don't do it...

i just can't help it sometimes... last week i got my hair "done" i hate going somewhere and paying to get my hair "done"... i never really like it and end up chopping at it myself...

So the other night, after a blur of a day with sick babies, i had a bunch of shirts to get done for a show this weekend... and at 2 am i could no longer stand it... I had to cut my freakin bangs.. they were driving me nuts... the woman who cut my hair did a great job, but did a side swipe cut on my bangs, that were super grown out... and the things kept getting in my eyes and would'nt stay pinned... so I chopped them... maybe I should have waited....

keeping busy....

so B has been in Chicago for the last week.

Me and the boys have been sick for the last week. We

are finally coming out of it... Thank God..

I just had a cold right after Christmas, and was so thankful the boys didn't pick it up... I guess it was just delayed a couple of weeks...
So being home sick with two sick boys, and no husband, has actually surprisingly not been that bad. My mom brought over all the needed supplies... soup, coffee creamer, sorbet, and gossip magazines... haa... haaaa... no seriously dumb magazines are the best..

So we hunkered down, blew noses, cleaned up puke, changed a million and a half poopy diapers and watched alot of movies, and took on the average three baths a day... Ollie slept in my bed with me... we had multiple humidifiers going and we survived....After a week of being sick, the boys were brimming over with energy... but since they still have what look like slugs coming out of there noses, and it is so freakin cold outside, we opted for another day indoors.... I did open all the curtains to let in as much sun as possible. It was bone chillin outside, but looked gorgeous and sunny....

Here are some of our indoor activities this week...

Ollie and me, and the art bin makes three.... He wanted to make a robot, I made him antenna and glasses and told him he was a robot... he bought it for awhile, than moved on to the stickers....

The boys love bubbles, I hate the sticky mess... problem solved, let them do it the bath...

This morning as one kid started using the couch as a jungle gym, I decided to make an obstacle course, we started out with just a bridge, and kept adding till it was the length of the living room, ending with a slide... this actually kept them busy for almost two hours... it was awesome..

We moved to the kitchen to make lunch, Ollie found a box of pudding while I was getting down the mac and cheese... so I had the boys help make pudding... Ollie dripped on the counter and started drawing with it, Max joined in... so I added a cup of pudding to the counter... boys painted for almost a half an hour... I made lunch and actually ate before they did for once...

So that was our week... join in next week for more adventures of the raetz clan....

a little bowl of heaven...

... the real name is ratatouille... and it's better than the movie...

I got this recipe from becki, and looked up a couple online, than put them all together to make my own version. All recipes were basically the same, just small differences, so feel free to take liberties and experiment and come up with your own twist...

*also be warned I don't really measure things, hmmm (mom) who did I learn that from?

this is what you need:

An eggplant (whatever size you feel like getting, but medium works for me)

2 zucchini

1 green pepper

1 small onion

Mushrooms

about 5 or 6 tomatoes

(fresh are kind of spendy so you can use canned chopped...I scored a big bag of almost to ripe for a dollar at my organic produce market...deal of the week)

a big bunch of basil

Kosher salt (so much better than table salt)

pepper

and lots of garlic

This is what you do...

pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the eggplant in half brush with olive oil and put on baking sheet cut side down. cook the eggplant for like 10 minutes till the skin starts to barely wrinkle. All this is doing is cooking out some of the bitter taste of the eggplant, I personally love the bitter taste of eggplant so I sometimes skip this step, but it is good either way.

while the eggplant is cooking chop your onion and saute till slightly translucent in a bit of olive oil. set aside

chop zucchini, green pepper, and tomato into chunks. slice up your mushrooms...

when the eggplant is done and cool enough to handle chop that into chunks too...

than you layer, I use a dutch oven, but you could use anytype of casserole dish.

I start with a little olive oil in the bottom, I crush about two cloves of garlic in, throw in some basil and than start layering the zucchini, eggplant, peppers, mushrooms and cooked onion.

After the first layer drizzle some olive oil, crush some garlic, add some chopped basil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Repeat layering until you use up your veggies... I usually layer twice.... I use a generous amount of garlic and a generous amount of basil... I end with tomatoes on the top, some basil and give it a good sprinkle of salt.

Turn you oven down to 350 cover and bake for as long as you want... I usually cook it for about 3 hours.... this dish is awesome if you cook it and let it sit overnight, but cooking it for a couple of hours and than letting it sit works to... this also makes a big pot of it, so you should have leftovers for the next day... the flavor just intensifies if it rests overnight, you can also serve this hot or cold...

Now how to serve it....

I buy Polenta pre made in a tube... you can get this at freddys in the healthy section, or trader joes has it for a good price... you can also buy it in dry form and cook it up like grits, you can use the grits creamy, or how I do it...

