Sunday, August 21, 2011

Sweet and Sassy

A few weeks ago I took Brenley to get her hair cut. I usually take her to Pigtails and Crewcuts where she gets to sit in a car and watch cartoons. She can tell you every detail of the process of getting her hair cut there. She loves it!

But occasionally I will take her to Sweet and Sassy. It's so cute! It's a little girl's dream world! They have all kinds of girly things for sale, they have a little girl's mani/pedi salon, then the have the hair salon. Everything is pink and screams girl! She LOVES IT!

After her hair was cut and styled she got glitter sprayed in her hair and then the stylist put pink glitter stars on her cheeks and gave her a flower sucker. This of course was her favorite part...the kid loves suckers!

I took her over to the stage (they have a little runway for girls to model their clothes/makeup/hair) and she danced and was so proud to show off her new glitter hair and face!

Here she is sitting so still getting her hair cut.
Brooklyn was so patient and sat in the chair...
but only for a while. She got tired of waiting on sister :)
Little Ellie was with us too. She and Brooklyn got to get the flower suckers too because they were so good!
And here she is. I know this is blurry but you can see the expression on her face...Joy!
I wish I could get her hair to look like this everyday!
I love making my baby feel special! Can't wait for more days like these with my girls!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

New Recipes

Okay, I've never done this before on my blog but I've discovered some new recipes that were huge hits with my family so I thought I'd pass them on. They are super easy, pretty cheap and fairly healthy.

Mexican Style Chicken
1Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp sugar (I left this out)
2 Tbsp Mexican Seasoning (I couldn't find this so I used taco seasoning)
1 cup salsa
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
Cooking spray
1 pound chicken breast tenders (I didn't use a whole pound)
1/2 (16oz) package frozen pepper stir-fry
1 cup chopped onion (my stir fry had onion in it already)
3 cups hot cooked long-grain rice

Combine first 3 ingredients in a small bowl. Combine salsa and tomatoes.

Place a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium high heat until hot. Add chicken, and sprinkle evenly with chili powder mixture. Top with pepper stir fry and onion. Pour salsa mixture evenly over top. Bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat. Simmer 10 minutes or until chicken is done. Serve over cooked rice.

I wish I had taken a picture. It looked a little like a jumbalia (s/p?). It was really good and my girls cleaned their plates :)

Chicken Lasagna Florentine

We all LOVED this! Plus it's SO EASY because it's a crock pot meal!!!!

2 cans fat free cream of chicken soup (I hardly ever use this anymore but it was worth it)
1 (10oz) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained and squeezed
1 (9oz) package frozen diced cooked chicken (I just boiled some chicken breasts and cut them up but it took a lot longer)
1 (8oz) carton reduced fat sour cream
1cup 1% low fat milk
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
Cooking spray
1 cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese

1. Combine first 10 ingredients in a large bowl and stir well

2. Place 3 uncooked lasagna noodles in bottom of a 5-quart electric slow cooker coated with cooking spray, breaking noodles in half as necessary to fit slow cooker. Spread one-third of spinach mixture over noodles; sprinkle with 1/3 cup mozzarella cheese. Layer 3 more noodles, half of remaining spinach mixture, and 1/3 cup mozzarella cheese. Top with remaining noodles and spinach mixture; sprinkle with remaining 1.3 cup mozzarella cheese.

3. Cover with lid, cook on high-heat setting for 1 hour. Reduce to low heat setting and cook 5 hours or until pasta is done.

I don't think I cooked it the full 6 hours and it was over done. I guess it just depends on how your crock pot cooks. We LOVED it. The leftovers were gone the next day. Al highly recommends this!!!

Lastly...

