Yummy Ziti

Upon request of Loni, here is my ziti recipe and it's freaking awesome!

This is a Rachel Ray 30 minute meal. The first time you make it I guarantee it will take longer! Once you have made it once or twice you get the hang of it though. You are gonna need 2 pots and a frying pan or big skillet. Also beware that this is VERY cheesy! If you do not like a lot of cheese, I suggest you cut the white cheese sauce in half. If you like a lot of cheese, like Cody and I, then make the recipe as I type it the first time just to see if you like it that way but this is some seriously yummy ziti! So here we go:

Cook ziti noodles as according to the box. It takes about 15 minutes for the noodles to cook. Cody and I like using rigatoni noddles because they are huge and hold the sauce better but you can use whatever you want. Also, I always use wheat noodles but Cody doesn't think the wheat ones work with this recipe so I caved and do white pasta!

While the pasta is cooking start a skillet with Extra virgin Olive oil and some chopped garlic. About 3 tablespoon olive oil and 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Once that gets hot add one 28 oz can of Italian Style Tomatoes and crush them up and also add a 15 oz can of tomato sauce. Cook that for a couple of minutes and then turn down the heat and simmer. Add some chopped up basil ( I just use dry but she uses fresh ), salt and pepper. I add oregano as well. Let that simmer until your noodles are done.

While that is simmering start a new pot with 2 tablespoons butter until melted and then add 2 tablespoons of flour and stir together. Give that a minute and then add 2 cups of milk. Let that cook for a minute or so and then add some nutmeg, pepper and a tiny bit of salt. Let this thicken a little and then add 2 cups Asiogo cheese ( I usually get an Italian cheese blend that has the asiago, Parmesan, Provolone and mozzarella ) Once this thickens you can take it off the heat.

In an 13x9 pan add noodles, red sauce and white sauce. Mix together really well and then add mozzarella just to the top. Broil it until the cheese is melted or put some foil on it and cook for 15 minutes.


If you try this recipe, let me know if you like it. We love it and pretty much everyone we cook it for loves it too. Cody likes to add Italian sausage as well but I'm not a fan of meat so we just do half and half. Also Cody and I half this recipe for the two of us and he usually has left overs to take to work the next day. ALSO, it makes a good red sauce and we use it for all sorts of things! Just last night we had raviolis and I made this to go with them and it was good. ENJOY

Sleeping

I had a long weekend. Kayla screamed almost all day Saturday. By bed time she was so tired she slept great. Sunday she slept almost all day since she was so tired from the day before. Sunday night she fell asleep around 11 and didn't wake up until after 7 the next morning!! It was awesome!!! I am hoping she does it again tonight because tomorrow she has a doctors appointment so I need to get up a little early. I can't wait to find out what she weights.

Dessert

We signed up to feed the missionaries on Wednesday so it was a busy day for me. We got up and had breakfast and got dressed so we could go to Walmart. We bought stuff to make dinner and dessert. Dinner was ziti which I make like, once a week because Cody and I love it. Dessert was something I had never done before and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yummy. I highly recommend trying it. Here's the recipe.

1 half gallon vanilla ice cream
1 can frozen lemonade

let melt into each other enough to mix together
While that is melting:

Take one package of graham crackers into a plastic baggy and crush up by using a rolling pin.
Melt one stick of butter
1 cup of sugar
Mix graham crackers, butter and sugar together to form crust. Spread out in a pan and pour ice cream mixture on top. Then freeze for a couple of hours.

Cody and I had never made it before and I ended up using some cool whip on top and also bought a frozen strawberry drink instead of lemonade. Next time we'll stick to the recipe and try the lemonade but the strawberry kind was really good. It was super yummy and I highly recommend it.

Babysitting Madison

We had the pleasure of Babysitting my niece Madison last night. I picked her up from day care after 5 and Cody went and got pizza. Cody was having fun torturing the kids! haha They were having lots of fun.





I love how the second picture of them Madison's legs are all crazy! She has one foot in one area and one in another. She's flexible.

The kids were having fun but Tyler was having a little bit of difficulty sharing his toys. So I decided to put the kids in the bath tub. They had a blast. since my blog is public and Madison isn't my kid, there are few pictures I can post of the tub. Here are a couple








Madison had dark blue toe nails and I HAD to take a picture!



