Baked Stuffed Pasta Shells

A couple weeks ago, I went through a bunch of recipes that I had ripped out of magazines that had been sitting in a folder for years, and I inputted them into my recipe program, MasterCook Deluxe (which I love!), and was then inspired to actually try to make them!  I think Joe was a little overwhelmed when I tried 3 or 4 new recipes last week, so I toned it down to only 2 new recipes this week.   But this Monday, I found that the Baked Stuffed Pasta Shells was a hit, so I thought I’d share it with you!  (My comments throughout the instructions are in italics.)

 

Baked Stuffed Pasta Shells
Madeleine Greey
March 2008 Today’s Parent 

32 jumbo pasta shells
1 1/2 pounds ground beef, pork, turkey or chicken
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces package fresh spinach (227 g), coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella or Asiago cheese
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
3 cups spaghetti sauce

• Bring a very large pot of salted water to a full rolling boil. Drop pasta shells in, a few at a time, stirring to keep them separated. Cook, stirring occassionally, until flexible and almost tender. Be careful not to overcook because if shells are too soft, they’ll tear. Drain thoroughly and rinse under cold running water. Set aside.  (The box of pasta shells I bought had 31 shells in it & one of them tore during the cooking process, but 30 ended up being the perfect number)

Mr. Mischief

I recently took out some books from the library for Justice from the Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves – namely, Mr. Noisy, Mr. Messy, and Mr. Mischief.  These choices were no accident, as I believe they all describe my son quite well, but today he was in fine mischievous form!  Whenever I go to put Rayah down for her nap, I am taking a risk by leaving Justice unsupervised for those 5 minutes and today he decided to have some fun with the flour bin.  This is actually not the first time this has happened, so maybe this is a case of, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!”  But, suffice it to say that I was extremely tempted to throw an epic temper tantrum when I came upon this mess!  It sure didn’t help the situation that when you vacuum up flour with a small central-vac hose that for some reason it causes you to get dozens of static electric shocks!  Interestingly enough, Justice seemed to be quite aware that what he did was wrong, because when I went to reprimand him, he suggested that he get a “spanking on his hand” and “go to his room”.  I agreed.

As Mr. Mischief would say, “Oh, what a beautiful piece of perfect mischief!”

Going Back to Work

Well, after a wonderful year off for my maternity leave, I am set to return to work this Friday, October 1st. I am so grateful that my job allows me the privilege of working from home so that I can still stay home with my kids, but this also comes with challenges of its own! I remember it being difficult when I worked at home when Justice was a year old and I was pregnant with Rayah and it definitely wasn’t easy! This time around, we considered the option of getting a live-in nanny, but we’ve had difficulty finding someone and in some ways, the cost seems to defeat the purpose of working! Thankfully my job is only part-time, requiring 4 hours per day, but I’ve made an arrangement with my workplace that I will be available for a 6-hour period from 7:30am – 1:30pm, realizing that the kids will probably require at least 2 hours of my attention during that time. I am hoping to purchase a Blackberry to help me be more organized and so that I can be aware of emails coming in, no matter where I happen to be in the house at the moment. I’m also trying to get myself set up with some other organizational tools like a planning sheet for meals, the kids’ snacks and activities, and lists of ideas to help me keep them occupied while I’m working. I’m guessing that this is going to be one of the most challenging things I’ve had to do and that it will require all of the creativity and wisdom and strength and mental/emotional/spiritual resources that I have to draw upon (thank the Lord that He has endless amounts of all of those to give to me)!!  So, if you think of me, please keep me in your prayers as I enter this new season, that God would give me much grace and everything else I’ll need to be a work-at-home-mom.

Rayah – 11 months

Okay, now it’s Rayah’s turn for an update!  Wow – this girl has advanced a lot in the last couple months!

