Opa!!!

We went to the Greek Festival downtown with some friends. It was crazy! I had no idea that it would be that huge. We had a great time. We ate the most incredible food. I mean, I like Greek food, but this food was really amazing--well worth the wait. I wanted to go back the next day, just for the food. I had a I swear my mouth watered just thinking about it. Sienna was lovin' the music & dancing and was rockin' out (which tuckered her right out, as you can see below) Thanks, Bagozzi's, for a fun night!

Dessert was delicious! I wish I would've written down what these babies were called, but I'll do my best to describe it. It was some sort of a donutty, glaze-covered, cinnamin & sugar-coated dumpling. Um, and I'll be honest with you, I couldn't stop eating them.

It was kind of ridiculous.

I'm married to an old man!

Happy late birthday to you, Mr. Dixon! (Daniel Vilas Dixon, that is!) Dan's (34th!) birthday was on September 14th. We had a few days of celebrating--a dinner party with my family, picnic/dutch-oven cobbler American Fork canyon night with his fam, and then a low-key date night with just the two of us. We went to PF Chang's, had an amazing dinner, then had an even-more-amazing dessert, the great wall of chocolate. Seriously, the thing is ginormous. We felt like we were eating forever, and hardly made a dent in it. We also saw 500 Days of Summer. Good flick. Happy birthday to the best husband, father and friend! Love your guts, Dan! I have a few more pics I need to steal from Dan's mom's camera, so I'll post those later.

For the Hanson family birthday dinner, we had one of my favorite meals--a pasta bar. I'm pretty sure I've posted about this before, so I'll just recap. You take your favorite cooked pasta and add all of your favorite pasta toppings. Toss it in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic and heat through, then top with your favorite sauce. It's fun because everyone can make it just how they like it. Then we had pizookie's for dessert. Dan got his own little one, then we made a giant one for everyone else to share. There's nothing better than a ginormous warm chocolately, gooey chocolate chip cookie topped with vanilla bean icecream. Yummmmmm!

I made Dan pose for this one. :)

Labor Day weekend with San Clemente friends

Our good friend's Tracie & Sal Syed (from San Clemente) came with their two little rugrats to visit over Labor Day weekend. We loved getting to meet their newest addition--Serianna (who, by the way, has the most amazing head of hair--unlike anything I've seen before!). Our friends Sara & James Mortensen also live in the area, so it was fun to get together with the old gang. Tracie wasn't feeling too great, so unfortunately they weren't able to do everything they hoped, but we still managed to pack in some fun.

WE...

...rocked it out with Guitar Hero...

BTW, Tracie looks awesome in this picture--awesome like a butt-rocker! Luke & Samson rockin' out. They were in Heaven!!!...went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point (just in case you were wondering what Sara and Tracie are doing, they are imitating dinosaurs, of course!) I love this picture of Bella screaming (for joy!) Dan & Sienna watching the fish...The most adorable pink camo squeeky shoes that I bought for Sienna (Sara sells them and gave them to me for cost, so I stocked up! Sooooo nice!)

...ate good food...(Cafe Rio, JCW's, pizza, homemade peach cobbler...)

...went to the Street Fair/Farmer's Market in Park City...I love this pic of Sal & Suri. This guy is in so much trouble--this baby girl is BEAUTIFUL!!!Dan's training Sienna young!

Summer fun!

Dan occasionally takes the camera into his office, downloads (or is it uploads? What's the difference!?) all the pics onto the harddrive at work, and formats the memory card. Then every so often I'll look at all the pictures on the hard drive and discover a bunch of photo's that I haven't even looked at since I took them. So, here's a bunch from this summer.

We drove up to Montpelier, Idaho for Dan's family reunion. We got to take his niece's Taylor and Claire with us, which was a lot of fun. Sienna just adores her cousins Claire & Taylor and had such a fun time being able to hang out with them on the drive. These are the "world famous" raspberry shakes from Bear Lake. Yum....

One thing we have really loved about living in Utah is being able to go hiking. We love the mountains here. Sienna just loves her backpack hiker! (Thanks, Jen!)

These pictures are from a place called Battlecreek Falls, which is just 10-15 minutes from our house. I'd never been here before, but it was such a fun hike. It was an easy hike, perfect for a little Monday night family home evening.

(And, no, I did not buy that binky for Sienna...but it's true!) Love that face!!!

Happy fourth of July! If only I could remember what we did! :) We ended the night getting Cafe Rio and heading over to Liz & Eric's (Dan's brother) for fireworks. Sienna was totally fascinated by the fireworks--especially the sparklers and the glowsticks!

This is our adorable niece Taylor. What a cutie!

We really miss our good friends from Huntington Beach Matt & Amber Sim (& their boys Jake & Caden), so it was really fun to be able to have them stay with us this summer when they were in town for a wedding. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures that weekend, so this is all you get. :) We had a little date night and went to the downtown concert at the Gallivan Center and watched the Bon Iver concert and then hit Five Guys for some grub. The concert was fun, but super crazy. It didn't even feel like we were in Utah. Great music, though...and the company wasn't too bad either. ;)

Tomatillo Chicken Stew

I love tomatillos, but haven't cooked with them very much. My mom went to a farmer's market and bought a bunch of them (since she felt bad that no one was buying from this particular vendor ;) so she shared the love and gave me half. I had just gotten an email from Simple Recipes with this recipe for a tomatillo chicken stew, so I gave it a try. I love so many different things about fall, and one of my favorites if being able to cook tasty soup recipes! I actually used the ready-cooked rotisserie chicken from Costco and it turned out great! Has anyone seen the 4-pound bag of rotisserie chicken meat at Costco? I'm in love. (Thank you, Tracie!). I swear I'll never boil & shred chicken again! This is now one of my favorite soups. It has such a rich, yummy flavor, with the perfect amound of spice (we like some kick, so it was perfect for us). Don't be scared of it, if you haven't cooked with tomatillos before, they're easy. You just peel and roast them. Hope you like it!

