2014 Family Vacation Recap

Our family took our first family cruise with three of the four children this summer.  Everyone breathe a sigh of relief with me that it is over.

Sigh...

I have heard people say before that they need a vacation from their vacation and I have never really felt anything like that, until my vacation with toddlers.  We took a vacation a few years ago with two pre-teens and that is awesome because even though there is attitude, they are able to go and do things and not rely on you 100% for absolutely everything.  Toddlers need you for absolutely everything.  Combine that with my constant concern that they were going to fall overboard and you have the most stressful vacation on record for me ever.

It's not to say that it wasn't awesome.  Hubby and I have never been on this exact cruise before and we still had a number of different and great experiences than we have ever had on previous cruises.  Spoiler alert - this one ends with a broken arm!  It was an amazing trip and I am glad that we decided to do it.  It just makes me realize that I want to take a family vacation every year and I also want to take a grown-ups only vacation during the year as well.  

We booked a 5 day Carnival cruise out of New Orleans, La for the very end of the summer before our eldest daughter was set to start school for the year.  We drove to Louisiana in enough time so we could stay in a hotel the night before the cruise.  We cruised from New Orleans to Progreso, Mexico and then Cozumel, Mexico before returning back to Louisiana.

I will be posting several blogs over the next few days and will return and link them here once they are posted.  I have planned to do:

a review of the ship that we cruised on
the ship room that we stayed in
tips on packing for a cruise
tips for cruising with kids
tips for road tripping with children
a review of the shore excursion that we booked
Carnival Programs review - Faster to the Fun and Bottomless Bubbles Soda program
Louisiana hotel review

If there is anything else that you are curious about or would like to know you can message below and let me know.  I am far from an experienced cruiser but this was my fourth, so I like to think that I know a little bit more than your average joe.

Thanks for reading!  

Potty training: The Naked Method

Isabella is the first child that I have had living with me when old enough to be potty trained.  I had a lot of confusion and anxiety about potty training.  When is she going to be ready?  How do you start?  Which method should I use? 

When you look online at any article about potty training, they will give you anywhere from two to ten things to evaluate to know if your child is ready to be potty trained.  When we looked at any of those lists, Isabella never met all of the factors.  She was old enough and could communicate her needs, but she didn’t care that she was in a messy diaper and she didn’t show any interest in doing it.  Anytime that we brought up the subject she FREAKED out.  She had never been traumatized by any related experiences before, she just had zero desire to potty train, sit on the potty, be near a potty, etc.  I was never willing to push her because I knew that she would let us know when she was ready.  Plus, having a potty trained toddler meant that she wasn’t a baby anymore and that makes me sad.  

So we waited… and waited… and waited.  People were concerned, but I knew that she would potty train on her own time.  I trust my children and mine and my husband’s parenting instincts enough to know that we would get there eventually and that it would be an easier time if she was ready. 

We decided that this year we would like to go on a cruise for our family vacation.  When I began talking to Isabella about what that was going to be like, I started prepping her by saying that she needed to be going on the big girl potty by then if she wanted to swim onboard – not as a threat but as a reward.  She instantly perked up and said that she wanted to go potty.  Fantastic!  I took out her big girl panties that were now too small because I bought them when I assumed that she would be potty training around 2, and we followed the steps that I thought you were supposed to follow.  I fed her more drinks than I would have ever before, I asked her every 15 minutes if she had to go, allowed her to not wear pants, etc.  She had three accidents in about 30 minutes.  I was discouraged.  I knew enough to not be mad about it towards her but I had no idea what to do. 

I was discouraged and apprehensive about continuing because I didn't want to try with her and fail.  I want to see my children succeed in everything and even with a silly thing like potty training, I wanted her to succeed.  Hubby found a website years ago that talked about something that I am going to call "The Naked Method" and one of my friends confirmed that this should work, so we decided to give it a try.  The instructions are simple:

• Remove clothing from your child from the waist down
• Give lots of drink(s)
• Wait

Let me tell you, the first step was difficult for me.  I like to run a modest household for all of my children.  I don't like for children to wear 'skanky' outfits.  Even in long dresses, both girls still wear shorts or leggings underneath.  We all know how lady-like a three year old is, right?  Rarely do I let my children run around in just a diaper, but I had high hopes that this would work, so off the clothes went. 

