Praise all around

Hayden is doing an AWESOME job on the toilet. So much so that he spoiled me seven nights in a row, waking up in a dry bed and underwear, that I almost forgot we were still "Training" on night eight. He woke me up Sunday morning to tell me he went pee-pee in his bed, and I thought, "That's so last week, Hayden". But it's been nice not to buy pull ups!

Last night, I walked into my bedroom and saw Hayden in my bathroom on the toilet. He went in there all by himself to use the facilities, and I was pretty pumped about it. No suggesting, no wailing, no bribery, just doing what he's supposed to. When he was done, he asked me to pull up his pants for him. I obliged and he gave me the biggest hug and said,

"I SUPER proud of you momma!!"

Apparently praise is for the assistant too!

What a cutie.

More crock pot love

Last night I wanted chicken and dumplings but not. So I modified my crockpot chicken and dumplings to this...

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cans chicken broth
Salt & pepper

Cook on low 4-5 hours. Pull chicken out and shred with two forks. Add it back to the crock with half a bag of uncooked egg noodles, and water, broth, milk or more soup to taste (depending on how runny or creamy you want it). An hour later, you have delicious chicken-and-noodle-goodness.

Strep. Again.

Hayden has strep throat AGAIN. I noticed his discolored tongue last night, and remembered that on Monday he said his belly hurt. Since we're well-versed in strep (because of the round in September), we made him an appointment today and it was quickly confirmed. One more round of antibiotics and a day home with dad...should fix him right up!

Mixed metaphor

Hayden and I like to practice things while he gets his "five minutes in your bed" with mom before he goes to bed. Bath time and play time and pajamas give way to five minutes in mom's bed watching tv, then two stories, a hefty round of hugs and kisses and tucking in and finally, sleep. But during those five minutes we practice our letters and colors and numbers and whatever else he may have learned lately. For example, he told me the fork in my hand the other day was a dinglehopper. Thank you, Little Mermaid. "Alexander" is still a mouthful for him, but he can say dinglehopper? He has finally gotten to the point where he'll tell me his whole name is Hayden Alexander Rogers and he's three years old (it used to be Hayden Alexander Rogers for the name but when asked how old he was, he would reply "Name Hayden"). We also work on his address and he has it down pretty well. So the other night I decided to practice one he already had a good handle on.

Mom: Hayden, let's do our ABC's.

Hayden: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, A, Y, D, E, N. 
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Seriously. And they call Americans egocentric? Weird.

Tonight we tried again and got "A, B, C, D, E, N." I suppose we'll keep trying!

Crock Pot Vegetable Soup

This is one of my favorite tricks I read about two years ago, and have been doing it ever since! We tend to have just a bit of leftover veggies after meals. Not quite enough to add to a dish for tomorrow's lunch, but silly to throw out. So I drain them, add them to a large Tupperware container and toss it in the freezer. I keep adding and adding until my bowl is full, and then I have the start to veggie soup! I use any kind of beans (lima, black, kidney, etc), corn, peas, green beans, potatoes, carrots, blackeyed peas, etc. When it's full, I take it out of the freezer a day ahead of time.

Add the veggies (even if they're still frozen!) to the crock pot. I add a pound of stew meat (raw is fine) or ground beef (cooked), a ziploc of celery (I chop and freeze the whole stalk when I buy it because we don't use it fast enough), one chopped onion, and then equal amounts of tomato sauce and condensed beef broth. I add a little pepper, but there's usually enough salt between the veggies and the sauce that I don't need to add salt. Cook on low 6-8 hours, checking to make sure there's enough liquid for your liking and dinner is served! I like to serve it with my honey corn muffins (recipe forthcoming) and sometimes a salad. Easy, tasty, and the best part is you've already paid for it!

Crock Pot Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are my holiday-achilles-heel dish. I never have a problem making them, but they always stress me out because of timing. I try to do them last to make sure they're hot for serving, but the last 15 minutes is the most stressful time of cooking a meal for me. So I hate them. I stumbled upon this recipe thanks to Crockin' Girls on Facebook. It turned out okay, but I think I figured out what I might do differently next time.
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Ingredients:

3 lb red potatoes (I would probably use yellow or white next time)
5 garlic cloves
1 diced onion (I would omit next time for a smoother texture)
2 T olive oil
2/3 c water (I found this to be a bit too much, 1/2 c should be plenty)
1 c cream cheese with chive and onion (I used the Philly Italian cooking creme instead, but had mixed results)
2 T butter
1/2 c milk

1. Dice potatoes (for regular potatoes, I would also peel) and add to crock pot. Add garlic, onion, salt & pepper to taste, water and oil; toss to coat. Cook on high 3-4 hours.

2. Mash potatoes to desired consistency, adding cream cheese, butter and milk. Leave in the crock pot on warm until served!

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Regardless of the recipe itself, I LOVED using the crock pot to cook and serve the potatoes. It made things so much simpler to have one less pot on the stove, one less colander to wash, one less thing to do 10 minutes before serving, and one less trivet to find for the table!

Oatmeal cookies

I needed a quick treat the other night to take to a neighbor's house and always have these ingredients on hand, so I whipped up a quick batch. The fun part? I was out of vanilla extract so I used maple instead...and they turned out great! I also kicked up the cinammon a bit and used dried craisins instead of raisins. It was a fun twist on a old classic!
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Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups rolled oats
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1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and, if desired, cinnamon and cloves. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. Stir in rolled oats.
2. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are golden. Let stand on cookie sheets for 1 minute. Transfer to wire racks and let cool. Makes about 48 cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had so much to be thankful for this year! For our first thanksgiving in our new house, I decided to cook for our family. We were so excited to be in our own home and able to have family over for dinner. Hayden took an extra long nap to make sure he was ready for his cousins and family.

While I'll do all the cooking and decorating, Jay was pretty helpful in the cleaning while I was in the kitchen. And of course, he's in charge of the carving!

I was so excited about everyone coming over, I may have overdone it just a bit on the cooking...

But there was plenty of food! I'm a little sad I didn't get pics of all the desserts, but suffice to say no one left hungry!

Thanksgiving is a special holiday for us, I realized it's one of the few that Jay and I have spent most of together! He's never missed one of Hayden's, and that's a pretty tall order considering deployments and whatot. It also marks a full year we've been back in the states and with our families instead of so far away. I'm excited to see what our next Thanksgiving will bring!