Easter Weekend

I went to CA to visit my parents over the Easter weekend and we had a great time hanging out and visiting with family and friends. I had too many favorite pics from the weekend, hence the slide show. Claire had fun with her cousins - and it made me wish, like it always does, that she could live closer to all of them. But we will just have to plan regular trips like this to make sure Claire knows my parents and siblings. It took her awhile to warm up to everyone and once she did, it was time to go home.

But we had fun - visiting the Sacramento Temple, eating a nutburger at our favorite crazy veagan healthy place (they are actually really good), eating way too much Easter candy (sorry WW), and just plain old hanging out. Oh, and I sewed a baby dress too - my first one. If it survives the washing machine I might just take a picture of Claire wearing it!

Recipe Idea - Chinese Chicken Salad

This is actually a quick recipe, if you buy all the ingredients ready to go... you can definitely take the time to cook the chicken, dice the cabbage, etc. But I think I made this in about 15 minutes flat!

Chinese Chicken Salad

1 Rotisserie Chicken - cut off the meat and dice it up

1 bag of coleslaw mix - just plain cabbage and carrots, no sauce (or dice a small head of green cabage)

3-4 green onions, sliced

1 bag of uncoooked ramen noodles, no spice packet - crunch it up into small pieces while still in the bag

1 cup of sliced or slivered almonds, brown in oven on Broil for a few minutes until a light brown color (watch them closely - I have burned them so many times!)

2 TB sesame seeds

Sauce
1/2 c. oil (I use vegetable oil, olive oil might be too strong of a taste for the salad)
6 TB vinegar
1 Tsp pepper
2 Tsp salt
4-5 Tsp sugar
2 TB sesame oil

Stir together really, really well and keep stirring as you pour it onto the salad so it stays mixed. Toss the salad to coat everything and serve.

Claire at 6 Months

Claire had her 6 month well-baby check up today and she is doing great! Here are some new stats:

Weight: 18 lbs 2 oz
Height: 29 inches (I think - the nurse didn't give us the print out this time)
Teeth: 2 on the bottom
Hair: finally starting to come back in on her little bald spot in the back
Eyes: getting lighter, I'm thinking they might go green after all
Clothing size: mostly 9 month-old stuff
Favorite foods: Carrots, peas or bananas with rice cereal
Cuteness: still undeniable

Nevada Reading Week

This is a new tradition for my office - every year we go into a local elementary school as guest readers for NV Reading Week. We call it our office service project but really it's more fun for us to just hang out with the kids and read Dr. Seuss. This year I took Claire since the school was right down the street. I loved reading as a kid - I still do - and I hope Claire will love to read too. I remember getting in trouble for reading at the dinner table or being teased by my younger brothers for reading outside while they were having fun in the pool (maybe I was a nerd, but who cares!). This is our office making some crazy Oobleck gooey stuff from a Dr. Seuss book.


So we are starting out with some of my favorite books - If You Give a Mouse A Cookie and Where the Wild Things Are are our books of choice this week. And of course, the picture books with family pictures - Claire loves this book!

New Vegas Discovery: Grass!

I imagine the first time a Vegas baby discovers grass is similar to when other babies see snow for the first time - there just isn't much of it around here, especially with all of the new desert landscaping to save water, and the fact that we don't have a yard at our house.

Claire and I went to the park the other day and she had a good time trying to grab the grass and eat it. I tried to capture her intensity - she was very interested in each little blade of grass.

Crr-Sneeze!

If anyone is wondering what a Crr-Sneeze is, see below. It's what happens when you're shoveling pureed carrots into your baby's mouth and she sneezes all over you and sprays herself in the process. Carrots are a big favorite these days - maybe all those baby carrots I ate paid off...

Balancing Act

So, I don't have much to report on this week - just trying to find balance with everything going on - school, seminary, Claire and work for Matt; work, young women's and Claire for me. I have noticed that I've been seeing articles and talks at church on achieving this balance - have they always been there and I'm just more receptive to the topic now, or is this something new? Kind of like once you get a new car you notice 50 other cars just like it on the road all of a sudden...

One of my main weapons in this fight for balance is planning in advance - I pack four bags almost every night before I go to bed: Claire's diaper bag, my breast pump bag, my work bag with laptop and accessories, and my lunch bag. I try to do that while I am sterilizing my pumping stuff, maybe doing some dishes (although Matt has been doing most of them these days), and planning dinner for the next night. I'm trying to use the crock pot more, and at least plan out what I'd like to make so it's not a rush the following night.

Matt and I actually talked about creating some type of chore chart for us - gone are the days of casual household assignments and just hanging out - and a plan for Family Home Evening (Monday night family time) and a TV schedule so we are really only watching the shows we really like (as I write this I'm watching Law & Order re-runs, so you can see how far we've come...). Maybe this is trying to be too organized - who knows?

Does anyone else employ these methods? Chore charts working? I always thought we would do this when we had kids that were old enough to participate, but we need them for us adults so we can get in the habit now.

Anyway, just thinking a lot about finding balance, and being a well-balanced person... if anyone has it figured out, please tell me the secret formula. :)