Pasta. It's What's for Dinner

I made a yummy pasta for dinner tonight. It was similar to the one I whipped up for my friends while I was in Charlotte, but with one small addition, and one thing I forgot. Bacon. And goat cheese. Respectively.

Sound good so far?

Here's how it goes: Boil penne pasta (preferably whole wheat or mulitgrain) until al dente. Toast pine nuts in a little bit of butter. Cook diced pancetta (Italian bacon) in large pan. Remove and drain. Saute garlic and spinach in olive oil in same pan. Add pine nuts, bacon, pasta and one jar of julienned sundried tomatoes and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Top with goat cheese. Done.

Yum. No pictures. Sorry. And this from the girl who loves to read cookbooks, but only if they have lots of pictures!

That's what we had for dinner. Minus the goat cheese. I forgot it, which is really OK, since Nigel doesn't like it anyway. We used Parmesan cheese instead. It was a good substitute.

Crazy Kid

Kingston and I just got in from a visit with my friend Nicole. She has been practicing her cappuccino-making skills and wanted to make one for me. Yum! I think she is doing a great job. I'm all about sampling some experimental cooking. Keep that in mind, folks. I'm not too cool to be a food/drink guinea pig!


I had a great time chatting with Nicole while Kingston roamed the living room, watched the Backyardigans and played with Nicole's nieces' toys. Oh, and he tried to drink from the dog's bowl. Face first. What? That's a new one. He would get on his hands and knees and just barely put his lips in the water before I would drag him away from it, literally kicking and screaming.

Strange kid.

Happy Mother's Day!

To my mom, Happy Mother's Day. You are the best. For your present, I will post a bunch of new pictures of Kingston. That's a good gift, right? I knew you would love it.




Mom got Kingston new shoes to wear to the wedding on Saturday. He tried them on sans pants and they fit just right! Well, maybe they were a bit big but he only ended up tripping over them a few hundred times.




Before we left for the wedding (Amber, Nigel's cousin got married), Kingston looked really spiffy.





After the hour and a half in the car he was a bit rumpled but still lookin' good! His shirt only stayed tucked in long enough to get into the church but that was OK, too!





Not the best picture of us, but the only one we took. Or had taken. However you want to look at it.






The reception was tons of fun. Kingston was such a good boy. He especially liked Nigel's cousin, Jessica's little girl, Leah. She could crack him up like no one else!




We didn't get home until 11:45 last night but we had a good time. I was almost still up when Nigel got home from his trip. Well, not exactly almost, since he got in at 4 a.m., but I was up later than I have been in a long time!



We are so happy to have Dad home! He is pretty worn out from his travels but he did manage to take us to the beach for a bit this afternoon. Our first family beach day of the year! The water was cold but Kingston really doesn't care. He walks right to the water and would walk right out to sea if you would let him.







We discovered a new trick that Kingston has added to his bag of tricks. He has figured out how to get into the bath tub all by himself. Sounds pretty harmless except for when he climbs in right after you have put him in his clean jammies, which you have put on him right after he has gotten out of the tub. The tub is still wet, you know? Oh, well. It's just water. And another pair of jammies.




Overall, a good weekend. And a great Mother's Day, thanks to my sweet family.

Did you like your pictures, Mom? Happy Mother's Day to the most Motherly Mom on the planet. Now, try to keep the sappy comment to a minimum ;) !

For the Love!

I mean, I know there is at least SOME internet access in Nicaragua, seeing as how a few people that I know who live there and a few who are actually travelling with my husband have been using Facebook multiple times in the past 7 days. And I will admit that Nige sent me one 2 sentence long email on Saturday, but that is just not enough for me! That also tells me one of two things. Either, A, Nige is having SO much fun and is surfing such incredible waves that he is just exhausted when he gets back to the house and he doesn't have the energy to find the computer and internet access and actually send me an email. Or 2, Nige is trying to drive me crazy. From Nicaragua.

He is due home late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Not soon enough. After a week and counting of single momhood, I am giving total credit to all of those single moms out there who are raising children on their own. Day in and day out. With no relief except for a few hours while you are working. It. Is. Hard. Granted, I fulfill most of Kingston's daily needs and I'm "the one" even when we are all at home together but at least I have someone else to walk with me through it all. "Misery loves company" doesn't exactly explain it, since it isn't actually miserable, so-to-speak, but you get the idea. Daily life is just so much better when you have someone to share it with. You know, someone who can have a conversation with you that involves words other than "truck", "uh-oh", "Able" and "more", exclusively. I keep thinking of things that I want to talk to Nige about or stories that I want to tell him about my day or about Kingston. I'm ready for him to come home.

