i finally did it. i met taylor hanson. and i totally don't look happy about it...

we went to atlantic city for amanda's bachelorette party. we got free shots at firewaters, walked the boardwalk (where amanda tried to drink a giant bottle of rum...off a billboard), put our feet in the sand, met a guy that claimed to play vinnie chase's uncle on entourage (not pictured), and laughed at amanda's amazement at the fake sky in the tropicana.

this was micah's first time in a pool.

he loved it, to say the least.

erin's graduation party. i think the picture speaks for the night. note the empty yeungling box in the background. note the red party cup. note the expression on erin's face. i love my family/adopted family.

i know that this picture is blurry but i think it compliments my brother's choice to put his hood up on his graduation gown. he graduated with highest honors, but they failed to mention that when calling his name. i'm proud of my brother and am now harboring a grudge against rutgers.

i took micah to trader joe's and the farmers market at surburban square. we did a lap around the farmers market and were not impressed by their produce. we're going to hold out and go to the overbrook farms farmers market this saturday. they are only open on saturdays from 10-2. stephen said they were set up last weekend, so i am eager to see what they have.

we went to trader joe's and picked up some groceries. it seems as if they are getting in on the yo gabba gabba craze as well...
and now that i have posted that, i will sing myself to sleep.

i picked up a quart of trader joe's brand of soy cream. i couldn't help it...it was mango vanilla!!!
i decided to throw in one more of my favorites: penguins. i loved this ice cream substitute. i usually have trouble finishing small containers of soy creams, but that will not be a problem this time. the vanilla half didn't have an overpowering soy taste and the mango half was perfection. it was a wonderful ending to my day.

we went down to baltimore to attend my friend's wedding. this was the first official meeting of lily, samara, and micah. it was great getting to see kristen, chandler, and erica. i hate that i have such great friends in texas that i never get to see anymore. i realize that we will eventually get on a regular schedule of visiting my in-laws, but since that hasn't happened yet, i feel like we are never going back to texas. :( and it was great seeing kat and dan as well. there isn't an excuse for us not to see each other on a regular basis since we live within two hours of each other. i totally didn't believe it when i googled it, since i have only driven to baltimore from south jersey (having to drive north to get south adds quite a bit of time to the trip). luckily they like sonic (i miss sonic and still don't understand how i haven't been to the one in millville yet.) and have made trips to lancaster just to go there.

i realize there was a bit of rambling in there, so to wrap things up...
lily has really girly mannerisms.
both girls are absolutely adorable.
micah isn't the only flirt in the bunch.
micah is only 5 weeks older than lily(center) and 7(11 adjusted) weeks older than samara(right).
my son is huge.
and he hates the grass.

today i went to north jersey with my parents, jess, and micah. we arrived shortly before rodney presented his senior thesis. his was by far the most interesting and well supported presentation and i do not say that with bias. his was the only presentation that micah clapped for. after the presentations were over, we went out to eat at stuff yer face. i got a stromboli that tasted just like eggplant parmesean. we then went and got bubble tea (i miss tempest tea in dallas) across the street from there. we took rodney and john back to their apartment in rahway and left shortly after. rodney's graduation is in less than two weeks. i'm so proud of him. matt and lauren are coming down the weekend of his graduation and we get to be reunited for the first time since christmas. i love my siblings a ton.

and this is what micah does now...

today i would like to give my review on sunshine burgers. these burgers are made from sunflower seeds, but don't have too much of a nutty flavor. i recommend dressing this burger up with whatever toppings you wish as they won't take away from the taste of it. (i can't seem to put too many toppings on morningstar's mushroom lovers or tomato basil burgers.) i cooked mine on the stove in a frying pan. it seemed to take a little long to get an even crisp on the outside of the burger, but the directions accounted for that. i am eager to try this on the grill this summer.

for breakfast i made french toast from easter bread. i didn't really need to add syrup to it because it already has a sweet taste.
for dinner, i made quorn with a pesto glaze over sauteed spinach and artichokes with pasta and salad. putting the cutlet under the broiler really made this meal. stephen enjoyed this healthy vegetarian dinner.

