Summer meals

As it turns out, I am not a gourmet cook. To complicate matters, Trey and I have very different food preferences. He is a meat man and starch man. Doesn't care for green foods. I could live off of humus and vegetables. And mexican. And ice cream.

And then there's Jones.

The kid likes to eat. But not just anything. He has expensive taste: Greek yogurt, fresh fruit (currently on a blueberry and kiwi kick) and cheese. The only vegetable he will eat comes in a pouch. You know, the baby food that is about $1.50 a pop. A buy them in bulk because it makes me feel better about his lack of vegetables. And meat? Only if it's ground very finely and in something like spaghetti or tacos.

As you can see, this poses a problem for meal planning.

Throw in busy schedules and the hot Mississippi summers, and I pretty much avoid the oven for months.

So I am on a quest: light, fresh, easy summer meals that is pleasing to my whole family.

Enter Pinterest.

Goodness, I love Pinterest.

I saw a recipe for poppyseed chicken salad. All three of us love poppyseed chicken casserole, so I gave it a shot.

Poppyseed Chicken Salad
Source: myrecipes.com

I loved it. Trey thought it was good, but he was hungry two hours later. (I think he would have preferred it on a sandwich with a bag of chips on the side.) Jones picked through it, ate the fruit and some of the chicken then demanded "booooberry and yaaaguuurt".

I considered it a success.

You can find the recipe HERE.

I altered it a bit for ease and personal taste:

I used Tyson pre-cooked, pre-chopped chicken.  I added diced green and red grapes, strawberries and chopped pecans, then stirred in the Poppyseed dressing.  I found that the fat free dressing was super watery, but the light version looked creamier with only 1 gram of fat. (I think it was Ken's Steakhouse brand) It was a good choice.  Kinda tangy. I just added enough until it looked good.  Then I put a big scoop over a bed of romaine lettuce. 

It was really good.  A different take on the traditional chicken salad and it took 10 minutes to have the meal on the table. 

So there you go. Not exactly mind-blowing or revolutionary, but it's a summer meal.  Would be yummy by the pool with crackers or pita.

Happy summer eating.  Hope you stay away from the oven as well.

Stay-cation

Who ever coined that term? I don't know, but I like it. Because on vacation you don't clean if you don't want to, you eat what pleases you, and you lounge. I like to lounge.  And on stay-cations you get to do those things plus sleep in your own bed. Score one for me.

I declared this long weekend a stay-cation since a proper summer vacation is not likely in our immediate future.


We spent a good deal of time at the Country Club. Jones was super nervous at first and would declare "this way!" and point to the chair where he would then demand a snack.

But by Sunday afternoon, he was comfortable again in the water and had a blast. He would yell "kick, kick, kick" the whole time.

Hooray for summer days.

Saturday morning we woke up and drove to the Buffalo Park to look at the animals. Jones has a deep appreciation for farm animals. He loves Charlotte's Web and carries a plastic cow with him most of the time. So the Buffalo Park seemed like a grand idea.

It. Was. Hot.

If you thought for a second that monkeys, giraffes, kangaroos, and goats smelled nice with zero breeze and 100% humidity, you are dead wrong.

Jones didn't seem to mind. He loved the animals. He even fed the goats and mini horses. And he still talks about the giraffes.

I am sure we were a sight at Chick-fil-a after our little adventure. We were hot, sweaty, and smelled like wet cows. Oh well.

Then on Monday we met my parents for a little Memorial Day breakfast downtown. Followed by the park and a little playtime in the fountains on campus. Then afternoon at the pool.

Oh glorious four day weekend. Come back to me soon.

To top the weekend off, we are SEC champs. Seriously, in the words of jones: goooo buuuldogs!!! Both of my sisters were there for the weekend So much fun.

Keeping it real, ugh, Sunday.

Friday got away from me. But for good reason! I took off work so the three of us could have an extra long four day weekend. A little stay-cation, if you will.

And rule number one of any good stay-cation: little to no Internet time.

More on our little adventures this weekend coming soon, but for now let's get real.

It's Sunday morning and I am only one cup of coffee deep and blogging from my phone. Not that I spell correctly any other time, but thought I would throw out an excuse early in case this all goes bad.

Trey leaves for church by about 7:30 now and jones is still asleep (it's 8:15. Can I get an amen?) so I am sitting on my couch with my coffee in peace.

