Baby Boy Haircut= Bye-Bye Baby

What is it about getting a baby boy’s haircut that instantly turns them into big boys? It’s. So. Sad.

So, Nolan has had one haircut in his life. It was not a fun experience for any of us. He cried the whole time and I was a nervous wreck thinking that they were taking too much off and transforming my baby into a toddler. 4 months later and his hair was, well, according to others, in need of another trim….

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After much nagging on the part of his father, I had to admit that Nolan could stand to have his hair cleaned up a bit.

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Even though, it felt like we were taking away his mojo, we went for it…

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Where’d my BABY go?!?! Yes, he’s still adorable, snuggly, and sucking his thumb, but there’s just something about those haircuts that’s such a game changer. Sigh!

It should be noted that the hair cut was going fine until they brought out the evil squirt bottle and all heck broke loose! Poor Bubba screamed “All Done!” throughout the entire haircut. Meanwhile, big brother Brady sat like an angel for his!

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Quinoa Salad with Peanut Lime Dressing- Kids Cook Monday

The Smiths are just now venturing into the world of quinoa. Here’s what I’ve learned about this ultra healthy pseudo-grain. It’s great- when doctored up with lots of other flavors. So, that’s what we did this week! I recently found a recipe for a Thai Quinoa Salad. This inspired me to make a similar version with Brady. It has lots of veggies and the dressing has peanut butter in it! Which, admittedly sounds a little odd to me, but actually is quite tasty. There’s a lot of ingredients, but not a lot of work that goes into this salad. It’s colorful and crunchy and Brady described it as, “Yummy! Delicious!” (Future food critic, for sure.)

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Perfect as a side dish (you can leave it outside at a BBQ without fear of going bad!) or as a salad on it’s own. Tons of protein and good for you stuff!

Ingredients:

Quinoa (about 3/4 cup)

Salad ingredients:
One red pepper (diced)
1/2 a cup chopped green onion
1/2 a cup chopped cilantro
2-3 cups of cole slaw mix with carrots
About a 1/3 of a red onion, diced (optional, I may leave it out next time!)
1/2 a cup of chopped cashews (I used lightly salted)

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Quinoa and salad fixins.

Dressing ingredients:
1/2 a cup smooth peanut butter
3 tablespoons soy sauce
juice of one lime
1 Tbs. Sesame oil (optional, just a fun flavor!)
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
1 Tbs. honey

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Peanut Lime Dressing ingredients. Melt the honey and peanut butter for about 20 seconds in your microwave before whisking all the other ingredients in with it.

 

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First we cooked up our quinoa according to package directions. Once all the liquid was absorbed, we put it in a bowl and let it chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes to cool off.


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Then, have your kid clean up all the quinoa you spilled all over the floor…


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While the quinoa was cooking, we chopped up our veggies. I would most definitely use less red onion next time. Or leave it out altogether!


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While the quinoa is cooling in the fridge, start the dressing by microwaving the peanut butter and honey together. Let you kid (or husband) lick the spoon.


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Whisk all the dressing ingredients into the melted peanut butter/honey. Taste for seasoning or consistency. You want it smooth, thick, but pourable.

 

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Here’s what our dressing looked like. Yum!


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Toss the veggies, cole slaw, cooled quinoa and sauce together in a big bowl.


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Ta-Da!


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May he always be this adventurous of an eater!

 

Veggie Breakfast Burritos- Kids Cook Monday

It’s time for my favorite foods to come together…Breakfast for Dinner + Mexican= YUM! And the fact that this meal gets my kids to eat a protein packed meal WITH veggies is a total bonus! This meal is not very difficult to make because it’s mostly just assembling all the parts. Here’s how it went down!

 

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Scramble up about a half dozen eggs. I always make mine with a little milk, salt and pepper, and some American cheese melted in.

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Chop up one green pepper, a clove of garlic, and one onion. Look at my lil’ helper snagging some peppers to munch on!

 

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Rinse and drain one can of black beans.

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Sautee the onion, pepper, garlic mixture in a little olive oil until just tender.

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Add the beans to the onion mixture and season liberally with salt, pepper, cumin, and a little bit of chili powder. Cook until the beans soften and are nice and hot.

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We made a little sauce to add to our burritos. It was just half plain Greek yogurt, half jarred salsa, with a little bit of chopped cilantro.

 

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Meanwhile, make sure your other little chef is not getting into trouble behind you!

 

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Fill a large tortilla with your scrambled eggs, bean and veggie mixture, shredded cheddar cheese, and salsa/yogurt sauce. Optional toppings could be avocado, jalapenos, or tomatoes.

 

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Wrap up all the goodies and enjoy!