computer has been on the fritz.

i'll hopefully have new entries in the next couple days.

i made two kinds of vegan cupcakes from scratch without a recipe. the kind pictured above is chocolate raspberry. i also made chocolate orange because of my love for chocolate oranges. i did not make a smores cupcake because i couldn't find vegan fluff at whole foods.

stephen surprised me with tickets to see mates of state at the troc. i really didn't want to be away from micah, but i could tell my mom was excited to actually get to babysit him. jess met me up at my place and she drove us down. crazy how it takes less time to get to a concert in philly when you live in philly. getting back to my place is always a little confusing. we accidentally got onto 95 when we were coming home from seeing anberlin last fall. if rodney was home, we would have had him look up the train schedule. it seems like the smarter thing to do since my place is train station adjacent. next time.

anyways, about the concert...they were awesome (of course). jess and i are once again determined to be in a band. stephen believes his band is going to be on hiatus soon, so we are going to try and break him down (he has sworn he never wants to be in a band with me).

i went to acme today and bought the above products for $1.80.

TOTAL.

i took micah to the doctor for his sixth month visit last thursday only to find out that one of the vaccines he was supposed to be getting was out of stock. i then received a phone call the next day alerting us that it had arrived and he needed to come back in. it isn't that much of a big deal since we didn't have to pay a copay for that. the only annoyance is the current location of his doctor's office. it is in the middle of a hospital (that is four "blocks" from us, but extremely difficult to walk to) that charges for parking. now usually offices located inside of hospitals that do that will give you parking stickers or something like that. not this one. and if you manage to exceed 30 minutes, you have to pay $3 as opposed to nothing. we made it in and out today in 29 minutes. that included up and down two flights of stairs in the parking garage and up and down four floors on the elevator (in the center of the hospital...not really that close to the parking garage at all). and i did this while carrying my 20+lb son.

after we were done there, we headed over to conshohocken to go to ikea. i've been trying to baby proof our residence as of late, since micah is easily flipping from his back to his belly and he puts everything he can in his mouth. i found some storage solutions to (start to) fix our clutter problems in the kitchen and spare room. i say spare room, but really it is rodney's bedroom on one side and stephen's music practice space on the other. i should add a third category to that entitled "still unpacked boxes".

micah started to get restless as we made our way to the end of the upstairs portion, so i entertained him with random stuffed animals. he finally met his match in mister beaver, since mister beaver has his front top teeth and micah has his front bottom teeth. they had fun together. well, at least micah did.

we had a family movie night complete with wall-e and chocolate almond milk.

i was the only one that managed to stay awake through the movie.

we went down to nj as a family today to attend aidan's fifth birthday party. micah got to see his birth year buddies for a short playdate for that time. they seemed to have fun. micah almost learned the hard way that you shouldn't put your fingers in other people's mouths.afterwards, we went to my grandmother's house for dinner. my mom had been saying that we needed to head home early, but we put it off until the snow started coming down really hard. stephen always insists on driving and ended up going 30 mph on 55 instead of his usual 65 mph. he hasn't had to drive in those kinds of conditions in around six years. in dallas winter lasts about two weeks (oh how i miss that) and there is only like one night that you really have to deal with ice or anything. unfortunately the lack of inclement weather doesn't mean a lack of accidents...there are usually 80+ accidents whenever it gets icy out. (i do not miss that)

so lately i have decided to cut out all animal byproducts a few times a week. so basically every third day (sometimes less) i am vegan. i get asked what i eat if i don't eat meat, and on the days i am vegan, dairy. i think if people really thought about it, they have gone an entire day without eating meat and nothing bad happened to them. take this hypothetical menu...breakfast: cereal and a banana, lunch: grilled cheese and tomato soup, dinner: pasta with plain sauce. granted, i usually add more fruits and vegetables into my meals, but it is totally possible to get the nutrition you need without eating meat. i actually feel as though i get more than those who do. i have to pay closer attention to what i am eating to make sure i am getting what i need, so i notice if i haven't had the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. i end up avoiding fast food because of their limited options for vegetarians, and i feel as though that is a beneficial thing. so here is what i ate on a vegan day...

