// 7 Q U I C K T A K E S V O L 9 //

linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary for some more quick takes....

In case you haven't noticed, we're on vacation! This has been a really hard summer, in many ways, even harder than last summer when we were getting used to being parents of a child with a medical condition. All summer long we kept thinking about and talking about and yearning for August when Alex would be done with class and we would be on vacation.  Now it's here and it's great. So for my quick takes this week I will be sharing 7 things that I love about being on vacation.

//1//

Alex is here - All The Time! Maybe this seems a little obvious. But I'm just so thrilled to get to spend so much time with my husband firstly because I really like him and secondly because it's nice to have some extra hands to help with the baby wrangling.  It's also so nice to see him relaxing and having fun with son and all his siblings. 

//2//

Extra sleep! Alex has been so great about taking Johnny in the mornings so I can sleep in a little bit.  That extra hour (of sleeping by myself) makes a really big difference. I've also been napping more with Johnny than I usually do at home.  Sleep, it's beautiful thing.

//3//

Knitting! I love knitting. It's hands down my favorite past time. I've gotten used to working on my projects for just a few minutes at a time since Johnny has been born. But on vacation I've had way more time to knit and it has been delightful.  I even splurged and ordered some new yarn before we left in anticipation of knitting all kinds of things.  2 of my SILs are real whizzes at knitting, so it's fun to see what they're working on and nice to get input and help on my own projects. 

//4//

Nieces and Nephews! I married into many nieces and nephews - I have 10! It's been super fun to get to see them all, and it's been fun to see how much Johnny likes watching them and playing with them.  We got to meet our newest nephew EJ for the first time ever.  My SIL Shannon shared what it was like to deliver EJ 10 weeks early in my series, NICU Diaries a few months back. It's amazing and wonderful to see how huge EJ is now.  He and Johnny had fun poking each other in the face and stealing each other's toys. 

//5//

A break from diaper duty! I mentioned to Alex while he was in the thick of finals that when his term was over I'd like to have a day where I didn't have to change any poopy diapers and that would be all the vacation I needed.  I was mostly joking and didn't expect him to remember and follow through on that, but he did! He's been changing so many diapers! I think I only changed 1 all of yesterday, and it was so nice! I don't want to sound like we have forgotten the days of the colostomy bag when we just couldn't wait to start changing dirty diapers.  We are extremely grateful that Johnny's digestive system is working so well.  I mean really well.  I mean he poops all the time! It's a good thing, but it gets old too, so it's been nice to have this little bit of relief. Thanks honey!!

//6//

Blogging! Blogging is quickly becoming one of my new favorite past times, but I have a really hard time blogging with Johnny around.  I always wonder - how do other blogging mothers do it? Are you able to blog with your kids around? Do you wait til they are asleep? Do you have to leave the house? I'd love to know.  Here on vacation with Alex around all the time, as well as many cousins and aunts and uncles to play with Johnny, I have had many opportunities to blog. 

//7//

Not being in our house! I love where we live. I love St. Paul. I love our house with all it's quirks and it's long list of projects. It really feels like home.  But sometimes it's nice to get out of your home, to not see those quirks, and to not think about the list of projects. It's nice to get away from the daily routine and the daily chores. And when the daily chores can't be gotten rid of, they're always more pleasant to do in someone else's house.  It's always more pleasant to wash someone else's dishes, or fold clothes in someone else's laundry room. At least I think so.  

I know we'll be happy to be home once we get there. But for now, we're fully enjoying vacation! 

Johnny looks HUGE in this picture.  My baby is getting so big!

for more quick takes visit Conversion Diary

// C O N N E M A R A //

We spent the last few days at Connemara, that's the name of the farm Alex's grandparents retired to over 40 years ago. They have since both passed away but the farm remains in the family. I never met Alex's grandpa, his grandma I had the pleasure of knowing until she passed away just last year at the age of 97. They were always described by everyone as being so in love with each other.  I think that is how I would like to be remembered.

