Green White Chili

We went to a super fun birthday party today for our friend Macy. We had a Chili Cook Off! Who'd have thought you'd have chili cook off weather at the end of May, but it was perfect! Cloudy and cool but still warm enough to be hanging out at the park. And the sun even came out halfway through! It was glorious! So for this Chili Cook Off I made up a recipe! I thought it was great so I thought I would share it!
Well first off last week I made a version or the Cafe Rio tomatillo dressing, it's delicious not exactly the same but I still ate it like everyday this week, and I wanted to use it up so I would stop eating it with EVERYTHING. Cilantro does not leave one with very nice smelling breathe :) So I had this idea to use it in a chili, and thats exactly what I did:

•  About half a spaghetti jar of tomatillo dressing, 
• 1pound of chicken cubed
• Cream of Potato soup
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• 1 can of corn
• 1 4 oz can green chilies undrained
• 1 can Great Northern Beans
• 8 oz Sour Cream

Threw it all into the crockpot, except for the sour cream for 3 hours on high (probably 4-5 on low) just before we left I took about a cup of the soup out and mixed it into the sour cream then whisked it all together. So it's more of a chowder than a chili, but its got a little kick and was delicious! I only got a photo of the leftovers :)

So looks like party people liked it too!!

Also we grilled up some brats this week on the Foreman!

with yellow red orange bell peppers and onions to top them off! So tasty! 

So I have this cute kid too right?! 

Learning the sword like her daddy :)

Palmer Baseball!! We got to go to a game on thursday night! Maia did great for staying up way past her bedtime.

But she really wanted her daddy! She even tried to climb the fence. 

Alas we did not win (we are 0-3 currently) and it was freezing! (how is it almost June?!)

But we had a pretty good time!

Maia in her giraffe pants and piggy tails, on our way to a play date at the park! 

We brought a lunch and Mai pulled that yogurt and spoon out of it and would not put it down until she got to eat it. But it kept her happy to let her hold them!

I made another purse last night. This one is more of a scripture bag or something, Maid sure likes it! 

She found it and started putting things in it, like her sippy cup, her Tangled DVD case and her keys. Mommy's girl :)

G5 The Next Grilleration

We have been watching Tangled Tangled and more Tangled! My sweet little girl only wants to watch that movie ALL DAY long! As annoying as it gets to me it's still so cute that she loves it so much! We even have to watch what we say, especially if we've finally gotten her away from the TV and not wanting to watch Tangled.  for that mostly too!

Sitting on her cushion with her "tweats" (goldfish and crasins) and juice watching her favorite show in ever!

 In our attempt to be able to watch grown up shows too (come on its Stanley Cup Playoffs going on!) we were looking into other options to let her watch it, when I found this portable DVD player for a whopping $59.95 at Target! We have a big road trip coming up this summer so I'm sure it will come in handy

sitting on her cushion watching her movie :)

When they sing she wanted to get closer!

Alright so I'm a little obsessed with our newest kitchen appliance. It's a George Forman Grill!! It has changeable plates, which means I can use it for EVERYTHING! At first we planned to just use it for grilling, for example Jesse has been grilling chicken a couple times a week and taking it to school for lunch in a salad. Another great grill we've tried was Salmon fillets, med heat 7 minutes. SO EASY! Tonight we had Kabobs; I have never made them on my own before, never thought of it but I will certainly be making them more!

 For these easy peasy Kabobs I marinaded Chicken in: 

• Olive Oil (about 3/4 Cup)
• Balsamic Vinegar ( About 2 tsp)
• Black Pepper and Sea Salt
• Minced Garlic (about 1 Tbsp)
• Ground Ginger (1tsp)
• Raspberry Vinaigrette (dash or two)

I didn't measure anything just what looked about enough and covered the chicken. I marinaded them for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile I started the Rice cooker (another thing that has become a staple in our house we use it at least weekly now!) and chopped veggies. We used Red and Green Bell Peppers, and Onions (pretty much what I had on hand). Once veggies were chopped I also cut up half a pound of Smoked Sausage, cuz I wasn't really using very much chicken, and last minute decided to use frozen pineapple chunks.

