You celebrate when you find a recipe that you don't find yourself picking apart to find a spot that your kid will eat, but the kids will eat the whole thing! And, if it's a great meal for you, what a happy table! Yes, this is that kind of recipe. Given the hefty list of ingredients, I was just so happy when Lucy ate it! Let me share...
Here's why this recipe gets put on my favorites list:
-Hefty ingredients: spinach, bell pepper, garlic, lime (all faves)
-Meaty enough for Dad
-Non-intimidating for kids (looks at first maybe, but quickly overcome by the cheesiness- but it's not too cheesy, I might have put less than it called for. I think it's the sour cream that actually catches the kid's eye.)
-Despite being a casserole, the layered look is fabulous enough to serve to company.
-Stores great!!
-Great as leftovers! It's not the kind of dish that doesn't make it through microwaving, know what I mean? It tastes just as great after microwaving as it did coming out of the oven.
The bad side is:
-Have to bake it (not liking that in Hawaii.)
-Quite a few ingredients, so that might add to the grocery bill and the prep time. I like the variety of ingredients in dishes though.
So here it is; I actually didn't use any olives (don't like them) and I made the mistake of putting the sour cream layer under the second layer of tortillas (instead of on top), I liked it that way, but not sure if it makes a difference. This recipe is from the Corvallis 4th Ward Cookbook, from Lisa Curtis.
PACE ENCHILADA CASSEROLE
1.5 lbs lean ground meat
1 sm. onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained well
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
2 med. tomatoes, chopped
1 lg. red bell pepper, chopped
1 T. lime juice
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 cups Pace Picante Sauce
2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sliced olives
Arrange 6 tortillas on bottom of lightly greased 9x13" pan (tear tortillas to fit pan). Brown meat and drain, then add onion, garlic, tomato sauce, tomatoes, bell pepper, lime juice, Picante Sauce, salt, and spinach. Simmer for 15 minutes. Put half of the meat mixture over tortillas lining pan. cover with 6 more tortillas. Spread sour cream over tortillas. Top with remaining meat mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle with cheese and olives. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Hawaiian Sea Life Park
Labor day weekend, Sea Life Park had a Kama'aina special (discount for residents). We just had to take advantage of the special, but one problem, we didn't have local ID's-- well, Jeremy had a UH student ID card, but I didn't have anything. Regular price is $30, so getting in for the special, only $10, was a big motivation (don't we do just about anything for a discount! ;) Long story short, I ended up so slyly using an old student ID card I had. umm, white lie?...oh well....it was a fun, sunny day.....
Friday, September 19, 2008
Getting Settled
This isn't the best picture of us, but we tried to take a picture in front of our apartment building (not a digital camera, btw). Our apartment is basically right behind the big tree you see in the background. It provides nice shade and keeps our apartment pretty cool and clean.
Around the corner on the left-hand side is where we got to meet the Fire Captain, crew, and policeman the other day. I guess my mind has been out of it trying to settle into a new place (is that a good enough excuse?), because I did a real stupid thing on Wednesday. I was taking the kids to pick up Jeremy and head to dinner at a friend's house. I put Willie in the carseat and he was being fussy so I gave him the keys to play with. I then went and put Lucy in her seat and the stroller in the back, and of course I had closed all the doors while I was going not knowing that little baby had found the lock button on the keychain and locked all the doors! It's bad enough locking your keys in the car, of course, but locking two helpless kids in there as well was one of the most terrible feelings! My cell phone was in my bag that was in the car as well, I didn't have a key to get back into my apartment or anything. Luckily there was a work crew right next to the car and I was able to borrow a cell phone. I called Jeremy and told him to figure something out. In the meantime, I was feeling worse and worse, the on-lookers were all getting worried the kids were going to suffocate soon (they were probably making me worry more than help the situation, but I'm glad they were there nonetheless.) One of the workers let me borrow their cell phone and we decided to just call emergency 911 because we had no idea what Jeremy was going to be able to figure out and how long it would take. The police came and the fire truck who had a professional system for breaking into cars! I am glad they didn't have to break a window. The kids probaby weren't in the car more than 10 minutes, but they were all sweaty and looked fairly uncomfortable, poor things! I hated that feeling looking in through the windows at their cute little faces and just feeling so stupid for doing something totally preventable and potentially threatening to the kids! Well, it could have been a lot worse. I'm just blessed to have had so many people there to help get things solved! Just look at these cute kids-- I love them so much!!
