Injuries

So. I'm not always the most coordinated person. I have accidents. If you've been reading the blog for a while you'll remember this post perhaps. Or this one. This one too. And I'll stop there so you don't think something is wrong with me! But I keep finding more...

Well last week I fell down again. In my house. I had socks on but they were slippery. Wilson was in the shower and started screaming. I jumped off the couch and try to hurry in there and fell flat on my butt. But I have a huge bruise on the inside of my right knee. I was stuck on the floor for a few minutes. Turned out the screaming was because Luke turned the light out while Wilson was in the shower. But I didn't know why he was screaming...so there I was sitting on the floor not moving. My knee has been sore and is still healing.


Then this weekend I was peeling sweet potatoes for roasting veggies. My small group was cooking for a homeless men ministry and I was responsible for roasting veggies for 20-25 people. (Carrots, sweet potatos, garlic and cauliflower). I was holding a potato and peeling the skin off the POTATO when all of the sudden my hand slipped and I peeled a chunk of skin off the base of my thumb. It hurt so bad. It's not deep but it is a chunk right off the top. It still hurts badly.

You might be thinking right now that I'm just a weanie and these injuries aren't that bad...I don't know if I should agree with you or not. I would argue that I've birthed three big baby boys - but I did that with epidurals every time...I survived the pain after a c-section/tubal but there was a lot of pain involved in that too. So. Maybe I am a weanie and I don't like pain. I guess as the only girl (other than Lottie) in a house of boys that is something I'm entitled too. Right?

I'm sure some of you have other clumsy stories about me. Cara will want to share the time the herbie kerbie attacked me at her old house. Really the stories could go on and on. Have one to share? Might as well get a laugh out of these now, right?!

Bumblebee Scare

My sweet Luke has been terrified of bees at bedtime the past two nights this week. Monday and Tuesday night he cried in his bed because he was afraid of bumblebees. I'm not sure what has brought this on - he said he hasn't talked about bees at school/with friends/etc. It's only February so he hasn't seen any outside. He was sobbing both nights. We prayed that Jesus would take his fear away and one person (ahem) might have prayed that he would never get stung by a bee - ever...that wasn't the best thing to pray for in this situation! Anyway, the next night the prayer was WAY better. Tonight we made it through bedtime with no talk of bees and no tears. My poor little guy. Andy said he thinks Luke holds stuff in...not sure WHERE he gets that trait. Here's hoping for a bee free summer...and no stings for Luke!

On another note, I registered Lukie for Kindergarten last week! (Do I have to stop calling him Lukie when he start elementary school?) I can't wait to have him at school with me and Wilson. It will be so fun to see him in the hallways. LOVE that they come with me. Even though it makes the afternoons rough sometimes! Wilson said to Luke today that he couldn't wait until he was at our school with us. I thought that was really sweet. I can't wait either. :)

Chicken Fingers & Creamy Taco Mac

This week I have tried 2 new main dish recipes from Annie's Eats. They have both been good. The Creamy Taco Mac was quick and easy- like a homemade version of hamburger helper. Just healthier! It has ground turkey and whole wheat pasta. I used Annie's taco seasoning, low fat cream cheese (3 oz) and low fat sour cream (1/2 cups). Everyone ate it though Luke wasn't a big fan. This made enough dinner for two nights for our family. THe first time I saw it on the blog I didn't bookmark the recipe. But when it was featured in the blog this weekend I thought it looked good enough to try!

The other main dish was chicken fingers. I liked that the recipe called for chicken breasts cut up. I don't always care for the chicken tenderloins. Had a bad experience once when I bought them at the grocery once and it is hard for me to ever buy them again. If I don't prepare them then I can eat them. I know... Everyone liked these- very crispy with no deep frying. Panko bread crumbs and hardly any oil. Much healthier. Of course we dipped them in honey mustard!

Ty = Chatterbox!

Ty talks SO much! I love to hear him talk. It is so cute! Tonight we were driving and the full moon was shining brightly. The boys and I were talking about it and I said it was beautiful and pretty. Later I heard Ty say the moon is bootful and preddy. It was adorable. He was playing with an old cell phone today and opened it and said "Hello! Bye see you." I could listen to him talk (and sing) all day. It is precious. Anytime he toots he says "I pooped" and laughs. It's quite funny.

I've realized recently that this is the first time I've had a boyat Tyler's age when I haven't already had a brand new baby or been a few weeks away from delivering another baby. My "babies" are growing up. I don't wish for the middle of the night feedings -at all! But I miss those cute new baby grunts and all the snuggling. I love babies. But I love my big boys too!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Andy got in on the action before he left for work. Here we are ready to pipe the outline on all of the cookies. Next, comes flooding. I just made pink and white because I didn't have any red gel food coloring. The squeeze bottles have thinned icing in them for flooding the inside of the cookie with frosting.

