Got 'em

OK, so I got a few pictures.

The sun came out... I took pictures, I went running, I jiggled and gasped for air and enjoyed every painful step. The I woke up this morning and it was cloudy again. :( Before you know it, I will be swearing at the sun wanting a break from the relentless heat.  I live in the wrong state I tell ya.

BACK TO THE SUBJECT;

I got a few pics of Ezra being...himself.

He was still all over the room, but at least it was bright enough for some semi-decent pictures.

He's really diggin' trains lately. He was into this book giving me a chance to snap a few shots.

 

  

"Choo Choo!"

  

  

 This is Ezra's new trick:

"Who likes Thomas?"

"ME!"

"Who's name is Ezra?"

"ME!"

"Who want's to get chased by a weasel?"

"ME!"

 

And it's the cutest "me!" you've ever heard. We're making sure he's ready for school next year. He's obviously gifted :)

16 going on 17

Ezra does not stop moving!

I've tried to take his picture two times and all I've gotten is about a hundred blurry pictures. Lovely.

It doesn't help that the sun refuses to come out, leaving our living room dark and dreary. I saw the sun the other day but it was just teasing me. Seriously. I NEED the sunshine! I NEED to go outside and get all the dead flowers out of my flower garden before creepy crawlies decide to move in. I NEED some fresh air! I NEED to be able to open the windows.

But my emotional desires for a warmer moment is not what this post is about.

It's about this kid.

The reason I was awake at 5:30 this morning. The reason I will be awake at 5:30 am tomorrow and what seems like the rest of my life.

The reason there are Cheerios in every space not easily accessed by my vacuum cleaner.

The reason there are rubber bands on all our cupboard doors.

The reason why my kids have to color under strict supervision

The reason why I smile.

The reason why I laugh.

The reason why I give about a thousand kisses every day.

He is as active as ever. He is a trouble maker, but has started to gain a little bit of a conscious...at least when I'm around.

He goes to Nursery with Marisa and does pretty well. I know he's too young. Our Nursery consists of very few kids, the neighbor is the leader, and I stay with them for the first hour so I don't feel AS bad.  I play the piano in Relief Society and there is no way his little fingers can stay away from that piano and he gets quite loud when someone tries to stop him. He's not the sit quietly and play type. If there is something he can make noise with, he will. If it's not the piano it's the metal chairs or the big metal book case.  I'm glad they offer to watch him in Nursery and that he stays without crying for long.

He is saying a few more words. He's pretty good at getting his point across. He tries to "steer" you when you are holding him so that he get's where he wants to go. He gets pretty grouchy when you don't know what it is he's asking for. But overall, he's a pretty content kid.

I will keep trying for some better pictures. I might have to bribe him with some fruit snacks or something but we are running dangerously short on snacks and I'm reserving them for times of absolute dire need.

Orange Chicken

Oh My!

YUM! The best so far on my little journey I think.

We are big fans of Panda Express and we always get their orange chicken, and their chow mien. If I could replicate their chow mien I would be in heaven. It's probably very Americanized because any other Chinese restaurant's chow mien doesn't even make it on to my plate...EVER. But, I could eat Panda Express chow mien every day of my life.

I knew it would be hard to replicate their orange chicken and this one really didn't even come close to being the same, but it was actually really good.

Here is a link:

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.food.recipes/2007-08/msg00256.html

This was not a very quick recipe but it wasn't all that hard. I tried to get 3/4 cup of orange juice out of two oranges without even a hint of a juicer and fell embarrassingly short, not to mention that I completely destroyed those oranges. (I should have taken a picture, they were mangled) I cheated and added 1/2 cup of orange juice from concentrate to my measly 1/4 cup of "real" orange juice. I don't think it mattered much.

Another hint for anyone trying this recipe out is to divide the cornstarch mixture for dredging the chicken in half before using it. By the time I got to the second half of the chicken the remaining cornstarch had clumped up and just wouldn't stick to the chicken. If I just had a fresh bowl of starch, it would have solved that problem easily.

