Leftover Chicken Soup-Yum!

This picture does not do the soup justice:


I made some really yummy chicken soup tonight. It was soo good. I thought I'd share what I did, in case you ever want to try it. First, I had some chicken that Alfredo had grilled. It had a good flavor but was dry and we had some leftovers. I knew if I just reheated it that it would be too dry and no one would eat it. So I figured putting it in a soup would add some moisture. I also had some other leftovers, so I basically dumped them all in the pot.

So here's the recipe:

7 or 8 cups chicken broth (more or less depending on how much soup you're making, and actually I was out of chicken broth, so I used water with chicken boullion granules)
leftover cooked, cubed chicken (ours had seasonings, but plain chicken would work fine too)
leftover rice (the rice was from 2 nights ago and had peas and carrots and ham in it)
cut up red potatoes (I had about 4 left and needed to use them before they went bad)
carrots, cup up (I had 1/2 pound of baby carrots left and threw them in)
corn on the cob (In hispanic countries, they just throw the corn in the soup on the cob, just break it in half and throw it in...if you prefer, you could put in frozen corn or cut the corn off the cob)
2 cloves garlic
2-3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro (again, had a little leftover from a dinner a couple of nights ago)
dash of Lawry's (probably not even necessary)

Bring broth to boil. Add potatoes and carrots. Reduce heat to simmer for about 15 minutes. Then add everything else to pot and let simmer for 15-30 minutes until veggies are tender. This was seriously so yummy! Alfredo's aunt makes a soup like this from time to time and really you can add whatever you have on hand: egg noodles instead of rice, chopped up squash or zuchini or spinach, frozen mixed vegetables, turnips, etc. Be creative. It's easy, it is yummy and it's a great way to use up your leftovers. And I don't think anything in my recipe is a necessity other than the broth, the chicken and the garlic...all the rest are optional, so you can pick and choose based on what you have on hand.

By the way, I love soups in the summertime. I know most people (including Alfredo) think soups are more appropriate in winter, but I love that you can cook them without turning on the oven and heating your house up.

On a somewhat related note, crockpots are also great in the summer and I found a fun blog of a girl who used her crockpot every day in 2008. I've tried a few recipes and they are yummy. You might want to check it out. It is called
Crockpot365.

Storytime

We love to read at our house! Storytime is (usually) one of my favorite parts of each day. we have hundreds (or more?) of children's books and we regularly check out a bunch from the library as well. I thought I'd record some of the girls' favorite books right now, so I have a record.

Michelle is currently in a Junie B. Jones phase. She loves Junie B. (This happens to be one of my least favorites...primarily due to the fact that Junie has terrible grammar, it makes me cringe... but young kids can definitely relate to her). So we've read the first 3 books and then two more that come later in the series. Tomorrow, we will start another one.

Both girls, but especially Ella, love Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is a little girl who loves to be fancy. She loves to dress fancy, she loves fancy words (which makes me love her!), and she loves all things fancy. I love her use of words and my princesses love her fancy dog, fancy clothes, etc. We've read 6 or 7 of the books about Fancy Nancy.

If you have girls, you have to read Pinkalicious, Purplicious and now Goldilicious. Pinkalicious is a little girl who loves pink...until someone tells her pink is only for babies. Then she doesn't know what to do... until she learns that pink is a powerful color. In the newest book, Pinkalicious now has an imaginary friend, an amazing gold unicorn. My girls love Pinkalicious and were very upset when kids teased her and told her that black was the new cool color.

Tonight we just read a new book from the library that I think may become a new favorite. It is called, If I Built A Car by Chris Van Dusen. It is told in rhyme and is about the super cool car that a little boy would build...this car is awesome (and I'm not a car person). It can fly, float on water, go underwater like a submarine, has a built in robot to drive when you need a nap (How handy would that be?), has a pool and fixes you food. I think I'm in love...with the car and with the little boy's ingenuity.

Having just finished kindergarten, one of Michelle's favorites of the year were the Miss Bindergarten books. They are all cute and clever books with one "child" for every letter of the alphabet.

One more new (to us) book from the library that I have to mention: Mark Teague is an illustrator I love. My girls love the How Do Dinosaurs books by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. And for my third graders, I love Dear. Mrs. LaRue and Detective LaRue. So when I was browsing shelves and saw his book, Pigsty, I decided to check it out. It is too cute! A little boy is told by his mom to clean his room, because it is a "pigsty." In fact, when he goes upstairs, there is a pig in his room. He decides he likes the pig there and decides not to clean his room. But when more pigs come, he finally decides he doesn't want to live in a pigsty. Clever and with Teague's great illustrations, this is a fun book and my girls were grossed out by how messy his room was. This was a great find.

