Here is a little video I made to recap the amazing year that was 2010. I hope you enjoy it, and we look forward to all of the excitement 2011 has to bring! Happy New Year!
Last week, Jerome and I celebrated the 11th anniversary of our first date. We had our usual dinner at Flemings in Newport Beach, and during dinner we were reminiscing over our 11 fun, and sometimes arduous years, together. Many things have changed from our first date back in 1999 till now. Family dynamics have grown and shifted, careers have evolved, friendships have came and gone, reality TV has grown from more than just the Real World on MTV, and technology has become the beast that drives our communication. One thing we laughed about was how much the style of cell phones has changed since the year we got together. Rather than post a montage of pictures of us throughout the years, I thought it would be more exciting to take a walk down cell phone memory lane. Wow, time has certainly changed!
This Christmas was probably our best holiday yet with the family. We had a great breakfast with Chile Relleno Souffle, fruit, homemade sticky buns, bacon, sausage and mimosas. We opened presents, talked, went to see Black Swan (not your typical Christmas movie to put you in the holiday spirit but it was AMAZING) and played Just Dance 2 on the Wii. Interesting thing about Just Dance 2, apparently I am not as good a dancer as I thought I was OR I had too much rhythm that the Wii controller couldn't recognize my sic moves. Nevertheless, I spent the entire day with most of my family and didn't get annoyed.
CHILE RELLENO SOUFFLE
7 eggs
1 1/2 lbs jack cheese
1/2 lb pepper jack cheese
1 pint sour cream
14 oz green chilis
Butter a large casserole dish (9x13). Shred the 2 lbs of cheese. Layer casserole in this order: cheese, salt, pepper (to taste) chilis, then repeat ending with the cheese. Beat the sour cream and eggs together. Pour over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees 60 - 90 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Take it out of the oven and let is sit 5-10 min so the juices can absorb.
Also this weekend, I started to work on Averie's room. The guest room which is now Averie's room has been empty for a few weeks and I kept telling myself I had plenty of time to work on it before she came. I do have time to finish the room before she comes BUT the baby shower is at the end of January so I now only have four weeks to complete my masterpiece. Plenty of time in my mind, to put up raw wood planking, wallpaper, paint the walls, build new closet doors, install crown molding, baseboards, chair rails, assemble all of the baby furniture, and in the living room, mount the TV, build shelves for the shelving unit, build doors to hide the shelves, paint the new doors and clean it all up to make it look spectacular. Thank goodness we will have three days to work on it next weekend during New Year's. We will be ringing in the new year by getting high on paint fumes and maybe a little bubbly.
I am so excited for the vision of the finished project that I wanted to jump on it a little early...also because my EASY projects always end up being a lot harder and take more time than I imagined. The video below is of Averie's room before I started today. It does have the baseboards removed but that's about it.
I ended up getting a lot finished in 5 hours. I put up most of the planking except for the odd sizes of the edges and I need about 4 more feet of planks. Overall I am pretty happy thus far. I decided to install each plank individually instead of using the prefabricated sheets because I loved the durability and look of each plank butt up against each other. We used the prefabricated planks in our bathroom and works for in there but I wanted Averie's room to be done right the first time. I am definitely taking my time with this room and making sure everything is perfect. The video below is what I finished today. All of the wood is raw so I will need to paint to prepare for the mass painting next weekend. I hope to get A LOT accomplished next weekend...meaning the entire room if the weather permits and the paint can dry properly. Tune in for the next update to see what we accomplished. As a teaser, the colors for Averie's room are French Silver and Blackberry Wine.
I hope everyone had a great holiday and has a wonderful New Year.
xo, Jerome
It's been awhile since I blogged and a lot has happened since then. We had a rough start to Thanksgiving week. We had an early Thanksgiving with my family and it was quite nice, not too much bickering and some good conversation. When we came home we discovered that our cat Pikachu of 10 years had died. She was a very friendly and personable cat when we got her but a traumatic trip to the vet changed her personality. Pika, Chowzie, Chowzilla, Zil Zil, P-Chu or our favorite, Zilla, went in for a routine vet check and nails trim and not 10 min after I dropped her off I got a call from the vet. I guess Pika lounged at the vet tech when he opened the cage. She then bounced off of him and then went above the crates and back behind them. I quickly raced to the vet to try and capture her. No luck. TWO DAYS later after they had to set out opossum traps and close down that side of the vet, Pika was captured. She didn't get groomed or checked out that day and she was never the same since then. She was great to me and was kind of scared of Jen. She would always purr loudly and sit right next to me to make sure she was touching me when I would work on the computer. Louis and Lola wanted to be her friend so bad and although she would withstand the constant harassment from them, she teased them endlessly and would hiss just to get a rise out of them. I will miss her sitting in the hall waiting for me to feed her or brush up against me and all those times she would interrupt me working to sit on my papers to purr loudly. We buried her in our garden and to memorialize her life, we will be placing a bird bath on top of her and some plants surrounding it.