Kingston and I have been having a good time together, but we are ready for Dad to join us in the fun. Just a few more days. We can make it.

How Cool are We?

Kingston and I had a big morning. First, we went to K-Mart to try to find a pair of a-little-less-hideous shoes for Kingston to wear to a wedding this weekend. There is no such thing as a cute pair of sandles for a boy, in my opinion. Except for flip flops, and Kingston is not quite ready for those yet. Anyway, no such luck. Then we went to Wal-mart looking for the same thing to no avail. Finally we hit the jackpot.

Wait for it. . .

We went to the grand opening of the new Harris Teeter!!! No shoes, but lots of fun! We pretty much lunched on all of the free samples they were given out. Yum. There was a pretty humorous demographic going on in the store. I ran into 2 mommy friends who both commented that they were there for a "field trip" with the kids! Me, too!!! Also, I noticed that ALL of the motorized carts were in use, and most of them were lingering around the produce/bread/deli/free sample section of the store. They were all operated by ladies and gentlemen of the elderly persuasion. Pretty funny. It seemed all of the SAHMs (Stay at home moms) and retirees in Kitty Hawk/Southern Shores (or affectionately known at the Newlyweds and Nearly Deads) were excited about the new Teeter.

Oh, good times. Such good times that Kingston fell asleep on the way home. Even after eating a lollipop, 2 sugar cookies and some gummies at the various stores. As skinny as he is, I think he metabolizes the sugar before it even has a chance to get him jacked up! Man, that makes me jealous.

Home Again, Home Again!

We are home from Charlotte! We had a really great time with our friends.

Here are some pics of the fun.

Ball and her youngest daughter, Riley, came on Saturday and joined the fun! At bath time, I was reminded of a favorite poem of mine from back in the day.

Ahem.

"Crowded Tub" by Shel Silverstein

There's too many kids in this tub.

There's too many elbows to scrub.

I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine.

There's too many kids in the tub.

Impressed? I thought so. So were Mere and Ball when I spouted it out without warning.

We attempted to get all of the kids to sit on the steps for a photo op, but we really knew better.

We tried once, saw that it wasn't going to happen, and abandoned the idea. We did, however, get a good one of the Core 4 (minus Lars-we missed you!) and 3 of our collective 5 children.






Sam and Kingston (affectionately known by Sam as "That Udder (other) Guy") really had fun playing together. By the end of our trip, the two boys were following each other around the house. Mere just texted to say that Sam was asking for That Udder Guy when he took his bath tonight!




So much fun. "Wait," you say? I mentioned above that there were 5 children between the 3 of us. There are the 3 accounted for in the picture of the Core 4 (minus Lars-I swear we missed you!), then there is Ball's older daughter who stayed at home with daddy. . . Who is the 5th child?


Ella Jennings, of course!!! Mere's baby daughter. I think I saw her a total of 45 minutes all weekend long. The girl loves to sleep! Thanks, daddy Stuey, for sticking around the house with Ella while Mere and I played with the big boys.

Kingston and I spent most of the day on Sunday with my cousin, Jason, cruising around his part of town and checking out his sweet new house. We had a great time connecting with him and showing him what life with a kid is like. He's going to need to know that soon ;). Love that cousin of mine.

This morning, we hopped in our car and came on home!




Mere and family, thanks so much for the hospitality. We had a blast. Ball, thanks so much for making the quick trip to hang. That really mean a lot. I'm so glad our kids will know each other. We've got some good ones! Jason, thanks for spending your Sunday with us. We love you!

We Made It! ***Updated w/ pictures!

We made it to Charlotte!! Hooray!

After a long car ride

and a pit stop in Raleigh for lunch and playtime with Allison and Anna Ryan (Check how smooth Kingston was-he tried to pose by AR but was too tired and clumsy and went down and AR had gotten dirt on her pants outside so she was in just her top! Classic!)

we arrived at Mere's house at about 3:30. The boys got straight to it.

We had our first encounter with the Ice Cream Truck (Man, it's a good thing we don't have one of these jewels rolling around near our street!)

and thoroughly enjoyed our Popsicle shaped like Bugs Bunny. I obviously was not passing it to Kingston quickly enough. I swear I was sharing it!

And even took a bath together.

Yes, we think these are great shots to show them when they are, oh, about 15 and think they are too cool. See? You two used to take baths together. How cool are you now?