Layered Enchilada Bake

It's been a long time since I have posted a recipe. I guess I can't call it recipe of the week when I don't post any for months. I have tried a bunch of new recipes but I never find time to blog about them. Anyway, the other week 8 of my friends decided to do a meal swap. Everyone made 8 of one dish and brought it to swap. At the swap everyone got one of each meal so you go home with 8 meals. The concept is it that if you are making lasagna it is easier to make multiple pans of it since everything is out and you can buy in bulk. You cook once and in return get 8 meals to freeze. It turned out to be a success and we plan on doing it again. It has been great for nights I teach swim lessons and don't get home until 7:00. I pull one of the meals out of the freezer put it in the oven program the delay start and when we get home dinner is ready.

I was planning on making chicken enchiladas but a lot of people signed up to make chicken dishes. I didn't want to make another chicken dish so I had to find something else to make. I saw this recipe in the Food and Family Kraft Magazine and thought I would give it a try. Pretty risky making it for 8 people not even knowing if it was good. Luckily it was really good. By the way, if you don't get the Food and Family Kraft Magazine I highly recommend it. it comes about 4 times a year and is FREE. Yep Free! you can't beat that. All you do is register for it on their website. It is full of great recipes.

Here's the recipe:
1 lb of lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 c Salsa
1 can (15 oz) black beans drained and rinsed
1/4 c Italian dressing
2 Tbsp Taco Seasoning
6 flour tortillas
1 c sour cream
1 package of Kraft Mexican Cheddar cheese (I used regular cheddar)

Brown meat and onions, Drain. Add salsa, beans, dressing, seasoning, and mix well Arrange 3 tortillas in a single layer in bottom of baking dish, cover with layers of half each of the eat mixture, sour cream and cheese. Repeat all layers. cover with foil.
Cook now - preheat oven 400 bake covered 30 min remove foil bake additional 10 min. let stand 5 min
Cook later - freeze up to 3 months, preheat oven 400 bake covered 1 hour. remove foil bake additional 15 min let stand 5 min

Movie by God

This weekend the kids and I went to help my parents move into their new house (they are finally in and the house is amazing - Yea!!!). The kids had a great time exploring while I helped move and unpack boxes.

Part of our night time ritual is that the kids get to watch 10-20 minutes of a movie before going to bed. On Saturday night both kids were exhausted and went straight to bed after dinner forgetting to watch a movie. The next morning Beckham woke up and told me, "Mom, we forgot to watch a movie last night but that's OK. I watched the stars twinkle. The sky was full of them and they were so pretty. God made a great movie (referring to the twinkling stars)." Beckham has the sweetest heart and he melted my heart as he told it to me. I have to admit he was right the stars are amazing there. In one room the bed is right under the window so when you look up all you see is stars. They are so bright, beautiful and you can see 1000s of them. The first night I was thinking the same thing Beckham was - What an amazing God we have.

Halloween

As you can imagine Halloween was a hit at our house. Both kids got into it this year. Ainsley was a riot. She would push her way to the front of the group making sure she got first dibs on the candy as it was passed out. At one house she held both hands out reaching for the bowl of candy. The man asked - Do you want the whole bowl? Her response - YES!! It was fun to see the kids enjoying themselves as they walked house to house gathering candy. Ainsley was determined to do it all on her own and refused help fro anyone. By the end of the street she was dragging her bag but didn't want to stop. Beckham was so sweet at one house the lady opened the door with a sleeping baby in her hands he whispered "trick or treat" followed by a soft "thank you". Making sure not to wake the baby. Beckham was a cowboy and Ainsley was a ladybug. I think Beckham's costume was inspired by school because they had been studying the Wild West. When he said he wanted to be a cowboy I was delighted knowing it wouldn't be hard to put that costume together. We trick or treated in shifts. I took both kids to the houses on our street with our neighbor's kids while Monte passed out candy. then we came home ate dinner and Monte took Beckham out while Ainsley and I passed out candy. It seemed to work out well and it gave both of us an opportunity to see the kids trick or treat.

The next morning Ainsley was ready to go back out for more. She asked "we go trick or treating again tonight mommy OK?" Once a year is enough for this house. If we did it every night we would all weigh 300 lbs.

