cookin' up a tantrum

cooking dinner is never usually a pleasant experience because molly hates me being in the kitchen without her. i'd let her in (and i do sometimes) but she plays in the cats food. that's expensive stuff so we can't afford 20 pieces being dropped in the water or crushed by feet each day. lately, it's been much easier because i've been preparing meals before matt leaves for work. today, however, i needed to cook before we ate.

i was cooking bacon and left molly in the living room so i could go and flip it. this is where the screaming began. molly proceeded to get off the couch and lay on the floor and scream. we i came back into the living room she refused to get up and come over to me. since i knew she wasn't hurt, just mad, i let her have her fit thinking it would stop shortly because i was in the room. it finally did, and then i had to go back to the kitchen. i took molly with me this time and set her down on the kitchen floor. she threw herself on the floor and cried, cried, and cried; screaming every-now-and-again. i was at my wits-end. what are you to do? i punished, it didn't work, punished again and she continued to cry. so i left her. here's what it looked like....

i'm really not a mean mom. i never yelled during this fit but just let her cry it out. once dinner was done, she got up and the crying stopped. what am i to do during this time? do i just have to wait it out and hope it's a phase? molly is a huge mama's girl and when i'm around she expects to have 100% of my attention. i feel like we've entered the terrible twos at 14 months! any advice from any of you who've dealt with an issue similar to this? it breaks my heart to see my baby cry like this.

i've yet to try my grandma's trick but am thinking i'll have to soon if it keeps up. my uncle used to have temper tantrums and so she asked the pediatrician what to do. he said take a glass of tap water and throw it in their face. it won't hurt them. she did it to my uncle and he never threw a tantrum again! will it work on molly? not sure...i think it will make it worse but i just may have to try granny's advice. she tells every new mom to do it.

quesadillas anyone?

i made a wonderful new quesadilla recipe tonight for dinner. it was by far the best i've ever had. chicken and bacon quesadillas with mozzarella cheese! yummy, yummy in my tummy!!! :) here's the recipe....enjoy

chicken & bacon quesadillas

2 chicken breasts cut into small pieces
2 slices of bacon
4 tortillas
1/4-1/2 c. onion (depending on your like)
1 can rotel, drained
mozzarella cheese
butter

cook bacon until crispy, lay on paper towel to degrease! cook chicken in bacon grease (that's for that yummy flavor!). remove chicken from pan then wash the pan. butter one side of each of the tortillas. place 1 tortilla butter-side down in pan and then top with 1/2 chicken, bacon, onion, cheese, and rotel. place other tortilla on top, butter-side up. cook until brown, then flip. ***watch out - the flip can be very tricky because the tortillas don't seal up. i used two spatulas and make my flip very quick. if you do it right you'll only loose a few pieces of filling!*** repeat cooking on other side, then make another. serve with sour cream, salsa, and/or guacamole.

at least we're in the cool!

all in a day....so much happened. for starters, i cut 5 inches off my hair. crazy? no, i was hot. this d0 is much cooler. my hair rests just above my shoulders. i'm excited to shampoo it tonight - oh the ease, i can feel it now! i then proceeded to make matt's dinner, a new chicken pot pie recipe. i love chicken pot pie and was really excited about this one. you make it in the skillet so there's no heating the house up with the oven. turns out it was a disaster. i should have doubled the cream of chicken soup and went a little easy on the biscuits. it was just a bit dry, okay, it was really dry. basically, i made biscuits with some pieces of chicken and some veggies. poor matt, he was a good sport about it and took it to work for dinner. i'm a little embarrassed though. my meals have been wonderful the past few weeks and now, well, i send him with this. oh well, lesson learned - not a good recipe choice , or if it is, i need to do a lot of tweaking. i cleaned the kitchen after matt left for work and then got busy playing on fb and checking email. molly woke up from her nap early and that's when i knew i was in for a long afternoon.

