The best chicken parm ever.

As you probably could have guessed, Valentine's Day was pretty low key at our house. We made a yummy dinner and just hung out with the girls, and may or may not have been "sharing" Gracen's candy from her Valentine's party at school. :) Dinner was low key, and turned out even better than I imagines. It's been so long since I've posted a recipe, and you won't want to miss this one I promise.

There are a million different versions of chicken parm out there on the interwebs, but I try to keep mine as simple and tasty as possible. When I found this recipe, it definitely piqued my interest in the simple factor. Seriously 3 ingredients, and about 2 minutes to prep and then put in the oven.

Ingredients (ok i lied, 4 ingredients including the chicken):

• chicken
• 1/4 C parm cheese
• 1/2 C sour cream
• italian bread crumbs

Directions:

Put the chicken in a baking dish. Mix the parm cheese and sour cream in a bowl, and then spread over the chicken. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes and you're donezo! The Mr. said this was the best chicken he ever had, and was actually serious. Gracen ate ALL of it, and asked for more. Girlfriend has never, and I'm serious when I say never, eaten all of her chicken unless it was chicken nuggets, and even then she does it hesitantly. So you could say I was very pleasantly surprised with this dish. We made roasted asparagus to go with it, that Gracen picked out at the grocery store. Put it in the oven at the same time as the chicken, and we had an amazing dinner in 25 minutes. Everyone ate it, and liked if not loved it. I'm still sort of in disbelief.

Seriously make it this week. You won't regret it I promise.

Due Date

Today is a very bittersweet Valentine's Day. Today would have been my due date. Is it weird to remember your due date? Sometimes I don't know if I remember it so clearly because it's a holiday, or because it was my due date. It's incredibly hard to think that right now, right this very second, we would have been a family of five. That's so crazy! It all feels like it happened an eternity ago, not just a few short months. Sometimes it hurts to remember, but I want to remember. I don't want to go on living our lives like nothing happened, like that sweet little miracle meant nothing. But on the other hand, it's hard to make sure I'm not dwelling on it. Not asking why. God has a plan for all of us, and it's just hard to keep that in the forefront of my mind. I still feel a little pierce in my heart every time I hear of some one new that's expecting, or see a newborn baby at Mass each week. But really now that the girls are a little older, I think I'd feel that way regardless. I get incredibly teary eyed every time Gracen or Hadley mentions wanting another baby brother or sister. Which oddly enough happens quite frequently. Maybe they subconsciously remember us telling them? Parenthood is one tough business. This falls into the category of one topic that no parenting book out there can or does prepare you for.

I'm actually kind of glad my due date was on Valentine's Day. A day that's totally devoted to love. Reminding me of the overabundance of love I have in my life, an incredible husband, and two little blue-eyed blonde miracles I have been blessed with already. Only seems kind of appropriate.

A holiday recap (part one)

While I know it's almost Valentine's day, 2013 has been jam packed for us. So I haven'e quite been able to update as much as I'd like. So I'm just now getting around to post about the holidays.  #blogfail.

Thanksgiving came and went, and not very many photos were taken. We headed North to Des Moines, and enjoyed great food, great family and of course great shopping. Black Friday shopping is a long standing tradition in my family, and this year was no different. Well not entirely different. We started Thanksgiving night this year! I know we're those cray-cray people. And while I DO NOT AGREE with stores making their employees work on the holiday, I hypocritically joined in on the festivities. At 10pm at least, that's after all the feasts. That's how I'm justifying it anyways.

Standing in line at Target, wrapped all the way around the bulding. It was quite the experience.

December was another full month for us, thank goodness for pictures to remember it all. The girls were thoroughly spoiled, and we had lots of fun with friends and family.

 

The girls were so excited to help put up the Christmas tree and decorations. We had a ball dancing to Christmas music and looking at all our favorite ornaments we've collected over the years. We have a purple and silver theme, but we have a few special ornaments we've gotten as gifts over the years with sentimental value that we add. Eventually we'll have 2 trees up, one classically decorated and one with all our special ornaments :)

Gracen's Christmas program is one of my favorite parts of going to a Catholic School. She was an angel this year, and she practiced every day, all day for a couple weeks. It was so precious! Unfortunately, all the pics are blurry/bad lighting. Inside the Church just does not make for a good photo op. We do have it all on video, but I'll spare you :) Aunt Jaime got to come and watch this year, and then we had cookies and punch afterwards! At 11:30am.... right before lunch.... awesome idea...





















After her program Aunt Jaime and I took the girls down to crown center to play at Crayola land and to see Santa! We were all so excited, and were going to stop at Fritz's, where they deliver your food on a train, for lunch first. Hadley woke up with a cold, so we made sure to pack up on kleenex. When we sat down for lunch Gracen kept complaining that her ear hurt. Well we didn't know if it really did, or if she was just trying to get in on the sympathy that Hadley was receiving. Lunch was rough. They didn't want to eat hardly anything, and it was inching in on nap time. So since no one was feeling well, we ate what we could and headed down to Santa. The beauty of going on a week day is no line! We walked right in and Gracen hopped on his lap. Hadley was still very hesitant. Which is funny, becuase since about Halloween time she'd been prepping herself for this visit. She would tell us how she was ready to go see Santa and sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. It didn't really help that she wasn't feeling well, So this is the best shot we got.

