Breakfast burritos

Because I suggested it recently on another blog, I thought I would share my breakfast burritos cooking process. I used 12 eggs, half an onion (chopped and sauted), and 6 turkey sausage links we had leftover from a previous breakfast.Chop the sausage, and add to egg mixture, along with some milk. (I follow precise directions, can't you tell?) Add mixture to pan in which you just sauted the onions. Cook them up!While the eggs are cooking, microwave 10-12 tortillas until soft. Count out same number of paper towels and foil squares. (On a whim, we bought the precut foil sheets from Costco- boy have we loved them! So convenient!) Spoon desired amount of cooked eggs onto tortilla, and roll it up. Then roll it up in paper towel. Then roll it up in foil. Stack them off to the side until you are done, then put them back in your tortilla bag and label it right above the zipper. (I forgot cheese this time, but it's easy to add the cheese before rolling up the tortilla.) Then, put your bag in the freezer!When you want to cook one, microwave for about 45 seconds (NOT in the foil!) and then remove paper towel. Microwave for another 45-60 seconds. Let cool slightly, and enjoy!

I only had one casualty this time. But it didn't go to waste!!

Great Wolf Lodge: Kiera

Kiera had a great time at the water slides. They had this children's area with two slides, then the big fort with two larger, faster slides, then four really big slides. She went on the medium slides several times... until she twisted around (or started wrong, I don't know because I went first to catch her at the bottom.) and ended up face first. That was the end of those, period. It was about halfway through our stay, and she did not go on them again!

In the pool with Daddy and Sissy.

Daddy doing what daddies do :-)

Such a cutie!

In the children's area.

The way she went through this door made me laugh every time. She'd practically go through backwards or shoulder first to avoid water on her face.

But I think it's safe to say that even though she's cautious around water, she definitely had a blast!!!

Apparently...

We are a matching Chevy household :-) Details later. God showed Himself faithful, even when I doubted.

Oh my.

In the van, on the way to co-op....

Kiera: (burp) (burp) (burp)
Me: Kiera- please stop burping! It is rude!
Keira: But Mommy! That's just the way God made me!

????????

Chicken Saturday: Part Three

If you're just joining us, you really need to read this in order. Click for PART ONE and PART TWO.
And, again. It is possible you will be grossed out. If this concerns you, don't read it!


...All the while, as I'm sitting at the girls little picnic table trying to figure out this bird, Leo is standing *right there* just waiting to help me out. Looking back, I feel bad I didn't think to toss him anything. I threw the carcass in the garbage after I was done- poor guy. He thought he had an easy meal coming!

I finally got the breast and one drumstick cut out, and after peeking through the ribs (?) at the liver, trying to see anything else cool, I called it quits. After all, I still had to decide how to cook this. If I even could! I bleach-wiped their table, tossed the carcass, and headed inside.

Initially I just rinsed the meat really good and put it on a plate in the fridge. I couldn't really handle much more at that point, standing over the sink with a heavy nausea setting in. I needed to refresh myself! So the kids and I went for my loop walk, racing to get back home after the sun went down! I made the girls walk, and it's 1.5 miles (I think-I may be wrong here.) Kiera made it about 1/4 of the way before she started whining :-) Her problem was that she was jogging the whole time. She couldn't just walk, she had to jog. But, we pushed on. Once we got down to the trail, I let the girls run along side the trail on these litte dirt paths people had made. This was much more adventurous than just walking on the trail, so it quieted the whining for the most part. At one point Melia took off, leaving her sister behind, but after we discussed it a bit she stayed together much better. One of my favorite mommy memories will be watching those little legs running as fast as they can go :-) Nothing cuter!

And... back to dinner. I rinsed the meat again because there were teenie tiny feathers everywhere. It's like doing venison and finding a hair. After a while you get used to it, but you'd rather it still not be there! After I was sure it was clean, I cut it up into strips and browned it in a pan, then added it to a pot of "teriyaki sides." (easy package of noodle sides that we put chicken in to make a meal). I browned the drumstick and put it in the oven to roast for Melia. This may seem boring compared to the rest of the story, but imagine being emotionally drained because you just murdered a bird and cut it's muscles off. Yeah- you could say I was brain-dead by this point. Let's skip ahead to the trying-to-eat-it part.

