Multi-Mushroom Stroganoff

So we had this for dinner last night and I was greatly impressed. I love stroganoff, but without using meat we haven't a recipe that tastes good, until this one! It is definitely worth a try!

~3 T olive oil
~1 pound mushrooms (such as porcini, shiitakes or oysters) sliced
~3 scallions, sliced
~2 garlic cloves, crushed
~2 T dry sherry or vermouth
~salt and ground pepper
~1 1/4 C sour cream or creme fraiche
~1 T fresh marjoram or thyme leaves chopped
~fresh parsley, chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the mushrooms gently, stirring them occasionally until they are softened and just cooked.
2. Add the scallions, garlic and sherry or vermouth and cook for a minute more. Season well.
3. Stir in the sour cream or creme fraiche and heat to just below boiling. Stir in the marjoram or thyme, then scatter the parsley on top. Serve with rice, pasta or boiled new potatoes.

I highly recommend using the mushrooms it suggests. I couldn't find any porcini, but found the others. They are meaty mushrooms and help add a lot of flavor to the dish. ENJOY!

Birthday Surprise

for some crazy reason i got it in my head that it would be fun to celebrate the "milestone" birthday's for my siblings and their spouses. we've done fun little things like sending 35 of something each month for a year; or begging people to donate money for 30 DVDs; and other such things. well, it's my turn to turn 30. since i am the organizer of all of these events, i didn't expect much from my siblings this year. . .but oh how wrong i've been. for the past ten months they have been taking turns sending me 3 or 4 letters--as in from the alphabet--that i am supposed to put together and figure out what it is they are getting me for my birthday. some of them have been fairly straight forward like letters cut from a magazine or construction paper, or stickers. some were sent to me on postcards. others in plain or creative emails. one was even sent on a university of wyoming student government hand towel--i'll tell the story behind that one later. but the one today is the one that prompted me to post this. i got a box of tea:


the scarlet letter--which i've been wanting to read:


this coloring book:

and a note saying i should be able to figure out the letters based on the objects! when i showed them to justin he just laughed--he's in on the surprise. i'm having a fun time with it all, but am really frustrated at the same time! how am i supposed to figure this out?! justin told me he would help, but not until i get all of the clues. i love my siblings, but they are driving me crazy! i can't wait until april so i can get this figured out--and it better be good!

on the bright side, i can now take a hot bath, have tea and read a good book!

Niagara Aquarium

All of us had the day off so we thought we would go somewhere fun, but close to home. We have never been to the Niagara Aquarium, and we had a coupon and wanted to do some other fun things in that area, so we went.


More than the sharks themselves--which we saw during feeding time--Riley enjoyed playing in the shark cage. She kept getting "caught" between the bars and asking one of us to "save" her.


Justin hates these kind of pictures, but the girls love them, so he obliges. We spent quite a bit of time in this part of the museum looking around, eating and waiting for the sea lion show--which rocked! This is also where Riley found her new friend. Her and this little girl spent quite a bit of time running around, chasing each other, screaming and yelling. Riley was really sad when we had to leave her friend to have lunch.



I'm not sure how this one happened!

This is us attempting a picture, but SQUIRREL!

We had a great time at the aquarium. Our favorite part was the sea lion show. The girls also enjoyed the stuffed animals they got--thank goodness for left over Christmas money. Justin was a little taken aback at how much they cost, and was a little shocked that I was letting the girls spend so much money on them, until he found out that it was their money, he felt better after that. Valen got a penguin and Riley ended up with a seal--she named it squirt after the sea lion we saw at the show.

After leaving the aquarium we headed over to the outlet malls for some fun and shopping, but not fun shopping. I am of the opinion that if you don't have to pay full price for something, you shouldn't. So our entire trip today was based on coupons. We had a buy one get one free coupon for the aquarium and whenever we use those they always take the child's price off, which upsets me. So, I had Justin purchase the adult tickets, to ensure that we got the second adult ticket free, then I purchased the children's tickets--Riley was free and we got a dollar off Valen's ticket using our AAA card!

