It's a beautiful life!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

I love these kiddos!

Anna after she had a little run in with my mascara ;)

Jonas on mine and John's wedding day

Vera, Me, Anna at the temple

Anna and Vera in the canyon

Vera

Jonas climbing and looking a little scared...

Though it was a crazy week, especially weekend, I have been thinking the past few days how lucky I am to have the family that I do. Jonas, Vera, and Anna are such good kids and I feel very blessed to be part of their lives. Anna keeps asking "Take a ficshure of me" (take a picture of me) and I feel like I don't take enough, so I'm going to try and do better. Here are a few pictures of them! Enjoy!

Food continued...

You know when you get all excited about a new idea and keep it up until you realize you need to change or tweak that idea because it wasn't realistic? Well, that's the point I reached this week with a few things, one of them is posting recipes. :) I thought I'd post new recipes each night when I tried new recipes for dinner, but, uh, that would require making new recipes every night, and, well, I'm facing the reality that that probably won't happen. Some days are "Mommy is really tired and we're having cereal" days, or "Yay, Daddy gets to make dinner!" days, and well, sometimes it's just one of those weeks. This week was one of those, so I'm thinking perhaps it will be better to just post a few new recipes every couple of weeks. ;) Here are a few I've tried lately and that our family has really enjoyed:

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/10/baked-southwest-egg-rolls-with-creamy-chipotle-dipping-sauce.html

http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/11/pumpkin-pie-french-toast.html

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2008/12/broccoli-cheese-soup.html

Anna loves the broccoli cheese soup and has chosen it over turkey hot dogs while it's lasted as leftovers. That's saying a lot since those are pretty much her favorite meal :) Hope you enjoy!!

Alone time!!

We had a visit from Jessah, Britney's sister, this past week, and we all loved having her. She was so nice to let John and me get away and take a trip to the temple in Phoenix. It was SO nice to be just us! A little detour and 4 hours later (oops :) :) ), we arrived in Phoenix. We stayed at the Marriott (yay for gift cards!!!) and got take out (again, yay for gift cards!!!), and relaxed while watching a movie. We enjoyed just being us and spending some quality time together. We were able to do some temple work for some family names my mom had submitted and it was a wonderful experience! It's always hard to come back from vacation...even a small one...but after two days, it was back to work for John and for me. I sure felt rejuvenated, though, and that alone time was much needed. Thank you Jessah!!!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Tonight was Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya. It was delicious! Hope you enjoy!

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2011/05/chicken-and-sausage-jambalaya.html

I didn't put chicken in and used turkey sausage instead of regular sausage, and didn't put in as much cayenne pepper in as our kids don't really like things spicy. All 3 kids loved it!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Food!!!

I LOVE to cook! Yes, I do. I love trying new recipes and making my family happy at dinnertime :) Therefore, I decided to post the occasional new recipe/experiment/happy food experience on my blog. Here goes! First we start with Chicken Chimichangas. I made these tonight with a few changes:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Chimichangas-with-Sour-Cream-Sauce/Detail.aspx?ms=1&prop25=75092551&prop26=DailyDish&prop27=2012-01-05&prop28=DailyRecipe&prop29=FullRecipe&me=1

I combined two recipes and instead of cooking the chicken in a regular pan, I cooked it in the crockpot on high for 4 hours. I used all of the ingredients listed in the recipe, plus the following:

Juice from 1 lime
1/4 packet of taco seasoning

I used about 3 T of flour to thicken up the sauce after the chicken was shredded (you can just lessen the amount of water used at first too). After 3 hours in the crockpot, I shredded the chicken, then let it simmer in the crockpot for another hour. I omitted the cheese (by accident, actually---oops ;) ) and they were still delicious, but would be good with as well. I used greek yogurt instead of sour cream for the sauce and added about 1/2 cup of milk, 1 tsp honey, a dash of chili powder, and a little bit of ranch dressing (sounds funny, I know). I didn't fry the chimichangas, but baked them in the oven at 425 for about 8-9 min. All 3 kids and John loved it and so did I. Here's to a delicious dinner! Tomorrow night is Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya...we'll see how it goes...