2nd party invite

I just created Evie's second birthday party invitations on Shutterfly. I do love their stuff.Of course, the best part was that it was almost completely free! I used my Pampers points to buy the cards and only had to pay shipping! AND it gets even better! By giving you this link, they'll give me a $10 credit on my next order, which you know I'll be using. You can do it too! Just make a card on shutterfly and when you're finished with your order, embed it on your blog. Shutterfly rocks. :) Also, Shutterfly did NOT ask me to write anything about this post, all that was required was the blow link/graphic.

Sweet Cupcake Birthday Invitation

Click here to browse Shutterfly birthday card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Cleaning out the Fridge

One of the perils of being pregnant... I make my menu early in the week, do the grocery shopping and then develop an inexplicable aversion to at least one meal on my list about once a week. The result is a fridge full of a hodge podge of fresh and frozen veggies that I have to figure out how to use and not gross myself out.  Tonight's dinner was pretty successful. Evie and Mike both ate a bunch. I am feeling rather meat averse today, so I picked out the chicken but I'm still calling it a win.  I think it would have been better with fresh herbs, but I just planted my seeds this weekend, so we had to go with dried. But if you have fresh basil, oregano and flat leaf Italian parsley use them instead. The parsley would really make a fresh tasting addition.

Cleaning out the Fridge Pasta:  8 Servings, 8 Weight Watchers Points Plus per serving

Ingredients:

1 lb Pasta (we had Penne in the pantry)
1 tbs olive oil + cooking spray
2 8oz boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 10oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 Tbs dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 oz fat free cream cheese (or more if you have it)
1/4 cup Parmesan, shredded + more for garnish

Directions:
Boil pasta according to package instructions

Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and add olive oil. Heat pan and add cubed chicken. Season with salt and pepper.  Add onions and garlic and cook until chicken is no longer pink and onions are translucent. Add mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. Add Basil, Oregano, Salt and Pepper.  Cook until mushrooms break down, tomatoes pop and spinach is heated through.  Stir in cheeses until melted and well combined.

Add drained pasta to skillet and toss to combine. Serve hot topped with a little extra Parmesan.

Penne with Chicken, Artichokes and Spinach

On the menu for dinner tonight was this recipe that I adapted and, okay, sort of made up loosely based on one I found on the Weight Watchers website.  It took almost exactly 30 minutes from start to finish. When I put it in the recipe builder it came out to 8 points plus a serving. And it made 8 large servings.

Ingredients:
1 lb penne pasta
16 oz boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch chunks
2 tsp olive oil divided
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
15 oz can artichoke hearts packed in water, drained and chopped
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbs dry Basil
1 Tsp dry Oregano
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Prepare pasta according to package instructions.
Heat 1 tsp olive oil in large skillet. Add chicken and season with salt and pepper.
When chicken is cooked remove to a plate
Heat remaining tsp olive oil in same skillet.
Saute onions and garlic until onions become translucent.
Add Spinach, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and spices to taste.
Heat through.
Pour in chicken broth and simmer until reduced by half.
Add chicken and pasta to skillet and combine.
Add Parmesan cheese and toss to combine.

22 Months- and Almost on time too!

Evie turned 22 months on Friday. Almost 2!!  Time just goes by so quickly.  We've been fortunate enough to have some semi decent weather lately so she's been enjoying playing outside as much as possible. She's always very happy when she gets to be outside...coming in can be a problem! 

Evie celebrated her 22nd month birthday with our annual trip out to my former employer to volunteer answering phones for their radiothon for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. 

Evie was extremely well behaved and played with her toys and the other volunteers the entire time. I was very proud of her. And I'm happy to say we helped them raise nearly $26,000 for St. Jude. It truly is an amazing place not only for the patients but the parents too. And the research they do there is incredible. It's the front lines. They are finding cures and saving lives. I'd really encourage you to become a partner in hope.

Wouldn't you know, a big rain storm came in on Saturday and we had to spend most of the day inside. But when it quit raining for a bit we got out and tried on Evie's new rain boots and "brellalya".

She really enjoyed splashing in the puddles.