We decided to initiate the process using a stand alone potty chair.  We were also dealing with a broken arm situation with her at the same time and we figured this would be the easiest transition possible.  This stand alone potty chair also enabled us to take this chair in the car since it was about the size of a 24 pack of sodas.  This helped us to still go places around town and not be stranded while she was in the potty training process.  In fact, we still have the chair in the back of our car today in case we get stranded on a highway somewhere without ready access to a bathroom. 

Isabella had one accident and was golden after that.  We pumped her full of water, milk and whatever other liquids that we had on hand and she was able to go three times in one hour.  She quickly understood what to do and how to make it happen.  We even took her out in public on a road trip a few days after this potty training debacle began and she was completely fine.  To this day, she has had maybe 3 total accidents and this was almost 8 months ago.  The theory is that without any diaper, pants or panties on they are uncomfortable when they need to use the restroom and you are more quickly able to determine that they need to use the bathroom and respond appropriately.  Once she knew that the feeling that she was getting was her needing to pee, then it was all good from there.

Silas has been a bit more of a challenge.  Even months after he has been potty trained, he still gets busy and has an accident.  He benefitted from having Isabella as an example.  He wanted to be potty trained because she was.  He picked the general idea of potty training up quicker than we had heard boys would, so we just ran with it. 

Hands down, I would recommend this 'naked method' to anyone, anywhere who was trying to potty train a child.  It's easy.  It's fast.  And more importantly, it works.

How did you decide to potty train your child?  
 

Hug your children and support a great cause

I have been gone for more than a week.  I will resume normal blogs after I say a little something about what has been going on in my brain for the past little bit of two weeks or so. 

A sweet lady that I attended high school with had a baby January 23rd, after a difficult pregnancy.  Their baby boy passed away after two days.  I will protect her story and allow her and her husband's awesome words to provide the details because I could never do justice to the amazing things that happened both before and after their baby boy's birth.  They are two of the most spiritual people that I have come across in many, many years and I am in awe of how they are handling such a tragic situation and reminiscent of a time when I witnessed a similar story unfold in front of me with a different, amazing couple more than 10 years ago.  Reading their story on Facebook and Caringbridge has prompted me to take a look at my own stagnant spiritual journey and think about where I want that to be in the future.  A few of their sweet friends have started several causes like http://www.gofundme.com/BabyTennessee
 and https://squareup.com/market/tj-shirt-project
where the proceeds are going towards their great family in memory of sweet baby Tennessee and I urge you to take a look at their story, and if you are moved to, donate some money to this family.

Most of the time on Facebook, I see stories of what is currently going on with people and am pretty quickly able to shrug it off, but with their story I was not.  I knew of Brooke in high school, but didn't know her personally, but her story with this pregnancy really touched a special place in my heart.  As a mother, I find it hard to not be moved by stories like this.  Heck, I have even cried when I saw an ambulance from a children's hospital speeding down the freeway.  They say that being a mother is learning to live with a piece of your heart on the outside.  I completely believe that is true, but I believe that it doesn't just mean that you have a piece of your heart for your own children.  I think that it means that you have a piece of your heart for all children. 

Reading about a story like the Butler's rips my heart apart and I just felt, for the last few weeks, that anything that I would say in a post would be insignificant compared to what their family was going through.  I can't imagine the pain and sadness that they are going through and I pray to God to never have to experience anything like that.  But, because they have experienced such a trial, they have been drawn closer than ever to the church, to God and to their amazing friends and family that are praying for them every step of the way.  It is awe-inspiring to witness and just a great testimony to the amazing and wonderful power of our Lord and that healing does come to the faithful.  It is never easy to lose someone, and I can imagine that it would be 900 million times harder to lose a child, but they are leaning on their faith in God to see them through this time of darkness and to know that they will see their sweet baby again someday. 

