"New to You" book giveaway!

In my continuing quest to always get stuff out of my house, I came across some books that I'd be willing to part with. They are good books and all; I just don't feel the need to read them again, or hold onto them. (I'll be honest, a few of them I didn't read all the way, but I'm trying to declutter!) There will be four winners! Tell your friends!

Book Pack #1
This is a group of mommy books. (The links lead to their Amazon descriptions.) You will win Life on Planet Mom, The Mommy Diaries, and,breathe.

Book pack #2 is a kid's pack. You will win Martha Speaks: Play Ball, The Joy of Juggling, and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Children's Edition. You will also get a pack of kids' goodies from Xlear.

Book pack #3 is from Read It Forward. (If you haven't signed up for Read It Forward yet, you should. They give away free books every week! I've been chosen for three in just the past few months!) You will win Frankenstein's Monster and Radio Shangri-La.

Book pack #4 is random. You will win The Girl in Hyacinth Blue (This one had a tear on the cover that I taped.) and Ethan Frome and Other Short Fiction.

How to Win!!!!
I will draw a winner on Monday, May 2 (I'll forget about it if I try to do it before Addie's birthday party!) All you need to do is 1. Become a follower of the blog and 2. Comment on this post with your top 3 choices, in order, of the book packs you would choose. After I pick the winners, you can email me or message me on Facebook where to send your prize! Yay for reading!!!

Addie is one!!!

It seems hard to believe, but on Wednesday, Addie turned one! I don't think it's any secret that I LOVE to plan the kids' birthday parties. I start thinking about them months in advance. In fact, I strated thinking about Addie's before she was born, but stopped myself before I became too crazy!

Planning for Addie to turn one has been different, though, than with Jack
and Harry. And not just because I get to plan a ridiculously girly party! Addie turning one is kind of bittersweet. While I'm excited that she is growing and thriving and perfect, it's a little sad for me to think that I will never plan a first birthday party again. All of her firsts have had that feeling. It's so exciting that she is crawling and pulling up! But, there won't be the excitement of watching another baby reach these milestones. When she takes her first steps, it will be the last time a baby takes first steps in our house. I am determined to enjoy and cherish every one of the "last firsts."

Since I love a birthday party though, her party plans are in full swing. (Expect a post with LOTS of pictures after it :) ) On her birthday, we celebrated by going to the nature center with playgroup, having a picnic lunch with Daddy, and a special dinner with cake and presents at home. It really was perfect,(just like Addie!) so it's hard to feel too sad!

Here are a bunch of pictures from her birthday!
At the nature center

Birth minute

Her first doll

Her first Barbie from her brothers

Her name collage and hair clip holder

Cake time!

Just stay little!

This past week, the universe has seemed determined to bombard me with signs that my babies are not going to be babies forever!
Last Monday, I went to an informational meeting for parents of kids going to first grade. First grade! Jack will be a first grader in just a few weeks!!! How can this tiny baby be getting ready for first grade!?!?

That same day, Harry started tumbling class. He has been asking to start tumbling pretty much since he really started talking. (The first thing he said on his birthday was, "I'm three now. I go to tumbling today.") He loves it, though he does not exactly listen to everything his teacher tells him! He is soooo excited to do "big boy" things, just like Jack!

And TODAY is exactly one week until Addie turns one! How is that even possible?!?! Despite my mental planning of her party for months, I have been slacking on actually doing too much for it. Like maybe if I don't, she'll just stay a baby. This week, I actually started to buy things for the party, so I guess I'm giving in to the inevitable. For her part, Addie is totally excited about growing up so fast. She spends most of her time pulling up and thinking about standing without help. She is tentatively trying to cruise around, and she has figured out how to actually crawl, more than the scoot-drag she has already perfected.

On an unrealated note, this year Jack and Harry were super excited about April Fool's Day. (I'm guessing from school?) Jack kept asking if we could have an April Fool's Day party. Instead, I made a tricky dinner for them. I was really happy with how it turned out! I made these "cupcakes" and this "chicken not-pie". The cupcakes were super easy to make, and really fooled the kids! Jack took a big swipe of the icing with his finger, made a face, and asked why the icing tasted like mashed potatoes. When I was food coloring the mashed potatoes, I was hoping for a pale orange. I added the red before realizing I was almost out of yellow. The final product kind of looked like Play-doh, but it still tasted good and fooled the kiddos! The pot pie dessert was a little more invovled to make. (Rolling the Starbursts into "vegetables" was pretty sticky, and took forever!) But it looked really realistic! The downside was that the lemon candies kind of overpowered the vanilla flavor of the pudding. I still thought it tasted yummy, but Jack and Cory, not so much.

