fever, like a fire

Ever since Pipers little wheezing episode, new symptoms have slowly been added to the list. Nasty cough, congestion, and a fever. The cough and congestion started on Wednesday and hasn't let up and the fever started Thursday evening. Occasionally Tylenol will help and keep it at bay; so far it hasn't really completely gone away. Now it's almost 2am and I'm debating whether or not to take her in to be seen. Three hours from now will make 36 hours since the first dose of medication. 20 minutes from now will be one hour that the Tylenol has been trying to get its job done. 

She's completely restless next to me, clad only in a diaper, and is breathing a little quicker than normal. This chick cannot catch a break. Strep in March, an ear infection two weeks ago, and now this. If anyone happened to be curious about how the cold turkey paci removal went, it didn't. We got through about 24 hours before news of her ear infection and decided that it would be cruel. 

Fingers crossed for lower temps. 

Leia

happenings

It's Wednesday again! Today I'm completely dragging having been up all night with a strangely wheezy Piper. It began while she was sleeping and it resembled the strained breathing of an 80 year old. This is the second time it has happened but it wasn't any less frightening; if anything, it was more. It lasted longer and then dissipated to the point of sounding like congestion and then gradually stopped by the time the birds started singing at 5:30am. 

This was a long way to tell you that I don't have a meal post ready for you today because before work today I was actually able to attempt a nap.

Other things I can share that aren't a meal:

THE WINTER SEMESTER IS OVER! While over the course of the last 15 weeks have brought a change to my educational path, I'm happy with it; or at least come to terms with it. The hardest bullet I've taken is the choice to not apply at all to Eastern's nursing program. I busted my ass this semester but my grades/points are falling under the competitive line. While there may be a CHANCE at still gaining admittance, a larger part of me wants to take the alternative path instead of getting the rejection letter. Yes, I believe this tree bloomed the moment I turned in my last exam.

The discovery of shredded cheddar jack! Remember when I was so excited to have found plain shredded monterey jack cheese that wasn't a colby jack? Well, apparently this has existed and recipes in the future will be so much better! *heart eyes*

I celebrated with my oldest friend at her bridal shower over the weekend! Our relationship has grown and separated since our initial meeting in middle school but it's one of the best that I have. You better believe I won the 'who knows the bride best' game! And you also better believe she had one hell of a cute prize made up!

This week we finally had to decommission our high chair. Yes, the high chair that Kennedy and Piper both have used. Unfortunately the bolts became loose after constant jostling and instead of being proactive the task kept getting pushed under the rug and the wooden pieces became compromised. Le sad. And now we're in a weird middle ground; she's old enough to where I don't think it's necessary to invest in another high chair at this time but she's not quite big enough to be able to sit properly at the dinner table.

Mermaid World. Thanks to one of the nurses I work with this game as been a slight obsession of mine. It's a game of skill, alright? And you'll note that with the lag time of the game and screen shot, it looks like my Luau Mermaid has lost her damn head.

I bought Kennedy a little trinket for finally getting the hang of night time potty training (more on that later)! Well, the jelly LED watch survived a day before she was apparently overcome by rabies and thought the best thing to do was to bite it. When I asked her why she did it, she just simply responded, "just cause." Oooooookay, weirdo. Sadly, I only snapchatted this event and don't have a photo.

Piper got her first little french braid! Seriously, I about died when I saw the finished product. This is what happens when you let your toddler play with Mermaid World: content enough to sit still to have her hair weaved.

So all in all, life has been good. I hope now to recover on my sleep and exhaustion now that school is over and maybe try to plan a little summer vacation.



I'm free.
Leia

the cuckoo's calling

My day started off bright and early at 7:30am with my organic and biochemistry final. Why yes, this was a fabulous choice of exam time. Seriously. Luckily it was only thirty minutes earlier than my class normally is but damn, can a lady catch any type of break amongst all the chaos? After that it was off to my to math exam. The struggle of this semester was epitomized when I got back in my car after chemistry and drove around campus to math exam. If it hadn't been raining, I might've walked. Haha, who am I kidding. I still would've driven. And still, I have one more exam to prepare for but seeing as my brain may implode at any moment, I'm giving it a break with a new book.

This one makes #9 for the year. Without having a school schedule this number would have been doubled by now.

 I've had this book on my list for a long while but had been really hesitant. A) I was sort of annoyed that J.K. Rowling revealed that Robert Galbraith was her pseudonym after the release of this novel (supposedly after sales bombed). B) I am even more annoyed at the fact that she continued to write as Robert Galbraith after it was made known that it was a pseudonym. C) Ultimately J.K. Rowling is capable of few unforgivable things. D) I found it at Meijer for 'under' $6 even though it still sells at Barnes & Noble (in store) for $26. Online you can get it for a similar price as I just found out.

Also, I left these stickers on the cover because they are the kind that absolutely ruin the dust jacket with goo if you remove them. I will forever be confused by this notion. Just put the stickers on the back or something!

