Ciorba de perisoare aka Romanian meatball soup with borscht

This is what I made last night. Half of pot gone just like that. I love this soup so I decided to share however I know that it's so time consuming. Shane and the kids love it and so does everyone else I share it with. My sister in law Noel makes this on a regular basis she says. 

2-3 carrots chopped, (3 medium potatoes cut into small squares,) 3 celery sticks cut up small, 1 onion quartered, 1 bell pepper chopped, salt and pepper to taste, 4-5 beef bouillon cubes. Boil these except the potatoes in a big pot of water. Potatoes go in the pot later. 
While everything is boiling make the meatballs: 
1 lbs or a little more of ground pork
3/4 cup of rice
1 egg
1 slice of break soaked in water and then crumbled over the meat
1 small onion chopped finely
salt and pepper to taste and then mix the above well.
Make little balls and roll in flour and then add to the boiling soup. Make sure the soup is really bubbling so the meatballs don't end up being some rocks. 
I think it takes about 20 minutes for the rice to cook in the meatballs. 
Add potatoes as well and a chopped tomato when you add the meatballs in there. 
When everything is cooked add Bors (I get mine like a powder from Romania) 
You can make the soup sour with lemon juice or sour craut juice (add a lot or else it's not going to be that great; you can of course start with a not so much at first and then keep adding until you like it ) The secret is in the sourness of it. 
It's really good that way,promise. 
At the end I add a beaten egg to the soup and chopped parsley. 
Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream on top. 
Enjoy! And have fun cooking for like 2 hours. OK, maybe less if there are two of you helping chop and making meatballs. 

Frames and walls

I need help with my walls. I need to buy the darn frames which are usually so expensive. But for some reason I can never picture how to put the frames on a wall to make it look cute. I am afraid to have everything all from the same frames but also afraid to buy frames that are too different from each other. I badly need to decorate my bedroom. I want to buy a new bed frame and to put frames us above the bed to make my room look cute but I always end up being cheap and saying I will buy it later when I can afford it. What if I can never afford it then what? Should I just stop worrying about it?
This is what's been in my head lately.
Do any of you have any fun decorating blogs you follow?

Happy Mother's day!

Well, this is the post I thought I lost. I changed it some and now I don't like it but I will post it anyway. 

First Happy Mother's Day to you all. You are wonderful examples to me.
My own mom is amazing. She is my personal hero and all I ever wanted to be was to be more like her. I love her dearly. She is totally selfless and oh so talented. She never just stays still, she is busy as a bee, cook extraordinare, she knits, sews, crochets, and loves us like no other. She also loves people in general, is very kind and never complains. That's amazing to me. I hope to have her around for a long time to come. She encourages me and has shown me and my family more love and kindness than I could ever think imaginable. Love you mom.


Today was a fun day. Shane woke me up to breakfast in bed. Hmmm, I would've have chosen sleep over breakfast but I understand he had just made it and he didn't want it to get too cold. Also is was close to 9 am so I guess he's forgiven. Actually he is truly forgiven because he made a great breakfast (eggs and bacon are my favorite) and then let me sleep some more. I was that tired (probably because of the medication I'm on) that I slept another hour. I was really grateful our church started at 11am this year. Actually I was tired all day. I cannot believe I have such a lack of energy. I don't get it. It's been over a week since I got sick and I still don't feel that great. My throat still hurts at times and my voice is super raspy. Oh well, hopefully in another week I will feel 100%. I do feel better now, my voice is still not normal yet.
I got to take an afternoon nap as well. I LOVE to sleep and since I am always tired this was the best mother's day gift. Silly since moms are all about their kids and all I cared about on Mother's day was to recharge. So thanks to Shane I got my wish and I couldn't be more grateful. He also cooked for me in the afternoon and made fabulous steaks topped with mushrooms and sautéed onions and blue cheese and an amazing salad.
I was so spoiled. Yay for me! And I am so glad we didn't go out to some restaurant and fight the crowds. We did that last year and it was a little crazy.
Dacian thought mother's day was when I went to his school earlier in the week. He gave me this cute vase they painted in school. So on the actual mother's day he really didn't seem that excited about it. I think he moved on to better and bigger things.
Now what do you do for father's day? Any cool ideas?

