Cheesy Chicken Mexican Bake

Ingredients:
1 box Penne Pasta shells

2 cups cubed chicken (I always use the cooked Perdue Mesquite chicken breast found near bacon at Kroger)

4 cups "Mexican" cheese blend (1 cup reserved for topping) OR you can get 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese and 2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese (1/2 cup each reserved for topping)

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 Can (4 oz.) chopped Green Chilies

1 can Condensed cream of Chicken soup, undiluted

1 Cup medium or Hot salsa

2/3 cups Milk

-Cook pasta according to package, drain and rinse with cold water
-Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine chicken, 1 1/2 cups Monterey Jack cheese, 1 1/2 cups Cheddar Cheese, sour cream and 6 Tbls green chilies.
-In another bowl, combine soup, salsa, milk and remaining chilies.
-Put 1/2 of sauce in bottom of greased pan
-Add the pasta to the chicken mixture and mix. Pour on a greased baking pan.
-Pour the remaining sauce over past/ chicken mix.
-Cover with foil and bake at 350* degrees for 30 minutes.
-Uncover, sprinkle with remaining cheeses and bake for 10 more mins or until cheese is melted.

Tori's 4 month appointment at Children's Hospital.....

Today Tori had her 4 month appointment with the high risk clinic at the hospital. A few weeks late, due to scheduling conflicts with our favorite doctor, but worth the wait!

Tori now weighs 12 lbs 3 oz and is 24 inches long! Talk about a growth spurt! Her head is just under 16" which he was really thrilled about since it indicates normal brain growth, something they worry about with preemies.....he said that her head is actually on the charts! He has been working with preemies since 1974 and said that normal head growth is one of the greatest indicators of a positive outcome overall!

He completely agreed with me about delaying solids, saying that he would prefer that we wait until at least 4 or 5 months adjusted age (so 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 months actual age) to even consider starting and that if we wanted to wait LONGER that was fine with him. He is THRILLED that she is nursing and completely breastfed at this point.

She was cleared for her surgery next Friday to remove all of the hardware they placed when they did her bilateral nasolacrimal reconstruction. Surgery is scheduled for 1:30 PM, we have to be at the hospital at noon. Prayers would be much appreciated!

There are 2 issues they are concerned with:

1) there is a slight "turning in" or crossing of her left eye. He said it is very slight and something that the eye doctor may want to follow. He said it will most likely correct itself, but to be aware of it and alert the eye doctor if it seems to get worse.

2) Tori has "uneven tone". There seems to be a slight difference in tone between her left and right side of her body. Because of this she tends to turn her head to the right (or is it left, I am so confused!!) and only used her right arm to reach for toys. The uneven tone is most obvious in her neck and arms. The doctor mentioned that her head lag (head falling back) doesn't have to do with the size of her head but because the muscles in the back of her neck are tight. The physical therapist gave us a bunch of exercises to work on and we are going to start physical therapy in 6 weeks. They are hoping that since they caught it now that by the time we go in to start therapy the issue will resolve itself. Ironically I had mentioned to Jay a few weeks back that she seemed "tighter" than our other kids had across her chest and through her arms.

We aren't due back at the high risk clinic until near the end of May!

Favorite President

In honor of Presidents Day here in the United States, do you have a favorite President? Mine has always been Abraham Lincoln.....not so much for his politics (I honestly can't say I know much about it) but because he is my great, great, great, great, great, great cousin, so it is a family thing!

My kids had to pick 2 presidents to bring their favorite dish for 4H today....they picked Van Buren (whose favorite snack was apples) and Nixon (who liked his wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies)....can you tell we picked by FOOD rather than accomplishments?

Whether I agree with their politics or not, I am so grateful for the men who have stepped forward to lead this country. It isn't a job that I would ever want, despite your best intentions, someone is always opposed to what you are doing and how you are doing it. You are always in the spotlight. I pray that in the future, good men and women step forward to continue to lead this nation in our great tradition.

Happy 19th Birthday Hannah!


