Don't touch my DVR

I came home from work yesterday and I was pooped. It was only Thursday, but felt like it should have been Friday. Does that ever happen to you? It just seemed like an extra-long week. After being home for about 10 minutes, I started dinner. We were going to have a pork roast and potatoes. While it was cooking in the oven, I unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up a bit and then spent some time playing with Leah. When dinner was ready we all sat down to eat together.  After dinner, Leah and I played together a bit more and before we knew it, it was time for a bath and the bedtime routine began. Eight o’clock came quick and Leah was ready for bed.

After I put her down, I couldn’t wait to get into my own bed, relax and catch up on some of my shows. Hmm – what was I going to watch? The Sing Off, The X Factor, Keeping up with Kardashian’s, Desperate Housewives or one of my other guilty pleasures that I hadn’t had the opportunity to watch yet? I had so much on the DVR, my options seemed endless (or so I thought). I put on my pj’s, washed my face and curled up in my bed under the covers. I turned on the TV and hit the DVR button. Ummm….that’s weird. My shows aren’t here. I scrolled to the next page…..no shows. Scrolled to the next page……NO SHOWS! There were plenty of shows recorded on the DVR, but NONE of them were mine. Ice Road Truckers, Hillbilly Handfishin, Tech Toys 360, Pawn Stars, Operation Repo and many more the same flooded our DVR. None of my shows were there and I know exactly what happened to them.

My wonderful husband has a habit of cleaning out our DVR. He hates when it gets too "full." It is convenient that he only deletes my shows and all of his stay intact. Moments later I yelled to him downstairs and told him to come up. When I asked him why he deleted all of my shows, his response to me was "I thought you watched them already." Hello........when do I ever have time to watch TV? It had been such a long week and all I wanted to do was kick back and watch a little TV. Ugh! Luckily, we switched back to Comcast a few weeks ago. Most of the shows I wanted to watch were On Demand so my night wasn't completely ruined. But - I was still a little ticked at the principle - you don't delete your wife's shows! By the way, Tech Toys 360, really??

2nd Annual Kid's Halloween Party

Yesterday was a perfect day for our 2nd Annual Kid's Halloween Party. It was sunny and almost 70 degrees outside. (I was nervous since just a few days prior, it was in the 50's and raining). For last years party, I didn't really do too much so I thought this year, we would go all out! The house was fully decorated, bounce house was delivered, catering was ordered and all of the kids received a goodie bag full of Halloween treats. I tried to have more activities for the kids this year too. We had a coloring station in the living room that was full of balloons (kids seem to LOVE balloons that are filled with hellium), a craft table in the dining room and lots of toys outside. My Dad was so sweet and brought over 30 pumpkins for all of the kids and we setup a pumpkin patch in the front yard. Everyone got to take one home.

We had a pretty good turnout too! We had about 20+ kids and 20+ adults and only a few cancellations. There were lots of "little" babies this year too. I was able to meet Matthew, Mallory (the twins) and baby Stella for the first time! Little Avery and Drake were among the other little babies at the party too. It was so cute to see all of the kids in their costumes, we had everything from Princesses to Dracula's. There was tons of food. I had ordered mostacolli, salad, garlic bread and cupcakes and then made a few other dishes. Many of my friends also brought some treats too. Since the weather was so beautiful, we were able to spend most of the day outside. The kids seemed to like the bounce house (with the exception of my own - Leah wanted no part of that thing). Leah didn't want to wear her costume either. She was screaming the whole time I was getting it on her. She kept telling me she didn't want to be Minnie Mouse. She refused to wear the headband with the ears. By the end of the day, her costume was so dirty. Looks like we'll need to head to Target to get her a new costume for actual Halloween.

I'm pretty annoyed, I ended up having issues with my camera and lost almost half of the pictures I took. My camera had run out of space on the disk so Rob transferred them during the party and then when I went to go post them this morning, tons of them were missing. I had pictures of almost all of the kids, pictures of the pumpkin patch and so much more. I am bummed. Overall though, I thought we had a great turnout for the Halloween Party and can't wait to do it again next year. Happy Halloween!

Leah picked her pumpkin from the pumpkin patch

Car seat party - from left to right, Drake, Matthew, Mallory and Avery (missing Stella!)

