Crockpot Lasagne

It's rare for me to post a recipe but I need to share this one. Did you know you can make lasagne in your crock pot? I was skeptical but it turned out great! More importantly, it was easy. No boiling noodles or waiting for your oven to preheat while your kids are foraging around in the pantry, telling you they're hungry. I should have taken a photo when I made this last night but I had some of those hungry children to attend to.

CROCKPOT LASAGNA

8 uncooked lasagna noodles
1 pound ground beef
1 tsp. (or more) Italian seasoning
28-ounce jar spaghetti sauce
1/3 cup water
4-oz. can sliced mushrooms, optional
15 oz. low-fat ricotta cheese (can also use cottage cheese)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Brown ground beef, drain. Stir in Italian seasoning. Break noodles into thirds. Place half in bottom of greased crockpot. Spread half of ground beef mixture over noodles in crockpot.

On top of beef, layer 1/2 of sauce, 1/2 of water, 1/2 of mushrooms (opt.), 1/2 of ricotta, and 1/2 of mozerella cheese. Repeat all layers.

Cover. Cook for 5 hours on low.

Pinewood Derby

Last night was Tristan's pinewood derby. He and Grandpa have been working on his car for several weeks. It's a good thing that Grandpa took this project on because Dan and I have been rather overwhelmed with the day-to-day and I don't think we would have got his car built in time. For those unfamiliar with cub scouts, the boys start with a plain block of wood and carve it into a car, paint it, put the axles and wheels on, and then the best of the best do all sorts of strategic things to their car so that it is FAST (weights, graphite, etc.) It was a very exciting event. Tristan's car was pretty fast.

On a sidenote, the scoring of the cars ended up being rather mysterious (dare I say a sham?) It's been bothering me all morning. Somehow the slower cars ended up winning the awards. The guy who was scoring the cars was using an Excel spreadsheet and I honestly think his formula was messed up. Tristan noticed this as well (that the slower cars won the awards) and he was upset as we were walking home. I tried to brush it off with him but I find myself in a dilemna. Is it better to let it go or should I be the crybaby parent who looks into the matter? I think my sense of justice may prevail.

**Tristan's car is the red and silver one, third from the right on the bottom row**

... And they're off!

Ever been to the race track? This photo reminds me of Del Mar...

This year our annual egg hunt was held at Grandpa and Grandma's park. Lisa usually heads this up but she was occupied with other things. Grandma was in charge of hiding the eggs. The kids' favorite eggs were those with special messages in them: a sleep-over at Grandpa and Grandma's house with ice cream sundaes, your favorite dinner made by mom, a craft day at Grandma's, a bow shooting session with Grandpa and an hour at the park with Grandma. The candy was popular as well, but Grandma and I were surprised to see the kids ditching the candy eggs and looking for the ones with the papers in them. I guess the parenting books are right, attention and time is always the best reward.

I colored eggs with the kids this year. I realized that I hadn't done this for a while, I think it might have been Gavin's first time (strange how we forget the details after a kid or two). Ofcourse things digressed toward the end, there was dye everywhere and they resorted to using their fingers instead of the hygenically designed dipping utensils. Thank goodness for newspaper and soap!

My Basket's Better Than Yours!

Wow, somebody sure knows what our favorite things are! Look at this beautiful basket from Nana and Papa. There's something for everyone here. Dan claimed the gourmet jelly beans, I went for petit fours, the kids had some of everything, and I hid most of the rest of it so we don't all turn into fat rabbits ourselves.

I promise...

Some cute Easter photos to come. I'm using my better judgement and NOT staying up til 1 a.m. to do this tonight. But tomorrow, I promise!

What the ???

This morning I was putting some things away in the nursery and found this. It seems that Tristan is doing science experiments around the house again. I don't know that for sure but it fits his profile more than anyone else who lives here. Somehow I just don't see Jolie as a bacteriological scientist. These are petri dishes and inside there are cotton swabs that I use to clean Jolie's ear piercings. They're sitting on top of the heat register in Mia's room. I'm very interested to get to the bottom of this...

Open Secrets

While we're on the subject of books, I wanted to make a recommendation to anyone who's looking for a good read. Open Secrets by Alice Munro is a collection of short stories. She's an amazing story teller, I really enjoyed this one.

Jolie's an Author!

