Dear Baby Girl (9)

Dear Liza,
You were a rockstar when you slept for 7.5 hours straight last night!  Even though you were wide-awake at 4:47AM, I didn't mind because your sweet smiles are awesome.  But I have to tell you that when you cry as I walk out the door to head to work it makes my heart break a little.  I love that you know your momma and you don't like it when I go (a feeling I'm sure I'll wish for when you're a teenager and I'm so not cool anymore), but it sure does make it hard to walk out the door.  Anyway kiddo, hang in there for 2 more work days.  Then we get to play in sunny Florida for a week.  Your dad and I can't wait to show you sandy beaches and an ocean of salt water (though I'm pretty sure you'll like our unsalted Burt Lake water better)! 
Love,
Your Momma

p.s. we've been slacking on our 40 posts in 40 days...but hopefully we can make up for that soon when that whole Masters/Doctorate thing slows down.

Snowshoe Sunday (8)

Doesn't it look like Candy Land with white icing??

Yesterday JW and I had a change to get outside and enjoy the lovely foot of snow that blanketed Northern Michigan late Friday night and early Saturday morning.  It was gorgeous and it was nice to have some time to spend together (Liza hung at Grandma and Grandpa's since it was pretty chilly out). 

Tunnel of Trees...

My mom wrote this earlier that day when they had hiked the same trail!

Naan naan naan naan (7)

Yesterday was glorious: a snow day for me and a bonus day for Liza and I. My baby girl is growing up and seems to be doing something new everyday. It's amazing. She's also seemed to kick her cold and was smiley, chatty, and giggling a lot of the day. It made going back to work tough today. The countdown is on to spring break...30 days till Florida. Anyyyyyyway, I wanted to share with you a quick dinner that we frequently fix during the week.

But first let me tell you that weeknight dinners at our houses would be skittles and ice cream if we didn't plan ahead. Ok maybe not skittles, but there's always room for ice cream. In order to keep ourselves healthy and prevent being avid supporters of local takeout, we rely on a meal plan and meal prep on the weekends.

Since I was home yesterday and had time, I threw a frozen bag of chicken in the crockpot with a jar of spicy cherry BBQ sauce and a cup of water. The plan was to make shredded BBQ chicken and freeze it. However, the house smelled too good not to have it for dinner and therefore we pushed our stirfry back a night. I didn't want BBQ chicken sandwiches though.

Thankfully I had picked up some naan at the grocery store earlier in the day. If you haven't tried naan, you should soon...and with butter...and on the grill in the summertime! I digress. Anyway, we've discovered that naan makes a great, quick pizza crust.

Therefore, we made this quick pizza of BBQ chicken, red peppers, bacon and mozzarella cheese. We baked it at 400 for about 5 minutes and had dinner. Anybody else have a great, quick izza recipe out there?

Oh, loves (6)

It's WEDNESDAY.  Half-way through the work week.  Heck Yeah!  Once again we're linking up with Jamie to tell you what we're loving.  So, here goes:

[1] Babies that are on the mend.  It's taken about a week, but we're finally starting to see our smiley, happy babies again.  There's still some coughing and runny noses, but let's hope that clears up soon.

[2] Great husbands.  We've got some pretty great dudes who are great dads and awesome husbands.  They've been working over-time lately between sick kiddos and busy mommas.

[3] More Pinterest recipes! With some friends in town earlier this month it was the perfect opportunity to try these hash brown-egg bakes! We altered the original recipe and added a layer of veggies- yum!

Press shredded hash browns into greased muffin tin. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes until edges start to brown. Remove from oven then....

Sprinkle chopped veggies and more cheese on top of baked hashbrown cups. Crack an egg on top and sprinkle with a bit more cheese. Pop back in oven until egg is desired consistency.



You can see we made one pan of plain cheesy hashbrown cups, and the other with egg and veggies (or just veggies!).


[4] SNOW DAY.  Yay for an extra day with my crazy little girl!

What are you loving this week??

Oh, and did we mention we'll have our first giveaway coming up sometime soon?  Become a follower so you can be in the game!

Nice to meet you (5)

If you're reading, you may be trying to figure out just who 'we' are.

See, there are two of us because it would be tough to work full time, be a momma, a wife, working on a master's/doctorate and still blog regularly.  We're Natalie and Erin and we met on a blind date.  True story.

In fact, one of our mutual friends insisted we meet after finding out that Natalie was moving to Erin's hometown (where Erin would soon be returning to).  We met for coffee at Roast and Toast (a favorite local establishment) and chatted for a few hours.  And that was it.  We were instantly buddies.

Soon enough, Natalie got pregnant and 6 months later, Erin got pregnant.  Naturally, we talk frequently about babies, family, working, and balance.  And since we think that some of what we come up with is pretty good, we figured we'd share it with you. And, sometimes, we know we have none of the answers, we figured you might be able to provide them.

Now, here's a little bit about each of us...


-Erin:
I'm a small town girl who moved back to my hometown almost two years ago.  I met my husband when we were both living in East Lansing and talked him into moving to northern Michigan (or simply took him to our cottage where he could boat, jet ski, kayak and then had my dad take him hunting, snowshoeing, etc).  Needless to say, my outdoorsy hubs was easy to convince to move to a smaller town where we were surrounded by my family.  We are blessed to be parents to our sweet girl, Liza who was born in September.  But, she's technically our second 'baby'.  Our first is Whitney - our 11 year old black lab.  As for work, I'm a teacher...but in a slightly different setting.  I teach one hour a day, and spend the rest of my day helping other teachers incorporate technology into their lesson plans.  It's pretty fantastic.  I get to play on iPads and see the amazing things that teachers and students can do with them!  In our down time, we LOVE to be outdoors or playing volleyball.  Liza's already been hiking quite a few times and we're training her to be a lefthanded setter...kidding (kind of). In the warmer months (aka June-August), we spend tons of time at my family's cottage, so we're hoping Liza likes to swim and go for boat rides!

-Natalie:
I'm a city girl at heart, although I'm beginning to love life in a small town.We have a house full of love-- in addition to our (almost) 9 month old, Connor, we have two cats, Walter and Stanley, (they're half-brothers), and a 2 year old, very much still acts like a puppy, yellow lab, Harvey. I'm a social worker, and work full-time in addition to working to finish my PhD in the next year. If you re-read that previous sentence, you probably won't be surprised to learn that any hobbies are currently on hold as I try to finish school, and spend as much time with my hubby, C, and our four legged friends. In the summer, this involves a nightly evening walk along the waterfront and weekends at the family cottage. In the winter, it involves snow-shoeing and the continual quest to empty our DVR.