The Reluctant Mommy Blogger

The kids are cute this year. Of course, that’s no different than any other day of the year. Trent is a pirate and Hunter is a penguin. Hunter’s first hand me down costume.

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Chicken and dumplings can be super easy to make anyway, but just opening cans and putting the contents in your slow cooker is even easier. I made this recipe last week when I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner with what we had unpacked.

12.5 ounce can of chicken
Family size can of cream of chicken soup
Chicken broth, enough to fill the empty can of soup twice
4 carrots, chopped into large chunks
4 celery stalks chopped into large chunks
Half of one vidalia onion, chopped into chunks
3 potatoes chopped into chunks
2 teaspoons Bell’s poultry seasoning
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 cups of Bisquick
2 tablespoons of cold butter

Put all of the ingredients, except for the Bisquick and butter, into a slow cooker and set to high. Combine the Bisquick, butter in a bowl and add just enough of the soup from the crock pot to make a dough that is not too sticky and refrigerate. Let slow cooker sit for four hours then form the bisquick mixture into half inch rounds and drop in the slow cooker. Let cook for another fifteen minutes and serve.

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I was just cleaning out the pictures on my phone and kept coming across pictures I took with intention of putting them on this blog, but just forgot.

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Trent loves to play the “there he is!” game. He hides in an obvious spot and then pops out and shouts “DEREEIZ!”

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Last night I made a really yummy dinner; salmon with pomegranate and honey; spinach, and smashed turnips and potatoes as sides. I have attempted to make salmon with pomegranate in the past, but that was before I really knew how to use the fruit and it didn’t come out all that great. This time it came out real good, maybe just a little too sweet but next time I will do better.
I have also discovered that I can sneak extra stuff into my smashed potatoes. One, I make smashed instead of mashed to keep the skin of the tuber and keep all the goodness and vitamins associated with it (hee hee, I used the word tuber in a sentence). Two, instead of using water to boil, I use chicken broth and don’t dump the liquid, but mash it with the potatoes, once again to retain nutrients. This dinner I also cut up a turnip and boiled and mashed it with the spuds since I am always trying to sneak good things into my families diet. (Let me make a note here, when I use the word diet I am NOT talking about how we are trying to lose weight using food but the things that we eat on a regular basis. It irks me when I use that word and people automatically associate it with weight loss.) When making my smashed potatoes I have also discovered that by adding plain yogurt as a substitue for sour cream you get a much better taste, lower fat and more calcium! By following all these steps I have gotten to the point that I am making really good and good for you potatoes.
Here is my recipe for the salmon:

1 large fillet of boneless salmon (I used about a pound and a half)
Half of one pomegranate
2 tablespoons of honey
1/4 cup of white wine
2 tablespoons of butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Place fish in an oven safe dish. If using salt and pepper, add now. Take as many of the pomegranate seeds from the fruit as you can and place on top of the salmon. Drizzle the honey over the top of this then pour the wine over that. Cut the butter into pieces and place all over the salmon and fruit seeds. Broil the fish until it flakes with a fork. If the top starts getting too well done and the inside is not cooked all the way through, take it out of the broiler and cook in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until it is complete.

This recipe is different than the one I made last night in that I drastically cut back on the amount of honey I used.

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Whoever thought of making apps geared towards children, toddlers and infants has my thanks. I have apps on my phone that are exclusively for the use of my two year old and six month old and they make my life so much easier, especially with trying to move. If the kids are bored or upset they are instantly captivated by the phone. One of the apps is just pictures of baby faces and a sound clip of a baby noise for each image. I originally got it for the baby, but my two year old loves it as well. Another is just a screen full of animal pictures and each time you touch an animal it plays the corresponding noise for it. Press the elephant, hear the elephant. I got this one for the two year old, but my six month old seems to like it as well. There are also flash card apps and the first one I got, Baby Center’s phonyphone. I like the phonyphone because it pulls up a screen with numbers like a phone, but it cannot dial out. It’s great! The iPhone is fully awesome.

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The last house that we lived in we rented and lived there for about two years. In that time we watched our son grow from a baby to a toddler into a preschooler. In that entire time we were able to keep him from drawing on any walls, which I thought was pretty impressive. Then, about two weeks before we were supposed to move, we put him down for a nap. When we went to get him at the end of his nap time we found two walls of his room covered in crayon. I don’t know where he found the blue and red crayons, but I panicked. My husband said that we should try those magic eraser things. I was skeptical, but he said that everyone on the intertubes raved about them. So we went out and got the generic store brand and brought it home and tried it.

That stuff works great! It took the crayon right off of the wall, like… Magic! Apparently, sometimes it doesn’t work with some types of paint, but if it doesn’t effect the paint on your walls this is great!

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Our new kitchen sink is huge and that makes life a lot easier when I bathe the kids in it. Tonight I gave Trent his first bath in it and when I give Hunter his bath I will post the pictures here.

Update November 3, 2009: Pictures added of Hunter.

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