Old Pictures

I came across a bunch of old pictures and can't beleive how much the kids have changed.  Good golly they are growing up so fast.

My swimming diva!

This is Alex and his buddy Manuel.  They've been friends since Pre School and hate the fact that they go to different elementary schools.  They get to hang out in the afterschool program and at Camp Otter.

Look at them.  I can't get over how much their faces have changed.  I loved this dress on Rachel, little skull & cross bones.

Family Picture!

Picture from YBL Family Day 2010!

Recipe Review-Baked Lemon Pasta w/chicken

This is a great recipe.  The original is just baked lemon pasta, but that won't fly in my house, there needs to be protein in the meal.  And as you all know, I am not a left over person, however I ate all of these leftovers over the course of a couple of lunches-reheats great. 

Ingredients


1 pound Thin Spaghetti

4 Tablespoons Salted Butter

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 cloves Garlic, Minced

1 whole Lemon, Juiced And Zested

2 cups Sour Cream

½ teaspoons Kosher Salt, Or More To Taste

Plenty Of Grated Parmesan Cheese

Flat-leaf Parsley, Chopped

Extra Lemon Juice
 
1 punch chicken cut up into bite sized chunks and browned.
 
Preparation Instructions


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook spaghetti until al dente.

In a skillet, melt butter with olive oil over LOW HEAT. When butter is melted, add minced garlic. Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat.

Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary. Pour mixture over drained spaghetti  & cooked chicken and stir together, then pour spaghetti mixture into an oven safe dish.

Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Then remove foil, sprinkle cheese across the top and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the pasta will dry out.)

When you remove it from the oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over the top. Top generously with the chopped parsley. Give it a final squeeze of lemon juice at the end.

Serve with crusty French bread and a simple green salad.

Move Over Rachael Ray

There's a new chef coming to town!  Rachel loves to help in the kitchen.  She's getting good at it too, remembers things I've taught her, such as holding the bowl while you use the mixer!

We were making French toast batter-Mind you she didn't eat it-doesn't care for French Toast.  Only the frozen kind-what is wrong with this child.

Look at how intent she is on getting all the batter mixed.  What a good kid-soon she'll be making dinner for us-when she can reach the stove.  Well we should probably wait until she's old enough the handle open flame as well-I figure by the time the height thing happens she should be around 12.

Milk & Cookies

Alex and Rachel have taken after their father in their love of dunking cookies in milk.  I, on the other hand, find it repulsive.  Cookies are not meant to be soggy and all the crumbs that are in the bottom of the glass heeb me out. Of course, now that the rest of the family loves to dunk their cookies and knows how much I hate it (it actually makes me retch just thinking of it-so I am typing this post trying very hard not to get sick) they like to torment me while they do it. 

I did however get some cute pictures of the kids so I have to share them.

Fresh out of the shower and ready for his snack.

Notice he pulls the Oreos apart and dunks them seperately.  More cookie to dunk-blech!

Rachel goes right for the full cookie dunk.

Watching TV

Alex likes to be in stuff when he does things.  I know that doesn't make much sense.  For instance, when he reads he likes to curl up in this red metal bucket we have.  He likes to climb inside totes and play, he's weird what can I say.  The other day we caught him watching TV like this.

Movie Review-The Hurt Locker

We hardly ever go to the movies, so I don't see stuff until it comes on HBO but now with the invention of Red Box I can see them earlier.  I've actually seen 3 of the movies nominated for Best Picture and one of them is not Up!  So during my sick birthday weekend Allen and I watched The Hurt Locker and it was excellent.  Seriously really good movie.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, I'd just heard it was good so we got it.  Rent this movie now.

Homemade Salsa

I stole this recipe from a site I love.  Then again that's what I do with all my recipes.  So I made this Sunday night and it's awesome.  And best of all easy.

Ingredients

1 lg. can whole tomatoes
1 can Rotel
1 can diced tomatoes w/ green chilis
1 medium onion diced
1 jalapeno diced
cilantro-to taste-I use a medium amount
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. sugar
dash of cumin

Put everything in the food processor or blender and pulse until well chopped.  Obviously do it to your liking, I like mine well pulverized so that's how I made it.  It made a lot too, and it's healthy. 

New Year's Resolution Failure

My New Year's Resolutions have failed and quite frankly from lack of trying.  I did not meet my goal of 10 posts for January, and why, just because I didn't do them.  I will regroup this month and post something other than what I eat.

I have not lost any weight and well I didn't even try.  I need to lost a minimum of 20 by April vacation more like 30 but let's start with something.  So being that I will begin diet and excercise within the next couple of days, the diet part right away, exercise we'll see, my posts may be angry...I hate exercise.

My Girly Birthday

I had grand plans for my birthday this year.  We had an overnight babysitter, we were going to go somewhere fancy well at least fancier than our normal haunts for dinner and then meet people at Mi Mexico Lindo for drinks.  All of that came to a screeching halt when I got sick.  I hardly left my bed for my birthday weekend let alone celebrated.

However, many people treated me wonderfully.  First Allen snuck off Fridya night after work and bought me a beautiful bracelet from Tiffany's.  Saturday, while I was napping no less, Lyn popped by with flowers, a candle and cheesecake for me to celebrate.  I ate the cheesecake for dinner.  I figured if I couldn't go out I was at least eating something I wanted.

We are planning on trying for a redo this weekend.  Mindyou, Alex and Bob are both now sick so we'll see what happens once the weekend rolls around.