Wordless Wednesday: The "How did my baby get so old!?" Edition

SEVEN. S e v e n. Seven months old today. I am totally in shock. I don't know how this happened. How do I make it stop?

Happy Valentines Day from Tatiana!

Tatiana sent out her very first Valentine's cards in the mail this year. She asked me if I would do a photo shoot with her and then design her an owl themed card... okay, so really I forced her to wear heart antennas, designed a card and then sent them out addressed from her. She had no choice. But I digress...

Happy Valentines Day! :)

Saturday in Tatiana's World

So far today...Tatiana has...

Eaten pureed broccoli with freshly grated parmesan and rice...followed by some cooked slices of zucchini. She loved it. She still lets me put pieces of food in her mouth for her, but she also will try to grab it away from me so she can put it in herself.

Next she had a bath...she now takes bath in the regular big tub. I put some non-slip rubber stuff under her and she loves grabbing at all of the toys. Also please notice...she now has enough hair for me to make a bathtub pony tail! :)

And we picked out a cute outfit since Nana is coming over tonight. Bjorn and I are going to a hockey game tonight and we're going to grab dinner before, this will be our Valentines day "celebration." We don't really do much for Valentine's anymore, and I think we're both looking forward to doing fun things with Tatiana on the Valentine's days to come. I can't wait to bake cupcakes or cookies with her for her daddy in a couple years (maybe even next year!). I can't even remember the last time, besides going to work, that we weren't with our baby girl. It's going to be a little weird, I'm excited but a little nervous at the same time.

Happy weekend everyone!

Salsa Chicken

A lot of ladies I know make salsa chicken in their crock pots. I decided to give it a whirl tonight. Here's my easy recipe I came up with that turned out pretty tasty.

1 - 1.5lbs chicken breast meat cut into 2 - 3" pieces
1 16oz jar salsa
1 4oz can diced green chiles
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 cloves of garlic smashed
fresh cilantro to taste (for us, this is a lot!)

Throw salsa, chiles, cumin, chili powder, garlic, and cilantro in crockpot. Stir well. Throw in chicken. Stir again. Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours or high for 3 - 4 hours. Serve over rice, and if desired add corn, sour cream, and shredded cheese.

We had a busy day today. After work Tatiana and I went to a business meeting and then we met up with Bjorn at infant class.We also had a fab photo shoot today. Here's a little sneak peek.

Wordless Wednesday

Mama's got a brand new setup...

It's been really fun to have such an amazing subject to photograph, and if it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't have pushed myself to experiment so much with all kinds of photo setups. Now that I'm an art school graduate, and don't have a job that allows for much creativity, it's nice to have so many outlets for my pent up artistic energy. Sewing, cooking, and now photography.

As I was running around Home Depot the other day looking for supplies I could use in my setup I was totally brought back to my days of art school, where I also made many a trip to Home Depot and other random stores to try to figure out how to make something work. It made me miss that amazing time in my life when I was surrounded by other young people with the urge to be creative, and it wasn't unusual to spend an evening on campus in the ceramics room until 3am.

Now onto some of the new photos. I had some strange lighting in the ones with Tatiana (very early morning, not direct sunlight), but the lighting with the dogs is pretty good (late afternoon, sun shining in). Also, could I ask for more adorable and goofy subjects? Seriously, I am blessed. At least something is keeping me sane while my kitchen continues to be destroyed (more to come on this later).

Weekly adventures in the kitchen...and some other random stuff.

My very own cupcake recipe. These ones are chocolate with vanilla frosting (used food coloring to make it an icey-grey blue color).

Chicken bundles. Okay this recipe is AMAZING. Thanks to friend, Blaire, I am going to share her amazing recipe. I used reduced fat cream cheese and reduced fat crescent rolls and they were just as yummy, you couldn't even tell! Also instead of using just pimentos I used green olives with pimentos, because I love olives. This recipe could easily be modified to create all sorts of wonderful creations... you could add some salsa, cumin, and chili powder and have a Mexican version... you could add broccoli and have a Chicken Divan version. P.S. Side dish is zucchini with red pepper, red onion, and garlic.