Willie is still getting used to all the changes that come with a new place I think. Look closely and you'll see a bread trail up to his chin. He's still not on a super good nap schedule, and the poor kid has to crawl around on such hard surfaces all the time!
Everyone knows Lucy's shoe fetish. She's extended her shoe thievery to include socks as well. Don't you just love how one sock is down and the other up to her knees!
Monday, September 15, 2008
To My Kids
I made the comment to Jeremy tonight that we need to write a letter to our kids, during this time of our lives, to let them know how poor we were and life was simple. You know you've heard people say how they wish they could go back to those simple days of school life- but I do not know what they are talking about.
Anyway, thinking about a letter to my kids, instead of tell you about the juicy details of financial woes or list off all the things we don't have or the things that are being forced to hang on in life because we can't afford to replace it (yeah, we're there: camera, Jeremy's glasses, a computer, many common things. At least our car is great! ;P ), let me just tell you about life these days and, well, you.
I love Lucy as much as ever. She's pulled out a few of the terrible-two symptoms; some of her terrible two symptoms are fighting with baby brother, pushing and hitting him and stealing his toys (sounds awful, huh? terrible!) She also asserts her "No"s with a flaming two-year old attitude. But she's one of those kids that loves to learn and so she's just fun to be with. I'm continually amazed how well she speaks and learns new words. Despite her first-impression being shy and timid, she loves to try new things. We've had fun doing our own home-gymnastics, she does forward rolls, forward falls, and she likes to run! Princess movies and songs are still her favorite. She's seen Aladdin way too many times, it's the only disney movie we have right now. And she already knows almost every word to all the Aladdin soundtrack! Yep, she's getting to be just like her mom!
Willie is all boy for sure. Rough and tumble, loud and...loud- that's him! I can't believe he'll already be turning one in a month! He's a fast crawler and likes to climb. He hasn't shown too much interest to walk yet, still quite wabbly when he stands. He is so into whatever Lucy is doing- or whereever the action is, he has to be there; even if it's just hearing the toilet flush, he'll come running. He's very adventurous. I hate to tell you that you play with princesses way too much (we're low on boy-kine toys at the moment) and you have no shoes (this is not so much the money thing as his feet are just too fat and no shoes fit him right now, and perhaps a little bit of the money thing). But still, he is happy. His laugh is contagious and his smile the kind you'd pay money to see. So Pogi! ('Handsome' in Philipino; on a walk the other day a philipino man stopped to talk to us, to Willie he said, Hi Pogi! And told me it meant handsome. I think that's how you spell that word, I'm not sure.)
Life for mom right now is hard to sum up. The kids and I are kind of into a routine now that mom has all the free playgroups, storytimes and other family programs mapped out. What a great mom I am, (winkwink)! I'm going to try and make the kid's halloween costumes again this year. It's nothing too wow, I'm just trying to use things from around the house.
Your dad, you know we have to hand it to him, he's working so hard. Jeremy just got offered a grad assistant position with the director of Child Welfare at UH, so we're all really excited about that. It's a great position for his experience and he's getting to meet a lot of important professors at UH that will hopefully help him get into the PhD program someday. He'll have to quit the other job he had just started, but such is life. The grad assistant job pays good and we might be getting a full tuition waiver- we're still waiting to hear back if it's full out-of-state waiver or just in-state tuition waiver- anyway, that's really good! He's been doing really well in school and is glad he came to UH.
