Soundtrack to cook to: Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody is such a fun and funky song to blast while I'm cooking, or running errands, or showering, or doing anything. :-)
Happy Rosh Hashanah 2015!! We celebrated the Jewish new year by eating lots of yummy food and having Joseph's cousin Ilias over for dinner that evening. We had a lovely meal consisting of brisket, butternut squash and leek soup, salad, whole wheat couscous, challah, and two types of cake. It was so nice to be able to celebrate with Ilias and to hear how he has celebrated Rosh Hashanah in the past. It's fun to hear how other people celebrate it, and to learn more about it as well!
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| Here's William the sous chef, helping me sprinkle some pomegranate seeds onto the salad for the evening. He loves to help out in the kitchen. |
Ingredients:
- 1 box of spinach leaves, fresh
- 2 clementines, segmented and cut into halves
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 pomegranate, seeded
- 10 dates, pitted and cut into fourths
Honey citrus vinaigrette recipe: (whisk all of the following ingredients together) - 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup honey
- 6 tbsp apple cider vinegar (I felt it needed a little more tang)
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
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| This salad was amazingly delicious, juicy, and full of flavor! Plus, it looked beautiful, didn't it? I let each guest serve themselves the salad and then drizzle as much dressing as they liked over it. |
Another quick and easy soup to make (that is perfect for the fall) is a butternut squash and leek soup. In the past, I've made this soup with 1 whole onion, but leeks are a specific food that are special to eat during Rosh Hashanah (and they're really like a giant green onion), so I tried out this recipe and it worked really well!
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
- 1 leek, sliced
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes (or vegetable bouillon if you want to make it vegetarian)
- 1 carton of chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you want to make it vegetarian)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2-3 dashes nutmeg
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| Slice the leek and then soak it in a medium bowl of water so that the sand and dirt will sink to the bottom. |
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| Cook the butternut squash and leeks together until the squash is fork tender (about 10-12 minutes). Then, season with salt and pepper, pour in the stock, add the bouillon cubes, and cover your Dutch oven (or large pot) and let the soup cook for ~25 minutes. Afterwards, use an immersion blender to blend the soup until smooth. Or you can pour the soup into a blender in small batches and blend until smooth. Finish off the soup with a few dashes of nutmeg. I like to serve this soup with parmesan cheese on top. SOOOOOO delicious, healthy, and easy to make. |
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| Joseph, Alex, Ilias, and William, enjoying some lively conversation at our Rosh Hashanah dinner table. |
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| The boys, stretching before class started. They both had school off on Monday because of Rosh Hashanah. Joseph also had Rosh Hashanah off, so it was really nice for us to all go to the gym class together. |
William having a swinging good time.
Alex had to tuck his legs in, but also enjoyed swinging on the bar.
Our boys, swinging on a make-shift pirate ship.
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| "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" |
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| Our two little monkeys! They remind me of that "Hang in there" kitty poster. Lol! :-) |
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| September 15, 2015 William's first day of Preschool! "When I grow up, I want to be a doctor." Our boys clearly want to follow in their father's footsteps. :-) |
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| His excitement dwindled as he realized that I was not going to be with him while he was in school. Here's William putting on his slipper at school, and as you can tell, he was not in the best of moods. Our little guy put up quite a fight and in the end, I had to leave the classroom while he was in the middle of a tantrum. |
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| However, about 15 minutes later, I got an e-mail from William's school with this picture in it!! The teachers and staff at William's school are amazing and know him so well. I was happy to see that he had adjusted and was having fun. |
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| William, totally enjoying his first day of school. |
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| Here's what our little guy looked like at the end of his first day of school! After a little bit of a rocky start, he had a fantastic day and was excited to go back the next day. *Phew!* Crisis averted. |
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| HA! Can you tell that Alex is our child?? His favorite part of the day has to do with food. Love this guy! |
Thanks so much for hosting this get together, Tammy! We had a blast! (P.S. - The baby and I owe you a whole pizza....I can't believe how much I ate!) :-p
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| William, Avangeline, Chloe, and Alex, dining on some delicious pizza for lunch. They were all so cute together. |
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| Play time! |
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| William was pretending to feed some ice cream to this puppy while Avangeline held it. They were so cute together! |
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| Later that evening while I was cooking dinner, I took a look over in the boys' direction and found that Oscar had snuggled up on William's lap for some pets. So precious! Oscar is very picky about whose lap he sits on and usually opts to just sit in a blanket by himself. It was so sweet to see these two guys snuggling together. |
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| Joseph and William enjoying a picnic dinner at the playground of Alex's school. |
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| Alex enjoyed his pizza for dinner that evening. |
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| The boys are totally into Star Wars right now and we were having a battle. Here' a picture of the boys using "the force" to overpower me. HA! Nevaaaaaaaaa! |
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| Alex LOVES to read!! Here's our big guy reading a book to William before nap time. It's so awesome that Alex can actually read the books to his brother now. Plus, William actually enjoys listening to Alex read, too. |
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| This morning, this little stinker got up before his brother. (Although I really couldn't complain, since he slept in until 7:40 a.m.) He enjoyed a cup of tea while I had a cup of coffee and we watched the news together on the couch. :-) |
The boys, riding around around our driveway and enjoying
the cooler weather.
the cooler weather.
This week, a behavior modification plan was put into place for both of the boys. (Yes, that's the teacher in me.) Each of the boys has something that he is working on to better himself. Once they are "caught" stopping their initial poor decision and changing it into a better decision, they receive a marble in their marble jar.
They were so excited to have their own jars and enjoyed putting in the marbles that they earned each time they made better choices. I told them that when each of them got to 10 marbles in their jar, they would get a treat (I did not specify what the treat was).
Both of them did a great job and worked really hard to earn their 10 marbles (I will say, it's been much more peaceful in the house, too). So, we got in the car today and I took the boys to a local froyo place and they got to pick out their froyo and any toppings that they wanted. They were so proud of themselves that they earned their first treat and that they were making better choices, too!
They were so excited to have their own jars and enjoyed putting in the marbles that they earned each time they made better choices. I told them that when each of them got to 10 marbles in their jar, they would get a treat (I did not specify what the treat was).
Both of them did a great job and worked really hard to earn their 10 marbles (I will say, it's been much more peaceful in the house, too). So, we got in the car today and I took the boys to a local froyo place and they got to pick out their froyo and any toppings that they wanted. They were so proud of themselves that they earned their first treat and that they were making better choices, too!
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| Alex with his hard-earned froyo. |
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| William worked hard to get his froyo, too! |
Happy half birthday to Oscar!! Our big guy is 9 1/2 years old!
He always gets a burger for his birthday meal. :-)
He always gets a burger for his birthday meal. :-)
This was definitely a much more laid back week than the past few weeks. However, that's pretty good, since I should probably start slowing down considering the arrival of baby girl is soon (I'll be 37 weeks on Tuesday). It's good that the boys started school and have a predictable routine, since things are going to be pretty crazy around our house soon enough. Crazy in a good way, of course. :-)
Until next time...
Love and kisses,
Nikki
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