The pot pie mixture:

The meatloaf cupcakes:

Ready to eat!

Jack and Harry digging in!

9 to 5, spring break, and more!

Cory started a new shift this week! He works from 9-5, Monday through Friday! This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is. He has not had a normal schedule like this in the entire (almost) 12 years we have been married. I am pretty flipping excited about it!!!! If you have seen me in person, you are probably tired of hearing me go on and on and on about it!

Jack and Harry are on Spring Break this week, so we took a rocking trip to Carlinville for the dentist. I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing footage of it on MTV's Spring Break coverage. On the plus side, Jack did awesome at the dentist, and we were able to meet sweet baby Madeleine (my niece/the kids' newest cousin) for the first time! She's so tiny and perfect!

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with friends at a House Party. It was for a new Philly cream cheese product. If you don't know about House Party, you should definitely sign up! You can apply for all sorts of FREE parties for different products. They send you a ton of free stuff. The weather was wonderful, and the kids loved playing outside with their friends. They were excited that some leprechauns stopped by while they were sleeping, leaving a trail of shamrocks that lead to a rainbow with a pot of gold!

Also this week, I finally sent in our paperwork to join our local farm co-op. I have been wanting to join the past few years, but have always been too late to get a slot! We are splitting a share with friends, which makes it pretty affordable. It will be so nice to get farm fresh, locally and sustainably grown produce once a week from May until October! The farm we joined is Embarras Valley Farm. I am aquainted with the family that owns it, and their son is in Jack's class, which I think is pretty cool!

Last, but not least, Addie turned 11 months old this week! How is my baby growing up so fast? At least now, it is more socially acceptable for me to be obsessing over her birthday party planning. I won't have to hide it at the risk of seeming crazy like I do when planning it 6 months in advance!

A slow (cooker) week!

My awesome friend, Melinda, started a crockpot recipe exchange. Ever since then, I have been obsessed with my crockpot (about a month!) This week, with a bounty of delicious sounding new recipes at my fingertips, and feeling inspired by A Year of Slowcooking, (she cooked in her crockpot everyday for a year!) I decided to cook in my crockpot everyday for a week. I have to say, it made dinner time soooo much easier. Instead of having to get dinner ready when the kids were starting to get hungry and whiney, and when I was already pretty worn out myself, I could get dinner in the crockpot in peace while the boys were at school. By the time the end of the day crankiness started, I could magically whisk them to dinner without any wait! Here is what I made (a big "Thank You!" to all the ladies who shared the yummy recipes)...

Sunday:
Cranberry Chicken (Thanks Marissa!)

6 chicken breast halves, divided
8-oz. bottle of catalina or creamy French, salad dressing
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
16-oz can whole cranberry sauce

1. Place 3 chicken breasts in slow cooker
2. Mix other ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Pour half the sauce over chicken in the cooker.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2.
4. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hrs., or until chicken is tender but not dry.

I served this over whole wheat noodles. It was really yummy. Not overly sweet, and a little bit tangy. This was actually the second time we had this in a month. We liked it that much!

Monday:
Porkchops with Cranberry Stuffing

This was really good, and really easy. The porkchops were so tender, and every member of the family loved them! A happy side effect of all this crockpot use is, that since the meat does come out so really tender, it is easy for even the smallest mouth at our house to chew! (p.s. The picture is from the Pillsbury website. My presentation was not quite so pretty!)

Tuesday:
Chicken and Dumplings (Thanks to Jenny! This is possibly Cory's new favorite meal!)

Ingredients
4-5 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons butter
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup (low sodium)
1 onion, finely diced
2 (10 ounce) packages refrigerated biscuit dough, torn into pieces
chicken broth

Directions
1. Place the chicken, butter, soup, and onion in a slow cooker, and fill with enough broth to cover.
2. Cover, and cook for 5 to 6 hours on High. About 1 hour (or more) before serving, place the torn biscuit dough in the slow cooker. Make sure to poke the biscuits down into the broth. Cook until the dough is no longer raw in the center.