Oh wait. Insert another Melia comment... she comes in and sit down in front of my gardening book... "Well you did it wrong Mommy! Look here, this says you're supposed to take the feathers off it first..."

Melia bounced in her chair as I set her plate of drumstick and noodles before her. She lifts the treasured portion to her mouth, bites down,... bites down... bites down... and release. "Mommy! This drumstick is HARD!" Try as she might, she could not bite through that meat! She metamorphs into a little dinosaur, biting and tearing to get a tiny piece off, thoroughly enjoying the battle with all sorts of "yums" and lip smacking. That is, until she turns her back for a moment and Cocoa takes off with a fierce snarl and so starts a race through the house of Rose chasing him, me chasing both of them, and Melia behind me shouting "Cocoa stole my drumstick! Bad Cocoa!!!"

(Kiera's in bed at this point. She did not want her dinner. Apparently teriyaki chicken wasn't her cup of tea and he chose to go to bed after just a few bites...that walk really did the trick! She was out like a light...)

I ate one piece, for posterity. (Is that right? Is posterity why you would at least eat a bite of something you killed for dinner?) It was like rubber... very very tough. Then I cooked up a yummy dish of roasted baby reds... one of my favoritest foods right now. And then I made cookies. Oatmeal cranberry. Because I needed to make something with lots of sugar and flavor, and no body parts.

Later Gabe asked the guy who gave us those chickens how old they were. I thought they were just 2-3.... Try at least 7 or 8 years old! No wonder!
Thank you for all your comments- I was cracking up that my traumatic afternoon's events were cracking all of you up! (Or some of you anyway. I'm sure others were utilizing their computer garbage can!)

Saturday: Part Two

Again: WARNING!!! Graphic descriptions of death and butchering! Consider yourself warned!!!

...I held it up and finished cutting the head off, then let what little blood drain that I could. (not much came out...) Then I tried pulling the feathers out, starting at the legs. But the skin kept ripping. So I started at the breast- but it ripped there too. I remembered a friend saying that they just skinned 'em to start with, to avoid plucking, so I thought I would just do that. But the skin is fairly attached in places... and unknown to me, I didn't have the sharpest knife in the block :-) So I was having trouble. And the feathers were everywhere!

I got the breast open, and skinned one of the legs. I was able to break the knees and cut the feet off. Melia wanted to give them to Ziva, but I just couldn't handle that, especially the thought that she might bring them in the house. I was trying to remove more skin, but couldn't figure out how to get around the wings. By this point, I was almost totally emotionally drained and had no idea what to do... So I called Gabe.

"Hi... I just wanted you to be proud of me.. (gulp) I killed the rooster. And now I don't know what to do..." He laughed at me and told his co-workers. I don't know if I'm a silly wife or a gutsy wife, but I know I was a wife at home trying to make a dinner out of this feathery, bloody, heap of chicken body parts that won't come apart!

Oh, and did you know their fat is yellow? That kinda grossed me out. Along with all the membranes and "warm meat" feeling. I can do cold meat with almost no problem. Warm meat is weird. My problem was that my gardening book says to cut the neck down low... cut around the anus (!) and pull the guts out. Problem is, that's all after plucking the thing. I can't even find the neck, and I don't want to touch anywhere near the anus!

Gabe said just to "breast it out" and cut what meat I could see out and call it good. What I REALLY wanted to do was see all the guts. (surprised? I know- I'm sure you didn't see that coming.) I enjoyed dissection in school- I find it all fascinating... once I get away from "this was recently a living creature" emotional attachment. But I couldn't get inside the bones to see anything except the liver. Oh, and I cut the throat (gullet?) open and saw the food inside. Blech. Ew ew ewwww.

There. That's a good note to end on. :-) You're welcome! Just kidding.

