Cousins come to play

Today we had some cousins, Kash & Olivia, over to play.  I, therefore, learned what it would be like to have 1 year old twins, that don't nap, and that both walk would be like.  Let's just say I'm glad I don't have 1 year old twins!  Our cousins were good and my kids were too - it was just lots of little people who were kinda grouchy because they wouldn't nap!

Before Kash & Olivia came to play, Brookelyn decided she wanted to practice her piano skills.  Yes, she is in fact standing on the piano.

I was wondering if the girls would be as good with each other this time as they were last time.  Turns out, luckily for me, they were!  There were only a few times they got huffy with each other and wanted the toy the other one had.  But, for the most part, they were both pretty good girls.

This is the newest dress up that the older kids like putting on little sister.  It has a bunch of ribbon that trails forever down the back side.  Brookelyn thinks she's the queen of the house when she has it on and is sitting on her throne!

Liv liked my zucchini cookies :)

Nash is like a kid whisperer to these girls!  Seriously, for a kid that wasn't that excited about getting a sister for his birthday a year ago, he sure does like her!  He's the same way with Livi.  I wonder if it just carries over from being with Brookelyn all the time or if he just has a soft spot for little girls now.  He was so good to help them slide and swing.  He even got them toys and entertained them without me asking him too!

Nash's own little sister is quite a bit bigger than Kash's little sister!  Livi was much easier for Nash to put in the swing than Brookelyn was!

Brookelyn had a slippery bum and kept falling out of the swing.  It would take her by surprise each time and then she'd fuss until someone put her back up on the swing.

These two could have sat here for hours and been perfectly fine.

There she goes out of the swing again!

Livi checking out the picnic table

Having a snack of graham crackers.  Notice the phone in B's hand?  Yep, future texter I do believe!

Livi needed a cracker for each hand.  B was good as long as she had my phone.

The kids had a good time playing.  I was happy that the older boys included Caleb quite well all day long.  I think the girls would have been much happier if they had in fact taken a nap rather than be quiet long enough to drink a bottle!  Oh well, we had fun and that's what matters most!

Chocolate for breakfast & a new recipe

Today I get the vote for best mom ever!  Brookelyn had chocolate for breakfast.  Don't worry, we shook it up a bit - she had 2 kinds of chocolate!  

Oh, and we followed it up with some fruit.

Since chocolate for breakfast was such a hit, we had a bit more with dinner:

You would never know this girl gets two baths a day!

And tonight I decided to try a new recipe.  I think it's a keeper too.  A direct quote from Nash, "It might look disgusting, but it's really good!"  Well, what mom wouldn't keep that recipe?  I only did a half of the recipe because I didn't know how it would turn out or who would eat it.  I also used really big tortillas because that's all I had.  Since the tortillas were so big I only ended up with four of them.

Our Prefect Zesty Chicken Tortilla Bake

Prep: 25 minutes

Makes: 8 servings, 2 roll ups each

What you need:

1/2 c. Miracle Whip Dressing (I used Mayo because it's what I had in the fridge and didn't want to run downstairs to get something different)

1/2 c. flour

3 c. milk

1 pkg (8 oz) Kraft shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1 1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite size pieces

1/2 c. Taco Bell Home Originals Thick N Chunky Salsa (I just used the Pace Picante I had in the fridge)

1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley (I omitted this because I didn't have any)

16 flour tortillas (6 inch)

Heat oven to 375 degrees

Mix dressing and flour in medium saucepan with whisk until well blended.  Gradually stir in milk,  Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring constantly; cook and stir until thickened.  Add 1 c. cheese; cook until melted, stirring constantly.  Reserve 1 c. sauce.  Make sure you keep an eye on the sauce so you don't burn it.

Stir chicken, salsa, and parsley into remaining sauce; spoon 1/3 c. down center of each tortilla.  Roll up.  Place 8 roll ups, seam sides down, in each of 2 (13 x 9 inch) baking dishes sprayed with cooking spray; top with reserved sauce and remaining cheese.

Bake 25 minutes or until heated through.

