This girl is plain silly. We are really treasuring these last few weeks of her being baby until baby baby gets here. She is very much a baby to us (and will always be, as will the other big girls), but once the littlest one comes, suddenly she will seem all grown up!
Let’s just say the last three days have been busy, busy.
Our Brave turned four yesterday. And with every birthday, the celebrant gets breakfast in bed!
I made (thanks to Trader Joe’s buttermilk pancake box mix) her some churro pancakes (thanks to a tip my friend Aimee gave me, just add some cinnamon to the batter and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon and sugar to the top). She was happy as a clam the minute she woke up because she has been waiting for this day to come for awhile now. She was our little birthday princess indeed…
All day long, every time she entered a room, she would say, “I am the birthday girl!”
What was the birthday girl’s big request? She wanted a “camp out”, so that’s what Mom and Papi gave her. That is for a whole other post…
One of the things we like to eat when we go out to eat is Vietnamese Pho. It is also one of the things we have been wanting to try to make ourselves, but never attempted, until now.
We were going to make it during our homecation, but we had already made an over abundance of dishes that we decided to save it for another night. We used this recipe and the prepping for making the broth must be done 24 hours ahead of time, so you must plan for that, but overall, we were happy with the flavor of the recipe. It does taste different from the Pho we get at restaurants, but I think ours was pretty darn good considering ours did not contain any msg. The only thing drawback is that it cost more money to make at home than eat out because 4.5 lbs of oxtails is kind of expensive.
It was a hit amidst the girls, but we mixed their rice noodles in with some soba noodles and once we gave them a squeeze of that hoisin sauce, they went to town! Looking at the pictures and remembering it is making me crave some right now. That’s what happens when you are pregnant and writing a food post.
Any else love Pho or have any experience cooking this dish at home?
Have we kept you in any suspense? We’ll try to get a part out once a week.
A couple weeks after the coffee shop, we had an early all staff work meeting. After the meeting, I remember leaving him a note on his car windshield. This is the note and what it said (Ben saved everything!)…
During our long chat after the coffee shop, we talked about walking together (for workout purposes of course), so I just wanted to be sure to follow up.
He called me one evening soon after that, but I wasn’t home, but this sister was and was the one who conversed with him. She didn’t like the way Ben said her name (He rolled the R in Reinna, but mostly because she used to be a big fan of my ex-boyfriend), so she said she wasn’t going to tell me he called. Well, my parents told me he did, but he ended up calling the next day anyways. I remember being so giddy on the phone and just happily chatting away.
We scheduled a date to go walking, and silly me went out to buy new workout shorts that I thought were “cute” enough to exercise in. Little did I know at that time, that one of my assets were the first thing he noticed about me when we met, but I did make sure to wear something “cute” for our walking.
We continued our phone talking and “workout” sessions throughout that Fall, maybe with a whole lot of flirting thrown in for good measure. A big thing that dominated our conversations were about God and life. I would ask him a lot of hard questions about himself, his beliefs, and his ideas about life. He was very honest and frank with me from the beginning. While he was far from living it out, his motto was “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.” He just wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted, when he wanted.
He knew I was Christian and that I would never date a person who wasn’t on the same page belief-wise, I was very clear from the beginning. So even though there was flirting, I thought we were just going to be good friends. Ben was also just such an open minded guy, who was new to the area, that he was open to visiting our church Bible Studies on occasion and I had some guy friends who were kind enough to reach out to him too. They too wanted Ben to understand who God really was, who he was as a sinner, and the redeeming work Christ died on the cross. That really was my prayer for him from the beginning of our friendship.
We had a very early Saturday morning staff meeting in November to prepare for the Christmas season at the Gap. I had just come from getting some gift cards from local coffee places as prizes for games that were to be played; that’s when I saw this little cutie’s head, barely peering over the steering wheel of her Toyota Celica as she parked her car (the car is already low as it is, but this miniature female made it look like one of those Monster trucks). “Hey Grandma, wait up!” I shouted. We chatted and I think we talked about perhaps walking in the neighborhood together (I had been walking regularly at the time). After my shift was over at 2p, I grinned as I tugged out from beneath the windshield wiper a note that was inviting me to walk.
That evening, I called to set up a walking time, and a young female voice answered the phone. Confident in remembering her sisters’ names, I asked, “is this RJ or R-r-r–eina,” going for the authentic approach because the Spanish “r” rolls a bit. Turns out she HATED it, sensing the possible threat I posed in her mind to the future of Ruby and ex-boyfriend.
Well, she got the message somehow and we would go walking together. And what I remember about our walks were her shorts, her fear of dogs, and our talks about God.
1) Her shorts: To this day (and probably until the day I die), I’ll never understand what in the world she was thinking wearing those puny shorts that would cut off circulation on a Barbie doll. But you’re right, I wasn’t complaining at the time.
2) Her fear of dogs: Ruby didn’t grow up around dogs, and, as a result she was fearful of the unknown. Whenever we’d get close to barking dogs, all constrained by secure fences, she would inch closer to me. One time she practically jumped into my arms! There was this one corner home we’d come to when we went a certain route that always evoked terror. Once I learned of it, I always made sure we went that route. /,,/
3) Our talks about God: At the time, my intentions in hanging out with Ruby were completely innocent. While I found her quite physically attractive (see above for more evidence), and thoroughly enjoyed her company, I honestly wasn’t thinking anything outside of a friend. Yes, I know that’s some treacherous terrain to navigate, a no-romantic-feelings-attached friendship that is. But, 1) I wasn’t seeking one (but I think that’s when relationships find you!), 2) she was still so young in my mind (as mature as Ruby was, she was just a sneeze away from being a teenager), and 3) Not only was I not a Christian, I didn’t believe in God.
Ruby shared with me the gospel, the good news about Jesus, and, while we weren’t talking about a relationship between the two of us, she did bring up a bible verse for her reasons as to why she wouldn’t date someone who wasn’t a believer. I didn’t take it personal at all; in fact, I respected it. So much so, that I tried to be even more careful as to not lead her on. I knew what she believed, I knew that I didn’t believe the same thing, and in fairness to her, I wanted to safeguard her heart and not hurt her. It set a nice tone to our friendship that I so much enjoyed. I found myself more open to learning about Christianity, although I still didn’t really understand it.
We had a bunch of really old bananas, I mean like so old that the banana only came out of the peel squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. That kind of old. Of course, that means they were perfect for making banana bread! The girls were all about that. We used this recipe (from smitten kitchen) and I say this is definitely a keeper, but you can’t really go wrong with something from smitten kitchen. It was so scrumdiddlydumptious!
True’s allergic to nuts (not deathly allergic), so only one side had nuts sprinkled on top for Brave and me. We are already hoping another batch of bananas go bad because this recipe is so quick and yummy that we really need to make it again.
Now, I am off to finish making my ice cream sandwich. I just baked some fresh peanut butter cookies, and I am going to go downstairs to stick some ice cream in the middle, put it in the freezer, wait a bit (10 minutes), and then go and devour it. Sometimes, it is kinda nice being pregnant and needing a bit more calories!
Thanks for the new shop love friends and Ben is currently working on his part of the story, so that may be ready for you tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed…
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
