I seriously needed a good laugh this morning and my two boys delivered!

All three of us zipped to our McDonald’s down the street and ordered some breakfast to bring home and eat together.  We rarely eat altogether in the morning but we made today an exception because Stephen needed to stay late at work tonight for rehearsals.  So we were all enjoying our food when Stephen expelled gaseous waste (aka fart). Immediately Paul, who has a very keen sense of hearing, looked in the direction of Stephen’s behind and with a low raspy belching kinda sound went “whaaaaaaah!” I thought, Did he just mimic the farting sound with his vocals?!! I looked at Stephen, whose face at this time was about ready to burst, and we started laughing ourselves silly to tears!    Meanwhile, Paul went about picking his pancake pieces off his tray to enjoy!

Oh madness!  What good laughter we had…a great way to start the day!

Paul is definitely more interested in copying sounds these days.  Just today he was making up sounds for the dog, duck, cow, and cat. Oh what fun days ahead!!

Thank you, boys, for a good laugh to start my day!

Plop right inside the wicker chest and take a second to recover.

(Sorry for the blurry image…I’m no pro at this but I just love taking pics!)

Sit up and grab the toy that’s been calling his name…

Stand up and chew on a piece of wood puzzle…

Sit back down and continue chewing while settling in to make the area as comfortable a play place as can be…

Move to the other side and on his way there, reaches for his Momma’s camera…

But Momma says no so he sits back down and plays some more…

Then Momma takes him out and he runs back to the wicker chest to get in the wicker chest one more time but…

So he makes incorrigible sounds that says, “Please come get me out, Momma.”  His Momma takes him out and plays the clean up game with him to fill the wicker chest and leave very little room for him…at least for now.  Tomorrow we’ll do it again.

The end.

One year of endless curiosity.

One year of growth and good health.

One year of safety from sharp objects while learning to roll over, crawl, sit up, walk, and run.

One year of play, sleep, food, and diaper changes.

One year of splashing in the bath water.

One year of hugs, snuggles, kisses, and loves.

One year of readings.

One year of beautiful memories with you, too many to write, but nonetheless precious.

Looking forward to many many more years of endless curiosity, learning, and loving.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Well, what do you know: oreos and peanut butter!

Paul was such a good sport when I was making this pie for his Daddy today.

25 oreos went into the food processor and became like dirt.  You can see Paul in the background there, trapped in his pack and play.  All he really wanted to do was crawl and climb and walk but the making of this pie took all but 10 minutes at most!  It’s that easy!

This is not of the low fat, low cal deal as you can see.  (Be not afraid of the butter there, I only used half of the stick.)

Crumbly-chocolatey oreo crust with rich decadent creamy filling of peanut butter, whipped cream, cream cheese, and confectioner’s sugar.  I know my man will be so pleased he’s getting this for his birthday.  I know because he’s been asking for it since I made this the first time I saw the recipe, which was probably two months ago.  It’s that rich I decided to make it only on special occassions such as today when all stops are pulled.

To celebrate his birthday, we went to Outback.

Paul, being snobbish. Can't blame him...there were a lot more interesting things to look at than the camera.

We originally planned to grill steak from Sam’s at home and make all the fixins for the sides ourselves but we decided to head out to Outback and enjoy being waited on.  It had been ages since we last ate out – nothing like a little boy to keep us homebound, not to mention our resolve to eat in, not out, and spend less, not more.  We figured that the cost of buying a pack of steak at Sam’s would cost about the same as a dinner at Outback.  (The steak they sell there are really good, though!  We tried it at our family reunion in the Smokies in July.)

When we got to Outback, we were seated on a booth with a TV overhead and Paul was just intently watching closely the goings on on the screen.

He hasn’t seen a moving screen for awhile since our No-TV-Month commenced on August 13th.  Pre-season football was on tonight and it sure spiked both Steve and my football fever another notch.  Believe it or not, I am looking forward to football in the Fall!  *Gasp*

Anyway, Paul was a good boy through it all.  He randomly waved at people and I think he just discovered that people do respond when he does that.  He loved the attention at times and at other times was not so sure what to make of it.

We feasted on their delicious bread and that delightful grease-laden thing called bloomin’ onion.

Meanwhile, Paul chewed on at least three coasters and they each ended up looking somewhat like this:

For whatever reason, he shook his head side to side, quite indignantly, each time I brought the spoon of butternut squash to his mouth.  Must be the coasters filled him up good.  Ha!  He did eat a few cheerios off his tray.