Tomatillo Chicken Stew

Tomatillo Sauce

• 1 1/2 lbs tomatillos
• 1-2 jalapeño chile peppers, or 2-3 serrano chopped chili peppers (stems discarded)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• 1 clove minced garlic
• Pinch of sugar

Stew

• 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1-inch cubes
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• 2 yellow onions, chopped (I used purple)
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 cup chicken stock (I added another 1 1/2 cups to make it go further)
  
• 2 cups tomatillo sauce (see recipe above)
  
• 1 teaspoon dry oregano (or 1 tbsp fresh)
  
• 1/2 cup packed chopped cilantro
  

Directions:

First, make the tomatillo sauce. Remove the papery husks from the tomatillos and rinse. Cut the tomatillos in half and place them cut-side down on an aluminum foil-lined roasting pan. Roast them (on broil) for 5-7 minutes until lightly blackened. Let cool. Place the tomatillos (and the juices released), chile peppers, garlic, salt, lime juice and sugar in a blender, and pulse until well blended.

Heat 2 tbsps of olive oil in a large pot on medium high heat and saute *chicken, until nearly done. Remove from pan. (*Or use rotisserie chicken)

Add the onions to the pan, and a little more olive oil. Add ground cumin. Cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally until onions are softened. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more.

Add the chicken, tomatillo sauce, chicken stock, and oregano to the pan. Stir. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook (partially covered) for 20 minutes until chicken is cooked through. During last minute of cooking, add cilantro.

Serve over white rice, top with sour cream. This is also great with my favorite multigrain tortilla chips (from Costco).

Serves 4.

Carni-phobia

Dan, Sienna & I met up with my friend Christy and her boyfriend Ryan at the Utah State Fair. It was a fun night! Christy warned me before we got that there Ryan has Carni-phobia (he's a funny guy). He did really well and didn't even twitch as we neared the tents. We were so proud of him conquering his fears by playing a few rounds of darts (see picture below of he, Dan & one of our favorite Carni's of the night!). Dan & Ryan were so noble trying to win us prizes. I asked them later if they purposely picked the booth with the worst prizes. Don't worry, we did come home with a little ghetto teddy bear covered in dollar bills. That's definitely going into Sienna's hope chest (or hopeless chest, as my brothers liked to call it)....or maybe straight into the washing machine! And to think we could have had a life-size one for only $50.00 worth of darts. You just can't hit the fair without having super greasy, tasty food, which we did! We had yummy navajo tacos & philly cheesesteak sandwiches, which were surprisingly delish. We went through one of the tents to check out some of the local lifestock who compete. We ended up seeing these crazy-looking goats. One of them looked like the creature from Never-Ending Story. Super creepy-looking. And Ryan made friends with what he liked to call the Orthodox Goat. Sienna was a trooper and lasted a long time (unfortunately just not long enough to indulge in a funnel cake or fried twinkies--next time!). Good times! Thanks to Papa Sparks for hooking us up with free tickets! (And you, too, Christy!)

Love this kid...most of the time! ;)

It's been awhile since I did a post on Sienna's growth & development. Sorry if you find this a little boring, but it's for me, so get over it!:) Sienna is now 13-months-old. At her 12 month appointment Sienna was 29 1/4 inches long (50% percentile) and weighed 19 lbs 3 oz (just over 10th percentile). She a little peanut, but don't worry, she's in the 75th percentile for head circumfirence. ;) My baby girl is definitely a spunky little thing. She is super busy. I get a little jealous when I hold my niece or friend's kids who will sit on my lap for more than 3 seconds, or who will cuddle with me. Sienna is definitely not a cuddler. No time for cuddling, she just keeps moving...ALL the time. Currently she is crawling all over, walking behind her toy walker (thanks, Bagozzi's!) and cruising around furniture. She likes to walk with you, but isn't walking or standing on her own yet. She loves climbing up stairs, but hasn't figured out how to (safely) go down them. Her favorite words are "mama," "dada," "ba" (bottle), and "hi" and "hiya". Just this weekend at my brother Brad's she learned how to say "ruh,ruh,ruh" in response to "what does a doggy say?" It's pretty stinkin' cute. She also loves to dance to music and loves reading books (though she rarely sits still long enough to get through one!). For any of you who were jealous of my ridiculously easy baby, be assurred that she no longer exists! (And, yes, I do know that it's only going to get harder!). I'm grateful for the easy months, but also feel a little cheated, since we got fooled into thinking we just got an easy baby. Little did I know...She's getting super picky about what she eats and when (and whether or not she will take a bottle or a sippy cup), she's throwing tantrums every time she goes down for a nap or to bed, she freaks out when she can't have what she wants....definitely a little high maintenance! Needless to say, it's a good thing she's so stinkin' cute. When Dan gets home I'll post some new pictures. We've had some fun times lately so I need to catch up!