Over the past few weeks I've been hearing a lot about Jolie's masterpiece. I had no idea it was going to be so enlightening, especially her opinion about the food we ate while we were at Disney World. Following is an excerpt from her book.

Three Wishes

Today over lunch, a friend recounted her kids' three wishes. She has a book where she writes all this stuff down and they love to hear the funny things they said in past years. (Ofcourse I told her she should start blogging).

So tonight Lara inspiried me to grant three wishes to everyone at OUR dinner table:

Jolie
"I wish we could have recess all day."
"I wish Mommy could be President." (huh?)
"I wish we could watch Spongebob."

Gavin
"I wish I could be a Rescue Hero."
"I wish I could fly."
"I wish I had a Rescue Hero toy."

Tristan (who took the longest to respond and really thought this through)
"I wish I could be a Jazz player" (which he said would also fulfill his wish of being rich and having everything he wanted).
"I wish there were no such thing as homework."
"I wish I couldn't get in trouble and Jolie and Gavin could."

Mommy
"I wish there were no such thing as housework."
"I wish I could scrapbook/quilt/read/play all day."
"I wish I could be healthy and strong and feel good every day."

Daddy
"Good weather"
"Less polution"
"World peace"
oh... and after I commented on how selfish the rest of us had been and how altruistic he was... he admitted that he wished for brainier beauty contestants. But now I can't figure out if that wish is for the betterment of society or if there's a selfish motivation behind this.

Anyway, if you see any genies please send them in our direction.

My Likeness

I know it's stepping on the wild side for me to customize my layout. I spent this evening after dinner lying in bed while creating my avatar. Dan was really sweet to offer his laptop while he finished dinner with the kids and cleaned up the kitchen. My leg was hurting like crazy and I just couldn't go through the last half of dinner. Anyone who's dined with us knows that to be the part where Dan and I beg and plead with our kids to eat their food and keep their bums in their seats. Tonight the controversy was over the tomatoes in the red clam sauce (linguini) and the mushrooms, tomatoes and avacado in the salad.

My solitude was short-lived. The kids were quickly in my room giving input about my avatar. Gavin argued for goth makeup ("mommy, pick the scarry face") and Jolie had me trying on all sorts of interesting clothing. Somehow tube tops and mini skirts just didn't seem right for me. Tristan was mostly concerned with getting my hair color right.

So what do you think? Before you answer, realize that it's harder than you might think to create a two-dimensional likeness of yourself. Especially when the options DON'T include worn-out, sweatpants-wearing, milk-and-baby-pooped-stained, limping, circles-under-the-eyes, mommy... types.

An Update

Tomorrow will be one week since my surgery and things are going well. I'm slowly getting my life back. I'm still not back to normal but at least my entire existance isn't consumed with pain management. I have my incision and some residual pain from the compressed nerve but I'm told that will eventually go away. I have to abide by some restrictions over the next 6-8 weeks, mainly no lifting over 10 lbs. I'm also not supposed to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time but I'm finding that to be easy with four kids to take care of.

The main challenge now is taking care of Mia. She's about 11 lbs. so I'm ok carrying her. I can't bend over to lift her from her crib or swing or go from sitting to standing with her. It's a little tricky but we've found some ways to work around my restrictions. The hardest thing is that I'm still not able to go anywhere with the kids because I can't lift Mia in her carseat. That's keeping me close to home and it makes driving Tristan's carpool impossible unless someone is here to leave Mia with.

Yesterday I drove for the first time in almost 6 weeks! It was surreal. It reminded me of when I returned home after spending several weeks in Europe. Everything seemed new. I'd forgotten the presets on my stereo, the DJ on my favorite radio station seemed like a long lost friend. I felt like a tourist as I drove through Kaysville. Really, it was weird. The strangest part was the realization that the outside world was exactly the same but that I had changed. Who could have known that a trip to Albertsons could cause such an epiphany?

Finally, I need to let everyone know that I am, in fact, at home and not in a Utah County rehab facility with Lindsay Lohan and Kirsten Dunst. I know there were many among my friends and family who were concerned that my heavy reliance on oxycontin would lead me there. At least MOST of them were subtle in their concern and didn't actually ask me outright how many pills I had taken that day... and then call me the next day and ask the same question. No, I'm not making this up. I have been thinking, though, since my medical bills have already started rolling in... I could probably sell my remaining oxycontin on the street and pay a lot of my medical bills. Would that make me a bad person?