Skewer in order you wish, I like so separate meat from meat so it cooks faster (I don't really know if this is faster I think I just heard it once) and Grillerate it for about 8 minutes/until meat is cooked through.

 But this thing does so much more!
I was reading through the cookbook that comes with it, looking for ideas and such. In this cookbook is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies! It's a pretty basic recipe but I was more interested in the fact that you can make cookies in a Forman Grill!!! Crazy right?! I was so excited! So I gathered my ingredients, I used my own family recipe, and got to work! I haven't made cookies very much since I've moved to Iowa, not from scratch ones anyway, because baking in humidity when I'm used to baking in dry high altitude is WAY different! So I did a little research and learned a few tricks to keep my cookies from being flat and gross! Decrease the Baking Soda a bit and refrigerate between baking batches. Helped a TON! As for the Grillinator part; our grill comes with changeable plates, one of them is called The Baking plate. So I put that in and heated the grill. Once my cookie dough was tasty enough (yes I taste my cookie dough raw eggs or not I gotta know if its good, i.e. if I remembered all the ingredients) I put 6 dollops onto the baking plate and closed the lid. It took like 10 minutes, so not necessarily faster than baking them in the oven especially considering the fact that I can only bake 6 cookies at a time max, and when they are done you have to scoop them off right away so you can start the next batch. Which can get messy cuz they are still way soft, but they came out alright!
I used both the grill AND the conventional oven in order to finish the baking, cuz I didn't want it to take all night.

these are the first 2 batches from the Forman Grill, some stayed together a bit better than others!

I just thought this might look cool

*these cookies are Maia approved*

She approved so much we had to give her a bath she was so chocolatey!

So my love of the G5 Next Grilleration continues, You can call me the Grillenator!

Thanks again Mom for the Grill!!

Spring, MRSA and a Blanket Fort

We sure travel a lot this tri!! We went back to Colorado for Easter break. Maia and I flew out from Chicago the weekend before Easter, and J drove out later that week once school had wound down for the extended weekend. Karly had the week off from school so she also came out to visit! It was great to spend time with all my siblings, may quite possibly be the last time we are all together until after Scotts mission!

By the way my little brother DID FINALLY get his call!!! He will be serving in the Sydney, Australia mission Mandarin speaking. How awesome for him, I’m so excited for him and this opportunity he has. We’ve always wanted to visit Australia, so now we think we will save up to go see him when he is ready to come home! Especially since it’s perfect timing, we will be all graduated!

So most of our time in Colorado we go to just hang out, which was nice! I had lots of extra hands to help with Maia, which was perfect because I also had pneumonia! Yes that annoying cough I’ve had for like a month that I just kept brushing off? Turns out it actually was something! Good thing my mom caught it cuz I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it for a while to be perfectly honest. Coincidentally Mandy also had pneumonia at the same time, so we were nebulizer buddies.

Being spring and all we of course celebrated Easter. Maia LOVED visiting the Easter Bunny at the mall, in fact we had to tear her away from him! She was very sad to go. She had a blast finding Easter eggs too!

Of course Easter is not all about the Bunny and the Eggs! We were able to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Brown as well as the LB’s! Well half the LB’s. We were able to take some time and reflect on the real celebration behind Easter, the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the atonement, so that it’s ok if I am not perfect at everything all of the time. So that I can live with my family again when this life is over, and thanks to the blessings of the temple I am sealed to them forever. I have such a wonderful life and am so truly unbelievably blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, and to be taken care of in so many ways.