I am grateful to God that I have four healthy, wonderful children and will hug the three that I have in my home a lot tighter from this day forward.  Now is the time to appreciate what you have, cherish what you have been given and never take a single day for granted. 

If you pray, please say extra prayers for this family in the upcoming days. 

   

2014 - 52 in 52 #6 - Creamy Spinach and Sausage Pasta

I am always on the look out for easy dinners.  Both my husband and I work full time jobs.  Plus I have my insane commute which takes me at least an hour and a half to get home in the evenings.  Needless to say by the time I get home I am normally less than excited about cooking a bit fancy meal.  I need something easy to prepare and easy to clean up so we are not up half the night scrubbing pans.  If I can find one pot meals, even better! 

 

I first found this recipe(link) when I was looking for new meals per my husband’s request for this month.  It has all of the ingredients to make an awesome dish – cheese, pasta, and sausage. 

 

I have never pan fried a smoked sausage like that before and I had no idea how much grease was actually produced.  You will need to know that ahead of time and make sure that you dispose of that properly.  Please don’t dump it down the sink.  I laid down several super thick napkins and drained the sausage on those before I added the onions. 

 

This recipe was simple to make with very simple ingredients and it turned out awesome!  Both my husband and our eldest daughter remarked at how good it was while they were eating.  My husband even requested for us to make this again, which is a step in the right direction.  I was apprehensive when reading through the ingredients about how the dish was going to turn out with the Rotel and spinach together but it was actually an awesome taste.  We added some pepper jack cheese to ours and the spice level was awesome.  It was a bit spicy but overall not too much so that your mouth was on fire.  The sauce was creamy and the dish overall had just the right amount of seasoning and heat.  The spinach added an extra flavor that really balanced out the entire dish.  We will definitely be making this again!

 

Creamy Spinach and Sausage Pasta

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

 

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 package smoke sausage – we used a kielbasa

1 medium onion, diced

1 can diced tomatoes and green chiles

2 cups chicken broth

8 ounces pasta – we used egg noodles

3 cups spinach, chopped

4 ounces Monterrey jack cheese, shredded

2 ounces pepper jack cheese, shredded

 

Instructions:

 

In a high sided skillet, cook sausage in olive oil until browned over medium high heat.  Drain off excess grease.  Add onions and cook until onions are softened (approx. 6 minutes).  Add diced tomatoes and green chiles and chicken broth.  Use spatula to scrape up all browned bits from the bottom of the pan.  This is your flavor and you don’t want to lose this!  Bring mixture to a boil.  Add pasta and return to a boil.  Once liquid has reached a boil, ensure that all noodles are at least partially submerged, and cover with a lid.  At this point you should reduce your heat so the liquid remains at a simmer.  Simmer for 10 minutes stirring occasionally to ensure that nothing sticks.  After 10 minutes, add cheese, cover with the lid and heat until cheese is melted. 

Enjoy!

 

Chewy M&M Cookie Bars

 

One of my long standing vices and guilty pleasures is to watch cooking shows.  When we subscribed to cable, I would watch the Food Network, the Cooking channel, etc.  Now that we have Netflix and Hulu for TV, I don’t have access to those channels.  I was originally sad but then I realized that there are a million different little cooking shows on YouTube.  Some vloggers are making a living at posting recipe videos on YouTube, which is amazing.  Two of my favorites are definitely Laura Vitale www.laurainthekitchen.com and Divas Can Cook www.divascancook.com.  These two ladies are awesome and really have taught me a lot about cooking different foods and recipes that I wouldn’t normally have tried. 

 

When I was trying to prepare for Silas’s birthday party, I was brainstorming about what kind of cookie would look cute with his monster theme.  I will freely admit that I am not a cookie or a cake decorator, so I am not trying to look professional with it.  I am just trying to fix something that will look cute and go with the theme.  That week Monique from Divas Can Cook posted a recipe video for her M&M Cookie Bars and I knew that I had found it.  I was using basic standard rainbow hued colors for his party, so M&M’s were the perfect complement to that, plus they would be good for little hands since we had a number of children coming to his party. 