Hard to believe that my FIRST BABY GIRL is now 19 years old! Does it surprise anyone who knows here that she was in such a hurry to get here that her daddy didn't even make it into the delivery room before she made her grand entrance?

Snow Tubing at Perfect North


This is by far our favorite winter tradition!

The details:

Location: 19074 Perfect Lane Lawrenceburg, IN 47025
Perfect North Slopes is located in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. From I-275
take the US 50 Exit 16, follow ski area signs north on Indiana Route 1
to ski area

When: Wednesday, February 16. 1:00 pm - 9:30 pm

Ages: ALL ages welcome (snowtubing is NOT recommended for toddlers or younger)

Cost: $20.00 per person

InfoURL: http://www.perfectnorth.com/

We always have a great time doing this! Last year most of us stayed from 1-8:30PM!! We are asking everyone to try to arrive no later than 1pm so we can collect the money and waivers, pay and get on the tubing slopes as soon as possible. You are welcome to bring your own food. They have a heated tent with picnic tables, outlets for anyone wanting to have hot food and/or drinks, and a concession stand for those who choose to buy. We recommend dressing in layers because you never know
what kind of snow tubing weather it's going to be.

Cost: $20.00 per person group rate. So that we can get the group rate you pay me when you get there or ifyou can't get there until after 1pm then you pay me before hand and I will have your tickets for you when you arrive. Or if it would work
better for you to pay on your own then you can pay $25.00 a person and show up whenever you like.


Feel free to invite others....friends, family, homeschoolers, non-homeschoolers. The more the better! Just make sure that if they aren't paying and being counted with your family that they RSVP.


Waivers: Everyone must have a tubing waiver -
http://www.perfectnorth.com/pdfs/1011waiver.pdf

Around the World Cooking Club

This month the cooking club focused on Chinese food in celebration of the Chinese New Year. We had so much fun making the wontons that we plan to make them at home again sometime soon. In addition to the fried wontons, we had rice, chicken, sweet and sour sauce and fortune cookies (which turned out more like sweet pancakes, not a recipe we would make again!). As always the kids had a really great time!

What: Invention Convention Simple Machines
When: Friday, Feb 4, 2011 10 AM to 12 PM
Where: Symmes Township Library 11850 Enyart Rd. Loveland, Ohio 45140
Who: Homeschoolers of all ages. Children 12 and under will be expected to have a parent/responsible adult on premises with them during activities, Teens 13 and up may be dropped off.
RSVP: Laura Riesenberg

The Idea---There are six simple machines: the pulley, the screw, the wheel and axle, the incline plane, the lever and the wedge. The goal of our project is to combine simple machines to make a marble maze. Each child or team will start with a similar sized cardboard background and will create a maze with the goal being that it takes the LONGEST amount of time for their marble to get through their maze. Once the mazes are assembled we will have each person/team run a marble through their maze and time them. The person/team with the longest time will WIN......the kids really seemed to enjoy the "testing" part when we built the bridges, hopefully this will go as well as that did!

If your child hasn't been exposed to simple machines, you may want to spend a little time explaining them so that they can use them in their maze.

Please bring any items with you that your child might want to incorporate into their machine. Suggestions from the original website (that I can no longer find since our computer crash) were:
Toilet paper rolls
Paper towel rolls
Pine Cleaners
Paint Stirrers
Molding Clay
Sting
Spools
Coffee Stir Sticks
Tape (duct tape, masking tape, clear tape)

I am going to try to find similar sized pieces of cardboard (I am thinking roughly 24"x36") and will let everyone know by Wednesday if I can get those for everyone. If not, Hobby Lobby has their foam core boards and project boards 50% off this week.

I will provide: glue guns w/glue, scissors, yarn, marbles

Any questions, please ask!

Laura

Look who's 4 months old!

THE SPINE IS FINE!



That was the report from Tori's test on Monday!

What was so frustrating was that NO ONE bothered to call and tell us this. Finally I got sick of waiting and decided to call and talk to the nurse. She admitted to me that it happens often, that the surgeon orders the test and then is emailed the results but that the results don't get called to the patient. I guess it is a good thing that I called or I doubt we would have ever heard the results!



