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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

scentsy party

I am having a Scentsy Party on Friday at 7pm at my house for any locals. Email me for additional info at jsbuquet@gmail.com if you are interested.

If you have no idea what Scentsy is click here. You can order on the site too, just make sure you click on my party so I get credit.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Food Revolution!

Have you watched Jamie Oliver's food revolution? It just had its season finale on Friday. It was a such a great show! We all know that we have the third fattest/unhealthiest country in the world and Jamie has set out to do something about it. He is trying to show people that healthy home made food it NOT HARD to do. You don't have to be a chef to achieve quality results for your family.

Jamie started the season by going into an elementary school in Huntington WV. Huntington was voted the fattest city in America and Jamie sets out to change that, one school at a time. He looks into our countries school lunch program with shocking results. He finds and shows that a french fry counts as a vegetable (WTF?!) and strawberry milk is considered "good" for the children. Supposedly because its better that they drink milk... even if it has more sugar than a soda.

He does this fantastic demo of what goes into a chicken nugget. If you are about to eat them you may want to skip this video otherwise they will become inedible.



After I saw this I decided that the bag of Mickey mouse shaped chicken nuggets in my freezer will be our last. I decided I no longer can ignore what I know to be in those types of foods. You know, the ones we have in our homes that we can't read or understand a thing on the ingredient label. We all know they are bad for us but for the convenience we buy them anyway.

I have been making fresh meals for my family for a long time and ever freezing them so that the nights I am lazy I have something to make that is easy. How hard can chicken nuggets be to add to the list? Not hard at all I found out.

These were SO easy! I used the recipe from this book.
This is a double recipe. And I am happy to report it made three full trays. (a gallon ziplock after we ate dinner.) And G LOVED them!!

Baked Chicken Nuggets
serves 12

ingredients:
4 lbs boneless/skinless chicken

sauce option 1:
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 milk
1T+ 1 t dry mustard
2t onion powder

sauce option 2:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup ranch dressing, bottled

coating:
2 cup bread crumbs (I used a combo of herbed and plain.)
1t paprika

Directions:
Choose a sauce and mix all ingredients with a whisk. Cut chicken breasts lengthwise into strips and nuggets. Place all of the chicken pieces in the sauce and stir well to coat. Place the coating in a bag or bowl with a lid. Place about 1 lb of chicken in the crumb mixture and shake well to coat. Place chicken pieces on Demarle silpat or spray-treated cookie sheet. Bake at 375* for 15-20 min, turning once. Remove from oven and cool on the baking sheet.

Freeze in ziplock or container for short term storage or in food saver bags for long term freezing if making many batches. Only about 300-324 cal per serving depending on the sauce.

Take a second to sign the food revolution pledge.

And for the fun of it here is the is my cranberry chicken recipe.
Cranberry Chicken

ingredients:
8 oz catalina dressing
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1-1lb can whole-berry cranberry sauce
4 boned chicken breasts

serves 4 (I double or triple it for freezing)

Cooking day instructions:
Mix together dressing, onion soup mix, and cranberry sauce. Place chicken and mixture together in a freezer bag. Freeze in a freezer bag. (lay flat to take up the least amount of space once frozen)

Serving day instructions:
Thaw completely. Place chicken with cranberry sauce in Demarle round mold on perforated tray or greased baking dish and bake uncovered at 350* for 1-1.5 hours.









Friday, April 23, 2010

The Pioneer Woman Visits Portland

A few years ago I ran across this recipe (this is an old family recipe blog that we never really use anymore- sadly) and was first turned on to The Pioneer Woman- Ree Drummond. I have been hooked ever since. She is an amazing writer/blogger who started her blog 4 years ago as a way to keep her family updated on her children's and her life. And today she is blogging phenomenon who gets millions of hits a day! She lives on a working cattle ranch in rural Oklahoma.

She came out with a cookbook last year
and I have wanted to get it since I heard it was pre-selling! Unfortunately, it wasn't in the budget and she wasn't coming to Portland for a book signing so I figured there was no rush.

Until I hopped on her facebook page on day and there was a new post about coming to Portland!
Woohoo!

I may have peed a little in that moment!
Oh sorry, TMI?

