Fun at the Park

I wrote this blog last night, but didn't get a chance to post it ...

We went to the park for a while today, and took a long walk around our neighborhood. It was nice out, but a little bit windy, so Emma insisted that they needed jackets on. We did one loop around the block and then stopped back for their little jacket vests - so that miss Emma would be happy for the rest of the walk. She's a very bossy little one these days. And I don't really like it. We need to work on that....

 He was mad at me for taking his picture - that's what that face is all about.

Sharing a Swing

They are best friends.

Playing Soccer...

Drew is really good at kicking the ball around.

Emma running across the soccer field. She was tuckered out when we left.

And, playing on the slide

They both totally crashed out in the stroller on our walk home.

So, I walked around the block a few times to give them a little extra napping time, and then pulled the stroller into the house when we got home, so they napped in the stroller, in the hallway yesterday. I wasn't even considering trying to move them, for fear that I would wake up tired monsters.

Emma did NOT want to leave the park, and it looked like it was maybe going to start raining, and we had been there a while, so I wanted to head home before we got stuck in the rain, since we walked to the park. Emma basically made me chase her around the park, up ladders, and down the slides before I finally just told her that we were leaving her there... and pretended to start walking away. It traumatized Drew. He totally ruined my 'scare' attempt. I wanted her to think we were really going to leave her there, and then there is Drew yelling at me "Mommy!!! My Emma!!!!! No leave my Emma!!!" So I yelled over to her "What are you going to do, sleep here tonight??" and she said "Yeah. Bye mom." And she laid down at the top of the slide and pretended to go to sleep. She was definitely being stubborn this weekend. When we went to see the Easter bunny on Saturday, she wasn't ready to leave (No matter how long we let her stay, it still would have never been long enough) So she was THAT child, that was yelling, kicking and screaming as Andrew had to drag her out of there. The kids that I used to look at and say "My child will NEVER act like that." Talk about feeling like a defeated parent.

I'm hoping it's a phase. We definitely need to work on it.

Easter bunnies, Jelly Beans and Silly String

We had a long, fun Easter weekend. I love family weekends. I have today off, and I'm hanging out at home with my twinkies. We are recovering from our Jelly Bean hang overs! They are sitting at the table with me playing with the play doh that was in their Easter baskets. On Saturday we went to visit the Easter bunny, and they had a little petting zoo, face painting, balloons...
Emma was like the animal whisperer, she LOVED the animals, and loved feeding them, right out of her hand. She was really upset when we moved on from the petting zoo. Drew on the other hand, was not too thrilled with it. He hated the animals eating out of his hands and he pretty much just hung around next to the little bunny. (Which by the way I wouldn't be surprised if the poor bunny had heart failure, it was traumatized and shaking, with a bunch of little kids reaching their hands in to play with it.)

 Drew and his little bunny friend. & Emma feeding the goats

 Visiting the Easter Bunny

After our Easter bunny visit, Andrew took Drew to a live production of Thomas the Train. He LOVES Thomas. Andrew said it was like a musical.
That night when we all got home, we cooked filet Mignon on the grill, made Parmesan potatoes and corn on the cob - and... fresh sliced strawberry shortcakes with french vanilla whip cream!

I have had a few people ask about the Parmesan potatoes - so I'll put it on here.
I slice potatoes really thin (You can use any type of potato.) Depending on the size of the potato I will usually use 3 or 4 small to medium size potatoes. But obviously it depends on how many people you will be feeding. The thinner you are able to slice them, the easier they cook on the grill.
I put them in a big bowl and mix oil (I usually do a mix of olive oil and a little vegetable oil) I dump some garlic salt, and seasoned pepper, and a lot of grated Parmesan cheese into the bowl with the potatoes and oil and mix it together really well so that all of the potato slices are covered. I have also put parsley or basil in there as well, depending on what I have in at the time. Lay out a few large squares of a foil, and I put a small bundle of the potato slices on top of each piece of foil. (Hint: Spray the foil with Pam cooking spray first to avoid them sticking to the foil) I will usually spoon a little extra oil & Parmesan mixture from the bottom of the bowl over each bundle. Wrap them up in the foil - and put them on the grill. Andrew does the grill part so I'm really not sure of exact cooking time, but you can open the bundles and check on them occasionally to see how soft the potatoes have gotten. You can also put little pads of butter in between the potatoes before they go onto the grill, which makes them extra yummy.... but I avoid doing that most of the time because of the extra fat it adds. ;)
And that's it. We like making those when we grill steaks on the grill. It goes really well together.

After dinner we decorated eggs! We debated as to whether this was a good idea or not, and... against our better judgement we decided to let them dye and decorate eggs. So, aside from spilling dye, and not understanding that the eggs are still fragile, even though they are hard boiled - we pretty much had every one of them broken by the time we were done. But, they had fun and that's all that matters. And, we have some pretty cool eggs to show for it!