 

I watched the video a few times and then sought out the actual recipe on her website.  Because it was right after Christmas and I went crazy baking this year, I had all the necessary ingredients on hand.  They were really easy to make and tasted awesome.  They were soft and chewy and sweet.  We got numerous compliments on them and the biggest compliment of all was that all of them were gone before the party was over.  I will definitely be making this again!  The dough, itself, is delicious and very customizable.   You could easily alter this recipe as well to include chocolate chips, different flavors of candies, like Reece’s candies, etc. 

 

M&M Cookie Bars

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

 

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

12 Tbsp butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups M&M’s

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 330 degrees F.   Line a 13x9 pan with parchment paper.  Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl and set aside.  Cream together melted butter and sugars.  I used a wire whisk for this but you could easily use a stand mixer, if necessary.  Stir in egg and egg yolk until well combined.  Stir in vanilla extract.  Combine flour mixture and butter mixture just until combined.  Be careful not to overmix or your cookies will become tough.  Add in 1 cup of M&M candies.  Pour dough into parchment lined pan and press down with clean hands until an even layer is achieved.  Work quickly as butter will make dough sticky with the heat of your hands.  Press remaining candy into the top of your cookie bar.  Bake for 40 minutes or until edges are set and a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.  (The original recipe calls for 25-30 minutes of bake time, but my cookie was REALLY underdone at that time.  Your oven may cook differently, so be aware.)  Immediately remove from pan and allow to cool completely.  Cut into squares. 

 

Enjoy!

January-February Meal Plan

We are stuck in a rut.  I am in a cooking funk where I feel burnt out on cooking anything and the last few months our meal plans have been so similar (my fault) that I am not interested in cooking any of the things that I have planned.  My husband pointed out the other day that he was tired of the same meals that we had been having for months on end.  I was determined that our January-February meal plan was going to be different and contain some new foods or meals that we have never tried before. 

 

My husband has been ‘shopping’ for new recipes on Pinterest lately and I am always looking on Pinterest for new food to try, so we have a plethora of options to choose from.  After looking through our boards I found a list of recipes that I am pretty excited to try.  Some are basics with different ingredients and same are meals that I would have never even looked at twice before.   

 

As a reminder, I do my monthly shopping trips during the middle of the month, so the items that I bought this weekend will last through the last part of January and the first half of February. 

 

My first step when I meal plan is to actually figure out how many dinners we will be eating and needing to cook for.  I normally subtract a few from the total for eating out or eating leftovers, and this time I planned less because I know that we will be out of town for at least one day.  I also purposely planned fewer meals because I know that several times during the month we will need quick meals like sandwiches or something in our freezer.  I planned for 20 meals this month and 11 of them will be new meals that we have never made before.   I will post recipes for the new meals.  I don’t assign a certain day to a certain menu, but I do plan certain dinners towards the beginning of the month when I have certain produce or in a certain order, like I know that we will have chili after we make pinto beans, because we use the leftover pinto beans in the chili.    

 

1.       Cheesey Tater Tot Casserole

2.       Baked Mexican Stuffed Shells

3.       Pizza Casserole

4.       Chicken Pot Pie

5.       Quinoa Chili

6.       Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice

7.       Baked Gnocci with tomato, bacon and cheese

8.       Creamy spinach and sausage pasta

9.       Baked Ravioli

10.   Tortellini bake

11.   Lasagna – double for freezer

12.   Chicken fried rice

13.   Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veg

14.   Broccoli cheese rice

15.   Grilled chicken and steak, pasta side dish, veg

16.   Stuffed pepper casserole

17.   Pinto beans and cornbread

18.   Chili

19.   Pulled pork, rice side dish, veg

20.   Jalapeno popper chicken, pasta side dish, veg

 

After I decide what meals that I am going to make for the month, I go back to the recipes and write down everything that I need to make those recipes.  Even if I think that we have the ingredient in the cabinet, I still write it down.  The last thing that I want to have to do is run to the store by surprise on a week night to grab an ingredient that I thought I had but didn’t.  Once I have the list of all of the ingredients, I go to my cabinets, freezer and refrigerator and decide what items I actually need.  This is where I decide if I can make substitutions, like if I know that I have black beans that are going to expire, can I substitute those for pinto beans in a certain recipe, etc.  This is also where I would write down the staple items that I need to buy like cereal, eggs, milk, bread, cooking spray, etc. 

