Stud Muffin!

My friend Whitney gave me this outfit for a baby shower and I couldn't wait until Nikson would be big enough to wear it. The shoes are a little big but he NEEDED to wear them.

3 months!

Time keeps flying by. This cute little boy spends his days eating, sleeping, kicking around, chatting with his mom, chewing on his cute chubby little hands, smiling at his silly daddy, following me around the house, learning and growing and he is still sleeping at night like a champ, we are still trying to figure out naps. According to our scale at home he almost weighs 12 pounds! He is finally in all 0-3 month clothes, which makes me kind of sad that my baby is growing up.

He loves his dad!

Sorry the pictures blurry but look at those cheeks, I just love them. I am so excited to start rice cereal next month, I hope he loves it! It will chub him up even more!



Our first little walk around the neighborhood! Who knew it would be 55 degrees in January.

I just love to take pictures of my boy!

Gluten Free Freezer Meals

I had a request to post how I made my freezer meals gluten free. Maybe I will make this a monthly thing and it might help someone out. If you aren't interested I won't be offended if you skip over it because it might be long and only have 1 picture that i already posted in another post, I will try to remember to take more pictures next time.

January's meals

Taco Meat
(2) Crock Pot Chicken
(2) Lemon Garlic Chicken
White Chicken Chili
Russian Chicken
Cranberry Chicken
Chicken Adobo
Taquitos
Spicy Honey Chicken
Sloppy Joes
Shredded Chicken (I plan on making chicken salad sandwiches with)
Orange Teriyaki Chicken
Tater Tot Casserole
Yogurt Chicken
Italian Chicken
Creamy Chicken

I am not going to lie making normal recipes gluten free can get a little rediculous, but it's usually worth it.

Taco meat.  We used taco seasoning mix, the lime and the vinegar. McCormicks taco mix is gluten free, your store brand might be also, you just have to check, but if your in doubt just buy McCormicks.

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken is chicken, a can of corn, a can of black beans, a jar or salsa and a block of cream cheese. All naturally gf!

Lemon Garlic Chicken is chicken, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a lemon. All naturally gf again!

White Chicken Chili, you just have to look out for gf broth, but pacific (my fav), progresso, and swansons natural goodness chicken broth are gf.

For Russian Chicken and Cranberry Chicken (they are pretty much the same thing)
I don't use Russian dressing for Russian chicken, because the only brand I know that actually makes Russian dressing (Wishbone) is expensive and not gf, so I just buy French dressing for both recipes, most store brands are gf but make sure you check not assume. Onion soup mix, Liptons used to be gf before they changed the ingredients, I don't know how long I used it before one day I decided to look at the ingredients and it's not gf anymore. I haven't found one that is gf so I have to make my own, sounds hard right? Nope super easy. 1/4 cup dried minced onion. 2 Tbsp instant beef bouillon. 1/2 Tsp onion powder. Mix ingredients together and use as you would Lipton soup mix.

Chicken Adobo. Scott's recipe. All I know is it has vinegar and soy sauce in it. Distilled vinegar is naturally gf. Soy sauce, is a hard one, the main ingredient in most is wheat. I have found La Choy soy sauce and the market pantry (Target brand) soy sauce I have in my fridge is gf.

Taquitos. All ingredients gf as long as you use corn tortillas of course. I have found after heating them up, the corn tortillas don't freeze and reheat very well, but the flour ones I made for my husband turned out good, or so he says.

Spicy Honey Chicken. All ingredients gf!

Sloppy Joes.  Most ingredients are fine, just check your ketchup and mustard. Heinz, French's, and Walmart brand are gf. I havent found any gf buns I actually like.

Shredded chicken obviously gf. I plan to make chicken salad sandwiches with this. Everyone else made chicken roll ups for theirs, I love chicken roll ups but don't think they are worth making gf, I havent been successful with them using bisquick and I don't think the gf cream of chicken soup makes good gravy.

Orange Teriyaki Chicken.
1⁄4 cup soy sauce 3 Tbsp chopped onion 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp olive or canola oil 1⁄2 tsp ground pepper 1⁄2 tsp ground ginger 1⁄2 tsp red pepper sauce 1 can (6 oz) orange juice concentrate 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Combine all ingredients except chicken. Place chicken breasts in freezer bag and pour marinade over chicken. Freeze in gallon bag, date and label: “Grill chicken 4-6 inches from heat source for 35- 40 minutes.” Serves 6.
Just keep in mind the soy sauce from before.