(yes, this picture was taken a few days back when i made this the first time. i wasn't going to retake pictures for continuity sake just because the penguins have been packed up. you might not have even noticed if i didn't mention it.) for breakfast, i made a smoothie out of silken tofu, rice milk, apple juice and frozen fruit. i (barely) sweetened it with agave since the fruit and apple juice already gave it a sweet flavor. i also added ground flax seeds to add some iron to it.


for lunch, i had a veggie noodle stew. i used canned diced tomatoes for the base and added some onion, sliced bell peppers and mushrooms. i added some rice milk to make it more like a soup and less like a pasta sauce, and some hot chili sauce for some heat. i cooked the bowties to al dente and added them into the stew. i toasted some bread to balance the spiciness and complimented it with vegan margarine and some ground cumin.







dinner was the favorite of the day. i made spicy orange glazed tofu and vegetables over brown rice. i started by heating the orange juice in a wok. to it i added teriyaki sauce and hot chili sauce. i let it thicken while i chopped the vegetables (zucchini, mushrooms, and onion) i then added those and some frozen red, green, and yellow bell peppers (thank you, trader joe's, for making my life easier). the night before i cubed firm tofu and put it in a bag with orange juice to marinate. i didn't want the tofu to fall apart when i put it in with the rest of the ingredients, so i "browned" it to a burnt orange (i added some fresh cracked pepper while cooking it). i prepared the brown rice while the sauce thickened a little more. it was so good that i think we might have it once a week or at least every other week.

i'm pretty sure most meat eaters could eat these meals without noticing that anything is "missing". the tofu had such a nice texture and flavor, that i think someone might eat a few pieces of it before questioning what it is. all in all, i feel a lot healthier while i am eating vegan and it usually continues into the next day. i'm not going to go all peta on people and tell them what they should and should not eat, but i will say that this is the right choice for me.

went down to nj for the day. i met my mom at david's bridal in deptford and she took micah to my grandmother's house. it is so weird doing anything without him. i have now been to an anberlin concert, out for groceries (twice), target/bob evans, and david's bridal/olive garden without him. i had a panic attack when jess and i went to see anberlin. actually, i had two that night. (it was my first time being away from him, save for the occassional nap) it never fails that i end up worrying about having left him in the car. anyway, i tried on and ordered my dress for amanda's wedding. i was so close to fitting in the size 2, but felt more comfortable in the next size up. score for moms with infants everywhere. actually, i think most hate me for that. after olive garden, i went to my grandmother's to find micah sleeping. i was told that he gave a ton of kisses and kept shaking his head "no". my mom, micah, and i met up with jess at the super wal*mart in vineland. although i might not be keen on their practices as a company, it is one of the best places to find vegetarian/organic/gluten-free/asian/mexican/kosher staples for less. so many items in our fridge/pantry are labeled kosher lately. being vegan a few times a week helps this out a lot. more about that tomorrow.

we started the day off by going to the king of prussia mall. mostly for fun, but we also got to see a couple of my former coworkers. we exited nordstrom and we saw this. it looks like a baby carrier, but don't be fooled. that is a baby sticking out of a partially zipped backpack. i double and triple checked just to make sure i wasn't wrongfully passing judgment. we then went to the lego store, where this woman kept getting in my way. granted it is a small store and there were a bunch of people in there, but she appeared in front of anything i even almost tried to look at. i was finally able to get past her to take a picture of their monthly projects...look at january's!also, we didn't notice too many people on their packaging. we found this set that had an old guy really big with two little kids in a smaller picture next to him.there is a toy store across from the lego store, so we went in. i put on an oscar the grouch puppet to entertain micah. i still can't get over how observant he is for his age. most people don't question it because they don't realize he's not even six months old yet. he is the size of the majority of one year olds. we went to the disney store as well and we were planning on having a family movie night complete with nachos and wall-e. unfortunately i wasn't feeling well by the time we were on our way home and i came home to take a nap. we'll have to reschedule it.