So last Monday I tossed J in the car, I dropped G at a friends, picked up another friend Gretchen and drove over to Powell's to meet PW! (I had bought the book 2 weeks before on ebay)

I made this shirt (CBE= cutest baby ever) hoping to use J as bait. :)
PW LOVES babies! (yes I totally pimped out my kid- shameless I know!)

We got to the book store about 4. There had been people waiting to see her since 10 am!!
So we waited.

And waited.
She was supposed to be there at 6 but got a bit lost.
So we waited some more.

It made no difference though, she was as amazing as we hoped she would be! She was funny and sweet and very candid.

(there is a "WOOHOO" about 29 seconds. That was me- and I woke up Jax. hehe)




Her singing!


Here she is signing my book and a little something for Geneva who'd had a c-section the week before and wasn't up for the adventure.

And here she is taking J's picture! Bait may have worked! Check back later to see if I have updated with a link to her blog if she posts his pic... fingers/toes/eyes crossed!

Signing J's shirt.

Gretchen was in love too.
Powell's had given out 360 tickets to meet PW, and we were 151/2. It took just about 2 hours for us. There was SO many people there. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say 1000 or so. So when we were done we decided to clear out to make more room.

It was CROWDED!

Then we went down the hall in the mall and got Peach wave frozen yogurt. I fell in love all over again! 16 self-serve flavors and ALL the toppings, in HUGE cups for .36 and oz. I have a huge bowl and it was only $4! The one down the street I was eating when I was pregnant with Jax is $2.50 for a 3 oz cup, and they make sure they weigh it to not give you too much. Oy.

Honestly, maybe the perfect date. Now to get my husband to take me to meet my "girl-crush" and get frozen yogurt....
I swoon! LOL


Absolutely perfect night! Oh! and Jax was a fabulous adventure-r with us! He took a brief nap, fussed just long enough to nurse and played "cute baby" the rest of the time!

Here's another one: my head is about 3:13. LOL :-D


p.s. tell everyone you know about my blog! I wanna be her when I grow up! :)

Nothing Sweeter

As a Mommy this is absolutely, by far my most favorite view.


I makes my heart happy to know that I am growing this little person, both inside my body and out.


*Zack's pc is having a momentary lapse of kindness and letting me upload- so be prepared to read for the next week! :) Hopefully it cooperates a while.*

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

well another one bites the dust

Seriously, I have the WORST computer "luck/ karma/ juju" or whatever. I have been MIA still because we still have not come up with the funds to buy another laptop. And as everyone knows, I seem to kill them. The dinosaur (9 yr old desktop) hates me and refuses to load anything in less than 15 minutes so its more frustration then its worth. Who has that kind of time?!

So I have been using Zack's work pc. Until now. Apparently, they don't want me to anymore. I tried to upload some pics just now and got a block message. Le sigh. I guess its back to the drawing board. Maybe we'll win the lottery. Or Powerball. Guess I should go play...

Saturday, April 10, 2010

I've been busy!

Because I have not been able to blog I have had more time to work on other things. And EVERYONE I know is pregnant or just had a baby so many of those things have been baby gifts.

Here is a few of them:
cloth diapers for Geneva/ Vivian

Vivian's blanket

burpies for Vivian

Vivi's burpies and 6 wipes

Diana/ Rachel's burpies

boopy cover I made for Jaxon's room.




this post was lost in my ooops forgot to post file. :)

Help for Serena

One of the yahoo group coops I am on, Notion Supply, is run by Serena who also runs an orphanage in China. She is an amazing woman who helps many tiny babies and she needs help now. She is pregnant and having a very hard time. She is about to be put on bed rest making it nearly impossible to run the coop, of which the profits go to China Little Flower- her babies. If you are interested in reading more about them and possibly helping here is her link.

Thank you! Off to hit that donate button myself. Time for us to start paying it forward.

**Update**
This is a post from the orphanage blog. I am completely awed by what these woman do. This baby is a testament to their love.

FROM THEIR BLOG: Sunday, March 28, 2010

Baby Wang Update


"Baby Wang arrived in mid-January in critical condition. This little one was abandoned with ambiguous genitalia, but his most urgent problem was a history of constant vomiting and severe dehydration. The orphanage was located in a remote area without access to a high standard of medical care. They had the baby admitted to the hospital, but after several weeks they still had no diagnosis or treatment plan. Not knowing what else to do, the baby was discharged back to orphanage care. It became clear after several days that the orphanage was unable to deal with the severity of this baby's problems, so they asked if we might help.

