Yummy Lasagna!

For our New Year's Eve dinner party (that unfortunately didn't happen because our friends and their kids got sick), I made my famous lasagna. I have always loved lasagna and it has become a bit of a specialty for me. It can easily be converted into a meatlovers meal, but considering we're vegetarians, this is how I make it:
1. Use whatever veggies are available in the fridge and need using up.
- Today I used 2 large cloves of crushed garlic, half of a large onion, the rest of the red and orange peppers (a bit more than half a pepper), 3 carrots, and 8 ounces of mushrooms. Soften veggies in the frying pan with a bit of oil.

After the vegetables are soft, add the marinara sauce.

2. Boil 12 lasagna noodles and drain when soft.

3. Mix cheeses together with one egg - I used a tub (15 ounces) of ricotta cheese, 2 cups of mozzarella/parmesan/italian cheeses with whatever was left of the cheddar I shredded and put in there too.
4. Layer the lasagna
- Put sauce on the bottom
- 3 lasagna noodles
- 1/4 of the cheese mixture
And continue with the layers (4 layers total = 12 noodles)


Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour.
ENJOY this yummy, delicious lasagna in large quantities!

Christmas 2009

Here's a belly picture of me and "baby sister" on Christmas Eve - I'm 20 weeks in this pic!

Christmas Eve we spent as a family of three (and a half). We went to church at 5pm and then came home to make a yummy dinner. We opened our Christmas Crackers (an English tradition in which we pop open a cylindrical tube to find a paper crown, a small toy, and a usually not-so-funny joke to share) and read the Christmas story in Luke 2.


Chloe and Daddy after we popped open our Christmas crackers on Christmas Eve

Christmas Day we opened presents with Will's family via Skype. They got to share in the enjoyment of watching Chloe open all her fun presents. We even got a special treat - we got to talk with Chloe's great-grandparents!


Chloe looks so sweet all dressed up for Christmas!

After Skyping with Will's family, we headed toward my hometown. My mom's side of the family is so large, the only place we'll all fit is a rented hall so that is where we celebrate Christmas. The kids had fun running around and we even had a visit from Santa! Chloe was not so happy with Santa and said, "No yike Santa," and "Santa's scary." Needless to say, she did not sit on Santa's lap this year :)


Chloe playing with Grandma!

Later in the afternoon, we headed toward my parent's house. The roads were icy, so it took us a while to get there. That was fine with Chloe - she napped until we arrived at Grandma and Papa's house! Christmas evening, we opened presents and had a fun time with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew!




Hugging Madeline - a gift from Grandma


bath paints from Auntie


Very excited about Elmo bubble bath!


Trying out Papa's new winter hat!

IT'S A GIRL!!!

We trudged through the snow, which was a big task considering they hadn't plowed our street yet, and made it for our scheduled ultrasound! The baby was moving around a lot during the appointment (could it have something to do with the Christmas cookies I consumed before leaving??) so the pictures are a little blurry. Nevertheless, we got to see pictures of our precious little one. She has 10 fingers and 10 toes, her heart, kidneys, stomach and mouth all look great, she weighs approximately 12 ounces and the estimated due date is May 13th. Because of all the movement, the tech couldn't get a great shot of in between the legs so she had me go to the bathroom to give the baby more space to move. That did the trick! When I came back, the baby was in a new position and we got to see that she is a girl!!! I was so sure it was going to be a boy, it took me a couple of hours to digest this news, but I'm glad we found out now rather than when she arrived in May! Wow, another girl! I can already picture my little girls in tutus and tights preparing for their dance recitals :)












Have a wonderful, warm and wintry Christmas!!