Our Weekend

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I know we did! Hubster and I were able to get a bunch of things taken care of, mostly house related. His mom was here for a week, which helped us take care of a couple of things that we needed to do and go out on a date.

Thursday night we met with our realtor at a small restaurant here in town. I'm always hearing people talk about the place so I thought it would be great. I wasn't a huge fan and neither was Hubs. Our meeting went well though. He gave us the price point that he thinks our house will rent at, which is wonderful!

When we bought the house we signed a 30-year mortgage. About a year ago we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage. In doing that, our interest rate went down, but our payment went up a couple hundred dollars. No big deal since we're saving around $100,000 in interest. Well, our realtor hopes to rent this place out for just under what our current mortgage is. We'll still have to pay a small amout toward the mortgage, but I really don't mind since the bulk of the mortgage will essentially be paid by someone else.

Savannah Restaurant Week started on Friday, so we used that as an opportunity to get dressed up and have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Ruth's Chris. During Restaurant Week, several upscale restaurants in Savannah offer a $30 dinner menu which includes a salad, entree and a side, and a dessert. There are just over 20 resaurants that are participating this time, most of which we've been to or heard of, but we'd also like to use this as an opportunity to try some new ones.

As usual, dinner was phenomenal! We ended up not completely sticking to the $30 menu and instead chose the $40 options in order to get more meat. At most restaurants I've started ordering medium-rare to avoid getting a well done burger/steak. At Ruth's Chris you really don't need to do that, but I ordered medium-rare anyway just to see what it was really supposed to be like. Holy crap! I finally know what it feels like to have a steak literally melt in your mouth.

Saturday morning we took the girls to the Ringling Bros. Circus. It's almost the exact same show that I remember seeing probably 15 or more years ago. It was fun though and the girls enjoyed it. Hubs was disappointed by the lack of lions and tigers, but the elephants were impressive!

 

Saturday and Sunday afternoon were spent getting the house renter ready. The yard needed a bunch of grass in the areas where they just laid pinestraw instead of grass. We did some beautification by planting little shrubs and adding a walkway. We still have a decent amount of sod in the driveway that we need to bring to the back yard, but so far I'm very happy with what we've gotten done and how it looks. The sod just needs to be watered in and it should look perfect!

Later this week we'll be headed down to Miami to finally get Baby A baptized and hangout for the rest of block leave. A bunch of the friends that we made up here will be going down as well. Because of them all deploying on opposite schedules of each other, this will be the first time that we're all together in years.

Savannah Afternoon

If you're a tourist in Savannah, chances are that eating at Paula Deen's restaurant is somewhere on your to-do list. I've never personally been there, but I've heard from friends and family that it really isn't that impressive. My in-laws compared the buffet to that of Golden Corral. I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather only pay $9 for mass-produced, low quality, all you can eat food. I still love you Paula!

Anyway, we have our own favorite little breakfast/brunch/lunch spot in Savannah. It's kind of randomly dropped in the middle of one of the historic neighborhoods, and we weren't sure how to find it the first time we visited, but it's totally worth the search. Clary's is a fantastic little diner-style restaurant in the heart of Savannah with some of the best stuffed French Toast you'll ever have.

I've always had the breakfast there, but since we went in the afternoon this last time, I had a cup of soup and a sandwich. Their Tomato Basil Bisque was spectacularly creamy with plenty of cream cheese (also my secret ingredient in tomato soup) and chunks of tomato. I got a BLT sandwich which was loaded with tons of crispy bacon and perfectly toasted bread. Hubs got the Elvis, which is French toast stuffed with peanut butter and banana. Yum!

 

 

Since we were headed to Forsythe Park after lunch, we brought our dog along. They have tables out on the sidewalk, so you're welcome to bring pets to eat with you. They're super pet friendly and even brought Caesar out a bowl of water, along with tons of tasty doggie treats.

Even though the park wasn't too far away, we drove to make it easy with the babies and their stroller. I seriously love this park because they water fountains for dogs right under the people fountains. And it's just beautiful. I know it's weird, but I love that the grass was so impressively bright and green. I laid on a blanket with the dog for the majority of the time and Hubs and his mom played with the girls on the playground. Since SCAD is in the area there were plenty of hipsters, but probably just as many families doing the same as us.

Being stationed at Fort Stewart and it's proximity to Savannah and the beaches has been wonderful! We'll be pretty busy in the next couple of months leading up to our PCS, but hopefully we'll be able to make it out to Forsythe again. Maybe next time without the dog, since he was wanting to play with all of the other dogs there, most of which were half his size. The last thing I need is to be sued because of my hyperactive pet.

