What's Cooking: Creamy Chicken Taquitos

Ever heard of Pinterest? I've mentioned it a few times and really like the site. There are so many unique craft ideas and recipes I would never think to google. Last night I decided to look at recently pinned recipes and saw this one for Creamy Chicken Taquitos. I'm not a big pinner, and only try to pin things I am likely to try out. This recipe was something I had to try out as soon as possible.

Modifications/Substitutions: I didn't use cumin or green onions. Instead of fresh cilantro, I used dried oregano leaves.

Ease: This was so easy to make. I especially liked the fact that these were baked, rather than fried. The hardest part about making the meal was dealing with my two older girls who kept coming into the kitchen. This recipe gets 4.5 stars for ease.


Affordability: This recipe was pretty affordable. Like always the chicken was on sale. Other ingredients were affordable as well - 4.5 stars.

Taste: Jonathan and I loved these. They made for a perfect treat to eat while watching football. We gave it 5 stars for taste.

Family-Friendly: One reason I wanted to try this recipe was because I was convinced that the girls would love it and eat it up. I was wrong. We really had to push them to eat theirs for some reason, and they didn't finish. Abigail told me she thought it was too spicy. Maybe I would use some cheese other than pepper jack. For our girls though and the way I made them, I'm afraid this recipe will only get 2 stars.

Photo Fridays 01.20.12

I cannot believe it is Friday already and that a whole week has gone by since I've made a post.

Lily has been smiling a lot lately, but now I have actual digital evidence. She's pretty generous with her smiles, but gives most of them to her big sister Abigail. Quite often Lily will smile at Abigail, who then bends over laughing like it's the funnies thing ever. Then Lily will smile again and Abigail laughs even harder. So here she is, our smiling Lily:

Photo Fridays 01.13.12

Lily is now two months old. I feel like it should be more like three months, because the past few weeks haven't flown by like I expected them to.

Lily gives us lots of smiles. She'll smile just about every time Abigail shows up. She gives me her biggest smiles in the middle of the night when she should be sleeping.

She's also cooing now. I love some of the sounds that come out of her cute little mouth. She likes to talk sometimes in the middle of the night too-when she should be sleeping :-)

Here's our growing baby, now an ancient two months old:

Kind of, but not Really

Today has been a laid back day so far. I decided to have a little fun with Abigail's hair and gave her pigtails since it has been a while.

So Sarah wouldn't feel left out I thought I would attempt to give her pigtails as well. The hair in the back of her hair is growing nicely. The hair on the top though? Not so much. I managed two pigtails in the back, then Abigail suggested I put one on top. So, I can kind of put Sarah's hair up, but not really.

It's funny because when I was finally able to put Abigail's hair up I had to leave her hair in the back down because it wasn't long enough. I guess Sarah just wants to be different.

Our LIttle Gymnast

The other day there was a gymnast being interviewed on TV. I got the girls attention to watch footage of the gymnast doing her floor exercise and they were pretty impressed. The next thing I know, Sarah is doing her own gymnastics. Last night I got her to perform on camera so I could share with you all:

Bedtime Routine

We've had a pretty solid, consistent bedtime routine since Abigail went to sleep on her own. Over time we've tweaked it here and there. When Abigail started sleeping in a big girl bed it became apparent that we needed to lay down some ground rules. We reminded Abigail of the rules as part of our bedtime routine. It got to the point where she was able to recite them:

1. Cup on shelf (so we wouldn't have to search for it)
   
2. Stay in bed
3. Keep your jammies on (yes, we had to make this a rule)
   
4. Go to sleep
5. We love you (not really a rule, but something fun to say after all the rules)

Over time we didn't have to remind her anymore because she was actually following the rules. Well, now that Sarah has been in her big girl bed, we've found that the rules need to come back. The big rules she's challenging are numbers 2 and 3.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Tonight I went in to check on the girls and found that Sarah broke rule #2, but was quiet enough so we weren't aware of her offense until she obeyed rule #4. I didn't find her in her bed, but soon spotted her. I was reminded of a scene from The Wizard of Oz (when Dorothy discovers that her house ended up on the Wicked Witch of the East).

Sarah got out of bed and went into the little castle tent we bought the girls recently. She fell asleep on one of their Build-a-Bear beds. So funny and cute.