Right as we were about done with dinner, he was ready to get out of his chair and he ended up seating next to his Daddy while I finished off my plate.

He is so stinkin cute, isn’t he?

Boy!  He really fancied those coasters!

Steve got to enjoy a piece of his chocolate peanut butter pie when we got home.  Unfortunately for me and this post, my camera’s battery ran out of juice so I don’t have anymore photos to add.  But I can tell you that he was grateful and delighted that his wife made him a pie with both oreos and peanut butter in it.

Let me share one oreo-related birthday story before I close.  It was year 2007 when Steve’s folks were back in the country for their summer furlough from the Philippines.  They came to visit us in Chicago and spent Steve’s birthday with us.  In January of 2006, Steve and I brought a team of worship leaders from the church in Chicago to the church in Baguio, Philippines where his parents are involved in for a short-term missions trip.  That team made wonderful connections with my in-laws and they looked forward to seeing them again.  That happend in August of 2007.

Around the same time, our good friend, Ingmari, was going through a hard time in that her husband, Rick, had just been hospitalized unexpectedly and he was fighting for his life.  She and my mother-in-law really connected during the short stay we had in the Philippines.  Ingmari was so excited to see them that she graciously offered her house as a gathering place for Steve’s birthday.  I don’t remember much of the food but what I do remember was an evening of non-stop laughter, it was almost painful.  I kid you not; we laughed our guts out ’til tears came out the eyes for probably a good four hours.  Four hours.  It was a madhouse.

One of the highlights of the night was Steve’s gifts: he got what seemed like a lifetime supply of oreo cookies.  Not really, but close.  Our friends, by this time, knew that he LOVES oreos.  One of the packs/gifts given him was from Shirley, our crazy wicked friend; wicked in that her sense of humor is…well, wicked.  Practical jokers they’re called and she’s one of them.

Steve got two packs of oreo cookies from Shirley that night.  He’s that special, he got two packs!  He opened the first one which bared what looked like licked pieces of cookies.  None of the pieces were together, they were all taken apart with very little cream filling left on them!  Shirley really did a good job “licking” them.  She went on to say that her husband saw her scraping the cream filling out of each piece of oreos and he thought her crazy.  Well, she is, and I love her dearly!  Needless to say, the second pack of oreos weren’t lick, they were in pristine cookie sandwich form as they should be.  The “licked” oreos?  They were much more fun to eat…and we ate it all.  I should say, Stephen ate them all.

That was one fine night…even Steve said tonight as we were reminiscing that it definitely is one of the more memorable birthdays he’s had.  Laughter does something to the soul.  That night, it made me appreciate the beauty in the friendships formed with each one in that room.

So…to my wonderful husband of seven years and best friend of eight years and counting, happy birthday!  Here’s to many many many more years of making memories.  I love you!  I’m sure if the little tyke can talk he’d say he loves you too.  But you know that he does, just by the bright sweet smile on his face when he sees you walking in the door when you come home from work.  We love you, Stephen Paul Ballast!

putting on the tomato base with just a hint of basil

adding the pre-cooked sausage

Voila!

caramelized onion added to the Hawaiian pizza

little balls of fresh mozzarella all over the pizza dough with pre-cooked ham and caramlized onions as toppings

then of course there's the mess!

I should mention that last weekend, after reading Kristen @ The Frugal Girl’s blog on musts for pizza baking, I was convinced to invest in a pizza stone and peel.  See, I just started this love affair with bread making and if you must know, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE breads of any kind.  Ask my grandmother and she will tell you of the many mornings I spent in her kitchen chowing down as many pan de sal as was allowed for me to eat.  Left to my own devices, I could’ve attacked the whole bag’s worth of pan de sal each morning.  Only thing was, there were other people in our family who also needed pan de sal for their breakfast.

Bread, of course, is the epitome of carbs and frankly my body does not respond well to carbs.  I mean, now that I am older and more inert than say, my teenage years, carbs very easily settle themselves on my belly, thighs, and shoulders…oh, and face!  I probably really ought to be whipping my dancing shoes to that cha cha or rhumba or other exotically named dance routines out there but…that’s ok.  I’ll keep to chasing my little one’s floor routines.  Ha!  Really though, nothing deters me from good, delicious, and freshly baked bread.

