Thursday, January 20, 2011

Few more recipe pics!

Here are a few pictures that wouldn't work with me in the previous recipe post.


This is the recipe with all ingredients and instructions.

Here is what your child will look like when you are peeling potatos

And here is what he will look like after you have chopped them all up and added the soups and water. 


Order Up!

 For this blog post I am going to be showing you a recipe I go out of the cookbook above.  This was given to me as a wedding present (though I do not remember who from) and I LOVE IT.  Let me warn you, I am not a cook, I do not like it, but I do it out of necessity.  This is GREAT for someone like me.  There are quick and easy recipes broken down in categories (salads and sides, soups and breads, mains, and desserts) that are all categorized by the season.  For example this came out of the winter season of soups and breads.  I made what is called "Easy Potato Soup" and guess what, it really was easy!  Here is what you gotta do.

First you have to peel 4-5 potatos.  Here I have 2 extra because I had some smaller potatos to choose from.
Yes I know I am not the best peeler in world, so sue me
 After you have peeled the potatos, you have to wash them of course!
We don't want anyone getting sick now do we?

For this next part you will need this handy little tool that I just LOVE!

Now that you have peeled and washed potatos you must cube them, very hard and time consuming unless you have a chop wizard.  I absolutely love this thing and for all you non-chef cheaters out there like me, this is the way to go!
Cut and cube the washed taters.  Be careful with the knife though!
 
 Once you have all the potatos cubed, pour them into your waiting crockpot. 


Disclaimer:  Those cool crockpot liner things, definitely worth the investment!  I have used them countless times, but ran out for this recipe, hence why I have caked on tater soaking overnight!
After you have chopped and placed the potatos in the crockpot add your cream of chicken and cream of celery soups.
 Along with a soup can full of water then set aside the can to be used later. 

  And set your crockpot on high to let the mixture cook for 2-3 hours, or until the potatos have reached the desired tenderness.  Just a side note, mine weren't that tender, but we had to go and cheer on a jr. high girls' basketball game so I just went ahead and finished it out. 

Don't forget to stir occassionally.


 After 2-3 hours during which you have cleaned your previous mess (yeah right) and put your child down for a nap (aka slept with him on the couch so he would acutally sleep) come right on back for phase 2. 
Here is what it should look like (maybe lol) after 2-3 hours.

Now remember how I told you to go ahead and set aside the can, here is where you need it again.  Pour a can of milk into the crockpot.

Here I am pouring the milk and splattering it all on the sides!
Next grab your instant potatos and pour in as much as you want until you get a desired consistency.  For me this was just one of the two packages in this box. After this just leave it for another 2-3 hours (while you're at a b-ball game) and when you get home you have yummy potato soup on a very cold night!

Don't forget to stir continuously until it is all good and mixed to your desired consistency.
The finised product

The end result!
Hope you have enjoyed my first recipe post.  It is not very good because number 1 I couldn't find my camera so had to use my iPhone to take pictures with and then e-mail them and save and upload (yucky), and number 2 because the pics got all jumbled and would work with me/let me type where I wanted to.

All in all a pretty good and easy recipe, just start early.


Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Family Fun, First Snow, 3 Months old!

Wow what a crazy week it has been!  We have hung out with family, Reid has turned 3 months old, and has experienced his first snow day!!  We will take it slow!

First things first, family fun!  My dad's sister came in last week from dallas and we had fun hanging out with her, her daughter, and her niece (my cousin).  Here are a few pictures.

If you have never had Pizza King pizza before it is AMAZING!  

It is a family run pizza shop that is Mmm Mmm Good!

This is my cousin Emilie who is a sweetie and very helpful!

This is my other cousin Kenady and my grandfather having fun with Reid

We can tell who is the center of attention can't we?

The girls are so sweet and love him to death!

They decided to help me with his bedtime routine that night :-)


Later on this week, big man turned 3 months old!!!  I can't believe how fast he has gone from l

This, taken on his first night at home.
To this, a big strapping 3 month old!


Who is so happy

And so gosh darn cute!
3 months is great, he is starting to reach for stuff, is getting more control over his hands, smiles a ton, and tries SSSSUUUPPPPEEERRR hard to laugh out loud.  He sucks in real hard when he is attempting, he just can't get the giggle out yet!  

Lastly we had his first ever snow day, unless of course you count last year's snow in February, we had just found out we were pregnant the day before.  

