Spicy Mexican Skillet Chicken

So, Jason is constantly complaining that I don't make enough of his precious beans and rice.  A meal substitute that he believes he could happily live off of for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I, on the other hand, don't really care for beans.  Which is something that has not gone unquestioned in Jason's mind "what was I thinking...".  However, being the awesome wife that I am, something else that hasn't gone unquestioned..., I try to make at least one Hispanic meal a week to appease my love's ferocious appetite for everything spicy.  I have to say, my daughters also share his love.  I am outnumbered.
This is one of his favorites.  What he doesn't know, is that it is good for him and I thoroughly enjoy it as well.  It is easy, cheap and is versatile.  Jason likes to eat it in a bowl mixed together.  I like it wrapped in a whole grain flour tortilla with lite sour cream and shredded cheese.  Bonus, the girls eat it without a fuss.  That's worth it's weight in gold.  Enjoy.

Ingredients:

1 to 2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/4 lb)
1 tbsp canola oil
1 can black beans, drained, rinsed
1 can of Mexican corn
1/2 cup salsa
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1/2 onion

Optional:  Serve with Zatarin's Spanich Rice (the best boxed rice I can find!), shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortillas.

Step 1:  Cut the chicken into small cubes or slices.  Mix with the chili powder, salt and pepper until evenly coated.

Step 2: Heat oil in skillet on medium/high heat.  Add seasoned chicken.  Cook until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.  Approximately 8-10 minutes.

Step 3:  Add beans, corn, bell peppers, and onion.  Let simmer for about 5-10 minutes or until veggies are cooked through.

Step 4:  Add salsa.  Heat through.  Serve.

End result, kids who find it hilarious that their daddy is wearing a pink bib and a wife with a happy content husband.

A Little Love...

I have a weakness for Valentine's Day stuff.  I don't know what it is.  The colors, the easy crafts, the great yummy treats?  Whatever it is, I thoroughly enjoy finding excuses to participate in it.  That's one of the reasons I had kids...  So, I decided for the second year in a row to throw the girls a little party.  Yes, it was intended for them but I am not ashamed to say that it also was for me.  We invited our mom's group over for a morning of controlled loving chaos.

I found a lot of motivation this year on pinterest (where has it been all my life).  I decided to make home made Valentine's this year and found a couple cute corny play on words to inspire me.  For Marcella, we made "Will you o"fish"ally be my Valentine?" labels and stapled them on top of clear plastic bags filled with goldfish. 

Adelyn's were a little more labor intensive, but fun to make.  We cut down old crayons,

stuffed and melted them in heart shaped silicone molds (we learned that you have to use Crayola.  All the generics contain too much oil that separates when you melt them. I'm sure you can get these molds lots of places but we got ours at Walmart),

and hot glued them onto labels we made saying, "You color my world."

I used washable crayons as well, since we were dealing with toddlers.

I made a dessert bar with strawberry cookie sandwiches and Valentine's puppy chow.  Click on the title for the recipes.

Both I thought were dangerously addictive.   I served strawberry milk and we exchanged valentine's. We ate our snacks picnic style on table cloths.

I had pre-made bags to keep their Valentine's and to use in a game we played later using brown lunch sacks, temera paint and stamps.

I hung them on textured string with the pre-mounted paper we used for our Daddy's Valentine we made.  I painted the kiddos hands with washable temera paint, stamped them upside down with fingers meeting to create a "heart" shape.  I outlined them with a black sharpie and asked them why they loved their daddy. I wrote the response around the heart.  I really like how they turned out! Sorry, photography is not my strong suit.

After their busy bodies were choc full of sinful sweets and uncontainable energy, I set them loose on the basement to find hearts that I had hid.  Even the little ones were able to participate and it kept them busy for a hole ten minutes!  That's like ten years in toddler time!

I enjoyed it, can't speak for others but I think the mommies enjoyed it, and the kids definitely had a blast!  Look at these faces...

Valentine Puppy Chow

Um... Can we say amazing?  I love this incredible addictive stuff!  Simple, cheap and yum!  Can't beat it.  I doubled this recipes because... um, well... we are fatties.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups rice chex cereal
1/2 cup candy melts (I used red)
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp butter
2/3 cup powder sugar
1/4 cup m&m style candy
2 tbsp valentine colored jimmie sprinkles

Step 1: Place cereal in medium bowl. In small microwavable bowl, microwave candy melts, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Pour peanut butter mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated.

Step 2:  Place the cereal mixture in 1-gallon food-storage plastic bag. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper or foil; cool about 15 minutes.

Step 3:  In serving bowl, mix cereal, candies and sprinkles. Store in airtight container.

