Domestic Diva: Fried zucchini

I've been quite the little domestic diva lately! I find this rather odd since being pregnant, you'd think I'd be fighting just to get through the day on the simple tasks, yet I've taken it to a whole new level! Go me! *Party dance*

For those of you who are LDS or avid gardeners, you've probably heard the joke about locking your car doors when you go to church during the summer, because if you don't, you'll come back to a car stocked full of zucchini. Well, the other day I snagged this ginormous zucchini from outside of someone's house trying to pawn off their over abundance of veggies from their garden. I love zucchini bread, so I knew right away I'd be making some of that. After realizing I'd have A TON of zucchini left over, I pondered about what new things I could do, since I didn't want any of this to go to waste. Then the most delicious idea came to me. Fried zucchini. MMMMMMM. I've only had it as an appetizer at restaurants, but the thought never crossed my mind until now to attempt it on my own! After browsing a few recipes online, I ended up taking pointers from a few and making my own recipe. This is what I ended up doing...

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
Dash of salt
1 egg
Sliced zucchini
3 tbsp oil

In one bowl I mixed the cheese, bread crumbs, and salt. In another bowl I whisked up the egg. I dipped the zucchini in the egg and then coated in the breading mixture. I laid them on a cookie sheet until I was ready to fry them up like so...



(See? I told you that zucchini was ginormous!)

I warmed up the oil in a large frying pan and fried the zucchini on each side until it was a dark golden brown. I say dark, because if it is too light, I don't think you get the awesome crispiness out of the breading that you could otherwise. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the color after they were cooked, as I had a friend come to the door right while I was frying these bad boys up! We dipped the zucchini in a homemade marinara and it was uber delicious! Katelyn even ate it and liked it! We're talking about a kid that we have to force feed anything green to! Amazing, right?

To be honest, it was ridiculously simple to make and I will probably do many more times in the future! Plus, I have plenty of zucchini left still haha! ;)

Home Makeover: Soules Edition!

So, my makeover isn't as dramatic as leveling a house and completely rebuilding it in 7 days, but I am sure excited about what I did! I've had this wood knickknack shelf for over 10 years. When I first got it, I was 15 and ultra obsessed with the color green. So, I decided to paint it a mint green, which was fine...10 years ago. For weeks I've been eying what I considered my green abomination in my living room and wondering what on earth I should do with it. Tossing it was the first thing that crossed my mind, but I figured there was SOMETHING I could do with it. I thought about repainting it, but then immediately concluded that it would take way too much effort. While still brainstorming, I spotted another wood project in my living room that I had made a couple years ago. Simple project really...just some wood blocks that I spray painted and applied vinyl lettering to. Then it FINALLY hit me! Spray paint that green monster!!!

Here's the green shelf in its mint green glory (uck)...


After a $3 can of spray paint and 2 hours later,a new accent piece for my living room!


Watch out Martha Stewart...

First Day of Kindergarten

Wow! I can't believe the day has already come that my little Katelyn is headed off to the "big school" (as she calls it)! Miss Katelyn started her first day of Kindergarten yesterday and she couldn't have possibly been more thrilled about it! She woke up at 7 am, which is a far cry from us usually kicking her out of bed sometime after 9 am. She was so excited, I don't think she could have stayed asleep if she tried! I got to attend her first day with her, as it was more of a parent orientation day rather than a full fledged regular school day for the kids. I think she's going to do JUST fine in Kindergarten! :D

Live List: Go To The Zoo

Yes, I know I haven't posted a single thing this summer, but for good reason! It's been quite the crazy one indeed! Fortunately, this Live List post does cover a recent event, so I won't feel too guilty about not being a dutiful blogging mommy. ;)

I was looking over my Live List this afternoon and I was thrilled to see that I had completed an item on my Live List, without even remembering I had put it there! This particular item happened to be to go to the zoo. All year I have been dying to take my girls to the zoo, hence the reason I put it on my list (but, of course, actually forgetting it was there haha). My sister, Jessica, told me a few weeks ago that she was planning on making a trip to SLC and that on her list of things to do was to go to the zoo, so the plan was set!

We ended up going to the zoo Monday afternoon. We also had quite the crew go with us too! Audrey, Mandy, Kadee, Rae, and of course Jessica, Jackson, and my girls all headed up to the zoo. We spent all afternoon there and my poor body sure could tell! Why, oh why did they build that dang zoo on a mountain?!?!? Oh well, it was worth it! Jackson spent the whole time at the zoo looking for an alligator, which we didn't find until the very end of the excursion. Katelyn's favorite part was the elephants, especially the baby elephant. For the first half of the visit, I would point the animals out to Aiden, she'd point, and then get ticked that she couldn't actually TOUCH the animals! I suppose I need to find a petting zoo somewhere close by! I think one of the favorite things of all the kids was the elephant statue that not only made elephant noises, but sprayed water out of it's trunk! They all were laughing so hard, I don't think they could breathe half of the time! Silly kids.

Here are a few pics (I took so many, so a bit of editing down was necessary haha) of the adventure...


Katelyn and Jackson watching a King vulture devour a rat. It was pretty nasty, actually...


Mama elephant and baby elephant (Zuri was born at the zoo last year)


The cousins: Jackson, Aiden, Katelyn, and Kadee


You can't go to the zoo all afternoon and NOT expect the kids to want a snack!


Katelyn and the giraffe


Aiden and Mommy were checking out the giraffes downstairs while the others (who were not confined to a stroller haha) checked them out from upstairs!


Here kitty, kitty...(I actually got the kids to say that all throughout the cat exhibit heh heh!)


This is about half of what my pictures consisted of, the back of the kids as they looked on at all the animals!


...and this would be the elephant statue that the kids had a blast with! Purely comical!