Rayah’s biggest accomplishments have been in the arena of mobility – she started off with the crawl-drag, pulling herself along on her belly, which eventually progressed to mastering the conventional crawl, and has led to her ability to pull herself up to standing just about anywhere she pleases, which has led to learning how to climb up and down the stairs!  One of her favorite things to do is tug on my pant legs and pull herself up to standing, holding onto my leg while I’m trying to make supper.  She can also take steps sideways while holding onto a couch or windowsill, but if we try to hold her hands and walk with her, she just wants to jump up and down.    Overall, she is quite pleased with herself and her achievements and I think she is generally much happier to be moving around on her own!  She’s kind of funny though, in that she tends to crawl for a short distance and then take a break and sit up to look around or play with an object she found, before she continues on.  The same goes for the stairs – she likes to take her time and will stall on one step to just stand there for awhile, being indecisive about whether to go up or down, changing her mind often.  Poor Joe – sounds like she is taking after her mommy!

 

Video – Rayah starts crawling

Video – Rayah climbs the stairs

We had a few major meltdowns involving being around strangers and only wanting mommy, so babysitting has been a bit of a challenge, but it seems like she’s starting to warm up to people just a little bit more and I’m hoping she will grow out of this phase sooner rather than later.  She often comes over to us, wanting to be picked up & will put up a big fuss if we try to sit her down on the floor.  One thing we did discover though, when Joe’s parents were visiting, was that when she’s upset or with someone new, that it helped a lot if they sang to her.  Overall, singing has been a good strategy for soothing her and she generally likes anything that makes noise – musical instruments of all kinds, banging on pots and pans, shakers, etc.

  

In the food arena, she has switched from formula to milk, which she loves, and she’s starting to eat more and more regular solid foods – thanks to 3 more teeth coming in!  She loves eating things by herself and is quite good at picking up small pieces of food and getting them to her mouth on her own – this includes items likes leaves, stones, or any other treats she finds on the floor.  

Rayah hasn’t been getting into a lot of trouble, perhaps because we have more babyproofing in place already then we had with Justice, but she is definitely interested in the toilet water and recently discovered the joys of toilet paper!

She loves the outdoors and will follow Justice out onto the deck if he leaves the door open.  She also loves just looking out the patio door or out the windows and will be very sad if I don’t let her go outside when Justice goes out.

 
 

I haven’t had the chance to weigh her again, but at 11 months, she is fitting quite nicely into 18 month clothing.   As for her health, our only problem has been recurring yeast infections on her bum – boooooo!  Here she is getting a bum soak in the kitchen sink.

She’s usually a very good napper and sleeps quite soundly for about 1 1/2 – 2 hours or sometimes more and she sleeps really good at night, though she almost always wakes up between 5:00-5:30am for a bit before crying herself back to sleep until 6:30am, when our whole family is up and awake!  Some of my favorite times with Rayah are putting her to bed, as she has the sweetest snuggles and cuddles when she is sleepy.

 

She has an incredibly loud scream!!  She will definitely let you know when she is not happy about something and can burst into the saddest cry with big tears, especially when you take something away from her that she really likes.  But she can scream with an intense piercing shriek when she is happy and laughing too – I love getting those out of her when I tickle her – it’s so unretrained and full of joy!  Other things that she loves that make her smile and laugh are the swing, being tossed up in the air or swing around in your arms or hung upside down.

I love her big open mouth smile, her camera smile when she poses with her scrunched up face and squinty eyes, and her closed-mouth smirky smile!  She has many funny facial expressions and noises, including an exaggerated breathing through her nose with big pursed lips.   She is such a delight and brings us many smiles and laughs!

  
 

Justice – 2 1/2 years

Well, I have been rather absent from blogging, twitter, facebook, etc. for the last couple months, due in part to just taking a break and also because I’m attempting to read through the Bible in 90 days, which leaves little time for other things!  I’m currently in the book of Ezra and am a few days behind in my reading, but I’ve been wanting to write an update on my kiddos before too much more time flies by, so I will start with sharing about my spirited little boy…

It feels like the main focus for Justice has been all about the potty training for the last 3 months and we came “this close” to just giving up and quitting just a week ago, until we got some tips and ideas from a potty training guru lady, which actually has helped A LOT and we are making significant progress.  Potty training has probably been one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do in our parenting journey thus far and it has stretched us in many ways – lol.  Once Justice is officially fully potty trained, perhaps I will share about our mistakes, failures, joys and successes and you can benefit from them.