The cookies turned out really well! I had so much fun making them. I think the X's and O's are super cute. Should have made more of those! They were just so fragile I didn't think they'd turn out. But the icing helped cover the minor flaws! Annie's tutorial on royal icing helps a lot. I've only used royal icing one other time, about 3 years ago.

Here are a few cookies I'm taking to school for the helping hands bake sale tomorrow. I bought the cute heart plate a Tar*get.

Low Cal Fettucine Alfredo

This dish is easy, healthier than most alfredo sauces, and tastes really good! There is no heavy cream in the recipe - just 2 T cream cheese, 2% milk, and parmesan cheese. I had to tell Luke I added the green flecks (of fresh parsley) for decoration since green is his favorite color. That was what Andy and I came up with and it worked! Usually he won't eat things with green cooked into them that he can see. He'll eat green veggies, he just doesn't want them hiding in his sauces and stuff. Wilson and I enjoyed this the most. It's not one of Andy's favorite meals but for an every now and then he thought it was okay. There is a bit of a lemon flavor in the dish due to the lemon zest which was nice. That also means I got to use my microplane which is always fun! You could always add grilled chicken to this dish too. Enjoy!

Low-Cal Fettucine Alfredo
1 T unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t grated lemon zest
2 t flour
1 cup 2% milk
kosher salt
2 T low fat cream cheese
3/4 cup grated parmesan, plus more for topping
3 T chopped fresh parsley
12 ounces fettucine
freshly ground pepper

1. Boil water for fettucine. Cook according to package directions until al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking make the sauce. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and lemon zest and cook until the garlic is slightly soft, about 1 minute. Add in the flour and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon for 1 minute. Whisk in the milk and 3/4 teaspoon salt and cook, whisking constantly until just thickened, about 3 minutes. Add the cheeses; whisk until melted, about 1 minute. Stir in the parsley.
3. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta and return to the pot.
4. Add the sauce and 1/2 cup pasta water to the pasta and gently toss to combine, adding more cooking water as needed to loosen. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with parmesan.

Recent Recipes

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch dressing - from Annie's Eats of course. I made a couple batches of this about a month or so ago. Wilson loved it and kept asking for "salad with that yummy ranch dressing". It also helped to have homemade croutons on the salad as well. Those were delish! I found the crouton recipe here. She made the croutons for her caesar salad which also looks great. I just can't bring myself to make anything with anchovies...

Last night I made chocolate sugar cookies and regular sugar cookies. I used my valentine cookie cutters and today I plan to do royal icing on them! I'm looking forward to decorating the cookies. This is my first time to try either of these cookie recipes. The chocolate dough was very soft and I had to chill it again just to finish cutting out the cookies. I recommend you double the recipe if you want more than 1 dozen cookies. It didn't make much batter. The regular sugar cookie dough has almond extract. These smell delicious and taste great! The almond flavor is really nice. That recipe made about 3 dozen cookies. So I should have plenty to decorate this afternoon!

Last night a tried a Low-Cal Fettutine Alfredo recipe from my Food Network magazine. It was good. I'll post that recipe and pics of the cookies later.
:)

Happy Things :)

- The other night we had sloppy joes. Tyler thought I said poppy joes. So he kept asking "poppy here?". Then he called his dinner poppy joes. So cute!
- Last night Tyler sang parts of Jesus Loves Me as I was singing to him. He really likes that song! He has only sung with me 1-2 other times. It is the sweetest thing ever. The other boys always choose Twinkle, You Are My Sunshine, and a song I made up- called Go To Sleep. For real. Luke sometimes sings with me too. That makes me smile!
- Tyler has eaten veggies for THREE nights! Our persistent eat your veggies or no after dinner "treat" (ie: a hershey kiss or a small handfull of chocolate chips) finally worked! So far anyway!! He has been eating "balls". We have a veggie tray that I make on Monday for the week. This week it has sugar snap peas along with other veggies. Tyler likes for mommy and daddy to take the balls out of the sugar snap peas so he can eat those. So of course there had to be a joke from mommy (shocking I know!) that I found some big balls for him. It's hard to resist a joke that easy! Of course only Andy and I snicker at that - thank goodness!! But my goodness! The boy ate his veggies!!!
- A day with neither Luke or Wilson getting to Strike 3!! Yea! A great day and a wonderful bedtime! Thank you Lord!
- I have exercised 3 times in the past week. :)
- An understanding friend going through a hard time even when I showed up today without chocolate chip cookies for her trip. But I did have homemade chex mix! I ran out of ingredients and then screwed up the batter last night (Trying to multitask) so I couldn't start over. Had to dump it. But she was so nice to me this morning anyway!
- My new math group at school! It's nice to change things up every now and then.