Another strong point was that only two or three ingredients were something that isn't typically in our cupboard making it cheaper and a more likely to be made again. Yeah for that!

On to the taste. It had a good tang to it. A little spicy but not too much. The mixture of spices, orange and vinegar was...I don't know, yummy! The chicken stayed crispy amidst the coating of sauce. And it was a pleasant meal.

Shane said it needed more spices or something in the actual chicken part, but he likes spicy. And I used boneless skinless chicken breasts which have a tendency to get dry and don't have as much flavor anyway. I wasn't signing on for another chicken thigh episode just yet.

Ezra liked it, Marisa wouldn't try it, Roman ate it simply because he had to. He wasn't really a fan, he likes the Panda Express kind. And he was less than pleased that his rice was sticking to it even though he ate the rice later. Weirdo.

The cons to this recipe:
I don't care for the fried food smell that is still lingering in the air of my home 24 hours later. We need to get a fryer and we can do that part in the garage or something.

And, (skip this paragraph if you don't want to hear about bodily functions;)) it gave my kids the most hideous gas about two hours later. It was BAD! Maybe a little two spicy/strong for their little tummies.

Anyway, foul odors aside. We have a winner! Try it, you just might like it.

A little break from the norm

Grandpa came to visit for a week this month.

Roman was in heaven and my ears got a little break.  The kids talked his ears off, did our small pile of puzzles daily and played our Winnie the Pooh game over and over. Marisa in her sweetest voice asked Grandpa to watch several painfully girlie movies with her.

Roman was also given a certain Wii game that he just loves (Smash Brothers). I'm not sure why other than it's built into his Y chromosome but the kid loves a good fight. He loves boxing. Boys...

The kids had so much fun playing with their Grandpa and he and Shane spent a day getting almost all of the lights in the basement up and working properly.

 

We can't wait for Grandma to come visit in the spring and perhaps a trip to their house in the summer.

Chicken & Dumplings

This week I decided to make Chicken and Dumplings from my ATK book.

I like the idea of chicken and dumplings although I would probably never call it my favorite. I guess It's just a meal that I can tolerate just about any time, which is good to have in the arsenal.

 I always just made a simple chicken soup without a recipe and the dumpling recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cook book. They were always OK, but on the dry side so this new recipes promise for a moist, but light dumpling drew me in.

Here is a link to the recipe:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Chicken-and-Dumplings-Americas-Test-Kitchen-274584

Let me start by saying. TOO MUCH FAT! I used maybe 3.5 lbs of chicken thighs instead of 5 and it was plenty of chicken. But man I'm just covered in chicken fat, not to mention that it's all over my kitchen. I rarely cook with anything but boneless skinless chicken breasts so maybe I'm just not used to it but WOW!

Next time I will definitely go half and half with some thighs and breasts. You need the fat to make the dumplings taste good so boneless skinless breasts don't cut it. I spent a TON of time just de-fat-ing the chicken. Maybe I just had cheap chicken, who knows.  I felt like the soup was a little fatty too so I don't think I would miss it if I trimmed it down with some whiter meat, but not all the way. It needed a little fat and dark meat for flavor etc.

I really liked the dumplings. As I was cooking them they just weren't getting done. It says to cook them 15-18 minutes and at 20 minutes the tops were still doughy. Then I realized that the condensation on the lid was dripping down on them and keeping them too moist.

I remembered a trick I saw on ATK where they put a kitchen towel over the pot, then the lid to keep that from happening so I tried it and they were done in no time. So.... if you ever make this recipe, don't forget to do that and you probably won't have to wait so long for your dumplings to finish. Just remember to wrap the remaining towel up and over the lid so it doesn't catch fire.

