Happy Birthday!

Minecraft cake: water, sand, dirt, grass

Making her brother a cake

Birthday boy playing computer games

Lime sherbet for creeper floats (creepers are bad guys in the Minecraft game)

Yum!

 In Minecraft, you collect "resources",  J had his friends collect resources: TNT (twizzlers), sticks (pretzels), lava (cherry sours), dirt (rootbeer barrels), and gold (rolls) and then make "Steve" bags.  Then some minecraft food for snacks.  He had boxes to build forts with, but I think they built mostly with LEGO.  Eitherway, building is what minecraft is all about.

Baby Rice Party

Rice Party is a big family tradition at our house, almost bigger than first birthday.  At the rice party we celebrate our baby's first solid food meal which is rice.  This is also pretty much our staple food and therefore worth celebrating.  At the rice party we serve rice in at least three different ways for the family to sample.  Then the senior member of the family in attendance feeds the baby their first meal (unless they want mom to do it).  The highlight of the party is the future career path game.  Baby is presented with 3-4 items symbolic of possible career paths.  Then we let the baby pick one.  Our first child didn't get a rice party and wonders what she would have chosen.  She carried drumsticks around in both hands as a baby for months though, she would cry if there wasn't something in BOTH hands.  She wanted balance and symmetry.  It was also definitely a sign of things to come.  Our next two boys chose technology and our second daughter chose a baby doll.  Today our baby chose a wallet (business/finance) and after that got old he chose medicine (health occupations), he ignored science & technology(tinker toys) and government/military (a flag).

Our baby had his rice party very early.  He isn't even five months old, but he is a big little guy.  My last baby was seven months at his party.  Baby C has never even eyed food or grabbed for it.  However, he is so hungry all the time that I can't keep up with nursing.  The last few days were especially hard on him, so we made an emergency trip to the store late last night and decided to do Rice Party today on the spur of the moment.  Usually at Rice Party, baby eats last, but at this rice party baby was crying and crying for food and that was after I'd already nursed him twice in an hour.  He could hardly wait for the prayer and after eating a giant bowl of rice took a nice long happy nap.

Our rice dishes included Chex Mix, Pad Thai, and Peanut Butter Bars (ours are made with brown rice and sweet rice flour, yum!)  Oh, and to be honest the main course was really pork chops and bratwurst (I was happy with Pad Thai)!

Chex Mix

 Pad Thai

 Peanut Butter Bars

 A wallet/money (business/finance career path)

In other news...

D enjoying the multi-colored bandaids grandma gave him

AJ getting ready to teach LEGO art class

Edible Mother's Day Bouquet

My 5 year old daughter presented me with this bouquet after church.  She had a big grin.  "Here Mom!  It has lots of gluten so I'll eat it for you"  I had to beg, but she let me hold it for about 2 seconds in order to take this picture and then all my kids devoured it together.  Same daughter made me a diamond ring at school out of a Hershey Kiss.  She ate that too.  I don't mind, love my kids.

March Pictures

My brothers new baby, My five kids, the easter egg hunt, my husband, and the Provo Temple Construction (quite interesting because its on stilts.


Pictures...

What's for dinner

Someone asked to see how I did this and I thought I'd copy it here too...

Here are my menu ideas for this year.  It takes me a few really good days of brainstorming to get the list and then its just a graph of the year.  I fill in birthdays and holidays and then rotate in the things my family will eat.  The first 7 are the only things everyone likes and the rest are either things only some people like or are seasonal, so I don't do them as often. I usually write the ideas on my calendar and when I make a shopping list buy the stuff I need for the next week or two.  I rearrange A LOT and sub in new ideas or quicker ideas often, but this helps :)

