By request

Ok, I've been asked for the recipe to the chicken lettuce wraps I made last week. So here it is! I got this from my facebook friend, Niki. Thanks, Niki! Yum!

What you need:
Vegetable or olive oil (just oil for the pan)
4 chicken breasts
1/4 cup chopped onion

1 can of water chestnuts (chop them up)

2 tsp minced garlic

4 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp rice vinegar
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 heads of iceberg lettuce

Serves 4-5

Heat a couple Tbsp of oil in pan. Add chicken, cook on both sides until done, set chicken aside in a bowl to cool then chop. Add another Tbsp of oil to pan, then add onions. Slightly brown onions, then add water chestnuts and minced garlic. Mix well, then add chopped chicken. In a bowl, combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar. Pour over chicken mixture and saute until liquid is almost completely reduced. Wrap it up in your lettuce "cups". Enjoy! Oh, and add soy sauce to taste on individual wraps. I made a super good spicy sauce to pour over like you do at Pei Wei, but you'd have to have some of my cousin, Luis', insanely amazing hot sauce to make it. If you do happen to have some good hot sauce, then squirt some of it in with some soy sauce, pinch of brown sugar, splash of rice vinegar, squirt of spicy brown mustard and a little water (no measurements here, sorry). Mmmmm.... good stuff!

I love Pei Wei and P.F. Chang's chicken lettuce wraps, and let me tell you... these are SO close to how they taste! DEEE-lish. :)

Busy Week For the Pickles!

Wow, oh, wow... this has been one heck of a busy week!! We had something every single day!! It did teach me one thing, though. I don't require a nap if I have something to look forward to, or just plain ole have somewhere to be. :)

Sunday - I worked on Sunday. Derick completed a sink project, which looks AMAZING compared to what it did look like. Jake hung out with his Nana so Derick could work on that sink situation.

This was the original sink before. GROSS. It did not matter what we did to this sink... it always stayed looking like this. Not to mention that the white is just hideous, along with the ghetto faucet.

And after the completed project. Ahhhhh. This makes me so happy... a SHINY kitchen sink. She's a beaut! Along with the extra storage Derick created underneath the sink. He made me happy.

Monday - was pretty chilly in Tulsa-land. A couple girls that I used to work with (the ones that were pregnant at the same time as me) all went to the mall and had lunch, then let our little ones play in the little play area. It was good sweet times. I love getting together with girls from our girls-that-had-babies-at-the-same-time-group. It is so fun watching our little ones grow up together!! Then afterward, Jake and I did a little bargain shopping. I had a Groupon to use up at Barnes & Noble... I got J an adorable backpack.

Tuesday - I think Jake and I went grocery shopping this day. In the afternoon, we met up with Brooklin, Jake's aunt (Derick's sister). She lives in Tulsa and is a nanny for a set of twins that are a year older than Jake. We took the kids to a park to play around. It was fun. :)

Wednesday - Whew! That one was a doozy! Jake had the last of his 12 months vaccines because we do one at a time, this caught him up... until next month when we start all over with 15 month vaccines. He rocked it. I have found that if I keep a little sucker handy for right as he's getting the injection, he doesn't cry but about 10 seconds. I know other kids go through worse; but I'm pretty sure that anything that hurts my baby and causes him to look at me with those pitiful eyes as if he were begging me to do something to help him... yeah, I'm pretty sure it still kills this momma. Those sweet babies are so trusting of their mommas, aren't they?! So presh. Anyway, the sucker did the trick. Then after that... we went over to the L&D unit at Saint Francis, where I used to work. We visited with my sweet former co-workers. I miss them!

Keirsten giving Jake his first bath

THEN, we had lunch with one of my old co-worker friends, Keirsten. She was actually Jake's nurse when he was born. :) Then, I was on call at work at 3 and they were extremely busy and asked me to come in early. So I had to call my mother-in-law (who lives at least an hour away) and my sister-in-law to come over to the house to keep Jake while I worked a little. While at work, we did FOUR deliveries in 2 hours. That would not be unheard of at my old place of work where they staff 8-10 nurses and 3 techs and several nursery nurses. Here, we had 2 nurses, 1 tech and 1 nursery nurse! It was CRAZY!!! But the time definitely flew by, that's for sure!