We had a great time at the mall with our coupons. We had coupons for a free scoop of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, a free Auntie Anne's pretzel and a free cookie from Subway. What a great snack and what a great way to load our kids up on sugar! Then we did a little shopping--all great bargains of coarse--and came home. It was a great--and inexpensive--day!

oh, so funny!

Justin has a couple of websites that he spends--or as i call it wastes--a lot of time. Every once in a while he comes across one that is particularly funny:



sorry if you can't see it, but squint, it's worth it!




this one is just too good!

Rileyisms

Some of the cute things that Riley has said or done in the past few days:

~Riley has been super obsessed with princesses lately. She has to wear a princess dress every day. There is one inparticular that she is fond of--pink with white polka dots. This dress was dirty yesterday and to help console her--for it was a great tragedy--I picked out an everyday red dress. At first, this seemed to please her. But once she got it on she twirled around a few times she suddenly dropped into a crying heap on the floor. When I asked her what was wrong she looked up at me and said, "Mom it's not a princess dress, I not a princess." Apparently the dress didn't have enough material to make a large twirl, and therefore did not qualify as a princess dress.

~As many of you know, I collect Pez dispensers. Riley and I were looking through them the other day, when she picked up the Death Star--for those that are not Star Wars fans it is a little planet shaped ball--and said, "Look Mom, a Bakugan!" and threw it across the room. For those of you that don't know what Bakugan are--they are small balls that pop up into little robots that you fight with during a card battle. One of the ways to get them open is to throw them. Bakugan is Valen's new obsession.

~Riley was watching James and the Giant Peach. During one of the songs, James sings about himself in New York City, and calls himself by name several times. Riley was singing along with the song as best she could. The best part was when James would say his name, Riley substituted her name instead. It was hilarious listening to her call out, "Riley, Riley, Riley isn't it a lovely day!"

What a cute little helper

For Christmas my step-mom made the girls and I the cutest aprons in the world. Whenever I pull out a cookbook, Riley is at my side wanting to help, just so she can wear her new apron. As you can tell from the following photos she loves her apron, but is boycotting clothes.


You might be able to tell that we were baking with chocolate, which of course requires sampling.


She was born to pose and loves getting any type of picture taken.

Riley's First Build-A-Bear

So we've been to Build-A-Bear more times than I can count, but Riley has never actually stuffed an animal herself. She has a bear from the time that Valen stuffed her one--when Riley was just a few days old--but she has never done it herself. Everytime we go into the store she gets excited to play with everything, but never gets into the idea of stuffing an animal. But we are usually with Valen who is super crazy at the store and tries to shove everything in Riley's face, so we thought we would make a trip when Valen was in school.



This is the bear that she picked. Justin tried to talk her out of it--he thought it was the ugliest one there. He liked the wolf much better.


She really liked all of the buttons and how they lit up. She was really into the whole process--kissing the heart, jumping up and down, rubbing it on various body parts and the like.


We thought she would spend more time grooming her bear since that's usually what she does when we go into the store for Valen, but this bear may still have had some unwashed parts when we left.

This is Riley at the computer. She was more excited about that then anything else; she couldn't wait to press all of the buttons.

Not a very great picture, but with all of the people walking by and Riley anxious to get to the gumball machines, this was the best we could do.

When we told Riley that we were going to Build-A-Bear she was very excited and insisted on going upstairs to her room and getting her piggy bank down. When I told her that she didn't need to get money from her piggy bank and that I had her Christmas money from grandma, she insisted that she had to get money. She came downstairs with a penny in her hand, and very carefully put it in her pocket. When I asked her what the money was for she looked at me and said, "I need a gumball mom." I wasn't sure what that meant until Justin explained to me that there are gumball machines across from the store and they always get a gumball after going to the store. I think Riley was more excited about getting the gumball than the bear, so in honor we named the bear Gumball.

a new year's resolution

i haven't actually written down my resolutions this year, but i have stated out loud that i am going to try to be better at blogging. i can't tell you how many people are constantly saying, "well, did you put it on your blog?" i can't promise anything amazing, but i will try harder.

so one of my new favorite obsessions right now is getting good shopping deals. being college students--still--makes our budget tight. being an eco-nerd--is that a word--makes shopping a challenge, so when i find a good deal i get excited. my new favorite website is: www.hip2save.com

i highly recommend signing up for their newsletter. i have gotten so many good deals and i love it when my savings is higher than my total.



riley quote for the day: Dad! She's dropping babies!