Menu ideas

1.     Hawaiian haystacks 

2.     Tacos

3.     Meatloaf

4.     Chicken nuggets

5.     Chili-Halloween

6.     Alfredo

7.     Pizza

8.     Potato latkes (pancakes)

9.     Baked potatoes

10.  Potato wedges

11.  Pork chops Fathers Day

12.  Meatballs

13.  Puffy pancakes & sausage

14.  Waffles

15.  Egg fried rice/peas & carrots

16.  Baked chicken

17.  Pollo verde & mashed potatoes

18.  Beans & rice

19.  Cobb salad

20.  Tsuvan - cabbage , onion , carrots , broccoli ,steaks & noodles

21.  Buuz –for New Years & AJ’s Birthday

22.  B.L.T.

23.  Chicken enchiladas (corn tortilla & green chillis)-D’s Birthday

24.  Stir fry

25.  Tuna Casserole /Tuna & Crackers 

26.  Teriyaki Chicken

27.  Grilled Cheese

28.  Paella/Cheesy Spanish Rice & Chicken

29.  Burritos

30.  Taco Salad

31.  Pesto Pizza Southwest Alfredo chicken pizza

32.  Bourbon Chicken n rice

33.  Chicken n rice

34.  Stuffed Peppers

35.  Soup (potato, lentil, chick noodle, zucchini, minestrone, tomato)

36.  Cabbage bread Husband’s Birthday

37.  Mom’s peasant style risotto Mother’s Day

38.  Hearty Vegetarian Rice Skillet

39.  Tatertot casserole

40.  Spaghetti

41.  Sausage spinach rotini

42.  Boy Scout Tomato hamburger pepper onion corn over rice

43.  Cheese rice and broccoli and chicken

44.  Stuffed Poblanos

45.  GSG Coconut Rice

46.  Fried eggs/ breakfast sandwich/ breakfast burritos

47.  Santa Fe Breakfast Skillet (chilli,hashbrowns, salsa, egg, chicken, cheese) My Birthday

48.  Macaroni & Cheese J’s Birthday

49.  Corned Beef-St Patricks Day

50.  72 hour kits

51.  Egg Salad Sandwiches/deviled eggs-Day after Easter

52.  Skillet Lasagne

53.  Bratwurst-fourth of July, AP's birthday?

Saturday-leftovers, nachos, quesadillas, pizza, ramen, etc.

Click on the pictures to see them full size, notice I did it in pencil.  That way I can easily make changes.

Update:  Its June and my oldest daughter and I decided to go on a health kick and cut waay back on meat.  Instead of redoing the whole year's menus, I just thought up a bunch of healthier menus and substituted those into my menu in place of the least healthy dinner ideas.  It was easy and didn't take much time at all.

Creamy Garlic Sauce for Papa Murphy's Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza

 Papa Murphy's Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza Copy Cat

I made this pizza for a vegetarian family get together, but all over the internet, copy cat recipes said to use Ranch salad dressing for the sauce (sounds strange eh?).  I did that and well, it tasted like a salad on pizza crust.  It wasn't the addictive pizza I remember, so I came up with my own creamy garlic sauce and made another pizza.  This one was MUCH, MUCH better and tasted like what I remember.  We did half the pizza with veggies and half with southwest grilled chicken (taco seasoning + chicken).  They were both delicious.

Creamy Garlic Sauce for one 12" pizza.

1 1/2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 Tbs cream cheese
3/4 cup milk
1/2 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (optional)
pinch of dill (optional)
2 1/2 Tbs grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Melt the butter and cream cheese together over medium heat, it might not completely combine, but it gets close.  Dissolve cornstarch into cold milk.  Stir milk into butter/cream cheese mixture and bring to a boil.  Cook until thick then add seasonings to taste.  I just guesstimated how much to use.  Remove from heat and stir in parmesan cheese.  I think you could add minced garlic at the beginning with the butter too.  There are so many variations possible.

Pizza Veggies
-baby spinach
-sliced zucchini
-chopped onions (red and white)
-chopped tomato
-chopped mushroom
-artichoke hearts

Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese

The crust I used in the picture above is a great gluten free crust that I found here.

Holler

My daughter told me I needed to update my blog title, so how about Wiggle, Poke, Giggle, Sit, N' Holler.  No, not nearly as catchy.  Anyway, Number 5 seems to be sleeping quite well at night, but during the day he is captain fussy.  We love him, but he's a challenge.