This morning Jessie Anne wanted her daddy and wanted to scream until he held her. Boyd had to put her down and told her that her crying was hurting his heart.

Maggie Anne chimed in and said, "And it's hurting my ears!"

I've had fun experimenting with fresh herbs on chicken this week. Started with boneless skinless chicken breast. I sautéed it in butter then add 1 oz of cream cheese and whatever fresh herbs you like.

Boyd had the mission to find the freshest looking herbs at the store, so I didn't know what he would be bringing. My favorite was a poultry mix that he found that had Rosemary, Sage & Thyme. It was incredible and the cream cheese makes a little sauce. We also had Tarragon one night.

We had some bone-in chicken breasts and I made an herb butter out the same ingredients (put them all in the Ninja food processor) and stuffed it under the skin. Boyd is not a fan of baked chicken and even he enjoyed it.

The sauce also went fantastically over the the squash and zucchini we had on the side.

Boyd was making the kids pancakes in a new pan today. Well, it got hotter than the griddle that he usually uses and the pancakes burned. He was showing them to the kids and Maggie Anne showed her typical support. She told him, "It's ok! Accidents do happen!" Just funny hearing that coming from such a little girl.

A big thank you to everyone who has sent us Box Tops recently! Dalton's class won for bringing the most. Now sure of all that they win, but evidently there is a trophy that gets to live in their classroom until the next cutoff. He is really excited!

Jessie Anne has had a rough couple of weeks. There were several days where if you looked at her she would scream at you. Maybe that's why her sweetness tonight is so delightful.

She has been teaching me how to blow kisses. She holds my hand and puts it to my mouth and makes the kissing noises for me.

She was even happy in her bath and poured the water on her own head. A definite first!

I think the funniest was when we were practicing saying her grandparents' names. We had a quick visit this weekend. She has mastered saying Papa, but hasn't quite got the Honey down yet. Tonight, no matter what I said, she responded with Papa.

Can you say Honey?

Papa!

Can you say Honey?

Papa!

Can you say Papa? (I was hoping the change up would work)

She just stared at me and I swear she rolled her eyes (yeah, I know that's not possible) and said PA-PA!

Then she gave me that irresistible grin.

Just now, she brought me my rain boots, dropped them on the floor in front of me and said, "Boots!" which is another new word for her. She grabbed my foot and started pulling it toward them. When I didn't respond, she gave me her little clap help/please sign).

Don't know what has gotten into her, but I'm eating it up. The terrible twos come early in this house, so I treasure the sweet and peaceful moments while I can.

Maggie Anne told us the other night that two of the little boys in her class were fighting over her. Her explanation of the fight consisted of about 3 minutes of her voicing, "My Maggie! No, my Maggie! No, My Maggie!" She went on and on and on which made it hard for us not to laugh.

I have my eyes on the boys!

I wanted to share the burrito recipe that I made the other night when I made the new Spanish rice recipe. This one comes from Ree Drummond off of our Apple app.

Beef & Bean Burritos

1 medium onion, diced
2 pounds ground beef
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
Three 7-ounce cans Mexican tomato sauce (she used El Patobrand) or enchilada sauce
One 28-ounce can refried beans
3/4 cup grated cheddar, plus extra for sprinkling
12 burrito-size flour tortillas
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 170-180 degrees.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the onions until softened. Then add the ground beef and cook until the beef is cooked through. Add the cumin, chili powder, oregano and salt and stir to combine. Pour 2 cans of the Mexican tomato sauce into the meat and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Add a little water if the mixture gets too dry.

Meanwhile, heat the refried beans in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the cheese and stir it in until it's melted. Remove from the heat.

Heat the tortillas in the microwave for 1 minutes and then spread a small amount of beans on each tortilla. Add a small amount of the meat. Fold over the ends of the tortilla, and then roll them up. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas. Then place them in a large baking dish, cover with foil and keep warm in the oven.

When ready to serve, drizzle the remaining can of tomato sauce over all the burritos and sprinkle with more grated cheddar. Return to the oven for a couple of minutes just to melt the cheese.

Sprinkle the tops with the cilantro leaves and serve immediately.

**Now, as I typed this, I realized that I made some accidental mistakes alongside the changes that I intentionally made. Boyd and I noticed that the ground beef mixture was quite spicy, so we just made the kids' burritos with beans and cheese. I now see that I made a mistake because I used 1 pound of ground beef with the same amount of seasonings. It was not uncomfortable for me to eat and most of you know that I am a sissy when it comes to extreme heat, so it wasn't all that bad.

I also skipped the step of pouring sauce and cheese on top of them (I didn't have cilantro either). It worked best for the kids to be able to pick them up and eat them, so that's what we went with and they chowed down with no complaints.

For the record, I used enchilada sauce and it was excellent, but I went with that because I already knew that we liked it.

Happy eating!

We went to our favorite park this afternoon to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Jessie showed off her climbing skills.

And her seesaw skills.

Please note the sign and where 2 of my kids can be found.

This is not from getting hurt. This is the complete fit thrown when I pulled her off the tank.

Maggie Anne learned how to climb the rock wall. Again, her big brother was a big help! (Maggie is the pink bottom on the right)

More fun at the zoo this weekend! Jessie Anne enjoyed the drums again.

And seeing the giraffe.

Her brother was very helpful on the slide.

Maggie Anne wanted her picture taken with the Hog.

This friendly little penguin jumped across the rocks to say an up-close hello to Jessie. She was nice enough to wave hi back.