I could probably talk about many other books that my kids love, because as I said, we love books. But there are a few that we are enjoying right now.

West Fest

Michelle, Ella and I spent the afternoon at West Fest yesterday. It is basically a big fair. I thought it was costly, but the girls had fun. They had quite a few rides for the kids. With admission, we got 15 tokens, so we were able to play a couple of games and get snow cones and a pretzel. Later I bought them each an ice cream cone. Their favorite ride was the Tornado. I thought it might be a little scary for Ella, but she loved it. She wanted to ride it over and over...we ended up going on it 3 times. She would raise her hands in the air and scream joyfully. I got a kick out of the fun house. It's been a long time since I've been in one, and Ella and I went together. In one mirror, it made me look incredibly tall and thin (that's why I liked it:)) but at the same time, Ella looked short and her head was HUGE!

Michelle, of course, exhibited no fear. She was disappointed to be too small for a couple of rides, but it was good she was because Ella and I would have been too scared to go on them. The only ride Michelle said looked too scary was the Kamikaze.

I didn't take my camera, so I don't have photos, but it was a fun filled afternoon, followed by a great bbq with Alfredo's aunts, uncles, and cousins at our house last night.

What do you do in the summertime?

Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?
Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool, or swing in a tree up high?
Is that what you do? So do I!
--From LDS children's songbook, by Dorothy S. Andersen *I've found myself singing this song in my head for at least a week now, so I had to include part of it.

Summertime is my favorite. Well, spring is actually my favorite season, but I have the most fun in summer when I am off work, home with my kiddos and get to feel like a stay at home mom for a couple of months. And because it is only for 2 months, we pack in a lot of fun and many activities during those months.

We have been to Chuck E. Cheese to eat and play:


Right before school ended, on Memorial Day weekend, Alfredo and I took the girls to the Classic Fun Center where they had a great time on the slides and bounce houses.




Yesterday, my kids were so excited. We went to the Veteran's Memorial Park in West Jordan. It is so FUN!! There is a huge play area that looks almost like a castle. There are swings, including a tire swing that my kids loved. And in addition to the castle area, there are four other smaller playgrounds that my kids actually liked even more. We spent 2 1/2 hours there yesterday. This is the coolest park ever.







We have made sugar cookies with a bunch of friends from the neighborhood (I think there were 7 kids here that day, but maybe only six):





We play with lots of friends, including our darling friend, Aelora, who got to come to our house to play every day for a week while her mommy took a class. Her mommy, Brenda, is my colleague and one of my closest friends and Aelora and Ella were born 8 days apart.


We also love to play at parks. The girls love to swing, climb and swing on monkey bars and go down slides.




And my kids eat tons of popsicles, drink lots of water and kool-aid, spend countless hours riding their bikes, trikes and scooters, and play with friends nearly every day. We also visit the library, go swimming ocassionally, go to museums (a post about our trip to Treehouse Museum will follow in the next couple of days and then I'm caught up on my blogging), read countless books, watch movies, cuddle, laugh, and LOVE being home together!!

favorite things swap

So, my friend Shannon posted about this and I checked it out. It sounds really fun. Essentially, you pick 3 of your favorite things to swap with someone else.


If you're interested, check it out here. Might as well join the fun!

What Do YOU Do With M&M's?

Here's what we did:

We used them to make patterns: A B A B, AA B AA B, AA B C AA B C and so on


We used them to make shapes...triangles, circles, rectangles, ovals, rhombuses, and hexagons.


We sorted them by color.

My plan was to use them for adding and subtracting, but the girls had other plans. A few other things we did were to use them to practice skip counting by 2's and
5's. We used them to make fractions (1/2 of these M & M's are blue and 1/2 are red OR are 1/2 of them green if there are 5 green and 3 red?)

Ella practiced counting with them.

You can also use M&M's (or skittles or cereal or blocks) to practice multiplication and division. Have the child make 3 groups of 6 to figure out 3 x6. Michelle practiced division without even knowing it. She would count out 10 M&M's. Then I would have her pretend she was sharing them evenly with 2 friends or five friends. Then she counted out 12 M &M's and shared them evenly with 3 friends. After that, the kids were ready to be done with the M & M's, so then the best part of the activity? They got to eat them!

