Summer Vacations with Kids

I just got back from a little vacation, and I meant to post while I was away but that just didn't end up happening. I really find it ironic that going on vacation with kids is actually really stressful, not really a vacation at all! The kids seemed to stay up later than the adults and the cousins fought with each other non-stop. I basically came home feeling like I needed a vacation from my vacation :)

Ahhh and as a matter of fact, we're going on another vacation in a couple days. This time I'm really freaked out about taking a 10 month old on a long plane ride. For one thing he won't sit still, and another thing is that he's fully walking on his own already so it's not like he isn't mobile yet. I'm thinking about bringing a Baby Einstein video for the plane but I can't imagine that's going to help for longer than maybe 20 minutes of a 6 hour flight. Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll take a nice long nap... but that still leaves lots of time to fill. He's the kind of baby who doesn't want to sit on your lap, he'll wiggle and squirm his way down so he can explore.

I'd love to hear any advice or suggestions anyone has, I'm freaking out!

Chicken Noodle Soup

I'm looking after my 11 year old niece for the summer so that she doesn’t have to go to summer camp with her brother, it’s a win-win situation. It works out great for me because it gives my daughter someone to play with and she’s also a big help with watching my son while I get some things done around the house.

I asked them for some ideas of healthy foods they’d like to have for lunches and they said sandwiches and chicken noodle soup. So I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to make a healthy, kid-friendly, sodium-free soup that even my 9 month old son could eat.

As promised yesterday, here's the recipe...

Homemade Chicken Stock (Sodium Free)

• 1 chicken carcass with some meat remaining (I used a grocery store roasted chicken)
• 2 onions, quartered, skin left on
• 1 leek, chopped
• 3 carrots, cut in large chunks
• 3 celery ribs, including leaves, cut in large chunks
• 6 peppercorns 2 garlic cloves, halved, skin left on
• 1 Tbs parsley

1. Put all ingredients in a large stock pot and cover with plenty of water.
2. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer partially covered (by putting the lid on crooked) for 4 hours. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
3. Remove the bones and strain the stock. Put the stock in the fridge and chill over night.
4. The next day, remove any fat that has gathered on top.
   
5. At this point the stock can be frozen or used to make soup. (I froze some of the stock in ice cube trays and made soup from the rest).

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

• Chicken stock (I didn’t measure, I just had a large pot about ¾ full)
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 1.5 cups diced cooked chicken (from the roasted chicken the day before)
• 1 cup frozen baby peas
• 1.5 cups small egg noodles
• Chicken Oxo, to taste (optional, and I wouldn’t add this to the baby’s portion)

1. Bring the stock to a boil and add the carrots. Turn heat down but keep it simmering rapidly.
2. After about 10 minutes add the remaining ingredients and cook for 10 more minutes.

My daughter and niece didn’t really like the soup at first. I admit that it was a little bland since it didn’t have any salt in it. So, at that point I took out some of the soup for my 9 month old and put that aside, then added some chicken oxo to the remaining soup. After that, the kids loved it and my daughter even told me it was the best soup she’s ever had!

Poop and Soup

So for about the 8th or 9th night in a row, my 9 month old son somehow manages to fill his diaper as soon as we put him in his crib and say night-night to him. It's like he knows that he can stay up a few minutes longer if we have to take him back out of bed to change his diaper! It's really kind of weird since he's never been a bedtime pooper before :)

On another note, my daughter asked me to make her chicken noodle soup today. I'm making it from scratch so that my son can also eat it (since he's only 9 months old I figure he doesn't need the sodium and other junk that comes in store-bought). So Tonight I've been simmering the chicken stock and my daughter keeps asking to look at it. So the last time I showed it to her she asked me if the "pieces would be tiny" so she wouldn't choke, (she was looking at the chicken carcass and huge veggie chunks). So I explained that the stock would actually be strained so that it's only liquid and that we'd add fresh little pieces of chicken, carrots, noodles, ect. tomorrow. Anyway, I showed her the chicken that I'd already chopped and gotten ready to add to the soup tomorrow and it smelled kind of funny, it really did smell weird! So she says "am I going to toot out that smell tomorrow after I eat the soup?"... ha ha :) I really don't know why the chicken has a funny smell but I'm sure it's fine. It's one of those roasted chickens form the supermarket that I took the meat from.

