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. 

Family update and BIG news!

Sorry for the lack of posting! We updated our computer recently and now I can't seem to connect my phone to upload pictures. I've tried all sorts of things and still can't figure it out. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out something soon!

We've been staying very busy. We are on our second semester of 1st grade with Taelyn. We just started back with our homeschool co-op and she's been having loads of fun with her friends. We've been enjoying time with family. My sister-in-law just had her second baby girl and we got to meet her last weekend. The girls enjoyed playing with their cousin Franki.

Some of the biggest and most exciting news is that we have decided to purchase our first home! We've lived in our townhouse for almost 8 years and we've been busting at the seams for some time. So far we have looked at 3 houses and we have more scheduled for this week. One of the three have been our favorite, but we want to look at a few more. It's such an exciting time and it's also stressful! This is such a big purchase and we want to find something we can live in for quite some time. The girls are really excited too. They've loved looking at houses and they each have their list of "wants". Tae's is a tree for a tree house and Hensley's is a blue kitchen ;)

So, in saying all that, please say a little prayer for us. That through God, we will know which house is meant for us and that we make the right decision. That the transition will go smoothly and with minimal stress. We are so excited about this new adventure and are excited to share it with you along the way!

Christmas 2015

We had such a wonderful Christmas. I always get a little sad when it's over. I actually think I like the build up to Christmas, more than the actual day! This is the girls Christmas Eve box and last advent book. I always make sure to save a story about Jesus to be our last book. We are celebrating Him after all!

 Inside the box was new Frozen pajamas, popcorn, and hot chocolate. They were pretty excited about the pajamas.

 After their bath, we enjoyed popcorn, hot chocolate and watched the movie Polar Express.

 We then made sure to leave out treats for Santa and his reindeer and the girls scurried off to bed.

 Santa came! I actually had to wake both girls up in the morning! They were excited when they finally remembered that it was Christmas!

 They rummaged through their stockings and opened presents from mom and dad. We then opened the gifts my sister had sent from Germany.

 They were excited to get a whole collection of bath goodies.

 Taelyn got a fun around the world game. 

 Hensley got a neat fishing game that is my nephew's favorite thing to play in his German preschool. It is a lot of fun!

 I got this neat carry all basket. It's super heavy duty and collapses for easy storage.

 She sent Aaron a while bunch of organic German goodies. We've been enjoying going tasting all the treats. She also sent him a gift card.

 After we were finished opening presents, we headed to my parents house. We skyped with my sister and then had a full English breakfast that was very yummy.

 My two other sisters came and we had a yummy dinner with ham and all the fixings. After dinner it was time to open more presents. 

 A few months ago we misplaced/lost/got stolen our kindle and they girls have been quite sad about it. Tae was excited that Gramma and Papa got her a kindle for Christmas!

 Hensley with her Diego movie.

 She also got a cool balance bike! We can't wait to try it out more when it warms up a bit.

 Good job daddy!

 My chef sister Lyn and her wife gave us some homemade goodies. The jar on the right is a mulled vodka drink, yum!

 My sister Les and her family gave us a Redbox giftcard along with this popcorn kit. The seasonings are all homemade and are delicious!

 The day after Christmas, Aaron's family came over to celebrate. I made homemade cinnamon rolls and egg cups for brunch. We had a great time.

 I scored a mess of good deals at Target's after Christmas clearance sale. Target is my favorite store ever!

 Taelyn also lost another tooth after Christmas! This was tooth number 6!

 We had our first "snow", although it ended up being mostly ice. The girls still insisted on going out and playing  in it.

 Tae got this tent for Christmas. We added pillows and blankets and the girls love going up there and reading and playing in it.

We spent the rest of Christmas weekend putting up all the Christmas decorations and cleaning/organizing all the Christmas goodies. We had such a great time with family and we know we are very blessed!