can I toot my own horn for a minute?

Baklava is one of my favorite dishes--tired of trying to find it and tired of paying an arm and a leg for it when I do! So I've learned to make it. This was day old boring rice that I didn't know what to do with, so I veggied-it-up, added some olive oil and spices and voila mexican rice side dish! It was really good too..

I kept meaning to go get M&M's or something to put in this dish for the month of February, but decided roasted almonds would be just as fun and way better for you! People have loved them! I've had to refill the dish 3 times!

Something I love to do is take recipes and adapt them "Susie style"-- That usually means lots of veggies. This one is the inside "meat mixture" for enchiladas. I put asparagus, onions, red peppers, and spinach. Oh and that's ground turkey instead of ground beef. They turned out really yummy!

My mother-in-law is making a sign for our my kitchen that says: "Susie's Bistro..lengthening lives one meal at time". I truly have found one of my greatest passions.

Lids 'n Things

If anyone read the post about Gracee's crazy toy quirks, this is an extension of that. Gracee loves lids, big and small. She loves containers of any sort. She even loves digging through our recycle 'bin' (which, as you can see is located on the floor!) to find new fun containers. Her favorite for about a week was our bin of rice that WAS located next to the frige. I had to move it back downstairs because... as you can see things got a little out of hand. She started tossing it on the floor like she was sowing seeds!

sicky sick

So Gracee has been sick for ....forever! Well, maybe just a week or so. But man, the last two days have been so rough. And the worst part is that it's 3 am and I can't go to sleep cuz I feel so yucky. I never get sick...and I do mean never. Well, almost. So when I do get sick I am a real baby. Anyway, at least it's giving me a good opportunity to catch up on everyone's blogs!

Dog Lover

This is Reggie, Gracee's newest dog friend.

Loves for Reggie..

Gracee has several ways to communicate this affectionate relatioship she has with dogs...EVERY dog. She'll either pant with her toungue hanging out, she'll say "Mo! or Sally!" (her two favorites in the neighborhood) or she'll do the sign for dog which is to pat her leg. Russ and I are not at all pet lovers. We've both agreed though that if our kids beg us to get a dog one day, a small non-yippy one is the only way to go.

A little fresh air never hurt anyone

So Gracee got hurt on the stairs and the only sense of recourse was some brisk afternoon air...

not sure how to react to snowball throwing..

little lady

I feel so much better.

"That Stage"

Gracee is such a little stinker! I kept noticing that the foil on the window in her room kept wearing out and her room kept getting lighter and lighter each morning...she's been sleeping in less and less. I went to go repatch it today and found THIS handful of foil delight on the floor!
Funny, because I had just gotten off the phone with a friend who wisely warned, "Careful, she's at 'that stage'!"

Help HAITI

Russ and I just watched the scenes of Haiti and wanted to know how to help. We found this article from Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1953528,00.html?iid=tsmodule

We then went to the Red Cross Twitter account: http://twitter.com/RedCross On this page it explains that you can donate $10 just by texting 90999 with the word "Haiti". It gets added to your phone bill.

Also UPS is shipping anything under 50lbs. for free to Haiti. Clothes, Shoes, etc.

What an easy way to reach out to those in desperate times. Thanks for reading.