Long overdue, but Sarah, these are for you:)


Lemon chicken:
from the fall 2007 Kraft food and family magazine

1 Tbs. olive oil
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 pkg. stirfry veggies (16 ounce)
1 pkg. (4 serving size) jello brand Lemon Flavor Gelatin (make sure it's not the pudding)
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp. zesty italian dressing

heat your oil, add your chicken, cook until mostly done. Add your veggies and stirfry for sevenish minutes. Drain excess liquid. Add the sauce bring to a low boil and then simmer for three minutes or until thick. Serve over rice.

Saucy Parmesan Chicken
Also from the Fall 2007 Kraft Magazine

4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup zesty italian dressing
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Place all ingredients in a ziplock bag and coat chicken. Refrigerate chicken for 30 minutes or longer. Take chicken out of bag and place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake chicken 20 minutes at 425 or until no longer pink. You can also freeze the chicken in the marinade bag for up to three months. Take directly out of the freezer and cook at 350 for 1 hr.

Chicken Pot Pie
thank you, thank you, thank you, Robin Kinny for this great recipe. It's Brent's favorite

2 frozen pie crusts
10oz. frozen veggies
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup onion, or a dash of dehydrated onions from the cannery
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper, although I use less
1 3/4 cup chicken broth
2/3 cup milk
2 cups cook, diced chicken

Melt butter in saucepan, add onion, flour, salt and pepper. Keep on low heat until bubbly. Stir in milk and broth. Heat to boiling and boil while stirring for one minute until thickened. Stir in chicken and veggies. Pour mixture into one pie crust and cover with the other. poke a few ventilation holes with a fork. Cover with foil or place the other pie crust pan loosely on top, and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Remove the covering and bake for another 15 minutes until golden brown. Let sit for a few minutes so it can set up. Yummy!

Week in pictures:

Last weekend we got to have Grandma Rosey stay with us. The girls love it when she visits. Laura takes it upon herself to get up extra early to jump on Grandma.

We had a sensory experiment: what hapens when we mix water with potato flakes. What happens when we add lots of different food color drops and mix it all up? A big mess and two happy girls.

The 'audience'. They gathered on Wednesday afternoon for the big music show. Eden was on drums, I was on the piano, and Laura alternated between the violin and vocals. I don't think we actually got to the actual show, but setting up was sure fun:)

Decorating cakes with stickers. Since I don't really scrapbook anymore the girls get a lot more cute stickers and paper. You can't see it in this picture but Laura put at the top:

{I Love You}

in sticker brackets. I think she's been picking up a few decorative tricks from our scrapbooks:)

Yesterday we went up to Midway to visit Great Grandma Geniel and Uncle Wayne. It rained all day and I didn't feel the best, but it was still a nice little excursion. We made the mistake of handing Ryan over to Grandma Geniel when he was starting to get hungry: he just started wailing! But after feeding him they got along a lot better:)

Brent started his first full week of classes. It's going to be challenging, but I'm sure he's going to learn a lot. At least he'd better, I'm the one sacrificing all of my Brent-time in the evenings:)

In other news: My symphony started back up again, so I've set a goal to practice five minutes every day this week, because getting it out is half the battle. Ryan had his four month shots and checkup: our little guy weighs a solid 17 pounds. And he's started rolling from his back to belly:) Hope you have a wonderful week!

Laura 411

What you see:

*Laura and Snow White at the Children's Museum

*A very excited four year old girl all dressed up for the occassion

*The letter that Laura wrote to Snow White

*Me in a very funny 'mad-hatter' hat

What you don't see:

*The paper chain to count down the days until Snow White came

*The couple of hours before and after that Laura and I spent on our 'date'

*The inside of the note inviting Snow White to come over to our house.

*Laura asking Snow White how she got her prince. Really.

*The other little girl in a princess dress that Laura immediately befriended.

*Laura pushing me out of the line because she can do it all by herself.

*Me almost crying because she's getting too big, I could see kindergarten morning already

Laura playing her violin Santa brought her. She has me give her violin lessons and she's always practicing scales. Of course it helps that she's always in-tune! Also here she is scrubbing off her name from the back of the door. I wondered why she was so quiet for so long. Laura also signed her name on her windowsill and Ryan's bassenette. We got all the pen off except for on the door. We'll have to repaint, she practically carved her name in!

For all the grandmas out there, here's Ryan havin' a great time jumping. I didn't get it on video but he's started jumping and then locking his legs straight to stop very abruptly. It's so funny. Also, if you listen closely you can hear Laura saying she's getting dressed up to get married, and Eden's carrying her new panties. Ah, motherhood:)

Like my mom says: it's better than therapy...

Our date for last week was a quick trip up the mountain on our snowshoes. It's amazing that this trail is about 10 minutes from our house. It was a really warm day, there were lots of deer tracks, and the company was great. Bonus: we didn't see any mountain lions. and please ignore the geeky girl, self portraits are almost always unflattering...

Ryan 411

Ryan started rice cereal a week ago, and promptly started sleeping through the night again. A lucky coincidence or correlation? I don't care, I'm just happy about it. And so is he! It took a few days, but he's decided solids are ok.

He's graduated to the exersaucer and the jumper. He loves to watch me cook in the jumper, the only problem is I'm having a hard time keeping the girls from spinning him around! Ryan's starting to get really wiggly, and trying to roll over. Also he makes every laugh with his raspberries and squeals!

While we were in Idaho for Christmas break Lesha took us all out to the ranch where she works to ride horses. The girls loved every second of it; being up high, all the cows (Eden chatted the whole time about all the momma and baby cows) and the snow. I was surprised by how brave they were, absolutely no fear. Now if only I felt that secure on a horse:)

Le also took Brent for an extended ride through the trees by the river.

Thanks Le for the great afternoon!

Christmas

This was our very first Christmas alone as a little family. I will admit I really missed my family, but it was a wonderful, relaxed day.
The girls slept in until 8:30am, and were jumping around with excitement to see what was downstairs when they woke us up. Sure enough, Santa had brought us all a few goodies. Eden loves her toddler size pony, Laura has been serenading us with her violin, and Ryan is thrilled with his exersaucer.

We spent most of the day playing with our toys and enjoying the chaos of the front room. That evening we ran a few secret errands to neighbors and visited the lights display in Layton Park. On our way home a huge blizzard hit and by the time we got back our driveway was covered with about 8 inches of snow! We were glad we were snuggled inside our little house while the wind raged outside.

Christmas Eve

Who: Our family and the Whetsels

We're so glad they live close enough to get together for holidays

When: Most of Christmas Eve

What: A big yummy ham dinner, chocolate handprint ornaments,

a few chess games, a movie for the kids, visiting and

the reinactment of the Nativity scene.

We grabbed a bunch of dressups and improvised some costumes. Lanna and Scott were Mary adn Joseph, Ryan was a chubby not-so-newborn Jesus, Laura and Makayla were the musical angels, Eden, Brent and Bradyn were present-bearing kings, and Dylan was our shepherd with a sword and shield. I was the happy narrator and camera-woman.

Next year we'll have a better script, and the angels might rehearse their song a few times before hand, but what we lacked in organization we were compensated for in happiness. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the Savior's birth.

After the Whetsels left the girls quickly got ready for bed, Laura had been an angel all day so that Santa would come:) Then we put together a plate of truffles and some milk for Santa. Laura even drew him a card with a picture of him and a reindeer so he'd know it was for him. She wrote 'Santa' all by herself. Christmas is so fun with a four year old.