Hot chocolate

I will pick dark chocolate over milk chocolate any day. For some reason I've been making my hot chocolate with regular Hershey's Cocoa powder for years. Then I had a friend turn me on to Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder. I will never bother to make hot chocolate without the special dark again. Also, you can add in a bit of cayenne pepper to taste and it completely adds to the richness of the dark chocolate. My husband was worried my daughter would freak out over the spice of the cayenne, but she loved it that way. I added some marsh mellow and some heavy whipped cream. Sprinkled a bit of the cocoa on top and my daughter thought it was the best thing in the world. Try it out!

My Wicked Easy Alfredo

I love easy meals, I'm not much of a cook. I do hate packaged meals so when there is a need for an easy meal, its got to be at least semi homemade. I like to make the sauce ahead of time and put it in the freezer. Fridays are always so busy with dance class after school that dinner has to be made quickly. I take out the sauce before Morrigan gets off the school bus and it defrosts while we are at dance. I throw on some water when we get back, put in the pasta after the water boils for 9 minutes. I put the sauce in a sauce pan and heat it up. I love those Perdue Short Cuts Italian flavored chicken strips. I heat those up in the microwave. Also, Morrigan loves broccoli so I heat up frozen spears in my Pampered Chef Microwave Steamer (if you don't have one of these, go buy one, now!) In some water for 4 minutes. I bowl the pasta, throw on top the broccoli and the chicken, pour the sauce on top, sprinkle some parmesan cheese and nutmeg and you have yourself a quick and easy dinner that should of taken you a lot more time and effort.
The sauce....
4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.)Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
Just cut up the cream cheese into cubes and throw into a sauce pan. Cut up butter as well. Add the parmesan, milk, butter, pepper, and garlic powder and heat it on low until all is melted. You got yourself an Alfredo sauce, it's that easy! You can put the sauce in either a plastic container or just in a freezer bag and freeze it to be used later. I also like to freeze them into cubes in a ice cube tray for easy single servings. I eat Alfredo with pasta for lunch sometimes. To change it up, I also heat up some carrots and peas in with the broccoli and leave out the chicken as a quick lunch. 9 minutes to prepare the pasta and I have an awesome lunch. Its as easy as making a box of Mac and cheese.
Give it a try, play round with it. I wouldn't mind seeing what a little parsley and/or cayenne pepper might taste like in this sauce.

An interesting morning

Its always the hardest morning when your feeling under the weather. Its like the world makes you get up when you don't want to, makes you think a little harder when you can't and the day ends with you barely sleeping as you are just so darn uncomfortable. Today just happens to be one of those days for me.

It starts with me waking to my daughter knees in my back. After multiple time of me tell her to move over, I finally give up and get up. My daughter starts playing with her Monster High dolls so I sit on the couch closing my eye in an attempt to sooth the pounding headache. Then comes the first whine of the day. Her Monster High doll Cleo is missing an arm. Not a rare occurrence for these thing but still a problem since the missing limb is never anywhere near the doll. After hours of endless searching, the doll limb has still not be located so commence the end of the world cry. Now it is getting late and school will be starting soon. She is reluctant to get ready for school as she is terribly upset about her doll. Then I start the morning tradition of telling my daughter to get dressed over and over again. I wonder what the world record is? After that struggle I quickly do her hair and she cries some more. Then to the kitchen where I call my husband to ask if he has seen the doll's arm since our daughter now hates her life because nothing goes her way. As I'm on the phone pouring a bowl of cereal I notice the cat pooped on the floor. Before it is stepped on (learned from past experience not to put things like this off not even in the short time it would take to finish pouring the bowl of cereal) I clean up the poop, wash and continue with breakfast and having my husband tell me my screaming crying kid "will get over it" yes, she will get over one of her favorite toys being broken, DOUBT IT!!!! We are talking about Morrigan right? The kid remembers everything and gets over nothing!!!

I finally get the sobbing child to calm down long enough for her to put socks on. Then the mad dash to get the coat, hat, mittens, and scarf on then finally her shoes. We wait outside in the cold for the school bus. As she ran around in the front yard she seemed to have forgotten about the missing doll arm. There were no more tears, no more "mommy pleaseeeee, you've just got to find Cleo's arm" like I heard all morning. Now she is on the bus, heading school  and happy. I should head back to bed for the next 3 hours to try and sleep of this headache. No, I will rip apart the doll box under my daughter's bed and her room looking for the doll's arm. Why? Because I'm mom and that is what I do.

Holiday shopping

Holiday shopping is NOT a fun time for me. Some people get a thrill out of the great finds and the bargain prices at this time of year. For me, it gives me retail flashbacks. I hate being in a crowded store dodging crazy people pushing carts. If this is how they drive a cart, I'd hate to see how they drive their cars. I prefer online shopping. But then online shopping hurts the small mom and pop shops. Thankfully those stores are not as busy as department stores. I try also to start shopping in July. I like to be done by September except the big ticket items that we pick up on black Friday. I also wait for black Friday for board games, at Target many are just $10. This year I worked black friday, the first time in 6 years. I am now working holiday help at my old employer JCPenney in the Hanover Mall. I'm only doing weekends but of course it is mandatory for everyone to work black Friday. Its something that took some time to get used to again but its all coming back to me now. This year I plan on getting my daughter a Nintendo 3ds and something nice for my husband so the extra money is needed. Not last year but the year before my husband bought me a very expensive camera a DSLR by Canon. I really want to get him something nice like that as well. The focus has always been our daughter but with my extra money this year I can get him something better than the usual clothes I get him. 

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you are all enjoying this holiday as much as I am. Morrigan made some lovely crafts between yesterday and today. She is also playing pilgrim and dressing the part. We are about to eat but I wanted to briefly share the crafts Morrigan made along with a few photos of her as a pilgrim.

Days off from school is not a day off from learning!

Nothing like waking up to your child sleeping on your face. My daughter Morrigan had been sleeping with her head on mine. I was only able to open one eye since the other was pinned shut by her chubby little cheek. The one open eye was only able to see her mouth and the tip of her nose. I couldn't help but think, how could this be comfortable for her? She was sleeping on my husband's down pillow, why switch to my hard head? This was very uncomfortable for me so I rolled her off my face and back onto a pillow. She woke for a brief moment so I said good morning. She replies "Today is my day off Mama, I can sleep all day if I wanted to and I want to" she rolls over putting her back towards me and goes back to sleep. If she needs more sleep then fine, but there will be no sleeping all day. Nor will there be TV watching all day or playing all day. A day off from school is not a day off from learning.

Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow we will have a history lesson on pilgrims. Since we live in Massachusetts this is not a hard lesson to teach. Plymouth is about 30 minutes away from us. I am well prepared from this history lesson with both knowledge and books, photos, and the mayflower passenger list all bought on our last trip to the Plymouth Plantation. We will be making turkey hats and Morrigan will list all the things she is thankful for. Then tomorrow she will tell the whole family what it is she is thankful for. We have also given food to our local food pantry so Morrigan understands what is most important and what she should be truly grateful for.

Also, she will be helping me make a Thanksgiving day trifle. Morrigan helps with food preparation on Thanksgiving so she can appreciate what work goes into making all that food on Thanksgiving . She will also be helping my mom with an apple pie.

There are lessons in everything. Thanksgiving provides a great opportunity for a history lesson and a way to teach gratefulness and humility.

Happy Thanksgiving!