Life Lately:: May 2016 Edition

Little bit of life lately for you today. We've been busy traveling and it just becomes difficult to keep all the balls in the air, so this blog is what drops. I never mean to take so much time off, but then all of a sudden it's a couple weeks. Eeek. 

We've been going on some beautiful evening walks. 

My three best guys! <3

One night at home, Aiden wasn't white ready for bed so I told him he could read books for ten minutes or so. This is one of the things we dreamed about when we built the big playroom in our house. At some point it'll be a nicer reading corner, but it works great for now! 

Anders found a baby stroller at a garage sale, so he's been carrying around this baby and pushing her when he's outside. It's so so cute! 

For Mothers Day, I told Dave I wanted to go for a hike. It was so much fun! 

Awesome views at Bare Bluff! 

Our good friend (& cousin!) Rudy was up, so he slept over for the night. These three played together great! 

One day, Aiden had an appointment so he and I went out by ourselves. We stopped by the park and spent some fun time, just us two. I should do that more often! 

Auntie Heidi came to visit us! 

This big boy loves airplanes. He's always building a dusty, then flying it all around the house! 

My two sweet, sweet boys! 

Mashed Sweet Potato Casserole

My doctor has me on a detox diet right now. I can only have vegetables, berries, grapefruit, Granny Smith apples, quinoa, spices, olive oil & coconut oil. I've been cooking up a storm and I came up with a good recipe you could use as a main dish or side dish. 

The sweet potatoes, black beans, and avocado make it rather filling. You can play around with spices to tailor it to your family's taste. 

Mashed Sweet Potato Casserole 

Ingredients: 

4 medium sweet potatoes 

1 can black beans, rinsed 

1/4 cup fresh basil 

1/4 cup fresh cilantro 

1/4 cup diced onion

2T diced green onions 

2 garlic cloves, minced 

~1/4 cup olive oil 

1/2 avocado 

Salt, pepper, other spices 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash your sweet potatoes, cut a slit in them and place in a baking pan. Add ~1/2 cup of water, or enough so it fills the pan with 1/4 inch water. Cover with foil, and place in oven for 60 minutes. 

(I planned on putting tomatoes in the casserole, but in the end decided to make a quick salad for on the side.) 

Meanwhile, slice the onion and green onion. Chop the cilantro and basil. Put the onion, green onion, cilantro, basil, garlic, and beans into a bowl and stir. 

When the sweet potatoes come out of the oven, take them out of the pan and let them sit on your cutting board for ten minutes or so. When you can handle them without burning your fingers, peel the sweet potatoes. 

Put them in a bowl, mash them up, and add the olive oil, salt and pepper. Add more spices like red pepper flakes and parsley if you'd like. 

Mix your other bowl of ingredients into the mashed sweet potatoes, garnish with some more cilantro, green onion, and avocado and serve. 

*Before serving you may want to put it back in the oven for ten minutes to warm it up a bit. 

This was my meal that night and it was so filling. Packed with veggies and delicious! 

Weekend Recap:: Detroit

Dave had the weekend off, so we headed north and had a fun weekend in the Detroit area. We spent Friday night at Joanne and Gary's. Aiden was looking forward to "playing toys at Auntie Joanne's." He said that many times on our way to their house. :) 

The boys were pumped to push strollers around... and around and around. 

On Saturday, Kathleen took Aiden and Anders for the night (!!!) so Dave and I could have a night away. We went to the Tigers game first. 

It's been three years since we went to Comerica Park. It was great being back! We didn't have tickets and found a good deal from resellers. $40 for seats in the third row between home & the dugout! Unreal seats! Here's a picture of Justin Upton batting while Miggy is on deck. No zoom on my camera for this picture! 

Us two with Miggy! 

It was such a beautiful day for a baseball game. It said only 52 degrees, but we were sheltered from any wind and had the sun shining on us the whole time. I got a little burnt. 

Joanne & Gary joined us for the game. Afterward, we walked a few blocks to Angela's Italian Bistro. Delicious! 

We went to our hotel after that. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Riverfront, and our room was on the 24th floor. Such awesome views up there! 

After that quick stop in our hotel we headed out to walk along the riverfront and check out Detroit. 

The Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario was to our south. 

