Ava is almost 4....months that is!

This is for Amma and Grandma Polly. Enjoy!

A Way Cool Recipe Website and a Delicious Recipe

Have any of you heard of this website http://www.supercook.com/? It is definitely my new favorite. You can enter what ingredients you have and then the website will find you recipes to match your ingredients. The other great thing about this website is that a lot of the recipes have the Nutrition Facts (i.e. how many calories, vitamins etc). How cool is that? At first when I was searching the website yesterday I thought hmm it would be so good to make some chicken with a ritz cracker crust. I found some recipes but then when I saw that one serving of chicken had over 700 calories I became very thankful that this site has the nutritional information. Instead I tried a different recipe from the site yesterday and the food turned out delicious! Here is the recipe with some of my own modifications. I'll put my modification is parenthesis or italics. If you want to see a picture (I was too hungry to take one) then you can look up the recipe on supercook. It is listed under 123 Chicken. Without further ado, here is the recipe.

4 bonless skinless chicken breasts
2-3 medium potatoes
2-3 carrots
5 Fresh Beets
a dozen pearl onions
Italian Dressing (I used a Light Balsamic dressing that had WAY less calories then regular Italian Dressing)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Dry the chicken breasts and then lay them in the baking dish.
3. Cut the potatoes into cubes and the carrots at an angle for faster cooking. Cut the beets in half (depending on their size). Place vegetables around the chicken wherever there is space.
4. Pour the dressing over the entire pan of chicken and vegetables making sure the chicken gets well coated.
5. Add about an 1/8 of a cup of water around the edges of the pan; cover tightly with foil and bake 40-45 minutes.

This is great served with some tasty rolls.

Enjoy!

Hannah Threw a Party

Have your kids ever just decided that they are going to have a party? Hannah tries to do this quite frequently. She makes invitations and everything. In fact just last week she made invitations for Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Mickey, and Minnie. She wrote all of their names on their invitations and had an imaginary party. However, not all of her parties are imaginary. A few weeks ago Hannah decided she wanted to invite all of her friends over for a party. Unfortunately, for Hannah's party plans, I didn't feel like inviting all of her friends over and told her accordingly. Hannah was unabashed. She decided to have a party and invite our family instead. She got out a leftover party invitation from a party that she had been invited to and wrote all of our names on it. She then told all of us that the party was on Saturday. I didn't think much of it until Friday night. She had a hard time going to sleep because she was so excited about the party. I realized then that we really were going to have a party. So Saturday morning Hannah, Elise and I woke up and made Princess party crowns. Hannah cut them all out. She even made a crown for daddy and one for Ava. Then we colored our crowns. Then Hannah told me what we were going to have for our party food. We had crackers, cheese, and salmon spread along with cranberry juice. Hannah also had some party games planned. When daddy woke up we had a fun family party together. The girls were in party heaven! Sam, who is vastly outnumbered was a good sport and wore his blue "prince" crown like a real trooper. Here's to my little budding party planner! I love you Hannah!

Hannah's first day of Kindergarten

The day before school started our whole family went in to meet Hannah's teacher. This was also a good opportunity for Hannah to get more familiar with the school. She got to see where her seat was and see some of the other kids that were going to be in her class. She was extremely excited. Here she is just before she entered her classroom for the first time.

When it came time for Hannah's actual first day I don't know who was more excited her or Elise and I don't know who was more anxious me, or Sam. Hannah is in the afternoon and she thought the time would never come to leave. Here are Hannah and Elise posing to head out the door.

We all went and saw her to the outside door of her class room. Hannah was so pumped to just march into that classroom and start learning. Elise was pretty sure that she was going to school too so she was ready with her backpack and everything.
The minute we got there (which was early of course) Hannah tried to go right in. She was raring to go. Sam and I on the other hand, crowded in with all of the other parents to give one last hug and get one last photo.

When Mrs. Emory, Hannah's teacher, came and opened the door for the kids to come in you would have thought that Tom Cruise was arriving on the red carpet. The flashbulbs were popping and the kids were smiling as they all marched into there classroom and didn't look back. What an independent little class. Not one of the kids cried or even looked nervous.

The same could not be said for the parents. I kept thinking about how this is the end of such an important phase in Hannah's life and the beginning of another very important phase. I miss her so much every day when she's gone but I know that she is where she needs to be and that she will excel.