So then Tyler had to have his feet pictured too!



Here they are in their Hooded towels



And here they are all clean with their PJ's on!



It was a fun night!

Gonna Wash that Brown Right Out of my Hair

We had an eventful day. All boring stuff but we kept busy. Kayla slept a lot today and was such a good girl. She let me lay her on the couch while I organized, washed clothes and cleaned the kitchen. Tyler was grouchy. He would cry for just about everything. it was a little frustrating but was okay. What was the most frustrating is after being a moody. tired boy ALL day, it took him an hour and a half to fall down at nap time. I wasn't giving up! Usually after an hour if he doesn't fall asleep I get him back up. I couldn't stand him not getting a nap today though. I think I had just put him down a little too early. Then when I put him down for bed time, he was still up 2 hours later when Cody and I went to bed. Which meant he slept in until about 9:30 this morning. I was tempted to wake him up earlier then that but I wanted to do a walmart trip today and didn't want him to be grumpy. Yeah, it wouldn't have mattered. He is still a grumpy mess today. Day light savings totally messed him up. I think from now on I need to wake him up at 8 and then hopefully he will be more tired for naps. Also we need to start running around out side but today it's raining. On a side note, our back porch that was JUST built was leaking! They had to replace a bunch of sheet rock and re-do the area leaking. Today it is raining again and guess whats STILL leaking!?!?!? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Any ways. Back to our day. I'm going to go through our evening with pictures. First, I made wheat pizza for dinner. SO yummy guys, seriously. TRY IT!

Wheat Pizza Dough

1 cup wheat flour
1 cup white flour
one package rapid rising yeast ( or 2 and 1/4 teaspoons )
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup hot water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Mix it all together and then let it rest for 20 minutes in a warm place to rise. Then just roll out and bake at 500! It's awesome


Cody now prefers this pizza to pizza hut! Um, I think it's good but not THAT good. haha

Tonight we decided to make two so that Cody had left overs for lunch today. Here is Cody's



Here is mine ( I didn't eat as much of mine as Cody did :)




After dinner it was bath time! My poor baby girl Kayla was so dirty! She needed a bath REALLY bad! So mommy gave her a bath.



Since baby Kayla got a bath, Tyler needed to have a bath too!





The last picture is him actually saying Ribbet, but it looks more like he is saying RAAAHHHH, like a lion.

After baths mommy made cupcakes. I don't have pictures of those but I got some cute pictures of Kayla passed out on the couch. She looked like someone had posed her because she had her hands laying on her chest on cute and her one shoulder was coming out of her outfit! haha It was so cute. she looks so angelic. And the reason for the title of the blog? Every time we give her a bath he4r hair gets more and more red. It's like washing her hair washes some of the brown out of it. People keep asking through comments if her hair is red and I always forget to answer. So there's your answer. I didn't edit these next pictures of her sleeping because editing them always makes her hair look darker and browner. Her is the closest you can get to seeing it red without seeing her in person. Enjoy because I think these last 3 pictures are so cute!




Her shirt says Daddy's Girl! Awwwwww it's so true too

How to play the game:
1. Sit down.
2. Take a picture of yourself right now. don't primp, just snap one!
3. Upload it.
4. Tag 3 people to do the same.
That's all!


I tag Stacey, Crystal and Cari and of course anyone else who wants to do it!!

Potty training sucks

We were making great progress on the potty training until mommy went into the hospital. Then when I came home and was out of commission for a couple of days it totally messed him up. We can't even get Tyler to sit on the potty any more and it is very frustrating. This is supposed to be a fun post though. He has to flush the toilet always. It doesn't matter if I went, he went, the mail man went...he has to flush it. So when he started going on the potty he would flush the toilet and say "Bye pee-pee" or "bye poop-pooh" It made me laugh. Well, While I was still pregnant we went to story at the library and then were meeting Sarah and the kids for lunch. I had to go to the bathroom so I decided to go at the library. It is a typical bathroom with a handicapped stall and a regular one. Tyler chose the handicapped one and we went. I did my business and then Tyler says, "Can I flush it!" He runs over, flushes the toilet and proceeds to say REALLY LOUD, "Bye mommy's poop-pooh" I immediately started laughing and was completely embarrassed at the same time. What was the most embarrassing was that all I had done was number 1! But for some reason lately all he says is, "Bye poop-pooh" haha It doesn't matter what you actually do. I know this was a story that could have gone untold but I wanted to make sure I remembered it so I wanted to write it down. I love funny things like this. While I am writing and talking about bodily functions, any suggestions on getting him back to going on the potty? Cody and I are thinking we need to just throw some underwear on him and let him keep wetting himself until he decides to use the potty again. I know that sounds awful but we have tried so many things....a potty chart with stickers, treats, praise...prizes. We have run out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Saying Goodbye