This was amazingly delicious. The word "love" was used by my family when talking about it!

Wednesday:
Buffalo Chicken Sandwhiches (Thanks to Laura for sharing!)

3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 bottle of buffalo wing sauce
1 8 oz pkg of Neufchatel cheese (like cream cheese)
1 package of dry ranch seasoning mix
chicken broth for milder flavor (I used 1 1/2 cans of broth)

Combine ingredients in crock pot. Cook on high for 4 hours or until chicken pulls apart with fork. Serve on rolls.

I really, really liked this. With the cream cheese, it was like a sandwich version of the buffalo chicken dip. The kids were a harder sell, but they ate it. Next time I make this, it will be for adults only so I can keep it hotter!

Thursday:
Chicken Quesadillas (Thank you Miranda!)
2-3 chicken breasts- cooked and shredded- I did this in the crockpot with some chicken broth and water, frozen, chopped onions (best cooking idea ever!) and a package of taco seasoning
package of tortillas
jar of salsa
package of shredded cheddar cheese
Layer salsa-tortilla-chicken-cheese until all ingredients are in the pot.
Heat on low for 1-2 hours until cheese is melted.

Cory was a little skeptical when he saw this cooking, but all of us ended up really liking it. It was so easy, and will definitely become a regular meal in our house.

Friday:
Hawaiian Chicken (Thanks Jennifer!)

2 pounds of skinless boneless chicken breast halves
1 can pineapple 20 oz drained
1 small can mandarin oranges drained
1/4 cup corn startch
1/4 - 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
soy sauce - four or five shakes of the soy sauce jar (Confession: I just used packets left over from getting Chinese takeout.)
Put everything into crockpot and stir until everything is mixed well. Cover and cook on low 5-6 hours or 3 hours on high.
I served over brown rice.
This was our second time having this in a month, too! This will definitely become a regular favorite at our house!

Saturday:
Crockpot Candy (Thank you Laura!)
Crock-Pot Candy
Ingredients
1 16 oz. jar roasted, unsalted peanuts
1 16 oz. jar roasted, salted peanuts
1 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 bar (4 ozs.) german chocolate, broken into pieces
3 lbs. (two 24 oz. pkgs.) white almond bark, broken into pieces
Directions
Put ingredients into a 4 or 5-quart crockpot in EXACT order as listed. Cover and cook on low 3 hours. DO NOT remove lid! Turn off and allow to cool slightly. Mixture will not be melted but will be soft. Mix thoroughly and drop by teaspoon size cookie dropper or a teaspoon onto wax paper. Let cool thoroughly. My batch came out to about 100 pieces!

I was pretty much waiting/hoping for an excuse to make this, and luckily we had a church potluck! It is so, so, so, good. I had to stop myself (and Cory) from licking the spoon every I was scooping to make the pieces. And, making this meant my family got to actually eat one non crockpot dinner!

Everything carefully layered in the crockpot

Cooling on wax paper

The finished product!

Spread the word...

Today is "Spread the Word to End the Word" Day. I think it is pretty common knowledge that I really hate it when people use the "r word." It is demeaning and dehumanizing. You can (and, I hope, will!) click here R-Word.org to take a pledge to stop using the word.

A Big Week!

It's been an exciting week for us! On Sunday, Cory got hired as the (part time) head minister at Central Christian Church in Charleston! If you live nearby and don't already attend a church, we would love for you to join us there! We are all so excited to be a part of Central!

On Monday, we took a super fun trip to the Terre Haute Children's Museum. It was our first time going since they moved to their new, larger facility, and it was awesome! It was definitely worth taking a day trip to. There was something for every age group (even Addie!) and just the right size to not be overwhelming.







On Thursday, Jack brought home his report card, and he did great! He is reading at a level 6. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I do know that he is supposed to be at a level 3 to be ready for first grade, so I guess that means he's double ready! His teacher commented that he was a "super reader," and I agree. I am so proud of him!

One more thing! I have an idea for a giveaway for when I actually have followers! Like maybe 15 or 20? So be waiting in hopeful anticpation for that!