We went to the temple yesterday and afterwards came across a little festival going on at the beach. I talked with a vendor who was a photographer (I gave him your website Shonda, and you can check him out at www.holladayphoto.com), anyway his wife is a social worker and did her masters at Columbia but they said they regret not doing it at UH. Well, besides the fact that I really do know that we do have plenty, so much more than a lot of people in the world, everything we need I'm sure. But I guess the bottom line to this little letter to you kids is, despite having the worries and stress of school life, the blessings are still pouring in. And we're glad you two are here to share in it all with us!
Until 10 years, when you're old enough to read this,
love always,
Mom Courtney
Anyway, thinking about a letter to my kids, instead of tell you about the juicy details of financial woes or list off all the things we don't have or the things that are being forced to hang on in life because we can't afford to replace it (yeah, we're there: camera, Jeremy's glasses, a computer, many common things. At least our car is great! ;P ), let me just tell you about life these days and, well, you.
I love Lucy as much as ever. She's pulled out a few of the terrible-two symptoms; some of her terrible two symptoms are fighting with baby brother, pushing and hitting him and stealing his toys (sounds awful, huh? terrible!) She also asserts her "No"s with a flaming two-year old attitude. But she's one of those kids that loves to learn and so she's just fun to be with. I'm continually amazed how well she speaks and learns new words. Despite her first-impression being shy and timid, she loves to try new things. We've had fun doing our own home-gymnastics, she does forward rolls, forward falls, and she likes to run! Princess movies and songs are still her favorite. She's seen Aladdin way too many times, it's the only disney movie we have right now. And she already knows almost every word to all the Aladdin soundtrack! Yep, she's getting to be just like her mom!
Willie is all boy for sure. Rough and tumble, loud and...loud- that's him! I can't believe he'll already be turning one in a month! He's a fast crawler and likes to climb. He hasn't shown too much interest to walk yet, still quite wabbly when he stands. He is so into whatever Lucy is doing- or whereever the action is, he has to be there; even if it's just hearing the toilet flush, he'll come running. He's very adventurous. I hate to tell you that you play with princesses way too much (we're low on boy-kine toys at the moment) and you have no shoes (this is not so much the money thing as his feet are just too fat and no shoes fit him right now, and perhaps a little bit of the money thing). But still, he is happy. His laugh is contagious and his smile the kind you'd pay money to see. So Pogi! ('Handsome' in Philipino; on a walk the other day a philipino man stopped to talk to us, to Willie he said, Hi Pogi! And told me it meant handsome. I think that's how you spell that word, I'm not sure.)
Life for mom right now is hard to sum up. The kids and I are kind of into a routine now that mom has all the free playgroups, storytimes and other family programs mapped out. What a great mom I am, (winkwink)! I'm going to try and make the kid's halloween costumes again this year. It's nothing too wow, I'm just trying to use things from around the house.
Your dad, you know we have to hand it to him, he's working so hard. Jeremy just got offered a grad assistant position with the director of Child Welfare at UH, so we're all really excited about that. It's a great position for his experience and he's getting to meet a lot of important professors at UH that will hopefully help him get into the PhD program someday. He'll have to quit the other job he had just started, but such is life. The grad assistant job pays good and we might be getting a full tuition waiver- we're still waiting to hear back if it's full out-of-state waiver or just in-state tuition waiver- anyway, that's really good! He's been doing really well in school and is glad he came to UH.
We went to the temple yesterday and afterwards came across a little festival going on at the beach. I talked with a vendor who was a photographer (I gave him your website Shonda, and you can check him out at www.holladayphoto.com), anyway his wife is a social worker and did her masters at Columbia but they said they regret not doing it at UH. Well, besides the fact that I really do know that we do have plenty, so much more than a lot of people in the world, everything we need I'm sure. But I guess the bottom line to this little letter to you kids is, despite having the worries and stress of school life, the blessings are still pouring in. And we're glad you two are here to share in it all with us!
