Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2008 January 24

Yesterday, Maggie and I went to a viewing for a tiny baby boy that was born several months early to Kristen (my 23/7 Romania buddy). He made it a few weeks. Very sad.

I've been trying out a lot of new crockpot recipes in an attempt to make feeding my family easier, faster, and yummier. Yesterday I put two chicken breasts and half a jar of spaghetti sauce (Ragu was only $1 at Smith's and I had a coupon - I haven't bought spaghetti sauce in years!) and let it cook on both settings for who-knows-how-long. I served it with whole wheat pasta and parmesan cheese and it was yummy. Probably the easiest meal I've ever made!

I also made an eclair cake at John's request. I made chocolate sauce from scratch because I only use it for eclair cake and I am out of money in my grocery budget this month. It was easy and super yummy. I couldn't find mom's recipe, so I 1/3-ed one I found online:

1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. sugar
Boil for 2-5 minutes.

PS: I uploaded some cute pictures of the bug to our picture blog - click on "Pictures" to the right. And read all my latest articles while you're at it!

Last week I started giving Ember piano lessons. Today was her second lesson. She is really into it and is a good practicer, so it is going very well. I picked out the Bastien lesson books for her, which are the same ones I learned from. I am really enjoying teaching her.

Since we will be watching Jazmine while Brook's family goes to Florida next week (or I will, at least, since John will be out of town as well), Erin has been bringing her to the lessons. Maggie just loves Jazmine (she also chased Jodi's cat Princess around), but she slept right through the lesson today, and kept on sleeping for 2 1/2 hours. I think poor Erin was a bit bored, but I did get some books from the library on decluttering and simplifying that she looked through.