Notes from the Nelsens

Friday, February 20, 2015

#nelsendays2015 Week 7

Day 43:

This sweet boo decided that working on his crawling was a way better use of his time than napping. But he was still all smiles, short nap and all, when I went to get him from his crib. Walking in his room when he wakes up is one of my favorite parts of the day.

Day 44:

Poor buddy had a fever and was snuggling in close this day. He didn't show any other symptoms so I'm still wondering if more teeth are on the way?

Day 45:

Our sweet Valentine.

Hannah, an oh-so-sweet blogger friend of mine, sent these precious holiday-themed, handmade bow ties to Ryan recently. This is just one of the five she sent. I cannot wait to dress him up for each holiday!

Day 46:

Matt, Ryan and Tally heading out for a walk while I got some things done around the house. :)

Day 47:

On Monday, school was canceled due to weather, so my sister and her boys came to hang out for the afternoon. My mom was already planning to come, so we all got to spend the day together!

Day 48:

Mmm...Mmm pasta takeout from one of our favorites (i.e. Matt's night to cook) ;)

Day 49:

We love playdates at Aunt Dre's! Andrea and I talked so much about how fun it would be when these boys started to interact with each other, and now it's happening! The bottom right picture is the amazingness that happened when all three babes napped at the same time while Andrea snuck out for a doctor's visit. It made me think for a short minute that three kids would be a breeze. ;)

Keep up with us everyday on Instagram @hmnelsen

Have a great weekend, friends!

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Homemade Pasta Roni Shells & White Cheddar (A non-processed version of one of my faves)

I gotta say first off, thanks a TON for your brussel sprouts ideas from Tuesday's post! I feel slightly hopeful now that we could possibly like that veggie. (haha, because that sentence sounds so convincing right?!)

I'm going to take your ideas and give them a go later this week, but TODAY, today y'all, I am just a little too excited about this recipe I came up with for homemade shells and white cheddar.

Here's how it started:

Ryan started solids, which inspired me to read this book, which got on this kick to eat healthier and "real"-er (i.e. more veggies and less processed food), which then made me pay attention to the ingredients section of the foods we eat most often, and it was then that I had a major moment where I realized there were not a ton of things that I was eating that I would feel comfortable giving to Ryan at this point in his early eating life.

The main meal I eat often and LOVE as a side? (or a lunch... love it as a lunch):

Gah, I love that box of powdery pasta goodness.

In fact, if you scroll through my recipes, you'll see it as a side in a LOT of our meals.

So last night, I was making my sloppy joes:

(Oh, what do you know?! Look at what side is sitting right there next to those joes)

And I decided to make my own shells and white cheddar.

Y'all.

I realize I'm totally tooting my own horn here, but they were SO good!

And it didn't take any longer than it does for me to make the boxed version. I mean, I really don't know that I ever need to buy the box again, they were so delish!

So, even if you're not on a crazy ingredient-reading kick like I am, you still need to give this recipe a try. I'm pretty positive you and your kiddos will love it!

Ingredients:

1/2lb pasta shells

2T butter

1/2 cup pasta water

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup 6-cheese Italian shredded cheese (I buy Publix brand)

Directions:

Bring salted water to a boil (maybe 1/2T of salt or a little less). Cook pasta according to box directions. Right before the pasta finishes cooking, reserve half a cup of the pasta water before draining.

(I do this by transferring the pasta to the colander and quickly holding the colander back over to pan to catch about 1/2 cup of the water back into the pan, but you could also just scoop out 1/2 cup if you want an exact measurement.)

Return the pan to the burner (on medium heat at this point), add butter and cream, and bring to a rolling boil. Add cheese and stir immediately, continuing to boil for about 30 seconds while you stir.

Reduce heat to low, add pasta back to the pan, and stir.

Remove the pan from the heat and let sit for a couple minutes before serving. The sauce will thicken as it sits.

That's it!

I've also done this with other cheeses like shredded sharp cheddar (shown in the picture above with creamed spinach and Publix marinated steak kabobs).

The only one that gives me trouble is mozzarella or a blend that has mostly mozzarella in it because it makes the sauce stringy.

Hope you give it a try and love it!

Tomorrow I'll be back with a non-food-related post. ;)

One more day til the weekend!!

