HAPPY BLUE FRIDAY - GO SEAHAWKS!

Are you READY for some football?!?!  :)

I put my brave pants on this week and went all out for the Seahawks, just because I was inspired by a friend who did this...

Doesn't it look awesome?!

Since I did that crazy presentation last Friday, my boss okay'd me to leave early on Wednesday for my hair appointment at P!ay Hair Lounge in Simi Valley...

First, Toni cut my bangs and did a slight trim, then off to bleaching...

All bleached!  Reminds me of high school.

Adding the blue and green...

End results-front

And back...I love it!

Hubs didn't get home until late from school, and the first thing he said to me when he saw me was...

"You're going to get fired!"

Thanks hubs.  I started worrying so I texted Michael and asked if I was going to get fired for bright colored hair...he asked how bright, and we went back and forth.  End result-no, I'm not going to get fired.  

Next morning I styled my hair and posed with Leif-

I realized after I posted this to Facebook that it's not super flattering that I'm standing in the bathroom with the toilet in the background...but Hubs had to get to work asap so he took this super quick.  I love my hair!

And sure enough, all the music faculty were pretty cool with my hair!  The one faculty member that I thought would have a gripe hasn't said anything about it.  My boss towards the end of the day exclaimed, "Is that for the Seahawks?!  Sorry, I'm a little late..."  haha.  

Here's my obligatory selfie at my desk-I really hate about 99% of the selfies I try to take and automatically delete them, but this one wasn't that bad...

And then our knock-off jerseys we ordered weeks ago came in.  That's right-instead of forking out over $100 per jersey, we found a website that sells jerseys for roughly $21-$23 a piece!  When hubs opened them up, he said they were super stinky.  He washed them on gentle, and I dried them on low when I got home, but they still have a faint smell of jet fuel.  But hey, for the price, we can't complain!!!

Regular 12th man jersey

Forgot what they call this, but here's the fun one I ordered.  Wearing this one today!

Leif is in one of his Seahawk onesies-I didn't put him in a jersey because he can get super dirty at daycare.  And Hubs is in one of his jerseys.  Yay!  I'm super excited!  Any suggestions on what to cook/eat on Sunday?

Pinterest Success: "The Yummiest Pancake Recipe"

Sometimes I'll get hooked on something and want to eat/drink it ALL the time.  And then after I have immersed myself with it, I'll just get sick of it and stop and not have it for a while.  Does this happen to anyone else?  For example, I was on an Indian food kick for months...but then I stopped cold turkey.

Anyway, I've been on a pancake kick, but just because Leif will eat pancakes.  I like trying to make his food rather than serve him processed food.

Today's Pinterest Success pin is "The Yummiest Pancake Recipe", and the pin looks like this:

Don't they look yummy?!  Website is here

And here are my photos:

Since hubs wasn't feeling very well all weekend, I let him sleep while Leif played in the kitchen with me.  He had a lot of fun playing with just a bowl and mixer!

Ingredients

Mixing dry and wet ingredients separately

They don't look that great, but it's not all about looks, right?

Coffee break between flipping!  Second cup of the morning...

Last set of pancakes.  Like how they're ombre?  If someone could tell me how to evenly cook pancakes without doing them one by one, that would be helpful, please and thank you...

Leif enjoys pancakes and banana!

I ate the burnt ones.  They were delicious!

Even Miles wanted in on the action.

I like this recipe because they are always the perfect size (I made some a few weeks ago that were super thick), you can taste all the ingredients and they taste great even burnt.  :)  My only modification as you may have noticed in the second photo is I use non-flavored Almond Milk, and I don't know if you could even tell the difference.  I've made these a couple times now so I may be able to do this without having to pull up Pinterest!  I don't know if I would call them the "yummiest" though, just because I prefer the Swedish-Pancake style (almost crepe like) vs. regular pancakes.  But this will be my go-to fluffy/old-fashioned pancake recipe!

Weekend Fun

The weekend flew by, and I'm so excited/anxious for this coming weekend-Superbowl baby!!!

So Friday was crazy.  I left for work in a whirlwind because I had to give a presentation that day to 25 admission counselors from around the world about the music department; I woke up a little late so I had to get professional looking as fast as possible.  When I was driving to work, my car sounded louder; well, I could feel everything more.  Then when I got on the freeway, my steering wheel starting vibrating rapidly...then my tired popped.  Luckily I was able to move over safely but I was stuck on the side of the freeway and the shoulder wasn't very wide.  I called hubs frantic, and after he agreed to come out (thankfully he didn't have to work), I renewed my Triple A membership and they came out and changed my tired very quickly.  Phew!  We found a tire shop pretty close by, dropped the car off, dropped Leif off at daycare (he was not a happy camper throughout this whole situation), and we stopped to get some breakfast since we didn't know how long it would take.  They called, said my car would be done by 1pm, so hubs dropped me off at work around 10:30am.  Not terrible!  Could have been worse.  Gave my presentation with Michael (faculty/friend) and it went smoothly.  After work, hubs picked me up, got my car, picked up Leif, dropped him off at home, got his dinner ready and then I drove back to Thousand Oaks to catch Michael's euphonium-tuba recital (the first half).  Like I said, it was a crazy day!

Saturday was bridesmaid shopping day for my friend Christina.  She lives in San Diego, but we met about 15 minutes away from my house since it was close to everyone, phew!  We stopped at David's Bridal, found a couple she liked-then lunch at the mall and dress shopping at Nordstrom.  After trying on a few, she settled on three styles at Nordstrom!  I'm happy with them.

