Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling you-hoo... Inside the chicken is cooking and Adam is shouting woo-hoo! 

Ok, that was a lame attempt at a joke on the weather right now. It's not the worst that I've seen but it's record breaking snow fall (already a foot in Nov?!) and temperature lows (-10?!) right now so what better than a yummy comfort food casserole to warm up the evening. Landon even got to eat some of the chicken, broccoli and noodles!

Brrrr! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup cooked chicken (you can boil and shred chicken breasts or buy chunk chicken in a can)
• 1 lb fresh chopped broccoli
• 1 1/2 cups of your favorite pasta (I used smaller shells)
• 1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
• 1/3 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese 
• 1 package stuffing mix

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. If using chicken breasts, boil chicken until tender and shred or cut into bite size pieces. If using chunk canned chicken, just make sure it's chopped up nicely. 
3. Steam broccoli until crisp but tender. 
4. Boil pasta until firm.
5. In a small bowl mix together the soup and milk. Set aside. 
6. Layer the chicken, broccoli, soup mixture, and cheese in baking dish. 
7. Prepare stuffing mix according to package and sprinkle over the top.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until the topping is browned.

Look you can see the steam!

We only had a Columbia Crest Merlot in the house tonight but that'll warm us up just fine with this dish! I'd probably prefer a Chardonnay but I'm venturing out in this snow. Enjoy!!!

 

The Next Food Network Star

I mean seriously... Landon LOVES food!!!

I don't know that I've wrote about our food journey's yet?!

We started with rice cereal around 3 months and while he didn't hate it - he wasn't loving it. He'd take a bite or two and then he'd be over it.

Landon's 1st bite... YUCK!

So we held off a little and waited until about 4 months, he was a little more interested and at our 4 month check up Dr. C said we could start veggies! Every 3 or 4 days we'd introduce a new veggie to make sure he didn't have an allergy. Dr. C said to go through all the veggies first because she said some babies get the taste of sweet fruit and will never tolerate a veggie. As expected, veggies went just as well as the rice cereal, not great... until... enter, Sweet Potatoes!!! Haha, Landon LOVES Sweet Potatoes.

At that point we started with just one solids meal per day; dinner. We made our way through all the veggies and pretty much anything GREEN was a no go. Peas, Green Beans, Spinach, even mixed veggies and garden veggies he didn't care for. Carrots were ok, Squash was ok but Sweet Potatoes would be GONE... and he'd be banging on his high chair tray for more! :)


Shortly after we started introducing fruits and unexpectedly he wasn't as keen as I'd have thought he would be. Until that is... Banana's. Yup, he's a monkey. Or you'd think. We slowly made our way through fruits with no reactions to anything so we were able to start mixing things up and that's when it was over. Apples & Pears, Strawberry Banana, Sweet Potatoes & Corn.... our babysitters even say he LOVES Green Beans with his Apples?! it's never ending!!! He loved almost everything... although he was still a little hesitant of the greens by themselves.

Around 6 months we started a sort of "solids schedule", which consisted of oatmeal and fruit for breakfast and veggies for dinner, along with all his regular formula bottles. That worked for a while but then he started to realize when we were eating and what was going on and he thinks... um, stuff is going in your mouth, where's mine? :)

So now, he's getting 3 meals per day, along with little snacks as we've discovered our new fav - Baby Mum Mum's!

It's just a Rice Ruck cracker...

The last two weeks or so we've been attempting more and more table foods and so far it's going well. We've been introducing cheeses (string cheese and cheddar), Breads, Whole Bananas ( I WISH I had a picture of this little monkey gnawing a whole banana!) Cheerios, Chicken, and whole steamed veggies. I'm convinced it's the purees because Landon loves himself some steamed broccoli!!!

We had it EVERYWHERE tonight! :)

So our Next Food Network Star seems to be doing well with his solids! If he's doing it himself, Landon doesn't seem to have a sense of "my mouth is full" so obviously I have to be watching him super careful. But If we try to give him anything while he's still chewing (with no teeth still mind you?!) he won't open his mouth! 


Such a big boy - till next time! Cheers!

Comedy Central!!! Bwahaha!

This is totally not Landon or "Us" related but I totally want to see this comedian some day... she's SO freakin funny! Her name is Anjelah Johnson and this is her infamous "Nail Lady" skit, uncut with a little extra on the beginning. So funny... Enjoy!

Babies Don't Keep

I'm in love with this poem...

Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep. 

And we're good!

That was a quick re-construction!! I thought it would take a lot longer and it'll be a work in progress for probably well... ever. But I just put the finishing touches on the layout (much simpler) and made myself a shiny new banner!  Go me!

Under Construction!

I'm trying to make some changes to my blog... revamp would you? I put together the old design when I first started blogging and I'm feeling like it needs an update! A lot has changed in the last few years! Plus, I'm deleting my photography blog because I suck at updating it anyway and I'm moving it to that little link above that says "A Pile of Pics." Hopefully it'll be easier to update that way when we do our little photo sessions. I've got it all transferred over but it's about 2 months behind... hopefully soon I can get those on here. I'm also adding a section that will eventually have more about Adam and I, how we met and the like up in that "About Us" section. Right now it's just our little bio from the homepage. And of course you can't forget little Landon! His birth story is up there too cause well, all my posts these days are about him anyway?! And last but not least... I'll eventually get a tabby up for our puppers too.:)

So bear with me here while I change it up! 

I Have an Inch Worm!!!

Well, it's definitely not crawling but we're mobile!!! This is pretty funny to watch but GAH! I'm not ready!!!! 

Moxie Images - 6 Month Session

Well, it was time for our next session with Moxie Images! It was for when Landon turned 6 months old but most importantly for when he was sitting up on his own. I wanted to wait a little longer to make sure he was sitting really well and I felt like that was right before he turned 7 months. Nikki again did a fabulous job! My little booger wanted to stand for a good amount of the time (with me holding his hands) and we took some in his Halloween costume! They turned out SO cute!

She didn't update her blog this time with any sneak peeks so I had to wait until we picked out our digital file to post anything. Look at my sweetie!!!