she did get her whale pool i wrote about yesterday - i'll write about that later. we went out to swim and as she was swimming the a/c kicked on and made this horrid noise. i listened for a while and it never quit. so, i went over to investigate and saw that there was a wire hanging down, hitting the fan blade and shooting sparks. panic!!!! not to bad though. i called the a/c guy and he told me how to disconnect all the power to the unit outside and how to fix it. so i tried...it was way to hard with molly. i called my dear friend, renee, and she came to my aid to play with molly. after sweating profusely, i thought i had it working. i taped the wires up and plugged the power in (aarrrggg, ahhhrrrgg - tim taylor grunts). it was quiet and sounded like it was running properly so i sent renee home. a while later i went out to see how it was looking, feeling pretty proud of my work, and discovered that it was running but the fan was not. i guess i won't be going into the HVAC service anytime soon.

next phone call to my dear daddy. i knew he'd know how to help. he graciously drove out to our house and worked away. fixed an hour later! turns out i didn't tape the wires correctly. he rigged it up better too so they won't fall down again. now, i'm sitting in the cool!

"in the cool" makes me laugh. i'm reminded of a pastor at my grandparents church who, after a funeral, during the family meal said several times, "at least we're in the cool."

okay back to the day. sorry for the brief walk down memory lane. after dad left molly and i played and then enjoyed a dinner of macaroni and cheese (remember, mine was horrible!). i finished the grocery list and went to the store (this was supposed to be done this afternoon -threw the evening out of whack). going to the store near bedtime and with an already tired baby is not fun. molly proceeded to cry several times throughout the store. i gave in and picked her up and carried her. i hate doing that because she wins and gets her way but what else am i to do in the grocery store? let her scream and cause a scene? we finished the shopping and molly got to the highlight of the shopping experience - getting her sucker. well, tonight she thought it would be funny to drop it on the floor several times. it broke and we threw it away. she reached for another but didn't get it. i'm sure the checker and sacker thought i was cruel but she must learn.

home sweet home and i'm putting away the groceries when i hear a spill. molly's taken the almost empty, mostly crumbs, cheerios bag out of the trash and spills the dust all over the floor. it was at that time i finished up and gave her a dose of tylenol, put her pjs on and gave her a bottle. she went right to sleep. poor girl was exhausted.

i was able to clean up very quickly and for that i'm thankful! now i'm relaxing and enjoying the quiet. good night dear readers!

splish, splash molly needs a pool

hot summer days in kansas are just not the same without a pool. molly is at a stage where she loves water (not so much to drink - that's another story). baths are a hit full of splashing and playing with ducks and her squirter whale so i know a swimming pool would also gain molly's approval. yesterday we took a little trip to walmart to price inflatable pools - there's all sorts ranging from $5 to $500 (not sure they're that high). after looking at the pools, i've set my mind on getting molly a pool with a whale slide. for you see, she loves to slide as well. what great fun, sliding into the water and splashing! there's a glitch -it's thirty big ones and i'm not so sure the hubby's going to let me spend quite that much on a backyard pool. fingers crossed though and hopefully after he sees tonight's water adventures he'll give in and buy his little girl the pool with the whale slide. :)
this is kind of what i want however it's one large pool.

here's the story. molly's getting bored in the house and it was still much too sunny to swing, slide, or play in her house so we put on the swimsuit and filled a large mixing bowl with water. i took her outside to play in the water. she had a grand time splashing around and then put her feet in the water and kicked them. it was quite hilarious watching her maneuver her feet into the bowl without falling off her picnic table that she was sitting on. she dumped her water and thought that was tons of fun too. then she needed more so we went into the grass to get the hose and i proceeded to spray her - this was not as much fun. she likes to splash but is not a fan of getting sprayed. we refilled her bowl and away she went again. so cute!!!! :) hopefully my next water post will be one in the swimming pool with the whale slide!

culinary delights

i've become quite the chef in the past month. i used to be a horrible cook - i really never cooked until i got married. over the past four years i figured a few things out and love looking for new recipes that are cheap and easy to make but yet still healthy and tasty. this portion of my blog is for that. i will share recipes i've found that are in rachel ray dialogue, "delish".

are you ready....

