Crafty Monday

Yesterday rocked. It was a great day. We were worn out at the end of it...but yay!
Michelle, Beth (her little girl), Marina, and Emma (Mar's little girl) came over to hang out, have lunch and play. We had Oriental Chicken...THE simplest marinaded chicken btw (I'll put the recipe at the end)...and garlic green beans for lunch. The girls had hot dogs...well, they played with the hot dogs and spread them out evenly around the living area...but they're 16-18 months old. Can't expect much more than hot dog scattering to occur. Then we stripped the girls down and made Kool-aid Play dough. FANTASTIC. It was so quick and easy, and I think us mommies had more fun playing with it than the girls. The recipe is found here.

I used cherry kool-aid and my hands were pink from the heat of the dough and the kool-aid, but it cooled off and stopped making people who touched it pink when I was done kneading it. I loved that it smelled like Cherry. Mmmmmm. I think Emma liked it, too, as she decided it smelled yummy enough to eat until she actually took a bite. There's 1/2 cup of salt in that recipe, and it tastes like it :). And the recipe makes a crazy amount of playdough. I sent a bag of it home with Michelle and still have quite a bit left. I can't wait to get back home to buy more and try different scents and colors!!!!! It, amazingly, actually feels like playdough, which I wasn't prepared for! I expected the grainy feeling most homemade doughs feel like. Nope! Now we'll just have to see how long it lasts....

Hazel smacked the front of her head on the floor this morning at Mom and Tots. Broke my heart. She just cried and cried and cried. So I decided to bring her home and have lunch, read books and snuggle vs. going to Ballyclare and get groceries. We desperatly need food in this house, but I didn't feel right making her sit in a car seat for the 1/2 hour drive there, in a shopping cart through the store, and back in the car for the drive home. I'll go to the store tonight or order Tesco for the morning, I can just hit the butchers for dinner tonight. I'm thinking it's more important to have Mommy/daughter snuggle time.

So, Little Miss has developed quite the vocabulary. It's actually getting to the point where she's able to copy many of the words we say. So, #1 we have to be careful...but we've always been careful around her, so there's no adjustment there. But #2 I'm working very hard to getting her to use her words for things now instead of throwing fits or grunting or whining. It'll take some work, but I know she's capable of TELLING me what she wants for many things now and so it's our newest project. She gets frustrated quickly, but it just takes time and patience. It'll happen.

I think we've decided that we're going to try for baby #2 starting in July. I think that's a safe time with us moving home in December (provided that IS when we're transferred home). With Hazel making the attempt to be born early (8 weeks if she had her way, thankfully it was 3), I'm forever considered "high risk" meaning I have no business being on an airplane after my 2nd trimester. Actually I'll be lucky if they'd let me on the plane during my 3rd trimester anyway. If we get preggo right away in July, I'll be due at the beginning of April which makes me safely able to move home in December. All I can say is how glad I am that the next 2 months are full of travel. I'm hoping the next few months will go fast...I'm ready for morning sickness! (Not really, but I think it's been romanticized this far from my last episode.)

Oriental chicken
(this is not my recipe, but I can't find the name of the library book I borrowed that had it in it...will post when I do find it...just know this isn't mine)

2 Tbl Sunflower Oil
2 Tbl Soy Sauce
2 Tbl Hoi Sin Sauce

Mix marinade in a ziplock bag. Drop in up to 4 chicken breasts. Marinate at room temperature for atleast 15 minutes. This marinade works very quickly so there's no need to marinate longer than 1/2 hour.
Grill chicken.
We found that preparing the chicken any other way burns off the sugar in the Hoi Sin, and leaves a very salty chicken. I highly recommend just grilling it....

Well, Hazel's done with her lunch, and I've got some Wii Fit to do while she's napping...

Hope everyone has a great day!