That, right there folks, is how I justify giving my girls (boxed) Mac & Cheese. OK, you gourmet foodies can shudder at the thought of BOXED! MACARONI! AND! CHEESE! BOXED!!!

Their old pediatrician back in NJ used to always push us to “…feed them more fruits and veggies, etc! Don’t always get fast food, don’t always give macaroni and cheese, etc.” And, as a sidenote, we do a lot of home cooked meals. Problem is, I did realize we didn’t put a lot of veggies or have veggies at all! So now, pDaddy and I are trying to make that conscious effort of having veggies at every meal – especially at home. But, I didn’t want to deprive them of their favorite macaroni cheese so, we compromised. They can have mac & cheese as long as they eat veggies too. What’s easier that putting the 2 or 3 together? The pic above is mac & cheese with kale and spinach.

Here’s how it’s done -
Rinse kale and remove stalk and spine. Toss w/garlic salt.
Boil macaroni and add some salt (I like garlic salt) and kale. Kale takes a bit to cook, so I thought it best to just boil it w/the macaroni.
Once macaroni is cooked, drain both and prep according to box instructions.
I put the butter AND baby spinach so that the heat from macaroni and kale can cook the spinach / wilt it a little bit.
Add Cheese and Milk and VOILA! Semi-healthy boxed mac & cheese

It’s not the best meal out there, but it works for my girls and they get veggies AND it’s quick

Week 3 of the New Year wasn’t so grand for us.  A LOT of resolutions were broken…no work outs, no eating healthy, no family fun night, no blogging.  Still, laundry was done and the girls helped me pair socks, that’s gotta count for something.

So, what, prey tell kept everything at bay and amiss at the same time?  Our 16 month old, Shrimp.  The Shrimpie.  The Shrimpmeister woke up from her nap on Tuesday with a fever.  We gave her meds, she was fine for the rest of the day and night.  Fast forward to 2AM.  She woke up wailing and why wouldn’t she?  She was burning up…meds and milk, and back to sleep.  Now it’s Wednesday morning and baby girl keeps scratching.  I just think her eczema acting up.  I go to change her and lift up her shirt and BAM, baby girl’s got little red bumps all over. 

Have no idea what’s causing her to have all of this, but it just continues to spread throughout the day.  Gave her a small dose of Benadryl, but it wasn’t working. 

Next thing you know, the hives were all over her back and side AND were starting to connect and look like welts.  Her face starts to get splotchy, but not yet affected and neither are her extremities. 

Her fever is still around and hitting high temps…oh you know, 104.7 F…no big deal…YEAH, OK.  Plus, she started getting little red bumps on her arms and legs now too.  I took her into Urgent care where they diagnosed her w/an ear infection and possible Strep Throat b/c of her rashes(??? I never knew Strep and rashes/hives correlated).  They took a Rapid Strep test which was negative, but have no clue what the hives are all about now that Strep got ruled out.  I was told to give her a full dose of Benadryl every 6 hours and antibiotics for her ear infection AND let’s not forget the fever meds.  Usually, she doesn’t mind taking meds.  This time around, she is fighting with all her might and fighting so hard sometimes that throws it all up…

2 days later, the rashes are clearing from her back and neck area – where they were the most prominent on the 1st day. Now, they are spreading to her face.  I take her to see her regular Pediatrician on Friday and when we walk in there, her cheeks are red.  Immediately, he thinks she has “5th Disease” – the “Slapped Cheeks Syndrome“.  But mind you, she just started getting them on her face that day.  Still, he says it should pass and if she continues to have a fever on Monday, that I should bring her back.

Her face clears up by Sunday night…Her fever lingers a bit on Monday, but finally goes away. I think she’s finally out of the woods now (keeping fingers crossed!).

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For more WW entries, check out Angie’s blog over at sevenclowncircus.com

This past Sunday was the 1st football game I watched (almost in its entirety…mommy duties, y’all) and I’m glad I did! We now live in the midwest and while I’m sure everyone and their mothers around us were routing for the Packers, I just couldn’t do it. I routed for one of my old home teams, the NY Giants. Everyone had their money on the Packers (15-1), I’m sure, but the Giants (7-7) proved everyone wrong, again and won the NFC title with a Final Score of 37-20. Now, let’s see how they do next week vs. the 49ers.

Wish I got my Eli Manning jersey before we left NJ…everything’s sold out in my size! Then again, I’d probably get crazy, sideways looks over here. teehee…

If you’d like to read more, here’s the official NYTimes article.

BELIEVE!

Now, I didn’t add “more home cooked meals and NEW recipes” onto our Family Resolutions, but we are trying to do that as well. Last night’s dinner was slow cooked Ropa Vieja. It didn’t look as pretty as the picture from the recipe, but it wasn’t bad at all. It was a bit bland…definitely adding a little bit more salt next time.

As for MY resolutions, I have been more patient w/my girls, though I could be even more so I’m working on that still. I have been good w/my skincare routine and also looking more put together when heading out. As for exercise, that’s a negative, but it’s also because I’ve been fighting bad acid reflux lately so I spend a lot of time being all miserable and heart-burny. Then, we got SNOW yesterday – our 1st real snow of the season! That made jogging outdoors impossible and forget trying to get to the gym.

I still need to work on the letting go of the past thing, but all others are pretty much lining up nicely. Look, 3 blog entries in 1 week! WOOT! I even took pics while cooking yesterday! Unfortunately, no nice pics of snow…it was BITTER cold and windy. We only left the house to pick up the big girl from school. It’s also hard when I have my 15 month old to carry around b/c she can’t figure out how to walk on the snow yet and I wouldn’t let her anyway. The wind was blowing snow everywhere so the grounds were very uneven – one spot had barely a dusting…the next step had snow up half my leg! Hard to see from that pic, but at least you can see some spots where the grass is popping out and then you see the girls with their feet / ankles buried a few feet later!

So, how are you doing with your resolutions or were you one of those that “resolved not to make resolutions” (I’ve done that as well…hehehe).

Anywho, Angie over at sevenclowncircus and ebates tweeted about family goals and I thought it was a splendid idea! So, for us, nothing major…taking baby steps.

So here they are…Family Resolutions 2012:

Girls (6 and 4 year old) will help me more w/laundry by pairing socks. Going to make it fun like playing Memory! Also, they like to fold pants, so they can do that as well.

We will also incorporate Family BOARD Game Nights. Sure, we all play Just Dance (1, 2, 3 and Summer Party) on the Wii and other VIDEO games, but I want to bring back the BOARD games. We tried doing this a couple of years ago w/Beans and we kept it for a few weeks, but not consistently. pDaddy used the time to nap or play Modern Warfare (totally negating the whole premise of it! lol). So, now, we will designate WEDNESDAYS as game night b/c there’s something going on other nights (basketball, dance, etc.). We will play board games as a family starting this week and, hopefully, until a LONG, LONG time from now So, this week’s game? CHUTES and LADDERS

Did you make any Family Resolutions?