First Little Chomper

I have been wondering when Gabriel's first tooth was going to emerge. I figured it would have to be soon since he is a little over 10 months now and his upper gums have been super swollen. I have been checking with my finger for the last few days because I didn't want to miss the exact day of the big event! Well this evening was the time, I checked earlier and it hadn't but when I checked after dinner, there it was, a brand new little tooth, of course only the sharp little bottom of it but it had finally popped through. More exciting for me than him! I am glad that we are now on our way to more teeth because Gabriel wants to eat everything we do and its been a bit hard without teeth. Such a happy moment of development.

Today the children and I went to Minnehaha Park and rode on a bike cart, something Romeo has wanted to do for a long time. It was really fun even though it was a bit hot for it, we still had a good time. It was a little harder than it looked. My swollen feet are paying for it tonight, but my body definitely needed the workout.

Egg Rolls

Here is another yummy popular asian appetizer. My sister in law and mother in law taught me how to make these.  Personally I think their recipe beats any restaurants. The kids love egg rolls and whenever I make these they eat so many that it becomes the meal. Not as healthy as spring rolls, but who cares, they are great!

EGG ROLLS

•  1 small cabbage, sliced thin
•  3 carrots, shredded
•  3-4  squares from a bag of sulafane noodles ( in a pink mesh bag found in the asian section or at an asian grocery store) 
•  1 pound of ground pork or ground beef browned and drained
•  1 large onion sliced in thin strips & cooked with the pork
•  40 count egg roll wraps- I like the ones that when fried the shell is smooth, Cub foods has them in their freezer section or most asian grocery stores. Otherwise in the produce section of most grocery stores they sell the ones that fry with a bubbly shell.
• Eggroll sauce- we like the sweet and sour chili sauce that comes in a tall glass bottle, it has a picture of eggrolls on it.
•  Salt, pepper and sugar to your taste
• 1 beaten egg in a separate bowl
•  Enough cooking oil to deep fry

First put dry noodles in a bowl of hot water to soften, set aside. Combine cooked meat and onion mixture with cut veggies. Add salt, pepper and sugar. Chop softened sulafane noodles so they aren't so long, add to mixture and mix everything well until the mixture gets soggy. Add desired amounts to egg roll wrap and roll like a burrito, seal with dabs of beaten egg. Deep fry til golden brown.

Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are one of my all time favorite asian foods. Yesterday I was craving something fresh and healthy so I decided to make spring rolls. This recipe is traditionally made with seasoned red pork but since I already had a rotisserie chicken ready to go I used that. Any meat you like will do.

SPRING ROLLS

• Boiled, or pan browned pork, sliced into small strips
• Lettuce chopped- of your choice
• fresh herbs such as cilantro, mint, basil
• shredded carrots
• cucumber, sliced into small strips
• Spring roll wraps (Rice paper) found at asian grocery stores
• spring roll sauce (also found at the asian store) or you can use Hoisin sauce 
• crushed peanuts to put in your sauce 
• vermicelli noodles cooked and then rinsed in cold water

First you put your rice paper in hot water til softened (only takes about 20 seconds)

Next lay flat on a plate and add your ingredients, then roll like a burrito.

Dip in sauce topped with peanuts.


You can use any variety of these herbs and veggies or add new ones that you like, there really isn't a way to go wrong with these. For mine today I used lettuce, mint, basil, and cucumber. So delicious!

Raising Organized People

One of my biggest pet peeves-Messes, clutter, and unorganization. I think that teaching my children to clean up after themselves and be organized is one of the most annoying things I have faced in parenting. Olivia already seems to like organization and clean space but she definitely has a long way to go. Romeo on the other hand I swear could live in a landfill. He is very messy and careless, I'm sure part of being a boy, but still. I think its funny how he is that way but when he goes to a messy house of a friend or someone else he lets me know he really dislikes it. Another hard thing is having them do their daily routine and little chores without being reminded. They only have a few things to do but somehow seem to forget quite often. Its crazy because they say that repetition is the best way to remember things but you'd think each day was the first time they were told to brush their teeth or take a shower.

This past school year I made them both weekly charts of their daily routine and they had to check off each thing that they were suppose to do in the morning and then report to me when they were done. No nagging on my part at all, they had a certain time to get it all done by. That worked out quite well. Of course once I stopped doing these charts thinking they had it down, noone could remember a thing. So here we are, back to charts because I hate asking them to do things more than once and constantly nagging for things to get picked up.

I talked to my mother the other day about this and how much it bothers me because it puts a lot of extra stress on me and I, a good amount of the time just end up doing everything myself. My mother said, " I have been telling your brother Dan for over 20 years now not to leave his shoes in front of the door and he still does it when he comes to visit to this day." She said," Sometimes they never get it! I remember her saying to me and my brothers when we were younger that she wonders how our houses would look when we grew up because we made such messes.

Funny thing is, is that all of us are neat people, and my brother Dan well, he never leaves his shoes in front of the door at his own house so we must have learned something even if we didn't show it living with her. Maybe its just the comfort of her and knowing she could take care of it and did it well, not knowing how much she did need us to do our part. Maybe that's how my children feel. Thing is though, I don't think I can stand to see if it happens until they move out, especially with another child on the way. I guess its a work in progress as is everything else when you are raising kids but for now charts it is!

HOT HOT Summer-Finally!

The weather here has been hot and humid lately, I do not mind at all! It seemed that we would never get a summer this year and now here it is full strength, it has been in the upper 90's with a heat index of 105-115! We finally upgraded our little plastic baby pool to a more appropriate size for an 11 and 8 year old. They love it so much and have been taking full advantage of the weather to use it.

Little Gabriel will be 10 months this Thursday, cant believe it! I enjoy everyday watching him grow and learn new things. He is now crawling at full speed, pulling up to standing and his newest milestone is standing without holding on to anything. I am quite sure he will walk before his first birthday. He is such a strong willed little boy and wants to do everything for himself. He has let us know lately that baby food and being fed by us just isn't going to happen anymore, so our biggest challenge has been finding good things he can feed himself that are soft enough ( since he has yet to get any teeth) but easy enough for him to pick up. Its been a bit hard.

I planted a few different vegetables and herbs this year and they are doing very well considering they are in big pots. My first few tomatoes are turning red and I cant wait to make pico de gallo salsa and eat warm tomatoes fresh off the plant, my absolute favorite! My mint plant is huge so I am going to have to make fresh spring rolls and start drying some for winter. I love summer and am not going to complain about the heat, after all before we know it , there will be snow on the ground once again and we will be longing for these dog days of summer.

So Far so Good

Since I haven't blogged in awhile let me start by catching you up on this crazy pregnancy. We are now at 26 weeks. I can't believe how fast the time is going by. At 15 weeks we had an amniocentesis and found out that the baby does infact have the E antigen that my body is making such high antibodies against. The name of the condition is Anti-E alloimmunization. Since then we have been going to the doctor about every 10-14 days for ultrasounds to measure blood velocity in an artery in the baby's brain to see if any signs of anemia are apparent. So far all of our appointments have resulted in good news. Starting at 28 weeks we have to go in every 7 days for fetal non-stress testing on top of our ultrasounds and regular ob checkups.

I am in good spirits about it all still and know that what we have to do is what we have to do for a healthy baby. I have been getting quite uncomfortable early on though so I do dream of the day when my body has a chance to recover from being pregnant for what seems like so long, I actually don't even feel like I had a 4 month break inbetween. I look forward to next summer when I have no restrictions and have my wonderful family all here, healthy, to enjoy it with!