This year the girls asked Santa for flashlights. You read that right, flashlights. It made me laugh, and Santa found it quite humorous as well. He kept saying are you sure that's all? Yup just a flashlight please! Thanks! and then they hopped right down. Last year they asked for toothbrushes (and Santa/Uncle Adam happily obliged) so this is a step up. But still incredibly humble for a 3 and almost 5 year old :)

After we got home from crown center (and dealt with a meltdown from Gracen and her ear hurting) we got the girls down for naps. When they both woke up, they still weren't feeling well so I begrudgingly headed to the doctor. Luckily our doctor is open late on Mondays. And I say begrudgingly because I really dread going to the doctor without an appt. Usually it goes one of two ways - they either tell you you're over reacting and send you home (and still charge you and outrageous amount) and make you feel bad for dragging them out for nothing, or they tell you oh yes this is really bad and make you feel bad for waiting so long. This was in the latter category. We really went for Hadley who started to run a fever, and just had the doctor look at Gracen too since we were already there. Turns out Hadley had the croup and needed a steroid. Seriously the croup still exists? I keep thinking where's Anne of Green Gables when I need her?? Luckily she started to feel better almost right away. When the doc looked in Gracen's ear, that's when she said oh yea this is bad, she's got double ear infections - here comes the guilt trip. But luckily we got our prescription and headed home two hours later. I was just glad this was all happening a week before Christmas, so that we could hopefully all be healthy for when we would be traveling. Two days later we ended up back at the doctor with Hadley, her croup was better, but now she had ear infections as well! Quite an eventful Monday I'd say.

Stay tuned for part 2! And I must say I'm impressed if you made it this far :)

The Day I met Ree

I don't have very many people that I would consider a true role model. Sure there are many many different people I look up to that have certain qualities that I admire, but nobody's perfect right? Well very high on my list is The Pioneer Woman. And a couple weeks (ok months) ago I got to meet her.

First I have to back pedal a little to last April. She was going on a book signing tour for her new cook book food from my frontier. So that quickly topped my birthday wishlist. Unfortunately her tour did not include a stop in KC. (Ree what's up with that?). The closest she came was Wichita, and again unfortunately for me it was on a Thursday morning and I couldn't miss work. As I was scanning the tour dates wallowing in self pity, I saw that she was doing a signing in Dallas. And I just so conveniently happen to have a sister residing in the great neighboring Fort Worth. So I politely requested a signed copy of the cookbook for my birthday from said sister.

So the wonderful sister that she is, drove her happy self to Dallas on a Saturday morning, cookbook in hand, only to be told at the Sam's Club (where the signing was) that only member's were allowed in. Say what?! Ree dear, why on earth would you be having signings in places that are not open to the public? (side note: through this process I learned that she doesn't choose the places where the signings occur - she's invited places, so it's really not her fault, it's Sam's Clubs!) So my lovely sister (seeing as how we are related) did not just hang her head and start for home. She immediately e-mailed PW regarding her dissapoinment, explaining the situation that this was a gift etc. And much to her and my surprise, she heard back almost instantly and Ree was going to send a new signed book to her (me) for free, and was very sorry for our troubles. I was tickled pink, and it was a great birthday!

Fast Forward to a couple weeks (ok months) ago and I found out she was having a book signing for her childrens Christmas book in KC. I was besides myself with excitement! So be this time my sister has since moved back to KC, and was going to accompany me to the KC signing. Ree did not dissapoint.

This was my first signing for anything (unless you count Stephanie Tanner at those festivals they use to have) so I didn't really know what to expect. She had a whole presentation regarding her and her family, and then signed Charlie books/cook books.

When it was FINALLY our turn (2 1/2 hours later - totes worth it) I of course being the cheesball person that i am took my first photo with her with my already signed birthday cookbook, and then another one without it. And she's every bit as lovely in person as she seems online. It definitely takes a special type of person to live out in the bfe, homeschool 4 kiddos, and create books and cookbooks all while running her own business on her website!


So if you're still reading this - thanks!

That's me holding the previously signed book - she got a kick out of the fact that I brought it. Also I took this one with my phone and of course it was blurry. But don't worry I brought my actual camera as backup!



Pre-School Parade and Trick-or-Treating

Gracen had a Halloween parade at school, and for that day she chose to be Pinkalicious. This would be costume #3 for this year. That's the good thing about having girls and lots of dress up dresses :)

We were incredibly fortunate with the weather, it was probably 60ish that day. You never know with KS weather. I remember Halloween's from when I was little when we need layer upon layer, and then some where we could've worn flipflops.

