Ethan is walking!!!

Today our sweet Ethan took his 1st, and 50th steps!

He has been slower in warming up to walking then I expected. But of course, his Mimi was right on the money. She gandered that he would be walking by 14 months. Ethan will be 14 months next week:).

I am working on uploading videos and pictures from my camera. I don't think I was able to catch him on it. But, here is a really grainy cell phone video that I did capture. Yes, I'm just that high-pitched...it's not exactly a truth I love to be confronted with:).

I know that this means a whole new level of activity, worries, and abilities. It's an event where we get, "It's all down hill from here!" But I hope we're able to keep in mind that Ethan is growing and changing into the man God has designed him to be. It will mean his life gets more complex, as does mine. But I am just thankful that he can walk today. I'm thankful that he gets to experience the world in a whole new way.

Random cooking discovery

I felt the need to share and I decided the blog was the best place for it:). I have always loved to cook and it's been a skill I have worked to improve upon since we've been married. Along the way I turned into someone that my mom giggles at because I try to conserve food so extremely, a trait of my dad's that I abhorred as a child! I was a picky eater and I was loathe to eat any meal twice, much less three times?! Now, oh now...I save everything. It's mostly the product of adulthood and the realities of food purchases versus our food consumption. But in the last few years it has become a stewardship issue for me. That if I am trying to honor God in the way I utilize the resources He has provided then I need to be keenly aware of the efficient and effective consumption of said resources.

So now to my food discovery. We had friends over on Martin Luther King, Jr. day for ribs and hot dogs and it was a delightful event. I also made guacamole for us to munch on before, during, and after lunch:). After everyone left I neglected to promptly stow away the giant bowl of tortilla chips before they went stale. Fatigue set in and well...cut to the next morning and a bag and 1/2 of chips are seriously stale. I have adjusted to a number of less than desirable states of food in my adulthood but stale chips...gross!

So I hopped on the Internet hoping to find a recipe or some sort of use for stale tortilla chips. I found a wealth of information! I can use it as a layer in a Mexican casserole, as a crumb coating for chicken or fish, etc... The basic premise is to treat them just like homemade bread crumbs. But the most intriguing morsel of information I found out there on the Wide World Web, if you just bake your chips for 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven your chips will come out just as crisp as when you opened the bag?! I was, am, and likely will be, amazed that I have gone 27 years without knowing this nifty little tip. There are countless tortilla chips that could have been consumed if only I had know. Maybe this is old news or maybe this is a revelation to you, nonetheless, I thought it was worth sharing!