 

Along with spring also came a new calling! I am not the Primary Secretary! There is lots to do, but I Love it! I am so excited about it! I have never been a super organized type of person but this is my chance to gain strength in those aspects of my life. I get to keep track of nearly 100 people, their contact info, names and faces and BIRTHDAYS!! I’m good at birthdays! If I’ve met you at least twice and you’ve told me your birthday chances are likely I remember it. At least the month if nothing else! I know I am not perfect in this aspect either, but I know birthdays. I guess I just want people to know that someone remembers them on their birthday!

 

So that is super fun! We have also had some less fun moments! Beginning with a little zit on Maia’s leg.

 

I noticed it that morning, and later in the day it looked more red, so I took a photo so I could compare, mostly because I thought I was being paranoid. Then the nect day it turned into this:

Okay that must be more than irritation from her diaper…maybe she got bit by a spider or something?

then another one showed up on the other leg! I only started to panic on the inside…and call and talk to all my family that is medically trained (i.e. Dr Bob and Nurse Mom).

A little hard to see because my flash is retarded! But it is the size of a dime and began to drain puss. It was hard like she had a little marble under her skin, she started walking funny so I know it was hurting her! So to set our minds at ease we went to the Urgent Care, because of course it was a weekend that this little bugger got worse during.

(Wednesday 3 days after treatment began, still hard spot but so much improvement!)

Doc didn’t know what to say, he told us it could be MRSA but wasn’t sure so took a culture and said help it keep draining by putting warm wet washcloth on it, and gave us some antibiotics. They said we’d have the results in two days, Tuesday (which would have been my birthday which I will post about later). Come Wednesday night I still hadn’t heard from them, so right as I figure no news is good news the lab calls me and basically says they forgot to call me Tuesday morning, by the way she’s positive for MRSA, so just make sure she takes all the antibiotics we gave you and call your doctor if it gets worse. That was it…so do yourselves a favor and don’t Google image search MRSA..it’s terrifying! I’ve done it multiple times now. My mom is MRSA positive, which is probably where Maia got it from in the first place, and when she first got it I wanted to know what it was and it scared the crap out of me. I have now learned once you get MRSA you always have it, kinda like the cold sore virus, so we just gotta keep our eyes open and hope she doesn’t get it again for a while!

 

To make this post even longer lets end on a more fun note! Maia and J love to play hide and seek! It’s adorable. And her favorite places to hide are under the kitchen table and in our bedroom closet. Because she likes to hide in the kitchen we thought it would be fun to make her a blanket fort!

she enjoyed it

She may be wearing a tutu but she’s her daddy’s girl and loves to have her sword in hand, especially when guarding her toys in her fort!

Special way to get into the fort, you gotta walk in backwards!

and then stop and smile for mommy taking photos!

 

We are so excited that Spring is here, and look forward to more adventures outside whenever the weather decides to cooperate!

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinner I usually try to do something awesome! And today I made a roast and potatoes and indeed it was awesome, and SUPER easy! What would I do without my Crock Pot?! I’ll tell you I’d cook a little less  

Anyway carrots, potatoes, celery and onion chopped in large pieces in bottom of croc pot place roast on top, cover with powdered onion soup mix add 2 cups of water cook on high for 4-5 hours or low 6-7 hours. It was lovely. As we were finishing up J said “know what would be awesome to end with?…Cherry Pie” I will never turn down cherry pie! However I didn’t have enough filling to throw a quick pie together so rather than break the Sabbath and go buy one I got creative.

A few months ago I bought this silicone tart pan at Tuesday Morning; mostly because it was $4 but also because I wanted to try and make tarts. I put it away and never got around to them until today! I had some frozen pre made pie crust (a true staple I know) and one can of pie filling. So I cut out circles of the pie crust to line the tart cups and filled with pie filling baked at 375 for 20-25 minutes. But I still had a second pie crust and it had thawed so I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I proceeded to make mini pies.

 

I only had filling enough for 3 more little treats and I didn’t get a perfect seal around the edges; but nonetheless I am proud of these cute little pies! And yes I WILL be making them again in the future! Preferably when we have some friends over or something it’s a lot of temptation to have mini pies lying around because they’re so small. It’s like pie vitamins, don’t wanna stop eating them! Maybe I’ll throw a baby shower for one of my many pregnant friends and make little pies, I bet I could make them even minier!

