Chicken Caesar Pasta

Here's another keeper from last week's menu:

Chicken Caesar Pasta
1-2 chicken breasts, sauteed
8 oz pasta, cooked (I used rotini)

Stir into the following and put in casserole dish:
1/2 c. Caesar dressing
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1/3 c. chicken broth
1 cup grated mozzarella

Top with Caesar-style croutons and 1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until warmed through. Croutons brown quickly, so you might want to cover with foil or put croutons at bottom of casserole dish.

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Talk about Christmas Countdown

Today I'm talking about one of my kids' favorite things to do--counting down the days to Christmas. We've done it a number of ways in years past: paper chains, candy chains, chocolate advent calendars, candy cane calendars, and so on.

This year I wanted something that would be a bit more permanent so I purchased 24 Christmas-themed pillow boxes at the local craft store for about $8. It's a bit steep, but I'm hoping it will last a few years as well as help us create memories that last longer than a piece of candy.

Each box has a circular tag on it, which I've numbered from 1 to 24. Inside each box is a slip of paper. Days 1-13 have an activity on the for us to do as a family. There are some great ideas at the bottom of this post.

Days 14-24 are scriptures for us to read as a family - found on page 5 of this file (includes those from both the Bible and Book of Mormon). The best thing is that when we're all done I can just fold them flat for storage.

A drunken Halloween

Or maybe it was the sheer volume of caffeine I'd consumed -in the way of chocolate- that caused these pics to be so blurry -oops. We're talking about Halloween costumes this week. I present a wizard, puppy and cavewoman. Many thanks to my kind neighbor who helped Michelle with her cavewoman costume while I was in the hospital with Ty.


She did not want to wear the hood, that is until it started raining

and then she pulled it up and looked like this. Cute, eh?

The reason I feel 50 hundred years old today

Exhibit A: filthy, dirty carpet for which we paid to have Scotchguarded and the factory forgot to do (even water left stains).

Anyway it was time for it to come out since my son has spent approximately 2 years in here in a hospital bed through various surgeries, chemo, body casts - you know, the routine stuff. We've all spilled his food in here more than once, and Pediasure is murder on carpet.

Here is the wood that is going to replace the carpet. I'm looking forward to the easier maintenance. I found it interesting that our wood bundles are stamped with the names Dorothy and Pam.

Exhibit B: we had the original carpet glued down to prevent "wheelchair creep" and the installers took us quite literally about the glue-down part. In fact, they troweled it on. After about 30 minutes, this is all the progress we had made.

And another 30 minutes:

Finally, Mr O. struck upon the idea of cutting the carpet in strips and ripping it back, foot by foot. It still took stinkin' forever. This was about 10:30 pm (keep in mind we started at 5:30)


And here we are at 1:30 am - FINISHED. The floor was still extremely sticky - I mean pieces of wood were stuck to my feet, so we laid out carpet pieces to form a walkway back to the bedrooms. All that pulling nearly ripped my arms from their sockets, I feel like I did some major weight lifting. See that black stuff? It was all over the floor and the kids helped me pick it off - we no longer have any fingerprints (I suppose that means they have a future in jewel thievery)

Where the old meets new (wow is it ever loud listening to the nail gun even though we are down in the basement today).

The absolute best thing about the wood floor going in is the new flush-mount floor vents. Love them!

I guess I will eventually recover from 8 hours of HARD manual labor and the new floor will be worth it.

Stop back by on Friday to see the finished product. In the meantime, here's a fun, easy Halloween decoration. To see what others are talking about, stop by the Lazy Organizer

Bookshelf Tour

I've decided to jump on the bookshelf theme at TAT's home tour. This room has 12 foot ceilings and even though it's only 10x10.5, I'd love to put tall, tall bookcases all around the room and have one of those sliding ladders - a girl can dream can't she? The armoire houses the computer, printer, files and a fold-away chair that slides under the keyboard tray.

I know I need something on the wall above the armoire, but I'm not quite sure what to put there.

The piano which some dear child took a paper clip to. I tell myself, "It's only a piano and someday this will be funny."
We've got bookshelves (much smaller ones) scattered through the house: two in our bedroom, and two more in the kids' rooms, and a few shelves in the storage room hold the ones we don't use as often. In Ellie's room we use a cute white-washed metal tub to hold her picture books right next to her bed. We cannot get enough books in this house. How about you?

Even my garden is encouraging me

How do you like this thumbs-up from my eggplant?

Finally! Bell peppers. I pulled out the monstrosity of a cabbage (a full 14 inches in diameter) and suddenly the crops around it are growing.

Walla Walla Onions - should I cover them back up?

And who couldn't use a little more spice in their life?

Check out the size of that Beefsteak tomato (it could be an organic breast augmentation, although you'd have to find another one the same size, it would probably only last a couple of days, you might be accompanied by your own swarm of fruit flies and you wouldn't be able to hug anyone - so maybe not, but it's ha-yuge). Also, note the chocolate bell pepper - chocolate only in appearance, it tastes much the same as a regular 'ole green bell pepper.

Be sure to stop by The Lazy Organizer and see her tech-gifted baby. Tomorrow, I'm talking about rebounding and finding significant others online. So stop back by, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A New Summer Olympic Sport

Or, how to have fun with a box

Tramp boxing


These large boxes bring us supplies for Ty at least once a month and the kids have found several ways to have fun with them. This one is my favorite.

See what others are talking about

Talk about Solatube

Yes, we used to live in the Bat Cave, but now it's like a whole new place. We've decided that since we'll probably never move, it's time to change all those "little things" that bug us. Numero uno on that list was the lack of light. I wish I had some before pictures.

This is looking up into the hallway tube before they put the cover on it, I haven't seen many things brighter than this.

This is the installer pushing the family room tube into place. What you can't see is that he has on an awesome pair of sunglasses. It took us more than a few days to stop feeling like we left a light on somewhere. The light from it feels very natural in the room, unless you look up at the fixture and then it reminds you a little of a fluorescent light. Would we do it again? In a heartbeat!

We've lived here for 8 years and I still have no idea what to do with that wall - any suggestions? Drop by the Lazy Organizer's place to see what everyone's Talking About and see her cute bathroom.

The DC Scoop

Riding the DC Metro - much cleaner than the NY Subway!
A stop at the Smithsonian Castle
Even the cafeteria is gorgeous at the Smithsonian The only pic I snapped at the Jim Henson exhibit - I figured it was okay since it was the girls' original artwork
I snapped the fountain at the Hirshhorn Museum
And then it exploded 5 seconds later
The kids in the mosaic mirror at the Hirshhorn
The Washington Monument
The dome inside the National Gallery of Art
ON
OFF
The only piece of sculpture you can sit on
Remember these? In case you don't, it's a typewriter eraser not a modern interpretation of the banjo
The Hope Diamond (which I could not snap a decent picture of no matter how many I took). I'm pretty sure the Gem Gallery was the kids' favorite exhibit at the Museum of Natural History Another Monument shot - my daughter kept asking when we were going to start shopping - you know, at The Mall?

Later, my sister's family joined up with us to visit the White House and Lincoln Memorial
The front of the White House


The Executive Office Building, isn't it amazing?
Finally, a very out of focus picture of the Lincoln Memorial - I was in a hurry because my sis was talking her way out a very expensive ticket during "Strict Enforcement Week" in DC. I tell you the girl has a gift!

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