Pumpkin Pick'n

we were waiting for "fall weather" to come ,to add to the ambience of pumpkin picking but it didn't happen. It was high 70s when we went to a small farm right behind our house.

What did you kids do to the car?

Here is Danielle getting a scary cat tatoo!

                                               

what is for dinner?

So Brian and I are getting bored with the same talapia recipes so I decided to try something new. It was wonderful. We served it with a pearl basil couscous. I would have perferred a wild rice with it but Brian does not like wild Rice


    Parmesan Crusted Tilapia with Tomato-Basil Cream Sauce

For this recipe I coated tilapia with shredded Parmesan cheese, sauteed it until it was golden brown and topped it with a tomato-basil cream sauce. It was fast and delicious, perfect for a weeknight meal.

It took me a few tries to get the coating just right for this recipe. The first time I tried there was virtually no Parmesan breading left on the fish but after a talk with a friend I found that it was best to lightly dust the fish in seasoned flour, then egg, then the Parmesan. The result was a light, flaky coating that nicely complimented the fish.

Serves 2

You will need:

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup cream
small handful of fresh basil leaves
2 tilapia fillets
kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes. Add cherry tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and add cream. Let simmer for 15 minutes. Sauce will turn slightly pink and coat the back of the spoon. (Note: It is okay if the sauce boils slightly.)
Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet large enough to fit both fillets.
Rinse and pat dry the tilapia fillets. Season both sides with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Combine Parmesan, panko and granulated garlic.
Dredge the seasoned tilapia fillets in the seasoned flour. Shake off excess. Dip in egg. Press into Parmesan/panko mixture.
Place in heated skillet and cook 3-4 minutes per side. Fish will be golden brown and will flake easily when done.
When you remove the fish, chiffonnade the basil (Note: To do this, simply roll up a few basil leaves and gently chop). Stir the basil into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
Lay fish on a serving platter and spoon sauce over the top. Serve.
I served this with steamed asparagus and my Creamy Mashed Potatoes, it was delicious. Enjoy!



s recipe I coated tilapia with shredded Parmesan cheese, sauteed it until it was golden brown and topped it with a tomato-basil cream sauce. It was fast and delicious, perfect for a weeknight meal.

It took me a few tries to get the coating just right for this recipe. The first time I tried there was virtually no Parmesan breading left on the fish but after a talk with a friend I found that it was best to lightly dust the fish in seasoned flour, then egg, then the Parmesan. The result was a light, flaky coating that nicely complimented the fish.

Serves 2

You will need:

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup cream
small handful of fresh basil leaves
2 tilapia fillets
kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes. Add cherry tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and add cream. Let simmer for 15 minutes. Sauce will turn slightly pink and coat the back of the spoon. (Note: It is okay if the sauce boils slightly.)
Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet large enough to fit both fillets.
Rinse and pat dry the tilapia fillets. Season both sides with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Combine Parmesan, panko and granulated garlic.
Dredge the seasoned tilapia fillets in the seasoned flour. Shake off excess. Dip in egg. Press into Parmesan/panko mixture.
Place in heated skillet and cook 3-4 minutes per side. Fish will be golden brown and will flake easily when done.
When you remove the fish, chiffonnade the basil (Note: To do this, simply roll up a few basil leaves and gently chop). Stir the basil into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
Lay fish on a serving platter and spoon sauce over the top. Serve.
I served this with steamed asparagus and my Creamy Mashed Potatoes, it was delicious. Enjoy!

rice.

Hide the laptops

Whose idea was it to give the kids their own facebook account. Oh yeah! Brian's! Now the kids are on it many many many times a day just so they can play the fishing game. I now have fights over who closed their facebook page. I knew I should have stuffed them in the closet until they turned 18.

Alright so we have been busy with Baseball. It has been a little hectic. Danielle and Riley are both playing but not on the same team and of course not at the same place. Riley would have baseball in one city and Danielle in another. Brian and I are trying desperately to keep track who goes where and who is taking them. I have not gotten a really good picture of Danielle. I need a good camera. The one Brian gave me for Christmas sucks! a parent took this picture of Riley and it is really good because it depicts Riley to a T. Danielle cracks me up when she goes up to bat. She will stand there without moving her bat to wait for the perfect pitch. Since the kids are pitching there never is a perfect pitch so she ends up walking the bases. too funny! riley on the other hand got hit really hard one time so now he is scared to go up to bat and just wants to hit the ball. He still ends up walking the bases because the pitcher can't pitch the ball.

o bat

Crazy Days

Ok it has been a while since I put anything on the blog. No excuses just busy. I find it is easier to keep up with facebook emails than inputting blogs. Recent news is that Brian went to Alabama for seven weeks for NCO school. I had to calm the kids for two hours the first night he was gone. " I miss Daddy" was repeated over and over with crocodile tears. Just when I thought it was all over with, they started in the morning" I miss Daddy". It has been three days and thank god it is getting easier. The kids were cute before Brian left. They were very clingy and kept very close to Daddy. The picture I have here is riley learning to change the oil in the car. Brian was teaching him. Now I have been circling around the car to make sure Riley has not decided to change the oil by himself. He has been taught once that is all it takes!

