Mushroom Orzo

I love the texture of this tiny pasta (orzo, if you're not familiar). I have to say that it's probably one of my most favorite things to eat as a side dish. This particular recipe was excellent!! If you don't like mushrooms, I think it would be just as great with most any other veggie (bell peppers, broccoli, peas, spinach). I'm going to keep this recipe around FOR SURE!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1 Tbsp canola oil
half of yellow onion
1-2 tsp. minced garlic
1 cup uncooked orzo pasta
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley

Directions:
1. Melt the butter with canola oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onions, and cook until golden brown. Mix in orzo & mushrooms. Cook and stir 5 minutes or so, until mushrooms are tender.
2. Pour water and wine into the skillet, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Season with salt (careful on the salt since the chicken broth kind of salts it enough) and pepper. Cook 7 to 10 minutes, until orzo is al dente. I found that I had to add more liquid towards the end, so I just added water at that point. Stir in the cheese and parsley before serving.

*adapted from "Mushroom Orzo" on allrecipes.com

Swim Class: Highlights

Well swimming class has officially ended. Here's 3 short video clips of his successes and failures! :)

Amusement Park

On Roob's birthday we took Jase to his first amusement park. It was on a Friday and we thought it wouldn't be as busy that day. Pshaw! It was RIDICULOUSLY busy. We had to wait in line for at least 30 minutes even for the kiddie rides! Here's a cute close-up of Jase waiting patiently...
Here's his first ride. A cute little whale. I thought he might panic as I walked away, but he didn't. I think he was just in shock. Maybe he actually liked it. I think he did.
We met up with our friends Chris & Kami. That's their boy, Kaden, in the backseat. He is about 9 months older than Jase and does really well on the rides. I think Jase rode 3 rides before he had his meltdown. It was inevitable. Crowds. Lines. Heat. Rides. Missed nap. Yep, inevitable.
Here he is on the cars...he really liked the steering wheel feature. There's Kaden on his left for moral support :) We waited forever for this ride and it was over so fast! Whatever!
It was sometime after this ride that Roob tried putting him on the kiddie boat ride. That is when he lost it. Roob had to get out of the fenced area so the park worker was fiddling around with him trying to buckle him in, etc. My best guess is that Jase just panicked thinking he was being abandoned by us. Awww. But boy, did he freak out. Yes he did. We tried consoling him but nothing was working. Finally Roob got him a slurpee. That did it. But we knew he was done riding rides by himself. After a bit we took him on a train that takes you on a ride around the park. Everyone could ride together on that one. After that, Chris talked me into riding a scary roller coaster before we left. It was fun! It had the longest vertical drop I've ever seen! Weeeee! Then we went to dinner at Tepanyaki. It was really fun to hang out as a family all day. I hope Roob had a good birthday, too. I think he did.

Here we are waiting in line, again...

Swimming Class: an update

So I think China has got this baby swimming thing down--somehow lock your baby's head into a flotation device, strip off their clothes, and let them figure out how to swim by hanging from their heads in a pool!! What??? Is anyone else dying laughing at this picture? This is FOR REAL, by the way. I am thinking this might be a good idea for Jase's swim class. Hee hee. Sure would save me from all the scratching, pinching and clinging!
Ok, anyways, Jase has improved a teeny bit. Day 2 I chose to let him have more fun and waited to dunk him until the end of class. But this time I did it more like a quick, shallow "dive," than a dunk. I figured that way water might not go up his nose. I don't think he inhaled any, but he popped up out of the water screaming and crying bloody murder! Oopsie. Day 3 I decided to forgo all dunking and try to get him more comfy in the water first since he still likes to cling onto my neck. He did much better! Once the teacher got out the plastic toy balls he was able to focus on "tummy floating" (see pic below) to go get the ball (he would throw it, then I'd help him tummy float to it. He seemed to like this a lot. I also handed him a toy watering pot that he loved to fill up. I let him set it on his tummy and then I put his head on my shoulder and tried to get him to float on his back. He actually let me do it a few times! So, I am happy with today's progress. We made it out of the pool and into the car just before the clouds dumped a TON of rain on everyone! Phew!

Swim Class has Begun

No, this is not an actual picture of our class. Since I am in the water with Jase, there is no one to take a real photo of us. This is basically how the class was--one instructor and 4 moms with 4 kids under 3 years old. I am pretty sure Jase was the youngest in the class (lucky me). The teacher started us out having the kids pour water on the moms, then vice versa while sitting on side of the pool. Then we put the kids into the pool with us. Jase wasn't too sure about this idea (I think the floating sensation was weirding him out) so he clung onto me like a scared little monkey man. Eventually he sort of started to have a little fun, but about midway through the class she had us quickly dunk them in the water. After that he sort of went into "get me outta here" mode. Great. It seemed like a lot of the stuff was definitely suited for 2+ year olds (they had them do things like swim using "monster arms," "blow bubbles in the water," and kick on their backs, tummies, etc). Jase doesn't know how to even blow out air, much less what a monster is--nor does he truly know what kicking means. So I figure I'll work with him on that in the tub (wait, that could be a BAD idea). Anyways, the classes are 30 minutes long, 4x/week for 2 weeks. I'm hoping by Thursday he'll be feeling MUCH more comfortable in the water.