Overall, I really liked this recipe. One drawback that I have with is that there is wine in it. I have nothing against cooking with wine. I love the way it makes food taste. I just don't care for having it in my house. I know you can use broth in it's place but it just doesn't taste the same. The other drawback was the time. It took a good two hours to make (1 hour of which was spent just simmering the soup) and deboning and defatting the chicken was labor intensive, mostly because I hate finding fat pieces in my food so I was extra careful.

So anyway, good recipe. We will more than likely have it again in the future. Shane says to omit the peas, I liked em well enough. I say to use some chicken breasts for half of the meat and less chicken all together. Ezra says YUM. and the other two didn't eat any because they were hungry before it was done.

Step Two...

A work in progress I'm sure, but last night went really well.

Since we have to wait entirely too long for church to start nowadays, yesterday morning I had Marisa place her sticker on her chart and I got out my trusty screwdriver. Marisa pleaded her case before the courts but the verdict was already in.

She couldn't watch. Then she watched from a distance.

As soon as she realized there was a screwdriver involved (she kind of has a thing for them), she said goodbye to her friend...

And started helping me.

We moved her bed into it's place and the rest went like clockwork. I really did think that once there was no other choice she would be OK with it. Or at least that's what I was hoping.

I was quite thrilled that I was about to announce my joys to the facebook world at about 10:30 pm when **THUMP**, she fell out. She cried and said it hurt but I just gave her lots of kisses, tucked her back in and Shane put the toy box against the side of her bed to help keep her in. She did fine the rest of the night.

I think I might give her another night un-caged to see if her subconscious has learned to stay away from the edge of the bed. If she falls out again, we'll figure something out.

Step One... Complete

The pacifiers are gone!

Monday we gathered them up. Marisa cried. We traveled to Walmart and narrowed down to a toy by holding two acceptable options in front of her and having her choose one. Then, I would pick another acceptable option and have her choose between them, and on and on until she settled on one that seemed to win the comparisons.

Here's what she ended up with.

Surprisingly she handed over the pacifiers without a tear. She did however ask me if her pacifiers would be at home when we got there. Um... nope, they are GONE!

Honestly, I was having heart palpitations through out the whole ordeal and could have easily broken down into tears myself but I was being strong for her sake. Marisa loves very little besides her doll, and her pacifiers. Obviously, it was hard for me to take them from her. But really, she doesn't notice. Like I said before, she didn't really use them anymore because they were a nap time only thing and she's pretty much done with naps. Of course, we haven't tried to take a nap since then.

So... one down. Two more to go. I wish I felt more positive about the remaining two issues. Strength, I need strength.... and a Pepsi, and maybe a Valium. **SIGH**

Welcome back to life without babies

No more nursing bras!
No more stretched out skin
No more maternity clothes
No more sleepless nights (well, in theory anyway)
No more zombie mommy (or so I've heard)
Back to MY body. By the way, I think the reward for nursing three children should be that you get to keep the...how do I say this nicely. Girls? I'm just sayin'
No more eating whatever, whenever
No more excuse to skip fast Sunday.

For those of you readers who have no idea what I'm talking about, every first Sunday is Fast Sunday for our church. If only that meant that it went by faster than normal.

I've never been very good at fasting. In fact, I STINK at it. Most of the time I fail simply because I forget and crawl out of bed and begin my daily ritual of stuffing my face as quickly and as often as possible. Only to remember in my nutrient enriched brain that I wasn't supposed to eat.

Today I fasted for the first time in years. Due to pregnancy and nursing I think I MIGHT have fasted once in the last six years. Let me tell you, it hasn't gotten any easier with age. But I think that's the point, it's not supposed to be easy.

I realized just how much and how often I eat today when I found myself unconsciously heading toward the kitchen because I was bored. And hungry, but I think mostly bored.

I did make it. I wasn't even shaking in absolute desperation by the time dinner came around. That being said... anyone want me to bear their children?

Kidding... I think.

Baked Ziti

I picked Baked Ziti for this weeks new recipe.

I really crave this type of dish sometimes. A good tomato-y pasta dish that is homemade and actually tastes good.