What I didn't expect was how ENTHUSED the girls would be! Kiera's running around saying "we killed the chicken. we killed the chicken. we killed...." you get the picture. Petting feathers. Looking at the parts they could see. "High five Mommy!" "Great Job Mommy!" Thrilled to pieces. And when I showed Melia the drumstick (her favorite part) I practically could have mixed her drool together with the blood on the table. Ew- that was a great mental picture for you wasn't it? :-) heh heh... Seriously, she said things like this "Oh yummy, mommy, can I have that one? Yumm. I love drumsticks. Mmmmm I can't wait to EAT it!"

Oh my.
Still to be continued... Nope. I'm not done yet! :-)

Let me share my Saturday: Part One

Or at least the highlight. Or the lowlight. WARNING: Graphic experience descriptions - not for the faint of heart. Or me actually. But hey- here we go! And since so few of you seem to be there... I'll do this for myself. To remember my first experience personally killing a chicken.

Background. We've had these chickens. Then Gabe's co-worker gave us four more. Who eat eggs. So we've been feeding these chickens for months with maybe 1 or 2 eggs the whole time. One by one, they get out and disappear (neighbor dogs/coyotes)(yes, I've seen with my own eyes, coyotes). So we're down to three of our hens, one of our roosters, and a rooster/hen combo that came from someone else.

I'm tired of no eggs. We eat a LOT of eggs, so that was supposed to be a supplement to our diet- fresh eggs :-) YUM! We keep talking about killing the second rooster and then maybe that hen to see if it produces any results. But it just hasn't happened. Yesterday, I thought- "Hey, I don't have any plans other than needing to buy chicken food, so let's just do it."

We'd also talked about what a good experience it would be for the girls- to see where food came from. (Believe me, I had NO IDEA what a "GOOD" experience it would be...) We thought they didn't need to see the actual killing part, since the flopping is so disturbing.

One note: In all of my planning, the whole point was that Gabe was at work, and wouldn't he be proud of his little wifey killing a chicken for dinner. (I didn't anticipate the laughter... ;-)

So I got the chicken. Such a pretty chicken. And not mean at all. But he eats MY eggs. So he had to go. And I need to be tough. I took a knife out with me, since I didn't know where the axe was. I'd tried to do a little research, asking those with experience, remembering what others had told me, and watching a few YouTube videos :-) I remember with FFA, they poked their little brains and then let them bleed out... So I thought I'd knife it under the beak. Nope. I couldn't push hard enough to make it quick.

(Insert Melia comment: It's ok mommy, you don't have to be scared. Just poke it with the knife!")

Then I tried my gardening book method- breaking the neck with my hands. Of all the stupid ideas! It's like trying to break a rope! So then I tried to go the other way! Same thing. I knew I was wholly unable to whip the chicken around and break his neck.... So I got desperate. I was commited at this point. I asked Melia to run and get me the loppers. I pinned it's neck down on the ground, stepped on his feet, and asked the girls to run in the front yard for a minute. My thoughts at this point: "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out..." Not even kidding. Then 1-2-3! Chop! The flopping is SO disturbing. I was afraid I didn't actually kill it, until I saw the head. Yep, it was dead.

Insert Melia comment- from the front yard when she could hear one of the other chickens sounding the alarm: "Mommy! What?! What is that noise? Is the chicken dead?" (she thought the dead chicken was making the noise :-)

to be continued....

More Awesome Random Pictures

Great Wolf Lodge: Melia

Melia is our fearless one. She is willing to try just about anything, which makes her a great waterslide partner! Unlike me, she is able to pop right back out of the water and open her eyes, so going under doesn't fase her a bit.

She went across this rope ladder several times, often 2-3 in a row. (shocked her little arms didn't get very tired!) She fell off a few times, but did fine getting out and trying again. I loved watching her. She'd even lose her grip and be hanging one handed, then get that other hand back up there and keep going! This was her last attempt. She just let go of the rope and leapt to the edge :-)

Daddy dumping her off the floaty...

We were shocked when she dove into her "worms and dirt" dessert. She doesn't have the greatest manners, but they certainly aren't this bad on a normal basis! When her teeth weren't dirty enough for a picture (above), Daddy made her get more "mud" in her mouth... (below)

Melia-- So happy in the water...