Justice went through a stage of saying “NO!” ALL THE TIME.  But we seem to be past that and now he only says “NO!” half the time.   He now knows how to say “Yes” when that is the appropriate answer.  When it comes to disobedience or discipline, he responds quite well to the “counting to 3″ method, as he knows there are consequences if I reach “3″!  He can still throw a pretty epic tantrum when he wants to, but I think there are fewer of them than there used to be.

He unfortunately still likes to hit Rayah on a regular basis and this is one of my most frustrating struggles, since she is very sensitive and it is a rare treasure when she is playing happily and contentedly on her own, only to be smacked on the head and sent into a fit of tears!  I believe he loves her and that his hitting is not out of malice, but more because he just doesn’t know how to interact with her in appropriate ways and giving her a tap on the head is his way of connecting with her?? lol.

Justice has been advancing in his athletic abilities even more lately and loves doing slam dunks in his basket ball hoop and hitting home runs with his tee-ball set.   He will jump off our piano bench and fly through the air to dunk his basketball into the hoop that is 4 feet away or swing his foam bat and send that little ball flying over our fence in the back yard!  I am continuously amazed at his “mad skillz” in all things sports and just watch in awe at the things he does.

Video – Justice doing a slam dunk!

Video – Tee-ball star

Justice will often want to put on Rayah’s clothes (the yellow pants are Rayah’s – inside out and backwards) or grab her soother or climb into her crib or drink from her bottle, so sometimes it seems like there is a bit of that feeling of wanting to be a baby again?

Justice also went through a phase of being quite obsessed with building towers.  I actually really loved this, because his creations were so unique and unusual, I was always curious what he would create next!

Video – Justice building & smashing a tower

Over the summer, Justice has been a misquito-magnet, and has had several bites that will swell up like crazy and which he scratches the daylights out of, in addition to his regular bumps, bruises and scrapes.  He refers to all of these injuries as “scratchies” and is enamored with having a band-aid.  Below you can see him playing very passionately on daddy’s guitar and sporting some nice scabs on his face from one of his many spills.

Funny things: We were going for a walk on a windy day and Justice was running along with both hands on his head, trying to hold onto his hair.   He had his first alcoholic drink at my brother’s wedding (by accident) when daddy didn’t realize that the “juice” was spiked!  He got a guitar shirt from Joe’s parents and he loves strumming on his tummy and making his guitar sounds (“bwa-bwaaamm”).  Not so funny – when he squeezed a whole bunch of bright blue toothpaste onto his bedroom carpet!  He can pick out an airplane from the sky with his incredible sight or simply by the sound with his amazing ears – he’s constantly noticing different sounds and asking, “What was that noise?”  Also, you need to watch the video below of Justice trying to blow up a balloon!

Video – Blowing up a balloon

Some other funny or sweet things Justice has said – “Where’s mommy’s penis?”, “I like snuggling!”, “I’m soooo cranky!”, “Stop fighting me!”, “Sixteen pounds o’clock”, “thumbs up!” (while trying to get both of his thumbs up), “Tell mommy I have to go potty, go potty all by myself, get special treat!!!”, “Slam dunk it in the river!” (I have no idea what he means by this), “I was just wondering…”, “for some reason”,, “I love books!”, “Rayah has stinky monster poop!”, “How’s your day? My day’s good/axewent (excellent)!”, “No! I can’t go potty right yet!”, “Thank you, my love” (said to me after giving him more Kraft Dinner at lunch time).  You might notice my excessive use of exclamation points in all of these things, but the reality is that he says almost everything with a lot of exuberance and passion.

My little boy is growing up and I love observing him as he observes and comments on his world and all that he sees and is learning!