Halloween 2008

This is us as Sandy & Danny from the movie "Grease"
This year it was my turn to take the kids trick or treating and Brian stayed home to scare the kids that came to our door. apparently some kids remembered last year and came up very carefully expecting a spider to jump out at them. We spared them this year. We had a huge skull hooked up to the roof of our house and had smoke coming out of it's mouth. A lot of the neighborhood kids enjoy our house because it is spooky. if they only knew that it is not just for Halloween. apparently when I took the kids trick or treating I dressed as the good Sandy and didn't get any free beer everyone was handing out. Darn! Normally our neighborhood is packed with people on golf carts toting their kids around. Most have coolers on the back filled with liquor.Some neighbors stand outside and grill bratwursts and hot dogs to hand out to the adults and candy for the kids. This year I actually wore out Danielle and Riley. After walking two blocks they asked me if they could go home. Go figure! Coco was ready. she was embarrassed by her costume and didn't appreciate me and my sewing skills. Ungrateful dog! she got all the attention anyway!

Ice Cream Social

Our neighborhood had an ice cream social with the local business Ekert's Farm catering it. Needless so say the kids made two, three, four maybe five trips back for more. It was alot of fun. too bad the water was to cold to go swimming in. We have had a rather mild summer this year to my dismay.

Raft Trip

This is us having fun at a rafting outing( picture coming soon) . there is a place in Missouri you can camp out and then take a leisurely float down the river on a big tube. You bring your lunch and whatever beverages you choose to drink. Our choose was beer and a vodka cocktail mix. the kids had soda of course. Brian had a hard time steering the raft and drinking his beer at the same time. At one point he had spilled his whole beer on the bottom of the raft. Unbeknownst to us Coco discovered that mistake. During the trip I kept feeling sorry for her and giving her sips of my beer. We stopped along the way to eat our lunch( there are lots of shoreline to pull over) Coco was started by a guy in a RTV and tried to woof. that was the most pathetic bark I have ever heard from a chihuahua. she couldn't even lift her head to give the guy a glare. One time we stopped to do a pee break and saw a copper head heading towards us in the water. This guys that happened to stop along the way to do a pee break as well , one of them picked up the snake and flew it into the trees. we were shocked. We quickly got back into the raft but not before witnessing the guys falling over their canoe and ruining their jukebox in the water. they were a little inebriated as well. the raft rip was great! A few ladies that were sitting by the shore got a kick out of watching poor coco try to walk a straight line up the hill when we returned our raft. Poor coco was a little slow moving the next day and very docile. The most I have ever seen her.

Some think I am crazy I think I am lucky . I only have to prepare for one birthday a year. O.k. so I have a lot of kids at one time and it does get crazy but then I can relax for another year. This year we did the carnival theme. We rented a tent and put it out in the front yard set up a lot of carnival games. One game we had the hardship of drinking a lot of beer to get all the bottles. It took two weeks for the garbage to collect all bottles. I had set up a face painting table. the kids had to win tickets to pay for the food and face painting. the problem was all the kids rushed to the face painting table at once so it took me awhile to paint all the faces. We had hot dogs, nachos, chips, cotton candy, pretzels but alas no popcorn even if it was out in the open air I couldn't abide the smell. At the end the kids would gather together to watch Danielle and Riley unwrap their presents and then they could pick out their bag of prizes at the prize table. We had about 15 kids spend the night. I gave the biggest sigh of relief in the morning when we said goodbye to the kids. Now the challenge is to think about a theme for the next party. thank goodness I have a year!

Tooth Fairy

We lost a tooth today!

I was sitting by the computer and heard my kids yelling which made me panic thinking there was something wrong. Danielle comes up all shaky and yelling" I lost my tooth" We of course had to call Daddy at work to announce the most exciting news. Riley then proceeds to the refrigerator to bite into an apple trying to loose at least one of his teeth. When I asked him if he had any loose teeth, he looks down and shrugs his shoulders. I think it is hilarious that for months Riley has been pressing on his gums trying to force his teeth out and Danielle is the first one to loose a tooth. Alas the tooth fairy will be coming tonight and hopefully will not be busy at this house. One tooth missing per picture please!

