Goodwill Monkey Joe

My sweet little reader!

We have been busy the last two days. We found some more good books for Daphne at the Goodwill. Our little library now includes:

The Cat in the Hat Comes Back 

and

Green Eggs and Ham

by Dr. Seuss

&

If you give a Mouse a Cookie

by Laura Joffe Numeroff

Johnny found this kid play place called Monkey Joe's and we had to check it out. It is basically a building filled with bouncy houses and obstical courses and slides. It was so much fun and Daphne had a blast. Its only for kids, but because Daphne is under 4 we could go on to "help" her so we got to play too. The workers were so nice too and didn't charge us because it was her first time and they wanted to give us a trial run to see if she would play on it. Play she did. At first she was very nervous, but once we went on the first slide she was hooked. 

Today we took family pictures and I can not wait to see them and share them with you. I'm really excited about them. I'm sure they are super cute. I will post them as soon as we get them.

Pony tail

I can get Daphne's hair in a real pony tail! I tried it tonight because I have noticed her hair has looked longer.  And how cute is she watching Sesame Street!?!

Mongolian Beef

I have new recipe for you all to try and man is it delicious! We had it tonight for dinner and it is better than takeout. I did do a tiny variation, I put veggies in it. The recipe only calls for green onions, but I left those out and added:

1/4 of a white onion thinly chopped

1/2 a bell pepper thinly chopped 

1 cup broccoli chopped.

Other wise I did just as the recipe says. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Ingredients

• 4 tsp. vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. ginger, minced
• 2 Tbsp. garlic, minced
• 1 c. soy sauce
• 1 c. water
• 1 c. brown sugar (packed)
• 2 c. vegetable oil
• 2 Lb. flank steaks
• ½ c. cornstarch
• 3 large green onions

Instructions

• Make the sauce by heating 4 tsp. vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat. Don’t get the oil too hot. Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches. Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to medium and boil the sauce 2-3 minutes or until sauce thickens a little bit. Remove sauce from heat.
• Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4 inch slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a 45 degree angle to the top of the steak so you get wider cuts. Dip the steak pieces into cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef. Let the beef sit about 10 min. so the cornstarch sticks. As the beef sits, heat up 1 c. oil in a wok (or skillet). Heat the oil over medium heat until its hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and saute for just 2 minutes, or until beef just begins to darken on the edges. Stir the meat around a little bit so that it cooks evenly.
• After a few minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour most of the oil out of the skillet. Put the pan back over the heat, dump the meat back into it and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the sauce, cook for 1 minute while stirring and add green onions. Cook for 1 more minute. Now at this point you can either remove the beef with a slotted spoon or tongs and discard the sauce (this is what P.F. Chang's does) OR thicken the sauce with a cornstarch-water mixture to desired thickness and serve it over rice with the beef.

Having friends over to play

He is so scrumptious!

We had friends over the last two days and it has been so fun. Today was Monique, my friend from Dominica I told you about. She an her son Liam came over to play just for the heck of it and it was great fun. It was cool to see Daphne being a little hostess. At first she was wondering why this little guy was playing and eating her toys, but by the end she was sharing and he even got a hug and kiss. 

Sorry its blurry, this is the best one I got of both of them.

Yesterday Lisa and her kids came over. The two of us are making some cute cloth letters for our kids and she came over to help cut the fabric. It was a long day and my hand was hurting by the end (Oh why did I forget to bring my good scissors?) but we had some fun watching my new fav tv show. Yes I get her addicted as well. 

Monkeying Around

On our very long shopping trip yesterday we stopped by a little store called Kid to Kid. I have never been in one and was very impressed. We got Daphne her whole 18 month wardrobe in one visit. We also got the cutest Halloween costume for her. I had fully planned on making one, because I thought I could make a better one than the cheapo ones you buy and Walmart or Target, but this store had a huge selection of the cutest costumes and for so cheap. I think the priciest one we saw was $8. If you can believe we got this adorable monkey one for $7.

We Think she is going to be the cutest little monkey this Halloween. Daddy is even practicing with her to perfect her monkey noises.

If you wish it, it will come.

So you know how I was complaining how we have NO books for Daphne? Well tonight we found some. We were at Goodwill looking through the books and we kept finding so many GREAT ones. We had to put some back, because we just can't pack all the books around when we move (and I may happen to know that she is getting some for Christmas). They were all in great condition too, which is a BIG plus when buying second hand. And the icing on the cake, we got all 8 books for $9. Not bad, huh?

Here is the list.

Oh the Things You Can Think

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

 The Foot Book

There's a Zamp in my Lamp

(its a shortened pop-up version of There'a a Wocket in my Pocket)

-by Dr. Seuss

A Treasury of Curious George

-by Margret and H.A. Ray

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

-by Philip C. Stead

Where Do Balloons Go?

-by Jamie Lee Curtis

and

If You Give a Pig a Party

-by Laura Numeroff

Now we have a few more books to read to my smart baby girl!