Leah and Daddy

Sara and Julia

Jen and one of her little men

 The Dygdon Family

Oh - there's baby Stella

Papa and a crabby Leah

Leah did not like the bounce house

If Leah won't wear her ears, maybe Sushi will

My sweet niece Annabelle

Quick and Easy

I am always looking for quick and easy recipes to make for dinner. By the time I get home from work, I don’t have a lot time to get dinner on the table. I hate the nights where we are not eating until almost 7:00 pm, so it is not uncommon for us to have turkey sandwiches, Lean Cuisines or some other quick fix for dinner. I love recipes that I can quickly pull together (that I am not taking out of a box and putting in the microwave). If there is any prep work that can be done the night before – even better. A few weeks ago my good friend Svetlana shared a recipe with me for "Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini and Mozzarella." I made it for dinner last night and oh my gosh – yum! It was definitely a hit in my household and would make it again for sure.

It was so good, I had to share it on my blog. The recipe came from http://www.skinnytaste.com/. So not only was it quick and easy, but as an extra bonus it was on the healthier side. I looked at the website and there are TONS of healthy yummy recipes on there too. (If I make any of them, I will post on my blog too). Thanks for sharing the recipe Svetlana! The nice thing about this recipe is that I was able to prepare everything (quickly) on Sunday night so when I got home from work on Monday, I just had to throw it in the oven. (The pictures on the website look a lot better than how mine turned out below). If anyone else has any good recipes to share, please pass them along! Tonight for dinner, I made "Easy Taco Melts," which I have also included the recipe below. It was a Pillsbury recipe that was pretty good, Rob had seconds. It's just a change from your regular old tacos.  

Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini and Mozzarella
Weight Watchers Points+: 4 pts 
Calories: 171.9

Fat: 6.3 g

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 1/2 cups (1 medium) zucchini, shredded

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp Romano cheese (or parmesan)

3 oz part skim shredded mozzarella

salt and pepper to taste

8 thin chicken cutlets, 3 oz each

1/2 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

1 lemon, juice of

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and fresh pepper

olive oil non-stick spray 

Directions:

Wash and dry cutlets, season with salt and pepper.  Preheat oven to 450°. Lightly spray a baking dish with non-stick spray.

In a large skillet, heat oil on medium-high heat. Add oil when hot then saute garlic a minute, or until golden. Add zucchini, 1/4 cup Romano cheese, salt and pepper and saute about 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool. When cool, add mozzarella cheese and mix to combine.

Lay chicken cutlets down on a working surface and spread 3 tbsp of zucchini-cheese mixture on each cutlet. Loosely roll each one and keep seam side down.

Combine breadcrumbs and grated cheese in one bowl; in a second bowl combine olive oil, lemon juice, and pepper in another bowl.

Dip chicken in lemon-oil mixture, then in breadcrumbs and place seam side down in a baking dish (no toothpicks needed). Repeat with the remaining chicken. When finished, lightly spray with oil spray.

Bake 25 - 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Easy Taco Melts
Calories: 310
Fat: 15 g

Ingredients:

1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef, cooked, drained (I used ground turkey)
1 ½ cups Old El Paso® Thick ‘n Chunky salsa (I used Pace)
1 can (16.3 oz) Pillsbury® Grands!® refrigerated biscuits (I used the low fat version, so maybe my calorie content is slightly lower)
½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese or Mexican cheese blend (2 oz) (I used cheddar because that is all I had).

**I used lettuce, light sour cream and crushed tortilla chips as a topping. I also added 1 tablespoon of taco seasoning to the meat and salsa.

Directions:

In 10-inch nonstick skillet, mix cooked beef and 1/2 cup of the salsa. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until hot.

Press each biscuit into 6-inch round. Spoon 1/3 cup meat mixture and 1 tablespoon cheese onto center of each round. Fold dough in half over filling; press to seal. Place on greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375°F 9 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with remaining salsa.

Are you Siri-us?