I caught a fish this big..........

Brian took permissive leave thsi week to be with Riley at his boy scout camp. While all of the rest of the kids were fishing in a dead spot Brian took riley where he thought the fish would be hiding . Riley had a blst at this camp. He learned to use a BB gun and archery. Actually Riley is very good with Archery. He almost hit the bull-eye at the farthest target.

Catching up

Alright so it has been a long time since we posted something new! We really have been busy. We have had a very long winter. Now we are having a terrible spring with floods and tornados. So far we are getting to know our wine cellar very well and will have to furnish it with kid friendly drinks as well if we spend anymore time there. This year we had to sand and re stain our deck but ran into problems with the rain. We have to let the wood dry for three days before we can paint so every time I had a nice sunny day I was out there staining. I t is now finally done except the railings need to be put back on. Brian was excited to get a new tool to do that. Just an excuse I say, he has been eying a framing gun for a while. Real estate has not been very profitable for me so I have been doing side jobs that are getting me a lot of business. I have been doing cookie bouquets and custom cakes.Something I actually enjoy doing. The kids have been great. They are loving summer because they can sleep in and go swimming in our community pool every day. The kids are counting down till their birthday. they keep asking me if it is coming soon. "Too soon" says mommy. I keep teasing them and tell them since they look too small to be second graders they are going to repeat first grade. they give me that look " You are kidding, right?"

Riley is doing very well in cub scouts. Here he is posing in front of a cake he made with Daddy to recieve a patch. Brian is going to be a cub scout leader next year.

Danielle and Riley decorating the tree and getting ready for Santa. We kept warning them that all they ere getting from Santa was coal but that didn't believe us. there is something about the innocense of children believing in Santa. i know next year they may not belive so I am going to capture as much as I can now.

Sorry can't turn this around

December 15, 2007

I came across an email my broker sent me and had no idea how much later , it would touch the lives of my family and the co workers of Brian's work who came to help as well. Brian had the opportunity to help out the veterans of Alton National Cemetery in putting wreaths across every veterans graves. Brian and his co workers had the honor of doing the civil war era. As a bystander it was really touching to see Veterans from all walks of lives and eras to participate. I had the opportunity to talk to a WWII Veteran. Dad was there to witness this as well. He was a Vietnam War Veteran. Brian was there he was a Gulf War Veteran. Riley was dressed in his cub scout uniform to help out as well. Danielle was also there to help as well. To see these children as I do every day loud and obnoxious but at that moment there were very respectful and solemn. It was a great experience and one we will do again every year after.

December 6, 2007

Danielle & Riley on Santa's lap. Brian going down the 3 story slide

Scout trip

Riley took a trip to the local fire department and of course Danielle had to go too. The scouts learned all about firefighting. and stop, drop, and roll!

Let me clarify Brian's first attempt of doing a post. For Halloween I was in charge of handing out candy I too dressed as a vampire and sat in a chair in the front of the house. We had a huge fake spider with the air compressor hooked up to it so that I could press on the button anytime someone walked by. I didn't scare the kids too much but the adults were just hilarious. It was crazy seeing all these golf cart lights down the street. Luckily we had enough candy.

Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody. Here we are, ready to go out and scare the neighborhood. I have never seen so many trick or treaters before. Their parents were following them around in golf carts. Some kids arrived on a tractor train, it was crazy. The kids had a blast running around with all their neighborhood friends. JJ scared a lady so bad she almost had an accident if you know what I mean.

Going back to Cali!

We had the opportunity to make sure Mike and Barb got married. It was great a short and sweet ceremony. My kind of wedding! A few of us supported the bride by sitting on her side but that was just to make sure the boat didn't tip over by soo many of the smith family relatives. The cruise around the bay was great. Perfect timing1 I thought Mike had planned the wedding around fleet week but it was Mike and barb's anniversary of when they met. the cruise was great. Danielle, Riley and Alex had the chance to steer the boat for awhile. they had fun. It was so great to be back in California I had forgotten how beautiful it is. Riley and Danielle got the chance to see their cousins again. We met up with the buyers of our old house and it was a little weird to see not much as changed. Still a beautiful house. We have forgotten how much of our hearts and souls we put into decorating the house and grateful the new buyers appreciated it too. It was very hard for me to get on the plane and go back to Illinois. I am still in a depression but at least now I have California good wine to console me!