Molly - Four Months Old

Dear Nugget,
Today you are 4 months old (plus 9 days or so, but really you're still closer to four months old than five months, so let's just go with that.)

Another fabulous month in what I predict will shape up to be a banner first year.  The only thing is that month four didn't bring on anything super exciting. It wasn't until four months+ 2 days that you started doing some really cool things.

First, you rolled over. Hooray!  You when from your back to your tummy and got your arm stuck under you and then yelled at me for three minutes while I tried to figure out the video feature on my new iPhone (thank you, by the way. It was a lovely Mother's Day present. You're such a thoughtful baby!) I finally got the thing to work and then you flipped yourself back.  *sigh*   I figured you had had enough dance-monkey-dance from me, so I didn't make you do it again.  But since then, you'll flippy-flop (that's what your brother calls it) on your own.  You're getting good at it, kid!

Second, you giggled!  This was so fun.  You were laying on your shrinky-dink tummy time quilt and I can't even remember the exact sequence of events, but all of a sudden you started to laugh. It was wonderful! Then your brother got in on the action and we all couldn't stop ourselves.  If only you'd laugh for Daddy.  Maybe that could be your Father's Day present to him?

I was late taking you for your four month well check, but you weighed in at thirteen pounds. You're 23 and a half inches long and your head is 40cm around.  You're sitting pretty at 25%-50% in all three categories.  You're doing great, lovey!

Miss Molly, you're just so much fun to have in my life.  I love you so much.  You're happy and smiley. You wake up with a little gleam in your eye and a toothless grin.  I love it!  I am so thrilled to be your mommy.  I finally feel like we've got our groove. You, me, and Ben-Ben. 


Five months is just around the corner but let's not get there too fast.  I need more snuggles and drool. Cuddles and baby pterodactyl impressions (my favorite!), so keep 'em coming.

Love you, baby girl!
Mommy

Blogger, you are dead to me now!

*Update - It appears that Blogger redeemed itself.  You are reinstated into my good graces, however I'm watching you. (Just kidding! You know I love ya, B!)

Stupid Blogger!  Last night there were some technical difficulties in which posts were deleted.  Not by me but by Blogger.  I'm sure their staff is apologetic and whatnot, but the stupid thing ATE my Mother's Day post.  My post was so wonderful!

Of course, I don't write anything ahead of time. I just write as I post, therefore no other copy of my last post exists.

I don't know how to digitally give Blogger the finger, but if your staff can imagine it, I'm typing with one hand and the other hand ain't throwing you a peace sign.

A Tale of Two Gifts

I celebrated my third Mother's Day this year with two babies. A handsome, funny, wily three year old and a snuggly, cuddly, happy 4 month old.  What a great day!

Andrew had been working hard for a few weeks to come up with something appropriate for the occasion. I hadn't made any formal requests since there wasn't anything that I had to absolutely.have.now.  My techie husband shows his love through gadgets.  I treasure that about him. In fact, the very first present he ever gave me were a pair of ear phones for my annual trip to San Francisco.  I had lost mine and hated the Apple ones that came with my, then, iPod Mini (gads!  Look how huge that thing is! It's practically the Zach Morris phone of MP3 players.) 

I've grown to love gadgetry and all its glory, and more than that I completely appreciate how excited my husband gets when I ask him, "Can you tell me about [insert name of something techy here]?"  The Saturday before Mother's Day, we had date night and I was presented with this fabulous toy, the iPhone 4 (by the way, that Speck case is turquoise and hot pink and MY husband picked it out!) It's a toy and a tool all wrapped in one and I love it.

*Yes, that's him holding the sandwich. Isn't he adorable!?*

 

The second part of this story is how much I love being a mother and what that means around Mother's Day.  It means handmade gifts from my children.  

Growing up, my sister and I were the princesses of craft and handmade gifts (what a surprise, huh?)  We made picture frames, hand print butterflies, coupon books for my mom, which usually had offers for "Good for ONE free hug & kiss"  or "Good for ONE emptying of the dishwasher without complaint."  My mother loves these presents. She cherished them and until Ben started going to preschool and making gifts for me, I didn't really understand.