If you know my husband, you know he is a total tech junky and has to have the latest gadgets and newest technologies. So when the iPhone 4S came out last weekend, it was no exception and he for sure had to have it. Over his lunch hour at work he ran to the store to wait in line for the newest Apple iPhone addition. I thought he was crazy. He got home from work and I am pretty sure he showed his phone more attention than he did his own family. Downloading this, setting up that, talking to "Siri", figuring out the iCloud - he was in heaven. Personally, I don't get into all of this high tech hooplah. Every two minutes, he was telling me to look at this, or showing me some new cool feature. I'll admit, I was a bit intrigued by this personal assistant "Siri." It was pretty cool. He would ask her a question or make a statement and she would answer - no matter how ridiculous it was. He'd say, "Siri - I am hungry" and she would pull up a list of restaurants in our area. He'd say, "Siri - I am drunk" and she would pull up a list of cab companies nearby. He thought it was so funny and kept on with the questions and every time she would have some sort of reaction. I am pretty sure Rob stayed up late playing with his phone. All I know is I went upstairs and he didn't come to bed for quite awhile.

The next day Rob kept trying to convince me that I needed the new iPhone 4S too. I currently have the iPhone 3 and am perfectly happy with it. I don't have any problems and it works just fine for me. He continued to show me different things it could do and persisted this was something I needed. The new phone is $200 and I could think of a lot of ways I would rather spend "my" money. Then he proceeded to tell me he would buy it for me. Sold! And that is how I got my new iPhone 4S. Saturday afternoon we drove over to the Verizon store and picked up my new gadget. I have been a longtime AT&T customer and I was about to end our 11 year relationship. We moved to a family plan. My Dad also has Verizon so we will add him to our plan too. I discovered that my work offers discounts from Verizon so we will get 20% off our bill and all of our activation fees were waived. We also get a discount on accessories so I got a sweet new case too. After a while of playing with my new phone, I think I've grown to love it.  While we were eating dinner tonight Rob told me that he can't wait for the iPhone 5 to come out. Geez - I can't keep up with all of this technology. I'm envisioning I'll have this phone for the next 5 years.

 Leah loves the new iPhone too! She was talking to Siri earlier too.

A Trip Down Memory Lane - 1980

Back in August, my Dad brought over a handful of VHS tapes of old home videos because I told him I would get them converted to DVD since no one has a VCR anymore! (Also I had bought a Groupon for this service). I am not sure why the process takes so long, but 9 weeks later they were sitting in a box on my doorstep when I arrived home yesterday. We decided that we are going to have a family day and watch all of the videos together (with my Dad and brother and his family). I am not sure if my Dad will want to watch them in private first and then watch them with us as group. I know he really, really misses my mom and will probably get emotional watching the videos (which is definitely okay and expected, but I don’t know if he’d prefer to have “his” time with her). My Dad is anxious to see my mom again instead of just looking at her in photos.

When I opened the box yesterday, I couldn’t resist. I had to take a sneak peak at one of the DVD’s to get a preview of what was to come. Rob and I decided to watch the video that was labeled “1980 – 1981.” I am guessing that the original video was recorded on Betamax (if you know what that is) and then was transferred to VHS. I don’t think VHS was around in 1980. Once we started the DVD we were immediately sent back in time! My brother’s 3rd Birthday Party kicked off the memories. Jeff’s birthday is in June so we were all outside in the backyard. It was 1980 and I was only 6 months old and sat quietly in a stroller. At that time, all of the houses in my parents subdivision were new. Everything was wide open and the middle school had not yet been built. My parents backyard had a cement slab patio with wooden patio furniture. At this time, there was no pool in the backyard, just grass with a rigidy old swing set. It looked so bare!

Everyone’s clothing and haircuts cracked us up! My Dad was sporting a perm and all of the men had longer hair with mustaches. The kids were playing in the yard and all of the adults were sitting on the patio drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. It seems like everyone smoked. The video camera was shaky and constantly on the move. The technology at that time was top notch. Ha! We could see my Grandma Zettek asking, “Ron - How do we know if that thing is on?” as she is staring right into the lens. In another conversation we hear my Dad bragging that the video camera had a 3 hour battery life. My Dad also captured some of the kids playing on the swing set and commented on how close the zoom feature worked when he focused in on the kids. By today’s standards of zoom, it was a far cry from being “close.” I can’t imagine what this video camera actually looked like – I am sure it 20X’s bigger than they are today.

