Grandpa and his Girls

The picture is a little dark, but the idea is priceless. Grandpa with Izzy, Ruby and Ellie on his lap watching Sammy and Ally's basketball game back in February. I think all four of them were loving it!

Tarragon Chicken

Nick was searching for some new recipes the other week and came across this one. It sounded healthy and different so we gave it a try. We LOVE it! It is on the menu for next week--- the third time in 2 months!

Because the official name of "Grilled Chicken with Mustard-Tarragon Sauce" is too long for our dinner menu on the white erase board we call it "Tarragon Chicken".

The hardest part about making it is chopping up the shallots. We tried it with regular yellow onion the first time and shallots the second, we like the shallots better. We use dried Tarragon instead of fresh. And for step 1, we grilled the chicken on the grill instead of the stove (which then eliminated the need for the cooking spray).

Tarragon Chicken*

Ingredients

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
Cooking spray
3 tablespoons minced shallots
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 cups gourmet salad greens

Preparation

1. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken evenly with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Coat pan with cooking spray. Place chicken in pan; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done.

2. Combine remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper, shallots, and next 6 ingredients (through sugar) in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Serve chicken over greens with sauce.

*If you don't like onions this isn't the recipe for you. We have yet to feed it to Ellie- she is not a big lettuce fan yet so we don't have any child reviews.

5 on Friday

1. Nick turned 32 last Sunday. We celebrated with Blueberry French Toast for breakfast/lunch and dinner with his Mom and Jeff at Hessen Haus. Yum!
2. We have had some crazy weather this week. A beautiful weekend, then tornadoes on Tuesday and today we have snow.
3. Ellie did not know what to think about the tornado sirens going off on Tuesday night. She gave Nick a worried look at first, but then got over it.
4. I am not looking forward to tornado season (both at home and at work). Ellie goes to sleep at 7PM… what is the likelihood we can get through the season without having to wake her up to go downstairs?
5. When it looks nice outside, but is actually windy and cold, Ellie doesn’t understand (or like) that she cannot spend time outside searching for Da-Dos (dogs) and feeding the ducks. She gets very upset when she wants to go ‘bye-bye’ and we have to stay inside.

What Happens in Vegas Gets Posted on This Blog

A month later! Here is a belated run-down of our vacation adventures from last month:

• Nick mountain biked through McDowell Sonoran Preserve, while I attended a few board meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather was beautiful and I think he had a great time (my meetings went well, so I had a good time as well).

• While in Scottsdale we had the chance to have dinner with an old college roommate, Elissa, and her husband, Ed. We enjoyed visiting with them and wish we could see them more often (it had been 4+ years).

Then it was a road trip onto Vegas via the Hoover Dam. The view across the dessert was amazing. What a gorgeous structure the Dam is! And the new bridge over the Dam area--- very neat.

• Getting to the Strip in Vegas was actually pretty easy. Getting into our hotel was a little more difficult. After about 3 times of driving down the Strip we made it into the parking garage. We also got lost a number of times IN the hotels. Those places are huge, and at times we felt like the signs telling us where to go were put there by 'mistake' in order to take us through the entire casino part. Either way, it was fun and we got to see more of the hotels/casinos. We were greeted by this beautiful scenery inside our hotel, The Venetian. The picture does not do it justice- it is beautiful.
  

• We walked a lot! My feet were hurting by the end (OK, middle) of the trip. For anyone familiar with the Strip, we walked from our hotel to MGM in order to see these guys:
  

• We saw Zumanity at New York New York. It is a Cirque Due Soleil show and I really wanted to see a Cirque show. Here is the description: http://promo-www.cirquedusoleil.com/las-vegas/zumanity-shows.html It was interesting. A little (or a lot) more provocative than Nick or I expected going into it... but we can now say we have been to a Cirque show, and overall we did enjoy it. I am still amazed at how big everything is. This picture is of one hotel and there are how many of them on the Strip. Even if you don't gamble- taking a trip just to see the hotels is worth it.
  

• The food was good. We ate at Pink Hot Dogs at the Magnificent Mile mall at Planet Hollywood. I had never imagined all the things you could put on a hot dog! I would definitely recommend to anyone traveling to Vegas- neither Nick nor I finished our dogs.
  

• In general, Nick and I are not gamblers. But being in Vegas we wanted the full experience. We had trouble finding a simple black jack table (they were all some different version of it that confused us) so we settled on the Big Six game where you bet on a number, they spin a wheel and you get paid out (or not paid out) based on the number. I liked it because we kept our bets conservative and thus spent more time at the table (without losing much money). I think the first night we had 4+ hours of gambling entertainment for $20 between the two of us. Our favorite casino was at the Bellagio. It was clean, didn't smell like smoke, had a great dealer (Linda, who had been to Iowa before) and the waitresses visited our table frequently.

• My favorite part was the Bellagio Water Show. We saw it a number of times and enjoyed it each time. If you want to see more pictures check out the Shutterfly Family Share Site--- we took a lot.
  

