Oh. My. Gosh.

I made the best beef stew for dinner. I started out with Martha’s Beef Stew recipe but it was very bland when following the directions exactly so I played around with mine. I also did mine in the crock pot since I don’t have a dutch oven (yet). Mmmmm. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but it was the best beef stew I’ve ever had.

I just made out our meal plan for the week. I’ve found that it helps me tremendously to type out what we’re going to have every night of the week. That way, I already have it planned out and I’m way more likely to actually cook. I’ve been trying to cook a lot of new things and so it’s nice to look on the fridge and see the meal plan for the week and know ahead of time what I need to get out for the next day. Used to I would just mentally make a list, go shopping and then come time to cook dinner, I would dig around in the kitchen trying to remember what I was going to make and usually it was frozen, so we would end up going out. I’ve actually come to hate eating out. Now we usually only resort to eating out when I haven’t gone grocery shopping. Good home cooked meals are so much better. What I really need to do now is work on more creative lunches.

I think the girls are ready to try finger foods. We have been giving them little things here and there but it’s sort of starting to get silly when they eat baby food. You can give them a huge bite and they swallow it like it’s nothing and want more. They always try to grab the spoon and when you let them have the spoon they attempt to feed themselves. And they always try to grab our stuff when we’re eating. I think they are ready but I’m always paranoid to start new things. Also, they are wanting to have more baby food and a lot less milk. I guess that is normal…? I’m clueless on the solid food thing. See, I don’t know everything.

Both girls can sit up now, did I ever mention that? Emma can’t for as long as Ava, but they are getting so good at it. No crawling yet, but almost! They have been saying “dada” for a couple weeks now but it’s just random. They haven’t made the connection between “Daddy” and “dada” yet but I’m sure that’s not far away either. They’re growing up too fast!!!

One more thing… Emma has been trying so hard to get her foot in her mouth. She finally succeeded last week, and now I can’t seem to keep it out of her mouth! Notice in the previous picture I posted from the same day, her socks were off because they were soaking wet with slobber.

How hard does it have to be to find chicken wing drumettes to make hot wings? Apparently, pretty hard. We’re not making wings this weekend because I haven’t been able to find the right kind of chicken. I’m determined to find it though. I’ll go to every grocery store in the metroplex if I have to.

I just noticed I haven’t posted since Thursday. I have more to post about but I need to go feed the girls some lunch so I’ll post more later.

Mmmmm I cooked a yummy dinner tonight. Steak, baked potatoes, and salad. It was SO good. This was actually my first time cooking a steak. Normally I consider steak cooking a man thing but I wanted to make Preston a really good dinner so I cooked it this time. I used our indoor grill on the stove top and it turned out really, really good. I’m actually really enjoying cooking new things. It’s starting to be fun.

I’m craving some chocolate pudding cake. It sounds so good and would be a perfect desert after the steak. I need to find out how to make that. I’m a chocolate lover. I need some sort of addiction treatment for my chocolate addiction.

Even with the chocolate addiction, I stepped on the scale today and guess what? I’m ONE POUND away from my pre-pregnancy weight! Woo! I tried on all my old jeans today and they all fit, they are just a tad too tight in the bum. One more pound and then I’ll try them on again.

Anyway, I’m going to watch a movie with the hubby!

Wow, I went almost 36 hours without writing anything new on my blog. I know, I’m surprised too.

What did I do yesterday? Hmm… Oh yah I surfed the internet looking for good things to make for dinner. Then I went grocery shopping, then I came home and fed the girls dinner. Then they got all fussy and extra tired so I tried to get them to sleep, which took a while, then they finally went to sleep and I started our dinner at 7pm and we didn’t eat until 8:30pm but mmmmmmm it was good. I made Cola Pork Chops. They were super easy and super yummy. Except I added some additional spices in my sauce to make it have a little more flavor.

I’m sick of making the same old “safe” dinners over and over. You know, the dinners that you like and that you know you can make really well? Those dinners. I can bake really well, and I love to bake, but I’ve never liked to cook. I don’t know why. But I decided this week that if I start to cook new things and do it every single night then I will probably end up liking it more. Probably I don’t like it because I don’t do it enough.

Okay that last sentence right there reminds me of something totally random. In these books I’ve been reading by Janet Evanovich, I’ve noticed something…

Instead of writing “I probably don’t like it because I don’t do it enough”
she writes “Probably I don’t like it because I don’t do it enough”.

Which sounded really weird to me at first, but now I find myself talking and writing like that. What is the correct way to talk/write something like that? Probably the way she does it, being that she’s an author and all.

Anyway, back to the cooking thing, I bought myself a cast iron skillet yesterday. Maybe along with cooking some new things I’ll build some new muscles because dang, that thing is heavy. And all this talk of cooking is making me really hungry for some lunch.

I’ll be posting part II of my little love story tonight, so check back!

p.s. I need some ideas for what to get Preston for his birthday next month. Maybe a Swiss Army knife? Or maybe not.

So, I decided to ditch the house cleaning and go for the cupcake making. Which did require cleaning up the kitchen first, so technically I did clean today.