Later on, the events led us inside for presents and cake. It was funny to see the furniture and shag carpet in the house. The quality of the video got much darker and grainier. Everyone is squinting because they are being blinded by the bright light (which I am not sure if it was attached to the camera or someone was physically holding it as they walked around). When I say everyone smoked, EVERYONE smoked. All of the adults were sitting on the couch, puffing away – most of the time kids were sitting on their laps or right near them. I guess it was the thing to do! My Dad was sitting on the ground opening presents with my brother and had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I am so glad things are not like that now. Hopefully we don’t end up with lung cancer with how much smoke we were exposed to as kids. On multiple occasions we heard “Watch out for the cord.” The battery must have died by that point. Ha! The video also contained my 1st birthday, Christmas and other random family gatherings. It was great to look back and go down memory lane. I got to see my Grandpa and Grandma Zettek, my Great Grandma, my Nana, aunts, uncles and cousins! And most importantly, we got to see my Mom!

I am looking forward to watching the rest of the DVD’s with my family. We have 5 more and they contain our trips to Disney World and our days out on the boat. It should be fun!

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Just me and my little Lee

This afternoon and evening was all about me and my little lady. Rob's friend John had (front row) tickets to the Black Hawks game tonight so Rob is out enjoying a night at the United Center. He left the house around 4:00 pm so we Leah and I have had lots of time to ourselves! We did all sorts of running around earlier in the afternoon with our first stop at Carters. They had all of their snow suits on sale and I wanted to get one for Leah this winter. I know it is early to be thinking about cold weather (considering today was almost 85 degrees), but I know it will be here before we know it. We went grocery shopping and stopped at a few other stores. I wanted to take care of all the errands today so we have the full day tomorrow to do something fun. We are thinking the zoo!

We came home and played around for awhile. Around 5:00 we left the house to stop at the cemetary and pay my mom a visit. At the beginning of October the cemetary did their fall clean up removing all of the flowers and plants from all of the headstones. It looked really bare now. On the ride there, I always tell Leah how much we miss Grandma and that we are going to the cemetary to go check on her.  When we walked up to my mom's grave, Leah just went and sat down on her marker. She said "Hi Gramma, how you doing? Miss you." It was sweet. We spent about 10 minutes there before saying good bye. On our way out, we saw a fox trotting around some of the headstones. Glad we didn't see it when we were out of the car!

We came home and had dinner. She got pretty crabby so we went and took a bath which helped her mood a bit. We put on our PJ's and played for a bit longer.

Now we are relaxing and watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba. (We have about 20 episodes on our DVR). Leah LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba and goes crazy for it! She knows all of their names and dances throughout the whole show. Muno is her absolute favorite and she talks about him all of the time! We have the DVD that she watches in the car and all of the dang songs get stuck in my head! If you've ever watched this show you know what I mean! We have about 2 more episodes left and it is time for bed!!

I was hoping for just one!

A few Saturday’s ago, we went to downtown Naperville for a Fall family photo shoot. We were supposed to get them done the weekend prior, but we got rained out. Luckily, the day of our pictures was sunny and the weather was decent (not too cold, just warm enough). We met our photographer at the River Walk around 1:00 pm.  I was hoping for an afternoon of cooperation (by my daughter) and ultimately end up with a few good family shots. Unfortunately, we didn’t accomplish either. Leah was looking everywhere but the camera, sticking her fingers in her mouth and wanting to run around. She was squirmy and easily distracted when we attempted family poses. We were lucky to get a smile out of her every now and then. Getting our pictures done was more stressful than I imagined!

We walked around the River Walk for about an hour, getting pictures at various scenic areas (on the bridge, sitting on benches, by the water, etc). There was a big open grassy area and we thought it would be fun to let Leah loose and capture her running around. She had a blast, but I didn’t realize that the further out she ran, the muddier the grass became. A moment later, I see her tumbling down face forward, hands first in the mud. This girl hates to be dirty and immediately let out a scream. Her hands were covered in mud, along with her knees and boots. I ran to go pick her up and as I did, she accidentally kicked me with her foot smearing mud all across my shirt. Oh man - I knew our photo shoot was coming to an end. Luckily, there was a bathroom right there that I was able to wash her hands and clean her up. I had a cardigan style top on and was able to cover up the mud. We were able to do a few more pictures before we called it a day. I was not feeling very confident that the pictures would come back how I initially envisioned they would. All I wanted was one great picture we could use for our Christmas card. 

