Shaz by the Sea

A few days after Valentine's Day, I decided to make a nice steak dinner for Jim and I.  Jim had a late work call that Thursday night (Valentine's Day) so we postponed our dinner a few days. I chose two of the NY strip steaks from the ButcherBox delivery and made a side of broccoli with onions and roasted them in the oven. I seared the steaks on the stove top and then put them in the oven with the veggies. I then made a creamy Israeli couscous with a "gravy" made for the steaks. I basically used the au jus and added a bit of flour to thicken. It was a little thicker than I wanted it to be, but it was good and added flavor. We of course paired it with a nice bottle of cab and watched Madmen. It was the best night. In other news, we just wrapped up "school vacation" week.  Conor and Caden's morning preschool was closed, so they went to their afternoon school all day so Jim and I could go to work. Cal's school was clos

How was everyone’s President’s Day weekend?! We went to Cape Cod on Friday – and headed straight to our “Little House”. The boys love it there, and they love visiting Jim’s parents. We arrived about noon time and they immediately started playing with their toys and on their bunk beds in their room. We brought their amazon fires aka “ipads” and just relaxed. We also played outside and made a few stops at Craigville Beach. Such a great weekend! We waited for Jim to arrive about 6PM. He took the Plymouth Brockton bus from Boston. I packed the boys scooters and they went up and down the walkway near the ferries and boats while we waited for Jimbo. I will say, this was by far one of our best weekends in Cape Cod. The boys were SO well behaved. They slept great and got along great. No one was sick and it really went smoothly. Maybe it’s because they are all sleeping in the same room at our house, so when they get down the Cape they aren’t going to be as silly and fun

My sister Chrissy had another blog post suggestion! She noticed that we do a lot of non-toy activities in our home - trying to reinforce creativity and using their imagination. I must say, going from age 2/early 3 to now 4, it is amazing to see how much their imaginations have grown. The biggest change is that Conor and Caden went from the "parallel play" to really playing together and coming up with some creative things - remember the "baby tomato" photography blog post?? Hahaha.... So with it being winter, I thought it would be nice to share some of our non-toy ideas. First, and probably my favorite: Pipe-cleaners, or one-sided Q-tips in a strainer! Who can forget shaving cream fun?! For Caden's 100th day school project, we glued together 100 popsicle sticks! I thought it was going to be WAY bigger! Haha I often let them play with water - and I add food coloring and let them mix it around. The toss in some toys and boats sometime