The teacher tried having us help them "float" but he was so insecure he wouldn't relax enough so I could help him try it. The only thing he did like was a game she did with little plastic balls. Each kid got one and threw it into the pool. Then they had to either "kick" or "do monster arms" with their mommies to get it. Well of course Jase didn't do those things but he stretched out his arms as I walked toward the ball floating in the water. At least he thought that part was cool! So wish us luck for tomorrow. Tonight I started doing more "water in/on the face" activites in the bathtub (I was looking at tips online). I stuck my face in the water and showed him how to blow bubbles (he did try this but instead of blowing out air he was doing that noise that you make when you vibrate your lips together--at any rate, it worked, sort of, but he inhaled a bit of the tub water at the end of it) and I also let water drip from a wash cloth down his face. He didn't like it, but he didn't cry. I eventually just dumped a cup of water over his head. He cried a little bit and stood up when I did that. Poor baby. Well hopefully it helped him out a bit. I'll keep ya posted!

I'm Going to GET you!!!

These are a few short clips of me either chasing after Jase or trying to jump out and scare him. I love his sweet laugh. It's just the sort of thing that I could listen to over and over. And he LOVES to play this chase/scaring game. He would probably play it all day long if I had the energy to keep it up!

Crazy Jello & Cute Cupcakes

We had a little family get together which inspired me to make these cute cupcakes! I really liked the way they looked (had to post pics)--but I have to admit they weren't that great to eat. I mean, don't get me wrong...I'd eat them. But they weren't amazing. The cake part was a bit dry. I think it was the brand of mix I used. So next time I will correct this horrible cupcake baking sin! :)
I tried the star tip for that chocolate covered one on the left. Hated it. So went back to the round tip for piping on the frosting. Much better, don't ya think?
After living in this state for...let's see...about 13 years now--I decided it was high time I tried to make a true jello creation (hee hee). I saw this one on CAFE ZUPAS and it was so pretty (their pic looks a billion times better than mine. Poo.)! It took a while to make it, but it was a hit! The "locals" loved it! Including the hubbster. So I will eventually make this again. But I had a couple problems. Jello was on sale at Albertson's so most of the colors I wanted were sold out. Of course. The other thing I didn't like was that my green layer was a very weird green color. I think it is because I got impatient waiting for that layer to cool and so when I poured on the jello mixture, it was too hot and started morphing into the layer below it creating a ghastly shade of green. Well nobody else seemed to mind. This picture of the jello would also have been much cuter with a dollop of cool whip on top. Next time!
Layered Jell-O
2 ½ c boiling water (per packet)
4 - 6 oz. packets of various jell-o flavors and colors (raspberry, lime, pineapple, orange, mixed berry)
4 oz. sour cream
4 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature)
about 8 oz. cool whip

Place 9×13 glass baking dish in refrigerator on level surface for at least 20 minutes or until completely chilled.
Whip the sour cream and cream cheese together until well combined in a large bowl. Add in the cool whip, beating until smooth. Set aside.
In another bowl combine one packet of jell-o with 2 ½ cup boiling water, let it cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Pour about ¾ of the jell-o into the chilled baking dish making sure it covers the entire bottom. Place back in the refrigerator until when you touch it, it is mostly set. With the remaining jell-o, beat in 3 Tablespoons of the cheese/cool whip mixture until smooth. Pour the jell-o/whip mixture on top of the set jell-o layer. Repeat for each flavor of jell-o making sure each layer is set before adding another (about 15 minutes).

Tips:
1. Make sure that each layer is set well enough (it’s pretty much solid to the touch) before adding on a new layer.
2. Don’t forget to let the newly mixed jell-o & boiling water cool before you add the next layer on, if not it will melt the other layers and things will get all kooky with layers between, separated and to the sides of each other.
3. Once you get into the rhythm of making the layers, it’s becomes quite easy. It’s just super time consuming! You’ll be setting one jell-o layer in the fridge, while the next flavor is cooling. If you want to make double the layers, buy 8 – 3oz packets of jello and use only 1 ¼ c water per packet. But truly, that would take a lot more patience! **this recipe is slightly adapted from CafeZupas.com.

The Beach! (a short video)

If you listen closely you can hear Jase jibber-jabbering towards the end of the clip (so cute!). He was doing it a lot but of course I start recording and I can't capture him doing hardly anything! I had to cut the video short bc he got too far away from me--I kept worrying a bit that he'd trip in the sand and fall face-first into the water...but he never did. Oh, did I mention that I've signed him up for a parent/child basic swim class? It's at a local community pool about 30 minutes away from our house. The classes start on Monday! I'll be sure to post about it (though pictures will be tricky since I will be in the pool with him. Hmm...) I am so excited to see how he does!

The Beach!

I took little Jasey a couple blocks down the road to the beach Monday evening. This is the first summer that he's big enough to actually enjoy it. It was cute to see how he reacted to the water swishing up over his feet! But trying to get him to actually look at the CAMERA was impossible! As you can tell, the sand isn't exactly pristine white (shout out to Florida), but it works! The water level is still really high in the reservoir so there was only a few feet of "beach" area. But it was good enough for Jase!He really enjoyed his little sand bucket that I just got for him. He was scoopin' and shovelin' like crazy. He even dug his hands in and started throwing wet sand (which incidentally got all over mommy's legs).
Going in for another big scoop...
He LOVED sitting on this log next to me. However, at one point a boat with a wakeboarder passed by which caused waves. As you can imagine, a few big waves splashed up the back of the log which resulted in Jase screaming and crying. I couldn't help but laugh.
"And now for my next trick, I shall part the Red Sea! Or brown lake. Whichever."