And then, the Easter Bunny made a visit to our house.

They got movies, fruit snacks, bubbles, play doh, slinkies, (I don't remember what else.) and probably more sugar than they needed. Emma got a new camera and Drew of course got a few race cars. And they each got a little golf club set.

There were about 40 eggs, and I must say.... the egg hunt wasn't totally successful. After they found the first couple, they weren't really that interested in finding more. Eventually we were able to get all of the eggs, but it took a while. They were too distracted by their Easter baskets and whatever was in the first few eggs that they found to have any interest in looking for more eggs. Next year will be different I'm sure.

Later in the day we went over to my parents, and what do you know... the Easter bunny had also made a stop there! These kids are a little bit spoiled... Andrews parents also sent a big Easter package this week with all of the kids favorite things, my grandma sent an Easter tin full of goodies for them, and Aunt Peg sent them a bunch of fun easter things last week.

Emma eating treats out of her basket at Mimi & Pops.

It was funny... she kept referring to 'peeps' at 'Petes'. She was eating her Petes.

 Dinosaurs!

 My mom, sister and I. (Mom insisted on keeping her apron on. Very domestic!) She did make a really good dinner.

 Drew cruisin' around the back deck in his car

 My baby boy looks so big!

 Drew with his Pop

We attempted to get a family picture, which is always very interesting....

 The dinosaurs and the car had to be in our picture.

And.... This next one is my favorite.

 It perfectly describes what family pictures are usually like.

 And then, we all got into a silly string fight. Because.... Why not?!

That was my moms doing. And he wasn't thrilled about it either.

Carrot Cake Time!!

It wasn't anyone's birthday but, the kids like to blow out candles, so.... we had candles in the cake!!

Drew & Aunt ChaCha

 We are off to the park! Catch ya later.

Dinner Recipe

I've had a few recipe requests lately - so here's a quick and easy dinner recipe, and it's yummy too.
Have you seen the Philadelphia cooking cremes? They are sort of new... maybe within the last 6 months or so. I thought, they probably weren't much different from cream of chicken soup or something, to use when you are making a casserole or whatever - but, I decided to try it and I actually really like them. You can pretty much do anything with them, and they are really good to have on hand for quick, last minute meals. They come in a few flavors (Santa Fe, Italian cheese and Herb, Garlic, and plain.) I think that's it. They usually have them near the sour creams or cheese sections in the grocery store. I've tried the Italian Cheese & Herb, and the Santa Fe.
So, here's what I did tonight -
I cut up about a pound of chicken into bite size pieces and sauteed it on the stove top with a little olive oil and a tad of garlic salt. Once the chicken is cooked all the way through, or close to it, I dumped in mixed veggies (Just a bag of frozen mixed vegetables - corn, carrots, green beans, lima beans, and peas)

In the mean time I  boiled a little pasta (I used the spiral pasta). When the pasta was done and the chicken and veggies were cooked, I dumped the pasta and the Italian cheese and herb cooking cream, and kept the burner on for a little bit until it was all mixed and melted together. (* I use Dreamfields pasta - it comes in a black box - it only has 5 digestible carbs)

And... that's it!! Quick and easy - and tastes good.

I have made it a few other times with just the chicken & veggies to do a low carb version. You can also use rice instead of pasta...


Another pasta recipe that's one of my all time favorites - is a penne pasta bake.
Boil the penne, or whatever your favorite shape pasta is. At the same time, have whatever pasta sauce you like to use getting warm in a pot.
I will either use ground sirloin, or sausage, or a mixture of both, and cook it in a pan on the stove. Once it's done, I throw it into the sauce to give the sauce some meat.
Then... when the pasta is done, throw the pasta, meat and sauce into a big bowl and mix it up really good. Pour it into a big baking dish, and cover the top of it with shredded cheese (You can use mozzarella. My favorite is the Italian cheese mix) - and bake it for about 30 minutes on 350, until the cheese is totally melted.
(Depending on how you like your pasta, you may want to cut the initial boiling time short by a minute or two because it also cooks in the oven while it's baking.) And, serve it with a fresh loaf of french bread, and get the good grated Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top. Yum!

I have to get my kiddos ready for bed, but maybe tomorrow I will post my chicken fettuccine Alfredo recipe - with the alfredo cheese sauce made from scratch!  Definitely not on the diet menu - but it's good if you let yourself cheat.

Speaking of putting my munchkins to sleep, Emma has definitely had some interesting (and pretty funny) sleeping positions the last few days.

Hanging off the end of the bed, like she had a rough night out partying or something. Totally crashed out!

This one is a little hard to see because I only had a dim light on in the room.

And... her nap today on Mimi's couch.