Well, as much peace as you can have looking at a completely chaotic house. I like order. And the older I get, I like peacefulness. Loudness stresses me out. Just call me Grammy. And, no, my house is not always peaceful. I have a two year old boy who seems to make it his life goal to be loud and make messes.

My sweet love.

When I look around, this is what I see: boxes and mess.

Moving has taken over. Again.

Can I be real for a second? One might think I would be totally used to this. I have done it, on average, three times a year since 2001. Remember?

Well, I am not. This move is different. And it has gotten me thinking. Will I make friends in new town? Seriously, how do military families do it? Particularly military wives? Share words of wisdom, please.

Moving is going to be in my future for as long as I can tell. It's the life we have chosen (or chosen us?). Maybe that's sinking in. I don't know. All I know is I want to bottle all my friends up and move them with me. Each time Will it be hard to form true friendships in my new town when I am commuting to a different one? What about treys job? Not exactly our age bracket. Will I know jones' friends parents? He will be in school at a different town than me. What will we do about couple friends?


Tell me you agree with me when I say it's hard to make good solid couple friends. People are busy. And in different life stages.

Just being real here. I hope to stay long enough to form some friends. True girlfriends and fun couple friends. And friends for Trey. And Jones.

Oh, dear. I can see I am stressing.

Going to get more coffee and not proofing this post.

Keep it real, folks!

I-phone picture dump

Our week according to my I-phone:

He likes to dress himself on the weekends.

Found him like this - playing in tub eating a day old snack. Always with rain boots.

Sweet niece watching her big brother play t-ball.

I like to lay out during my lunch break at work. No judgement.

Jones has discovered the art of I-phone self portraits.  And he loves it.

Where's Jones?!

There he is!

Keeping it Friday

If I can't stay home and play with my child all day and then home school his pre-k and kindergarten years (after that, my math skills get shaky), then I might as well work for the greatest place on earth.

No, not Disney. That's the magical place.

And also, not Seaside. That's the for real greatest place.

I retract my earlier statement. It now reads: "I might as well work for the greatest higher education institution on earth".

I really like my job. Most days I can look past my hatred of sitting at a desk and focus on how lucky I am to be working here.

Today was Staff Appreciation Day. I spent the better part of two hours outside enjoying live music, photo booths, MSU ice cream, snow cones, lots of yummy food, and....wait for it.... A tattoo booth.

Who's the hottie in the middle?!

Yep. I got tatted. They assured me it can be easily removed with rubbing alcohol.

Wish me luck.

Great day. Great school. Great town. Great tat.

And now I get to enjoy a great weekend with my great husband and great kid.

I can just feel the greatness of it all.

Bottom line: I got to get a grip. I got to stop dwelling on things that are no longer. And I got to enjoy this place. Every. Single. Day.

And always, when given the chance, get a tattoo while at work.

Have a real great weekend.

Do you think I am a psycho?

Don't answer that.

It was a rhetorical question.

This is the second time I am said I was going private.

And this may be the second time that I am not going private.

Let's look at the facts:

I don't sew.
I don't craft.
I don't bake.
I don't sing.
I don't play an instrument.
I for sure don't decorate.

What I do: blog.

I like it.

Its my outlet.

Why the poo would I stop sharing the love because of insecurities with a few people?

Show me the love people.

I think I am staying on.

Thanks to my husband, my inner blogger is coming out.

So stay around. Read our bios up there. Let's chat more.

Get ready people. I hope to stay. We will see tomorrow. Woop woop.

emails needed

I use this blog as a personal journal with the plan to print it out each year.

Suddenly, again, I feel strange about having my life out there for anyone and everyone to read. 

So I am FOR REAL going private this time. 

Send me your email if you want to read it.  I will make it private tomorrow morning.

Thanks, readers.

 The blog world has been fun!!

PS - I just made it where your emails are not shown.  Sorry.

Muffins with Mom

Last Friday, Jones' school hosted a Muffins with Mom breakfast in honor of Mother's Day. It was such a sweet time to eat with Jones before school and see him interact with the other kids.

Sweet card he gave me at breakfast.

 I love his school so much. He has learned an incredible amount since starting there in January. He knows his colors, animals, some letters and numbers and is such a social little man.  I love seeing him love school and I love that he gets excited about going.

I am sad that he will be leaving this school next month, but I am so looking forward to the next chapter in our life.