• Since my feet hurt from walking we took the monorail down the end of the strip in order to see the Stratosphere.

• We have never been to Paris and it will be a while before we get there (maybe once Ellie is out of college?). We settled for second best and took a ride up in the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower.

This is what we saw from the top… a great summary of our vacation.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Click here to view these pictures larger

5 on Friday

1. Our 6-year old nephew, Alex, is in the hospital fighting a very bad case of pneumonia. The Drs. were surprised by what they found when they went in for surgery earlier this week- it got really bad, really fast. We hope the little guy gets better very soon!

2. With Alex in the hospital, I took his sister, Natalie, to my parent's house to spend a few days with them. Natalie and I had a fun last minute 'road trip' to Ames and she was really excited for her McDonald's toy in her Happy Meal! She was not as excited about having me put her eye drops in her eyes.

3. As my cousins/sister and I discussed on Facebook, it was very hard having our Mom's out of cell phone range for such a long period of time. Next time they either need to go someplace with normal cell service... or take us with them.

4. Ellie officially moving into size 18-24 month clothes. Hands down we have the most clothes in this size- 2 large bins full. She should be set for spring, summer and fall (but don't tell Nick or he won't let me buy her any new clothes... Hi Nick!)

5. Ellie is obsessed with being outside. She loves feeding the ducks in the backyard and searching the neighborhood for dogs. She does NOT like coming inside, and will throw a mini-fit when you make her.

While Mommy and Daddy Were Away...

I played... with Grandma and Grandpa!

While Mommy and Daddy were down south, I took my very own vacation to Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Here are a pictures from my vacation:

One of my favorite places to go was the Mall.
Grandma (and Grandpa on Saturday) would push me in the stroller past all the stores,
then I got to visit the kids play area. It was fun!

Sometimes I created my own 'play equipment'. I really liked going places....and knew exactly where my coat was located.
I was a little impatient if Grandma wasn't ready to go when I was.

I even got a workout in!
Sometimes I had to help Grandma and Grandpa.The top toy wouldn't work on the carpet, so we had to use it in the store room.
There were lots of things to do at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Grandpa even put up a tent for me to play in!
Grandma took me lots of places in the mornings.
We went to the library for story time.
We went to PlayPals (kiddie gym) at the community center.
Here are some pictures from PlayPals:

Look at all those toys!
I could push them.
I could ride on them.
This emergency car even had a remote radio.

There were blocks and lots of balls too.
Grandma let me stay until all the toys were put away and the other kids had left.
She knew I wouldn't be happy if I thought I'd miss out of something.

Back at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grandpa let me wear his work name badge!
And I can make this toy move now!
Best of all--- having a second lunch with Grandpa.
I did lots more things during my stay....
like helping Grandma get the mail,
going for rides in the stroller because the weather was so nice,
meeting some of the neighbors with Grandpa,
and looking out the windows to see the dogs walk by.

It was a very busy five days and lots of fun.

Thanks for letting me vacation with you, Grandma and Grandpa!

5 on Friday

1. Do you ever have those weeks were it goes by really fast but when you think back on it you don’t remember what happened? This is one of those weeks for me.

2. Baby Bunky (my sister and brother-in-laws future baby) is a boy!

3. Going off of the above note: I spent a decent amount of time last night going through 12 bins of baby clothes/items so I could get some bins ready to give to Megan.

4. A belated Happy Birthday to my Goddaughter, our niece and Ellie’s cousin, Izzy! She turned the big 04 on Wednesday.

5. Eleanor and I were waiting for her bath water to get ready the other night and I took her diaper off in the bathroom. All of the sudden she got really sad/worried/upset and kept on saying “Ut Oh!” over and over again. She had gone to the bathroom on the rug. I told her it was OK and Mommy could wash the rug. She was still upset but got over it when the bath was ready for her. Does this mean I might get lucky and she will want to potty train early? I can only hope.

Ready for Spring

I am over winter and ready for spring... so it is time for a new background.

Enjoy!

Time for Silverware

We have started letting Ellie use silverware for dinner.

She still prefers her fingers.

5 on Friday

1. We spent part of last weekend at AAU basketball games watching my two oldest nieces play. Ellie was very interested in watching all the action. Way to go Ally and Sammy- we are so proud of you two!

2. I also got the pleasure of taking my brother's younger two girls to our house to play during one of the four games. It was hilarious having a almost 5 year old, almost 3 year old and 1 year old all packed into the backseat of the Taurus (yes, you can fit three car seats in the back seat of that car!) I loved it!

3. Ellie also got to go swimming in a big pool for the first time with her cousins. She did great in the big pool.

4. Super fun weekend, not so fun Monday and Tuesday as Ellie and I were sick with the stomach flu.

5. Since we were sick I wasn't able to pull the picture of Ellie and her cousin, Ruby, swimming off the camera and get it posted for Ruby's birthday on Monday. So a Belated Happy 3rd Birthday to Ruby! (Picture to come in a later post.)