roller coaster

This week has been such a roller coaster ride. On Tuesday, Felicity left for her first ever girls' camp. Excitement for her, woe for mommy. It was harder than I thought it would be to let her go, and it got even harder after she called me in tears on Wednesday. The rest of her time was good, so she had a happy experience over all, but of course I worried after that.

On Thursday, Tabitha went pee in the toilet for the first time ever. Wow! Exciting for everyone, especially as she repeated that a few times on Friday and Saturday. Mommy is doing the happy dance.

Then, on Friday, Norm finds out that a biopsy of his small intestine shows that he has celiac disease. His doctor is still doing some tests, but the biopsy is usually the conclusive test. He hasn't had any symptoms. He had an endoscopy for a tightness in his esophagus that sometimes makes it hard to swallow. While they were doing the endoscopy, they looked at the small intestine at well and could see the abnormalities associated with celiac, so did a biopsy. One of Norm's co-workers said that it's like taking your car into Pep Boys for an oil change and then finding out you need a new transmission. The short version of celiac disease: gluten intolerance causes damage to the villi of the small intestine which then causes digestive issues and increases the risk for intestinal cancer. The only treatment it the complete removal of all gluten from the diet...for the rest of his life. It wasn't really the happiest spot of this week.

But then, Felicity came home from camp, so that was a little bit of a brighter spot. I'm so glad she's home and that she had fun. She's been talking and talking and talking about all the things they did.

Belgium

Want to know what's so great about this place?

This is where my sister, Bethany, is going on her mission!!!! She doesn't leave until October, so we'll get a chance to see her this summer before she goes. We are so excited for her, especially as she has worked very hard to be able to do this. Congratulations Bethany!

OK, Lourie tagged me to post the 10th picture in the 1st folder on my computer. There's really no story behind this that I can remember. This is Tabitha shortly before first birthday. I think she was trying to brush her hair, but I really just took the picture because she's so dang cute!

I'm kind of a party pooper about tagging people, so if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged.

Fried Chicken Salad

Ok, this isn't so much a recipe as just a dinner idea. When it's hot like this, we love fried chicken salad at our house. Here's what you need:

Frozen breaded chicken tenders or popcorn chicken or chicken nuggets
Lettuce
Tomato
Onion
Cucumber
Broccoli
Carrots
Boiled eggs (about one per person)
Grated cheese
Ken's Steak House Honey Mustard dressing, topping and spread--don't be fooled by other honey mustard dressings. This is the really good one. No, they're not paying me to write this, but they should.

Put the chicken in the oven to cook and put the eggs on to boil. While all that's cooking, shred your lettuce and dice the other veggies. If you have older kids, put them to work on this. Don't think of it as slave labor, think of it as family togetherness or learning life skills or something great like that. Once the eggs are boiled, peel and dice them. Then serve it all up like a salad bar so everyone can have exactly the salad they like.

next recipe: chicken tortilla soup

This is an adaptation of another recipe from my sister. How would I ever cook anything without my crock pot and my sister's recipes? My poor family would soon starve.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (yes, I do use a lot of these)
28 oz crushed tomatoes
2 8oz cans tom sauce
2 cloves garlic
4 C water
2 t chicken bouillon
2 T sugar
1 T chili powder
1t salt
1/2 t oregano
4 oz diced chiles

Throw all these ingredients in the crockpot and cook on high for about 4 hours. When the chicken is all cooked and tender, shred it up. Then prepare your toppings:

diced avocado,
sour cream
grated cheese
sliced olives
tortilla chips (this is a great way to use up the crunched up bits of chip at the bottom of the bag)

You can top the soup with whatever you want, but I have to say, the avocado is really essential. The soup is fine and all, but the soup with diced avocado is yummy, yummy, yummy.

To my eternal amazement, all my kids eat this, even Isaac. Of course, they're all more likely to eat something when it was introduced to them on vacation, so that helps. It also helps that when I made it, Felicity's friend, Kyrie, was over for dinner. Kyrie is the least picky child I've ever met, and she loves to try new things. Just having her here when we try something new is the best thing I can do to make sure my kids give it a fair try.

a request

Audrie's comment reminded me, if you have a family favorite that's quick and easy to make, I'd love to have the recipe. If you either leave it in the comments or email me, I'll create a post about it so that it's easy for everyone to see rather than having to look back at the comments. Thanks!

Another recipe: Golden Mushroom Chicken

Today we have another crockpot recipe. Don't get the idea that I cook exclusively with the crock--only when I'm being lazy busy. I call this recipe Golden Mushroom Chicken, but when I got it from my sister (thanks Bek), it didn't really have a name. I had to give it one because I generally get asked "what's for dinner" at least five times a day, and it got really old saying, "That one chicken thing with the golden mushroom soup that Aunt Bekah makes. You like it, remember?" Golden Mushroom Chicken is a lot shorter to say. :)

Golden Mushroom Chicken

2-3 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 oz. cream cheese
1 can golden mushroom soup
1 packet Italian salad dressing mix
1 C chicken broth (I use 1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of chicken base or bouillon)
3 C rice

Around lunch time, put the chicken, cream cheese, soup, salad dressing mix and broth into the crock pot. Again, I usually put the chicken in frozen unless I'm getting a late start. If it's 2:00 or later, I thaw it in the microwave and cut it up a little so that it will cook faster. Put the crock on high for 4 hours or so and then shred up the chicken with a fork.