There on the stretch of land they chose to grow old and in love together on, their family has gathered every summer to play in sun soaked grass, and on rolling hills. Alex has told me many stories from his childhood vacations there, sliding down hay bales, off-roading in old cars, staying up late with his brothers and sisters. I first went to the farm the summer we were engaged.  And now we get to bring our own child there and carry on the tradition of going to grandpa's farm .

// S I M P L E S U M M E R, S I M P L E F O O D: summer pasta //

While on vacation with all the Coynes at the Coyne family farm it only seemed fitting that I post a Coyne staple recipe: Summer Pasta. Summer pasta can be found on Coyne tables all year around. But of course it tastes best in the summer, when the tomatoes and basil can come straight from the garden.

Ingredients:

1 lb of your favorite shaped pasta. My mother-in-law uses spaghetti noodles but I like to use penne or fusilli, or shells. 

3 large tomatoes or 2 cups of cherry tomatoes

1 very large handful of fresh basil

3 tablespoons of olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

8 oz fresh mozzarella 

Cut tomatoes into 1 in. cubes, or if using cherry tomatoes cut them in half. Put them in a large bowl with the basil torn into pieces and the olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Add the pasta and toss well.

Right before you're ready to serve tear the mozzarella into pieces, add, and toss one more time. 

Open a bottle of your favorite red wine and enjoy! 

// N I G H T D R I V E //

Time: 6:52 am

Location: rest area 40 miles outside of Dayton, Ohio. 

We've been on the road for about 13 hours and 700 miles. 

We were apprehensive about making a long road trip with a one-year-old who's not used to being in the car for longer than 10 minutes at a time. So driving through the night when we knew he'd be more inclined to sleep seemed like the best plan. I think we were right. He slept for 7 hours straight! I wish he would do that at home!

Every summer our local radio station does an A to Z weekend. It's all their favorite songs of all time, all in alphabetical order. I love putting things in alphabetical order, so naturally this inspired me to put together my own A to Z playlist for our drive. It's over 10 hours long and is made up of favorites from mine and Alex's combined iTunes libraries. 

Some selections are pretty recent favorites from Mumford and Sons, The Civil Wars, Gotye. 

But most of the songs reach father back into closed chapters of my life. And because music is one of those things, like smell, that stir up the most vivid memories, I spent the night driving through the states of Illinois and Indiana reliving scenes from my youth. 

Five Iron Frenzy: my first favorite band. Wearing my dad's old pants cut off at the shin, and wallet chains. Memorizing and analyzing the lyrics with my best friend. Plotting to marry the lead singer. 

Mae, The Everglow: that album was the soundtrack to the summer after my senior year. Driving to camps and conferences with my youth group. Moving into my freshmen dorm.  Overflowing with ideals and anxieties. 

Shane & Shane: driving to the Passion conference with my brother and best friend in a blizzard. Seeing Shane & Shane live for the first time and weeping because the music was just so beautiful that it hurt. 

The Postal Service: my first job at Jamba Juice. 

Love Drug and Sigur Ros: my college dorm freshman and sophomore year.

Sleeping at Last: the semester I spent in India. 

Then there are the bands Alex introduced me to: Cake, Mason Jennings, Spoon, Andrew Bird, They Might Be Giants, Elliot Smith, and hearing them makes me feel all the nervousness and excitement of the summer we started dating. 

Night turns into morning as I drive on.  My husband and my baby are asleep in the car and the Ella Fitzgerald song we danced to at our wedding comes on. I'm grateful to have this quiet time to remember so many beautiful moments from my life.

Oh, the moon's not a moon for a night

and these stars will not twinkle and fade out,

 and the words in my ears

will resound for the rest of my years.

In the morning I find with delight 

not a note of our music is played out.

It will be just as sweet, 

and an air that I'll live to repeat:

I greet you 

With a song in my heart...