Notable Quotables

Melia: Mommy, sometimes when I'm talking so happy to Isaac and he's laughing at me, I get tears in my eyes. I just love him so much. (all together now.... aaawwwhhhh)

Melia: (while we were carrying in groceries and she's suprising me by being able to carry two sacks) I'm discovering new grocery-carrying powers!

Great Wolf Lodge: Isaac

Since there are just so many pictures, I'm going to do them in phases.

Phase One: Isaac

Isaac was the kinker in our trip. He did great overall. But the teething made life a little difficult. In most of his pictures, he's knawing on his fingers, poor guy. The tylenol seemed to help for the most part. He didn't like the splashing, and when the bucket dumped sometimes he would flinch from the screaming and noise of the water. I think it was just overwhelming. He did enjoy sitting with us and watching his sisters. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Watching sissies swimming with Daddy.

Crashed out hard.

Calm, cool, collected.

Concerned. This was his face most of the time.

Doesn't he look like a big boy here?

I have no idea- but I LOVE this picture! It's so stinking funny!

Doesn't it look like some funny face Gabe would make??!!!!

Sorry :-)

Sometimes the days just pass so quickly, you know? Here it is, almost a week later, and I haven't posted anything, much less any pictures. I'm hoping for this afternoon.

Meanwhile, this morning Melia and I were watching Amazing Race, and she was asking me if we could go on a short flight somewhere since that wouldn't cost so much :-) I said that I hope so, someday. She suggested Chile. Then China.

Later, we were talking about how many flights they get to take on the show, and who pays for what (which explains why they get to go so many places!) and she said I should try to be on the show. I explained that there is a huge number of people who apply for the Amazing Race, and my chances of getting on it were very very small. So she said that when one of the teams gets eliminated, they should let me go on the show. "But, you'll have to take a flight." In her mind, this means I'm gonna have to pay for it :-) cracked me up. I think I could handle paying for a flight if it means I get to go on the Amazing Race.

Better

Isaac is doing better. He had two doses of Tylenol earlier, but after about 2-ish he returned to his normal self. He hasn't been crazy about the water- more about that later, don't want to spill all the beans now...

Kiera, tonight in the gift shop, asking for a "personality quiz" book-- read "pink and sparkly with a fancy pen"...

Kiera: can you buy this for me please please please??? (bats eyelashes)
Me: Kiera, honey, that's for big girls. when you get bigger I will buy you one.
Kiera: I AM a big girl!
Me: Can you write? Can you read?
Kiera: I CAN read. I can write. I can color. I AM a big girl!!! (bats eyelashes...hugs notebook to chest...bats eyelashes...bats eyelashes)

Hilarious. No. I didn't buy it for her. But I do have a good idea of something to do when we get home that includes a cheap notebook and some sparkly glue pens... :) Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some better pictures. It's difficult because there is literally water almost everywhere, and I get nervous holding an expensive camera. But there's a few things that I really want recorded, and that I can't wait to show you. :) Aren't you excited!??!

Life is So Unfair

Why does the east coast get *feet* of snow, with 10-20 more inches on the way, and we are stuck in the mud? We've had what, 2 inches total, maybe?

Oh yeah, but it's 84 and humid here... Yes. Life is so unfair. *grin* Why can't I just have one of these at my house?

But Isaac is teething terribly. He is certainly an interesting baby. 80% happy, but when he's not, he is basically inconsolable. The key to the peaceful life with him is being able to put him to bed... and shut the door. That does not work at a hotel.... We are struggling...

At this point, any drug suggestions would be helpful. We have teething tablets with us, and haven't tried the tylenol yet, but wondering if anyone has experience with something that is helpful with putting an 8 month old down to sleep. He is easily distracted by any noise or visual, so we have the playpen behind the halfwall in the room, but it's not working so good. Thankfully, we haven't gotten any noise complaints from the front desk, but I'm afraid we might.

Thoughts?
Oh, and Melia really really snores. Really.

Thoughts and Prayers

Please pray for Kiera. Gabe left me a message while I was at work tonight that Kiera had a fever. We are supposed to leave Monday morning to go to Great Wolf Lodge. I rubbed her feet down with Thieves and have RC diffusing in their room. I'm just hoping she pushes through the fever time quickly- I can deal with a cold, but a fever cancels it all. Boo.