She is still extremely fussy. I am starting to really think it is reflux. I am going to call the doctor on Monday and see if they agree with me. As much as I hate it, I am thinking we might need to try a reflux med. It is just horrible to hear her cry the way she does, even if she are holding, rocking, carrying her! She goes from HAPPY to MISERABLE in a matter of seconds.....I was going to say MINUTES but it isn't MINUTES it is SECONDS.......



I prefer to only capture the SMILES with the camera!

Science Fair

It's that time of year again! Time for our homeschool group science fair. We had fun working on our projects and presenting them to the group. What amazes me is the transformation in my younger children, how they have become confident speakers, proud of their work! We presented 4 projects: Is Inside or Outside Air Cleaner (Sophia), Catapults (William), the Birthday Paradox (Jacob and Cade) and Dice Roll (Grant).



The Birthday Paradox: This project shows how mathematical probability sometimes contradicts our intuition. Despite the fact that there are 365 days in a year, if you survey a random group of just 23 people there is a 50% chance that two of them will have the same birthday. It further states that if the sample is expanded to just
57 people, the probability rises to over 99%.

First we ran the study using our homeschool group directory from 2009. There were enough child member birth dates to run an additional 12 group samples. In 6 sample
groups (groups 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11) there were shared birthdays and in 6 sample groups (groups 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12) there were no shared birthdays, but group #12
did have 3 sets of twins. We had previously decided to exclude twins from our sample since we felt they could impact the data. We then went on to run the study using additional groups (family, 2 online groups and a Moms group).

CONCLUSION: Our sampling of 26 groups of 23 people provided us with results that 15 groups had shared birthdays and 11 groups did not have shared birthdays, which exceeded the probability predicted by the birthday paradox. In 5 of our samples there were even 2 sets of matching birthdays and in 1 sample there were 3 sets of matching birthdays! Each time we merged groups we ended up with at least one matching birthday in the newly created group of 57 (two groups plus an additional person). Our one sample group of 57 (our dad's family) provided us with 3 shared birthdays.



Grant's project was a probability project as well. He wanted to see what number was most likely to appear when you rolled a pair of dice. He ran his trial 155 times and found that 7 and 8 appeared the most often. He had originally thought it would be 7, but after getting the results he did, he understood why he got both number an almost identical number of times.



Sophia decided she wanted to see if outside air or inside air was cleaner. To test this she used 1 1/2 inch squares of white paper covered with Vaseline. She placed on square inside in our dining room and one outside on the porch. Every 24 hours she would replace the square with a new square. She then counted up how many dust and dirt particles were on each square. She ran her trial for 1 week. She decided that outside air was cleaner than inside air.



William enjoyed making and playing with the catapults so much from our science club (see post from last Friday below) that he decided to make some other catapults and show them to everyone. He made 3 additional catapults. His favorite is the mousetrap catapult!

Here are the other designs we made:
Simple catapult using newspaper, tape, rubber band and a spoon: http://spaghettiboxkids.com/blog/easy-to-make-catapult/

Catapult using popsicle sticks, tape and rubber band: http://www.stormthecastle.com/catapult/popsiclestick-catapult.htm

And William's favorite, the mousetrap catapult: http://www.stormthecastle.com/catapult/how-to-make-a-mouse-trap-catapult.htm

Invention Convention--Catapults

Today we had our monthly science club meeting! The kids built catapults and had great fun!

What: Invention Convention Catapults
When: Friday,Janurary 7, 2011 10 AM to 12 PM
Where: Symmes Township Library 11850 Enyart Rd. Loveland, Ohio 45140
Who: Homeschoolers of all ages. Children 12 and under will be expected to have a parent/responsible adult on premises with them during activities, Teens 13 and up may be dropped off.
RSVP: Laura

What will be provided: popsicle sticks, spring clothes pins, caps from plastic bottle, glue

What each family needs to bring:

1) WOOD: block of wood (6 inches long, 2 inches wide and 1 inch deep) and block of wood (1 inch x1 inch x 1 inch )for each catapult you would like to buitd--if someone would like to bring some longer pieces of wood and a small saw we could cut wood there, please let me know,

2) ping pong balls (need at least one per child in your family--I believe they sell these at the $ store)

We will be building these as a group:

http://hubpages.com/hub/thejockspot_how_to_build_a_catapult

I know it is pretty small....but it would demonstrate the idea!