With all visits, they have to come to an end eventually. My parents visit was just too short. We had some fun the last couple of days though. We went into Waco and shopped at Target. Tyler got spoiled by grandma and grandpa. I told him he could pick out one toy and he wanted two of course and so grandma and grandpa had me buy one so that they could get him the other one. My mom couldn't handle his pouty face! In fact, she talked about his pouty face the rest of their trip. The next day was Friday and we hung out at home. They helped me clean my junk room up. It was nice to get done. Then when Cody got home from work, him and I snuck away for a minute to our storage shed to get out all of our baby stuff that was still in there. When we were done, we picked everyone up and headed to our favorite place to eat on a Friday night, El Tapatio. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM It was delicious ( as Tyler would say ). We took pictures twice this day of my parents with the kids. All together I probably took about 30 pictures and only about 2 of them turned out. That's how it goes when trying to take pictures of a 3 year old. I am proud to say that Kayla has slept from 11 to 4:30 straight in her crib the last 3 nights in a row. You have no idea how happy that makes me, SERIOUSLY!

Yesterday was dedicated to the drive back to Austin to drop my parents off. My mom kept saying she wasn't going to cry this time which is like a teenage girl saying she isn't going to buy Twilight the day it comes out! He hugged Cody good bye ( he stayed home with Kayla ) and already started crying and the car wasn't even on yet! DOH! I kept looking back in the rearview mirror and she would be crying and she would say, "He keeps looking at me and smiling!" He meaning Tyler. So I said, "Okay mom, I will tell him to knock that off right away!" haha He cried when we dropped them off but we got lucky. Some little kid had had a toy in a bag and was already opened and had left it on the ground. My parents asked around and it wasn't any ones ( this was out side by the curb where I think someone was packing a car to leave and forgot to grab it ) so it became the toy grandma bought Tyler! ) He played with it the whole way home and is still playing with it today non stop.

Well my dad's throat was bothering him while he was here and now we all have sore throats too. We stayed home from church today to try and rest and get rid of the sickiness. I hope we'll be better tomorrow. Tyler and I both have blisters on our throat so I hope it gets better. Enjoy the pictures


On our way to dinner...I took about ten here outside and this was the best one...


The girls...


The best of the second round of pictures. This one turned out much better


Kayla and grandma


Kayla smiling at the ceiling fan



Kayla and her new quilt my mom made her

All Smiles

Kayla loves grandma and grandpa already! She smiles for them like crazy and barely cracks a grin for me. I had my mom hold her and make her smile and finally got some pictures of her smiling. This week has really been her first big smiles ever. This is just s quick post to get some pictures up of my girl. Enjoy

Pizza and the Play ground!

We had a fun day today! Well, I guess the day is still not over so there is much more fun to be had!! I got up and had my 6 week check up. My doctor says I have healed up completely. YEAH! I had a blood test to see if my iron levels are getting close to being normal again. We'll see in a couple of days when my test results come back. After my appointment I came and picked everyone up ( but Cody who was at work ). We went to Tyler's favorite place to eat, which is a pizza place. We got pizza and then went over to the play ground. We got some good pictures. It rained here several days in a row and now is nice and sunny. The flowers are coming out and the trees are starting to get new leaves. It's very nice out side and pretty. I love it! This first picture is Kayla with the quilt my mom just made her.




Tyler and momma


Isn't it great what grandpa's teach their grandsons!?!


Tyler kept holding his one leg up and then saying, "Look at me! I did it!" So I had all three of them do it..


"Look at me guys! TADA!"





My moms smile is kind of weird here but I love the way Tyler has his hand on both of my parents knees.




Now we are about to make some chicken enchiladas and then watch American Idol! It's a good day all around...