Weekend Recap and A Quick Recipe

This weekend was chock full of busy in our house. It was a good busy and we got a lot accomplished.  Here are a few highlights.

* I stayed home from work on Friday with a sickish Jack. He had been fighting a cold all week and was that weird not really sick enough to stay home, but not really well enough to go to school. Staying home won out and we had a great day together. We played, cuddled and ran to the store for some chapstick for his incredibly chapped lips. I’m probably the only girl on the face of the earth who doesn’t own chapstick.  Jack didn’t seem to mind because it meant a quick trip to the “chapstick” store.  Or as most people call it, the grocery store.

* Saturday started with me heading to Michelle’s Getting Started with Your DSLR Course.  Over the course of four hours, I learned how to REALLY use my camera.  The biggest thing that I learned was that I need to dump my kit lens and get a new lens. There is a 50mm lens in my immediate future and I’m already stalking another lens for my birthday.  I really learned how my camera works and the class has given me the confidence to really work with my camera and take better pictures.  Seriously, if you are in Pittsburgh and want to stop using auto mode and really learn how to use your camera, check out Michelle’s course. She has a class on Wednesday and another one in March. (Dear Michelle, this is me not putting a picture of you on my blog. You are welcome).

*  Saturday afternoon was Jack’s first swim class through our local Y.  Given his sick day on Friday, I wasn’t sure that we would be making it to the swim class, but Jack seemed much better on Saturday so we gave it a shot.  I was fairly impressed with how the class was run.  There are four instructors and the kids were quickly “tested” and then very subtly grouped by ability (It’s a class for 3 to 5 year olds so ability varies greatly).  Jack loved it and can’t wait for next week.  Although, he thinks that next week he’ll be jumping off the diving board so he might be kinda disappointed.

* At swim class, I had my first “OMG, I want to punch another parent for the crappy attitude” experience.  There were three little boys in the class who were clearly very scared and cried basically the entire 30 minutes.  Not three minutes into the class, the parent next to me started complaining and saying that the crying kids should be kicked out of class and not allowed to participate.  I kept my mouth shut, only because the kids couldn’t hear his remarks but man was my blood boiling. Clearly he doesn’t get that these classes are (hopefully) going to help the kids be less scared of the water.

*  Uh, so I think that Xander is trying to escape his crib. Saturday after his non-existent nap, I went to his room to get him.  He was sitting in his crib. When I walked in, he stood up and got one leg up over the railing on his crib.  Needless to say, we dropped the crib to the lowest level before bed. Yesterday after nap time, I walked in to Xander’s room, he stood up and tried to get his leg up again. He wasn’t successful, but he did manage to get both his feet off the mattress. The littlest boy-child has some awesome upper body strength. So I’m kinda at a loss.  He’s no where near ready to be out of the crib. I’m leaning toward crib tent. Any opinions?

*  Last night I casually mentioned on Twitter that if you haven’t made a roasting chicken in the crock pot, then you are totally missing out.  A bunch of people exactly what I do, so I thought I would post it here.  Basically, you just take your roasting chicken. Clean it off and pat it dry.  I make a rub that is 1 teaspoon each of salt, garlic powder, cayenne pepper and paprika.  If I have some sprigs of rosemary, I toss those in other wise I toss in a teaspoon of dried rosemary.  If I have an onion laying around (which I almost always do), I chop it up and I put half inside the chicken and half in crockpot.  Cook the chicken on low for 6 to 8 hours.  No need to add any extra liquid.  The meat will be so tender and juicy that it literally falls off the bone.

* Left to my own devices, that is to say, no kids or husband, or random person delay me, I am obnoxiously early to places. I can’t help it.  I had to stop at Starbucks on my way to Michelle’s class just so I wouldn’t be 30 minutes early.  Jack and I were 15+ minutes early to swim class, which meant I had to endure 15 minutes of “Can I swim yet?” from Jack. I just can’t help myself.

* Ok, so this isn’t weekend related or anything, but whatever. So, if you are like me, you have an iPhone, iPad or Android device.  You know that there are a ton of apps out there that would be great for you (or your kids) but finding them can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  I like to shake up the apps that Jack uses but sometimes I have a hard time finding apps that I like for him.  Well, I recently signed up for appSmitten and now I have hand picked recommendation sent to me.  All the apps are tested out by the appSmitten team and the best apps are included in the recommendations.  If you are interested, you can sign up here (Full disclosure, that’s an affiliate link).

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