Who is she talking to?

Yesterday Daphne got a hold of my phone and she obviously wanted to call someone. She couldn't figure out how to call a real person so she did the next best thing, she imagined it. It was so cute and so sweet to see her. I didn't think I talked on the phone that much, but she had to learn it from somewhere right?

OUAT

This is Fairy Tale Land. It's filled with magic, monsters and all of the characters we all know from stories growing up. It's real, and so are the people in it. But unlike the "happily ever after" you may have heard about, their stories continued, and The Evil Queen cast a Dark Curse over the land....

This is Storybrooke. It's a quiet, little, New England town filled with people who go about their everyday lives with no idea who they really are. The Queen's Curse has trapped them here and placed her in near-complete control. They have no real memories and no real hope.

Once Upon A Time is, at its core, a story about hope.

I found a new love. I heard about this show last season and wanted to see it so badly, but for some reason it didn't happen. I found it on Netflix the other day and couldn't stop watching it. Its such a fun twist on Fantasy. Its pretty clean too (only a few cuss words through the whole season), which in this day and age is rare. If you have Netflix and are at all interested I would get on NOW! Oh and the new season starts on my Birthday, how cool is that!?! I know what I'm doing that night.

Can you say proud?

Okay so I'm the most proud mama in the world. At dinner tonight we sat down and said "prayer time" just like we do every night, but tonight Daphne folded her arms all by herself. And if that wasn't awesome enough she kept them folded and stayed quiet for the whole prayer. She knew she did the right thing too because the second the prayer was over she clapped her hands which in Daphne speak means "good job".

Yep. Proud.

Cafe Rio Copycat

Cafe Rio is one of my fav paces to go out to eat, but they don't have them many places and its always my luck that we never live near one, so after seeing these copy cat recipes on Pinterest I had to try to recreate it. It turned out pretty well but I do have a couple of things I will do differently next time I make it. I think I will do pork (recipe found here) instead of chicken, we will have to use romaine instead of iceberg, and I will make homemade tortillas instead of store bought. Now you can put any toppings you choose, but fyi we served it with tortilla, rice, black beans, lettuce, corn cheese, and sour cream. If your a fan like me this is a life saver.

  

Cafe Rio Chicken

2 lbs chicken breasts
1/2 a small bottle of zesty Italian dressing
1/2 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 pkt ranch dressing mix (mixed with 1/2 cup of water)
1/2 Tbsp. chili powder
1/2 Tbsp. ground cumin

Place all ingredients in a crock pot. Cook on High 5-6 hours OR on Low 8 hours.
Shred with fork and serve in salads, burritos, tacos…etc.

You can also double or triple this to make extras for freezing. Then simply thaw and reheat for a fast and delicious meal.

 Don't get me wrong the chicken was just fine, but I always order the pork when I go to the restaurant so that is the reason I would try to pork next time.

Cafe Rio's Cilantro ranch Dressing

• 1 packet TRADITIONAL Hidden Valley Ranch mix (not BUTTERMILK)
• 1 c. mayonnaise
• 1 c. buttermilk
• 2 tomatillos, remove husk, diced
• 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1 clove garlic
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 jalapeno (we like it SPICY so we kept the seeds in it, if you like it mild, just remove the seeds)
• 
  
• Mix all ingredients together in the blender. That's it!

I did this one a little different. I didn't use the ranch packet or mayo or buttermilk. I just used about a cup of the ranch dressing I had in the fridge. I also only used about half of the jalapeno. After eating the salad we would have put more lime juice in as well. 

In addition to these I made my own salsa. This was fun and I had never made salsa before (though I've watched my mom many times). 

Tracy's first Salsa

2 tomatoes finely chopped

1/2 jalapeno minced

4 T. onion minced

2 large garlic cloves minced

1 T. cilantro minced

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in bowl. Done!

One for the books.

The last week we really have not done much. Just me and the little girl hanging out. Daphne has really been into reading lately and I'm getting a little bored cause we have less than ten books. I went to the library to get some books, but couldn't check out any books cause I'm not allowed to get a library card. So basically I read the same books over and over and over. We will have to just take a trip there together and I can sit and read her some new books.

Johnny got to help deliver his first baby on Thursday via C-section. He got to suction and hold a retractor which I think is pretty neato. Then that evening as we were getting ready for bed he got called in for another delivery. Today he got to witness his first circumcision as well. Besides that he seems to not like OB very much. I didn't think he would pick it as a specialty, but now we know for sure its not his cup of tea. 

Labor Day

After we arrived her in Augusta I found out one of my friends from Dominica is here as well.  She was my sponsor and helped answer some of my questions about life there and helped us find an apartment and was always so sweet to me. We went to her place to swim today. It was fun to see her again and cool to see her as a mom. Her little boy is so cute and so happy. I hope we can get together a few more times while we are both here.