 

Because I shop mainly at one store, this is where I go back for the final time and organize my list by location in the store.  I know that certain items are on certain aisles in any Aldi, so I group those items together.  It is a regular occurrence for me to forget a pen when I grocery shop and so being able to quickly tick items off of the list is much easier when they are in order.   

 

 

This weekend I bought the bulk of our monthly groceries at Aldi and spent $175.68.  This month we were actually well stocked already with foods that the kids are interested in eating for lunches, like lunch meat, chicken nuggets, waffles, etc., so I didn’t have to buy much of that.  I still have three items to buy at a different grocery store that will be purchased separately and then our weekly milk trips.   






 

Aldi
1/19/2014
Item	Quantity	Price (each)	Price
Milk	5	$2.29	$11.45
White Onions	3lbs	$1.69	$1.69
Red Onions	3lbs	$1.79	$1.79
Potatoes	10lbs	$2.99	$2.99
Spaghetti sauce	4	$1.19	$4.76
Frozen chicken breasts	5lbs	$6.49	$6.49
Ground Beef 90/10 2.5lbs	2	$8.73	$17.46
Tater tots	1	$1.89	$1.89
Colby Jack cheese 1lb	6	$1.79	$10.74
Mozzarella 1lb	4	$1.79	$7.16
Monterrey Jack 1lb	1	$1.79	$1.79
Spaghetti rings	3	$0.59	$1.77
Canola spray	3	$1.39	$4.17
Rice side dish	2	$0.79	$1.58
Jiffy cornbread mix	2	$0.52	$1.04
Frozen egg rolls	1	$2.49	$2.49
Pasta side dish	2	$0.79	$1.58
Ricotta	2	$1.79	$3.58
Nutrigrain bars	2	$1.89	$3.78
Bacon	1	$6.29	$6.29
Ranch dressing	2	$1.39	$2.78
Cheddar 1lb	2	$1.79	$3.58
Cream of chicken soup	4	$0.59	$2.36
Peanut butter	1	$3.49	$3.49
Kielbasa	2	$2.29	$4.58
Frozen ravioli	1	$3.99	$3.99
Elbow macaroni noodles	1	$1.49	$1.49
Diced tomatoes & green chiles	1	$0.59	$0.59
Tomato sauce	3	$0.25	$0.75
Tomato paste	1	$0.39	$0.39
Diced Tomatoes	3	$0.59	$1.77
Cream cheese	2	$1.29	$2.58
Lasagna noodles	2	$1.49	$2.98
Rice	3lbs	$1.59	$1.59
Green bell peppers	1	$1.39	$1.39
Jalapenos	2lbs	$0.89	$0.89
Diced green chiles	3	$0.69	$2.07
Mustard	1	$0.89	$0.89
Avocado	2	$0.49	$0.98
Turkey pepperoni	1	$2.79	$2.79
American cheese slices	1	$1.99	$1.99
Frozen peas	1	$0.95	$0.95
Ketchup	1	$1.49	$1.49
Kidney beans	2	$0.59	$1.18
Black beans	2	$0.59	$1.18
Corn - can	3	$0.49	$1.47
green beans - can	3	$0.49	$1.47
Celery	1	$1.19	$1.19
Cottage cheese	1	$2.29	$2.29
Butter	2	$2.29	$4.58
Belvita	3	$2.49	$7.47
Sour cream	2	$0.49	$0.98
Eggs -dozen	3	$1.39	$4.17
Spinach	1	$1.79	$1.79
limes	2	$0.10	$0.20
Chicken broth - box	2	$1.49	$2.98
Refrigerated pie crusts	1	$1.89	$1.89
Grape tomatoes	1	$1.99	$1.99
			$175.68