 

This meal easily fed our family of 4, but if we make it again (which we definitely will!) we’ll probably make a double batch and freeze a couple for easy breakfasts during the week. I hope you and your kiddos give this meal a try. With all the fun ingredients to munch on during the cooking process, your kids are sure to love it!

Brother (& Sister) Printable

Recently, I took a trip to Florida to have a little Gator girl reunion and help celebrate my friend Maribeth’s baby boy, Bennett. I asked Chris to help me make a printable that I could frame for his nursery. I thought I’d share it on my blog because I figured that I had lots of friends who may have searched for something similar. The original printable was geared towards being a brother, but I asked Chris to make a similar version in girly colors for all the people out there with little girls. Plus, baby Bennett has a pretty awesome big sister (Lynlee) who deserves her own little something!

 

Just click on the word “brother” or “sister” under the picture you like, download the file, and print!

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Brother

 

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Summatime…Smith Style

As I sit here typing, it’s currently about 68 degrees out, raining, and I’m wearing sweat pants and drinking hot tea. It’s hard to believe that it’s August! Thank you, Raleigh, for this unexpected break from Summer weather. With that being said, I thought it was a perfect time to sit and recap all of our Summer adventures. Between family trips, girls weekends, and tagging along for some of Chris’s work trips, we’ve been on the go all Summer. We also celebrated mine, Brady’s, my mom’s, and Chris’s birthdays…along with our anniversary and Father’s Day- we’ve been busy.

I kicked off Summer with a Gator girl weekend in Savannah. That was followed by a work trip (for Chris) that we tagged along for to Virginia Beach. Then B-Man and I headed to Atlanta for my Goddaughter’s 1st birthday. After that we took a trip to Washington D.C., then a long weekend in Oak Island, NC, another girl’s trip to Tampa/Naples, then a family vacation to Myrtle Beach which turned into a staycation in Raleigh/Durham area, and then a week long trip to Savannah.

Whew!! This. Summer. Was. Awesome.

Here’s a virtual scrap book of our travels…

Gator Girl Reunion in Savannah, Memorial Day Weekend.

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Virginia Beach, VA

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Atlanta trip with Brady… playing at the lake with Taylor and Jackson, exploring the Georgia Aquarium, and celebrating Miss Taylor’s 1st Birthday.

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Washington D.C. Mine and my friend Lindsay’s hubbies both had to be in D.C. for work, so we tagged along for some sightseeing fun!

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Oak Island, NC. 4th of July weekend, visiting with our Lancaster buddies!

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Summer also consisted of lots of golf, birthdays, and date nights!

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Gator girl weekend in Naples, FL

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Myrtle Beach, SC

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“Staycation”- Jordan Lake, NC Zoo, and Durham

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Savannah, GA- visiting Grandpa and Nana

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Traveling with young kids is not always easy, but I’m truly grateful for this time in our lives where the kids are not in school full time, I’m not working, and we have the freedom to get out and expose our kids to new adventures. We’ve made some amazing memories this Summer! Even though I’m sad to see this summer come to an end, I’m secretly excited for the structure and routine that comes with Brady starting Pre-School, being home for the kids’ naptimes, and cooking/eating dinner at home. And of course, the fact that College Football is just around the corner!!!

The Life and Times of Nolan Smith

It’s been 3 months since we celebrated Nolan’s 1st birthday (eek!) and it occurred to me that when Brady was 15 months old, I did a blog post to document what he was up to at that age.

http://www.ourblessedadventures.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-life-and-times-of-brady-smith.html

I thought I’d do the same for N-Dawg to help myself remember some of his baby (although less baby-like every day) quirks.

First off, he has just recently mastered walking within the last month. He still has a little drunk man technique at times, but is trying so hard to keep up with his big brother. He always has the bruises to prove it.

Since he took his time getting the hang of being mobile, his focus must have been on language skills because lil’ man has lots of words he likes to use. Some of his favorite words include; ball, balloon, “all done,” “I did it,” bobba (bottle), wawa (water), Brady, momma, dada, pup-pup (puppy), up, down, Gato, moo (cow), foffle (waffle), night-night, vroom, airplane, monkey, moodic (music), outside, spoon, bite, wow!, hot-hot, bubble, pop, bucket, button, book, banana, and the ever so lovely “poo-poo” and “burp.”  Just to name a few…

He’s already fascinated by anything that Brady likes- trains, trucks, airplanes. He even knows the characters from the “Planes” movie…yesterday he brought me a  “Planes” sticker he found and kept saying, “Dusty,” which is he main character from the movie. He loves to make sound effects when playing with anything that has wheels. He gets great delight from coming in the room and destroying Brady’s train tracks and stealing one of his “choo-choo’s.”

