These are DELICIOUS

You've got to try these they are delicious. My husband thought they were SO yummy.

A squeeze of lime juice brightens the flavor of this hearty Mexican dish. The enchiladas are mild, so serve with hot sauce, if desired. If you can't find queso fresco, use 1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese or Monterey Jack with jalapeño peppers. Total time: 45 minutes.
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 2 enchiladas and 1 lime wedge)
Ingredients
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (7-ounce) bottle salsa verde (such as Herdez brand)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1/3 cup (3 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
Cooking spray
1/4 cup (1 ounce) crumbled queso fresco
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
4 lime wedges
Cilantro sprigs (optional)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°.
Combine first 4 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth. Combine chicken and cream cheese in a large bowl. Stir in 1/2 cup salsa mixture. Reserve remaining salsa mixture.
Bring broth to a simmer in a medium skillet. Working with one tortilla at a time, add tortilla to pan; cook 20 seconds or until moist, turning once. Remove tortilla; drain on paper towels. Spoon about 1/4 cup chicken mixture down center of tortilla; roll up. Place tortilla, seam-side down, in an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining tortillas, broth, and chicken mixture.
Pour remaining salsa mixture over enchiladas; sprinkle evenly with queso fresco and chili powder. Bake at 425° for 18 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Serve with lime wedges. Garnish with cilantro sprigs, if desired.

Let me know what you think?

Confession of a Twin Mother

Having twins is Hard.

I said it and i feel so much better.

I love love love Nolan and Taryn (and Dylan of course).

Twins at Nineteen months entering two is tougher than i thought.

Having confessed how tough it is feels better than holding it all in.

When one has something the other wants its tough, when one falls down and is crying the other falls down and this is alllllllllllll day long...they are both trying to communicate, but just not there yet...

Then there is the "toy" issue :)

Some moms of twins say, "buy two of everything" but...they still have to learn to share even if you have "two" so i don't know if i agree.

It takes a lot of patience, a lot of time, prayer and a lot of training.

I only have two hands, i wish i had four.

When one wants up the other wants up, not all the time, but some days more than others.

Taryn and Nolan are very easy going kids for the most part, which i am o'so thankful for (please don't get me wrong all around i love and am so thankful for all our kids). "the hardest job i'll ever love"...

I need prayer for patience and lots of lots of LOVE as we are entering the "two's"

I love it and it's a ton of fun, but it is not easy.

Can you relate?

Nine day old baby

(i know i'm not the best writer, but bear with me... this post is a complete contrast from "chicken Tamales", but i feel compelled to share what God has done in a the lives of another family)

I had a first over the weekend in the midst of Christmas & birthday parties, church, errands and Christmas festivities.

Being in MOPS unites you with other women. It's been tough for me to attend all the MOPS events due to the nature of the kids and cold/flu season, but i try my best to support other women. The last couple of years we've gone through so much i definitely think God has made me softer and more sensitive to the needs of others (at least i hope so).

Anyway, it's not about me, but a mother who attends MOPS.

A mother in MOPS just lost her adorable, precious nine day old baby.

The family requested the support of MOPS women at the service so i went to support, i wish i could of helped out more.

What a tragedy. I can't even imagine, but i was touched by the service and the strength of the family in ways i've never been before. I'm sure many people were.

Their daughter Caroline was beautiful and they didn't even know until she was born that anything was wrong, but one thing after another went wrong internally.

I can't imagine.

The strength the mother and father had standing in front of a large amount of people was beyond them.

God was definitely helping them through this service and tragedy to trust Him, lean on Him, have Faith strength and to be encouraged.

It was amazing to see God's hand so clearly in their lives.

God is using the family and this tragedy to draw people to Himself and it was so awesome to see the family allow God to do what He needed to do.

They sang the old hymn "It is well" which sums it up so well :)

"When peace, like a river, attendth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows rolls

Whatever my lot. Thou has taught me to say.

It is well. It is well, with my soul....

And the Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight.

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll:

The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend.

Even so, it is well with my soul."