I was not compensated in any way for this post.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Lasagna Pastry Pockets

I wish I could take all of the credit for this amazing dish, but alas, I can't. The inspiration for this comes from another one of the wives from Hubs' unit. I guess she had something similar at a hotel or something along those lines. She made it for dinner one night and this is my dumbed down simpler version. There is tons of room to get crazy and experiment with different ingredients.

These lasagna pastry pocket thingies take a bit of work to make, but they're totally worth it! Hubs raves about them! The first time he had one was on R&R in August and it was first thing I made when he got back. In fact, it's been less than three weeks that he's been back and we've had them twice. Totally delicious and lots of carbs!!

This is what you'll need to make 4 pockets. One is more than enough per person.

Ingredients:

• 2 Ready-to-bake pastry sheets, thawed
• 2 cups pasta sauce
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped spinach, drained
• 8 lasagna sheets
• 12 slices mozzarella cheese
• flour
• water 
• salt to your liking

The first thing I do is get the pasta sauce on the stove to cook out any extra water and get it nice and thick. I use regular jarred stuff with an added mix of spices. You can also add a bit of meat if you'd like. Pre-heat your over to 350.

I use frozen spinach so I microwave it, drain it well, and then give it a chance to cool before mixing it with the ricotta. You can use more cheese/less spinach if spinach isn't your thing, or more spinach/less cheese if you want to grow up big and strong like Popeye.

Then roll out the pastry sheets on a floured surface. You don't really have to roll much, just enough to get the lines and creases out and spread the dough out a tiny bit. Cut each sheet into four squares. I do this one sheet at a time since they take up a bit of space and it takes time to put each pocket together.

Prepare your lasagna sheets in which ever way works best for you. I buy the no boil ones but boil them for a couple of minutes to be able to cut them in half. If you're using regular lasagna, you'll have to boil it according to the directions. The no-boil sheets that I buy cut in half to the perfect size. I'm not sure how regular lasagna works.

The fun part comes next! Layering! It's important part is to spread everything out and keep it as flat as possible. Start out with a piece of lasagna on the bottom. This will help keep the pastry from getting soggy and having a sturdy base helps with the movement and transportation. You'll want to use between one and two tablespoons of sauce and cheese each time.

My pockets are usually something like: pasta, sauce, slice of cheese, scoop of cheese, pasta, sauce, slice of cheese, scoop of cheese, pasta, sauce, slice of cheese, scoop of cheese, pasta (bottom to top). You could do more if you wanted to, but unless you roll the pastry sheet thinly, it might be difficult to get them closed.

When each pastry is to your liking, brush a good amount of water around the edge of the filling and top with a pastry square. I like to use the water to get both sheets to stick together, but then also like to roll the edges up so that each pocket looks almost like a giant ravioli.

Pop these onto a lightly sprayed baking sheet and toss them into the oven for about 30 minutes. You want the crust to be golden and flaky.

This picture does not do this meal justice. It has honestly become one of my absolute favorite things to make (along with mug brownies).

I'd love to hear any variations in ingredients or alternative methods that you use to make this. 

Message from the husband...: I LOVE HUBSTER!!!  AND HE LOVES ME!!!!

Sad Mommy

If you follow me at all on social media (blog, Twitter, Instagram), you may have noticed that my poor baby had to get stitches in her hand yesterday. She was such a big brave girl throughout the entire process; it was mommy that was freaking out most of the time. Thankfully, Hubs was able to get out of work as soon as I called and come help with the situation.

What had happened was..: just after breakfast V was climbing up on the table and touching some of my scrapbooking things (that of course I had told her to get down and not touch). I have a cup of Cricut tools that she was trying to force a ruler into and her hand accidentally caught a sharp blade that was sticking up. As soon as I saw that happen, I'm pretty sure I morphed into a chicken with no head. With my head missing, I was also missing a brain. Immediately I called Hubster in a panic. I honestly had no idea what to do.

I ended up wrapping V's hand with a paper towel and then wrapping that with tape. Can you tell that I definitely didn't study anything in the medical field?! We sped to the urgent care which is just a few minutes from our house. They rushed us back quickly, but it was a while before they actually did anything.

After waiting a while for some numbing medicine that didn't work, and then a numbing shot that didn't help much either, my baby emerged with a sparkly new hand. Almost.

Thank God that Hubs was able to leave work right away, because there's no way I would have been able to take care of both girls and comfort/hold V down like he did.

We go back tomorrow to have it checked out and then hopefully the stitches will be removed at the end of next week. For now, her hand is wrapped in bandages which almost look like a cast on her hand. She's a little sad about "chopping her hand off," but she isn't complaining about any pain or anything which is great.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Good Morning World!

