Family Day - Going Green

Last Saturday we celebrated Family Night number 5. As we had spent the morning celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a parade going down our street, it made sense to keep the green coming with a Family Night - Going Green/St. Paddy's Day theme.

We had left over hats and beads from the parade to use for decorations. We started the night by having everyone dress in green and I made a green meal. I am not fond of corned beef and hash so we went with our new favorite Peanut Ginger Chicken Wraps, but I went and got us green tortillas to wrap them up. We also had peas and broccoli to make sure our plates were completely green. Believe it or not our boys like vegetables so this is not a punishment to have these as part of Family Night. We also let them have green soda. While I cooked, Ben and the boys decorated their green place-mats. I was rather impressed with Ben's Leprechaun.

The Green Meal!

Yared's Green Meal

Nati with a green burrito almost as big as himself. He didn't finish it:).

Mom with her manic new pose. I don't try to do this look, it comes out naturally so if you want to achieve it, I have no helpful tips. Wait I do have one thing that helped contribute to my manicness. I got something in my eye in the afternoon and my eye was streaming tears most of the day and all of our Family Night. In fact Ben sent me to bed at 9 and I didn't get up until 8:30 the next day as I was so exhausted from it. SO if you really want to look wild in your next modeling shoot, poke something in your eye.

We then played find the shamrocks. Ben and I hid them all over the downstairs and the boys raced to see who could find the most. Nati would have won if we hadn't evened things out by helping Yared. Nati is definitely the most observant of the two. Yared is the empathetic, see every emotion people are experiencing one and Nati is the notice every detail in a room sort of person.

(No picture of this event as we were trying to make the race be somewhat even to avoid tears from either boy.)

We also played a coin toss game to see who could get the most coins in the hats. See Family Night can be as simple as that.

Then we finished by making Leprechaun ice-cream men. I made chocolate meringue beards for bowls. Then we put a scoop of mint ice-cream. We made paper top hats for them and put faces on with mini M&Ms.

Me with my red eyes posing with my Leprechaun.

Ben helping Nati finish his.
Ben's creativity had run out by now so he put one M&M on and said his was a cyclops Leprechaun.

Then we put two very tired, happy and sticky little boys to bed. It had been a great day with a parade, a walk through our local Botanical Gardens and then Family Night.

St. Patrick's Day

I have never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day as I am English not Irish but... there is a parade that goes right down the street we live on. I mean, I did the wearing green thing but that was it. Well this parade is a huge hit with those who live in our part of town so you kind of get caught up in the excitement of the day. As it is our last year at this house we invited a bunch of friends to come join us for brunch and then the parade. It was the best weather for it we have had in the four years we have been here and the kids loaded up on candy so it was a great day.

Our friend with her kid's candy stash.

Look what I scored Mom!!
All the kids calmly sitting and watching the parade before they realized that if they..

Jumped up and down they would get candy and beads. I had to tell Yared three times to leave the jello-shots that were being thrown alone.

My good friend Aya joined us last year and this year. Aya is from Japan and this has been a crazy time for her. Please pray for peace for my friend and for her family still in Japan.





It was a fun way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.. which I TOTALLY forgot about on the real day:)!! See I told you I wasn't Irish.

A few good recipes.

I did finish my February challenge but I just stopped posting the stuff:). I went to Cooking Light and did a few of their best ever recipes and they are well worth the name. I wanted to make sure these share these with you. The funny part of this whole thing, is that I did this to get some new ideas for dinner. What happened was I discovered the joy of cooking again. I now enjoy planning ahead and having a great meal planned. I like trying new recipes and have continued to do so even though we are well into March. I will try to post my favorites with you.

But here are a few that I liked from Cooking Light.

Chicken Biriyani

This is an indian rice dish that is amazing and makes you feel so good about your own cooking skills. The first time I did not have saffron so I used a tiny bit of tumeric to make my rice yellow and it was amazing even this way. I did this again and didn't follow the recipe quite as closely and it wasn't quite as good. But the whole family loved this and gave it a three out of three. Your house will smell amazing. Click on the link above and don't look back.. yummy, quick and so unique.

Tomato-Basil Lasagna with Prosciutto

I love a good lasagna but always feel guilty as they are so full of calories. This lighter version is really yummy and lets you eat without the calorie guilt sitting on your shoulder. We gave this a 2.75. I made my own tomato-basil sauce as I rarely buy that stuff. I also used the lasagna noodles that didn't need pre-cooking. That is the one thing I would do differently. I think it made it drier than it should have been. Otherwise very yummy. Not too much work but not something for a quick dinner.

Ginger Peanut Chicken Salad Wraps

This was the family favorite for the February challenge. It is super super easy to do. You won't believe how easy. The picture above is misleading as I didn't end up capturing our favorite meal but this one looked a lot like it and my little men are it in so... It does show my attempt at home made naan. Something I vow to perfect as I love the stuff and this recipe had the right flavor I just need to work on the flattening technique.

Back to the recipe. It is amazing. I left out the red pepper as we don' t like peppers in our family. Well we LOVE the spicy ones but not bell peppers. I had super fresh tortillas and this meal was literally licked clean. No one had any left and we were all looking around for more. This is the recipe I would say ALL of you should try.