A word from the Father:)

Today Caroline is with her Lord and my Lord.
Last night at around 1 AM, I held her, as she went from our ever so limited four dimensional space, to the multidimensionality of eternal life where there are more colors, more sounds, more tastes, more senses and everything is so far far more wonderful that this dim world pales in comparison. Tis truly a far better place that she is now. She was barely 9 days old.
We praise God in all He has given us. We do miss her greatly, but do not mourn for us or for her. Mourn instead for those who do not know our Lord and lead them gently to Him.

Use words.....

Did anyone try the Tamale Casserole? Yummy...

Chicken Tamale Casserole

Trying to redeem myself here...

I tried the Hamburger soup recipe and for whatever reason it just doesn't do it for me like it used to so i'm going to attempt another recipe on my blog guarentee the whole family will enjoy!

"I came up with this dish to satisfy my cravings for the tamales I had at Mexican restaurants when I was growing up in Houston. Homemade tamales are too time-consuming to prepare for weeknight meals, but I discovered a corn bread mix approximates the flavor." —Risë Minton,

1 cup (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided
1/3 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (such as Martha White)
1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
Cooking spray
1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Combine 1/4 cup cheese and next 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
3. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken; sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces; top each serving with 1 tablespoon sour cream.

Tell me i'm not alone?

Ever since we came out of the "infant phase" from last year i have wanted to get a family picture. Still can't believe we are a family of five. It takes a pretty calm and collective person to take this family on, o'my. We've got our challenges. I guess some more than others, but we definitely have our photo challenges. We haven't gotten all the pictures back, but she did email some of them. We had a rough weekend and the kids weren't feeling reall good, but it was our last weekend to try to get a picture of all of us before the end of December.

Which family one do you like so far?

(saying this i know some of you aren't logged into the blog, but would love your opinion)?

Photo #1..

Photo #2 Photo #3

I'm so thankful for these few pictures, but bummed at the same time we didn't have more fun taking them. Is it just my family or do others have a rough time taking family pictures?

Hurry

It's been hurry here and hurry there for the last two weeks. We didn't even manage to squeeze in our photo shoot this last weekend, instead it's scheduled for this Sunday. We had to make a quick trip to SLO.

Even as i'm writing quickly i'm thinking o'my i still need to get this and that done before picking up Dylan at school at 2:40 and o of course before the babies wake up within the next half and hour.

Then we rush off to swim team.

YES that's right i said, "swim team" Dylan starts swim team today. I'm so excited. He tried out a week ago and made it into the "mini swimmer" team class. He woke up this morning and said, "is this the day i start swim team". "Yep you got it buddy" was my reply.

I can't wait.

I've been so careful not to push swimming on him so i'm thoroughly thrilled he wants to be on the team!

(for those who are reading this and don't know...i was a four year varsity swimmer in high school..recruited to swim for San Francisco state and just swam locally in SLO...plus a varsity in water polo...but that's another story)

In any case, i'm thrilled he wants to swim.

He has a lot to work on and some endurance to gain, but hopefully the love for water will keep him going.

so my "hurry" post is over because i'm in a huge "hurry" today, but will post some new and long awaited pictures soon.

(btw: loving the age of the twins right now...o'so much fun)

Family Pictures

So exciting.

This weekend we are getting our first "official" family picture taken. Unlike many other families we just haven't had the time or the "family" members to take our picture. So...we are heading out and going to give it a shot this weekend. SO fun (hopefully).

Keep your eye on our blog and we will post some long awaited family pictures soon.

Spiritual Gifts

Spiritual Gifts can be a extremely touchy topic to speak on for a pastor.

Just being honest here...coming from Masters college background I've heard a lot of messages on spiritual gifts, but this last Sunday Chip Ingram our new pastor gave a wonderful message on spiritual gifts and i thought i would share it.

"Warning: Beware of spiritual Gift Abuse!Pastor Chip Ingram"

It's one of a four part series.

Black, White & Red

Halloween 2009

The cutest pirate ever and his two puppies

So funny the kids all ended up wearing black, white and red. Didn't even plan it that way, but it turned out so cute. Great pirate look Dylan.

We were so disappointed this year because our church along with the transition of pastors decided not to have the harvest festival so we did just a little trick or treating.

we literally went down the street to the corner a couple houses and back down to our house on the opposite side of the street.

(for all those out of towners...i know our neighborhood doesn't look like much, but see the house across the street the bluish green one...it sold for a little under $800 thousand, CRAZY...it's in a great school district)

Dylan did such a good job holding their hands.