We walked north toward the Renaissance Center. We found many statues, fountains, and parks. It was clean and so much more than we ever expected to find in Detroit. Detroit gets such a bad rap, but from our experience it is a great city! 

The Shell Eco-Marathon was going on all around our hotel while we were there. Different schools built these prototype vehicles and they raced and measured gas consumption. The winner of the weekend competition gets to go to London to compete in a bigger competition. It was fun to see so many kids excited about science and engineering. 

A great sunset from the 24th floor. 

We were hungry so we went for a late walk and found some food. Such an indulgence! 

I was excited to see the Spirit of Detroit statue. I've seen it in photos a lot, so it was fun to see it in person. 

Night time in the city. :) 

On Sunday we did some more walking around the city. It's spring time in Detroit. 

The Musical Swings are in Detroit for about a month. It's a traveling display and so cool! Each swing makes the sound of one of four instruments when you swing. Of course we tried it out! 

Detroit really is a fun city to walk around and explore! 

We left the city around noon, found a delicious lunch (at The Big Salad) in Novi, then met Kathleen and Tyler to pick up the boys. Then it was time to head south. 

We had such a great weekend so it was hard to leave. Until next time! 

Aiden is 3 and a half!

Today is all about Aiden, the little guy who made Dave and me parents. He made our dreams come true and changed our lives so much! It's hard to believe he's three and a half. It seems like he should be about seven (because it's hard to remember a time we didn't have him), but I'm glad he's not seven. 

He has the best smiles! 

Aiden has a few favorites these days, mostly Legos, planes, and space ships. He'll play Legos all day long. He makes "Dustys" (planes) and "astronauts" (spaceships). Then he flies them around all day. 

He has a great smile for Momma! 

(Pardon the mess.) I got Aiden and Anders matching church jackets and one morning before church, he had to see how he was looking. So serious. Looking good, Aiden! 

He is getting better sleeping at night and he usually still takes a nap during the day. If we are busy all day, he'll skip his nap. That only happens once in a blue moon. 

In this picture he's excited about all the fish in the water. He loves seeing fish and birds. He's been learning about all kinds of different birds lately. He can spot robins ("with a big orange belly"), geese, and ducks on our walk. In his bird book in addition to those three, he knows Eagles, cardinals, great blue herons, hummingbirds, an indigo bunting and owls ("Mr. Owl goes hoot hoot!"). That book is his favorite!   

He had the best time in Florida! He is a little hesitant about the water and would rather play toys in the sand. He went into the water a couple times and I think by the end of the summer he'll be pretty confident in the lake. 

Here's another one of his Dustys. It is spring loaded and goes nice and far. 

It was a major score at Target. Three bucks for endless hours of entertainment! 

This was the day after his new hair cut and he looked so big. Doesn't he look much older than three? That haircut made him look so old for a couple days. 

He likes to wear a hat, so it comes with us where ever we go. All the older guys and ladies at the park and in the stores tell us they like the hats. 

For a couple days recently, Aiden was all into bubbles. He fell asleep talking about bubbles. The first thing he said when he woke up was "I want to blow bubbles." Nonstop bubbles. 

And those shades! :) 

Anytime we leave the house, he needs to have his sunglasses with him. We were outside the other day and it was bright and sunny. He had to go back inside and find his sunglasses. "Way too bright, Mommy!" Here's my super cool dude at a baseball game on Saturdag. 

Yep, he loves the hats and sunglasses! 

If he's not wearing them, he knows just where to stow them for a minute or two. 

Last but not least for our big boy, his new bike! Dave found this on Craigslist a few weeks ago and Aiden has seriously jumped into bike riding. He calls it his fire bike. I'm not sure where that name came from. The first couple days, he had to figure out the pedals. He has come a long way because the last two days, he's done almost three miles! We go for a walk every evening and he has been getting bored in the stroller. On Sunday, Dave let him ride his bike instead of going in the stroller and he did it! He made it the whole 2.8 miles both on Sunday and Monday. Today he's been saying "let's go another three miles tonight." 

A few other random things he has been learning lately: he can sing the whole abc song ("I sing it by myself!"), count to fourteen or fifteen, and he knows his left and right. Aiden is growing up too fast for this Momma, that's for sure.