This is our last New February baking recipe. It really isn't a new recipe as the cupcakes are from a box. BUT.. this is a new decoration. There is a LONG story behind it. Last summer I got accosted in our local grocery store parking lot by some charming college kid selling magazines. He conned me into buying a year's subscription to Family Fun. After I coughed up the money to buy the unwanted magazine and support this young man's college dreams, I never got the magazine. Finally three months later a magazine called Outside started coming to our door. This magazine is actually really interesting but is as polar opposite as you can get from Family Fun. It is all about extreme sports, death defying adventures and luxurious vacation ideas. All the stuff you will never do with a 3 and a 5 year old. Reading it is exciting but makes you feel a little old and dull. Anyways, I had a good chuckle that this college kid had misread my true self and sent me the magazine he thought I should be getting. Then low and behold 8 months after paying for Family Fun it does finally arrive at my door. It is the sort of magazine you read in 10 minutes and grab two ideas from. That is where I got this awesome fish idea. I made it for Yared and Nati's little friend's 4th Birthday. So now I get two magazines, one for the empty nest years of my life (I am going to follow in my parent's footsteps and become more adventurous with age) and one for the years I have with my wee men.

And that is that for my February meal challenge. Stay tuned for new recipes as I find them as I am on a quest for delicious, easy, healthy meals.

Behind and Boobies

I bet that title caught your eye. I am so BEHIND on posts:). I have been rethinking blogging AND very busy so that is the reason for the silence. Now on to the boobies. Ben insisted I put this on the blog as he thought it was so funny.

Yesterday we had a parade go down our street. We invited a bunch of friends over for it. After they all left we ate lunch and Nati had us all in hysterical laughter. It all started when he said a certain friend of ours was very strong. "He so tong he pick up car." We asked how he knew the man was so strong and he said, "He has big boobies." We are pretty sure Nati was referring to pectoral muscles. Nati then went on to say he would have big boobies when he grew up. He proceeded to lift up his shirt and show us where his big boobies would be. I asked him if Mommy was very strong as she has big boobies. He looked up and with a very serious face said, "Big BIG boobies." This made the rest of us just about fall out of our seats laughing. But he was not trying to be funny so he said "You guuuuuyssss!!!" and looked quite fed up with us.

I thought this was the end of boobie talk for the weekend but today I wore a brown shirt and Nati looked at me and said, "Me like your brown boobies. Brown like me." Maybe I should be worried or more likely I should just laugh at the crazy things our little now talking 3 year old comes up with.

Yared has had his fair share of laughable moments. I was trying to explain to him that his birth certificate birth date and his real birth date don't match. I thought he understood it until a friend came and asked me what Yared meant that his gift certificate birthday was different.

Then tonight he says, "Mom what is a gimk?" It is on a lot of cars." I asked him to spell the word and he said, "GMC".

love these boys.

Family Day 2 Becoming American Citizens

February 25th is our Family Day. The day we passed court in Ethiopia and Yared and Nati became our sons. WOW!! I can't believe it has been two years already and at the same time I can't believe it has not been forever. It has been an incredible, amazing, wonderful adventure. I would not change how became a family for anything. It wasn't a fun road to walk down before we had the boys but it was so worth it to get THESE two little boys for our sons.

They are my hero's for the way they haven't taken what life has given them and continued to be positive, kind, loving and fun. They seem to always see the best in life. It is truly a joyous journey being their parents.

I was not quite as on the ball this year for family day. I didn't have their photo books ready and I didn't really get a special meal planned. But the photo books will be here by Yared's Birthday and the boys were quite happy with what they did get for dinner:).

This Family Day is extra special as it happened to coincide with the boys getting their certificate of citizenships. This is a HUGE deal and is the final major adoption paperwork hurdle to be jumped. I know there is a lot of whining and complaining out there about our country. But I for one am proud to be American, and I know that many many people would LOVE to have the passports our son's now have.

When we went to get their Certificates of Citizenships they were each given an American Flag. My very unsentimental husband quickly confiscated these as he was so touched that they were given them. We did give them some other flags we had at home but he insisted that we put away the "special" ones in their memory boxes. I think I am rubbing off on Ben:)

Pictures in random..meaning I am too lazy to rearrange them.. order.

Yared with his REAL flag.

Nati with his. I think they were saluting with them.
This picture cracks me up. I didn't get the remote on the camera so we were doing the timer shot. I was running back and forth and kept closing my eyes. I told myself (outloud) to keep my eyes open as I kept blinking and ruining the shot. Nati must have heard me as we both have huge manic looking eyes.
Yared wanted a leopard cake. I had great plans for this to be a layered cake with leopard print. But my new recipe did not mention that the cake would not come out of the pan. They had to stay in there. And the leopard print was not so great either. Oh well.. next year.
At home with proud Daddy.
How to celebrate becoming American? Go to a good burger joint:).
Yup he ate the WHOLE thing.
Nope he did not finish it. But Dad happily ate the extra.