Grrr.......

Jason and Dylan did pumpkins together. Jason is always so creative. Nolan is actually tasting the pumpkin in this photo.

We are off to say "hello" to our fellow neighbors and boy did all the elderly people on our street love seeing the kids.

We had a nice night together as a family. We were so glad we just stayed together and at home this year. It was really low key.

Fun Fall

Some fun fall photos

disclaimer:)

a ton of photos follow for all the family members we don't get to see as often as we would like, bear with me
We've been going and going to this and that since October hit and below are some photos from a number of different outings.

The first being a pumpkin patch in Morgan Hill; we weren't able to make it to our favorite pumpkin patch over the hill in Santa Cruz, but this one did the trick and was pretty cute.

Dylan with the twins on the back of a old truck. We gave up trying to get them to all look at us. This one is pretty funny because they are both looking in opposite directions.

It was really hot that day. Taryn and I hanging out while the boys went on a hay ride.

Dylan found a nice pumpkin

Daddy and Dylan picking out pumpkins
Nolan found a white pumpkin, cool?
Nolan peaking through a hole of some decor at the pumpkin patch (sure wish i had a cool high tech digital camera...hopefully for Christmas)
The boys
Random shot of the twins outside playing. They enjoy pushing each other in the dump truck. We don't have a ton of outdoor toys, but they do enjoy this little tonka truck that was Dylan's.
OOPS had a pumpkin patch trip and so the pictures below were the first "official" time the twins went to the pumpkin patch. They were just amazed at everything the first time around.

What a cutie!

On the go...which is my life these days... Megan a friend from SLO who recently moved back to San Jose.

Thanks for the pictures Megan.

A sneak peak at the twins costumes. We had a little trip to Santana Row for "mommy and me". It was pretty cute, but i'm thinking Harnesses with monkey back packs would be a good idea for the twins in crowded places... I was so against these the first time around, but we DO have twins now and for safety sake i think i'll give it a go (and for mere sanity).

Anyway...here's Taryn and Nolan...

i'll add the three of them together later in the week.

Check out Taryn's hands in the below picture. She is SO girl!

Nolan...they both love dogs so these were the best i could find, especially with time restraints on me these days.

"Yes" he always smiles unless he's hungry or tired. Everyone asks me all the time if he always smiles. Most of the time "Yes" he is our goofy kid. Dylan and i just laugh so much at Nolan.

Santana row with a friend.

Does anyone notice Taryn's bow?

Audrey is just adorable.

Outdoor kids singer...

Check out the tails, too cute.

Craft for the kiddos, it was really cute.
Lollipops my friend talked me into giving them one...

A new friend of mine, she's becoming such a dear friend. She has three girls and this is her youngest.

Thanks for all your support and friendship lately Kari!

(and thank you for talking me into giving them lollipops...)

a girly sleep over

sleep over

at seventeen months my daughter attended her first sleep over.

taryn has been teething so bad lately we are all tired. it's really odd, she's so sweet, gentle and mellow, but when her molars started coming in she started waking up in the wee hrs of the morning aand just screaming.

i mentioned it to a good friend that lives basically around the corner and she said she would take her for the night and her girls would just LOVE it. her husband is out of town on business and they just thought it would be a blast that way we can all catch up on some "Zzz". i think since we have two seventeen month olds i was up for the one night sleep over.

she is just the sweetest friend.

all her girls were so excited, so off went taryn to her first sleep over.

i can't believe i let her go for the night...

she took these with her iphone.

the giant wiggly tooth finally emerged

the big giant wiggly tooth finally emerged!
dylan finally lost his front tooth. he's been waiting and waiting for his tooth to come out and while he was at McDonald's with his grandparents it fell out while drinking milk. it was a big deal because we have been watching, feeling and waiting for some time now (actually months).

since we are on the topic of dylan i just want to say how completely proud i am of him. he's been doing so great in school on such a consistent basis. he has (most of the time) a great attitude towards his homework and needs very little helps and is doing awesome on his spelling tests every week.

great job dylan we are so proud of you!

our weekend away

i've never done a post on our company trips so i thought i would do one.
jason's company is unique in that it has company trips (even in this economy) for their employees. they pay for the whole weekend and wine and dine you at some fabulous places. my personal favorite (and i wish i had photos) was a the culinary institute of America in napa. it was gorgeous and just delicious.