TaterTot Casserole. Emy's recipe, but it includes hamburger, tater tots, canned milk, dried onion, cream of mushroom soup. Ore-Ida TaterTots are gf. For cream of mushroom soup I use pacific brand condensed cream of mushroom, expensive but the best I have found.

Yogurt Chicken. Emy's recipe, but it includes chicken, ritz cracker crumbs, plain yogurt, parmesan cheese, garlic salt, salt. Everything is fine but of course the crackers, I just grabbed the ones I had in my pantry http://www.schar.com/us/gluten-free-products/table-crackers/ (I got mine at Harmons) The closest gf to ritz I can think.

Italian Chicken. Emy's recipe but it includes chicken, cream of chicken soup, Italian dressing mix, cream cheese. Seasons brand Italian dressing mix is gf. For cream of chicken I use pacific brand again.

Creamy Chicken. Emy's recipe but includes chicken, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, package of onion soup mix. I think I have gone over everything in this recipe but sour cream. Sour cream? You think that should be naturally gf, right? Yes it should. 

Its sure been nice to have a freezer full of food and not having to plan meals every night.

Blessing

Sunday January 8, 2012 was a wonderful day!

Josh and Nikson did great. Nikson was happy the whole time, and didn't even make a peep during the blessing. We had lots of family and friends show up and had a big circle. I  am so blessed to have the gospel and so many worthy priesthood holders in my life.

We had a brunch at our house after sacrament meeting. I made mini pancakes (all gluten free), cinnamon rolls (all not gluten free), with a variety of syrups: maple, homemade buttermilk, and homemade blackberry (thanks to my sister in law Nicole and her mom) and we had a hot chocolate bar with all different kinds of marshmallows, whipped cream and candy canes! it was pretty tasty!

4 Generations!

His daddy's booties!

All tuckered out after his big day! 

He stayed awake the whole time (except about 15 mins during sacrament) right up until everyone was getting ready  to leave and he just passed out!

Thanks to all the people who showed up to support us.

Happy 2012!

I can't believe it's 2012. 2011 seemed to fly by, especially the last couple months. What a year it has been, 2011 was a pretty good year, minus the throwing up. I was pregnant for most of it and now I am a mom! A MOM! I started listing all my goals for this year and got embarrassed at how many I have, so I am not going to share them.

We celebrated at Josh's parents house in Eden, with everyone in Josh's family except his mom who was in Florida for the week. We drove up Friday night after Josh got off of work. I spent pretty much all day Friday getting ready to go, my sister in laws and I planned on making some freezer meals while up there so I had lots of grocery shopping to do plus I had to pack for 3 people. Packing for a baby is quite a to-do. This picture is just baby stuff so far.

On the drive up there I was a mess, freaking out that I forgot something, which wouldn't have been a big deal because we were only going to be there for less than 2 days, we were only an hours and a half away from home, and there is a washing machine and a grocery store, but I am kinda crazy. Nikson slept the whole ride up there and whole ride home. We spent most the day Saturday in the kitchen. After 5 hours of preparing the 3 or us ended up with 18 freezer meals each that will keep us fed for the whole month of January thanks to my sister in laws FoodSaver.
Taco Meat
(2) Crock Pot Chicken
(2) Lemon Garlic Chicken
White Chicken Chili
Russian Chicken
Cranberry Chicken
Chicken Adobo
Taquitos
Spicy Honey Chicken
Sloppy Joes
Shredded Chicken (I plan on making chicken salad sandwiches with)
Orange Teriyaki Chicken
Tater Tot Casserole
Yogurt Chicken
Italian Chicken
Creamy Chicken

While was in the kitchen Josh played Call of Duty with Michael, so kid friendly video games with our nieces, and Baby Nikson did not get ignored, his cousins sure love him!

After spending the day in the kitchen Josh's dad treated us to yummy Mexican dinner, and the menu listed everything that is gluten free, I love that. Then we all watched a movie. We all headed to bed at 11:45. I rang in the new year in bed feeding Nikson, I probably wouldn't of even know it was midnight if there weren't fireworks going off outside. We are party animals!

On Sunday Nikson made his debut to church on new years day, not even in our own ward. We only went to sacrament and he slept through it. Hopefully he is that good next week for his blessing.

We had a very fun New Year celebration, I hope you did too.