Thirty

This is a big birthday year for Marc since today he hits the big THREE-ZERO. He is pretty darn special to me and certainly worth celebrating! He is my best friend and a wonderful dad and I am so glad he is in my life.

Happy 30th birthday Marc!

I have a little surprise planned for Marc this weekend and am looking forward to some quiet time alone with him. My parents are coming to stay with the kids for a night while we are away. We are probably most looking forward to sleeping all the way through the night without Marc's pager going off and without needing to stick a pacifier back in little Miss's mouth. Can't wait!!!

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

Since I have been sick this week I wanted to do something easy for dinner last night that wasn't take-out (since we ordered out pizza the night before). We received a gift card at Christmas to a meat and seafood store from one of the local doctors. Last year we used our gift card to get a box of steaks for free but this year we paid $10 more and got a box of 18 tilapia fillets! I had no idea the box would come with that many so I decided I was going to have to start trying out some new tilapia recipes. I usually use this recipe when I make tilapia but last night I tried a new recipe and it was oh so good. I think Marc and I both liked it better. I have a few more recipes to try in the coming months that I am excited about. I found the recipes on allrecipes.com. I did make a few changes to this one and have included those in the recipe below.

(photo from allrecipes.com)

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

Ingredients:
4 tilapia fillets
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons of Italian parsley, finely chopped
seasoned salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Rinse tilapia fillets under cool water, and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Place fillets in baking dish (my fillets were still a little frozen so I left them in the fridge in the baking dish after they were rinsed and seasoned to finish thawing for a few hours. I have heard rinsing and salting them ahead of time helps take out the "fishy" taste as well).
4. Saute chopped garlic and parsley in butter and olive oil.
5. Pour lemon juice over fillets, then drizzle butter/EVOO mixture on top.
4. Bake in preheated oven until the fish is white and flakes when pulled apart with a fork, about 15-20 minutes.

We ate ours with some green beans and baked sweet potatoes loaded with all the good stuff. :) Yummy!

Round Two

Is it spring yet??? Winter is miserable for our household. Having your children in daycare (and one who sucks all the germs off his thumb at daycare) and being health care workers just seems to be a recipe for disaster. So, Eli stayed home most of last week recovering from being in the hospital and then I sent him back to daycare on Thursday. He did great on Thursday and was really excited to be back. Too bad it didn't last long!

Marc was working much of the weekend so the kids and I were just hanging out at home. On Sunday, Eli woke up with a runny nose and a low grade fever. He was also pulling on one of his ears and sticking his finger in that ear so I checked his ears at home with the otoscope. That eardrum was red and swollen so we started him on an antibiotic that day thinking he had just gotten an ear infection from being so sick the week before (snotty noses have always led to ear infections for Eli).

That night I became very congested myself. By one in the morning I knew I had the flu. It was full on body aches, chills, 102 fever, runny nose, the works. I felt like I was not going to live to see daylight. Dramatic? No, this was the real deal and I certainly did get my flu shot this year to prevent this very thing from happening! Then, Eli woke up with his teeth chattering and a 103 fever so I figured he also had what I had. We went and got swabbed for the flu. Mine came back positive and Eli's was negative. So we made another trip to the pharmacy to stock up on Tamiflu for the whole family. Marc, Eli, and Hailey were going to take a prophylactic dose to try to avoid getting it from me (we are still wondering if Eli had it even though his test came back negative). Marc says we now look like we run a pharmacy ourselves.

So, here we are hanging out at home. I am thankful that I was able to send Hailey to daycare to keep her away from us. She has enough close contact with me when she nurses in the morning and at night, so the less time she is around me right now the better! I am really praying she doesn't get this. Flu in babies less than six months is just not good. She didn't tolerate the Tamiflu very well last night so hopefully tonight will be better.

Eli is loving all this TV time. We watched PBS all morning yesterday and then Toy Story and Finding Nemo on the Disney channel in the afternoon. I am feeling better today and have been able to play more with him so we limited TV this morning to Sesame Street which is a favorite for sure.

"See mom, it's Elmo!"

Eli really only likes to watch Elmo on Sesame Street so the entire time leading up to "Elmo's World" he used his couch as a climbing wall and slide. Looks like he is feeling more himself. I sure hope it lasts. :)

We cleared our coffee table of its accessories as soon as Eli began pulling up a year ago so I now find myself sitting on it a lot to fold clothes and stuff. Eli likes to sit on it and read books and unfold all the clothes that I fold. :)

Well, hopefully this will be our last "sick" post for awhile. I'm sure my office is wondering if I am ever going to work a full week again!

Bonding

I can't tell you how much I adore seeing these two interact together. With each passing week Hailey notices Eli more and more, and he is really enjoying that! He tries to make her smile and laugh and loves playing with her. Tonight I let them both sit in the rocking chair and told Eli to show Hailey some books. He loved it. He pointed to things and talked to her about the book. He loves her so much. I was having a hard time holding back the tears behind the camera. :)

Eli is a big fan of these snowman pajamas (so much that he is requesting to wear them EVERY night) and goes and gets Hailey's matching PJs and requests that I put them on her as well. Ha!

How blessed I feel to be their mommy!

This picture below cracks me up. (Hailey's bow ended up being too small so I changed it before I took the pictures above in case you are observant!). Eli kept grabbing Hailey's thumb and pulling it out of her mouth and saying "no mouth." I couldn't figure out why he was doing that until I realized that I have started telling Eli to take his thumb out of his mouth when I find him sucking it endlessly throughout the day. He decided it was his turn to boss somebody around! :)

My mom left today after staying with us for a week. She was such a huge help while Eli was in the hospital and then again when Hailey got sick and needed to miss day care this week. She ended up staying here longer than she had planned because of the snow and road conditions in Arkansas but we were so thankful to have her!

Eli is saying "Tanks Nana" in this picture. :)