How the Hell do Pack N' Plays Break??? Really???

So Baby Boy's mom told me he woke up at 5am this morning which was sure to throw off his schedule and make him crankier. So around 8:45 or 9:00am when I go to put this sweet, angelic, tired baby down for a nap, what do I realize? The top rail of the Pack N' Play is snapped in two! Really! You have to be kidding me! Baby Boy is 15 months old but weighs a mere 19 pounds which should not be strong enough to break a Pack N' Play. Now I am completely baffled! To make matters worse I have plans to take the kids to the library and run into Sunflower Farmers Market for some $1.97 per pound chicken and being without a Pack N' Play throws a huge wrench into my nap time plans. After trying to see if it will somehow go back together and be safe enough for one nap I give up and realize there is no fixing the Pack N' Play. This Pack N' Play is borrowed from a friend, nearly 10 years old and has been used by a few babies but the rail is inch thick plastic and should not break.

Now I have to pack up the 4 kids in various stages of getting ready from still in PJ's to showered and run to the church where I work as a nursery attendant. Luck for me there are two Pack N' Plays in the nursery. One I keep set up and hardly ever use and another I have never even opened. Crisis averted. Once we return it is nearly 10:00am and besides another fresh diaper I also decide baby boy needs a snack before nap time. After all this fuss his he is finally asleep at 10:40am for his 8:45am nap. So much for a schedule today!

Carrot Cake Recipe

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I made my first carrot cake from scratch Sunday and it turned out delicous. Here is the recipe from The Taste of Home Cookbook with my modifications.

Old-Fashioned Carrot Cake

Cake

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups grated carrots

Frosting

1/2 cup butter, unsalted, softened
3-6 oz cream cheese, softened (the recipe called for 3oz cream cheese but the frosting was a little sweeter and less cream cheese flavor than I like so I would use 6 oz cream cheese but if you don't like the cream cheese flavor do 30z).
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 and 3/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
2-3 teaspoons milk
3/4 - 1 cup chopped walnuts depending on how nutty you like the frosting

1) In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar and oil. Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg; beat into egg mixture. Stir in Carrots. The batter will be thick but should not be lumpy.

2) Pour into two greased and floured 9-in. round baking pans. Bake 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

3) For frosting, in another medium mixing bowl, cream butter and cream cheese. Beat in the vanilla. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar. Add enough milk to achieve the desired spreading consistency. Stir walnuts into remaining frosting.

Enjoy!

I Caught Santa!

Here he is in my living room. The kids loved it! Thanks again to Kristen at http://www.wearethatfamily.com for the great giveaway.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditions

So I know Christmas Eve may be a little late in the season but I would love to hear what your favorite Christmas traditions are. Don't be shy, comment away.

Here are some of mine:

Baking cookies with the girls.

Of course Jesus' birthday.












And my new favorite, The Nutcracker Ballet. Not because it is our tradition but for my Christmas present this year my husband took me to see the Nutcracker Ballet put on by the Colorado Ballet in downtown Denver and I loved it! I want to go on a date with my husband to see it every year.

The pretty lights downtown

My handsome husband

Merry Christmas! Now that Christmas is here enjoy it. It will all be over too soon.

Curried Chicken with Couscous

This is my first yummy recipe I am posting on my blog. I hope you enjoy.



I found this delicious recipe in my Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner cookbook. I know, a knock off of Rachel Ray but I find the recipes to be almost as flavorful and a little simpler.



When I was a working mommy I never cooked unless you call enchiladas, lasagna, spaghetti, chili, etc., cooking. OK, I did cook some but nothing elaborate, and I HATED it! So if I can do it, you can do it!

The Final Product

Curried Chicken with Couscous

Chicken and Curry

1 lb boneless, skinless, chicken breast

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

4 medium carrots

1 tsp vegetable oil

2 tsp curry powder

1/2 cup golden raisins

1 can coconut milk (in the Asian food section of my grocery store)

Couscous

2 cups chicken broth

1 1/3 cups uncooked plain couscous (in the rice section of my grocery store)

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp snipped fresh cilantro plus additional for garnish

1. For chicken, cut chicken into 1 inch pieces. Add vegetable oil to skillet. Heat skillet over medium-high heat until hot. As skillet heats, season chicken with half of black pepper and salt. Cook chicken about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown, each side or until center of chicken is no longer pink (I use a meat thermometer and look for an internal temperature of 175-180 degrees). Remove from skillet; set aside.

2. As chicken cooks, peel carrots; cut in half lengthwise, then thinly slice on a bias. Cut onion in half lengthwise, then crosswise into 1/2 inch wedges. Add oil to skillet. Saute carrots and onion 5 minutes or until crisp-tender, stirring occasionally. Stir curry powder, raisins, coconut milk and remaining black pepper and salt into skillet. Add chicken; simmer 3-5 minutes or until sauce begins to thicken.