Good morning everyone! My little one and I are hanging out in the kitchen waiting for my tiniest one to wake up so that we can get the day started. Not sure what we're going to do today, but I already have a headache, so hopefully we can keep busy and I'll forget about it. Hubs left to work a little while ago, and only has 2 more days before block leave. We'll be headed home to Miami for a little over a week and hopefully get the baby's baptism taken care of.

Baptism planning and coordination has been somewhat challenging with the church being down in Miami, us here in Georgia, and the Godparents in Maryland. It's slowly coming together and hopefully we'll be good to go in a couple of weeks.

A few weeks after that, Hubs will be doing the Tough Mudder competition with his unit. I'm pretty excited to go watch them all get beat up.

Speaking of Hubs.. He found my blog last night. It was slightly terrifying. HAHA! I told him he wasn't allowed to read and I wouldn't give him the name or address, so he Googled. Hi bubby!!

So far I'm pretty hopeful about our move. Yesterday I spoke to a friend who is currently with her husband at the Career Course. She gave me some info on good hotels in the FLW area and is willing to help us out and visit properties that interest us to see if they live up to their internet description. They also know someone over at the Career Course that will be coming to Fort Stewart and might be interested in renting our house. I had been a tiny bit worried about finding someone for the place, but since it'll be right at the beginning of PCS season and we have an AMAZING realtor, I don't think it'll sit empty for too long.

I've also been on AHRN.com daily, checking to see what options we have in Missouri. So far that seems pretty promising as well. There are a good number of decent looking places that are well within our BAH budget. The most challenging part is going to be finding a rental location that allows our baby-eating attack dog. Thankfully this guy is mixed with Lab, so I might just happen to forget to mention that he's also a Pitbull. Previously, with our Doberman I thought I could get away with calling her a MinPin. Apparently she's only "min" in my eyes though, because my best friend likes to refer to her as gigantor.

As you can see, he's extremely vicious.

Soo, one last thing for my blogger friends! There is just over a day left to enter in the Munchkin Land Designs Win One, Give One blog design giveaway. She's giving away TWO blog designs, one for yourself and one for you to give away. Let's just say that if you happen to win, you give me that extra design. Deal?

Hope you have a fabulous Tuesday!

Moving Along

These past couple of days have been some what of a pain. Literally. I woke up Wednesday with a UTI, so I went to the ER to try and get some drugs. Thankfully, before he left for work, Hubster had me down a bunch of vitamin C and cranberry juice which relieved the pain for a bit. I was dreading a huge wait at the hospital, but being seen was actually a pretty quick process and I only had to wait forever at the pharmacy to actually get the goods.

The doctor prescribed me three days of antibiotics, which didn't exactly seem to get the job done. Boo. It could have something to do with the fact that I didn't drink a ton of water like I was supposed though. Today I've been chugging gallons of water along with handfuls of cranberry pills, and unfortunately staying away from alcoholic goodness. It would be great if I woke up in the morning cured, but I doubt it'll happen. I'm going to pick up some Alka-Seltzer when I go shopping (because apparently that's another UTI cure) but if it doesn't work, I'll be headed to the doctor again for more antibiotics.

Thank God for Azo in the meantime.

Sooo anyway.. Hubs and I spent this weekend doing some research and mapping out our plans for our upcoming move. He is headed to the MP Career Course at Fort Leonard Wood in May. I'm excited to be going back to Missouri for a little while, but anxious to find out where we'll end up after those six months are done.

For now, the plan is to do a partial DITY (which is something like a PPMP[?] now..) and take all of our daily necessities with us and have the movers pack up everything else. The packed stuff will probably sit in boxes in a spare room while we're at FLW and then depending on where we have to move from there, we might to a full DITY with everything already conveniently packed for us. The only negative that I can see with doing it that way, is not unpacking to make sure that everything is there and in one piece. I had a bad experience with the movers my first time. I had no idea that you were supposed to watch them, and they ended up taking jewelry and sentimental items. Jerks.

The house hunting part has been a bit nerve wrecking since we really won't be able to find a place until we get there. When we moved Florida to Georgia, we had the luxury of being able to drive up for a weekend and get a feel for the area. We're a 15 hour drive away, which isn't happening. I've always wondered how military families could just show up, but I guess we're going to find out.

We'll be renting out this place for a while. Hubs hopes to come back to the Savannah area eventually, so we'll have our sweet little home waiting for us. It'll be bittersweet leaving our house behind (like we have a choice..?!). We built this place to suit us. We chose the cabinets and fixtures and where we wanted the windows and walls to be. We have an enormous kitchen that I don't even fully use, but I don't know how I'll get by with anything smaller. Our backyard is a swamp, but the front is quite lovely.