All three will be short, so Devon on my left will be in that style top, I liked my strap dress and the third style will be a deep sweetheart strapless cut.  All in royal blue!

Christina is in the white top in the middle, but SEVEN bridesmaids!

 I got home around 5pm, and since hubs stayed home with Leif all day, he was itching to get out.  So we ended up...at the mall again.  Haha.  It was fine, and Leif got to try out his new car!  (photo below of car...)

Sunday I woke up on the right side of the bed-I let hubs sleep, and I cleaned up the house, started laundry, made pancakes (pinterest success post coming up!), took Miles & Leif for a walk, took Leif to Gymboree, and spent the rest of the day cleaning/playing with Leif.  It was a really nice Sunday.

We really love where we live!

My cutie pie enjoying his new ride.  He didn't try to take off his hat until the end of our walk, good boy!

View of Leif and our location

There was only one other baby at Gymboree but Leif still had a good time.  And at the end he went up to Casey and kept trying to kiss him, it was super adorable!

Pinterest Success: Best Ever Super Easy Salsa...and GO SEAHAWKS!

Happy Hump Day!

Let me start by saying....GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!  What a game!!!  Let me show you my little family's Seahawk pride:

Sunday's breakfast-Puyallup Fair Scones and Seahawk colored fruit!

Leif's first taste of kiwis...not a huge fan.  And not a fan of scones either!  Probably the texture...

Our little Richard Sherman :)

We were able to fit one of Leif's old Seahawk onesies on Miles

We did a jersey change at half time from Sherman to Wilson and that was the ticket!  This is after the game, rolling around on the floor happy

The game was in a sense, stupefying; hubs and I were just in shock at the end trying to figure out what happened!  It was crazy.  I read an article where this gal who was at the game totally canceled her flight to Arizona for the Super Bowl because she thought they were going to lose.  I hope she is kicking herself for that.  We're so excited!

Okay, so after breakfast and when Leif went down for a nap, I tried making "Best Ever Super Easy Salsa".  Here is the pin:

And here is the website

And here are my photos:

We dumped two cans of the fire-roasted tomatoes in and started cutting up the rest of the ingredients

Hubs wanted to help, so he measured out the roasted red peppers

I think all of the ingredients came from Trader Joe's!

Go Ninja Go Ninja Go!

Finished product.  And these Organic Blue Corn Tortilla Chips are AMAZING.

So here are my modifications:

1. The recipe calls for one small can of green chiles; well, Trader Joe's being amazing, the fire-roasted tomato cans came with green chiles!
2. I tested the salsa after it was blended and added more cilantro, about three more sprigs.  I love cilantro.
3. I used four cloves of garlic, not three
4. I added half more of jalapeño for a little more kick
5. I used all of the lime for the juice
6. I added a few more shakes of salt
7. All these additions were because I felt the red pepper made the salsa a little more sweet

We ate so much salsa on Sunday it was ridiculous.  AND we still have half a big bowl of it left!  This was a great pin, successful indeed; but I wouldn't say it was super easy, just because it required a lot of chopping so that it would fit the blender (and shucking jalapeños takes some skill if your hubs can't stand hot stuff)...

Pinterest Success: Spritz Butter Cookies Recipe

So this is better late than never, as my Pinterest Success I'm sharing today was for Christmas time.  Whoops.

You can have Spritz Butter Cookies any time of the year, right???

Here is the pin:

And here is the website

I actually blame these cookies for making me gain that extra five pounds over the break.  Well, doesn't help I also ate a plate-full of cake balls from Leif's first birthday.

Back to my success pin.

I failed to take a photo of the awesome Spritz Cookie Maker that my MIL got for me as a wedding present, but here's what it looks like:

Haha, this photo came from another blog, where her cookies look way better than mine...

And here is my step-by-step process in photos:

Perhaps the easiest cookie dough to make

Love my Kitchen Aid Mixer

I was put on baby duty because hubs enjoyed the cookie maker more than me!

Decorated cookies!

Om nom nom

These cookies immediately went into my stomach new cookie jar which I'm obsessed with, just because it reminds me of Coltrane...

And there you have it!  My MIL also makes these cookies, which I enjoyed immensely while back in Washington.  I see this as definitely a new Christmas tradition!

Gymboree, Welcome Asher!

Hello all-

Quick update on life, er, Leif.

We had a nice weekend with the Seahawks winning and all...but we also had an amazing time at Leif's first Gymboree class!  We did a free trial on Sunday just to check it out, but we were hooked.

When we first got there-look at that face!  He was super excited.

The class was on the last day of "slides"-Leif was a pro at climbing and loved sliding down.

Towards the end of class they bring out a big parachute, do a few things and then had bubble time!  We've blown bubbles around him at home before, but these were small and a lot more.

Happy baby!

There were just a few more toddlers in the class, and the baby behind him in the last picture kept taking away the balls that Leif would grab...but Leif was cool with it.  I think I didn't stop smiling the whole class.  I signed him up right away!  Yay Gymboree!

What else...

First, quick photo of bath time last night...

Doesn't he look older in this photo?!  Ah he's growing up!

AND-

Welcome to the world Asher Orin Barnes!  My nephew arrived early this morning!

My brother is silly.

We all had a pool on when he was going to arrive-his due date was the 19th of this month, and Amy thought he was going to come sooner...so my family all placed a $2 bet on when he'd come out.  I bet the 9th, so I lost-but Avery bet the 15th, and since it has to be before or on the date, he won!  Good looking baby, right?!  I wish we lived closer just so Leif could hang out with his cousins.  Maybe one day...