3. For couscous, pour broth into pot, cook on medium-high until boiling. Stir couscous and butter into broth. Cover; remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes. As couscous stands, snip cilantro. Fluff couscous with fork; stir in cilantro.

4. To serve, divide couscous among serving plates; spoon chicken mixture over couscous. Garnish with additional snipped cilantro.

I won my first blog giveaway!

I won the I Caught Santa giveaway from Kristen at "We are THAT Family" . Check out her blog if you have a chance:

http://www.wearethatfamily.com/2008/12/i-caught-santa-big-christmas-giveaway.html

I Caught Santa is this cool website where a photograph of your living room is doctored to include the "real" santa in your living room. Their website is: http://www.icaughtsanta.com/

Here is an example from their website:

I am really excited about this since my oldest son is not really a believer this year. He is really smart and into technology so he may not be convinced by the photo but I think my two daughters will LOVE this. I will update you after Christmas with their reaction as well as post some pictures of my final product of Santa in my living room.

We now share our home with someone from the animal kingdom

For those of you who know me you know we don't have pets and had not really planned on ever having pets. I know we are depriving our children of great childhood memories but neither Max nor I are "animal lovers" and frankly while there are some adorable puppies and kittens out there the practical side of me cannot imagine the work of cleaning, playing with, feeding, and in general taking care of a pet. My experience with pets has been that they often poop on, pee on, throw up on, or just plain ruin your stuff. Sounds kind of like a kid, huh?

Don't get me wrong we are not "animal haters". We just like other people's pets. The best part of other people's pets is that the other people have to take care of them. Actually when it was just me and B we did have a great cat named Oreo but he ran away. When we got Oreo it was because our neighbors had gotten evicted and left their cat, my son wanted him, and I felt bad for the poor cat. Now when my kids ask when they can have a cat, dog, etc. I tell them when they have a house of their own (I know I am such a nice mommy).

So today, mommy became a sucker! Isn't giving in one of the things mommies do best?

Don't get too excited we only got a goldfish, actually two.

B got to take home one from his science teacher since they couldn't stay at school over Christmas break. There were 5 fish to give away and they had to have a note from their parents. I gave in said yes, assuming B would not win. Lucky for me only 5 kids got permission so they all got fish, lucky day!

Of course B was convinced that his goldfish was lonely and had to have a friend so we promptly headed to my favorite store, WalMart, where we were greeted with excellent customer service. Who I am I kidding, I much prefer Target but they don't have goldfish and I remembered seeing a cheap tank there so we headed there instead of PetsMart or PetCo. We waited almost 20 minutes, I had to tromp around the store, asking two people for help unsuccesfully before I finally went to the front and got a manager. Fish #2, it sure was a lot of work to get you to come live with us. I was tempted to head home without a companion for fish #1, happy to have a home and some food for him, but B looked so sad and even brought his own money to buy everything. So super mommy persisted. B even said I sounded "frusturated" to the manager, which I was. At least he didn't say I sounded "bitchy" because sometimes that happens at WalMart too. Their high level of customer service never ceases to amaze me but if I was getting paid $8 per hour to scoop fish, maybe I would be a little less chipper.

So now I have this lovely aquarium with two even more lovely fish in it but if you can't tell my son is very, very happy.

He set up the tank, got the water ready, fed them, and even turned off their light so they could "sleep". He also told me when he wakes up if they are not moving it is ok because they are probably just sleeping. I hate to break it to you darling but if they are not moving they are dead. So far, so good, we have two live goldfish, and one really happy kid. I think I did OK today.

I am not sure if it was my husband or my son's brillant idea to set up the fish tank near the stove but I am happy to say it is now moved to the counter area with the barstools, away from where I prepare food, how nice.

That is our jump into sharing our home with someone from the animal kingdom. I will keep you posted on how fish #1 and fish #2 do. If my childhood is any indication, they won't make it long but we can only hope B has better luck.

P.S. If anyone knows why my camera is doing that line in the middle like in the last shot, please email me! I love my camera but it is almost 3 years old and I have taken thousands of photos on it so I hope it is not breaking. The line thing started a couple weeks ago and it does it about 50% of the time now.

Creating Memories

More often than not I feel like my kids have to fit into my schedule not that I have to fit into the kids schedule. Don't get me wrong, I do spend my days driving back and forth to the school, soccer, gymnastics, basketball, and Cub Scouts. How often do we really get time to do something special and enjoy the day with our kids?

Yesterday was one of those days. We are on a tight budget and while there are many fun kid friendly things I would love to take my kids to we often can't afford them and stick to free or low cost things like our zoo and museum membership, the library, and free skating passes the kids get from school. Last night we got to spend the evening all 5 of us having fun. Since my husband has been in school full-time since we met and just graduated Saturday, he was often gone most evenings. So we said heck with the budget for a little fun.