I do now.  Last year, I received a lovely card with his hand print in the middle of a paper heart. Along with the card came a laminated book mark with an original Jackson Pollack-esque drawing on bright white copy paper with the finest Crayola markers (tee hee!)  I love, love, love that book mark. I love it so much that when I accidentally let it slip between my seat and the bulk head on a flight back from Toronto, I was frantic.  I waited anxiously until we landed so I good squeeze my zaftig self between my seat and the one in front of me and rescue my precious bookmark.  At that moment is when I got how my mother felt all those years.

This year, Ben presented me with a bird house.  He chose lovely shades of red-orange, blue, and green. He layered the paint on thickly so that it wouldn't ever come off, he said. He gave it to me at a little reception called "Morning Muffins with Mommy."  As soon as we got home, he made me put it in the try right away.  And here it is.  My lovely bird house, hanging in our back yard on a rainy morning. 

I can't say if I love one gift more than that other, but I think that if something were to happen to my birdhouse, I might actually cry a little.

To all the mothers who read this blog, I hope it was a wonderful day for you and every day you spend with your children you remember how loved you are by those wonderful little people.

Experiencing technically difficulties. Please do not adjust your television set.

*sigh*  As you can see, my once cute, colorful, cherry-ful blog is no more. It seems to be going through a Minimalist period.   Actually, what happened was that I thought I could monkey with the code for a fun new font. I followed the directions, made sure to check for typos, and bam!  It didn't work.

I'm going to try to get it back up to its former loveliness soon.  Anyway, here's what's coming soon:

1) Molly's 4 Month letter

2) A new craft blog!

Green Chili Chicken Casserole

I don't think I've posted this recipe here. It's one I created a while back that my hubby love, love, loves.  It's really easy to make and freezes very well, so if you do OAMC, then this recipe would fit nicely into your repertoire.

Here are the ingredients:

Shredded Monterrey jack cheese, cream of jalapeno soup, Green Chile Tomatillo salsa, chicken breast, white corn tortillas

Ingredients:
1lb. cooked, shredded chicken breast*
1 to 1 1/4 cups shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (you can grate your own instead of buying the already shredded stuff. I'm just lazy.)
1 10oz can of Cream of Jalapeno soup (This might be regional. It's available in Texas along with a lot of other traditional Mexican soups.  If you can't find it, you can sub Cream of Chicken)
2/3 cup Green Chile Tomatillo salsa (Again, this is a variety found in my local grocery store. You can sub any kind of green chile or tomatillo salsa. Heat intensity is personal preference.)
15-20 White tortillas, cut in half or quarters

Directions:
1) If preparing to eat immediately, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  If preparing for the freezer, skip this step.
2) Spray a 9X13" baking pan with non-stick spray. Set aside.
3) In a bowl, combine shredded chicken, soup, 1/3 cup salsa and mix until the chicken has been thoroughly coated with the wet ingredients.  Set aside.
4) Spread 1/3 cup of salsa on the bottom of baking pan and build your first tortilla layer. Spread about 1/4 of the chicken mixture over the tortillas and then sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the shredded cheese.
5) Repeat the layering process for two to three more layers (of until you run out of the chicken mixture.)
6) Loosely top the casserole with the remaining tortillas and spread the last 1/3 cup of salsa over the top. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
7) Bake in a 350 degree oven, loosely covered with foil for about 25-30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 5-10 minutes until the cheese on top browns.  Or if you have a broiler safe baking dish, brown the top for about 5 minutes under the broiler.

To bake from frozen - Allow casserole to thaw completely in refrigerator. Preheat oven to 375 and bake for 35-40 minutes until completely heated through. 

Green Chile Chicken Casserole - Ready for freezing or to pop in the oven.

*A note about cooking the chicken -
The best way I've found to cook chicken for these kinds of recipes is in a slow cooker.  The chicken will be extremely tender and moist and it's an easy way to infuse flavor.  The the casserole in the photo in this post, I cooked thawed chicken on high for about 4.5 hours. I flavored it with one small can of hot green chilies, 2T of olive oil, 1 peeled whole garlic clove, and about 2 tsps of salt.  The resulting juice and chilies from the slow cooker were incorporated into the sauce for this recipe (as was about 1/3 c of left over Creamy Jalapeno dip from Chuy's!). 

Another option for the chicken is to make up a big batch of KA's Chicken Tacos chicken. The flavors would be perfect in this recipe! If you really wanted to coordinate ingredients, I would use a tomato based salsa and a sharp cheddar cheese (in lieu of tomatillo salsa and Monterrey Jack cheese.)