Cooking with Jacquelle

Not that I'll ever have my own TV show (nor do I ever want one) but I thought I'd share a couple meals I made recently.

My kids are so tired of sandwiches I can't find words to describe it. I came up with this new idea and it worked great. I made four different kinds of sandwiches - ham and cheese; peanut butter and grape jelly; pb and strawberry jam; pb and honey. Then I cut them all into quarters. I put one quarter of each sandwich on the kids plates... so they each received 4 different quarters. Ben and Marissa traded one quarter but the other kids were more than happy to eat all their quarters. It was so fun! (Kemiah and I ate leftover soup because I needed that to get eaten and it's her favorite food.)

For dinner tonight I made pancakes. I started out with just cherry pie filling as the topping for our pancakes. Then I added almond extract to the batter, as well as shredded coconut. Ben asked if I could make chocolate chip smiley faces on the pancakes. So we had almond-coconut-chocolate-cherry pancakes. They were delicious! I mean really, how could you go wrong with so many yummy flavors all together?!

Like I said, I won't have a show but we are enjoying life as we eat!

I dislike it when I'm retarded.

I made Domonique's 2 month checkup for today. I dropped the other kids off with a wonderful friend and made my way to the appointment this morning. I got a little lost but finally made it. I filled out the paperwork for the new patient. When they called me back the nurse politely said, "Before you get her undressed I wanted you to know that she won't be getting her shots because she's not 2 months old until Saturday. So you can have the check up today and then bring her back on the 9th for shots or you can reschedule." Oh bother. You think I would know these type of things after having 5 other kids. I did think about it when I made the appointment but ended up making the wrong choice because of the holiday weekend. I opted to cancel today's appointment and reschedule for next Friday so that I could bring Marissa in at the same time to have some warts frozen. Both appointments are made and the same wonderful friend will watch the other kids again. Hopefully it all works out the way I think it will, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't.

Can I can?

We were very excited about the garden and all the produce it was growing. We bought a pressure canner and jars and lids and we thought we were ready. Kevin started picking corn and he just kept right on picking. The kids kept bringing in bags full of ears and then took more empty bags out to the garden. I finally went out and said no more!

Our new neighbor's daughter-in-law was visiting and came over to see what her girls were doing (they were playing with my kids) and she volunteered to help out. Everyone helped take the husks off the corn. I blanched them, she cut the corn off the cobs, and Kevin packed it into the jars. We pressure cooked them and it was pretty easy with all that help.

We ate some with dinner and it tasted yucky. Unfortunately, we picked the corn too late. Fortunately, the chickens don't care and they actually love it so I guess we canned some winter food for the chickens. At least it won't be wasted. We are moving on to tomatoes and salsa. Good luck to us!

This is often where Kemiah ends up when I'm in the kitchen. She likes to be with me, or at least near me.

8 weeks old!

I can't believe she is 8 weeks old. She'll be 2 months old on Saturday (Sept 4). She is really amazing, but I feel like I say that about all my babies. She goes to sleep at 10 every night and I wake her up at 6 so that I can get her first feeding done before I start the day with the other kids. She is really easy going and happy. The only time she cries is when she needs a new diaper, or when I'm taking a little too long to feed her.

Last night I had a dream that she was talking, peeing on the potty and swimming. I was not happy because she's only 2 months old - she can't grow up that fast. Although, I wouldn't mind not having to change her diapers but it's all part of the baby stage and I love this stage. I find myself wanting to hold her all the time because I don't want to miss out on this stage because I'm busy doing so many other things.

Another one bites the dust.

Actually, Ben was eating frosted shredded wheat this morning and pulled out his very loose tooth. I tried to pull it yesterday with floss but I couldn't get it out. Ben was afraid he would swallow it while he was sleeping, like he did the last one. I'm just glad it's gone!

Puzzling...

This is Kemiah's new favorite thing to do all day long. She'll say to me, "I don't know what to do." I'll list off several things - read, color, play with toys, take a nap, play a game - and she'll say no to them all. Then I'll say, "Get out a puzzle." She'll smile and run off to the cupboard where we keep them. She needs help the first time but then she can do them all by herself. At least with 24 piece puzzles. She hasn't tried the bigger ones on her own but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Really shouldn't have

Of all the things I' could blog about, I'm not really sure why I am doing this one. Maybe because I don't have a lot of time so this is the easiest one. Unfortunately for you, it's not really exciting, nor is it something you want to know about but I'm sharing anyway.

One of the recipes that really saves us at the end of our stay on the island was Peachy Oatmeal. I haven't made it since we left the island because, truthfully, every time I thought about making it I got sick to my stomach. A couple of the kids kept asking for it so I finally made it this morning. I made our regular batch and thought to myself, "Maybe you're making it up and you'll be able to eat it." I was fine until I sat down with the kids and starting serving them up. It was not good for me and I didn't even have a bite. So the picture shows how much we had left over.


I think we are really done with this for a long time. I'm not even sure why I get to feeling so sick because it really was good tasting. Weird.

Brings back memories

This is one of Kemiah's favorite things. She calls is "the Kelty carrier" and I know why. For 16 months of her young life I toted her on my back in a Kelty kid carrier. I called it "the Kelty" even though Kelty makes a lot of different equipment. It was the only Kelty thing I owned. She spent a lot of time in ours so it's only natural to carry her baby on her back. I like hearing her say, "Kelty carrier."