Happy Days!

We celebrated Mother's Day with my mom on Sunday. We had my parents and my brother for lunch yesterday. It was a fun afternoon! I made a roast and sides, which turned out well. I have a wonderful mother who is my best girlfriend! She is so special to me! I feel so blessed to have her in my life!!

Today is my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Matt! We went to our traditional birthday lunch spot, Cocina De Mino. When it is your birthday you get a huge FREE dinner! So, we've gone there since we (me and my brothers) were in elementary school! It's a fun family tradition! Of course, it helps that we love the food!

We look forward to celebrating Josh' brother's 16th birthday and his mom's Mother's Day next weekend!

Lots of happy days around here! Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday to all of our mothers and brothers!!

14 Hours

Let's just say that 2 Tylenol PM are amazing!! I haven't slept well this week at all. Yesterday I was up from 3:30am-6:30am, decided to get out of bed and blog/surf, went back to sleep from 6:30-7:30 and was back up for the rest of the day. That was one of many sleepless nights this week. SO, I decided I couldn't do that again. Last night at 6:00 I took the 2 lovely pills and was asleep by 7:30(after booking a trip to Chicago!!!---more details later). 14 hours later, I'm finally awake! I was so tired last night that I fell asleep in my makeup-yuck!

On an unrelated note, I made VERY easy corn chowder for dinner last night and it was really good and quick (15 mintues, max)! I found the recipe from my favorite magazine/site, Real Simple.

Corn Chowder

4 slices Oscar Meyer Ready to Serve Bacon

1 10 3/4-ounce can Campbell's Classics Cream of Potato soup

1 cup low-fat or whole milk

1 11-ounce can Green Giant Corn Niblets

Oyster crackers

Heat the bacon for 20 to 40 seconds in the microwave; set aside. Pour the cream of potato soup into a sauce-pan. Add the milk and corn. Break up the cooked bacon into small pieces, then stir it into the sauce-pan. Heat for 5 minutes or until the soup reaches a simmer. Serve with the oyster crackers.
Yield: 2 servings

I served it with a side salad and chocolate cupcake! I didn't serve it with oyster crackers, but I'm sure that's good, too.

4 Years!!

Josh and I celebrated our 4th anniversary yesterday! I can truly say that these past 4 years have gone so quickly! I've loved every minute of them! I have an incredible husband and feel so blessed!!!

We had fun celebrating last night at The Coach House! Josh surprised me with a fun dinner there. Our wonderful meal included poached artichoke salad, pineapple with peppered salami appetizer (from the chef), bread, roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus, chocolate chili tarts (from the chef) and to top it off, a flourless chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache and raspberries and wrapped in phyllo dough! Everything was WONDERFUL!!! It was a nice relaxing evening!! Josh was sweet enough to bring lunch up to school for me yesterday, too, which was a welcome change from my usual PBJ.

Happy Anniversary, Joshy! I love you!!!

Pepperoni Pasta

This is a new favorite of mine that I threw together a month or so ago. I made it again tonight and it only took 15 to 20 minutes to make from start to finish. It's easy and very flavorful! I usually reserve pepperoni for pizza, but the pepperoni in this recipe adds tons of flavor and is a nice change from your typical ground beef. I keep my pepperoni in the freezer and can make several batches out of one bag. This recipe made enough for me and Josh for dinner tonight plus enough for us both to have it for lunch tomorrow. I served it with salad (with lots of ranch!) and steamed frozen veggies.

Pepperoni Pasta
-Boil:
1 cup pasta shells according to package directions/drain and set aside

-Saute (cook until onions are tender and pepperoni is lightly browned-approx 5 minutes):
1/2 c. pepperoni slices
1/4 c. chopped onion (I use frozen chopped onions)

-Add to pepperoni/onions and simmer 10 minutes:
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 can tomato sauce
Italian seasoning (to taste...probably 2tsp to 1 Tbsp)
salt/pepper (to taste)
minced garlic (to taste)

-Stir in pasta shells, stir in mozzarella cheese just before serving and top with additional Parmesan, if desired.

Back from my month-long sabbatical!

Josh and his family after graduation.
Me and Josh at baccalaureate lunch

Yummy Chocolate Cupcakes!

Viv and Josh

Me and Viv

This past month I've had an unintentional blogging sabbatical! Feeling overwhelmed and uninspired, I didn't feel the need to post. But, I'm back at least for tonight with my usual random ramblings!

This has been a nice, fun and relaxing weekend! Friday night started out with book club and was lots of fun!! Jessica had great bread bowl soup, salad, chocolate cake and more! We had fun chatting and laughing! Great times!!

Saturday I slept in a bit, had a matinee movie date with Josh and came home to babysit precious Viv for the night! She is getting so big and is a blast! I also baked these yummy chocolate cupcakes. These were my first attempt at made from scratch chocolate cupcakes. I have been wanting to bake them for a while and finally had all of the ingredients! They turned out really tasty!

Today I went to church and spent the day with my mom. It was nice to just relax and hang-out! It has been a completely lazy day for me!!

I am excited that Josh and I get to celebrate our 4th anniversary on Thursday! I can't believe it's already been four years, yet I truly don't remember what life was like without him! He's wonderful!

Here are a few things that have occurred in the past month:

-house went on the market April 1st

-2 trips to Fort Worth

-1 job interview (teaching job)/job search

-Josh graduated from OC with his masters....CONGRATS!!!!

-Sonshine School program...the kids were so cute!

-lots of cleaning

-a HUGE lack of cooking

-tons of painting for my business as my products were purchased for a boutique in Georgia

-keeping cute babies!!

Of course there were the usual day to day things, too! Hopefully my sabbatical is over for a while!

I actually plan on cooking this week and I am excited!! I miss it!! Maybe I'll post some recipes or pics or something!

New Diet!

In case you're wondering why I haven't posted recipes/menus in a while, here's the reason:

Sunday night-Taco Bell

Monday night-Long John Silver's

Tuesday night-Josh had a dinner meeting and I had frozen blueberry waffles THEN had a 12am run to Taco Cabana for a late night dinner with the hubby!

Wednesday-Chili's via a gift card:)

Tonight-Josh is at a dinner meeting, so my dinner consists of chips and salsa, dill okra and oatmeal....this is why I'm not single! I don't think I'd survive!

Welcome to the "selling our house diet"! I will hopefully be caught up enough on everything to start cooking by this weekend! Our arteries are CLOGGING!! Wow! What a wonderful wife I am!!!

It's official!

Our house is officially listed! Check it out and feel free to pass the info along!

http://www.atchleygroup.com/MyHomeDtl.asp?lstPages=1&HomeID=692792