Monday, April 7, 2008

Weekend fun

Another fun weekend…on Friday we packed up the sweet peas and headed to the local Prime Outlets. Both boys were due for some new shoes and we needed a novel way to entertain them on a rainy day.

Three observations:

Choices for preschoolers are good, but only if you have a tight rein on your options: If you are diametrically opposed to light up shoes, you need to be absolutely, positively sure none of the three options you give a child to choose from light up. A pox on your house, Stride Rite, for slyly putting lights into a seemingly benign pair of shoes.

Trying to keep a new walker in a stroller, when big brother is gallivanting around, almost teasing him that he is strapped to it, is not easy: ‘nuff said.

(Again…)These Sweet Pea days are precious: A nice woman came up to me while the boys were destroying the shaggy rug pile at the Pottery Barn Outlet and said, “oh, how old are they?” She then went on to nearly tear up about how cute they were and told me that hers were teens…and that I need to enjoy these days since they pass so fast.

Speaking of precious days and tearing up, my sweet friend M emailed me about the Trace Adkins song, “Your Gonna Miss This.” If you can listen to this song and not tear up (I’m a sucker for sentimental country music songs), you are a stronger person than I.

Saturday we had some new friends and their two boys, ages 4 and 1 over for dinner. SPH grilled out chicken and steaks to make fajitas. He used an amazing marinade for the chicken:

Tequila Lime Marinade

1/4 c tequila
juice and zest from 1/2 a lime
4 t honey
3T olive oil
3 pinches of salt
6 turns of black pepper
1 t cumin
1 t garlic powder

I also made my favorite homemade salsa, the world's easiest, tastiest salsa. You basically just pan roast 3-4 plum tomatoes, one onion and one jalepeno. Once they are roasted, deseed the jalepeno and pop the veggies in a food processor, add some cilantro and salt and puree well.

YUM.

Sunday was just beautiful. We went to church and G, for the first time since the fall, stayed in the nursery the entire time. Halleluiah! SPH and I kept checking our pager, thinking surely it must be broken, since it was not paging us. After church we spent the better part of the day outside, cleaning things from the winter, playing, grilling and getting the yard ready for the spring. We took a break before dinner and popped the boys in “the chariot” and went for a bike ride. They loved it!

Since Sunday was so nice, we didn’t do our usual trip to the grocery. I will figure out my meals for the rest of the week (any good ideas?), but for now, I know we are doing our famous grilled pizza tonight. The weather is supposed to be nice all week, so I have a feeling our grill will get a good workout.

3 comments:

Steel Magnolia said...

sounds like a great weekend! don't you love those? we are having chicken brats on the grill with sweet potato fries, roasted salmon with risotto and asparagus, wed I have supper club (so something easy for them), grilled pizza, and chicken pasta salad...simple as usual, but it's way too nice to be slavin' in the kitchen!!!

Slacker Mama said...

Tonight is John's late night so the girls will do pasta early (butter, cheese and peas) and we'll do it later (pesto and grape tomatoes). Tuesday is "school spirit night at IHOP. We'll do grilled chicken one night and I'll swing by the store to get fish the other night.

Deep in the Heart said...

I think we're doing pizza tonight too. And then left overs after all our mega cooking for the past week - or I should say Brian's mega cooking. I was thinking pesto too after Henry & Charlottes head back. Our basil is getting big so time for some pruning.