Ingredients:
1 small package (about 1 – 1.25lb) chicken breast, browned & chopped
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
1 stick of butter
1 small jar pimientos
1/4 to 1/2 cup diced green onions
1 tsp minced garlic
salt & pepper to taste
2 cans Pillsbury original crescent rolls
2 Tbs melted butter
Italian bread crumbs

Directions:
Soften cream cheese and butter and mix together in large mixing bowl.
Add pimientos, green onion, garlic, salt and pepper.
Add chicken and combine all ingredients.
Use 2 crescent roll triangles and seal perforations to make a rectangle.
Spoon chicken mixture into center.
Pull corners together and seal.
Place on a cookie sheet.
Brush with melted butter and dust with bread crumbs.
Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.
Serves 8.

This was a crockpot creation. On Thursday evenings we have infant class from 6:30 - 7:00pm. So on these days I like to throw something in the crockpot so we can eat right away when we get home. This was a small (1.3lb) seasoned pork roast. It was in the crockpot for so long (on low for about 7 hours) that it was so tender I couldn't even cut it, I had to shred it apart. I put the roast in the crock pot, added plenty of sliced red onion and red anaheim peppers. Then I took a packet of Grill Mates® Hawaiian Luau Marinade mixed with some water and threw it over the roast. When there was about three hours of cook time left I threw in some red and white fingerling potatoes. We ate the pork with BBQ sauce and Hawaiian sweet rolls.

Saturday night dinner... This one was a bit easier than the previous two. I picked up some fresh pecan parmesan crusted salmon and pecan parmesan crusted chicken at one of our local grocery store. So a few times a year I think to myself, I should give fish a try again, everyone else likes it! Well I was once again reminded why I'm not a huge fish fan. It was good salmon, but I'm just not a fish eater (and neither is Bjorn, which is why he had the chicken version). The side dishes are frozen french cut green beans, Lipton chicken rice, and Rhodes Warm-N-Serv rolls. The rolls were really good and it's nice because I can just cook two at a time, as opposed to buying rolls from the bakery and having them go bad.

Tatiana chowed (or attempted to chow) on some french cut green beans during dinner. Every time we eat as a family at the table (so this is weeknight dinners as well as breakfast/lunch and dinner on the weekends) we put Tatiana in her high chair and give her something to eat. Whether it just be Gerber puffs, a Baby Mum-Mum cracker, or something like plain green beans. We really want to instill in her how important family time at the dinner table is to us.

I also made this last night. I'm bringing it to a Superbowl party today. It's Caponata.  You serve it on toasted slices of Italian or French bread. The main ingredients are eggplant, tomatoes, onion, celery, raisins, capers, and garlic. Super good! I even had some on top of my scrambled eggs this morning. You can find the recipe from the Cake/Kitchen Boss, Buddy, here.

Yesterday we also had a play date/girls day. We met up with two friends and their little ones. This is Tatiana hanging out with Miss Olivia Rae, she is absolutely gorgeous and is the happiest smiliest baby ever.

Play time while Mom makes dinner.

Eating some yogurt earlier in the day. I took a single serve container of full fat Greek yogurt, a steamed pear, and blueberries and pureed them. Pretty tasty. Makes about four baby servings.


And some photos from last week....

Baby in a basket! And even better, a basket handmade by Great Aunt Coke.

Totally zonked. No I did not let my baby who rolls all over the place sleep here. We snuggled on the unmade bed for 15 minutes and when she was asleep I snapped this photo and transitioned her into her crib for her nap. But I just love how tiny she looks on the huge bed.

The crazy week finally winds down...

Wow...stomach flu, a trip to the ER (for Bjorn), and our ceiling and walls now with major damage from ice dams and snow... Definitely TGIF! We went with some friends tonight to the Winter Carnival. Definitely didn't turn out to be what we hoped (WHAT? No snow castle this year!!!???). But we had a fun night anyway!

First here's a couple photos I took of Tatiana today.

Part of our kitchen/eating area ceiling as it looks today

And now onto some fun from tonight...

Ice sculpture that doubles as a throne.

Taking a break at Starbucks to warm up.

Rosie nose and cheeks from the chilly weather!

Mai helping Tatiana eat some puffs.

BFFs?