Yummy!

Last night, I cooked dinner for the fam damily while the boys and Bill played outside. It's nice to have time to myself to get some cooking done. I enjoy cooking, but sometimes it is too hard to fix a great meal with two monkeys hanging off your leg. Last night, however, I was able to put together a tasty meal and it only took me 30 minutes!

First, I made some sugared almonds for the strawberry and spinach salad. These were just chopped almonds heated in a frying pan with sugar for about 8 minutes. I then let them cool on a sheet pan and broke them into small chunks. This would also make a quick snack.

Next was the salad. It's just spinach, a bit of lettuce and some sliced strawberries. Simple. The best dressing is poppy seed. I think ranch would be tre' gross on this. Sprinkle with the sugared almonds and your ready to go!

Then I put together some strawberry lemonade with real strawberries. It's a mix of Country-time lemonade, strawberries, and ice. Mix in a blender and serve. It would have been cute to serve with a slice of strawberry on the glass, but I think little touches like that might be lost on three boys. This was a bit sweet, but was still tasty.

Finally, as you can see from the last picture, I used the George Forman grill to grill up some chicken. I always forget how easy this thing is to use. Chicken is done in 10 minutes! I then poured some Italian dressing over the chicken and topped it with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese. A bruschetta inspired chicken even the kids will love. Please enjoy my Alton Brown inspired photo below...

Ha ha... did you get that? No? Go watch some Good Eats. I'll wait for you. Got it? Good.

The kids and the hubby ate most of this. Although the kids did just pick the strawberries out of the salad to eat, overall this meal was a success. And if you're the mother to toddlers, you know how hard this can be!

Already???

Tate says, "Ri, i'm tired of you!"

The Muffin Men

I've been trying to make muffins by the millions and freeze them up so our family can have a quick snack without breaking out the jelly beans or candy. Today was the day to whip up a triple batch of pumpkin muffins.
I started with a can of pumpkin that Mom had passed down to me a few months ago. Quite surprisingly, (insert hint of sarcasm here) it was more than a year past it's use by date. (if you know my mother, you will know that this is not uncommon. Plus she buys pumpkin purree, tomato sauce and cream of mushroom soup every time she goes to the grocery, whether she needs it or not. Don't pretend it's not true, Mom!)
Luckily, I had picked up some at Wal-mart this week, so all was not lost. A triple batch made 30 muffins. I will freeze these up and we will enjoy them for weeks to come. In the meantime, I let the boys try them out. No complaints so far!

Riley can be such a diva! No pictures, Mommy!

New Haircut

Well, here it is. Tell me what you think.

It is soooooo easy to fix. Wash and dry, that's it!

They're Here!!!!

Here's the lovely couch we've been using for about 6 years. My mom and Dad bought it about 11 or 12 years ago and handed it down to us after we got married. It originally came as a love seat/couch combo, but one cold day and a bored dog left inside took care of the couch. From a distance, the couch doesn't look too bad, but up close it had seen better days. To top it all off, is the the pink/purple recliner that was also a hand-me-down. We got it from my step-grandma who used to smoke in this chair featured below. It took a year of storage and two bottles of Febreeze to get rid of the smoke smell, but now you can't smell any smoke on it. (Maybe a bit of dog smell, but no smoke.)

Below is an example of why the couch had to go. The fabric was pulling apart all over. I have several couch covers, but they never quite fit or look nice.

And ta-da! Here are the new couch and love seat. We got a great deal on them. They fit great in the living room... not to overpowering. If you've seen my living room, you know how hard it is to find furniture that fits in here.

This is a close up of the new "fabric". It's a darker brown with a hit of burgundy. It's not true leather, but a Durablend fabric. It looks like leather, but cost half as much. (Let's hope it holds up as well as leather!)

The boys are already enjoying their new seat, but Riley has to use a stepping stool to get up on them. They also make a kick-ass race track for hot wheels! Hope their durable!

It's that time of year again!

Well, someone tell my hairdresser to run for the hills. I once again plan on cutting all of my hair off. I don't think I've had the same haircut for more than 18 months ever. It's been down-to-my-butt long and up-above-my-ears short. I've had flippy hair, choppy hair, curly hair and stick straight hair. This time I want to go for an updated bob. I'm posting pictures so you can vote... Let me know what you think!

The Friday Five

Stranded!It's the "stranded on a desert island" question! You can only take one thing from each category. What is it and why are you taking it?

A food that can be planted and regrown. I would take some type of berry. Probably a raspberry bush. I could eat berries every day. In fact, my old neighbor can vouch for the fact that I am not able to keep my paws off of berry bushes, whether they are mine or someone else's.

A person you haven't seen in a long time. I would probably take my old roommate Charity. We had a big falling out after college and haven't talked in many years. I know she has had a colored past from snippets I've heard here and there... plus Google will tell you a lot about a person. I would like to get the full story of what happened between now and then and get answers to some questions that have been burning in my mind. Plus, she was a very fun person to be around. She was always able to plan a good time. So hopefully after we cleared the air, we could come up with things to entertain ourselves.

A book you (were) read as a child. I always loved the book "Harriet the Spy". I read that book over and over.

A celebrity. I would take George Clooney. He strikes me as someone who would be fun to be around. (And he's easy on the eyes!)

The entire episode run of a television show (it's a very nice desert island). Mash...I love that show. I used to watch this all the time in college. The re-runs are on all the time and yet they never bore me.