Snoqualmie falls day trip

Well, I better write while I'm in a the mood and also that I have a good mood. Sun is the remedy for good mood for me. Living in the NW we don't get much sun most of the year but when we do boy I am in love with this place.

Shane and Dacian went to a father-son camp out with our church and I thought I would have all day today alone with Lavinia. I was planning to go to Coupeville on Whidbey Island which I hear is super fun but Shane called around 11am that he was coming home and if I wanted to go his way and have lunch with them. I took my aunt and Lavi and we went to Snoqualmie falls. We were lucky to find a table near where we parked and we had a BBQ right there.  Shane brought all his laser tag gear camping and Dacian now sleeps with these guns. Of course Lavinia has to do what her brother is doing so there she is right there to fight.

Like the pigtails?

I like her face in this one. except for the ketchup.

I like her pose in this one too. Such a sweetie.

The falls are beautiful!

I could't resist photographing my boy. I think he looked so cute with his hat.

Another one with Lavi. i like this one because it shows how little she is.

 Lavi kept squatting like this; it was quite funny.

This is close to the train station.. The kids just saw a kitty going under there. Love this one!

Here you can see the cat if you look close enough.

 I adore seeing Shane being with the kids. We kept walking on the tracks until we heard the train whistle. Shane insisted that there is another track and that we were fine.

Here is the train. So much for the train isn't going through here. 

Of course Dacian was ecstatic to see the train go by. 

And here he is with the conductor.

All in all we had a fabulous day! 

Mother's Day Q and A!

Mother's Day Q and A
(Idea taken from friend's blog, Holly to be exact.)
Dacian's Answers
Who is Mommy's best friend? Me and daddy and Lavi
What is Mommy's favorite food? Chips (so not)
What is Mommy really good at? Making food. How flattering!
What is Mommy not very good at? Driving. (what's he talking about?)
What does Mommy do after you go to bed? Drum roll.... Spank Me! I just about died laughing at this one and so did he. He's so naughty. No, I don't spank him.
What is your best memory of Mommy? Going to Disneyland with me. He was two and a half, I am so surprised he remembers. 
How do you know Mommy loves you? you kiss me and cuddle with me at bedtime. 


I had written so much about mother's day, my mom and other amazing women in my life but it got selected and somehow I erased everything so thanks to Holly for this fun Q and A. I still have something fun and short to post. 
I will not retype the other stuff. Too frustrating. I should move on to other things, if only I found the time. 
Well, it's late and I saw a little bit of 30D Rock and now the Marriage Ref and I am going to bed. This was my relaxation for tonight. 

Mother's Day Tea!

Well, finally I got to go see my son in action at preschool. He loves his school so much. He has been sick a lot for the past few weeks with the flu which then ended up being a nasty sinus infection so he had to miss school quite a few times. He would beg and plead for me to let him go because he loves it so much. He would tell me over and over he was not sick. I am so glad that we have found such a great place for him and also minutes away from home.

Anyway, all moms were invited to a Mother's Day Tea this Thursday. My mom also got to come. It was so cute. The high school students who work in the preschool room got to decorate the tables and make cookies, cupcakes, brownies and of course they had tea and other drinks.
My favorite of course was the program at the end where I got to see my cute son along with the other kids sing. He had been singing songs at home so I was just dying to go see him with all his classmates. My heart melted as I was watching him. There are no words that can describe my love for this boy. I have a feeling all moms feel this way about their kids. Motherhood is wonderful to me and mostly because of the love I feel both me loving my kids and them loving me back. I am a little paranoid of how fast time flies and how much I love their innocence at this age. What am I going to do when they don't love me as much? Well, I know they'll love me but you get it, it's different they will get so independent that I think it will hurt a little. Not that being independent is a bad thing.
Dacian's already excited for Kindergarten but alas he's got one more year of preschool. I think he's really going to be annoyed that his school is taking a break for summer. I'm going to have to be up to par prepared with fun things to entertain him. One will be lots of swimming. No big vacation this year, thank goodness. Two big trips the past two years all I want this year is to veg and really enjoy my kids at home.