// S I M P L E S U M M E R, S I M P L E F O O D: cucumber chickpea salad //

A couple years ago my fiend Kristi came over for dinner and brought this salad. It was simple and fresh and delicious and Alex and I have never forgotten it. In fact, we make it a few times a month. It's super easy, and pretty filling because of the chickpeas. It's a great summer dish, but really, we eat all year around because we love it so much. Kristi, if you are reading this: thank you for introducing us to this salad!

Ingredients:

2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 large cucumbers

1/2 of 1 red onion

1 big handful of fresh dill, or 2 tablespoons of dried dill

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

salt

pepper

Put rinsed chickpeas into your favorite salad bowl. 

Prepare your cucumbers: You can either peel them, or leave the peel on, or use a zester to half peel them, like I did. Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise, then in half again lengthwise, so you have 4 wedges. Cut off the corner of each wedge, thus removing the seeds. This is something I didn't used to do, but I've found that the texture is more pleasant without the cucumber seeds.  After you've cut out the seeds, cut each wedge in half lengthwise one more time and then chop them up into small pieces. Add these to the chickpeas.

Cut onion into thin half-moon slices and add to the salad.

If you are using fresh dill, remove the larger center stems, coarsely chop it, and add it the the salad bowl. If you are using dried dill just add it right into the salad.  Add olive oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss well. 

This salad can be served right away but tastes best if the cucumbers and chickpeas have had time to marinade a little.  I like to let it sit in my refrigerator for about an hour before serving. Toss it a few times while it's sitting, and again before serving. Add a baguette and some goat cheese, open a bottle of white wine and you've got yourself a very respectable and very easy summer dinner. Enjoy!

// 3 W O R D S //

Just when we thought things couldn't get any crazier....

What with Alex having the busiest couple of weeks, no months, at work in the history of...ever. 

And Alex taking 2 very difficult classes this summer, requiring him to spend every free moment studying. 

And me being alone with Johnny all day err day while he pulls 12+ hour days at least twice a week. 

And Alex being sick for over a week now....

Three words:

Hand. Foot. and Mouth. (ok, 4 words if you count "and")

Our poor little Johnny was burning up with a fever early Sunday morning and a visit to doctor-grandpa that evening confirmed that it was hand, foot and mouth. Not to be confused with the more serious, and mostly occurring in live stock, foot and mouth, or hoof and mouth. FH&M is pretty common among children and according to my pediatrician father-in-law (btw, have I mentioned how incredibly thankful I am to have a pediatrician in the family? Seriously, it's amazing. I wish everyone was this fortunate.) there's been quite an outbreak of it around here. Johnny's been running a fever, he's covered in spots, no appetite, and is displaying the general malaise you'd expect from something like this.

Outside of hospital stays this is really Johnny's first time being sick. You'd think after going through 4 surgeries with my child a little viral infection would seem like no sweat. But at the hospital we had 24 hour nurse access and here it's just me and Johnny. There's no call button to push when he needs more medicine, or when I want to ask if his spots or his poop look funny. It's been hard, but we're surviving. And I feel like I've reached a new parenting milestone, having a sick child at home.

Spending the last 2 days in bed or on the couch nursing my sick babe has afforded my lots of time to catch up on some of the blogs that I follow. I know I'm about a week behind on this, but Haley over at Carrots for Michalmas posted this last week in response to this buzzfeed about why birth control exists, answer being that children are terrifying and will ruin your stuff and cramp your style.

I won't give any commentary here, I think Haley wrote a great post and I really hope you check it out if you haven't seen it yet. But I will say that in the circles I run in it's very easy to forget that there exist individuals and groups who really do not afford children the dignity and respect that they, like all humans, deserve. And I will say that on a day like today, when Johnny definitely is "cramping my style" (ie: no shower, no make-up, no getting dressed, no doing anything but reading blogs and writing this) he is such a precious gift and there is no doubt in my mind as to his value as a person.

