I found a new recipe last week for chicken pot pie; it was my first attempt, and it went over WELL. The crust was so tender and flaky, the filling was rich and creamy, and the vegetables were the perfect consistency and size. And the flavor? Cream, butter, chicken, vegetables… it doesn’t even need spices!

Ingredients

1 c potatoes, chopped
1 c chopped onions
1 c celery, chopped
1 c chopped carrots
I increased the carrots by 1/2-3/4c - Benjamin LOVES carrots.)
1/3 c butter
1/2 c flour
2 c chicken broth
(I used the broth I made from my crock pot chicken, it was VERY well seasoned…)
1 c half and half
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 c chopped cooked chicken
2 pie crusts (I used the crusts from this recipe, minus the milk and sugar coating at the end.)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Saute onion, celery, carrots, and potatoes in butter for 10 minutes.
3. Add flour to sauteed mixture, stirring well. Cook one minute stirring constantly.
4. Combine broth and half and half and gradually stir into vegetable mixture.
5. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thickened and bubbly.
6. Stir in salt and pepper; add chicken and stir well.
7. Place one pie crust in the bottom of a shallow 2 qt casserole dish, pour mixture in, and top with remaining pie crust. Seal edges like you would with an apple pie (I ended up not having much wiggle room and was in a hurry, so I used a fork to seal. It was decorative!).
8. Cut slits in top crust to allow steam to escape.
9. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly and cooked through.

I think the reason this new recipe went so well for me is because it was very similar to the tuna noodle casserole I make: chop, saute, add flour/milk/broth/what-have-you, stir until thick and bubbly. And, of course, I’ve made enough pies to know what I’m doing with a crust, as well.

So, bottom line, the more you cook and stretch your boundaries, the more you can surprise yourself with yummy successes in the kitchen!

What recipe do you want to share with us today? Make sure you tell us the recipe title in Mr. Linky, and please link to your recipe post, not your blog’s homepage. Thanks for sharing!

(Reminiscent of the “Bring out your dead!”, Monte Python-style.)

I actually DO clean out the couch cushions at least on a monthly basis. So keep that in mind when you behold the following:

That’s right, we’ve got

• one foam bath toy (the road sign)
• one letter B
• one crayon
• one pencil
• one headband
• one Lego man
• one Mommy Peoples (Olivia’s name for her)
• one play fork
• two play spoons
• one Chinese exercise ball
• two coasters
• two pretzels

And not a coin to be seen. So much for any earthly reward…

(Cuz I know this earns me a crown in heaven. Just know it.)

What’s in YOUR couch?

and then out with this:

Approximately 6 months later (give or take), I’m staring into the deep brown eyes of a beautiful blonde child who prefers to pick out her OWN shoes and do her OWN hair, thankyouverymuch, and I’m not quite sure how we got here.

Observe what I was able to obtain for a grand total of NEGATIVE $1.10 at my CVS run tonight:

Ignore the Kashi cereal and diabetes testing kit.  Please focus on the SIX BAGS of GUMMY LIFESAVERS.

But if you do know a good place to donate a diabetes testing kit, kindly do let me know.

Although, after SIX BAGS of GUMMY LIFESAVERS, I might need it after all…

Er, make that five bags…

This was one of those things.

We are, to this day, unsure of the purpose of this contraption. Was it truly meant for two people? It surely made it more fun. Because it greatly increased the odds that someone was going to get hurt.

It had two parallel rotating bars, shaped, as you can see here, with handles at funky angles. We used second bar for our feet. While standing on the bottom rotating bar, one is (to the best of our knowledge) supposed to grab the top bar and then wiggle your body in a fashion that can get both bars to move simultaneously.

Josh and Shannon are smiling so huge because they know one is about to either go flying, or get a bar in the face.

Obviously, Shannon here was the winner and has challenged Noah to a duel to the death.

Olivia did not participate in the rotating bars of pain. Good girl.

Shannon is clearly related to Sidney Bristow. Clearly

This was the perfect park. See how they have a smattering of little kid toys to balance out the rotating death bars? Look! A frog!

And an alligator!

(That’s Ashton in the middle there. I was positive I had a better picture of her… alas. The girl needs to pose more. :-))

Slap your grandma. (Name the song.)

And then kiss and make up. (That part’s not in the song.)

————————————-

To participate in Meet-and-Greet Monday: Post pictures of someone you’d like to us to “meet” on your blog. It doesn’t have to be someone new each week (obviously - I post of the same two people each week). The idea is that someone new from the blogosphere will happen upon this site each Monday and we can “introduce” ourselves to them. Because this is a friendly place. Also, this is a great excuse to post pictures for the Grandmas.

Just make sure you are linking to your Meet-and-Greet post - NOT your homepage. It just makes life easier that way. Then put a link in your post back to here so that your readers can “meet” someone new today, too! And as always, thanks for keeping it family friendly.

And I saw a girl walking her dog on a dirt trail in the woods. On her cell phone.

My first thought, I kid you not, was, “Now that’s a shame. She can’t even walk her dog without talking on her phone. Yep, THAT’S an addiction.”

But as I looked ahead at my husband and daughter, and glanced back at my son, I realized something.