What would you do with M &M's? Could they also be used to teach a science or reading principle? Any creative ideas out there?

It's What Fun Is!

Saturday June 13:

Alfredo's company had Lagoon Day. We got in for free and they even provided lunch: an all you can eat bbq, complete with tons of prizes for everyone. We left Gabrielle with my friend Brenda, because she is too little to go on any rides and I didn't want her in the sun all day. Turns out that wasn't a problem, since it has been raining almost daily for 2 1/2 weeks now...and the sun was nowhere to be seen that day. But I wouldn't want her in the rain and cold either. (And fortunately, it only rained hard for about 15 minutes and sprinkled off and on a few other times. So most of the day was actually pleasant.)

This was Michelle and Ella's first time going to Lagoon. They LOVED it! Michelle is still talking about it. Michelle definitely takes after her dad, and Ella is more like me. Michelle wanted to go on all the rides and was disappointed that she was too little for some of the scary ones. Ella was happy to spend most of the day in Kiddieland. She liked the ferris wheel and the sky ride just fine, but she hated the big boat and that was the extent of the adult rides she and I went on. So what did they like best? Michelle loved the dinosaur drop and the ladybug that shoot you in the air and then drop you. She also said that the swinging boat was scary, and yet not too bad. She really, really wanted to go in this little ball that shoots you way into the air, but she was about two inches too short.






Ella's favorite ride was the dragon roller coaster. She probably rode it six times while we were there. She also liked the airplane and space ship ones. The big boat (Tidal Wave) totally scared her. She cried and her heart was pounding like CRAZY. I'm sorry we took her on it.




These are our friend's Cameron and Braden. It was fun, because one of Alfredo's best friends (Leo) works at Utility so he and his family were there. In addition, Leo invited his brother Christian, sister in law Teresa and their kids Cameron and Braden. Ella rode several rides with Cameron and Braden.


Alfredo invited his cousin Patti, her husband Nelson and their kids Daya and Laly. Patti's mom and sister also came. This photo is Patti, Michelle, Ella, Daya and Laly walking together. For awhile, Michelle went with Patti, Daya and Laly to ride some of the grown up rides while Ella, Alfredo, and I stayed with Christian and his family. The positive thing about the downpour was that many people left Lagoon, so after the downpour there was hardly any wait to get on rides.

This was a fun day! I can hardly wait to do it again next year.

Saying Goodbye to Kindergarten

Monday,June 9 was Michelle's last day of kindergarten. They held an end of the year celebration. First, they had a singing program. They sang a couple of songs about feelings and getting along. Then the dual immersion classes sang "My Mother is a Baker" in Spanish (Mi mama es panadera...). Michelle was the abuela (grandma) in the song.

After the performance, the students were handed a certificate and their report cards. Then the students got their sack lunches and we had a picnic in two of the kindergarten classrooms.



I am so pleased with Michelle's growth this year. Both of her teachers were so happy with all that she learned. She is reading at a DRA level 6 and is above benchmark on all sections of the DIBELS. Her reading in English and Spanish has improved. She speaks Spanish much more often now and will respond in Spanish when people talk to her (most of the time). Before she could understand most of what people said but she would answer in English. She is a good friend and is kind to the other students. She has made many friends this year, with her closest friends being Liliana and Mia. She has learned how to add and subtract, she loves patterns and notices patterns everywhere. She has begun to learn about recognizing and counting money. She knows her letters and sounds, shapes, colors, numbers and months of the year and days of the week in both languages. She was given Spanish books to read over the summer as well as some math and reading workbooks in both languages and has happily done work in them nearly every day. She loves to write and fills pages and pages with writing. She loves school and has done so well.

This is Maestra Tiburcio, her Spanish teacher. Michelle loves Maestra Tiburcio. A few favorites: On your birthday, Maestra cracks an egg on your head and "'fetti" (confetti) comes out. Earlier in the year, Maestra constructed a huge castle out of cardboard boxes and they had a bunch of activities relating to castles and fairy tales that lasted a week or more. Maestra has a fun kitchen area that they get to use during center time. It has a sink and lots of food and is very fun. In Spanish, Michelle kept a journal throughout the year. It is so fun to see how her writing in Spanish improved. At first, she would only write a word or two, but by the end she was writing one to three sentences in Spanish independently (with a few spelling errors, but very close to conventional spelling).