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Steakhouse Creamed Spinach Recipe

I feel like I've been talking a lot about food on here lately since we've been working on trying new foods and eating ~~like the grownups that we are~~ (wow, grownups... do we actually fall into that category? somehow "adults" sounds younger... let's try that again) like the adults that we are.

So this month I've introduced some new veggies into the dinner rotation. Most recently, I made creamed spinach from a variety of recipes I found on the internet. I took what soundest the yummiest out of the recipes I read and made this version that we both actually loved.

Ingredients:

2- 9oz bags spinach (I bought Publix brand)

1 sweet onion, diced

1.5 tsp minced garlic

1 stick butter, divided

5T flour

2 cups milk (I used 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1.5 cups skim milk, but all regular milk would be fine... just not quite as creamy)

1 tsp Cavender's Greek Seasoning (looks like this, located with the other spices)

1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan (I used Locatelli because it's the best) :)

Directions:

Melt 5T of butter in a pan on medium heat. Add flour and whisk immediately until the roux thickens and turns a golden brown color (about 3-5 minutes). Add in the onion and garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Then add milk, Cavender's and parmesan. Continue to whisk until the sauce thickens (about 5 minutes).

Meanwhile, melt remaining butter in a separate pan. Add both bags of spinach if you have room in the pan, or add a little at a time until the spinach withers down enough. Continue stirring on low heat until all of the spinach is wilted but not mushy (you can taste if you want... there should be just a little crunch to it).

Once the sauce has a good thick consistency, scoop out as much as desired into the spinach pan and mix it all together.

The roux that I made was twice as much as we needed for the two bags of spinach, so I saved half in the refrigerator and heated it up on the stove another night with two fresh bags of spinach. Since this is a longer process than I normally take for the vegetable part of our meal, I liked getting two meals covered with basically one prep.

It really did taste so good and was honestly much easier than these steps make it sounds, hah!

The next veggie I need to figure out how to make so that we'll like it is brussel sprouts. I've been putting that one off so if you have any recipes that you think will make me like them, I'd love to hear what they are!

Monday, February 16, 2015

February's Mid-Month Confessions

Well it's time for another Mid-Month Confessions! Elizabeth and I loved reading your posts last month and look forward to reading what you have to share this month.

Remember, we want this to be a fun place for us to "air out our dirty laundry" and be able to laugh with one another about our less than perfect moments. We want it to be a place where we can connect with other bloggers and put our non-highlight reel out there so that we can all feel a little bit better about ourselves. :)

Don't forget to check out her confessions here and add your own confessions either in the comments section below the posts or by linking up your own blog posts in the link-up below.

-I have two coffee confessions this month. One is that I strongly prefer for all the k-cups in my little k-cup drawer to all face the same direction, and if someone else reloads the drawer with new k-cups and doesn't turn them all the same direction, I feel a lot thrown off when I open it and proceed to straightening them immediately.

-My other coffee confession is that I don't let people watch me add sugar to my coffee. It's weird, because I'll gladly eat a Boston Cream doughnut in front of you (Confession within a confession: Dunkin Donuts is one of my love languages), or work my way through half a bag of tortilla chips dipped in my favorite cheese dip, but something about the amount of sugar I add to a single cup of coffee embarrasses me. So sometimes Matt intentionally tries to sneak a peek when I'm scooping my sugar just to get a reaction out of me. Yes, even he is not allowed to watch.

-Matt and I binge watched Parenthood until we caught up for the last two shows and watched them live. Now that it's over, we feel like we've lost touch with good friends. But that's not the confession. The confession is that since it ended we've started watching... Jeopardy. Nightly. We just got way too into the teacher tournament that ended Friday night. And when Alex (first name basis, see what I mean?) told the three contestants that he had never had so much fun with a group of players, Matt and I cracked up that we had tuned in at just the right time and had hit Jeopardy at its peak.

-I'm honestly not sure if it's my mama hormones or just how soundly I'm sleeping at night from being so tired, but the other night, I was sweating so much in my sleep that Matt woke up, and not realizing that it was the middle of the night, asked if I had just hopped out of the shower. Gross.

