All about the FOOD!

I love to cook! I love it even more so since I stay at home. I feel like I have all day to get things ready and decide what to make. I thought I'd share a few of our favorites from the last few months.

 When I make meatballs, I make a huge batch and freeze half. They make for an easy meal. They are also easy to make. I just take ground beef, homemade bread crumbs, a little bit of milk, an egg or two, garlic, onion, parsley, oregano, a little bit of ketchup or tomato sauce, a dash or worchestershire sauce, and S&P. On the meal above I baked the meatballs and served them with Simply Organic brand brown gravy. We also had smashed sweet potatoes and roasted okra and carrots.

 These orange cinnamon rolls from Sally's Baking Addiction were so very good! We enjoyed having the for Sunday breakfast.

 We eat a lot of sweet potatoes around here! I love that you can get organic local sweet potatoes for super cheap! One way we love them is stuffed. Above is Italian stuffed with chicken, mozzarella, spinach, and Italian seasoning. The ones below are BBQ stuffed with chicken, BBQ sauce, cheddar, and green onions. Oh my gosh, they are so good!

 I made these black bean brownies and they ended up tasty like the best fudge brownies ever. All you need is 1 1/1 cups canned black beans (drained and rinsed), 2 T cocoa powder, 1/2 cup oats, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/3 cup maple syrup (or honey), 2 T sugar, 1/4 cup coconut oil, 2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 2/3 cup chocolate chips. Blend everything but the chocolate chips in a blender until smooth. Mix in all but a few T of the chips and pour into a baking dish. Sprinkle the top with the remaining chips and bake on 350 for 15-20 minutes. They are delicious and don't taste like beans at all :)

 Pizza is another favorite around here! I always double my dough recipe and make breadsticks to go along with it.

 Here's another meatball dish. This time I made an Ikea hack swedish meatball gravy and they were delish!

 Nothing like good old onion sliders and grilled asparagus, yum!

 Corn chowder with homemade kale chips!

 Fried rice is another super easy meal. I just use leftover grilled pork and frozen mixed veggies. Easy peasy!

I'm sure most people know of Taco Bell's Mexican pizzas. We don't eat them anymore, but we remake them and they are even better! Homemade black bean refried beans between two fried tortillas. Topped with enchilada sauce and cheese and then green onions and tomatoes. So good and so easy!

Catching up...

I can't believe I haven't updated since Christmas! Things have been mega busy and my blog got pushed to the side burner. I'll try to catch up the last few months!

 Tae's pediatrician said they thought she might need glasses, so we made her an eye doctor appointment and sure enough, she is near sighted just like her momma. Aaron, Tae and I all got new glasses and I think she just looks so adorable in them. She was told she didn't have to wear them all the time yet, but she does wear them frequently.

 My sister-in-law had a new baby and we went and visited. She is pretty adorable and both girls enjoyed holding her.

 My nephew Mavy is over in Germany and he sent the girls some of his favorite German treats for Valentine's day. We've been enjoying tasting the treats!

 We love spring and have been enjoying many outings to the zoo and parks. 

 Hensley is my brave girl and isn't scared of much. She loved feeding the birds!

 I made a yummy chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for Valentine's day. It was quite yummy!

 Here are the girls Valentine treats. All the cousins stayed the night at my parent's, so Aaron and I had a nice Valentine's date and the girls had fun with their cousins.

 Every day in February I hung a heart on Tae's door with something I loved about her. She really enjoyed reading the hearts!

 I've been coming up with things to keep Hensley busy during Tae's school time. She really loved doing this activity!

 I told you on my last post that we decided to buy a house! We had been actively house hunting and looked at 7 or 8 houses before we decided on THE ONE, It's a cute house in a quiet neighborhood about 3 minutes from Aaron's work. It even has a POOL! The girls are most excited about that part :) We close in 2 weeks and will be taking the whole month to do some painting and updating and then we will move the end of April. We are so excited and a little nervous about this huge step! It will be nice to own our own home and be closer to Aaron's work. We've been busy packing and purging. It's been an emotional ride, that's for sure. I didn't realize how hard it would be to leave a place you've lived for the last 8 years. I know this is the path God has chosen for us and we are so excited to start our new lives in our new house!

 Hensley loves helping me make breakfast on the weekends and has become quite the expert at making pancakes.

 Once of our trips to the lake to feed the birds.

 We also love being so close to the Myriad Gardens and spend a lot of time down there.

 Tae participated in the annual Egg Drop at her homeschool coop. She was successful for the second year in a row. Even though we are moving farther away from her coop, we are still going to be attending. She would be so sad to leave her friends!

We've been gearing up for the very last Easter in this house. Next year we will have a HUGE yard to hunt eggs in.