This is Mrs. Pereira, her English teacher. In English, Michelle really enjoyed all the songs and poems they learned. (She also loved the Spanish songs and poems.) She loved calendar time. She loved making puppets. Mrs. Pereira taught her to count to 100 and to count by tens. She gave them little toys when they learned all their letters and sounds and learned to count to 100. Because the kitchen was so popular in Maestra Tiburcio's room, Mrs. Pereira bought a kitchen too. She was very nice.



This is Michelle in "Mi Mama is Panadera" dressed up as the abuela.





Some of the things I loved about Michelle's school:
They have a great music program. In kindergarten through second grade, they have a music teacher that teaches them many songs (Michelle's favorite is "blue bird, blue bird through my window", to recognize rhythm, to use their high and low singing voice, and to recognize and know about several classical composers. Then in third through sixth grade, every child learns to play violin. (At most schools, they don't start violin or band until 5th grade and don't have music instruction until second or third grade).

Michelle has the opportunity to become literate in English and Spanish.

The counselor comes in to teach Second Step which teaches about feelings, conflict resolution and violence prevention. She has learned a lot from Miss Maggie.

Jackson has a partnership with The University of Utah. College students volunteer in the dual immersion classes each week. The students in dual immersion attend a week long science camp at the U. Michelle's was called Ladybugs and Lily Pads. They learned about animals and did lots of fun activities including going to the Natural History Museum. In addition, they take 3 other field trips to the U. Michelle went to the library, saw dancers perform, had a story time, and did some other activities. From kinder on, they talk to the students about how important and valuable college is and let them know that they can go to college and how to prepare. I think this is especially great at a school like hers where many of the parents didn't go to college. Many of these kids will be the first to go to college if they go.

Jackson really focuses on positive behaviors. They have a student of the week from each class, a student of the month, end of term citizenship rewards and other recognition for good behavior.

I've decided I really do like the school uniform. It looks nice to see all these kids in their uniform. And they do have free choice on Fridays,if they earn it.

They have a great after school program.

Michelle thinks her school is the best one ever. (Although I'm confident she would be happy anywhere and I'm sure we would love Hunter if that is where she went.)
Michelle loves it there and that, in my mind, is the best reason to love Jackson.

Can you help?

My sister is running a marathon in Dublin for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. She is trying to fundraise $5,400 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. If you would like to read about what she is doing or donate, visit the website. I've put the link here. She ran another marathon for them and raised several thousand dollars. She is amazing! And this is for a great cause.
Welcome to My Fundraising Page!

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ten months

June 11, 2009
It's nearly impossible to believe but Gabrielle is now 10 months old. She continues to delight us with her smile (still only 2 teeth) and laugh. She is still such a sweet, content but now very active baby.


Cute story: One day, Gabrielle was standing up at the back screen door. Chester came over and was licking her hand through the screen door. I ran to grab my camera, because I thought it was the cutest, sweetest thing ever. Come closer with my camera and realize that somehow Gabrielle had found a Hershey's kiss which she had eaten (wrapper and all) and she had chocolate on her hands and face. Chester wasn't being sweet (although he is a sweet dog and Gabrielle does love him)... HE was trying to lick the chocolate off her!!!



Let's see... as I mentioned in my last post, she is climbing up stairs, standing alone, cruising and crawling. She'll walk if she's holding onto you but not quite ready to take steps independently (which is okay by me...).

She also says, "mama", "dada", "Uh-oh" and what sounds like "Ella". She waves, and claps and plays peekaboo. In fact, she LOVES peekaboo. She especially likes it if either you hide on the stairs and pop up (over and over and over....) or if she uses a table or the bench in church to pop up over and over to play with you.

Oh, and I mustn't forget. She loves to dance. I mean she loves to dance. IT is so cute. If you sing or put music on, she bounces up and down and moves her little body all around and swivels her head. I wish I had a video to post on here because it is the cutest thing ever. And she has rhythm. She is a doll, and we are so blessed to have her in our family.

Catching up...

So I have not had computer access lately, and I have lots of blogging to catch up on.
In the next couple of days, I will probably do a series of posts to relate our busy, fun events as of late.

First, Gabrielle has learned to climb the stairs. Literally, she taught herself in about 5 minutes. I left her downstairs alone and ran outside for a few minutes to tell Alfredo something. When I came back in, she was almost up the stairs. She is quite good at going up but still needs lots of help going down, so we're still really careful around stairs.





She is also standing and cruising and crawling.