I get the feeling she's as excited about spring as we are!

And with that, it was time to go get some dry pants. Plus it started raining again. Alas.

But Sunday was glorious and we worked/played in the yard all day long. And today has been brilliant too. We met some friends for a picnic at the park. Evie got to ride on the merry go round.

 Then she showed off her new found "hanging" ability.

But feeding the ducks was most certainly the highlight of the day.

As for the stats... Well, she's growing. I don't know how much. I haven't measured her and she's so healthy, she hasn't been back to the doc. She's still wearing size 18 month clothes and size 6 shoes though.  Potty training is going okay.  She gets caught up in playing and doesn't want to come inside to go so we're having to deal with that. She's also very manipulative and figured out that her babysitter would let her wash her hands every time they went in the bathroom whether she used the potty or not. Mommy doesn't play that. She only gets to play in the sink if she actually goes. Little smarty pants used that to her advantage and anytime the babysitter was around, even if she wasn't watching Evie, she demanded that the sitter take her potty.  We finally figured out what was going on Friday and put a stop to it. 

I am so happy to say that Evie's verbal language is growing by leaps and bounds! I knew it would just start pouring out eventually. And while you still can't really understand what she's saying most of the time, they are definitely words and once decoded very effective. She has versions of: No, Water, More, Tigger, Pooh Bear, Elmo, Emmy, Ernie, Bert, Mommy and Daddy (of course), Nana, Grammy, Papa, Pink, Brown, Blue, Yellow, Green, Slide, Umbrella, Down and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. She also does animal noises all the time and can do: Cat, Dog, Bird, Duck, Owl, Cow, Sheep/Lamb, Lion, Tiger and others. She also does the signs for all the animals as she makes the sounds. Her signing is still helpful and I'm very glad we taught her. For someone with limited speech, she is really a very effective communicator. There is very little doubt what the child wants.  

Evie got the giggles while brushing her teeth the other night. You can also clearly hear her tell us, "No, no no."

And one more thing before I go... Evie has an announcement to make.

In case you're interested- I designed Evie's special t-shirt and they are available for sale here: http://www.cafepress.com/cozybabydesigns

21 Months and Then Some

 My little girl is growing up faster than I can keep up! I know it's been ages since I updated her little digital baby book here and she seems to be growing and learning so many new things each day.

I haven't weighed and measured her in a while but she is wearing size 18-24 months or 2T tops and size 12-18 or 18-24 months pants, right about average, I'd say.

The terrible twos seem to be starting a little early as she's pushing every limit she can. We've had daily fights about getting dressed and brushing teeth and sitting still for nap time and wearing bibs and putting on shoes and getting in the car and every little thing you can possibly imagine and it's driving me cRAZY! The good days are good but on the bad days it's all you can do to just get through it until her daddy gets home from work.  Yesterday was one of those days. She was in time out 3 times before she got dressed. And it didn't get much better from there. I was peed on, hit, kicked, scratched, swatted and had my glasses ripped from my face. Some while she was already in time out for a previous offense.  The odd thing is, she is SO smart! She knows better. She knows she's not allowed to hit or kick or pull the picture frames off the walls. You can tell her something one time and she'll remember it forever. She brings up that lotion doesn't go on her blankie every night at  pajama time- something I mentioned off hand ONCE. And yet every day she goes to time out for hitting or kicking, something she's been told a hundred times is unacceptable.  Asserting independence without self control is all I can figure out and I hope she grows out of it soon. She's so much more fun when she's being good.

When she's happy her little laugh is infectious. She'll giggle and squeal and chase you and kitties around the house. She's loved bouncing in what we call "The Colosseum" since the weather has been to crumby to go outside.

Her favorite activities are still reading books- she gets very excited about going to the library each week. Her favorite books are anything with Sesame Street, Winnie-the-Pooh, although she's terrified of Tigger, and the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney.  She has the Christmas one and we read it all the time plus we check one of the others out at the library almost every week. 