His next school is a great one and I am so happy Trey will be right there, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous and sad. Jones has wonderful teachers and wonderful friends at his current school. They will be missed. I pray his next school will provide him with sweet friends and caring teachers, just as this one has.

I am trying to focus on our blessings and the new adventures coming our way. You would think I would be used to change by now.

Jones gave his two teachers and the school director each a rose bush for Teacher's Appreciation last week. 
He loves them so!

Keeping it Real Friday - Mother's Day edition

I am not sure sure why I have been a touch more emotional this Mother's Day than the previous.  So fair warning that I have no idea how this post will turn out.  I am just writing.

When Jones was just a few days old, I celebrated my first Mother's Day.  Being a mom was so new to me (in ways, it is still so very new). I was just beginning to grasp the idea of motherhood.

 This was also my Nana's last Mother's Day with us.  My sweet, sweet Nana.

4 generations. Mother's Day 2010

Last year, my parents made the trip down to Gulfport to spend Mother's Day with us. 

And this year.  This glorious year.  2011 was not so great. For lack of better words, it sucked. (sorry, mama.  I know you hate that word.)

But 2012 -  Things are looking up in a major way. 

Trey is doing what he has been called to do his whole life.  And it is a beautiful thing to witness. We are happy and content and totally satisfied knowing God's purpose in our lives.

So maybe it is because this is the first holiday celebration since this new life, but for whatever reason, this Mother's Day approaching has made me sentimental, nostalgic, and ever grateful.

Sunday we will celebrate mothers. And I am feeling - now, perhaps more than ever - more thankful for my mom. 

Mother's Day 2011

My mom and my two grandmothers, one who is with us still and one who has already left this life: I can't thank them enough for showing what it means to love.  And for showing us what it means to be a mother. 

I can only hope I am half of the mom as those three women. 

From Jones - Mother's Day 2012

 And for this little man.  The reason I am a mama.
 Sweet love of my life. 

A lot of people in my life are struggling to have a baby.  And some have lost pregnancies.   I think about how I am quick to say I am ready for another baby, and how I often get impatient at the thought.  If only I would slow down more and appreciate the blessing I already have.  How precious is he. 

I will never again, I pray, take my mother for granted.  I only wish I could take back some of the ugliness in my life during a few teenage years.


If this past year has taught me one thing, it is this: love.

Show the ones you love that you love them.  And learn to love those who don't.

We get by with the help of those we love and who love us. Love can sustain us when there is nothing to offer and nothing to give. At the end of the day, regardless of where you are and what you have, if you have love you have everything. (sorry for the Hallmark-ness of it all)



I don't know about you, but I am going to spend this Mother's Day loving on my mama.  And my sweet baby.  And my sweet baby daddy. 

And I hope you spend yours loving on someone you love.  Regardless if you have a mom or not and regardless if you are a mother or not, I hope you feel loved this Mother's Day.

For real, though

Trey and I have lived in more than a few homes. 

If you count our three month stay with my parents last fall, we have moved 8 times. We are moving into our 9th home next month. We will stay put for a while. Mark my words.  

NINE.  In 6 years of marriage.

Since 2001, when I left for college, I have moved, on average, three times a year. Every year. 

I am tired.

Each home and each move has happened for a specific reason.  We have only owned two of those homes.

The first home, our first home, we bought with the intention of flipping and selling.  We lived there for two years (the longest I have lived in one place in 11 years) before we sold our flipped home and moved into a slightly larger home in the same town.

That is when craziness started.

That home. 

We lived in that home for three months. Maybe 4.  Who cares. All I know is we only lived there long enough to unpack the last box. Then we moved towns.

We still own that bleepity-bleep home. 
Did you know that?

Not fun, by the way, that whole mortgage thing for a house three hours away that you lived in for three months three years ago.  

Not fun at all.

But glorious day.  We have an accepted offer on that bleepity-bleep home. 
(I hope posting this doesn't voo-doo jinx it.)

Assuming the inspection goes well and crazy doesn't hit our life yet again, we will close at the end of this month.

Praise God.

Are you the praying type? That would be totally awesome if you were.  Then you can pray with me that this sell goes through. 

For real, though.  I may need to be medicated if it doesn't.

a deal and a suit.

What I love is a good deal.

What I don't love is a swimsuit.

I am in the middle of the great summer battle - one-piece or two? Tankini?