Not Easy to Pick Apples

One thing we loved doing when we lived in Chicago was apple picking. Every year we would go to Apple Holler and would have a great time. Every year I would pick way too many apples. The ride home would always consist of Monte asking how we could pick so many and didn't we learn our lesson last time. (We also always stopped at the Mars Cheese Castle to pick up some cheese curds on the way home). we had some great memories picking apples up north. Texas didn't have apple picking so when we moved to the Carolinas I was so excited to be able to go apple picking. The other weekend we decided it was time. We piled in the car and headed out to pick apples. We planned on meeting a few friends and making a day of it. Before leaving we thought about calling to make sure they were still picking apples but then thought - No, surely they still have apples their apple festival isn't for 3 weeks they have to still have apples. You can probably guess where this blog is going. We drive there only to find they stopped picking apples the previous weekend. With the freeze in the spring and the severe draught we are having they only had 25% of their crop. So we let the kids play in the hay, chase the chickens, and get some apple cider donuts and cider. I was disappointed but must admit the donuts made up for some of my disappointment. they were yummy and as we drove home we talked about how we should have gotten a dozen instead of a half dozen. Maybe next year will be better and we learned to call before driving out to the farm. You can see from the pictures that the kids had fun which is all that matters right? You can also tell from the pictures that Monte let the kids dress themselves. Hence Ainsley's sundress with pink shoes (originally she didn't have the shirt under her dress I grabbed that as we left and put it on her when we got there) and Beckham's bright red and green outfit. They still looked cute!

Gentlemen Start Your Engines

I can now call myself a resident of Charlotte. Monte and I got to truly experience NASCAR this weekend. Well, I don't know if you can say the true NASCAR experience. Monte got sky box seats to the race. We got to go on a pit tour that was pretty neat. The lady that gave us the tour is one of only a few female drivers for NASCAR. She gave us lots of insider information. It is amazing how much work and science goes into those cars (not to mention money). She talked about how instead of cleaning their windshield each pit stop they have clear stickers that have tabs and each pit stop they rip off the top sticker so the driver has a clean windshield. Also that the gas cans weigh 5 lbs empty but 80 when full. It takes 6 sec to empty the fuel can. They don't fill the tires with oxygen because there is moisture in oxygen so they fill them with nitrogen. I have to admit it was neat to get the tour. If you are going to go to a NASCAR race the sky box is the way to go. Air conditioned, soft seats, buffet and free drinks. What made the race even more exciting was the little personal TVs we got. The TVs allowed us to select a driver and see the race from the camera in his car, we could listen to any of the cars and their conversations with the pit crew. They also had a reply button you could use if there was a crash you could enter the car number and you could see the crash from their view and hear what they were saying. It definitely helped make the race more interesting. It was amazing to see how fast they drive and how loud it was. We did go outside for a little bit so we could hear the noise level. Before the race we walked around outside and you would have thought the circus came to town. If you like to people watch you would loves a NASCAR race. I can't even begin to tell you some of the things we saw. There are some very interesting NASCAR fans. We forgot to bring our camera but luckily the sky box gave us a goody bag which came with a camera. Problem is it is 35 mm so we have to get them developed and scanned before we can post any of them. All in all we had a great time. I won't call myself a NASCAR fan but I did have a good time. I told Monte I would go back...only if we were int he box seats again. Big thanks to Meggo and dad for watching the kids so we could go!

Getting better

I wrote this blog a few days ago in response to everyone's reply to the previous post about Ainsley being sick but was waiting to include pictures. Ainsley is feeling better (I wouldn't say 100%). I took her to the Dr. on Monday (a week ago, remember I was a slacker with posting this) because she has had congestion for over 2 weeks and this weekend she got hives. Poor girl seems like she has had one thing after another. The Doctor put her on some antibiotics that have to be the worst thing in the world. The liquid medicine is gritty - it feels and looks like it had sand in it. It's like drinking chalky sand. Doesn't that sound good? Imagine trying to give a toddler this nasty medicine you wouldn't take yourself. Not fun! I have learned Ainsley's love for marshmallows/candy corn. We now use marshmallows or candy corn as chasers for the medicine.

The other part of the story is whenever the kids go to the Dr. they get a sticker. which they love. The first few times they put them on the window of the car. I didn't like that look so I suggested putting them on the roof of the car. As you can see from the picture of the roof of the car we have been to the doctor's a few times in the past 18 months. In fact just a few weeks ago Beckham said - Mom we need to go to the doctor. Curious I asked why are you sick? His reply - No, we just need more stickers we haven't gotten any new ones lately. (Only because it was summer and you weren't sick every other week). I told him there's a much cheaper way to get stickers - like the dollar store!! I am hoping this year won't be as bad as last. I am praying their immune systems got used to school germs, NC/SC germs and the environment here.

Ainsley's side of the car is the left picture Beckham's is the right. I had a hard time capturing how many there are.

I all better??

The only thing worse than being sick is having your kid be sick (I guess the worst thing would be being sick and having a sick kid at the same time). Ainsley had the stomach flu this weekend and I felt so bad for her. At that age they don't understand what is going on. This is the first time she had the flu and every time she got sick she would look at me with her sad, confused eyes and say, "I don't like, I don't like" I tell her it's OK no one likes getting sick. I can only imagine what was going on in her brain - wondering what in the heck is going on. She would then say "I all better mommy?" It would break my heart because I would've given anything to make her better but couldn't. Luckily the stomach flu only lasted 24 hours but then 2 days later she spiked a fever. So right now we are held up in the house until she gets better. I am hoping her fever breaks soon so she can get some relief. It's no fun having sick kids. You feel so helpless and wish you could do more than just love on them.