Parmesan Chicken and another great birthday party

Most of my main dish recipes are done in the crock pot but sometimes I don't get my act together early enough for the slow cooking. In those cases, I often also don't plan far enough in advance to have a lot of recipe ingredients either which is why I love this simple baked chicken recipe from our friend Alana. The three ingredients used are ones that just about everyone has in their pantry or fridge. And the other bonus of this recipe, it smells amazing while it's cooking. So without further ado, here is a gourmet tasting chicken recipe that you can make in a snap:

Parmesan Chicken Alana
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 stick melted butter or margerine

Combine cheese and crumbs in a baggy. Melt butter and dip each chicken breast into the butter and then shake in the baggy. Place in a baking dish and bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes. Turn over about half way through.

This is great with rice pilaf. I swear by the 90 second rice from Uncle Bens. We also served it with leftover sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole (from my website http://www.pams-hams.com/) which created a nice presentation if I do say so myself!

Puppy themed 7 year old girls birthday party
We have such creative friends! Many of these cute little girl birthday parties are not only fun for the girls attending, but are a blast for the moms who are dropping them off and watching a few of the festivities. Julia's party last weekend was a real favorite with the puppy theme. And one of the best parts for the birthday girl's mom is the simplicity of these types of off-site parties. I'd much rather spend my time making prizes and planning fun games than setting up or cleaning up! So read on for some simple party tips:

Where: At a pet store in our area (Family of Pets). They have a build-a-bear type machine with which the party guests can make their own stuffed dog. Additionally, the kids spend much of the time playing with the puppies in little puppy run pens. Julia also brought her puppy who had just turned one and was from that very store.

Prizes: The cute stuffed puppy would have been plenty but Julia's mom is too creative to stop there! She had a paw print gift bag for each girl that contained a candy necklace (collar), a little doggy bowl with their name on it (made labels with the computer) filled with what looked like kibble but was really cinnamon cookies, dog ear headbands, a plastic bone filled with pretzels and puppy stickers. The pictures of these girls with their headbands are going to be precious.

Activities: Playing with the puppies and making the stuffed animals took up most of the time. The girls also had snacks*, played pin the tail on the puppy, and had a puppy coloring page.

Bonus: Julia doens't have a lot of the webkinz and littlekinz dogs so they were simple gift ideas that we knew she'd like. She also got a new Nintendo DS so games like Nintendogs were a super idea. *this particular store has a party room next door so you can eat - many of the pet stores do not which is also fine but just results in a shorter party .