The thing I will probably remember the most about Nolan from this age is his love of music. I know, I know, all kids love music. Brady loved music too, but this is like, whoa, demands music anytime he sees an I-Pad, speaker, or radio. He takes his music and his dancing very seriously. There’s a whole repertoire of moves that he uses for different types of music. He loves Hip-Hop and 80’s hair bands. His very favorite song, the one he actually requests by name, is the “Happy Song.” (Happy by Pharrell) If he sees my mom with her Kindle, he makes a bee line for it, saying “Happy Song” and does not give up until she has the music video playing on YouTube. He likes to watch and imitate any dance moves in the video. I can’t make this stuff up….

Since day one, Nolan has been bursting with personality. He is quick to laugh, and quick to freak out and cry. He is always “on” and rarely has quiet or down time. Despite his “on the go” personality, he still likes a quick snuggle with mommy every now and then. His signature move is to snuggle in my neck, pull my hair and suck his thumb. I’ve lost quite a bit of hair thanks to him, but have gotten quite a few cuddles to make up for it.

Nolan keeps us on our toes, but brings us unimaginable joy. He couldn’t be more different than his big brother, but they are still best buds. We have so much fun watching Nolan and being a part of his little world!

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Mouth full of snacks…this is oh-so-Nolan.

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Nolan is a constant sweaty, disheveled, messy-faced kid. Love him!

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Still just rocking the same few teeth he’s had for forever! I think we’re finally up to 6 now…

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My smart, sweet, silly boy!

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Momma’s boy!

Grandma’s Cheesy Lasagna- Kids Cook Monday

Us Smiths have been doing lots of traveling this summer. Between Chris’ work schedule, family trips, and a few girls’ trips of my own, we’ve been all over the place. Even though Chris is out of town again this week, I’m here with the boys and my mom and we’re celebrating Meatless Monday with Grandma’s Cheesy Lasagna. My boys are nuts for Italian food, but this one is especially a hit!

Whenever my mom is around, she makes up a big batch of lasagna for us for dinner. We freeze the leftovers in individual containers and pull it out when we need a quick dinner (usually when Chris is traveling and I’m not in the mood to cook something up for just the kids and I.) It always re-heats so great and is a perfect go-to Meatless Monday meal.

Grandma’s Cheesy Lasagna

Ingredients:
1 box lasagna noodles
2 lg. jars of spaghetti sauce
1 lg. container of small curd cottage cheese
1 sm. container of Ricotta cheese
6 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese
1 pkg. spinach leaves (optional)
About 3 tsp. Italian seasoning
2 cloves minced garlic
1 onion (diced)

Directions:
-Cook lasagna noodles until just tender
-Add minced garlic, diced onion to jarred sauce (to liven it up!)
-Use a 9’13 pan and begin assembling:
Pour a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan and then begin layering noodles (slightly overlapping them so they lay flat), sauce, spinach, cottage cheese, a sprinkle of Italian seasoning, Ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese and then repeat starting with noodles again. You will make about 3-4 layers total. Top it all with a layer of sauce and Mozzarella cheese.
-Bake uncovered at 375* for 25 minutes.
-Remove from oven, cover with foil and continue to bake at 375* for another 25 minutes.
-Let sit for 15 minutes before cutting and eating.

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All the beautiful layers before going in the oven!

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Golden brown cheesy goodness!

 

As much fun as it is to travel, nothing beats being home, sitting together at the table with my boys, and eating Grandma’s (mom’s) lasagna!

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Nolan LOVES Italian food!!

Did I mention she made homemade banana bread for dessert?!

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One Pot Garden Pasta- Kids Cook Monday

Recently I’ve been intrigued by some “One Pot Pasta” recipes I’ve seen on Pinterest. I couldn’t imagine they’d really taste as good as promised, but I had to give it a try to see for myself. (Mostly because I will use any excuse cook with my new Le Creuset Dutch Oven!) And of course, I couldn’t just follow a recipe exactly so I used what ingredients I had on hand to make it different. Our next door neighbor just gave us a BUNCH of yellow squash from his garden, so I knew I would be using some of those bad boys in this pasta!

The basic idea of this pasta is that everything (water included) goes in the pot all at once. You bring all the ingredients to a boil, then take it down to a simmer for about 15 minutes. The water is absorbed by the pasta, along with all the yummy flavors of the herbs, veggies and seasonings. Once all the liquid is gone, the pasta is cooked and you toss it with a little cream and Parmesan Cheese, and…its…DELICIOUS! Who knew?!