Ahhh, kids! They say the darndest things. Anyway, I'll let you know how the soup turns out and post the recipe tomorrow.

Guilty Pleasures

Okay, it’s time to fess up! We all have things we love to do, eat or watch that make our lives a little happier. They may not be things we’re proud of or go around bragging about… but they’re things we enjoy, and bring us comfort. I’m going to share 10 of my “guilty pleasures” with you today.

1. Wine – I LOVE wine.
2. Mcdonald’s – McChickens are my ultimate comfort food and always have been.
3. Parmesan Popcorn – I like to make this late at night, especially when I’m the only one up, (so Kevin doesn’t see what a pig I’m being at 11pm), and eat the whole bowl myself. Lots of butter and parmesan cheese, yum!
4. Cheese – I have a serious cheese addiction. I often wake up in the morning and start thinking about making a toasted cheese sandwich before my coffee is even finished brewing. Mmmm… cheese! I’m sure I’d be thin if only I could cut out the cheese.
5. The Internet – I'm guilty of wasting countless hours online, checking my email, facebook and researching useless and useful information about anything and everything.
6. Recipezaar – I guess this kind of goes with the Internet, but I thought it deserved it’s own listing here. I spend hours and hours looking at recipes on Recipezaar and even participate in the games and recipe tags. Lots of fun!
7. 90210 – Yep, the new one. I started watching it just to see what it would be like since I used to watch the original show as a teenager. I got hooked.
8. Celebrity gossip - I buy the magazines occasionally at the supermarket checkout and then usually keep them in the bathroom for fun reading material :)
9. Soaps – I record Young and the Restless and All My Children every single day so I don’t miss them.
10. Twilight – I don’t think I need to explain this one. I know I’m in the same boat as a lot of 30-something year old ladies on this one, LOL ;)

Anyone else willing to share? What are YOUR guilty pleasures?

My First Blog Entry - About Me

Wow it's hard to write the very first blog entry! Well, it has been for me anyway. I've been googling things like "what to write for first blog entry" for a few days now and still I've got no big or exciting or even interesting ideas to start with. So I decided I'd just start by introducing and telling you a little bit about myself.

My name is Barb, my husband and friends call me Babs, which actually started as a joke but ended up really sticking. You see, my husband likes to give everyone nicknames, whether it's behind your back or to your face, oh, and the dumber the nickname the better! The funny thing is that nicknames just come to him instantly the moment he meets someone and he doesn't hesitate to start using the nickname the second it pops into his head. Once in a while he doesn't nickname a person right away and then when he tries he can't. Anyway, the night we met, he instantly started calling me Babs and everyone had a good laugh and went along with it and I've been known by that name ever since, (which was about 9 and a half years ago).

My husband, whose name is Kevin by the way, and I have been married for just over 3 years. We have 2 kids, a 4 and a half year old daughter and a 9 and a half month old son.

My work background is mostly secretarial / clerical, although I'm currently on maternity leave which is coming to and end soon. I feel very lucky that I got to have a whole year off (thank you Canada!), but I'm really sad to be going back to work. Not really because I'm going back to work, but because I'm sad to leave my little baby boy at daycare. He's a clingy, sensitive little guy and yes, I admit, I'm really worried about leaving him with our daycare provider since I can't even leave him alone with family without him having a major meltdown. (I know what you're thinking, suck it up sister!, right?)... but I just can't help it, I guess I turned out a mama's boy after all. ;)

My daughter says the funniest things. She's like a 10 year old comedian in a 4 year old's body. We have no idea where she comes up with half the stuff she says.

I love to cook, I spend a lot of hours looking at recipes each week, yet I hardly ever repeat recipes or stick to them in the first place. Poor Kevin, he likes plain, boring food and I can never just do anything "normal" as he says. I can't help it though, food is fun for me and I'm constantly looking for new ways to make things. I take a lot of pictures of the food I make too, so I plan on posting some of them here.

I guess this is a long enough first blog entry, hope I haven’t bored your socks off already!