-During one of our play dates at my sister-in-law's house this month, I told Jackson that I wanted to jump on the trampoline with him since Ryan was napping. His almost three-year-old self looked straight at my boobs and said, "Okay, but do you have somebody on your nipples?" Bahahahah- WHAT?! ...I held in my laugh and just said, "As a matter of fact, I don't, so I should be safe to jump with you."

Alright y'all, it's your turn!

Write your own Mid-Month Confessions and share them by linking up below this post (remember, one entry will automatically show up on both of our blogs).

We'd also love for you to link back here by using the button below somewhere in your post. Just copy the code underneath the image and paste it in the HTML of your blog post.

And again, big thanks to Tricia Nae for the banner and button design!

And don't forget to stop by E's blog to check out her confessions and find a new friend or two from the links below!

Friday, February 13, 2015

#nelsendays2015 weeks 5 & 6

These past two weeks have brought on more changes in development for Ryan than I have seen in his whole little life. He's gone from first getting up all all fours to scooting across the floor (inch-worm style or moving both knees in at the same time... he hasn't quite figured out the every other leg/arm routine quite yet, but it's so cute watching him try!) We've stayed pretty busy and have tried to stay warm. We are SO ready for Winter to be GONE! Here's a peek at our past two weeks:

Day 29:

This sweet buddy gets so determined but accidentally pushes himself backwards instead of forwards! Since this picture, he has pushed up on his hands and knees and started to rock. We know it's only a matter of time before he'll be moving around the house. It's hard to believe we're at this stage already!

Day 30:

Our pediatrician spoke at MOPs and casually mentioned three simple tips about foods that are okay for our kids to eat- he said: "If you shop around the perimeter of the store and leave the middle isles alone, you're good. If it's got one ingredient, you're good. If it's not wrapped in cardboard or plastic, you're good."

How simple yet genius are those ideas?!

So on this day, Ryan and I shopped around the perimeter of the store and loaded up on fresh fruits and veggies.

Looking at this now, I can say he tried and loved the peach, blueberries, zucchini, yellow sqash (he like it better roasted in balsamic), butternut squash (roasted with cinnamon), avocado (mixed with sweet potato- he doesn't love it by itself), tomato, cantaloupe, and his new favorite- strawberries.

It probably would have been easier to say the only things he hasn't tried yet are the green beans, brussel sprouts, salmon, and spinach.

But this shopping-around-the-perimter is also helping with one of my February goals, so it's a win for the baby and for us!

Day 31:

Matt and Ryan actually made the @sollybabywrap video on Instagram this week! So they're kinda famous. ;) Love this little boo in his hat from his Nonna!

Day 32:

Buds.. playing with their toys while mama makes dinner. :)

Day 33:

Remember the fiasco with my laptop that I shared in last month's Confessions post? Well thank goodness the people at the Apple store were able to help me get all of the information off of my hard drive and onto my new computer. I got lucky, but consider this a PSA to back up your files often! I was terrible at doing it and would have lost a lot if they weren't able to recover it for me. And as an added bonus, Nonna came to meet us at the mall when we finished! We love mall dates with Nonna!

Day 34:

This boo loves him some food and loves plain tomatoes. Right before I took this pic he was trying to get the spoon with sweet potato and edamame in his mouth while the tomato was blocking the way. hahah- the boy loves to eat.

Day 35:

Quite fitting after that last picture was his weigh in at his 6 month appointment- 19lbs! I love the look on his face in the picture- like he's a little embarrassed by the news. ;)

Day 36:

Our meal was so messy this night that we transferred the bumbo straight to the tub after it was over. Y'all will probably not believe this, but this was Ryan's first time NOT taking a bath in the sink tub (that I'm pretty sure is intended for newborns?! I wrote about it as one of my favorite products when Ryan was 1 month). Even though he's so big, he's always been so relaxed during his baths so it didn't really matter that he outgrew it because he always folded his little legs and just chilled while we bath him. Ironically though, a few of you commented on Instagram about how your bumbo floated when you tried this, so apparently Ryan is too heavy for that to heavy... which makes the fact that we had still been bathing him in the little sink tub even funnier.

Day 37:

Girl's Night now looks like this- comfies, pizza, brownies, and ice-cream :)

Day 38:

Celebrating Baby Ryder and his mama! Love weekends with my college roommates. Wish they happened more than a few times a year, but we'll take what we can get!