She Did It!

If you haven't known by now, Jocelyn has been very picky with food since the time she was able to eat solids. Not any more! We've noticed that she's interested in a whole lot more and wants to eat (or try) what we eat. This morning Aubrey requested Kix for breakfast before school and guess what Jocelyn wanted too? Kix!! She gobbled it all up too. I had to take this picture for proof of course. And to also show another big step she's taken: wears her bibs without throwing a fit. Now what worked? Cloth bibs vs. plastic. And I'm sure Elmo has something to do with it! :)

Our Sunday

After church today, we came home and had some fun making serious (and not so serious) faces captured on camera. (We had some down time...what can I say??)

It all started with my picture. John made a weird comment and this was my reaction:


And then I turned the camera on him while he was reading a book (he hates when I take his picture, but oh well. DEAL with it is what I told him. LOL j/k):


Of course, we can't leave the kids out of this crazy family fun so Jocelyn was ready next with this expression on her face:

But to be quite honest I think Aubrey pulled the best funny face overall. Look at them eyes!:

Whew! Now that THAT'S over and done with, all goofy times were put to the side and Aubrey was able to take a picture of 'Mom and Dad' since we are usually the ones behind the scenes in most of our family photos. Here's to us...

In order to keep up with our Sunday tradition, after our spontanious photo shoot and family dinner, we went on a walk around the neighborhood and community college. Today was a really good day!

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

For the last 4-5 years I've had this recipe in my hot little hands and have never made it. When I was working at The Oregon Clinic, I had a co-worker/friend that brought these delicious enchiladas into work for a potluck of some sorts and they were heavenly to say the least. She graciously gave out the recipe to those that yearned to have more. As I was planning out my weekly menus as I usually do to write up the grocery list, my eyes set on this recipe and thought it was about time to make it for our family dinner. Well tonight I made it and there is just one word to sum it up: YUM! I was settling Jocelyn into her high chair and getting her adjusted when I looked around the table to see John and Aubrey practically inhaling their food. In between bites, Aubrey said, "Mom....I don't like this...I LOVE this!" Wow. That was awesome to hear. And Jocelyn even asked for seconds. This is when I know that a recipe is truly a keeper! Hope you try it and enjoy it like our family does. (And if I were you, I wouldn't wait as long as I did to make it either.) :)

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
serves 6-8

2 whole chicken breasts
2 (10 1/2 oz) cans cream of chicken soup
1 pint (or 2 cups) sour cream
1 (4 oz) can chopped green chiles
3/4 cup chopped onion
3 cups grated cheddar, monterey jack cheese or a combination of both
ripe olives
6 flour tortillas (burrito size)

Boil chicken breasts 20-25 minutes. Remove meat from bone and chop. Mix chicken meat, soup, sour cream, and chiles together. Spread a thin layer of creamed mixture over the bottom of a 9x13-inch pan. Spread equal amounts of creamed mixture down the middle of each tortilla (reserve some creamed mixture for the top) and sprinkle with chopped onion and cheese (reserve some cheese for top). Roll up tortilla and place seam-side down in prepared pan. Pour remaining mixture over the top of rolled tortillas and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees F. Garnish with black olives and additional chiles if desired.

Note: can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated before baking.
EXTRA side note/short cut: Instead of going through the whole boiling chicken process, you can easily use precooked chicken breast strips (I used about 1/2 to 3/4 a bag of Foster Farms grilled chicken breast strips bought prepackaged in the Kirkland/Costco brand. Just had to chop them up to smaller pieces and it worked great!)

Free Entertainment-Who Knew?

We had a break this afternoon in Hurricane Hannah's torrential downpours so we all piled in the car to an unknown destination. Everyone was getting a little stir crazy in the house. It was necessary to get out and about. We didn't have to go far though. Target is not even a mile down the road from us and we needed to get Jocelyn more diapers so it worked out that this was our "unknown destination." We got into the store and roamed around a bit. John has a love to walk down the movie section to scope out anything new out on the shelf. On the way to that department, we strolled past a new toy out on the market that was on display. 27 inches tall stood the new Fisher Price Ultra Dinosaur named Spike. With a remote control???



We didn't realize how fascinated Jocelyn would get with this pricey object but she was giggling and begging for the button to be pushed a couple of times before moving on. Those couple of times didn't satisfy her though. She kept saying "dinosaur...roar!" over and over until we walked past it one last time and watched it roar along with other passersby. Not that I even considered buying this toy (no offence, just not our thing!) but I glanced down at the price. $140!!! Good thing this toy offered free entertainment for both Jocelyn and Aubrey because it was not making it into our basket for a ride home with us. :)

Love For Baby Brother & Other Discoveries

It was Jocelyn's bed time so I was doing my usual--read a story and rock her for a few minutes and sing her a few songs. To get her familiar with having her baby brother around in the next couple of months, I have her say good night to him. She kissed my belly (those are meant to be HIS kisses) and then she layed her head on my belly and sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him. It was the cutest thing ever! What an angel. Along with Aubrey, she's going to be a great big sister!


