Ma Belle Evangeline

I used to do a month to month update of Evie until she turned 1 and then stopped. She has been growing and changing so much that I decided I'd do another one for my own benefit and for my family that now live so far away from me and don't get to see her very much.

Evangeline is 15 months old now! She may only be 15 months old but you'd think she was a 2 year old. She is SUCH a toddler! Evie is the most adventurous little girl I've ever met! Nothing scares her! Her best bud at our apartment complex is a 8 month old, 100 pound, Alaskan Husky that knocks her to the ground licks her face and she LOVES IT! She looks forward to seeing this dog EVERY DAY!

She has no fear of water or running out in the street (which I love)

She is shy at first and then gets super chatty once she knows you.

She climbs on the table EVERY chance she gets and empties out my cabinets 20 times a day.

She's beyond happy if you take her outside and LOVES animals.

She insists on going down the BIGGEST slide at the playground all by herself and always chooses to play with older kids. She will do stairs until her shoes wear out if you let her. 

Oh, she has the BIGGEST feet ever! She is already in a size 6! (she gets that from mom)

She's currently addicted to Tangled, Princess and the Frog and Curious George.

Thank goodness too because Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was making me insane! 

She pushes all my pillows off my sofa every day no matter how many times I tell her not to.

She think's it's funny when I tell her "No!"

The only way I can get it across to her that I mean business is to sneak up on her, smack my hands together and yell NO!!! Like, scare her to DEATH!! It seems like abuse but she finally stops, but no worries, she still laughs at me...  

She likes to velcro her own shoes when it's time to go.

If you say the word "go" and you are not standing on the front porch in the next 3 minutes you'll have a major meltdown on your hands.

She still only says "mom" "dad" & "Uh-oh"

Every time I try to take her picture she tries to put my lens cap back on my camera so all my pictures look like this..

Every time she gets hurt (no matter to what degree) she takes about 5 seconds to recover and then wants to be put down again. She loves to get tangled up in the blinds, especially if we've just told her NOT to get tangled up in the blinds. Her hair is super curly (like her daddys) which I love, but it gets fluffed into an afro as soon as she gets in her carseat so no one ever gets to see it. Her hair is finally long enough for pig tails and they KILL me every time! She loves to clap! She'll clap and won't stop until everyone in the room has joined in too. She claps between every bite at lunch and whenever a song plays. She is constantly hiding in my closet and is not trust worthy in the bathroom. 

She climbs on EVERYTHING! 

I can't get her to eat anything right now. She only eats bananas and peaches. Makes me crazy.

She's such a blast

I can't get enough of her firey personality!

She's a handful, and makes me nuts, but she's my sunshine :) 

xo, Meg

Whimpy Salsa

I made some of my "Whimpy Salsa" the other day and I've had a flash flood of people asking me for the recipe so instead of re writing it 20 times I thought I'd just make a blog post out of it.  I love salsa but I am a major baby when it comes to anything spicy! (like, too much Ketchup is spicy for me) 

I found a recipe on Pinterest, it was a cilantro lime chicken recipe with tomatoes on the top, I made it for dinner one night and it was really good but I made WAY too much of the tomato topping and didn't want to waste it! 

So I thought, 

"hmm I BET I could turn this into salsa!

So added my own stuff and VIOLA! Wimpy Salsa was born! 

It's more of a zesty-lime-vegetarian-salsa so don't feel bad about eating 2 bottles of it in one sitting

.i don't.

So first off sorry about the bad instructions

I didn't major in fractions so I never use measuring cups if I can get away with it lol

My recipe makes about 7 cups of salsa so I'll let you do the math if you want more or less than that :)

Here are the ingredients

1 White Onion

8 (ish) Scallions (Green Onions)

3 Big Tomatoes

2 Cans of Corn

Cilantro 

Salt & Pepper

Olive Oil

Sugar

Lime Juice 

Dice up the green onions, white onions and tomatoes into small chunks. Pour the corn (no water) and diced veggies into a large bowl. Stir. Add 3.5 table spoons of lemon juice, you can add more or less if you like, just keep tasting it as you go. Stir. Pour on olive oil, i'm not sure how much I actually use, I just cover the top and then mix it all in. If I HAD to estimate I bet it would be around 3/4's a cup. Just make sure the mix has a light coat, don't drown it and you'll be fine. Stir. Finely chop up the cilantro, I always use 1/2 to 3/4's of the bundle but this is another ingredient you add as much or as little as you like. 

(This is dumb but I add just enough to make the salsa look pretty and then call it good ha ha ha.) 

Add to mix and stir.

Next step is the MVP of this recipe! THE SUGAR!! I put about 3.5 table spoons of sugar in, especially if my tomatoes aren't perfectly ripe. Add to mix and stir. This is another ingredient you can add more or less of if you like. 

Last, salt and pepper to taste!

I put mine in jars so they stay fresh and I can easily take them over to peoples house.

GREAT neighborhood gift at Christmas and everyone LOVES this stuff! 

Enjoy!

Xo, Meg

Patmos Greece

Today was an AWESOME day for our trip! Mine and Nat's husbands are big motorcycle guys and they both had to sell their bikes when they got married 

.I'm now wearing Brandons Harley on my finger :).

So since we feel bad about that we try to do at least one day on every trip on some sort of bike.

Since Patmos is such a small Greek island we decided today was a great day to rent some Vespas!

We woke up just off shore of the Island for an AMAZING view at breakfast and then headed for the tender boats!

We hit up a little scooter shop right off the dock and got the day started early

Here's Joe checkin' out the selection

Jareds wishful thinking of driving his own scooter instead of riding in the car with Mom and Dad and Evie lol 

.Sorry Jay.

. and of course Evie running laps around everyone and winning over the hearts of the natives .

 We drove around to a few beaches and saw most of the Island and then worked our way up the mountain to a really holy site for most churches.

 On the Isle of Patmos there is a grotto at the top of the mountain where it was said that John received the inspiration to write the Book of Revelations. Inside the Grotto was really cool, you couldn't take pictures but they had places in the rock plated in gold where John had supposedly laid his head or nelt to pray. 

  .the Grotto is the domed building on the right.

After that we climbed the mountain a little higher and visited a really beautiful Monastery!

(again, couldn't take pics inside but it was amazing how much detail these people put in their work inside)

These 2 pictures pretty much describe my entire trip with a one year old...

. I tripped over her so many times i'm surprised she lived!.

 After the Monastary we headed back down the mountain to the beach and Jared finally got his ride on the vespa :)

 The beach was great! 

Evie loves to play in the shallow part but, being the Miss Priss that she is with mud, she hated the rocky sand in the shallow end and insisted on being held for the rest of the afternoon.

 We ate lunch right on the beach and then got back on the ship.

That night we went to a "Cinematastic" show on the boat and Evie danced and clapped and spun circles through the entire thing until she crashed ha ha ha

My next blog is on an AMAZING day in Kusadasi Turkey!! 

There are no words to describe this place!

p.s Sorry I don't post a ton of my "photography" from this trip on my family blog. I kind of save the majority of those for posts on my photography blog. I'll be sure to send links when I post those though!

xo, Meg