Anyways…sorry about my tangents, I’m wired that way.  Back to the pizza stone and peel.  Unfortunately at the store that we went to, there was not a set available.  My budget only allowed me to settle for one of the two.  ’Course I went for the stone cause I would need that more than the peel and I thought I’ll just figure something out to use as a peel.  Suffice it to say, Steve and I had an adventure in the kitchen figuring out how to transfer the sticky pizza dough from the cookie sheets on to the pizza stone.  There were notes taken and we’ll try to make it work at our next pizza night.  As it turned out, the pizzas came out perfectly and the flavors were down right delicious.  Hey, it’s homemade, right?  Who needs pizzas to be perfect?  I know I don’t!

Ummm…that was three days ago.  These lush large green leaves are now in my freezer, transformed into pesto, waiting to be used for a quick pasta dinner anytime.  Gotta love summer gardening!

We shopped at five stores last week.  It is a lot of places but we had some great deals with sales and coupons combined.  I’m not about to pass that up!  Here’s how we did last week and spilling into this week:

Kroger – $ 38.48

Earth Fare – $ 10.65

Walgreens – $ 4.50 (2 cans of cream and mushroom, neutrogena face soap, and Palmolive liquid detergent)

CVS – $ 4.39 (2 boxes of Cheerios)

Walmart – $ 11.94 (I did not get a picture of the items bought but they are frozen corn, red onions, eggplant, gingerale, cheetos, chex mix)

Going into Week 3, we have shopped a few items here and there:

Walmart – $ 4.50 (Sprite and Cheetos)
Kroger – $ 4.51 (Garlic and Mayfield Ice Cream)
Asian Store – $ 2.00 (rice noodles)

Grand Total for August Week 2 and 3 = $ 80.97

Right on for two weeks!

After surveying our pantry, fridge and freezer, we decided that we have enough food to last us through this coming week so we have not gone shopping at all.  We may have just a few things here and there.  I will let you know by the end of this week how we’ve ended.

August Week 2 Menu PlanBreakfast:

Breakfast:
Blueberry Muffins
Oatmeal
Rice, Bacon/Sausage, Eggs
Waffles, Eggs, Strawberries

Dinners:
Chipotle Ground Beef Tacos leftovers
Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce with Basil Green Goddess Salad
Eggplant Parmesan Napoleons with Pesto Pasta
Pansit Bihon with Rice
Basil Pesto Spaghetti
Grilled Chicken Legs with Garlic Green Beans and Rice

August Week 3 Menu Plan

Breakfast:
Blueberry Muffins
Banana Muffins
Eggs and Rice
Oatmeal

Dinners:
Chicken Adobo with Rice
Pesto, Pasta, and Peas
Hamburger with Basil Green Goddess Salad
Chicken and Rice Casserole
Margherita Pizza
Spaghetti with Basil Green Goddess Salad and Garlic Bread

Next week is Stephen’s birthday and I am excited to whip up a good old homemade meal for him!

‘Til next time.

Isn't he the cutest?

For another, it was the start of the No-TV-Month in the Ballast household.  What prompted this decision, you say?  Well, two things.  One, we want to see what difference, if any, a month’s non-tv consumption will do.  Two, we want to explore other things to do besides watching TV and intentionally do them.

We’re five days into our no-tv-month and so far, I can honestly say that we do not miss watching TV one bit!  Very quickly, Paul and I are discovering the sounds that keep our house running – the humming of the refrigerator, the clicking of the thermostat, the clunking of the air vents, and the swooshing of the air from the vents.  Every now and then I pop in a CD for a listen and we dance to the strings of a Celtic song or the beats of the African Children’s Choir.  Then there’s Ms. Judi Dench narrating for the King’s Singers and we sing along with them about going down to the woods in disguise ’cause every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic. In the afternoons, we’d wander out to the deck and get some sun while we listen and watch the birds chirping and flying by.  Sometimes, we’re lucky to see and hear our neighbors dogs saying hi to us by way of barking.  That always amuses Paul!  We’re reading more books from the library and his few collection thus far.  And at night, after his bath and right before he goes to bed, all three of us sit on the living room floor and Daddy reads from Narnia.

As for Stephen and me, we’re enjoying reading books, surfing the internet, and getting more sleep.  It is amazing how much time watching TV can suck out of a day and it’s refreshing to have a little more time to ourselves these days, not to mention the peace and quiet that envelopes our house at night.

We are now considering doing a No-TV-Month every Summer.  Actually, we’re thinking of extending one month to two months!  Call it crazy but somehow, we both felt it a good thing to do when we were discussing the matter.  Think about the endless possibilities of creativity and fun!  Already looking forward to next Summer.

