Mmm feta

What you need: three fairly thick chicken breasts, 6 oz. of tomato basil feta cheese, butter, seasoned bread crumbs.


Pre-heat the oven for 350
Cut the chicken in half (but not all the way, you want to create a "pouch")
Lightly grease a 9X13 glass cooking dish
Fill the middle of the chicken breasts with feta cheese and smoosh down and place in cooking dish
Brush the chicken with the butter and cover with bread crumbs, then lightly spray with cooking spray
Bake at 350 for 35 - 45 minutes

I served this with pasta salad and a regular salad (lettuce, feta cheese crumbles and croutons).

How it was received:
Stefan made a happy plate and loved it. I thought it was really good. I think the next time I make it, I'm going to try to stuff the chicken with regular feta and add some salt and pepper. Lyric wasn't thrilled, but unless its ramen noodles or spaghetti she rarely is. She refused to even try the chicken and had a MAJOR melt down when we wouldn't let her have dessert. This morning on the way to school she asked me why I didn't feed her dinner last night, so I'm sure she is going to tell everyone who will listen how deprived she is and how we starve her. I kindly reminded her that I did feed her dinner but she chose to only eat the pasta salad and refused the rest, but I'm sure it fell on deaf ears. Tonight on the menu: meat loaf, roasted potatoes (my mom's recipe which NEVER taste as good as mom's) and bread.

SAHM no more

I'm headed back into the workforce next week!!  I've accepted a position as Director of Marketing at MRIS.  I couldn't be more excited about the work I will be doing, the company, and my new co-workers.  I spent my last four months at AOL taking a deep, hard look at the position I had ended up in, the new management team and their strategies/work style and whether I was still happy and excited to come to work each day. I came to the conclusion that it was time to explore other opportunities after Braelynn was born.  Well, we all know how that ended up, a month before my due date I was put on the list!  I have always been a firm believer of everything happens for a reason, and once again I have proven myself correct. 

Now what this means for the girls and I over the next week is this: pure chaos!  I was thinking that I still had 2-3 weeks to get all of my loose ends wrapped up.  I really didn't expect to have an offer and start date so quickly.  Now we have one week to accomplish the following: get Lyric registered for her new school, find Braelynn daycare (Lyric's school doesn't take infants), change my name, go to DMV get new license, get Brae's hip ultrasound, go to my 6 week doc check up, buy all new wardrobe because I still am not fitting into pre-prego clothes, and I'm sure I'm leaving off about a million other things!  But I'm a total workaholic and beyond ready to get out of this house and get started on building out my strategy and plan for the new position!

Hooked on funics

It would seem I go to McDonalds a lot seeing as how it is the scene of crime for many of my blog posts. Since my weight loss plan is to mentally will the weight away, I think I may need to re-evaluate my food choices. Or not.


On to the subject of my blog. While visiting the McDonalds drive through this weekend I witnessed, first hand, a sad mutilation of our fine language in the form of a sign. If the picture is hard to see, here is what it says "Nex window please tanks" *sigh*

Baby updates: Sleepless nights and a doc apt.

Brae had her two week check up (well I slacked a little and she was actually four weeks old) but we eventually made it to the ped's office and everything checked out just fine.  She now weighs a whopping 6 lbs 13 oz and is 20 inches long.  When Lyric was born she was 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 1/4 inches long.  Which is interesting since Brae technically was due right around now.  When I have another baby I'm having a contest to guess the weight and length I am fairly certain, unless other participants read this, I have it in the bag!  We are getting there as far as sleep is concerned, on good nights I get about a four hour stretch.  I certainly am not going to complain about four hours,  I know what two/three hours feels like, and its not pretty!  Nights right now are still kind of a blur though, I often find myself falling asleep in the middle of feedings waking up to Braelynn on the bed next to me with the nipple poking her in the eye or half the bottle pouring out all over the bed.  But we are troopers and we are powering through it!

My kid is hilarious

If you don't have kids you are seriously missing out on hours of entertainment.  I, not unlike most moms, believe I have the funniest kid in the world (along with the smartest, most beautiful, nicest, I could go on for hours). The girls and I drove through McDonalds for some grub this morning and Lyric says to me "Mommy, I love hash brownies from McDonalds". Hopefully if this is repeated in public people will know she is referring to the delicious, fried potato dish McDonalds serves alongside their breakfast meals and not the illegal variety, but either way it had me laughing. It also reminded me of a mispronunciation my best friend, Jeanine's son used to have when he was younger. When talking about cotton
balls he would say c____ and balls (in order to stay work safe I'll let you all fill in the blanks!).  Of course, being the mothers of the year that we are, we would have him say cotton balls repeatedly and then continue to laugh our a$$es off. Poor Jake, he probably could never figure out why we thought plain old balls of cotton were so hilarious.

I'm dressing this post up with some self portraits Lyric has taken on my iPhone (I believe they are fitting). Generally when my phone disappears by the time I find it again my camera roll is filled with close ups of her mug and 700 shots of her feet in various poses all over the house, enjoy!

Olympics

My husband likes to bring my patriotism into question, but I really just can’t get into the Olympics. I have never been able to watch sports on TV, but even the opening ceremonies, I just had no desire. Now I’m certainly not putting down the Olympics or defending my taste in television (how could I with a DVR filled with hours of mind numbing reality shows) but this year, I choose not to participate.


I do however enjoy the mascots and the online debate they have sparked. Personally I think they are cute, and characters kids can enjoy, however, some netters find them offensive. As with most creative outputs, you can’t please them all. At the end of the day, despite the naysayers, I’m sure Vancouver will sell plenty of branded memorabilia and Sumi, Quatchi and Miga will have done their job well.

Bitter.... party of, too many...

First I would like to say Happy 5th Birthday to my big girl, Lyric.  I wish I could bottle up my girl's childhoods and save them forever.  Time passes by way too fast and it is bittersweet in so many different ways.

The other big event this weekend was Valentine's Day. If you look to the left I have posted a pic of me and hubby in honor of this day of love. Lyric went to Disney on Ice with Auntie Laura and Braelynn had a sleepover at Grandma's, so we actually got a kid free night out! In addition to flowers, a dinner and card I also was given the gift of finally being able to squeeze into my pre-prego jeans, a night of win all around.

My random thoughts on Valentine's Day:

There are two different types of people that present themselves on Valentine's Day: the Happys and the Bitters. The Happys fill their day with candy hearts, silly stuffed animals, sparkly jewelry and overly sweet Hallmark cards. There are both single and committed Happys, this group is just, well, happy.  They want to celebrate love whether it be a significant other, parent, child or whomever. Now the other group is the group that generally I try to avoid especially on days such as Valentine's Day, the Bitters. The Bitters hate everything about the evil, evil holiday that is Valentine's Day, and they will tell anyone who will listen how they feel. Not only are they miserable and unhappy, but they want you to be miserable and unhappy too. Why should they be all alone with their agony? What this desolate group doesn't get is that their gloomy attitude is what is keeping them from getting the exact thing that is making them depressed in the first place. Who wants to be with an Eeyore? The answer, no one! So ladies, enough with the man bashing, find happiness within yourself and everything else will fall into place. If you are happy and confident and not trying so hard to hunt and devour love, love will find you and you will be ready to accept it.