. The second laugh came as her frustration grew over not being able to figure out how to put a ring in there. I look forward to watching her learn what else can fit in there.

The one down side is the amount of saliva she's been creating, I knew we'd come to this phase it's just so wet.
L