JAMSquared

Jessica is growing so fast. Sometimes it seems unreal that I am the mother of a almost 3.5 month old.

She was invited to her first party on the 17th. It was a get together of all the recent babies at the church. So really is was more of a party for the parents to get to know the parents of the kids their kids would be interacting with at church. Jessica slept most of the party as it was held during her normal afternoon nap time, as did a lot of the other babies. James and I were the youngest parents there as the other babies had older siblings.

It is so fun to see her interacting with her world. She really likes the monkey on her activity mat and the monkey on her car seat. Both of them have legs she can easily grab a hold of.

I really like this next picture. She is my little model when she has tummy time.

I put her in her exersaucer for the first time recently. She is still a tad too little for it (recommends 4 months), but I think she’ll soon enjoy it.

Jessica is definitely a thumb sucker. Sometimes she’ll try to put her whole hand in her mouth.

As a side note, Wisconsin Cheese has a free Kitchen Kids brochure you can download. It looks interesting. I definitely want to get Jessica in the kitchen helping cook.

I love to read blogs and have way too many that I follow in my Goggle Reader. When it comes to crafty blogs I browse, they provide inspiration for my own creations. But is it okay to be inspired by yourself? I was checking through my blog to insure my tag changes were appropriate and I came across this card. It is still one my favorites. When last week’s All That Scraps Weekly Wednesday Challenge was a color challenge to use brown, pink and red, I decided to CASE my own card to make a Valentine’s Card. It will have to be sent to someone who doesn’t read my blog, probably one of James’ grandmothers.

Stamps: C.C. Designs Kiki La Rue; Stampin’ Up Sweet Little Sentiments
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Real Red
Designer Paper: Stampin’ Up Loves Me
Ink: Stampin’ Up Basic Brown
Markers: Stampin’ Up Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Creamy Caramel, Blush Blossom, So Saffron; atyou Spica Red
Accessories: Stampin’ Up Chocolate Chip 1/4″ grosgrain ribbon; Creatology foam glitter hearts
Tools: Cuttlebug D’vine Swirl embossing folder

I made this for dinner Tuesday night and James really enjoyed it. It is somewhat of a cross between two dishes that are in our regular meal rotation and it will be entering our regular meal rotation. I changed it up slightly to fit what I had on hand.

Chicken ‘n’ Chips

Source: Taste of Home: The Busy Family Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 1 can (10.75 ounces) condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 2 tablespoons taco sauce - I used salsa
• 1/4 cup chopped green chilies - I used half a 4-ounce can of chopped green chilies
• 3 cups cubed cooked chicken - I used frozen grilled chicken strips, chopped
• 12 slices process American cheese
• 4 cups broken tortilla chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a bowl, combine the soup, sour cream, taco sauce and chilies. In an ungreased shallow 2-qt. baking dish (I used a square baking dish), layer half of the chicken, soup mixture, cheese and tortilla chips. Repeat layers.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until bubbly.

Yield: 4-6 servings

One of the sweetest sounds is the sound of Jessica’s laughter. Her daddy is extremely good at making her giggle. See how she laughs as she gets ready for bed.

Last Wednesday, I started making the thank you cards I needed to send thank yous for our Christmas gifts. The All That Scraps Weekly Wednesday Challenge was to make a project with snowmen. I thought this was perfect for Christmas thank yous. Also, I thought it would give me a chance to use my new Martha Stewart snow flurry border punch that I got for Christmas. However, after picking the designer paper, the border punch didn’t quite work. Instead I used ribbon. I used last week’s Mojo Monday sketch to come up with the layout.

I think I prefer the white snowflake brad, but I only had 4 of them and I made a dozen cards. Which do you prefer? You can also tell I used two different cameras for the pictures (my main camera’s batteries died). The second picture taken with my main camera really makes the ribbon look satiny.

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Flaky Friends, Cute & Curly
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Tangerine Tango, Close to Cocoa
Designer Paper: Stampin’ Up Frosty Day
Ink: Stampin’ Up Basic Brown
Markers: Stampin’ Up Ballet Blue, Always Artichoke, Summer Sun, Close to Cocoa, Elegant Eggplant, Real Red, Only Orange, Bashful Blue
Accessories: Stickles Frosted Lace, Icicle; Stampin’ Up brown 15/16″ satin ribbon; snowflake brad (Hero Arts maybe?)
Tools: Stampin’ Up Curly Label Punch

As a side note, yesterday I watched Echo: Queen of the Elephants, a show I had Tivoed from the Animal Planet channel, while Jessica and I ate lunch and Jessica played. It was an excellent show about wild elephants.