Thursday - we were going to go to the park to play with friends and babies from our little group, but Jake hadn't had a good napping day all week, and we have a busy weekend ahead of us so he won't be napping well all weekend either. He gets fussier by the day (not bad, but it's not the best Jake can be) when he hasn't had at least one normal day. So, we opted out and I cleaned the house. Which was a disaster after the busy week we had and the sink project Derick completed over the weekend. Oh, and I caught a nap in there too. :) Oh, yes... I love naps. My mom and dad came up to stay the night and stay with Jake today while I worked. We took Jakey for a walk and then had delicious dinner. I made chicken lettuce wraps from a recipe a facebook friend had posted. Let me say this... if you like Pei Wei chicken lettuce wraps, you woulda loved it! Yummo! It has now been added to my menu. AND it's super easy.

Which brings us to today. Boring. I'm at work. That's it.

Busy weekend ahead of us. Woohoo!

Happy weekend, friends!!!

What's your schedule?

Today I feel like blogging about vaccines. Just because it's heavy on my mind since we will be getting one this week. :(


I have always been rather leery of the vaccines that are injected into my little guy. Not because of the pain it causes him. No, that's temporary. More so because of the lifelong effects it may have. Do we really know what the effects are? Do we really know that it's safe and best? I've done a lot of research on the topic and we devised our own plan that we are comfortable with, as a family. I am not going to list our plan here, just because I feel like it is each person and family's responsibility to decide for themselves what is best for their situation. However, I will say that I DO feel like it is a very big deal and a huge responsibility that is very frequently overlooked by parents. All too often, we just go with what the pediatrician says. We are made to believe that they know what is best for our kids and we leave it at that. But really, all kids aren't made equal. And because of that, we chose to do a lot of research and devise a plan, along with our pediatrician, that worked for Jake. In the end, I'd rather be safe than sorry. :) Even if it does cause a few eye rolls here and there, if Jake isn't hurt by our decision and is possibly saved from any kind of damage that could occur due to the bombardment of 4 shots at once (which end up being up to 12 different immunizations when you count the combo vaccines!!!! holy cow!!!)


You know the blood brain barrier, which is required to process vaccines appropriately, is not even intact until at LEAST 6 weeks of life. By then, according to our schedules, we've already given 2 Hep B vaccines.


"The blood-brain barrier is not intact in infants until at least 6 weeks of life.  This is why a newborn with a fever must be subjected to a spinal tap to rule out menningitis.  Any virus or bacteria that a newborn is exposed to can go directly to the nervous system.  This is why the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth is so dangerous. Between 1991 and 1999, when the shot contained thimerisol, giving it at birth would have resulted in mercury crossing into the brain since the blood-brain barrier was not yet intact.  As a nurse, I'm concerned that this information about the normal timing of a blood-brain barrier forming is not more readily known.  I think this normal delay in the forming of a blood-brain barrier is an important piece of the puzzle and one of the reasons for the surge of autism in the 90's."----Mary Barbera RN, MSN


 The blood-brain barrier is immature in the infant. (Blood vessels of the brain are very selective in allowing material to pass from blood into the brain, hence the term blood-brain barrier.) This barrier allows for greater distribution of drugs into the central nervous system in the infant. All of these factors influence how a drug is distributed in the body.


I could probably go on for ages with statistics or quotes on how important educating yourself and your family on this subject is. But I'll leave it at that.


And also a diagram comparing the amount of vaccines we received as children to the amount of vaccines our children are receiving.

Also, in case you were wondering, or needed clarification... it is NOT recommended to give your child tylenol before or even AFTER vaccines. It actually LOWERS the immune response you're supposed to have, making the vaccine LESS effective. A fever is a natural immune response when the vaccine enters the body. Now, there IS a difference in a normal low-grade fever that immunizations cause and a serious fever that needs medical attention. Serious fevers after a vaccine are likely due to a reaction. I can tell you this, though... Jake has never received more than one vaccine at a time and has never had a fever afterward. Not even low-grade. So, I would be interested to know if it's just the bombardment of a ALL those immunizations at once!


Anyway, that's what's on my mind this fine Sunday (while I work) :)


Happy Sunday, my friends!!