Last year's snow, and the beginning of a long pregnancy! Can you tell we are kinda nervous

Last year's snow again, but so gosh darn pretty!

Yeah last year one more time!  Before our lives changed to. . .
This year's snow. . .

With an outside baby!!  

Whom we all love!  

So happy to be a family!  Can't wait until he really starts to play in it!

Until then we will all just have some fun!

Well hopefully that catches everyone up.  He has taken a surprisingly long nap and let me complete this post (and clean before hand).  If only it were that way every day!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Read about Reid

Yep it is that time again!

1.  He is the cutest little boy in the world.  Figured I would start with a given;-)

2.  He is incredibly mild mannered, given the parents he has lol.  He really doesn't throw that many fits, though he has his moments on certain days.  I don't like those days and I don't think he does either.  Generally he is pretty chill and goes with the flow pretty well.

3.  He loves to smile!  My aunt says that when he smiles, it just goes all over him and he smiles ALL OVER! Seriously it takes up his whole face he smiles so big!  It makes your heart melt!

4.  He loves to smile at the baby in the mirror of his play mat!  He thinks that is the best playmate.

5.  He doesn't like tummy time at all!  I think this is because we put him to sleep on his belly (shh don't tell) and he associates it with bed time.  

6.  He is starting to suck on his hands, trying to suck his thumb!  I do NOT want this to happen at all!  I would rather him take to a paci because you can throw that away easier then you can throw away a thumb!

7.  He is sleeping through the night now.  If he does wake up I let him cry it out, and usually after 2-4 minutes he is back asleep again.  Sometimes he will flip himself over and that makes him really mad!  

8.  He likes to sleep right next to you.  The other day at Mark's parents house it was cold so we put him in between us (not something that will become routine, my bed is exactly that, MY BED!) and then again last night when our programming on the heater messed up and I woke up to the house at 60 degrees, we did the same thing.  Well both times he ended up moving close to me, and got it to where I only had about my body's width of room. . . on a king sized bed!  

9.  We now have a bedtime routine, consisting of a bath, a book, and eating, where he will hopefully fall asleep nursing (the only session he is allowed to do this on).  It has made a lot of difference in how he sleeps throughout the night.  Mark and I take turns with nightly baths and lotioning.  We use the Johnson bedtime bath and lotion, which smells just so dern good!

10.  He is starting to become more interested in watching things.  I am starting to show him some baby einstein videos, which will hopefully let me get some housework done, while he might learn a bit.  

Welp, there you have it.  

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year and a Jumbled Christmas Post!

Happy New Year!!  It is a wonderful day, the start of a brand new year, one that I am hoping is not going to be near as eventful as 2010 was.  I don't think I could handle it!

Anyway, Christmas comes before New Year, so I guess I can tell you a little about that with quite a few pictures. However, when I put my pictures into the computer, somehow they all got jumbled, so they ended up all out of order.  Well I was picking them out of my Events and so they are all out of order here, so it will be a jumbled Christmas post!

 It was a great Christmas, one were Reid was COMPLETELY spoiled!   This picture is from Christmas Eve at my grandmother's house.  He was completely worn out by the end of the day!
Aren't they the cutest Christmas P.J.'s?  Got them from a consignment shop!  Lydia you should be proud!
Here is Reid helping Daddy play "Fat Santa", one of the many games played!


This is Reid and Grandpa Christmas morning at like 6:30

Opening Presents

Cutest stocking from Kohls!  $5!  Be jealous!

Got some books to read!

Having a good Christmas Morning!

 On Christmas Day, the Clifton family was nice enough to come to our house!  Reid has so much fun with all the Uncles!

Reid with Uncle Blake
Reid with his Nana
Reid has 5 Uncles!  No Aunts!  Here he is with all of them!

We got him a small stroller from Santa so we could take it to Tyler instead of our massive jogging one!
 On December 18th we went to Dallas for my paternal grandparent's Christmas.  We had a great time playing all kinds of games that my great grandmother came up with!
Family pic before opening presents!

This is a 5 Generation Picture!  Reid has two of those on my side of the family.  
 Remember when we went on our crazy round trip to Houston and Bryan?  If not, you can read about that here, where I promised pictures.  Well here they are!
Four generations with Mark's paternal grandmother
And here is 4 generations with Mark's maternal grandparents!  

This is his 2 month photo that I forgot to put up because I am a bad forgetful mom!

And there hasn't been just a me and Mark picture in a while, so I thought one was needed.