As we start the approach to 7 months, Haiden has become a wiggle worm!! I think he is ready to crawl, he just doesn't know what to do. He wants to see everything and discover new things. When we take him out of the house he just takes everything in, and it's amazing to see the little expression on his face that shows you the little wheels are turning and he is learning from experiencing life! 

Here are a few pictures of his sleeping habits, which I find incredibly cute, and when we check on him before we go to bed I end up staring at him for at least 10 minutes! He loves to put blankets over his face, since he puts them in his mouth to put himself to sleep!! And Goose loves being in his crib while he is sleeping or playing. She wants to play with him and we often find her toys in his crib. Or we will hear him laughing and she rubbing all over him and he's flipping around to pet her and play with her. 

I've also been making Haiden food in our Magic Bullet. I will add one to two cubes of his frozen pureed food in with his jar food! I feel bad when he eats the same thing over and over, so this is an easy way to add in more veggies and change up his day to day snacks. 

 Cheesy Pasta with Summer Veggies

4 cups sliced, assorted veggies (zucchini, broccoli, peas)

1 cup grape or fresh tomato, chopped

8 oz whole wheat pasta

1-1/2 TBS canola oil

2 med garlic cloves, minced or 1/4 tsp garlic salt

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 tsp dried Italian seasoning (I just used oregano with the salt and pepper, which I used more than the recommended amount because I thought it could use more)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup mozzarella (I used Monterey Jack, since that's what we already had)

1. Cook pasta, drain water (all but 1/4 cup)

2. Heat oil in large skillet as pasta cooks. Add garlic and onion to skillet. Saute over medium heat.

3. Add uncooked hard veggies and cook 3 minutes. Add soft veggies and cook. Add Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Add tomato last and heat until warmed through. (If you are using peas I would suggest adding them in last with the tomatoes as well)

4. Add cooked pasta to veggie mix and add the reserve water if needed. 

5. Add in the cheese until melted.

 Chicken Tacos with Cucumber Salsa

2 TBS canola oil

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 packet of chili seasoning (I used a whole package of taco seasoning)

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 chicken thighs, cooked and shredded with a fork (I used 3 and just chopped them into tiny squares)

1 cucumber seeded and chopped (I did not worry about the seeds)

1 15 oz can tomatoes, drained and chopped (I used rotel, of course, but it made the dish almost too spicy to manage, so if you don't like lip burning spiciness then I would stick to regular tomatoes)

3 TBS taco sauce

salt/pepper

taco shells or tortillas

1 cup cabbage

2 TBS sour cream

1. Cook the chicken.

2. In skillet over medium head add oil, saute pepper flakes, chili seasoning and 1/2 onion until soft ~5 minutes. Add chicken until warmed through. 

3. In a large bowl mix cucumber, tomato, 2 TBS taco sauce, remaining 1/2 onion, salt and pepper.

3. Spoon chicken mix into taco shells, top with cucumber salsa and cabbage. Mix remaining 1 TBS taco sauce into sour cream and drizzle on top.

Crunchy Cashew Pork 

2 tsp corn starch

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup cider or red vinegar

2 TBS soy sauce

2 tsp + 2 TBS canola oil

3/4 pound boneless pork, cut into thin strips

1 cup thinly sliced carrots

1 cup broccoli florets

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 cup cashews

+ hot rice

In a bowl, combine corn starch, broth, vinegar, soy sauce and 2 tsp oil until smooth. Set aside. In a large skillet or wok over medium heat stir fry pork in 1 TBS oil until no longer pink, remove and keep warm. Heat remaining oil, stir fry carrots and broccoli until crisp-tender. Stir in broth mixture and green onions. Bring to a boil, cook and stir 2 minutes or until thickened. Return meat to pan and heat through. Stir in cashews and serve over rice.

French Onion Burgers 

1 pound ground beef (we use turkey)

1 can Campbells condensed french onion soup

4 slices cheese

4 sandwich buns

1. Shape beef into 4 1/2 inch thick burgers.

2. Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Add burgers and cook until well browned on both sides, remove from skillet. Pour off fat.

3. Stir soup in skillet and heat to boil return burgers to skillet and reduce heat to low, cover and cook 5 minutes or until cooked through. Top with cheese and cook until cheese is melted. Serve burgers on buns and use soup mix for dipping. 

These were all amazingly delicious! The cashew pork was a bit tangy for me, but it was still delicious. And we had a blast eating these burgers, fighting over the soup for dipping! I hope you all enjoy these as much as we did!