The directions say you can make this ahead and just cover with heavy duty foil.  You can refrigerate for up to 24 hours or freeze up to 1 month.  If you refrigerate it bake it covered for 40 minutes, uncovering for the last 10 minutes of bake time.  If you freeze it it tells you to let it thaw out in the fridge before you bake it and then bake the same as the refrigeration directions.

I'm wondering if I could substitute the Miracle Whip/Mayo for something like yogurt??

Bubble baths, dancing and recipes

Last night I let Nash get in the tub with Brookelyn.  I left for a second to take care of Caleb and came back to a bath tub of bubbles.  Apparently, even Nash is quicker than I am!  Brooke was loving the bubbles though so I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures.  Nash was teaching her how to make a bubble beard.

Notice the expression on her little mug?  Yep.  Caught climbing again!

Nash getting his groove on with Brookelyn

 Tonight I was trying to decide what to do for dinner.  Nash & Sam were down at my parent's house so it was just me and the littles.  Caleb is one of the pickiest kids I know.  I finally remembered I have this giant cookbook of (what else?) mostly untried recipes:

In case you're wondering, it's 2.5 inches and yes, it's mostly full (as you can tell by the next photo).

It isn't like I've got a shortage of recipe books to choose from.  Everything on my shelf is a recipe book except that pile on the very bottom on the left and in the middle.

I couldn't find a recipe to use for pork chops that I thought sounded tasty.  So, I resorted to allrecipes.com.  I ended up making Honeyed Pork Chops.  Yes, I printed that recipe out for my binder as well.

Next time I won't cook them as long as it said to, they were a bit dry.

After realizing just how many recipes I had in my untried recipes binder, I've decided I need to set another goal for myself to do another month worth of new recipes every day.  I did have try 1 new recipe each week on my summer bucket list, but I've failed miserably.  I've only tried 3 new recipes the entire summer!  Be watching for new recipe posts to come!

Cake Batter & Sprinkle Bark

Last night Laura and I attempted this new recipe: Cake Batter & Sprinkle Bark.  We found the recipe here: http://sweetapolita.com/2011/09/cake-batter-sprinkle-bark/

6 oz chopped dark or semi dark (high quality) baking chocolate (I used what I could find at the local grocery store)

12 oz chopped white (high quality) baking chocolate (again, I used what I found at the local grocery store)

3 teaspoons white cake mix

Sprinkles of choice

1. Line baking sheet with parchment.

2. Chop chocolate.

3. Melt dark chocolate in microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds.  Take chocolate out & stir.  Repeat as necessary until chocolate is melted and smooth.  DO NOT BURN YOUR CHOCOLATE.

4. Spread dark chocolate on parchment with rubber spatula.  Spread to desired thickness.  

5. Freeze for 20 minutes to set.

6. Melt white chocolate just like you did the dark chocolate.

7. Add cake mix to white chocolate.

8. Stir cake mix into white chocolate until chocolate is smooth.  Let set for 3 minutes to thicken.

9. Spread white chocolate over dark chocolate to desired thickness.

10. Add desired amount of sprinkles.

11. Freeze for 20 minutes to set.

12. Break into pieces & store in refrigerator.

The recipe is surprising simple.  We did make a few tweaks to it, just to see how it would work.  I will tell you DO NOT omit the parchment or substitute it for something like wax paper.  The parchment paper was so, so nice & made it super simple to break the bark.  The chocolate just lifted right up and there wasn't much of a mess to clean up either.  Also, I would up the cake mix to either 3 TBSP or leave it out all together.  The recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of cake mix and you couldn't even tell that it was added in.

On the large (regular size) cookie sheet, we substituted the baking chocolate for milk chocolate chocolate chips and white chocolate chocolate chips (We used Hershey's brand).  We didn't chop up the chocolate chips because we figured they were small enough already.  We weren't sure the chocolate chips would melt like baking chocolate.  It melted just fine though and spread just as easily as the baking chocolate.  After we melted the white chocolate and added the cake mix the directions tell you to let it sit for 3 minutes to thicken up.  The white chocolate chips thickened up fairly quickly.  In comparison, the baking chocolate didn't thicken up noticeably.   

For the smaller cookie sheet we did use the baking chocolate.  However, we only did half a batch because I didn't know how much baking chocolate to buy & I only bought one box of semi sweet chocolate and one box of white chocolate. (which wasn't enough oz of white chocolate).