chicken with avocado and lime salsa

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts pounded down to about 1/2 thickness
salt
pepper
garlic
2-3 avocados chopped
juice of 1 lime
tomato chopped
olive oil (approx. 3 T)
1/4-1/2 c. onion chopped
1/4 c. chopped cilantro

salt, pepper and garlic chicken, place in pan with 2 T olive oil and cook through.
in separate bowl combine avocados, tomato, onion, cilantro, juice of lime, and 1 T olive oil. serve over chicken.

busy, busy, busy

i never realized how busy i would be staying at home. when i entered into this adventure a month ago i thought i was going to have to find things to keep me busy (random cleaning and such) however, this has all changed. i'm busier now than when i worked all day - child caring, house cleaning, and cooking consume so much of my time - so much that i haven't even had time to update my blog.
here i sit, taking a break from my evening sweep of the house - which tonight must be a more thorough sweep because we have two real estate agencies coming to view our house tomorrow. trying to sell a house is quite a chore. the upkeep is amazingly difficult- especially when you live with a 14 month old tornado! it is a wonderful feeling though, always having a clean home and coming home to a clean one. dirty dishes are a rarity now days and the bed is always made (except today because i did take a time out and take a nap because of my constant wakings in the night with molly coughing). i'm going to attempt to keep this same approach when we move into our next home - i think it will be a good discipline for me, tough but good.
i always thought i'd have extra time for reading - not true. i sneak it in while molly's napping sometimes. but only when i feel i've picked up a good portion of the house and i've figured out groceries and menus for the week if it happens to fall on that day. video games collect dust (yes i do play some - i love my old school nintendo!) and my scrapbooking sits on a closet shelf. one day, perhaps i'll have time for this play!
in conclusion, anyone who thinks being a stay-at-home mom is easy should think again. men wondering why we didn't get something done during the day, well, it's because the baby only napped a short time or maybe a project (cleaning closets) took longer than expected. whatever it may be, we don't loaf around all day. the saying is true - a man may work from dawn till dusk but a woman's work is never done!

loving all of God's creation???

do i really have to? i think so, but spiders are something i find hard to love, let alone tolerate. when God created spiders he created them outdoors (not that there were any indoors when He created Earth but still - that's beside the point). He did not create them indoors nor should they enter the house. can't He stop them from coming in - nothing is impossible for God!

here's my story - i was taking a shower yesterday and noticed a spider lurking in on the shower wall up in the corner. i kept my eye on him the entire time - not wanting him to slip down or get on me. i thought he was going to make his escape out of the shower and leave me in peace but apparently the shower walls were too slick (maybe i've cleaned them really well and rid them of soap scum!) and it slid back down and landed behind my bodywash. well, i certainly was not going to use that. don't worry - i did wash, just used matt's which was spider free.

after my shower i proceeded to take the spider's life. whenever i kill a spider it receives two deaths - one by squishing, the other by water immersion and flushing of the toilet. this spider was no different. it was fully dead never to be seen again.

library fun

18 months and older...whatever. my little trooper of a 14th month old (as of today) went to her first reading program at the local library. today was hat day so she got to put on a hat and proudly smiled at everyone when they clapped for her. we listened to stories about hats, played with a parachute and even went on a parade throughout the library. molly played the maracas. i think she'll be a professional one day and make us lots of money! she also checked out library books for the first time - so cute watching her pick them out. i can't wait until next week!

the fear of the vacuum

molly's deathly afraid of the vacuum but we've been making progress. she will touch it (this didn't happen for a long time) today was a huge milestone. she helped vacuum her room. i held her and she helped push. she enjoyed it also!

all in shambles

you know when you've had a full weekend with a big project and now the house is in shambles? that's where i am at. matt replaced our kitchen floor (which i am very thankful for - it looks so much nicer and it's shiney!) and so the kitchen was basically out of commission. oh, i cooked (calzones and lasagna) but the clean up didn't happen as i couldn't really get to the sink and the dishes kept piling up by the meal. while cooking the clazones, the fridge was in front of the diswasher and the only available counterspace as next to the microwave! well, the floor is complete and i have almost finished the surface level of the kitchen (saving the deep cleaning for another day). stopping for a lunch break and to type this entry. i have a feeling i'm going to love blogging!!!