Until 10 years, when you're old enough to read this,
love always,
Mom Courtney
Monday, September 8, 2008
Well, what'd ya do?
Well, what'd ya do when you have time to kill and don't have a camera or pictures to play around with...I guess you play around with your blog.
Not sure I completely like the new look, but it's new nonetheless and that's fun. I will get to a more interesting post hopefully this week when we get our disposable camera developed-- I know, right, who uses that any more?! I'll try and post some interesting pics of our apartment and the kids doing kid stuff-- or something!
Not sure I completely like the new look, but it's new nonetheless and that's fun. I will get to a more interesting post hopefully this week when we get our disposable camera developed-- I know, right, who uses that any more?! I'll try and post some interesting pics of our apartment and the kids doing kid stuff-- or something!
Monday, September 1, 2008
An Email Posting: So, How's Hawaii?
Instead of sending out a "so we made it to Hawaii" email to everyone, I thought I'd just do a post with the same jist. So, how's Hawaii?
So, Hawaii is pretty much the same as I left it. The same things that I didn't like about it are still here, the same things I LOVE about it are still here!
OUR APARTMENT
Although smaller than I anticipated (of course, anything is going to be smaller after living in Grandma's house that has spare room enough for 4 families), but it's pretty cool. Jeremy did a great job on the floor. The story behind that was the tiled floor started coming up soon after Jeremy moved in and he redid a lot of the tile- working really hard to finish it before we got here. I'm no contractor, but I can't tell a difference! There's lots of cupboard and closet space for our meager 3 suitcases of stuff. We were lucky that the apartment ended up being mostly furnished. Lucy loves the trampoline in her room- well, that's what she calls it. You might say it is more of a Mattress Land (we brought 2 beds not knowing the place would be furnished as much as it was and haven't gotten rid of extra mattresses yet).
THE KID'S ADJUSTMENT
The kids were really quiet when they saw Jeremy at the airport. Lucy had a big smile on her face but was still quite shy and must of thought it was strange. She definetly got excited to be with daddy again as an elated "Daddy, (giggle, giggle)...Daddy" was the only thing she said the first 10 minutes of the car ride. Willie didn't seem phased that anything was different and tended to treat him more like a stranger the first few days. The kids had a rough first couple of nights, up at 3am and not wanting to sleep. I didn't think the time change would affect them very much. They're pretty much back to normal though.
JEREMY'S ADJUSTMENT
He was a little shocked about the kids not wanting him or recognizing him- he knew it would probably happen, but didn't know he'd feel as bad as he did because of it. I think it was hard for him the first week getting used to having the kids around again and doing all the daddy-type chores for mom again ;)
MY ADJUSTMENT
It's definetly back to student life, I can feel that for sure. None of the furniture matches, you hate to invite friends over to a cramped apartment, you're always looking for cheap or free things. Also, it's kind of weird being in a place where I was single before and meeting old friends who I haven't seen since before I got married. It's kind of a weird transition. I'm really excited about the Traveling Preschool that comes to the park nearby once a week. There are a lot of young couples with young kids in our ward too, so that will be really fun. I love being back in a hub of culture and activity of a bigger city. There's always so much going on and things to do.
Friday night our ward had an Ohana Night with a potluck and some of the YW entertained with some Samoan dancing even though they were micronesian (there are quite a few micronesian people in our ward). They also had invited a Samoan girl who was Miss Teen Samoan, or whatever something I forget, to come dance and she was supposedly one of the best young dancers from Samoa. They were fun to watch, it's always fun to see all the elaborate costumes. I told Lucy, look at the pretty girls. And now everytime she sees a young woman, she says, "Look, a pretty girl!"