The one exciting part about moving, is that one day we'll be able to build our dream home again. Hopefully in an area as nice as where we're living now.

Monster Spray

I've racked my brain trying to find a solution to getting V to sleep in her own bed since Hubster has been back. Nothing from a bubble bath to warm milk to a nightlight has worked. There have been countless nights of yelling and door banging. Part of the problem is that she's afraid of the dark or monsters or something like that and feels safer sleeping with someone. Obviously, I'm not going to spend my nights laying on the floor next to her bed rubbing her back to get her to sleep.

Honestly, I had almost given up when I thought of something genius! I remembered one of the other moms that I know using a "spray" to get rid of the dinosaurs from under her son's bed. After the third or fourth time of V busting into our bedroom last night, I went to the kitchen where I have a stockpile of spray bottles that I stocked up on at Walmart. I use them for my hair, laundry, and cleaning, this one only had water which made it perfect.

Hubs and I took V back up stairs, sprayed all around the room, in the closet, and under the bed, and then she snuggled to sleep with the bottle. I was absolutely shocked that it actually worked! It was so adorable when she came downstairs the next morning with the bottle in hand.

Today I decided we would do a special little project to make V's Monster Spray more realistic. I added a drop of neon green food coloring (which I hope isn't enough to stain my carpet) and let her decorate the bottle with some left over Halloween stickers. Our project was a giant hit!

I'm hoping that when I go to put her to bed tonight, there is a minimal fight and that her new ultra special Monster Spray makes her feel more comfortable sleeping on her own.

Challenges

These past few days have been interesting, to say the least. Having our family readjust to each other definitely has been and will be a challenge. I can't even count how many times I've wanted to stab a certain spouse of mine for stupid little things such as a two hour trip to the grocery store or taking the four of us twice as long as it normally took me to get us all out the door in the morning. I guess I was hoping that with another adult's help, all of our tasks would be accomplished much quicker. Ehh.. We'll get into a good routine eventually.

Yesterday we had a family reintegration brief as part of Hubs' reintegration training. They had bits and pieces of good information, but there wasn't much that I didn't already know. I was tweeting with another Army wife about how those briefs are always so pointless, but then I thought about it for a minute. The information that they give could actually be extremely beneficial to some families, however those are the same families that also resent the Army and refuse to come to anything like that anyway.

V has been relatively difficult to deal with lately as well. Her tantrums actually aren't too bad, but potty training has hit a brick wall. The ladies at her daycare say that she is fantastic when it comes to using the potty there, but at home we might as well not even have toilets. After sleeping with me for the entire year, she also refuses to sleep in her own bed at night. Leading up to his arrival, I continually reminded V that once dad was home, she was going to have to sleep in her own bed. She completely understood, however when it came down to actually having to happen, she refused. We've tried a gazillion ways to try to keep her in her bed. Last night I reversed the doorknob since she learned to unlock it and she kept breaking off the child safety lock. I probably sleep better with her kicking me in the chest that I did with her throwing herself into the door all night. 

Between staying up late for that horrid BCS Championship Bowl and toddler issues, we didn't get much rest last night, but I'm hoping to be at least slightly productive today. I've got to get our Christmas lights off of the exterior of the house. We're the only house that still has them up. That's not surprising though, considering just about everyone was a Grinch in this area and didn't even put up lights to begin with. Some cleaning up is also on the to-do list for today in order to get this place ready to rent when we PCS in a couple of months. I've also got to finalize preparations for Baby A's baptism. I just hate calling the churches, because the people that they have working/volunteering there are always so rude. I'm praying for better luck today!

Hope everyone has a great day today!

Yummy Brownie in a Mug

Yesterday, Hubster had tummy issues which kept him in bed for the majority of the day and left me to fend for myself with the babies. I was relieved once bedtime hit since it seemed like they were out for blood. All day. I needed to treat myself with something before I went to bed and wine wasn't going to cut it. I scoured the internet looking for a dessert in a mug recipe with little success. There were plenty of boring yellow cake recipes, but I wanted something a bit richer. I found the perfect solution on Food.com. Brownies!

This brownie recipe had plenty of great reviews and especially appealed to me because it used butter, not oil. After all, when you live in Paula Deen's hometown, butter is a must! Some mug recipes that I've tried in the past say they're one serving, but this one really is. It might even be something like one and a quarter serving. Thankfully Hubs was sleeping so that I didn't have to experience the agony of trying to split it in half.

This mug brownie literally took three minutes to make. I nuked it for 80 seconds, which was perfect, topped with a scoop of ice cream and went to town on it. The recipe is so easy, that I'll probably be making it relatively often.

Soo.. The ingredients are:

• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 dash salt
• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Since I used salted butter, I left out the dash of salt.

Perfection!