Look what I won on Mommy Bits Reviews – The Ultimate Super Bowl Party Pack from Pepsi!
This awesome prize includes everything you need to host an awesome Super Bowl party:
It came today!
So excited to celebrate the Super Bowl in style!
GO STEELERS!
Shrimp, Spinach, and Feta Orzo
3/4 lb medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails off
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 bag pre-washed fresh spinach
5 oz crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup favorite vinegrette
2 cloves garlic minced
8 oz orzo (a generous cup before cooked)
Cook orzo according to package directions. If you are unfamiliar with orzo, it is a rice shaped pasta.
While orzo is cooking, saute mushrooms and shrimp in a drizzle of olive oil until shrimp is pink. Throw in garlic, salad dressing, and spinach. Stir over medium heat until spinach is wilted down. Remove from heat. Toss cooked orzo and feta into the pan. Eat and be happy.
I used my own vinegrette for this:
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar
2 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
Throw it all in food processor and then use 1/4 cup of finished dressing in the above recipe. But it would work with any light flavored vinegar based salad dressing.
I didn’t do a post about the inauguration on the day of for a couple of reasons. The first was because everyone was doing it and I’m one of those dance-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drum kinda girls. The second was because I needed a little bit of time to process my thoughts.
Like most of my blogger friends, I was torn between wishing my children were old enough to appreciating what a historic event they were whining over witnessing and being amazed that for them this would always be normal. It would never seem extraordinary that our president is bi-racial or black.
So many around the country and the world have shared what this election and inauguration meant to them but I was sent a link to a very special group sharing thoughts. A group of children from Chicago had the incredible opportunity to be there in person at the inauguration. These twenty four 5th and 6th graders attended and documented their experience through blog posts and videos at http://www.sharemyinauguration.com/ under the moniker DC24. After reading and watching the reflections of these students who are part of the next generation, I decided that perhaps what I had to say wasn’t so important. They spent Martin Luther King Jr Day at Howard University, knowing his dream had been realized. They had their own inaugural ball (and they all looked sharp!). They staked claim to a spot on the lawn and waited hours in the cold for the festivities to begin. Go visit them. See it through their eyes.
I went to get a refill on my coffee. I left Tessa here:
I came back and found this:
I turned to say something to Sabrina and turned back around and found this:
Note the innocent look on her face.
She is wiggling and rolling her way around – not crawling yet but we are only days away. What happened to my tiny, helpless infant?
Some other random photos from this weekend.
Sabrina is too busy for photos.
Proof my kids have a momma (they both look so thrilled):
I rarely get truly funny email jokes any more but this cracked me up. Rather than sending it to all of you, I am posting it here.
Why parents should always check their children’s homework before they hand it in:
A first grade girl handed in the drawing below for a homework assignment.
After it was graded and the child brought it home, she returned to school the next day with the following note:
Dear Ms. Davis,
I want to be very clear on my child’s illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This photo is of me selling a shovel.
Mrs. Harrington
It is currently 12:30 1:30 (sometimes hard to finish what I start) and so far today I have*:
Changed 6 diapers.
Fed 2 children breakfast and snacks and lunch.
Fed myself breakfast (Egg beaters with a little turkey sausage and a piece of wheat toast – no poptarts shoved in the ole pie hole here today)
Vacuumed again. (Seriously, it is January – why is the dog molting huge clumps of hair?)
2 1/2 loads of laundry
Unloaded the dishwasher
Sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” 4 times and the ABC song 3 times.
Watched 1/2 of RHOC. (Carla keeps professing her love so I had to check it out. Only saw 1/2 because it overlapped with Dora and there is no wrath like the wrath of a toddler deprived of Dora.)
Watched Dora with Sabrina.
Danced with the girls.
Cleaned the toilet.
Made a couple of pithy remarks on my favorite social media sites.
Fixed baby doll several times and zipped the over stuffed toddler purse several times and turned down the volume on no less than 7 toys.
Read a few blogs.
Read 8 books to Sabrina.
Thrown the ball for the dog in the backyard in hopes of getting him to quit whining and lie down already.
Cleaned spit up off myself 3 times.
Done the 30 Day Shred (I am going to have to teach Sabrina to dial 911 if I continue with this. Jillian is a bitch.)
Returned 4 emails.
Showered and dressed myself.
My wonderful, supportive hubby called around 12:30. He asked what I was doing. I said “nothing” but mentioned both girls were asleep (this condition lasted for less than 15 minutes). He says “So why aren’t you sleeping too?” You notice I haven’t mentioned lunch for myself yet? And that I still have laundry in the dryer and more to do. Plus I had to write this blog post as I chuckled over his cute but clueless question in the shower.
*No, I don’t think I’ve accomplished anything remarkable today. I do less in a week than many moms do daily. Just pointing out that men have little idea what a day in the life of mommy looks like.
Obama is being sworn in today – I am very excited about that and curious to see what it will mean for our country. But I’m talking about change at a local level.
Miss Tessa is no longer my little babe. She is growing and changing constantly. The bumbo which has been such a fabulous way to contain her is on its way out. Why, you ask? She is still shy of 6 months old you say?
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Sabrina used her bumbo until she was 8 1/2 months old and NEVER did this. I quit using it because she hated it and started screaming the second I put her in it at that age and because her thighs barely fit in the leg openings anymore. But she never almost threw herself out of it.
We are amazed at how different Tessa and Sabrina are. Sabrina was rather lazy about learning. She didn’t learn to sit, crawl, stand or walk until she saw the benefit in it for her. Tessa does things just because she can or thinks she can.
Tessa has just reached the point of truly enjoying the exesaucer. She loves to bounce and stomp her feet.
Here is Sabrina in the same exesaucer at 9 months:
Sigh…my babies need to stop growing up. We moved Tessa out of her bassinet because she was getting too big for it and because she was getting too mobile for it. She is sleeping in a pack n play now on Steve’s side of the bed – baby steps toward moving her out of our room eventually. I cried. Steve, trying not to laugh at me, asked why I was crying and I said “Because that is the first step to her getting her own apartment.” At which point Steve quit trying not to laugh.
GO STEELERS!
I saw it first at the Anvil Tree but it has been floating around the web. I hesitated to discuss it simply because I am sure it was written purely to generate a reaction. But it makes my head hurt so I have to share.
I have no issue with Spike TV network. They show me Bond marathons during holiday weekends and for that alone I love them a little. But now they’ve gone and pissed me off. They published the Top 7 Butterballs in Hollywood. The criteria to end up on this list was apparently being bigger than a size 2. Drew Barrymore? Yep, she is a heifer. Selma Hayek? She is the one woman I would worry about stealing my husband away – he loves her. Liv Tyler? I can’t even wrap my brain around her inclusion on this list.
The women on this list are all beautiful and healthy looking. I wish there were more real women in Hollywood.
Apparently my telepathic blogging doesn’t work any better than when I telepathically respond to email. I have good intentions but if I don’t do if the moment I think of it, it just doesn’t happen.
For any one local or sort of local or looking for an alternative to Blogher and willing to drive, I keep forgetting to tell you about Blissom ’09.
It is February 6 and 7 here in Nashville. There will be lots of great speakers, lots of great attendees…and did you hear Jen Lancaster of Bitter is the New Black, Bright Lights Big Ass, and Such a Pretty Fat fame will be the keynote speaker?
