Toddler

Less to clean, bacon-wrapped jalapeños, and gardening

I figured out what to do with the jalapeños we got from people in our neighborhood! I made bacon-wrapped, stuffed jalapeños thanks to Amy’s idea 🙂

Bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapeñosStuffed bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers

I just sliced the fresh jalapeños in half, stuffed them with cream cheese, wrapped them in bacon, topped them with brown sugar, and baked them at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

Sadie and I had a sticker party the other day. Jimmy was out running an errand and I needed to do some cooking so I just pulled her chair and booster seat up to the kitchen counter and gave her some stickers while I chopped vegetables for a pot of bean soup.

She thought it was pretty neat to put stickers all over us.

Mom and daughter playing with stickers

While Jimmy was out running his errand, Niva decided to jump on our back storm door and break through the glass.

We have so many funny stories with that storm door, like when Jimmy accidentally punched through it because of Lola, Niva cracked the top pane recently, and then we just lost another to her jumping habit.

Husky broke glass door by jumping

My first thought? Well, that’s one less pane of glass to clean! 🙂

The garden has been giving us lots of yellow squash, zucchini, and arugula lately.

Zucchini, yellow squash, and arugula from vegetable garden

I got a cupcake order for our cousin Leia’s fourth birthday! I feel like I was just baking cupcakes for her first birthday. Crazy!

I had some cupcakes leftover, so I delivered a few boxes to our neighbors!

Cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles

I took Niva to the vet for her shots and they did curbside pick-up, so Sadie and I had to wait in the car while she was getting her shots and checkup.

Sadie got bored pretty fast, so I decided to take her outside to walk around and realized I didn’t put shoes on her before we left.

Barefoot toddler picking flowers

Oh well! Sometimes you just have to go barefoot and pick flowers while you wait for your dog to get shots because you can’t go into the vet’s office. This is 2020!

Have you had an “this is 2020” moments lately?

More Gardening and Five Things I’m Loving

Happy Friday! Do you have any fun plans for the weekend? We’re going to my mother-in-law’s to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday. I’m baking strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting for the occasion and I’m pretty pumped 🙂

Sadie and I did more gardening yesterday. The squash are really coming in–a few each day–and we also picked a cucumber. The cucumbers don’t seem to like the heat this year, but they’re still growing! 

Yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumber from vegetable garden

I also cooked a batch of baby potatoes with Niva keeping a very watchful eye on the whole process.

The potatoes are really simple to make: coat baby potatoes in olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and your choice of spices and bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees until fork-tender. 

Baked baby potatoes with a husky watching

In the evening, Jimmy had to run an errand for work, and Sadie and I needed to get cupcake liners, so we parted ways and each got our stuff done. 

Sadie and I got drenched in a thunderstorm on our way out of Walmart and it was kind of fun 🙂

Toddler soaked from rain in a thunderstorm

She was well behaved in Walmart and I was tempted to buy her a little toy or a balloon (her fave!), but I’ve been trying to give her my attention more than anything. 

Instead of giving her a toy, a snack, or turning on the TV when she’s whining or pulling on my leg, I try to give her me instead. Because what’s more important–what I think I “need” to get done now, or being present with the child God has blessed me with? I think I know the answer to that. It’s much easier said than done, though. 

Alright, onto five things I’m loving at the moment:

  1. Butterscotch candies. For some reason, I had been dreaming of having butterscotch candies all week and I finally picked some up last night while Sadie and I were out and they totally hit the spot. 
  2. Sermon Notes Journal. Now that we’re back to church, I’m back to taking notes in my sermon notes journal and loving it. It’s a great tool for reviewing sermons, lessons, notes, scriptures, etc.
  3. Scrapbooking. I finished up the scrapbook pages I made from our camping trip, and now I’m moving on to photos from the Fourth of July.
  4. Honey cinnamon peanut butter. Enough said, right? I’ve seriously considered making a blog solely dedicated to peanut butter reviews. I feel like I would be the only reader, haha.
  5. Passing down clothes. Whenever Sadie grows out of clothing, I pass it down to my sister’s daughter, Caroline, and I love seeing her wear the outfits I have so many memories of Sadie wearing. So special ❤

Do you like butterscotch-flavored things?

What are you up to this weekend?