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!!

Just a little update

Well, for once I can't think of anything to blog about! So, I guess an update on life it is.

Let's see. Jake is just Jake. He's into anything he can mess up. He's also very into approval and praise. He's very easy to teach things to, at the moment. I'm not sure if this is just the next stage of development, or if it's like a spurt of knowledge gathering. Either way, he learns a new major something each day. He learned to sign "please" one evening at dinner. And I taught him to nod his head. Which is super hilarious. It's like a slow motion nod. He's verrrrry good at shaking his head no. :-/ Maybe too good! So, I decided he needed to learn something else other than no. :) This child of mine LOVES to play outside. LUH-UH-UHVS it! He will stay outside for HOURS and still get upset when it's time to come in! I get overwhelmingly bored with the back yard, so we've been taking walks, going to parks, and frequenting the zoo. Have I mentioned how much I love living in an area that is close to a zoo?! It rocks.

Jake and I went to the zoo this week, with my friend from elementary school, Alex and my old co-worker, Trisha and both their boys. Fun!

I have been working extra recently. I'm saving up for a trip to New York next month! I am so super stoked. I can hardly contain my excitement at times! It's a girls only trip. Those are THE best. If you've never taken one, it is so necessary! For me, anyway. This same group took a trip in November 2007 to Cancun; that trip was the best trip EVER! We had SO much fun!! Our group ranged from young 20's to senior citizens! And trust me when I tell you, it is THE best group of girls to travel with!!! This time we'll range from teens to senior citizens. I can't wait! My two favorite girls in the world are going too, my sister, Chelsea and my best friend, Tana. It has been said that the proper authorities need to be warned about our visit. ;P

This is where we all met up. :) Half of us are from the Tulsa area, the other half are from Northwest Arkansas!

goofing off at a rest stop

at the resort on a night where a lot of fun was had!

we made it to texas! :)

The whole group at dinner. In the front L-R Heather, Gail, me, Charlene, Grandma Rose. In the back L-R Tana, Krystal, Judi. Everyone is either related, or really good friends. :)

Derick is busy being a guy. He's always doing something in the garage or yard. And every evening since the purchase of his beloved PS3, he has been playing war games. The funniest part about that... he uses Jake's miniature chair! It's so funny. I'll post a picture, so you can have an idea of the silliness. He says it makes an awesome gaming chair...

excuse the fact that there are cords everywhere (that were supposed to be fixed already... ahem), dog toys on the table and floor, and zero decorations. focus on the adult in the baby's chair. :)

Well, that should do it for an update! Happy Wednesday, friends!!

Jakenese

Jake at his Aunt Brooklin's wedding. Pretty snazzy little fella!

This child of mine... man, if only I could understand what it is he's saying! When he first started this crazy babbling, and by crazy babbling I mean not just the little goo's, ga's, ma-ma's, da-da's, ba-ba's that he started saying months ago, no this is really silly, made-up sounding words... I just thought they were random sounds. But they aren't! They are his words and he uses them! I've compiled a short list of the ones I've been picking up on. These are "words", or speech sounds, that are repeated throughout the day. I've noticed that they are spoken at certain times of the day, or places. So, I'm assuming they might mean things to him. Most the time these "words" are tucked inside of "sentences" of more crazy sounding words. These are just the ones I have been picking up on in the past few days. I'm trying to figure out what they might mean to him.

When the dogs are around he says "duh-WYE". I assume that it's his version of "doggy".
He says, "tuh-kwat" or "tuh-kwad". I have no idea what that one is yet. It's new.
"zig-WAH" or "sig-WAH" that's a new one as of this morning. He's said it over and over.
"sick-UH, sick-UH" no clue what that is.

It is AMAZING to listen to a baby learning to speak. I can't imagine how his mind must be growing daily! It's also crazy how much he understands or what he knows he should not do. Man, they just get more and more fun and smarter... every day!!

He follows commands, points out body parts, he says "shoo" when he dirties his diaper. All these things are language based and it means my baby boy is growing up!

I'm adding a video where he says a version of "tuh-kwad" at the very beginning. At the end he says a form of the "sig-wah". The rest is random stuff that's just cute to listen to.