Fantastic!

Strawberry Cookie Sandwiches

One of my new favorites!  Easy, inexpensive and incredible!  Enjoy! Since they are stacked will yield between 12-15 cookie sandwiches.  So, you might want to double the recipe!

Ingredients:

Cookies:
1 package strawberry cake mix
2 eggs
3/4 cup shortening

Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick of butter, softened
2 tbsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Step 1: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Step 2: Mix together all cookie ingredients in mixer on medium for two minutes until well blended.
Step 3:  Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop out dough and roll into balls (since you are going to
             stack them it's important they are all roughly the same size.) Place 2 in. apart on cookie sheet.
Step 4: bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.
Step 5: Remove from oven, let cool for a minute and transfer to a cooling sheet.
Step 6:  Mix frosting ingredients in mixer on medium until smooth.
Step 7:  Once cookies are completely cool, frost and stack together like an oreo.
Step 8:  Try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

What Will it Bee?...

I have recently been seeing a lot of pins on pinterest and friends facebook pages on gender reveal parties. For those of you who aren't familiar, it is a celebration to creatively announce the gender of your upcoming arrival.  Most people seem to do a form of cake or cupcake.  They dye the inside blue or pink and when you cut it open, there is your announcement. I've seen whole showers planned around these.

Since this is our third kid in three years, I thought it a little silly to do anything too extravagant but thought it would be fun to try it out for the fam.  Besides, I'm always looking for excuses to bake.  So I invited a friend over who was familiar with fondant and she gave me my first lesson in cake decorating.

I decided I wanted to do a cute play on words and theme.  "What's it going to bee?" with a bee adorned cake.  We made a small cake for some friends from my church community group and then a larger version for my family.  I have been dying to make bee cake pops and this was the perfect excuse.  I needed a white cake mix so its color wouldn't interfere with dying; I chose french vanilla.  I separated the batter into three equal parts.  I baked one layer plain, another with it dyed an in between shade and the last the darkest truest of the color.  Once they had cooled, I shaved them so they would be level and saved the cut pieces for my cake pops.  I dyed some cream cheese frosting pink and iced in between the layers as I stacked them.  I crumb coated the whole cake in just plain white cream cheese frosting.

We rolled out the pre-packaged fondant (yes... I was too prego, fat and lazy to make it from scratch) and I was surprised how easy it was to manipulate.  We dyed some yellow and some black.  I trimmed the small cake with a yellow ribbon at the bottom and used the black for the letters. 

The fun part, however, were the cake pops.  I made them traditionally, here's the tutorial I did on them, and used yellow candy melt for the main color.  Before they got too dry I inserted two white heart shaped sprinkles at the top for the wings.  Then I went over them with black icing for the stripes and sprinkled black sprinkles to give it some texture.  I attached a chocolate chip on the back for a stinger (well I thought it looked like a stinger, Jason told me it just looked like the bee was pooping but he's a boy and they know nothing about cuteness.)  Voila, bumble bee.  Some were a little more abstract then others but I think everyone got the idea.  I placed a couple on the cake and there it was.  My bee themed reveal cake.

At the actual family reveal I had everyone vote.  It was great because the majority guessed wrong so it was a great surprise.  I had my sweet mama cut the cake and....

Sorry Jason.  You are going to drown in estrogen.  Only princesses here.

Dissecting Daddy...

I think I have finally recovered from our bout with potty training.  And I regretfully have to report that Adelyn won and I lost.  We have decided to start back up when big papa is home to help :)  And speaking of Daddy, I want to share a little idea that the girls and I constructed for dear old dad for his stocking.  Moving into a new house, being pregnant, a first birthday and Christmas all within three weeks pretty much left me with no choice but to be extremely frugal for stocking ideas.  Jason and I agreed not to get each other gifts this year but I just couldn't let his stocking be nakie.  So I whipped up a little interview sheet for the girls and I to fill out all about their dad with the intention of continuing the tradition year after year.  I think filling them out might have been as fun as Daddy reading them.  I wish I would have had enough forethought to video tape the actual process.  I sat the girls down at snack time and explained to Adelyn what we were doing.  I would ask her a question about daddy and write down her answer word for word and then she would get to color a picture of her and her daddy when we were finished.
Hilarious.  I loved that there was no pause or hesitation between question and answer.  Everything was matter of fact and absolute truth.  My personal favorite was, "My daddy likes to...for fun" and Adelyn quickly answered "wear skirts".  Yes...yes he does.  And true to Adelyn form when we were coloring the picture I asked her to try to stay in the box and she responded, "Mom, I don't like to stay in boxes..."  No Adelyn, no you do not.