Yesterday, the CD arrived in the mail with all of the images from our photo shoot. I was SO excited to pop it into my computer and see how they turned out. I am not sure if I am just over-critical or too hard on myself, but I felt let down when I started going through all of the pictures. The CD had over 150 photos on it. There wasn’t one that jumped out at me where I thought “Wow – that is a great picture.” There are some okay ones where Leah looks cute and Rob looks good, but there wasn’t that one perfect family picture I had hoped for. I hate looking at pictures of myself because all I tend to focus on are my flaws. My hair looks bad in this one, my stomach looks huge in that one, wow, double chin city, etc. Ugh – I guess there is always next time in hopes of the perfect picture. For those not on Facebook, here are some of the better pictures from the shoot (remember – there were over 150!)

Our poor Sush

I know I have mentioned this in the past on FaceBook, but our dog Sushi has horrible allergies. When I say horrible allergies, I mean HORRIBLE. She is a scratching machine all year round. Over the past three years (and it probably goes back farther than that) we have taken Sushi to the vet more than a dozen times trying to figure out how we can help alleviate her itchiness. We've tried benedryl, allergy pills, allergy shots, medicated shampoos, medicated lotions - we've tried it all. Nothing has seemed to work for her. We even completely changed her diet, giving her a (much more expensive) dog food that has no corn-fillers. After months of her new food, we saw no change. At times, I think she is just obsessive-compulsive and scratches more out of habit versus actually having the need to scratch.

When Rob was out of town the other week, I ran into a problem with our little Sushi. She had been a scratching herself so bad, that she took a chunk off of her face. It was bleeding and puffy and she was continuing to scratch it. (Ouch - I am sure it was painful....it was an open wound). When I got home from work, I knew I had to take her to the vet. I packed up Leah and Sushi in my car and we made our way to the vet. The doctor cleaned out the "owie" as Leah called it, trimmed her nails and gave us an antibiotic. She also gave us a new allergy medication and leave-in lotion to try. $125 later and we were on our way. Before we left, the doctor told me about these new heavy duty allergy pills we could try that have had great success. She caught my attention until she told me that they cost $400 a month. Ummm - we'll pass for now. She also thought Sushi might have an anxiety problem and that may be a reason she scratches so often. She gave me a referral to a doggie "psychiatrist" and said sometimes they can prescribe doggie Prozac and that will help subside their nervousness/anxiety. I love my little Sush, but I am not sure we will be going to these extremes. For now, we will try the new allergy medicine.

So now it is almost 2 weeks since we were at the vet and our crazy dog is still scratching. While the antibiotic has helped, her wound on her face still has not healed because she won't stop scratching long enough for it to get better.  To help with this, we had to resort to a plastic cone so she can't reach her face with her little paws. Leah feels so bad for her and always says...Awe - poor Sush. I am hoping after keeping this on for a few days, her face will heal.

Sunday Fun-Day with my Pumpkins

I love days like today. It is the start of fall and the temperature is still nice to be outside. We took full advantage! We thought it was a great day to go to Bengston's Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen. We went last year and decided it will be our annual tradition.We got an early start and left the house around 9:30 am.  We got there right when it opened. There was quite a line, but it moved quickly. There was so much to do! Leah was only 8 months old the last time we were there. She is a bit older now and had so much fun. We started the morning by looking at all of the farm animals. They had turkeys, pigs, goats, cows, bunnies and other baby animals. Leah loved looking at them all and mimicked the sounds they each make.

After looking at all of the animals, Leah and I went on one of the spinny rides. At first Leah was very excited to go on the ride, but was a bit scared once it started going. By the end, she didn't want to get off. We also watched the pig races, went through the petting zoo and checked out the rest of the farm.

We walked through the pumpkin patch and let Leah run around. Before we left, we stopped for a family picture in the Photo House.

After spending two hours at Bengston's we decided to hit the road. Leah had taken a lot in and had worked up an appetite. We stopped for lunch before heading home for nap time. Leah woke up in the late afternoon and it was still sunny and warm outside so we decided to take a trip to the park. Leah loved being outside. I am sure she will sleep good tonight!