The recipe calls for 6 oz dark or semi dark chocolate and 12 oz white chocolate.  I wondered how that would make the bark turn out.  Only using the 6 oz of dark chocolate made it so there was only a thin layer of the dark chocolate on the bottom and a thicker layer of the white chocolate on top.  I think the intent is to mellow out the intensity of the dark chocolate.

We used the sprinkles that are soft. I wouldn't use the crystallized sugar sprinkles.  The reason I say that is that the bark is hard enough, you don't need hard sprinkles too.  Plus, the bark was frozen when we tried it (as per the directions) so it was nice to have a little bit of softness.

We worried that the chocolate would turn when we put it in the freezer.  The directions tell you to freeze the dark chocolate layer for 20 minutes.  We only left it in the freezer for 11 minutes and it was plenty frozen plus, it didn't turn it white either!  The milk chocolate chocolate chip version did start to melt some when we added the white chocolate chips to it.  Not sure if it was because the white chocolate was too hot or if it's because we only froze the bottom layer for 11 minutes.  I didn't have any problems with the baking chocolate melting when I put the white chocolate on and it was only frozen for 11 minutes too.  I also don't think the white baking chocolate sat for the entire 3 minutes.

All in all I'd say this recipe is a keeper.  It's super simple and it's actually quite fast to make.  I would suggest that you don't leave your bark pieces too large.  It's a lot of chocolate (both the chocolate chip and baking chocolate versions and neither one was dark chocolate) and I think if you ate more than a few small pieces you'd be ready to puke (ok, I know you would be...just trust me).  After we cut our bark into pieces we just put the pieces into a gallon size ziplock bag and put it in the refrigerator to keep it from melting.

Happy Baking!

Craft Camp, a flying suit & who I share my bed with

I got a few pictures from Caleb's preschool teacher today.  They are from about 3 weeks ago when they made their cute apples.  

These pictures are from craft camp two weeks ago when they made bird houses.

Crazy to think this one use to see Miss Shannon every day for Kindergarten and now she's going into fourth grade!

This one loves, loves, loves going to Miss Shannon's house for preschool.  He still doesn't know he'll be going to preschool three times a week this fall.  I figured I'd wait to tell him until his first day of preschool.  Otherwise I'm going to have to hear about it every day until then!  I know he's going to be sad when his brother and sister go back to school in about 12 days and he has to wait until after Labor Day to go back.  Maybe I'll have to break the 3 day a week news then to cheer him up!

My mom saw a pattern for a superhero costume about a month or two ago.  She bought it because she thought it screamed Caleb's name.  Caleb's always wearing some sort of "flying suit" or another.  The boy loves his dress ups as much as Samantha does.  In fact, he's worn the pumpkin outfit I made for Halloween last year so much that the velcro has come off!  Mom had wanted to get the new "flying suit" done for Caleb's birthday but her sewing machine broke about a week before his birthday.  She finally got her sewing machine fixed and back and was able to finish Caleb's flying suit.  He's worn it non stop since we brought it home!  Mom is still working on the belt, mask and arm bands that go with it.  When Nash saw Caleb's flying suit he told my mom that he wants one now!  Maybe for Christmas?  My mom said that if she'd have thought about it she would have told me not to get the felt for the dinosaur costume for him for Halloween because he could just go as a superhero.  I told her not to worry, I'm pretty sure he's going to go as a superhero flying dinosaur!

He looks grouchy in this picture because I took away his yogurt and made him get up from watching cartoons to take this picture!

A little while after I took this picture he put his cowboy boots on so he could go to daycare.  Yep.  Snapped a picture of him with the boots on, just haven't uploaded it yet.  In the words of his father, "Cool.  I finally have a kid with an awesome imagination!"

Last week when Travis was home him & Samantha rented Mirror, Mirror and were watching it while I read Witch Born.  Caleb was still up and running around (Nash was having a sleepover at his cousin Kash's house).  I finally got Caleb to come in my room and lay down on my bed with me.  I snapped this picture around 2 am.  Notice the dog?  Yep.  This is what I share my bed with when my husband is HOME!