Recipe Thursday

Easy Chicken and Pasta
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup
2 ¼ cups water
½ tsp. dried basil leaves, crushed
2 cups frozen vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots)
2 cups uncooked corkscrew macaroni
Grated parmesan cheese

In medium skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Add chicken and cook until browned, stirring often. Set chicken aside. Add soup, water, basil and vegetables. Heat to a boil. Add uncooked macaroni. Reduce heat to medium. Cook 10 minutes, stirring often. Return chicken to pan. Cook 5 more minutes or until macaroni is done. Sprinkle with cheese.

Horvath Household Rule #24

DO NOT throw balls in the house

Miss Secretary

Abilities - able to babble incoherently, type a hundred letters per minute, look cute and make you smile.

If you want to hire me, you have to ask my mommy.

Book Review Monday - Week 10

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse AndersonMy rating: 5 stars

Summary: During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.
Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.

My take: I loved this book! I am not sure what it is about it, but it was such a great story of the courage and determination of a 15 year old girl forced to grow up very fast. I can't imagine having to try to survive in a disease-torn city the way she did. Just an amazing book with an excellent storyline and great characters.

Angels Game

Last night we had the lucky opportunity to go to the Angels vs. Tigers baseball game. Thank you Kelly and Nicole for giving us the tickets! We had excellent seats pretty close to home plate. Peyton loved to clap and try to yell as loud as mommy. It was a fun family night!

Recipe Thursday

Pancakes
1 large egg
1 cup flour
¾ cup milk
1 tbsp. packed brown sugar
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
3 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt

Beat egg in medium bowl until fluffy. Beat in remaining ingredients. Use slightly less than ¼ cup batter per pancake.

Learning the 'Sticks

While in Utah, my brother Evan decided to teach Peyton a little bit of the Rockband drums:
What a great uncle he is!

Mom's Robe

Book Review Monday - Week 9

Julie's Wolf Pack by Jean Craighead GeorgeMy rating: 5 stars

Summary: From the author of the Newbery Medal–winning Julie of the Wolves and its sequel, Julie, comes a third exciting adventure about the wolf pack that saved the life of a young girl when she was lost on the tundra. Julie has returned to her family, but her wolf pack has a story all its own. Fearless but inexperienced Kapu is now the new leader of the pack. He must protect his wolves from the threats of famine and disease and, at the same time, defend himself from bitter rivals, both inside and outside the pack, who are waiting for their chance to overthrow him. The strength of Kapu's leadership will determine not just the well-being of the pack but its very survival.

My take: Loved the third book in this series! This time the book was from the wolves perspective, rather than Julie's (although you get to know what's going on with Julie through them). Beautiful storyline and loved the ending. It was definitely just a quick and easy read though, and I think I am done with wolf books for awhile.

Pics from Utah

Just a few pics from Utah I haven't had a chance to post yet! (This trip was almost a whole month ago! oops!)

Recipe Thursday

Baked Macaroni and Cheese
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) cheddar cheese soup
½ soup can of milk
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 cups hot cooked corkscrew pasta
1 tbsp. dry bread crumbs
2 tsp. butter or margarine, melted

Mix soup, milk, pepper and pasta in 1-quart casserole dish. Mix bread crumbs and butter. Sprinkle over pasta mix. Bake at 400◦ for 20 minutes or until hot.

Almost forgot to take the picture before it was gone!!

Works-For-Me-Wednesday: Organizing Toddler Hair Accessories

My daughter still doesn't have much hair to do, but I'm prepared for when it gets long enough and she'll actually let me do it. But I hated losing the bows or finding them all over the place, so I recently read this tip in a magazine: use ice cube trays to organize all the hair accessories! The trays are the perfect size for the little hair pieces and you can easily tuck the trays into a drawer or on a shelf or something.

That's what works for me this week! For more tips, check out We Are THAT Family!

17 months!

Peyton just keeps on growing and learning! Here's what she has been up to lately:

-She's been cutting lots of teeth! She has 12 teeth now (but not all are 100% in yet)

-Words she can say: mom, dad, dog, ball, bubble, bed, eat, hot, eyes, nose, ears, uh oh, bowl, baby, light, bear and taz (dog's names), fish, hi, bye, thank you

-Animals she can imitate: dog, cat, chicken, cow, pig, monkey

-Words she can sign: mom, dad, dog, ball, bed, eat, more, please, thank you, cold, bowl, baby, bath, kiss, bear , I Love You

-Things she loves: watching Baby Einstein movies, playing with stuffed animals, looking at books, playing with kids, eating chicken, green beans and strawberries, her pacifier, music and dancing, juice, attempting to draw and making people laugh

-Things she doesn't love: taking baths, sitting still, using silverware, having her diaper changed, having her clothes changed, and smiling for the camera

Lots of posts today!

So be sure to scroll down so you don't miss pictures of our new house, Easter and my book review!!

Our House

For those of you haven't already heard, we bought a house! We thought we would be moving to Utah awhile back, but it just wasn't working out for us, which made us believe it wasn't the right thing for our family (or at least not the right time). So we started searching for houses. The fact that it only took us a month to find our house and that we got a sweet deal on it made us believers that we were meant to stay a tad bit more local. So at the end of May we will be moving to a gorgeous house in Victorville! Here are a few stats on the house:
5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. 2,857 square feet. 3-car garage. Built in 2005. You can tell from the pictures that it needs a little bit of fixing up, but nothing some elbow grease and paint can't fix! We are very excited, so here is a little tour of our house:

The front view:Upstairs, spare bedroom #1:

Upstairs, spare bedroom #2:

Upstairs, bathroom #1:

Upstairs, Peyton's room:

Upstairs, master bathroom sinks:

Upstairs, master bathroom:

Upstairs, master bedroom:Upstairs, laundry room: (yes, upstairs!! No taking laundry up and down, yay!)

Upstairs, looking down:Looking out the slider door from the kitchen into the backyard:

The kitchen:

Front room/formal dining room:

Bedroom downstairs (aka: the office):

Downstairs bathroom:

Standing in the family room facing the front of the house:

Family room:

Easter 2009

For Easter this year, we went to Chris's parent's house and had dinner and an Easter egg hunt with them and Louis and Liz and their family. The kids loved looking for the eggs and once Peyton got the hang of it, she just loved it! She really loves her cousins and loves to hang out with them and try to be a big girl. Here are a few snapshots of our Easter fun!

Waking up to what the Easter bunny brought (toys, no candy, thank goodness):
She loves this little magna-doodle thing.A Dora DVD! Hooray! Thanks, Easter Bunny!This is pretty much how she was for about half of the day (that's what no naps do to a toddler!): In her pretty Easter dressOoh, look! An egg!Mom helped a little.......or maybe a lotCaught dad stealing Peyton's candy!