Don’t you wish you came over for dinner tonight!

but as Pies go, that’s pretty small!

In other news around our house Maia has a new game she likes to play. Well it’s not new per say but she plays in a new way; Hide and Seek. She now likes to put a blanket over her head and wait until you ‘can’t see her’ then she will peek out and giggle. It’s darling. Tonight we were playing this game:

what does this remind you of?

Correct Answer? “E.T. Phone Home”

She’s a silly baby and we love her more and more everyday.

Another Observation

So we live in an apartment, we have neighbors above and on one side. Its not too bad most of the time but I've decided it's ok that I don't know my upstairs neighbors. In fact it's probably better that I don't; I'm sure I would feel incredibly awkward meeting them by the things I've heard coming from their home. I know there is at least a her and a him that live there. I've heard her phone conversations (maybe she's a loud talker?), I've heard someone pace the front room, nearly everytime I'm in the shower I hear that someone up stairs ALSO is in the shower (which is kinda really weird...). But the most awkward 'I don't want to look you in the face on purpose' factor is the noises that go Bump, Bump, Bump in the night. Great for them and their relationship but come on 3am every Sunday (well I should say Monday I guess) is that really the best time to make all the noise? Bumps and hollers and sometimes even screams, because of the fact at 3 am  and that we live in Davenport I'm pretty sure alcohol is often involved at the early morn encounters, but if I hear all sorts of noises at all times of the day and night wonder what my neighbors think of me? Even walking through the hallway you can hear peoples conversations from inside their apartments; maybe we just have very thin walls. Maybe my neighbors complain about how my baby at 1 still doesn't sleep through the night, or when she slams the doors? I don't know but I don't think I'll really be finding out on purpose.

Another thing to look at as we are looking for a new place to live, hopefully the sale of our condo goes through soon so that we can be free of that debt and have the financial freedom to pay for a place a little bit nicer. Maybe even one with a basement! I would just love a washer and dryer, or even hook ups for them seeing as we have the machines they are just in utah at the moment. So we're on the lookout but if we can't find anything, it will be interesting to see if we do get to know our neighbors; and any awkwardness that might ensue.

Our turn in Jimmermania

We are HUGE cougar fans right?! So this year when our team has been doing Amazingly! We sat around on Selection Sunday waiting to hear where our boys were gonna play! And wouldn’t you know they were selected to play in Denver the weekend of Boards!! Since Jesse is in 4th tri he didn’t yet have to take the tests meaning we had the weekend off, free to go watch the game of course! Once in a lifetime opportunity, how often in our lives is everything going to line up so perfectly for us to be there, right down to good weather! So we bought our tickets and headed out thursday after school (well after SOME school.. ).

We got a new car seat just for the trip its got more of a reclined position compared to the last forward facing one we purchased and thus was easier for Maia to nap in on the road. So majority of the time she was a happy baby. Since BYU played thursday night and our tickets were for saturday (yes we assumed they’d make it to saturday…and they did DUH) we wanted to be able to watch the game so we stayed over night in Lincoln Nebraska. The Holiday Inn there in downtown is quite nice! And we were on the 14th floor which in itself was pretty cool to us! Great view :)

and some great pizza from Old Chicago that was right next door! (heavenly!)

SO Friday we drove the remaining 7 hours to get to my parents home in Highlands Ranch. It was so sunny and warm! Nearly every time we make a trip to Denver it snows, or in the summer last year it rained and there was a tornado (while we were circling the city in an airplane!!!) so to have great weather the entire time was WONDERFUL!!! I love how sunny it is in Colorado, LOVE IT.
My family has a new dog; a poodle named Melvin. We met him at Christmas but he has not had a haircut since we last saw him so this time around he looked more like a sheep!
 