Dalton even helped Jessie Anne be brave enough to do the big slide.

Where did these curls come from???

Another fun recipe to share that I got off of allrecipes.com. I was in search of a Spanish rice recipe to add a side dish for the grown ups last night when I made beef & bean burritos. This one turned out to be really good, however next time I will use more rice because this was a little light on the rice to veggie proportions.

Spanish Rice II

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup uncooked white rice
1 onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
2 cups water
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes and green chiles
2 teaspoons chili powder, or to taste
1 teaspoon salt

Heat oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Saute rice, onion and bell pepper until rice is browned and onions are tender.

Stir in water and tomatoes. Season with chili powder and salt. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until rice is cooked and liquid is absorbed.

Like I said, next time I'll use 1 1/2 cup rice and 3 cups water to make more rice than veggies. This makes a moist delicious rice that is a distant (better) cousin to the dry coral-colored stuff I usually see at Mexican restaurants. I highly recommend it.

Avocados have been on sale so Boyd picked up a few for us. I'm not a huge fan of the texture of these, so I went digging for recipes. When I started coming across dessert recipes, I was too intrigued to pass them up. Here is what we tried last night.

Avocado Dessert

1 avocado, peeled and pitted
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mash avocado with an electric mixer, or use a food processor (I used our Ninja blender/processor and it was completely smooth). Blend in the milk, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Chill for about 20 minutes before serving.

Of course, I can't leave anything alone, so I one-upped this and put it in the freezer. It froze up beautifully.

Dalton even liked it until we told him what was in it.

Almost forgot. This recipe came from my allrecipes.com app.

Maggie Anne was playing with one of Dalton's action figures while I brushed my teeth the other morning. She was jibber-jabbering, but I heard her say, "This guy is a ground hog." I was forced to speak up (between giggles) and tell her that he was in fact the Hulk and that he was a super hero.

Her response, "Nope! He's a ground hog."

Perhaps the Hulk would have had a more accurate prediction of Spring's arrival.

We have a new word.

Maggie Anne was stylin' as she enjoyed the ribs that Boyd grilled for us Saturday night. They were awesome!

We rarely go out to eat with all three kids, but we gave it a whirl today at El Portone where the kids can eat free on Sunday. The fact that it was warm enough to eat outside helped too. We can probably count the times on one hand that Jessie Anne has actually eaten in a restaurant so we didn't know exactly how it would turn out, but she was so super sweet. She held her dad's hand for a lot of lunch. 

And so it has begun. Dalton has a friend over this afternoon. This friend just turned down more video games because he wanted to play with Maggie Anne. I already have to start watching the boys.

I thought I would have more time than this!

So, a kid with stomach flu almost destroyed my couch last week. I was able to wash the cushion covers well enough, but the pillows were destroyed. Exploring Etsy, I cam across these awesome gems. Got to pick the color of my zig zag and the color of the felt cut out.

What I love SO, SO much is that Blair was able to cut out hearts for Ruston & New Orleans on the Louisiana pillow.

Here's the link to the three sisters Etsy store:

www.etsy.com/shop/ThreeSistersGalleryB?ref=seller_info

They have a ton of really cute designs!

Well, I finally went and made a recipe that I saw on Pinterest! Amazing, I know! It looked really great and I had been looking for an Asian-style noodle recipe. While Boyd likes food much more spicy than I do, I decided to be adventurous and give these a try. I made a pretty big mistake and it ended up almost too hot for Boyd to enjoy, but I made it through a small helping and am anxious to try it again on a lower heat level. I'm putting the link below the recipe because they have really pretty pictures to go along with the recipe.

Spicy Thai Noodles

1 to 2 Tablespoons crushed red pepper (I used 1 heaping Tablespoon and it was too hot for us)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sesame oil

Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes (this was my second mistake, I left it standing for about 1 minute more which further intensified the heat). Strain the red pepper and reserve the oil.

Add to the reserved oil:

6 Tablespoons honey
6 Tablespoons soy sauce

Cook package of linguine or angel hair pasta (I used plain old spaghetti)

Pour liquid over the noodles and mix well. Stir every few minutes so the noodles can soak up all the liquid from the bottom of the bowl.

Add the following to the top of the noodles before serving:

Chopped green onions
Shredded carrots
Chopped cilantro
3/4 cup peanuts
Toasted Sesame Seeds

So, I don't like onions and I didn't have carrots or cilantro, but I did throw the peanuts and sesame seeds in a dry skillet to toast them up and they were super yummy! While I made this batch too spicy to truly enjoy, the flavors were so good that I can't wait to try it again.

Here's the original post and another cute blog:

http://asmallsnippet.com/2011/03/spicy-thai-noodles.html

Every so often I find special evidence that I live in a house full of kids. I found this today when I got up. Had to laugh.

In case you have ever wondered what a mouth full of Peep looks like . . .

A great big THANK YOU to our cousin Margaret for sending a boatload of Box Tops for Dalton's school!

Maggie Anne made me laugh on the way home. It's unusually cold and tonight it was rainy. She was asking me if there was thunder because she knows that when there is thunder and lightning, they can't play in the rain. Well, it's 40 degrees, so she wasn't playing in the rain anyway. I told her it was too cold.

After a pause, she exclaimed, "Aaaahhhhh, POOP! I forgot my jacket!" With her Southern drawl, it was especially funny. I think her logic is funny, too - that forgetting her jacket was the only reason that she wasn't going to get to play in the rain.