Easter Basket Bliss

Mr. Potato Head was a hit!

The slinky too!

The chocolate bunny was a mystery at first - until sampled.
Now all I hear is "Mommy, I LIKE chocolate!"

The best part of the morning for Samuel was reading the Guitar Center circular with Daddy and looking at all the drums. The more cymbals, the better!

The best part of the morning for Mommy was reading the Easter story to my son and having his full attention. I actually got a bit teary eyed as we snuggled on the couch under the blankets. Although he cannot fully understand the impact of the cross of Jesus Christ right now, I know that someday he will. What a wonderful Easter morning!

What to eat Wednesday?

OK, So it's hard to come up with something catchy regarding food and Wednesday. And I'm too tired to think to much about it. Here goes a super yummy and very easy dish your whole family will enjoy. The flavor of the sauce is DEEE-LICIOUS as Samuel would say. This is a good one for kids who are picky about eating meat. The chicken is tender and cheesy. I don't know about your children, but cheese makes almost anything worth eating in my toddler son's opinion! Wish I had a photo for you, but we ate it all up before I remembered to bust out the camera!

CREAMY CHICKEN ALFREDO

1/4 cup all purpose flour
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breast filleted in half
(make 'em nice and thin)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp olive oil divided
2-3 gloves garlic minced
1 Tbsp minced onion
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (I usually use dried parsley flakes)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place flour in a shallow dish or pie plate. Sprinkle chicken with salt and then coat with flour. Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Cook chicken until golden brown on both sides (about 4 minutes per side). Remove chicken and place in a 13x9 baking dish.

Heat remaining 1 tsp olive oil in same skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and cook until onions are tender (about 2 minutes). Increase heat to medium-high, add heavy cream, Parmesan cheese and pepper. Cook until sauce is bubbly and slightly thickened. Pour sauce over chicken.

Bake chicken uncovered for 20-30 minutes
(until chicken is cooked all the way through).
Sprinkle parsley over chicken.

Serve over whole wheat angel hair or fettuccine.
I especially like making a side of fresh steamed spinach with this dish.

YUMMY!!!

The Naked Drummer!

If the "Naked Chef" can make it big,
I think my son has a very bright future!

Oh my gosh - there's a baby in there!

Well here it is folks...the almost 32 week pregnant belly shot. What do you think, average? bigger than normal? cute as a button? Come on now, I need some good encouragement as I am beginning to feel like a house and I have 8 weeks left to go. I've got a very annoying burning sensation around my ribs that no position can remedy and shaving has become more than a chore. I've even grown out of several of my maternity clothes that I swore I was able to wear for much longer with my first. It's hard to believe this baby will more than double in size over the remainder of my pregnancy. Samuel really likes to rub my belly and for some reason he thinks it's funny to lick my belly button. Silly boy! He's not so sure what to do when he feels the baby move. Well, here's to stretching and more stretching...

Long Time, No Post!

That's why I named this blog "The Not So Daily Chronicles." Knowing myself all too well, I predicted that that my entries would be somewhat sporadic and often missing for lengthy periods of time. Anyway, I'm finally posting after 2 weeks.... for those of you who are still reading!

Life has been a bit crazy here. Tim has been exceptionally busy with work/school. He had an out-of-state interview for a post-doctoral position which went very well. He had a few research talks to prepare and has been conducting experiments in hopes that his committee will give him the OK to begin writing his thesis soon. For those of you who don't know us, Tim is in his 6th year of graduate school and is hoping to complete his PhD in Biomedical Science (specifically Immunology) by next fall. It has been a long and exhausting road and we are more than ready for a change!

I have been in extreme nesting mode. We are in the final countdown now - according to my due date, that would be 9 weeks from Friday. Samuel came 2 weeks early so we'll be prepared just in case. With Samuel I was on modified rest or bed rest from 24 weeks on. I have what you call an irritable uterus. It just contracts all the time and threatens pre-term labor. Well, I told that uterus that if she wanted to have another baby she would have to cooperate!! And she has so far - Praise to God! However, she's been a bit cranky over the past week. I'm trying to drink a lot of water and pay attention to any warning signs. I covet your prayers during these last few weeks!

Tim and I finally had a date last night and it was lovely thanks to a friend of mine who adores Samuel and wants to bless us. She came over with her husband and occupied our little guy while Tim and I enjoyed a few sweet treats at Borders. We poured over baby name books to come up with a middle name for a our little girl. We narrowed it down to 2. Her first name was decided on about a month or 2 ago and if you talk to me in person, I'll tell you but I'm not going to post it yet! Sarah, you should be laughing right now if Jordan filled you in on just how much we have in common with this pregnancy!!! We'll have to share a laugh over the phone!

And lastly, we enjoyed a wonderful visit from my mother this past weekend! She was so great with Samuel and gave this tired, pregnant mom a good break!!! I thought these pictures were just the sweetest of the two of them!!! We love you Mom!

Just Being a Boy!

This is the heat vent in Samuel's room.

This morning, he was having some nudie time and when I walked into his room he said, "Mommy I pee peed in the heater!"

He doesn't want to pee in a potty, but he'll pee in his heater.
Thank God for Spot Shot Carpet Cleaner and Shaklee's Basic G!

A Smile to Brighten Your day!

Samuel has had a few major developmental spurts over the last month or so. He has started talking in sentences and now he never stops. Sometimes it's one demand after another. This gets old very fast. Every once in awhile I'll get a "Tank you so much mommy!" And Tim got a big "I wuv you too daddy!" the other night! It's amazing how sweet he can be at times.

He can also be quite funny. One night we were going over his big boy bed rules. I explained that he was not to leave his room, but if he needed me, he should call me and I would come into his room. Sure enough at 2am that night, I heard, "mommy, mommy, mommy!" So, I dragged myself out of bed and made my way to his room. I opened the door to find him sitting on his heat vent with a smile on his face. He said to me, "Good job getting out of bed, mommy!" I couldn't help but smile back and chuckle.

Samuel is also at the stage where he wants to do EVERYTHING BY HIMSELF!!! I never thought that being two was so terrible until I told him "No Samuel, only mommy or daddy can use the drill" and the child proceeded to throw himself on the ground, screaming like I had cut one of his limbs off. So is life with a toddler!

All in all, it's been delightful watching my little guy's personality develop. He is the smile that brightens my day!