Do you find it as intriguing as I do that my Survivor post garnered more comments that anything I've posted about recently. Is it that my ramblings are less interesting that the villianous characters on television? I can be more villianous. Really. I can. I think. Laugh all you want, but I surprised someone at work tonight with an onery comment. It was totally in jest, and she thought it was hilarious, but shocked that it came from me!

The Anticipation...

I know, this may seem a little silly or wasteful to some of you. But I don't have a lot of shows I watch. So when a good one is coming up...

Like the Heroes vs Villians season of Survivor! I almost stopped watching last season, but just so enjoyed Russell that I followed it just for him...! All the favorite bad guys/good guys back to duke it out! :-)

Sounds like fun to me!

(If you don't already have your DVR set, it starts next Thursday!- the 11th)

And Amazing Race starts on the 14th!

Kiera's Recipe for Pepperoni Soup

Hot Dogs
Peanut Butter
Pepperoni
Cookies
Broccoli
Bananas
Soup

Literally. I wish I could just record her talking for a while. She's such a hoot!

Conversations

Intro: We'd just found out that a gal Mom works with is pregnant.

Kiera: I wonder when Gma Debbie will have baby.
Melia: Gma Debbie doesn't have babies! She's a grandma! Only womans have babies.
Kiera: Gma Debbie yes a woman! She have baby!

I actually had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud..
Singing, to herself....

Kiera: Duck Duck Goose. Duck Duck Hot Dog Hot Dog Hot Dog Goose!

Smile.ly—Be Heard. Be Happy.

Smile.ly—Be Heard. Be Happy.

So I joined one of those online opinion places called Smile.ly

My first "mission" was to try VitaCraves (by OneADay) Gummy adult vitamins and tell you about them. Here goes:

I did like these. They are a little chewy/hard, but the flavor was a 10 out of 10. They weren't too sweet like other gummy vitamins I have tried. Using the coupon they sent along with the free 50 pack, I would purchase these in the future. Or maybe without the coupon. I'd just have to see how expensive they were! I especially like that they were gummy; I have serious problems taking those horse pills!

On a scale of 10, I would give these an 8.

You can check out Smile.ly too- this was my first mission, but it seems an easy enough way to try out new things. You don't get reimbursed with anything except smiles, which earn you more missions. Not a big deal, but a little something fun to do. :-)

Kiera's Ninja Nap Head

No explanation needed :-)

A quick update

For those of you who do and don't know what all is happening at our house...

Early Sunday morning, Isaac woke up fussy, and when he cried, he started coughing- croup style. Having never experienced this before, (it's a very scary thing when your baby's airway is restricted) I took him in to the ER. Thankfully Gabe was home and could stay with the girls. We actually were afraid it was some kind of allergic reaction, since he'd had a new kind of food that day.

They explained about croup, gave him a dose of medicine and sent us home. Since Gabe has trouble finding time to do his posts for our KI classes, he volunteered to stay home with Isaac so the girls could still go to church. In Sunday school, Melia told Grandma Nae that her tummy was hurting her like she needed to throw up. So we went back home. Kiera cried and cried. She wanted to sing. (she doesn't really sing, but apparently loves hearing everyone else?)

Melia was basically at about 85% all day. Sometimes her tummy would hurt a little bit, but never enough to slow her down. She did choose to eat toast instead of popcorn when we watched AFV. (For which we finally have a video- her greatest dream. Hopefully I'll get it on here soon.)

Isaac's symptoms have been almost totally more related to teething (he has another coming through) than a cold/virus. We've got a humidifier going and I've been rubbing him down with Lavendar, RC, and Thieves on his toes. No more coughing at all, and he slept all the way through last night with no problem.

Our new odd occurance? Kiera has a 5 inch welt that runs along the edge of her pullup from last night. NO idea. :-P

Oh, and Isaac didn't make top five. They had hundreds of votes! I think we were top 10 though :-) Still don't know what the prizes are!

Have a great Monday! I'm happy just to know I don't have to work until Thursday! :-)