Gołąbki, Gorillas, and a New Dresser

83. Try a new recipe every month

If you know me you know that I am Polish and grew up eating authentic Polish food made by my grandmother, my mom, and various aunts and uncles. Therefore, when I found this recipe for cabbage rolls (also known as Gołąbki in Polish) I absolutely had to make them.

The only hard part of this recipe was pulling the cabbage leaves off the head of cabbage without ripping them. I will be honest, I only managed to get two or three completely intact leaves out of twelve. But as you can see, even the ripped leaves held up very well.

Other than the cabbage leaf collecting, this recipe was super easy and pretty close to spot on with the cabbage rolls that my Polish family makes. I did use a head of regular green cabbage as opposed to the savoy cabbage that the recipe calls for. I don't know if that makes a difference in the intact cabbage leaf department. Next time I am going to have my mom teach me how to make them her way (in the oven).

Another recipe that I made was Johnsonville's Andouille Sausage Jambalaya. Many, many months ago I received a party pack from Johnsonville that contained coupons for free food items such as Johnsonville sausage, Uncle Ben's rice, canned tomato products from one of several companies, hot sauce, and so on. Basically, the box contained coupons for everything you would need to fix up a New Orleans style meal along with little recipe books for different recipes. E and my dad worked their back ends off putting up part of the privacy fence in our giant back yard a few weekends ago so I figured I might as well reward their hard work with a meal. The recipe I used is a variation of this recipe on Johnsonville's website. The recipe I used called for two jalapenos in addition to all of the ingredients in the recipe on their site. I only put one in because I was afraid it would be too hot and it was probably 100 degrees that weekend. I wish I would have put both in though because it was actually not very hot. I also did not use a dutch oven. I made the recipe in a large sauce pan on the stove. It was super easy to make and tasted great.

94. Buy flowers once a month for the house

79. Buy a new dresser

Let me start with a picture of our old dresser that E brought when he moved in with me from his parents' house.

Yes. That is the reason we needed a new dresser. The stickers kind of clashed with my room decor, ya know? So we finally got a new dresser and I really think it fits our room a lot better. :)

65. Go to the zoo once a month

C and I were lucky enough to have a zoo date with my friend R and his friend B. R and I actually met at prenatal yoga when we were pregnant with C and B. The boys also now go to day care together a few days a week. So they have been buddies since before birth! It was a lovely day and we had a fantastic time. The boys had so much fun playing the drums together and watching the bears eat and play.

61. Dinner/lunch date with friends once a month

August was a super fantastic month for catching up with family and friends. Our friends S and J are due with their first child two weeks before baby 2 is due and they decided to wait to find out the gender of their child until their gender reveal party. I was so grateful to be a part of such a happy occasion and I absolutely loved how they did it! They went to Build-A-Bear and made a bear then picked out a boy outfit and a girl outfit. They had the cashier take the bear in the back and dress it up in the correct outfit then they waited until the party that night to open the box and see whether they were having a boy or a girl. (It's a boy!!)

We also went to Ohio to attend and celebrate my cousin's wedding in August so we had an entire weekend of family time. The wedding was beautiful, the weather was surprisingly perfect and even a bit cool, and the company was better than you could ask for. I love my giant crazy family and wish we could visit even more than we do!

My September lunch date was a special girl's date with A. We went to one of my favorite restaurants: Jack's. If you are ever in Arvada or live around there you should definitely stop in for some sliders because they are absolutely fantabulous!! Yep, definitely worthy of a made up word. The Chicken Parmesan sliders are my personal favorite.

57. Give a gift a month

If you have a toddler and have ever flown with one, then you know that excessive amounts of entertainment for the flight are an absolute must. I spent weeks preparing for our flight to and from Ohio. I got several ideas from Pinterest (crazy, right?).

I made C this I-Spy Travel Game using the tutorial I found on STITCHED by Crystal and I could not be happier with how it turned out, especially considering I have never attempted any kind of quilting in my life.

The game is double sided and made up of 44 different squares of fabric including some of his favorite characters like Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Sully. The point of the game is to ask him to point to a dog or point to a letter and ask him what letter it is. He's at the age where his vocabulary is expanding daily and he loves showing off what he knows and challenging himself to learn new words. This game is great for helping him recognize letters, numbers, shapes, animals, etc.

The game also rolls up nice and tight and the strap has some velcro to keep it together so you can just throw it in your bag and go.

I also made him these fabric letters using this tutorial from Chez Beeper Bebe. They were really very easy to make.

My September gift of the month was breakfast burritos from Cafe Mexico for a group of people at work. We have a bit of a food sharing co-op going on at work between a few of us that started with a coworker bringing breakfast burritos from Sonic for a group of us. Another coworker brings in exotic Asian fruits all the time for us to try (remember my post on the Longan and Rambutan?). I contributed with breakfast burritos that were a bit more mexican style than the Sonic breakfast burritos.