Once the sauce is ready, cook the rice, and serve the chicken sauce over the rice. If you have a rice steamer with a timer, you can even put the rice in the steamer at the same time you put the other stuff in the crock. Just set it so that the rice will be freshly cooked at the time you want to eat.

This one is popular with everyone except Mr. Macamoni Cheese. He'll eat it, but not without some argument. Of course, he only really loves three things besides chocolate in all its forms: mac and cheese, peakabutter sandwiches and mashed potatoes. Unless you count condiments: one of his favorite tricks is to take a hot dog or corn dog and put a whole pile of ketchup and honey mustard and ranch on his plate. Then, while you think he's eating lunch, all he's really doing is dipping the hot dog in the mess on his plate and licking it off. He likes it even better if he manages to eat some ketchup with a spoon. Yummy!

super quick and easy dinners

I'm back already for another blog post. I amaze myself sometimes.

So, a couple of family members have asked for some of my recipes that my family really loves that are easy, and I thought I'd put them here on my blog for everyone to enjoy. Also, I'm trying to force said family members to actually look at my blog. I'm all about ulterior motives.

Today's recipe: Pink Spaghetti

Ingredients:

2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can spaghetti sauce
1 jar alfredo sauce
1 1/2 packages angel hair pasta
3 T. butter (optional)
Romano or parmasan cheese (optional)

Put the chicken, spaghetti sauce and alfredo sauce in the crock pot on high for about 4-5 hours. I usually just put the chicken in frozen, but if I'm getting a late start (like 2:00 in the afternoon), I'll thaw the chicken in the microwave so that the whole thing needs less crock pot time. After the whole thing cooks for 4 hours or so, you should be able to shred the chicken with a fork, so go ahead and do that and make sure all the sauce is stirred up really well. Let that sit while you boil the pasta according to the package directions. We really like angel hair, but you can really use whatever pasta you prefer.

If desired, while the pasta is cooking, you can melt the butter (I just use the microwave) and toss the melted butter with the cooked and drained pasta. That just gives the pasta some flavor aside from the sauce. Also, grate some romano cheese to top everything with. The freshly grated cheese really makes an ordinary dinner into something extra good. If your kids are like mine, you can delegate the cheese grating to them, thus making this dinner even easier. :)

Not only does this serve my family of seven with leftovers for lunch the next day, everyone in the whole family actually likes this. Quick, easy and everyone likes it--that's not a combination I manage every day.

One more..

One more post and then I'll probably disappear for three more months. :) These are pictures of the valances I made to go in the rooms we just painted. The floral print is in the kitchen with the purple paint, and the stripes are in the living room with the green paint. Each has the opposite fabric for the straps that hold them up. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. Now I just need to find some energy to work on the rest of the house. :)

OK, I may be proud of my sewing at times, but I think I'm even more proud of this: The girls made these skirts themselves. I taught a sewing class as part of our homeschool co-op that we do with a couple of other families. All the girls made pajama pants first, and then we did these skirts. I was so impressed at how much better all the girls were with their sewing after just that one project. They had improved a lot at keeping their seams straight. I'll admit that I'm releived these turned out so cute because I would have hated to feel embarrassed when they wore them to church. It's bad enough remembering that I actually wore some of my early sewing projects to church. :) Fortunately, these are darling and I couldn't have made them better myself.

Other baptism pictures

These are some pictures I took of Avonlea earlier in the spring of her in her totally beautiful baptism dress. As you can tell, I'm pretty proud of it. I think it may be the most beautiful thing I've made (although I'm pretty sure I thought that about Felicity and Elisabeth's baptism dresses, too.) Sometimes when I make something I'm proud of, I think that the house will burn down to destroy my creation, but with kids, there's no need of fire to provide destruction. One time when we had afternoon church, Elisabeth decided to pass the time between getting ready and actually leaving for church by riding her bicycle...in her white baptism dress...and it got caught in the chain...and there what weeping and wailing...and not all the tears were Elisabeth's. Fortunately, after a great deal of careful soaking and washing, the only remaining damage is a couple of snags on the skirt where it had caught on the bicycle chain. But Avonlea had better have learned from her sister's mistake. After all, what else are big sisters for?

It's all about Avonlea

Recently, life here has been all about Avonlea. First, she had her birthday. It was extra special because it was the big 8!

Next came the dance recital. For the first (and probably last) time, she was the only one of our girls in the recital. She was part of a tumbling routine, and did a terrific job. During the rehearsal, she fell doing her hurdle cartwheel, so I was watching that part especially during the performance, and she nailed it. She amuses us all with her tumbling tricks--like when she forward rolls off the chair onto the floor to have prayer. She can do a back kick over now, and one day she was walking between the living room and the twins' play room, and just suddenly did a kick over to get from one room to the other, then stood up and walked off like it was just the most natural thing in the world. Her older sisters will probably never get tired of telling that story. :)

Finally, we had her baptism. Here she is dressed and ready to go with Daddy. Notice Isaac trying to make sure he gets into the picture. Remember when he hated having his picture taken? I'm not sure what happened to that kid. The only thing he likes better than having his picture taken now is getting to be the one taking the pictures. Thank goodness for digital cameras. Delete, delete, delete. Every so often he takes one that's a keeper though.

Here is Avonlea with the other kids who were baptized at the same time. They're a cute bunch.