The cuckoos are a family of birds: cuculidae.

Leia

mid-week meal share: sloppy joe's

Oh folks, it's Wednesday again and depending on when you ask me it's either the best or worst (or a combination of both) day of my week. This Wednesday marks the first day back to work and the beginning of my eight day stretch, next Wednesday is the last day of my stretch that leads to six glorious days off.

It's been feelin' like summer in the mitten so after Kennedy's soccer practice on Monday everyone seemed to be enjoying the weather so I catered dinner around that. Sloppy Joe's and a picnic style dinner in the backyard. It was pretty much a win-win scenario.

Easy to concoct: if you can cook burger and pour a can of sauce this one's for you.

Cost effective: $8!

Though I'm sure the ingredients list for this one is unnecessary I've prepared one for you anyhow!

1 lb ground beef (or more)

1 can Manwich (or more if you got more meat)

buns

*sriracha

*mustard

*potato chips

*cheese

1. Brown your ground beef and heat to specially 165°F according to Manwich's instructions. I mean, we all check the temperature of our ground beef when we cook it for other meals, right? Good one.

2. Drain the excess grease, add in your Manwich.

3. Top with a multitude of condiments and enjoy!

Totally a casual affair. Simple preparation. Simple cooking. Simple clean up. The girls totally loved it! And while it was easy on that front, I thought I would keep with the theme. I made Piper a Sloppy Joe 'salad'. This method still produced spilled contents but much less than if I had made her a sandwich.

    With this semester coming to a close this was exactly what I needed. And oh Sloppy Joe's such a summertime, childhood classic. As an adult it's clear to see that the main ingredient is ketchup which is like ehhhhh, but NOSTALGIA.



A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal.
Leia

dairy barn

Michigan has finally delivered beautiful Spring weather! Albeit we got hit a little hard with intense summer heat when it wasn't quite expected.. especially when a week ago we had snow on the ground.  Like going from low 40's to mid 80's over night is a stitch of a shocker to the system. Have no fear, though, our local Ice Cream Shoppe is open!

We hopped our our bikes and we ice creamed it up real good.

Piper barely missed a drop. This is not incredibly surprising, though.

This also happened: cheeks in slow motion. Still unsure of how to make my videos work within posts so there's a link to insta. 

You're my little doop scoop!

Leia

first soccer game

On Saturday Kennedy had her first soccer game! It was every bit of a cluster fuck as one would imagine when nine 4 and 5 year olds are trying to play soccer. On top of having had only three practices, her team was divided into pairs of three and they played against each other. I'm assuming this is typical for the age group since winning/losing is not something that should be instilled. Maybe our league is just wacky, I truly don't know. Giving this, I totally understood their confusion when they all attempted to score in the same net instead of switching sides respectively.

In addition to scoring in the wrong net there was plenty of: spinning, dancing, sitting, laying down, chit-chatting and aimlessly looking at the sky. Like, that poor ref. My heart went out to her. Oh, their coaches too.

Overall it was a great time and she had quite the cheering section rooting for her. They deserve a special award, too because her game was bright and early at 9am but at least it was sunny and in the fifties! We had to report by 8:30, but of course that didn't happen. It was more like 8:45 and luckily no one batted an eye because I would have been a tad barky.

Shirts vs skins.

Leia

mid-week meal share: sausage gravy hash brown skillet

I started composing this post on 4/13 and now 4 days later.. Dun, dunna, dunnnnnn! An Average Mom Blog "original recipe"! No, I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever think of this combination but I was inspired by a dish from our favorite Coney Island.

Easy to concoct: you will need to multitask.

Cost effective: yes, but I don't have my receipt.

Here's what you're gonna need:

*lack of photo since I was adding as I went along*

half a bag of frozen shredded hash browns

1 tbsp olive oil

salt

pepper

onion powder

4 eggs

sausage links

ground sausage

2-3 cups milk

3-4 tbsp flour
CHEESE!




1. In a pan start browning up your hash browns with olive oil and season with as much salt, pepper, and onion powder as you deem desirable. Also at this time I prepped my scrambled egg mixture.

2. In a separate pan start browning your ground sausage for your sausage gravy.

3. Begin cooking your sausage links. Really, I would cook them in the same pan as your ground sausage. Initially I tried cutting them into pieces before I cooked them, but this method did not work out so well. Cooking them with the hash browns also proved to be slightly difficult.

4. Once the ground sausage is browned, do not drain and add 3-4 tbsp of flour and cook until 'browned'.

5. Remove sausage links from the skillet and cut into pieces; pour eggs into skillet and scramble away.

6. Add enough milk into your ground sausage and flour so that it covers the sausage; while initially I did not add that much because I was nervous there would be too much it was simply too thick to be considered gravy.

7. Add your 'diced' sausage links back into the hash brown mixture (and cook them until they are properly done like I had to do).