There are some things that have happened recently with Jocelyn's growth that I wanted to be sure to take the time to record. One is that she is becoming more and more independent and head-strong as the days go by. Her favorite & new "word at the moment" this week is nope. It's very funny and cute how she says it too. Just plain old nope! And if we don't get the hint, she'll say it repeatedly until we understand. Some others have been:

1. Being a little more interested in using the potty. Nothing usually results in this sitting process but hey, atleast she's trying right?!

2. Sometimes tries to bite when things don't go her way-this is NOT fun on our part. She's getting better at not doing it thankfully.

3. I was changing her diaper this morning after waking up and she was babbling away just happy as can be. Not much of it could I understand except for the last part: "Daddy is a boy." LOL I had to call John at work to tell him the news and we both chuckled. But this is a great accomplishment as we've been teaching her the difference between a boy and a girl. Well, not in THAT way. Just the basic "this is a picture of a boy and this is a picture of a girl" in her story books.

4. Pointed to my tummy tonight and said "uh oh!" I looked down at my shirt half expecting that I dropped some food on myself at dinner but no. Better yet, she was pointing at the ever expanding outline of my belly button becoming more and more stretched. I too laughed at this wonderful discovery of hers but I was sighing inside. I don't know what it is. I love that I'm getting bigger for the baby's sake and health and all but that doesn't mean that I have to love all the weight gain that comes with it. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed her innocence in my belly button.
5. This girl has finally and I mean FINALLY started to get back into eating vegetables again. To my dismay, over the past year since she got off pureed baby foods, we haven't been able to get her to eat the vegetables on her plate. She of course amuzes us (or better yet gives us false hope) and pickes them up and SMELLS them and then puts them back down on her plate or smashes them between her fingers to smitherines. But this week it all changed. She had a small amount of peas and carrots on her plate next to other items and I was able to coax her into eating "just 2" here and there. This really is a big step for her and I'm proud that I have one less mommy worry to worry about. :)

6. Not too long ago, I went to get her up from her nap and as I walked in I instantly knew something was wrong. Could it have been the diaper she was holding out over her bed to me? Yikes! I didn't think she'd be able to undo her diaper with her onesie on but why am I underestimating her strength and power? There thankfully was no messes to clean while that diaper was off duty. Good thing too because I wouldn't have laughed otherwise. I suppose looking back on it as I am now it would be funny but some moments you can't find the humor. I'm doing better at it though.

***Some more words she can say now:

please, thank you, blankie, more, all done, cracker, juice, color, book, soccer, boy, girl, bye-bye, love you, morning, night night, brother, puzzle, movie, elmo, nemo, water, get up, back up----and many, many more. There are actually very few words now that we don't understand and in those circumstances, we have her SHOW us what she's talking about. Our baby is no longer. She is turning into quite the little girl.

They WON!

Aubrey had her first soccer game of the season tonight and they won 4-1. WooHoo! She did awesome out on the field and her coach had her playing for a good majority of the game. You can definitely tell she's been working hard on improving her speed since the last season or two. One of the player's parents on the team that sat close to us said "Wow...that #30 sure is a fast little thing!" (They didn't know we were the parents of #30.) All of the girls soaked the coach at the end of the game. Very funny to watch a male coach running as fast as possible across the field away from 10-15 girls with water canisters in hand. I'm sure he didn't mind. It was 90 degrees today and he's made a promise that if they ever loose a game, it'll be his turn to dunk them with water right back. It was a great night. Jocelyn was ever so tired but she endured. Especially after daddy got there after his softball game. Best buds forever those two are I tell you. It's so cute to see how much he's loved by his daughters and how much they're loved in return! My little family is the greatest. xoxo

{Aubrey is #30 running in the middle.}

{Smiling at sideline fans...US!}

{Jocelyn sitting next to her mama watching big sis play.}

{I snapped this photo half-way through Aubrey's game. Jocelyn was so tired she clung to her daddy until the game was over. What a trooper!}

Reminders

I think sometimes everyone needs a reminder of how fragile and precious life really is. It's so easy to get caught up in our own daily events that we can loose sight of the bigger picture. I was reading today over at one of my favorite and often visited blog sites (Life) and discovered that a family is in real need of our prayers and support right now. This was written on their family's recovery website:

"On Saturday, August 16, 2008, Stephanie Nielson was in a plane crash with her husband, Christian Nielson, and his flight instructor, Doug Kinnear, near St. Johns, Arizona. Doug Kinnear passed away soon after arriving at the Maricopa County Hospital.

Christian & Stephanie remain in critical condition at Maricopa Burn Center. Christian has sustained burns on over 30% of his body. His wife Stephanie’s body was burned over 80%.

For the past four years, Stephanie has welcomed us into her charming abode through the NieNie Dialogues. Far from being a product of creative editing, the Nielson’s don’t just shine through the selective lens of a blog. They are ingenuous examples of family devotion, eternal romance, and Christ centered faith. This site is dedicated to their welfare & recovery."

{Picture taken from NieNie's blog}

After reading their story, I have been embracing and cherishing each moment with my sweet little ones. It's sad to know that this young couple has 4 children at home waiting for their parents to recover and be with them again. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. If you want to do more, I've added their recovery button on the right of our blog that will provide you with ways to help them out. I hope that this unfortunate event will inspire you to spend as much time with your children/ loved ones as possible like it has done for me and to realize what an amazing and eternal gift families really are!