FOOD!
This sounds like a strange thing to start with but we've done a few things really different for us in the food department this month that have been kind of fun. First, I scored a bread maker at the church yard sale for $15 and have decided to start baking our own bread. It's been such a fun venture, I love the process of letting it bake and mix and rise, and I think I have finally figured out how to cut the homemade loafs with out butchering them! I haven't bought a loaf of bread in about a month now and what I've made has been decently tasty. I did pizza dough in it last Friday and oh wow, it was so delicious. It turned out perfectly! 
We also signed up for one month of a Community Supported Agriculture box (a CSA box) through a local farm here in the valley. Once a week I go up to our local Whole Foods and pick up my box of produce that was picked on the farm the day before and packed up and shipped to my neighborhood the next day. It has been quite an experience, one I have always wanted to try. There are definite plusses and minuses to this program--the produce is delicious, so fresh, and the variety has been great--who knew you could get purple carrots and purple cauliflower?! The down side is that it's too much produce for us for one week. Going in with another family someday might be a good solution. It's also tough at this stage of life, where I have such limited time for cooking and menu planning, to be forced to come up with creative ways to use things like leeks. If I didn't have a rather demanding 1 year old, it would be a fun adventure, but right now it's too much work and pressure to figure out how to eat it all and what to do with it all. So this week was our last week and I'm not going to renew our subscription at this point. But it's been a fascinating trial and someday when we are a family of 4 with kids in school I'd love to do it again. Plus, it has shown me that I can branch out at the store and purchase things I otherwise might not have. We've learned both of us really like raw kale in salads with a creamy type dressing (like poppyseed). We have both enjoyed the fresh spinach salads. We have not enjoyed the beets or onslaught of oranges we've gotten! :)
The other thing I've been doing this month in attempts to save us a little money (which has worked by the way!) is to choose just 7 meals and cook those 7 meals every week for the month. Yes, it sounds monotonous, and at times it is, but oh my word it has made life so much easier! I don't have to spend time combing through recipes every week trying to figure out what sounds good. I don't have to make a new grocery list every week. And I always know what's for dinner. What have we been enjoying this month?
Southwestern Chicken Chopped Salad (the dressing is made from plain greek yogurt with a bit of ranch and taco seasonings mixed in--so so good, it's addicting!)
Chicken Gyros (so so good!)
Homemade pizza (dough from the breadmaker!)
one night of the week is "eat what we already have in the freezer" night
Salads from our CSA box
It's been a rich and different month for us food-wise, but it's been fun! I'm looking forward to mixing up our menu again next month and choosing 7 new dishes to round out our meals.
Entertainment:
I am still addicted to Nashville. The season finale was this week (I still need to watch it) and I'll miss this show over the summer! If you're not on the band wagon, jump on!
I've rediscovered my love of the NPR Podcast Wait Wait Don't Tell Me--a news quiz game show held every Saturday. It's been a great way to keep up with some of what's going on in the world in a very humorous way.
The Biggest Loser is done with for the year (and my favorite contestant won!) so thus ends our reality TV watching. The Voice is back on, and while I enjoy it I don't tend to follow singing competitions closely enough to really know what's going on.
This month's book club book is The Great Gatsby which I suppose I really need to get a jump on! The movie comes out next month so we decided it was a good one to read now :)
The LA Zoo--we bought a year long membership last week and I've already taken Aidan twice. He loves the animals and after we see each one he starts saying "more more!" I've figured out that if we leave at 9:30 in the morning we miss traffic and can be there in about 20 minutes when the gates open at 10. The animals are super active in the morning, eating breakfast, running around (last week we saw zebras racing each other and a gorilla beating on his chest which aidan thought was hysterical!). And since it's "free" to us now it's okay if I'm only there an hour or so before heading home.
The Little Dude
Oh my gosh Aidan has grown so much and is learning new things all the time! It is crazy to watch! He's trying SO hard to talk and babbles non stop. He does have some decipherable words which is so fun. His latest words are "nana!" (banana), "bapa!" (Papa), "Wawa" (waffle, his breakfast most mornings) and "gate!" (he watches the gate to our parking lot open and close every time we drive in and out).
He is officially a walker--getting more and more steady each day, although he still cant stand up from the ground without pulling up on something. He is a kid who was born to be out and about. He wakes up from his naps standing in his crib saying "go go go!" and will bring me shoes and point to the door. He doesn't care where we're going he just wants to go! Every day he hears the garbage truck and whines and points until I scoop him up and we run out to the parking lot to watch and wave as the garbage man drives by. His vocabulary of things he now recognizes is pretty impressive. He can identify a TON of things in his books (including a lobster, a clam, and a peacock) and will point them out to you as you "read" with him. He is finally able to sit through a bedtime story at night which I love. He snuggles in, holds his giraffe and will listen and help turn pages. Although he's obsessed with Good Night Moon and actually won't let me read anything else but the "moo moo" book. So I'm ready for a new title but he's not. (Good thing I don't mind good night moon!)
He is obsessed with any moving vehicle and will no longer sleep in the car. He gets to a point where he is about to doze off and a dang truck will pass us and from the back seat I'll hear "ga ga!!" and he will be wide awake again. At the end of April we're going to an event where he can meet the trash trucks and watch them in action and sit in one and he will be thrilled.
It's been a busy month of learning and growing for all of us! Happy Easter season to all of you--Christ is risen!