The problem is that it's never all that cheap to get that kind of meal, and this dish was no exception. It's almost always cheaper to buy a Stouffers lasagna than to make it yourself. The problem is, Stouffers lasagna or similar pre-made dishes are kind of blah sometimes and are filled with preservatives and lots of overpowering fake flavors.

I will say this though. This recipe made a big dish of pasta.

So... Here is my revised version of the recipe taken from Americas Test Kitchen cook book:

1 lb whole milk or 1% cottage cheese

2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten

3 oz parmesan cheese, grated (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 lb ziti or other short tubular pasta

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

5 Med. Garlic Cloves

1-28 oz. can tomato sauce

1-14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 C. plus 2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil leaves ( I just used about 1-2 Tbsp. dried basil)

1 tsp. Sugar

ground black pepper

3/4 teaspoon cornstarch

1 C. heavy cream

8 oz. whole milk mozzarella cheese shredded or sliced into 1/4 inch pieces

2-3 chicken sausage links browned and cubed

1. Heat oven to 350. Whisk the cottage cheese, eggs and 1 cup of the Parmesan together in a medium bowl; set aside. Bring 4 quarts water to a boil in a large pot. Add 1 T. salt and the pasta; cook stirring occasionally, until the pasta begins to soften but is not yet cooked through, 5-7 minutes. Drain the pasta and leave in the colander (do not wash the pot)

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil and garlic in a 12 inch skillet over medium heat until the garlic fragrant but not brown, about 2 min. Stir in the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and oregano; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Off the heat, stir in 1/2 cup of the basil and the sugar; season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Stir the cornstarch and heavy cream together in a small bowl; transfer the mixture to the now-empty pot set over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, 3-4 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and add the cottage cheese mixture, 1 cup of the tomato sauce, and 3/4 cup of the mozzarella; stir to combine. Add the pasta and stir to coat thoroughly with the sauce.

4. Transfer the pasta to a 13 X 9 inch baking dish and spread the remaining tomato sauce evenly over the pasta. Sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup mozzarella and remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan over the top. Cover the baking dish tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

5. Remove the foil and continue to cook until the cheese is bubbling and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes longer. Cool for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 Tablespoons basil and serve.

The sausage added some yummy meaty flavor to the dish and made it a little more interesting.

So anyway, I liked it. Shane liked it. I made one half without the cottage cheese and it really did need it. It added a good creamy texture and some moisture.

It took too long to make, the kids ended up eating Ramen noodles because they could not. wait. any. longer. So they have no opinion on the matter than it took to long.

Shane ate it. He's eating it again for lunch so I guess that's good.

I think it tasted a lot like Lasagna and the recipe could easily be converted into Lasagna. I also think that it would be yummy with some sauteed mushrooms mixed in.

The only problem I really see with this recipe is that it gets dried out quickly. So the leftovers are dry. But still good.

It's a winner in my book, however, with all the "not always in our kitchen" ingredients and cost, it won't be on our table very often.

How it Really Went Down

So, I showed Marisa my little chart today. Adorned with princess stickers and everything. She LOVED the stickers.

I told her the plan. And she was OK with everything until I hit the undies. Then she started to cry. :( She says she doesn't want the littlest pet shop toys. And does NOT want to use the potty.

Then she said, "I wanna take a nap!" She got her pink pacifier and told me I could take the rest away. Sorry girly, all you really "need" is one, not 6! oh my! I'm afraid we are going to have quite a scene at the store.

We bought some princess fabric to make a comforter. She loves it. We bought a pink princess potty seat. She sat on it while it was on the ground. She examined it while it was on the potty. But that's as far as we got. Baby steps.

She would not put a sticker on her chart. I did it for her.

Hmmm... This could be a disaster! Am I being too hard on her? I just feel like it's gotta be quick like a band-aid while still giving her time to process it all. And, I feel like if I don't stick to my guns, I'm only going to make things worse.