Pensacola

Debbie (Zach's mom) came up on Friday of last week with a huge delay in traffic, due to a chemical fire on the highway to base. They locked the kids in the schools, shut down base so no one could leave, and they also closed the high way to not even let any one into our city! But that was cleared away fairly quickly, but the traffic didn't let up too much and 3 hours later than planned she made it safe and sound. She brought us presents for me and Zach and books for Haiden! My parents gave her the cooler for the top of our wedding cake, to eat for our one year anniversary, but due to my parents lack of communication the cake was still in the freezer in Texas and we got a cooler of dried iced here in New Orleans! Since it was going to be raining the whole weekend of our intended beach vow renewals, and with Debbie getting in late we decided to sleep in a bit and left for Pensacola around noon Saturday. All of the friends we invited except one, was able to make it, but when he found out it was just our family and him, he bailed as well. (Once we got back onto base we found out our neighbor had gone down there for  the weekend and had just gotten back lol!) We made it in about 4 hours, which seemed like ages, with all the rain and traffic. And since we got in later than expected we weren't able to go to the Aviation Museum on base, which I thought Haiden would love, so that was a bit of a bummer. We ended up eating a McGuire's Pub and showed Debbie all the millions of dollars and famous people who had visited. 

Then we trekked back to the hotel to change, and hand Haiden off to Grandma Debbie for the night and Zach and I headed to Seville Quarter!! 

This was finally the first time we had been here together. I went for Chilli's graduation and Zach went while he was in A school. We tried to go while I visited him for Valentine's Day but it didn't work out. So we were both SUPER excited about finally being able to party it up! Seville Quarter is amazing!! If you look under the Seville Quarter part of the sign, that is a list of all the bars inside! It's like an indoor North Gate/bar mall! You pay a cover of $5 each and then have free reign on all the bars, walking from one to the next. Plus each bar has its own theme, and music so there is literally something for everyone. We opted for the piano bar, since we got there at 9 and everything else seemed pretty dead. We started out at the bar, but I hate bar stools, I'm too short to get comfortable on most of them, so we decided to grab some Cider Ales at another bar and when we went back, we hoped to find a seat at a table. When we got to the beer bar (like the Fox and Hound) but with beers we had never seen before, Zach tried a Toasted something Ale and I got Strongbow...on draft!! (2 glasses so we didn't have to go back) And while we were waiting for our drinks I turn to Zach and say, I should speak with an accent, since no one here knows us, we can totally get away with it. Now the thing you have to understand is that I frequently would do this with my little sister, Kelsie or with Briana when we would go out. So I'm decent with an English accent, which always turns into an Australian one by the end of the night. And poor Zach, all of his attempts at accents turn into this weird mod-podge accent that sounds like a drunk person from India. But since we were at a bar, he thought why not since it's loud and people will be drinking, I should sound pretty believable. To me, he was adorable and I just laughed at him! So we speak in our English accents from Westchester. Where I was born, but grew up in the states, and where Zach's dad was stationed and lived in the Army. And we both met in high school and realized we had so much in common being the only two Brits around, that we fell in love, married and had a baby and were celebrating our anniversary. Hahahahahaha!!! As the drinks kept flowing, we got to playing a game of "guess which branch and their rank" game. I sucked, I thought all the big bulky guys where marines and everyone else was navy. I was wrong EVERY time!! But Zach was right and he knew their rate!! CRAZY fun! We met a ton of people and talked to a bunch about A school and the area. There was an entire group sitting next to us that had just gotten to Pensacola that week and were all pilots! Which I thought was cool, but Zach felt bad for misleading them with our made up English life because they were all super nice, and all the girls fawned over pictures of Haiden. Then there was also an older couple sitting on our other side, where the older lady and I became fast friends. She was a hoot!! By the end of the night, I was speaking with an Australian accent and Zach was using Brit lingo, it was great!! Then right before we were to leave, Zach gets called up to the stage. Told to sit on one of the pianos where they were going to sing a song for him, from me for our one year anniversary. The tables of our "friends" made me go up there too. And they played "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx and every time we kissed the crowd went wild, with "ooohs" and "aaaahs" lol. Then one of the piano guys picked up a flute and started playing!! It was the perfect send off for the night! After that, we left and got to the hotel and were both out in about 5 minutes! 
The next morning we woke up, got Haiden who was so excited to see us :) and headed across the street to our favorite place...Waffle House!! With it still raining and Debbie needing to get back to Texas, we decided to give her a driving tour of the base, do our vows in the drizzle and then head home. With a minor stop to grab Hunger Games and The Lorax from the Navy Mall and Starbucks from the Nex. 

We did our vows under this archway to the beach, since it was raining we didn't feel like getting dirty just to go down there and come back up. But this was perfect, it was like a little alter area. Plus is was across a dirt road from the light house! Maybe one year we can do it at the top of a light house! We said our vows, kissed and hugged and were on our way home. Even though it isn't what we had planned it was still perfect and romantic and the best one year anniversary EVER! 

Once we finally made it home, Haiden was so happy to be back. He was all smiles and playing with the kitties! <3 Debbie had to get on the road right when we got back, to drive half way to College Station and sleep and then make the rest of the journey in the morning. So it was just us once we got back. Haiden stayed up a little passed bed time because he was being just too adorable! I mean look at that face!! His devious smirk, after I asked him if he was happy to be home! Over all a great week!! And now we may have to evacuate tonight or tomorrow!

Here's to more adventures!!