But first,  Fall and Winter.  THAT will be a different story.  I don’t think I can give up football, 24, and House quite yet.  Ha!

This dish is adapted from a recipe in a Cuisine at Home magazine I kept for a number of years.  It’s called Eggplant Parmesan Napoleons.  The star of this dish is the eggplant, which is one of our family’s favorite veggie.  It’s important to note that the dish was for four servings but Steve and I only ate one each.  However, it’s more important to remember that I did not expertly calculate quantity to cost; neither did I just pick out a number.  I tried as best I can to come closest to the cost of items specified for this dish.  Here’s the breakdown:

Grilled Chicken Breast – $1.00

Bought a 3-piece pack for under $3 but used a coupon of $1 to total just under $2.  We grilled all three pieces but only used 1-1/2 pieces between the two of us for tonight’s dinner.  That brings the chicken cost per quantity to $1.

Would you just take another look at the juicy tender chicken my Hubby grilled?  It looks delicious and it tasted like it too!

Eggplant Parmesan Napoleons – $3.00

The fresh mozzarella came in two packages from Sam’s at $7.00.  I used half of one package for this dish, which leaves the cost to $1.75.  We only ate two of the napoleons to make the final cost of $0.90.

The eggplant was bought for $1.00.  With two napoleons consumed, the quantity cost is at $0.50.

Too bad I did not get a picture of the whole tomato before it was sliced!  I say that because the one tomato we used was from our garden and came totally free!  However, the rest of the $3.00 for the napoleons is from the flour, eggs, panko breadcrumbs, and oil used to fry the eggplant.

Spaghetti – $0.30

Kroger had a good sale on pasta this past week so I was able to get a 1-lb. box of spaghetti for $0.88.  We only used a quarter of the spaghetti, which leaves our quantity total to $0.22.  I just threw in $0.8 cost to the two tablespoons of butter I added to the hot spaghetti since the butter came from a bulk butter purchase at Sam’s.  There was also a little sprinkling of parmesan on it.  The green flecks are chopped parsley, fresh from our garden!

Here’s how we did:

Chicken – $1
Eggplant Napoleons – $3.00
Spaghetti – $.30
Total = $4.30 (plus tax) = $5

You put the dish altogether and it looks like this:

Not bad for a $5 menu ha?

Got a $5 menu you can share?  Leave a comment!

Oh yeah, baby!  Slow-smoked BBQ with a side serving of scrumptious baked beans, chips, and cole slaw.  And the best part?  It’s absolutely FREE!  (Wooohoo, I didn’t have to cook tonight!)

Here’s for you to salivate over…(I’m evil, yes I know!)

Brad, a friend and colleague of Steve, invited us to this event tonight.  He is a friend of Joe, who is the owner of Black-Eyed Joe’s BBQ.  From what I understand, Joe built a trailer to use for his just-starting BBQ catering business.

This trailer has all his equipment for smoking the meat so that he can prepare all the food on site for whatever event he’s catering to.  He can also feed up to 800 people at one time.  As a promo for his business, Joe told Brad that if he could come up with the people, Joe will provide the food.  That’s where we come in.

Joe is the one with the hat (too bad you can't see his face!).

Unfortunately, Paul cannot eat BBQ meat yet so I gave him green beans.  He ate it like a real sport!

The BBQ was really good – tender and moist.  Apparently, Joe started smoking them since 2:00 this morning, not afternoon, but morning.  It’s spot-on delicious meat he is using.  I like Joe’s own BBQ sauce.  I combined both the sweet and spicy variation together.  Needless to say, my BBQ sandwich was delicioso!

I also liked his bakes beans.  They were chuck full of meat too.  I don’t know if that was also smoked but I imagine it was.  The meat in it were pretty chunky which makes for a stand-out baked beans texture.  The flavor is an exquisite balance of sweet and vinaigary taste to it.  (Believe it or not, my mouth is watering as I wrote that last sentence – and it had only been a few hours since I ate it.  Mmmm…)

Over all, it was a good night with incredibly delicious food, a great warm clear weather, and lotsa friends.  Paul even made a new friend.

Paul with Steve, my husband Steve's colleague.

Thanks, Joe of Black-Eyed Joe’s BBQ and Brad for the invite, the free food, and the fun.  Consider Black-Eyed Joe’s BBQ if you’re having an event catered.  I don’t think they have a website yet but if you’re interested, leave a comment in the comments section and we’ll hook you up with right people.