anyway.

this year was special to us just because we haven't gotten away without the kiddos for some time so it was WAY overdue and just refreshing to spend time together.

thanks to my wonderful parents we were able to go. brave sixty something year olds watching a set of twins and a seven year old for a whole weekend. (lots of love mom and dad)

they switch off every other year between napa and monterey. this year the trip was in monterey/carmel. we got to choose between the "quail lodge" or "the clement" a new hotel jason's company built right next to the aquarium. we picked the later because we had been to quail a couple of times. to say the least "the clement" was just gorgeous. it was modern, new and just cool. in one of the staircases it has this hanging jelly fish light that made all these translucent lights on the ceilings and walls. the coolest part for me was just being able to go downstairs and then exit from the elevators go out a door right to the downtown strip of monterey and just walk. we enjoyed getting away by ourselves so much. on saturday we walked from monterey all the way to pacific grove and had lunch at a little place called the "red house cafe" (recommended by a local) it was absolutely delicious. i had crab cakes and a salad they were soo soo yummy. anyway, it was beautiful that weekend and we enjoyed just walking uninterrupted.

this was the outside eating area of the hotel facing water. for whatever reason i didn't really get a good shot of the entrance of the hotel. i thought this was so cute though with the lights and colors of the hotel. love the colors.

the first night we had a company dinner at the monterey aquarium. it was on the formal side and they rented out the aquarium for the company and had a strolling buffet throughout the aquarium so around each corner there was a different set up like a seafood bar, pasta, clam bar with oysters and clams ect...it was so much fun just to stroll around the aquarium without the crowds.

he second night was at quail lodge for dinner. they do the same thing at quail when it's in monterey. it's a nice dinner and dancing.

sunday morning was a wonderful breakfast buffet at "the clement"

we didn't take many pictures, but here's a couple.
we were having couple time so we didn't spend a lot of time taking photos or getting pictures of each other... but it was beautiful.

the bike trail that takes you along the coast into pacific grove.

of course we can't forget the adorable sea otters that are out and about every time we come to monterey. (can you see them?)

double lettuce

has anyone tried the delicious two packs of heads of lettuce from costco?

my new love (despite dirt).

they come in a package of two with the roots attached to each head of lettuce.

the price is competitive with the heads of lettuce from the grocery store.

the package comes with red leaf and butter leaf, both of my favorites.

to those who love salad these are so crisp, fresh and yummy.

even the kids love them.

anyway.

give it a try they are so great it beats all the package salads out there.

(i would take a picture, but...i've got some sort of flu bug right now...so not feeling well)

little me

so

how am i doing with my exercise goals

(besides a little tiny mishap with my foot)

good

i've been really consistent to going to my mwf running group

eating okay

tuesday thursday i'm still working on

so all and all i'm doing good.

not sure if i'm make it to the nike half this year (purchasing a ticket on craiglist)

but there is always

next year.

i'm learning

i need to be easier on myself and my expectations need to come down

i do have three kids

and i'm definitely not perfect.

exercise does help to relieve the stress and help me sleep and doctors orders to help my bones.

life is not about me

and God has so much in store for us.

i'm seeing so clearly lately.

we stepped out in faith and are having a bible study here at the house each week and it's been so amazing. so encouraging. more than we could ever ask for. we have five couples that come (give or take a couple each week) and it couldn't be a better group of people to... before signing up i thought "what if" the kids don't go to bed "what if" i can't get the house together "what if" no one comes, but the kids are going to bed just fine, the house gets put together and people are coming, searching and growing.

so cool.

Photo Shoot continued ...these are for the grandparents

these are specifically for my mom & dad...who wanted to see some more...i still didn't have time to go through all of them...but here's some more until we see you thursday

love you

(bear with the many pictures...)

(my only regret in the below picture is that i didn't have taryn's curly hair down)

dress up and on to the new location

blowing kisses

nolan is such a joy...when he gets tired he just gets crazy "happy"

A couple of my favorites from dress up time
nolan & taryn still learning to hold each others hands

back shot...

stacy your awesome and i'm looking forward to our next photo shoot in november. i'm so thrilled you got so many new photo ops from this one. i think you are well on your way.