Our Italian Fave

There is a new family dinner favorite in the Geddes House during these cold winter days...ravioli casserole or aka cheater lasagna! It is super easy to make and only requires a few ingredients if you go the express route.

You'll Need

1 bag frozen ravioli 

1 lbs. ground beef (optional)

Marinara sauce or make your own

4 c. mozzarella cheese

Start off by preheating the oven to 400

Take your sauce and cook the raw meet directly into it over low heat until meat is mostly cooked. This is the secrete to a nice thick/non watery meat sauce. Add a few dashes of sugar to taste if needed. 

In a 13x9 pan, make a layer of sauce on the bottom. Take ravioli out of freezer and rinse off (this helps the cooking process) Then make a checker pattern with pasta. Don't worry if some are frozen together, as they will cook just the same.

Cover with a nice layer of cheese

Repeat the first step on the layer of cheese

Coat pasta with the rest of sauce and healthy layer of cheese

Cover with foil and bake for 15-20 minutes. You can remove the foil towards the end if you want to brown the cheese or not. You'll know if the pasta is done by using a fork and poking through to see how easily it goes in.

Be prepared to not have much leftover after dinner ;)

Staying Sane Despite Winter

To say it's been a hard winter is almost an understatement. In our 5 years of living here, we've seen so much snow and crazy negative degree temps for days on end. LOTS of time spent indoors has gone on as trying to do anything outdoors consists of going to and from the car and/or an indoor location.

Here are a few snaps of just what we've been doing to pass the time....

Our snow fortres. Channeling our inner Frozen Elsa

Getting crafty for our little boy

Continuing the fun for a friends little girl

With more snow and ice....the wall becomes more agro

Getting inside the engine of a 767 plane during a field trip tour of the local airport with MOPS 

I, as everyone else, look forward to shedding our winter layers for more simplistic outerwear. Not to mention as I finish quilts, being able to capture them being displayed outside. But, alas for now, we continue to suffer from Elsa's PMS as we wait to endure her menopause with hot flashes :)

Prepping for Baby Rodeo #3

A special treat of a cheeseburger among family

Each pregnancy experience thus far has brought highs....lows....and what the heck!

1st Baby:
You registered as soon as you found out the sex
A carefully selected nursery theme was pinpointed and meticulously designed down to the light switch panel.
Lots of congrats from strangers when they found out this was your first
You weighed the possibilities of if going to a birthing class was best for you and daddy to be.
Your baby will not watch any TV until age 2

2nd Baby:
You may or may not even register depending if you are having the opposite sex
Negotiations with the husband are in effect as you try and convince that yet ANOTHER stroller is needed.
Useless baby gear you thought was needed is passed along or sold off
Old baby clothes are gone through for stains and/or anything gender neutral.
Memories of the first child wearing said clothes bring you to tears and remember how small they were once.
A 6th sense is developed for instinctively knowing when your toddler is going to crash across your tummy.
Curious George is your friend while cooking dinner or trying to get a cat nap in.

3rd Baby
You decide that room sharing develops character and don't bother with decorating a nursery.
The crib will be reassembled AFTER the baby comes.
You question if baby appointments for weeks 20-32 are really needed when time is precious already.
No matter the season, you know somehow the baby won't go around naked despite the season differences.
.....and the rest shall be continued later.    

As each child has come, there seems to be less and less work getting ready for the arrival, while the mess created by the older only doubles. It doesn't revolve around the latest and greatest baby gear on the market, but the basic necessities to survive. We may cloth diaper our kids, but I've come to giving myself a break and still use disposables when we are out and about from the house....if the budget allows it of course. Giving diapers and wipes as a baby gift may not be as fun for the giver when there are lots of cute clothes available, but I look at them as gold bars, knowing I won't have to spray the #2 off before hitting the wash. Cloth diapering toddlers takes changes to a whole new level of gross.