This last video is just some cute little jibber-jabbering that I love to listen to. :)

Whirlwind!

Holy Canoly!!! We Pickles have been super crazy busy! I feel like I'm in the middle of a whirlwind of busyness! I could hardly see straight there for a while, we were so busy! And it continues this week. I am picking up a lot of extra shifts in the next few weeks during a co-worker's time off. So, I'm gonna feel like a full-time working mom! Crazy.

I had JBF the weekend before last. That wore me smooth out. Got some good deals. And I checked tonight, looks like I did pretty good selling my stuff! Then we were sick. I sounded like a man. It was definitely interesting. I still have a nasty lingering cough and Jake still has yucky snot. I am so ready for it to make its exit!

Can I just say how incredibly blessed we are that we have not one set, but TWO sets of awesome parents that are willing to keep Jake for us while we work?! Granted, I don't work like a "normal" parent does... I do have a set day that I work every week that my mom is accountable for Jake on that day. And then all the other random days that I throw in there, Derick's mom covers. Pretty awesome, right? I'd say that Jake Pickle is one lucky little dude!

I am going home (FS) this weekend, and I'm so excited to be spending the weekend there! I haven't spent a weekend down there since I moved back to BA. Funny how the parentals start coming my way more often now that there's a grandbaby in the picture! Anyway, I'm hoping to spend time with old friends and family this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it.

This PAST weekend, Derick's sister, Brooklin, was married. The wedding... simply stunning. It was at the top of most beautiful weddings I've ever seen. And I'm not just saying that because it was family, or because the bride is a model. lol It truly was amazing! My favorite part-they released doves during the ceremony! Well, actually my most favorite part was my little ring-bearer boy. :) Jake was a ring-bearer along with a little boy that Brooklin nannies for. She nannies twins; a little boy and a little girl who are about a year older than Jake. They are precious. The plan was for all three to ride in a red wagon down the aisle together. The twins had other ideas and were not pleased with Jake being in the wagon with them. So, an impromptu decision just before go time, and Jake was headed down the aisle hand-in-hand with his big girl cousins, Maggie and Emily. Check it out!

Cute as all get out, right?! What a big boy!

 Well, I am definitely up WAY too late. We have another busy day tomorrow. Headed to my favorite place, Goodwill, when we get up. They got a new shipment in earlier today, so they should be freshly stocked tomorrow. Pretty sure I'm going to make a post one day of all the amazing things I find there! Then we will be visiting my old work place-where I plan on taking a surprise to my sweet former co-worker friends :) just before we head to Jake's vaccine appointment. :(

I totally stole this from my mother-in-law's facebook. They're a pretty couple, huh?

Happy Tuesday, friends!! Make it a good one!

Our DIY Sock Monkey Party - Food & Fun Stuff

I'm pretty sure this one is going to turn out to be pretty long. I'm going to tackle all things on the goodies table! We thought long and hard about getting just the right amount of sweets and non-sweets, all while still getting everything to go along with the brown, red and blue theme as closely as possible.

First things first...

 On the "menu"

• grapes in fruit dip
• sausage dip & chips
• seasoned crackers
• Twizzlers
• Tootsie Rolls
• Tootsie Roll pops
• Oreo pops
• cupcakes
• pigs in a blanket
• Coca-Cola in glass bottles
• "monkey juice" which was just homemade cherry limeade
• water with lemons
• cupcakes!

A lot? Sure! But we had a lot of people to feed. We did the friend party on Saturday and family on Sunday. Trust me when I say... my family knows how to eat. :)

Tana is mainly the mastermind behind setting tables and food up. She sees the height and what not of what looks best where. I just add my opinion/approval and occasional suggestion here and there. :)