Children are hard, and messy, and tiring, and you need the grace of God, (and coffee, and Netflix, and Jimmy John's freaky fast delivery) to make it though some (ok, most) days. But children are also a gift, a joy, a heritage, not to mention they are necessary to society.

I realized just a few minutes ago that this week is National NFP Awareness Week. How funny that I should come across that buzzfeed during a week dedicated to Natural Family Planning. If birth control exists to keep people safe from "terrifying" children, NFP exists to affirm their value and dignity.

Natural Family Planning is something I am very passionate about.  
If you have questions about it I'd love to talk more with you. 
You can also check out the Couple to Couple League , 
Twin Cities Fertility Care Center and Creighton Model for more info.

// S I M P L E S U M M E R, S I M P L E F O O D: grilled chicken salad //

It's not too late to start a summer series, is it?

I didn't think so. 

This series, Simple Summer, Simple Food, is inspired by my need to not use my oven during the summer.  Except for on the occasional cool day (which we actually have had a good number of this year) our house does not recover from having the oven on.  It just stays hot for days on end and no amount of strategic fan maneuvering, or blasting of our little window a/c units (that's right, no central air here) can cool it off. So it's important for me to keep a running tally of meals I can make without the use of the oven, and stove too, if possible. And I'll be sharing that list with you over the next few weeks! 

And so, without further ado...

Grilled Chicken Salad

This salad is actually very simple. It's basically whatever greens you want with whatever veggies you want with sliced up grilled chicken breast on top.  

We used spring mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, and sugar snap peas (from the garden). 

Season the chicken breasts with a dry rub: salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, sugar, paprika, cumin, garlic powder. Or use a rub from the store, maybe some southwestern mix! Whatever you use, coat them well and take them outside and grill them.  

Grilling is one of those things that always looks so quick and easy, but when we do it, ends up being incredibly inefficient. Either our meat's not ready and the coals are, or the coals are not lighting and we get have to wait for them. Then there's a million trips in and out of the house and by the time we get set up and get going and it always seems like a lot of work for a few pieces of meat. Don't get me wrong, I love grilling! I'm just saying that when we do grill we like to make the most of it and grill as many things as possible. So while you're at it chop up some sweet potatoes, toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper, wrap them in tin foil, and stick those of the grill as well. The sweet potato fries and chicken will both take about 25-30 minutes.

While those are grilling make the salad dressing:

(makes enough for two very large servings)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (find in the Asian section of the grocery store)

1/4 of an avocado cut into small pieces

Place all ingredients in large bowl and whisk until well combined. If it seems too think, add a little water.  Pour half of the dressing out into a small bowl and set aside.

Add your greens to the dressing in the large bowl and toss to coat. Pour the greens out onto your plates and top them with the veggies of your choosing as well as the sliced up chicken breast.  Drizzle the remaining dressing on top.

If you want to, mix some of that chili garlic sauce with some mayo for a nice dipping sauce to go with your sweet potato fries.

And voila! You have a yummy, filling, and pretty healthy meal and your house is still relatively cool!

Enjoy!

// 7 Q U I C K T A K E S V O L 8 //

Linking up with Jen from Conversion Diary for yet another round of quick takes. 

7 Things I Thought Were Easy- Until I Had a Baby.

//1//

Opening the fridge. Sounds pretty easy, right? You just pull the handle and, voila, you can access all your refrigerated goods. Wrong! Opening the refrigerator is hard and I hate doing it. Some days it is the bane of my existence. Johnny loves the fridge. Every time I open it he crawls over as fast as he can and starts to pull out as many things as possible. When I pull him away and close the fridge he has a meltdown. So now instead of just opening the fridge at will like a normal person, I plan my fridge openings for times when Johnny will not see me, like when he's in his highchair. I make a mental list of all the things I will need to get out so I can grab them all in one well-planned opening. Or, I make a pile of things on the counter next to the fridge that need to be put away and quickly do them all at once while he's not looking. Sometimes he is looking but he's far enough away that I can get the fridge closed before he reaches it. Can you tell I think about this a lot?