All in all, it was a fun day at the zoo. Time to check that one off the List! ;)

Happy Mothers Day!

I hope all you moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters, etc. had a wonderful Mothers Day yesterday!

My husband is my rock and it wouldn't have been a wonderful Mothers Day without him making it so! Some pretty crummy things happened yesterday, but they don't even seem that important because Nate did the best he could to make me feel wonderful! Love you honey!

I ended up getting an impromptu Mothers Day gift on Saturday, a new washer and dryer!!! Nate and I had been starting to browse for a new washer, since we knew we were going to need a new one soon. We needed one that was bigger, to fit our ever expanding laundering needs, and our current one needed some repairs, but we didn't want to go to the trouble of fixing it if we needed something larger. Looking online Friday night, I stumble upon an absolute steal of a deal for a washer/dryer set that we just could NOT pass up! Buying this particular set was half the price of the the washers alone that we were looking at. Since we had the money do it, we figured now would be the best time! Saturday morning I got up to go look at the washer and dryer to make sure it was what we wanted and TA DA! We are now the proud owners of a new washer and dryer! Wahoo!



It's nice having a washer and dryer that were made in this century! HA!

I spent Saturday evening with Melissa beading and making watchbands. I had been absolutely itching to learn how to make them. Now I think I've officially caught the beading bug! I'll show you my creations when I do my Live List post about them :)

As for the rest of my gifts, Sunday morning I got from Katelyn, Aiden, and Nate Season 4 of CSI (which I've been wanting for quite a while, but just never got around to getting it) and some Teddy's root beer, which is quite tasty stuff! I also got a cute throw pillow from my in laws too.

I got some great stuff from Katelyn that she made at preschool for me. This is the stuff I love to get and haven't gotten much of since she really hasn't had much opportunity to do it over the years. She brought me home an artistic rendition of myself (as pictured below), a picture frame that she made, and a card that had a survey about mom in it. It was one of those surveys that the kid gets to fill in the blank about mom. My absolute favorite was "My mom weighs ______ pounds." Her answer? "She's lost a few." Good girl!!! No gigantic number in that blank! Haha! ;)



She was so proud that she managed to use just about every color in the rainbow to draw me!

Sunday I didn't get breakfast in bed because we had 9 AM church and we were up late the night before. I did, however, get lunch "in bed" (being defined as lunch while lounging on the couch haha). I got to enjoy some lumpia and rice, which you can never go wrong with!

Nate was wonderful in taking care of the kids and letting me rest as much as possible, and by rest I DID get a Sunday nap in, YEAH! He played with the kids and tried to keep them as quiet as possible, so I could get a nap because sleep has been hard to come by the past few days!

We had dinner at my in laws that night. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but I had a really killer headache come on while we were eating! Fortunately after dosing myself with drugs and a short nap, I was healed! For Nate's mom's Mothers Day gift, we bought her an ice cream cake, which we got to enjoy after dinner. It was a peanut buster parfait ice cream cake from none other than Dairy Queen! Oh my deliciousness!!! It was awesome! We had to store the cake at my dad's Saturday and he jokingly asked where his cake was (as PB parfaits hare his absolute favorite), so I think we know what he's getting for Fathers Day! ;)

I hope everyone else had a fantastic Mothers Day too!

Live List: Go to Oregon to visit friends and family

I'll blog in more detail about our trip later (as there is A LOT to cover), but I figure I'll at least get it crossed off my Live List!

I cannot even begin to explain how absolutely THRILLED I was to take this trip. Not only was I excited to go show my family my old stomping grounds, but I was also excited to go see my friends and family in Oregon.

The first part of our trip took us to Salem, my hometown. Currently, my Uncle Vance and Aunt Cheryl live in Salem (Oregon just can't go without at least one Stockham clan residing there!), as well as my cousins. Also, my Oregon besties, the Sullivans, are still in that neck of the woods too! We've known them now going on 23 years! Love them to death!


We went with Vance and Cheryl up to the Portland Saturday Market, which was a blast!


My cousin Jack-Lynn's girls, Alyssa and Hayley, with Katelyn.


Jen Sullivan and I with our kiddos

I wish I would have gotten some pics when we had dinner with the whole Sullivan clan, but we were all just having a ball catching up with each other, I never busted the camera out! Bad me!

On the last leg of our trip, we went down to Grants Pass for a few days to visit Nate's grandma (aka Memere). Katelyn LOVED spending time there. In fact, one day we were going to have an outing and she didn't want to go because she wanted to stay home with Memere. What a sweetheart! Also while we were there, Memere wanted to make Katelyn a birthday cake, since Katelyn's birthday was only a week away while we were there. :)



I love all my family and friends so much, it eats me up inside every time I have to leave them after having such a good time with them!

Live List: Find a new "Hole in the wall"

I've been sitting in bed sick for the past two days and bored out of my mind. It just now dawns on me that I should catch up a bit on my blogging. Wish I would have thought of that, oh, 10 hours ago!

Right before Jonny (Nate's brother) left on his mission a few weeks ago, Nate wanted to take his grandfather, grandmother, Jonny, and our little family to a diner for breakfast called Ramblin' Roads. Sweet! I love little diners/cafes that are family owned. They have the best food! So, we all head out to have breakfast at this fun little diner out in the industrial park part of NSL. As we pull up, we see that it is Ramblin' Roads no more! We see that new ownership has moved in and it's now called Christine's Kitchen. We almost didn't go inside because we weren't sure what the deal was. I'm sure glad we went in! That was some FANTASTIC food! I had the most delicious omlette with swiss cheese, bacon, and avocado. MMMMM! It was also good to spend some time with Jonny before he left to the MTC. Good food, good company...what more could you ask for?