I found myself

so this past month has been an interesting one. if i were to take the time to write everything i would be here all night and i really want some time to watch the next episode of Lost. so i will just hit the highlights.

we made it through the first part of December with little or no problems. we were excited for the Christmas season. we decorated the house, finished shopping, made christmas cards and planned our treats. then disaster struck. about the second week of December i got hit with an extremely bad case of vertigo that literally left me bedridden for two weeks. after several days without improvement i went to the hospital hoping to find relief. all they did was confirm that i had vertigo and pump me full of all sorts of drugs, which did nothing for me. although justin tells me that valium makes me do funny things--thankfully nothing will be posted on youtube. after getting out of the hospital i went to several different doctors and found out that in addition to the vertigo i also had a hernia, which he put back into place for me--not a fun experience. i slowly got to the point that i could function by myself--up to this point justin had to help me do EVERYTHING. the poor guy had a lot to deal with. at one point, not only did he have to deal with me, but Riley had a double ear infection and Valen had the stomach flu. i don't think justin ever wants to deal with throwup again. by Christmas i was mobile and self sufficient, but not really better. we did have a wonderful Christmas morning. this was Riley's first Christmas where she understoond what was going on and was excited for presents. we don't do santa at our house, nor do we use wrapping paper--two subjects for another post--but she was excited for each present and was a little put out when we finished. then she realized she got to open each of the packages and boxes and play with the toys inside, and that took the rest of the day. Saturday morning Justin took me to the airport and i flew, by myself to Utah for my brother's wedding.

travel log: buffalo to detroit--flight was short and did not cause me to throw up. i was able to eat and keep down an expensive smoothie and bagel. detroit to kansas city--some trouble getting back on the plane, but again the flight was good and no sickness. kansas city--flight was cancelled so i had to stay the night. i also found that i lost my wallet with identification and debit card, which meant that i had to cry to the security guards to let me get through security. i did get to stay in a nice hotel all by myself and had two free meals. my step dad teased me when i told him that i ate a hamburger for dinner. i told him that since i didn't drink all the stress of my drove me to eat meat. kansas city to salt lake: a good flight, again without sickness.

i had a great time in salt lake and it was wonderful seeing my family and watching my brother get married--i only cried a little bit.

the trip home was uneventful--unless you count the delays i experienced in detroit, but i made it home safe and sound.

for New Years we had some wonderful friends from Salt Lake/San Francisico visit us and celebrate the new year.

now with valen in school and justin preparing to go back to school reality has settled in and we are slowly getting back into a routine--mean mom undoing all of the fun nice things that dad did while i was sick and gone.

as i said before it has been crazy but there are several things that i have taken away from this experience:

~i am grateful for a husband that was willing to drop everything to take care of me and the kids.
~i am thankful for summer graduation.
~i am thankful for all of those that helped us out while i was sick. i was amazed at how many people were willing to help us--babysitting, dinners, flowers, hospital visits, get well cards, phone calls, thoughts and prayers just to name a few.
~i am thankful for my health.
~i LOVE my cell phone, weekend minutes and texting
~i love seeing and reconnecting with friends and family.
~i LOVE food--the weight loss was nice, but eating is better!
~i really do enjoy being able to clean my house.
~i am grateful that the Lord teaches us through disappointment, trials, heartache and sadness. it makes all those happy moments that much sweeter.
~i am grateful for the detroit airport and their lost and found services, and the honest person out there that found and returned my wallet and made it possible to find myself twice in one trip.