We agreed to accept the baby and transferred to our main medical home at once. When little Wang arrived, he was already 6 weeks old, but was barely over 5 lbs. When we discussed this baby with our medical consultants, the baby's unusual symptoms (ambiguous genitalia and severe malnourishment and dehydration) rang a bell with one pediatrician. She suggested we see if this might be something called congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

Because the test for this condition is both expensive and difficult to obtain here, doctors recommended that we assume this was the problem and treat as such. Baby Wang began drug treatment for the adrenal hyperplasia and has been under the watchful eye of an expert dietician who is working to combat many weeks of malnourishment.

We are delighted to say little Wang has responded wonderfully, which confirms the doctor's suspicions of the original diagnosis. At this point it is still unsure if Wang is actually a boy or a girl, but chromosome testing later will answer this question. For now, we are just so glad that Wang is on the road to a normal and healthy life. See how much he has changed!"



Friday, April 9, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Another G baby is born

When Grayson was a baby I started using gDiapers and fell immediately in love.
I have talked about them before here and here.

A few weeks ago Jax and I had a chance to participate in another booth at the Better Living Expo in Portland. We had a great time and he took his job of 'model' very seriously and I think he did a great job. Especially considering he has big shoes, er, diapers to fill. :)
(haha- that's pun-ny!)


Here is a video of the show. Jax and I are in there about minute 1.09 and 1.22.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Jax a dot

I can't believe he was this tiny! (more on that later)
These were taken at just over 6 weeks old while we were at our Breast Feeding support group.




ahhh. so sweet.
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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

I love watching my children(s) eyes light up when they see their presents on Christmas or Birthdays, and Easter is no exception. I loved letting the Easter bunny know what my children would love in their baskets this year. ;-)

We had told Grayson that when he was sleeping much like Santa, the Easter bunny would "hop" in our house and fill up his basket we left out (and Jaxon's) and then hide the eggs for G to find when he woke up. Grayson woke up and came into our room, a little fussy and climbed in bed with me, still grumbling. Until he realized what day it was. He immediately stopped whining and asked if the bunny had come.

Zack took him to the loft to look over the banister into the living room to see if his basket was filled. But imagine his surprise when he also saw these.
He was VERY upset the the bunny had not wiped his feet properly and made a mess.

AGAIN!

Silly bunny did it last year too. We told him it was okay and moved on to his basket. An Elmo dvd, Cadbury bunny that cheeps, and some egg shaped sidewalk chalk for G. 2 Monkey hangers and some new shoes for Jax.
After being a bit tentitive about going near the bunny prints he finally came around and moved onto his egg hunt. He was so excited to run around the house finding all the eggs the bunny hid. But he had some questions: how did the bunny get in the family room? hopped we said. But why aren't there "print prints"? (blank stares at each other...) because he got all the "dirt" off in the first few hops. Once we answered all his questions to his satisfaction, we "hopped" on to get ready for the rest of our adventure.

Having little to no family in the area does pose its challenges. Holidays for example. We have spent the last 7 years we have lived here being "floaters" on holidays. Many times we have spent various holidays with my childhood friend Bonnie's family in Vancouver, WA. Others were spent with a high school friends family or other various friends. I think I finally found a tradition I can wrap my family around for the duration.

We went to Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge for Easter Brunch. It was A-MAZ-ING! The food was SO good. The atmosphere was very family friendly and because there had been a near blizzard for days the snow was piled high! It was gorgeous!





In this photo you can see how high up the building the snow is. The center above the black suburban is the entry way. They build a large metal covering over the stairs so the snow doesn't cover them. We have never been to Timberline before. You may recognize it from the Stephen King movie The Shining that was filmed there. And seriously this place is HUGE! I only really went to the bathroom to change Jax and I got lost.


We had a lovely lunch and then headed out for some snow play. This year we got little snow at home and I wasn't really willing to head the hour and half to the mountain at 9 months pregnant so this is the first large amount of snow for our winter... in the spring.

Jaxon is wearing Grayson's old bib's, that are huge on him. But warm is warm. Yes, he is in his carrier backwards, for those who are looking at it questioningly.


What kind of wife would I be if I didn't take a photo of my husband in his time of need. I did ask him if he needed help... after.

And because I like to torture my children...