I cut the polenta in slices and than quarter the slices... In a frying pan I heat about a tablespoon of olive oil and crushed garlic... I add my polenta and cook it up, just barely browning it... it will break up a little so don't be concerned if this happens..

scoop your polenta into a nice sized bowl, top with a big scoop of ratatouille.

we like whole milk fresh mozzarella in this house, so we add some of that and serve with a good crunchy french bread... It does not look like it would be so good, but believe me, this stuff is golden...

who knew that only a couple of ingredients could come together and make such a yummy thing.

here we go again...

Last winter I was so impressed at how healthy we stayed, Ollie was no longer in daycare 2 days a week. I had just had max, and we didn't really go anywhere, so I guess that is how we stayed so healthy. This winter it seems like every other week somebody has something.... Luckily B has stayed healthy, which is pretty impressive since he works a ton and with so many people... but whatever, I guess whatever he is doing is working for him. I am hoping he stays away from this bug, since he leaves for Chicago on Sunday and will be gone for two flippin weeks..(everyone feel sorry for me...two babies, two weeks...by myself... boooo hoooo)

Last night max was up till almost 11pm, which is a far stretch from his 8-8:30 bedtime... the poor guy has an awful cough, and snot pouring out of his little nose.

Ollie has a blankie that he carries with him everywhere, his lovie is his security, whenever he is sick, tired, frustrated, you name it he grabs his blankie and curls up... I am max's blankie, the kid has not gotten attached to anything in any lovie way except me, which is driving me crazy....

I love the little bugger, but by the end of the night I can't have anyone touch me, because max has used up every last bit of my physical contact limit... sometimes overused....

I must say on days when he is acting like a little man and doesn't really need me, I miss it alittle, and I know in a couple of months, when he isn't nursing anymore and doesn't need constant contact I will miss it, but right now I long for those days....

almost 3

On February 1st Ollie will turn 3.

I cannot believe he is already 3. In the last month he has gone from my toddler to my little boy that can hold a conversation and has an opinion. We are working on potty training, I can't believe how long and lanky he looks sitting on the big potty. He loves other kids, and gets so excited to go play.

We started going to our local library reading time, and he gets up and walks right to the foot of the librarian and sits and waits for the story to be read. The only problem we have is he thinks that the librarian is just there for him, and that it is his personal story time. We are working on the personal bubble, so far ollie does not quite understand this, he unfortunately is a close talker, a very close talker.

This morning we did our normal outing to the grocery store, I have hesitated checking him into the play area, just because I actually like grocery shopping with him (most of the time). He is my helper, he helps pick out produce, walks along beside me and keeps the daunting task of grocery shopping kind of fun. But I realized that my reasons for keeping him out of the play area were kind of selfish. So I checked him in today, handed him over to a cute little old woman named Harriot, and me and max went on our way. I was a little sad, but ollie didn't even give me a second look. What a difference from checking him into the nursery at church a couple months ago.... I never have made it through a full service...(we haven't been to church in awhile...oops) I purposely went through a check out that I could see into the play area, and watch him without him knowing I was there... he had a little friend, a little blonde named Bruce, it looked like they were making food in the little kitchen, than they moved onto the trains, and than ran around the room like galloping horses... my heart broke alittle. Pretty soon he is going to be all grown-up.... It makes me realize that staying home is the best decision we made as a family, even though there are some days I hate it, my kids are growing so fast and pretty soon I will not be the coolest thing in there life.

good bye christmas...

today i took down the tree... and i feel much better... christmas is so weird.

don't get me wrong i love all the holiday hub bub as much as any other american but as i get older things just are'nt the same.... i guess the magic has been lost for me.

We did have an awesome christmas though. We did all the christmas crap, went and saw the lights... visited santa, hung out with friends and family.....

This year I decided we should stretch it out the holiday fun, and forced my mom into having a christmas eve eve.... it was actually really fun....For many years I lived away from home, so christmas to me was always a vacation, at least a week of rest and relaxation....next year I think we will do the same christmas eve eve... and than head to cali to spend the holiday with b's family... it is only fair, he has been up here for the last three....

I was lucky enough to have my two younger sisters in town for two weeks ... Jo went back to bellvue on tuesday, and becki left for texas on wednesday... thursday was a very sad day for me... but that is okay I will see them both soon enough...

We did a handmade gift exchange instead of our usual pick names, it was super fun... and I think everyone had a good time making there gift. We had paintings, birdhouses, quilts, mosaics... it was really fun. I ended up with a very nice frame, which framed 2 five dollar bills, and a ten.... john felt his money qualified as a handmade gift, since he did make it with his own two hands... very nice...

One of the coolest gifts I did this year was a custom made hat for B... it was one of those things that could have gone either way... looking really bad or really good... thankfully it turned out really good...