They paraded around the playground, then sang us some Halloween songs. It was hilarious. I loooove watching them sing, they get so into it and don't care a thing about what they look like!

That night we headed over to Aunt Nanie's and her new(ish) house for some jack-o-lantern pizza and trick-or-treating!

For trick-or-treating Hadley was the cupcake again, and Gracen was workout Barbie. I am super pumped about her costume becuase we totally threw it together last minute. She originally wanted to wear her tutu from her dance recital, but refused to wear a long sleeve shirt underneath. So we started out with her black leo from dance and black tights, and then I put on her fleece 80's-esque sweatshirt for the flashdance look. Then a stroke of genius hit and I took a pair of my warm fuzzy socks and cut the feet part off and voila! leg warmers! She loooved them. She put on the headband and as soon as I told her she was Barbie she got really excited! I love when things just happen to work out like that.

Isn't she just the sweetest thing ever?? I could just eat her up!!

I think trunk-or-treats have kind of slowed down actual trick-or-treating. We went around the neighborhood for probably an hour, and hardly saw anyone. Most houses would give the girls handfuls of candy and we would be like no no that's plenty! We got plenty from Aunt Nanie too, she said she didn't get many trick-or-treaters. We had candy overload for quite a while (mommy wasn't complaining). Overall we had a blast the whole month of October. Seems like it was Halloween all month long!

Carving Pumpkins

This year we decided to do something cray-cray and actually carve pumpkins! the past few years with itty bittys in the house we just painted our pumpkins. And that was pretty fun, but last year our pumpkins didn't last long. We don't have a porch anymore, and one night it rained and washed all the paint off - damn you washable finger paints! And then the squirrels came and ate the pumpkins. Literally, ate it all.

Seriously this was after the first day on the porch last year. By the third day it was totally gone, stem and all.

By "we" I mean the Mr. carved the pumpkins. I got the lovely job of cleaning the pumpkin seeds (g-ross, but totally worth it) and roasting them. Roasted pumpkin seeds are one of my all time fav snacks, and they're totally good for you. BONUS!

Don't mind the ice pack on Gracen's head. She previously wacked her head on something messing around with Had, but was not going to miss out on the dangerous fun of carving pumpkins.

I'm pretty sure all those seeds lasted us like a day and a half. They were just so delicious. And luckily the squirrels did NOT attack our pumpkins this year. I think without the seeds in them they lost their appeal.

All lit up on the front porch!!! Luckily no blood was drawn, and no tears were shed. I'd call that a successful first year of carving pumpkins.

Also in case you need a super easy and yummy roasted pumpkin seed recipe:

• 4 Tbs melted butter
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 2 tsp worchestershire sauce

Mix the above and coat pumpkin seeds, place on a cookie sheet and roast in a 275 degree oven stirring every 5 minutes. Then try not to eat in one sitting :)

Pumpkinpalooza / Trunk-or-Treat

This year Halloween lasted the whole month of October for us. Seems like we had something going on every weekend. As the kids get older, we get busier.

Pumpkinpalooza is a fundraiser at Aunt Jaime's work the Sunflower House. We decided that would take place of our annual pumpkin patch visit since we were getting our pumpkins there, and our weekends were pressed for time. Aunt Nanie snagged the KSU pumpkin, so we got one with Hello Kitty painted on it, and one that was chalkboard painted to color on ourselves. The girls got their faces painted, had some lunch, played in the bouncy house while Mom and Dad waited in line for like an hour for balloon animals.

 For this day Gracen was little red riding hood and Hadley was Tinkerbell. This year I opted not to buy new costumes. The girls have plenty of dress up dresses, and other clothes that I totally jimmy rigged every single one. I love that little fur cape!

 

While we were there we ran into Gracen's friend Adele from preschool! They were inseperable, even while getting her face painted!

Hadley was pretty apprehensive of the face painter and made Gracen go first. She also made sure that it matched her dress. She is my daughter after all :)

Finally! Gracen's kitty!! Too bad it popped shortly after and we had a mild melt down...

Miss Tink got 2 puppies kissing and a heart. She's really into Lady and the Tramp right now and loooved that it was a bracelet too!

It took us forever to get them out of the bouncy house. I'm pretty sure we were the last people there. But they had a blast, and definitely took a good nap that day.

It was a fun morning, the weather was gorgeous and it all went to a good cause. I'd call that a successful start to Halloween 2012!

Next up was trunk-or-treat at Gracen's school. It was pretty chilly out that night, but the Mr. had class and we had nothing better to do, so we switched up costumes and headed to St. Ann's!

Gracen was a cupcake last year, so Hadley picked that to wear this night since it was so cold. Gracen wanted to be tinkerbell this time, so she looks like a little chunko with so many layers underneath. Overall we were only there for less than 30 minutes, once it got completely dark out the temps dropped quickly. We got some good candy though - I may or may not have been steering them toward the Reese's. We had a blast, and it was fun to see so many of the families from Gracen's school!