Needles & Feet

With the amounting snow seen outside my window these days, I've recently taken back to the sewing machine. It's a nice distraction away from the endless cleaning every day. And as I sit and sew, listening to the hum of the needle working away, it occurred to me how much life is a lot like sewing.

Forrest Gump told how life was like a box of chocolate......you never know which one you're gonna get.

But this is too vague for a real life....

Here is how I see it...

Patterns
You're excited to create something new with a paper pattern, but as in life, just because you have the directions, doesn't mean you always understand them. At times, it looks as though its all written in Greek! (props to those who can read greek.) Some are easy, others are a real challenge...and some are just right.

Seam Ripper
Here you are, plowing through your project, feeling rather good about yourself until you hold up your work to take it all in. Then you notice you've applied fabric backwards....caught other parts of it you didn't want sewn together etc...You groan and have to go back and make sense of just what you did...taking the seam ripper to undo your past mistakes in order to fix your mistake and try to move forward in the right direction.

Fabric
Life is exciting.....just like when you are at the fabric store and a particular print (or more) catches your eye. You want to buy a yard of them all. But they don't always work together. As humans, we struggle to find balance between them all. This piece is too busy, this one helps neutralize and calm the intensity, while this fabric print helps marry it all together. Our relationships with people can be a challenge to find what works for you or for others.

Thread
Our lives are like spools of thread. Some come with yards and yards of life, while others were shortchanged on the spool. We are always adjusting the thread tension on the machine, finding some real snarls. Our project has to be paused while we make sense of the "why" and "how"  while we take the scissors to cut out the rats nest.

The Dawgs
As much as we want to pause life and enjoy the "now" just a little bit longer...the little hands under the sewing foot keep grabbing you along, one stitch at a time. You may backstitch a little bit, but never for too long as its hard to keep everything in line with one hand while the other presses reverse.

I picked up sewing just after having Eliza. It started with a used sewing machine for $30 bucks and a desire to create with a new medium that I had envied so many others who had the talent. It has been a journey full of joy, excitement, utter frustration, challenges and victories. The memories of my mother sewing my Halloween costumes or making quilts for new parents is very much still vividly etched into my mind. I used to look through all her sewing notions and wonder what on earth they were all used for. Now I know :)

Our Growing Boy

Being able to compare stats from one child to the next is pretty interesting, even when there is a difference in the sexes. Some things like speech, Nolan is ahead of Eliza at this point, including gross motor skills.

Weight: 25.9 (20th)
Height: 34.5 (52nd)
Head: 72nd

In comparison to my daughter, she leaped ahead of her brother at 2 years. I really hope my son will hit a growth spurt in due time and catch up....to be at least taller than his sister when he's grown, like Daddy.

Ht: 35.5 (88th%) Wt: 29 lbs. (77th%) 

and on the other side of the scale...Head: 14th%!

Birthday Boy's Day

That time of year has come upon us once again and Nolan turned two!

We had a very small get together in the evening with a few little boys for company. Lots of running around, cars/train playing and giggles filled out small place. And the parents were able to enjoy each others company too! *win win*

Since they only time I seem to make layer cakes is around family birthdays, I knew early on that a plane cake was n order for our little boy. It was simple for the most part, with using part of his present from us to be the cake toppers. I found a pretty easy from scratch vanilla cake recipe here from pintrest, and it held up pretty good and was light and moist enough for home made cake.

The frosting was a mint vanilla butter cream. It was just a matter of trying to smooth the frosting and placing clouds around. The front Planes logo was left over packaging from the diecast toy, which I think adds a nice easy touch to the front.

This is probably the most low key birthday celebration I've done. With the cold winter and lots of sickness going around, it can be hard for families to commit to coming. Not to mention, things are just super tight for the family budget. But despite that, we were able to pull something together and enjoy our "family" in celebration. Nolan had fun, I didn't have to stress too much (add mad cleaning before hand), and I was able to at least give him a special cake made with love. Eliza still talks about her pony cake from last birthday.

And to think....next time this year we'll have an additional family member to celebrate with!