//2//

Going to the bathroom. This everyday task was easy until Johnny became mobile. Now I have to weigh my options; let Johnny stay in the bathroom with me and risk him getting into stuff, or put him in his crib where he will scream until I come get him. Screaming baby? Or trash can emptied onto the floor? Either way my time in the bathroom is stressful. Which would you choose? 

//3//

Leaving the house. I confess I have never been very good at leaving the house. I'm always late and always bringing to much stuff and always forgetting the stuff I really need. But now that I have a baby leaving the house takes me, I kid you not, at least 30 minutes. Get fresh diaper on baby, pack extra clean diapers, bundle baby up (winter), get sun hat (summer), grab diaper bag and baby, realize I forgot a water bottle for myself, put baby down, get water bottle, no more room in diaper bag, now holding diaper bag, baby and water bottle, now I have to go to the bathroom, put everything down, decide to leave Johnny in the bathroom with me while I go, clean up the mess he made while I was going, now he's stinky, change baby's diaper again. Finally we get outside, fish keys out of diaper bag while holding the baby and the water bottle, drop keys on the ground, and when I get Johnny buckled in his car seat I will realize I forgot something crucial, like his hearing aids or the meal I was going to bring someone or the item I was going to return at the store. You see? It's a terrible process, and I am predisposed to be bad at it. 

//4//

Throwing something away. This problem is very similar to the fridge problem. Johnny is fascinated with the pop-top garbage can in the kitchen. He sits on the ground and pushes the foot lever, or pulls himself up on the garbage can (gross) and opens it with his hands (gross) and tries to reach in (extra gross). So I either make a pile of things on the counter that need to be tossed and do my tossing while he is otherwise occupied, or we block off the garbage can with things like his exersaucer and dining room chairs so then when I try to throw something away am wrestling with and tripping over the large, cumbersome and miscellaneous items stashed in our kitchen. It's a loose, loose situation. 

//5//

Keeping things in drawers. Clothes, Tupperware, saran wrap, table clothes, towels, if it's in a drawer Johnny will pull it out. His favorite drawer is the one that holds Alex's sock and underwear. I've stopped picking up after him so there's always underwear all over the place. 

//6// 

Talking on the phone. I don't think Johnny really understands the concept of the phone yet. But I do think he thinks it's hilarious when I hold the phone to the side of my head because whenever I'm talking on the phone he screams and smiles and laughs. It's fine if it's Alex or my mom, but it tends to usually happen when I'm scheduling an appointment or talking to a prospective student's parent. So, like I do in many other situations, I save my phone calls for when Johnny is in his high chair. 

//7//

Sleeping. Non-parents, isn't it great after a long day to crawl into bed, maybe do a little reading or peruse Facebook, then turn off your lamp and sleep until your alarm goes off? Or if it's the weekend, sleep until you just wake up naturally? Parents, remember how great that was? Sleep, or the lack thereof, is probably the hardest thing about having a baby.  Sleep is broken and interrupted often. If you're like us and co-sleep, the sleeping you do can leave you feeling sore in the morning, and like you didn't actually sleep. I sleep for a few hours in any position that I like. Then Johnny comes into our bed and I'm only on my side, one arm under my pillow, the other balanced on my hip while Johnny nurses, kicks me in the bladder and sticks his fingers up my nose. But hey, I'll take whatever I can get. 

Babies. They'll change your life forever!

 But for every difficulty, inconvenience and annoyance, there are a thousand sweet hugs, peekaboo games of giggling, early morning snuggles, and everything's-new moments of discovery that make it all worth while. 

//

For more quick takes visit Conversion Diary!

Happy weekend!