She also enjoys puzzles, coloring books, anything with buttons and has recently started really pretending. While cooking dinner one evening I came in the living room to check on her and found her very diligently arranging her Cookies on the tray and putting on her little oven mit to take them out of her pretend oven (aka the ottoman).  

Developmentally she's right on track. I'd been concerned about her lack of speech but she does enough and her main language is still signing. But in the past few weeks she's grown much more verbal. Although very few words are recognizable, in context you can usually tell what she's talking about. And she combines spoken "words" with signs and other sounds to form weird little sentences.   For example, the cat pooped on the twin bed in her room a week or so ago. Even just today, long after it'd been cleaned up and the bedding washed, Evie said, "Nnn-nah!" point to bed "pffft!" "Bah Bah!".  Which pretty clearly, at least to her mother, meant, "Anna pooped on the bed. Bad Kitty!"  Or another example, which her daddy will kill me for making public, on the swing set one nice afternoon. Evie was swinging when her daddy excused himself for a moment. She said, "Da-Da" Grabbed crotch Michael Jackson style- her sign for potty "Pfffft!!" Holds nose.  I believe that sweet little princess was saying, "Daddy went inside to go potty. He's stinky." 

Speaking of Potty... she's potty trained during waking hours. We are officially a 2 diaper per day family and it's great! She wears pull ups when we leave the house but at home or even playing in the yard it's big girl panties all the way. I'm very proud of her.  Of course, now that she's pushing all the limits she's been having accidents on purpose to test us and see if she can get away with it. It's very frustrating to all of us and hard to know how to handle.  You don't want to punish her for having an accident, if it truly was accidental. But I don't want her to think it's okay to pee or poo where ever she wants either. I've reminded her that she doesn't get treats if she doesn't use the potty and remind her every 30 minutes or so to go.  And we've been doing little reminders in between.  "Where to pee pees go? That's right, Pee Pees go in the potty, not your pants. " Etc. Again, I'm hoping she grows out of this little stage sooner rather than later.

Since my last update we celebrated Valentines day

got an insane amount of snow...

... Evie was not a fan.

Got dressed up for Mac's first birthday ball.

and visited the Tulsa Aquarium.

In only a few more months, she'll be 2. But she's still my little baby. 

Mac & Cheese with Broccoli and Chicken

Everyone has been asking for this recipe tonight so here ya go...  with my modifications.

Ingredients: 

Cooking Spray

12 oz twisted pasta

1/8 tsp salt

10 oz Broccoli florets

16 oz cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed

1 tsp butter

1/3 cup plain bread crumbs

3 tbs grated Parmesan cheese, divided

2 1/2 cups Skim Milk

1/3 cup flour

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup low fat shredded sharp cheddar  (but not non fat... it won't melt)

1 tsp Dijon Mustard

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Coat a 2 quart baking dish with cooking spray.

Cook pasta according to package directions in a large pot with 1/8 tsp salt.  Add broccoli when pasta has about 3 minutes to cook.  When Al Dente, drain and return to pot. Add cubed chicken.

Meanwhile, in a medium sauce pan melt butter over medium heat. Stir in breadcrumbs until golden. Remove to small bowl. Mix in 1 tbs of Parmesan.

Spray same sauce pan with cooking spray. Add onions and garlic. Saute until onions are translucent and starting to caramelize.  Add flour and milk. Bring to a boil whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in mustard, salt, pepper, remaining 2 tbs of Parmesan and Cheddar. Pour mixture over pasta and stir to combine.  

Place pasta mixture in baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumb mixture.  Bake for 25 minutes.

Yield 8 Servings.  8 Weight Watchers Points Plus per serving. 

Raccoon Hat Pattern

The latest Cozy Baby original design is complete and the pattern is now available through Ravelry for $5! So, you'll be humming "Rocky Raccoon"  every time your little one wears this fun, warm and adorable little hat. Totally worth it, in my book.

Pattern features written instructions and photos for the basic hat, felted eye patches and ears, and simple crochet pupils and nose.  Also includes directions for felting and diagrams for assembly.

Made of bulky wool, this project is fast!

Available in multiple sizes- Newborn up to 5 years.

Ya, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, DAH!