Caleb and I love Charlie, too

My Mom asked where the Charlie pictures were with Caleb and myself.  Caleb is not as much of an animal lover as Seth, but he is getting used to her.  Especially when she is quietly sleeping...

I look a little sleepy in this picture.  When girlfriend gets over the 4:30am potty wake up calls, we are going to be best buddies.  

The Newest Horvath

Meet Charlie.  She has blue eyes and is a super sweet mixed breed.

Seth asked for a puppy for Christmas but we were in California.  This will be his first puppy experience because our lab Jake was already full grown when Seth came along.

Tuckered out.

I was most worried about how Jake would feel about her.  He is 9, and we all know that makes him really old in dog years.

It didn't take him long to warm up to her.  

New buddies.  Now Jake can stop tearing up our floor when we leave the house because he hates to be left alone.  Thanks Charlie!

Christmas Ornaments

When you haven't posted in 22 days, it seems the best and most appropriate thing to post about is...

Ornaments!

I really enjoy the month of December and having a Christmas tree twinkling with lights in our living room.  The first thing Caleb does every morning when he wakes up is run to turn on the lights. 

These are some of my favorite ornaments hanging on our tree this year.

This first ornament is from our honeymoon, which we spent in Vail in December of 2001.

This ornament is from our 1st Anniversary in 2002 in San Francisco.

This one is from a gift exchange we did with a home team we were attending at our church in 2003.  There was a girl sitting next to me that I didn't know, and she whispered to me, "Pick that bag.  I think you'll really like it."  I loved it and now, 8 years later, we are still great friends. 

We do an ornament exchange with my Mom's side of the family each Christmas.  This guitar was sent to our family last year from our cousins Pete and Brittany.  I had never seen a guitar ornament with the sheet music behind it.  Love it!

Last year, my parents gave this ornament to our boys.  You push a button, and the train goes around the track and inside the tunnel.  The little skaters go in a circle around the white tree, and it has a mini light show that fades from blue to purple to white as the song (There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays) plays.  The boys love this, and they were so excited to put it on the tree again this year.

This is our brand new ornament we just received from our family exchange this year!  Our cousins Keith and Caitlin sent this from Florida, and I love that it reminds me of all the Christmases we spent as kids in Florida at my grandparent's house.  We would always spend one day of our trip going to West Palm Beach and playing in the sand.

 I love how so many of our ornaments tell a story, either of a place we have been or of a loved one that gifted it to us.  Merry Christmas!

Western Seth

Seth had Western Day at school the day before Thanksgiving Break.  They dress up in western wear and have square dancing during P.E.

Yee-Haw!

Nice, polite, smiley cowboy...

Rough and tough cowboy...

Cowboy that is tired of his mom taking pictures...

Trying Pinterest Recipes

I have been attempting some new recipes that I have found on Pinterest. The first recipe I tried, Veggie Crescent Fold-Ups, got a thumbs down by everyone in our family.  Caleb gagged just by looking at the insides of them, but that is not entirely unusual for him.

I can't even find the link now, but you basically mixed cream cheese, sour cream, broccoli and carrots together with a few spices, spooned it onto crescent rolls and folded them up to bake.  The appeal for this one was chopping the broccoli and carrots pretty small so that picky eaters weren't as worried about the vegetable content.  I guess if the whole thing tastes like poo, then it doesn't matter if there are veggies hidden in it or not.  No one is going to eat them!

Which reminds me of something a pharmacist once said to me about a medicine I was picking up for Caleb.  It was a nasty smelling liquid antibiotic, and I asked if they could flavor it to make it easier for him to take.  She came back with, "Yes, but that medicine tastes like poop and if you flavor it, it is just going to taste like bubble gum poop."  

Sweet.

Moving right along, next I tried these two recipes in one meal.  

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos

and Chipotle's Cilantro Lime Rice.

These were both a success.  Initially, I took the taquitos out too soon because they were getting pretty brown around the edges.  But once they cooled a bit, I realized they weren't very crispy at all.  So I popped them back in the oven for another 5 -7 minutes with foil on top and they were much better.

I LOVED this rice.  It tasted just like Chipotle's rice to me.  Added a side of black beans and it was a yummy meal that was pretty easy to make. (Steve did make the statement that although he liked these, taquitos by definition are supposed to be corn tortillas with beef inside, not flour tortillas with chicken.  These should have been called "flautas".  Note taken, I just follow the recipes sir, I don't name them.)

Lastly, we had Santa Fe Chicken Salad Wraps for lunch this week.

I did not even offer these to the kids, there were way too many things in them they would not have liked.  But I thought they had great flavor from the lime juice, cumin and cilantro, and it was a nice change of pace from a sandwich. 

Have you tried any new recipes lately?