Going from Two to Three? Piece of Cake!

Some people might tell you that going from zero to one child is the hardest transition to handle.

After that going from one kid to two kids isn't that bad.

Going from two kids to three is much easier. I had a hard time thinking this was possible, but I get it now.Sure, we have one more mouth to feed, one more wardrobe to wash, one more body to clean, etc. Plus it takes us much longer to get out of the house. And, we haven't reached this point yet, but soon Lily will be making a mess of the place with her toys like her older sisters do (sometimes I wonder why I even clean in the first place). But, I've found going from two girls to three hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. Here's why:

• I know what to expect now. I'm sure Lily is winding up her curve-ball pitch, but for the most part nothing has come as a surprise to me and Jonathan yet.

• I've loosened up a bit. I know a lot of parents do this with each subsequent child. With the first a couple may take weeks before making their first outing, then maybe a few days with their second. With Lily, we went straight to my parents' from the hospital (sure we had to get the girls, but we didn't wait much longer before heading out of the house). Also, with Lily throwing up once a day (or even more sometimes), I don't freak out as much. Sarah went through the same thing (see bullet above) and I don't worry about her getting what she needs because she is gaining weight and produces plenty of output. I can still be a bit uptight when it comes to caring for the girls (especially when we aren't at home), but I think I'm much better.

• Two out of three still nap. Sarah will give me a nice 1-2 hour afternoon nap while Lily naps maybe 3-6 hours throughout the day. So, I really don't spend much of my day taking care of the needs of three girls at once. I know this will change, but as Lily gets older she won't be quite as needy (she likes to spend a lot of time in our arms when she's awake).

• The older ones play independently. I spent a lot of this morning tending to Lily because of feeding, spitting up, changing, and feeding some more. Abigail and Sarah spent most of that time in their room playing. It was hard doing this for Sarah when Abigail was the only other one. Abigail would get into trouble because there was no one to play with (see Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C).

So by no means am I saying having three girls under the age of 3 1/2 is easy, I'm just saying it isn't as crazy and overwhelming as I thought it would be.

Memories

My Mom has been really good about checking off items from her Day Zero list. Actually, she has three lists going right now. One of her newer items is to create a memory jar. Over the year, you can write down different experiences. On New Year's Eve you read over all of your memories from the year. I like this idea because you can be reminded of things that happened that you may not have taken photos of, or blogged about, or updated your Facebook status for. It turns out I had four Yankee Candles that were burned completely and I had been trying to think of things to do with them. Mom and I used two of them to collect our memories for 2012.

Here's a picture I took with my phone, followed by a regular picture so you can see it a bit better:

Oh, and a handy hint: to get the remaining wax out of your jar, place the jar in your freezer for 10 minutes or so. The wax shrinks up a bit and is easily removed from the bottom of your jar. I used kitchen scissors to break up the wax a bit more so it could fall right out of the jar.

Hopefully we can keep up with this so we have plenty of memories to read on New Year's Eve!

Why Hello, 2012!

Jonathan and I celebrated New Year's Eve the same way we did last year. We fed the girls and put the girls to bed (Lily even slept too). Then we had a cozy, quiet, Chinese food dinner and watched movies before watching the ball drop.

After dinner I used my new stand mixer to make a recipe I found on Pinterest for Overnight Monkey Bread. It was so nice to have a machine do the kneading for me! I liked the idea of having breakfast mostly taken care of the night before. It turned out really yummy! The girls had their fill. It isn't exactly the breakfast most people would eat to kick off the New Year, but we did have fruit with it too, so that should balance things out a bit.

The girls wore their matching dresses that Grandma and Papa Kapaldo got them for Christmas. I didn't get it in the picture, but they came with adorable tights too.

Here's an outtake:

Here's Lily doing something we didn't see a lot of on the first day of 2012: sleeping!

I've made New Year's resolutions in the past, but not in recent years. As I've mentioned before, I'm really good at starting things and not always finishing them. I end up feeling pretty defeated in the end. Sure, I have goals I want to achieve and areas of personal growth I want to experience, but I don't need the added pressure of resolutions. Instead, I'm going to do what our Pastor suggested today in his first sermon of the year: ask God for something big in 2012-something only God could do. And then go on living life in a way that shows I believe God will answer. I encourage you to do the same. I'm excited to see what happens!