The ground Cole walks on...

Last Friday night Shelbs and I had a "slumber party" in the living room!
Cole's room was all cleaned out and his mattresses were in the living room, so after enjoying Sleeping Beauty all cuddled up, we decided that the girls would sleep in the living room and the boys could sleep in Mommy & Daddy's bed.



(as you can see, girls included Mary!!!)

...and baby dolls :)



The next morning Poppy & Nonnie, and Luke and Millie showed up bright and early to get Buddy a NEW TILE FLOOR put in!

Poor little buddy, he just started BAWLING when they began taking the few tiles out of the doorway that had to be redone. He screamed, "I don't want them break my floor!!!!!" He was seriously really upset about it. He cried for a long time. :(




Then, he started helping.



He measured.


He laid.



Later on, he got his hands dirty with the chalk for the chalk line!


He thought it was funny.





The guys had the tile laid by about 4pm, and then Jeff grouted it by himself on Monday. I love having these handy dudes around and I sure do appreciate them!



This little mosaic is my contribution to the job. The tile is the SAME but obviously from different batches because it really didn't match...like, at all.
The hallway is much lighter. So instead of making it continuous we put in a little divider. (Like we did going into the kitchen last year.)



I think he likes it!!!!


Thank you Daddy and Poppy and Uncle Lukas!!!!

Next up, what color should his walls be painted? A khaki would be way too much brown. What about an olivey, camo-ey green? Any other suggestions?

Park day

Last week on a beautiful sunshiney day I took the kids to the park when I picked them up from school.

We watched the ducks.


Shelby was camera-friendly.


We fed the ducks.



Coleman was there too.


This picture shows my beauty girl's eye color, which never actually shows up in pictures. What would you call it? Green? Hazel? I think grey. (click to see bigger)


Oh and Cole's eyes are EXACTLY the same.






Of course, if a dog is around, my kids will HAVE to pet it! Pretty doggy!

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

This post was written for the Texas Beef Council as part of their Back-to-School Nutrition Experience.

Every now and then I get emails from marketing people wanting me to do some kind of product review on my blog, and I basically never take the time to participate. But, I was contacted last month to participate in this Back To School Nutrition event and I decided to jump on it because I love new recipes, especially simple and nutritious ones that the kids can eat! And since they sent me a gift card to purchase the groceries with, I couldn't pass up a free meal!! :)

I decided to make theseChipotle Sloppy Joes with Crunchy Coleslaw and they get 8 thumbs up from our family!

(I doubled the recipe because we love left-overs and we had a 2-lb chunk of ground beef!)

Ingredients

1 lb. lean ground beef (95%)

1/4 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup ketchup

1/2 cup frozen corn

1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed, drained

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1-2 tsp. minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

4 whole wheat hamburger buns, split

Crunchy Coleslaw

1/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt

1 Tbsp. light mayonnaise

2 tsp. cider vinegar

1/4 tsp. hot pepper sauce

1/8 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups packaged coleslaw mix

1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch thick strips

Instructions

To prepare Crunchy Coleslaw, combine yogurt, mayonnaise, vinegar, pepper sauce and salt in small bowl. Add coleslaw mix and bell pepper; toss to coat. Season with black pepper, as desired. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve.

Brown ground beef with onion in large nonstick skillet over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes or until beef is no longer pink, breaking beef up into 3/4-inch crumbles. Pour off drippings. Stir in ketchup, corn, beans, tomato sauce, chipotle peppers and cumin; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes, stirring often. Stir in cilantro, salt and black pepper.

Place beef mixture on bottom half of each bun; top with coleslaw. Close sandwiches.

This recipe courtesy of "The Healthy Beef Cookbook" published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Tips from Our Cook

Thinly sliced green cabbage may be substituted for the packaged coleslaw mix. This recipe works well with all varieties of lean ground beef, including 90% lean.

Nutritional Information

Nutrition information per serving: 406 calories; 10 g fat (4 g saturated fat; 3 g monounsaturated fat); 77 mg cholesterol; 1344 mg sodium; 50 g carbohydrate; 6.9 g fiber; 33 g protein; 9.4 mg niacin; 0.7 mg vitamin B6; 2.2 mcg vitamin B12; 5.3 mg iron; 39.8 mcg selenium; 7.3 mg zinc

I did have to separate it at the end to leave the HOT chipotle peppers out of the kids. Shelby can't stand anything spicy.

Cole was waiting hungrily at my feet the whole time I cooked the meal.

This is what the "Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce" look like. I asked my coworker Perla where to find them in the store before I headed out :) (They're with the canned chiles/Latin/Ethnic food)

I ate my sloppy joe on this ONE point sandwich thin.

I could have done with a little less cilantro...it was a bit strong.

This is the coleslaw. I do NOT like coleslaw but I liked this stuff and it was REALLY good on top of the sloppy joe mix.

Servin' it up!

You can see from the smiles....

...they liked it!

This dish counted for 6 WW points for me (counting the 1 pt bun). I served it with tater tots!

Camping, you say??

Last weekend we took our first camping trip of the "fall" season and were so happy to have the Davis family and the Kerr family join us. (Jess and Susan did blog posts about the trip too!)

I think this was the first family camping trip for both of those families and we all enjoyed it so much! You know, when you think of camping, you think of roughing it. You think of no a/c and sleeping on the ground, you think of bugs and stinky bug spray and dirty kids...but that's not what it's about at all.
What is it about? It's about all the OTHER things we do when we're there. The things that make us forget the "yucky" part of camping.

So, you ask, what can you possibly do that makes all the effort worth it? Well let me tell you what we did.


We woke up happy.



We rode on toys.



We ate hamburgers.



We celebrated a birthday.



We got to see Grandpa just a few days after he had surgery.



We set up tents.



We went on bike rides



with Daddies



and Buddies.



We ate together.



We took pictures



of each other



taking pictures



a lot of pictures.



We chopped wood.



We roasted marshmallows.



We played together.



and learned to share :)



We were boys.



We were girls.



We were one big happy family.



We had Mommy time.



and lots of friend time.



We climbed.






We made it to the top.



We smiled.



A lot.



We hung out.



We took breaks.



We learned how to do new things.



We rode.



We played.



We got sweaty.



We hugged.



We made rivals



into friends. :)



Kind of.



We went to the Sandy Beach.



We got dirty in the sand.



We swam.



We buried our feet in the sand.



We colored with Grandpa.







We got to see Gram.



We ate on the ground and didn't use plates.



We pottied outside.



(and not just the kids)



We posed.



We laughed.



A lot.



We sat in laps.



We wore out the dogs.



We spent time as husbands and wives.



We relaxed.



We woke up.



(some of us in clothes from yesterday.)



We were big sisters and little brothers.



We had Daddy time.



We tickled.



A lot.



We giggled.



We thought.



We got dirty.



Then we went home and washed it all off!



(all except the memories.)



Camping isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's more.