He has been great with Maia! Poodles don’t exactly have the best reputation with small children but he has been very tolerant of her and likes to play with her. She loved patting his fluffy hair and throwing the ball for him and putting things in his mouth. I’m pretty sure his favorite part about her was that she likes to drop food off of her highchair tray. Especially when she figured out that if she dropped food he would eat it.

Saturday soon came and we worked on our Jimmer shirts and signs for the game!
 
we are definitely a Cougar Fan Family!
Maia stayed home with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Mandy and Uncle Totty (Scott) while Jesse and I went to the game.
  Pepsi Center-its HUGE and unfortunately no one watching on TV was able to see our awesome sign we were just to high up.
But our Cougars won and it was a great time! We were sitting amongst fans from the first game that decided they were all rooting for Ganzaga mostly because they’d been trailing most of the game! So all the more fun to be loud and cheering “Jimmer, Jimmer!” as well as Heartsock, Emery and Abouo of course!
Then we had a pretty quiet Sunday with my folks before we headed for home monday morning. Sunday Maia liked playing in the backyard with Grandpa Garry and Mandy doing pull ups on the gazebo and watching the fish in the pond (searching for the turtle too!)
  Then she took some time to play piano with mommy ( who hasn’t played for a long time…) But she really enjoys the piano, I hope she keeps that up I didn’t have the patience with myself to keep it up; but Maia loves music so much already. And it would be wonderful to have a piano player in our family.
Monday morning we began the trek home to Iowa, and since it is such a long drive we made the decision to stay in Council Bluffs for the night. While there we were able to have dinner with our friends Sarah and Sean who we know from Provo. It’s fun having friends dotted all over the country. This summer we hope to get to visit with more of them as we are planning quite a long cross country trip to visit family and friends for our break. SO our friends and Fam in CO, UT and ID and Canada and everywhere in between lookout here we come!

Observations

I am the kind that observes situations before jumping in... Lately I seem to be observing the funniest things when in the Walmart check out line. 


First off you know  the conveyer belts that bring your food to the cashier? Continually moving, just like the moving side walk at the airport, Human conveyor belt..or toddler treadmill (see video on my facespace page). So you have your stuff on there and the little divider at the end so some one can go next. Ever notice how people will fill up that tiny little 6 inches of conveyer belt you leave them like there's no tomorrow? The conveyer belt suddenly broke and they gotta fit their whole cart on that tiny little spot or they wont get to check out at all? When you're in front of them it's easier to be like "geez calm down buddy its gonna move again in like 30 seconds" but being behind them you're more likely to look back and forth at his cart and the small space to see if maybe YOU could squeeze some more of their stuff on, like its gonna move the line any faster. I do it but at least I'm not alone in the endeavor. And to be honest since observing this I am working to break the habit and be patient with the conveyor belt.


Do any of you use the recyclable bags? When I bring them to the store; I hand them my 4 bags, the cashier is usually annoyed. How dare I bring my own bags! But come on they don't break as easily and are easy to carry, oh and Eco friendly, okay i'll bring my own bags, when i remember. But as the cashier is going it becomes a mission to fit all of your groceries into one bag! I sit there watching them bag my groceries thinking, you know there's more than one bag there...you dont have to fit it all into one... so then i end up leaving with one bag I can barely lift and 3 other bags each with a loaf of bread, box of cereal and the milk (cuz it needs its own bag..?). Unless of  course the cashier is a man and I'm purchasing feminine hygiene products then those will be put in their own separate bag as if they never had to touch them. On more than one occasion I have found myself getting to the car and reorganizing the bags so that when I get home I will be able to lift them and my toddler inside in as few trips as possible.
The only time I've noticed it not being this way, so far that is, was in Maui where you're option is to bring your own bag or don't have one. Some places provide paper bags but there is a new law that prohibits plastic bags being used for things like bagging your groceries (unless you bring them in yourself). 


So is it just me?