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1/29/12

Meal Plan + an easy dinner recipe!

Monday:
Lunch - Leftover chicken noodle soup
Dinner - Salad and apple slices (Jack's away for bball)

Tuesday:
Lunch - Pastaroni with peas
Dinner - Crockpot mexican chicken (ala pinterest :)

Wednesday:
Lunch - PB and J, sunchips, carrots
Dinner - Baked Spaghetti and steamed green beans

Thursday:
Lunch- Tuna Salad sandwiches, fruit salad, broccoli
Dinner - Country Club Chicken (ala pinterest again)/peas

Friday:
Lunch - Leftovers
Dinner - Salad and a sweet potato (Jack's away again)



Here's a yummy recipe that I started making a few years ago. We call it Hawaian Chicken because it was my attempt at recreating one of our favorite dishes from the chinese buffet where we used to live. Although it's not exactly like theirs (I don't deep fry mine) I think it tastes pretty similar. I hope you try it and love it!

Hawaian Chicken
serves 3-4

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast
1 large can pineapple chunks in pineapple juice
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 clove garlic minced (I buy the preminced kind in the jar)
2 Tbs oil
2 Tbs butter
flour
salt and pepper


Preheat oven to 350.
Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes. Heat oil in skillet over med/high heat. salt and pepper chicken to taste. Dredge chicken pieces in flour and then place into hot oil. Cook until golden brown. Transfer chicken to an 8x8 baking dish.

In the same skillet melt butter then add 2T of flour, stir constantly until flour is incorporated and begins to brown.  Add all the juice from the canned pineapple, brown sugar, and honey. 
Stir frequently until sauce begins to bubble and thicken. Add garlic and allow sauce to simmer until it's a thick syrup-like consistency.

Remove from heat. Add pineapple to chicken in the baking dish and then pour the sauce over the top. 
Bake for 35-40min. Serve over brown rice.


You can also try adding a little soy sauce or red pepper flakes for  slightly different flavor.

1/27/12

The meltdown

So here's the story.
Last night after giving the girls a bath I was getting Kara dressed in her jammies while Kirsten got hers on in the bathroom. Then I went in to check on Kirsten and she had twisted her towel on her head to hold her hair like I do, and was getting ready to put her shirt on over the top. I told her "We need to take your towel off your head, because the shirt won't fit over it." I went to take it off and she LOST IT! She started screaming "NO, I want it on! Don't take it!" She was going crazy, pulling on the towel and screaming. It was seriously nuts!

So I took the towel away from her, and told her that because chose to throw a fit she was going right to bed with no cartoons or snack. And of course this made her even more irrate. So I carried her kicking and screaming to her bed, and shut the door.
It even made Kara cry. (she was crawling behind me watching all of this unfold)
So while Kirsten was in her bedroom screaming her head off, I finished getting Kara ready for bed and laid her down. (thankfully they both have sound machines so Kara couldn't hear Kirsten anymore)
After about 10-15 minutes she had finally calmed down, so I went into her room and talked to her about what she did wrong. (We always reinforce that bad choice lead to bad consequences, and good choices have good consequences.)  She said "I think I will do gooder tomorrow."  Then I gave her hugs/kisses and tucked her in for the night like normal.

Thankfully, Kirsten has only thrown full out tantrums a handful of times and this was probably the worst of them all so far. It's no fun at all to parent in situations like these...I am not sure how I will handle it when both the girls are teenagers!

1/20/12

Dishwasher for hire!

My dishwasher has been broke for, I don't even know, probably 3 weeks. It seems like forever (the landlord has ordered a new one we are just waiting on Lowes to install) and I am horrible with keeping up with hand washing the dishes. They pile up in the sink until it's out of control and I have no choice but to wash them. Then it takes me like an hour and a half to wash them all. So I've passed the job on to my little helper...


She loves washing dishes!



Too bad she's not that good at it yet, otherwise I'd let her go at it solo. Soon..maybe.

1/15/12

Standing tall

Kara has become a big time food mooch. Anytime one of us is eating something she crawls over to us and  says "ah ah ah" begging for a bite. This wednesday I was on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, so of course she crawled over to me, but this time she pulled herself up to stand! For the first time! I was so excited for her!


Now she is doing it all the time. The only problem is she hasn't figured out how to get back down gracefully. So she will either eventually fall down, or she just stands there whining for me to help her :) Kirsten likes to help he sit back down, but she just grabs her around the waist and pulls...it's a little rough.


Today I was cleaning in the kitchen and Kirsten said "Look Mom, Kara is standing to look at the snow" This is how I found her :) So cute!


1/11/12

Meal plan

I've been doing really bad about posting our weekly menus and that's probably because I've also been slacking on planning them period. I'm going to do better though, we eat better/healthier when I plan out our meals and also save money and the stress of figuring out what to cook last minute.

Here's what's on the menu for this week.

Monday:
Lunch- toasted ham and cheese subs - broccoli/chips
Dinner - Salmon, Parmesan bow tie pasta, peas

Tuesday:
Lunch- Chili, crackers, carrot sticks
Dinner - Hawaiian Chicken, brown rice, asparagus

Wednesday:
Lunch- Tuna salad sandwiches, broccoli/blueberries
Dinner- BBQ mini meatloaves, baked potatoes, green beans

Thursday:
Lunch- Mandarin chicken salad
Dinner- Clam Chowder

Friday:
Lunch- Fish sticks and fries/apple slices
Dinner- Mexican rice casserole

1/1/12

Our New Year's Rockin' Eve Party!

Yesterday I was talking to Kirsten about how it was New Year's Eve and telling her about the big party that they have in New York to celebrate. So then Kirsten wanted to have our own party too. I had been a little bummed I would be spending the night alone since Jack's still out of town, but now that Kirsten was excited to have a party I wanted to make a fun night out if it!

We made silly party hats and cut out confetti...



First we played games...


Kara ate cheerios while we played, she kept trying to eat the game pieces.



Then we watched Dora and ate pizza.



Kara wouldn't keep her hat on, so I ended up wearing it :)


We got out our keyboards and spent a long time dancing and singing... there's a video of Kirsten singing on my facebook, if you want to watch. She's a goofball!


And then it was time to count down to the New Year...at 8:00pm :) We threw up our confetti and said Happy New Year!

Kirsten LOVED the confetti, so we counted down and threw the confetti over and over again :)


It wasn't Time Square but it was still a rockin' great night! :)