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Everyone goes in the (beautiful, awesome, lovely, new) pot before boiling.

 

One Pot Garden Pasta

*I made my recipe a little smaller than other versions I’ve seen online- enough to serve 3 if it’s your meal (maybe 5 servings if it’s served as a side dish.)

Ingredients

1/2 pound thin spaghetti

2 cups of water

1/2 pint of mushrooms (sliced)

1 (big) yellow squash

1 cup of corn (frozen or fresh)

1 clove of garlic (chopped)

2 sprigs of thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

About 1/4 cup heavy cream

About 1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese

Put all ingredients (except cream and cheese) in a big pot or Dutch Oven and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and let cook about 15 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked and the water is all absorbed. Then, add cream and cheese and toss until the pasta is coated. (Add additional salt or pepper to taste.)

And it’s seriously that easy. But best of all, we got to use Brady’s thyme from the herb garden that he’s been helping me water every day and a home grown squash. Brady was quite the helper today. We were working on learning to cut the vegetables and he took the job so seriously. There was a whole lot of ownership over this meal!

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This meal was yummy, veggie packed, kid friendly, and too easy not to try!

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B-Man is Three!

Our big man, my first love, is 3. Three is the beginning of “big boy” world- no more diapers, constantly asking “why?”, off to real pre-school, and so much more. I just wanted to take the time to write down some memories of my sweet lil’ guy so I’ll always remember him at this age.

Brady loves all things golf. Putting around at Dick’s Sporting Goods with daddy is about the best thing in the world.

His favorite foods are hot dogs, popcorn, and fruit (all of which he requested for his birthday party.)

He loves Disney Junior and would watch Mickey Mouse all hours of the day…if I let him.

He’s fearless around water. Since he was a baby he has always wanted to dunk his head under and doesn’t understand why we won’t let him go to the deep end of a pool.

He loves music. From singing nursery rhymes, to jamming out to Disney songs, to our nightly dance parties with the “Happy” song, the kid just loves music.

He always wants to do things himself. He’s stubborn, short tempered, and easily frustrated, and always refuses help when trying to accomplish a task. (Gets those traits from daddy.)

He’s checked out almost every book about trains that the library has. Airplanes and tractors are pretty cool too, but trains are where it’s at.

He’s totally daddy’s sidekick. When it’s time to mow the yard, he’s got his bubble mower right there. When Chris has to fix something, Brady has his tools too. If daddy gets the motorcycle out, he’s right there waiting to honk the horn.

He loves his little brother so much. They are absolutely best friends. {Melts this momma’s heart.}

He pronounces his own name as Brady Chri-a-pher Miff (Brady Christopher Smith)

He still snuggles with mommy- gives hugs, plays with my hair, and asks for kisses on his “boo boos.”

Brady has such a sweet, soulful disposition. He studies people and is always thinking. He’s tender hearted and a little praise goes a long way. One of my favorite things he says is, “I make you happy!” when he does something that makes us smile.

Happy Birthday Brady-Boo. You make us so, so, happy.

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Blueberry Greek Yogurt Muffins {Moo Muffins} – KCM

We went with a comfort food dessert for Kids Cook Monday this week. After a weekend full of potty training, we felt (gross, disgusting, frustrated) like we deserved a little treat! Brady has made great strides since embarking on his diaper free journey, thanks to his ultimate motivator- TV! That means we’ve watched lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse over the past couple days and got some inspiration for our recipe this week. Toddler parents; perhaps you’re familiar with Clarabell’s Moo Muffins? We decided to make our own Moo Muffins with the abundance of Blueberries that are in season right now.

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I love searching Pinterest for different recipes and then tweaking them to make my own creations. Several of the muffin recipes I’ve come across involve Greek Yogurt (yum!) and lemon (double yum!!) and I really wanted to give those a try. We were sure Clarabell would approve! Here’s what we came up with.

Blueberry Greek Yogurt Muffins

Ingredients

3 Cups Flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 & 1/2 Cup sugar
2 eggs
1 container Greek Yogurt (we used Blueberry, Lemon would be tasty too!)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 pint of fresh blueberries

Pre-heat oven to 350* and prepare a muffin pan with liners. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, soda, and salt) in a bowl. In another bowl, use an electric mixer to combine oil, sugar, eggs, yogurt, and lemon juice. Slowly add dry ingredients into wet and mix on low. Last, fold blueberries into batter. Bake muffins for approximately 20 minutes (or until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.)

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Brady really got into baking and it was a nice break from potty training and TV watching; however, littlest man was much more into eating the muffins than B.

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These muffins were a great mix of sweet and tart and we will definitely be making them again!

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