Saturday's table set up

We used our tiny kitchen table and a card table. We just covered them up with cheapo table cloths. Nearly all the dishes and serving pieces are Tana's or something she borrowed from her grandma (she's actually her Gigi, it sounds weird to call her "grandma" lol). I got the colored forks and spoons from a party store in Tulsa. If you buy the colored ones from Walmart, you have to also buy the knives... I don't need the knives... I don't want the knives. I would have had to buy a bunch from Walmart to get as many as I got at the party store. They are just sitting in a little vase I bought for $1 at the Dollar Tree (where everything's $1!!) The brown plates and the napkins are also from the party store. The red plates... are Hefty plates that I bought at Walmart a long time ago when I first started planning for the party. Funny story on the napkins... I was doing every single napkin, every other one red, brown, red, brown, etc. Tana grabbed a stack and put them in chunks of red, brown, red, brown. LOL! SO much cuter and soooo much easier! The ribbons tied around each different dish, I got that idea from this.

I think ours actually turned out cuter than these!

SO cute!! What great colors this would be for a summer party!

I even took their "monkey vines" and "monkey juice" ideas from the top picture. Ours are way cuter, dontcha think?! We just wrapped the ribbon around how we wanted it, taped it on, and then carefully (as to not move the ribbon!) taped on the food label.

Aren't those labels cute?! Tana whipped those up in a jiffy, no problem! :) And the ribbon adds such a CUTE detail. Oh, and by the way, that sock monkey jack-in-the-box that normally sells at Target for $15... yeah, i got that at the Goodwill for $3 in perfect condition. That's right! Underneath him is a leftover foam block to give him a little height.

You might like to know... we totally rigged up this "punch bowl" here. It is a cake lid stuck inside of a little circle vase/bowl thing I purchased for $1 at Dollar Tree. And that fancy ladle there, lol, courtesy of the kitchen of yours truly. That was one detail I forgot completely about. Oh, well... saved me more money than if I had I thought about it! And that is Tana's glass pitcher... may she rest in peace... she was so pretty. Tana broke her by accident. :(

The cupcakes are a tragedy turned good, in and of themselves. I terrible thing happened with the cake mixes that never rose. I had made several batches prior to party day. I had perfected them down to an art. The day of I made FOUR batches and not one cupcake turned out right. Walmart had these cupcakes, minus the sprinkles, sitting out waiting on me t-minus one hour to the party. We sprinkled them with brown, red, and white sprinkles and stuck my home-made-with-love cupcake toppers on top.

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing... yum!

This is Gigi's cupcake stand. I yike it.

Ok, these toppers were made using a circle cutter. I used 3 different colors of card stock for the backs of them, and then Tana made the monkey, "Jake" and "1" circles. Then I put them on lollipop sticks. Perfect! And very personalized! They turned out ridiculously cute, if I do say so, myself.

The Tootsie Roll pops and Oreo pops needed to be stuck into something so they stood upright and showed off their cuteness instead of being all stacked together and boring. I saw some foam blocks wrapped in wrapping paper on some blogs. They were so cute! Tana saw a roll of brown paper that Derick actually uses when painting in the house one day and we both thought it would look so cute to wrap Jake's presents in it. I didn't end up doing that, but we DID use it on the foam blocks and they were CUTE!!

where I got the idea of a wrapped foam block to stick our stuff in.

This is Pioneer Woman's cake pops... Tana, yours are WAYYYYY better. No offense to Mrs. Drummonds, but I am sure you all will agree that the pops look a lot better standing up.

Too cute, right? I got that red twine stuff at Michael's in a roll, and I pretty much love it. I just asked Derick about the paper, he said it came from Lowe's. I have never checked into it, but I'm sure you can find it elsewhere too. Idk about the price, or anything, either. It was just a "lying around the house" kind of thing.

These took FOREVER for Tana to make and she did excellent! It was a very long, very tedious learning experience and there were a ton of mess ups to get all these beauties, but that just meant more for us to enjoy! ;)

Our cute little Tootsie Pop stand.

I'm pretty sure I'll blog about the delicious recipes for the sausage dip, seasoned crackers, Oreo balls and grapes in fruit dip, at some point. Because everyone needs these things in their house at one point, or another!

I think that pretty much covers the food table.

I have gotten positive feedback from several different people about this little "series", if you will, that I'm doing on DIY partying. I can not wait to see photos of your kiddos' parties!!