My Favorite Month

I love February. I love walking into just about any store and seeing pink and red decorations. I love all the balloons and glittery, red heart stickers. I love seeing Valentine's candy and racks of Hallmark cards. I love all the festive melamine plates at Target. These things make me smile, but perhaps not for the obvious reason. All of these things mean February and, for me, February means babies! In this month is buried a treasure chest of my most precious memories and emotions, namely anticipation, desperation, excitement, fear, pain, longings fulfilled, relief, insecurity, overwhelming love, exhaustion, and joy.

Both of my children will celebrate their birthdays this month. Annabeth turns one THIS WEDNESDAY. *Tear* And Jackson will turn four on the 17th. He can hardly wait. I told him this morning that it's his birthday month and I totally confused him. He keeps asking me if his birthday is here yet and wondering where his presents are!

Jackson has changed so much over the last few months. I'm loving the stage we're in and I think age four is going to be a blast. Age two was a huge struggle. Age three was better but still pretty challenging. As we approach age four I'm enjoying motherhood more than ever.

There were many times in the last two years that I wondered why on earth I ever thought I had what it takes to be a mom. I loved my kids but felt totally inadequate for the job. I could cry thinking about it. Those difficult times when I felt like I did nothing but discipline Jackson all day long are starting to pay off. Those times aren't fun for anyone. No one has kids because they want to boss them around all day long, do they? But I kept hearing that consistency bears fruit. In this moment we're getting to enjoy some of that fruit. I'm not trying to give parenting advice, but I do want to encourage moms who are feeling like I did. This sounds so trite and it didn't help much when people said this to me either, but hang in there and know that it gets better!

I got on here to talk about February and I obviously got a little off course!

Tell me, Siestas, what is your favorite month and why?

I'm making my friend Sunni's wonderful enchiladas for Annabeth's birthday party. I thought you might like to have the recipe.

Sunni's Cheesy Enchiladas

Ingredients:
(I always half this recipe)
24 flour tortillas
2 lbs. ground beef
2 lbs. Velveeta, cubed
2 cans Rotel tomatoes
4 (8-oz.) cartons sour cream
¼ cup butter
2 med. onions, chopped
1 dash garlic salt
Salt & pepper to taste

Brown meat with one chopped onion. Add garlic salt and salt and pepper. Drain. Coat large sauce pan with non-stick spray. Add sour cream and tomatoes, mix well. Add butter and heat on medium heat. Add Velveeta, stirring constantly. Add the remaining chopped onion. Turn heat to low and simmer for about 5 min. The cheese/butter should be melted by this point. Add a portion of the sauce to meat. Spoon meat mixture into tortillas. Lay in casserole dish, seam down. Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas. Cover and bake for 15 min. at 350 degrees.

*I like to save a little bit of the cheese sauce to have with tortilla chips. Yum!
-AJ