Easter 2013

We had a nice, low-key Easter weekend.  Sabbath morning the girls got to wear their new Spring Easter dresses to Sabbath School. Chloe also had a blast helping Daddy make shortbread cookies (with sprinkles for the cookies going in the Easter baskets). Saturday night we put together Easter Baskets for the girls. I found a yummy "Bunny Bait" snack mix recipe on...where else?...Pinterest so I put that together. It's Lucky Charms, Rice Chex, broken pretzels, and M&M's. That would be a pretty nice combination of flavors except you also melt some white chocolate chips and spread that all over the cereal mixture. Heavenly!  I mean, I could make myself sick eating a whole box of Lucky Charms in one sitting so you can imagine that this was like crack to me.  This is what it looked like:

Isn't it pretty? I love all the pastel colors in the marshmallows and Easter M&M's. I think in future years instead of putting a few things together in Easter baskets, I might just make a giant batch of this and we can sit around the bowl as a family and just eat it until it's gone.  Although we might need an intervention when we get to the bottom of the bowl.

We were going to meet Nathan's family Easter morning so we did baskets for the girls and their cousins on Daddy's side. Here are a few photos:

The girls received a few more Easter treats. I hope they can sleep tonight!  The official disbursement of candy went well, if only I can keep Chloe from "finding" jelly beans. And M&M's. And all her sister's chocolate.

Last but not least...earlier this week I took the girls to the mall to see the Easter Bunny! Megan was not so sure about it (although she didn't cry or fuss and was mostly happy with the experience) but Chloe was in love with him. She sat on his lap several times and we were endanger of being sent hopping out of the Easter Bunny Photo play yard.

Happy Easter everyone!

Another Food Post

I guess I talk about food a lot :)

Here are a few shots of the homemade pizza we made last weekend. It was DE-licious!  I love being able to make my own pizza from start to finish. 

On a healthier note, for dinner this weekend I made stuffed peppers. I wasn't totally convinced that I'd love this dish because it seemed a little *too* healthy sounding, but it's now one of my favorite new recipes! You start your quinoa on the stove (takes about 20 minutes or so) and then dice up a handful of all of your vegetables.  In our case this is what I had on hand: mushrooms, onions, broccoli, spinach, zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots.  With only about a tsp of oil in a pan, I sauteed the veggies until they were pretty much to the point that I'd eat them. I had also cleaned out my four green peppers so I mixed the cooked quinoa and veggies in a bowl (adding a pinch of salt and pepper) and then just scooped the veggies into the peppers and topped them with feta cheese. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes.  At first we weren't sure how to attack these - but decided to eat them like a steak (not that either of us have ever eaten a steak, but...). It worked. It took a minute to cut the green pepper into strips and then cut them in bites, but then it was just all eating from there out.  

So far I've had a lot of luck finding some really good healthy recipes on Pinterest so if you're looking for more specific instructions, there are a few good stuffed pepper recipes floating around over there!

Megan's Surgery Consult

<Spoiler alert! If you're eating a cookie right now, you'll want to put it down.>

Ever since Megan was born she has had a little "thing" on her neck that will sometimes have clear goo coming out of it. No one seemed to know what it was (by "no one" I mean the random friends and family I would ask) so at her 1 year physical I asked the nurse practitioner. Turns out it's a Branchial Cleft Fistula and they referred us to C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. What causes such a thing? Apparently something didn't close correctly when she was an embryo and it created this fistula or cyst in her neck. I was hoping it was "nothing" but I was wrong. Apparently they can get infected so they like to remove them when they are little so they don't cause trouble. Not what I wanted to hear. 

The upside is that Megan had a very fun day at Mott during our surgery consult. She loved having mommy to herself and meeting her surgeon. The nurses were so nice! They played with her and let her run around the anesthesia unit after her physical. We go back on Wednesday, April 10, for the actual surgery. Mommy is nervous because they have to put her completely under in order to do the surgery, but everyone is very confident that she will do well. She's very healthy and will probably just love the adventure. Thankfully Daddy will be there to keep Mommy calm and Chloe will have a fun day with her grandma while Megan has her surgery.

Here are a few photos from my phone...

 

Lasagna

I love pasta so much but it is one of the worst foods to eat when you're trying to lose weight. I've tried whole wheat lasagna and some of it is ok, but I decided if I want actual pasta, I'm going to eat it on rare occasions and come up with diet-friendly options for daily meals.  So how happy was I when I came across this recipe on Pinterest for low-carb lasagna? Very happy :)   The idea is that you still have a little ricotta and mozzarella cheese, but you bulk up the casserole with veggies instead of using pasta (you're also supposed to put in some sort of crumbled meat or fake meat, but Nathan has a serious aversion to it so I just left it out). Besides my favorites of onions, garlic, and mushrooms, I very thinly sliced a yellow squash and zucchini and used those as "noodles" in the bottom layer. A little marinara sauce and we were on our way. It was delicious and surprisingly comforting. It's going into the rotation!

 

Pi Day!

In honor of 3.14 we had a Pi Day at work on March 14th. I made a lemon chess pie that happily turned out pretty well. Some other contestants were strawberry rhubarb, chocolate chip pie, vanilla chess pie, cherry pie, and "the world's best pie" (which won). Sugar overload!

Melanie

One of my best friends was in East Lansing for a work conference so we were able to meet up for dinner at Gourmet Village. The night was quite an adventure. Megan threw up in the car on the way up there so I had to stop at a rest area and strip her down, washout her shirt, dry it with the turbo dryer, and then get both girls back into the car. Thankfully dinner was pretty uneventful! It was fun to have a chance to catch up with Melanie. She lives in the U.P so I don't get to see her very often :(

We were practically the only non-Chinese in this restaurant and just before we left, these two girls in the booth behind us came over and started playing with Megan.

Cake Smash!

When Chloe turned one I tried my hand at doing a cake smash session with her - it turned out pretty well so I was feeling brave and did a session with Megan. You'd think the second time would be easier...but I didn't factor in her big sister wanting to be in the photos and eat some pink cake. All in all they turned out pretty well. Ironically, Megan never actually smashed the cake but she did like that frosting!  (PS. I was so upset at myself because I totally forgot to put streamers behind her like I planned to add some color. Grr! I threw in some balloons at the end when I realized my mistake.)

Here's a rejected photo from the pile to show you how Chloe was hovering the whole time...