Calling All Princesses and Princes

Caitlyn decided that this year she wanted to have a Princess party, complete with dressing up. Her favorite princess is Jasmine, from Aladdin, and let me tell you, there isn't much Jasmine stuff out there. My mom found the costume on Ebay and only the sleeves needed to be shortened. Of course the legs were too long, but since they had elastic in them, we just left the elastic part near her knee and pulled the extra material down, which came to the perfect length. The weather unfortunately called for rain; how come it was 70 degrees on Friday but couldn't stay nice enough for Saturday. We have carpet in our garage, so we just set it up with stuff for the kids to do - make magic wands, a coloring table, a Princess book corner, a tea party and someone the boys found the Elmo vacuum cleaner. We all had a great time; enjoy the video.

ps - My parents gave Caty a doll house for her birthday, that used to be mine. It was given to me by my grandparents for Christmas of 1981. Caty's seen pictures of it and was so surprised when she opened her eyes and saw the doll house in our living room. She is just LOVING it!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY PRINCESS CAITLYN! - the actual birthday day

Where have the past 4 years gone? I cannot tell you. They have flown by so quickly but we have treasured every single day! Caitlyn is truly a blessing to us and we are so proud of her and her accomplishments.

As you all know, Caty turned 4 last week, on March 19th. Scott took the day off of work so he was able to get lots of Caty time in. We dropped her off at preschool, came home for awhile, then headed back in time for sharing and snack. Caty was the "special helper" for the day, seeing as it was her birthday. When it's your special day, you get to bring something to share and snack. We tried to convince her to share daddy, but she wasn't going for that. She brought her Princess camera instead. On Wednesday she and I made the cupcakes for snack and boy were they yummy! We had a great time hanging out in her classroom for a little while.

Sharing her Princess camera

Reading a card she got from the teachers
Cupcake time!Enjoying cupcakes with the classOur 4 year old!
Singing and Dancing to "If You're Happy and You Know It."Singing more songs
Caty and her class

From school, we headed over to Applebee's, as that is where Caty wanted to have her birthday lunch. She's always been a big fan, not exactly sure what started the fascination, but she's got one for Applebee's. We had a great lunch, then headed over to Toys R Us for her birthday balloon and to pick out something for her birthday. I was planning on hitting Toys R Us on Tuesday, but I was experiencing more car problems and never made it. You'll understand my car problems if you've seen my status updates on Facebook. Back to the Birthday Girl though...

From here we headed to Baskin Robbins for her free scoop of ice cream. We enjoyed our scoops and headed home - it was after 2:00 and we'd been out for quite awhile. Here's what happened on the way home.

Later that day a few presents arrived, so she was super excited about opening them. A box from Tutu (Scott's mom - Tutu is grandma in hawaiian) arrived as well as a present from Uncle Todd and Auntie Erin (my brother and sister-in-law).

Opening some presents

A Princess bucket

The best present we could have ever asked for
A Snow White doll from Uncle Todd and Auntie Erin

I know, I'm a SLACKER!!

So it's been awhile since my last post, not counting the recipe one, I thought I'd catch you up on a few things.

I'm now 27 weeks pregnant. We had our ultrasound done to check on little missy to see how she's growing. She's growing just as she should be, even slightly ahead. When I had the ultrasound done on March 2nd, I was one day shy of 25 weeks, well she measured at 26 weeks and a few days and at 2 lbs already. Her limbs are growing as they should be, which is what we expected. Now with Caitlyn, the chance of her being a dwarf was 1 in 25,000. If you've previously had a dwarf child, then your odds are slightly, and very slightly, higher - a .02% chance higher - which is nothing. But we figured we'd have the ultrasound done anyways just to check it out. I've been feeling good, except just being tired and some congestion lately due to seasonal allergies. We're hoping to get working on Caty's new room in the next couple of weeks. We decided to move her, as her room is already set up to match the crib set, between the colors on the wall and the wallpaper border, why do it all over again. So Caty will be moving into what is now our office. We've got to find a small corner computer desk to fit into our living room/dining room, then we can start the process of moving stuff out. We've only got less than 3 months to make this happen and we are hoping to get Caty moved into hew new room sometime in May. That's about it on the baby front.