On Thanksgiving we had a full day packed. We visited the Waszczuk and Fiori families. The morning consisted of donuts and coffee and finally getting to meet Baby Landon Sousa, Averie's future boyfriend, or one of them. He was so small and precious and such a great baby. There was barely any fussing and he slept a good majority of the time. After visiting with everyone we had to head home to cook a broccoli/cauliflower gratin and head over to the Fioris. This is where we spent the majority of the afternoon catching up, drinking wine and eating great food. Everyone is a great chef so there was plenty of amazing food to eat. My favorite was a green bean casserole, mac n chz and a jalapeno stuffing. Everything was new to me and it was nice to change it up from the traditional preparation.
From dinner we were going to head to Jen's parents so that I could experience Black Friday shopping but due to the turkey and wine and for Jen getting over a cold, we decided to stay home and do our own Black Friday shopping. We weren't looking for anything in particular because we are trying to get rid of junk in our house in preparation for Averie. However, I knew we would probably do some shopping next year so I needed to experience it first before I threw myself into it next year. Let me tell you, seeing stores crazy busy at 3AM in CRAZY! Also, seeing grown adults run in a store is even CRAZIER. It made my morning and I really couldn't believe my eyes. Next year that could be me but for now, I will say that it won't be. There were some amazing deals but nothing I had to have. I could always talk myself into buying something just because it was on sale but not this year. We did however manage to buy a $3 hand mixer. We couldn't pass it up.
Later that day, we decided to start the mass purging and decluttering of Averie's room and our office. This continued into Saturday but I am happy to say that Averie's room is empty and our office feels a lot cleaner and more functional. Next week we will hopefully prime the walls in Averie's room and then put up wallpaper and paint. We went to Home Depot and priced all of the wainscot and mouldings we are going to need. It will be a big project but well worth it. This weekend I was finally able to mark things off of my To-Do list before Averie gets here. Now only 34 more items.
I put up our Xmas lights on the house and finally, to end the great four day weekend, Jen and I had our own Thanksgiving dinner. We LOVE leftovers and Jen has been craving turkey sandwiches for lunch. She used to live off of turkey sandwiches but they urge you not to eat deli meats while pregnant so she was happy that we were cooking our own turkey. We had turkey, sage and apple sausage stuffing, brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes. The best part is that there is SO MANY LEFTOVERS!!!
Here is the recipe for the Broccoli/Cauliflower gratin from Cooking Light:
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Place cauliflower/broccoli in a broiler-safe baking dish lightly coated with cooking spray; coat cauliflower with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt; toss. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until almost tender. Cool 5 minutes.
3. Preheat broiler.
4. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Stir in panko. Stir in 1/2 cup cheese and chives.
5. Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; sauté 4 minutes or until almost tender, stirring frequently. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk; bring to a boil. Cook 3 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in remaining 1/2 cup cheese, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, parsley, and pepper. Pour milk mixture over cauliflower mixture; toss. Top evenly with cheese mixture. Broil 3 minutes or until golden brown and thoroughly heated.
Last week we had our 23 week appointment with my OB. It started out a little hectic because my fabulous doctor, whom was also pregnant and due in December, had gone in to labor early, causing the office to have to reschedule all of her appointments on short notice. The office is usually pretty packed (it is a very in-demand OBGYN practice in Newport Beach), but this time it was a madhouse. Luckily, we were able to keep our appointment time, but we will be seeing the nurse practitioner, Angela, for the next few appointments, while Dr. Lai is out on leave.