Saturday, we went to the Okinawan Festival, a japanese kind of festival at Kapiolani Park near Waikiki. It was huge, bigger than I remembered from when I went years ago. We couldn't stay for the whole day, kids don't last, but it was fun to visit the culture for a few hours. Lucy loved the children's games. They were real old school- like the HP picnic used to be. Her favorite was the classic Fish Pond- she did it at least 4 times. They did a really cute job with their games- the fish pond was actually a good sized little blown-up pool filled with water. They had screwed little hooks in the tops of floaty toys and given the kids a "double hook" little fishing pole to catch the different sea animals. Lucy loved pushing the toys around with the fishing pole. We still don't have a camera yet, or I would post a picture and not spend so much time describing it. She also loved the Disney Princess bouncy Castle. It was a fun day!
So, Hawaii is pretty much the same as I left it. The same things that I didn't like about it are still here, the same things I LOVE about it are still here!
OUR APARTMENT
Although smaller than I anticipated (of course, anything is going to be smaller after living in Grandma's house that has spare room enough for 4 families), but it's pretty cool. Jeremy did a great job on the floor. The story behind that was the tiled floor started coming up soon after Jeremy moved in and he redid a lot of the tile- working really hard to finish it before we got here. I'm no contractor, but I can't tell a difference! There's lots of cupboard and closet space for our meager 3 suitcases of stuff. We were lucky that the apartment ended up being mostly furnished. Lucy loves the trampoline in her room- well, that's what she calls it. You might say it is more of a Mattress Land (we brought 2 beds not knowing the place would be furnished as much as it was and haven't gotten rid of extra mattresses yet).
THE KID'S ADJUSTMENT
The kids were really quiet when they saw Jeremy at the airport. Lucy had a big smile on her face but was still quite shy and must of thought it was strange. She definetly got excited to be with daddy again as an elated "Daddy, (giggle, giggle)...Daddy" was the only thing she said the first 10 minutes of the car ride. Willie didn't seem phased that anything was different and tended to treat him more like a stranger the first few days. The kids had a rough first couple of nights, up at 3am and not wanting to sleep. I didn't think the time change would affect them very much. They're pretty much back to normal though.
JEREMY'S ADJUSTMENT
He was a little shocked about the kids not wanting him or recognizing him- he knew it would probably happen, but didn't know he'd feel as bad as he did because of it. I think it was hard for him the first week getting used to having the kids around again and doing all the daddy-type chores for mom again ;)
MY ADJUSTMENT
It's definetly back to student life, I can feel that for sure. None of the furniture matches, you hate to invite friends over to a cramped apartment, you're always looking for cheap or free things. Also, it's kind of weird being in a place where I was single before and meeting old friends who I haven't seen since before I got married. It's kind of a weird transition. I'm really excited about the Traveling Preschool that comes to the park nearby once a week. There are a lot of young couples with young kids in our ward too, so that will be really fun. I love being back in a hub of culture and activity of a bigger city. There's always so much going on and things to do.
Friday night our ward had an Ohana Night with a potluck and some of the YW entertained with some Samoan dancing even though they were micronesian (there are quite a few micronesian people in our ward). They also had invited a Samoan girl who was Miss Teen Samoan, or whatever something I forget, to come dance and she was supposedly one of the best young dancers from Samoa. They were fun to watch, it's always fun to see all the elaborate costumes. I told Lucy, look at the pretty girls. And now everytime she sees a young woman, she says, "Look, a pretty girl!"
Saturday, we went to the Okinawan Festival, a japanese kind of festival at Kapiolani Park near Waikiki. It was huge, bigger than I remembered from when I went years ago. We couldn't stay for the whole day, kids don't last, but it was fun to visit the culture for a few hours. Lucy loved the children's games. They were real old school- like the HP picnic used to be. Her favorite was the classic Fish Pond- she did it at least 4 times. They did a really cute job with their games- the fish pond was actually a good sized little blown-up pool filled with water. They had screwed little hooks in the tops of floaty toys and given the kids a "double hook" little fishing pole to catch the different sea animals. Lucy loved pushing the toys around with the fishing pole. We still don't have a camera yet, or I would post a picture and not spend so much time describing it. She also loved the Disney Princess bouncy Castle. It was a fun day!
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