The girl was young, college-aged. She most likely had recently left her family and friends and all she’s known for eighteen years. This isn’t considered different, or even pity-evoking. It’s normal. It’s “coming-of-age”. It’s what-you-do.

And if it weren’t for this rite of passage, she would have been walking through those woods with her best friend, or her mother. Or maybe her high school sweetheart. Instead, she was clutching her inanimate link to her old life - her phone.

I’ve heard some accusations in the blogging world that we lack deep relationships with people because it’s become too easy to have hundreds of shallow on-line ones with people we will never see face-to-face.

But as a person who tends to change zip codes every two years, I would like to ask the blogging world if maybe, just maybe, the reason for shallow relationships is because the world has grown too small and it it no longer abnormal to not only leave your town, but also your state, and even your country to gain a college education, and then again to get a job?

I’ve read that the average American will move 11.7 times in his or her lifetime.

Don’t you think maybe that might have something to do with our relationship struggles?

And maybe email and Twitter and instant messaging are what’s keeping us connected with those we love?

Perhaps all these online connections are keeping us from forming new relationships where we live now. But as a mother of two young children, I can tell you now that IT IS HARD to get out there and meet people when you have dishes and laundry piling up and naptimes to work around.

I long for the days from before I was born, where you grew old and died in the same neighborhood you were born. I would know my neighbors and always have family and friends at hand. I wouldn’t write a blog. I wouldn’t use a cell phone. I wouldn’t email. I wouldn’t need to.

And I definitely wouldn’t have days where the only conversation I had was with my two-year-old about the importance of purple spoons.

So we rented a boat. Now the guy said you had to be eighteen, or have a valid boating license, to drive. This is how well we listen.

When we tried to remove him from the driver’s seat, he put up a bit of a fight.

Luckily we were able to trade - the steering wheel for a bottle of water. He was pleased he made out so well.

Just renting a boat with this family is a bit on the dull side so we had to splurge on a wave-runner as well. Shannon shows off her running-on-water skillz.

“Hmm… I sure would like to try that…”

Anyone know the age restrictions for riding a wave-runner? We deemed it suitable for a family vehicle.

I was glad Benjamin slept through that or he’d want a ride, too.

Whoops, spoke too soon.

His dream is now fulfilled (that’s his Uncle Noah driving there).

It was a very fun day. And it wouldn’t be right to not tell you that there was one more awesome person with us on that trip: Noah’s new bride, Aunt Ashton. But I didn’t post any pictures of her because she’s pretty ridiculously hot in her bathing suit (and it was a modest one-piece!) and I wouldn’t want to make any male readers stumble. But never you worry, she’ll be included in my last set of vacation pictures.

Yay, God! You make my heart happy.

He’s better now. Teething, but that’s not going to stop anytime soon. So after we got back from Missouri, we went through it again. He cried. And crawled all over me. And cuddled. And cried. And crawled all over me.

I tried the sippy to see if quenching his thirst would help, but no. That just wasn’t what he was looking for.

I didn’t sleep much that night.

Last night I tried a different approach. Which makes it difficult to tell which changes were from the repetition and which were from my different approach.

But last night, I tried explaining to him my expectations. In two-word sentences, of course. But that’s something I don’t do well as a mommy. I think things out in my head, I blog about them, I may *even* discuss them with Josh, but I don’t explain what’s going on to my children very often. When I do, changes go over SO MUCH MORE SMOOTHLY.

Like when I told Olivia our last day of dursing was coming. And when I talk endlessly about car-rides and train-rides, and visiting family in far-off lands.

But I feel silly honestly trying to communicate with a 15 month old. Who doesn’t try to communicate with me. Beyond, “Bah!” (Ball) and “Wooh, wooh!” (Woof woof, a.k.a. “dog”).

Regardless of the silliness, I tried that approach last night. I told him, “No nursings. Nursings in morning. Just cuddles. Cuddles Mommy.”

(Forgive my English - it was late, and I was trying my hardest to talk in a way that a 15 months old would understand. For the most part, I was imitating the way Olivia talks!)

I said that ONCE, the very first time I brought him to bed, after he started to cry and root and fuss, and he grabbed my head with his chubby little hands, pulled his face so close it was touching mine, and fell asleep.

(Let’s just enjoy that moment a bit longer)

(Sigh.)

However, that wasn’t the end of the night right there. He woke other times and fussed. And had to be told over and over that “nursings are for mornings” Sometimes he was happy to drink from his sippy, sometimes he was happy to cuddle, but sometimes he was just sad that he couldn’t nurse.

He did get a bit goofy at one point and threw his sippy at me. I know it wasn’t vengeance because of the stinker-laugh that followed.

But overall, I got a lot more sleep.

Like I said earlier, though, it could all be just because this was our second night. And our second attempt.

We’ll see what happens tonight.

And let’s just end right there. Of course there’s more I could add, but really, I have to draw the line somewhere…

What’s on your list of things to do today?

*Apparent, I saved this.  And did not publish it.  But I have been busy!

**12:00 check-up - I have

• Hung laundry (inside - looks like rain every now and then outside, which also eliminates the sitting-in-the-sun goal, sadly)
• Found chargers and charged phone
• Put away children’s clothes from suitcases
• Oh, and I finished this post.  Props to me!