If you'll remember, those of you on Facebook, that Caty had her annual check-up at the Skeletal Dysplasia Clinic back about a month ago. We got the write up from the doctors the other day and all looks well with her, which we already knew. Okay, everything is good, except for the fluid in her ears. We've met with an ENT and she will be getting tubes on April 9th. We're hoping that this will make a significant improvement in her speech and her continuously saying "HUH?" Besides that there really isn't much else to share about her visit. She weighs in at 25 lbs and is just under 30 inches tall. My mom met us there and luckily we were only in the exam room for about an hour. Nothing like spending 3.5 hours driving to spend an hour with the doctors. But hey, it's very reassuring to hear from the specialists that she's doing great.

Not much else is going on with us. We've just been keeping busy and filling our days with different activities. Hope that all is well with everyone!

She got a SPARE

Here's a video of Caty playing some Wii Bowling. This was the first time she ever tried this game. She's quite good at Mario Kart - I'll have to get a video of her playing that as well. We were shocked that she actually broke 100! I think we'll just have to try out real bowling now.

Recipe of the Week - Chicken, Rice & Broccoli Casserole

Chicken, Rice & Broccoli Casserole

1 10 oz pkg frozen chopped broccoli (sometimes we use the florets, to have bigger pieces)
1 c. Minute Rice
1-2 c. chopped, cooked chicken (I just boil enough chicken tenderloins for the 3 of us, then chop)
1 c. milk
1 c. grated cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 c chopped onion

Microwave the broccoli in a 2 qt dish. Cook on High for 2 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients, minus 1/2 the cheese. Microwave for 6 minutes. Stir and sprinkle remaining 1/2 c cheese on top. Cook another 5 minutes.

ps - you HAVE to use Minute Rice. We've tried it with long grain rice and it didn't work. I've also substituted frozen peas for the broccoli, as Caty isn't a fan! I can't remember but when I did this, I don't think that I cooked the peas for the 2 minutes, as all that cooking time, might have made them really mushy. I think I just added them in with all the ingredients.

It doesn't get much easier than this!

Recipe of the Week - Minestrone Soup

Minestrone Soup

2 medium onions, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 medium carrots, cut into pieces (or I used baby carrots)
2 medium potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
4 celery stalks, cut into pieces
2 zucchinis, cut into pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup tightly packed fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 cup chopped basil
2 15oz cans pinto beans drained, puree 3/4 of 1 can in food processor, adding a small amount of water to make the consistency somewhat like refried beans
1 cup dried small pasta
3/4 - 1 cup Parmesan cheese
15 oz can petite diced tomatoes, including juice
dried sage, about 2 tsp, adding more if needed
salt and pepper

Set aside 1/3 of the onions. In a large pot, combine onions, carrots, potatoes, celery and tomatoes. Cover by an inch or so of water. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer gently for 45 minutes. When there is about 15 minutes of cooking time left, saute reserved onions in skillet with a little olive oil for a few minutes. Stir in garlic, sage, parsley and basil. Cook another minute. Add saute to large pot along with the whole beans and pureed beans. Add more water if needed to cover by 1 inch. Simmer slowly, partially covered, another 45 minutes. Add more water, if needed, so consistency is that of watery stew. Season to taste with more salt, pepper and sage. During the last 5 minutes, add the zucchini. Once finished, stir in Parmesan cheese.

As for the pasta noodles - this past time that I made it, I cooked the noodles separately to al dente. I ladle the soup into individual tupperware containers that hold 12 oz, and freeze them. I filled probably 8 tupperware. Instead of filling each one completely full of soup, I left a small amount of space and put about 1/4 c or less of noodles in each one. You can also add the noodles in during the last 8-10 minutes of cooking, but I've noticed that when I do this, they always come out a little over-cooked for me. Then when you defrost the soup and reheat it again it cooked them even farther and they turn to mush. Your choice.

Scott doesn't like soup, so it's all for me. This pot of soup makes A WHOLE BUNCH!!

Let me know what you think.