If anyone would like to build other catapults for everyone to see, here are a couple of links or feel free to find another design and bring it with you! I would love to have someone bring one and share it!

http://www.ehow.com/how_2309311_make-catapult-kids.html

http://howtomakestuff.com/2008/09/22/how-to-make-a-catapult/

The Saga that is Tori continues........

• Friday, January 7, 2011 1:27 PM, EST

  Tori had a follow-up with her GI surgeon this morning, what I thought would be a routine in and out visit ended up not being so routine.....
  
  1) Tori has a sacral dimple (depressed area at the top of her buttock) and it is deep enough that the surgeon is sending us for an ultrasound. I have scheduled it for Monday at 8:15 AM. Again...explain to me how we spend 8 weeks in the hospital and NO ONE mentions that it is something we should be concerned about or bothers to order an ultrasound of it??? It could be nothing, it could mean either bladder or spinal cord issues.....
  
  2) She informs us that there is a 25% chance that Tori will develop a bowel obstruction before she is 2 years old. After that the likelihood decreases dramatically, but for the next year and 9 months, every time the child pukes, spits up excessively or doesn't poop on schedule we are to "note" it and become "concerned".
  
  3) They want her to start solids NO LATER than 6 months....much against my parenting philosophy, especially given that she is a preemie and our family history of food allergies. Going to have to see if the high risk pediatrician agrees with that recommendation! It also seems to me that if we are worried about bowel obstructions we should be DELAYING solids, not rushing them?????
  
  Tori of course is completely unfazed by any of this! She was all smiles during her visit!

Wordless Wednesday:

What's Cooking? Chicken and Tortilla Dumplings

My friend Martha made this soup and brought it to me one day when Tori was in the hospital and I was having a rather rough day.....it is the perfect comfort food and I would have NEVER known without seeing this recipe that the "dumplings" where made from tortillas. My kids LOVED this and I made it tonight dinner...which is why you are getting the recipe because I had to pull it up on the computer!

Chicken and Tortilla Dumplings

6 chicken leg quarters (5 pounds)

8 cups of water

2 celery ribs, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 chicken bouillon cubes

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 (15 ounce) package of 8 inch flour tortillas

Bring first 7 ingredients to a boil in a large Dutch oven; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes or until chicken is tender. Remove chicken, reserving broth in Dutch oven. Let chicken and broth cool. Skin, bone, and cut chicken into bite size pieces; set aside. Skim fat from broth. Add soup to broth; bring to a boil.

Cut tortillas into 2 x 1 inch strips. Add strips one at a time to briskly boiling broth mixture. Add chicken, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring often to prevent dumplings from sticking together.

Yield: 6 servings. Prep: 15 min. Cook 1hr 10min.

Quick tip: Substitute 8 cups chicken broth for water. Omit bouillon cubes. Reduce salt to ½ teaspoon. Proceed with recipe using 3 to 4 cups chopped cooked chicken.

Note from Martha: I usually use skinless boneless chicken breasts, but I think the dark meat tastes better. My kids always like more noodles and less chicken, so if I ever use chopped, cooked chicken, it is closer to 3 cups rather than 4. I use Kroger brand tortillas and they are 17.5 ounces. I also throw in a couple more tortillas sometimes. The only bad part about this recipe is dropping the tortillas into the broth one at a time. They really do stick together if you throw them in too quickly. It would be great to have one person stirring and the other person throwing in tortillas!

Emily's body art:

Around the World Cooking Club

This is by far one of Sophia's favorite activities each month. William attends the club with her and he seems to enjoy it, but it is definitely Sophia's "THING". This month the focus was on Thai food, I even stayed and helped some! The kids made spring rolls, rice, stir fried veggies, broiled grapefruit and a banana dessert. The only bad thing was that my clothes and skin REEKED of Thai food (heavy on garlic and fish sauce) the rest of the day, to the point that someone asked me "what is that smell" when I entered a local small business!