At what age is a bikini no longer appropriate?

If Trey and I are on the beach somewhere (let's pretend, for a second, that I am at Seaside right now), I would happily sport a bikini.

But other times? Swim lessons with the 2 year old?

Not to mention my husband's career.  Swim get-togethers are sure to be in my future. 

A bikini? Not sure that's totally appropriate in his line of work.

So, I am on the quest for a cute one-piece. 

Yack.  I hate how I look in a one-piece.  But what's a motha to do?

I have pinned a few fashionable choices, but this frugal girl can't justify spending oodles for a swimsuit. 

Call me cheap.  I like to call it financially savvy.


Anyway, I get a daily email with coupons and online deals. 

In today's email, I noticed that Target was having a one-day online sale (plus free shipping.....the only way  I will buy online) on a couple of one-piece bathing suits.

I totally bought one. 

For $15. 

I hope it's not total crap.  A $15 swimsuit has everything going for it to be total crap.

 I will let you know. 

But in the meantime, if you are out there searching for a deal, you may want to check it out. 

Here is the one I picked out:

Cute? I hope so.

Here's to swimming in your mothering years....

Little baby. Big boy.

I love this picture.

I love that Jones looks like such a boy, yet he has a stuff bunny by the ear.

(And, for the record, that is a bug in his other hand.)

Little bit baby, but whole lot big boy.

Growing up too fast.

as long as I am living, my baby you'll be.

Keeping it real Friday

There is a good possibility that I am slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) losing my mind.

Play along with me and let's reenact just a few of my losing it moments this week.

1. We have a Volvo station wagon.  It is affectionately known as either the shaggin' waggin' or the sliver bullet - per the previous owner's (my BFF) request.  I like to think of it as the blessing car, but that is far too profound for this entry.
   
   Tuesday morning that silver bullet was my arch enemy.
   
   See, we only  have one key to said wagon.  And since Trey and I both drive it from time to time,  it does not live on either key chain.  It is just a lone key floating around in a sea of chaos. Looking back, I realize this is a recipe for disaster.
   
   I think you see where this is heading so let's just cut to the chase: I locked our only car key inside the car along with our only car seat.
   
   I first called work to tell them I would, again, be a touch late coming in. My mom, super woman if you will, came to take us to work and school with Henry's spare booster seat (don't call child services - I was desperate).
   
   One call to a locksmith, three hours and 60 bucks later, I had my key.  Geez that was an expensive mistake.
   
   
   
2. Last night I was heading to get groceries.  We have nothing to eat at our house. If my wife and mothering skills were judged solely on our fridge and pantry, I would fail.
   
   My mom mentioned she had clipped coupons for me and that they were waiting on her kitchen counter.  Nobody was home, but I could just let myself in using the keypad on the garage door. That keypad turned on me, I tell you. For the life of me I could not get the garage to open. I tried. I know I had the correct code.  I became angry.  I cried.  Apparently I really wanted those coupons.
   
   After ten minutes of failed attempts to open the garage door, I left my parents house....empty handed and full of tears.  FOR REAL.  Over coupons.  I went straight home and declared tonight was not grocery night.  Food and diapers can wait.  I needed 30 Rock and my bed.   I need  Tina Fey.
   
   
3. I show up this morning to drop Jones off at school with my camera in hand.  Muffins with Mom. How precious. I get to eat breakfast with my sweetie and his friends.  Jones and I talked about it the whole way to school "Mommy gets to eat muffins with you. Aren't we cute? This is what memories are made of, my dear child".
   
   I eagerly and happily show up to the cafeteria  ready to snap photos and get my muffin on. 
   
   Empty.  No one.  Me, Jones and the custodians.
   
   Because of course it makes sense to have Muffins with Mom to celebrate Mother's Day .... which is next week. 

I understand that after posting the overly sensitive, scatter-brain things I have done this week makes me sound a bit uterus-occupied.  I can assure you that is not the case.  No bun in the oven for this girl.  Just good ole' solid losing it.

TGIF.

iPhone picture dump.

Our week in phone pictures.

Lots of good stuff is going on in our lives. I can't wait to share.


In the meantime....

Recovering from the stomach bug. (Jones is faking)

Tired from church.

Trains. Every night.

Walking across the "bridge"

Watching the game with Grandaddy

pool time

Henry's T-ball game - yes, Jones thought he needed to be in the dugout.