We went to Fish City Grill, and the kids ate free. Then we went to Color Me Mine, the local paint your own pottery place by our house. We made handmade presents for 5 people as well as 5 ornaments for our tree. The bill was outrageous but it was so worth it. I can't remember the last time my kids had so much fun and I got to sit down and enjoy the time with both my kids and my husband. The kids probably told me thank you for taking them there 10 times each.

If that isn't worth it, I don't know what else is?

Kids Sports

Sorry everyone but I could not resist a quick little brag. Wyn got a note home from gymnastics saying she is ready to try out for pre-team. How exciting! God knows she didn't get her athletic ability from me. Besides being awesome at gymnastics she is one of the best players on her soccer team.

Don't get me wrong I played sports my entire childhood, swimming, basketball, soccer, and gymnastics, but looking back I was pathetically uncoordinated, and never any good but I did have fun and got to be outside and get some exercise.

B unfortunately inherited by athletic ability or lack there of. His dad was not much of an athletic person either so I blame half on him.

At least I have one athletic kid, LOL! Actually FiFi seems to be on her way to being a great soccer player and gymnastics star as well. In the meantime, I will continue to tell B how great he is at basketball, (he actually does ok because he is a head taller than the other kids in his league) and hope when he grows up he can look back and look at his childhood like I can and smile at his lack of athletic ability.

Yeah for Wyn, go pre-team!

More on me and my family

I don't want to go crazy posting today but I did promise more on me and my family.



First, Wyn and B are 6 months apart, how is this possible? I am a super-human, baby-making machine. Just kidding! Wyn and FiFi are not my biological kids but of course they are still my kids. My amazing husband raised the two girls all by himself since FiFi was 3 months old. I will have to say he did a pretty amazing job considering he is a dad and all and they don't have the same super-human powers God gave to moms.



Max and I met when the older two were 5 and FiFi was 3 so when I only reference B being a baby that is because I didn't know the girls when they were babies.



Besides running my kids back and forth to school, which involves three round trips a day, driving them to their activities, which today is drumline, gymnastics, and basketball (mind you I also work at my part-time job at church tonight), and helping them with their homework, I spend my days playing with a super sweet, and super cute 14 month old, "Baby Boy".



I hope it all makes sense now!



I am going to try to post a variety of things, once daily going forward. Wish me luck!

Old Mom

The other day I realized I am an "old" mom. No, not old in age (I am only 26), but that I have been a mom for awhile now, approaching 9 years, and it has been a long time since B was a baby. I have worked with kids as long as I can remember and have been around babies and toddlers even as B has gotten older, but I have forgotten some important things!

1) 1 year olds need contained! I mean this in a nice way but shopping at a store without carts, without bringing a stroller with a 14 month old, BAD IDEA!

2) The don't make baby gear like the used to! This is a good thing. When B was a baby there were no such things as LATCH systems for carseats, and 5 point harnesses for strollers and high chairs. Oh yeah and Pack 'N Plays are harder to set up then they look.

3) 1 year olds don't drink as much milk as I think they need but they can sure out eat my almost 6 year old sometimes.

Otherwise it is pretty much the same, play, laugh, sing, dance, read books, eat, sleep, change diapers.

I think I can handle this!

What led me to blog...

So what posses a stay-at-home mom to begin blogging?

My friend Catherine, started her blog (Evolving Mommyhttp://evolvingmommy.blogspot.com/) a few months back and recently I have been reading it more as well as other "mommy" blogs. The blogging community seems like a great place so I am going to give blogging a shot.

Here is a quick run down of me and my family:

I am Michelle, a 26 year old stay-at-home mom, wife, babysitter, nursery attendant, maid, dish washer, you get the idea.

My husband "Max" is one of the smartest people I know. He is graduating on Saturday with his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering with honors, after serving 6 years in the Navy. He currently works as an R & D Engineer at a Fortune 500 company about 30 minutes from our house. I love him a lot!

My oldest son "B" is 8 years old. He is cute, he is sweet, he is growing up too quickly! I can't believe he will be 9 in May and is already in the third grade. He is also one of the smartest third graders I know but I may be partial.

B at 18 months old B at his eighth birthday party this past year

My middle daughter "Wyn" is quite the character. I think she may grow up to be a comedian or an actress. She is one of the most dramatic people I know and I know a lot of dramatic people. She is also 8 years old and B and Wyn are not twins they are 6 months apart (you will understand it later, I promise). She is in the second grade and awesome at both soccer and gymnastics.

See what I mean about the silliness.

My youngest little princess is "FiFi". She is almost 6, in kindergarten, but wants everyone to take care of her and do everything for her. Who can blame her? Who doesn't want someone to do everything for you? When you have an older brother and sister, why do anything for yourself? She is cute, she is sweet, and has the voice of a little "pixie", and is a kick ass reader.

Look how beautiful FiFi is:

I hope you enjoy reading my blog. Just as an FYI, my name is really Michelle but I have given my husband and kids "nicknames" for the sake of the blog.