Garlic Rosemary Chicken

1 (5 pound) roasting chicken, skinned
2 (5 inch) rosemary sprigs
2 celery stalks with leaves, each cut into 4 pieces
2 small onions, quartered
16 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1 lemon, halved (optional)

Remove and discard giblets and neck from chicken. Rinse chicken under cold water; pat dry. Trim excess fat. Place 2 rosemary springs, celery, 4 onion wedges, and 4 garlic cloves in cavity of chicken, and tie legs together with twine. Place chicken, breast side up, in a 4-quart electric slow cooker; add remaining onion and garlic to cooker. Drizzle lemon juice over chicken; sprinkle with next 3 ingredients. Cover with lid; cook on high heat setting 1 hour. Reduce to low heat setting and cook 6 hours or until chicken is tender. Discard rosemary. Serve chicken with vegetables and garlic. Garnish with additional rosemary sprigs and lemon halves if desired.

This was the first time I've ever cleaned out a chicken, stuffed it and tied up the legs. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Once you get the chicken ready it's so easy from there. You can serve it with whatever side dishes you like. It's super yummy and we had a lot of meat leftover that I've used for two other dishes! Doesn't get much better than that!

I hope you all try some of these out. The recipes seem like a lot of directions but they are all really easy! Let me know if you make them and what you think of them :)


Oops, this was supposed to go up by the lasagna. This is a picture of what mine looked like it at the end. It's a little over cooked but it was delish!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Final Days of Summer

Al had to go back to work this week. So our sweet summer with him is now over.
We decided to something fun for our last few days...we went to the circus! We had such a great time! The girls really loved it...we really loved it!
Brooklyn was a little overwhelmed but still liked it and Brenley was in awe of all the sights to take in. We all loved the elephants and were amazed at all the acrobats. They are so talented!
It was a fun family day and Al and I loved sharing it with our girls.

Here is Al and the girls waiting in line for tickets.
The adore their Daddy!
My Brenley Ruth being silly!
Brooklyn loving on her Daddy
Al and his girls at intermission.
Afterwards they were pooped! Brooklyn was out before we even got on the highway
Brenley wanted to pretend like she was sleeping just like Brooklyn.
I love my sweet family and am so thankful for our summers with Al.
We all love our precious time together!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Summer Fun

We have had a fabulous summer and are sad that it's coming to an end.

Last weekend we got to meet up with our wonderful friends, Heath and Kelsey Watts and some of their sweet friends from Lubbock. We had a blast at the game. It so SO HOT but our all you can eat seats have air conditioning so we took full advantage of that. The Rangers won in extra innings so that made it even more exciting. We had such a great time. We love the Watts and always have a blast with them!

We stuck around for the fireworks show after the game.


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Rearranging

I think one of Brenley's favorite things to do is to rearrange things in our house. This little gift will be a blessing to her when she has her own home in the far off future. She can move things around to change things up. But for now she lives in my house and I am the one who has to clean up her messes :)

She loves to pretend to go shopping and collect things from all over the house then go "home," whatever room that may be, and unload everything. So random things wind up all over the house in the most unsuspecting places. This is usually not a big deal until I need one of those things and she has no idea where she put it.

She loves to move little tables and chairs to create something new like a bench, a drum, or even a swimming pool. She has quite the imagination and I love that about her.

ABout 50% of the time Brenley naps in her bed. The other is on the floor, in a tent in her room or squished up right next to the door so she can hear what we're doing out there.

The other day I went into her room during nap time to check on her and she had done a little bit of rearranging again. She took the sheets off her bed, then took her mattress off and flipped it all the way over. I was amazed at how strong she was. I guess all that rearranging wore her out and she just decided to lay down and take a nap on the bottom part of her bed...I love this girl!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Water Park Fun With Friends

Our sweet friends The Ralstons were in town a few weeks ago. They were staying at the Gaylord and invited us to come out and enjoy the new water park there. We had a great time! We spent a lot of time cooling off in the water and relaxing in the lazy river. It was a great day. We love the Ralstons and always have fun together. Of course we didn't get any pictures with Lance and Lauren. Funny how that happens after we have kids...it's all about the kids (I even forgot to get a picture of their precious baby boy!)

Here is Kendall and Brenley on the bus to the water park.
Brooklyn taking a little break.
Three beautiful bathing beauties!
Hope we get to see you guys soon!