This month is November, but as we say in the office, it's MOVEMBER. Movember is an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November. Movember raises awareness and funds for men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression. Last year, our work decided to participate in Movember by growing beards but it was more of a friendly competition in the office. This year, we took it one step further and actually are raising funds as a team. http://us.movember.com/mospace/633706/ Below is a photo of the first week's progress.
week 1
We made it to the halfway point! 20 weeks of pregnancy down, and 20 weeks to go! Here are some stats on us so far:
Happy Halloween! When did teenagers become so disrespectful? I know that I may seem old saying that because I know plenty of people when I was growing up who were very disrespectful but it seems like almost every teen now is rude (or maybe it's just the kids in our track or the people that bring their kids to our track). If you have the decency to dress up and knock on my door then I will gladly give you candy, even though you wear a black sweatshirt and a mask and call that a costume, however, when you throw your empty soda cans in my planters and knock over the sidewalk candles, thats when I start to get mad. The candles weren't even on your direct path and you still managed to knock them over. Straight up HOODLUMS. What happened to all of the little kids trick or treating in the neighborhood? Do parents not want to take out their kids for candy anymore or did people just stop having kids? I remember growing up and their were lines at the front doors of houses. Not so much anymore. I guess that's a good thing because candy is so expensive now. We ran out of candy tonight because I didn't think we would get that many trick or treaters. I went to Albertsons and got a couple bags and was shocked at the cost of the 4 bags of candy. Maybe it was because I bought it last minute or maybe it was because it wasn't from Target, regardless, it was expensive. I was also bummed at the unoriginality of the costumes of teens. I saw a litter of cats and six kids with panchos, mustaches and sombreros. Is that supposed to be someone from a movie? The only two costumes I saw that were great was a guy dressed as a banana split and the other dressed like a smores.
Much to my surprise, it only ended up taking about 2 hours and the finished look is not everything I had hoped for but it's so much cleaner and we can now see the animals that run across the fence. 
The garden was cleaned out with a few survivors in order to plant next weekend.
After finishing the backyard it was now time to start the front. I figured the front big tree would be really simple because I just needed to trim a few key branches and it will begin to look thinned out. LIttle did I know, Each branch had like 4-5 more branches sprouting off of them and it was much more full then I imagined. I started with a ladder and began cutting branches as high as I could reach but soon realized that it wasn't very safe and I was going to have to climb up into the tree. For all of you that have heard of my past projects, you know that I always get hurt somehow. I myself even thought of this as I was taking my step onto the first branch. One thing led to another and I trimmed one side REALLY short. This wouldn't be a problem but I then dreaded the fact that I had to thin the other side just as much. I kind of screwed myself but I knew it would be great in the long run. The balancing of myself on the branches with shears in my hand must have been hysterical to see from the street but I was tired and kind of terrified. Never once did I feel like I was going to fall but I kept imaging a branch breaking and me falling on the shears or something snapping off and lodging itself in my eye. Well, let me tell you...the tip of the shears did break. I don't know where it shot off but luckily it wasn't in my eye. I soon put on eyewear right after that. 4 hours later I finished the tree and I was very happy.
Now being exhausted from a hard days work, we rushed off to our friend's moms 75th birthday. Gloria looked amazing as always and her mom, who is in her 90s was walking around and loving life as well. That family has amazing genes.
No-boil lasagna noodles are perfect for this recipe, as they absorb all the juices that accumulate in the crockpot. Use 2 (10-ounce) packages of frozen chopped spinach in place of fresh, if you prefer. Also, any mushroom will work.
Yield: 8 servings
Arrange the spinach in a vegetable steamer; steam, covered, 3 minutes or until spinach wilts. Drain, squeeze dry, and coarsely chop. Combine spinach, mushrooms, and pesto in a medium bowl, stirring to combine; set aside.
Combine mozzarella, provolone, ricotta, and beaten egg in a medium bowl, stirring well to combine. Stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan, and set aside. Combine the pasta sauce and the tomato sauce in a medium bowl.
Spread 1 cup pasta sauce mixture in the bottom of a 6-quart oval electric slow cooker coated with cooking spray. Arrange 3 noodles over pasta sauce mixture; top with 1 cup cheese mixture and 1 cup spinach mixture. Repeat the layers, ending with spinach mixture. Arrange 3 noodles over spinach mixture; top with remaining 1 cup cheese mixture and 1 cup pasta sauce mixture. Place remaining 3 noodles over sauce mixture; spread remaining sauce mixture over noodles. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan. Cover with lid; cook on LOW 5 hours or until done.
I modified this recipe a little. I sauteed an onion with the mushroom and added that to the spinach and pesto mixture. I also added a can of diced tomatoes that were italian seasoned to the pasta sauce mixture. Don't know if I needed it but I thought it might enhance it. At the very end, I probably would have cooked the lasagna for 4 hours instead of 5 but I will definitely be making this again. Have a great week.
Warm the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, onion, and garlic and saute until soft, about 2 minutes. Add the jar of marinara sauce, chicken broth, cannellini beans, red pepper flakes, pasta, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes. Ladle into bowls and serve.
