Easy Chicken Pesto Recipe

Every so often I get stuck for what to cook for dinner. So I email my friends and ask what their kids like to eat. Invariably, someone emails back and says, "Whatever I cook" and I roll my eyes, because I have THE pickiest eaters in the universe. Seriously. But here is a recipe from my friend Amanda V. that 4 out of 5 of us liked. (The little one turned his nose up, but he really shouldn't count. He lives off of frozen waffles. Well, almost.) Plus, it's super easy.


Pesto Chicken
2-3 Chicken breasts
1 jar Classico pesto (These are small jars, but don't worry!)
(Find this with the spaghetti sauce. At our store it was on the top shelf where I -AKA Shorty couldn't reach it.)
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream (or half and half for those of us watching our calories.)
1 package of your favorite pasta (spaghetti, bowties, etc.)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or butter or margarine

1. Cook the chicken in the olive oil (or butter or whatever) until done.
2. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces.
3. Cook pasta. (I'd say we usually cook half the box.)
4. Add pesto and heavy cream to the chicken and cook until warm.
5. Add drained pasta to the pesto mixture.
6. Enjoy!
7. Don't tell your family how easy it was!

Baby Calendar

I spent the better part of last week making a calendar for my cousin -well, it's actually my husband's cousin, but I like her and so I'll claim her for my own- who is having a little boy. (We can't seem to get away from boys. I already have three sons and two nephews.) When my boys were little, we had baby calendars that I bought at Wal-Mart or the like. I loved the calendar, because you might not (read: will NEVER) have time to fill in that baby book, but a little note on a calendar page is easy.

You can't tell from this shot, but the letters BABY are covered in silver glitter
and so is the star. Plus, the "apostrophe"
is actually a diaper pin.

This led to the fantastic idea of creating baby calendar for Cousin. It would have been a truly perfect plan if only I'd thought of it four weeks before the shower and not four days. But with the help of my friend Tracy -who let me abscond with I think everything in her craft room and lent serious moral support- and the almost patience of my husband -my counter tops were covered with cardstock and embellishments for days, resulting in his having oatmeal for dinner once- I finished it! Oh, and thanks to the lady at the office supply store who gave me a near coronary when I went to have it bound. She punched one of the pages crooked and I thought it was going to result in disaster. For a few seconds, I was fighting panic. But hey, what's a good craft project without panic? Thankfully, it was actually a quick fix.

Well, anyway, I had loads of fun at the baby shower -even more than a diaper can hold when you leave a baby with his/her daddy. (And that's saying a lot!) And hopefully, our cousin has a gift she really likes.

A photo of one of my favorite pages.
The hearts hopefully give away that it's February, since the month is
hard to read in the photo.

It goes from April to April, since her baby's due that month.
And the blank spaces accommodate either 4x6 photos or 5x7.