Pajama Day

We have yet again had a pretty laid-back week. We've been to the grandparents' (both sides) house for dinners, played a lot, and tried to catch up on sleep. Tomorrow we are going to my friend, Rachel's house for dinner and another play-date for Juliette and Emma. The boys sort of have fun too (Juan has LOTS of videogames!), and the Mamas enjoy adult conversation while the girls play. It's so nice to have someone with a daughter so close in age. It is also great that we seem to be pretty similar in our ideas on parenting. I think I may have mentioned before, we both graduated from St. Pius (she was the year after me) and we both teach/taught severe and profoundly disabled students in Dekalb County. However, we didn't actually "meet" until last year when I realized from her facebook page that we were both due, with little girls, one day apart from each other! It's a small world.

Unfortunately, Juliette's an even worse sleeper than Emma, so we brought our co-sleeper over for them to try out a few days ago. Brad mistakenly left a piece at home, so we have to bring it to them tomorrow as well. I'm hoping that they enjoy it as much as we did. It's so much easier to get up in the middle of the night when you don't actually have to get "up." I could reach right over, grab Emma, feed her, put her back down, and lay back down without actually waking up. It was great while it lasted.

Tonight started out pretty rough. For starters, we had a "pajama day." It was the first day since Emma was born that I honestly didn't change her clothes from morning until bedtime. Luckily, she kept them clean. We didn't have a good night last night and I just wasn't very motivated to do much, as we didn't have any plans for the day. Emma took a late nap that ran even later while I cooked dinner (more on that in a second). She got fussy around her regular bedtime, so we bathed her and put her down then. I should have known better. Unfortunately, she wasn't really sleepy. She fussed every 5 minutes for a good hour. After both of us tried our patented tricks to get her to sleep (Brad has this "arm thing" that he does that knocks her out everytime - but not tonight) I finally gave up. I told Brad that I'd rather get her up and enjoy her for awhile rather than fight her. So we did. And I'm glad we did, or we would have missed this.....

She LOVES it when you scare her! I think that shows a little bit of what kind of a girl she is. She's fun-loving and loves to be where the action is. After playing for awhile, she went right down in her crib and is asleep as I type this. I'm watching her on the video monitor, which is the coolest thing EVER. Highly recommend it. It's nice because I can check in the middle of the night when she fusses and see if her passy is out, and we need to go in, or if she's just tossing and turning. So great.

So dinner tonight was FABULOUS! I saw a recipe on Rachel Ray for White Chicken Chili. I can't stand Rachel, but happened to catch it when she was showing the top 10 requested recipes off of her show - most of them weren't her recipes! We changed it just a touch and made it even better. The best thing was that it was SOOO easy. It was literally ready in 20 minutes. Here's the recipe - you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you don't try it. Trust me.

Combine all ingredients in a pot over high heat:

32 oz. chicken stock (one of the boxes)

3 cans of white beans, undrained (we used 2 cans white beans, 1 can black beans)

1, 16-oz jar of salsa (we used hot because it will be so diluted, it wasn't hot at ALL)

5 cups of cooked chicken (I baked 3 chicken breasts at 400 degrees for 40 minutes with seasoned salt and garlic powder, and then shredded them)

2 tsp ground cumin

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 oz of pepper jack cheese (I used a bag of Monterrey jack)

salt and pepper to taste

sour cream, to garnish

You literally throw the ingredients in a pot, bring them to a boil, and simmer for as long as you want to. I think we let it cook for 15 minutes or so. Everything's already cooked, so you're just cooking to combine the flavors. We served it with tortilla chips and it was SOOO good - it will be a regular in our house. You can also cook it in a crock pot - put the raw chicken in with the other ingredients, cook on high 6-8 hours, remove and shred chicken, add it back in, and simmer. Yum. Let me know if you try it!

I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow if I remember to bring my camera. Can't wait to see the girls play again!