8. Top with your sausage gravy and enjoy!

Yeah, I should have written out instructions before attempting to make this one. FOR SURE should have cooked both sausages in one pan. I thought cooking the the links in the same pan as the hash browns would have been the most efficient but nope; ya live and ya learn I guess. Our hash browns turned out a little crispier than I had intended but it was still a good one. Options are endless with adding different vegetables, meats, cheeses, or spices.

Holy shit. I didn't add any cheese! I'm ashamed and mortified.



For shame.
Leia

bye bye, paci

We're finally pulling the paci plug on Piper; cold turkey and altogether. It's a huge crutch and something has to change with her and her bedtime routine. While I know she's still a baby, I also need my sanity.  We've hit an all time low and I'm hoping this will be the ultimate solution. Lately her nightly outburst have me nearly in tears and I constantly feel as if I'm running on empty. I don't want to say what time she went to bed and whether or not we've heard a peep from her as of yet (because the universe is great when you want a slap in the face), but I will say that when your toddler is eager enough for a paci she will get creative when it comes to items to gnaw at. 

Barbie cake platter anyone?

Leia

happy "spring"

This week Ken's soccer schedule should have been:

Saturday

8:30am: technical training and parents meeting

Jersey pick-up

Monday

5:45pm-6:45pm: practice

Thursday

5:45pm-6:45pm: practice

Saturday

9:00am-10:00am: FIRST GAME!

Remind me to talk to someone about this 9am shit..

 

Friday night I got this email from the soccer association:

While I had not planned on going to the meeting because why in the hell did they expect anyone to be anywhere at 8:30am on a Saturday morning; it was canceled due to below freezing temperatures and a potential accumulation of 5 inches of snow. IN APRIL.

Luckily enough the snow either missed us or had been entirely miscalculated! While the temperatures were indeed below freezing, we only experienced off and on flurries which I tried to be at least thankful for.

And then this week is a true taste of what weather is like in Michigan.

We start off the week with freezing temperatures and snow showers and are hopefully ending it with summer seventies and sunny skies. Fingers crossed the temps for Monday, Thursday, and Saturday stay consistent so everything soccer related can be at least tolerable.

Mother Nature, please take a chill pill.

Leia

mid-week meal share: tuscan chicken pasta

Like, I wish I could be eating this pasta again. Right meow. I've said it before and I'll probably continue to say it: my hangry friends on Facebook share so much food shit it's ridiculous. I save roughly 80% of the quick food videos I see. There are a couple breakfast diddy's, countless desert's (though these always seem out of my culinary comfort level) and even more pasta dishes. I mean, pasta. How can you not just love the stuff? Hopefully it's your favorite, too because that's what I have for you this week!

Easy to concoct: yes'm.

Cost effective: ~$18 for a full meal plus leftovers.

Let's get ready to gatherrrrrrrrrr (these ingredients):

16 oz angel hair pasta

1 lb chicken breast

"kosher" salt

"freshly ground" black pepper

6 slices bacon

1 tsp (2 cloves) minced garlic

2 cups diced tomatoes

3 cup baby spinach

¾ cup heavy cream

½ cup water

⅔ cup grated parmesan

This time the main instructions I've provided are with the alterations I made; feel free to follow the original though! 

1. Pick your favorite sauce and dump your chicken in a Crock-Pot with it and cook on high for 3 hours.

2. If you haven't alotted 3 hours prior to dinner you can cook it in 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan for 6 minutes on each side before cooking your bacon.

3. To get things rolling you're first going to want to get water boiling for your noodles and frying up your bacon. I used thick cut which I sort of regretted with the amount of minuscule grease burns I got everywhere. The original recipe called to reserve ½ cup of pasta water, this I presume was to thicken the sauce which I didn't end up needing in the end. You won't either if you've used my above ingredients.

4. Cook your bacon until crispy, set aside, and drain most of the grease.

5. Add garlic, tomatoes (I used canned because: hello easy) and spinach to your greasy ass pan. Season with salt and pepper to your liking.

6. Once your spinach has cooked down you can add your cream, water, and cheese. Mix and simmer.

7. While your sauce is simmering you're going to want to shred your chicken and bacon. Brendon grabbed our bear claws and shredded both simultaneously. Awesomeeeeeeee.

8. Add your noodles to the sauce and combine until evenly covered.

9. Add in your chicken and bacon. I added my chicken and bacon in first and it was a total disaster. The sauce made the chicken clump together and the cheese just made everything that much harder to separate. I switched to a larger pan and was frantically adding cream and water to try and get everything evened out. The ingredients I provided should be the amount I ultimately ended up using.

10. Enjoy!

It was a shirtless affair.

Minus my freak out of having a lump of chicken with a side of noodles near the end it ended up being completely delicious. I really had my doubts but the added liquid components evened everything out. I think that all would have been avoided had I added the noodles first. Oh well, you live and you learn I guess.

Bon appetit!

Leia