However, the real tricky part came to when it was time to do Marcella's.  I wasn't quite sure how to fill hers out since Mama. Dadda, Papa and wawa are about all we can really make out of her sumo style rantings.  Therefore, I decided to stay true to the interviewing process and phonetically sound out her mumbles.  This is the part I wish I would have taped.  I would ask her a question and she would look real serious like she was thinking it over and state her answer.  I have no idea what she was saying but she definitely did.  We went back and forth through the whole questionnaire without even getting off track.  She was focused and firing those answers.  Loved it.

I can't wait to see their handwriting and drawings progress as they grow.  I plan on compiling these into a book once they are all grown and out of the nest. I've attached the document I created if you would like to use it or base it as a jumping off point for further questions.  Enjoy!

All About My Daddy...

To Pee Pee or Not to Pee... That is the Challenge...

Today was our first official day of potty training.  Last night, the husband and I decided that it was time on our end to fully commit.  Adelyn has shown interest and hatred towards everything potty for the last few months.  One day she and her potty are best friends and the next day it is the poop eating monster that she won't even go near.  Santa even brought her special character panties in her stocking for a little extra motivation and the little stinker brought them to me and said," Mommy, these are cool but I told you I wasn't ready for that pee pee stuff."  Yes Adelyn, so you did.  But in my head I think, "If you are verbally advanced enough to tell me there is poop in your diaper, you have diaper rash because it's diarrhea so you need cream, and know exactly where to get the supplies and practically do it yourself; I think you are advanced enough to wipe your own cheeky buns." So after doing some mommy googling last night I decided she could check off 100% of the "is she ready" checklists.  So it was time.  Bye bye day diapers and hello Dora undies.

Now I am anal, not a play on words...well kind of, and wanted to make sure we had a plan.  So, I decided after much discussion with friends, researching and just knowing my kid that it was all or nothing.  No diapers during the day no matter what.  No going back.  I think I waited as long as I have to begin this, not because I didn't think Adelyn was ready but because I wasn't quite sure I was.  I knew my little drama queen was going to be a handful and today I learned something that I always kind of knew, I am always right.

We started the morning off with a pee pee try before breakfast.  No go.  However, she was super excited about wearing her big girl undies and ran around yelling at Marcella to look at her hiney dancing.  I explained that every time she went pee pee in the potty she would get an M&M.  That seemed motivating.  Well after sitting and reading for 20 minutes after breakfast, we had let go!  Yeah Pee Pee!  We did the potty dance, the "bye bye pee pee" and flushed it down the toilet.  We had a brief tantrum about only getting one M&M and not the whole bag but it wasn't so bad.  Her Nana told her to call her and tell her what surprise she wanted when she finally went potty.  So we called Nana in Fornia (California for you non-toddler speaking readers) and Adelyn very directly told her she wanted drums and a computer.  Probably not what Nana wanted to hear but that's her problem now.

The next three attempts weren't so pleasant, and to be honest I almost gave up.  After 35 minutes of trying before nap time, I finally gave up and put her down for a nap in her plastic training pants.  Within two seconds of me putting her in there I discovered two things, she peed all over immediately and those plastic training pants are crap.  Pee was everywhere and in her tantrum throwing dramatic rage the sloshing pee in her "containment" panties was sloshing everywhere.  I picked her up and tried to put her on the potty but the damage was done.  Stink was everywhere.  I cleaned her up and just threw everything in the wash.  It took me 45 minutes to calm her down.  She didn't want these Dora undies, she wanted the other ones, she wasn't tired and I'm a mean mommy.  Adelyn, you don't even know mean.  Finally, got her down for a nap and this prego fatty was exhausted.

The next two accidents occurred as she was standing directly next to the pink pot.  She is frantically telling me she is going pee as it's getting everywhere and she's literally a step away from it.  Frustrating.  We go through the 20 to 30 minute tantrum ordeal for each episode.  The kicker is, Marcella has become very aware of Adelyn's melt downs and they scare and concern her.  So, as I am attempting to calm the terror and clean up the pee soaked carpet I have a one year old also screaming and holding on to me for dear life.  I was about ready to throw in the towel and tell her she could wear diapers down the aisle for all I cared.  But the Lord always knows what you can handle and the big girl ran to her new friend, sat down and big eyed screamed "I did it Mom!  There's real orange pee pee in there!"  I was at first concerned that she told me it was orange, dehydration?  but quickly realized who cares!  We did it!  But it was short lived.  For as we were celebrating my very helpful Marcella came over and dumped the pot of pee pee in my lap.  You can't win them all.

Tomorrow we will be at it again and I pray that our 50/50 will increase to be favorable in my corner.  Any and all tips are appreciated...