In case you are interested in the details, here is one of the first emails about the group, send by our fearless leader Kim:

We do have enough interest to form an Around the World Cooking Club. Here are very preliminary details - and I am, of course, open to suggestions, changes etc.

The premise: Meet once a month (Sept - May) to cook a meal from a pre-determined country - a different country would be featured each month. My thought is that we would make an appetizer, a main dish, a side dish and a dessert each month. The kids who participate would be divided into "cooking teams" and each team would prepare one of the items listed above. The teams would alternate, so each group would make at least two main dishes, two appetizers (etc.) over the course of the year. What do you think - did you envision another plan that might work better?

How do we decide what countries? We'll put this up for vote at our first meeting. I'm thinking for the first meeting, we'll either visit Mexico or Italy, and we can travel from there.

When: This is up for a vote, the only day we can't meet is on Wednesdays - we could work this in once a month on any other day. Time of day is also up for vote: lunchtime (10:30 - 12:30) - or early afternoon (1 - 3) everyone eats lunch first and then samples what was cooked during club.

Where: My original plan was to host this at my house (Eastgate area). This is still the case but I do have a few other options that I'm exploring, I'll let you know if they pan out. Another option would be to float the club from house to house - if that's preferable to other members. Again, I'm happy to host it here monthly.

Cost: Please give feedback. I've thought of two options, the first is that everyone pitches in a family fee... The option I like better is that each family pitches in an ingredient or two monthly based on what we are making. What do you think?

Please let me know what other questions you have - this club will be kid-led, I'll be here for help and any supervision issues, but I really would love for the kids to do the decision making and the cooking. Each month we will decide what the next month will be - I'll provide some recipes and the kids can go from there.

Hope you'll still join us - and please let me know if you have any questions.

Happy 2011!

I don't think I have ever been so happy to see a year end! 2006 might have given 2010 a run for it's money, but I still think 2010 wins.....of course without 2010 there would be no Tori, so I wouldn't wish it away completely but I am glad its behind me!

A few pictures from last night....I didn't get out the camera until after 10 PM so I missed the departure of some early guests and I didn't get pictures of some of Hannah's friends who came by later!

Thursday, December 30, 2010 9:12 AM, EST

It has been a busy few weeks in our household! Everyone except for Cade and Jacob got a virus that was going around, possibly the flu, it put most of us in bed for 2 or 3 days and included a horrible headache, congestion, coughing and a general feeling of exhaustion. Tori seemed to be spared some of the symptoms, she only ended up with a stuffed up head and was extremely crabby, but it was enough to produce a very significant brady episode on Monday December 20th. Apparently eating with a extremely stuffed up head messes with her newly coordinated suck-swallow-breath skill. Unfortunately when she quit breathing she didn't seem to know what to do to recover so I had to stimulate her (rub her rather roughly and pat her back and gently shake her) to get her to start breathing. It all happened very quickly and she was fine as soon as she took a breath, but it was very scary! In my heart I know that she would have self recovered, but I just couldn't wait for her reflexes to kick in! Since then she has been doing really well, although still crabby and stuffy but she seems to be battling through her first real head cold like a trooper!

I had to cancel her follow-up appointment with her surgeon because of us being sick, I didn't want to make anyone else sick by going into the hospital with a bug, so I need to reschedule it.

She is growing like a little weed, hitting her 3 month growth spurt right on schedule, nursing all the time and outgrowing most of her tiny outfits! It feels strange to NOT pack away her outfits, since for the first time ever, we know there won't be another baby!

Sorry everyone, I am doing some much needed site maintenance and also trying to copy over Tori's Caring Bridge journal entries since it occurred to me that if her journal isn't active, they might delete it and I would hate to lose all my thoughts from those months.......I plan to dedicate more time to the blog in the upcoming year........

Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season and that 2011 brings you the things you want. 2010 has been quite a ride!

Wordless Wednesday: