Hat

It's the perfect diaper accessory.





I'm making a bunch of new food this week so I'll be back with recipes!

Look closely

I don't have everything back on the laptop yet but I'm working on it! Thanks to Drew who totally hooked me up. I have missed this ole' POS. I now know how good I have it. I can't download all the crap on my camera until I find the disk for the program that does that. I've missed y'all.

Look closely for cuteness.

For Grandma

Happy Birthday!!! We love you.

Relic

My laptop was taken over by a spyware monster. I have a very generous tech master working on it. I'm hoping for miracle.
Until I get it back, I'm on my laptop from 2000. This thing is not in good working order. So until I get my good laptop back, or go out and buy a new one if it is unrepairable, I won't be posting.

Love you bunches and I'll be back as soon as I can.

As requested

by Grandma. Cuteness.









Baby in a box!




Mouthful


More later, I promise!

Cancun chicken salad

This is one of my favorite chicken salad recipes.

You'll need 2C(or more--I always do more) cooked, shredded or chopped chicken breast meat.


Lately, I have been boiling frozen chicken breasts, cooling them, and then chopping them up. Super easy and I don't have to handle slimy fresh chicken. And because of the spices in this salad, any frozen-y taste is covered.

Now add
1 finely chopped red bell pepper
1 can sliced black olives(save major moolah by getting a can of whole and slicing them yourself!)
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can sweet whole kernel corn
2C shredded cheddar cheese(or colby/mont jack)


In a separate bowl mix together:
1/2C mayo
1/2C sour cream
juice of 1 lime
1tsp cumin
1tsp chili powder


Add that to the meat mixture and stir until moistened. This is great for days. I love it on fritos or tostitos. It's also awesome on tortillas and taco shells!


I ate all of this before I remembered to take a picture of the finished product. Don't worry, it took a few days to do that. Josh helped...... a little.

smashed red potates

Um, yea.





I bought some red potatoes thinking I would make this tasty dish from the Pioneer Woman.



I started by boiling the potatoes until fork tender. You don't cut them up. Just stick them in there whole. It took about 25 minutes.

PW coats her pan in olive oil and uses more olive oil on the taters and then tops them with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. I wanted cheese on mine so I went a different route.



I coated a the tin foiled baking sheet with Pam. I put the whole potatoes on the sheet and smashed them with my potato masher. Here's the super fun part. I melted a stick of butter and poured it over the smashed potatoes. Mmmmmmmmm. Can you hear my arteries clogging? I can!

I topped each butter covered potato with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Popped the pan in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes and took them back out. I freshly shredded some cheddar and topped the potatoes with it then put them back in the oven till the cheese was melted--about 5 minutes.



Y'all, these suckers are good. I pretty much ignored the delicious Honey Glazed Pork I made as the main dish. I used a bit of sour cream on each bite. O M G. If I had had some real bacon bits, I would have but those on top of the cheese before putting them back in the oven. Since I will be doing this recipe again, I think I'll try that!

new picture

I got an email from my mother yesterday requesting a new picture for my blog. I shared this with Sudie, my bestest, and she agreed. Dangit.
Granted, that picture was taken when I was about 7-8 months pregnant with Brock. And my hair certainly wasn't in a flattering style. But, you know what? That's me people! Unkempt.

And, lately, I've been having a problem. I hate my body. This is most likely why:

I made these "for The Guy". Guess how much he ate. Yea, not much. Add to that the pb fudgies, cookies, cakes......on and on. I love to bake and I really enjoy eating what I bake.

I have GAINED weight since I stopped nursing Brock. I blame a bit on this stupid IUD I got and the rest on my sweet tooth.

So while I would like to have a prettier picture up, I don't feel like one can be taken right now. Maybe I'll find an old one, from my cuter days. Maybe I'll get off my butt and exercise and lose some weight so I can feel better about myself and have my picture taken. Maybe rainbows will shoot out of my butt and no one will notice anything else.

Any advice on ways to lose some weight? Keep in mind that I have 2 small children and it's hot has hades outside. And I am all that is unathletic. I need to lose 15 pounds just to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. I'd like to lose 25 so I can look like the woman The Guy married 4 years ago.

Before and After

I was going to do a contest. It was going to be to see who had the bushiest eyebrows. I was going to send the winner some tweezers, though I didn't believe for a second that someone could beat these bad boys:


That's a good 4 months of hair growth. Two small children + a husband that works very long hours = no time to get the a brow wax.

I finally managed to sneak out during nap time on The Guy's day off. I tried a new place that was just down the road. The smell of fake nails was overpowering. But it was a Sunday and I didn't think I could find another place that was open. Hello, small town South.

Anyway, I asked that they just be cleaned up a bit. I like them full, just not quite THIS full. She said no problem.
Instead of what I asked for, I got the perpetually surprised look:


I know it doesn't look too terrible here, but it was a bit much.





And if you look really close, you can see that one side is longer than the other!

I will try to scan a picture of me at my wedding. I was sporting the surprised look back then, but didn't realize it until I looked at the pictures!

Cuteness

Can you find Brock's feet?




He's such a pudgy thing.


There's some serious sweetness in this picture. I love it.


My children watch way more tv than they should. I remember when Riley was little and I was so hyper vigilant about him watching the television. I would turn it off if he happened to look at it. And then I got pregnant with Brock. I tried and tried to get him interested in Thomas the Train and Curious George. It finally took about two weeks before I had Brock. We've moved on to more "educational" programming. Even I love Super Why and Word World. And I am ashamed to admit, but I really really like Sid the Science Kid. His songs are so catchy! Thank you, PBS, for being so kickass. I don't feel too terrible when Brock gets sucked in. Especially since it doesn't last too long.

He's crawling!

I can't seem to get a decent picture of him actually crawling, but here's a picture of him on his knees.


He now shows up in the most interesting spots. I forgot what it's like to have a crawler. You never really know where they are. So stealthy, those crawlers.

It was tasty

I made a sandwich the other day and it was so good I had to share.


I toasted some wheat bread and spread both sides with ranch dressing.
I layered on:
turkey
bacon
black olives
lettuce
cheese
avocado
s&p

I'm sure tomato lovers would like that added on.

Swimmin', Swimmin', in the swimmin' hole

Thanks to Grandma and Poppa, we joined the neighborhood pool this summer. It was pretty tough in the beginning because Brock was too small for his float and I had to hold him the whole time. No fun for either of us, Riley still had a good time though.









But Brock got bigger and we discovered this week he was plenty big for his float and could easily tool around the baby pool on his own. WOOT.









The Guy tagged along Wednesday and got some pictures for posterity.













And he's off!





Photobucket's autofix looks kinda funny to me, how about you?









I love hanging out with my boys.













Awwwwwwww

Daddy's hat

Right before pool time.









No, Bock, MINE.





But, but...

What's he thinking?

Can you caption this picture?

TV daze

There are some shows that Riley will totally zone out on. Kipper, Dragon Tales, and Angelina Ballerina(shhhh, don't tell The Guy) are among these shows. I'm not sure which one was on at this moment but I had to get a picture of the look.

Buddies

This is Thomas, Riley's bff and son of Cindy. He and Riley have been hanging out since they were about 6 months old. My favorite thing about them together? They run to each other and hug as soon as they see each other. Freaking adorable.

FAIL

This is what happens when you boil the sugar mixture too long--a brick of pb fudgie.


Still tasty, just a bit harder to eat.